Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (22 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
downplay his reliance on sight and started to concentrate on sound, smell and intangible, extra-sensory
impressions.
Crowley and the Yidam moved off toward his left. Will realized they were on the correct track toward the
injured man. Making as little noise as possible as he moved through the jungle, Will could hear moans
and a sibilant sound that he took to be the whispered reassurances of the second man to his fallen partner.
The Native American knew he should head for them and offer assistance, but something else pulled at
him and directed him deeper into the jungle.
At one time Will would have denied what he was feeling. As he stalked through the jungle, he felt less
himself than he did a vessel that an animal spirit could inhabit. As opposed to being a trespasser in the pristine, primal world of Turquoise, Will felt a part of the natural order in this place. The second he
realized that, it also occurred to him that what he was tracking was something that was utterly alien to
Turquoise.
As he expanded his senses, the proto-dimension of Turquoise became alive for him. He could feel his
fellow humans and sensed the fear oozing out of them. From the north, he caught the hunting-searching
intensity of the Japanese as they closed on the scream. From the Yidam, he got a sense of foreignness,
and more so the Plutonians and Vetha out at the windmill site. That he got no indication of Crowley did
bother him for a moment, but by then the Yidam had reached the pain locus he took to be
Billy or Kent, so he assumed Crowley's impressions were masked in the agony maelstrom.
He drifted more to the right, closing on his quarry. He did not know what it was, but he could tell it was different and wrong. He felt it was the rough equivalent of a mechanical dog among a litter of puppies. It was the right size and shape, but just had an artificial, constructed feel to it. Will latched on to its
manufactured aspect and headed directly for it.
He found himself almost on top of it before he realized how close he had gotten. The creature's small size had deceived him into thinking it was actually a bit more distant than it was. The creature's head oriented
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towar
d him, and Will felt a thrill run through him as the creature's mouth opened in a silent scream, ft
bounce
d back, leaping out of his way, and smashed into a thick-boled tree.
Part of Will realized he was unarmed except for a knife, but another part of him drew the blackened-steel Corvo knife without hesitation. He came forward, feinting once with the blade, then pulling back as the
creature struck at him. Will hissed as he felt talons rake his forearm, but instinctively he knew it was
nothing more than a flesh-wound.
The Native American lunged forward and slashed the knife's curved blade over the creature's torso. A
thin line opened on its chest and began to ooze black, but Will caught no terror from the creature. Instead of fleeing as it had before, the beast cut to the right, then slammed a bony fist into Will's ribs.
The punch carried with it enough strength to lift the young man from his feet and deposit him in the brush about a dozen feet away. Will landed on his back and let his momentum carry him on a somersault
through the undergrowth. He came back up, then ducked to the right,
as if by instinct, to avoid the creature's hurtling body. It missed with its flying tackle, and Will turned to face it in a small clearing.
Will felt a curious detachment. He saw himself circling this short, slender and armored beast like a coyote searching for a porcupine's soft spot. He realized the creature had struck at him defensively, hoping to
scare him or hurt him enough to prevent pursuit. It wanted to escape him, not kill him.
Fearsome though it was, he knew it was not really meant for combat. The big eyes, large ears and
inclination to run first told Will the creature was not a predator. This realization fed back on the
mechanical nature of it, and the Native American suddenly understood its purpose in being in Turquoise.
He also knew that discovery of its purpose meant he had to kill it. To do that he had to become a
predator, so, without
a
thought, he abandoned himself to the spirits his grandfather had taught him about all his life.
The fragment of human consciousness that remained in his skull accepted that the spirit that chose him
was Raven. He flipped the hook-bladed knife over in his right hand until it mirrored a raven's curved
beak, then came in at the creature. He feinted a slash with the blade, then kicked the creature square in the chest as it pulled away from the blade. A hop-step forward and another kick later, Will sent the creature sprawling.
Will landed on the creature's back and ran the knife around under its chin. Hauling back hard he felt the blade bite into and through the thick muscles of the beast's neck. He pulled back with all his strength and ended up all but severing the head. Black blood gushed out over his hands and the knife, but felt
curiously cold and smelled bittersweet, like rotting flesh. The creature twitched twice, then lay still. As Will stood, he noted that its limb lay
twisted in an utterly unnatural pattern.
He felt a hand on his right shoulder, and full human consciousness returned to him as he focused on
Crowley's shadowform. "Interesting prize you have here, Will."
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The Nat
ive American grunted and dropped into a crouch. "It was a scout, Crowley. It was created
spec
ifically to do recon through the dimensions."
The shadow man nodded. "I wonder why it didn't leave Turquoise when you discovered it?"
Will shrugged. "Perhaps the threat level I represented did not trigger its desire for self-preservation."
"Or its sense of self is subordinate to its sense of duty." Crowley crouched down beside Will and touched the creature's chitinous mask. "Looks rather like a samurai's battle-mask, wouldn't you say?"
Will nodded. "Could be. Does that mean what I think it does?"
"That Ryuhito had a hand in creating this thing? Perhaps." The shadow man rested his elbows on his knees and interlaced his fingers. "The fact that it did not leave when discovered suggests that not much thought was given to the sorts of situations it might face."
"You think it's a prototype scout just on a random mission?"
Crowley nodded. "That's the best we can hope for, I'm afraid."
Will grunted. "And worse case is that he's got big brothers and they'll be all over us like smog on LA."
"And soon," Crowley added, "much too soon."
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Betrayal!
Ryuhito smiled as he put a word to the emotion filling his chest with fire.
Betrayal!
He relished it, embracing every bit of pain and righteous anger it brought to him. As his great grandfather might have done with a new species of oceanic invertebrate, Ryuhito cataloged every detail of what he observed. He related it to what he already knew and realized he had known it before, but in a more docile and benign state.
it occurred to him, as he floated above the quartet of scouts that had returned, that he had known betrayal from the day of his birth. The techno-giant corporations that ruled Japan through an industrial shogunate had only ever really paid lip-service to the Imperial families. If his grandfather objected to the actions of this minister or that, the man would resign in disgrace. The corporations would choose another man, an ideological clone of the first, to replace him so business could continue as usual. Worse yet, of course, was the fact that the minister who had left power would not only
not
atone for his error through
sepukku,
but he would often be given a corporate position of greater power than he had known in the government.
Ryuhito looked around him and reveled in the sense of
correctness
he gathered from the tower in which he floated. Once he had determined which of his
warriors would operate well, he created armies of them and set them against each other in epic battles.
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The losers were destroyed, b
ut the victors were immortalized. They were permitted to form themsel
ves
into th
e walls and floors of his tower, surrounding him with the sort of loyal retainers his family had known since before time itself was bom.
The corporations mocked the Imperial family and the traditions upon which their own power was based.
Ryuhito had seen his grandfather pressured mightily by his conflict with the corporations and had bristled at the injustice of it. The corporations operated as if a coerced renunciation of divinity actually could have
stripped
the Imperial family of their birthright. That it could not was intuitively obvious to even the most casual of observers, but the corporations were not even as observant as that.
They will learn to regret their arrogance.
Ryuhito nodded to himself with satisfaction. His current situation had helped him put his past into perspective, and with it came an important revelation: He knew he could use the sensation of betrayal to power himself. He felt it more strongly than he did pain and
knew that a sense of betrayal was more acute within those raised in the Japanese culture. Being betrayed
was a breach of honor that demanded restoration of same, and the drive to restore that equilibrium knew
no equal in the Japanese psyche.
Ryuhito focused on his current betrayal. He decided, when one of his scouts did not return from an
extended reconnaissance sweep of the dimensions, that Pygmalion had deliberately gone out and
destroyed it. He had done so for reasons that actually made Ryuhito's face bum with shame, but any error
he may have made in his designs did not warrant such a humiliating lesson.
He had learned, from the previous missions, that his
scouts were very good at returning and reporting on things they had seen. For the large part, the reports made reading soy futures in binary seem the excitement equivalent of live sex shows in the Chicago
Stockyards, but Ryuhito had been pleased with how his scouts had functioned. Their armor and
coloration defenses had kept them from harm and the most potent threats had come from adverse
conditions instead of any indigenous life forms stalking the scouts.
The loss of a scout taught him a bitter lesson. Because he had not anticipated a scout failing to return, all data had been stored in the creature's brain until return. Providing a telepathic ability to communicate
