The Shadow Read Free Page B

show you pain—”
    He made a sudden lunge for the youth but found only thin air. In startled amazement, he lurched off balance toward the altar.
    “You know what evil lurks in the hearts of men, because you’ve glimpsed that evil in your own heart. That makes you a powerful man, Lamont Cranston. But I intend to make you more powerful still.”
    The tulku’s voice came from somewhere behind Cranston. He turned, spied the boy standing near one of the columns, and made another leap for him, this one carrying him clear into a side room, with nothing to show for it but abraded elbows from landing face first on the hard floor.
    “Some holy man,” Cranston said, getting up. “You’re nothing but a naljorpa —a sorcerer.”
    “I am an insect fluttering in the dung,” came the youth’s disembodied voice. “I roll in the dung like a pig. I digest it and fashion it into gold dust, into a brook of pure water, into stars. To fashion stars out of dog dung, is that not great work?”
    “What’ve I got to do with stars?” Cranston asked, circling warily, trying to close on the voice.
    The boy laughed. “Nothing. But you have much in common with dog dung.”
    Seeing him reappear near the column, Cranston threw himself through the air, tumbling down into the main room once more.
    “Your redemption could require a year, perhaps longer. But I will teach you to use your black shadow to battle evil in place of fomenting it. Every one pays a price for redemption.”
    The tulku materialized right next to Cranston and just as quickly faded from view.
    “—this is yours.”
    Shivering with fear, Cranston backed away on his hands and feet. “I’m not looking for redemption.”
    A chilling laugh filled the room.
    “ ‘The ocean does not resent too much water, nor does the treasury resent too much treasure. The people do not resent too much wealth, and the wise do not resent too much knowledge.’ ” The boy paused. “You have no choice. You will be redeemed.”
    A shadow thrown by an invisible figure crawled across the floor toward Cranston, rising above him on the resplendently curtained wall above the altar.
    By now, he had effectively backed himself into a corner. But alongside him on a low table, resting horizontally atop two triangular bases, lay a phurba —an elongated ritual dagger used by magicians, with pointed blades that spread into a triangle up to the hilt.
    The tulku divined his intent. “I wouldn’t do that. That dagger has been the property of many powerful men over the centuries, and in it resides their combined strengths.”
    “I’ll take my chances,” Cranston said, grinning and taking hold of the bayonet-like dagger. He scampered to his feet and began to stalk his invisible prey.
    The knob of the knife’s handle was an exquisitely carved head wearing a crown. The face centered in the head was Asiatic and somewhat barbaric-looking, though the carving’s real power lay in its lifelike quality. In fact, the more Cranston stared at it, the more lifelike it seemed to become. Worse, the thing was suddenly vibrating in his grip, as if unhappy with its situation. When it started to spin in his hand, Cranston glanced down at it in time to see the now snarling face sink teeth into the fleshy base of his thumb.
    He yelped and let go of the handle, nursing his hand while he watched the dagger hit the floor on its tip and skitter to the center of the room. He made a quick dive for it, but it scurried away and launched itself into the air. There it executed a series of spins and rotations, and dove for him, embedding itself an inch deep into the top of his left thigh.
    Screaming in pain, Cranston collapsed on his rear and yanked the knife from his raggedly torn flesh. Only the strength of both hands prevented the knife from striking him in the groin. Instead, it hit the floor point first, then bounded up out of his grip, hovered for a moment, and flew toward his face.
    A veteran of numerous dogfights with Boche