Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (30 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
Big and little chunks of things floated in it like islands fighting off its destructive tide. Men waded through it, dragging yet other men from the clinging gelatin with great sucking sounds. A quick check determined
whether the rescued man was alive or dead, and his status determined if he was placed on a stretcher for
immediate evacuation or left lying in a line with the other dead men.
The swampy miasma choked me and made my eyes water. Just looking at the battlefield, 1 could tell how
things had gone. Ryuhito's troops had advanced, been stopped and slowly driven back, but not before
inflicting incredible casualties among the defenders. Sharpened stakes stuck up out of the slime and toppled piles of sandbags marked where defenses had once stood. And, between the stakes and the fortifications, at the thickest part of the slime sea, four huge islands lay dead.
1 recognized the Plutonians from the one visit I had made to their home dimension. At that time, they had seemed incredibly big and powerful, but lying on their sides, their blood mixed with streaks of green foam,
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they were
pitiable. 1 had no doubt that their strength had won the day. I knew, from some of the prelimi
nary
plans we h
ad knocked about, that a half-dozen Plutonians were the minimum number we had thought a
bout
using, which meant, at worst, we had suffered 66% fatalities.
Looking at the pile of human bodies, I knew that estimate might be light for creatures as fragile as me. "Do you have numbers?"
Crowley nodded curtly. "Plutonians: 100% casualties, 66% dead.
Myrangeikki:
100% casualties, but it is only a
minor wound. Vetha is off in Plutonia tending the two injured Plutonians and expects them to recover.
Humans: 99.5% casualties, 70% fatalities. The remaining 30% require medical attention. The Internal
Defense Cadre troops came through the best; the fatalities are mostly our workers." The shadow man
opened his arms wide. "I'm the only person who did not get hurt."
"You know better than buying into survivor's guilt."
"Yes, dammit, I
do
know better than that." The shadow man folded his arms into the silhouette of his chest. "I know I survived because I have training and experience. I also know that I survived because the Yidam and Will Raven both dealt with things that could have killed me. I owe them my life, and they're
dead. And now, with all this, there is no way to make their sacrifices count for anything."
I frowned. "We can get more people, can't we? We have no need to abandon the plan, do we?"
"If you want to bring more people in here, you can count me out." Hal Garrett, his right arm in a sling, limped over toward us. Rotfoam splatter streaked his pants and left sleeve. Some had even been smeared
across his forehead. He looked at Crowley. "Have you told him yet?"
"Told me what?"
The man of shadows shook his head. "Seeing as how you were not around at the moment, I headed out to try to kill Pygmalion. I know assassination is your bailiwick, but I'vebeen known to shoot straight.
Itriedtoenter Pygmalion's dimension, but I could not. I've not surveyed the whole thing, but as nearly as I can tell he's managed to armor his dimension so I can't get in."
I nodded. "I am given to understand that Dark Lords can manage that trick in dimensions with
sympathetic resonances to their aspect."
Crowley looked me over from toes to head and back
again. "That's an interesting piece of information."
He waited for me to volunteer the source of my comment, but I shook my head. "There's something
wrong here."
Hal burst out with a disgusted laugh. "Clearly nothing wrong with your reasoning capabilities."
"That's enough, gentlemen!" I looked from Crowley to Hal and back again. "What I'm catching from both
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of you
is that somehow what happened here is
my
fault. You're both exhausted—1 can see it and you
know it
. That's the only reason I'm trying to ignore your comments."
I paused for a second and let the pain and death in the proto-dimension fill me. Despair, frustration and just plain anger wove through the atmosphere. I could sense the lost friends and the sharp sense of terror that had been the last thing most of the dying thought about. From Hal, I got the strong impression that
everything had been a waste and that some other option should have been made to work.
"1 wasn't here, that's true. Do you think, had I been able, 1 wouldn't have been here? Do you think I don't mourn for these people? No, I didn't know them, 1 didn't interview them and didn't have them place their
confidence in me. By the same token, given a choice between that and kissing a hand grenade, what do
you think I'd choose?"
Hal nodded. "I'm sorry, Coyote, I just.. .one of the guys who died shouldn't have been here at all. I let him talk me into it."
Crowley nodded. "Will Raven. Damned good thing he was here. If he hadn't been, we never would have
gotten Ryuhito."
"He's still dead, Crowley." The tall African-American looked down at the ground. "Will had a son. His grandfather is caring for the boy."
"Hal, you made the best decision you could. You shouldn't have been here, either." I glanced at the shadow
man. "What did you mean by 'gotten' in reference to Ryuhito?"
"Will cracked Ryuhito's skull while the Yidam kept him busy and I...1 should have killed Ryuhito, but I wanted a nonlethal solution. Will found it, then got killed. Before he died, though, he made it impossible for Pygmalion to track me when I took Ryuhito away."
"The emperor's grandson is still alive? Where?"
Crowley hesitated for a moment. "He's in a very safe place, a little dimension I know about. 1 think he has a fractured skull, but he's not dead."
"Good. That should deny him to Pygmalion." 1 let Crowley's evasion of my question pass. Being told the name he had for the dimension where he stashed Ryuhito would do me absolutely no good. I had no skill
at telepathy, so getting the information out his brain would have been impossible for me. Given that I
never got any emotion from Crowley either, I knew that even a gifted telepath would be blocked from his
mind.
More importantly, 1 realized, Crowley had very effectively relieved me of some responsibility and
prevented the possibility of my betraying our cause. I was a creature of a Dark Lord. Trusting me had to
be difficult for him, and I accepted that fact. Not telling him that I had spoken with the Empress of
Diamonds likewise meant he could not be forced to give that information over. I trusted Crowley to look
out for himself and, as a consequence, the whole of Earth.
"Was evading Pygmalion difficult?"
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Crowl
ey shook his head. "As nearly as 1 could tell, there was no pursuit."
"Hal, did you see any of Pygmalion's constructs here? Anyone who looked like Mickey?"
The big man shook his head. "I didn't see anything like that. Having seen Mickey go at Bat, 1 can't
imagine my still
being alive if Pygmalion had sent troops to avenge Ryuhito's defeat."
Crowley started to pace. "I think I see what you're driving at, Coyote. I assumed Pygmalion didn't come after Ryuhito because the trail was too difficult to follow. I also assumed that Pygmalion armored his proto-dimension because, without Ryuhito, he could not oppose Fiddleback.''
"Exactly. Because we saw Pygmalion and Fiddleback in conflict over Ryuhito, we have overlooked some
obvious things. We assumed that Fiddleback was correct in stating Pygmalion wants to destroy him. That's
certainly the truth from Fiddleback's point of view, but his is not the only point of view, is it?"
As we talked, the three of us began to drift deeper into the compound. The campsite returned, more or less, to normal the farther north we went. Like the Mary Celeste, the compound looked utterly proper except for the lack of people in it. If the stink of decaying plants hadn't been so prevalent, I could have forgotten that anything was amiss.
The African-American scratched at the stubble on his chin. "We need to rethink everything. Pygmalion had been Fiddleback's disciple, but he rebelled. In rebelling, he gained the status of a Dark Lord."
I nodded. "Right, he became Fiddleback's equal, more or less, right then and there. The major difference between them is that, because of Pygmalion's much smaller power base, he canmove into some dimensions
where Fiddleback cannot. Pygmalion's headquarters is one of those. I assume Earth is, as well."
Crowley confirmed my speculation. "Earth is tricky, but there are a number of Dark Lords who have limited access and who meddle in the affairs of humanity. Fiddleback, for example, can project a considerable amount of psychic energy into Earth, but he cannot
journey there physically because he cannot break through the entropy barrier around Earth. The only way
to do that is with a dimensional gateway."
I looked over at Crowley. "What about that tunnel thing that Pygmalion used?"
He shrugged. "That operated already inside the entropy barrier around the Earth." He stopped dead. "That means Pygmalion staged his raid on Galbro from a proto-dimension very close to Earth, within the
entropy barrier..."
"Or from one point on the Earth to another." Hal nodded. "Pygmalion can come to the Earth whenever he wants, which makes sense, since he was bom there."
At the other end of the camp, we plunged into the rain forest. With the sun nearly at its zenith, the
dappled blues and violets almost made me imagine that 1 was walking through some undersea
wonderland. "If Earth is such a big plum and Pygmalion has access to it at will, why would he use
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anothe
r proto-dimension as his workshop?"
Crowley laughed harshly. "You saw what he did with Mickey. That boy aged physically at a very quick
rate. The other warriors Pygmalion has that are based on the Mickey prototype were fully developed
when I met some in diverting the tunnel device. By keeping another dimension under his control, he can
incubate an army that will make conquering yet other dimensions easy."
1 stepped over a sky-blue birch trunk. "How many soldiers would it take to conquer the Earth?"
The shadow man shrugged. "A billion?"
Hal half-closed his brown eyes. "But bringing a billion warriors in would be blocked by the entropy
barriers, right?"
"If he tried it all in one lump, yes." 1 slowly smiled. "If he has a dimensional gate, he can bring them in regardless."
"But warriors like Mickey are not likely to go without