Up against the far end of the hall, as far from the entrance as it was possible to get, stood a dais. Dark archways opened in the walls to either side of the raised platform. On the dais were high tables covered with silk cloths, and silk banners covered the wall behind it.
The champions in the hall began to take places on the benches that stood beside the long tables.
“I don’t see anything that looks like a maitre d’ around here,” Johnny said, “so I guess we’ll have to seat ourselves.”
To the wailing sound of the flutes a procession of silk-clad ladies entered the hall from one side, arranging themselves along the left side of the dais. The ladies were dressed in silks in all the colors of the rainbow. The cloth shimmered in the light, made alluring by the motion of the bodies beneath it.
At last, behind the ladies, her silken train borne by her four maids, came Princess Kitana. She wore scarlet silks stitched all around with a golden thread. For a moment she stood behind the high seat on the dais, her eyes searching the hall. She swept the ranks of champions in the hall with her gaze and found Liu. She looked deeply into his eyes. Then she broke the contact and sat, and her ladies-in-waiting sat with her.
“Half the table up there is empty,” Liu said. “I wonder who else is coming up to the party?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s time to find places of our own,” said Sonya.
Johnny pointed. “Looks like there’s room over that way.”
The three took seats on benches at one of the long tables on the left side of the hall, Johnny saw that the man sitting directly across from him was Art Lean. In spite of his bold words earlier, he felt glad to see a familiar face.
“Hey,” Johnny said. “What do you think of this lashup?”
“Not bad so far,” Art replied. “Have you seen the competition yet?”
Sonya, Johnny, and Liu looked at each other, then back at Art. “Nothing to worry about,” Johnny said.
Up on the dais, a procession of black-clad hooded monks was bringing out trays of food to the high table. At the same time, out among the side tables, beautiful young women and handsome young men brought food to the warriors who had gathered for Mortal Kombat.
The servant who brought a tray of brown meat in a thick red sauce to Johnny’s part of the table was tall and thin, her silk gown cut up the left side to her hip. She had a long braid of golden hair which hung down her back well past her waist. A tattoo of a lion was emblazoned on her left cheek.
“At least this girl looks human,” Johnny whispered to Liu as the wench poured steaming brown liquid into the silver goblets which stood before them.
In reply Liu whispered, “Look down.”
Johnny did so. He saw the server’s feet. They were long – almost like skis – extending in front of and behind her.
“Oh well,” Johnny said.
“Hi,” said a young man a little farther down the table, ”I’m Brad.” He was of medium height, with brown hair and a goatee. “I was wondering: I know why I’m here, but why are you here?”
“To defend Earth,” said the other young man beside him. The latest speaker held a garish science-fiction novel in his hand. The cover showed an eye-patched starpilot standing in his rocket ship. The starpilot looked grave.
“And you are?” Brad asked him.
“Ryan.”
“Wait a minute,” Brad said. “Didn’t you spend some time in Leavenworth?”
“Yeah, I did,” Ryan said. “Want to make something of it?”
“Not me,” Brad said, turning back to the nameless deep-red sausage on his plate.
Meanwhile, Art Lean was looking at the platters of spun silver and beaten gold that the wench was heaping on the table.
“Who’s bold?” he asked at last.
“Depends,” Sonya replied. “What do you need done?”
“I’m wondering who’s going to try this stuff first.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” Sonya said. She lifted the goblet and tasted the contents. “Hey, if this isn’t hot chocolate, it’s the next best thing!”
“It’s gotta be better than what I’ve got over here,” Johnny muttered. He’d just raised the lid on a covered dish before him. The vessel was filled with nearly spherical fish studded with long spikes. Their scales were pale green in color, and their eyes were fixed and staring. The fishes’ mouth were open, revealing double rows of sharp teeth. A sparkling tan glaze covered their bodies and looped from the tips of the spines.
“Looks like poached puffer in caramel sauce,” Sonya said. She reached out with her chopsticks and lifted one of the fish onto her plate. “I ate worse than that at survival school.”
“Say,” said the blond young man sitting next to Art across the table, “aren’t you Johnny Cage, the movie star?”
“Yeah,” Johnny said. He looked closer. “Aren’t you Pete, the skier?”
“He’s wicked fast,” said another young man, also sitting at the table. “I’m Jesse.”
“Glad to meet both of you,” Johnny said. “Here’s wishing you the best of luck in the tournament.”
Sonya pulled over the tray of meat and lifted two slabs of the stuff from the serving fish to her own plate. “Don’t you worry about cholesterol?” Johnny asked her.
“Nope,” she said, picking up a bit of crispy fat and munching on it. “I figure something else is probably going to kill me first. So I might as well enjoy myself.” She poked with a chopstick at one of the brown slices of meat. “I wonder what this was before it dies?”
“This is the Feast of Heroes,” Liu said. “It’s probably fried hero.”
“I don’t think that they’ve gone to all this trouble to get us here just to poison us there first night,” Art said. He started filling his own plate, though Johnny noticed that he was sticking mostly to the fruit.
“I think it’s good,” said Pete’s friend Jesse. He already had two stuffed eels on his plate and was reaching for a third.
A sudden frantic drumming silenced the crowd. The last rays of the setting sun were shining in the open door of the hall. The ruddy light made the firelight of the torches seem pale in contrast. In the silence after the drums stopped, some fifty creatures marched into the hall, two abreast.
Many of them were human, or nearly so, in shape and form. Others had grotesque animal, bird, or insect heads. Some had multiple legs. But they were all richly dressed, and all of them were armed with swords, sais, nunchucks, or staves.
They marched in perfect step to the center of the hall, and they were halted. A single drumbeat sounded, and the Outworlders turned to face one another. A second drumbeat, and they assumed fighting stances. A third, and, with a terrifying cry that sprang simultaneously from fifty inhuman throats, they began to spar.
Attacks and blocks came slowly at first, to the beat of a solitary drum. But the tempo picked up as a second drum added its sound. The slap of bare feet on the cold stone floor, the flickering shadows of the torches, the drumbeats… Johnny found the sight hypnotic. A third drumbeat began to sound, and each of the Outworld fighters turned to a new opponent. Faster and faster came their blows and their blocks. A fourth drumbeat. A fifth. Fists, feet, and weapons were moving in blurs, too fast for the eye to follow. No sound other than the slap of feet on stone, or the whistle of the staves turned aside or blocked at the last moment, and the rasping breath of the fighters was audible. The spectators, the greatest champions of the earth, sat in stunned silence at the dizzying demonstration of agility and power.
The drumbeats came faster and faster, building to a constant roll; the Outworld champions glistened with sweat, yet still no sound other than their breathing escaped their lips.
The sun dipped below the horizon, and with the swiftness of a tropical night the darkness descended outside the open doors.
At the moment the crash of a gong overpowered all the other sounds in the Great Hall. The drums fell silent. The Outworlders froze in place, then turned and bowed to one another.
“Hell of a show,” Art Lean whispered, leaning forward across the table.
“I wish their fight arranger had worked on my last film,” Johnny whispered back.
Liu pointed to the half-empty dais. “Look over there.”
A cortege of black-cowled monks was stepping up to the right of the dais. They clapped on hand-cymbals as they came, the jingling sound loud in the silenced hall. Behind them, borne on the shoulders of yet more monks came a litter covered with purple-and-gold damasked silk. On the litter stood Shang Tsung, dressed in a shimmering green brocade robe. More monks paced behind. When the little reached the high table in the center of the dais, the monks who carried it knelt.
The sorcerer took a step forward. His eyes swept the hall. Wherever his eyes glanced on an Outworlder, that creature bowed, whether in deference or fear Johnny couldn’t be sure. Johnny himself felt a cold shudder run down his spine as the dark eyes with the flames at their bottoms swept over him.
If the Great Hall had been quiet before, it was utterly silent now.
“Welcome!” Shang cried out, his voice echoing in the rafters. His voice was deep, an unknowable power behind it. The sound made Johnny flinch.
Sonya raised her goblet to her lips and took a sip.
“Welcome, champions!” Shang cried. “You are here to compete in Mortal Kombat, the greatest of all tournaments. You should be proud! Each one of you has been chosen for your excellence, your skill, and your courage! You are the best fighters of your generation, worthy to represent the Realm of Earth…” Here Shang paused and allowed his eyes again to sweep the hall. “And the Realm of Outworld!”
Liu looked up. Against the wall by the entrance, in a corner as far as it was possible to get from Shang and still remain in the hall, he spied a humbly-clothed man. Unlike the champions of Outworld or the champions of Earth, who clustered together at the tables, the man was standing aloof from all the rest.
The beggar lifted his head under his coolie hat and looked at Liu.
“Rayden!” Liu whispered.
“Tomorrow,” Shang said from the high dais, his voice filling the hall, “in the morning, the Great Tournament will begin. The opponents will be chosen by lot. The winner of each bout will progress to the next. At the last, only one champion will remain.”
Liu turned his eyes from Rayden to Shang Tsung. When he looked back, the God of Lightning was no longer visible.
“It is a great honor for you to face the finest fighters of two worlds,” Shang continued, his voice growing louder, his words faster. “Some will even have the privilege of fighting Prince Goro, the reigning champion!”
The emperor’s sorcerer turned his eyes to the tables where the human contingent sat in puzzled silence. “You in particular,” Shang said, lowering his voice, moving his hands to take in all of the waiting humans, “are all witnesses to one of the great turning points in the history of the earth. Treasure these moments,” he said, “as if they were your last.”
The drums and flutes began to make a strange, discordant music, low at first and growing louder.
“Now,” Shang cried, raising his arms, “for your entertainment, a taste of things to come!”
“Is there anything more you require?” the lion-tattooed server asked Sonya, as the ranks of Outworld fighters in the center of the hall turned and marched out of the Great Hall.
“Everything’s pretty good so far,” Sonya said. She pointed her chopstick at a plate containing small brown balls. “Out of curiosity, what are those?”
“Ground dried bloodworms, lightly breaded and sautéed in monkey oil,” the server replied.
“They’re great,” Sonya said. She picked up another one with her chopsticks, ignoring the sound of Johnny gagging beside her.
The drums rolled. From the far doors of the hall two huge Outworld soldiers began to pace forward. They wore strange exoskeletal armor and helmets of bone which covered the entire head and face, leaving only the eyes visible. In their hands they held lances of steel with heads carved in the shapes of dragons. The creatures spun the lances around their heads and bodies as they came, the weapons whistling through the air.
The Outworld soldiers stopped in the center of the hall, not far from where Sonya and the others were sitting.
“What in the hell are those?” Johnny asked.
“Palace guards,” the servant wench replied. “The mutant hereditary soldiers of Outworld.”
The nearer guard lifted its head and howled a wordless cry of challenge at the ceiling. As if in answer, two smaller figures dressed in black – one with a blue overmantle, the other in yellow – came down from the dais where they had been standing unnoticed beside the sorcerer. The newcomers walked down the center of the hall until they faced the guards from no more than a dozen feet away.
“Ninjas,” Liu whispered.
“Yeah,” Sonya said. She pointed to the one in blue. “And I think I know that joker.”
The blue ninja in the center of the hall stood silent, head bowed as if meditating. His hands were raised to about waist level, palms facing one another a few inches apart.
A pale blue glow surrounded the ninja’s hands, growing more and more intense as the seconds passed.
“Pumping himself up for something,” Art said.
The drums and flutes raised to a piercing crescendo. The ninja in yellow stood with his hands raised in a classic ready position. All at once, something small and vicious, like a spike with teeth, flew from his right palm, directly at the guard who faced him.
The living spike was trailed by an umbilical cord leading back to the ninja’s hand. The spike struck the guard. Instantly, the Outworld warrior stiffened as blood stained its armor. The lance fell away from its hands. The umbilical cord tightened, dragging the unfortunate warrior closer to the yellow ninja. When it had been pulled close enough, the yellow ninja kicked forward, high and fast, taking the guard beneath the chin. The impact ripped the spike from the guard’s flesh as the Outworld warrior crashed backward to lie still on the stone floor. The living spike vanished back into the ninja’s hand.
The yellow-clad ninja bowed to Shang Tsung and stepped away from the fallen warrior.
The remaining guard howled and swung its lance around its head, the steel shooting forth red reflections of the flames as it spun. The blue ninja remained motionless and silent. Without warning the guard sprang into the air and hurtled itself toward the ninja, its lance pointed at the smaller fighter’s heart.
Before the leap was completed the ninja raised one hand. A mist seemed to fly from it toward the onrushing guard.
The guard sparkled as it passed through the mist. The ninja took one nimble step aside. Rather than howling, or stopping its lunge, the guard held its position, leg stretched out behind, lance pointed forward. A moment later, making no attempt to land gracefully, it smashed into the floor. And there it shattered into a hundred fragments.
Glittering bits of armor and flesh scattered over the pavement, each frozen as hard as steel. Razor-edged shards of what had been an Outworld soldier dropped on the table at which Johnny and Art sat.
“Ah,” said Shang Tsung from the dais. “Flawless Victory.”
The sorcerer sat at last, raised a morsel of food to his lips, and began delicately to eat.
Sonya poked at a piece of the guard that lay on the table near her plate. The frozen shard was already starting to thaw. A thin red fluid seeped out of it to stain the white tablecloth.
“Waitress,” the lieutenant said, “take this back to the kitchen and warm it up for me, okay? It’s a little cold.”
Johnny Cage was just sitting there, stunned by what he had seen. “Shows what I get for listening to people,” he muttered as he looked from the shattered remains of one guard in the center of the hall to the corpse of the other guard lying still in a pool of blood. “Take some time off. Come to a little tournament. It’ll be good for the career. Hah. Dead people don’t have careers…”
The ninjas had rejoined Sh
ang at the dais. The sorcerer sat watching the human champions in the hall, sipping from his goblet at rare intervals. At last Shang stood and strode down the center of the hall, with the two ninjas flanking him.
As Shang passed by, Liu stood and moved to follow.
“Hey,” Johnny said, catching Liu’s arm and pulling him back down into his seat. “Where are you going?”
“After Shang Tsung.”
“You can’t follow him. Remember what Rayden said? You aren’t ready. You’ll be killed.”
“Rayden didn’t say a word to me,” Sonya said, rising to her feet in turn. “That bastard Tsung knows where Kano is.” She started out after the sorcerer and his two ninjas. “He’s mine.”
“You gotta admire that girl’s spirit,” Johnny said, watching Sonya as she vanished into the crowd of servers, humans, and Outworlders.
“Ain’t her spirit he’s admiring,” Art said wryly from the other side of the table.
“I don’t care,” Liu said, standing again. “We can’t let her go alone.”
“Then I’m with you,” Johnny said as he drained his goblet. “Like she said on the ship, we’re a team.”
Without another moment’s hesitation, the two men rose and followed Sonya from the Great Hall. Art Lean watched them go, slowly shaking his head.
“Coach always told me that chasing women the night before a bout was a good way to get your ass kicked the next day.” He picked up another piece of fruit and nibbled at it delicately. “Me, I’m staying right here until it’s time for bed.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Shang Tsung made his way slowly from the Great Hall and across the manicured lawn toward the statuary garden. His two ninjas trailed him on either side.
A full moon had risen and cast its ghostly light across the landscape. The demon sorcerer paused to look at the arenas on the lawn that had been prepared for the next day’s fighting. Torches flared around them in the night.
“So it begins,” he said. “And so it will end. In two days, three at most, the Realm of Earth will belong entirely to the emperor… and to me.”
Mortal Kombat: The Movie Page 7
