stopped struggling to watch it. Wondrous silvery clouds lined with sunlight drifted past me in that wonderful emerald sky. It was a miracle. Peace flooded my tortured body. I was home, I thought. Home—home at last. How many millennia, how many long, tortured mutations, how many false worlds, how much mental torture, how many more memory deaths must we endure, before the end? It's foolish—all the struggle, the tears of the orphaned young, the cries of our heart-mates, lost to us, forever and ever, in the abyss, in alternate universes. How can we continue? How can we live with these awful, wonderful memories?
My skin crawled. It was suddenly warm and my heart was full of love. I was in a grove of strange trees with bark like lizard skin and spiky leaves, forming a softly swaying roof over us as we walked dreamily in fields of phosphorescent white flowers. Icy water rushed in the distance. Then it was deliciously cool but I was warm with love.
And I wanted to cry. Because She was everything I had ever wanted. And She was lost to me forever, a million light years in the past, a billion lost stars between us. Why did it have to be this way? We must be strong, they said. Strong, or we all die. I fought for Her. I lived for Her. I would never see Her again. I could still feel Her grasp, Her claws digging into the scales of my forearm. Will this agony never end? I will die of loneliness, under strange stars, in an alien galaxy.
Terrified, I tried to crawl out of that awful vision, but I was totally helpless. Pale green light suddenly flooded my eyes. Blinking, I gasped my way to consciousness. Above me, a white ceiling blazed with the rays of a long-dead star. I lay on my back. Then I was off again, into the mists. Snow Leopard stood over me, concerned. Then he turned away, relieved.
'He'll be fine,' Snow Leopard said. 'He's dead now. Three!' He reached out suddenly and grasped my shoulder. 'Don't forget the mission, Three! The mission! Alive or dead, it's the mission!' His face was pale and strained and his hot pink eyes were almost spitting sparks.
Two more figures approached through the mist. Priestess and Valkyrie, side by side, hand in hand, silent in their A-suits. I was in my A-suit too, the armor all burnt and twisted, lying under Uldo's stars on the death pyre. Merlin, Psycho, Dragon, Scrapper and Twister lay close beside me, their A-suits shot to pieces. My comrades were all around me, the dead and the living. Snow Leopard and Priestess and Valkyrie jointly held out the torch and the pyre burst into hot, green flames to send us on our way, and they chanted the death song.
'Immortals in blood
Brothers in arms
Soldiers of the Legion
Flying black standards
Beta Two Four
Delegates to the stars
All seasoned recruits
For Heaven's wars
Now recon death's cold road
Beta Three, Beta Four, Beta Five, Beta Eight,
Beta Twelve, Beta Thirteen
You're three effectives short
Remember your brothers in arms.
Missing in action,
We join you soon!'
We advanced in recon formation through the mists, fully armed, all shot up, our A-suits smoking and burning, a spectral army bleeding from fatal wounds, some of us missing arms and legs, but that was not going to stop us. Nothing was going to stop us! We were marching for God, for Justice, for our people, and we were bound for Hell. Satan was going to die, along with all his minions.
Legion A-suits up ahead, shining like molten mercury.
Three soldiers, armed with E model 1's. As we come closer, I recognized them—it was Coolhand, Warhound and Ironman.
Our own lost squad, our own lost troopers.
I paused before Coolhand. It was him all right, just the way I remembered him, tall and handsome, his narrow, finely chiseled face breaking into an easy grin. My blood brother, killed on Mongera.
'Good to see you, Thinker!' he said. I fell into his arms. I couldn't believe it, but I didn't want it to go away.
'Warhound! Ironman! My God!' I pulled away from Coolhand and embraced the others. Warhound, his rugged face split with a big grin. Ironman, all youth and innocence, his long hair hanging over one eye. They were Gods, clad in sunlight. 'Deadman! I love you guys! I never told you that!' The rest of the squad gathered around, ecstatic.
'All right, gang, we've got a mission!' Coolhand said. 'Listen up. Snow Leopard has run into a delay, so I'm in charge. We're going to take the Ship. This is how we're doing it.' He opened a tacmap print and we gathered around. But blood spilled on the map, splattering all over it.
'Thinker…do you mind?' My blood—it was mine.
'I'm sorry, Coolhand. Sorry.' I backed away. I was bleeding from the throat. 'Can somebody stop the bleeding?'
'That's a twelve,' Dragon said. 'Priestess's still on the other side. Just let it bleed, you'll be all right.'
And they were gone in a flash. I was in the Tomb of the Kings on Andrion 2. It was dark but there were torches, spitting eerie flames from the walls. A boy stood in a field of broken bones. He was naked to the waist and his hair fell to his shoulders. Skin of gold and dark liquid eyes. Lord, what a perfect child. The Delegate from the Past moved, a shadow, behind him. The hood fell from her head and it was Moontouch, the Keeper of the Dead, my lost dream. She was a fallen angel with satin skin and long black silken hair. She blinked and I was hers, again and forever.
She raised a crown, a dark iron crown, over the boy's head.
'In the name of the Book,' she said, 'May the Dead bless you.' She set the crown gently over the head of that lovely boy. He stared straight ahead, bravely. I knew he would grow into a courageous warrior; I knew he would carve his name into history with his sword.
Movement, all around. It was the Dead, all the dead Kings and Queens of Southmark. Mouldy skeletons walking stiffly, still clad in ancient armor, clutching their weapons, black swords and rusty axes and broken spears and dusty shields. They clashed their weapons against their shields, a chilling rhythm, all together, deafening, in the Tomb of the Kings. An army of dead, an army of ghosts, banging out their war song. And they were chanting, above the clashing of the weapons.
