Mortal Kombat (10 page)

"Master Lao!" Chin Chin wheezed. "Master Lao, come quickly!"

Most of the villagers were in their homes, having a quiet dinner, and so they heard the boy who was always late bringing in his sheep – this night, unhappily so. For if he hadn't been standing on the rise, the path of the travelers never would have crossed his, and the cruel-looking five men and one woman wouldn't have been on their way up the hill, toward the village, right now.

"Master Lao! Please come!"

The young boy half-ran, half-stumbled over the long hem of his pigskin coat as he made his way past the huts, some of them wood, some of them straw, a few made of brick, toward the temple near the village square.

As he reached the great bronze door of the ancient edifice, a powerfully built man with a long queue of black hair and a thin white robe stepped out. Though he wore an expression of concern, the man did not seem anxious. His light brown eyes didn't look as though they could ever show panic, or fear, or anything but the supernatural calm that was in them as faced the boy.

"What is it, young Chin?" the man asked, his voice soft but firm.

Breathless and wide-eyed, the boy waved a stiff arm behind him. "
Strangers are coming,
Priest Kung Lao! Evil-looking strangers are coming up our hill!"

"It isn't
our
hill, my son," the priest said. "It belongs to whoever uses it. And looks can be misleading," he said, patting the youth on his shoulder. "But come. Let us go and greet the visitors – and find your flock before they stray again."

Shutting the door of the Temple of the Order of Light and motioning for people to return to their homes, the tall, barefoot priest followed the boy in the fast-fading light of dusk down the dirt road to the small village.

Nearly a quarter of mile of scrub and boulders lay between the edge of the village and the lip of the rise. Kung Lao and the boy met the newcomers halfway across it, the priest bowing as Kano lumbered over.

"Welcome," said the high priest, bowing low. "My name is Kung Lao."

Kano looked the man up and down. "Ain't you cold?" he asked as he swatted himself with his arm. "I'm freezin', and I got clothes under this jacket."

"There is a fire in the hearth at the temple," Kung Lao said, stretching a hand behind him, "and warm broth in the cauldron. You are all invited to share both."

"A cauldron," muttered Moriarty. "I thought only witches had those."

"Shaddup," Kano said from the side of his mouth. "Where's yer manners?"

"Same place as your sense of direction," Moriarty grumbled.

"What'd you say?" Kano fired a look at him. He saw Gilda standing between them, her hand on the hilt of her blade, and his look softened.

"Priest," Gilda said, "we accept your offer, and thank you for your hospitality. If you'd lead the way–"

"With pleasure," said Kung Lao. "It's rare that we get visitors here, and I'm anxious to hear of the outside world."

"'Rare' is probably an understatement," said Kano, motioning his team forward as the priest turned and started toward the village. The leader of the gang snarled at Chin Chin, who yipped and rejoined Kung Lao, after having been transfixed by Kano's red eye.

As they crossed the barren field, Senmenjo-ni hurried to catch up to Kung Lao.

"Sir," said the hound-faced forty-year-old with thinning red hair, "you just spoke English to the group."

"Yes," said Kung Lao. "In addition to religion, I teach languages to the people of my village. It enables them to dip into the lore and cultures of many races. You all speak it, don't you?"

"We do," Senny said, "but it's unusual to hear it spoken in the provinces here. Usually, one hears of dialects of Cantonese or Mandarin–"

"I speak those as well, of course," said Kung Lao. "Languages are a passion of mine."

"Mine, too!" said the former accountant.

"Not mine," said Kano, inserting himself between the two men. "Senny, go to the back of the line before you start cluckin' in Tibetan or Mongolian or some crap like that. I want to talk to the father, here."

His expression dour, Senmenjo-ni fell back. After blowing his cold hands, Kano turned his scruffy countenance toward their host.

"So," said Kano. "What's the name of this little town of yours, anyway?"

"The current name is Wuhu," Kung Lao said.

"Very many," said the priest, "depending upon who was ruling the country at the time. When Mao was alive, we were Dzedungu. Before he came to power, our village was known as Tekkamaki."

"Didja ever hear of a place called Chu-jung?" Kano asked.

"I have," Kung Lao smiled. "That was the name our village went by back when it was first founded, back in
A.D.
300."

Kano's sour face looked as though it had been splashed with sunshine. "Yer kiddin'."

"No," said Kung Lao.

"Jeez," Kano said, looking back at his team and giving them two thumbs-up. "We came here hopin' t'get directions to Chu-jung... not to actually
find
the place!"

"Well," Kung Lao said as they entered the village, "you have actually found it. Might I ask why you were so interested in coming here?"

"You might," Kano said. He yanked the map from his belt, handed it to Kung Lao. "It's got to do with this cockamamie kind-of-a-map–"

"I'm sorry," said Kung Lao, squinting at the goatskin, "but it's rather dark out here."

"Oh, yeah." Kano snapped his fingers behind him. "Torch, Senny. I forgot, Kung-fu, that not everybody's got an infrared peeper."

Senmenjo-ni ran over with a small flashlight and Kano flicked it on. He turned the cone of yellow light toward the map.

"See," said Kano, pointing with his pinky finger, "this little splotch here is Chu-jung. So that's us. Now over here," his grimy nail traced a course to a faded ink fingerprint, "is where we're supposed to find a trinket of some kind. That's what the guy who hired me wants. What I need to know is exactly
where
this fingerprint is. Which mountain, I mean. Or maybe it's a cave. Who the hell knows, is what I'm sayin'–"

Kung Lao shook his head. "It's a mystery to me. The range is large. There are many mountains and many more caves."

"But Master Lao," said the shepherd, looking on, "it says that this is Mt. Ifukube."

"You know it?" Kano asked.

The shepherd looked from the map to Kano to Kung Lao. The master's face, usually soft and kind, was uncharacteristically grim. Chin Chin's lower lip began to tremble.

"Uh... no," the shepherd said, taking several steps back. "No, sir, I do not."

Kano's red eye bored into the shepherd's frightened green ones. "Yer gettin' all hot in the cheeks and forehead," he said. "Why is that?"

"I'm sick," the boy said. "A fever–"

"I think yer lyin'."

"No!" the shepherd said. "I was mistaken–"

"He isn't lying," Kung Lao interrupted. "Your map does say that this is Mt. Ifukube. But no one knows which mountain that is. Its identity has been swallowed up by the sands of time."

"Very poetic," Kano said. He snapped his fingers again. "Moriarty! Front-and-center."

The thug stumbled over in the growing darkness. "Yeah?"

"Your choice – take one of your two guns, put the barrel up the shepherd's nose, and send him into the village brains-first."

"Sure thing," Moriarty said as he swung the M44 carbine from his shoulder.

Gilda stepped forward. "Kano, think about what you're doing. We don't need them. We can find it ourselves."

"Put the blood back in your heart, lady," Kano said. "Thus guy comes on like a big Joel Grey
Willkommen
kinda guy, then rolls up the red carpet. I want to know why."

"Because you've got a gun at the boy's head!" Gilda said.

"Nah," Kano said. "It's more than that. Anyway, whose side're you on?" Kano's eyes shifted to Kung Lao. "Well, Kung-fu? Is that map startin' to look just an eensy-bit familiar?"

The priest looked at Chin Chin, whose eyes were little moon, big and glowing, as he stood statue-still.

"You have no concept at all of what you're doing," the priest said, his voice grave.

"Sure I do, ya windbag," he said. "We're about to decrease China's population by one sheep boy, unless you start makin' like Rand McNally."

Kung Lao's expression was grave. "You've been sent by Shang Tsung, haven't you?"

"That's privileged information," Kano said. "Now, how about it, mister? You gonna help us, or do we paint the town red?"

Kung Lao looked from one to the other of the thugs. "I'll help you," he said, "but I assure you – whatever you expect to get from Shang Tsung and his monster Goro, you'll be disappointed."

Kano took the map from Kung Lao and folded it back under his belt. "I'll worry about all that jazz. You just worry about findin' some directions and packin' us all some grub: you got some tour-guidin' to do."

The towering skyscrapers glowed in the sunset.

Office windows were still lighted, and in the streets below traffic crawled and horns squawked as some workers left the great city. To the sides, businesspeople and tourists, shoppers and street vendors, the homeless and the prosperous, all moved in a writhing, fractal-like mass.

And then a single bolt of lightning tore through the cloudy sky, faster and larger and longer-lived than any the people had ever seen. An instant later, thunder rolled through the deep stone and steel valleys of the city, reaching even to the basements and subways of the great metropolis.

People were still for a moment, and because they were also silent they heard the other roar. It came from the sea, the ground-shaking rumble of an ocean pouring in on itself, over and over, accompanied by the roar of the wind. Those nearest the harbor saw it first, the waves nearly touching the clouds, the fierce winds tearing sheets of spray from their crests, freighters and tankers, yachts and tugboats, oceanliners and sailboats tossed and spun, one against the other as the flood moved inexorably forward.

The waters along the shoreline vanished as they were sucked into the onrushing wave, and then it smashed down on the city, turning brick to dust, steel girders to Twizzlers, people to corpses, extinguishing a city and its suburbs and the lives of over ten million people–

Liu Kang woke with a jolt. He was breathing heavily and perspiring, and he looked around to get his bearings, his dark eyes moist with tears.

Another dream,
he thought.
Won't there ever be an end?

At least he hadn't cried out. He looked at the other two members of the White Lotus Society who were sharing his tent. They were still asleep, soundly so. He did not envy Guy Lai or Wilson Tong much in this life – did not envy anyone, for that matter – but he wished, like them, that he could get through one night without these dreams of Armageddon. He drew a throwing star from his belt and played with it in one hand as though it were a coin. That always calmed him.

Yet, it was through dreams that he learned whether he was needed, and if so where. They were the means through which the gods spoke to him.

If only they would deign to speak every
other
night,
Liu Kang thought.

He ran a towel across his brow, one that he kept beside his bedroll for just this purpose. After rubbing it along the sweaty ends of his brown hair, Liu pressed a button his watch and the small light went on:
ten-thirty
. He'd only been asleep for an hour. Not only were the dreams more frequent, they were coming earlier in the night.

With a yawn, he lay back down. Holding his wrist directly above his face, he pressed a second button. The 2 began to glow, and he smiled. It was fitting that that was the direction his ally had gone. For they were a team – perhaps one of the most unusual and daring duos in the history of crime fighting.

He pushed the button to shut off the number, then turned on his side, still smiling. When he was born in China twenty-four years before, the son of poor Lee and Lin Kang, Liu was never expected to be anything more than a carpenter, like his father. But as a boy, he became fascinated with the Order of Light, and under the tutelage of a patient and caring priest named Kung Lao, he studied the ancient texts and learned the ways of good and righteousness.

And then there was that beggar who took him under his wing. Liu Kang had never told his parents about him, for surely they would not have approved. But this beggar came to the temple each day and, in the hidden inner courtyard, taught him the ways of the martial arts.

Kung Lao had always hoped that Liu would stay and become a priest, but the young man had other ideas. In dreams – and in the graphic sketches he worked on for his own pleasure – he saw the villains and societies that made an agony of people's lives, and began to wonder if there might be something he could do to help them. Armed with his learning and skills, he worked his way across the sea to the United States, where he joined the White Lotus Society, a band of reformed criminals, Chinese expatriates, and moonlighting men and women from every walk of life. Their goal was to work within the law, but outside the courts, to catch criminals red-handed and see that justice was done. And though publicly Kung Lao expressed his displeasure at Liu's taking his knowledge from Chu-jung, Liu always felt the master was secretly pleased that he was trying to make the world a better place.

Now Liu was back in China, on the trail of not one but two of the most notorious villains in the world. One was Kano, who had finally slithered out of hiding and might finally be caught committing a criminal act of some kind. To stop that man and members of the Black Dragon Society would be a triumph indeed. The other villain&–

Shang Tsung was a different matter altogether. The mysterious figure lived on an island in the East China Sea, where he was known to host a secret tournament known as Mortal Kombat. There was nothing illegal about that, though it was rumored that people died during the contest. But in dreams, in vague images, Liu had been warned that Shang Tsung was the one behind Kano's latest venture. What they were planning was of considerable important to both the White Lotus Society and the U.S. Special Forces, a covert team of highly trained operatives. Liu
had
discovered the whereabouts of Kano, but was unable to plant an agent on his team of cutthroats.