Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
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Awakening to the sensation of talons being dragged along the inside of your skull is not a pleasant
experience. It is made less so when you realize it heralds the impending arrival of a Dark Lord. Most
people live in the unconscious twilight of ignorance concerning the Dark Lords. Those who do not, those
who have experienced the rude sort of awakening I and my companions had, normally ran screaming
from the sources of their discomfort.
My two companions and 1 waited for the Dark Lord in a dark and cold dimension that smelled of a
charnel house. The thick fog took on a pinkish hue when it came close to us, and by that time we could
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taste
the coppery favor of blood it carried. Things flittered through the black skydome above us, sen
ding
curling s
wirls down through the mist. The crack-snap of their wings marked their approach and depar
ture,
but they never drew close enough to attack us.
I turned to the man standing next to me. In the dimensions outside Earth he appeared as nothing more
than the silhouette of a slender man with a goatee. "Was this meeting place his choice or yours?"
Crowley shrugged and glanced at the open bolt of
the Mac-10 held in his right hand. A gold ring glinted on the fourth finger of that hand, providing the
only color in his outline. "Mine. It is tantalizingly close to Pygmalion's home dimension and has
certain properties that should annoy Fiddleback."
1 raised an eyebrow. "But he is our ally now."
My second companion shook his head vehemently. "You, of all people, Coyote, should know that the
Dark Lords ally at their own whim, for their own purposes. Think to trust him, and you paint a target
on yourself."
I nodded to the Yidam and well understood the hint of bitterness in his voice. His whole life and
being had been changed by the Dark Lords. (Jnlike Crowley and me, the Yidam had started life on
another planet. He had come to Earth with his wife on the crew of a what most people would call a
C1FO. When Fiddleback managed to exert power over the crew, the Yidam lost his wife, placed his
daughter in stasis, then took up refuge in a Tibetan monastery where he was shielded from
Fiddleback's influence.
At one time, I have been told, the Yidam had been known by the name Vikram and had looked
remarkably human. Three decades in the monastery had changed him. The same prayers and chants
that protected him from Fiddleback psychomorphed him into the Yidam, a four-armed Buddhist
guardian spirit, standing over 10 feet tall, with thick tusks jutting up from his lower jaw and four
arms stacked one pair above the other. Even his daughter barely recognized him when they met
again.
"I have no intention of trusting Fiddleback, but we have all agreed we need his power to defeat
Pygmalion." Pygmalion was another Dark Lord, a former protege of Fiddleback's, who had managed
to take away with him the heir to the throne of Japan, Ryuhito. The current
emperor, Ryuhito's grandfather, feared the warping and use the power inherent in his family's god-blood.
"The only way to defeat a Dark Lord is to set another Dark Lord upon him."
Crowley's face tightened, suggesting a shadow-hidden smile. Try as 1 might, I could sense no emotions
from him, and I knewthat he kept his emotions on short enough a leash that I could not even trust the
smile. "You have to remember, Coyote, that once we use Fiddleback to vanquish Pygmalion, we will
have Fiddleback to contend with again."
I nodded as a shiver went down my spine. In the back of my head 1 heard a buzzing, like that of a million flies covering a corpse. When I realized I was hearing the sound as if my consciousness were trapped
within the dead body, 1 knew the Dark Lord was playing games with me. On my left, the Yidam winced,
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and I kne
w he had been similarly bedeviled by Fiddleback.
As if a yellow-green submarine surfacing silently in a black ocean, the Dark Lord known as Fiddleback
pushed into the dimension Crowley had found. Fiddle-back's eight arms and legs moved slowly, as if the
fabric of this reality were an invisible webbing trapping him. His ellipsoid head reared back and his
mandibles worked as if trying to slice through to reach us.
1 sensed his frustration rising, then it spiked sharply and exploded outward with palpable force. It
shuddered through me and knocked me down, then the hot wind drawn after it burned the fog away. A
tear flood gushed from my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I slowly stood and wiped my face dry on my
sleeve.
The Yidam had been similarly affected by Fiddle-back's rage, but Crowley had withstood it somehow.
Again I got nothing from him, though his relaxed posture suggested smug satisfaction. He looked up at
the huge creature towering above all of us, then nodded once. "I don't think we need formal
introductions."
«/Yo,
it iz not nezezzary.*
The familiar voice I had heard in my head too many times before resolved itself out of the fly-buzzing.
«Theze two are creaturez of my creation.»
«You arrogate yourself,
monster,* the Yidam hotly shot back at Fiddleback.
Crowley held up his left hand. "Mind speech is not necessary. This proto-dimension and its sister are
sound
permeable. The barrier between us prevents any impulsive action from taking place."
1 frowned. "What do you mean?"
Crowley leveled the Mac-10 at Fiddleback and stroked the trigger. 1 heard a trio of explosions and saw
cartridges arc out of the gun in the glare of the muzzle-flash. The bullets themselves flew out about 20
meters, then stopped in mid-air. They did not flatten or ricochet away, but just stopped as if they had
burrowed into an invisible medium that slowed and trapped them.
"In addition to sound, these dimensions allow the passage of sentient creatures, within limitations." He inclined his head toward Fiddleback. "He is limited."
"Only in this plaze, man-thing." The Dark Lord's head labored to tilt back down, then all eight of its eyes focused on Crowley. "You have chozen well and cautiouzly. I rezpect thiz, and will call you by Crowley inztead of your true name az your reward."
"True name?"
Crowley turned toward me, and his silhouette shrugged. "He likes to think he knows everything." The shadow man looked back at the Dark Lord. "1 would say you know me as well as you knew Pygmalion,
Fiddleback."
Anger rose in the Dark Lord and radiated off him like heat from Arizona desert. "It iz Pygmalion we are to deztroy. Remember thiz, for our failure will be the death of your preziouz world." His anger cooled.