Deathstalker

She broke off as the elf took a step forward and then stopped herself. Stevie Blue looked at her coldly. 'I could kill you now, Lionstone. Any of us could. We want your death so badly we can taste it. We dream about it at night and wake to plan new ways of taking it. One day we'll take your precious Empire apart stone by stone till there's nowhere left for you to hide, and then we'll come for you. But if we were to kill you now, while you're weak and helpless, you'd just be replaced by another from your corrupt line, and the new Emperor would order massive reprisals among the esper community. Thousands would die, and thousands more would suffer. But we didn't want to leave without giving you some indication of our true feelings for you. So we brought you a little present.'

She reached back and a large cream pie was placed in her hand. Stevie Blue grinned at Lionstone's shocked expression, and then aimed and threw the pie with one easy motion. It hit Lionstone squarely in the face, and she fell back a step, clawing at the mess on her face.

Stevie laughed. 'You'd be justified in calling for reprisals over an assassination attempt, but over a pie in the face? You'd just look extremely petty. Not to mention weak. Goodbye, Lionstone. It's been a pleasure.'

Lionstone glared past the thick swirls of cream and pointed a quivering finger at the elves. 'Kill them! Kill them all!'

The maids sprang to obey. They surged forward, steel claws shooting out from under their fingernails, and the elves went to meet them, manifesting their abilities. Stevie Blue wrapped herself in fire, living flames of pure heat, but the maids jumped her anyway. They were beyond such weaknesses as pain or fear. Stevie disappeared beneath the clawing figures, and the other elves raced to help her. The maids split up to greet them. They fell upon the first two espers and tore them apart with their unnatural strength. Blood flew on the air as the elves screamed and died. One esper gestured desperately, and the maids stopped suddenly as though they'd slammed into an invisible wall. And then they stumbled forward again as the wall collapsed. Stevie Blue's flames flickered and went out. Lionstone laughed and sat upon her throne again.

'You didn't really think I'd trust my safety to just the one esp-blocker, did you?'

She had to shout the last part over rising screams as the maids moved among the desperate elves. Disrupters fired, but the maids moved too quickly to be hit. Then they were among the elves, and it was too dangerous to use the guns anymore. The maids leapt among the espers like wolves in the fold, tearing at defenseless flesh with their clawed hands and stuffing the bloody meat into their mouths. They were hungry.

One esper stuck his gun in a maid's mouth and fired it. The maid's head exploded, spraying bloody gobbets everywhere. Another maid appeared behind the esper and wrapped her arms around him in a bearhug. The esper's ribs collapsed and drove inward, piercing his heart and lungs. The remaining elves tried to run, but the maids were everywhere. The elves fell, one by one, until finally only one man remained free. He ran toward the throne and tried to fire his disrupter, but the energy crystal was still recharging. He threw the useless gun aside and drew his sword. A maid jumped him and pulled him down into the water. She held him under and watched impersonally as he drowned. He kicked and struggled, and then his sword thrust up out of the water and slammed into the maid's belly. The force of the blow threw her back, and the esper burst up out of the water, coughing and choking. He fixed his gaze on Lionstone again and hefted his sword. He moved forward, and the maid jumped him from behind. She concentrated in the way she'd been taught, and the shrapnel bomb set inside her body exploded. Both she and the elf were torn apart by the blast, and blood and shrapnel rained down for long moments.

Quiet fell slowly across the court, the only sound that of the four surviving maids-in-waiting feeding on the bodies of the fallen elves. Lionstone called to them and they came, clustering around her throne with bloody hands and mouths, like hounds called away from the kill. The Empress looked down from her throne at Stevie Blue, crouching torn and bloodied in the water at the base of the throne. She'd managed to draw her sword, but her hand was trembling violently from the shock and pain of her wounds. She stumbled forward, forcing herself on, her bloody mouth set and determined. Dram stepped in behind her and ran her through with his sword.

Stevie Blue fell to her knees. She whimpered, and blood ran from her mouth. Dram pulled his sword out and she shook once, as though at a sudden chill. Lionstone stepped down from her throne to kneel before her. She had an ornate silver dagger in her hand. She leaned forward till her face was right before the esper's.

'Have you nothing left to say to me, elf? About how weak I am, or how clever you were? No last declaration for the cause?'

Stevie shuddered again. Blood poured down her chin. When she spoke, only the Empress could hear her.

'I'll be back. There are lots like me. One of us will get you. Burn in hell, bitch.'

Lionstone slid the dagger delicately into Stevie's heart and breathed the esper's dying exhalation into her own mouth, savoring it like a connoisseur. She pulled out the dagger, put her fingertips against the esper's breast and pushed. Stevie Blue fell back into the dark water and lay still. Lionstone straightened up, made the dagger disappear up her sleeve again, and allowed Dram to help her up onto the throne again.

'Elves never talk,' Dram said casually. 'They program their minds to self-destruct, rather than give up any secrets. If anything, you gave her an easy death.'

'You always want to spoil my fun, Dram. She died in despair. That will do for me. For the moment, I'm more interested in how that many elves got past your security defenses.'

'A good question,' said Dram. 'And one which I will be putting to my staff very forcefully once this audience is over. I can only assume I have a traitor somewhere in my organization.'

'I thought that was supposed to be impossible.'

'So did I. If there is a traitor, I'll find him.'

'I hope so, Dram,' said the Empress. 'Because if I can't trust you to protect me, what use are you?'

Dram smiled and carefully dipped a finger into the traces of cream still on her face. He tasted it thoughtfully.

'Brandy buttersauce. My favorite. If nothing else, the elves do have excellent taste.'

'Of course,' said Lionstone, 'just ask my maids.'

CHAPTER FOUR

Rising to the experience

The city had another name once, but no one remembers it now. For the past three hundred years it has been known throughout the Empire as the Parade of the Endless, home of the Arena and the Games. It's not a large city, by Golgotha standards, but it grows a little every year as new citizens are drawn to it like flies to rotting meat. There are gambling houses and pleasure domes, reality shunts and psi jaunts, wonders and marvels and spectacles beyond counting, but no one comes to the Parade of the Endless for those. They are the appetizers, the side dishes, something to clear the palate and sharpen the senses before moving on to something stronger.

In the center of the city, deep in its dark and bloody heart, lies the Arena: a wide open space of carefully raked sands surrounded by tiers of banked seating. It is kept safe and separate from the rest of the city by a series of force screens, only ever lowered in sequence. It's hard to get into the Arena. It's even harder to get out. Those that live there never leave. They have their own places in the cells and chambers and twisting passageways deep beneath the Arena. The gladiators live in relative luxury, honing their fighting skills and dreaming of fame and glory. Trainers and service staff live in the plainer chambers, their lives dedicated to the smooth running of the Games. Prisoners await their fate in the darkness of their cells on the lowest level, knowing they will never see light again till they are pushed stumbling out onto the bloody sands of the Arena. There are always prisoners: men, clones, espers and aliens. Fodder for the never-ending hunger of the crowds.

People come from all over the Empire to see blood and suffering in the Arena, to see life and death played out by the ancient rules. Billions more watch it all on their holoscreens every night, but for the true fans, the connoisseurs, seeing is not enough. They need to be there, in person, to see with their own eyes, drink in the atmosphere, and smell the bloodlust on the air as the crowd cheers their favorites, boos the incompetent, and bays for another death. The crowd always has its favorites, but as a rule they don't last long. That's why it's called the Parade of the Endless; heroes come and go, but the Games go on forever.

The city is also unique in being the only city on Golgotha now owned or dominated by a single Clan. The