Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master

by Gregg Taylor

  One paused, as if uncertain what to do.

  “I mean for you to get out of my sight, forever,” Rashan said in quiet fury. “Leave this place and never return.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence.

  “Master–,” the young man said at last.

  “Never call me that again,” the old man said sadly. “You are no student of mine. You are a monster and I have created you. That is to my shame, but I will bear responsibility for you no longer.”

  The younger man seethed in anger. “You are jealous,” he hissed. “Jealous of my power. You hide yourself with tricks like a coward. I fight like a soldier.”

  Rashan shook his head. “You steal like a thief and you boast like a child.”

  “I am the true master of the mind!” the younger man howled. “I bent them to my will and broke them as I saw fit! They are lesser things – toys to me.”

  “If I had wanted them destroyed,” Rashan said with a cold stare, “do you not think I could have done it myself? The soldiers, the men in the villages below, all the armies of man… even you, my young braggart soldier. I could make you my slave or break you like a toy. That is not strength. The strength is in choosing not to. In choosing to protect life, the deserving and the undeserving alike.” The old man’s voice was cold and hard.

  “Like him?” the young man said, his arm sweeping to point at August Fenwick where he stood, the lengths of silk still sweeping behind him in the cold wind. “Like some ridiculous rich man’s son playing games? The men he chased away could have come back… could have destroyed us all.”

  “Those men were terrified,” Rashan said. “They will tell their tales, seasoning them with lies, as men do. They will forget as the images fade from their minds, but not before they have sowed the seeds that will spread the legends of this place a hundred miles in every direction. Your foes are merely dead.”

  “Bravo to the man in the mask,” the young man spat. “Is this dilettante your new pet? He will leave you soon, and then where will you be?”

  “Here,” Rashan said quietly, “where I have always been. Where I must always be.”

  “There are other teachers,” the young man said in fury. “Other arts of the mind. You cannot stop me by casting me out.”

  Rashan seemed to consider. “Then perhaps I should destroy you now,” he said coldly. “Why should the whole world pay for my vanity?”

  “And I will make them pay,” the young man hissed. “I will not rest until I do.”

  Rashan smiled. “You are weak,” he said, shaking his head. “Even now, you would provoke me into killing you. You would rather die proving that I am no better than you than live with the struggle between power and compassion.”

  The young man stood in silence a moment, his hands shaking in rage. The old man spoke again.

  “There are other masters, young fool. There are other powers to seek. The road is hard and uncertain, but it is shrouded in darkness. You will become a creature of that darkness if you walk that road.”

  “Don’t frighten me too much,” he said, pushing past Rashan into the kuti. A moment later he returned, wrapped for his journey through the mountain pass, carrying his few belongings on his back. As he passed Rashan, he hissed, “I will be back for you, old man.”

  Rashan nodded. “Yes.”

  “We will see who truly is the Master of the Mind.”

  “Perhaps one day.”

  The angry young man turned to face Fenwick where he stood, a silent observer.

  “I will be back for you too, masked man!” he called, his voice raw with anger. “I will find you. No length of silk can hide you from my eyes!”

  Fenwick said nothing, but watched his fellow student disappear over the pass.

  He climbed down the hill and helped his master begin the long task of burying the dead in the rocky ground.

  Thirty-Four

  August Fenwick stepped from his taxicab onto the threshold of the exclusive Club Macaw, his brows knit with care. The normal mid-day bustle around the entrance to the gentleman’s club was noticeably absent. Indeed, past the gate that separated the grounds of the Club from the city streets, there seemed to be an almost eerie calm.

  Fenwick turned absent-mindedly to pay the driver, and was for a moment astonished to find the man already pulling away, his eyes fixed straight ahead. The wealthy young man did not even have a chance to shut the door of the car as it sped around the circle and back out the driveway, the driver never slowing down or looking back.

  He stepped forward and paused a moment upon sight of the doorman. The Red Panda felt certain the man’s name was Ryan, though he could not recall ever using it himself. He did, however, recall several tirades his usual driver had launched on the subject, and Fenwick found this man nothing like Kit’s picture of him. Ryan stood stock-still, as if he were painted upon the wall beside the door. He did not move to open the door, or bat an eye as Fenwick approached, but stared ahead into open space as if rapt upon some unseen wonder.

  The Red Panda considered Ryan for a moment and then opened the door himself, keeping the man in the corner of his eye as he passed. He felt it unlikely that his enemy would loose a sneak attack upon him this late in the game, but he felt it would be an exceedingly stupid way to die.

  His footsteps were light and practiced, but still they seemed to ring through the great foyer, now absent of any life. He passed the front desk, which was normally manned every hour that the Club was open but today stood deserted. Fenwick had come in search of information and now knew that there was much more waiting for him here. He moved silently upon the stairs, his caution a long-held reflex which he knew could not protect him from this enemy, but which he found it quite impossible to shake.

  He moved down the great hallway with its thick carpets and paused a moment. There was music upon the air, music the likes of which the very Anglo-Saxon Club Macaw had almost certainly never heard.

  A few steps forward and Fenwick was certain of the source of the music and stepped quietly into the Club’s conservative reading room.

  If he was surprised by what he saw, he did not show it, though no one who had known the Club Macaw could have expected such a sight. The room was draped in fabric of a golden hue, and the air was thick with the intense yet languid energy that one might find in an opium den.

  Draped around the room were the pillars of Toronto’s high society, the richest and most powerful men in the city. Some stood like sentries, the rest were spread out on the floor, venerated before the figure of a man in a high back chair. The chair itself had been draped with the golden fabric, indeed the reams of gold that spread across the room all seemed to stem from that seat, making it appear at once to be a throne of power and the centre of a spider’s web.

  The chair’s inhabitant was fanned on either side by female staff members of the club, each in a state of semi-dress that would never have been allowed. They stared straight ahead, unseeing, as Ryan had at the door. In the corner of the room dignified old James Armwald was crouched, stooped low and playing a haunting lament upon a sort of squat violin or lute from the highlands of Nepal.

  Fenwick considered this sight for a moment and turned back to face the man in the throne, who sat with an easy smile upon his sharp, hawk-like face.

  “Do you know this tune?” the man asked.

  “It seems familiar,” Fenwick replied.

  “It is a funeral lament.” The man’s eyes gleamed with a predatory light. “For you.”

  “I wasn’t aware that Armwald could play the sarangi,” Fenwick said casually.

  “I am almost certain that he cannot,” Ajay Shah said, the Cheshire smile still upon his lips. “And if he could before, he cannot now. His mind is gone.”

  Fenwick looked back and saw that it was true. Armwald’s eyes were cold and empty. There was no spark of life left in him at all, he was merely a puppet. As if to illustrate this point, Shah released his grip upon the old man’s mind and allowed him to fall, sprawling upo
n the ground, crushing the bow of the stringed instrument beneath him.

  The Red Panda turned back to face his enemy, an ember of fire beginning to glow in his own eyes.

  “Does that make you angry?” Shah said, sitting forward on the edge of his makeshift throne.

  “What are you doing here, Shah?” Fenwick said coldly.

  The smile on the enigmatic face grew larger and colder at the same time. “If you have heard that name, you must already know.”

  “Why here? Why now?” Fenwick snapped.

  Shah nodded. “You know that, too. Because even if I were not looking forward to your destruction, I was going to have to deal with you sooner or later.”

  “It could have been later,” the Red Panda said, his eyes narrowing and the last traces of August Fenwick disappearing from his voice.

  “Yes,” Shah agreed. “But I found I simply could not wait.”

  The Red Panda stood and said nothing.

  Shah looked at him, hard. “It is a wonder,” he said admiringly. “I assumed that when I saw you I would know you. And yet even still your face makes no impression upon my memory.”

  The Red Panda raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure it’s me?” he said with a small smirk in spite of himself.

  “Oh, you have your many masks, rich boy,” Shah said with a hiss. “But I would have known you at a hundred paces. You are the only man I cannot read at all. All the world is laid bare before me… the rich colors of their thoughts are mine for the taking. But there you stand, a mere fact. An apparition of black and white like a figure in a picture show.”

  The Red Panda said nothing.

  “I am surprised to find you traveling alone,” Shah said casually. “That is not your reputation.”

  “She was injured in the blast at Cain’s house,” the Red Panda said calmly.

  Shah nodded. “Plausible, but we both know that it isn’t true. You are keeping her from my mind,” he smiled, baring his teeth as he did so. “How wise.”

  “Leave her out of this,” the Red Panda said sternly. “This is between you and me.”

  Shah’s teeth gleamed in the morning light. “This is between myself and all the world, little man. You are nothing but an insect that I shall crush for my own pleasure.”

  The Red Panda’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head slowly. “You would like me to believe that,” he said quietly.

  It was Ajay Shah’s turn to say nothing.

  “I know why you are doing this,” the Red Panda said, his voice hanging with quiet menace, like thunder rolling in off the lake.

  Shah’s eyes widened and he thrust his face forward. “Because I can!” he spit, losing his composure for the first time.

  “Just as you say,” came the reply, his gaze cold and knowing. “As I recall, you had promised to make two stops on your path to glory. I was merely the second.”

  Shah seemed quietly perplexed a moment.

  “Rashan,” the Red Panda reminded him.

  Shah nodded, his hawk-like gaze drifting to the middle distance a moment. “I made that journey long ago. He was gone. You had deserted him, just as I said you would.”

  “Just as he knew I would,” the Red Panda said coldly. “I left a lot of people back then.”

  Shah smiled. “Perhaps we each have our ghosts. Perhaps we are not so very different.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps that is why I must destroy you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  The room was silent for a moment. The Red Panda regarded the men who surrounded him, the men of wealth and influence who now were the slaves of his enemy.

  “What about them?” he said. “I assume this tableau was for my benefit?”

  “You are so very cynical,” Shah hissed. “Is it not possible that I am simply enjoying myself? There is to be a great party in my honor at the home of Terrence Westing this very night. There, these… vassals will sign the last of their wealth over to me. Thus armed with riches beyond mere avarice, my march to power will become stronger. With each city I will move less like a thief in the night and more like an Emperor. Soon no power will be able to resist me. Soon all will bow before the throne of the Ajay Shah.”

  The Red Panda nodded. “Then it is I who must destroy you. Now.”

  Shah grinned broadly. “Oh, dear foolish boy, I did so hope that you would see things that way.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Come to Westing’s party if you dare. Simply everyone will be there.”

  “No,” the Red Panda said coldly. “Here and now.”

  Shah shook his head. “We dance according to my tune,” he said, “or your men will die.”

  “What?” the Red Panda said, stopping short.

  “Andy Parker, Jack Peters, Mac Tully…,” Shah said, rising from his chair. “You can be proud, they would not speak a word. But their minds were an open book to me.”

  “What have you done with them–”

  “Not very much,” Shah said. “Yet. But if you fail to appear at the party, dear fool, they will die at the stroke of midnight.”

  And with that, he turned and melted into the shadows.

  Thirty-Five

  The Westing mansion was set high upon a hill, with grounds that extended far on every side. Quaint groves of trees, deliberately placed long ago by Terrence Westing’s forbearers, broke the line of the carefully manicured lawns as they ran up the hill to the house. It was easy to see why Ajay Shah had selected this seat for his coronation of sorts. There was no route towards the main house that his enemy could take under cover. The Red Panda could, and almost certainly would, flit from one stand of trees to the next in a vain attempt to approach unseen, but within each small grove of trees, he would find only death.

  Within each island of cover there were crouched a dozen men. Men of wealth, men of privilege. Men who would shortly pay their final tribute to their new Master. But first they would serve as his soldiers.

  Ajay Shah smiled at the thought, his fingers playing about his lips as he did so. His exceedingly well-dressed army was composed entirely of weaklings. Plump, pampered socialites who stood no chance against the skills for which the Red Panda was known. But Shah’s mind was in theirs. Their will was his will. Each man that lay concealed around the house would fight as a man possessed, in a frenzied desperation to serve before he faltered or fell. If he who called himself the Red Panda truly wished to stop the ascent of the Ajay Shah, he would be forced to destroy these so-called innocents. Shah would savor that moment still more than he would his enemy’s eventual destruction.

  And beyond the trees, ringing the house on every side, stood the matrons and daughters of the city’s finest families, each staring rapt into the middle distance awaiting a sign, and each holding the cold steel of a machine gun in her hands. Skill-less, but deadly through sheer number, they too would fight until they were destroyed. Only by killing those whom he had sworn to protect could the Red Panda reach Ajay Shah. Only by becoming that for which Shah had been cast out all those years ago.

  Shah shook his head suddenly. He did not choose to think of such things, but since confronting his rival in the Club Macaw, his mind had wandered often to that mountain top, long ago. He lit a cigarette and drew upon it heavily, his eyes scanning forth from the front landing on which he stood, waiting for the show to begin. He reached out with his mind and felt the thoughts of every man and woman on the lawns, using their eyes and ears to spot the movement of his foe and finding nothing. Some of those sheep would not survive to be fleeced, he knew. Those that fell would be unable to sign their wealth over to Shah in the ceremony that was to follow. But there were so many that the loss of a few scarcely mattered, and Shah still hoped to have his enemy alive to witness his triumph.

  Shah peered into the darkness impatiently. He let the smoke slowly curl out of his nostrils. If it be not now, yet it would come.

  The stillness of the night was suddenly broken by a sound which was unfamiliar to Shah. A dull, metallic sound, like a steel tube struck as
one would a percussion instrument, but only once. He spun his head around and reached out with his mind in the direction of the sound, using the senses of his hive of captive minds to seek its source.

  The sound came again, on the far side of the house. Then again, twice in a single instant. And then again, a host of the strange sounds came within a few moments, and the first cracks of tiny explosions began. Shah started at first, but the blasts were no more dangerous than were firecrackers. Shah peered through the eyes of his slaves, seeking any sign in the darkness for the sources of these strange missiles that now burst all around the house in a tight perimeter.

  Shah hissed suddenly as he began to understand the reason for this strange assault. A thick white fog was rolling around the house and down the hill on every side. The sounds Shah had heard were the firing of dozens of mortars, each bearing charge after charge filled with gas! Shah retired quickly inside, pulling the heavy door shut behind him. From beyond this barricade he could still see the entire field of battle through the minds in his thrall. The gas was heavier than air, and it clung close to the ground and rolled away from the house towards the line of machine-gun bearing women. Shah willed them to stand their ground, to fire their weapons at the attackers, but most were already struggling against the gas. Some shots rang out, but Shah knew that they were wild and hopelessly out of range.

  As the women were overcome by the knockout gas, the collective confusion of their minds began to overwhelm Ajay Shah. He heard the mortars again, ringing out on every side, and reached out with his mind, trying to find the minds of those responsible for the attacks. He could just begin to sense them, but the clutter and confusion feeding back into his own mind was too much for him. He knew that there were dozens of foes, that even as the second round of gas bombs burst in a ring further from the house, the men who fired the shots were scrambling for vehicles and beginning a wholesale retreat. If Shah could only focus…