Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (14 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
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The Dark
Lord idly reached out with a forelimb and ran his fingertips over the circle of boulders that
marked the
dead gateway in the proto-dimension where he laired. It was the only one he had ever f
ound
that was suitably large enough to move him. If things had gone as he had planned, the emperor's device
would have created a link between this gateway and the one through which his troops would be sent.
Once that opening to Earth had been made, Fiddleback planned to use it to slip into Earth and gather yet
more power to himself.
When Pygmalion intervened and stole Ryuhito away, Fiddleback merely shifted his plan slightly. He
enlisted Coyote to help him build the new dimensional transportation device to gain entry into
Pygmalion's little reserve. Once created, the device could then be used to send Fiddleback to Earth. His
trip would be delayed slightly, but the opportunity to destroy his old apprentice was worth it.
With Crowley and Coyote both being wary, the alternate use he planned for the device would be
discovered. A poll of the minds within him turned up a 92% probability that neither human would figure
out Fiddleback's true motivation before the device's use. The Dark Lord did not take heart in that figure, however, for he knew how often Jaeger had already beaten substantial odds.
He had to assume that Coyote/Jaeger would turn on him, and that meant his pet would have to be destroyed.
The Dark Lord reached out into the void as a million plans flashed through his minds. Cadre after cadre of minds sorted them, casting aside the absurd and inelegant. He keyed the plans to what flaw in Jaeger they preyed upon and eliminated those that covered anything except Coyote's self-confidence.
Fiddleback has engineered Coyote/Jaeger/Caine's upbringing, so he naturally assumed he would be successful and victorious in any undertaking. He knew he was good,
very
good, and he instantly
knew
he would not lose.
This assumption of superiority came with a knowledge that he could find the solution to a situation, given a moment to think or plan. The only thing that cut into his ability in this area was a surprise.
The Dark Lord felt something brush the flesh on tri-fingered hands. In his left palm he held the eviscerated corpse of Arrigo El-Leichter. Its belly had been torn open, and its entrails spilled out to dangle like pink-brown drool-ribbons. The abdominal wound went clean through the body, and even El-Leichter's spine had
been severed.
In the other hand Fiddleback held the body of the man who had so viciously assaulted El-Leichter. A small man to begin with, Colonel Nagashita looked yet smaller because of the way his ribcage had been collapsed in on itself. Still, even in death, the warrior retained his grip on the katana that had killed El-Leichter.
The Dark Lord pressed his foremost two hands together. Green energy pulsed along his arms and in to cocoon his flesh around the corpses. His fingers drew back, then pushed gently down with the motion of a baker
kneading dough. Fiddleback paused for a second, then refocused his efforts while incorporating some of what Vetha had learned of human psychology.
He opened his hands again and left his new creation just floating in the void. Possessed of the mass of
both men, the new creature stood no taller than Colonel Nagashita, yet had twice his width and limb girth.
The black togs he had been wearing had shredded themselves in the transformation, allowing bulky
muscles to peek out through the rents.
The increased muscle mass did not account for the vast majority of the change. In admiration for Colonel
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Nagashr
ta's singlemindedness, Fiddleback allowed him to retain most of his identity. Arrigo El-Lei
chter,
in contr
ast, had been punished for his failure. His limbs had been melded together into a heavil
y muscled
whiplike structure joined to Nagashita's body where pelvis fused into spine. El-Leichter's mouthless face appeared at the blunt end of the fleshy scorpion's tail, and his horror flashed neon from his blue eyes. El-Leichter's blond hair formed a mane that ringed the tail at its base and tapered back along its curved
length.
Where El-Leichter's nose should have been, the katana blade jutted out from the face. The blade's gentle
curve completed the arc described by the tail. The creature let the tail relax, then contracted all the
muscles, driving the katana forward in a silvery blur. The blue eyes above it focused just beyond the end and controlled enough of the tail's musculature to make final adjustments so an attack would hit on target.
Fiddleback studied what he had wrought, and, by the revulsion of the minds within him, he knew it was
good.
The Dark Lprd again let pleasure pass through himself. He had created Jaeger to rid him of Pygmalion.
He had created this thing, this sasorihito, to rid him of Jaeger. After it had done its job, he knew, any resistance he faced would be insignificant, and final victory would be his alone.
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Supported by the power of his mind, Ryuhito hovered above the circular arena. Clothed only in the
radiance of the sun, he acknowledge the deep bow of the creature in the center of the circle with the
merest incline of his head. Ryuhito felt the creature's pleasure at having been noticed, but sensed in it the dread that came with the memory of how it was rewarded for its previous victory.
The Japanese emperor's grandson surveyed the arena. The outermost circle had 32 bodies lying there, in
pieces or whole, with the black sand sucking down the fluids leaking from their broken bodies. Ten
meters closer to the center, 16 more bodies lay twisted and twitching because of their recent deaths.
Eight, four and two bodies decorated the innermost rings, until the victor stood above his lone opponent's carcass.
Ryuhito looked at the champion again. It stood roughly two meters tall and came from the augmented
humanoid class of creatures he had created. While it had an internal skeleton, he had also given it a
segmented exoskeleton or chitinous armor that did not hinder movement. Over the forearm, for example,
the bracer consisted of a heavy contoured band around the wrist and at the elbow, then had six solid rods running the length of the forearm to
connect them.
His earlier experiment with solid armor had left his warrior too slow. The hornlike material proved
resilient enough to stop the attacks of most other creatures. More importantly, though, it worked
wonderfully to provide spikes at elbow, knee, shoulder and knuckles that added to the warrior's
destructive capability. While the necessary gaps at the joints did created a weakness, the speed and agility of the creature, as the combat test has shown, made it very deadly.
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As he s
tudied his warrior and analyzed the results of its testing, he mentally compared it to the warri
or
Pygmalio
n had created and left behind in Japan. Mickey had been more cosmetically perfect and pl
easing
to look at, while Ryuhito's creature really was the stuff of nightmares. Ryuhito acknowledged a need to
frighten enemies, which is why he had equipped his warrior with horns and ivory fangs and glowing red
eyes. He realized that Pygmalion labored to create perfection in both utilitarian and artistic aspects of his work. Ryuhito, on the other hand, merely wished to create subjects that would do what he wanted, when
he wanted, without question and all for his glory.
Focusing his mind, Ryuhito created a blade thattook on the appearance of being forged sunlight. With a
last nod to his creation, he drove the blade into its chest, then let the shaft spring open like an umbrella.
The laserlike ribs sliced the creature into 64 pieces and scattered them to the starting positions at the outer edges of the circle.
Ryuhito tried to let his anticipation of joyous creation erase the agony of the creature he had destroyed.
Though basking in the glow of the power Pygmalion shared with him, the emperor's grandson could not
help but feel the pain and sense of betrayal that radiated out from his creation. Every piece of it throbbed with that hurt, and Ryuhito winced as its razor-edge caressed his conscience.
He tried to shunt it away as fast as possible and, this time, found it easier than last. As he encapsulated it and encysted it within himself, he felt the warmth and power radiating out from it. His creation's pain
gave him power, the power he needed to make more warriors, to reap more pain, to create more power,
and so on in an endless day-night cycle. Creation was the light, and pain was the necessary darkness.
«Worry not about their pain, Highness.*
Pygmalion's mental message salved the lingering irritation from the creation's pain. «ybuareo/Ameratsu born.
You are a god. It is your right, your duty, to make and
unmake.»
Ryuhito turned slowly in the air to face Pygmalion. He saw the small man walking across the dark sand,
casually stepping over portions of dismembered bodies. Pygmalion, he thought, could have been an
eggshell-fragile china doll, yet he knew great power dwelt in that seemingly innocent and benign body.
The large, dark eyes and delicate hands seemed to suggest a helplessness that prompted sympathy for
him. The bald head seemed slightly overlarge for the short, slender body, almost creating an illusion of
youth for the Dark Lord.
"I have no difficulty with the making and unmaking, sensei." Ryuhito spoke carefully and infused the proper respect for Pygmalion into the word
sensei.
Ryuhito had steadfastly resolved to never refer to Pygmalion as master, and settled upon teacher as a more appropriate word. As Pygmalion had rebelled
against his master, so, someday, Ryuhito would become Pygmalion's rival, and in his choice of
appellation for the diminutive Dark Lord, he let the seeds of his rebellion germinate.
Pygmalion nodded.
«You let function influence form.»
"I am, as yet, at a crude testing stage,
sensei.
I have compared the shapes and forms that appear to function best, and I now will work variations on that theme."
Kyunrco wavea an iaie nana lowara one segment 01 nis champion, and a solar flare shot up from it like
fire from a magician's fingertips. When the dazzling light-jet imploded, the champion stood reconstructed and whole on the spot. "I start with this as my base."