"SPINNER OF WEBS III: Wild Lightning'
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dochermesSPINNER OF WEBS III: Wild Lightning
3/28-3/30/2014
I.
At three thousand feet, the stealthcopter CORBY circled the uncharted island one final time. Completely black, with no external lights, the CORBY did not show up on radar and had no heat signature. Its rotors were silenced so efficiently that people standing on the ground would not hear it pass even directly overhead. The CORBYs operated beyond the limits of Human technology because they had been designed and crafted by the Trom, who shared their secrets only with the handful of people who belonged to the Kenneth Dred Foundation.
In the cabin, lit only by a row of six tiny monitor screens and the various subdued green and blue indicator lights and gauges on the control panels, Timothy Limbo was sitting in the co-pilot seat. He regarded the tiny whirlpool of barely visible energy that hovered over his hand and then dismissed it. "Thanks, fellas."
"You're positive about this, Timothy?" asked the woman at the control stick. Lauren Sable Reilly was wearing the full field suit, all black with its boots, heavy pants and waist-length jacket crammed with miniaturized weapons and tools. The helmet was hooked into the ship's sensors, but she had the visor slid open so her face showed deep worry. "That's a lot of palace to search."
"My caspers have been going through it for the past two hours," he answered. "They have glided through every bathroom, every storage closet, every bedroom. There is a harem of maybe a dozen women lounging around. There is a vast Alchemical laboratory. There is an outside pen of chickens and goats. There are fifty tough-looking guards mostly in a barracks building with some on patrol. No guns, just billy clubs and pikes. In a library room the size of a basketball court, Tzing-Dao Wang is bent over a tangle of scrolls while two women are writing down what he says on clipboards."
"Sounds fairly innocuous for a sinister mastermind," said Jocelyn Garimara from the compartment behind the cabin, divided off by a clear sheet of plastic which at the moment was slid open. She was an Australian Aborigine with thick straight black hair and a smooth brown skin without a single flaw. Her dark eyes seemed even more thoughtful than usual as she watched her teammates. Ever since the Red Spectre had manifested in her during adolescence, she had always had to be watchful.
"Honestly, it's almost a boringly sedate place," Timothy Limbo replied. "No dungeons filled with half-starved prisoners. No vats of raw opium, no torture chambers. I did find one man locked in an unfurnished room, but he looks like and is dressed as one of the guards. Maybe the women are being kept against their will, but I can't tell. They seemed preoccupied with practicing on mandolins and rehearsing dance numbers. They look more like a music revue backstage than oppressed sex slaves."
"I can't understand it!" Sable snapped irritably. This was so out of character for her that both Timothy and Jocelyn gave a start. "Olivia has told me about his network of crime. The Spinner of Webs provides addictive drugs made only by Alchemy, which no one else can supply. He provides undetectable poisons. He smuggles desperate women from North Korea to work California brothels. She has given me tons of details. This palace must be separate from his real enterprises."
Timothy hesitated but offered, "Sable, you only have this Olivia woman's word for all this? She IS Tzing-Dao Wang's daughter, maybe she has an ulterior motive-"
"No," said their team leader. "She wouldn't lie to me like that. Our own sources tell us that the Spinner of Webs owns gambling dens in the New York and Boston Chinatowns. He owns a dozen hotels and office buildings, which must be to launder money from his darker businesses. Besides, remember when you saved me from that torturer?"
"Yeah," admitted Timothy. "That guy had on rubber gloves and a leather apron and he was coming to visit you with a tray of sharp instruments. He was a skinner if I ever saw one."
"That was when I met Tzing-Dao Wang face to face for the first time," Sable grumbled. "The second time we meet will be the last."
Jocelyn and Timothy exchanged a concerned glance. This was not at all like the reasonable, quietly determined Sable they had known for years.
Through the light-enhancing windscreen of the CORBY, Sable gazed coldly down at the island far beneath them. Like the other five in this chain, it was little more than bare rock protruding up from the South China Sea. This one was marked by a peak that rose straight up six hundred feet like a spike, leaving only a narrow flat area around its base. The top of the peak had been flattened and now held a dozen ornate buildings connected by walkways with courtyards between them. China, South Korea and Japan all claimed ownership of these jagged rocks in the ocean, a territorial dispute that had been dragging on for seventy years and seemed fated to never be resolved.
"That mountain has sheer sides like glass," Jocelyn ventured to observe. "I can't see a way for anyone to climb it."
Sable's voice softened a bit. "Yes. For decades, Wang has had his men descending on ropes to chip away any projections. They've made the mountain almost perfectly smooth. Olivia tells me there is a concealed opening at sea level which leads to a vertical tunnel up inside the mountain to the top."
"Whoa, imagine the work that went into THAT project," Timothy said. "Digging down through all that granite...."
"I'm sending a signal to disrupt their security cameras," Sable told them. "The next few hours, their systems will keep jamming up and shutting down. While their techs work to find the glitch, Jocelyn and I will have some freedom to move. Timothy, take the stick."
"Got it," he said. "Co-pilot controls now in command. Captain, I wish you would let us land so I could go with you guys."
Sable had unhooked her helmet and scrambled through the opening behind the cabin into the rear compartment. As Jocelyn helped her buckle on a parachute pack identical to her own, the team captain said, "We stick to our plan, Tim. Bring us down."
"Stand by to jump," he said with obvious reluctance. The CORBY dropped straight down to just over one hundred and fifty feet about the palaces, and both Sable and Jocelyn leaped out through the side hatch which closed behind them. As soon as they had cleared the hatch, the CORBY hurtled upward faster than any true helicopter could and was gone from sight in a split-second. The two KDF members triggered their gas-powered mechanism and small black parachutes were fired upward. The shock of the chutes opening ran through the two women, then they barely had time to tuck and roll before they were slammed hard onto a paved surface. In another second, they had jumped to their feet and were hauling the chutes in by the lines.
Many of the stunts KDF members pulled were only possible because they were Tel Shai knights and had accelerated healing from years of the tagra diet. Microscopic bone fractures from impacts like this sealed up instantly, bruises and scrapes were gone so quickly that Sable and Jocelyn were hardly aware of them. They hastily bundled up their black chutes and stowed them beneath a stone fountain which featured a dolphin spouting water.
Swinging around in a circle, Sable used all her enhanced senses to search the area. "Safe so far," she said almost in a whisper. "I don't detect anyone within normal line of vision."
Jocelyn Garimara made sure the chutes and their lines were as concealed as possible, then stood up. "All right, captain. We're in the web itself of the Spinner of Webs."
II.
The library was ninety feet long by forty feet wide, and had a second floor reached by ladders on wheels. The walls were lined with shelves jammed with ancient books, scrolls, stray pieces of paper and journals but there was a surprising amount of open floor space. Only a single reading table with a chair on each side stood in the center of the library, well lit by ceramic lamps. The Spinner of Webs had his assistants run back and forth to seek and replace books as he called for them, while he himself sat in the center of the activity like the spider his name implied.
Tzing-Dao Wang himself wore yellow silk pants and shirt but over those was wrapped a heavy dark wool robe with voluminous sleeves. Despite the warm stuffy air in that library, he was bundled up. The Spinner of Webs had a long somber face with a prominent beaklike nose and deepset eyes the true jade green. Every inch of skin that showed was covered with fine, closely-set wrinkles. As he read from a crumbling scroll stretched out in front of him, two stout middle-aged women took notes in sheafs of paper held by clipboards.
"'It is truly written," he was saying, "That all things contain the seeds of their own destruction within themselves and a wise man can discern-'" His voice was cut off as the high oaken door at the end of the library crashed inward and hung crookedly with the top hinge snapped off. The Red Spectre hovered in the open doorway.
They only saw the strange apparition for a second. The Gammon was a dark red silhouette of a woman, surrounded by a white nimbus along its outline. It had blasted the heavy door inward, bursting the lock, and it floated there just off the ground, seemingly considering attack. Then, with a sizzling sound, the Red Spectre whirled and dove back into the body of Jocelyn Garimara like a shadow. The two KDF members strode into the library with their anesthetic dart guns drawn.
"I must say, that was a dramatic entrance," the Spinner of Webs observed. He had folded his thin hands together within the sleeves of his robe but did not stand. "A Gammon, here! There is only one Red Spectre known to be active as this time. You ladies must be knights of Tel Shai."
Lauren Sable Reilly came closer, then unexpectedly lowered her weapon. "You! You are not the man who questioned me when I was prisoner. Either he was not the real Tzing-Dao Wang or you are not."
"Sable, are you sure?" asked the Australian, already knowing that her captain was the one person who could not be fooled by an imposter.
"There are a dozen ways I can tell," Sable said. "The body odor, for one. this man has not eaten meat in years. My captor smelled of a pork and chicken diet. The heartbeat is different. The blink patterns are different. I am sure of it. The man who captured me was the imposter. You have the skin undertones of someone whose life has been extended by Alchemy. You're the real Spinner of Webs."
Wang slowly rose and motioned to his two assistants. "Ling, Wa, step back toward the wall but do not be alarmed. Young lady, do I understand you correctly? You were held prisoner by someone posing as me?"
"Yes," answered Sable. She stepped a little closer to the ancient Alchemist. "Someone had been surgically modified to resemble you to a close degree. If not for my powers..." Her voice broke off for a second. "I think I understand now. I was never going to be tortured. My real captor expected me to escape."
"What? You lost me, captain." Jocelyn had kept her dart gun trained on the Spinner of Webs, but now she lowered it as well. "What would be the point?"
Sable frowned and seemed to be struggling with some inner conflict. "I'm not... I can't be sure but I think it was all to make us think this man is more dangerous and more depraved than he is."
"That's why we couldn't find any evidence of rackets like human trafficking or drug smuggling. There isn't any. Wang is what he seems to be." The Aborigine woman turned her large dark eyes somberly on the Alchemist, as if judging his fate. "Oh, he's a criminal, of course, but a relatively benign one."
"But that would mean... that Olivia was misleading me," Sable said in a hushed voice. "What would make her do that? Is someone forcing her to steer me wrong?" She suddenly came out of her confused state and swung around. In the still open doorway, twenty of the dark-uniformed guards were rushing in. They were wielding short-handled pikes and they moved in to form a semi-circle facing the two KDF members.
"Feng, have your men stand by," Tzing-Dao Wang ordered. "Do not let them attack. I believe these women have been manipulated into thinking I was their enemy. We may be able to arrive at an understanding."
"Could I have been so wrong?" whispered Sable to herself, her shoulders lowering.
Silently, a section of one wall swung outward and a tall beautiful woman strode in through the concealed entrance. Her shiny black hair was done up in an elaborate swirl held by a silver tiara, and she wore a glimmering green gown that reached the floor and which was inlaid with fine silver threads. Like her father, Olivia Wang hid both hands inside the loose sleeves of her garment.
"What filial disobedience is this?" sputtered the Alchemist. "Daughter! You were forbidden to ever return here."
"Orders are no longer yours to give," Olivia purred with deep satisfaction. "Feng! Take my father prisoner, and the two barbarian women as well. Let it be done."
In a flash, twenty pike blades bristled at Tzing-Dao Wang, Sable and Jocelyn, the points almost touching their faces.
"As you can see," declared Olivia Wang in her silky tones, "The guards are loyal to me now. A new Spinner of Webs has claimed the throne."
III.
The ancient Alchemist was trembling with rage but he dared not move with those blades grazing his neck. "Daughter, this is unforgiveable sin-"
"Oh, be still," Olivia snapped. "Your ways are too ascetic for these men. They live like monks here. I promised them plunder. Women will be brought in for them, they will have wine and gambling when off-duty. Under my leadership, the family empire will expand into more profitable activities. You, father, have many secrets still to give up. I will have you kept in a comfortable cell until you come to terms with the coup."
Sable's face had gone completely white. Her lips were pressed together as if she were sinking and trying not to drown, then she said, "How could I have been such a fool? I believed every word you said!"
"Find your silence," Olivia said gently, then stepped closer to Sable. "My darling, it was not all acting on my part. I do have feelings for you. If we had met under different circumstances, if we were free of duty, who can say? Even now, we might still have true love in store for us."
"Why did you even bring us in on this?" Sable demanded with her voice cracking. "Jocelyn and I snuck onto this mountain and confronted your father because of your deception. Why? What was the point of us even being here?!"
The delicate features, the perfect ivory skin and cat-green eyes all seemed to clash with what Olivia was saying. It seemed surreal that someone so beautiful should be doing this. "I thought my father would strike out at you. I expected your little black friend to summon her Gammon and burn him down. It would spare me having to order his inevitable execution."
"Your own father!" Sable said. "How could you!"
Olivia's faint smile did not waver. "You must have studied history. How often has the heir usurped the throne before the king is ready to surrender it?" She turned toward Jocelyn, who had not moved since the guards had swung their pikes into position. "But you. It is you who can conjure the Red Spectre and I fear that such a demon might even now alter the outcome of this desperate game."
Even as she spoke the final word, Olivia Wang stretched a slim hand out from within a sleeve of her gown and flung a fine grey powder into Jocelyn's face. It was only a handful but it swirled and clung to the KDF member's head. Jocelyn immediately gagged and choked, then fell to her knees and over onto her back. She gave a long rattling wheeze.
Disregarding the pike blades, Sable leaped to crouch over her teammate. "She's barely breathing."
"Your friend will pass into a coma from the Dust of Final Dreams," Olivia told her calmly. "But do not fret, she may live for several days in this state."
"You must have an antidote," said Sable as she took Jocelyn's pulse. "Use it! Use it now."
The daughter of the Spinner of Webs shook her head. "I do not dare take the chance. If your friend should summon the Red Spectre...."
"You have no idea what you have done," Sable interrupted her coldly. She rose to her feet with both fists clenched. "Jocelyn does not summon the Gammon, she unleashes it. It's wild lightning that she keeps in check. And now that she's dying, it will free itself."
Even as Sable spoke, a shining crimson apparition surged up from within Jocelyn's unconscious form. The Red Spectre seemed larger than before, it burned more fiercely and the crackling sound around it was louder. The featureless outline of a head swiveled menacingly to take in the terrified people in that room. Before anyone could flee, the being flashed upward and dove completely through the nearest guard to burn the man into halves which fell in different directions.
There was no blood. The intense gralic energy cauterized the open ends of the corpse. Another guard swung his pike in a horizontal arc but the blade passed through the Gammon without meeting any resistance and did no harm to the apparition. Then the Red Spectre began to mow down the people in that library.
Seizing Olivia around the waist, Jocelyn pulled her violently down under the lone table in that room. She pulled the woman with her as far away from the rampage as they could get. One scream after another rang out and was cut abruptly short. There were the thumps of falling bodies and pounding of feet trying to run away. Through it all sounded the crackling of raw gralic force, the wild lightning set free.
Lying beneath the table, Sable shook Olivia Wang and yelled right into her face, "The antidote! Give it to her now while we still have a chance."
"No, no, she'll use the Gammon to kill me."
Sable grabbed Olivia by the throat with surprising strength. "You fool! Reviving Jocelyn is the only chance we have. Do it."
The Chinese woman hesitated. The screams were coming from outside now as the Red Spectre pursued the fleeing guards into the courtyard. "A pact," she said. "Swear to do me no harm and I will undo the Dust."
"All right. Hurry."
"Swear it."
"All right, I swear it! As a knight of Tel Shai, I swear it," Sable yelled. "Hurry while you still can."
Crawling out from beneath the table, Olivia Wang bent over the barely living form of Jocelyn Garimara. The Australian woman's lips had turned blue and a rasping sounded from her open mouth as she struggled to hang on to life. From within one of her sleeves, Olivia took a folded piece of white paper and spilled a yellow powder from it onto Jocelyn's face. For a long tense moment, there seemed to be no effect.
Coming out from under the table, Sable stared at the carnage all around the room where bodies lay where they had fallen. She crouched over Jocelyn just as her friend took a deep shuddering breath and began coughing.
"Oh, thank God," Sable said, supporting her teammate's head up off the floor. "Will she be okay now?"
"Yes. Every Alchemical poison has its counter-agent." Olivia rose to her feet, regaining some of her poise but gazing uneasily at the open doorway. "Remember our pact."
Stirring feebly, Jocelyn pawed at her face to try to get the yellow powder off. Her coughing fit subsided and she managed to sit up. "What? Captain, I don't know..."
"Jocelyn, listen to me. Call your Gammon back. It's loose and running wild."
"Oh, no." Bracing herself in a seated position, Jocelyn looked toward the doorway and an instant later, the Red Spectre hurtled back in through the opening to plunge into the Australian woman's torso and vanish from sight.
"That's better," Jocelyn sighed. "It always weakens me when my Gammon is out. Oh, God. Look what my Gammon did. She cannot be allowed to run free."
As Sable helped her friend to her feet, they saw the library was littered with more than a dozen corpses that had been seared apart. Even the two harmless middle-aged assistants had been killed. Severed arms and legs and heads were scattered over the wooden floor.
Standing over the body of her father, Olivia stared down with no expression on her face. Tzing-Dao Wang had a neat hole bored through his chest where apparently the Red Spectre had thrust an arm. Both his mouth and his eyes remained open. He looked like only a pitiful old man with the life gone from those eyes. The daughter bent and pulled her father's robe up to cover his face, then turned to meet the furious glare of Lauren Sable Reily.
"Remember what you swore," the new Spinner of Webs said quietly.
Sable helped the still shaky Jocelyn to seat herself on one of the solid chairs next to the table, then turned to face Olivia. "If I was ever tempted to go back on my word, it's now," she said. "But my oath by Tel Shai is binding. My team and I will not take you into custody."
"Good. There are many servants still here in this palace, hiding from the commotion they must have heard. I will fetch them and they will clean up this carnage. I think it is best that you two leave now and never return."
"I'll keep my word," Sable told her with ice in her voice. "Our copter will return for us in a minute. We'll wait outside, far away from this room."
Olivia Wang started to raise a delicate hand toward Sable but caught herself and lowered it. "I take no joy in what I have had to do today," she said. "Not only have I lost a father, but something else possibly just as precious. It is a bitter victory."
10/14/2016
3/28-3/30/2014
I.
At three thousand feet, the stealthcopter CORBY circled the uncharted island one final time. Completely black, with no external lights, the CORBY did not show up on radar and had no heat signature. Its rotors were silenced so efficiently that people standing on the ground would not hear it pass even directly overhead. The CORBYs operated beyond the limits of Human technology because they had been designed and crafted by the Trom, who shared their secrets only with the handful of people who belonged to the Kenneth Dred Foundation.
In the cabin, lit only by a row of six tiny monitor screens and the various subdued green and blue indicator lights and gauges on the control panels, Timothy Limbo was sitting in the co-pilot seat. He regarded the tiny whirlpool of barely visible energy that hovered over his hand and then dismissed it. "Thanks, fellas."
"You're positive about this, Timothy?" asked the woman at the control stick. Lauren Sable Reilly was wearing the full field suit, all black with its boots, heavy pants and waist-length jacket crammed with miniaturized weapons and tools. The helmet was hooked into the ship's sensors, but she had the visor slid open so her face showed deep worry. "That's a lot of palace to search."
"My caspers have been going through it for the past two hours," he answered. "They have glided through every bathroom, every storage closet, every bedroom. There is a harem of maybe a dozen women lounging around. There is a vast Alchemical laboratory. There is an outside pen of chickens and goats. There are fifty tough-looking guards mostly in a barracks building with some on patrol. No guns, just billy clubs and pikes. In a library room the size of a basketball court, Tzing-Dao Wang is bent over a tangle of scrolls while two women are writing down what he says on clipboards."
"Sounds fairly innocuous for a sinister mastermind," said Jocelyn Garimara from the compartment behind the cabin, divided off by a clear sheet of plastic which at the moment was slid open. She was an Australian Aborigine with thick straight black hair and a smooth brown skin without a single flaw. Her dark eyes seemed even more thoughtful than usual as she watched her teammates. Ever since the Red Spectre had manifested in her during adolescence, she had always had to be watchful.
"Honestly, it's almost a boringly sedate place," Timothy Limbo replied. "No dungeons filled with half-starved prisoners. No vats of raw opium, no torture chambers. I did find one man locked in an unfurnished room, but he looks like and is dressed as one of the guards. Maybe the women are being kept against their will, but I can't tell. They seemed preoccupied with practicing on mandolins and rehearsing dance numbers. They look more like a music revue backstage than oppressed sex slaves."
"I can't understand it!" Sable snapped irritably. This was so out of character for her that both Timothy and Jocelyn gave a start. "Olivia has told me about his network of crime. The Spinner of Webs provides addictive drugs made only by Alchemy, which no one else can supply. He provides undetectable poisons. He smuggles desperate women from North Korea to work California brothels. She has given me tons of details. This palace must be separate from his real enterprises."
Timothy hesitated but offered, "Sable, you only have this Olivia woman's word for all this? She IS Tzing-Dao Wang's daughter, maybe she has an ulterior motive-"
"No," said their team leader. "She wouldn't lie to me like that. Our own sources tell us that the Spinner of Webs owns gambling dens in the New York and Boston Chinatowns. He owns a dozen hotels and office buildings, which must be to launder money from his darker businesses. Besides, remember when you saved me from that torturer?"
"Yeah," admitted Timothy. "That guy had on rubber gloves and a leather apron and he was coming to visit you with a tray of sharp instruments. He was a skinner if I ever saw one."
"That was when I met Tzing-Dao Wang face to face for the first time," Sable grumbled. "The second time we meet will be the last."
Jocelyn and Timothy exchanged a concerned glance. This was not at all like the reasonable, quietly determined Sable they had known for years.
Through the light-enhancing windscreen of the CORBY, Sable gazed coldly down at the island far beneath them. Like the other five in this chain, it was little more than bare rock protruding up from the South China Sea. This one was marked by a peak that rose straight up six hundred feet like a spike, leaving only a narrow flat area around its base. The top of the peak had been flattened and now held a dozen ornate buildings connected by walkways with courtyards between them. China, South Korea and Japan all claimed ownership of these jagged rocks in the ocean, a territorial dispute that had been dragging on for seventy years and seemed fated to never be resolved.
"That mountain has sheer sides like glass," Jocelyn ventured to observe. "I can't see a way for anyone to climb it."
Sable's voice softened a bit. "Yes. For decades, Wang has had his men descending on ropes to chip away any projections. They've made the mountain almost perfectly smooth. Olivia tells me there is a concealed opening at sea level which leads to a vertical tunnel up inside the mountain to the top."
"Whoa, imagine the work that went into THAT project," Timothy said. "Digging down through all that granite...."
"I'm sending a signal to disrupt their security cameras," Sable told them. "The next few hours, their systems will keep jamming up and shutting down. While their techs work to find the glitch, Jocelyn and I will have some freedom to move. Timothy, take the stick."
"Got it," he said. "Co-pilot controls now in command. Captain, I wish you would let us land so I could go with you guys."
Sable had unhooked her helmet and scrambled through the opening behind the cabin into the rear compartment. As Jocelyn helped her buckle on a parachute pack identical to her own, the team captain said, "We stick to our plan, Tim. Bring us down."
"Stand by to jump," he said with obvious reluctance. The CORBY dropped straight down to just over one hundred and fifty feet about the palaces, and both Sable and Jocelyn leaped out through the side hatch which closed behind them. As soon as they had cleared the hatch, the CORBY hurtled upward faster than any true helicopter could and was gone from sight in a split-second. The two KDF members triggered their gas-powered mechanism and small black parachutes were fired upward. The shock of the chutes opening ran through the two women, then they barely had time to tuck and roll before they were slammed hard onto a paved surface. In another second, they had jumped to their feet and were hauling the chutes in by the lines.
Many of the stunts KDF members pulled were only possible because they were Tel Shai knights and had accelerated healing from years of the tagra diet. Microscopic bone fractures from impacts like this sealed up instantly, bruises and scrapes were gone so quickly that Sable and Jocelyn were hardly aware of them. They hastily bundled up their black chutes and stowed them beneath a stone fountain which featured a dolphin spouting water.
Swinging around in a circle, Sable used all her enhanced senses to search the area. "Safe so far," she said almost in a whisper. "I don't detect anyone within normal line of vision."
Jocelyn Garimara made sure the chutes and their lines were as concealed as possible, then stood up. "All right, captain. We're in the web itself of the Spinner of Webs."
II.
The library was ninety feet long by forty feet wide, and had a second floor reached by ladders on wheels. The walls were lined with shelves jammed with ancient books, scrolls, stray pieces of paper and journals but there was a surprising amount of open floor space. Only a single reading table with a chair on each side stood in the center of the library, well lit by ceramic lamps. The Spinner of Webs had his assistants run back and forth to seek and replace books as he called for them, while he himself sat in the center of the activity like the spider his name implied.
Tzing-Dao Wang himself wore yellow silk pants and shirt but over those was wrapped a heavy dark wool robe with voluminous sleeves. Despite the warm stuffy air in that library, he was bundled up. The Spinner of Webs had a long somber face with a prominent beaklike nose and deepset eyes the true jade green. Every inch of skin that showed was covered with fine, closely-set wrinkles. As he read from a crumbling scroll stretched out in front of him, two stout middle-aged women took notes in sheafs of paper held by clipboards.
"'It is truly written," he was saying, "That all things contain the seeds of their own destruction within themselves and a wise man can discern-'" His voice was cut off as the high oaken door at the end of the library crashed inward and hung crookedly with the top hinge snapped off. The Red Spectre hovered in the open doorway.
They only saw the strange apparition for a second. The Gammon was a dark red silhouette of a woman, surrounded by a white nimbus along its outline. It had blasted the heavy door inward, bursting the lock, and it floated there just off the ground, seemingly considering attack. Then, with a sizzling sound, the Red Spectre whirled and dove back into the body of Jocelyn Garimara like a shadow. The two KDF members strode into the library with their anesthetic dart guns drawn.
"I must say, that was a dramatic entrance," the Spinner of Webs observed. He had folded his thin hands together within the sleeves of his robe but did not stand. "A Gammon, here! There is only one Red Spectre known to be active as this time. You ladies must be knights of Tel Shai."
Lauren Sable Reilly came closer, then unexpectedly lowered her weapon. "You! You are not the man who questioned me when I was prisoner. Either he was not the real Tzing-Dao Wang or you are not."
"Sable, are you sure?" asked the Australian, already knowing that her captain was the one person who could not be fooled by an imposter.
"There are a dozen ways I can tell," Sable said. "The body odor, for one. this man has not eaten meat in years. My captor smelled of a pork and chicken diet. The heartbeat is different. The blink patterns are different. I am sure of it. The man who captured me was the imposter. You have the skin undertones of someone whose life has been extended by Alchemy. You're the real Spinner of Webs."
Wang slowly rose and motioned to his two assistants. "Ling, Wa, step back toward the wall but do not be alarmed. Young lady, do I understand you correctly? You were held prisoner by someone posing as me?"
"Yes," answered Sable. She stepped a little closer to the ancient Alchemist. "Someone had been surgically modified to resemble you to a close degree. If not for my powers..." Her voice broke off for a second. "I think I understand now. I was never going to be tortured. My real captor expected me to escape."
"What? You lost me, captain." Jocelyn had kept her dart gun trained on the Spinner of Webs, but now she lowered it as well. "What would be the point?"
Sable frowned and seemed to be struggling with some inner conflict. "I'm not... I can't be sure but I think it was all to make us think this man is more dangerous and more depraved than he is."
"That's why we couldn't find any evidence of rackets like human trafficking or drug smuggling. There isn't any. Wang is what he seems to be." The Aborigine woman turned her large dark eyes somberly on the Alchemist, as if judging his fate. "Oh, he's a criminal, of course, but a relatively benign one."
"But that would mean... that Olivia was misleading me," Sable said in a hushed voice. "What would make her do that? Is someone forcing her to steer me wrong?" She suddenly came out of her confused state and swung around. In the still open doorway, twenty of the dark-uniformed guards were rushing in. They were wielding short-handled pikes and they moved in to form a semi-circle facing the two KDF members.
"Feng, have your men stand by," Tzing-Dao Wang ordered. "Do not let them attack. I believe these women have been manipulated into thinking I was their enemy. We may be able to arrive at an understanding."
"Could I have been so wrong?" whispered Sable to herself, her shoulders lowering.
Silently, a section of one wall swung outward and a tall beautiful woman strode in through the concealed entrance. Her shiny black hair was done up in an elaborate swirl held by a silver tiara, and she wore a glimmering green gown that reached the floor and which was inlaid with fine silver threads. Like her father, Olivia Wang hid both hands inside the loose sleeves of her garment.
"What filial disobedience is this?" sputtered the Alchemist. "Daughter! You were forbidden to ever return here."
"Orders are no longer yours to give," Olivia purred with deep satisfaction. "Feng! Take my father prisoner, and the two barbarian women as well. Let it be done."
In a flash, twenty pike blades bristled at Tzing-Dao Wang, Sable and Jocelyn, the points almost touching their faces.
"As you can see," declared Olivia Wang in her silky tones, "The guards are loyal to me now. A new Spinner of Webs has claimed the throne."
III.
The ancient Alchemist was trembling with rage but he dared not move with those blades grazing his neck. "Daughter, this is unforgiveable sin-"
"Oh, be still," Olivia snapped. "Your ways are too ascetic for these men. They live like monks here. I promised them plunder. Women will be brought in for them, they will have wine and gambling when off-duty. Under my leadership, the family empire will expand into more profitable activities. You, father, have many secrets still to give up. I will have you kept in a comfortable cell until you come to terms with the coup."
Sable's face had gone completely white. Her lips were pressed together as if she were sinking and trying not to drown, then she said, "How could I have been such a fool? I believed every word you said!"
"Find your silence," Olivia said gently, then stepped closer to Sable. "My darling, it was not all acting on my part. I do have feelings for you. If we had met under different circumstances, if we were free of duty, who can say? Even now, we might still have true love in store for us."
"Why did you even bring us in on this?" Sable demanded with her voice cracking. "Jocelyn and I snuck onto this mountain and confronted your father because of your deception. Why? What was the point of us even being here?!"
The delicate features, the perfect ivory skin and cat-green eyes all seemed to clash with what Olivia was saying. It seemed surreal that someone so beautiful should be doing this. "I thought my father would strike out at you. I expected your little black friend to summon her Gammon and burn him down. It would spare me having to order his inevitable execution."
"Your own father!" Sable said. "How could you!"
Olivia's faint smile did not waver. "You must have studied history. How often has the heir usurped the throne before the king is ready to surrender it?" She turned toward Jocelyn, who had not moved since the guards had swung their pikes into position. "But you. It is you who can conjure the Red Spectre and I fear that such a demon might even now alter the outcome of this desperate game."
Even as she spoke the final word, Olivia Wang stretched a slim hand out from within a sleeve of her gown and flung a fine grey powder into Jocelyn's face. It was only a handful but it swirled and clung to the KDF member's head. Jocelyn immediately gagged and choked, then fell to her knees and over onto her back. She gave a long rattling wheeze.
Disregarding the pike blades, Sable leaped to crouch over her teammate. "She's barely breathing."
"Your friend will pass into a coma from the Dust of Final Dreams," Olivia told her calmly. "But do not fret, she may live for several days in this state."
"You must have an antidote," said Sable as she took Jocelyn's pulse. "Use it! Use it now."
The daughter of the Spinner of Webs shook her head. "I do not dare take the chance. If your friend should summon the Red Spectre...."
"You have no idea what you have done," Sable interrupted her coldly. She rose to her feet with both fists clenched. "Jocelyn does not summon the Gammon, she unleashes it. It's wild lightning that she keeps in check. And now that she's dying, it will free itself."
Even as Sable spoke, a shining crimson apparition surged up from within Jocelyn's unconscious form. The Red Spectre seemed larger than before, it burned more fiercely and the crackling sound around it was louder. The featureless outline of a head swiveled menacingly to take in the terrified people in that room. Before anyone could flee, the being flashed upward and dove completely through the nearest guard to burn the man into halves which fell in different directions.
There was no blood. The intense gralic energy cauterized the open ends of the corpse. Another guard swung his pike in a horizontal arc but the blade passed through the Gammon without meeting any resistance and did no harm to the apparition. Then the Red Spectre began to mow down the people in that library.
Seizing Olivia around the waist, Jocelyn pulled her violently down under the lone table in that room. She pulled the woman with her as far away from the rampage as they could get. One scream after another rang out and was cut abruptly short. There were the thumps of falling bodies and pounding of feet trying to run away. Through it all sounded the crackling of raw gralic force, the wild lightning set free.
Lying beneath the table, Sable shook Olivia Wang and yelled right into her face, "The antidote! Give it to her now while we still have a chance."
"No, no, she'll use the Gammon to kill me."
Sable grabbed Olivia by the throat with surprising strength. "You fool! Reviving Jocelyn is the only chance we have. Do it."
The Chinese woman hesitated. The screams were coming from outside now as the Red Spectre pursued the fleeing guards into the courtyard. "A pact," she said. "Swear to do me no harm and I will undo the Dust."
"All right. Hurry."
"Swear it."
"All right, I swear it! As a knight of Tel Shai, I swear it," Sable yelled. "Hurry while you still can."
Crawling out from beneath the table, Olivia Wang bent over the barely living form of Jocelyn Garimara. The Australian woman's lips had turned blue and a rasping sounded from her open mouth as she struggled to hang on to life. From within one of her sleeves, Olivia took a folded piece of white paper and spilled a yellow powder from it onto Jocelyn's face. For a long tense moment, there seemed to be no effect.
Coming out from under the table, Sable stared at the carnage all around the room where bodies lay where they had fallen. She crouched over Jocelyn just as her friend took a deep shuddering breath and began coughing.
"Oh, thank God," Sable said, supporting her teammate's head up off the floor. "Will she be okay now?"
"Yes. Every Alchemical poison has its counter-agent." Olivia rose to her feet, regaining some of her poise but gazing uneasily at the open doorway. "Remember our pact."
Stirring feebly, Jocelyn pawed at her face to try to get the yellow powder off. Her coughing fit subsided and she managed to sit up. "What? Captain, I don't know..."
"Jocelyn, listen to me. Call your Gammon back. It's loose and running wild."
"Oh, no." Bracing herself in a seated position, Jocelyn looked toward the doorway and an instant later, the Red Spectre hurtled back in through the opening to plunge into the Australian woman's torso and vanish from sight.
"That's better," Jocelyn sighed. "It always weakens me when my Gammon is out. Oh, God. Look what my Gammon did. She cannot be allowed to run free."
As Sable helped her friend to her feet, they saw the library was littered with more than a dozen corpses that had been seared apart. Even the two harmless middle-aged assistants had been killed. Severed arms and legs and heads were scattered over the wooden floor.
Standing over the body of her father, Olivia stared down with no expression on her face. Tzing-Dao Wang had a neat hole bored through his chest where apparently the Red Spectre had thrust an arm. Both his mouth and his eyes remained open. He looked like only a pitiful old man with the life gone from those eyes. The daughter bent and pulled her father's robe up to cover his face, then turned to meet the furious glare of Lauren Sable Reily.
"Remember what you swore," the new Spinner of Webs said quietly.
Sable helped the still shaky Jocelyn to seat herself on one of the solid chairs next to the table, then turned to face Olivia. "If I was ever tempted to go back on my word, it's now," she said. "But my oath by Tel Shai is binding. My team and I will not take you into custody."
"Good. There are many servants still here in this palace, hiding from the commotion they must have heard. I will fetch them and they will clean up this carnage. I think it is best that you two leave now and never return."
"I'll keep my word," Sable told her with ice in her voice. "Our copter will return for us in a minute. We'll wait outside, far away from this room."
Olivia Wang started to raise a delicate hand toward Sable but caught herself and lowered it. "I take no joy in what I have had to do today," she said. "Not only have I lost a father, but something else possibly just as precious. It is a bitter victory."
10/14/2016
