Evil Ascending, Page 7

  "No. Go away."

  The luper grimaced painfully. "I asked. Now I demand. I need him. Give him to me."

  "No!" Rajani slowly crouched and pushed Mickey behind her. «I will not surrender him to you.»

  «You cannot stand against me!» The wolfman's lower jaw dropped open in a lupine grin. «We should have dominion over these creatures. If I must destroy you first to get it, I will.»

  «Your bark does not frighten me.»

  «Then perhaps my bite will!»

  The wolfman looked at her, and again they made eye contact. Rajani began to push more fear out at him, but hot, raw, bestial emotions slammed back down the link. Gore-drenched tableaux raped her mind as she saw the wolfman lead his pack through massacres in outlying towns. Transferred to her was the obscene delight he took in slaking his thirst with bright, arterial blood. The victim's horror pulsed out stronger and stronger as his heart weakened and he knew he was dying, but feared he would not die fast enough.

  Rajani snapped her head to the left and felt her hair veil half her face. She brought her defenses up, but they merely filtered the wolfman's blood-spattered fantasies.

  Instead of seeing them in any organized fashion, things became a blended mixture of corpses bobbing in bloody pools, with terror rising from them like scarlet steam.

  Rajani felt the wolfman probing her mind, looking for her fears so they could be woven into his sick fantasies, but she deflected him. She tried to turn his thoughts back on him, but his physical weakness only seemed to strengthen him mentally. Sensing her resistance, he poured the power on and a blood-red world congealed around her. She felt locked in as the blood dried to a deep maroon, then became clear so she could watch the wolfman stalk toward Mickey.

  «You are done.» The wolfman, to her eyes, blazed with an unholy red light. «I am Invincible!»

  Then, suddenly, the wolfman jerked up to his full height. Rajani saw something waver in and out of focus as she fought to see empathically. Concentrate. Focus. She locked her jaw and fed despair into anger and hope. What is happening?

  The scene cleared, and she saw it. Glowing with a bright silver light, one of the search drones burrowed its way through the werewolf's back, it drilled its way in, going almost all the way out of its chest, then it reversed direction and withdrew. It shot straight up into the sky, and she heard laughter echo from everywhere at the same time.

  «I love it when they make themselves into such wonderful targets.» Rajani felt the rictus holding her face as a shadow hand touched her on the shoulder. «Make the child safe.»

  The world shifted abruptly, and Rajani found herself staring at the crumpled wolfman. Mickey looked at it, then her, and then waved his hand.

  "Yes, Mickey, it went bye-bye." Dorothy hugged her little brother, then stared at Rajani. "What happened? He stared at you and you stopped moving. Then he clutches his stomach and starts bleeding from the mouth and nose. What happened?"

  "Kishal." Mickey pointed at the body. "Kishal."

  "Crystal, Mickey?" Dorothy looked very confused. "What is he talking about?"

  Rajani shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe he saw something. I think the beast had some internal injuries from the fight with his pack. Running after us did him in. He was dead, but didn't even notice it." As she saw Dorothy's face hardening, she added quickly, "I've seen that sort of thing happen in Eclipse."

  Dorothy shook her head slightly, then relented. "Maybe, but I don't know."

  "It doesn't matter, Dorothy. We'll be safe for the rest of tonight. Then, tomorrow or the next day, we can be in Flagstaff and reunite you with your father." Then you'll be safe, and I can go to Phoenix and find this Coyote.

  Sweat matting the dark hair on his chest, Coyote finished his hundredth sit-up and smiled as Mong appeared in the doorway of his cell. He uncrossed his hands from his chest and levered himself to his feet. Drawing his heels together, he bowed to the red-robed monk. "Good morning, Lama Mong."

  Mong studied him for a moment, and Coyote found the expression on the elderly man's face unfathomable. The monk nodded, then smiled. "I am pleased to see you have recovered from travel lethargy. You have slept much and deeply since you arrived here."

  Coyote used a bed sheet to wipe the sweat from his face. "I must confess, I think it was more than just jet lag. The last month has been rather stressful for me. I did not realize it until I lay down to sleep that first night, but there had been a background level of pressure on me throughout that time. It felt as though I was on a leash and constantly struggling against it. Here I feel none of that, and the exhaustion caught up with me."

  The monk pointed to the black silk robe that matched the pants Coyote already had pulled on. "Finish dressing, and I will lead you on a tour here. There is much for you to learn."

  The silk felt cold at first, but it warmed quickly as he belted it in place with a sash. "How long will it take you to teach me what I need to know?"

  Mong shrugged as he led the way into a dimly lit, narrow corridor. "I do not know. The Dark Lords do not inform us of their training techniques or curriculum."

  Coyote nodded bitterly. "And I have no knowledge of it."

  "Conscious knowledge, you mean," Mong mused. "We shall see what skills you possess and what you must learn."

  As the monk guided him through the lamasery, its antiquity impressed him. Of his life he knew little beyond what he had discovered in the past month. While Jytte Ravel had made available to him the files about his early life, much of the things he learned from them were rumors and probably exaggerated beyond reality anyway. In contrast, the building had a strength and history that he hungered for.

  He let his fingertips brush along the rough-hewn wall, reveling in the gritty reality of the stones. This place will be a cocoon for me. Remembering how Fiddleback had called him a pet and treated him like something subhuman stoked his desire to destroy his former master. Here I will complete my chrysalis. I will become my own master. I will turn what you gave me into what will destroy you.

  The lama paused beside a doorway and waved Coyote on through it. "This is our armory and training center."

  Coyote slowly descended the blocky stone steps. Three dozen stone pillars supported the roof, and Coyote guessed the whole training complex sat directly below the main temple. The pillars broke the room down into small 10 x 10-foot training areas, with longer strips in the outer perimeter. Thick mats, darkened by the dirt of thousands of feet, covered most of the floor and the soot from hanging butter-fat lamps blackened the ceiling.

  Two dozen brown-robed rapjungs worked through a series of katas. They advanced, punched, blocked and kicked in unison, mirroring their instructor's display. Many of the young men wore broad smiles, as if what they were doing was play, but a select few looked serene and peaceful even as they fought against shadows.

  Mong descended the long staircase behind Coyote. "Awareness of self and the fragility of the physical body are important in our studies. All too often, the concept of self one has involves thought or a list of attributes. Only through a conscious integration of mind and body, to the point where the union becomes automatic and unconscious, is it possible to begin down the path of enlightenment."

  The tall man nodded and pointed to a wall upon which hung a full array of weapons. "And knowledge of these reinforces knowledge of life's fragility?"

  "That, and it confirms more about mankind." Mong gestured broadly, taking in all the weapons at once. "Consider, if you will, that man's earliest tools were rocks and sticks. Every weapon, every tool is, in effect, descended from those very humble beginnings. Things become vastly more complex as man refines his tools over and over again. Man is a toolmaker, and acknowledgment of that fact is crucial to understanding mankind."

  Coyote pulled a short weapon from the wall with his left hand. The blade ran perpendicular to the haft as with an ax, but was more slender as befitting a dagger with a single interior edge. From the point where the blade had been bolted to the shaft, a weighted le
ngth of metal chain hung down. With his right hand he grasped the chain about a foot from the weight and whirled it around. "Kusari-gama, Japanese in origin, favored by ninja. Yadama Shinryukan dispatched many a samurai with one of these before Araki Mataemon tricked him into fighting in a bamboo grove."

  "And what is the sickle part but a stick, and the weight but a rock?"

  Coyote acknowledged the monk's comment with a nod, then thought for a moment. "Your point is well made, but are you not stretching it to suggest all tools, all machines, come from sticks and stones? What of radios and cars?"

  The monk smiled. "Modern devices do make defending my thesis more difficult. Bear in mind that mankind has always struggled against nature and the circumstances that would kill him. Sticks and stones allowed him to translate superior mental power into superior physical power. By bashing two sticks together, for example, he could alert other hunters in his band to potential prey. In doing this he would effectively double or triple his own strength by augmenting it with others, it may be stretching things to suggest a radio is merely two sticks that can be heard over vast distances, but the core of the reality is the same."

  "That reality being that man is a toolmaker and through his tools has learned to survive." Coyote increased the speed of the spinning weight, then let the chain play out through his fingers. The diamond-shaped steel weight arced out and struck a spark from one of the pillars, then Coyote pitched the weight's rotational plane sharply upward. The weight reached the peak of the arc, then looped back down and he caught it in his right hand.

  "I've used this before."

  "Apparently." The monk pointed to other weapons on the wall. "What of the others, Kyi-can?"

  "All of them?" He hung the kusari-gama back in its place on the wall. "Spears, assagai, yari, naginata, a reproduction of a Roman pilum, an Inuit walrus spear and even a boar spear. The swords: claymore, rapier, daito, katena, wakizashi, shamsheer, scimitar, broadsword and obsidian-edged Aztec war club."

  As he looked at each weapon, he knew how it would feel in his hands. He knew its weight and its limitations. He knew what sort of damage it would do, how best to employ it in attacks and how to defend against it. If I was Fiddleback's pet, then he was training me to be a fighting pet. Knowledge of these things is more than I would need to know to be an assassin.

  "I know them all, lama. I know these and very much more." Coyote shook his head grimly, "It would appear that much of your work has already been done."

  "Perhaps, Kyi-can, perhaps." The monk headed back up the stairs. "Fiddleback constructed you well."

  "You mean trained."

  "I meant constructed."

  "What?" Coyote hurried up the stairs after the smaller man. "Constructed me?"

  Mong nodded as he headed down a corridor with a sunlight opening at the end. "Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, women claimed they had been kidnapped and forced to conceive children. They said their abductors were aliens or satanic cultists who were interested in breeding hybrids or innocent babies for sacrifice. Skeptics pointed out that there was no physical evidence of these crimes and, in many cases, something as simple as psychoactively induced hypnotic suggestions were employed by their kidnappers to create this belief on the part of the victims. In fact, women were often chosen who had a history of mental problems and genetic defects specifically because no one would believe aliens had been stupid enough to select them for breeding programs."

  "Why would someone go to all the trouble of faking such horrible stories?" Coyote frowned. "And what has this to do with me?"

  "Camouflage, Kyi-can." Mong stepped out into the lamasery courtyard to the right of the long stairway. "Amid so many people claiming truth where there was clearly falsehood, no one would listen to those who had been kidnapped. There were women who were taken and held in thrall to carry a child to term. There were men who were targeted, who had sperm samples taken from them, but were unable to tell their tales to anyone who would believe them."

  "You know who my parents were?"

  The monk shook his head as he walked around and mounted the steps. "I do not, though you find it obvious that your parents were excellent physical specimens, with superior intellects and imaginations. Athletic, both of them, to be sure. Perhaps one was a chess champion or a wizard at computer programming or destined for a Nobel in physics. The other, I should think, would have had a creative side—indulging in painting or poetry."

  Taking the steps two at a time, Coyote caught up with Mong. "The athletics connection is logical. I assume the creativity is because that is a link into empathy?"

  "Very good." Mong pressed his hand along the flank of the stone lion balustrade as he worked his way up the stairs. "Your training would have maximized your potential in physical actions, and your creativity would have been indulged in other ways. No doubt your master would have wanted you to learn what we will teach you, but you would have received the training as a gift from him, not something you earn so that it belongs to you."

  "So I would define myself in relationship to him." Pet and master.

  "Yes." The monk reached the flat foyer of the temple and pointed toward the interior beyond two open bronze doors. "This is the Lhakang, the main hall in which Buddha is housed, it is used for prayer and meditation. You are being housed in the Dukhang along with all the other monks. Beneath the Lhakang is the Gonkhang, which is reserved for our guardian, the Yidam. It is sacred and private, and I trust you will respect that by not attempting to enter it."

  "As you wish, lama." Coyote stepped forward and looked into the Lhakang. Up front he saw an altar, in front of which a number of beaten-gold bowls had been arrayed at the feet of the seated figure of Buddha. At least one looked to be full of rice and another with flowers. Flanking the main statue he saw smaller deities represented along with bodhisattvas, saints and monks. Instructional murals filled the walls between the pillars supporting the ceiling. A number of monks and their novices sat on the stone floor, their meditative murmurs filling the cavernous room with a low hum.

  "In bringing me here, Crowley said you would instruct me in Sunyata and Oumah. He noted my instruction would be in that order, which is the reverse in which you normally provide instruction." Coyote folded his arms across his chest. "Having seen what Crowley can do—for example, the manner in which he left here—I know this ability to slip between worlds is powerful. I would gather, however, given how you train people here normally, learning this ability is not the focus of your teaching."

  "It is a way station." Mong turned to face out into the lamasery courtyard. "The people who come here wish to become enlightened. They wish to understand how all reality is one. They are, if you will, interested in the tree as a whole. The ability to leap from leaf to leaf is a minor sideline."

  "Yet one that you find very useful."

  Mong stared at him. "Useful?"

  "I should have said 'vital.'" Coyote gave the monk a tightly controlled smile. "You have a community here of over 500 individuals, yet you have no fields under cultivation. On the trip up here I saw little evidence of the sort of caravan you would need to keep this place supplied. I also noticed, when I woke up yesterday to eat what a rapjung brought to me, that the fruit that looked like an orange was segmented differently than oranges I've had before."

  Mong shrugged. "You and Mi-ma-yin notice the segmentation problem. Most of our monks just noticed they do not have 'Sunkist' stamped on them."

  "So, you send getsuls and gelongs out to forage amongst the various realities?"

  "Since all reality is one, accepting nourishment from another dimension is a blessing." The monk folded his arms into the sleeves of his robe. "I think there is one more thing you should see before we begin your formal lessons. Follow me, please."

  Mong headed off on the long circuit around the outside of the Lhakang. Off to his right, Coyote saw the northern gate in the lamasery wall. Aside from its having carved stone doors that could not possibly ever move, it looked exactly like the western g
ate through which he had entered Kanggenpo. The 27 monks seated in the prayer alcoves surrounding it were deep in their meditations.

  Coyote came around to the rear of the Lhakang a step behind Mong. He stopped short as the monk pointed to it. "You entered through the west and will depart through the east."

  The gate appeared similar to the others in all its elements, but they had been rearranged and changed to make that gate seem threatening. It is almost malignant and hateful. A stone causeway connected it to the Lhakang level of the main temple, placing it 40 feet above the courtyard level served by the other three gates. As with the others, 27 monks guarded it, but they were armed with weapons and wore armor. The two sets of nine in the vertical alcoves on either flank carried swords, spears and bows and arrows, with their armor of traditional Tibetan design. The monks in the horizontal row capping the gate had old AKM and G3 assault rifles slung over their shoulders and two had LAW rockets leaning against the alcove walls.

  The gateway they surrounded led directly into the mountainside, and their alcoves had been carved into the mountain's hide. Seeing no doors, Coyote thought the gateway was just the entrance to a huge, dark cavern. Then he caught sight of what had to be the doors, but he was uncertain because they seemed insubstantial and ethereal. Intricately worked with arcane designs, they slowly solidified into a ghostly gray plasm, then began to fade again before they reached opacity.

  Opposite the gateway, painted tall and menacing on the rear of the Lhakang, a black-skinned giant with four arms snarled at the gateway. Bright white tusks thrust out and up from his lower jaw, and his eyes looked filled with blood. His upper two hands held lightning bolts, the lower left a sword and the lower right a mace. Around his neck hung a string of skulls, and Coyote noticed that a number of them were not of terrestrial origin.

  Coyote looked from the gateway to the picture and back. "I have the feeling I'm not intended to understand this."