Evil Ascending

by Michael A. Stackpole

  As their ponies struggled up the last steep section of the trail, the massive bronze gates in the monastery wall swung inward. Coming around a curve in the trail, Coyote caught his first glimpse of the lamasery's cobbled courtyard and the twin stone lions stretched down a long stairway to form the railings. Through the narrow viewing port the gate made, Coyote saw tantalizing bits and pieces of vast murals painted on the interior walls.

  Red-robed monks and their brown-robed students traveled in tiny knots throughout the ancient fortress. While he saw a few individuals that were not the typical black-haired ethnic Tibetans, that surprised Coyote less than another detail he noticed. "No women?"

  Crowley shook his head. "No women, which is a bit odd since Gelukpa Buddhism is a tradition built out of the Vajrayana tradition, which is known in the West as Tantric Buddhism. Tantric practices include esoteric sexual rituals and meditations, which outraged many missionaries and right-thinking folks in the West when they heard of it. Once monks in the Geluk tradition have mastered all five disciplines, tantric studies are open to them. Until that time, which will take a minimum of 20 years, they are strictly celibate and abstain from alcohol and narcotics."

  "What you've brought me here to study won't take 20 years, will it?"

  "That anxious to see your executive assistant again, are you?"

  Coyote chuckled lightly. "Better her than Fiddleback, but I don't think either one would wait 20 years for me to complete my coursework here."

  "True. No, here you will be schooled in the third and fourth groups of Geluk studies. Oumah is the study of the path between extremes and Sunyata concerns itself with nonexistence or voidness." Crowley nodded at Khedrup. "He will be studying Oumah first, then Sunyata, because his goal is to become one with the universe and attain enlightenment. You will study them in reverse because you desire to learn how to flow through the universe."

  Their two ponies clip-clopped through the entryway and rapjungs labored to close the massive gates behind them. Ahead, Khedrup had already dismounted and another of the novitiates led his riding and pack ponies off. Their guide bowed to the red-robed monk slowly descending the steps, then ran off into the monastery's interior.

  Crowley sprang from his saddle as if he'd had more than a half-dozen hours of sleep in the past 36 and bowed to the monk. "Toshi dili, Lama Mong."

  The wizened monk smiled serenely and returned the bow. "Pyag dan-po-la, Mi-ma-yin."

  Coyote slowly swung down from his saddle, and his legs ached as they accepted his weight again. He nodded respectfully to the old monk, then followed it with a bow as a ragjung led his ponies off. "Nga min Coyote yjn," he offered in the only Tibetan Crowley had taught him.

  The monk looked from Coyote to Crowley. "'Coyote'?" The old man scratched at his bald pate. "Ha ko ma song, Mi-ma-yin."

  "Kyi rkan-jnyis," Crowley replied with a shrug. "'Coyote' is a word he did not understand. I translated for him."

  The monk nodded. "But does your friend know you called him a cur?"

  "No, he did not." The monk's use of flawless English surprised Coyote. "A coyote is a stepping stone between wolves and dogs."

  "Kyi-can, Mi-ma-yin, I think, not kyi rkan-jnyis." He smiled at Coyote. "Would you not think of it more as a jackal than a cur?"

  "Given the choice, yes, definitely."

  Mong nodded solemnly. "Then Kyi-can you shall be."

  Coyote thought he heard judgment in Mong's voice, but no emotions broke the serenity of the monk's expression. "Thank you, I think."

  Crowley let a look of indifference sweep across his face. "Mong is the khenpo of Kanggenpo."

  Again Coyote bowed to the old monk. Mong returned his bow, then offered him his hand. Coyote took it and found the small man had a surprisingly strong grip. His hands are calloused as well. He seems to be more than just an ascetic.

  "I hope Kanggenpo will suit your needs."

  "As do I, Lama Mong."

  Coyote looked around the interior of the lamasery and immediately noted one detail that surprised him: Around the main gate, in 27 little alcoves running up the sides and across the top, red-robed monks sat in the lotus position, chanting softly. In the south wall, Coyote noted the same arrangement, but the gate they surrounded had been carved of stone and could not be moved. To the north, hidden among smaller buildings, he saw one or two monks in place and assumed the rest were there as well. He also assumed there was a gate to the east, but both the north and east walls fit flush into the mountain.

  "If I might inquire, why do you have gates that lead nowhere and people watching them?"

  "They are pa-tsab. They serve as the guardians of Kanggenpo. They are the reason we remain undiscovered." Mong looked toward the stone gate in the south wall. "Twenty-seven at each gate adds up to the sacred number 108. We are warded well no matter which direction enemies might choose to come at us."

  "I see."

  "You will see even more, Coyote." Crowley clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll be leaving you here in Mong's very capable hands. O-na gha-le sku bzugs snan, Lama Mong."

  "O-na gha-le peb, Mi-ma-yin." The old monk bowed to Crowley and smiled at him.

  Crowley walked away from both men, heading south. He turned left, as if wanting to mount the stairs, but his image seemed to go two-dimensional. It slipped forward and vanished as if it had passed beyond some sort of invisible curtain. Without a sound, his lagging foot vanished and no evidence remained to suggest he had ever been there at all.

  "Mi-ma-yin has changed in body, but not spirit." Mong eyed him up and down, his gaze lingering on the massive silvery pistol on Coyote's hip. "I understand the reverse has happened with you, Kyi-can."

  "I suppose, yes, by way of contrast with Crowley, this is true. Does this concern you?"

  "Should it?" The monk watched him closely.

  "It should concern others, not you." Coyote kept his face neutral. "One thing I wish to know, if I might: Why do you call Crowley 'Mi-ma-yin'?"

  "When he first came to us, he had another identity, one of which Crowley was only a part. Mi-ma-yin means 'one who is not human.' It usually refers to ghosts, but in his case . . ." The old monk shrugged, and Coyote understood.

  Coyote folded his arms across his chest. "Then teach me what you taught him. The creature I hunt is not human, either."

  Sinclair MacNeal smiled in spite of himself as the America West flight attendant handed him his glass of Diet Pepsi. "Are you certain you don't want something stronger, Mr. MacNeal? You look like you've had a rough day, and it's only 8 A.M."

  "No and yes." He accepted the glass from her, and their fingers brushed against each other. He quickly read the name embroidered on her apron. "Thank you, Erika. I'm afraid it's not a new day for me, just extra innings from yesterday."

  "I'll be back soon to see if you need anything else." She winked at him and continued her service to the first-class cabin of the America West 787.

  Sin laid his head back against the thick leather padding of the wide seat and sipped his soda again. This is insanity for me. I've no reason to go to Japan for a madman. He set the drink down and started worrying the package of almonds Erika had placed on his tray table. I've also got no reason to stay in Phoenix.

  His father, Darius MacNeal, had made good on his threat to fire him and evict him from the Build-more corporate citadel. After his trip to the hospital for Coyote, Sin had tried to return to his apartment, but he found himself locked out of the residential levels of the main tower. When he went to complain to security, he was handed a small box of personal items and was told everything else had been paid for by Build-more and, therefore, would remain in the possession of Build-more.

  The guard had even gone so far as to try to strip the clothes off his back, but Sin decided that would be going too far. After the paramedics carted the man off, Sin stormed into his father's office and right past his secretary. She never even made an attempt to stop me. She knew what was coming.

  Inside, he found his father sitting down to dri
nks with two other men. The first was a tall, slender man who could have benefited from having his hawk-beak nose pared down to normal size and having the scraps used to give him a chin. Sin recognized him as a Build-more employee from the Operations division. A bean counter. His name is Dodd. Watson Dodd.

  Darius and Dodd dwarfed the third man, yet the small man did not seem to take notice of their size differential. When Sin entered the room, his hands tightened down into fists, then opened again slowly. He snapped his heels together, bowed his blond head and grinned wolfishly. "Guten abend, Herr MacNeal."

  "Get bent, you fascist pygmy." Sin waved Dodd and the smaller man away contemptuously. "You both just remembered an urgent meeting—Dodd, your wife's delivering now and you, Heinrich, your Warriors just found another synagogue to vandalize."

  "Well, well, has the Prodigal Son returned?" Darius' left hand pressed Dodd down into a chair. Heinrich sat back and sipped his drink. "You should not be ordering my guests about."

  "Guests? You do not want them here, Father." Sin's long strides ate up the distance between him and the bar. "You and I are going to have it out, right here, right now."

  Darius smoothed his white hair into place at the back of his head, "It will have to wait. I need to brief Mr. Dodd on his duties as my new vice president in charge of security."

  "What!" Sin stared so hard at Dodd that the man's chest should have caved in. "That's my job."

  "That was your job, traitor." Darius' blue eyes burned with energy. "You were fired after your disgraceful conduct two weeks ago. Were it not for company policy offering two weeks' severance to all employees, you'd have been gone that second. You dared presume to order me to cease my financial relationship with the Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance."

  Heinrich looked shocked at that little revelation. "You wound me, Sinclair. I thought we were friends."

  "I'll wound you worse, you snake. Next time you decide to assassinate someone, why don't you pull the trigger yourself?" He looked at his father. "I just left the hospital where they've got Hal Garrett. He'll recover, but one of the bullets impinged on some nerve. Partial paralysis of his left leg. That's what the money you gave WAWA got you."

  Sin glared at Dodd. "When your child's born, be sure to tell him Daddy hires men to gimp good citizens for a living. Make your kid proud."

  His father shook his head. "Wait, you must forgive my son. He was too indulged as a child."

  "Oh, you're claiming me, now? That's more than you did when I grew up or the last time you fired me." Sin hit a hidden release on the bar, letting a panel swing out. He took a cut-crystal glass from there and filled it with ice. "Your guests don't rate the good crystal, Dad?"

  Darius smoldered. "Your mother warped you."

  Sin laughed and filled his glass with Jameson's Irish Whisky. "Ah, blame it on Mother again because she named me." He looked at the other two men. "You've met my brothers Harpo, Hypo and Dumbo, haven't you?"

  "Alexander, Xerxes and Tiberius. Don't you dare disparage them because they are better sons than you could ever be."

  "Invertebrate zombies that worship the cornucopia that walks like a man." Sin took a slug of the whisky and let it burn its way down to his belly. "You've hated me since the start because I dared stand up to you. You can't walk all over me like you do them."

  "Because you run away from conflict."

  "Ah, the victor writes the history, is that it?" Sin set his glass down on the bar. "I think some minority reports would disagree with you."

  "How can you be like this, after all I've done for you?" His father's voice took on an offended tone. "If not for me . . ."

  "I might have actually been happy."

  "Are we doing to go over Christina again?" Sin's father looked pained. "I told you she was only after my money."

  Sin shook his head, then focused on Watson Dodd. "I come back from college with my fiancée, Christina. Dad tells me she's not good enough for me, only a gold digger. He then sends me off to London to deal with a problem in a site there. I'm gone for a month, at the end of which Chrissy breaks off our engagement. And guess why?" He pointed at his father. "She wasn't good enough for me, but she was for my father."

  "I just proved she was after my money."

  "But did you have to keep proving it for three years?" Sin pounded his right fist against his thigh. "Remember that, Dodd, when my father tells you that your wife is not good enough for you."

  Darius laughed lightly. "Are you through?"

  "Nope, we're through, Father. You're a bastard, always have been a bastard and always will be a bastard. I was going to demand my things, but no more. I want nothing from you."

  "And nothing you shall get." Darius pointed imperiously toward the door. "You no longer have a father."

  "I haven't had one since conception, so nothing's new there."

  "Run, run the way you always do."

  "I'm leaving, but not because that's what you command me to do." Sin tossed down the rest of the whisky. "I'm going because I'll be beyond your reach. I know, in the long run, that will bug you worse than having me be under your thumb here."

  Sin hammered his fist down into the armrest. How could I have been so stupid. He orchestrated that confrontation. He knew what I'd do. I shouldn't have given him the satisfaction.

  Erika slid into the open seat beside him. "Mind if a catch my breath?"

  Sin shook his head. "I welcome the company. Are you based in Phoenix or Tokyo?"

  "Phoenix, but I have two weeks in Tokyo after this run." She tucked her blonde hair behind her left ear. "Business or pleasure in Japan for you, Mr. MacNeal?"

  "Sinclair. I don't honestly know. New job, so I hope a bit of both."

  She patted him on the knee. "I hope so, too." She glanced at her watch, then tapped the flat LCD screen built into the seat in front of him. "Are you going to watch the movie? It won a number of awards."

  "I know he's supposed to be the best since Olivier or Gibson, but I can't see Macaulay Caulkin as Henry V. I may just get some sleep."

  A tone sounded from back in the main cabin. "Well, sleep tight. I'll wake you before we land. Sweet dreams."

  Erika awakened Sin as the jet began its descent into Narita. The pilot brought the plane in smooth and level, touching down with only the slightest bump when the gear hit the ground. Sin looked out through the rain-streaked windows at the gray airport. The vision of a future nightmare that had prompted environmentalists to protest the opening of the airport back in the 1970s had come true. The creeping concrete plague had spread out from the airport and stretched as far as he could see.

  Sin completed the immigration forms Erika passed out. He noted he was staying at the New Palace Hotel. He peeled the barcoded stickers off his ticket sleeve and affixed them to the Customs portion of the form. Erika collected it along with all the others from first class, then led those privileged passengers out through the forward bulkhead. They filed down a short corridor to a pleasant, if antiseptic, waiting room.

  Erika handed the forms to a balding Japanese man in a blue and gray uniform, then headed back to the plane. "It was nice to meet you, Sinclair. Perhaps I'll see you in Tokyo."

  "That would be a most welcome surprise." He reached out and took her hand.

  She folded him into a hug and whispered, "I put your form on top, so you should get through first."

  He gave her a little extra squeeze to let her know he appreciated her effort, then reluctantly let her go. He found himself a seat in the waiting area and almost instantly regretted his choice. A wide-hipped matron with a fox-fur muffler sat down next to him and wedged her doggie-carryall between them. The Sharpei/Lhasa apso mix in the cage looked like a mountain of shag carpet with eyes. The woman crooned at the dog in low tones which could have been English, except for the -izzie, -uggams and -ookums suffixes.

  "Mr. Sinclair MacNeal?" the immigration man called out.

  Sin stood and crossed to the inspection station. He presented the ID card Coyote had gotten fo
r him and saw the immigration official take special notice of it. "Konnichi- wa."

  The man looked unimpressed with Sin's Japanese. "How are you today?" he asked amid stamping various forms.

  "Anmari."

  "Just okay? Well, it is a long flight, isn't it?"

  "Hai."

  "Mr. MacNeal, you need not speak Japanese to me. I am fully conversant in your tongue." The older man's gaze flickered toward a screen after he ran Sin's ID through the reader. He frowned, punched a button, then ran it through again.

  "Do-shitan-dayo?"

  "Nothing is wrong, Mr. MacNeal. I thought I had something here, but it appears not." The man hit Sin's immigration form with one final stamp. "Your luggage will be sent directly to the New Palace Hotel. Please enjoy your stay in Japan."

  "Domo arigato." Sin took his ID back from the immigration officer and passed through a little hallway and out a door to the main international concourse. He glanced at the overhead signs and started the long trek to the rail terminal to catch a train into Tokyo.

  Coyote is good. Somehow he managed to get the security alert on my identity reversed or canceled. He has influence here in Japan, which scores more points for him. Sin shook his head. When he'd left Japan three years before he'd done so under his own steam, but only just barely. In fact, until the jet had gotten out of Stinger missile range of the island, he wasn't willing to bet he was going to make it. Since that time, visitors had mentioned how he was considered persona non grata in the land of the Rising Sun.

  Slipping into the thick line of people heading toward the train station, Sin concentrated on letting their voices and the cadence of their words bring him back to the time before he left. After his father had stolen Christina, Sin had left the United States to work in Japan. Hired on as a security consultant, which initially meant he was to escort visitors from the US and keep them out of trouble, he rose up through the ranks at Raibyoin Corp fairly swiftly. His no-nonsense attitude about trouble, as well as his ability to act tough or use a gun, meant a lot in Japan.