White Devil Mountain (16 page)

The Hunter made a soundless landing on top of a partitioning wall. Bluish smoke began to rise from the soles of his boots. The wall was still burning.

One of the hundreds of enormous, red-hot cranes carried a burning iron plate. Leaping without a sound, D landed on top of it. A black shadow loomed over his head, and then the snowstorm stopped. The ceiling had been completed. It covered an area that was clearly even vaster than what D had looked down upon. Already several hundred floors’ worth of corridors had begun snaking out in all directions.

When an iron beam made contact with a nearby floor, D jumped for it. He’d just barely make it—the jump was about fifty yards. There was even a handrail. His left hand reached out. But not far enough.

His right hand flashed into action. Striking in the same motion, the blade bit into the handrail. All D had to do was put some strength into his right arm, and he was over the rail. The spot where his sword and the handrail met was tinged with crimson.

“A beam cannon?”

Even before the hoarse voice asked that question, the figure in black tilted deeply, dropping down once again like a bird of unearthly beauty—falling this time into a bottomless abyss. Again, the hem of his coat flared out. He dropped quickly, like a stone—and landed like the snow, seemingly without weight or sound.

White smoke and flames spouted from the chest of D’s coat. During the fall, he’d been blasted with lasers. Crimson flashes streamed in front of D and behind him, to his right and to his left. Walls and pipes were vaporized, reduced to ions and nothingness.

D was standing on a passageway that jutted from a stone wall. The Nobility preferred classical materials and architecture to ultramodern styling.

“Hurry up. Once you’re inside—”

D had broken into a dash before he even heard the hoarse voice. Running fifty yards in less than two seconds, he charged through a black entranceway. One shake of his body was enough to extinguish the flames that burned on his back and waist. The laser blasts had been ferocious. His dash had put out most of the flames, and the shake took care of the last remnants.

“You were shot in fourteen places. Forget humans; even a major Nobleman would need four or five days of complete bed rest after that, on account of how the cells get burned right out. I’m surprised you could still run.”

It was unclear what D made of that voice as his feet pounded down the stone pathway, racing around a seventh corner before halting. Unlike the path he was on, the stone walls ahead were undulating.

“From here on, it’s incomplete,” said D. “Give me an analogical inference of this castle’s layout.”

A moment later, the hoarse voice replied, “You’re a regular slave driver. If I do that, my brain will be fried for two or three days!”

“If your head needs cooling off, I can do it anytime.”

There was another silence. And then, the voice said, “
Ooooooh
. Did you just tell a joke? Well, I can die now without any regrets!”

Squeezing his left hand tight once to choke out the disagreeable voice, D turned down a corridor where the walls rippled like waves.

By “analogical inference,” he meant that he wanted his left hand to come to a precise conclusion from insufficient data and commit it to memory. Because this overtaxed part of the brain, reaching an incorrect conclusion could leave a person broken and useless. Once the castle was complete, data relating to it would have to be taken from the master computer, but the defensive systems surrounding it would undoubtedly be fully operational. The quickest way to get that data would be to read it from an as-yet-uncompleted area, like drawing a blood sample from a vein, so to speak. And it was necessary to do so before its defensive armaments were fully installed.

Bending down in the rippling corridor, D extended his left hand toward the floor. Five seconds passed—then ten.

“Good enough!” The words escaped weakly from his left hand.

D stood up.

“My head’s burning . . . Can’t take anymore . . .”

The Hunter said to his groaning left hand, “Do you know what room Gilzen would occupy?” His voice was cold, showing not the slightest concern for anyone else’s circumstances.

“More or . . . less . . .”

“I need that, and the central control room. First, to the former.”

D turned around.

Countless figures were barreling around the corner.

“So, has the castle’s security finally risen again?” the left hand murmured unconcernedly.

At the fore were a number of guards in rough armor who carried rifles. Purple streaks of light stretched from them. Particle beams. Though the beams flew straight, you could hardly say the shooters’ aim was true.

D charged like a black cyclone through the enemy fire. Naked steel flashed out. And helmeted heads sailed through the air. It was a horribly comical tableau.

III

With the first four slain, the rest of the men backed away amid much chatter. The words that reached D’s ears were strange.

“Oh, how odd. That’s the language of the ancient Crystal Palace. Now, this is a Noble who’s on par with the Sacred Ancestor.”

What the hoarse voice was driving at was this: the Sacred Ancestor—holding by far the highest position in the ancient Noble society—and the Elders that were the next rank had relaxed in a city of darkness, stillness, and ice at the world’s northern extreme while laying plans to rule the earth. These people had conversed in a special language unknown not only to humans, but to all save those who dwelled in the Crystal Palace. This was the language of the Crystal Palace, at times taken as the word of God bestowing praise and prosperity, and at other times abhorred as the devil’s edicts commanding ruin and death. It was also said that the retainers of the chosen ones who gathered at the Crystal Palace spoke a rudimentary version of that tongue.

“Don’t kill ’em all. Leave one alive so we can ask where Gilzen—”

As he listened to the hoarse voice, D headed back down the corridor he’d just taken. Spears assailed him from three directions. The men who held them wore smiles of delight on their lips.

D displayed ungodly speed in his movements. Split-second timing allowed him to slip between two spears aimed at his chest and abdomen, while a third stopped in the grip of his left hand, with the Hunter sliding up the weapon’s shaft as his right hand reached over his shoulder. Though he was poised to slash in a diagonal fashion, his blade limned a horizontal semicircle that mowed through the torsos of the men. Their upper halves tumbled off in whichever direction the impetus of each dictated, scattering fresh blood and entrails as they rolled across the floor.

Still retaining his grip on the spear with his left hand, D hurled it forward. Three of the men who were lined up farther down the corridor were impaled on it.

They came at the Hunter from behind, blades drawn. A heartbeat later, one reeled back, split open from head to chest, while a second and third swung their deadly weapons. D didn’t move from his spot, and the blades appeared to sink into him. However, as the men reeled backward with a bloody gale a second later, D was already dashing back down the corridor in the direction he’d originally been headed.

Incomprehensible words mixed with the sound of footfalls, and four more men were slain by the Hunter’s deadly blade. Undoubtedly instructions had been given to surround him and cut him down. It was a wide corridor. Ten or so of them came at D from either side, encircling him. But try as they might to close their ring on him, they couldn’t, with D remaining out of reach of their swords while his blade ruthlessly and flawlessly made death the fate of each of them. He seemed to be in a critical location.

Like the wind, D blew through a number of gates. Though lasers pierced him all over, his opponents fell victim to D’s sword and his rough wooden needles before they could drop the Hunter. D made no attempt to discover the means of opening and closing the gates, which were actually opened by a special key. Instead, D placed his left hand against the keyhole. Each opened in less than two seconds.

“Just one more to go!” the hoarse voice exclaimed.

The seventh gate opened.

D halted. Just fifty yards ahead of him loomed the eighth gate, and before it were arrayed more than thirty figures. The men stood with laser rifles and traditional firearms at the ready, safeties off. From the ceiling behind them, an unknown manner of weapon was drawing a bead on D’s heart.

“Hold it right there,” said a voice accented by the ancient Crystal Palace’s tongue, and the whole group froze.

From the source of that command the ranks of men parted, and a figure in an aqua cape stepped to the fore.

“Even given that our defensive formations were ill executed, you did well to make it this far,” said a pale man every bit as tall as D. His physique was gaunt, and he had a supernatural air about him that would make those who saw him want to look away. His voice was strangely high.

“Where is Gilzen?” D inquired. There was nothing else for him to ask.

“The master is outside. He’s enjoying the construction of his manse.”

Come to mention it, from somewhere beyond the ceiling came the sound of pounding iron and the spray of sparks from fusing metal. Though the construction methods were terribly outdated, the results were daunting to behold, with pipes dozens of yards in diameter fusing together in under a second before being joined to another and another. It was a sight D alone could see through the darkness.

“I am Valen, a member of Duke Gilzen’s Sacred Protector Knights. You shall not pass.” To the others he said, “The rest of you aren’t to lay a hand on him.”

As soon as the men bowed in unison, D leapt into the air. His blade was over Valen’s head. If he were to swing it home as he landed, it would effortlessly rip through his opponent—who stood stock still, seemingly paralyzed—as if he were water.

D was struck by a sharp cramp. On landing, his form remained a thing of peerless beauty, but his sword slashed empty air.

From a spot a few yards away, Valen smiled thinly. His voice had been rather feminine to start with, and his laughter was as well. “So, you won’t dodge but you’ll parry? No one ever scored two critical hits on me before, but there won’t be a third!”

However, with that, Valen froze. Exactly two seconds later he expelled a deep breath and wiped away the sweat that’d suddenly erupted on his brow. “Such an unearthly aura . . . Aside from the master, I’ve never felt the like . . . This makes it well worth returning to life.”

D raised his blade from where his downward stroke had left it. Its tip halted directly in line with Valen’s gaze. Valen’s eyes seemed to drink the glint from the steel. Or perhaps they were focused on D’s gorgeous visage behind it. With a cry, he tumbled backward. From between the fingers clamped to his right eye there jutted a stark wooden needle. D’s left arm had made the throw.

And then the Hunter leapt up over Valen—and the sword blade came down on the top of his head. Standing in front of the vermilion-stained knight who toppled backward, D braced himself for his next attack as he turned and looked around.

“Not much of a challenge,” the hoarse voice informed him. “Gilzen is outside. Let’s go look for him.”

Making no reply, D approached the gate. He pressed his left hand against it. This time it took nearly five seconds for it to open. As soon as the gate opened, a weird presence could be sensed near the last gate he’d passed through. A rough wooden needle flew from D’s left hand. A diminutive figure dressed from head to foot in a crimson robe took cover in the darkness a second later, vanishing from sight.