Mortal Kombat

by Jeff Rovin

  Kung Lao raised his chin. “I will not, Shang Tsung. What my ancestor hid to keep from evil, I will not unearth for evil.”

  The sorcerer smiled as the smoke began to coalesce and assume human form. “Oh yes you will,” Shang Tsung said. “The only question is, will you do so willingly?”

  When he saw the smoke begin to take shape, Rayden coiled his mighty legs to charge. But watchful Goro dove at the Thunder God, catching the head-smaller figure about the waist, spilling him to the ground and holding him there in a tangle of powerful, flailing limbs.

  “Well done, Goro,” Shang Tsung said as he continued to hold his open palms upright. He extended one toward Kung Lao and the other toward Kano: in each there now stood a tiny figure of smoke, one that resembled each man. “Before the eyes of Shao Kahn,” he said, “there must be no knee unbended, no will but his. Against the might of Shao Kahn,” he continued, bringing his hands nearer, “there can be no resistance.”

  “No!” Rayden shouted a the figures of smoke neared. Though Goro’s quartet of arms made it difficult to move, the Thunder God managed to free his left arm, stretch out his splayed hand, and fire a bolt at Shang Tsung.

  The lightning struck the wizard’s hands and sent him tripping back against the boulder where Kano and Schneider had taken refuge. As he fell, he shouted words in Fengah, an arcane form of Cantonese.

  Even before the flash and explosive rumble had faded, Shang Tsung’s laughter could be heard echoing through the plain. “Great and powerful Rayden,” the wizard practically shrieked with delight, “most heroic deity – a god among gods, one who is truly immortal in body and spirit, though sadly wanting in mind. Cretin! That is precisely what I expected you to do. I needed your lightning… needed it to complete my spell!”

  As the darkness returned, and an eerie silence fell over the plain, Rayden’s eyes went from white to gold as they beheld in the glow of Kung Lao’s fallen flashlight what Shang Tsung’s magic had wrought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Kung Lao,” Rayden said as he looked at the vague shape standing before him.

  “No,” said Shang Tsung, with more than a trace of satisfaction, “it is not exactly Kung Lao. What you see would more accurately be called Kano Lao.”

  The smoky, humanoid shape looked at its hands. The being had one flame red eye and one normal one; despite its rippling, gray countenance, the face was definitely Kano’s, while the wispy, robed form was clearly more Kung Lao than the criminal.

  “What’dya do?” Schneider asked, frozen behind the boulder, mouth agape.

  “Why,” said Shang Tsung, “I simply did some basic mathematics. One mind of Kano – if I may use that term to describe what’s in his head – plus one mind of Kung Lao equals one devoted follower of Shang Tsung with the knowledge of how to find the amulet.” The mage looked at Rayden. “Are you pleased with what you’ve helped to create, my impetuous Thunder God?”

  Rayden looked on, his eyes pale gold, expression dolorous.

  “But wait,” Shang Tsung hissed. “There’s more. They are smoke, you see… held together by my will. If you try and interfere with them, Rayden, I will allow the smoke to dissipate. When it does, Kano’s soul will go straight to the Outworld, dragging Kung Lao’s with it. Do you know what means?” Shang Tsung grinned. “It means that Shao Kahn will have enough souls to cross over.”

  “You will let him have them anyway.”

  “Not necessarily,” Shang Tsung said. He motioned for Goro to rise, and the brute rose, releasing Rayden. “To tell you the truth, Thunder God, there’s a great deal I wish to do before Shao Kahn arrives. You see, I have no illusions about my standing with the Lord. When he crosses over, I’ll be just another humble servant in his army of slavish servants.” He shrugged. “Oh, I’ll be better off than the rest of you, who will roast and toast in eternal flame. But I don’t want to by anyone’s lackey… not even Shao Kahn’s. And you stand to benefit as well, Rayden. Do you know how?”

  Rayden stood. Some of the glow was beginning to return to his eyes as he regarded the sorcerer.

  “I won’t be so overbearing as to demand that you get the amulet for me. I know that coming into contact with it will rob you of your godhood, the touch of mere humans having made it impure and all that. And you can take comfort from the fact that by your forbearance, both of the men will be restored when I’m through with them, little worse for having been joined.” The sorcerer’s bushy white brows arched. “But if you interfere, Rayden, my Kano-Kung creation will die, their souls will go to Shao Kahn, and this world will become one with the Outworld. At least this way, I get to carve out my own little kingdom… and you have time to figure out where to hide the monks and priests of the Order of Light before the Lord arrives and orders their eternal damnation.” Shang Tsung came closer and looked up into the eyes of the imposing Thunder God. “Yes, I’ll allow you to do that. Because one never knows, Rayden. There may come a time when Shao Kahn turns on me and I’ll need allies.”

  Rayden continued to stare at the sorcerer. “I appear to have no choice.”

  “That is correct,” said Shang Tsung.

  “If I do not leave here, do you give me your promise that no harm will come to the monks or priests?”

  “No harm will befall them,” said Shang Tsung, “nor will I or any of my agents move against your temples or your books and scrolls.”

  The god turned his eyes toward the ghostly gray figure that was once two different men. “Kung Lao – can you hear me?”

  Shang Tsung said to the shifting figure, “Kano, let him speak.”

  Kano’s mouth opened wide, then wider, and Kung Lao’s head appeared inside of it. Like a newborn baby, the priest appeared head-first, shedding Kano’s startled visage like a hood.

  “I hear you, Rayden,” said Kung Lao, his voice unheard yet heard, like the sound of reading.

  “Go with Kano,” said Rayden. “Take him to the amulet.”

  “I will do it,” Kung Lao said.

  As soon as the priest had spoken, Kano’s tortured features once again swallowed up those of the priest. While the god and wizard, Outworlder and humans watched, the wraithlike being began to drift across the dark plain, its legs moving but not touching the ground, wide eyes looking ahead but not settling on anything in particular.

  When the figure was swallowed up by the night, Shang Tsung said, “There is one thing, though, Rayden. You did dare to oppose me. Such impertinence cannot go unpunished.”

  The Thunder God fired a bright white look at the sorcerer. “Does the word of Shang Tsung mean nothing to him?”

  “Actually, it doesn’t,” the wizard admitted, “though I want to retain your good will so I’ll stick by the letter of what I promised. That doesn’t mean there will not be retribution outside the letter. Mr. Woo?”

  At the start of the battle between Rayden and Goro, Jim Woo and Sonya Blade had dropped to their bellies in a gully. They were still lying there when Shang Tsung called.

  “Sir?” Woo said, poking his head over the lip of the ditch.

  “My demon servant told me you have a radio.”

  “It’s a TAC-SAT telephone, sir, which enables us to communicate via–”

  “Don’t trouble me with your gibberish,” Shang Tsung said. “Take it out.”

  Jim Woo slid off his backpack and removed the telephone, which was the size of a fat hardback book. He raised a cylinder and pushed a button on the side; a satellite dish unfolded from inside. Woo punched coordinates on a keypad, the dish turned and locked on the satellite, and he scooped up the telephone.

  “Ready, sir,” he said.

  Shang Tsung’s eyes burned. “You have someone on the other end.”

  “Moriarty, sir.”

  “He has someone with him.”

  Under cover of darkness, Sonya snaked her hand toward the jack that connected the receiver to the dish.

  “A shepherd, sir.”

  Shang Tsung regarded Sonya. “My dear woman – if you move
another inch, I will have Goro step on you.”

  Sonya stopped moving. She looked at the implacable Rayden, her own eyes imploring.

  The wizard snickered as he followed her gaze. “And Rayden,” the wizard said to the god, “if you are brash enough to try and leave us, Goro will follow you back to the village, whose destruction, I assure you, will be absolute. You must learn, Thunder God, that defiance cannot go entirely unpunished.”

  Shang Tsung’s eyes shifted to Woo. “Mr. Woo – raise your accomplice on the other end.”

  Woo put the telephone to his mouth. “Moriarty, it’s Jim Woo. Are you there?”

  The voice on the other end answered affirmative.

  “He’s raised,” said Woo.

  Shang Tsung smiled. “Very good. Tell him to turn his gun on the boy and return his modest little soul to T’ien.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  When he was a child, growing up in the Honan Province of China, Liu Kang used to play a game with his year-older brother, Chow. One of them would sneak up on the other and pounce when he least expected it. The only time and place this was forbidden was when they were mending their father Lee’s fishing nets. Everything else was fair game: when one of them was asleep, when one was courting, even when one was using the chamber pot.

  To make it more interesting, the brothers kept score: each surprise and take-down was worth two points for the attacker; each surprise followed by a take-down by the defender was worth three points for the defender, none for the attacker. The boys recorded the score in a notebook, and at the end of ten years, when Liu left home to visit the United States, the score was 18,250 for Liu, 18,283 for Chow.

  Liu had insisted that the decade’s worth of scores be retotalled, and for all he knew Chow had done it. But shortly after he reached the United States, his parents died in a plague and his brother disappeared – to where, why, and how he never learned, though one day he vowed he would.

  As he approached the village of Wuhu, Liu had experienced feelings like those of long ago when he used to sneak up on Chow. It was the middle of the night, so he had expected most of the lanterns in the village to be off. But usually there was some movement, even at this hour: farmers delivering eggs, water carriers filling jars from the well, someone staggering home or sleeping in the street after a night of merriment.

  There was none of that here, which was why Liu and his two White Lotus companions had decided to sneak into the village, sticking to the shadows behind and beside the huts and few public buildings, removing their sandals so the stones and dirt of the street didn’t crunch beneath their feet. Dressed entirely in black, they weren’t seen or heard.

  Lights were burning in the Temple of the Order of Light, and Liu had decided to go there. Perhaps one of the monks could tell him why it was so quiet – why he had this uneasy feeling inside that something was amiss.

  As they approached the bronze door of the great circular building, Liu Kang motioned for his companions to remain hidden behind the trees near the temple while he took a look inside. Creeping up to one of the open windows that looked in on the great library, Liu heard voices.

  “Yeah, Jim. Yeah–”

  Sitting with his back to the wall, Liu pulled a throwing star from his belt and lifted it above the sill. He angled it so he could see the room reflected in its highly polished surface.

  What he saw got his attention.

  Two men were sitting on a mat. One of them, a young boy, had one end of a noose around his beck and a submachine gun pointed in his direction. The man to whose neck the other end of the noose was attached was speaking into a telephone.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I understand. Yup, I gotcha. Bye.”

  The man put the phone back in its flat, boxlike cradle, and the boy strained against the leash. The bigger man gave a hard tug and the youth fell forward. Senmenjo-ni walked to the boy’s side to make sure he stayed down.

  “Sorry,” said Moriarty, “but something’ must’ve happened out there. I’ve got orders to frag ya. But I’ll make it quick and painless, I promise.”

  As Senmenjo-ni stepped aside and Moriarty raised the gun to the boy’s head, Liu Kang stood, drew back his arm, and prepared to fling the throwing star at the killer’s hand.

  Instead, Liu found himself with the wind knocked out of him as he flew sideways. And then there was a terrible blast from inside the temple.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Though Jim Woo’s TAC-SAT phone was hung up, the receiver bounced, riding two spikes of electricity – one from the mouthpiece, the other from the earpiece.

  Woo looked at Schneider and then at Shang Tsung, and quickly scooped up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  He waited: all he heard was static.

  “Nada,” he said, checking the connection, listening, then replacing the receiver. “The line is very dead, but not from this end. It’s like it got–”

  Woo’s eyes fell on Rayden.

  “Got what?” Shang Tsung demanded.

  Woo said, “Like it got fried from Tim’s side. By a bolt of electricity of some kind.”

  “Or lightning,” Shang Tsung said. A guttural sound rolled from the wizard’s throat as he faced the Thunder God. “Is this your doing, Rayden?”

  “Unlike you,” the Thunder God said, “I keep my word. But I only promised not to leave here. I said nothing about sending lightning.”

  Shang Tsung considered what Rayden had said, then nodded. “That’s true, Rayden. But while you may have saved the shepherd at the expense of my man, I promise you’ll pay for that life tenfold, starting with your own. Goro,” he said, “it’s time for our surprise.”

  Drawing himself up to his full height, Goro smiled wickedly as Shang Tsung’s hands began to smoke anew, and a second red bolt split the sky.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When the bolt of lightning erupted from somewhere above his head and struck Tim Moriarty and Senmenjo-ni, Chin Chin felt his ears ring like the temple bell, and the noose go slack. When he saw the leather strap burned in the middle, and Moriarty nowhere to be seen, he dove for cover beneath a heavy wooden table near the entrance of the room.

  And when the echo of the thunder died in his ears, he heard the sounds of struggle from without.

  Crawling through the library, which was thick with dark smoke that used to be Tim Moriarty and Senmenjo-ni, Chin Chin reached the window, put his fingers on the edge, rose to his knees, and looked out – ducking again just in time to avoid the wavy blast of ice rushing at his head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  For all his years of sneaking around and being snuck up on, Liu Kang hadn’t seen the pole coming. But his reflexes were still sharp, and the instant he felt the blow on his side, he rolled away, got to his feet, and backflipped to buy himself some distance to meet a second attack – only to be caught in the fiery aura of whatever had exploded in the library. He’d managed to protect his face with his hands, but the explosion knocked him down again. And when his foe, who was crouching and was untouched by the blast, fired a projectile of his own, a sheet of ice that flew from his mask into the library window, Liu Kang knew whom he was facing.

  The White Lotus warrior reached into his belt for his throwing star, only to find that it must have fallen out; without taking his eyes off the dark shadow that was his enemy, he used peripheral vision to try and find something with which to defend himself. Without a weapon of some kind he knew he was doomed: without a weapon, he would never be able to withstand an assault from Sub-Zero.

  The infamous ninja was not someone any mortal warrior wanted to face. While it was presumed by the few who had encountered him and lived – the very, very few – that he himself was mortal, his ninja skills bordered on the supernatural. Coupled with his mysterious ability to radiate waves of cold, and to move with the speed of a blizzard, they made him a force with which to be reckoned. Moreover, when Liu Kang’s friends Guy Lai and Wilson Tong did not run to help him, he suspected that the ninja had al
ready dispatched them. That too was a trademark of Sub-Zero and the Lin Kuei band: divide and conquer. Victory, not honor, was all that mattered to them.

  But Liu Kang was too busy to mourn his friends. Whatever had caused that blast in the library had blown out the twisted remains of a submachine gun. Having hooked his foot beneath it and thrown it up into his hands, Liu Kang was able to use the broken weapon to parry a renewed attack from Sub-Zero’s pole.

  High, low, low, jab, high, jab.

  The slender wooden weapon seemed like a propeller in Sub-Zero’s hands as he whirled it this way and that, trying to strike his opponent. Liu Kang was able to block it with the twisted barrel of the gun, then with the stock, then the barrel again. If only the gun hadn’t been twisted into an otherwise useless mass in that explosion! Even a ninja was not immune to bullets.

  Then the stakes got higher as Sub-Zero flipped off the tip of the pole and exposed a seven-inch serrated knife.

  Jab, jab, slice, jab, slice.

  Liu Kang wasn’t able to see Sub-Zero’s face beneath his mask, couldn’t tell whether he was trying to kill him or just playing prior to a serious attack. Then the ninja managed to slide the bottom of the pole into the trigger guard of the gun, and wrested the broken weapon away. Liu Kang was once again weaponless – though in that same moment, he began to wonder if he were defenseless.

  In the time it took Sub-Zero to rip the gun from his hands, Liu Kang noticed a faint golden glow coming from his hands. He remembered having used them to protect his face and realized that the explosion might have done something to them. This wasn’t the time to wonder what, how, and why, but when Sub-Zero swung the pole at him again, from above, Liu Kang didn’t jump out of the way. Instead, he dropped to one knee, reached up, and grabbed the pole: as soon as the wood touched his palms, he thought about the fire and the pole erupted into flames.

  If Sub-Zero was surprised, he didn’t show it. Tossing the flaming pole aside, he breathed another icy blast at Liu Kang, who held his palms toward his enemy, once again thought of the strange glow, and sent a sheet of fire racing out to meet the ice. The two waves met between the adversaries, raising a wall of steam between them and giving Liu Kang a chance to dive to his left, through the open window of the library.