Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 21:53:16 -0500
From: Vctr113062@aol.com
Message-Id: <960217215315_146995239@emout06.mail.aol.com>
To: jevans@MIT.EDU
Subject: Winter 9/16

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	Deep within the Lin Kuei complex, from my throne of Ice, I examined
Ultratech's bill. It listed medical expenses, including reconstructive
surgery to the hands of one guard and therapy for chronic neck pain in the
other. Also present were costs incurred in hiring the sentries' temporary
replacements, new "shatterproof" glass doors and windows, plus water damage
to the front office. The total was a number five figures long. 
	I set the bill aside and, for the thirtieth time, flipped through a copy of
the file Orchid had given us. Ultratech wanted the Lin Kuei to perform an
assassination. They hadn't said why. The target's name was Shang Tsung. Apart
from that, very little was known about him. His home was purported to be an
island not on any map. A black-and-white sketch of a wizened old man with a
long mandarin's mustache and beard was the closest thing they had to a
picture. His true physical dimensions were strictly speculative. Corroborated
reports suggested that he could change his shape into the forms of other
humans or beasts at will. Rumor had it he'd lived for over a thousand years.
He was reputed to have supernatural powers; conflicting accounts called him a
blood-drinking vampire, a bone-rending lycanthrope, or a demon nourished by
human souls.
	Shang Tsung was a recluse, who according to legend permitted visitors to his
isolated domain only once a generation, to hold a blood-sport Tournament open
to warriors all over the world. Losers forfeited their lives and, if the
stories were to be believed, their souls. Shang Tsung was the Tournament's
overseer and one-time grand champion. The next Tournament would take place
within two weeks.
	Only one thing was known for certain about Shang Tsung. None of the agents
Ultratech sent to eliminate him ever returned. Alive, that is. Charbroiled
pieces of their last crack squadron had been elegantly gift-wrapped and
delivered with thank-you notes to the entire executive staff. 
	I was intrigued. 
	Ultratech and the Lin Kuei were rivals at best, mortal enemies at worst.
Ultratech's business empire was vast, and its tendrils extended far beyond
their towering city beacons, reaching into the ugly side of city life. Their
specialties were advanced weaponry and the sale of addictive synthetic drugs.
They supported smaller gangs with arrangements of plausible denial. The Lin
Kuei had skirmished with Ultratech's minions in the past, and unsuccessfully
tried to infiltrate the cartel more than once. So why would Ultratech want to
hire the clan, especially for the phenomenal reward of...
	"Smoke, I am not entirely familiar with foreign currency. How much is
10,000,000,000 pounds worth?"
	"Taking into account all the Lin Kuei assets I'm aware of, the clan as a
whole is worth approximately one-third of that," the teacher replied, weakly.
	"Ultratech must be desperate."
  	"Perhaps they do not intend to pay. Their offered contract specifically
demands hard proof of Shang Tsung's death. They want his remains, which must
be positively identified as his through DNA testing - they managed to isolate
a few skin cells from a note accompanying one of Shang Tsung's gifts,' and
they want to run a parity check on the chromosomes of-"
	"So they want his head," I interrupted, cutting short Smoke's stream of
incomprehensible babbling. "Go on." 
	"Once they've got it, why should they pay the fee? What could we do to them
if they didn't?" The teacher's voice continued its progressive decrescendo,
until he was nearly whispering. "Ultratech is many times wealthier than the
clan, and more established. If it came to a flat-out conflict, the Lin Kuei
could hurt them, perhaps badly, but we'd lose in the end. That's why the clan
has done little more than skirmish with their pawns in the past." 
	I looked up from the file. If anything, Smoke appeared worse than he had
before our trip. His skin had turned a shade more pale. He leaned unsteadily
against my chamber's Ice-coated wall, arms tightly folded, and his eyes were
half-closed.
	"Is something causing you discomfort?" 
	"Well, since you bring it up, this chamber is a bit cold."
	In truth, I kept the chamber no colder than a typical winter night. Smoke
used to train students outdoors under similar conditions. It occurred to me
that his ailment, whatever it was, could have weakened his resistance to
temperature extremes. I released the hold my frame of mind had on the
surroundings. While I could not warm the chamber, I could at least cease to
chill it. "Is this acceptable?"
	"I'll manage."
	"Very well. There is another matter I need to speak to you about."
	"You're thinking of volunteering to carry out the contract, aren't you. Even
though Shang Tsung has destroyed dozens of would-be assassins, and the gods
only know how many others."
	"That is what makes him the ultimate quarry. The ultimate challenge."
	"I can understand the temptation."
	"My question is this: has the Triumvirate already selected another clan
member to carry out this assignment?"
	He pondered for several seconds before replying. "I have not had the
privilege of being in their presence for some time, yet I suspect they would
grant your desire. After all, they did send you to Ultratech in the first
place."
	"And that is something else on my mind. Why was I selected to be the clan's
ambassador to Ultratech?"
	"Because of your innate business sense, complete familiarity with the
terrain, and sterling diplomatic skills?" he returned, smiling a little.
	"You may dispense with the sarcasm. My point is that serving as an
ambassador entailed risks, which any lesser member could have taken. I am
curious why they considered me suitably expendable, even though I am the
clan's only Ice master."
	Smoke's eyes flickered, changing to a lighter shade of grey. One of the
plumes wafting from his collar drifted at an oblique angle from the rest.
There could be no mistaking that reaction. I'd seen it all too plainly, two
years before. My good hand curled tightly around the arm of my Ice throne. 
	"You are concealing something. Tell me." He looked away, uncomfortably, and
was about to speak when he broke into another of his episodic coughing fits.
This one was longer and more severe than usual. At one point, he put his hand
around his neck, as if to protect it from a constricting noose.
	"This chamber definitely does not agree with you," I observed. "We should
continue this elsewhere."
	Smoke shook his head. "No," he wheezed, clearing his throat, "this is one of
the few places that is safe from prying ears. Pyre saw to that."
	"Does it matter whether anyone overhears you?"
	"I? It wouldn't matter if I told the Triumvirate to jump in a bottomless
pit. It is your reaction that should not be overheard."
	"My reaction?"
	"Yes. You are no longer the clan's only Ice master. An initiate has recently
earned his place as a clan member in full standing. His raw talent for Ice
has the potential to exceed even yours."
	"Interesting. I did not know this."
	"You've isolated yourself in this freezer for the past two years. A dragon
could devour the sun and you wouldn't know it." For one moment, a hint of the
caustic-tongued mentor I remembered showed through.
	"If you expected this information to provoke me, then you are deluding
yourself. I have long since lost the ability to feel envy, or anything else."
	"Eh? Do you really believe that?"
	"You are not worth lying to."
	"Then you're the one with illusions. You might not envy another's Power, but
you're no automaton. If anything, you're ruled by the very emotions whose
existence you deny. You care deeply about your brother; the one and only time
you've exercised your authority as a Hierarchy member was for his sake. You
hate modern technology, and become claustrophobic when surrounded by it;
hell, you go into a thinly concealed panic at the thought of riding in an
automobile. And-"
	"That will be enough."
	"-whenever confronted with an idea that cuts you to the quick, your
immediate reaction is to shut it out, as if ignoring the cause of your
worries will make them go away. Go ahead, order me to be silent all you
please; it won't change a thing." I couldn't tell whether he was deliberately
baiting me, or merely caught up in his newfound tendency to ramble. Either
way, I was not going to let his wild theories distract me.
	"My only 'worry' is that you are concealing something important about the
clan's new Ice master. Are you?"
	He shrugged. "I'm duty bound to answer you truthfully."
	"Who is he, then?"
	"He hasn't selected a use-name for himself yet."
	"I did not ask for a use-name; I want to know who he is."
	"It isn't my place to keep biographies of all my students."
	"Perhaps not, but I think you know about this one." The inside of my mouth
suddenly felt very dry. I stepped down from my Ice throne. "Who. Is. He."
	"He is your brother."
	"WHAT!?"
	Smoke winced and rubbed his ears. "He passed the Test; you know what that
means."
	"My brother was not supposed to be Tested! The Lin Kuei does not force the
Test more than one offspring per family!"
	"Usually yes, but-"
	"Whoever administered his Test is a dead man," I seethed. "I am going to
kill him."
	"Are you. Are you really," chuckled the teacher.
	Something fierce kindled inside of me. I seized his collar with my left hand
and yanked him close. My right hand was still maimed from Orchid's gash, but
it functioned well enough to bring forth a concentrated aura of Power. "The
man who gave that Test is dead where he stands. Even if he is one of the
Triumvirate. Even if he is you. Now tell me WHO TESTED MY BROTHER!"
	"You did."
	The Power I'd called slipped from between my fingers. My uninjured hand fell
away from the teacher's collar. "What...?"
	"Two years ago, you destroyed your brother's laboratory and all its
contents."
	"But he wasn't burned..."
	"The Test consists of trauma. It does not necessarily have to be physical
trauma, though that is what the Lin Kuei usually inflict. Your brother
stumbled onto his Power that night, after fleeing the burning lab, when his
own tears changed to Ice. Two days later, he came to us. To me, in fact. I
tried to talk him out of joining the clan, but he's as stubborn as you are,
and had nowhere else to go. You'd forbidden him to leave the village. The
only way he could study the science he loved was to get around your ban. He
thought that being a clan member might give him some leverage to use against
you. He requested that I not inform you of his new affiliation. I promised
him the next best thing, that I would tell you only if asked."
	I have been scorched with flame. I have been stabbed with steel blades. No
physical injury could compare to the bitter shock of knowing what I'd done,
and to whom I'd done it.
	"Leave me," I commanded, wearily. The teacher raised an eyebrow. "I said
_begone_!" He bowed and departed without further protest.
	Alone in my chamber of Ice, I clawed at my mask and hood, awkwardly tugging
them off. With a lagging, unsteady gate, I approached one of the chamber's
walls. Its swirling curlicues of frost encircled an inset, silver-backed
mirror. The mirror's shiny surface reflected the image of a stranger, clad in
ceremonial blue and sable. He was taller than average, with short black hair
and narrow, sienna eyes. His complexion was atypically pale, for a native
Chinese. The left half of his face was a mass of blistered fire-scars from
the cheek downward.
	I used to have a certain tolerance for the stranger in the mirror. When the
fisherman was murdered, I disliked him. Now that I knew he'd damned my
brother to serve the Lin Kuei for life, I was filled with contempt for him.
My left hand instantly closed in a fist, chambered, and snapped out at the
image. The mirror cracked in a spiderweb pattern, dividing the stranger's
effigy into discrete, triangle-shaped pieces. One of the shards cut into my
extended knuckle. A thin trickle of blood slid down from where I'd hit the
mirror. It crawled a few centimeters before it froze, a gossamer fragment of
red against a background of blue and white.

*****************************************************************

	The decapitated Lin Kuei was merely an ordinary clan member; had he
possessed the Power, it would have consumed his remains over the course of
time, gradually transmuting them into the appropriate element. Examining the
body, I found a small notebook wrapped in rose petals and a gossamer
handkerchief, stowed directly over his heart. Half the volume's pages were
crammed with haphazard brush strokes; the second half was blank. Blood from
the sewer pipe had seeped through the binding, smearing over most of the
journal's contents. Only bits and pieces remained legible. They were...
poetry? I peered closer:

	Milady, you are beauty given flesh
	Your laugh is the peal of songbirds
	Your face is a vision of wonder
	Your every motion is elegance
	It is an honor to bask in your presence
	My heart and soul are yours eternal
	I will be your protector 
	I will defend you to my last breath 

	Apparently, he had.
	Something was wrong. Lin Kuei do not court wives; they annex them. Nothing
short of self-destructive madness could lead a Lin Kuei to turn his back on
the clan, instead devoting himself as a bodyguard to one person. I sincerely
doubted this wretch had been of sound mind when he perished. Scanning the
other bodies, I noted that they were all male. Many were clothed in some type
of warrior's uniform, from samurai armor to camouflage fatigues. A suspicion
crept in the back of my mind. 
	I tossed the verses over my shoulder and continued deeper into the sewer,
pushing aside or climbing over various remains. The mess I sloshed through
ran parallel to the abyss' edge, until I reached a walled-up dead end with a
wide drain hole in the ceiling. Fresh blood poured down from it; the
continual flow hid whatever lay beyond. While I could have sworn I'd seen
nothing above this level from the outside, the hole had to lead somewhere.
The drain tingled with a light, breezy sort of Power. It didn't feel like a
ward, or anything harmful. When I hurled a pebble up through the flow of
blood, nothing happened.
	Taking a deep breath, I jumped and seized hold of the hole's edge. I pulled
against the downward suction of the falling blood and swung my legs over the
drain's lip, crawling into whatever lay beyond.

*****************************************************************

	I examined my latest Ice sculpture, a book the size of an atlas. It had
taken me ten hours to forge its leaf-thin pages and graft them to the
binding. The finished product was worth the effort. I flipped the blank pages
back and forth, basking in their faint emanations of applied Power. An
ordinary person's hands would have melted them or broken them apart, but not
mine. As a test, I closed my eyes and thought of a single sentence. When next
I looked down upon the Ice tome, the words had etched themselves onto its
title page.
	A clogged cough sounded behind me. "I hear you've released your brother from
your edict," Smoke rasped, once he could speak. The fact that I hadn't
noticed his arrival indicated how deeply involved I'd been in my work. I
closed the book and started to trace a handful of stylized lines around the
border of its cover.
	"You are not supposed to approach me unless summoned."
	"No, I'm not. What are you going to do about it?"
	"Nothing. It is nearly time for me to leave. There is a boat I must catch."
	"A boat?"
	I handed him an envelope from within my tunic. His brows lifted slightly
when he took it; most likely, he could feel its faint wisps of necromantic
Power. Someone singularly lethal had impressed its dragon-shaped wax seal.
Smoke opened the envelope and scanned the card inside. Penned with sparkling
gold ink, the invitation told of a freestyle martial arts Tournament and
personally solicited my participation. Shang Tsung, the Tournament's host,
had signed it with sweeping brush strokes.
	"Where did you get this?" Smoke asked, putting the invitation away and
giving the envelope back.
	"It was resting on my sleeping mat last evening."
	"Have you decided to enter this Tournament?"
	"Yes."
	"If Shang Tsung knows enough to send this to you, then he is undoubtedly
aware of your true intent."
	"I must find Shang Tsung before I can slay him. I am gambling that if I
accept his invitation, I will be brought directly to his doorstep."
	"The whole thing sounds like a trap."
	"It is a trap. Of that much I am certain."
	"Then take this with you." I glanced over my shoulder at him. He held out a
stoppered vial. A thick mass of cloudy grey sloshed and swirled against its
clear glass walls. "It's-"
	"I know what it is," I interrupted, accepting the object and stowing it
away.
 	"Be careful. It can incapacitate one for hours. Your brother created the
formula, with a little help from me. I've been participating in quite a few
of his experiments, lately." He shrugged, coughing a few more times. "It
isn't as if I have anything to lose."
	"Did you come simply to give me the vial?"
	"No. I came because I have regrets."
	I took a closer look at him. It was hard to discern whether he was in worse
condition than yesterday, but he definitely did not appear any better. "That
is your sickness talking. Lin Kuei do not have regrets."
	"This one does." 
	I returned to tracing an abstract design into the Ice volume's cover.
	"Have you ever wondered why you were Tested?" Smoke inquired, hesitantly.
  	"Because I was the eldest son."
	"If the Lin Kuei Tested every family's firstborn son, they wouldn't have
time to do anything else."
	"I was known to have an affinity for winter."
	"So? Many people like winter."
	"My grandfather was a clan member gifted with the Power," I growled, tiring
of this guessing game.
	"True, but only one surviving Lin Kuei knew who he was - who his family
was."
	"Get to the point."
	The teacher did not say anything at first. When he did speak, his voice was
a croaking whisper. "Your grandfather was a cruel person. I hated him. I
hated him so much I thought I'd die. Did I ever mention that?"
	"Hmph."
	"He and his underlings murdered my family, as an example of what would
happen to anyone else who purchased 'protection' from the Black Dragons. I'll
never forget watching him stiffen my sister into a brittle statue of Ice, and
casually dismember her into pieces of thawing blood and meat.
	"I tried to kill him once, and failed. In retaliation, he had me tortured.
After holding out for thirty days, I swore an oath of fealty to him. Anything
to stop the pain. He treated me like refuse. I never had the courage to
challenge him before he died. 
	"He left behind a grandson whose pale countenance resembled his, and who
shared his relish for the cold months - you. When you were old enough, I took
a lifetime's worth of revenge on you. I had you Tested."
	"Is that all? I thought it might be something important."
	"There is one more matter. You asked why I'd come. I am here to apologize."
	"What is wrong with you?" I demanded, whirling around.
	"I beg your forgiveness." And he really did seem to be begging, if I gauged
that tone of his voice correctly. I'd never heard him use it before.
	"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" I shouted, grabbing him by the shoulders
and shaking him in a frenzy. "Lin Kuei do not apologize! Your behavior has
become thoroughly bizarre of late! What is this disease that is driving you
mad!?"
	"Eh? Oh, that. It has to do with my Power."
	"Is your Talent so weak that can no longer call upon it?" I probed, letting
him go.
	"Quite the opposite. I have too much Talent. It's all I can do every waking
moment to keep my element in check, and even then..." he gestured loosely to
the ashen plumes drifting from his collar. "The problem is, my respiratory
system is quite mortal."
	"Doesn't your Power shield you?"
	"My Power is killing me. When I call upon it, yes, it will protect me in the
short term; however, the detrimental side effects worsen as soon as I let it
go. The masks I once wore had specially designed filters, to make breathing
easier. I used to think that would be enough, but the masks don't make a
difference anymore. I've a few months left. Possibly less."
	"I see."
	"No, I don't think you do. You have a maximum of nine years left before your
entrails start to Ice over. Your grandfather died at age fifty, but you use
the Power much more frequently than he did. Every time you summon your
element, you accelerate the rate at which it wears upon you. Keep it up, and
you won't see your fourth decade."
	Gently, I whisked away the last Ice shavings from the book's cover. "I've
long suspected that the Power had a price. Power always does."
	"Be careful to whom you repeat that. It is one of the clan's most closely
guarded secrets. The Triumvirate worries that if clan members were to learn
the consequences of their Power, they might become inhibited. You know that
few Lin Kuei perish of old age. Those who do survive long enough fall ill are
quickly disposed of. There was an attempt on my life yesterday evening." He
closed his eyes for a moment. "I trained that kid for five years. Tried to
teach him everything I knew, yet even in this weakened state I killed him
without taking a single wound. I'm not as good a teacher as I thought."
	"You were good enough." I placed the volume inside an insulated compartment
within my throne and headed for the chamber's double doors.
	"Are you going to see your brother before you leave?"
	"There will be time enough for that when I return."
	"And if you don't return?"
	"Then he will inherit this room and all its contents, including you."
	Smoke muttered, "I'll see you in Hell too," as I left the cavern that had
been my home for two years. I did not look back.