Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (15 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
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Another gestur
e, and as the light died, a larger, longer-limbed version of the champion stood across
the
circle from the original. Ryuhito gestured agai
n, this time with both hands, creating a smaller, less-armored version of the champion, then a taller, more willowy one with multi-segmented, whiplike arms.
Like a conductor drawing music from an orchestra, Ryuhito summoned creature after creature from his
imagination and populated the outer circle with 64 combatants.
Pygmalion smiled slightly and pointed toward one of the creatures that had a hunched-over posture and a flat skull.
«That one, with the diversified nervous system, will proue formidable. All your warriors are formidable,
but they are not all that an army should be.»
Ryuhito frowned. "They will be invincible. No army can stand against them."
«Why stand against them when you can ignore them and slip around them. You focus on power when you
should well know that knowledge is the true power. How will they fare against an enemy they never locate?"
"Sumimasen, sensei."
Ryuhito caught Pygmalion's point immediately. With the blink of an eye he created a clone of the smaller, faster warrior he had shaped, then began to change it. He enlarged its eyes and
gave the creature the chameleon's ability to blend in with its background. He made the ears larger and
reshaped the throat and voice box so it could use passive and active sonar for echolocation. He filled its cells with a chloro-plast-mitochondriahybridthatwouldallowthecreatureto use solar energy directly to
power itself. On the flesh of its
eyelids he organized heat-sensing pits so when it closed its eyes it could "see" in the infrared spectrum.
Pygmalion clapped his hands. «You
are quick and decisive. This is a wonderful trait in one whose aspect is
thato/builder.
Yourscoutherewilldonlcely. Shall wetest
ft?.
Ryuhito nodded and created four more of the scouts, drinking in the pain of one to birth the next. With a quick mental command he scattered them on complex and overlapping circuits through the nearest dimensions. He
sensed a question from Pygmalion and smiled. "Their paths overlap,
sensel,
so 1 may evaluate how good they are at hiding from one another. Once 1 am able to see that, I can leam how to hide them better."
«Splendid!»
Ryuhitofelthimselfbrighten beneath Pygmalion's praise, then he immediately tried to fight that sensation. His own heart ached for a second in an echo of the pain his creations felt, and he could feel Pygmalion greedily suck in his anguish.
He did not come to monitor me, he came to feed off me.
He fought to control his anger and discomfort at that discovery, but he saw Pygmalion smile and could feel his mentor grow stronger.
«/
ask little from you in return for what I glue you, Highness.*
An annoying note of ridicule oozed from the thought Pygmalion stuffed into Ryuhito's brain.
«Under-stand that I know and grow stronger from your desire
to rebel lam not my master, however, and I will not commit his errors. I left him, and now his new apprentice
has defied him. I have learned from Fiddleback's mistakes. I share power with you in return for what you glue
me, and your hatred of dependence upon me only strengthens me.»
The little man waved a hand over the arena. * What you
do here pleases me. The accomplishments of the
appren-
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tice enh
ance the image of the master, don't you think?*
Ryuhito hesitated, and Pygmalion's open left hand snapped down into a fist. The prince convulsed as every muscle in his body contracted at once.
«That]s what you think, is it not?»
Ryuhito stnjggled against the pain enough to nod his head.
"Hai!"
Pygmalion smiled.
«Justyes?»
"Yes...master."
Pygmalion's hand opened, and Ryuhito's body no longer betrayed him.
«Master... That pleases me. I think
you should always want me to be pleased.»
Ryuhito hung his head. "Yes, master."
Dark Conspiracy 3-14.jpg
Will Raven's active imagination had supplied him with all sorts of wonderful and strange daydream
adventures concerning his involvement with Sunburst and Lorica. Yet, despite the plethora of adventures
he conjured up, cinching on a gunbelt and seating an Ingram Mac -11 submachinegun in the holster while
high up in the Lorica Corporate Citadel at 1 in the morning had not been one of them. Doing the same in
the presence of a man his grandfather called The Ghost Who Lives and a hulking, four-armed creature
had not been even remotely suggested by any of them. Actually going off on the mission Damon Crowley
was outlining never even would have entered his nightmares.
Will shifted his shoulders to seat the Kevlar vest he wore beneath his black jumpsuit correctly. "It would seem to me that moving Mr. Loring from Barrow Neurological Institute is not necessarily the best thing
for him."
"Under normal circumstances I might concur, Will." Crowley tugged at the wrist of his left glove. "As it is, leaving him there will not result in his recovery. He is vital to what we are doing, so we need to get him healthy as quickly as possible."
Yellowed light glinting from his tusks, the Yidam nod-
ded in agreement. "The destination that
Mi-ma-yin
intends for Coyote is in the same dimensional sphere as the dimension in which Nero Loring has found indications of Ryuhito. Moving there together will
make our transit easier."
Will nodded, not really understanding. He had been told about the other unseen worlds by his grandfather
and had even had perceptions of them when using peyote during ceremonies, but he had always
dismissed those as hallucinations. The gap between believing his visions the product of drug-induced
imagination and believing they actually existed as other worlds upon which he spied was not, in
theory,
that far. In
reality,
which Will pegged as physically being able to visit those other realms, he had a hard
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time accept
ing their existence and his ability to travel to them.
Crowley popped a clip into the Mac-10 he wore on his right hip and snapped the bolt open. "Okay, I'm set to go."
The Yidam, in a black jumpsuit that had been stitched together from two other, much smaller suits, let a
pistol-gripped shotgun dangle from a strap over his right shoulder. "As am I." He adjusted the crossed bandoliers of shotgun shells with his lower arms, then nodded to Will. "Are you prepared?"
"I hope so." Will tried to keep doubt out of his voice, but he failed. The other two men smiled indulgently, and Will did not feel he had erred in letting them know how he felt. "What do I need to do?"
Crowley laid a gloved hand on Will's right shoulder. "Relax first. The vision test that Hal gave you on the day you signed on, the one with the pink and purple circles, proved you are empathic enough to be able to actually perceive things in other dimensions."
"Wouldn't the visions I've seen in ceremonies indicate
that ability as well?"
"Not always. There is a difference, which is akin to the difference between being totally blind, legally blind and lacking the need to use glasses. Drugs might make the legally blind sharp-eyed, but we have no use for anyone that can't function straight." Crowley eased the boxy machine-pistol in its holster. "Clear, sharp perceptions are vital where we are going, and the ability to think quickly may make the difference between life and death. That may sound melodramatic, but it is true and well worth bearing in mind."
Will nodded solemnly. "Yes, sir."
"What we are going to do, the Yidam and 1, is to rip a hole between this office and the hospital. We will do that by tapping into a sidecar dimension that is remarkable for one thing: Distances there are roughly one one-hundredth of what they are here. A step there will be a hundred steps here."
The Yidam smiled. "Will, I believe your people have a legend about moccasins that allow the wearing to pass great distances in the wink of an eye."
"Hiawatha—not my tribe, but I remember it."
Crowley smiled and jerked his head at the Yidam. "You know these Buddhist demigods—we all look the
same to them."
"Well, you all do have only
two
arms."
All three of them laughed at the joke, and Will felt some of his tension bleeding away. "Moving through that dimension will let us reach the hospital quickly, correct?"
"Exactly," Crowley assured him. "Once there, we will do what we need to make sure Coyote is stable, then we will bring him to the dimension in which he will be left to heal. This will not be that easy, but you can make the passage much easier if you do a couple of simple things."
"Anything."
"Close your eyes and start breathing to a four-count. Clear your mind of everything but the counting, then let that slip away."
Will closed his eyes and exerted control over his breathing. He recognized the sense of well-being that flowed over him as the same he had felt during and after the rituals his grandfather had taught him. It struck him that the same techniques he used to purify himself and to be put in touch with the spirit world were the ones he needed to move through dimensions. Once that thought occurred to him, he forced it away and left his mind blank.
He felt Crowley grab his right wrist and the Yidam his left, then got the sensation of drifting forward. He felt a flash of heat as he moved out of the air-conditioned comfort of the office, and that prompted him to open his eyes. He found himself in a dark place that appeared to have no walls or edges, yet left his body feeling squeezed as if he were wedged between two smoke-gray slabs of glass.
To his left he saw the Yidam, but on his right Crowley had changed. Gone was the green-eyed, dark-haired
occultist and, in his place, Will saw a man made of shadow. He had depth and a gold ring flash on his right hand, but beyond that bit of color, Crowley appeared to be a three-dimensional silhouette.
He is not human.