at everything that moved. Valentine could have distinguished between the two forces, but couldn't be bothered. He was having too much fun. His mind moved across the city, carried by the war machines, while his body lay safely cocooned in Tower Wolfe. He looked upon the death and destruction he was causing through a thousand sensors, and found it to be good.
The espers massed themselves before the oncoming machines, and prayed for a miracle. They got one. The Mater Mundi, Our Mother of All Souls, once again manifested through the entire esper force, burning brightly in every man and woman. For a moment they shone like gods, lighting the streets around them, and then their minds came together in a single expression of will, and an unstoppable psistorm raged through the streets, tearing the war machines apart and scattering the pieces. Metal shrapnel rained down on the retreating Imperial forces, until they, too, were swept away by the advancing psistorm. Every esper in the city roared with triumph, and the Parade of the Endless shook with the sound of it.
In his fortified retreat in Tower Wolfe, Valentine was thrown rudely from his war machines, and sat trembling and panting in his control center. One by one, the systems around him were shutting down, wrecked beyond repair. Valentine himself was dazed and disoriented, but lucky to be alive, and he knew it. The esper attack had followed him home and would have destroyed anything less than his chemically augmented and expanded mind. He could still feel the fringes of the esper contruct searching for him, as yet unable to get a grip on his slippery, evasive mind. He would have to leave Tower Wolfe and seek sanctuary elsewhere. But concentrate as he might, he couldn't think of anywhere else that would welcome him. Even Lionstone wouldn't want him after he'd failed to bring her victory with his war machines. Valentine Wolfe sat alone in the heart of his Family Tower and wondered what to do next.
The maintenance tunnels for the Palace's underground train systems had been sealed off and abandoned centuries ago, and the wait hadn't improved them. They had that particular darkness unique to the deep underground, an absolute blackness unreachable by any glint of surface light. They were cold as arctic ice, and the air was thick and musty. Even the smallest noise seemed to echo on forever, as though the tunnels were grateful for any sound after so many years of silence. And through the dark, claustrophobic passageways came Owen and Hazel and Giles, stumbling along the uneven floor and keeping their heads down to avoid banging them on the low ceiling. The cold barely touched them, thanks to the Maze, but even their incredible eyesight was useless in such utter darkness. Owen and Giles both carried lamps, their stark white light gleaming unpleasantly on the curving tunnel walls. Hazel had the map Owen had drawn out of computer records almost as old as the tunnels themselves. The passages interlinked with each other in an endless maze, and only one carefully traced route would get the rebels where they were going in time for it to do any good.
The pallid light on the pockmarked, cable-strewn walls looked increasingly disturbing, almost organic. Hazel muttered something about moving through the bowels of the earth, but no one laughed. They didn't feel much like speaking, lost in their own thoughts. After all the time and blood they'd given to the struggle, they were finally heading toward a confrontation that could mean the end of Lionstone's rule and the way things were. Owen tried to visualize the kind of Empire he might be responsible for creating and wasn't surprised to find he couldn't. As an historian he'd studied any number of ancient societies, including some that were officially banned from the records these days, based on all kinds of politics and beliefs, but all he'd ever known personally was the Empire of the Families and the Iron Throne. Random and Hazel had taken it in turns to explain their differing views of a democracy-based Empire, but much as he wanted to believe in them, they just sounded like chaos to him. And he was damned if he could see how he'd fit into either of their futures. But then, he'd never fitted in Lionstone's Empire, either. He smiled briefly, as it occurred to him that the chances of his living to see any of these futures were remote anyway, which made his worries somewhat irrelevant. Let him survive this mission, and he'd worry about such things then.
He still wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do when he finally forced his way into the Imperial Court and faced his Empress in the Iron Throne. All his life he'd been raised to revere and honor the Throne, irrespective of whoever occupied it, sworn to serve it all his life and to his death, if necessary. The Iron Throne was the source of all duty and honor and other things that could not easily be put into words. Overturning the Throne was like overturning God. Owen Deathstalker was an aristocrat, even if he had been outlawed, and he supposed in some ways he always would be. But he'd seen too much of the dark side of Empire, of the suffering and horrors on which his society of wealth and privilege was based, and he couldn't just look away and pretend he'd never seen it. Duty and honor and sheer humanity demanded he put a stop to it.
So he became a leader of the rebellion, a hero and an inspiration to others, and his life had been given over to avenging others whose lives had been broken and discarded on an Empress's whim. He was fighting now for all the poor and downtrodden, the espers and the clones and the other unpeople, for everyone whose lives had been ruined by an Empress who was supposed to protect them. And if sometimes he felt like an impostor, or unworthy to be part of the struggle, he comforted himself with the thought that no one else could do what he was doing. The Madness Maze had made him more than human, so he preserved his humanity by wielding his powers in the service of Humanity.
And all because Lionstone had outlawed him and taken away his life of comforts and everything he ever cared for. He tried to tell himself it wasn't just revenge, that his fate gave him an insight into how so many other people had felt when the Empress ruined their lives, but he was basically too honest to lie well, even to himself. He wanted to make her suffer as he had, by taking away what she valued most.
But in the end none of that mattered. None of those reasons had brought him here, stumbling along in the darkness under the earth to topple an Empire. He was fighting for a child who'd lain crying helplessly in the blood- soaked snows of a Mistport back alley after he'd cut her down without thinking. She was a Blood addict, a street ganger, and she'd tried to kill him, but none of that mattered. He'd been forced into a position where he'd had no choice but to cripple and then kill her, and that didn't matter either. What mattered was that no one should have had to live like her, or die like her. Just a poor lost soul in the Hell Lionstone made. Her cries haunted him, and her blood would always be on his hands. He would overturn an Empire for her, throw down a whole way of life and everything he ever believed in, and he knew even then it wouldn't be enough to satisfy his guilt.
The tunnel they were following finally reached an end in a sealed hatchway. Owen and Giles put their shoulders and their Maze-given strength to it, and the heavy steel plate wrenched open on squealing hinges. Light spilled into the tunnel, so bright they all had to look away for a moment, till their eyes adjusted. Owen turned off his lamp, leaned out of the opening, and took a cautious look around, then signaled the others it was all clear. They took it in turns to jump lightly down from the tunnel opening to the station platform below.
The station was a massive, wide-open cavern, all gleaming tiles and overhead lights, with a single tube train standing at the spotlessly clean platform. The long vehicle was large enough to make them feel like children in its presence, all gleaming steel polished within an inch of its life. There were no windows, but a sliding door stood invitingly open. The platform was deserted, no guards anywhere, though security cameras watched openly from above. Hazel looked up at the high-arching ceiling, then at the richly decorated walls, and finally at the luxurious interior of the train, and tried hard not to seem impressed.
'Nice,' she said, 'in an overbearing sort of way.'
'That's the aristocracy for you,' said Owen. 'They don't like to settle for anything less than perfection. Even if the surroundings aren't the first thing on your mind. Normally, if you're using one of these trains, you're too busy worrying about what nasty surprises Lionstone is going to hit you with once you get to Court. Sometimes the Court can be more dangerous than Lionstone is, which takes some doing. God knows what it looks like now, given her present mood. Still, no point in hanging about. Come, my lady Hazel, your carriage awaits.'
'I am nobody's Lady,' said Hazel, stepping warily through the open door into the train's carriage.
'That's for sure,' Owen said gallantly.
Once inside, Giles sat down on the nearest seat and put his feet up. Hazel headed straight for the built-in bar, and Owen paid careful attention to the code panel set beside the door. The correct codes announced who you were, how many were in your party, and your level in Society. Without the right codes, the train wouldn't go anywhere. A really wrong code would activate the security systems, and the gas jets fitted in the carriage, and the only place you'd go after that would be the morgue. Oz claimed to have codes that would not only get them to the next station in perfect safety, but would also override the security systems, so that the gas jets couldn't be activated from the outside. Owen wasn't quite as convinced of that as he had been.
'Trust me,' Oz said calmly in Owen's ear. 'Your father's research was very thorough. The codes are correct. Just punch in the numbers as I give them to you.'
Owen growled something indistinct under his breath, and did as he was told. The last number went in, and
