Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (17 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
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somethi
ng he had always had and assumed others did as well. Only here, in the absence of sensing
anythi
ng from Crowley, did he realize how special his gift was.
Still keeping his left arm hugged to his chest, Crowley sat up. "There's a cave up there, in the hillside.
Vikram, if you will carry Coyote up there, 1 will see to it he is well warded for the time it will take him to heal."
Will pointed to Crowley's arm. "Are you going to stay here and guard him while you heal up?"
The shadow man shook his head. "No. The way this dimension works, my arm will be fine in a day or two—
and that will pass in bare minutes back in Phoenix. Were 1 to wait for Coyote to regain his senses and grow back his arm, I would, well, not quite be the same. The last time 1 was here, I was in my sixties, but I
regenerated the damage of my infirmity: old age. 1 have no desire to experience puberty in reverse."
Crowley held his right arm up, and Will helped him to his feet. As the Yidam carried Coyote up toward the cave in the grassy hill, Crowley pointed Will toward a small path. "C'mon, I'll show you the reason for this place."
Will followed the walking silhouette up a short ridge that looked down on a deep valley. From that vantage point, he saw that the world appeared to be a bowl no more than 14 miles across. With bluffs and rivers, trees and meadows, it reminded Will of picture books on the Trojan War and the Odyssey. With the bowl of the sky sweeping down to link up at the horizon, Will imagined the dimension having been carved out of Greece by
some mad god using a giant melon-bailer on the world.
That impression grew stronger as he focused down on a large, flat stone in the middle of the river running through the valley below. A humanoid of incredible proportions lay chained spread-eagle on the stone. He had the curly black hair and thick beard that Will associated with the men depicted in ancient Grecian um
paintings. A bronze shield lay at his feet, and a spear had been jammed into the earth at his head.
Crowley pointed to where the sun peaked through the mountains at the horizon. "Dawn. They'll be coming for him now."
Before he could ask, the sound of metal scraping against metal filled the air. Will turned and saw a whole flock of bronze vultures flying through the air toward the
valley. While they moved as gracefully as real birds in flight, he could see they were constructs that
worked with sprockets and springs and gears. Their feathers had been forged with incredible skill and
welded on to their wings. Their cruelly hooked beaks opened and closed with a click, as a mechanical call issued from their throats.
Three of the life-sized metal birds drifted down to circle over the two men. Will went for his machine-
pistol, but Crowley reached over and stayed his hand. "Don't bother. You can't shoot them down, and
they're not interested in us anyway. Whoever created them has given them a simple program. When the
sun is in the sky, they feed on the Titan. That means, for them, lunch is the biggest thing in sight."
Will remained uneasy until the trio of archaeo-me-chanical vultures swooped down and in toward the
Titan Tityus. "Their beaks don't look particularly sharp."
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"No, bronz
e is notorious for not holding an edge." As the vultures landed and started tearing at the
Titan,
Crowl
ey added, "However, I don't think keeping a sharp edge and sparing him any pain was part o
f the
program here."
The Titan's agonized bellows echoed back and forth in the valley. Will watched as the vultures tore his
belly open from sternum to navel, then ducked inside and emerged to fight over his intestines. He turned
away when two of the blood-soaked birds rolled across the Titan's chest, tussling over a piece of liver.
"How can those vultures function. Is it magic?"
Crowley shrugged as he led the way back down toward the bed. "ft is the nature of this place, that is all.
Dimensions have, by design or chance, their own rules of physics, their own rate of time flow and their
own connections."
Will folded his arms across his chest. "And their own
dangers?"
"And their own dangers." Crowley glanced toward the cave and the returning Yidam. "You and the Yidam will find that out as you scout for a beachhead for us to use. 1 wish you luck."
"Thanks." Will frowned. "While we're off hunting, what will you be doing?"
"Healing for a bit," Crowley laughed, "Then I'll show the Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance that Earth has dangers of its own."
Dark Conspiracy 3-15.jpg
Concentrating on his breathing, Will Raven let the Yidam lead him away from the Titan's dimension. He
kept his eyes open, but a black fog stole his sight as the sound of Greek oaths faded away. He blinked
once, but everything remained dark for another two steps, then a harsh red world appeared before his
eyes. A hot wind brought the sticky, cloying scent of burning candles to his nose.
The landscape wavered like a heat-mirage, but Will realized he was not seeing an illusion. The whole
world appeared to be made of semi-molten wax. A thick rivulet slowed on a hillside off to his right, with the surface growing opaque, then a split in its skin appeared and liquid wax splashed down to cover his
boots.
The Yidam dropped to one knee and dipped a finger into the liquid. He raised his hand up and sniffed at
it, then tasted it. "Wax."
Will frowned. "A world of wax? How is that possible?"
The Yidam shrugged. "There are many possible explanations. Perhaps this is the repository for all the wax ever lost through the 'lost wax' method of casting metal."
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The N
ative American chuckled. "I hadn't thought of that." He looked down as more wax puddled ar
ound
feet and began to harden. "This place does not look stable enough for the sort of operation we are
planning."
The four-armed godling shook his head. "Mo, it is not. It is a high-energy dimension, which is good, but
so
chaotic that we will have problems. However, it is good to find, because its energy is likely to bleed into the surround -ing dimensions. We need that."
Will pulled his feet free of the dimension's substance. "Shall we move on?"
The Yidam nodded and gently took Will's wrist in his lower left hand. Two steps forward and the
waxworld parted like a curtain. A cold chill settled over Will as they moved into a gray zone, then they
came out in a verdant world of rolling hillocks and a green stream moving sluggishly through the heart of a grassy valley. Twin suns hung in the sky and washed them with the warmth of a spring afternoon.
"Not bad." Will squatted down and ran his hand through the long-leafed grasses. "Ouch! Dammit, this is saw-grass." He held his bloodied fingers up for the Yidam to see.
The Yidam grunted, but Will barely heard him as the gurgle of the stream shifted into a rhythmic clicking sound. Standing with the breeze at his back, will looked down at the stream and saw it shift in its bed.
While the farthest part of the stream continued flowing on toward the horizon, the rest of it started to flow up the hill and toward them.
Will's jaw dropped open as he realized what the stream really was. Millions upon millions of iridescent
green beetles left the valley core and marched inexorably toward the two dimension-walkers. Behind
them, where the long column broke in half, Will saw the ground had been stripped of the saw-grass cover
and the rocks had been polished to a gemlike quality by the tread of
countless insect steps.
"This is not the place for us, I think." The Yidam grabbed Will by the waist and leaped upward
effortlessly. Will shivered, thinking the Yidam's maneuver would carry them straight into the center of
the beetles, but an opening to a new dimension swallowed them before they came down in the bug-
stream.
They landed in a twilight world with broad-leafed, blue vegetation and broad, wooded valleys, ft felt
cooler than either of the other two dimensions, and the breeze that blew past them carried the hint of an evening chill. In the hazy blue sky, Will saw what he took to be the world's sun, but it appeared smaller and, therefore, more distant than the sun did in relation to the Earth. That quickly explained for him the lack of warmth.
The Yidam released him, setting him down on a blue-green outcropping of rock. "1 think, for the
moment, we will be safe. You are well?"
Will nodded. His torso ached a bit from where the Yidam had grabbed him, but he knew the pain would
fade quickly enough. His hand had already stopped bleeding. Looking out toward the azure savannah
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spreadi
ng out below them, he saw what he took to be a herd of grazing animals milling about and
a pride
of carnivor
es sleeping in the shadow of tall tree.
"Looks like someone with a liking for blue went and colorized an old Tarzan movie."
The Yidam smiled as if he realized that was the correct reaction to what must have been a joke, but Will
sensed no comprehension of it from the creature. The Yidam took Will's hand gently in his lower hands
and studied the grass cuts. "Superficial."
Will nodded. "Are you going to heal me?"
"Heal you?"
Will frowned. "I thought you could do that. Rajani—she
is your daughter, isn't she—healed Hal Qarrett from two gunshot wounds. These cuts should be easy for
you."
The Yidam squatted down, bringing him just below Will's eye level. "Yes, she could have done that. It is a skill, not a genetic trait, and I never learned it. And, yes, I suppose she is my daughter."
"Suppose? 1 didn't think there was much mistaking things like that."
The Yidam smiled and even laughed sincerely. "She is indeed the product of the union of my genetic
material with that of the female who was my wife. I knew them both well, and we lived as a family until
my daughter was in her teens. Then things changed."
The Native American felt puzzled by the emotions pouring out of the Yidam. He caught an undercurrent
of paternal pride and love that he regularly associated with a father/child relationship. A distancing and confused sensation effectively smothered the paternal feelings, and it came tinged with some fear. "What things changed? She is still your daughter."