Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (48 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
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then so
me. As it whipped back in preparation for another strike, I thought I saw human features centered
around
the swordblade as if it were a nose.
I hit hard and heard something go crunch in the fall. I prayed it was not my radio and screamed into the
microphone, "Code Eclipse, Merlin, code Eclipse." I heard the faint acknowledgement of my order as the scorpion-man towered over me and knew that even though it would kill me, I had stopped Fiddleback.
Before the tail could impale me, Mickey flew into the monster with a calculated recklessness that I'd never even seen in Bat. A flying snapkick caught the scorpion-man in the right flank, spilling it across the sand. It came up onto its feet in an instant, though its right arm did drop into place to protect its damaged ribs. The tip of the katana blade circled lazily as the scorpion-man moved in toward Mickey, then the tail struck.
I knew I could never have dodged that strike, even if I had been moving at the time it kicked off. Mickey did not
start his counter to it until the blade had already passed forward of the body and curled down in toward
him. At that point, he simply leaned toward the scorpion-man, letting the blade pass within a hair's
breadth of his head, yet 1 sensed no concern or urgency from him.
Mickey stiffened the fingers of his right hand into a spearhead and drove it up through the end of the
retreating tail. 1 actually saw the hide on the upper end of the tail stretch, then burst as his hand sliced clean through it, opening a hand-width hole in it.
The eyes in the tail died as Mickey withdrew his bloody hand with a sucking
thivock
sound, but the eyes in the face registered the pain of the assault. That fact formed little more than a footnote to the fight, as Mickey pirouetted on his right foot, presenting the creature a tantalizing view of his back. As it began to lean toward him, its fists aiming for his spine, he completed the spin and contracted his right hand into a fist. He brought it up, around and down, hitting the scorpion-man on the top of the skull, flattening it with a muffled crump.
As fascinating as Pygmalion had found the glowing of his tower, so did Fiddleback look upon the
destruction of his champion. He focused entirely on the battle between the scorpion-man and Mickey.
The Dark Lord's emotions rollercoastered through the battle and finished somewhere close to begrudged
respect for the minion who had rebelled and created his champion's undoing.
That distracted him enough for Bronislaw Joniak to bring the Apache around and unload the remaining
Hellfire missiles. Had the Dark Lord not been in the city ruins, he might have been close enough to swat
some or all of the missiles from the sky. As distant as he was, he could do nothing but watch impotently
as the half-dozen missiles streaked in at their target and did to it what they had done to the statue, only more so.
I felt curiously detached as the missiles hit the glowing blue tower. Two exploded against the major support legs on the near side. The long crystalline supports shattered into a glittering hail and started the whole structure coming down. The rest of the missiles hit it at various points on up the structure, severing disks and blasting apart pillars.
I reflected for a second that those later missiles probably saved my life because, unlike the other people, I had not begun to run away from where we had been standing. Intellectually, 1 knew that the tower, with its legs
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shot out fro
m it on our side, would likely fall right down on us. I should have been scared, but I could al
low
myself that luxur
y because I knew 1 would need it later. I knew as certainly as I knew respiration was necessary for life that the tower would not collapse on me, nor would it kill me.
That would have been too easy, too quick, too pleasant a way to die.
The crumbling tower released all its electrical and light energy into the sky. The golden cylinder vanished in an eyeblink, and the dome of the sky reappeared intact, though a curious bloody red stain shot through it. The freed electricity linked ground to sky with an argent lightning bolt, and the point where it touched the sky became an attractor for the blood.
Almost mechanically, I looked up at the Dark Lord that had created me. "You should have known better. I would never let you be in control of a live dimensional gate."
"I did, my pet." He raised himself up to his full height and St. Elmo's fire began to play over the horns, hooks and barbs on his exoskeleton. "I mizcalculated. You are too dangerouz to be allowed to live. I will kill you now."
"I'm.the killer, remember, Fiddleback?" 1 laughed defiantly and ripped a hole into a nearby dimension. "1 am the hunter, Fiddleback. Come kill me if you can because
now, my master, we play
my
game and
you
will lose." I slipped through and closed the rift before his frustrated scream could reach me, then I began running for my life.
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Someone less realistic than I would have put his running down to altruistic motives. He would have said he ran because he knew Fiddleback would pursue him to the exclusion of all others, thereby saving his friends back in Pygmalion's ruined domain. I knew that the first half of that idea was true, yet I could not guarantee he would not first destroy my comrades.
No, I ran because of sheer terror, at first. I knew it would take Fiddleback a microsecond to figure out what I had considered carefully since my return from the dead and my introduction to the Empress of Diamonds. The reason Fiddleback had required our aid to get him into Pygmalion's dimension was not because the other Dark Lord had hardened it against him, but because of the entropic barriers surrounding the pocket of proto-dimensions in which Pygmalion laired. By destroying the tower, I had managed to trap Fiddleback in an even smaller universe than the one in which he had previously roamed. Like a lobster blundering into a lobster pot, entry was easy for him, but escape would be impossible.
1 knew that would fuel his rage and deepen his desire to tear me to bits. He could not allow me to live because I had successfully defied him on two occasions. On the first, in
Phoenix, I had prevented him from entering the richest prize a Dark Lord could know: Earth. And here,
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now, I
had brought him a step closer, then tricked and trapped him. I had done to a Dark Lord things
that
could on
ly be rewarded with a lingering and painful existence.
I ripshifted into a dimension where I appeared in the sky above a molten sulfur surface. The noxious
fumes choked and blinded me, but I fought off panic and allowed myself to fall, plunging faster and
faster toward the fiery landscape. For a second, I toyed with the idea of suicide— knowing this death
would be more merciful than any my former master would grant me—then I sliced through dimensional
walls and dove on in to a new proto-dimen-sion.
A rush of hot air boosted me into the new dimension. As the gap closed behind me, I heard an agonized
roar as Fiddleback tore his way into the world of burning sulfur. I visualized his limbs bobbing in the
choppy black ocean like French fries on the boil, but 1 knew that would be too quick and easy a release
from my troubles. Fiddleback would never die by accident, only through a deliberate act of execution.
I fell a dozen feet and opened my eyes just as I skidded and bounced across waxen hills and through a
rivulet of hot wax. It coated me, and 1 whipped my sodden hair out of my eyes. That action proved
enough to cool the wax, leaving my hair frozen in a wind-lashed position. 1 laughed aloud at the
absurdity of it, then reached up into the sky and pulled myself up into a new dimension.
I could feel Fiddleback out there, searching for me. His bath in the sulfur doubtlessly caused him to
become more cautious. I felt him lay back, shifting on through to yet another dimension, then using his
power as a Dark Lord to seek me out. Pursuit was not in his nature, for he preferred to sit back and, like a spider in a web, wait until
prey came to him. He would analyze the dimensions in this entropic sphere, catalog them and start eliminating the ones that I would avoid. Gradually and carefully, he would isolate me and have me.
Of course, his search plan was predicated on his assumption that I desired surviving our encounter.
Doubtlessly, it had begun to occur to him that I might not care about my life. I had, after all, already won in a way. I had gotten him to eliminate Pygmalion as a threat to Earth. More importantly, I had trapped him in an isolated niche. Once other Dark Lords learned of its existence and location, it would become a Pandora's Box that no one would open for fear of releasing Fiddleback,
Pulling myself up into Turquoise through a hole in the ground that closed after I left it, 1 realized his assumption concerning me was both right and wrong. I did want to live in the same way that each and every living thing desired life. It was the key to maintaining the competitive edge. Without it, literally, I would have let myself swan dive into the sulfur sea and have been done with it.
On the other hand, I found death a comfortable companion. All my life I had been trained to kill, and I had accomplished my appointed tasks in Fiddleback's name with skill and daring. The only enemy who had ever
even detected my existence had been able to stop me, but only after the fact of his own death. He gave as good as he got, killing my old identity and rebirthing me in his image. Then I died again, atthe hands of the Aryans, but 1 survived that to become good enough to defy a Dark Lord.
1 got the impression that the third time, death would not be so kind to me.
I didn't care, as long as 1 took Fiddleback with me.
Had Fiddleback been hot on my trail, I would have detoured through a very cold proto-dimension ahead and
down a bit. With the leisure given me by his shift in tactics,
I cut a straight course through the dimensions to the one he had to have guessed I would run to. For
someone desiring life, this would be a blessed sanctuary. He would know I had to go for it, and even as I approached it, I could feel him coming in after me.
