The Steel Ring

by R. A. Jones

  “You rebuked me.”

  “It wasn’t you we renounced,” Aman said softly. “Only your dark plan. We still thought of you as a friend, a brother.”

  “But I only thought of you as an impediment, a stumbling block set in the path I knew had to be followed if mankind was to be saved from itself. And from that day, I knew there was only one way I could achieve my grand and glorious goal.” He leaned forward, and his lips split in a caricature of a smile.

  “I had to kill you all.”

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  The Witch found herself literally staring into the face of death.

  The animated corpse of a man had leaped upon her, carrying her to the marshy ground as its bony fingers sought out her throat.

  “Let me go!” she gasped, before the fingers closed on her neck and cut off all sound.

  Not surprisingly, her mesmerizing powers had no influence on this creature who had long since left behind the needs and desires of mortal male flesh.

  With deceptive strength, his hands continued to close around her throat. As its desiccated head dipped toward her own, the Witch was horrified to see a large, bloated worm come crawling out of the edge of the zombie’s left eye.

  She snapped her own eyes shut to blot out the sight. Her skin crawled at the thought of the impurity of having her body touched by dead flesh.

  Still, as her breath became harsher and more shallow, she lifted her hands from the sucking muck beneath her and pressed them against the concave stomach of her assailant.

  The stunning energy she projected from her core pulsed through the palms of her hands. With a keening wail, the zombie was hurled up and away from her, its bony body ripping into two roughly equal halves.

  Bile rising in her gorge from the uncleanness that clung to her like her own shroud, the Witch rolled onto her side, looking about. Each of her comrades, she saw, was locked in his own struggle.

  Ferret had one zombie in a headlock under his left arm. Spinning, Ferret lifted the undead creature off its feet before releasing it. It slammed into another advancing zombie, and both went down in a tangle of emaciated arms and legs.

  Ferret leaped atop them with his knees planted in the small of their backs. Grabbing the few wispy strands of hair remaining atop their heads, he pulled back firmly. With a sound like popping firecrackers, their necks snapped and they went limp.

  Dark flashes of movement caught the Witch’s eye. She quickly realized it was the Fantom. He was constantly disappearing within any sufficiently large swath of shadow cast by trees or higher gravestones jutting up out of the water, only to reappear somewhere else. Always it was near one of the shambling corpses, which he dispatched with an ease belied by his slender frame.

  Perhaps sensing the great danger posed by Iron Skull, a half dozen zombies swarmed over him, hoping to take him down with sheer weight of numbers.

  Their fear of his power was justified. His left fist shot forward, penetrating a zombie’s chest and driving out through its back. A sweep of his right arm sent two more flying. He grabbed another with both hands, crushing its skull like an eggshell.

  The Witch winced. These were not just monsters they faced, after all. They had once been fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. Most had no doubt lived life the best they could, and neither wanted nor controlled their new existence as tools for evil.

  Two of their number now raced toward her, arms outstretched and mouths open in near toothless grimaces, and she forced such thoughts aside.

  Helpless pawns or not, they were still intent on murder.

  Sighing heavily, she stepped behind a rock that stood between her and her attackers. She placed the palms of her hands against the rough surface of the rock, near its top, and concentrated. At her mental command, psychic energy flowed through her hands.

  The tip of the small boulder virtually exploded. Shards of rock slivers flew forward like shrapnel from a grenade. The bodies of the animated corpses jerked grotesquely in a macabre dance of death as the shards sliced them to ribbons.

  Nearby, Man of War stood toe-to-toe with one of the zombies. The two combatant’s hands were locked together like Greco-Roman wrestlers, pushing and pulling back and forth in an effort to gain the advantage.

  Even as he carried on the struggle, Man of War noted that still more zombies were continuing to be spewed up from their graves. There seemed to be no end to them.

  His ears also picked up the ongoing strains of arcane singing, the siren call that summoned these no-longer-dead warriors and directed their rage.

  Atop the nearby mausoleum, the gruesome architect of that song still sat. The old crone’s arms were spread, and her face was afire with an almost lustful glow that reflected the great pleasure she derived from her mad machinations.

  Man of War pulled his arms apart, causing the zombie to be pulled in closer to him. At the same time, he snapped his own head forward, using the crown of it to butt the zombie square in the face.

  Reflexively, the undead man relaxed his grip on Man of War’s hands. The swashbuckler swung first his left, then his right fist. Both blows landed solidly, causing the zombie’s head to list awkwardly to one side.

  Raising his right foot out of the mire, Man of War kicked his opponent so solidly in the chest that its rib cage collapsed inward, causing him to pitch over on his back. Man of War turned sharply away from his fallen foe.

  “Iron Skull!” he shouted, so as to be heard over the melee.

  Skull, who was clubbing yet another zombie with the stump of its own arm, looked up to see Man of War pointing toward the mausoleum.

  “Try to take out the old woman!”

  Skull nodded curtly, turning toward the partially submerged crypt even as he raised and pointed toward it with his right arm.

  With a faint whirring noise, a port opened in his upper forearm. A slight tremor ran through him as a small missile blasted out from the opening.

  Trailing smoke and sparks behind it, screaming as it ripped through the heavy air of the swamp, the projectile raced straight and true to its target.

  As if a giant had snapped his jaws down on it, a large chunk of the mausoleum’s roof – and the old crone with it – disappeared in a roaring gout of smoke and fire.

  “Damn!” Man of War exclaimed, hurrying to Iron Skull’s side. “I didn’t mean for you to kill her!”

  Skull made no reply, save to motion with one hand toward the nearest cluster of zombies that had been approaching their position.

  All had come to a halt, frozen in place in the instant the animating spell had been disrupted. Then, absent the mystical melody that had disturbed their deserved sleep, they collapsed in heaps, once more well and truly dead.

  “They always seem to come at us en masse,” Ferret commented, nudging one of the fallen zombies with his foot to assure himself that it no longer posed a threat. “How many goons does the other side have that they can throw against us?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Iron Skull replied.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Odds don’t mean squat – remember?”

  “Aww, pipe down, Killjoy,” Ferret snarled, waving a dismissive hand. But he seemed to be hiding a smile as he did so. It faded quickly, though.

  “Now what do we do?” he asked.

  “We continue on,” the Fantom replied. “We find the last artifact.”

  “No,” the Witch asserted firmly. “Whoever’s behind this obviously got here first. They may already have the gem.”

  “Then what do you suggest we do?” the Fantom asked.

  “We forget the gem for the moment and we take care of our own,” she said. “We go find Aman.”

  Almost in unison, all eyes now turned toward Man of War, as if silently acknowledging his role as de facto leader in Aman’s absence. With grim features set darkly in place, he rapidly played out every possible scenario in the theater of his mind. Finally, he gave the others a nod.

  “Fantom, can you still sense the presence of the last jewe
l?”

  The shadow man bowed his head in concentration for a long, silent moment, then raised it slowly.

  “No. Not now. Not near enough for me to detect.”

  “Then, this time I agree with the Witch,” Man of War said without hesitation. “We forget the gem … we find the man.” He strode over to the Ferret, placing a hand firmly on his shoulder.

  “Is there any chance those animal senses of yours can find where that damned worm took John?”

  “Mebbe,” Ferret replied cautiously. “Besides us, his or his captor’s should be the only human bodies around here that aren’t dead … I hope. Just the same, we’d better shake a leg if we’re gonna do this.”

  Motioning for the others to move behind and downwind of him, Ferret turned back in the direction from which they had come. He threw his head back, inhaling deeply as he did so.

  As if he had been punched in the belly, he violently expelled air from his mouth, doubling over as if afflicted with a sudden, sharp pain.

  “Are you all right, friend?” the Fantom asked, putting one arm around Ferret’s waist and the other around his shoulders.

  “Yeah,” Ferret growled, straightening and pulling away from the Fantom’s helping hands. He ran a hand over the front of his face, then used it to motion in an arc around him, indicating the rotting, lifeless bodies floating about on all sides.

  “It’s all these corpses. The stink of ‘em makes me want to pull a Daniel Boone.”

  The Witch looked up quizzically at Man of War, again baffled by Ferret’s colorful vernacular.

  “Vomit,” the swashbuckler explained.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Oh!”

  CHAPTER XL

  Back in the underground grotto, Aman continued to engage the Great Question, hoping to buy his team the time they needed to find and snare the final artifact and make their escape. No thoughts about his own life, his own safety, occurred to him at all.

  “When you sided with the others against me,” the Great Question was saying, continuing his delusional rant, “from that very moment, you were dead to me.”

  “The pupil has no right to disagree with his teacher?”

  “You had no right to disobey, to defy, your master,” the Question corrected.

  “So I knew I needed to find a new disciple; one more likely to bend to my will, to follow a vision that closely matched his own. There were plenty of likely candidates: Tojo of Japan, Mussolini of Italy, Stalin of Russia. The latter was especially intriguing; he clearly revels in the application of force, truly understands the necessity of destroying the many to save the elite few.

  “But in the end, one other stood out even above ‘Uncle Joe’.”

  “Hitler,” Aman hissed.

  “Oh, yes. Adolf Hitler. He’s quite mad, you know?” Aman clamped his mouth shut, cutting off the obvious and true retort.

  “But madness often brings with it a remarkable clarity of thought. I once discussed as much with Sigmund Freud.” The Question’s mind seemed to wander away momentarily. “Now there’s an interesting man, Dr. Freud is. Quite brilliant, actually. I suppose I’ll have to kill him, too.” He grew quiet, then snapped back to the subject at hand.

  “Where was I?”

  “Expressing your admiration for Herr Hitler.”

  “Sarcasm ill becomes you, Aman. As I was saying; here was a man who was willing – even eager – to plunge the world into a cleansing war. Him, I knew I could work with.

  “Before that could happen, though, he had to be put in a position of authority, so that he could make it happen.

  “Achieving this was simplicity itself. The first step was taken with the German elections of 1933. I was somewhat surprised that even intimidation, bribery and the buying of votes was only sufficient to win the National Socialist Party 44% of the vote that day. Perhaps the German people aren’t as bright as I thought.

  “Still, it gave the Nazis legitimacy of a sort, and propelled Hitler into the office of Chancellor. Working in tandem, he and I had little difficulty in compelling that decrepit relic, President von Hindenburg, into passing decrees that stripped the citizenry of many of its civil liberties and gave Hitler the powers of a dictator.

  “It was easier still to engineer von Hindenburg’s ‘natural’ death. With him out of the way, Hitler was left to rule the day.”

  “With you left to rule Hitler,” Aman declared somberly.

  “Of course. But not just him. Once mankind has been brought to its knees, I will raise it back up in a world of perfect order – a world created by me.” He held forth both hands as if in a gesture of magnanimity.

  “As the time approached when my plan to use Hitler to launch a new world war needed to be implemented, it first became necessary for me to initiate the first phase of that plan: the elimination of you and the Council of Seven.

  “I made sure I was safely and secretly away from the Temple of Enlightened Anguish at the very moment both it and the village were to be put to the torch.

  “I had already used funds from the Temple’s hidden treasure room to buy and equip a small army to aid me in my cause,” he continued, confirming Aman’s earlier suspicion that there had been thievery at work in the treasure vault.

  “The ruins of the Temple were still smoldering when I returned the following day. I intended to remove the remainder of the treasure, only to find the vault empty.

  “That’s when I realized you must have survived the attack, young Aman. I congratulate you.

  “Nor do I bear you any ill will for having absconded with the rest of the treasure. It was no more than a means to an end for me, anyway. After all, it isn’t fortune I seek.”

  “It’s power,” Aman said, completing his former mentor’s thought.

  “Power. The greatest fortune of all. And one of the best paths to power is that of knowledge. You were not the only pupil in the Temple all those years, boy. I, too, had been studying, poring over every arcane tome I could lay my hands upon, legally or otherwise.

  “It was from those studies that I learned of the five mystic gems. I discovered the latent power they possessed, and how to use it. Most recently, I discerned their various locations.”

  “And to what twisted purpose do you mean to put them?” Aman demanded.

  “Patience, pupil,” the Question admonished, shaking a finger at him. “That’s the virtue in which you were always most lacking. After all, I don’t need to tell you this story at all, now do I?”

  “I think you do,” Aman said, beginning to edge forward toward the throne so slowly as to be, he hoped, undetectable. “Your ego won’t allow you not to.”

  “My ego?” the Question scoffed, chuckling beneath his concealing hood. “I’m not the one who encourages people to call him ‘Amazing Man’!”

  “Nor am I.”

  “Hmm. Perhaps not. But you don’t discourage them either, do you?”

  “Why don’t you just get on with your story?” Aman said, sliding yet another fraction of an inch forward.

  “All right, I will. Just as soon as you stop moving.”

  Aman did so.

  “Much better. Now, here’s the thing. Aside from you, I perceived there to be potentially one other major obstacle between me and my goal of world domination.

  “That obstacle … is the nascent United States of America. At the moment, it slumbers, content to live within its own warm shell. But you don’t poke a bear with a stick, else you may find yourself torn to ribbons.

  “No, you sneak into the cave while it hibernates … and shoot it in the head as it sleeps!

  “That’s what I intend to do. Oh, I don’t hope to actually kill the beast … just inflict a serious enough wound to keep it so occupied with its own pain that it would not be inclined to stick its nose into the conflict brewing elsewhere in the world.”

  Aman could tell his former mentor was getting more and more caught up in his diatribe. Having ever been the good and respectful student, he had never tried to tell
the Question what he perceived to be perhaps the lama’s greatest weakness: his need to draw attention to his accomplishments, his desire for recognition and validation from those he claimed to be his inferiors.

  Every minute he continued to talk gave the racing mind of Aman a precious few more seconds to devise a plan of attack.

  “Let me guess,” he said, egging the master on. “The five gems are the ‘bullet’ you mean to fire into the beast.”

  “Correct, pupil!” If Aman could have seen the Question’s face, he had no doubt it would have been alit with excitement and anticipation.

  “As you might suspect,” the Question continued, “I have already beaten you children to the final artifact. All five jewels are now in my possession. And they are indeed the tools by which I mean to achieve my goals.

  “But that’s not the best part,” he practically cackled. “Even as my minions were obtaining the jewels for me – ”

  “By murder and near murder,” Aman said.

  “By whatever means necessary,” the Question said, “I was still immersed in the mystic chronicles and spells that taught me all there was to know about the gems and the means to tap into their full potential.

  “Mere hours ago, I made the most delightful discovery of all. I learned of a way by which you will help me attain those goals.

  “Isn’t that delicious irony? It turns out to be good fortune for me that you managed to survive all my previous attempts on your life!”

  Aman gazed down at the palm of his left hand; the puncture wounds in it had closed, but slight pain still lingered.

  “Did you forget to tell your pet that I wasn’t supposed to die?”

  “The snake?” The Question waved the thought away. “Oh, I knew you’d be able to overcome him, boy – though not until he had brought you where I wanted you to be.”

  Aman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re even more insane than I thought, Question, if you believe I’d ever help you!” He bent slightly at the knees, preparing to leap forward.

  “Oh, but that’s the beauty of it, boy,” the Question replied. “To serve my purposes – I don’t need you to cooperate.”