Samurai and Other Stories Read Online Free Page A

Samurai blade an inch from his heart.
    I do not have much time left.
    Once again Duncan allowed his right knee to crumple and he let himself fall sideways. The Samurai went for his unprotected side and Duncan took his chance. He thrust upward, a perfect stroke that should have disembowelled his attacker.  
    When he withdrew his sword it was shining and clean. The Samurai had not even slowed.
    I cannot fight such a thing as this.
    The next time the Samurai raised the sword Duncan did not defend. He let his own weapon fall to the ground and waited for death to come. The blow came down on his right shoulder and he heard the sword grate as it passed through his ribs.
    Duncan felt strangely still and content as he crumpled to the ground.
    The last thing he saw before blackness took him down and away was the Samurai reach down and remove the forgotten gold piece from his tunic pocket.

    *     *     *

    I should be dead.
    Duncan came back to a semblance of thought some time later. His view was limited to two thin slits in the darkness. He tried to move but he seemed to be restricted. He felt heavy and encumbered.  
    It was only when he saw the three chests stacked on the red and gold plinth that he realized where he was.  
    And what he was.
    I will serve, and I will protect.  
    There is nothing more.

 
     
     
     
    RICKMAN’S PLASMA

    He would call it ‘Soundscapes of the City,’ and it would make him his fortune, of that Rickman was certain.
    How could it fail?  
    All it had taken was a reconfigured dream machine. Courtesy of Dreamsoft Productions, a particularly skilled burglar, and the latest software from MYTH OS, Rickman’s visions of bringing his music to the world were now that much closer to reality.
    For the past forty nights he’d sampled and tweaked, taking the raw sounds that streamed into his loft apartment from the city outside. He merged them with his dream compositions and formed them into a holographic construct of sound and light and ionised gas, an ever-moving plasma bubble that hung like a giant amoeba in the centre of his room.  
    As they swam, his creations sang, orchestrated overtures to the dark beauty of the night.
    It had been a long hard journey to this point. During those first few days everything was sharp and jagged, harsh mechanical discordances that, while they had a certain musical quality, were not what he needed... not if he was going to take the world by storm. The plasma had roiled and torn, refusing to take a permanent shape and Rickman despaired of what the city was telling him. Everything was ugly, mean-spirited. The music of the city spoke only of despair and apathy and his dreams didn’t make a dent when he overlaid them.
    Then he had his epiphany.
    Aptly, it came to him in a dream.
    It starts with thin whistling, like a simple peasant’s flute played at a far distance. At first all is black. The flute stops, and the first star flares in the darkness. And with it comes the first chord, a deep A-minor that sets the darkness spinning. The blackness resolves itself into spinning masses of gas that coalesce and thicken great clouds of matter reaching critical mass and exploding into a symphony. Stars wheel overhead in a great dance, the music of the spheres cavorting in his head.  
    Rickman jumped from his bed and pointed his antenna upwards to the sky.  
    Almost immediately he got results.
    The plasma formed a sphere, a ball of silver held in the holographic array. At first it just hung there in space, giving out a deep bass hum that rattled his teeth and set all the glassware in the apartment ringing.  
    Things changed quickly when he overlaid his dreams.  
    Shapes formed in the plasma, concretions that slid and slithered, rainbow light shimmering over their surface like oil on water. They sang as they swam, and Rickman soon found that by moving the antennae he was able to get the plasma to merge or to multiply, each collision or split giving off a new chord, the plasma