Article: 17311 of alt.games.mk
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From: vctr113062@aol.com (Vctr113062)
Newsgroups: alt.games.mk
Subject: FANFIC: "The Blood On My Hands" 2/8 (Kitana)
Date: 1 Nov 1994 00:59:03 -0500
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
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	I hate those wyverns.
	They are messy, ill-tempered, dangerous beasts. They also stink
and carry disease, due to their habit of feeding on carrion. Despite all
the legends, wyverns do not truly make optimum cavalry mounts. They can
barely stay aloft with the additional weight of a human-sized rider -
perhaps two riders if both aren't too heavy - so that wearing armor or
using any save the lightest weapons is out of the question. It is far too
easy for a ground-based enemy to bring a wyvern down with any sort of
projectile, even a mere arrow shot from a longbow. The animals' hides are
thick enough so that few things short of a mounted lance can inflict truly
grievous damage on them, but that is not the chief danger. It takes little
to upset a wyvern's tenuous aerial balance, because they have no rudder.
Just as ships have a rudder to guide their course through water, so do
flying birds have tail feathers which they can spread into a fan shape, to
help them chart their path through the air. Wyverns do not have feathers;
their skin is dry and leathery, and their tails are like long whips. The
appendage hangs back and down when they are aloft, its weight stabilizing
the creature a little bit, but not very much. It is a minor miracle that
wyverns can stay aloft at all, that stray gusts of wind do not undermine
their equilibrium and send them spiraling to earth. And if something
startles the dumb beasts, such as, say, the glancing blows of a few
arrows... 
	I've learned the basics of wyvern-riding as part of my training
regimen. I can barely stand it. Myths and legends glamorize riding a
wyvern as some joyfully exhilarating undertaking. Ha! It is no grand
adventure; it's literally a nauseating experience - one look down, and
you're likely to vomit. (The beast itself infrequently voids its bladder
or bowels while a-wing, another reason why one never wants to be
underneath a wyvern in flight.) Flying wyvernback is also inherently
hazardous. Even given the most masterful riding skills and the most docile
mount, falling off of the wyvern is _always_ a risk. The creatures are
prone to sudden moments of panic while in flight, and are notoriously poor
at landing. 
	Fortunately, wyverns breed like rats, and the Master has gathered
a voluminous army, so that he can easily replace the soldiers and wyverns
lost in all-too-common accidents. He also has the option of resurrecting
his more useful minions, should he deem them worth the expenditure of
energy. I am the Master's Left Hand. If I were to fall to my death, he
would revivify me, provided that my body could be found and brought to
him. The knowledge does little to allay my inner queasiness when I am
about to fly wyvernback, as I was within an hour of receiving Master
Kahn's command. 
	"Wait, Kitana. May I have a word with you before you depart?" The
question was extremely cordial. That immediately set me on edge, for I
knew the one who asked it, and he is by nature one of the most
disrespectful bastards in the Astral Planes. Furthermore, his attitude
toward me in particular has always been just short of openly hostile. I
don't know why; I've never done anything to him. Even so, I found it hard
to believe that he'd abruptly change his discourteous ways, solely out of
the nonexistent goodness of his black heart.
	"What do you want, Shang Tsung?" I replied wearily, going over my
wyvern's riding gear once more.
	"Just a moment of your time, I assure you."
	"Make it quick."
	"Very well. We both know that you excel at homicide."
	"I am not an assassin." I have repeated that lie so many times, to
so many different beings, that it rolls off my lips with ease. Shang Tsung
did not contest the statement. He knew that I was lying, and I knew that I
was lying, so what point would there have been in pressing the matter?
	"As you say. But when you do track down Liu Kang... well,
accidents can happen." 
	I should have suspected as much. "Master Kahn's orders are to
bring the monk back _alive_ and _unhurt_."
	"Of course they are. I've merely come to warn you that carrying
them out to the letter would be an extremely strenuous challenge. I can
help you; I can inform you of Liu Kang's abilities, strengths and
weaknesses, and guide you to his most likely current whereabouts."
	"All right, tell me."
	"First, promise that you'll expunge this dire threat to the Kahn."
	"No."
	The sorcerer's facade of false chivalry crumbled away posthaste. I
finished my inspection and swung myself into the wyvern's saddle,
literally looking down upon his bristling visage. "He'll kill you, you
little bitch! You don't know what you're getting into. Without my help,
you won't stand a chance!"
	"I need no help from a coward like you."
	Shang Tsung raised his clenched fist and bared his teeth. He
always was easy to bait. I adjusted the clasp of my sable cloak, a
seemingly innocuous gesture that allowed my arms to brush against and
confirm the proper positioning of my concealed weapons: fans, caltrops,
garrotes, four darts tipped with sleeping sap, and three darts tipped with
deadly nightshade. 
	"Liu Kang is the most dangerous enemy you'll ever live to face,"
hissed the sorcerer, punctuating each word with his scorn. "I take no
shame in retreating from him."
	"Don't you? What a pity." I shook the wvyern's reins and dug my
heels into its side. It squawked and ambled toward the cave's front
opening, flexing its wings. As my mount hopped out of its roost and pulled
into a glide, coasting upon the eddies of the wind, Shang Tsung hollered
several things that I will not repeat.
	The wyvern and I soared above the corpse-strewn battlefield which
encircles the Master's city of Shokan. Master Kahn's servants used to tell
me epics about the Master's glorious conquests and the base, spineless
vermin who attempted to usurp his power. I'd listen especially raptly to
their stories of the Great War. Some thirty years ago, there was a group
of dark warriors who, led by a mated pair of humans, tried to force the
Master off his rightful throne within his castle. The resulting siege
wreaked havoc on both sides of the castle's gates. By the time of the
Master's divine triumph, the rebels had butchered two-thirds of Shokan's
native population and scattered the remaining third. So much blood soaked
the battlefield that the gods descended to curse the land, turning the
soil to gravel and the waters to lethally caustic acid. Since then, the
battlefield and all the terrain for miles around Shokan have been called
the Wasteland, an arid place in which only the most devolved and predatory
creatures can survive. Having caused their fair share of destruction, the
gods then departed the Outworld entirely. They have never manifested here
since; or at least, not in any form powerful enough to mention.
	Since the land surrounding the Master's castle is agriculturally
barren, and only a few tribes of mutants are mad enough to live there,
Master Kahn uses the battlefield's noxious plains to dispose of traitors
and criminals. His standard method of capital punishment is to impale the
guilty on pointed wooden poles (usually through the heart, but his most
despised enemies may face the slower, more painful death of impalement
through the liver or intestines). Then one end of the pole is firmly
planted in the ground, propping up the corpse. It is impossible to
approach the Master's castle without passing by hundreds of such grisly
displays. Thus does Master Kahn warn his vassals of the penalty for
betrayal.
	I guided the wyvern in the direction of the flickering, unstable
rift between worlds that was Shang Tsung's nascent Portal. Once I reached
it, I would search the nearby area until I could find either Liu Kang or
his spoor. Then I'd track him down, subdue him, and bring him back. Master
Shao Kahn had given me an artifact from the Golden Age to help me restrain
the monk. It was an enchanted cord, unbreakably strong, and invulnerable
to damage from anything save hellfire. The cord had been woven from
fishes' breath, bird spittle, a woman's beard, the miaowing of a cat, the
sinews of a bear, and mountain roots - if you choose to believe the
legends, that is. I cared little about the historical origin of the
gossamer silver cord; all I needed to know was that it worked. It did. I'd
tested it by drawing the stropped edge of my fan across it several times;
it showed no trace of wear or fraying.
	My mount swiftly carried me past the corpse-strewn plains of the
battlefield and above the treetops of the Living Forest. The evening sky
had already changed color from dull grey to vivid orange when I'd set out;
now, the gradual onset of night was slowly quenching the atmosphere's
illusionary fire. By the time I reached the Portal, the only light in the
sky came from the Outworld's softly glowing moon. Unlike the Mother Realm,
Shokan has no stars. Since I could not search effectively in the darkness,
I guided my wyvern down, intending to land near the Portal and make camp
for the night. Had I been anyplace else in the Wasteland, I might have
been in danger from its nomadic mutant populace, but the savages fear
sorcery. They will not come within miles of the mystic gate. 
	Just beyond the edge of a sheer cliff face, the Portal lay fixed
in midair. The empty chasm surrounding the Portal is not truly a
bottomless abyss; solid ground does lie a few miles below, although
low-flying clouds frequently obscure it. The land has not always borne
this jagged geographical scar. Prior to the Great War, it consisted of
gentle, verdant plains. That was before the curse of the gods changed
everything.
	I steered my wyvern about the Portal's shifting focus, coasting
above the matrix of stone squares suspended in midair near it. The stone
squares formed the closest thing to a bridge between the Portal and the
solid ground a couple dozen yards away. Levitating above some of the
squares were the Master's shadow priests, wraithlike beings garbed in
hooded purple robes. I ignored them, for they never interfere in mortal
affairs, and rarely speak to anyone save the Master himself.
	A single streak of lightning cracked across the sky, terrifying my
mount and nearly costing me my neck. Thunder hammered upon my ears.
Ominous rainclouds hid the moon, plunging everything into complete
darkness. The wyvern squealed and bucked, as a sudden onslaught of driving
rain pelted my eyes and made the beast's skin slick. A furious gale rose
out of nowhere; its violent turbulence bent the beast's wings back. The
wyvern's scream joined the howling of the gale. I felt myself slipping
off, and desperately clutched at the reins. The wyvern jerked its head
upward, clumsily flapped in a hovering pattern for one heartrending
second, and miraculously skidded to a rough landing on the cliff.
	I whispered a prayer of thanks to the Master.
	More lightning tore through the troposphere, as though my
heartfelt benediction had angered some cosmic being... and perhaps it had.
As soon as the brilliance faded, I saw the luminous avatar of a god. He
presented himself in the form of a mortal man, garbed in white with a blue
surcoat upon his torso. Two patches ornamented the sleeves of his raiment.
Each was colored the lustrous yellow of a lightning bolt, and bore
streamlined black brush strokes depicting the symbol of the storm.
Underneath the god's wide, cone-shaped hat, his eyes blazed with
scintillating electricity. He floated in the swirling, ozone-tinged winds
just off the edge of the cliff. The rainstorm that soaked me to the bone
bent and parted about him, so that not one drop landed upon his person.
	I dismounted from the wyvern, and quickly slipped a black hood
over its head before it could panic again. The god addressed me while I
did so, even though I had turned my back upon him; perhaps he wasn't used
to being ignored. His "voice" could only be described as medley of
contradictions: roaring, yet silent; proud, yet sadly humble; ancient, yet
imbued with the vigor of eternal youth. The message was not so much
composed of discrete words as it was of impressions, emotions, sensations.
His meaning rang clear and true, more easily grasped than anything
approximated by such clumsy mortal tools as speech or language. It was the
voice of a god. Beyond that, I cannot describe it. 
	~Raiden would talk with you, mortal.~
	I turned around, meeting his unearthly stare with my own.
	"Raiden can choke on his own lies!" I shouted above the thunder,
making no attempt to hide my intense hatred. I fully expected him to blast
me in a fit of divine wrath, but strangely, he showed no response to my
insult at all. His lack of a reaction made me even angrier. "You, you and
all the other gods like you, _you_ despoiled this land! You abandoned this
world! You are Master Kahn's enemy! You nearly _killed_ me with your
grandstanding theatrical entrance! And you want to 'TALK?' CALL OFF YOUR
DAMNED THUNDERSTORM BEFORE YOU SAY ANOTHER WORD!"
	The downpour tapered off as quickly as it had come. The rainclouds
that had brought it drifted away, revealing the tranquil light of the
moon.
	~Is that better?~ asked the god. 
	I stared back, not believing he had done it.
	~An evil time comes upon us, Kitana,~ he continued, his face as
unreadable as ever. ~The war between the darkness and the light has begun.
The fates of worlds hang in the balance. You are needed, Kitana. You have
sided with Shao Kahn, with the darkness, but I come to give you one last
chance to ally yourself with the light.~
	I glared at him in silence broken only by a puzzled whimper from
the wyvern.
	"Who are you to dare..." It was not a question. "Who are you to
lecture me about darkness and light? I know all about you, god of thunder.
Who are you to dare?
	"Before the Great War, you and your brother, Fuijen the wind god,
wrestled for seven days out of each year. Your titanic struggles generated
hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods that wreaked havoc on the peaceful
inhabitants of the Astral Planes!
	"During the Great War, you sent forty days and forty nights of
continuous rainstorms upon the troops who battled within the Valley of
Plenty. You turned the most fertile savannah in the Outworld into the
fetid Quagmire of Sinking Death, haunted by the lost ghosts of ten
thousand warriors!
	"At the close of the Great War, you agreed with the rest of the
gods to desert the land you had battered into near-lifelessness. You are a
member of the godly congregation who proposed the Divine Sanctions, hoping
that if you ignored us, we would fade into extinction!
	"After the Great War, you could no longer blight the Outworld with
your senseless brawls. So you entered Shang Tsung's Tournament, and
strived to take control of the competition. You planned to use the
Tournament as a pretext to challenge other gods with your endless
wargames, to turn the Mother Realm into another ravaged celestial
playfield! You have always been blind to the sufferings of your victims,
and deaf to their tearful pleas! How many have you murdered, god of
thunder? How many innocent men and women have been broken, drowned,
electrocuted, or starved by the chaos you embrace? How many lost their
homes to your callous indifference? How many have sickened and perished
from the plagues left in the wake of your floods? You pretend to be a
champion of the light, but your actions belie your true nature. Who are
you, _who are you_, WHO ARE YOU to accuse me of siding with darkness!"
	The wyvern continued to whine, faintly, while I awaited his
answer.
	~Even gods can change,~ he said at last, softly. ~Not that it
matters. My past has no bearing upon what you and your Master have done,
nor what you plan to do. You _are_ an agent of his darkness, Kitana,
whether you realize it or not.~
	"Believe what you like about me, god-"
	~No,~ he interrupted, a shade more forcefully, ~it is _you_ who
believes, who clings desperately to the myths Shao Kahn has told you. You
have persuaded yourself to accept all his little lies, until their
cumulative distortion assumes the shape of one great Lie, a Lie that
engulfs your life and soul. You, little assassin, are just as blind, deaf,
and callous as I once was.~
	"THAT IS NOT TRUE!" I screeched, the last ebb of my self-restraint
giving way. In less time than it takes to draw breath, I palmed one of my
nightshade-tipped darts and hurled it at the false god's lying throat.
Just before its point touched his skin, his outline diffused into so much
white light, vanishing into nothingness. Then the entire world dissolved,
turning similarly white, and I felt myself dissolve with it. I tried to
scream my defiance, but I had no lungs, no throat, and no tongue with
which to speak.
	~No, Kitana,~ came the stern reprimand of the god from everywhere
and nowhere, ~this audience is not yet finished. I have patiently listened
to you denounce my crimes. Now, it is my turn.~ I felt my body restored by
degrees, although it remained numb and unresponsive, as if someone or
something else were controlling its movements. My eyes were closed. When
they opened, entirely of their own accord, I was in the Master's Arena.
	The Arena was different from when I had last seen it. The most
obvious disparity was the absence of the prisoners from the Mother Realm,
but that was not all. The stone blocks were not quite as chipped and
weathered, and the metal chains on the empty concrete pedestals shined so
brightly that I had to blink and look away from their glint. 
	Master Kahn sat in the Arena's throne, holding the spear that
serves the double function of weapon and scepter of office. Throngs of
spectators crowded row upon row of the surrounding bleachers. Across from
me was small man with glassy, fishlike eyes. His gaze nervously darted
from point to point.
	(This is the past!) I tried to say, but couldn't. Instead, my body
kneeled before the Master. "THIS IS THE FINAL TEST OF YOUR WORTHINESS TO
SERVE ME," he boomed. "TO PASS, YOU MUST SLAY THE CRIMINAL OPPOSITE YOU.
LOSE, AND HE WILL KILL YOU. WIN, AND YOU WILL EARN THE RANK OF A WARRIOR."
	(~Yes, this is the past.~) The words of the thunder god
reverberated within my head. (~These are your memories, Kitana - the
memories of your most evil deeds.~)
	"FIGHT!" commanded the Master.
	My body moved irresistibly into the combat, approaching my enemy
just as I remembered I had. I could not change my actions; I was only an
observer in a scene that played out as it had once before, in the course
of my life. If I had been more than an observer, I would not have
foolishly rushed in on the smaller man, who grasped hold of my silken garb
and rolled back, tossing me over his head. If I had been more than an
observer, I would have turned in midair to land gracefully on my feet, not
clumsily on my side. And I would not have wasted my precious time
struggling to draw my fans just as he closed in on me and dealt a stunning
blow to my head.
	Convulsions wracked my arms. I lost my grip on both weapons. I
tried to get up and foundered. "All right, lassie, let's see what you
really look like," growled my enemy, as he swiftly wrenched my silken face
mask off.
	Then he dropped the mask, an expression of absolute shock
plastered upon his features.
	"_Princess_!" he gasped, as I painfully steadied myself and
climbed to one knee. "I- I thought you were dead! I grieved for you, my
Princess. I rejoice to know that you live-"
	A strike to his solar plexus interrupted his stream of chatter.
"You should have killed me when you had the chance," I hissed, pressing my
advantage.
	"No! I was loyal to you," he wheezed, backing away. "I couldn't
stop Shao Kahn from killing your parents, so I tried to save you and your
sister. But I couldn't carry both of you-"
	"My sister is just fine, no thanks to rebel scum like you!" I
spat, hitting him again. If I had known then what I do now, I would not
have wasted precious energy talking to him, but I had been young and
unlearned. "What's wrong?" I taunted, when he failed to rise again. "You
were so eager to fight a few seconds ago!"
	"You are the Princess. I cannot hurt you, I-"
	"FINISH HIM!" I obeyed the Master's unforgiving command,
constricting the breath from my enemy's throat before he could utter
another word.
	(~He spared your life, and you repaid him with death.~)
	(He was a criminal!) my mind cried out. My eyes remained locked on
the face of the dying man. Two slight tears trickled from the corners of
his eyes as his skin swiftly changed color from pink to deathly blue. He
did not struggle.
	(~His only "crime" was that he escaped with your twin sister
minutes before Shao Kahn's forces completely overran the former rulers'
palace.~)
	(Mileena? But she-)
	(~Not Mileena.~)
	(The Master has always owned the Palace-)
	(~Since the blood-drenched day of his coup d'etat.~)
	(I'm not a "Princess," I was an orphan Master Kahn adopted after
the Great War!)
	(~Shao Kahn was the one who personally orphaned you.~)
	(None of what that convict said could be true! He was just telling
lies to trick me into letting him go!)
	(~If self-preservation were his sole motive, you would not be
alive today.~)
	The surroundings blurred and lost their focus... then resolidified
into the bleak, gravelly landscape of the Wasteland. The dirt was an
unnatural, purple-black color, a permanent side effect of some terrible
spell or godly struggle during the Great War. Screams, shouts, and battle
cries echoed on every side. I observed the maelstrom, seeing Master Kahn's
elite foot soldiers and wyvern cavalry press upon the sorely outnumbered
members of the Black Moon mutant clan. If the clan had not been ambushed,
they might have put up a better fight; but before the onset of the attack,
I had cut the throats of their five sentries. Most of the mutants were
extremely thin and weak. Over half of them were women and children who
lacked the strength or the will to put up much of a struggle. Many tried
to flee, but the Master's troops ringed them on all sides and above. There
was nowhere for them to escape.
	"YOU!" The ragged cry was my only warning. Cursing myself for not
being more attentive, I ducked and rolled. The trajectory of a scythe-like
blade missed me by scarcely an inch. "You lead them here! You come, you
offer to bring food; you bring death instead!" 
	My response was to throw one of my bladed fans at the mutant, who
I recognized as the leader of the Black Moon tribe. He deflected the fan
by shielding himself with one of his sickle-blade hands. He lunged for me
again, but this time I was fully prepared. I leaped high into the air, up
and over him. As I was just above his head, I touched it with my index
finger, adding an iota of extra momentum to his missed charge.
Incorporating a half-turn into my midair somersault, I landed on my feet
facing my overbalanced enemy, who fell forward. Before he could get up and
threaten me again, I stepped closer and decapitated him with a single
swipe of my fan.
	I heard a peculiar <thunk> from behind and turned around. Another
mutant writhed in agony. The tips of two swordblades peeked through his
gaunt chest. At first his upraised right hand gripped a knife; then the
blades in him twisted, and he dropped his weapon. A slash with my fan
swiftly put him out of his misery. The swordblades lowered, allowing the
headless corpse to slide off them and sink to the ground.
	I looked into the solid red, pupilless eyes of the blades' owner.
He was clearly one of the strongest members of the Black Moon tribe;
certainly, he appeared better fed than most of the others. His ragged
clothing was spattered with bloodstains, as were his forearms and the
sharp blades extending from within them, like aberrantly long talons. A
single twitch of his fingers made the dripping blades retract into
whatever sheaths lay embedded in his flesh.
	"Baraka watch your back. Baraka on your side," growled the mutant.
	By then, the last fighters of the Black Moon tribe had fallen. Of
the original clan of fifty, only sixteen prisoners remained alive. They
were mostly women and children who had surrendered, except for Baraka. The
Master's elite army forced the survivors to kneel with their hands behind
their heads. One mutant boy reached for a knife lying on the ground; the
militiaman watching him drove a spear into his back. He shrieked twice
before a second guard put another spear through his neck, silencing his
cries.
	Three more militiamen pointed their spears at Baraka. I held up my
hand to stay them and addressed the squad leader. 
	"Report!"
	"Four of our infantrymen are dead, six seriously wounded, a dozen
more with minor wounds. We lost three of the ten wyverns and their riders.
Seven of ours to thirty- five of theirs; that's not bad. Not as good as
the Master might have liked, but not bad."
	"I see."
	"What about him?" the squad leader asked, jerking a thumb at
Baraka.
	"He wants to join us."
	"Doesn't everybody. How do we know we can trust him?"
	That was a good question. How could I be sure that Baraka wasn't
secretly planning to exact revenge for the death of his kin? I briefly
contemplated his long- toothed, sickly grinning face, then the similarly
deformed faces of the row of cringing prisoners. 
	"You," I said to Baraka, "kill all the rest of your tribe, and
we'll find a place for you." He acknowledged my offer with a grunt and set
to his bloody task at once, under the watchful eyes of the troops.
	"Seven to thirty-five? No, I'd say seven to forty-nine," I told
the squad leader, with a confident smile underneath my mask. "The Master
will be pleased."
	The Black Moon started screaming.
	(~You bear responsibility for the murder of all these people.~)
	(Not people. Mutants.)
	(~They speak, they think, they feel, they suffer. They are
people.~)
	(They brought it on themselves! They raided the Master's tax
convoy!)
	(~They were starving to death. They were desperate for food, or
anything they could trade for food.~)
	(They could have sustained themselves upon the Master's aura, like
everyone else.)
	(~The Black Moon were locked in a blood feud with the Clan of the
Severed Finger, and losing. If they had stayed within Shao Kahn's
nourishing aura, the Severed Finger would have destroyed them.~)
	(They could have appealed to the Master-)
	(~Shao Kahn would have pit them against the Severed Finger
one-on-one in his vile Arena, for sport, until the last of them fell.~)
	(I had to carry out the Master's orders!)
	(~What type of "Master" gives such orders, and what type of
servant carries them out?~)