White Devil Mountain (27 page)

“What’s done is done. I thought it was something like that. But then
he
came. The potential they call D. He shakes me from my principles.” Gilzen chuckled. “You must fall, D, if I am to keep my hand on the rudder and steer the Nobility into the future.”

“I’m frightened, Gilzen. My son, I have such fears. The instant I beheld that gorgeous youth, I thought I would faint.
Ah, has the Sacred Ancestor reappeared?
I thought to myself. If that is the case, Gilzen, that young man has come to bring about your end. Cast all this aside, and you and I can go somewhere where there are no humans or Nobility—out among the stars.” Her tone was nearly pathetic.

And in response to his mother’s heartfelt concern for his well-being, the son replied with this: “Leave me.”

No desperate plea came from her. Instead, she said, “I have set explosive charges on this floor. In less than ten seconds, this accursed laboratory will be destroyed, Gilzen.”

At her horrifying words, an evil grin came to Gilzen’s lips. That was all.

“What a foolish act for my mother to commit. It would appear you’ve grown not a speck wiser in ten thousand years.”

Gilzen brought the syringe in his hand up to his neck—and drove it into his carotid artery.

The instant he finished injecting its crimson contents, the heavens and earth rumbled. Gilzen smirked. The smile was still frozen on his face as the floor and ceiling of his laboratory collapsed, and both he and the shadow were swallowed up by the chaos.

II

Destruction ran tooth and nail through the castle’s interior, and in accordance with the building’s strange construction, it struck in the most unlikely places. Two floors below the laboratory not so much as a speck of dust stirred, yet the underground prison took a direct hit. The next thing Dust knew, he was outside the prison. The wall before his eyes was split open, with pitch blackness filling the gap. One after another, cold specks struck his cheeks. Snowflakes. There was a snowstorm raging. His right shoulder hurt him terribly. Though he turned back for a look at the prison, he couldn’t see it for the mountain of rubble. There was some question as to whether the prison had actually been there or not.

He put his hand against his shoulder. It was clearly broken, a critical injury for a bodyguard. Getting up, he turned his eyes toward the crack. As soon as he was through it, he rolled off to one side. His left knee felt like it was burning from the inside out. There was a fragment of something stuck in it. He intended to cool it off with the snow. Sticking his leg in the snow, he reached for his shoulder with his left hand. He had no intention of fleeing. As long as Vera and Lourié were in the castle, his job guarding them wasn’t finished.

After he’d put snow on his shoulder a number of times, the sound of snow under foot reached his ears. The being that’d saved them from the mountain folk flashed to his mind. They didn’t know yet whether that was a friend or a foe, and the footsteps might also be those of the mountain folk. He didn’t have a weapon. Dust picked up a chunk of rock that lay at his feet.

The snowstorm was fairly strong. Up ahead, a gray figure came hazily into view. He couldn’t tell the range. It was probably twenty yards or more away.

Sleepiness suddenly assailed him. The snow that dulled his pain had numbed his consciousness.

If I go to sleep, I’ll die. This is no good.

He tried to snap out of it, but his consciousness started to slide away. He put his strength into his right arm. An acute pain, like his shoulder was being ripped off, restored his focus.

Dust opened his eyes and followed the shadowy figure with them. It stood right in front of him. Displaying a wild growth of hair and beard, the man wore an old pair of goggles and battered clothes that were like animal skins knotted to a parka. The bow he carried and the quiver on his hip made Dust tense up.

“Are you . . . Lourié’s father?” the bodyguard asked.

The pair of vacant eyes in that deeply snow-burned face reflected Dust. Suddenly, they burned red.

–

D halted. Since leaving the hall, he’d been wandering the castle’s interior for more than an hour. Even his left hand’s sense of direction had become befuddled.

“The castle’s layout is like a labyrinth,” it said. “If it were one of the Nobility’s mazes I could manage something, but it uses alien laws of physics. Probably technology those faceless bastards brought with ’em. From what I hear, that clown’s got a rivalry with the Sacred Ancestor, and he aims to make another you! With Gilzen’s combat abilities trumping yours and stuff from wherever those UFOs call home, he could probably do it.”

“Where has Gilzen’s chamber shifted to?”

“See, the thing is, the blueprints I memorized keep changing, over and over. Now—it’s kinda indistinct. It’s vanished from the blueprints.”

“I can’t just keep walking around.”

“I know that. But where are we supposed to go?”

Suddenly the floor beneath the Hunter began to move. It was the moving sidewalk Vera had ridden. D stayed on it. With no set destination, there was no need to get off.

He jolted along for about five minutes but encountered no one.

“Too damn big,” the hoarse voice said, and its impression was right on the mark. Wherever the skirmishes were taking place, they hadn’t spread to where D was.

In the next ten minutes of riding the moving sidewalks, D changed the section he was on three times. Even the hoarse voice was quiet. It was the Hunter who seemed to choose the path to their destination.

At times disembarking from the moving sidewalks, at other times boarding them, before long he came to see an enormous door up ahead. Though one characteristic of the ancient Nobility was having every imaginable place covered with carvings and sculptures, this door over thirty feet wide and fifteen feet high was utterly devoid of ornamentation. Before that glossy bluish-black surface D stepped off the moving sidewalk. Flames burned in iron braziers to either side of the door.

“Here?” the hoarse voice inquired. It too seemed to understand this was the new destination. “There must be some vortex of supernatural air here that drew you all this way. Only the tiniest portion of it is escaping, but look at me—I’ve got goose bumps! Do you hear that?”

D nodded. His eyes gave off a red glow. And look, peeking from the corners of his trembling lips—the fangs of a vampire.

“You hear them, don’t you—the noises those inside are making?” the left hand said. “They sense you, too. Your presence. They’re scared, and in high spirits, and filled with joy. At the thought of eating you up, that is. Don’t do it. I ain’t saying they’re more than you can handle, just that it’s a waste of time. That, and there’s the concern that your psyche might get warped. Oh, those eyes, and those teeth of yours—and what’s with that blood? So excited you’ve chewed through your own lip? I don’t care how cool and collected you are, so long as you’ve got Noble blood in you, you can’t fight the thrill of battle. Okay, let’s move along now!”

D’s right hand went for the hilt on his back.

“Stop! Don’t do it!”

The left hand’s shouts stretched out to the side. At the same time D let out an insane cry and drove his sword into the great steel door. There was smoke. Still poised as he’d been when he struck with his blade, D didn’t move. The blade of his sword was stuck in the steel, and his left hand reached for the brazier. Little by little, the flames burned his hand. Suddenly letting out his breath, D allowed the tension to drain from him. As he stood up straight, he pulled his blade back out, then brought back his left hand. He closed his melted fingers tight. He’d stuck his hand into the flames of his own volition. The heat of his flesh burning had returned him to his senses. His blade hadn’t cut very deeply into the door.

“You’re crazy,” his left hand told him. D’s fingers were already back to normal. “We really escaped by a hair’s breadth that time. The cut may be shallow, but I can’t believe you managed even that much. You truly are
his
own—”

“What’s that?”

D, why do you have to ask that in a way that makes the blood run cold in all who hear your query?

His left hand fell silent.

D’s eyes turned to the far end of the moving sidewalk. A second sidewalk ran in the opposite direction, parallel to the first. Far down it, a number of figures appeared. All were on their knees or leaning on what appeared to be spears, having the air of the wounded about them. In fact, the men actually were covered in blood, and their breathing was faint. They were soldiers of the same Sacred Protector Knights D had fought. But they weren’t just returning from a battle with him—those who’d turned a blade against D were left worse than wounded.

Suddenly the soldiers turned around. Letting out cries of fear, they leveled their weapons.

A tall figure was coming down the moving sidewalk with long strides. It was one of the faceless, four-armed creatures. One of its right hands held some sort of pistol, and one of the left ones a sword. Apparently it’d lost its long spear and crossbow in the course of the battle.

One of the soldiers got up and hurled the sword he held. His foe’s left hand shot out, and the weapon was deflected with a sound of unearthly beauty, piercing the heart of the soldier who’d thrown it. The remaining soldiers didn’t choose to flee. Taking weapons in hand, they charged their enemy en masse. A split second before they did, one at the very back of the group turned in D’s direction. Their eyes met. It was only for a moment. The soldier then followed the others.

Sparks sprayed from the faceless one’s sword, and the weapon that resembled a pistol sent a succession of green rays flying. The soldiers the ray struck in the chest glowed with the same hue, dissolved into a mere outline, and abruptly vanished. Only the last one remained.