Vampire Hunter D Volume 18- Fortress of the Elder God Page 6
Once her trembling had subsided, Maria looked at their savior. The Hunter who’d driven away that unknown thing with his air of murderous intent alone was visible as no more than a black shadow behind the wall of milky whiteness.
After another hour passed, this time without incident, the fog abruptly cleared. The raft had started moving to the right, toward an enormous stone quay. Bringing the raft to a stop next to one of several rocky protrusions that looked like jetties, D announced with a coolness and brevity befitting the young man, “Land.”
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III
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More than desolation, it was an air of death that lay thick around the group. Aside from D, all of them seemed on edge, with the stagnant air and bits of rock falling here and there only making it worse. Devastation robbed one of energy, but death filled one with terror. Though they were sealed away in this stone fortress, it was filled with a grayish light that frightened the group.
“What’s going on here?” Jan asked D after they’d gone up the rock wall and he’d checked his footing several times. “Since we came here, the fortress has gone back into operation. I thought you said the Sacred Ancestor’s army trashed this place?”
“This is powered by another source.”
“What?”
D led the group to a fifteen-foot-wide entrance in the rock wall. The members of his party could only stare at the gigantic iron gate that towered over them. Its rusted surface was studded with hobnails the size of a child’s head. It stood more than thirty feet tall.
“It’s like a door for a giant,” the transport officer groaned.
When D stepped up to the gate, it opened down the middle without a sound. The group advanced into a room that was the size of a small castle courtyard.
“What’s the story here? There are no windows or doors! And that ain’t all. There’s a God-awful smell,” Jan said, his nose twitching.
Maria added, “I wonder if someone or something wandered in here since the place was wiped out.”
“Nobody’s been in here for five thousand years.”
Maria looked at D in surprise. The voice had come from his direction, sure enough. But why had it sounded so hoarse? At any rate, the voice’s words erased any other questions about it.
“Five thousand years? And this smell hasn’t faded in all that time?”
D raised his right hand. But not by way of a reply.
The gate through which they’d entered had slowly begun to shut. Though both Bierce and Weizmann trained looks of concern on D, he didn’t so much as arch an eyebrow of his inhumanly handsome visage. For about five seconds after the gate closed, no one said a word. They were waiting for D’s reaction.
He didn’t move a muscle, but the gates opened again. Seeing the scene beyond them, the group cried out. It wasn’t the quay, but rather a hall at the end of a seemingly endless corridor. The chamber they’d entered had been an elevator.
There wasn’t time to be surprised by this as D stepped out into the corridor. He went over to one of the iron doors in the stone wall, and it opened perfectly naturally.
As if coaxed along by D’s relaxed stride, the rest of the group entered. Maria cried out for joy. The stone room was ten times brighter than the last, and at a glance the woman recognized the medical equipment assembled there.
“This was a treatment center for their human servants. Unfortunately the machines have all been destroyed, but there may be some medicine left. The beds are next door. All of you need to wait here.”
“What do you mean, wait here?” Jan asked. “Until your job’s done? Or until whatever monsters are chasing us show up? How do we know it’s safe in here?”
D went over to a white desk to his left and held his left hand out over the black sphere that sat on it. A diagram appeared on the wall.
“Here’s a map of the fortress. It should be safe enough to look for food. But once the sun goes down, you’re not to set foot out of this room.”
“Just a second there!”
“This facility is equipped with devices to protect the humans receiving treatment here. Relax.”
“Protect them from what?” Weizmann asked.
“From their god,” D replied, heading for the door. The people assembled behind him were no longer his concern. Now it was time to be a Vampire Hunter.
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After putting her three charges into bed in the neighboring room, Maria returned to the treatment center.
“How’s it look?” Jan asked.
“All three of them are showing early symptoms of pneumonia. All we can do is keep them warm, get some nutrients into them, and get them into a hospital later.”
“As far as food goes, the delivery boy and Bierce went off to look for some. But this sure is a hell of a mess we’re in. Right about now, I was supposed to be in a hotel in the Capital snoring my brains out. Instead, I’m stuck in this mystery shit hole watching over a suckling. Makes me wonder whether there’s really a god.”
I believe there is.
“Huh?” Jan said, glancing at Maria, but she looked just as puzzled as he did.
Could it be? he wondered.
God is all around you.
That’s it, he thought. It’s the same voice that spoke to me on the raft.
It continued, saying, Is this the situation you want to be in? I don’t see how it could be. Do you know why this has happened to you? Because you’re a mobster with nothing but strength to your credit. And the others—that woman, the old people, even the child—all look down on you.
Who are you? he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t say the words. Dazedly, yet in a way that Maria wouldn’t notice, he listened to the voice. And its next words were to strike him hard and burn themselves into his heart.
God can change people. Make you something greater, stronger, more deserving of fear.
Bullshit! he meant to sneer, but the word never came out. It was a terribly attractive offer.
If you want to become all those things, slip out of this room tonight and come to me. I’ll give you my location when the time comes.
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“Dear . . . can you hear me?” Mr. Stow heard his wife say to him from the next bed, but he ignored her. He was chilled to the bone and exhausted. What’s more, he was sick and tired of listening to the old woman’s disconsolate tone. He decided to just keep breathing steadily.
“You’re asleep, then. Good.”
He was relieved to hear the resignation in her voice, but then she continued.
“I’m sure you probably know this already, but even if we go to Pare’s, he won’t be happy to see us. Yes, it’s just as you said. To our children, you and I are nothing more than the wrinkly old people who raised them. They have no special feelings for us at all. Pare told me something a long time ago, right before he left home. He said it was natural for parents to bring up a child. And while it wasn’t strange for children to see their parents, it was natural for the parents to die alone instead of putting a burden on their children.”
Beneath his blanket, Mr. Stow’s blood ran cold, but his ears caught the old woman’s voice, ringing out doleful and sweet.
“When he said that, I just resigned myself to it. When the children left home, our job was done. But you don’t see it that way. You always said we did this or that for those children, so they should do the same for us without giving us any argument. Our children all knew it. And Pare came out and said it. When he left, he said he hated you. Said they never asked you to give up your life for them. So they didn’t want you or me interfering in their lives, either.”
The old man’s body trembled. The nerve of that boy! And the nerve of his wife, repeating these things! He knew all too well that his children didn’t welcome them. He understood things hadn’t gone well between them for a long time. But to say this to him now, in this of all places, even if she thought he was sleeping—
You’re right.
It wasn’t his wife that said this. The voice that reverbera
ted in his head was much deeper and stronger than that of the woman who’d shared his toil for exactly fifty years. The old man couldn’t ask who it was. But he knew whom the voice belonged to.
Your dissatisfaction is natural. What terrible sons you have. Do they think you shouted at them and beat them because you wanted to? A farmer’s lot is hard. At times, he can get in a foul mood. At times, he might also want to lose himself in drink. Everyone gets drunk and knocks their wife and children around. And taking a hot poker to a child who doesn’t do what he’s told or locking him outside in winter with no supper are both part of establishing discipline. Everything you did was justified. If they can’t see that, that’s their problem. You know, I believe those ingrates need to be punished. Very, very severely. But first, you’ll need to be stronger.
The old man no longer asked who it was. It’d already said. Naturally, his wife didn’t seem to have heard it.
“How will I get stronger? How can I have my vengeance—I mean, how can I punish the ingrates?”
Tonight, wait until everyone is fast asleep, and then go outside. You can leave the rest to me.
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For the boy, having this high fever was actually rather pleasant. He was able to stay in bed. It’d been years since he’d been able to just lie around like this. At the monastery, he hadn’t been allowed to miss work, no matter how high a fever he had. It was on account of that rule that Eurina had died spitting blood, and Pol had fallen and never gotten up again, dead before anyone knew it. For breakfast they’d had cold soup and a piece of bread, one of only two meals a day. Forced to labor in the fields for twelve hours straight, children didn’t last long. Just catching a cold was enough to have them dropping like flies. A few winters ago, ten of them had fallen at the same time, making the garden seem like a quiet battlefield.
Still, the other kids had it better. They at least had friends. The boy had had some too, in the beginning, but once they noticed his habit, they steered clear of him. As if staying away from him protected them from anything. The silent treatment the other children gave him left the boy essentially bereft of hope. His parents, sister, and brother had abandoned him for the same reason. The boy could remember quite clearly waking up one morning to find his house empty and seeming strangely bigger. He’d been sad. There was no reason he wouldn’t feel that way.
His family, the children at the monastery, and everyone else had taken a liking to him at first. He never sensed any anger from them at the start. But that always changed. At some point, the boy got in the habit of living with his head hung low. He knew why everyone turned their backs on him, yet it wounded him deeply. The only reason he felt somewhat at peace was because the old woman in the bed and the other woman—sketchy, but nice—had been kind to him. But even they would eventually—
That’s right. Once they truly know you, none of them will have anything to do with you. This fleeting kindness means nothing. You’re just a little different. The truth is, if they just keep their distance there won’t be a problem, and it’s not as if it happens every day. Yet they alienated you. Pushed you away. Left you all alone. They didn’t try to understand your pain. They didn’t care what happened to you. Grieve no more. What you need is anger. Anger to lay them low, to strike them dead.
“It’s no use,” the boy said, curling up in a ball. “I can’t do that. If I could, I would’ve got angry a long time ago.”
I’ll make it so you can, the voice said gently. Toto got the feeling that it sounded like someone he’d played with a long time ago.
“Really?” the boy asked with all his heart.
THE WHISPERER
CHAPTER 4
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I
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The second the Hunter passed through the enormous gate, the world began to change. The walls, floor, ceiling, and pillars that’d had straight lines and right angles until that point rippled like a heat shimmer, losing all proper geometry. Even the sunlight began to shine from impossible angles, casting shadows in impossible places.
“A force field’s creating a distortion,” the Hunter’s left hand said, sounding repulsed. “Those old-time Nobles sure did believe in a strange god. They’d have been better off believing in just the Sacred Ancestor. Oh, what’s this?”
Up ahead, the floor rippled like waves and twisted, and where it swapped places with the ceiling, they could see the back of a figure in black.
“That’s you, D! Interesting. So, space has been distorted too? Right now, if you were to throw a stake, it’d probably go right through your own back.”
D remained silent, seemingly taking in what remnants of battle were still left around him. Pillars were smashed, a huge hole had been blasted in the floor, and part of the ceiling was melted. The Sacred Ancestor’s army had pushed in this far.
Presently there appeared ahead of them a cyclopean doorway that could only be described as a parallelogram on the verge of collapse. Ten yards from it, D halted. The doors were two panels of lustrous black metal. In front of the entrance—hinged to open down the middle—lay fragments of bizarre sculptures that had apparently been decorations for the doorway. The utter indifference of the unblemished doors became an overwhelming force thanks to their sixty-foot height and thirty-foot width. No weapons the Sacred Ancestor’s forces possessed were any use beyond this portal—not even a dimensional cannon could obliterate the doors.
“All alone, the Sacred Ancestor opened these doors and went inside. And returned a year later. They say he never did tell anyone what happened in that time.”
The surface of the Hunter’s left hand rippled and shook, the muscles quaked, and a tiny human face took shape.
“The Nobility succeeded in calling forth gods. That much is certain. When they first attacked this place, the Sacred Ancestor’s army had thirty thousand men—but they were wiped out in a day. By nothing short of the power of a god. It’s said the only one to escape was the Ultimate Noble, Grand Duke Valcua. If left to its own devices, their god surely would’ve conquered the world. But it wasn’t perfect. The day the Sacred Ancestor himself took the field, it allowed him to make it this far, then squared off with him. Just thinking about what kind of battle took place behind those doors gives me goose bumps. After the contest, they say the Sacred Ancestor went to sleep for a hundred years. Apparently it took quite a toll on him.”
“He screwed up,” D said.
“Too true,” the left hand confessed. “And that’s why you’re out here. But no matter how you look at it, you shouldn’t have taken this job. Look at my goose bumps! I bet even the Sacred Ancestor got them. The question is, can we even get these doors open?”
If you’d asked a hundred people this, all one hundred replies would’ve been in the negative.
The door trembled and twisted without a moment’s rest, and even when D stepped forward and put his left hand to it, it still didn’t take its normal shape. After applying a little force, D quickly pulled his hand back.
“Damn,” the face in it groaned. “Why, the power you put into it heads off in a different direction—or rather, it just spirals off! At this rate, that door could be made of tissue paper and you still couldn’t get it open.”
The voice flowed. Once D’s left hand had entered his coat pocket, the sound of something being chewed could be heard. When he pulled his hand out again, it had a little mouth in it. Black dirt tumbled from its lips as it chomped away.
“Been a while since I did that,” the hoarse voice stated with pleasure.
D put his left forefinger against his right wrist and pulled it lightly. A fine vermilion line immediately appeared, and D put the palm of his left hand beneath the blood that spilled out. The bright blood flowed into the tiny mouth. The mouth coughed, and then D took his left hand away and stroked the wound. The bleeding ceased. And the wound began to fade.
When he raised the hand high, the mouth let out a belch. With a great roar the wind whirled around—it was being sucked into the mouth with terrific force. Pal
e blue flames burned in the depths of its maw. Earth, wind, fire, and water had been assembled.
Once again the black-gloved hand touched the surface of the iron door. The Hunter didn’t seem to put any particular force behind it. He remained that way for five seconds. Then ten.
Look. Both halves of the door swung in ever so slightly with a creak. The crack where the iron doors met became a fine line of light, its thickness grew, and from beyond it blew a mysterious black wind. Was there nothing concerning the Nobility that this young man couldn’t handle? The iron doors that were supposed to disperse all force applied to them now seemed ready to yield.
It was then that the change happened. In the stone wall to either side of the iron doors was a three-foot-deep niche, fifteen feet long, and each of them housed three monklike statues in hooded robes, though the ones to the right of the doorway had their heads lying down at their feet, while the three to the left remained intact.
The latter trio had begun to move. Letting out the kinds of grotesque screams that were inconceivable from any human throat, they writhed on the floor. They were the movements of stone; there was no mistaking that. However, little by little, they were becoming more human. Even the colors of their robes became evident. Dark blue, yellow, and gray.
“The six guardian knights,” the hoarse voice said. “Three of them were beheaded by the Sacred Ancestor. But supposedly the other three were turned to stone. And they say those three were the only ones that managed to wound the Sacred Ancestor. So, the legends are true? People turned to stone, stone changing into human beings . . . D,
you have to take care of these clowns first.”
D turned. He knew that what his left hand said was true.
The robed figures charged toward him like the wind. The Hunter’s right hand went for his weapon’s hilt. A silvery gleam shot toward the neck of the one in front of him. It could even cleave rock.
“Oh!”
The cry of astonishment was overlaid with a metallic sound. One of those who’d just finished turning into a human being—the one in the yellow robe—had parried the blow—a blow from D’s sword! An instant later, a blade whizzed toward D. The parry had become an attack. Sparks shot out twice—and the two combatants switched places. The robed figure reeled, clutching his belly as he twisted around. Not taking another strike at him, D flew through the air. A blow mowed through the position he’d occupied, then headed for where he landed. It was from the figure to the rear—the foe in dark blue.