by Jeff Rovin
Mortal Kombat
Jeff Rovin
The Great Tournament Begins…
“I have decided,” Shang Tsung said, “to, ah – take the year off. I’m no longer young, Kung Lao, and felt it would be best for this year at least to let someone else fight on my behalf.”
The thundering grew louder as a great and hulking shape began to emerge from the darkness. It was vaguely human in form, but stood over eight feet tall and had – it appeared – not the usual complement of limbs, but more.
The bronze-skinned entity roared, the uppermost of its four powerfully muscled arms thumping its great chest, the lower two reaching impatiently toward Kung Lao. The muscles of each of the four forearms strained against the iron wristbands by which it had been kept manacled, and every one of the three thick fingers on the two lower hands curled, aching for combat.
Shang Tsung’s eyes gleamed wickedly. “Kung Lao – I would like to introduce you to my champion. However, if you can speak hereafter, you are free to call him by his given name: Goro.”
Author’s Note
Apart from the characters that appear in the videogame Mortal Kombat, most of the gods, dragons, heroes, alchemists, curs, and folk characters described or mentioned in this novel come from the rich mythology and history of China. Interested readers can learn more by consulting such texts as Great Civilizations: China by Ian Morrison and the wonderful Alchemy, Medicine and Religion in the China of A.D. 320, in particular the James R. Ware translation.
The roots of a thing may be well balanced, but its branches may be deviant.
– The Nei P’ien of Ko Hung
A.D. 320
PROLOGUE
In the beginning of time, nothing was everywhere and it was everything.
There was no matter and no change. Whether this lasted for the briefest moment or countless eternities is impossible to say, because time did not exist.
And then P’an Ku appeared.
It is said that the deity simply willed himself to exist. True or not, the birth of the god marked the beginning of all things physical, the start of growth and change and decay – the beginning of time. In what may have been an instant or an aeon, P’an Ku himself grew strong and aged and died.
Upon the god’s death, the parts of his body, like patchwork children, came alive. Possessed of wills and spirits of their own, they loosed themselves from the whole. His left eye became the sun, his right eye the moon. Wrapped around his heart, which began to beat anew, his flesh transformed itself into the living earth, the rivers formed from his blood, and his hair became the forests, from the tallest trees to the laziest grasses. P’an Ku’s dying breath encircled the globe of his skin and became the wind; his last, mighty groan became the thunder. His great and noble soul settled in the vault of the heavens, took on form and substance, and became the supreme six-armed, four-legged god T’ien.
Simply by the act of thinking it, T’ien created the other gods, and the gods – a gaggle of mighty and egotistic beings – soon became bored and created beings on the flesh of P’an Ku. Their individual creative powers brought forth all manner of four-legged and winged and seagoing animals, creatures that fought and ate, loved and suffered, lived and died. But before very long the simple routine and desires of the varied beast-races failed to keep the gods entertained, and so they created people.
Some of the gods were merely amused and diverted by the antics of the complex, scurrying new creatures they’d wrought. Others found them compelling, for while their actions were very much like the animals that came before them, many had the will and desire to be different… more spiritual, more like the gods who had created them.
From his place in the heavens, T’ien looked with interest and compassion on the actions of newborn humankind. So with a blast from his nostrils, he sent the winds that moved the clouds that carried the rains that nourished the rice fields that fed the people of Earth. And his human subjects revered him for this. Seeking and finding the origin of the winds – a tale to be told another time – they declared Mt. Ifukube in the region of Guangdong in southeastern China to be his holy mountain.
T’ien was not angry when his home had been discovered, for the gods had made humans curious. But he sent out messages in dreams, and in these visions he bade a select group of wise men and women to come and watch over his mountain, to see that no mortal approached the lower peaks where the lesser gods lived… or tried to find a way past them to his own abode. Should any succeed in such an endeavor, T’ien vowed that to punish the impertinent he would stop the winds that fed the masses.
Fifteen souls heeded the summons, coming from different regions of the land and settling in caves in the foothills of Ifukube. Coming to them again in dreams, the master god made his high priests immortal and gave them laws which they disbursed to lesser priests. And through the centuries, though pilgrims came to adore the mountain and pay homage to the god, and passers-by looked with wonder from a great distance, none dared climb it.
Over time, the cloud-piercing mountain occasionally rumbled with Tien’s displeasure, sometimes glowing red with his anger, now and then blazed with the reflected glow of his contentment. When he was at peace, it anchored the tranquil beauty of a rainbow.
Five thousand years ago, the wealthy and grateful Yellow Emperor of the Flowery Kingdom erected the first temple to a god. He did not feel worthy enough to honor T’ien himself, so he erected the Shrine of Shang Ti, God of the Mountains and the Rivers. Soon, other rulers built temples to different gods, though never to T’ien. And it became an unspoken law that, while T’ien’s eight-limbed form could be represented in clay and in ink, his face would never be rendered or even described in words. For how could humans hope to capture and convey the radiance and wisdom and eternal nature of Tien’s eyes and mouth, the carriage of the great head?
Yet artists and holy people debated what T’ien must look like, and a few sought to describe him by rendering the handsome and magical features of the lesser gods, posting these paintings in villages, and allowing everyone from scholars to poets to laborers to write verse beside them, ideas on how individuals might picture T’ien in their mind’s eye, or could contemplate his image by contemplating the many ways in which the god nurtures the world:
Look at these eyes and imagine them deep.
Life comes when they open, death when they weep.
Are there two lips that speak mightier words
On whose wings souls can soar higher than birds?
His nose moves the air that nourishes all,
The seeds in the spring; the frost in the fall.
Over centuries, the religion of T’ien grew, and the honoring of him through oblique art and poetry became both a passion and recreation among many people. Most accepted that not only was it forbidden to know the face of T’ien, but that his face was probably unknowable – like the blazing visage of the sun, or the hidden side of the moon.
Most accepted this… but not all.
Further, they wondered about the much older god, whose heart beat at the center of our world.
Priests of the many sects that honored T’ien came to believe that the chambers of the heart radiated auras that were white, black, blue, or red.
The blue chamber was the passage to our world.
The white opened into the realm of T’ien.
The black was the passage to the abode of the dead.
And the red –
The red was the doorway to the Outworld, home of the greatest mysteries of all.
PART ONE
Chu-jung in the District of Tan-Yang: A.D. 480
CHAPTER ONE
“But why must you do this?” Chen wailed as she clutched her nephew’s arm through the sleeve of his brown robe. “Do you even know?”
“Would you also walk into the lake to learn how to drown?” she asked, holding fast. “Would you hurl yourself from the roof of the temple in Jackichan to discover that you cannot fly?”
Kung Lao frowned. “It isn’t the same thing. I have seen people drown, and I know that I’m not a bird or butterfly. But I have never seen a god.”
“And you won’t!” she screamed. “You’ll die before you reach even the lowest ring of gods.”
“How do you know,” he asked, “if no one has ever tried? The priests didn’t die.”
“The priests don’t try to climb the mountain,” she said, tears spilling from her narrow eyes down her wrinkled, weather-beaten cheeks. “Besides, the holy ones were summoned. You were not. You finished making water deliveries, stopped in the village square, and decided, ‘Ah… it’s time that I, lowly Kung Lao, who carries water from the well to the buckets of my people, go and have a talk with T’ien.’”
“It was more than that,” said that tall, powerfully built youth, his frown deepening.
“Yes,” she said. “Madness the size of Mt. Ifukube!”
“No, my aunt,” Kung Lao replied. He grabbed the long queue of black hair that hung down his back and held it in front of his aunt. “Tell me – what do you see?”
She regarded him strangely. “I see… my mad nephew’s hair.”
“What else?” He wagged the end at her.
“I see a white cloth tied around the end, instead of the black one you usually wear.” She looked into his eyes. “I don’t understand–”
He shook his head. “I can’t explain.”
Chen took the youth’s hands and squeezed them tightly. “Why must you be your father’s son,” she asked, “blessed with curiosity but ungoverned, unwilling to hear reason? I lost him, I lost your uncle. I don’t want to lose you!”
“And you won’t,” he promised. “My father was hasty, I am not. Wasn’t it I who warned him not to mix those powders and set them afire?”
“Yes,” she said. “And after we buried what remained of him, didn’t you return to the hills, collect more of those rocks, grind them together, and burn them?”
“I did,” he admitted. “I learned from Father’s example the correct proportions to use. And now our village has a way of defending itself against invaders. The monks at the temple of the Order of Light no longer have to fear attacks by fanatics and wizards. We have magic of our own! We grow by learning, and we learn by daring.”
Touching the moist cheek of the woman who raised him when his mother died giving birth to his young brother Chan, Kung Lao turned and continued walking toward the door. But the tiny woman held firm, digging the heels of her sandals into the dirt floor, and he dragged her two paces before stopping.”
“Aunt Chen!” he said.
“I won’t lose you!” she yelled, grabbing his shoulder and pulling back roughly, shaking the yellow peacock feather from her plaited gray hair.
Sighing, Kung Lao picked it up and gently replaced it. Then he looked at the slight woman who held him like a coiled serpent. She seemed dwarfed by her haol, a flowing white silk dress that was split at the sides, with long, narrow sleeves. She always wore this, her wedding dress, on the anniversary of the murder of her husband, Paipu, a tax collector who was beaten to death in a town that did not wish to pay their lord prince. The town was destroyed for its impertinence, though that did not bring Paipu back.
Kung Lao had no desire to fight with her, least of all on this day. But what he had read in the village made him realize that the time for fear had come to an end. That it was the dawning of an era for mortals to do more than prostrate themselves at the altars of their gods. That it was time to do more than simply accept the myths and lore the monks at the temple of the Order of Light handed out.
At least talk to me,” his aunt said. “Tell me why you need to go there. Why can’t you start this quest of the shrines of the other gods?”
“If I tell you,” Kung asked, “will you let me go?”
“I’ll try to change your mind,” she admitted, “but if you talk, I promise… I won’t grab you again.”
The young man considered her proposition, then nodded.”
Chen released Kung and he drew back his shoulders, pulling his long, brawny form to its full height. “I am convinced, Aunt Chen, that T’ien is one of the lesser gods.”
The woman’s round face seemed to grow longer, like ink running in the rain. It was several seconds before she could speak. “You… are mad. And if the monks hear you, you will be resting beside your father before nightfall.”
“I don’t think so,” said Kung Lao. “I think I was chosen to know this.” He looked out the open shutter into the bright, late morning sun and smiled, his white teeth appearing the glow amid the rosy hue of his full cheeks, his large, brown eyes smiling as well. “At dawn,” he said softly, almost reverently, “when I had finished my work and went to see if there were any new verses in the square, I saw a clip of cloth that said:
He cannot die yet does not live, ‘tis true.
He is more than all, and all is P’an Ku.”
Kung Lao regarded his aunt. “Have you ever heard that name before?”
She shook her head.
“Neither have I,” he said. “But as I walked home, I realized that I would never rest until I knew who or what P’an Ku is.”
“Why?” she asked. “It might by anyone… anything. ‘He cannot die yet does not live.’ That could refer to those stone-like tree limbs people have found. P’an Ku could be the name of the person who discovered them, or the village in which they were found. Perhaps the writer was saying that T’ien is older than such petrified life.”
“You’re clever,” Kung Lao smiled, “but there’s more to the story. Each morning, I meet the egg-girl Li and we sit and talk.”
Chen brightened. “Li is interested in you?”
“We are interested in one another,” Kung Lao said with a trace of impatience, “but that isn’t the point. This morning, after I read that verse, I took her over to show it to her. And she couldn’t see it.”
“Why not?”
“To her, the paper was simply a blank. She thought I was teasing her, so we called over Dr. Chow, who was returning from a call. He, too, saw only a blank slip, and said most emphatically that there was nothing on it.”
“Dr. Chow drinks rice wine, but two people disagreed with you.”
“I didn’t smell any wine,” Kung Lao said, “but that isn’t important. I didn’t imagine the writing. It was there.”
Chen thought for a moment, then started toward the door. “Take me to the square. I want to see this paper.”
“There’s no need,” Kung Lao said. “You’ve already seen it.”
She stopped and looked at him curiously. He dangled his queue in front of her again.
“The band,” she said, and reached for the cloth that held his hair. She tugged it off, looked at one side of the forehead-sized fabric, then at the other, then at both again. “Li and Dr. Chow are right,” she said. “There’s no writing on it.”
“But there is,” Kung Lao insisted, sweeping his fine, shoulder-length hair behind him, “and I intend to find out what it means… and why no one else can see it.”
He gently removed the cloth from his aunt’s hands and redid his queue. Chen looked at him with sad eyes.
“If you go,” she said, “I’ll never see you again.”
“Of course you will, Mother,” he said, using the honorific that signalled his regard for her. “I’ll be back before the month is through.”
“Your brother will miss you.”
“My brother,” Kung Lao smiled, “will be too busy building more of his bamboo-and-iron bridges across ravines and rivers to notice
that I am gone.”
“No. When he returns from the Yellow River, he will grieve.”
“And recover,” Kung Lao said, “when he begins work on the canal at Hangchow.”
Chen began to weep as she ran the backs of her stubby fingers along her nephew’s cheek and chin. “My boy, why must you try to know the gods? Why can’t you enjoy being human? Take time to lie on your back in a field and watch the sun set. Court Li, read, care for seedlings while they grow. You used to love painting–”
Kung Lao moved closer to his aunt. “I would prefer to know how and why the sun moves than to watch it set. As for the others, love fades and trees die. Paintings fade or become quaint relics. Knowledge is all we can truly pass on, all we can build on.”
The young man turned away and pulled a blue robe from a wooden hook by the door, slipping it over the robe he had on. The second robe was shorter than the first, reaching only to his knees. It was embroidered with green-and-yellow dragons and thorny brown vines, and had a red capelet in the back.
Kissing his aunt on the forehead, but avoiding looking into her eyes, Kung Lao bid her farewell. Then he turned and pushed open the bamboo door. It swung open on old leather hinges and he stepped into the bright sunlight.
“You’re wrong,” Chen said, running to the doorway, tears rolling down her cheeks as she watched him go. “Your father has been dead for two years, yet I love him as much as I ever did. Love survives… art inspires… and trees drop seeds to the earth to grow again. You will learn, my son, that I’m right.”
Kung Lao looked back at her and smiled again. “Then that, too, is knowledge, Aunt Chen. One way or another, I will come back a wiser man.”
“If you come back at all,” Chen said.
She turned and shut the door, her sobs muffled as Kung Lao turned slowly from the small hut. Pausing to pull a pair of peaches from their tree, he put them in the deep pockets of his coat, then walked toward the sea, sorry for the grief he was causing but consoled by the fact that what he was about to do would have filled his father with pride.
