THE COMING OF WINTER
Part 1 of 4: Section 3 written by Victar, e-mail
Victar's Archive
Part 1
The whistle of the wind quickly drowned out Saibot's expletives.
My only chance was to insulate myself against the upcoming impact. Huddling in a fetal position, I willed the Ice to completely encase me in a sphere, save for one small airhole near my face. Through that hole, I sent layer after layer of the Ice to reinforce the exterior of my cushion. The Power obeyed my mental commands as a paintbrush obeys its artist. I deliberately made the orb soft, more like packed snow than true Ice, though I'd never attempted anything like this before. All I could do was focus the Power and hope.
The sphere landed upon a mid-level slope and cracked into chunks. The violent jolt bounced me away and further down. I involuntarily skidded across loose stones, increasing momentum as the drop suddenly became steeper. To slow my fall, I dug my hands into the hillside and hung on, even though the skin on my fingers was being scraped away. At last, the land leveled somewhat and my battered body came to rest. I rolled onto my back, dizzy, in pain, and exhausted from summoning so much Power in such a short time.
A bolt of lightning cleaved the sky in two. Thunder roared in its wake.
I must have fallen through the low-flying clouds I'd seen earlier, for they covered a sky that had changed hue from orange to deep turquoise. The thickening clouds swirled in a tremendous spiral pattern, like foam on an ocean whirlpool. Droplets of fresh rain splashed on my face, washing away my blood. The gentle shower increased to a torrential downpour in a matter of seconds. More lightning flashed, coloring everything blinding white for a split-second. The whiteness gradually faded except for one small area, blurred by the water that splashed freely upon my eyes.
Squinting, I made out a floating figure dressed in white, ornamented with patches of blue and gold. His wide, cone-shaped farmer's hat cast a broad shadow over his face, pierced by the electric shine of his unearthly eyes. He appeared to be a mortal man, but even a dullard could have felt the crackling aura of his Power.
Through my Talent, reinforced with nearly two decades of practice and discipline, I can summon and control fragments of the Power. He was Power, pure cosmic energy assuming physical form solely for the sake of convenience. Some people would call him the god of thunder. I consider him an uncontrollable force with an affection for rainstorms, which may well be the same thing. Given what he was, I shouldn't have been surprised that he survived Shang Tsung's Tournament.
Raiden would speak with you, mortal.
His words impressed themselves with perfect clarity, despite the hiss of falling rain and the rumble of background thunder. It was a level of communication far more direct and unambiguous than common speech.
"I am listening." My own voice was so torpid I could barely hear myself. It didn't matter; Raiden understood. He lowered his levitation until his feet hovered a few centimeters from the muddy earth, while I inched into a sitting position and examined my wounds.
A dark time comes upon us, Sub-Zero. You played a significant role in the setback of Shang Tsung's evil schemes; now, you are one of the few mortals who can thwart his current plans.
"Shang Tsung is dead."
No longer.
"I saw him die less than half an hour ago." The cuts on my hands were superficial, and the claw marks on my face and shoulder were shallow. The greatest danger they posed was the risk of becoming infected, which is especially high when one deals with animal scratches. I used the cloth of my uniform to staunch the bleeding while I gathered more Power, psychically drawing upon the plentiful rainfall. The Power is not itself water, but my Talent is such that I need to use water as a medium. I can usually extract what I need from humidity in the surrounding atmosphere, though it requires more effort in dry climates. Rain or any other nearby water source makes matters easier.
Time flows at constantly varying rates amidst the dimensions. Minutes here can be hours, days, or weeks in worlds such as the Mother Realm, the land you call home. As for Shang Tsung's death, you saw a great many warriors die in his blasphemous Tournament, did you not? You yourself died. Yet his unnatural thatamurgy brought a you and a handful of others back from the grey kingdom. Has it not occurred to you that he must have learned that spell from someone else, someone who could resurrect him in turn?
As a matter of fact, no, it hadn't.
Shang Tsung is merely the servant that goes before his master, Emperor Shao Kahn. Shao Kahn is the supreme ruler of another world, the Outworld, and he wishes to conquer the Mother Realm as well. He has invoked the ancient rite of challenge. Preparations for another Tournament have begun. You are needed. You are one of the few mortals with a prayer of winning Shao Kahn's Tournament.
"I never pray." Carefully, I willed the Power to coalesce upon my scratches, cleaning them and coating them with a thin film of Ice. Maintaining the elemental bandages would be a slight drain on my psyche; however, it would be much worse to let the wounds bleed, or become gangrenous.
If you accept Shao Kahn's challenge, I can bring you out of Limbo. Once his Tournament is ended, I shall return you to the Mother Realm. You have my word.
"And if I'm not interested?"
Then I cannot help you. Limbo is ruled its own gods, inhuman primal forces whose existence predates your kind by millions of years. The Divine Sanctions forbid me to interfere with the interior affairs of another god's world. If you are unwilling to become a champion of the Mother Realm, then your fate is a matter internal to Limbo. This meeting between us strains the boundaries of the Sanctions. I may ask your aid only once; refuse, and you will never have the opportunity to recant. The fate of the entire Mother Realm is at stake.
I finished dressing my wounds and turned toward him. "Why should you care what happens to my world?"
His face and eyes were empty, expressionless.
"Do you think I've forgotten the Tournament in which we so recently participated? I remember you, Raiden. You weren't interested in the fate of the world. You didn't give a damn about anyone or anything but your own glory. Your opponents were like toys to you, playthings to abuse and destroy for the fun of it. At the start of our match, I heard you shout to the heavens that you were bored with mortal competition, and thirsted for battle against other gods. Then I killed you. Moments before you died, you cursed my name.
"No, I don't think you intend to help me escape Limbo. All you want is to have me in your clutches, so that you can exact revenge. Your story sounds like a pack of lies."
I cannot lie. It is not within my power. No emotion of any kind colored his speech. Here was an immortal being who controlled the heavens, yet claimed to be incapable of something the lowliest street pickpocket could do.
"Convince me, then." I unsteadily teetered to my feet. Though Raiden hovered close to the earth, his tall frame towered above my head. My neck was starting to hurt from looking up. "Tell me the truth: why are you so eager to save my world?"
If the Mother Realm falls under Shao Kahn's control, he will wreak genocide upon it. The suffering will be pandemic. He will absorb the souls of all living things and use them to propel himself into more conquests, and more, until he has sucked the universe dry, for the thirst within him can never be quenched.
"And you pretend that you can't tell lies," I sneered.
Shao Kahn's threat is quite real.
"Even if it is, why should you care?"
My concern for the Mother Realm and its inhabitants is genuine.
"Is that truly your only motivation?"
When I received no answer, I turned away and began to descend along the canyon's slope. Before my fifth step, a jagged streak of lightning shot down from the sky and pierced the ground in front of me, causing it to erupt in a shower of dirty water and mud.
Do you think to walk away from a god? An arrogant crackle of the Raiden I remembered tinged the reprimand.
"Yes, I do, and you cannot stop me - unless your speech about 'Divine Sanctions' was indeed a lie." I resumed my downward trek.
Come back here at once!
I did not slow down.
Wait.
I did not look back.
Please.
The word sounded so bizarre, coming as it did from the mouth of a god, that I stopped in place.
There is another reason for my personal involvement. The flashes of lightning ceased, as did the pervasive echo of thunder.
Only the hiss of falling rain remained, and even that lessened to a modest shower. I am afraid.
"You? Afraid?"
Yes.
"Why?"
When Shang Tsung invited me to participate in his Tournament, I feared nothing. I agreed to enter his domain and fight under his rules, without fully understanding what that meant. It meant accepting the weaknesses of a mortal, vulnerability, and death. Now that I know what it is like to suffer, I do not care to repeat the experience, though I may have little choice in the matter. I am a god of the Mother Realm. Its fate is my fate. The Mother Realm's inhabitants are as much a part of it as the earth, sea, and sky, and so they are a part of me as well. There was a time when I did not know that.
Beneath layers of hardened skepticism, past thick walls of distrust, a small part of me rebelled against my cynical tendencies and gave him the benefit of the doubt.
"Seek out Smoke, of the Lin Kuei clan. Ask his help. Tell him that I sent you; he owes me. Mention the name Pyre, and he will understand."
As you suggest. Will you come and fight for the Mother Realm?
"No. What has the Mother Realm ever done for me?"
Do you prefer to perish, body and soul, in Limbo?
"It is not that simple. In my line of work, survival is a credit to one's skill, and I have vowed not to share that credit with another. That is why I shall never accept your offer. I shall find the way out of Limbo on my own, or not at all. No one, no one shall trade me rescue for a piece of my honor. I will not allow it."
Shang Tsung resurrected you. You owe your continued survival to him.
"Shang Tsung has no honor," I admonished, allowing a hint of warning to enter my voice. "He had his own reasons for reviving me, none of which had anything to do with concern for my welfare. I owe him nothing."
He has not forgotten the role you and the Tournament's other survivors played in his downfall. Heed my warning: Shao Kahn has granted the sorcerer more power than ever, which he may use to track you down. Even if he does not, you cannot survive here for long. You will eventually tire, and those who fall asleep in Limbo do not awaken as living beings. Death resides upon these inhospitable grounds.
"Perhaps."
Farewell, Sub-Zero. I would wish you luck, if the wishes of a god had any meaning upon another god's world. His luminous form became brighter, uniformly white, until its sparkling outline diffused into nothingness. The shower had lessened to a drizzle. Soon that was also gone. The swirling wheel of clouds remained in the sky, blotting out the sun.
Smoke began my Lin Kuei training as soon as my burns healed. Through hard work and experience, I learned many things: how to strengthen my muscles and stretch my endurance, how to move unobserved, how to utilize my body as a perfectly controlled weapon, and how to kill.
Killing wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.
Physical exercises are tedious. No-quarter sparring can be dangerous. Moving silently is not as easy as it looks. Invisibility is a subtle art, requiring a different approach in the context of a thousand changing circumstances. But the actual killing? It's little more than a motion with a knife, or a firm twist of another's head. I don't know why I thought it would be so difficult.
Perhaps I expected to feel something, the first time I assassinated a man. I didn't. I've never had any true "feelings" since my Test. Despite the reputation I have earned, I take no pride or satisfaction in my work. There is no one whom I care about. I have a familial obligation to my younger brother, but that is not the same thing.
Just once, I would like to laugh. I'm almost certain that I used to. I wish I could remember what it was like. Even if joy and passion are forever denied to me, I would settle for knowing pain. I do not mean ordinary physical pain, of course, but rather what it is to be lonely, or sad. Isolation has been my way of life for so long, I cannot recall any other state. Though I can project rivulets of super-chilled water from my hands, my eyes have been dry for as long as I've been what I am. Whatever the experience of heartbreak may be, it cannot be worse than to have one's heart frozen stiff and still, forever.
Limbo is a grotesque place.
The canyon's side flattened into a mesa, though I estimated that I was still a good distance away from its bottom. There was no wind, yet the cloud vortex above moved fast enough that my eyes could track its counterclockwise spiral. The sky seemed to become a darker shade of blue with every passing second. Matching the decrease in light from above was an eerie crimson radiance from the ground. Most of the land was a dusty or gravelly reddish-brown, riddled with bright maroon cracks and patches. Heat as well as light escaped the many crevices, evaporating the rainwater from my clothing. These rifts were quite narrow, so that the greatest threat they posed was that of tripping over them, yet they made me uneasy.
Surrounding me was a wide, barren stretch of flatland. A thin line of mounds formed a landmark at the mesa's far edge. Quickening my pace to a steady jog, I fixed my attention upon the gap between two of the tallest hills and set a straight course for it.
Halfway there, I felt the ground tremble beneath my feet. Something massive lay ahead. The closer I approached, the heavier the tremors became. By the time I reached the mounds, inhuman screams and roars filled the air. The shrill outcries were loud enough to make my head hurt. Creating a pair of Ice earplugs helped a little.
Now I was close enough to see that the mounds were not formed of earth or rock, as I'd previously assumed. They were huge stacks of dead carcasses. Here and there I spotted what might have been human remains, but most of the bodies belonged to large animals. Many of them were relatively fleshless. Forked sticks emerged from the two mounds in front of me, propping up two long-skulled, quadruped skeletons the size of elephants. From what I could tell, the sticks were in turn supported by the tremendous piles of bone and tattered flesh that lay heaped around their base. A handful of small fires crackled here and there on the mounds, sputtering and giving off slight plumes of smoke. There were no carrion feeders present to feast upon the macabre spectacle. Even more strangely, none of it gave off any stench of decay. Perhaps I should have been grateful for that, but it only made me apprehensive.
Climbing over those mounds might not be wise. I couldn't trust them to hold my weight. If my footing were to give way, and I fell within one of those enormous piles... Shaking my head, I stepped up to the only clear passage through the grisly heaps, and beheld what was making the earth quiver.
Two great dragons clashed, biting and tearing at one another in the gully framed by the monstrous graveyard. Both were covered with gaping tooth and claw wounds. No quarter was asked or given. The air about their struggle rushed like the whistle of a hurricane.
They were colossal. A man would have to stand on tiptoe to touch their ankles. The flesh of twenty oxen could have been their breakfast. Both dragons were wingless, walking upon their crooked hind legs and balanced by their lengthy tails. One dragon, colored dull ochre with splashes of royal purple, had diminutive forelegs and a head half the size of his body. Its sharp-toothed jaws could have crushed a house. The other dragon's scales were a patchwork of cyan and aqua, while its wide, flat head and folding fangs resembled those of a poisonous viper. As the long-jawed dragon lunged forward, the viper-dragon turned its head aside, flaring a hood with white markings resembling a stylized skull. Superimposed upon both dragons' physical presence was an overwhelming concentration of Power. Even Raiden's daunting manifestation paled in comparison. These beasts were more than monsters. They were gods in their own right.
The long-jawed dragon lost ground to its opponent, and the clash shifted to one side of where I waited. Beyond the warring creatures, more corpse-piles formed a sloppy far wall with a wider opening. Past that, the ground sloped downward and changed texture from rocky to sandy. Before I could study the view further, the viper-dragon staggered back into my line of sight, its hips bleeding from fresh injuries. The long-jawed dragon swung its great tail like a bludgeon, scoring a low rent along the far wall before it struck the viper-dragon. In retaliation, the viper-dragon's own tail snapped forward; a keen-edged keratin blade shot out from its tip, drawing a gash across the other beast's thigh. The long-jawed dragon bellowed a confused cry as it tipped over, crashing heavily upon the ground. Shockwaves from the collision unbalanced me as well. By the time I recovered my footing, so had the dragon.
I considered traveling along the outer wall of corpse-mounds, in search of another opening that wouldn't put me in peril of being crushed like an insect... but I hadn't seen any other gaps when I'd approached. They'd have to be very far away, if they existed at all.
You will eventually tire, and those who fall asleep in Limbo do not awaken as living beings.
Raiden's warning remained fresh in my mind. No, I didn't have time to look for an alternate route. I'd have to get past the beasts somehow. Judging from how quickly the dragongods moved, how much territory I'd have to cover to safely clear of them, and my fastest running speed, I estimated my chances of avoiding them if I were to sprint across their battleground. The odds I arrived upon were in my disfavor. There had to be a better way.
A plan formed in my mind. It would test my command of the Power further than ever before, but I'd learn much in the process. If I survived, of course.
When I accepted my fate as a hunter, I decided to practice the art of killing in its highest form. In nature, there are animals that consume plants, predators that consume the plant-eaters, and supreme predators that consume other meat-eaters. This last, smallest group is said to be at the top of the food chain. So, too, was I determined to be at the top of whatever bonds cement serfs, landowners, and warriors in one great pyramid.
I hunted other hunters.
My specialty was seeking and destroying other assassins. There is no prey more challenging than a trained killer, and nothing less was worthy of my attention. I could afford to be discriminating because the Lin Kuei have so many enemies from which to choose. The clan is often at war and constantly in competition with other criminal organizations. My self-appointed task was to make rivals disappear.
There used to be a few who questioned my selectiveness, or even my loyalty to the Lin Kuei. As soon as I caught wind of such stray whispers, I'd announce that my honor had been slighted, challenge the rumormonger to ritual combat, and kill him. After a half-dozen such instances, most everyone kept their opinions about me to themselves. I maintained my position at the summit of the pyramid until two years ago, when Pyre ruined everything.
Placing my hands flat on the earth, I directed the Power to form a narrow ribbon of Ice in a straight path through the dragongods' battlefield. It was not easy to do, considering the heat that worked against me. The further the slick reached, the more exertion it cost to maintain. At times the dragongods would step on the Ice slick, cracking it and compelling me to spend more precious energy repairing the damage. My heart pounded by the time the Ice slick stretched all the way across the dragongods' territory. There was no time to rest, though; I had to implement the second step of my plan before the sweltering temperature rendered the Ice slick useless.
Keeping my right hand on the beginning of the slick, I directed the Power to create skates of Ice about my feet. My hands were trembling from the strain. Just as I concentrated a final burst of Power into finishing the second skate's blade, the long-jawed dragon started an offensive that caused the viper-dragon to leap away. The viper-dragon was clearly the lighter of the two, for when it landed the ground only trembled enough to make me sway. I kept my eyes on them until the cobra dragon ceased its retreat, then launched myself onto the Ice slick.
I hadn't skated upon ice since before my Test, yet my muscles recalled things my memory had forgotten. Hunching over to present the least resistance to the air, I propelled myself across the ground much more swiftly than I could have run. Off to my right, the cobra-dragon hissed furiously; there was a slapping sound, followed by a confused cry from the long-jawed dragon. Recognizing what it meant, I pushed off the Icy trail into a midair somersault, at the same time as the gargantuan beast slammed into the gully's floor. The earth and everything on it shuddered; parts of the trail cracked, but enough remained for me to land on it and speed toward safety.
The dragongods' tread came closer. I fixed my eyes on the gap in the far wall and poured everything I had into increasing my velocity further still. A few more seconds and-
-my skates lodged on something in the earth and broke into pieces. The heat had melted the far end of the ice slick into water, as I would have seen if I'd payed more attention to my path and less to my goal. I turned my fall into a flip, which became a spring, then a frantic dash. A three-clawed shadow darkened the earth around me. Diving onto the mud headfirst, I slid into the groove between the shadow's inner and middle toes an instant before the foot that cast it plunged into the soil. Mud displaced by the dragon's tread splashed on my back.
A serrated vise clamped on my head and shoulders, and I felt the giddy sensation of being lifted high and fast. Venomous liquid burned my hands. The atmosphere tasted bitterly foul. All I could see at first were pinkish folds of flesh, but then I glimpsed the forked tongue and hollow fangs near the flat corners of the receded incisors that held me. The viper-dragon had picked me up with its maw, and meant to swallow me whole.
I folded myself in half and brought my legs under and up against the viper-dragon's flat, low row of bottom incisors. The beast's head was tilted nearly vertical now; a last-second burst of desperation pulled me around and forward enough to grasp the rough scales of its lower lip. That lent me enough purchase to bring my legs in front of the incisors and push off from them. The slippery rope of its tongue touched me as I glimpsed the ground far below. To fall from this height would probably kill me, since I was too drained to cushion the impact with the Power; yet that was a better fate than being guzzled like noodles.
The other dragongod stepped into my line of sight, announcing its renewed fury with an earsplitting roar; it clamped its jaws on the viper-dragon's neck and shook its rival back and forth. I was flung into the base of a far heap of corpses. A dead horse's distended belly softened the landing. The horse's grinning, half-stripped skull dangled in front of my eyes. Winded but relatively unhurt, I crawled down from the grisly pile and darted through the gap between it and another heap ornamented with the skeleton some great, antlered beast. I did not slow my pace until the dragongods' outcries faded to a background murmur.
Only then did I allow myself to rest for a moment. My breath poured out from my lungs in a slow wheeze. My exposed skin was raw and itching from the viper-dragon's toxic saliva. I cleaned the foul stuff off as best I could, and comforted myself with the relieved thought that at least my hide was intact.
It didn't stay that way.
Of all the things I practice to hone my assassination skills, I dislike forms the least.
They are my favored means to rehearse balance and control of the body. Some are reenactments of past or classical struggles; others express the course of battles that might have been. When I go through each movement, I see the enemies before me, all their attacks that must be avoided or countered, and the shock of defeat in their eyes when they fall.
The form I currently practiced was a short one of my own design, based upon an encounter with three of the Ivory Claw organization's finest, known collectively as the Triple Razors because they never ate, slept, or traveled apart. No one knew where to find them. To draw them out, I'd threatened an extremely influential underground bookkeeper colloquially known as Sharkskin, who had strong ties to the Ivory Claw. As I'd hoped, the Triple Razors were assigned to protect him.
Cast powder and spring forward, palm strike. The primary advantage I'd had over the Triple Razors was surprise. I pressed that advantage with flash and smoke powder. If the momentarily dazzling light of the flash didn't blind them, the smoke powder would. It was a special formula designed to painfully irritate a person's eyes, unless they were protected by special lenses such as the ones I wore. Grasping a lungful of air, I plunged into the haze and drove the heel of my hand into a Razor's larynx. Nearby, Sharkskin coughed violently and fell to his knees.
Turn, drop, snap heel out. A disturbance in smoky fog warned me of the other two Razors' approach; I dived underneath a strike forceful enough to break bones, judging from the disturbance in the vapors. Calculating from where the attack had come, I kicked and felt my heel drive into the second Razor's ankle, knocking it from underneath him. The third Razor threw something in my direction.
Roll, spring, cast the Power. I evaded the missiles with a smooth backward somersault. The smoke was beginning to thin enough for me to glimpse the objects as I flowed into a standing position; they were a scattering of palm-sized razor blades, probably poison-coated. Make that definitely poison-coated, for one of them had cut the face of the second Razor at the fog's thinning edge, and he was quivering and shuddering like a fish in a net. The third Razor should have known better than to cast them blind. The effects of the smoke were wearing off, so before it completely dissipated I stretched forward my hands and sent the Power back along the blades' flight trajectory. He never saw it coming. While the Power kept the third Razor paralyzed, I approached and dealt a hammer swing to the back of his head. He slumped forward and collapsed, unconscious.
Finish it. Lin Kuei tradition has it that a form ends when all the illusory enemies are vanquished, yet in my mind there was one last, conclusive step. I used one of the Triple Razors' own poisoned blades to cut their throats. Two of them were already dying if not dead, but I take no chances. "Please," Sharkskin had gasped, watching me, "please, I'll give you anything you want, anything, just don't hurt me, please, I'm begging you!"
Someone else was in the practice hall. His position was the same as Sharkskin's had once been. He had approached silently; only the slight wafting of warm air betrayed his movements. Suspicious, I pivoted in place and cast the Power at the intruder. He leaped over the Ice, flipping forward and thrusting his legs in an aerial double kick that snapped my chin back and knocked me flat on the wooden floor. The tip of his spear pressed against my exposed throat. Small puffs of ashen vapor spontaneously drifted from various parts of his dull grey uniform.
"You have developed keen senses, but you are slow to adapt and rely on the Power too much," Smoke lectured. "You were fortunate that Sharkskin was nothing more than a bookkeeper. If he had half a quarter of a warrior's instincts, he might have assaulted you when your back was turned to him. It never occurred to you that his pleas might have been a distraction."
"Sharkskin was exactly what he appeared to be. I checked him out thoroughly before I used him as bait," I mumbled, my speech a little slurred from the trauma to my jaw. There was no point in asking Smoke how he'd learned the details of my fight with the Triple Razors, or that my current form was a reenaction of it. If he intended to tell me, he would have already done so.
"A man's life is a complex thing. All the checking in the world will not uncover every detail. You were fortunate," Smoke reiterated, taking the spear away from my neck. I rocked back and sprang onto my feet with a quick kippup. "Have you heard anything about Sharkskin, recently?"
"No. Should I have?"
"He has disappeared. My sources tell me that the Ivory Claw executed him, on suspicion of having set up the Triple Razors. Which he did, though not with conscious intent."
"Of course. People make better pawns if they never realize they are on someone else's chessboard."
A minute change flicked across Smoke's slate-grey eyes, accompanied by an alteration in the corkscrew course of the smoke plumes that wafted from his form. I waited for him to speak again, because I knew he had not come solely to tell me about Sharkskin. Smoke and I did not habitually exchange remarks as if we were friends. Lin Kuei do not have friends. Smoke was my mentor, and one of the few people in whom I placed a certain amount of trust, but the word "friend" does not apply.
"Lord Pyre wants to see you," Smoke said at last, quietly. "A messenger will soon come. I am here to warn you. Do you know what Lord Pyre has done to all who faced him in single combat?"
The slope of the path had become so steep that I had to proceed with care. I followed a trail covered with stone, shale, dust, sand, and glowing reddish crevices like the ones I'd seen earlier. My surroundings seemed to get hotter and drier with every step I took. The wind was stronger here, blustering from an unseen source. The gusts played with the loose earth so energetically my own footprints disappeared seconds after I made them. Some dust got into my eyes, making them itch and sting.
Time passed.
An ache started to spread through my muscles. I stopped for ten minutes of stretching exercises, knowing that if I were to pause any longer I might not be able to continue.
More sand covered the path the further I made my way down; eventually a layer of it spread a thick blanket over everything. Occasional dips and protrusions from the bedrock underneath slowed my progress a little, though I tried to keep my pace consistent. The slope's grade was in the process of flattening. I wasn't sure whether this was a good sign until the wind shifted once more, coming from directly ahead, and I felt a welcome sensation within the breeze.
Moisture!
I held out my hands to the dampness and silently called to it. Water is the essence of Ice, and Ice is the key to my Power. At last I had the chance to regenerate my depleted reserves. There was a tainted, sickly smell to the atmosphere in addition to its increased humidity, but I didn't care. Blood River had to be nearby. My journey was almost halfway over. I quickened into a jog, expecting to see the river as soon as I passed the next dip in the plateau-
My right leg plunged into the sand, and kept on going. I tried to draw it out, only to realize that my left leg was also sinking, and swiftly.
I'd run straight into a bed of quicksand. The dank, clammy morass reached up to my chin before I could curse my own stupidity.
end section three of part one Disclaimer: Mortal Kombat belongs to the creation of Ed Boone and John Tobias and the Midway team. The characters from Killer Instinct, Primal Rage, and Morrigan from Darkstalkers are likewise not created by either me or Victar. No part of this story may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, without express permission by Victar. I did not write this story, but I had permission to post this, so if you want to talk to him about the fanfiction, go to Victar's website.