There it sat, lying flaccidly across a plate set in front of her.
Meat. A raw steak, red and bloody still from having been torn fresh from
the carcass of a once-living being. An animal. Whatever that piece of
meat's former owner had been, it had also been a sentient, living creature,
with thoughts, hopes, a soul to call its own. So thought the Lady
Amalthea, the woman who once had been the Last Unicorn, as she gazed
horrified at the thing sitting before her. After centuries of living in an
enchanted forest, she had created a strange kind of rapport with the dumb
creatures sharing the wood with her. Too, her presence had shaped the
creatures of the wood into something more than what they had been, until
they too became sentient; innocent souls dwelling in a lesser Paradise.
And now-and now she stood, horror-struck, in the middle of a great fortress of steel, floating somewhere in a trackless void, far from anything she could call familiar, any place she could call home. Her gaze rose, slowly, to meet that of her host. Stalker. He referred to himself as an adventurer, and, in those days before everything she'd known had been torn away from her by forces she barely understood, he would come, every once in a while, to rest spirit and body both in the presence of the beautiful, wonderful unicorn herd. More specifically, he would come to her, and in the shade of the tall trees that spread their branches over the brook by which she lived, they would talk together of the things they each had seen and done. He had seemed to find a peace in the wood; a sense that, there more than anyplace else, he was home.
Amalthea had never truly understood the nature of Stalker's work. He would speak of tyrants overthrown, of people saved from monsters and enemy invasions. Not until the horrors had come to her own world, however, had Amalthea fully comprehended the terrible scope of the menaces Stalker faced. To her, he now stank of endless brutality, of terrible deeds done in the name of the innocent. And now.
He expected her to join him in his crusade, that was certain. He had said, barely days before, that her abilities would prove useful in his campaign against the forces of darkness he claimed threatened all reality. Was she then only a tool for him? Her gaze crept up to meet his own.
He was staring at her, a concerned look on his face. All her doubts faded as his emotions flooded through her consciousness. For a moment, she saw herself as he saw her, a beautiful creature pulled out of her depth by forces beyond her control. There was pity for her in him; pity and a vast ineffable sadness that, once again, innocence had to be destroyed. And- there was something else. A vague sort of discomfort. He still thought of her as a friend; in fact, his only friend in the world entire. And yet-
He felt attracted to her! So that was why he was feeling so uncomfortable around her! For almost a hundred and fifty years, they had been the best of friends. Now, they were still friends-but he saw her as something more as well. In the space of a single day she had been thrown, unasked-for, entirely on his mercy, and then been transformed from a beast of legend into a beautiful woman. She felt her cheeks flush as she realized how he felt for her-and how those feelings were so obviously difficult for him to deal with.
"Amalthea?" She started at the sound of her name.
"Yes?" she replied.
"I'm, ah, sorry I had to show you this," he said, gesturing at the plate.
That again. She suppressed a shudder as she looked at the steak.
"Do you feel anything?" asked Stalker. In the days since her transformation, he had been working on defining the exact limits of her powers, putting her through test after test. None of them had been painful, and after the first few days, had helped her take her mind off the fact that she was no longer what she had been, but still.
Was this another test, she wondered. She had discovered, days earlier, that she could sense the psychic residue of an event, sometimes weeks or even years after the event itself had taken place. He had taken her to a place that had once been called "Alderaan", a desolate field of giant rocks floating in space. The stench of death there had almost overpowered her. Stalker had brought her back unconscious in his arms. She'd spent the next few days in bed, recuperating from the horrid experience. Was he trying to repeat that experiment, only on a smaller scale?
She leaned over the plate, opening her empathic senses to the horrible thing. Why had Stalker chosen such a cruel way of testing her abilities?
Her eyes widened. She bent all her thought towards the thing on the plate, attempting to seek out the slightest trace of the intense last moments of the life that had once inhabited it.
Nothing. Her powers, which had been able to detect the death-scream of an entire planet more than a quarter-century after that event took place, which were able to pick up the slightest nuances of emotion from the minds of those around her, failed completely to pick up any psychic trace around that piece of meat.
Stalker must have seen the confusion on her face. "It's vat grown," he said, as if by way of explanation. "Here, let me show you." He turned, motioning for her to follow, and led her to a large steel door. They were deep in the bowels of the Hypertime fortress, surrounded by immense and incomprehensible engines that Stalker claimed were vital to the operation of his vast citadel. The door slid open.
Beyond, bank upon bank of glowing cylinders stood, filled to the brim with a churning, bubbling fluid. Strange, tubular devices hung from solid- looking seals capping the top of each cylinder. And at the end of each tube.
Bulging, shapeless lumps hung, bobbing flaccidly in the greenish fluid like obscene fruits. Even from where she was, Amalthea could easily identify the lumps for what they were-gobbets of meat, growing steadily within the vats towards a grisly harvest.
Almost despite herself, Amalthea felt her gorge rise. She clapped a slender hand to her lips as the contents of her stomach fought to return to whence they came.
Stalker's eyes widened. Moving swiftly, he took hold of Amalthea's slim arm and drew her out from the chamber of vats. A swift gesture of his hand before the sensor plate, and the heavy door slid shut with a sigh.
A dull black bucket materialized inches before the heaving Amalthea's face. She grabbed at it, just moments before her last meal erupted forth from her mouth. When she looked up, Stalker was watching her, a look of contrition on his face.
"Amalthea. I'm sorry. Really. I-I didn't expect that to happen. I just wanted to show you-"
The remorse issuing forth from his psyche as he fumbled for the correct words hit her with almost brutal force. So horrifying, that experience had been, and yet-and yet, she couldn't really bring herself to blame him. He seemed to have been genuinely horrified at her reaction. No. She couldn't blame him. Not without hearing his reasons for bringing her to that.place first.
"Why?" she gasped.
Stalker hung his head. "This-" he said, "all this is supposed to go to feeding the refugees." He looked up at her again. There were grim lines of worry etched upon his brow and at the corners of his mouth. "I needed you to know. With your powers-your past-the potential for misunderstanding, for something happening which could have caused who knows how much damage to our people, would have been too great." He sighed. "I'm sorry."
"Yes," she agreed. "You are. I know you are." She closed her eyes, shuddering at the thought of all those.things growing inside that chamber. She felt sick, just thinking about it.
Stalker came over and helped her to her feet. Gingerly, she brushed her fingers across her lips, grimacing as she felt the wetness of fresh vomit. There was a bitter taste in her mouth. So this was what vomiting felt like. If ever there was a sign that she was now irrevocably human, this was it.
Stalker reached a hand into a hidden recess somewhere inside his cape and pulled out a white handkerchief.
"Here." He stretched out his hand, offering the tiny square of fabric to her.
"Thank you," said Amalthea. She smiled gratefully at her longtime friend.
He smiled back. "I didn't do too well with that, did I?" he asked, rather ruefully.
She considered him for one long moment before replying. "No," she said, as she shook her head. "No. I don't suppose you did. But you felt you had to do it. And you did it." She cast a swift glance in the direction of the now-closed door. "I don't like it. It seems so strange. So unnatural." She sighed. "And yet it's not some innocent creature who's being slaughtered for the consumption of human beings, just some lumps of meat that were never alive. I think-" She stood there, looking at him for the longest time. "Thank you."
And she put her arms around him and drew him close, resting her head upon his shoulder. Moments later, she felt his arms come up-tentatively, ever so tentatively-and hug her back.
Seconds later she drew back. She smiled, gratefully, at her friend, and then, ever so swiftly, leaned in towards him and kissed him on the cheek, before turning and walking away, leaving him standing there in the midst of all the equipment and strange machines, watching her go with his hand to the spot she'd kissed.
So. Maybe she was human, she thought as she walked. But she had friends, friends like Stalker, and Raistlin as well. They cared for her, even though Stalker might fumble like he just had and Raistlin would occasionally be impatient and acerbic. But they were her friends, and she knew that they cared. And maybe, just maybe, though she would grieve, even to the end of her life, for the beautiful creature she'd been, she could try, for their sakes, and the sake of all those people who lived because of her, to be, once and for all time, the person they needed her to be.
Human.
Thrawn was in the hanger bay, watching the fighters coming in. Odd machines-they looked almost like throwbacks to air-breathing gas turbine- powered atmospheric craft. They certainly seemed capable enough in deep space, though, and, to his practiced eye, the pilots seemed to maneuver their craft in to land with almost uncanny precision.
Well, now, he thought, mentally cracking his knuckles. This would be the fleet he was to command. His eyes scanned the sleek, metal bodies, taking in the gun-pods slung centerline on each fighter, lingering over the capacious missile bays, well-stocked with deadly ordnance. Missile craft, from the looks of it--much like the Sienar Missile Boat that had widely been considered, in his own universe to be the epitome of starfighter design. If the craft were indeed as capable as his preliminary inspection seemed to indicate, and if their ordnance was anything near the standard of that employed by the Imperial Navy, he wagered that with them under his command, he would cut a swathe through anything they were likely to encounter.
Then, he frowned. He would be able to cut a swathe through any enemy he was likely to encounter-that was, of course, if he and his.assistants would be able to train sufficient numbers of the people now residing in the fortress' holds to operate and use the damn things. True, these were desperate times, desperate enough for the measures Stalker proposed, but uplifting a pre-gunpowder civilization straight to the space age? He shook his head. It was a risky gamble.
The Chiss admiral looked round. Stalker had told him he'd be able to find his fighter commander here. Where was the man?
His gaze fell upon a slender, sandy haired man standing under the wing of a recently arrived spacecraft, speaking with the pilot. Thrawn's eyes narrowed. Were those corrective lenses that pilot was wearing? He certainly seemed an unlikely choice for one. Slim, long-haired, a mild expression on his face, he seemed more like a scholar than anything else. And yet.
There was something about the man that gave Thrawn pause. He'd seen the way the man moved. He had a smooth, predatory grace that belied his mild exterior and put Thrawn in mind of some of his Noghri bodyguards. So. Thrawn nodded. In all likelihood, the man was, in his own way, just as efficient a killer as the Noghri had been. He would have to watch this individual.
He turned his attention to the other man. If he wasn't mistaken, this would be the person he was looking for. The man was clad in a blue undress uniform, significantly different from what those REF personnel he'd met had worn. His tired face still bore the remnants of a boyish handsomeness, though the strains of a lifetime full of cares had stamped their mark upon it. He looked tired. On reflection, Thrawn didn't blame him. He'd been given a brief summation of the man's career by Stalker. The man had fought through hell and back out again in the service of his country. He'd dived through whole fleets, single-handedly pulled victory out of the jaws of defeat for entire fleets several times in his career. And he had been the man who, under orders from his government, had dropped a bomb that killed an entire planet. If any man had a right to look tired, with so many deaths on his soul, it would be him.
Thrawn's eyes flickered up to meet the other man's. The man was tired, yes. But he still had the eyes of a killer. And something in those eyes told Thrawn that, time and time again, for as long as was necessary, this man would fly once more into the jaws of hell. And he would win.
Seeing his approach, the blue-uniformed man turned and saluted. "Commodore Christopher Blair," he introduced himself. "Terran Confederation Navy. You must be Admiral Thrawn." To his credit, aside from a slight widening of his eyes, he did not display any reaction towards Thrawn's obvious inhumanity.
Thrawn returned the salute, then shook hands, suppressing a frown. Now that he had gotten a better look at the man, he felt sure he knew him from somewhere. The problem was, where?
Blair indicated the man standing next to him. "My colleague, Commodore Max Sterling, Robotech Expeditionary Force."
Thrawn inclined his head, extending his hand as he did so. "A pleasure to meet you, Commodore," he said.
Sterling took the outstretched hand, his smile almost deceptively mild. "Sir." His grip was firm, the pressure almost exactly identical to that exerted by Thrawn. "I believe the pleasure's all mine. We've heard quite a lot about you."
Thrawn cocked his head to one side. "Ah? And that would be.?" If Stalker had briefed them concerning everything he'd done.
"You've had a very.interesting career, sir." Sterling shrugged. "At least, that's what Stalker tells us." The look he bestowed upon Thrawn was chilling in its utter lack of intensity. There was just the same expression-that same inscrutable affability that, for the past few minutes, Thrawn had observed him display towards Blair. Not even the man's eyes betrayed a hint of any hostility, any veiled animus towards the Chiss admiral who, as he surely had to know, had tread a path of blood in his quest to bring peace to a troubled galaxy. Thrawn's eyes narrowed. If anything, this only served to confirm his initial observation. The commodore was no ordinary man. If anything, he put Thrawn in mind of a concept mentioned in the works of a certain Terran philosopher he'd come across, browsing through Stalker's library.
If ever there were a man who embodied the very tenets of the philosophy of Nietzsche, that man was Sterling.
Thrawn nodded. "Yes," he said, a faint smile upon his lips. "I believe I have."
"And what do you think of your latest assignment, Admiral?" asked Sterling as Thrawn led the two pilots to one of the briefing rooms just off the hanger deck.
Blair snorted. "I feel like a madman just for saying 'yes'. Training up a bunch of bowmen and knights to pilot starfighters? I get a headache just thinking about it."
Thrawn regarded him with a wry glance before palming open the door and stepping through. "Yes," he said. "It does seem quite an impossible task, does it not?" A large urn of coffee stood in the corner. Max Sterling went over to pour himself a cup.
"Coffee?" he asked the other two. Thrawn shook his head.
"I'll have a cup," said Blair.
Sterling brought the full cups of steaming liquid over. The other two men watched him as he navigated the cluttered floor, still strewn with various pieces of electronic equipment and power cables. Crossing to where Blair was seated, he placed the cup gently on the little folding table attached to the arm of Blair's chair.
Blair looked at it. The liquid within the cup was almost perfectly still, as if it had sat there upon the table for thousands upon thousands of years, instead of having been placed there only moments before, by a slim, blue-haired man with spectacles who yet laid claim to the title of one of the greatest fighter pilots in the multiverse. He blinked. An alien, a guy who moved like nothing he'd ever known-and him. A pilot. A pilot who had, it was true, become a legend in his own lifetime. But still, just an ordinary man. It was true. The two men with whom he was sitting, in a darkened room located on the periphery of a giant steel sphere somewhere in the outer dimensions-they intimidated him. One had, by all accounts he'd heard, an intellect that towered head and shoulders-and more-above that of any other tactician he'd ever known. The other moved like a wraith, his every movement as graceful as a tree swaying in the wind, as smooth as flowing water. And then there were the others.
Not for the first time, Commodore Christopher Blair, late of the Terran Confederation Navy, wondered what he was doing working with these people.
Thrawn looked at him. The blond pilot's unease was becoming increasingly clear to him. He too had seen Sterling set down the cup before Blair without causing so much as a ripple in the liquid's surface. While it did not seem that the blond man's unease would ever prevent him from carrying out his obligations-he had seen too much, done too many things for that ever to happen-yet Thrawn still felt a vague uneasiness. Blair was an ordinary man, walking amongst titans. And yet-and yet Stalker had seen fit to bring Blair into this fellowship of heroes, these champions of eternity. And Thrawn agreed with him. By any standard, Blair's performance through thirty years of continuous war against the Kilrathi, his own government, and the mysterious Nephilim had been nothing short of spectacular.
The only problem was, beside men who could fly unaided through outer space and destroy entire worlds with their bare hands or sheer force of will alone, beside an alien whose intelligence seemed nigh inhuman, beside a man-another fighter pilot, no less!-who moved with the fluid grace of the very gods and whose enigmatic smile concealed the gods knew what-beside them, what place did Commodore Christopher Blair have?
Thrawn bestowed a benignant smile of his own upon the other two men. "What do I think of our current mission?" he asked, repeating Sterling's question. The left corner of his mouth drooped down, leaving the other still elevated in a sardonic smile. "I find it.fascinating. I've had to carve out a victory with limited resources before. As, I am told, has Commodore Blair." He shrugged, a small twitch upwards of his shoulders. "Not anything on the scale of the operations we're currently contemplating, but still." The smile was back, and it was now the smile of a predator, sated from its last kill. "I believe it will be a challenge."
Blair had started when Thrawn mentioned his name. "You know-you know about everything I've done?"
Thrawn nodded. "A brief study of your career has proved to be.most interesting. I particularly found your actions during the Tiger's Claw's campaign against the Dreadnought Sivar and your part in the Border Worlds conflict extremely fascinating."
Blair chuckled mirthlessly. "The Border Worlds. Huh." His eyes were haunted as he looked up at the alien admiral. "After all those years.having fought so long, lost so many friends-" he swallowed, clearly in the grip of some strong emotion. "And the government I'd fought for turned out to be bloody corrupt!" This last word was a snarl, punctuated by a blow of his fist to the arm of his chair.
Thrawn looked at him, his face still. He knew what Blair was talking about. He'd been there himself, during those dark years just after he'd entered the service of Emperor Palpatine. It was only after he had ventured back into the Unknown Regions and discovered the horrors lurking in the outer dark beyond the Rim, that he had found new purpose.
This man, this Commodore Christopher Blair, was an officer, a good one, just as he was. The similarity would not be all that obvious, to an observer meeting both men for the first time, but it was there. They had seen worlds, fought wars across the breadth of galaxies. They had sworn oaths in service to their motherlands, to preserve all that was good and right about the cultures to which they had been born.
And then, they had betrayed those oaths, cut themselves off irrevocably from the powers they had served so faithfully and for so long. In Thrawn's case, he had found the preservation of his people more important than his oath. In Blair's case.
In Blair's case, the very government he'd sworn to protect had proved unworthy of his oath.
There was that same streak of ruthlessness in them, ruthlessness and a loyalty to an order higher even than governments, powers and principalities. It had brought Thrawn to exile from his people in the service or a power-mad tyrant. It had brought Blair nothing but a life filled with war and suffering, a life in which he outlived friends, lovers, saw bright young men and women throw their lives away for a cause. And here he was, sucked into yet another war to train and send forth yet another generation of young men and women into the meat-grinder.
"It never changes, does it?" Blair asked. "I think.I can see it in you. You're a killer. Just like I am and just like he is." He nodded in Sterling's direction.
The long-haired man raised an eyebrow. "It's not something I consider myself to be," he objected.
Blair's smile was utterly without mirth. "Really? Tell me: how many enemy pilots have you killed so far? A thousand? Two thousand? I have over five on my record-and my conscience."
"One thousand, eight-hundred and fifty-seven," replied Sterling. "Mostly Zentraedi battle pods and Invid. A few Tirolean Bioroids." His expression shifted, became, somehow, more intense. Where before, he had seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary, just a man who happened to be able to move with a fluidity that would have reduced most martial artists to tears, now there was something else. His eyes, glinting behind their corrective glasses, now became as those of a striking hawk, their focus almost inhuman. Max Sterling was a killer.
And the frightening part was, the man himself didn't seem to notice a thing about it.
Thrawn looked at him. Nothing much had changed. Sterling still wore that same, inoffensive expression he had always worn. Only the eyes had changed- only they seemed to give any hint of the Fury that lay beneath that mild exterior.
Blair's smile turned ironic. "And you claim not to be a killer," he said.
Sterling shrugged. "I'm just a guy. It was something I had to do."
Blair chuckled. "Isn't that the truth? It's always something we have to do." He trailed off, regarding the other pilot silently, as if contemplating the hidden depths that lay within the man's soul.
Then, he shook himself, as if remembering something. "Well," he said, under his breath, as if speaking half to himself. "Enough of that. Max? You were just telling me about those fascinating starfighters of yours. Care to tell the admiral what you've just told me?"
Sterling smiled. There was no hint of the hawk now, just a long-haired, slender young man with a friendly, open expression.
"Certainly."
She floated, her hair fanning out around her head in the void like a vivid burst of flame. This was deep space, the long dark silence between the stars. It called to her, its siren song echoing in the chambers of her heart.
The spheres called to her-called in ways not even her telepathy, honed as it had been in the days before her.unexpected transformation could have revealed to her. She was.aware. She knew, in the deepest intimacy, every one of the millions of voices that sang to her through the void, each one of them an infinitesimal speck of life cradled in the bosoms of the many great orbs that bore them in their rotations about the suns that gave them life. The voices filled her mind, each one expounding on a celestial theme in all its infinite complexity.
It was a balm to her soul. She would have immersed herself in the beauty of the celestial song, cast aside her anger and her pain and joined in the chorus of creation as it sang a paen to the transcendental joy of existence itself.
Her hand stole silently toward the hilt of the sword scabbarded at her side. A blade of legend, it was-an artifact so potent that its power rivaled that of the stars itself. It had been forged in the darkest days of her own home planet as a weapon of war, a talisman, granting its wielder the power to summon a wrathful god. Sharra was destruction personified, the very spirit of the raging forest fires that rampaged unchecked across the surface of the unhappy planet. For a thousand years, that spirit had reigned as, mad with power-lust, the lords of Darkover had developed weapons powered by the very forces of the mind itself, breeding the lethal gifts into their very offspring. The resulting carnage had left the planet desolate, its once proud kingdoms fractured into a hundred feuding realms.
The Sword of Sharra had been the most dangerous of all the weapons created in that time. Thus was her curse: to be bonded, mind and soul to the unholy thing, to live an eternity with the weight of the accursed weapon bearing down upon her soul.
It was too high a price to pay, she thought. In exchange for endless bliss.what? To unleash upon the universe an angry god? To allow the dark being lurking within the sword to take control of her helpless body as her mind floated, lost within an eternal fugue state as part of the celestial chorus? She could feel the power coursing through her veins, boosting her telepathic abilities to levels unheard of in all Darkover's history. She could control the minds of entire planets, now, cross impossible distances in the blink of an eye. The flames of Sharra leapt to life at her command. She could do anything. All she had to do was to keep the mind of a goddess at bay.
Damn them all, she thought. The two men-one muscled and clad in armor as black as night, the other with skin of living gold and eyes that looked upon the world through hourglasses-they had approached her, offering her a choice between a new life, and a bitter death raging against the forces now reshaping her homeworld. There had been a warning as well: a dire tale of a malevolent force warping the very fabric of reality itself for its own ends.
She had almost rejected them of course, summoning her own psionic abilities to strike down the impudent pair who had invaded her inner sanctum. The golden one had gestured-and her most potent attacks had simply vanished, as if they had never been.
He'd smiled then, mocking her. "There are more things in existence than even the Keeper of a Tower can imagine, Lady Leonie," he'd said. "Did you really imagine this pathetic planet was everything that mattered in this universe? Your Comyn Lords, hiding in their castles while their Terran cousins stride across the stars? This ball of rock and mud, against all the infinite multitudes of worlds?" She'd attempted to answer, to fling back an angry retort-only to discover she was unable to move so much as a single muscle. She'd stood, frozen in place seemingly at the will of the strange man before her. Desperately, she lashed out with her mind, a psychic blow that could, and had left lesser men mindless.
The golden man simply smiled, looking her straight in the eye as her attack passed straight through him as if he had never been there. "Come, now. Is that all you can do? Yours is a heavy responsibility, Leonie Hastur." Beside him, she saw the armored man wince. "Surely you are better equipped for the task than that." The robed man shrugged. "It matters not, I suppose. Soon the matter of your powers will become an academic question."
The man beside him frowned, and coughed. There was a brief, whispered conversation between the two. A brief snippet of the robed man's speech carried across the room to her ears. "Are you uncomfortable with this, my comrade? We will see, then. Are you willing to trust my judgment in this? Or do you still fear the machinations of the inscrutable mage? We shall see, shan't we?"
The armored man stared at his companion a while, then nodded his head. He said something to the golden one that Leonie couldn't quite make out. The golden man smiled. "Please. Do you ever think I wouldn't?" He turned back to Leonie, his arms held out before him, palms turned upwards as if waiting to receive something.
There was a shimmering in the air above the golden man's palms. Through the shimmering, almost as if conjured out of thin air, a long, thin object appeared, it's outline blurred and indistinct. Gradually, the object solidified, its weight pressing down upon the strange man's palms. As the last of the shimmering died away, the true form of the mysterious object lay revealed.
It was a sword, its crossguard and pommel encrusted with precious stones, rubies that burned with an inner light, the malevolent red glow casting deep, ominous shadows across the man's sharp features. Leonie fought to scream as she realized just exactly what it was that the golden- skinned man had brought into her presence.
Nothing. The man had advanced, the sword held out before him like a malign talisman. Nearer he came, as the ruby light from within the gems began to flicker and grow, casting weird, dancing shadows across the room's walls like flames from the bottommost pit of hell. Closer, and closer, and the last things that Leonie Hastur, Keeper of the Arilinn Tower on the telepath planet of Darkover saw and felt before her consciousness sank, blissfully into oblivion, were the searing pain as flames reached forth from within the gems to consume her, body, mind and soul, and the horrid image of a chained maiden, her hair wreathed in flames, breaking her bonds with a shout of exultation and soaring off into space, borne on wings of fire.
When she awoke, she had found herself lying upon a bed on board what she later learned was a giant sphere, its captain the darkly-armored man she had seen standing by as the golden-skinned man-Raistlin, she had learned his name was, had done.whatever it was that he had done to her.
She could feel it, burning deep within her. Power. Power sufficient to tear worlds apart from pole to pole, sufficient to snuff out the lives of countless millions with but the merest exercise of will. In a way, it was hers, now. The being whose consciousness had once rested within the sword now slumbered within her. The sword at her side was useless, now, she realized; just a sword, neither better nor worse than any other that had issued from the same smith's forge, back during the Ages of Chaos. For all intents and purposes, Leonie Hastur was the Sharra Matrix, most powerful of all the matrix weapons that had ever existed since Man first set foot upon the wind-blasted world that was Cottbus IV.
Already, the power had started to change her from within, shaping her body and mind to purposes unknown. She brought her hands up, looking at them for what seemed to her to be the millionth time since she'd come to.
Gone were the purpled veins, the joints swollen by arthritis, the paper-thin skin. In their place, supple, soft young flesh, the skin smooth as it had been the day she had rode with her entourage to join the telepaths at Arilinn Tower, there to be trained in the use of the mind- gifts that were her heritage.
The hands then went to her face, the fingers now probing the unaccustomed smoothness with a dexterity they had not possessed for many a year. It felt almost delightful to move with such freedom, unencumbered by the pains of age. And yet.she remembered the cost, and the thought of such a price weighed heavily upon her heart.
Accept.and become the avatar of a dark goddess. Leonie wanted to scream, to lash out. This had not been what she wanted, any of this. After the Forbidden Tower, and the battle, and the complete destruction of everything she had held dear, all the ideals she'd given up everything for- her life, her family, even.even her womanhood. She had neutered herself, that fateful day, tearing out her feminity even as Damon Ridenow-dear handsome Damon, to tempt even a Keeper to forsake her vows!-had ridden forth from the tower, exiled for daring to look at her as a man looks upon a woman.
When Damon and that thrice-damned Terran had, along with their brides, created that accursed Tower of their own and stood against her- defeated her in psychic combat, all she had wanted to do was die, to pass away from this world in which all her sacrifices, everything she'd lived her life for, had, ultimately, turned out to be for nought.
Instead, she'd been kidnapped by these unknown men, forced into unholy union with an artifact whose dread reputation still echoed hollowly down the ages, and drafted into a war she barely understood.
Not that she doubted that there was a war, after all-the evidence they'd presented had been too conclusive for that. Yet the sheer scope of it.her mind boggled. And there was doubt, too. If, as they truly claimed, these men were on the side of angels, why then had they done this to her?
Behind her, the very fabric of space itself parted as, opening a portal through which, almost as if taking a pleasant stroll through a Darkover mountain meadow, stepped Raistlin Majere, out into the void between the stars.
She whirled, the minute sub?theric disturbance of the portal's opening registering to her enhanced senses as the minutest whisper of a nonexistent wind upon her skin.
Her eyes widened. "You! What-"
Raistlin merely smiled. "Me. You were expecting somebody else? I am all there is, I'm afraid." He gestured round with an outstretched arm, in one grandiose gesture indicating the stars shining brightly all around, above and below them. "All this, and all that is in it, is yours. You have been exploring, I see."
"Exploring?" Her laugh was harsh. "Damn you, whatever you are. I never asked for this-for any of this. Did you think-" her voice broke, so strong was the emotion coursing through her-"did you think there was anywhere else I could be, after what you did?" She turned away. "I want nothing to do with you, Raistlin Majere. Or your friends. Go, now, before I unleash the dark goddess you have placed within me."
To her surprise, the hourglass-eyed man laughed. "A dark goddess, you say? Perhaps." His smile was thin enough to slice the electrons off an atom. "Yet you seem so ready to unleash her in all her power. What do you really want, Leonie Hastur? You claim this thing I have placed within you is evil-yet the power-it calls to you. Yours is the multiverse, and everything within it-so long as you are willing to take it." He raised an eyebrow. "Tempting, is it not?"
He watched her as she whirled, her crimson tresses tossing in the cosmic winds, her mouth open, ready to shout an angry denial. The Flames of Sharra flared, a brilliant crimson-orange, bright against the blackness of space. Fiery tongues danced, racing up and down her arms and gathering about her fists, forming twin spheres of pyrokinetic energy that blazed uncannily in the void.
"See?" he said, before she could utter a word. "You reject the power, yet it leaps to your command at every opportunity. Why struggle? Embrace it!" His own thin hand shot out, the metallic skin gleaming as it reflected the baleful light of Sharra's Flames. Eldritch energy crackled through the ether, forming an uncanny aura about his clenched fist, casting a cold, eerie light upon the strange man's face.
Leonie stared, horrified. "What-what are you?" The power she had just felt unleashed was nothing like any she had ever seen. There was a sense of almost infinite depth to the power, an almost tranquil omnipresence permeating all of space around them and beyond. And yet-such power, when unleashed.
She shuddered. As well to try to stem the tides, or a raging forest fire, with one's own bare hands. Such was the sheer potential energy that small display had revealed.
Raistlin smiled. "A Sorcerer Supreme," he replied. "I am a Master of the Mystic Arts, mage-protector of a universe entire. I have fought gods, destroyed worlds, faced down the hidden horrors that lurk beyond the rim of reality. I have seen things even you, Leonie Hastur, would run from screaming in fear. It was I who chose you, Leonie, to bear the burden which you now bear." The hourglass eyes bored, unblinkingly, into her own. "You know what it is we face, my lady. Times call for desperate measures, lest we all fall into ruin and destruction. Can you, who chose to stand watch at Arilinn Tower for all your life, despite all you knew you would be giving up-you, who kept your station despite the temptations and disappointments your life brought you-abandon those who would otherwise die to their fates? Can the sense of duty that brought you to do these things allow you to do this?"
Leonie laughed, a bitter sound empowered by years of self-denial squandered. "And see where it got me. My life-all I had worked for, overturned! By an upstart Terran, and the bride he stole from me! The girl was meant to take my place-to carry on the task of holding the Tower. He stole her, then rendered all my sacrifices-all I had given, all those generations of Keepers before me had given-all for nought. Tell me, sorcerer: after all that, do you still trust my sense of responsibility to all the world around me?" She raised her arms, the flames still playing over them. "When all I have left to look forward to is to be consumed by this dark creature inside of me?" She clenched her fists and turned away.
Raistlin watched her for a few moments. Then, just as he was about to speak.
"Yes, damn you!" Her voice was harsh, ragged with emotion. Her shoulders heaved, as if she were fighting to keep from weeping. "I'll do it!" She turned, and there were tears in her eyes. "I will join you in this war of yours, damn you. If what you say is true, there's not much else I can do, can I?" Her voice grew soft. "Even if all that awaits me is fiery death."
Raistlin nodded. "Very well." With the merest effort of will, he crossed the space between them, coming to a stop directly in front of her. With a gaunt finger, he reached beneath her chin, gently tipping her face back and forcing her to look into his eyes. She recoiled, in shock, the flames once more springing to life around her. The sorcerer made no move to follow.
"I will not dissimulate with you," he said, his face impassive. "You are right. The flames that I have awakened within you-they will consume you."
Leonie made no reply-her only response was a shrug, accompanied by a bitter twist of her lips. Silently, she turned her gaze away from the sorcerer, staring off into the infinite depths of space.
"And yet," continued the sorcerer, his head cocked to one side, as if recalling to memory some fact long forgotten, "do you remember, Leonie Hastur, what happened, that day, when in dragon form you attempted to burn the Tower formed by the renegade Damon Ridenow and his circle from the face of the Overworld-what happened then?"
Her head rose, nostrils flaring. How well indeed, did she remember what had happened next: as, fiery breath spurting, scouring the abomination before her from existence, she had been surprised as a great bird of flame soared, wings flaring, forth from within the depths of her telepathic inferno. She had known defeat then; known, even as her heart screamed and fought to deny the horrid fact, that she, the greatest of all telepaths upon the planet Darkover in her day, could not, for all she tried, destroy the four lovers who stood thus, ready to defy her.
A bird of flame. Surely-
Raistlin nodded. "The phoenix. Just so. Just as the flames consume you, thus will you be reborn." He smiled. "Did you think us so heartless, Lady Leonie, as to thus consign you once more to a thankless task? If anything, my colleagues among the Council would refuse further contact with me. You will be reborn, my lady, as something far and infinitely greater than even you, who kept the Tower at Arilinn could ever imagine."
"And what will I be, then?" she asked, her face pale.
Raistlin did not answer, then. He stood, silently, head cocked to one side, studying her as if she were a specimen in a jar. Finally, he spoke, as if in answer to her question.
"Yourself," he said.
Leonie laughed, and in that laugh, perhaps, there was less of bitterness or unhappiness to be found than there previously had been. "I will believe that, Raistlin Majere, when it happens," she cried. "In the meanwhile." She let the sentence trail off.
There was silence for a few moments. Finally, Leonie spoke again. "So, sorcerer. You sought me here. To what, may I ask, do I owe the honor?"
"I thought I might ask you to dinner, my lady."
She stared. "What?"
He smiled at her discomfiture. "Did you not hear? There is a dinner tonight-Stalker proposed it, as a measure to allow the members of our little.assemblage to come to know each other." He raised an eyebrow. "It is a queer lot we are, too. Personally, I would not go, but." He spread his hands. "One pays a price, I suppose, for working in a group. We must ever be tolerant of the foibles of others."
"It amazes me to say this, sorcerer, but you are one of the most arrogant men I have ever met."
He bowed. "I but aim to please. Come, my lady," he said, reopening the portal in space with a wave of his hand. "Perhaps you will do me the honor of accompanying me to this little gathering our host has planned?"
She strode past him, her head held at a haughty angle, flames trailing behind her. Smiling, he held the portal open, until she had passed through it, and followed her, closing it as he stepped from the void of space to the cavernous halls of Stalker's World-Sphere.
Behind him, as the tear in space mended itself, the flames marking the lady telepath's trail flared, and for one brief moment, formed the shape of a striking bird of flame, before dying down into the darkness.
Stalker strode down the corridor, rubbing his cheek as he did so. Damn it all, he thought, reviewing in his mind the memory of his last conversation with Amalthea. He could still feel her lips, brushing delicately across the spot that, even now, his fingers worked, nervously, at. It's all psychosomatic, man, he told himself. An unbidden I hope wormed its way free of his subconscious to join the others dancing merrily before his mind's eye. He sighed.
He turned a corner and came face to face with the very person he'd been thinking of. He stopped, dead.
"Uh, Amalthea. Hello," he said, by way of greeting. Well, that was clumsy.
The second thing that ran through his mind was, for what seemed like the thousandth time since he'd placed his cape about her naked shoulders that night in the darkened room on board the World Sphere, Damn, she's beautiful.
Her skin, as silk smooth as the soaring quantum winds coursing through the spaces between universes, almost glowing in the light from the overhead panels illuminating the bare passageway; her swan-like neck rising gracefully over the dress he'd procured for her, swirling slightly in the breeze produced by the World Sphere's ventilation system.
Dammit! Focus, man! It took nearly all his willpower to prevent himself from shaking his head hard, trying to clear it of the fog that seemed to have dropped down upon it like a heavy curtain the moment he'd caught sight of her.
"Stalker." She glided up to him, her face solemn. Silently, he allowed her to take his hand affectionately into her own.
He remembered the old times, back in the forest, when, weary after a long mission, he would repair there, to rest awhile among the shady groves and sun-lit clearings of her now-lost home, and, with his head pillowed against her flank, or hers cradled in his lap, they would speak of things far away, of wondrous sights they'd seen, and simply drink in the wondrous beauty of those woods. She had been his friend, his best friend-and now, she was a woman.
And, like it or not, he had a ominous feeling that he was falling head over heels in love with her.
Idly, he wondered if it was any consolation that almost the entire male population of the Sphere, and a goodly number of the females, had done the same thing. Probably not.
She was smiling at him now, the expression seeming to him like a ray of heavenly light, spearing through the darkness of the void itself. "Is it time?" she asked.
He had some difficulty figuring out exactly what it was the woman who had been the Last Unicorn was referring to, so overwhelmed was he by her presence. Gradually, it dawned on him.
"The dinner, yes," he said, almost stumbling over the words. "I'm on my way there myself. The others should be arriving quite soon."
He fell silent as they continued down the corridor, her arm through his. At length, he spoke, again, more as a way of breaking what, to him, seemed like a heavy, awkward silence.
"It was.good to see you smile, Amalthea," he ventured. He took a deep breath. Got to be careful here. "I only wish it could have been sooner. We've all been waiting so anxiously to see you smile."
She turned. "I know," she replied. "It's.strange. I never knew it could feel so-so good."
He raised an eyebrow. "Smiling?"
She nodded. "I thought I would never have cause to do so, not after.what happened. Not after what I lost."
Stalker nodded, sympathetically. "I wish there were more we could do, really. As it is.I just hope you'll be happy here with us-with your friends."
She sighed. "I hope so too," she said, as they stopped before the door that led to the dining chamber Stalker had set aside for that evening's gathering. He waved his hand across the sensor plate set into the wall just beside the door, and the portal irised open.
They stepped through. The chamber beyond was small, just large enough to contain the long oak table that had been placed there, covered with a white cloth and laid with places for twelve people. There was another person there, leaning against the wall next to a small bar that had been placed in the corner, a nearly-full tumbler of brandy in her hand. The woman pushed herself off the wall as they entered, raising her glass in salute as she did so.
Stalker nodded. "Ms. Newfield. I wasn't expecting you here so early."
The woman snorted. "Ya think? I got bored. Mighty fine place you got here. Big as a small moon, and nothing to do." She came towards the two, her gait a confident strut. She was clad in whipcord breeches and riding boots, her sun-bleached blonde hair spilling over a dark riding jacket worn over a white shirt. She looked curiously at Amalthea.
"Hey," she said, by way of greeting. "Aren't you going to introduce us, big man?" she asked.
"Ah. Forgive my lack of manners. May I present my companion, the Lady Amalthea, formerly the Last Unicorn, empath and healer for our little band of heroes. Amalthea, this Ms. Annabelle Lee Newfield, the Crackshot, our new resident marksperson and late member of the illustrious Aeon Society for Gentlemen."
Amalthea smiled, extending her hand to the other woman, who took it in an iron grip.
Stalker paused for a moment, looking between the two of them, then excused himself, going to the door, where he spoke a few words of greeting to Raistlin and Leonie Hastur, who had just entered side by side.
"Drink?" asked Annabelle, going to the bar and holding up a bottle of Stalker's finest brandy. It was already half-empty.
Amalthea considered the bottle a few moments, then nodded. Annabelle promptly grabbed a glass from the tray, filled it to the brim with amber fluid and thrust it into the surprised Amalthea's hand.
"Th-thank you," she said, taken aback by the other woman's boisterous demeanor. She took a cautious sip of the strong-smelling liquid, and immediately found herself forced to suppress a coughing fit.
Annabelle dissolved into raucous laughter. Amalthea could only stare, shocked, the alcohol causing an unpleasant heat to rise to her face.
"Oh, sorry," said Annabelle, recovering her composure. "Don't you have alcohol where you come from?" she continued, taking the glass from Amalthea's unresisting hand and draining it in one gulp.
"No, I-I don't," stammered Amalthea, at the same time wondering what 'alcohol' was.
The other woman regarded her appraisingly out of the corner of her eye. She was attractive, in a way, with laughing blue eyes set in a strong- featured face that had obviously seen many suns. On any other woman the effect would have been one of masculinity-on her, however, it seemed to fit. The overall effect was one of fluid energy, of deadly force contained in a manner that left it no less dangerous for all its feminity.
Finally, she spoke. "What'd the big man pick you up here for, anyway? You're pretty, I'll admit, but you've also got that Look about you. You've had a taste of the Life, haven't you?"
Amalthea stared back, uncomprehending. The Life, Annabelle, had said. It sounded almost mystical, a mystery laid open only to a chosen few. She looked at the other woman-really looked-and saw.
.A life of strife, of wide strides across the canvas of a world larger than life, of danger-filled expeditions to lost cities and lonely gun-battles aboard out-of control zeppelins. It was a life lived above and beyond the scenes and dreams of all the huddled masses, filled with danger, set apart. And yet-and yet above all that, there was joy, a sense of wonder at the beholding of such things, a delirious rhapsodical revel in the madness and the beauty of it all.
All this, Amalthea saw. And, for the first time, she realized what allure this life held; what it was that drove people like Stalker and the woman before her to risk their lives, over and over again, in nigh incomprehensible struggles against evil after evil. And, also for the first time, how irrevocably she'd set forth on such a life, the day her feet trod the lonesome path leading from her wood, as she went out into the wide world, searching for her lost race.
"I-is that what it is to you?" she asked. "This Life of yours?"
Annabelle looked at her sharply. The other woman's face softened as she saw the pain in Amalthea's eyes-or maybe it was the empathic surge that, across the room, caused Stalker, Leonie and Raistlin to look up in alarm.
"You poor kid. You look as if you got nothing out of it but a whole lot of pain. What happened?"
Amalthea pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. Stalker and Raistlin came over, concerned expressions on their faces, followed closely by Leonie.
"That surge," she said. "Was it.?"
Stalker nodded. He knelt down before her, taking her hands in his.
"Amalthea. What happened?" His voice was soft, soothing. She could feel his concern as he looked up into her face.
She shook her head. "I'm fine. Just.is that why you do it? To see the wonder-the beauty-of it all?"
He nodded.
"And is that why for all those years I found myself friendless among my own people-because I'd become different from them?"
He nodded, again, his face sad. "I'm sorry."
Leonie came forward and knelt beside Stalker. Amalthea felt, briefly, a faint sensation of something trailing through her mind. The red- headed woman's eyes focused, intently on Amalthea's face.
"So old a mind," she whispered, "yet so much like that of a child." She turned to Stalker. "Her laran is strange. So limited, and yet so powerful, in its own way. She has not had it long, has she?"
Stalker shook his head. "Only for the past few weeks." He looked back at Amalthea. "Would you like to tell them, or should I?"
Amalthea took a deep breath. "I'll tell," she said.
So it all came out: that strange and sad tale of a unicorn's first steps into a world far wider than her own dear woods; of how, for the first time, she had become a woman. She spoke of how she'd journeyed, with her people, to a new home, only to find herself, after her experiences, almost an alien among those innocent folk.
She stopped, then, trying to gather the courage to carry on. Stalker intervened, then, asking her if she wished him to carry on the narrative. She shook her head, then went on.
She spoke of how she'd met Stalker, how they'd become friends. And then, she spoke of that day, barely a few weeks past, its horror still fresh in her mind, when the Chaos Marines had come.
"So. That's her story," said a voice.
Stalker looked up. "Admiral Thrawn," he said. "And Admirals Rick and Lisa Hayes-Hunter. And Commodore Max and Colonel Miriya Sterling." He moved to shake their hands. "My apologies. Have you been waiting long?"
Rick Hunter, Admiral, ace pilot and commander of the Robotech Expeditionary Force smiled. "Ah, no, not really." He glanced around the room. "You're all rather.interesting people here," he commented.
Stalker smiled back. "That's why we're here in the first place, Admiral. We wouldn't be otherwise." Beyond the Admiral's shoulder, he saw Blair slip into the room, dressed in a Terran Confederation Navy pilot's dress uniform, and followed closely by Prince Lew. "Well, now. I see the last members of our little party have arrived. Let's take our seats, shall we, and I'll make the introductions."
He escorted the two couples to the table, where the others had already taken their places. He then moved to the head of the table, pausing only to whisper into Amalthea's ear.
"Might we meet, later? I think we need to talk."
She looked at him, then nodded.
"I'll wait for you in the monitor room, then." He smiled at her, then went to take his place.
Standing at the head of the table, he cleared his throat. "Ah, good evening, everybody. I've asked all of you here tonight so that we might get to know each other a little better-after all, we'll be spending the next few years working with each other." He looked around. "As you can see, we're rather a diverse group here-we have a mage, Raistlin Majere," and he raised his glass to the sorcerer before continuing, "a telepath, the Lady Leonie of Arilinn; we have military men and women, the Admirals Rick and Lisa Hayes Hunter, commanders of the Robotech Expeditionary Force, and Commodore Max and Colonel Miriya Sterling, their fighter commanders, as well as Admiral Thrawn, who'll be commanding the fleet that the REF will help us build, and Commodore Christopher Blair, who'll be commanding our fighter contingent. We have one of the best markspersons in the multiverse, Ms. Annabelle Lee Newfield. We have the prince who's going to lead his people from the pre-industrial age to the space age." He turned to the beautiful woman by his side. "And we have the Lady Amalthea, our empath, and healer.
"Like I've said," he continued, "we're going to be working together for some time to come. This is a war for the fate of all realities, here. We fight against a disease, against the very fabric of reality itself gone mad. And it is our lot, as what we are-adventurers, champions striding across greater realities than have been revealed to the common man-to combat it."
Stalker lifted his glass. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I propose a toast to this gathering of allies. May our association be ever successful."
Raistlin cleared his throat. "Hold. And what are we to call ourselves, while we are thus engaged? Are we to remain nameless?"
Stalker raised an eyebrow. "Is that really necessary?"
Raistlin smiled, thinly. "I suppose. After all, every alliance of heroes needs a name to call itself by. Would we be heroes otherwise?"
Stalker returned the smile. "Very well. I have said that we are champions, and it is for eternity's sake that we fight. Should we call ourselves that, then? The Champions of Eternity?"
The mage shrugged. "As appropriate a name as any. Do you all agree?"
There was a chorus of assents, of various degrees of enthusiasm, from the heroes gathered at the table.
Stalker laughed. "Very well, then." He raised his glass once more as the rest of the party rose to their feet. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you.the Champions of Eternity!"
And now-and now she stood, horror-struck, in the middle of a great fortress of steel, floating somewhere in a trackless void, far from anything she could call familiar, any place she could call home. Her gaze rose, slowly, to meet that of her host. Stalker. He referred to himself as an adventurer, and, in those days before everything she'd known had been torn away from her by forces she barely understood, he would come, every once in a while, to rest spirit and body both in the presence of the beautiful, wonderful unicorn herd. More specifically, he would come to her, and in the shade of the tall trees that spread their branches over the brook by which she lived, they would talk together of the things they each had seen and done. He had seemed to find a peace in the wood; a sense that, there more than anyplace else, he was home.
Amalthea had never truly understood the nature of Stalker's work. He would speak of tyrants overthrown, of people saved from monsters and enemy invasions. Not until the horrors had come to her own world, however, had Amalthea fully comprehended the terrible scope of the menaces Stalker faced. To her, he now stank of endless brutality, of terrible deeds done in the name of the innocent. And now.
He expected her to join him in his crusade, that was certain. He had said, barely days before, that her abilities would prove useful in his campaign against the forces of darkness he claimed threatened all reality. Was she then only a tool for him? Her gaze crept up to meet his own.
He was staring at her, a concerned look on his face. All her doubts faded as his emotions flooded through her consciousness. For a moment, she saw herself as he saw her, a beautiful creature pulled out of her depth by forces beyond her control. There was pity for her in him; pity and a vast ineffable sadness that, once again, innocence had to be destroyed. And- there was something else. A vague sort of discomfort. He still thought of her as a friend; in fact, his only friend in the world entire. And yet-
He felt attracted to her! So that was why he was feeling so uncomfortable around her! For almost a hundred and fifty years, they had been the best of friends. Now, they were still friends-but he saw her as something more as well. In the space of a single day she had been thrown, unasked-for, entirely on his mercy, and then been transformed from a beast of legend into a beautiful woman. She felt her cheeks flush as she realized how he felt for her-and how those feelings were so obviously difficult for him to deal with.
"Amalthea?" She started at the sound of her name.
"Yes?" she replied.
"I'm, ah, sorry I had to show you this," he said, gesturing at the plate.
That again. She suppressed a shudder as she looked at the steak.
"Do you feel anything?" asked Stalker. In the days since her transformation, he had been working on defining the exact limits of her powers, putting her through test after test. None of them had been painful, and after the first few days, had helped her take her mind off the fact that she was no longer what she had been, but still.
Was this another test, she wondered. She had discovered, days earlier, that she could sense the psychic residue of an event, sometimes weeks or even years after the event itself had taken place. He had taken her to a place that had once been called "Alderaan", a desolate field of giant rocks floating in space. The stench of death there had almost overpowered her. Stalker had brought her back unconscious in his arms. She'd spent the next few days in bed, recuperating from the horrid experience. Was he trying to repeat that experiment, only on a smaller scale?
She leaned over the plate, opening her empathic senses to the horrible thing. Why had Stalker chosen such a cruel way of testing her abilities?
Her eyes widened. She bent all her thought towards the thing on the plate, attempting to seek out the slightest trace of the intense last moments of the life that had once inhabited it.
Nothing. Her powers, which had been able to detect the death-scream of an entire planet more than a quarter-century after that event took place, which were able to pick up the slightest nuances of emotion from the minds of those around her, failed completely to pick up any psychic trace around that piece of meat.
Stalker must have seen the confusion on her face. "It's vat grown," he said, as if by way of explanation. "Here, let me show you." He turned, motioning for her to follow, and led her to a large steel door. They were deep in the bowels of the Hypertime fortress, surrounded by immense and incomprehensible engines that Stalker claimed were vital to the operation of his vast citadel. The door slid open.
Beyond, bank upon bank of glowing cylinders stood, filled to the brim with a churning, bubbling fluid. Strange, tubular devices hung from solid- looking seals capping the top of each cylinder. And at the end of each tube.
Bulging, shapeless lumps hung, bobbing flaccidly in the greenish fluid like obscene fruits. Even from where she was, Amalthea could easily identify the lumps for what they were-gobbets of meat, growing steadily within the vats towards a grisly harvest.
Almost despite herself, Amalthea felt her gorge rise. She clapped a slender hand to her lips as the contents of her stomach fought to return to whence they came.
Stalker's eyes widened. Moving swiftly, he took hold of Amalthea's slim arm and drew her out from the chamber of vats. A swift gesture of his hand before the sensor plate, and the heavy door slid shut with a sigh.
A dull black bucket materialized inches before the heaving Amalthea's face. She grabbed at it, just moments before her last meal erupted forth from her mouth. When she looked up, Stalker was watching her, a look of contrition on his face.
"Amalthea. I'm sorry. Really. I-I didn't expect that to happen. I just wanted to show you-"
The remorse issuing forth from his psyche as he fumbled for the correct words hit her with almost brutal force. So horrifying, that experience had been, and yet-and yet, she couldn't really bring herself to blame him. He seemed to have been genuinely horrified at her reaction. No. She couldn't blame him. Not without hearing his reasons for bringing her to that.place first.
"Why?" she gasped.
Stalker hung his head. "This-" he said, "all this is supposed to go to feeding the refugees." He looked up at her again. There were grim lines of worry etched upon his brow and at the corners of his mouth. "I needed you to know. With your powers-your past-the potential for misunderstanding, for something happening which could have caused who knows how much damage to our people, would have been too great." He sighed. "I'm sorry."
"Yes," she agreed. "You are. I know you are." She closed her eyes, shuddering at the thought of all those.things growing inside that chamber. She felt sick, just thinking about it.
Stalker came over and helped her to her feet. Gingerly, she brushed her fingers across her lips, grimacing as she felt the wetness of fresh vomit. There was a bitter taste in her mouth. So this was what vomiting felt like. If ever there was a sign that she was now irrevocably human, this was it.
Stalker reached a hand into a hidden recess somewhere inside his cape and pulled out a white handkerchief.
"Here." He stretched out his hand, offering the tiny square of fabric to her.
"Thank you," said Amalthea. She smiled gratefully at her longtime friend.
He smiled back. "I didn't do too well with that, did I?" he asked, rather ruefully.
She considered him for one long moment before replying. "No," she said, as she shook her head. "No. I don't suppose you did. But you felt you had to do it. And you did it." She cast a swift glance in the direction of the now-closed door. "I don't like it. It seems so strange. So unnatural." She sighed. "And yet it's not some innocent creature who's being slaughtered for the consumption of human beings, just some lumps of meat that were never alive. I think-" She stood there, looking at him for the longest time. "Thank you."
And she put her arms around him and drew him close, resting her head upon his shoulder. Moments later, she felt his arms come up-tentatively, ever so tentatively-and hug her back.
Seconds later she drew back. She smiled, gratefully, at her friend, and then, ever so swiftly, leaned in towards him and kissed him on the cheek, before turning and walking away, leaving him standing there in the midst of all the equipment and strange machines, watching her go with his hand to the spot she'd kissed.
So. Maybe she was human, she thought as she walked. But she had friends, friends like Stalker, and Raistlin as well. They cared for her, even though Stalker might fumble like he just had and Raistlin would occasionally be impatient and acerbic. But they were her friends, and she knew that they cared. And maybe, just maybe, though she would grieve, even to the end of her life, for the beautiful creature she'd been, she could try, for their sakes, and the sake of all those people who lived because of her, to be, once and for all time, the person they needed her to be.
Human.
Thrawn was in the hanger bay, watching the fighters coming in. Odd machines-they looked almost like throwbacks to air-breathing gas turbine- powered atmospheric craft. They certainly seemed capable enough in deep space, though, and, to his practiced eye, the pilots seemed to maneuver their craft in to land with almost uncanny precision.
Well, now, he thought, mentally cracking his knuckles. This would be the fleet he was to command. His eyes scanned the sleek, metal bodies, taking in the gun-pods slung centerline on each fighter, lingering over the capacious missile bays, well-stocked with deadly ordnance. Missile craft, from the looks of it--much like the Sienar Missile Boat that had widely been considered, in his own universe to be the epitome of starfighter design. If the craft were indeed as capable as his preliminary inspection seemed to indicate, and if their ordnance was anything near the standard of that employed by the Imperial Navy, he wagered that with them under his command, he would cut a swathe through anything they were likely to encounter.
Then, he frowned. He would be able to cut a swathe through any enemy he was likely to encounter-that was, of course, if he and his.assistants would be able to train sufficient numbers of the people now residing in the fortress' holds to operate and use the damn things. True, these were desperate times, desperate enough for the measures Stalker proposed, but uplifting a pre-gunpowder civilization straight to the space age? He shook his head. It was a risky gamble.
The Chiss admiral looked round. Stalker had told him he'd be able to find his fighter commander here. Where was the man?
His gaze fell upon a slender, sandy haired man standing under the wing of a recently arrived spacecraft, speaking with the pilot. Thrawn's eyes narrowed. Were those corrective lenses that pilot was wearing? He certainly seemed an unlikely choice for one. Slim, long-haired, a mild expression on his face, he seemed more like a scholar than anything else. And yet.
There was something about the man that gave Thrawn pause. He'd seen the way the man moved. He had a smooth, predatory grace that belied his mild exterior and put Thrawn in mind of some of his Noghri bodyguards. So. Thrawn nodded. In all likelihood, the man was, in his own way, just as efficient a killer as the Noghri had been. He would have to watch this individual.
He turned his attention to the other man. If he wasn't mistaken, this would be the person he was looking for. The man was clad in a blue undress uniform, significantly different from what those REF personnel he'd met had worn. His tired face still bore the remnants of a boyish handsomeness, though the strains of a lifetime full of cares had stamped their mark upon it. He looked tired. On reflection, Thrawn didn't blame him. He'd been given a brief summation of the man's career by Stalker. The man had fought through hell and back out again in the service of his country. He'd dived through whole fleets, single-handedly pulled victory out of the jaws of defeat for entire fleets several times in his career. And he had been the man who, under orders from his government, had dropped a bomb that killed an entire planet. If any man had a right to look tired, with so many deaths on his soul, it would be him.
Thrawn's eyes flickered up to meet the other man's. The man was tired, yes. But he still had the eyes of a killer. And something in those eyes told Thrawn that, time and time again, for as long as was necessary, this man would fly once more into the jaws of hell. And he would win.
Seeing his approach, the blue-uniformed man turned and saluted. "Commodore Christopher Blair," he introduced himself. "Terran Confederation Navy. You must be Admiral Thrawn." To his credit, aside from a slight widening of his eyes, he did not display any reaction towards Thrawn's obvious inhumanity.
Thrawn returned the salute, then shook hands, suppressing a frown. Now that he had gotten a better look at the man, he felt sure he knew him from somewhere. The problem was, where?
Blair indicated the man standing next to him. "My colleague, Commodore Max Sterling, Robotech Expeditionary Force."
Thrawn inclined his head, extending his hand as he did so. "A pleasure to meet you, Commodore," he said.
Sterling took the outstretched hand, his smile almost deceptively mild. "Sir." His grip was firm, the pressure almost exactly identical to that exerted by Thrawn. "I believe the pleasure's all mine. We've heard quite a lot about you."
Thrawn cocked his head to one side. "Ah? And that would be.?" If Stalker had briefed them concerning everything he'd done.
"You've had a very.interesting career, sir." Sterling shrugged. "At least, that's what Stalker tells us." The look he bestowed upon Thrawn was chilling in its utter lack of intensity. There was just the same expression-that same inscrutable affability that, for the past few minutes, Thrawn had observed him display towards Blair. Not even the man's eyes betrayed a hint of any hostility, any veiled animus towards the Chiss admiral who, as he surely had to know, had tread a path of blood in his quest to bring peace to a troubled galaxy. Thrawn's eyes narrowed. If anything, this only served to confirm his initial observation. The commodore was no ordinary man. If anything, he put Thrawn in mind of a concept mentioned in the works of a certain Terran philosopher he'd come across, browsing through Stalker's library.
If ever there were a man who embodied the very tenets of the philosophy of Nietzsche, that man was Sterling.
Thrawn nodded. "Yes," he said, a faint smile upon his lips. "I believe I have."
"And what do you think of your latest assignment, Admiral?" asked Sterling as Thrawn led the two pilots to one of the briefing rooms just off the hanger deck.
Blair snorted. "I feel like a madman just for saying 'yes'. Training up a bunch of bowmen and knights to pilot starfighters? I get a headache just thinking about it."
Thrawn regarded him with a wry glance before palming open the door and stepping through. "Yes," he said. "It does seem quite an impossible task, does it not?" A large urn of coffee stood in the corner. Max Sterling went over to pour himself a cup.
"Coffee?" he asked the other two. Thrawn shook his head.
"I'll have a cup," said Blair.
Sterling brought the full cups of steaming liquid over. The other two men watched him as he navigated the cluttered floor, still strewn with various pieces of electronic equipment and power cables. Crossing to where Blair was seated, he placed the cup gently on the little folding table attached to the arm of Blair's chair.
Blair looked at it. The liquid within the cup was almost perfectly still, as if it had sat there upon the table for thousands upon thousands of years, instead of having been placed there only moments before, by a slim, blue-haired man with spectacles who yet laid claim to the title of one of the greatest fighter pilots in the multiverse. He blinked. An alien, a guy who moved like nothing he'd ever known-and him. A pilot. A pilot who had, it was true, become a legend in his own lifetime. But still, just an ordinary man. It was true. The two men with whom he was sitting, in a darkened room located on the periphery of a giant steel sphere somewhere in the outer dimensions-they intimidated him. One had, by all accounts he'd heard, an intellect that towered head and shoulders-and more-above that of any other tactician he'd ever known. The other moved like a wraith, his every movement as graceful as a tree swaying in the wind, as smooth as flowing water. And then there were the others.
Not for the first time, Commodore Christopher Blair, late of the Terran Confederation Navy, wondered what he was doing working with these people.
Thrawn looked at him. The blond pilot's unease was becoming increasingly clear to him. He too had seen Sterling set down the cup before Blair without causing so much as a ripple in the liquid's surface. While it did not seem that the blond man's unease would ever prevent him from carrying out his obligations-he had seen too much, done too many things for that ever to happen-yet Thrawn still felt a vague uneasiness. Blair was an ordinary man, walking amongst titans. And yet-and yet Stalker had seen fit to bring Blair into this fellowship of heroes, these champions of eternity. And Thrawn agreed with him. By any standard, Blair's performance through thirty years of continuous war against the Kilrathi, his own government, and the mysterious Nephilim had been nothing short of spectacular.
The only problem was, beside men who could fly unaided through outer space and destroy entire worlds with their bare hands or sheer force of will alone, beside an alien whose intelligence seemed nigh inhuman, beside a man-another fighter pilot, no less!-who moved with the fluid grace of the very gods and whose enigmatic smile concealed the gods knew what-beside them, what place did Commodore Christopher Blair have?
Thrawn bestowed a benignant smile of his own upon the other two men. "What do I think of our current mission?" he asked, repeating Sterling's question. The left corner of his mouth drooped down, leaving the other still elevated in a sardonic smile. "I find it.fascinating. I've had to carve out a victory with limited resources before. As, I am told, has Commodore Blair." He shrugged, a small twitch upwards of his shoulders. "Not anything on the scale of the operations we're currently contemplating, but still." The smile was back, and it was now the smile of a predator, sated from its last kill. "I believe it will be a challenge."
Blair had started when Thrawn mentioned his name. "You know-you know about everything I've done?"
Thrawn nodded. "A brief study of your career has proved to be.most interesting. I particularly found your actions during the Tiger's Claw's campaign against the Dreadnought Sivar and your part in the Border Worlds conflict extremely fascinating."
Blair chuckled mirthlessly. "The Border Worlds. Huh." His eyes were haunted as he looked up at the alien admiral. "After all those years.having fought so long, lost so many friends-" he swallowed, clearly in the grip of some strong emotion. "And the government I'd fought for turned out to be bloody corrupt!" This last word was a snarl, punctuated by a blow of his fist to the arm of his chair.
Thrawn looked at him, his face still. He knew what Blair was talking about. He'd been there himself, during those dark years just after he'd entered the service of Emperor Palpatine. It was only after he had ventured back into the Unknown Regions and discovered the horrors lurking in the outer dark beyond the Rim, that he had found new purpose.
This man, this Commodore Christopher Blair, was an officer, a good one, just as he was. The similarity would not be all that obvious, to an observer meeting both men for the first time, but it was there. They had seen worlds, fought wars across the breadth of galaxies. They had sworn oaths in service to their motherlands, to preserve all that was good and right about the cultures to which they had been born.
And then, they had betrayed those oaths, cut themselves off irrevocably from the powers they had served so faithfully and for so long. In Thrawn's case, he had found the preservation of his people more important than his oath. In Blair's case.
In Blair's case, the very government he'd sworn to protect had proved unworthy of his oath.
There was that same streak of ruthlessness in them, ruthlessness and a loyalty to an order higher even than governments, powers and principalities. It had brought Thrawn to exile from his people in the service or a power-mad tyrant. It had brought Blair nothing but a life filled with war and suffering, a life in which he outlived friends, lovers, saw bright young men and women throw their lives away for a cause. And here he was, sucked into yet another war to train and send forth yet another generation of young men and women into the meat-grinder.
"It never changes, does it?" Blair asked. "I think.I can see it in you. You're a killer. Just like I am and just like he is." He nodded in Sterling's direction.
The long-haired man raised an eyebrow. "It's not something I consider myself to be," he objected.
Blair's smile was utterly without mirth. "Really? Tell me: how many enemy pilots have you killed so far? A thousand? Two thousand? I have over five on my record-and my conscience."
"One thousand, eight-hundred and fifty-seven," replied Sterling. "Mostly Zentraedi battle pods and Invid. A few Tirolean Bioroids." His expression shifted, became, somehow, more intense. Where before, he had seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary, just a man who happened to be able to move with a fluidity that would have reduced most martial artists to tears, now there was something else. His eyes, glinting behind their corrective glasses, now became as those of a striking hawk, their focus almost inhuman. Max Sterling was a killer.
And the frightening part was, the man himself didn't seem to notice a thing about it.
Thrawn looked at him. Nothing much had changed. Sterling still wore that same, inoffensive expression he had always worn. Only the eyes had changed- only they seemed to give any hint of the Fury that lay beneath that mild exterior.
Blair's smile turned ironic. "And you claim not to be a killer," he said.
Sterling shrugged. "I'm just a guy. It was something I had to do."
Blair chuckled. "Isn't that the truth? It's always something we have to do." He trailed off, regarding the other pilot silently, as if contemplating the hidden depths that lay within the man's soul.
Then, he shook himself, as if remembering something. "Well," he said, under his breath, as if speaking half to himself. "Enough of that. Max? You were just telling me about those fascinating starfighters of yours. Care to tell the admiral what you've just told me?"
Sterling smiled. There was no hint of the hawk now, just a long-haired, slender young man with a friendly, open expression.
"Certainly."
She floated, her hair fanning out around her head in the void like a vivid burst of flame. This was deep space, the long dark silence between the stars. It called to her, its siren song echoing in the chambers of her heart.
The spheres called to her-called in ways not even her telepathy, honed as it had been in the days before her.unexpected transformation could have revealed to her. She was.aware. She knew, in the deepest intimacy, every one of the millions of voices that sang to her through the void, each one of them an infinitesimal speck of life cradled in the bosoms of the many great orbs that bore them in their rotations about the suns that gave them life. The voices filled her mind, each one expounding on a celestial theme in all its infinite complexity.
It was a balm to her soul. She would have immersed herself in the beauty of the celestial song, cast aside her anger and her pain and joined in the chorus of creation as it sang a paen to the transcendental joy of existence itself.
Her hand stole silently toward the hilt of the sword scabbarded at her side. A blade of legend, it was-an artifact so potent that its power rivaled that of the stars itself. It had been forged in the darkest days of her own home planet as a weapon of war, a talisman, granting its wielder the power to summon a wrathful god. Sharra was destruction personified, the very spirit of the raging forest fires that rampaged unchecked across the surface of the unhappy planet. For a thousand years, that spirit had reigned as, mad with power-lust, the lords of Darkover had developed weapons powered by the very forces of the mind itself, breeding the lethal gifts into their very offspring. The resulting carnage had left the planet desolate, its once proud kingdoms fractured into a hundred feuding realms.
The Sword of Sharra had been the most dangerous of all the weapons created in that time. Thus was her curse: to be bonded, mind and soul to the unholy thing, to live an eternity with the weight of the accursed weapon bearing down upon her soul.
It was too high a price to pay, she thought. In exchange for endless bliss.what? To unleash upon the universe an angry god? To allow the dark being lurking within the sword to take control of her helpless body as her mind floated, lost within an eternal fugue state as part of the celestial chorus? She could feel the power coursing through her veins, boosting her telepathic abilities to levels unheard of in all Darkover's history. She could control the minds of entire planets, now, cross impossible distances in the blink of an eye. The flames of Sharra leapt to life at her command. She could do anything. All she had to do was to keep the mind of a goddess at bay.
Damn them all, she thought. The two men-one muscled and clad in armor as black as night, the other with skin of living gold and eyes that looked upon the world through hourglasses-they had approached her, offering her a choice between a new life, and a bitter death raging against the forces now reshaping her homeworld. There had been a warning as well: a dire tale of a malevolent force warping the very fabric of reality itself for its own ends.
She had almost rejected them of course, summoning her own psionic abilities to strike down the impudent pair who had invaded her inner sanctum. The golden one had gestured-and her most potent attacks had simply vanished, as if they had never been.
He'd smiled then, mocking her. "There are more things in existence than even the Keeper of a Tower can imagine, Lady Leonie," he'd said. "Did you really imagine this pathetic planet was everything that mattered in this universe? Your Comyn Lords, hiding in their castles while their Terran cousins stride across the stars? This ball of rock and mud, against all the infinite multitudes of worlds?" She'd attempted to answer, to fling back an angry retort-only to discover she was unable to move so much as a single muscle. She'd stood, frozen in place seemingly at the will of the strange man before her. Desperately, she lashed out with her mind, a psychic blow that could, and had left lesser men mindless.
The golden man simply smiled, looking her straight in the eye as her attack passed straight through him as if he had never been there. "Come, now. Is that all you can do? Yours is a heavy responsibility, Leonie Hastur." Beside him, she saw the armored man wince. "Surely you are better equipped for the task than that." The robed man shrugged. "It matters not, I suppose. Soon the matter of your powers will become an academic question."
The man beside him frowned, and coughed. There was a brief, whispered conversation between the two. A brief snippet of the robed man's speech carried across the room to her ears. "Are you uncomfortable with this, my comrade? We will see, then. Are you willing to trust my judgment in this? Or do you still fear the machinations of the inscrutable mage? We shall see, shan't we?"
The armored man stared at his companion a while, then nodded his head. He said something to the golden one that Leonie couldn't quite make out. The golden man smiled. "Please. Do you ever think I wouldn't?" He turned back to Leonie, his arms held out before him, palms turned upwards as if waiting to receive something.
There was a shimmering in the air above the golden man's palms. Through the shimmering, almost as if conjured out of thin air, a long, thin object appeared, it's outline blurred and indistinct. Gradually, the object solidified, its weight pressing down upon the strange man's palms. As the last of the shimmering died away, the true form of the mysterious object lay revealed.
It was a sword, its crossguard and pommel encrusted with precious stones, rubies that burned with an inner light, the malevolent red glow casting deep, ominous shadows across the man's sharp features. Leonie fought to scream as she realized just exactly what it was that the golden- skinned man had brought into her presence.
Nothing. The man had advanced, the sword held out before him like a malign talisman. Nearer he came, as the ruby light from within the gems began to flicker and grow, casting weird, dancing shadows across the room's walls like flames from the bottommost pit of hell. Closer, and closer, and the last things that Leonie Hastur, Keeper of the Arilinn Tower on the telepath planet of Darkover saw and felt before her consciousness sank, blissfully into oblivion, were the searing pain as flames reached forth from within the gems to consume her, body, mind and soul, and the horrid image of a chained maiden, her hair wreathed in flames, breaking her bonds with a shout of exultation and soaring off into space, borne on wings of fire.
When she awoke, she had found herself lying upon a bed on board what she later learned was a giant sphere, its captain the darkly-armored man she had seen standing by as the golden-skinned man-Raistlin, she had learned his name was, had done.whatever it was that he had done to her.
She could feel it, burning deep within her. Power. Power sufficient to tear worlds apart from pole to pole, sufficient to snuff out the lives of countless millions with but the merest exercise of will. In a way, it was hers, now. The being whose consciousness had once rested within the sword now slumbered within her. The sword at her side was useless, now, she realized; just a sword, neither better nor worse than any other that had issued from the same smith's forge, back during the Ages of Chaos. For all intents and purposes, Leonie Hastur was the Sharra Matrix, most powerful of all the matrix weapons that had ever existed since Man first set foot upon the wind-blasted world that was Cottbus IV.
Already, the power had started to change her from within, shaping her body and mind to purposes unknown. She brought her hands up, looking at them for what seemed to her to be the millionth time since she'd come to.
Gone were the purpled veins, the joints swollen by arthritis, the paper-thin skin. In their place, supple, soft young flesh, the skin smooth as it had been the day she had rode with her entourage to join the telepaths at Arilinn Tower, there to be trained in the use of the mind- gifts that were her heritage.
The hands then went to her face, the fingers now probing the unaccustomed smoothness with a dexterity they had not possessed for many a year. It felt almost delightful to move with such freedom, unencumbered by the pains of age. And yet.she remembered the cost, and the thought of such a price weighed heavily upon her heart.
Accept.and become the avatar of a dark goddess. Leonie wanted to scream, to lash out. This had not been what she wanted, any of this. After the Forbidden Tower, and the battle, and the complete destruction of everything she had held dear, all the ideals she'd given up everything for- her life, her family, even.even her womanhood. She had neutered herself, that fateful day, tearing out her feminity even as Damon Ridenow-dear handsome Damon, to tempt even a Keeper to forsake her vows!-had ridden forth from the tower, exiled for daring to look at her as a man looks upon a woman.
When Damon and that thrice-damned Terran had, along with their brides, created that accursed Tower of their own and stood against her- defeated her in psychic combat, all she had wanted to do was die, to pass away from this world in which all her sacrifices, everything she'd lived her life for, had, ultimately, turned out to be for nought.
Instead, she'd been kidnapped by these unknown men, forced into unholy union with an artifact whose dread reputation still echoed hollowly down the ages, and drafted into a war she barely understood.
Not that she doubted that there was a war, after all-the evidence they'd presented had been too conclusive for that. Yet the sheer scope of it.her mind boggled. And there was doubt, too. If, as they truly claimed, these men were on the side of angels, why then had they done this to her?
Behind her, the very fabric of space itself parted as, opening a portal through which, almost as if taking a pleasant stroll through a Darkover mountain meadow, stepped Raistlin Majere, out into the void between the stars.
She whirled, the minute sub?theric disturbance of the portal's opening registering to her enhanced senses as the minutest whisper of a nonexistent wind upon her skin.
Her eyes widened. "You! What-"
Raistlin merely smiled. "Me. You were expecting somebody else? I am all there is, I'm afraid." He gestured round with an outstretched arm, in one grandiose gesture indicating the stars shining brightly all around, above and below them. "All this, and all that is in it, is yours. You have been exploring, I see."
"Exploring?" Her laugh was harsh. "Damn you, whatever you are. I never asked for this-for any of this. Did you think-" her voice broke, so strong was the emotion coursing through her-"did you think there was anywhere else I could be, after what you did?" She turned away. "I want nothing to do with you, Raistlin Majere. Or your friends. Go, now, before I unleash the dark goddess you have placed within me."
To her surprise, the hourglass-eyed man laughed. "A dark goddess, you say? Perhaps." His smile was thin enough to slice the electrons off an atom. "Yet you seem so ready to unleash her in all her power. What do you really want, Leonie Hastur? You claim this thing I have placed within you is evil-yet the power-it calls to you. Yours is the multiverse, and everything within it-so long as you are willing to take it." He raised an eyebrow. "Tempting, is it not?"
He watched her as she whirled, her crimson tresses tossing in the cosmic winds, her mouth open, ready to shout an angry denial. The Flames of Sharra flared, a brilliant crimson-orange, bright against the blackness of space. Fiery tongues danced, racing up and down her arms and gathering about her fists, forming twin spheres of pyrokinetic energy that blazed uncannily in the void.
"See?" he said, before she could utter a word. "You reject the power, yet it leaps to your command at every opportunity. Why struggle? Embrace it!" His own thin hand shot out, the metallic skin gleaming as it reflected the baleful light of Sharra's Flames. Eldritch energy crackled through the ether, forming an uncanny aura about his clenched fist, casting a cold, eerie light upon the strange man's face.
Leonie stared, horrified. "What-what are you?" The power she had just felt unleashed was nothing like any she had ever seen. There was a sense of almost infinite depth to the power, an almost tranquil omnipresence permeating all of space around them and beyond. And yet-such power, when unleashed.
She shuddered. As well to try to stem the tides, or a raging forest fire, with one's own bare hands. Such was the sheer potential energy that small display had revealed.
Raistlin smiled. "A Sorcerer Supreme," he replied. "I am a Master of the Mystic Arts, mage-protector of a universe entire. I have fought gods, destroyed worlds, faced down the hidden horrors that lurk beyond the rim of reality. I have seen things even you, Leonie Hastur, would run from screaming in fear. It was I who chose you, Leonie, to bear the burden which you now bear." The hourglass eyes bored, unblinkingly, into her own. "You know what it is we face, my lady. Times call for desperate measures, lest we all fall into ruin and destruction. Can you, who chose to stand watch at Arilinn Tower for all your life, despite all you knew you would be giving up-you, who kept your station despite the temptations and disappointments your life brought you-abandon those who would otherwise die to their fates? Can the sense of duty that brought you to do these things allow you to do this?"
Leonie laughed, a bitter sound empowered by years of self-denial squandered. "And see where it got me. My life-all I had worked for, overturned! By an upstart Terran, and the bride he stole from me! The girl was meant to take my place-to carry on the task of holding the Tower. He stole her, then rendered all my sacrifices-all I had given, all those generations of Keepers before me had given-all for nought. Tell me, sorcerer: after all that, do you still trust my sense of responsibility to all the world around me?" She raised her arms, the flames still playing over them. "When all I have left to look forward to is to be consumed by this dark creature inside of me?" She clenched her fists and turned away.
Raistlin watched her for a few moments. Then, just as he was about to speak.
"Yes, damn you!" Her voice was harsh, ragged with emotion. Her shoulders heaved, as if she were fighting to keep from weeping. "I'll do it!" She turned, and there were tears in her eyes. "I will join you in this war of yours, damn you. If what you say is true, there's not much else I can do, can I?" Her voice grew soft. "Even if all that awaits me is fiery death."
Raistlin nodded. "Very well." With the merest effort of will, he crossed the space between them, coming to a stop directly in front of her. With a gaunt finger, he reached beneath her chin, gently tipping her face back and forcing her to look into his eyes. She recoiled, in shock, the flames once more springing to life around her. The sorcerer made no move to follow.
"I will not dissimulate with you," he said, his face impassive. "You are right. The flames that I have awakened within you-they will consume you."
Leonie made no reply-her only response was a shrug, accompanied by a bitter twist of her lips. Silently, she turned her gaze away from the sorcerer, staring off into the infinite depths of space.
"And yet," continued the sorcerer, his head cocked to one side, as if recalling to memory some fact long forgotten, "do you remember, Leonie Hastur, what happened, that day, when in dragon form you attempted to burn the Tower formed by the renegade Damon Ridenow and his circle from the face of the Overworld-what happened then?"
Her head rose, nostrils flaring. How well indeed, did she remember what had happened next: as, fiery breath spurting, scouring the abomination before her from existence, she had been surprised as a great bird of flame soared, wings flaring, forth from within the depths of her telepathic inferno. She had known defeat then; known, even as her heart screamed and fought to deny the horrid fact, that she, the greatest of all telepaths upon the planet Darkover in her day, could not, for all she tried, destroy the four lovers who stood thus, ready to defy her.
A bird of flame. Surely-
Raistlin nodded. "The phoenix. Just so. Just as the flames consume you, thus will you be reborn." He smiled. "Did you think us so heartless, Lady Leonie, as to thus consign you once more to a thankless task? If anything, my colleagues among the Council would refuse further contact with me. You will be reborn, my lady, as something far and infinitely greater than even you, who kept the Tower at Arilinn could ever imagine."
"And what will I be, then?" she asked, her face pale.
Raistlin did not answer, then. He stood, silently, head cocked to one side, studying her as if she were a specimen in a jar. Finally, he spoke, as if in answer to her question.
"Yourself," he said.
Leonie laughed, and in that laugh, perhaps, there was less of bitterness or unhappiness to be found than there previously had been. "I will believe that, Raistlin Majere, when it happens," she cried. "In the meanwhile." She let the sentence trail off.
There was silence for a few moments. Finally, Leonie spoke again. "So, sorcerer. You sought me here. To what, may I ask, do I owe the honor?"
"I thought I might ask you to dinner, my lady."
She stared. "What?"
He smiled at her discomfiture. "Did you not hear? There is a dinner tonight-Stalker proposed it, as a measure to allow the members of our little.assemblage to come to know each other." He raised an eyebrow. "It is a queer lot we are, too. Personally, I would not go, but." He spread his hands. "One pays a price, I suppose, for working in a group. We must ever be tolerant of the foibles of others."
"It amazes me to say this, sorcerer, but you are one of the most arrogant men I have ever met."
He bowed. "I but aim to please. Come, my lady," he said, reopening the portal in space with a wave of his hand. "Perhaps you will do me the honor of accompanying me to this little gathering our host has planned?"
She strode past him, her head held at a haughty angle, flames trailing behind her. Smiling, he held the portal open, until she had passed through it, and followed her, closing it as he stepped from the void of space to the cavernous halls of Stalker's World-Sphere.
Behind him, as the tear in space mended itself, the flames marking the lady telepath's trail flared, and for one brief moment, formed the shape of a striking bird of flame, before dying down into the darkness.
Stalker strode down the corridor, rubbing his cheek as he did so. Damn it all, he thought, reviewing in his mind the memory of his last conversation with Amalthea. He could still feel her lips, brushing delicately across the spot that, even now, his fingers worked, nervously, at. It's all psychosomatic, man, he told himself. An unbidden I hope wormed its way free of his subconscious to join the others dancing merrily before his mind's eye. He sighed.
He turned a corner and came face to face with the very person he'd been thinking of. He stopped, dead.
"Uh, Amalthea. Hello," he said, by way of greeting. Well, that was clumsy.
The second thing that ran through his mind was, for what seemed like the thousandth time since he'd placed his cape about her naked shoulders that night in the darkened room on board the World Sphere, Damn, she's beautiful.
Her skin, as silk smooth as the soaring quantum winds coursing through the spaces between universes, almost glowing in the light from the overhead panels illuminating the bare passageway; her swan-like neck rising gracefully over the dress he'd procured for her, swirling slightly in the breeze produced by the World Sphere's ventilation system.
Dammit! Focus, man! It took nearly all his willpower to prevent himself from shaking his head hard, trying to clear it of the fog that seemed to have dropped down upon it like a heavy curtain the moment he'd caught sight of her.
"Stalker." She glided up to him, her face solemn. Silently, he allowed her to take his hand affectionately into her own.
He remembered the old times, back in the forest, when, weary after a long mission, he would repair there, to rest awhile among the shady groves and sun-lit clearings of her now-lost home, and, with his head pillowed against her flank, or hers cradled in his lap, they would speak of things far away, of wondrous sights they'd seen, and simply drink in the wondrous beauty of those woods. She had been his friend, his best friend-and now, she was a woman.
And, like it or not, he had a ominous feeling that he was falling head over heels in love with her.
Idly, he wondered if it was any consolation that almost the entire male population of the Sphere, and a goodly number of the females, had done the same thing. Probably not.
She was smiling at him now, the expression seeming to him like a ray of heavenly light, spearing through the darkness of the void itself. "Is it time?" she asked.
He had some difficulty figuring out exactly what it was the woman who had been the Last Unicorn was referring to, so overwhelmed was he by her presence. Gradually, it dawned on him.
"The dinner, yes," he said, almost stumbling over the words. "I'm on my way there myself. The others should be arriving quite soon."
He fell silent as they continued down the corridor, her arm through his. At length, he spoke, again, more as a way of breaking what, to him, seemed like a heavy, awkward silence.
"It was.good to see you smile, Amalthea," he ventured. He took a deep breath. Got to be careful here. "I only wish it could have been sooner. We've all been waiting so anxiously to see you smile."
She turned. "I know," she replied. "It's.strange. I never knew it could feel so-so good."
He raised an eyebrow. "Smiling?"
She nodded. "I thought I would never have cause to do so, not after.what happened. Not after what I lost."
Stalker nodded, sympathetically. "I wish there were more we could do, really. As it is.I just hope you'll be happy here with us-with your friends."
She sighed. "I hope so too," she said, as they stopped before the door that led to the dining chamber Stalker had set aside for that evening's gathering. He waved his hand across the sensor plate set into the wall just beside the door, and the portal irised open.
They stepped through. The chamber beyond was small, just large enough to contain the long oak table that had been placed there, covered with a white cloth and laid with places for twelve people. There was another person there, leaning against the wall next to a small bar that had been placed in the corner, a nearly-full tumbler of brandy in her hand. The woman pushed herself off the wall as they entered, raising her glass in salute as she did so.
Stalker nodded. "Ms. Newfield. I wasn't expecting you here so early."
The woman snorted. "Ya think? I got bored. Mighty fine place you got here. Big as a small moon, and nothing to do." She came towards the two, her gait a confident strut. She was clad in whipcord breeches and riding boots, her sun-bleached blonde hair spilling over a dark riding jacket worn over a white shirt. She looked curiously at Amalthea.
"Hey," she said, by way of greeting. "Aren't you going to introduce us, big man?" she asked.
"Ah. Forgive my lack of manners. May I present my companion, the Lady Amalthea, formerly the Last Unicorn, empath and healer for our little band of heroes. Amalthea, this Ms. Annabelle Lee Newfield, the Crackshot, our new resident marksperson and late member of the illustrious Aeon Society for Gentlemen."
Amalthea smiled, extending her hand to the other woman, who took it in an iron grip.
Stalker paused for a moment, looking between the two of them, then excused himself, going to the door, where he spoke a few words of greeting to Raistlin and Leonie Hastur, who had just entered side by side.
"Drink?" asked Annabelle, going to the bar and holding up a bottle of Stalker's finest brandy. It was already half-empty.
Amalthea considered the bottle a few moments, then nodded. Annabelle promptly grabbed a glass from the tray, filled it to the brim with amber fluid and thrust it into the surprised Amalthea's hand.
"Th-thank you," she said, taken aback by the other woman's boisterous demeanor. She took a cautious sip of the strong-smelling liquid, and immediately found herself forced to suppress a coughing fit.
Annabelle dissolved into raucous laughter. Amalthea could only stare, shocked, the alcohol causing an unpleasant heat to rise to her face.
"Oh, sorry," said Annabelle, recovering her composure. "Don't you have alcohol where you come from?" she continued, taking the glass from Amalthea's unresisting hand and draining it in one gulp.
"No, I-I don't," stammered Amalthea, at the same time wondering what 'alcohol' was.
The other woman regarded her appraisingly out of the corner of her eye. She was attractive, in a way, with laughing blue eyes set in a strong- featured face that had obviously seen many suns. On any other woman the effect would have been one of masculinity-on her, however, it seemed to fit. The overall effect was one of fluid energy, of deadly force contained in a manner that left it no less dangerous for all its feminity.
Finally, she spoke. "What'd the big man pick you up here for, anyway? You're pretty, I'll admit, but you've also got that Look about you. You've had a taste of the Life, haven't you?"
Amalthea stared back, uncomprehending. The Life, Annabelle, had said. It sounded almost mystical, a mystery laid open only to a chosen few. She looked at the other woman-really looked-and saw.
.A life of strife, of wide strides across the canvas of a world larger than life, of danger-filled expeditions to lost cities and lonely gun-battles aboard out-of control zeppelins. It was a life lived above and beyond the scenes and dreams of all the huddled masses, filled with danger, set apart. And yet-and yet above all that, there was joy, a sense of wonder at the beholding of such things, a delirious rhapsodical revel in the madness and the beauty of it all.
All this, Amalthea saw. And, for the first time, she realized what allure this life held; what it was that drove people like Stalker and the woman before her to risk their lives, over and over again, in nigh incomprehensible struggles against evil after evil. And, also for the first time, how irrevocably she'd set forth on such a life, the day her feet trod the lonesome path leading from her wood, as she went out into the wide world, searching for her lost race.
"I-is that what it is to you?" she asked. "This Life of yours?"
Annabelle looked at her sharply. The other woman's face softened as she saw the pain in Amalthea's eyes-or maybe it was the empathic surge that, across the room, caused Stalker, Leonie and Raistlin to look up in alarm.
"You poor kid. You look as if you got nothing out of it but a whole lot of pain. What happened?"
Amalthea pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. Stalker and Raistlin came over, concerned expressions on their faces, followed closely by Leonie.
"That surge," she said. "Was it.?"
Stalker nodded. He knelt down before her, taking her hands in his.
"Amalthea. What happened?" His voice was soft, soothing. She could feel his concern as he looked up into her face.
She shook her head. "I'm fine. Just.is that why you do it? To see the wonder-the beauty-of it all?"
He nodded.
"And is that why for all those years I found myself friendless among my own people-because I'd become different from them?"
He nodded, again, his face sad. "I'm sorry."
Leonie came forward and knelt beside Stalker. Amalthea felt, briefly, a faint sensation of something trailing through her mind. The red- headed woman's eyes focused, intently on Amalthea's face.
"So old a mind," she whispered, "yet so much like that of a child." She turned to Stalker. "Her laran is strange. So limited, and yet so powerful, in its own way. She has not had it long, has she?"
Stalker shook his head. "Only for the past few weeks." He looked back at Amalthea. "Would you like to tell them, or should I?"
Amalthea took a deep breath. "I'll tell," she said.
So it all came out: that strange and sad tale of a unicorn's first steps into a world far wider than her own dear woods; of how, for the first time, she had become a woman. She spoke of how she'd journeyed, with her people, to a new home, only to find herself, after her experiences, almost an alien among those innocent folk.
She stopped, then, trying to gather the courage to carry on. Stalker intervened, then, asking her if she wished him to carry on the narrative. She shook her head, then went on.
She spoke of how she'd met Stalker, how they'd become friends. And then, she spoke of that day, barely a few weeks past, its horror still fresh in her mind, when the Chaos Marines had come.
"So. That's her story," said a voice.
Stalker looked up. "Admiral Thrawn," he said. "And Admirals Rick and Lisa Hayes-Hunter. And Commodore Max and Colonel Miriya Sterling." He moved to shake their hands. "My apologies. Have you been waiting long?"
Rick Hunter, Admiral, ace pilot and commander of the Robotech Expeditionary Force smiled. "Ah, no, not really." He glanced around the room. "You're all rather.interesting people here," he commented.
Stalker smiled back. "That's why we're here in the first place, Admiral. We wouldn't be otherwise." Beyond the Admiral's shoulder, he saw Blair slip into the room, dressed in a Terran Confederation Navy pilot's dress uniform, and followed closely by Prince Lew. "Well, now. I see the last members of our little party have arrived. Let's take our seats, shall we, and I'll make the introductions."
He escorted the two couples to the table, where the others had already taken their places. He then moved to the head of the table, pausing only to whisper into Amalthea's ear.
"Might we meet, later? I think we need to talk."
She looked at him, then nodded.
"I'll wait for you in the monitor room, then." He smiled at her, then went to take his place.
Standing at the head of the table, he cleared his throat. "Ah, good evening, everybody. I've asked all of you here tonight so that we might get to know each other a little better-after all, we'll be spending the next few years working with each other." He looked around. "As you can see, we're rather a diverse group here-we have a mage, Raistlin Majere," and he raised his glass to the sorcerer before continuing, "a telepath, the Lady Leonie of Arilinn; we have military men and women, the Admirals Rick and Lisa Hayes Hunter, commanders of the Robotech Expeditionary Force, and Commodore Max and Colonel Miriya Sterling, their fighter commanders, as well as Admiral Thrawn, who'll be commanding the fleet that the REF will help us build, and Commodore Christopher Blair, who'll be commanding our fighter contingent. We have one of the best markspersons in the multiverse, Ms. Annabelle Lee Newfield. We have the prince who's going to lead his people from the pre-industrial age to the space age." He turned to the beautiful woman by his side. "And we have the Lady Amalthea, our empath, and healer.
"Like I've said," he continued, "we're going to be working together for some time to come. This is a war for the fate of all realities, here. We fight against a disease, against the very fabric of reality itself gone mad. And it is our lot, as what we are-adventurers, champions striding across greater realities than have been revealed to the common man-to combat it."
Stalker lifted his glass. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I propose a toast to this gathering of allies. May our association be ever successful."
Raistlin cleared his throat. "Hold. And what are we to call ourselves, while we are thus engaged? Are we to remain nameless?"
Stalker raised an eyebrow. "Is that really necessary?"
Raistlin smiled, thinly. "I suppose. After all, every alliance of heroes needs a name to call itself by. Would we be heroes otherwise?"
Stalker returned the smile. "Very well. I have said that we are champions, and it is for eternity's sake that we fight. Should we call ourselves that, then? The Champions of Eternity?"
The mage shrugged. "As appropriate a name as any. Do you all agree?"
There was a chorus of assents, of various degrees of enthusiasm, from the heroes gathered at the table.
Stalker laughed. "Very well, then." He raised his glass once more as the rest of the party rose to their feet. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you.the Champions of Eternity!"