Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (2 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
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"There i
z only one way to accomplizh this end. You will get me to hiz ztronghold."
I frowned. "You can travel through the dimensions. You should be able to find that place yourself. You do not need us."
The Yidam shook his head. "He does need us, Coyote, for the entropic nature of reality is against him.
There are, within the dimensions, barriers to power, energy and matter. To circumvent those barriers, he
needs agents among the populations of certain dimensions."
Crowley nodded in agreement. "Just as he needed people to create the maglev train circuit in Phoenix and turn it into a dimensional gateway, he needs us to enable him to get to Pygmalion's home dimension."
"That iz prezizely what you will build for me." Fiddleback raised his two foremost arms and they telescoped out to their full length. "You will uze the planz for the dimenzional gateway that Nero Loring onze created for me."
A thudding pain began in the top of my brain. "That is impossible. That circuit is over 23 miles long. It has a diameter of over five miles. The whole thing took more than 20 years to build. Unless I missed
something, I do not think we have 20 years to play at this." The image of a fully grown and exceedingly effective warrior created by Pygmalion out of a 5-year-old boy came to me. "Pygmalion escaped with
Ryuhito two days ago—he could already be on his way back. There must be another way."
"There iz none, Coyote." Fiddleback's limbs shrank
back down. "You have zome time, for dealing with Ryuhito'z power will not be zimple. If it were, I
zhould have had him long ago."
"Fine, give us two weeks, or two years, it doesn't matter. What you ask is impossible."
Crowley reached over and grabbed my right shoulder. "I think we can do the job, and far faster than you imagine. Remember, the emperor of Japan has pledged whatever resources we need to aid us. Lorica
Industries is not without both technical expertise and resources of its own."
"I know that, Crowley." My hands tightened involuntarily into fists. "Can't you see it? We are being asked to create a highly technological device in a place that will be, at best, hostile territory. The labor needed to clear the land and lay out the circuit is incredible. Not only do we have to secure the area, but we have to supply fuel, spare parts and personnel to drive the machines we will need to do the work. It
would have been easier for Kennedy to remodel the Kremlin during the Cuban Missile Crisis than it will
be for us to do what he wants us to do."
"Does my
pet
have another zolution?"
The Dark Lord's use of the word
pet
draped the emotional equivalent of white sheets soaked in ice-water over me, chilling and weighing me down. "You were the one who created me, Fiddleback. Did you not
mean me to be the assassin that killed your enemies? Am 1 not your hunter?"
"Yez, that you were." The arachnoid Titan tried put a beneficent expression on its features as it looked down at me. "But that waz before Ryuhito."
Crowley nodded. "Just having Ryuhito in the vicinity means Pygmalion would likely be able to find you
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and des
troy you before you could kill him."
"Great. That means he can also detect our work against him. How will we find an area where we are to work?"
The shadow man took a step back. "Concentrate on me, Coyote. What can you get?"
I did as he instructed me. Using the skills in which I had long been trained, I pushed away conscious
thought and let my mind drift out like a net floating on the ocean. Behind me, I caught the Yidam, easily recognizing him from countless clues 1 had learned to detect while in Tibet. To my left, I felt Fiddleback as a hard-edged crystal pulsating with dark colors and darker emotions. He scintillated in a most hideous and yet seductive way.
He was power incarnate.
Crowley, on the other hand, did not exist. As if he were no more substantial than the shadow he wore, my
mind-net swept past him without noticing him. I could see him, and I knew if 1 reached my hand out I
could feel him, but he was blind to the senses that enabled me to feel and discover so much within the
dimensions.
"I cannot feel you."
"Neither will Pygmalion. I can pinpoint him and detect blind spots in his defenses." Crowley pointed beyond me at the Yidam. "He can likewise shield himself and will be able to scout as well."
"Okay, 1 accept that we can find him and remain, for a time, undetected. We still need supplies and
labor."
"Skilled labor we'll have to supply." Crowley jerked his head toward Fiddleback. "It seems to me that he can supply much of the heavy labor we will need. The Plutonians, given direction, will be most able
labor."
I recalled all too clearly the huge denizens of a proto-dimension called Plutonia. The size of elephants, these chocolate-brown animals resembled ants in structure
and social organization. They exhibited an ability to spin a fairly strong web and communicated largely
through scents. Crowley had pointed out that the Russian author, Vladimir Obrutcev, in his 1924 book
Plutonia,
had not ascribed enough intelligence to Plutonia's residents, but I still doubted our ability to use them as labor.
"How will we give them that direction, Crowley? I don't see you arming yourself with a bottle of perfume to act as their foreman."
"I will accomplizh that, my
pet."
With Fiddleback's words there came a ripple through the dimension that even seemed to affect Crowley.
A piercing shriek lanced into my brain, then fragmented into a billion separate voices, each one
screaming in mortal agony. Pain exploded in my head and pulsing pressure pounded at my forehead as if
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my br
ain struggled for freedom.
Looking up, I saw the flesh on Fiddleback's forehead begin to bubble. Blisters formed and burst in rapid
succession, spraying fluid down the long face. Layer after layer of skin boiled away, opening a raw, red
wound in Fiddleback's green-yellow face. A dark, viscous fluid filled the hole, but before it could pour in black rivulets down to Fiddleback's mandibles, its surface thickened into a clear membrane.
The hellcoal light in Fiddleback's eyes flickered for a moment, then died altogether. When it reappeared, 1 had the feeling it was diminished. It still burned with malevolence and hatred, but not quite as hot as it had before. At the same time, I saw a pale shape materialize beyond the membrane.
That shape struggled for a moment, then exploded out. In the time it had taken for the shape to form, the membrane had gone from a placental consistency to
that of a brittle lense. When the shape burst free, the membrane scabbed off and the fluid flowed out like an ameboid thing trying to restrain the shape.
Ivory and pointy, the shape unfolded itself as it sailed free of Fiddleback's head. It fell to the ground between two of the Dark Lord's legs and its own limbs collapsed beneath it. The afterbirth splashed
down, coating it and threatening to drown it. Struggling against that flood, the creature reached out with its limbs and thrust itself up from the ground. As its head rose and its thorax took a more upright position, it looked to be a miniature of Fiddleback sculpted from ivory.
The creature moved forward through the invisible barrier separating us from the Dark Lord. At first I took it for nothing but an automaton that moved by Fiddle-back's will alone, but the creature slowed in its
transit. It stopped at where the bullets hung in the air and, cranking its head left and right, examined them.
1 saw intelligence in its eyes and sensed the impatience of its master.
"Thiz is Vetha. Her eyez are my eyez. What zhe knowz, I know." Fiddleback, the hole in his forehead crusting over, reached down as if he meant to caress her, but his forelimb could not reach her. "Az you require that which I may contribute, zhe will communicate it with me."
Fiddleback's form began to waver as he withdrew from the dimension across from us. «Do not
even think
of betraying me, my
pet. /
created you. I can deztroy you. Zukzzeed, and I will grant you dominion ouer
all you zave for me.»
Before I could reply, Fiddleback vanished, and I could sense him no more.
Crowley turned toward me. "Something?"
"Nothing." Looking around, I shook my head. I stood alone in a place that smelled like a slaughterhouse with
a man made of shadow, a Buddhist godling and an ivory creature born of a monster that wished nothing
short of universal conquest in his name. With them I was supposed to marshal an effort that would locate
an enemy and build a modern technological device in a relative heartbeat, while maintaining secrecy and
operational surprise for an attack against that enemy.
I smiled. "You know our chances of doing what we have to do are between slim and none, don't you?"
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Crowl
ey nodded. "So?"
"So," I laughed aloud, "let's see what kind of betting action we can get on slim and start working."
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Crowley led the four of us back through the proto-dimensions to Earth. He made our destination the
facility in Tokyo that had been given to us by the emperor. Arrigo El-Leichter had created the Galactic
Brotherhood Institute on Kimpunshima, an artificial island in Tokyo harbor where the majority of foreign
nationals lived in Japan. He had been one of Fiddle-back's minions and had even contributed to the
training I had been given as I grew up at GBI. Yet, despite my having spent virtually all of my life in that one place, it did not seem at all like home.
I realized, as we stepped through into the office El-Leichter had once claimed as his own, that the lifetime 1 had spent in GBI, being forged into a weapon for Fiddleback to use against Pygmalion, was a past