Justice League of America - Batman: The Stone King by Alan Grant (best english novels to read .txt) 📗

Batman caught a glimpse of scaly, lizardlike skin, a pair of eyes glowing like fiery coals, and a long, thick tail surmounted by a spiked knob.

Then the thing was diving at him, and he was falling back in an attempt to cushion its assault. He heard Manhunter's exclamation of surprise and guessed mat he, too, had come under attack.

Before they had time to react, the world became a madhouse of flashing claws and jagged, ripping teeth.

The shaman stood in the hidden chamber, his head thrown back and his arms outstretched as a symphony of colored lights flashed from his fingertips. They danced in the air like living things, red and blue and gold swooping and swirling, coalescing and breaking up again into individual patterns. They played around the heads of the captured heroes, lighting them up in grotesque caricature, draining them of their incredible powers.

Peter Glaston felt unaccountably stronger. He'd made several tentative attempts to approach his possessor's mind, to get inside it and learn its strengths and weaknesses. What he found there was the history of an evil man.

Five thousand years ago, the Stone King reigned supreme over a sprawling empire in what is now considered North America. He had been brought up as one of the elite astronomer-priests, an interpreter of cosmic omens, the human link between the gods above and the people below. It was his sacred duty to maintain the balance between what his human subjects needed and what the earth could provide for them.

The Stone King was well-versed in the paths of power. He'd been taught how to control the potent energies mat swept through the earth and lay hidden in the secret depths of the stones. He knew secrets it had taken his ancestors tens of thousands of years to accumulate.

When his training was done, he should have taken his place as the people's champion, the bridge between the stones and the stars. His was the task of guiding his far-flung tribes, of ensuring that the rituals and practices they had kept for millennia would continue unchanged.

But the Stone King had other plans. The power he wielded had seduced him, corrupting the ideals implanted in him by his priestly teachers. Instead of being his people's servant, he would be their master through power and pain and torture.

As if in a vision, Peter saw a horde of warriors swarming like worker ants to construct the Stone King's Pyramid of Power. He saw the shaman stand atop it, surrounded by a blazing aura as the earth energies coursed around and through his body. The people bowed their heads and made obeisance. Lacking rational consciousness, their impressionable minds accepted everything at face value.

This man in the bull mask was their master; they had no choice but to serve him, to follow his every command.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The Stone King's demands increased. He took the tribe's healthiest, most fertile women and locked them in a hidden compound to which only he had access. He executed the tribal elders to prevent any action they might take against him. He sent his warrior bands to raid rival tribes, slaughtering the men and stealing their women for himself and their children for grisly human sacrifice.

Then came the drought. The rains ceased and the sun grew hotter, until the rivers themselves dried up. It was the shaman's age-old task to help his people, to ease their suffering, to tell them why the gods were angry and make the appropriate sacrifice to propitiate them.

But the Stone King's tyranny knew no bounds. He began to demand the tribe's own children, intending to sacrifice them in appeasement.

It was a step too far.

Peter saw a group of warriors creeping up the pyramid on a moonless night. Stone axes rose and fell. A poison-tipped spear impaled the shaman's chest even as he struggled and showered them with vile curses. He died with vengeance on his lips and a burning black hatred in his heart.

They burned his body on the altar in the secret chamber. They buried the ax head–the symbol of the Stone King's power–in the chamber floor. Then they closed up the entrance with heavy stone slabs and turned their backs on the pyramid and the traditions of ten thousand years. Then the whole tribe abandoned the area to seek water elsewhere.

So . . . at least he can be beaten, Peter thought, contemplating all he had gleaned.

The knowledge gave him fresh heart. He knew it was now or never. The Stone King intended to annihilate every man, woman, and child on earth . . . and somehow, he seemed to have the power to do it.

"Screw your courage to the sticking-place."

The line from a Shakespeare play he'd read in first-year English Literature came back to him. But Peter's courage was already screwed to the sticking-place . . . and he felt as if it was indeed stuck. He couldn't go any further.

No! his mind protested. You have to do it! Just don't be beaten by your own fear.

He wavered, his mind running through all the options, dreading what might happen to him. If he failed, the Stone King might torture him forever. Or wipe him out as if he never existed. Or drive him mad, an insane captive in a mind that was no longer his own. Or . . .

If he succeeded, perhaps everything would be restored to the way it had been.

But how to do it? This was Peter's mind; surely he could choose the arena of battle? Or, the thought occurred to him, maybe even create it!

Peter had been a member of the university fencing team for a couple of semesters, until archaeology claimed his interest full-time. He hadn't been very good at it, but at least he knew how to hold a blade, how to wield it and avoid getting hurt by his opponent.

He imagined himself a hero, like Superman or Batman, tall and proud and strong. As if in answer, somehow, a burnished sword