Spheres of Influence-eARC (27 page)

And she’d figured some of it out. “Political negotiations. That’s why everything seemed to be going so swimmingly with Michelle Ni Deng.”

Vantak gave an ironic push-bow. “Many of your own faction find you…an extremely inconvenient choice for Faction leader. At the same time, the Minds felt it was important for us to demonstrate that their reach can extend even here, into the very heart of the Arena, to remind others why the Blessed To Serve are not to be trifled with.”

Sethrik was so outraged that he buzzed incoherently. Ariane grimaced. “So. You figured that you could establish a stronger relationship with Humanity by promising a lot of Blessed support—maybe even an alliance against the Molothos—and demonstrate the Minds’ power at the same time, by removing the Leader of the Faction of Humanity and letting us replace the Leader in our own way—proving that no one gets away with humiliating the Blessed, while not shooting down an interesting alliance. Since you’d seen
me
in action but didn’t have clear ideas of what my new bodyguard could do…” light dawned. “
You
were the ones who set up Wu Kung for that duel. And you—or rather the Minds—decided not to take chances with him and figured out a plan to get him to separate himself from me at just the right time.”
It was a damned good plan, too. Of course he’d push me into any nearby shelter and then go to deal with the threat. Utterly predictable.

Thilomon
quivered, engine noise shifted, and she realized they were now just inside the Sphere’s gravity field.
And that little figure is still moving…is that a
hatch
near him?

“Well reasoned, Ariane Austin,” Vantak agreed. “They expected you would have little trouble deducing the key features of the plan—except, possibly, for one. Your bodyguard was an unknown quantity, and they believed that he was even more formidable than we had yet seen, and so should be removed from the equation.” He raised a hand. “As always, they were correct, and it was even more difficult than I had expected to remove that factor.” His hand came down.

The main viewport suddenly showed a view down the hull of
Thilomon
, with that tiny, brilliantly-colored humanoid figure now striding quickly towards a hatchway. But even as the scene registered, an entire section of the hull on which Sun Wu Kung stood
sprang
outwards, hurling the Hyperion Monkey King into empty space; with no warning, no chance to grab a handhold, Wu Kung curved outward and plummeted away, disappearing into a cloud that crackled with lightning.

“But,” Vantak said calmly, “I believe that, too, has been dealt with now.”

Chapter 32.

Wu Kung felt
Thilomon
vibrating under him as he made his way along the hull. Wind began to rise, pushing at him, and he crouched, digging in his claws. The ship was covered with a tough yet somewhat resilient material that reminded Wu of the skin of some undersea animals.
Maybe reduces friction? Keeps instruments like radar from detecting it?
Whatever the reason, it was exactly what Wu needed; his claws, reinforced like his whole body with what DuQuesne called “ring-carbon composite,” penetrated and held firmly.

“Ha!” he said, and felt his spirits rise. “They thought they had gotten rid of me. They almost had! But now I am on their vessel, and they do not even know it!”

But the wind was still rising, and Wu suddenly realized that getting on
Thilomon
had only been the first—and possibly easiest—hurdle. The great ship of the Blessed was accelerating, the winds rising even higher.

This is like the time I rode Orochi-sama, when he tried to shake me off by climbing into heaven and jumping down!

No,
he corrected himself, bending down and getting a grip with his hands, looking for ridges, outcroppings of the vessel that might afford some protection,
it’s much worse. Because there, I was The Great Sage Equal to Heaven, I was the TRUE Monkey King. Here…Here I am just someone’s old experiment.

It was the first time he had
really
admitted this to himself. He was not a demigod, not a warrior who had bested ten thousand atop the Mountain of Fruit and Flowers, not the greatest Hero of all ages; he was not human, but closer to human than anything else…and the gods would not help nor hinder him, nor even mark where he fell, if he failed.

Almost the thought made him too weak to hold on, piercing his nearly invincible confidence, echoing the time he had fallen in Hyperion, when the CSF had gassed him but he had remained conscious long enough to see his world erased. Two tears trickled from his eyes, were whipped to mist.

But there was still a face before his mind’s eye, a courageous face with blue hair and a warrior’s gleam in sapphire eyes, and a voice in his memory telling him that it was
his
job to protect her, no matter what: “even from me if you have to, Wu. Even from me. I’m trusting you to keep her safe.”

And he had sworn to do that.

“I…” he hissed through his teeth, and pushed forward against a wind that was starting to feel like a thundering stream, a river raging around him, “…will not…be…foresworn!”

There! Ahead! Parts of the hull were deforming, rising slightly, moving apart, adjusting to the flow. And behind them, yes, there the wind would
have
to be less.

If he could
reach
it.

He risked freeing one hand, grasped his cloak, pulled it over his head, tightened all fastenings.
It was made to protect me from the fires of the underworld and the ice of the nether realms, forged to repel the weapons of mortal and god alike. Maybe…no, obviously, that’s all a lie too…but just as they
tried
to make me the Monkey King, maybe they tried real hard with these, too…

The wind
did
seem just a slight bit less savage, it felt as though his robes somehow were cleaving the wind and making it flow around him more.
But…it’s still bad. And getting worse. How fast does this monster
go
?

He slammed down one hand, shoved one foot forward, dug in, repeated the maneuver. Now it was like climbing a sheer mountain, with weights hanging from him…and more added all the time, like one of the sadistic tests he’d been subjected to by the Generals of Heaven.
Tests none of
you
could pass!

It’s hard! It’s really hard…air is screaming, pulling, demons of the netherworld trying to pull me down. But I have to move forward! One more step! One more grip with my hand! Now
push
! Don’t stop!
Ariane’s face blurred into Sanzo’s before him, and he wondered at how similar they were.
And I won’t fail Ariane any more than I would Sanzo!

He wondered if Sanzo were still awake, back in the other world, in the universe of simulation that was to him as real as this Arena.
Did they shut off the simulation when I left, freeze the world? Or is she putting Gen to bed now, saying a prayer for me?
Is Sha Wujing watching over them for me, or just sitting beneath his waterfall, training, waiting for me to unlock the riddle of reality with my fists?

One more grip, the roar of the wind so loud he no longer heard anything, just felt the shrieking, screaming, rumbling of the demon wind in his bones, clawing at what little skin remained exposed with immaterial talons of fire and ice.
Pull! Pull forward!

The wind suddenly wavered, felt disrupted, uneasy, shifting so that he was nearly pulled from the hull of
Thilomon
. Desperately he lunged forward, sinking all his claws deep into the resilient coating, and suddenly he realized the wind
was
weaker.

He was just in the lee of one of the moving sections. It was only raised a short distance, but just high enough that he could crouch, flat to the hull, behind it, and the wind now screamed mostly
over
him, not trying to tear its way
through.

Now I have to hold on, hold on until it slows down…it has to slow down sometime…

But the roaring, raging wind went on, and on, and on. He held tight, grim, unrelenting, but the wind was tireless. It could continue forever, and it
did
. He held on, but he could not see where they were going, or how far they had come. The wind tore at him, gripped and yanked and pulled, sometimes almost teasing at the edges of his hood. Other things hissed and rattled against his clothing, some of the sky-plankton DuQuesne had mentioned. He thought, at moments, that he heard voices in that wind, some screaming curses and imprecations, others playful, asking him to let go, come play!

I can’t go play. I can’t let go. I can’t
ever
let go.

Arms and hands which had almost never known fatigue, could not truly remember being
tested,
began to throb with the dull ache of weariness. His
fingertips
hurt, the claws themselves transmitting vibration and stress through his body.
Can’t let go.
He repeated that to himself, focusing on Ariane, on his promise, on his life, on the few things that really
mattered
.
Can’t let go
.

Can’t let go.

Can’t
ever
let go.

He did not let go. He held on, held when the ache in his hands became agony, when heat and chill threatened to rob him of endurance, held through the battering of wind and the turns of
Thilomon
as it travelled some unguessable distance in the endless sky. He held on. He did not let go.

The world suddenly
blazed
with crystal-light that jolted him to the core of his being, and he felt a strange tingling go through him.
That…that was a Sky Gate jump?

The speed of the vessel was not slackening, and still he held on, through a sudden turbulence that would have loosened his grip had it been any less tight.
We’ve come somewhere. They have a destination. They
have
to slow down
sometime
.

Sun Wu Kung hung onto that thought desperately.
They
have
to slow down. This is a ship. It will go somewhere, and it will stop.

But for the first time in his life, he really wondered if he could last long enough to see the end of a journey. His arms and hands and feet and legs felt like they were on fire, were cramping and threatening to fail in their grip even against the drive of his iron-held will.
No! I mustn’t! If I let go, they will have Ariane and no one will ever know, no one will be able to save her! I’m the only chance she
has!

And then the rainbow shockwave of light hit again.
Another Gate…still in the Arena, had to be a Sky Gate…Good, I don’t think I’d like breathing vacuum…

It took several moments for him to realize the wind’s scream was starting to reduce. He couldn’t believe it at first. But then he saw the bulwark ahead of him shifting. The wind increased slightly, but only because he was no longer sheltered.

Clouds,
he realized.
We’re travelling through clouds. They’re slowing down because they can’t see everything.

He cautiously straightened up, feeling his ungrateful muscles
now
trying to rebel because he dared shift his position.
I can…handle this wind. It’s only about 300 kilometers an hour or so, I think. Fast, but not impossible with care. And still dropping.

He patted his inside pockets, yanked out one of his high energy snacks, stuffed it in his mouth, realizing as his jaws
ached
for a moment just how hungry he was.
I must have been there for…hours!

He crouched down again and ate the other two bars he had on hand.
Need that strength later.

Wu Kung straightened and looked around. After a moment, he spotted a squarish area that looked very much like the same kind of hatchway Ariane and Sethrik had gone into.
That’s what I need!

Carefully, he made his way across the hull towards the hatch.
Don’t mess up when you’re
that
close to—

Without warning, the hull rose up and slapped him like the hand of an angry Buddha—
or maybe Kali on a real bad day!

He realized he was flying…no,
falling.
Thilomon
was receding, he was dropping down, down, farther, and then the ship disappeared as he fell into a roiling cloud.

“NO! No, no no NO!”

Almost he called for the clouds to support him, but he remembered that this was not Hyperion. The clouds would not support him. He could not summon the wind, or call forth the flames, or tear one of the pillars of the Dragon King’s palace out to serve as his staff.

And he had failed.

He fell, and fell, and sometimes the thunder roared around him like the laughter of the gods, mocking him. It was indeed a fine jest, worthy of the Generals of the Heavens, that he would be so close, have endured so much, only to be defeated just when it seemed victory was certain. He didn’t care. Ariane was gone, and no one would know she’d been kidnapped—and even if they did, they’d never know where to find her.

Still he fell. The cloud was producing rain and he fell with the rain, trickling off him like a million tears, and he let himself cry. There seemed, for the moment, to be nothing else to do.

But even grief could not go on forever, and as he felt the exhaustion of his frustration and sadness draping him in gloom, he remembered that DuQuesne had also begged him to
live
.

And that giving up was not his way.

“I…am still alive,” Wu said to himself. “I’m still alive, and if I’m alive, that means I’m not beaten forever.”

He opened his mouth and worked to guide water in; he desperately needed some, he felt as though he’d been in the Desert of Souls for a week. Occasionally some sky-plankton thing went in too; they weren’t all that tasty, but he wasn’t too worried about poison. He was tough.

Abruptly the darker space around him lightened, and he found himself tumbling through clearer air. He had fallen far enough that the Sphere he’d glimpsed vaguely as he fell from
Thilomon
had actually shifted its perspective.

There was movement below him; circling, yet closing in, he saw it was a mob or school of several dozen creatures with armored torsos, grasping, armored tentacles, and flashes of nightmare mouths.

Zikki
, he realized. Predators fast and mean enough to have tried to attack small ships flying through their space.

There were a lot of them. And they were closing in.

He grinned finally, a smile savage and hungry, but a smile nonetheless, the first smile he’d had since Ariane had been kidnapped. He reached up and pulled his staff, Ruyi Jingu Bang, free. “Ha! You think you will make a meal of me! I will give you something to chew on, then!”

He dove to meet the oncoming swarm.