Fiddleback Trilogy 2 - Evil Ascending

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Which is a lot more than we can bring to bear to take that armored beast apart.

  Suddenly, Sin heard gravel being crushed under running feet. He glanced to the right and saw Rajani sprint past along the path, heading right for the Roboguard. "No, Rajani, no!" She's not even got a gun!

  The Roboguard's left arm rotated outward and tracked her. Sin heard an explosive hiss of compressed air, then saw Rajani stumble and fall. It only darted her. She could still be alive. The hope that thought inspired died quickly as the Roboguard sidled over like a big bird approaching an egg and crouched above her recumbent body.

  "Hal, we've got a RamTech Roboguard IV here holding K-land and Rajani." Sin licked his lips. "If Jytte's been saving a security-cracking miracle, now is the time to use it." He ducked his head as another 9mm burst swept through the undergrowth. "If not, the only way we're getting to Ryuhito is in another incarnation."

  Rajani felt her heart skip a beat as Sin ran out of the command center. She started to send him a message telepathically, but stopped when she realized he had more than enough to think about without her distracting him. And you have more than enough to think about without letting him distract you.

  She appropriated a high-backed chair and sat in it, sinking deep into the cushions. She focused herself and purposely tuned out the algorithms and equations bleeding off Jytte like radio static. She found it more difficult to push past Hal's underlying hatred of violence, but she worked around it and let her mind float. She sensed both the Eagle and Falcon teams as they moved purposefully to their jobs, then went out beyond the buildings.

  In her mind she visualized them as being akin to the blueprints Hal had spread out on the desk, but she reversed the colors so the walls and doors became a neon blue in a navy-blue background. Sailing up over the walls, she started spotting and fixing in her mind where people were. For a second, a yellow lifelight burned down the hallway near Falcon team, then it winked out. Then, way out, she saw a number of lights blazing away, including the double-sized one she knew to be Bat.

  In the vast courtyards she saw no one. "Hal, Khmer and Yellowstone look clear. Dogs are closing on the guards out at that end."

  "Are you sure about the courtyards?"

  Rajani nodded and checked them again. "Clear. No life signs."

  "What about the Sun Court?"

  "Clear. Wait." She frowned and shifted uncomfortably in the chair. To her mind, that large central circle looked clear, but she had a hard time concentrating on it. "Something is not right."

  "Hal, Ryuhito should be in the Sun Court, according to this schedule I've found."

  "Checking." Rajani let her anger power her, and she again focused on the Sun Court. As if her anger were a hammer, the black shroud shielding that area crumpled. Golden lights filled it, but at the center she saw a brilliant white light burning like magnesium and a tainted green-gray light beside it. "Ryuhito is there in the Sun Court. I'm sure of it."

  She heard Hal's voice squawk over the radio, but the earpiece pulled free of her ear as she jerked her head to the right. The blackness tried to shut her out again, but she fought it and forced it to remain down. She saw Falcon and Eagle teams moving toward the Sun Court, and confidence strengthened her.

  Suddenly, a malignant green beam shot down through the sky and impaled the gray-green glow. For a moment, she saw the black silhouette of a centauroid spider creature devour the green-gray speck, then that speck returned with black marbling running through it, shifting from moment to moment.

  The green light shot out through the holes in the marbling and slammed into all the gold sparks surrounding it. She saw the green energy surround the bright light and mask its brilliance. Then a jade circle expanded and eclipsed the original ball, but Rajani realized too late that it meant one of the green beams was coming for her.

  She felt it slam into her forehead, and she jerked back in the chair. «I am here for you,» it communicated to her. «Come to me, come to me all.»

  At once she knew this sending had come from Fiddleback through his agent in the Sun Court. As she listened, the human edge of emotion on the message began to fail. Through it she began to hear more of Fiddleback's sibilant tones, and she fed that back along the link line to create a disruptive echo.

  Proximity will help! Rajani vaulted herself out of the chair and started running down the hallway. Distantly behind her, she heard Hal calling out to her, but she continued running. She sensed Fiddleback's growing satisfaction as, one by one, the gold lights shifted to green. «Come to me; I am here for you!» crooned the green energy.

  As she ran on, Rajani suddenly understood something about Fiddleback, and it spurred her on to greater speed. He collected things—people and creatures—and fused them together. If he were forced to break them down first, he could still use them, but they were not nearly as strong or capable as they would be if they came to him freely. Given that all the golden lights in the Sun Court could not, even were they all combined, even begin to match Ryuhito's energy, she knew she had to prevent his seduction.

  Gravel crunched beneath her feet. She heard gunfire in the distance, but she pushed on as her goal stood less than 40 meters north. Wait. Was that Sin? Do I smell blood?

  She heard Sin call out to her as she rushed past cover and into the central circle of stones. She started to turn back toward him when the Roboguard's dart, having missed her carotid artery, hit her right below her larynx. The dart stung, and she brought her hands to her throat, throwing herself utterly off balance. She fell heavily and rolled onto her back.

  Lying there sprawled out, she felt a rain of spent cartridges pour over her body. Looking up, she saw the Roboguard station itself above her. She wanted to scream, but could not because the drug in the dart paralyzed her vocal chords—a human would have been out, but with her xenobiological chemistry, a localized effect was the best it could produce.

  I am dead!

  «No, daughter, you are not!»

  Off to the right, a huge figure stood and raised a rifle of immense proportions. The Roboguard started to pivot right. The machine's right arm began tracking, then the underslung ball turret moved, then the arm again. By the time its decision tree determined the target did not fit any known attack profile, and it tried to bring all its weapons to bear, the giant's finger pulled the trigger.

  The PTRS's projectile weighed over two and a quarter total ounces. By the time the four-foot-long muzzle flame chased it from the gun's barrel, it had accelerated to 3320 feet per second. At that speed, the bullet traveled the 20 meters from the muzzle to the Roboguard roughly three times faster than the sound of it being fired.

  The teflon-coated tungsten projectile hit the Roboguard right beneath the spot where a GBI employee had lovingly painted one of the tiger's eyes. At the moment of impact, the Roboguard's armor began to bend and heat with the transfer of kinetic energy from the shell. The interior of the armor plating spalled off, spraying metal fragments through the CPU and severing fiber-optic connections to one of the two gyroscopes that kept it upright. That alone would have been enough to take the machine out of action.

  The teflon coating reduced friction between the bullet and the armor so its speed had only bled down to Mach 2.5 when the tungsten rod fully penetrated the Roboguard's armor. At that point, the shell's outer sheath began to telescope down, injecting the incendiary charge into the interior of the Roboguard's body. Those chemicals, which had ignited on impact, blossomed into a fireball as they got enough oxygen to combust. In the blink of an eye, the sophisticated sensors, custom ROMs and electrical relays that gave the Roboguard the illusion of life and sentience vanished into greasy smoke and molten sludge.

  The tungsten rod continued its flight and pierced the other side of the Roboguard's armor. Jets of fire shot out both the entry and exit wound like flames snorted by a dragon. They illuminated the whole Khmer courtyard, then vanished into dark afterimages. The Roboguard froze in its last position and, unbalanced, toppled over on its right side.
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  Rajani rolled to the left and away from the shower of stones the claws tossed into the air when the machine went down. She clutched at her throat, but could not find the dart. More importantly to her, though, she didn't find a gaping wound where her throat should have been, and she checked twice because she could not believe how little blood she had on her hands.

  Sin skidded to a halt beside her and pulled her into the shadow of the Roboguard. "Are you all right?"

  She nodded, then looked up beyond him as two other figures came running over. One she did not recognize at all, but the other . . . «Father?»

  «Yes, Rajani. It is me.»

  Her head craned back as she slowly stood. The creature answering her question towered above her. She recognized his color and his tattooing, yet he had changed incredibly since she had last seen him: the tusks and the extra pair of arms. Even his mind felt different as he spoke to her. Even so, there at the core she found someone familiar.

  Smiling, she threw her arms around him. «Father!» She lay her head against his chest and nestled herself in the security of his four-armed hug.

  Another mental voice pushed through the area and intruded on her happiness. From the surprised look on Sin's face, Rajani knew he heard it, too. «Ollie, Ollie in free! Come to the Zun Court, my friendz! Come one, come all!» Underlying the message, Rajani heard the human voice she had heard before, but the bulk came straight from Fiddleback. That made her fight to resist it, but she could find no hostility in the call. It might have been arrogant and patronizing, but not overtly threatening.

  Her father looked at his companion, and both of them nodded. "This is our only play," her father's friend said. "If you get a shot at Fiddleback, take it."

  "I will."

  As she left her father's strong embrace, she sensed from both him and his companion reluctance and resignation. They knew the Sun Court would be a trap, but it would also be their best chance to rescue Ryuhito. They knew that fighting a Dark Lord straight up was foolish, but her father's companion also believed Fiddleback's ego and confidence would give them an opening to defeat him.

  Sin walked a little ahead of her on the way to the Sun Court, but looked back and smiled confidently. "We'll win this one. Trust me."

  Rajani returned his smile. "You, I trust. Fiddleback, I don't."

  All four followed the Falcon team ninjas into the Sun Court and pushed on through to the front of the ninja ranks. Off to her left, she saw Eagle team with Colonel Nagashita at its head. Hal and Jytte appeared between her and Eagle team, and the Yakuza appeared with Natch, Bat and Kazuo on the right. Between her and the fountain, Rajani saw all sorts of folks dressed for the party Sin had quit earlier in the evening, and arrayed out beyond the circle of the fountain she spotted two dozen GBI security guards.

  What attracted her attention most was Arrigo El-Leichter. His fists balled, his cruciform body floated 10 feet above the illuminated base of the fountain. Below him, suspended between heaven and Earth, Ryuhito stood on a hovering green disk. Verdant energy crackled from a halo around Arrigo's head, and she saw it reflected in the eyes of noncombatants ringing the fountain.

  Arrigo's head came up, and his face locked into a demonic grin. "Ah, my pet haz returned to hiz zpawning plaze. Zplendid that the prodigal zon be prezent for thiz." He shifted his gaze and looked at everyone. "You are here to birth in a new order on thiz world."

  Rajani felt his stare as if it were a lecherous caress, and she immediately wanted to bathe. She retreated a step to the right, and Sin slipped his left arm over her shoulder. She shuddered, and he hugged her.

  "Ryuhito haz azked for a practical demonztration of the power I have to offer him. You know of thiz, your Internal Defenze Cadre?"

  Hands clasped at the small of his back, Ryuhito nodded curtly. "I also see that Mr. MacNeal has returned, when you said he had been dealt with."

  "That waz not me, but the vezzel I now occupy." Arrigo's body brought its arms together so his fists touched above his head. "You wizh to zee power? You wizh to zee that which I will give to you?" His arms shook, and his hands disappeared in long gouts of green fire. The flames swept over the crowd without burning anyone, then evaporated. "Thiz iz power."

  "It's nothing," Sin laughed. "It's gone."

  Rajani shuddered again. "It's not gone, Sin. Look at their eyes. Look at his disciples' eyes."

  Coyote did not need Rajani's warning to tell him something was very wrong. Right in front of him he saw a rather plain woman's head and body jerk down as if she were in great pain. Her head curled on through her stomach, and her upper body followed, emerging on the other side of her spine. As the ripple effect continued to turn the woman inside out, swallowing her arms and legs as it went, she rebirthed herself as a 20-foot-long snake with a woman's head and a serpent's fangs glistening with venom. She coiled herself sensuously and flicked a forked tongue at him.

  All around her, throughout the crowd that had willingly accepted Fiddleback's invitation to join him in power, other people started to change. One obese man's flesh disappeared back into himself as if his bones were sponges soaking it all up. He looked down at his skeletal body, then threw his head back in an attitude that should have been accompanied by wild laughter, but without lungs and vocal chords, the only sound he made came from the raspy click of his mandibles grinding in their sockets.

  As Coyote saw others transform into bizarre creatures, none exactly like another, he figured out the one thing linking them all. The plain woman became a serpentine seductress. The fat man became thin. A slight, balding man bulked out and had a thick, black pelt covering him—with Coyote certain the man would have become a gorfash if he had known to model himself on one. Each of these people is becoming a caricature of what they most desire to be. Fiddleback's gift is like a wish granted by an evil djinn. A child never again wishing to be hungry would find himself alone on an island with an unending supply of moldy bread and rancid butter.

  «Thiz iz becauze they are pawnz, Jaeger/Coyote. They are what they have made themzelvez to be. You are what I have wrought. You are a leader, and they are deztined to be your minionz.»

  Fiddleback invaded Coyote's mind through the opening the Yidam had created in his probing. Unbidden and undesired, Coyote saw Fiddleback's warped vision of the future blossom fully. Coyote watched himself become engulfed in the green fire that Fiddleback had used to baptize the crowd.

  Something deep down inside of him combusted. He felt incredible joy as unparalleled power pulsed through him. It raised him to heights he had never even dreamed existed. Legions upon legions of possibilities assaulted him, and he knew, with the power he had been given, he could do anything. He could make anyone's wish into reality, altering and adapting it as he saw fit.

  Suddenly, he heard the voices of all those surrounding him. The snake woman shouted out her exhilaration and unbridled pleasure at the transformation Fiddleback had wrought. The skeleton man luxuriated in his new-found slenderness, and yet others reveled in their transmogrifications. From them, Coyote felt a sense of right and justice.

  He saw his arms go out to embrace them all, then join with them physically. He absorbed them and their power.

  He grew larger and stronger, his raw energy grossly outstripping that which his gigantic form alone should have given him. As he grew, with people flowing into him like droplets of oil combining on a still-water pond, he saw Bat and the Yidam shrink. They were nothing to him because they did not possess the sort of power that sustained him. Unworthy as morsels, he saw them as threats in that they had the ability to destroy the creatures upon which his vast hunger fed.

  «I will give you thiz power, my pet! You will know your full potential. You will deztroy our enemiez, and we zhall become invincible!»

  The exultant tone in Fiddleback's voice sent a ripple of contempt through Coyote's mind. In the one second of clarity he had in its wake, he picked up a counterpoint to the joy and happiness still coming from those creatures he had allowed to become one with h
im. It resonated in low tones, but pulsed with dark energy. He dove down, clawing through all the positive affirmations and undying statements of gratitude. There, where his soul narrowed down into its blackest corner, he found the source of the undercurrent, and it greedily pulled him inward.

  Like black pearls that had been pitted and scarred by acid, he saw the fears and terrors of those Fiddleback had changed. Clinging to themselves, naked, cold and malnourished, the core identities of the people decayed. Flesh sloughed off in dry ashes. The trembling horror and anger shot out from them like dark rays that twisted and warped into the green energy empowering their new selves. They had been changed, but only through the torture of who and what they had been.

  «Now you know the zource. Now it iz all revealed to you. Come to me, my pet. Take up your rightful place at my right hand. What you azk will be yourz, if you will be mine!»

  "No!" Coyote leveled the Stormcloud at the snake woman as she reared back to strike. His first burst hit her two feet below her head, stopping her lunge more effectively than a stone wall. The second cloud of pellets obliterated her face. Her body went limp for a second as her head arced down to the ground, then uncoiled with a spasmodic jerk, causing the skeleton man to jump back.