Evil Ascending

by Michael A. Stackpole

  The gentle tickle of the snake's rattles against her side brought her back to the present. At first she thought the snake had been picking up on the emotions triggered by the memories, but then the night breeze brought the sound of the whimpering dog and a sobbing child to her. Though faint, she knew the sounds came from very close by. Pointing her face into the wind, then turning her head left and right in two scans, she located the source of the sound and headed toward it.

  She used a dry wash to make her approach. The banks only rose up about three feet above the sandy bed. Tumbleweeds and some small prickly-pear cactus grew up along the edges, which helped shield her, but she still had to crouch. Working forward slowly, her night vision allowing her to avoid stepping on anything that might make a sound, she reached the outskirts of a small campsite.

  Huddled in the darkness, she studied the situation using all her senses. She saw two children clinging to each other, and a mutt of a dog with them. The larger one spoke softly to the smaller, but her words did nothing to dull the terror radiating from the boy like heat from a blast furnace. Both wore rags, and dust caked them except where it had smeared across their cheeks from wiping away tears. Though the larger one did her best to hide her feelings, she became the minor star in a binary system of fear.

  Like the mongrel beside them, the children had both been chained to a metal stake driven into the ground just beyond a small fire. Rajani sensed a connection—an alliance—between them and the dog. Beyond them, almost eclipsed by the strength of the young boy's terror, she picked up the random emotional patterns of two other individuals. She could not determine age or sex because of the degree of interference caused by the boy, but the steady level of their feelings told her they were unconscious.

  Like a shadow, Rajani moved into the camp. The sheer shock of the surprise exploding from the girl when she saw her nearly made Rajani cry out. She raised a hand in caution to the girl, then held it out to the left so the dog could get a noseful of her. Yes, brother mine, I have come to strengthen your pack. I will free you and your companions.

  The hair on the dog's spine, which had risen abruptly, slowly settled back down. The dog licked her hand, which made the girl less anxious. The boy, who Rajani knew was her brother, peeked out at her with one eye. Rajani smiled at him and his sister, then took another step forward and grasped the metal stake.

  The girl waved her hands. "No, no. Go away. You have to go away!" Her harsh whisper barely carried the six-foot length of the chain, but the fear backing it slammed into Rajani like a pile driver. The little boy's anxieties spiked upon hearing his sister's words. His hopes for rescue had been raised then shattered. Panic pulsed from him like blood from an arterial gash.

  His panic was the empathic equivalent of staring at the sun with a telescope. She tucked her head down and raised her fists to her temples. Immediately, the shields she had once relied upon to keep her sane amid a world of emotions dropped into place, shutting everything out. Looking up, she could see the fear in the children's eyes, but it no longer assaulted her.

  She twisted the stake to the left, then back to the right, and yanked it out of the ground. The chains rattled a bit, but no more than they did when the children moved. She stood and slipped the ends of the chains off the stake. "You are free."

  A hand grabbed her right shoulder and spun her around. A huge man whose belly stretched a dirty plaid shirt to the point where it gapped open between the buttons looked down at her. "Whadda we got here?" He tried to bat her hat off, but the chinstrap held, leaving it to hang at her back.

  The flood of golden hair clearly surprised the man. "Boxer, check this out. We got us a night-thrill." He reached inside her jacket and grasped the lapels of her fatigue shirt. Pulling left and right, he popped buttons and exposed her breasts to the night air. "Oh, yeah, fine. She's mine first."

  Rajani, stunned and surprised by the man's appearance and the malignancy of his lust, could think of nothing as his big calloused hands brushed across her breasts and around to her back. He started to pull her forward, then he jerked sharply and screamed. Reeling backward, arms flailing, he stared wide-eyed at the snake hanging from his right wrist by its fangs. His heels caught on a rock and sent him flying back into a stand of cholla cactus.

  Boxer had awakened when his name had been called, but the scream brought him to his feet. Wearing only frayed jeans and holed socks, Boxer charged at Rajani like a bull. He snatched her up in a hug, but she managed to rake his face with her gold claws. Shrieking madly, he dropped her to the ground and clutched at his ruined face.

  She landed hard on the ground and fell back as blood streamed from between the man's fingers. Before Rajani could move, the dog shot at the man and sunk its teeth deeply into his right leg, bringing him down. Moving in concert with the dog, the little girl scooted forward on her butt and looped the length of chain around the man's throat. Planting her feet on his meaty shoulders, she yanked back with her hands while straightening her legs.

  The man's neck popped with a gunshot sound that made Rajani wince and the boy cry out. Rajani looked over at the other man, but she sensed nothing in the way of active emotions from him. His body twitched a bit, but his breathing came raggedly and his lack of reaction to the cactus festooning him told her he was suffering from a total central nervous system collapse. With its rattle playing an accompaniment to the sound of the man's dying breaths, the snake coiled itself on his chest.

  She scanned the area one more time, but felt nothing beyond the quartet of Earthlings around her. She shut herself off from the anger and hatred pouring from the girl, unprepared for such harsh emotions. The little boy continued to radiate panic, but it began to drop off as the dog trotted over to him and licked his face.

  Squatting down by the fire, Rajani used the one remaining button to close her blouse. "Are you unhurt?"

  The fire layered bright highlights into the girl's honey-blonde hair as she nodded. "Boxer knew I'd do him if I got the chance."

  The edge in the girl's voice shocked Rajani. She looked more closely at her and, through the thin fabric of the girl's soiled T-shirt, she detected the initial budding of the girl's breasts. She can be no more them 12 LMUs in age physically, but her voice and her anger . . . "I am Rajani."

  The girl let the chain go slack and slip through her fingers. "I'm Dorothy and that's Mickey. The big one, the one your snake got, that's Uncle Andy. Boxer was his friend. They brought me up here to sell me. I brought Mickey with me."

  "Sell you?" Rajani looked from Dorothy to the little boy, who remained hidden in the folds of the thin blanket they had been given. "But your parents, do they know?"

  "Know?" Dorothy pointed at Andy's body. "Check his pockets. My father gave him a bill of sale."

  "What?"

  "Well, daddy's not been right since Mommy died." Mickey began to whimper, so Dorothy turned toward him. "Quiet, quiet. It's not your fault. Daddy didn't mean it when he said it."

  The boy fell silent, but his anxiety began to radiate out again. Rajani smiled at his silhouette in an effort to draw him out, but he hunkered down, trying to make himself small and unnoticed. "Your brother is certainly shy."

  "Yes, he is. And I'm giving you the wrong impression of my father. He is a good man, really he is. Honest. He brung us up proper, too." She waved her brother forward. "Mickey, say 'thank you' to this nice woman for helping us."

  "Ang ou," he whispered from the darkness. He slowly made his way into the firelight and watched the dancing flames with bright fascination in his eyes. When he looked up and made eye contact with Rajani, she saw the flesh on his cheeks rise up around his eyes in a smile, but he kept his face half hidden with the blanket.

  "How old are you, Mickey?"

  Half the blanket slipped back over his left shoulder as his hand came out and displayed all his fingers. Rajani smiled. "Five?"

  The boy nodded emphatically.

  Dorothy reached out and stroked his brown hair, "It's okay, Mickey. She's a good person. If
she weren't, Rex woulda bitten her."

  Rajani smiled reassuringly at Mickey, then glanced around the camp. "The truck has Arizona plates. You're not that far from your home, are you?"

  Dorothy shook her head. "No, we're from . . ."

  "Phlaya," Mickey shouted. As he did so, he pulled his right hand away from his face. Though she did not need it, the firelight fully illuminated the tangle of teeth in Mickey's misshapen face. They lined up like warped bowling pins behind one crooked incisor. His upper lip rose up and parted as if curtains on a stage, unable to hide his cleft palate or allow him to close his lips to speak.

  With Mickey's revelation, Rajani immediately caught Dorothy's hawk-like scrutiny of her reaction. Over and above that, she sensed Mickey's courage dropping precipitously toward panic if she rejected him as had so many others. She wanted to reach out to him, but she held back for fear the boy might take any motion toward him as aggression.

  She looked at his sister. "Your mother died when Mickey was born?"

  Dorothy nodded. "There was lots of blood. I was seven. I've taken care of him since then. Dad had a girlfriend who helped for a while, but it's pretty much just been Mickey and me." She patted him on the head. "If you didn't catch it, he said 'Flagstaff' in reply to your question."

  Rajani nodded to Mickey. «Thank you, Mickey,» she sent to him telepathically.

  The boy looked at her, then tugged at his right ear. His sister looked at him with a concerned frown on her face. "Do you have another earache, Mickey? Because of his teeth and all, he had trouble with them. I think he has trouble hearing because of them, too."

  "I think he's okay, Dorothy." Rajani held her hands out to the fire. "No one has gotten medical help for your brother?"

  "Orfey!" Mickey beamed.

  The girl shook her head. "My father signed on as a proxxer for Daizaimoku Corp in Flag when my mom got pregnant with Mickey. Trying to save her ran up some bills, which Daisymuck said they'd cover, but at the expense of care for Mickey. They said if my mom had lived and they had her vote, too, they would have taken care of things. Mickey keeps getting sick, so that uses up what little credit my dad has built up with Daisymuck. Andy talked him into selling me to get the money to fix Mickey, but I knew that wouldn't happen, so I brought Mickey with me."

  The girl's eyes narrowed. "So, what's your story? Black skin, gold stripes and some really hot eye-mods. You one of them exotic dancers from Vegas or something? Or are you a gangbanger from Eclipse way out of your turf?"

  Rajani was pretty certain Dorothy was speaking English. She understood the first question and would have gone with it except that she knew nothing about Las Vegas and Dorothy seemed to feel the second explanation was more plausible by the feelings she gave off. "The latter. Got tricked into visiting Vegas, then abandoned."

  Dorothy smiled broadly. "Figured you were from Phoenix. You going back?" Insecurity poured from her as she continued. "We have to go back to Flag now, so we could travel together. Safety in numbers and all."

  Fenix? "I go to Pah-he-o-e-nicks."

  Dorothy shrugged. "Whatever, gangslang ain't my Jones. Flag's on the way to Phoenix, so you can come with us, 'kay?" The plea Dorothy managed to keep out of her voice rang off her emotionally like peals from a bell.

  So, Eclipse and Phoenix are synonymous. "Yes, traveling with you would be fine with me." Rajani reached out and gave Dorothy a big hug. Clearly, the world has changed during the time I spent in stasis. I went in hoping I could come out to help save the world from Fiddleback but, if it has changed so radically that fathers can sell their children, perhaps it is too late.

  Looking at the ancient and beautiful monastery clinging to the mountainside, Coyote felt as if he had traveled a thousand years back through time on his journey to Tibet. Adjusting his Serengeti Vermillion sunglasses, he glanced over at Crowley. He wanted to see if the sight awed his companion, but instead caught the dark-haired occultist studying him for his reaction to it. They both laughed, then urged their little ponies onward along the narrow, winding trail.

  From Phoenix they had flown to LA and caught a flight direct to Tokyo. From there they transferred to a flight to New Delhi. That led to another flight to Guwahati, then to Paro, Bhutan and finally into Gonggar, Tibet. Each leg had been completed in smaller and smaller planes, including the last in which they flew in an old People's Liberation Army plane that had been repainted after Tibet reasserted its independence in 1999.

  At Gonggar they took a bus on the 60-mile trip into Lhasa. Crowley had commented that the capital looked a lot more festive than the last time he had been there. "In 1985, when the Chinese hosted a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Tibet's autonomy, you couldn't see any signs that weren't written in Chinese. Now look at it; everything is Tibetan."

  Coyote had probed a bit more about Crowley's presence in Tibet at that time, but his companion seemed reluctant to expand upon his comments. Coyote knew there had been riots in the late 1980s to protest the Chinese domination of the region. Restrictions on foreign travel through the area had been fierce, and had remained so until 1997 when the Second Cultural Revolution had created so many problems for Beijing that they relaxed their grip on the outlying regions. Nei Mongol, Manchuria and Tibet revolted, kicking out the Han settlers through which the central government had tried to colonize their nations. After two years of bloody fighting in Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama returned on June 6, his birthday, and proclaimed Tibet free again.

  Throughout the journey from Lhasa to Shigaste and up to Namling, Coyote had seen plenty of evidence of the Tibetan war for independence. Maoist statues had been toppled, then left to be weathered by the sandblasting winds of Tibet. As Crowley explained when driving through Shigaste, "The people have left the Chinese monuments and buildings in the same state of repair that the First Cultural Revolution left Tibetan temples. They have devoted themselves to restoring their history and have left the Chinese things to rot."

  They abandoned their rented Range Rover in Namling and were met by a yellow-hatted monk with six horses. Crowley introduced the man as Getsul Khedrup, explaining that he was not yet a full monk, but well on his way to his final ordination. Following Khedrup, they rode their shaggy ponies up and out of the fertile central Yarlung Valley. For the next two days they continued up and away from civilization, seeing only nomads tending large herds of yaks as they went.

  The weather cooled as they climbed in altitude, but Coyote remained surprised at how seasonable the climate was. He had expected to need cold-weather gear, but they were not assaulting Mount Everest. The thick yak-hair blankets their guide had brought with them were more than enough to ward off the chilly night air. During the day, a thin shirt or jacket proved more than sufficient, especially since the desert plateau on which they traveled got so little rain.

  Coyote turned to Crowley as they approached the monastery. "It is beautiful. By the looks of it, it must have been one of the first restoration projects of the new government."

  Crowley shared a smile with Khedrup, then shook his head. "No restoration needed. The Chinese never shelled it like they did Norbulinka, the Jokhang, Sera Monastery or the Potala."

  "This is a rather remote area. I guess getting here would have been difficult."

  "Actually, the Chinese wanted Kanggenpo destroyed very badly. The Dalai Lama stopped here on his way out of Tibet in March of 1959." Crowley pointed to some scars on the landscape. "It's been a good 50 years, but you can still see evidence of the elite mechanized division they sent out to get him and his family. Because he had escaped from Norbulinka disguised as a soldier, Mao Zedong put a crack unit on him."

  Coyote's eyes narrowed. "How could this monastery avoid damage?" He dropped a hand to the stainless-steel pistol riding on his right hip. "I could hit the walls from here with my Wildey."

  "Ah, but you can see it; they could not. Even during the First Cultural Revolution, Mao wanted this place destroyed, but again his hunters could not find it."

  Coyote considered hi
s words for a moment. "I take it this has something to do with my empathic abilities, my being a sensitive? When you explained it all to me before, you likened it to being able to see in the ultraviolet range. I take it this place is rendered in ultraviolet, for all intents and purposes?"

  "Close and logical, but no." Crowley frowned for a moment, then pointed back toward the monastery. "What do you see?"

  Coyote looked up, then removed his glasses. Where he had once seen the tall ochre walls of the monastery, with tiled roofs and colorful banners flying from them, he saw nothing. "It's gone."

  "To continue your sight analogy, what would you see in a place where there was no light at all?"

  "Nothing."

  "Exactly." Crowley closed his eyes and Kanggenpo materialized out of thin air and again hung from the sheer mountainside. "Kanggenpo is one of a number of spots on the Earth in which empathic abilities are muted. Right now I am sending to you the image that I am getting from Khedrup—he can see it because those shielding the lamasery are permitting him to see it. If I so desired, I could change the image in subtle ways, so you would only see what I passed on."

  "But if this place deadens my abilities, how will I learn what you are bringing me here to learn?"

  Crowley smiled easily. "I said muted, not deadened. Imagine weight training on a world with greater gravity than Earth. You will have to work harder to be able to break through. They will show you how. Kanggenpo is probably the only place on the planet where you can learn what you must know. And the only way you get here is to be led by someone who knows the way."

  The taller man settled his sunglasses over his eyes again. "Kanggenpo. You said it means 'ice temple.' If one has to be led here, how was it founded and how did you find it?"

  "I think the khenpo can better explain the history of Kanggenpo than I." Crowley's gloved left hand strayed to his goatee and stroked it unconsciously. "I got here because I helped foil an assassination attempt on the Dalai Lama in the summer of 1989—the Chinese government was trying to corner the market on stupid repression tactics that year. Word went out and I was brought to Kanggenpo much as you are being brought now."