Fiddleback Trilogy 2 - Evil Ascending

by Stackpole, Michael A.

  "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 gate 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."

  Mong nodded solemnly. "The painting is of our Yidam. He is called Vajrabhairava, and he protects us from all harmful creatures. The monks warding our gates chant his name again and again and again to keep us safe."

  He nodded toward the east and the heart of the mountain. "The gate is the only way you will leave here. If you have learned enough that you can travel through it to the outside world, you will have command of the skills you have come here to learn."

  "And if I don't?"

  Mong's expression darkened. "Pray you do. Being reborn
into this world is not something I would wish on even the most malignant Dark Lord."

  Putter resting on his shoulder, Sinclair MacNeal waited for the Proteus green to reshape itself into a clone of the 17th hole at the Tournament of Players Club in Scottsdale. The machinery beneath the AstroTurf carpet pulled the left edge in until it achieved a perfect kidney shape. Pistons rose and fell to provide the rolling terrain and the gentle hump in the middle of the green. At the farthest possible point of the green, a dark hole opened up and a man placed a pin and flag in it.

  Takeshi Takagi tugged at the wrist of his golfing glove. "I selected this last hole in honor of your visit, Sinclair."

  "I am honored, oyabun." Sinclair squatted down as his 'caddy' moved his ball from the fairway simulator and spotted it on the green at the end of the kidney farthest from the pin. You old fox, you did this because you know I blew this hole in the Build-more Pro-Am three months ago. Had there been no hump through the middle of the kidney, he would have rolled his putt up and around the lip and just tried to get it near the cup. He'd par the hole, but that would leave him one stroke ahead of Takeshi and Kazuo. Unfortunately, he knew from recent and painful experience, hitting the ball hard enough to get it over the hump would also roll it right off the green.

  The other two caddies—also Yakuza soldiers who looked uneasy in short-sleeved jumpsuits and carrying huge golf bags—placed the other balls on the green. Kazuo had not tried to play the hole safe and was rewarded with a five-foot putt on a very slight down slope. Takeshi, the slender, white-haired oyabun of the Ya-maguchi-gumi, ended up 15 feet away from the hole, on Sin's side of the hump, but all he had to do was putt across it and run parallel to it right to the hole.

  Kazuo grinned like a cat lapping up cream. "You are away, Sin."

  Sin closed his eyes for a half-second. Here, in the basement of the Takagi mansion, he was playing golf on a series of simulators with the two most powerful men in the Japanese underworld. The oyabun had selected an 18-hole course made up of some of the most difficult holes available in the world. They started on the tee simulator and had a computer analyze their shots. It then decided where they would be placed on the fairway simulator and, from that, where they would end up on the green.

  The simulators themselves, as well as the whole game room, were a masterpiece of environmental duplication. AstroTurf fibers grew and shrank to replicate conditions from roughs to the best of greens. Terrain features filled themselves in and, while no part of the simulators flooded to produce water hazards, a spaghetti-like overgrowth of carpet made for excellent sand traps. Projected video of the area surrounding the individual holes and a subtle soundtrack made it possible for Sinclair to believe he was actually playing the holes depicted.

  Though it was a game of a game, the pressure felt as great to him as it did during the Build-more tournament. He recognized, however, that in many ways, it should have seemed far more heavy. These men could kill me, and no one would ever know. In Phoenix all I did was disgrace myself in front of a television audience of millions. Same position, same shot I played it safe then and lost. Time to go for broke.

  Sin stood and extended his putter to his caddy. "Kusabi."

  The man stared at him blankly, then looked at the oyabun.

  "Give him his wedge, as he has asked." Takeshi smiled. "The board would have your membership for using a sand wedge on a green."

  "But you are more forgiving?"

  "It depends upon the results of your gamble."

  Doesn't it always? Sin shifted his stance and carefully gripped the club. Left index finger linked through right little finger and right hand covered left thumb. His ball stood just off the toe of his left shoe. Easy . . . easy . . . concentrate. Smooth swing, gentle touch. He brought the club back to waist height and swung down through the ball.

  The sand wedge's flatly pitched head popped the ball up like an undercut cue ball on a billiards table. It shot from point to point on the kidney like a spaceplane going suborbital. It reached its apex above the hump, then fell to the ground again with a barely audible thump. Rolling toward the hole, it looked on target, but swung around the lip of the cup and ended up a foot downhill from its goal.

  "Well played, Sinclair." The oyabun stepped up to his own putt and clearly found standing on the side of the hump a bit awkward. He shifted his stance, and his caddy exchanged one putter for another. Lining up for a left-handed putt, the oyabun kept his club steady, watched the ball and, with a gentle click, sent it at the cup.

  "Left-handed. I'm impressed."

  The ball rolled up the hump and looked as if it might stall, but the oyabun knew exactly what he was doing. He gave the ball enough power to make it over the top, then it picked up speed rolling down the other side. It hit a small bump that popped it back out on to the wider part of the green, then followed the path Kazuo's ball would have to use right on into the cup.

  Sinclair applauded appreciatively. "With your off-hand. You should be on the tour. This puts you one down for this hole."

  "And makes us even, if you make your putt."

  Sinclair nodded silently as Kazuo stepped onto the green. The Yakuza addressed the ball confidently and hit it toward the hole. His putt rolled true, but slowed and stopped right on the edge of the cup. He waited a full 10 seconds for it to drop, then stepped forward and poked it into the hole. "Par."

  Sin walked over to where his ball waited and accepted his putter from his caddy. Sink this, and I win. Miss, and the oyabun wins. Sin looked up and watched the oyabun watch him. Sin settled himself over the ball, lined up the shot and took one practice stroke with his putter. One foot. Easy.

  He stroked the ball, and it sank into the cup with ease. "Par."

  "Well done, Sinclair." The oyabun handed his putter to his caddy, then waved his guest toward the spiral staircase up and out of the Sim Country Club. Sin relinquished his putter to his caddy and kicked his golf shoes off onto the mat at the base of the stairs. He followed the oyabun's ascension into the upper room. The transition from the TPC's 17th hole in Scottsdale to a traditional wood and shoji room felt a bit abrupt, but the oyabun had furnished the room like a country club's clubhouse to help ease the shift.

  Takeshi seated himself on a wide, white leather couch and directed Sin to a similar chair across a low table with his dark eyes. "I have not lost in a long time. My associates are not as skillful as you."

  Take away their little fingers, and I'm not surprised. "Thank you, Takeshi-sama. Unlike your people, my job is not so demanding that I cannot get sufficient practice on my game." Sin sat and immediately felt as if his chair was a giant marshmallow trying to eat him.

  Kazuo sank into the chair across from his. "And now, with your new job, you should have even more time, eh?"

  "That depends, my friend, on a number of things."

  Sin accepted a glass of amber liquid from the silver tray carried by a butler. The two Yakuza likewise took glasses from the tray, then the oyabun leaned forward on the edge of the couch. He sipped the drink, then nodded a salute to Sin. "Thank you for this scotch. It is excellent."

  "Do itashimashite, Takeshi-sama."

  The oyabun held the crystal glass cupped in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. "My nephew has told me that you are no longer with your father's firm. He also said you believed that success in your current job depended upon receiving our help. I would have met with you sooner except for some business in Hong Kong, but you should not take my tardiness in seeing you as a rejection of your friendship."

  "I did not, oyabun. I understand very well the difficulties of the tasks thrust upon you." Sin drank some of the scotch and let himself relax into the chair. "Your invitation to play here, in your home, was a very pleasant surprise."

  "It was the least I could do to repay your kindness for hosting Kazuo on his visits to Phoenix, and to applaud your courage in returning to our island again." The oyabun's dark eyes glittered. "Your new employer must be very powerful indeed."

  Sin
sensed a mixture of curiosity and confidence in the oyabun's comment. Fishing for information, or confirmation of what you already know? "I have only been working for him over the past week but, yes, he does seem very well connected. Even so, there are things he does not know, and assistance he requires. He personally sent me here to Japan, fully knowledgeable of my past difficulties and my allies."

  Takeshi Takagi leaned back in the couch. "I still recall how you accepted blame for us in that stock manipulation affair three years ago. I know your exile back to the United States forced a reconciliation with your father on his terms. I respect you more than you could know for performing this duty for us. How can I help you?"

  "I need information on an institution that is likely to be very private or oddly disguised. It will be the sort of thing that will attract no notice among us, but the burakumin and minor merchants might find it odd. I need your ears to listen closely, for the collection of data should be passive. If what I am searching for does exist, I do not want to alert its people to the fact that I am looking for them."