“So you say,” replied a voice out of the darkness.
Rayden stepped forward, still dressed in his beggar’s rags, forming a strange contrast to the silken splendor of the sorcerer. “You forget that there is a tournament to fight first. Many things may happen.”
“You!” Shang said. “What are you doing here, old one? This is my domain. Here the emperor pronounces the law.”
“Indeed.”
“Then tell me, Rayden, god without miracles, why do you come? To see your fighters destroyed, your realm lost, and you yourself humiliated? Is it really worth the price you must pay to come here, to see those things?”
“I have reason to expect a slightly different outcome,” Rayden said mildly. “Tell me, if you are so confident of the results of the tournament, why do you go even now to visit Prince Goro?”
“I pay my respects to Outworld’s greatest champion,” Shang Tsung said. “What is so odd about that?”
“Nothing, if you did not travel with your ninjas,” Rayden said. “Did you think I would not recognize Sub-Zero and Scorpion? If you go to visit a friend and ally, you have no need of those two.”
“My reasons are not to be questioned by such as you!” Shang said. He stepped forward into the darkness of the path into the garden.
“Of course not,” Rayden said and bowed as Shang Tsung passed. A moment later the darkness swallowed him as well.
In the silence that followed a shadow flitted from one area of darkness to another. It paused in an inky pool at the base of one of the statues. Sonya was following Shang, allowing her dark uniform to blend with the shadows, using all available cover to hide her progress from her prey. With careful eyes she watched Shang and his escorts proceed, then move silently to the next shadow. Her motions were sure and swift.
Tsung did not vary from the path nor did he look back, as if he did not consider the possibility that he might be followed.
Rather than taking the road which led to the stairway on the cliff, Shang took another branch which led down a slope, then led against a looming cliff. The path continued through a high-arched portal in the cliff, carved into arabesques and ornate traceries. Flaring torches were set all about the portal, along the path leading to it, then up, over, and around the opening.
Shang paced in, Sub-Zero and Scorpion at his side, never breaking stride. A shadow attached itself to the cliff face just beyond the torches’ flare.
Even as the shadow froze in the darkness, a crunching sound came from the path the sorcerer had just traveled. A moment later two figures came into view. Liu and Johnny were talking in the direction where Shang had just passed.
The two men reached the portal. The shadow reached out and snatched Johnny into the darkness under the stones.
Johnny found himself facing a furious Special Forces lieutenant, her hand twisting the cloth of his collar choking-tight. Her was blackened with camouflage paint; only her eyes and teeth glittered in the flickering light.
“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing here?” she hissed.
“We’re going to help you out,” Johnny said.
“I do not need your help,” Sonya said. “You aren’t trained or equipped to work with me. Part of my job is to save civilian lives. I’m performing that mission tasking right now and saving your life. This goes for you and your buddy: Get your dumb ass back to the Great Hall, plant it in a chair, and keep it there.”
“I can’t help it,” Johnny said. “It’s a guy thing.”
“Letting the little head think for the big one? Yeah, it sure is. I’m too busy to waste any more time protecting you. Get lost.”
Liu stood by for a moment. “Shang Tsung is mine,” he said, then turned and walked into the tunnel opening.
“Damn,” Sonya said, and dropped Johnny’s collar. She, too, vanished into the tunnel’s mouth.
Johnny stood for a moment, undecided. Then he snatched up a torch from the portal’s side and entered the tunnel as well.
The torch flared high overhead, illuminating the dark stone walls. Soon the tunnel bent and the patch of light that was the entrance vanished. Johnny walked a few paces farther on before the walls and the ceiling of the tunnel opened out and he found himself in a vast dark cavern. Beyond the tiny patch of illuminated sand beneath his feet he might as well have been floating in space. Total blackness extended in all directions. He walked on in what he hoped was a straight line. The floor had been sandy and laced with footprints. Now it became hard stone. The path narrowed to a roadway of lighter stone some ten feet across, with darkness on either side. Then the roadway branched.
“Which way?” Johnny asked himself.
Flipping a mental coin, he headed left. Soon the road branched again. This time Johnny turned right. He proceeded as quickly as he dared amid an ever-branching web of roads on the cavern floor.
Without warning, his feet were swept out from under him. He landed flat on his back on the stone, the torch flying from his hand.
It arced up and over, falling into one of the dark areas between the gray flagstone roads. And it continued to fall, down and down, its light growing more feeble. It went out. After a long time the sound of a distant impact sounded, echoing up from far below.
A voice whispered in his ear.
“Are you dumber than you look? When you are sneaking up on someone in a dark environment, it is not a tactically wise decision to carry a flaming torch!”
“Sonya?” Johnny whispered back.
“No, it’s the tooth fairy. Listen up. Aside from terminal stupidity, what are you doing down here?”
“I’m helping you catch Kano.”
He heard a sigh next to his ear.
“Civilians,” Sonya muttered, making the word sound like a curse. “You were destroying your night vision and you were alerting anyone within eyeshot that you’re here. In a combat situation that would draw fire. Try not to draw fire. It tends to annoy those around you.”
“You need me,” Johnny said. “This place is a maze, and your compass isn’t working. But I’m not lost. When you get to know me better–”
“Now there’s a happy thought.”
“–you’ll realize that I never get lost. I never have to ask for directions, and I always find a parking spot. Usually there’s time on the meter, too.”
“Shut up,” Sonya explained.
Johnny rolled over carefully, making sure that he wasn’t going over the edge of the roadway. He blinked a couple of times. Without the torch blinding him it was getting easier to see. Up ahead there was a lighter patch. It looked like reflected firelight on a rock wall.
And in that firelight he could see a shadow. A huge shadow of a human figure. The shadow stretched its arms. One – two – three – four.
“Four arms?” Johnny asked. “You don’t suppose that’s some guy doing shadow pictures with his hands and in a minute he’s going to do a bunny or a flying bird, do you?”
“There are other ways besides drawing fire to annoy those around you,” Sonya said. For some reason Johnny got the impression of clenched teeth. “Now are you going to be sensible, or do I have to punch you out, leave you here, and pick you up on my way back?”
“Listen,” Johnny said.
From somewhere up ahead came the sound of male voices, a deep rumbling of conversation. The words were indistinct.
“Let’s go,” Sonya said.
She started off, walking carefully but quickly. Johnny found that he could see her silhouette against the firelight ahead. The path branched again and again but Sonya went along as surely as if she knew the way, guided by the light. The path ended when it entered an opening in a rock wall. A narrow way led to the right, while the main road broke into a set of wide stairs to go to the floor of the cavern.
Sonya went to the right, and Johnny followed her.
The path they were on edged around a huge natural cavern. It turned into a ledge high above the floor. Giant stalactites and stalagmites hung down from above and thrust u
p from below. Hundreds of blazing torches filled sconces throughout the hall. Sonya made her way along the ledge to a point overlooking a large ebony table. Gold and silver tableware lay scattered over its surface.
In the reflected light of the torches Johnny could make out another form on the ledge. It was Liu, lying and looking down at the back of a giant of a man sitting on a massive throne.
“About time you showed up,” Liu whispered as Sonya and Johnny approached. “If the legends aren’t lying, then the big fellow down there is Goro.”
“The guy Shang Tsung mentioned in his little speech?” Johnny asked.
“The same. He’s the reigning champion of Mortal Kombat.”
Johnny looked at Goro with renewed interest. The man on the throne wore a cape of blue silk around his massive shoulders. Long hair flowed from his head, falling far down the back of his char to about the level of his shoulders. His golden earrings sparkles in the firelight.
Goro held a jewel-encrusted mirror in his left hand, a metal file in his right. He was calmly working on sharpening the points of his teeth. Four palace guards, their exoskeletal armor gleaming, stood at attention of either side of him.
Another, much smaller figure sat across the table from Goro – a man in a business suit. Johnny figured that he was probably a large man, but in comparison to Goro he appeared slight and frail. A welter of dirty dishes and crockery littered the table around him.
A black-robed monk entered the hall from an unseen opening, another bowl of food in his hands. As he passed the table, the smaller of the two snaked out a hand.
“Hey, give me some of that!” he said, taking the bowl from the monk and transferring most of its contents to a plate in front of him in an untidy heap.
“So anyway,” the man was saying, “then he freezes this guy and he shatters. You could see his guts and everything! Almost lust my lunch!”
The man rammed another wad of food into his mouth and began chewing noisily.
“Disgusting,” Goro said. The champion’s voice was deep, his tone incongruously cultured.
The other man went on with his narrative, although he hadn’t yet swallowed his last mouthful of food. “And then that Shang Tsung guy gave a speech.”
He belched and thumped his chest with his fist.
“And if that Shang Tsung’s such a great sorcerer, how come he has such a lousy-looking boat? Guy gives me the creeps. ‘Treasure these moments,’ he says…”
The speaker looked up. One red eye gleamed in his face, in the metal plate which covered the right side of his skull.
“Kano!” Sonya whispered. “The things you see when you don’t have a rifle.”
Liu and Johnny both put their hands on Sonya’s shoulders to keep her from rising. She shrugged them off.
Goro spoke again. “Gave you the creeps, did he? That was his intention.”
The champion examined his teeth in the hand mirror and gave one of his canines a slight touch with his file. Then he looked at Kano, seated across the table. “Shang Tsung is a great sorcerer. The wise cultivate his favor. Those who challenge his power become his slaves.”
“Haven’t seen any slaves around,” Kano said, tearing the meat from a bone with his teeth.
“You fool,” Goro whispered. He leaned across the table. “He enslaves souls. When a warrior dies, the sorcerer takes his essence and makes it part of his own. For this reason he can never be defeated. He has a thousand spirits to call to his aid. Shang learned that Black Art from the emperor himself.”
“Emperor, eh?” Kano belched again, and took a deep drink from one of the several goblets which stood before him. A silent monk stepped forward to refill it. “You’re some kind of royalty too, right?”
“How very perceptive of you,” Goro said, his tone mocking. With that he stood and cast off the cloak. He was wearing only a simple loincloth supported by a golden belt. He raised his hands holding the mirror and the file – and then he raised two more arms. Rich bracers glittered on all four of his wrists.
“I am the leader,” he said, “of all the Outworld armies, and a prince of the subterranean realm of Shokan.”
“Four arms?” Johnny whispered. “Four arms! Liu, was that in the legends too?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Liu whispered back. “He’s a half-dragon. It’s how I recognized him. He holds you with two of his arms and beats you to death with the other two.”
“Oh goodie,” Johnny said.
Jax walked across the plaza toward the Temple of the Order of Light. Mr. Chu had been adamant about keeping to himself anything he knew about the dragon amulet, but with any kind of luck the people here would be more forthcoming. Jax had another couple of reasons for being hopeful: the Hong Kong police’s list of recent murders had placed one here, and the list of known fighters from passport control had contained one man whose last-known address was here.
Right now, though, it would pay to go slow and be polite. Jax looked around. Over near the temple entrance an old man in white, the color of mourning, sat on a mat in the sun. Jax headed over to the old one, bowed, and said, “Greetings, honored one. I am Major Jackson Briggs of the Joint Eurasian Anti-Drug Task Force. I seek assistance from the priests of the Order of Light. Can you help me find them?”
“They are within, at their devotions,” the old man said. “Perhaps I can be of help to you?”
“Perhaps,” Jax said. “I seek information on a tournament. I was told that the Order of Light knows something of such matters.”
“A tournament, you say? Come with me.”
The old man slowly rose and rolled up his mat. He walked into the temple grounds and stood beside a gong. Jax followed. When the Special Forces major got close, the old man pointed to his chest. “Tell me, what concern of yours is this tournament of which you speak?”
“One of my personnel appears to have been trapped into being there,” Jax said. “I want to get her out.”
“That would be very unusual,” the old man said. “No one goes to that tournament without an invitation. It is not likely that your soldier had such a thing without knowing it.”
“Would an invitation look like this?” Jax asked. He reached into a pocket and pulled out the amulet. He laid the small circle on the framework of the gong.
A long pause followed. “I seem to have misjudged you,” the old man said at last. “Yes, you are concerned with the tournament. As it happens, my own grandson is one of the fighters there.”
“Where is the tournament?”
“That I cannot say. I have never been there.”
“You mean I can’t do anything?” Jax asked.
“No,” the old man said. “You can stay here with me. You can wait. And if you are the sort of man who prays, you can pray.”
In the caves beneath the island, Sonya, Liu, and Johnny lay hidden on a ledge. Down below the three companions, the conversation between Kano and Prince Goro continued.
“Subterranean? Is that like underground?” Kano asked.
“Something like that,” the four-armed prince said. He sounded amused.
“Really? Well, I’m an underworld chief myself, back home.”
“How lucky for them. Back home.”
“It is true, Prince Goro,” came another voice. Shang Tsung stepped forward into the torchlight, his two ninjas at his side. The four guards saluted the sorcerer and bowed low. Goro, too, made a bow to Shang Tsung. Shang acknowledged him with a nod.
The emperor’s sorcerer walked forward until he could place his fingertips lightly on Kano’s shoulders. “Do you think,” Shang said, his voice gentle and conversational, “that I would choose such a disreputable-looking cretin to carry about my bidding if he was not, in fact, an underworld chief?”
“Look at him,” Goro said, speaking of Kano as if the crime lord wasn’t there. “No dignity.”
“I know,” Shang said. “No manners either. But in the Realm of Earth, men such as he can amass great wealth and almost godlike power.”
; “Unlike this realm,” Goro said.
“True.”
“Excuse me, gents,” Kano said, his red eye bright in the dimness. “But I’d like to get back to that ‘amassing’ as soon as possible. I carried out all the terms of my agreement. When do I get paid?”
“Ah, yes,” Shang said. “You did cause the girl to come aboard the Dragon Wing of her own free will. Her presence is very important to my plans, and you succeeded. For that you shall be rewarded. Amply. There is, however, one more task you must perform.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“One more task?” Kano roared, half rising to his feet. “You want extra, you have to pay extra.”
“Calm yourself, my friend.” Shang Tsung looked at the criminal warlord with an imperious glance. “You shall be amply paid. Your richly deserved reward shall come, however, after you have fought against the girl.”
“Now that’s a kind of extra job I like,” Kano said, chuckling as he sat back in his chair. He reached again for his wine cup and spilled some of the contents down his chin as he drained it. The red wine dripped like a trickle of blood.
“The girl must not be harmed,” Shang said. “Only humiliated.”
“I can think of lots of ways to that.” Kano chuckled again. “Nothing I’d like to do more than get right in between her legs.”
Up on the ledge, Sonya listened, her expression fixed, eyes glittering. Without thinking of what she was doing, her hand found her empty holster.
“Damn,” she muttered.
The sorcerer Shang looked at Kano, his deep black eyes blazing, as if looking into the larger man’s soul.
“Yes,” Shang said at last. “I have seen your future, and you shall have your wish. Only recall, when the time comes, that I have plans for the beautiful Sonya. She must not be permanently damaged.”
“Well, let me at her,” Kano said. He ripped a chunk of meat away from a bone with his teeth and chewed noisily. “Just put me in the same room as her. That’s all I ask. You think I like hiding down here in this stinking cave like some kind of slimy toad?”
Goro leaned forward, placing the large three-fingered hands from his upper arms down flat on the table to either side of Kano, and lowered himself until his huge head was directly level with that of the Hong Kong crime boss. For a long moment, the half-dragon looked deep into Kano’s face, his eyes unblinking.
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