“It opened up . . . just as I thought. Well, here I go.”
“But you—” That was all Sue managed before she fell silent. She couldn’t think of what to say next.
Skillfully manipulating its fingers, the left hand leaped outside, and as soon as it did, the door shut.
The car had stopped in the midst of dark earth dotted with cobblestones. Ruins lay up ahead. Marble columns, collections of stones that had formed the foundations of buildings, and sculptures stretched out under the blue sky. Judging from how discolored and weathered they were, they had to be quite old—probably thousands of years.
“Why, this is—” the left hand began to say, its tone one of both astonishment and amusement. Apparently it knew what this place had been. “Hmm, it looks like we’ve come to a nasty little spot. We’d better get out of here quick.”
Turning toward the door, the left hand said, “Open up.”
But it didn’t open. It seemed the hand had been lured out. “Show yourself,” it called out.
“I’m right here,” someone answered immediately from behind the hand. A figure in a long crimson robe stood there.
“Are you the eighth assassin?” the left hand asked.
“Indeed I am. But I’m not your foe. At least, I have no intention of fighting. If you were to force the issue, I suppose you could call me a sort of rear support unit.” “Did you bring us out here?”
“Oh, my! I should’ve expected as much from you. Do you know what this place is?”
“The Nobles’ treatment center. Asclepion,” the left hand said. “It specialized in mental health. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long.”
“It didn’t last,” the crimson figure replied. His words seemed to surprise the left hand. “This was a forbidden area. Not too long ago,
I dug up the pillars and stone walls and put them back in place.” “Oh, now that’s something. If there were another of me around, I’d give you a round of applause. Was it also you who took control of our machine?”
The figure’s long robe quaked. He was laughing.
The left hand continued, “Since you did that to bring us all the way out here, I take it you’re not gonna quibble about whether you’re rear support or not. So, are you gonna set things back to normal—or die?”
“By the likes of your group?” the robed figure said, lifting his left arm as if combing through the wind. His hand was badly wrinkled, like that of a mummy. “This was once a cleansing site. The breeze sang, clear water flowed, and the place teemed with life. Best of all, the essence of the Sacred Ancestor lingered here. That was what made the treatments possible.” His hand fell limply. “But time moves on, and at some point the birds stopped singing, and the breeze no longer sighed. The force of life became one of death, and even the essence of the Sacred Ancestor was completely sublimated. Do you know what caused that?”
“That would be Valcua’s life force.”
The robed figure stiffened, as if caught off guard. “You knew? What are you—and what is D?”
“I heard the Ultimate Noble was every bit as ambitious as you’d expect from someone with a name like that, to the point where he tried to destroy all the holy spots the Sacred Ancestor had left around the world. But he was gambling with his life against someone bigger than he could handle. That’s what finally led to his being exiled from the planet. And wherever Valcua’s life force clashed with the essence of the Sacred Ancestor, nothing was left but devastation and ruins. After Valcua was exiled, the biggest job the Nobility had was completely destroying those ruins. It’s said the reason they relinquished rule to the human race was because that task had left them so exhausted.”
“Left hand, you’ve said too much!” the robed figure sneered. “Look! Sensing your presence, the former patients have gathered. You may play with them at your leisure.”
The left hand tensed. Among the bright and sunny ruins, pale figures stood staring.
At the same time, the car’s engine grumbled. The vehicle slowly advanced into the ruins.
“Hey, stop that! Stop already, would you!” the left hand shouted, but it was no use.
“I don’t care for conflict. I’ll leave the rest to the patients. Good luck!” Not even bothering to turn to where the robed figure vanished into thin air, the left hand clung to the outside of the vehicle, ordering it to halt. This accomplished nothing, and the vehicle proceeded to the center of the ruins.
“You leave me no choice,” the left hand said, hopping down from the car. At the same time it landed, it clutched a handful of dirt, which swiftly vanished into its palm.
“Gaaaaah!” Unleashing what could only be described as a groan, it spat the soil out again. “What’s the story with this dirt? It’s been contaminated through and through on a spiritual level. I drank some water in the car. All that leaves. . .”
A tiny mouth opened in the palm of the hand, and the wind whistled as it was sucked in. But it whistled back out again, carrying a cry of pain.
“Even the wind’s gone bad. There’s a serious curse on this place. Now that it’s come to this...”
Taking a pebble from the side of the road, the left hand swallowed it. After it had consumed a dozen more, there was a sound from the door of the car. When it looked in that direction and found Sue standing in the doorway, it shouted, “Don’t come out here!”
However, sparks erupted behind Sue, and the girl dove out of the car reflexively. The door closed.
“Run for it!”
In response to the left hand’s shouting Sue looked around, and then tried to run in the direction the car had come from.
Pale figures were gliding closer.
Fffuuuttt! With a hard spitting sound, a pebble shot from the left hand’s mouth. It went through the body of one pale figure, leaving a small hole. The shadowy figure turned and looked. It had no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Yet it laughed mockingly.
Physical attacks had no effect on the ghost of a Noble. However, as they were about to descend on the paralyzed Sue once more, the figures grew tense. Craning their necks, they looked at the hole in the ghost’s chest. It had spread twice as wide ... and still continued to grow.
Ignoring the ghost that was seized by spasms as the hole swallowed it up, the left hand unleashed another volley of pebbles, eliminating eight of the beings in total. However, foes were closing from all sides in the broad daylight.
“Hey, over here!” the left hand shouted. Latching onto Sue’s wrist when she ran over, it told her, “Run left. There’s a basement!”
It seemed the Hunter’s left hand was well acquainted with the layout of this facility. Indeed, when the girl had gone about thirty feet, a stairway leading underground appeared. She galloped down the stairs. Then Sue’s breath was taken away.
She saw what looked like an underground lake filled with black water. Stone columns and walkways encircled it.
“What is this?” the girl asked.
“A medical center for treating Nobles with the very worst of mental problems. You see the bronze boats all over the place, right? They’d put the patients in those and let them drift around out on the water.” “But the Nobility—they can’t stand the water!”
“And that’s why it was used in the most serious cases. Do you know what kind of mental disorders Nobles suffer from?”
“They’re not the same ones as human beings?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Oh, go that way. Here they come!”
Instinctively turning to look at the stone staircase, Sue felt dizzy. A number of white figures swayed on the stone steps. Shutting her eyes, she ran.
“This is it—watch out!”
If the left hand hadn’t stopped her, she would’ve fallen off the side of the pathway. First it instructed the girl to get into one of the bronze boats, and then it told her to start paddling. One pull on the oars sent the boat sailing with hardly any effort at all.
“Where are we going?”
“Out to the middle—the center of the ruins.�
��
“What’s out there?” Sue asked.
“Something that might help us. Oh!”
Their pursuers had moved to the end of the same pathway where they’d gotten into the boat. Though the ghostly figures shook as if with hesitation, suddenly they threw themselves into the black water without making a sound. But once in, they didn’t sink. Waist deep in the water, they gave chase.
We'll never get away from them, Sue thought, imagining that her heart was freezing solid. D—help me!
The boat stopped.
“We’re there,” the left hand said. “We got where we were going, but this still isn’t good.”
Sue looked all around them. Her eyelids tensed. There was nothing but black water. And from behind them—no, that wasn’t right. The white figures were on all sides, surrounding them.
“I’m scared. What’s gonna happen?”
“Under the water, the essence of the Sacred Ancestor should still remain. It used to fill this whole underground lake and gush out through those skylights to the surface to heal the psyches of patients all over this institution. Now an evil presence has invaded, but the Sacred Ancestor’s essence lies sleeping beneath the gunk.”
“If we can wake it up, will it save us?”
“I believe so.”
“What should we do?”
“The only way is to stimulate the Sacred Ancestor’s essence with an equally strong presence.”
“Could you do that?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Then what? I don’t wanna die down here!” Sue said, desperation in her eyes as she surveyed her surroundings. She started to tremble. They’d come so close to her.
Something cold touched her back. Sue’s mind started to slip away as she got the feeling she was being pulled. She turned frantically for a look. It was a young man with a pale, dignified visage.
“What a pretty child you are,” he said. “Come to me.”
II
The girl wasn’t aware that she’d moved, but her body had been drawn backward.
This is the end of the road—but the moment she thought this, there was a flash of white in her eyes. Behind her a scream rang out, and suddenly the movement stopped. The young man’s face caved in like the melting man she’d seen in a freak show that had visited her village, and his body was collapsing.
After closing its mouth, which had flames spilling from it, the left hand cried, “Dive in off the bow!”
Not understanding what was going on, the girl went into action. The water was far colder than she’d imagined, chilling her to the bone. She floated. The left hand was floating right in front of her. Seeing how it skillfully clawed at the water with its five fingers, Sue laughed in spite of herself. But this was hardly the time or place for that. She couldn’t even see the water more than ten feet away.
The white shadows that simply stood there staring at Sue must’ve numbered in the thousands. All these men and women had what would be called gorgeous faces—except for the incisors that poked from their lips.
Here they come, Sue thought, shutting her eyes, but there was no sign of the ghosts moving. They merely kept giving her vile and clearly famished looks, while some of them went so far as to gnash their teeth.
“Why aren’t they doing anything?” the girl asked as she treaded water.
“Weak though it may be, the Sacred Ancestor’s essence is here. A little bit of it remains in this area. And they’re afraid of it.”
“But as it stands, we can’t get away from them either.”
“Hmph,” the left hand groaned as part of the ring of ghosts—those to the right of Sue—collapsed. The ghosts became tangled together. To Sue, they looked like white shadows twinned around each other. One figure pulled away from the group. It had been lifted up by several others. It was still writhing as the other shadowy figures hurled it toward Sue.
Sue heard a scream like nothing any living creature on earth could make. The figure who’d landed beside the girl dissolved in the blink of an eye, scattering in the black water. Another one followed. And another. Every time they screamed, seeming to burn with an all-too-human agony as they melted away.
“They’re being sacrificed,” the left hand remarked in amazement. “By doing that, they hope to dissipate the essence so they can attack us.”
“The ring—is it closing?" Sue screamed for all she was worth.
After fifty of their number had been sacrificed, the Sacred Ancestor’s essence had been weakened, and the deadly net was indeed drawing tighter. The white figures no longer dissolved. And then the mob surged forward. Their hands extended, reaching for Sue.
“Help!” Sue cried out loud. D!
The ghosts piled on top of her—and then reeled back, screaming. They were snagged by a light. It zipped through the brow of one after another of the tightly packed figures. And then the ghosts’ faces split down the middle, and they sank into the water with a blue glow.
Sue was at a loss for words. She saw the blade of a sword stretch from the water in front of her. Gradually it rose, and a black-gloved hand appeared. When the arm had emerged up to the elbow, a black traveler’s hat also broke the surface.
“D?” Sue said, feeling the tears spilling from her eyes. She had a lone guardian against thousands of ghosts—but Sue realized she no longer had anything to fear. In fact, the ghosts who’d backed away didn’t show the slightest signs of closing in on her.
“Well, what’ve you been doing all this time?” the left hand asked, snapping its fingers for emphasis.
Naturally, there was no reply.
“I heard you fell into a river. I’m guessing that river must feed into the basement of Asclepion. If my calculations are right, you must’ve been here for a full day. Were you sleeping or something? That couldn’t be. So, what’s down at the bottom?”
Saying nothing, D reached for the left hand with his left arm. The severed limb paddled around neatly, and the two parts were joined.
Suddenly, D’s right hand went into action. It was moving so fast that Sue couldn’t follow, but the white figures falling from overhead hit the water in four spots without causing a ripple. It appeared to be two figures that had been cut into four pieces.
“They’ll keep coming. They need to take the souls of living creatures. And they don’t care whether it’s a Noble, a human, or a dhampir.”
“Dive!” D spoke for the first time after surfacing. Simultaneously, an arm like steel wrapped around Sue’s waist, and the girl barely had enough time to take a deep breath before D dove underwater.
It was only about twelve feet to the bottom. In the expanse of black stone, a pile of gunk sat like a thick concrete plug. Sue felt the powerful current. The river D had fallen into ran right through here. Hearing choking sounds from the hand that was wrapped around her waist, Sue looked down at it in surprise.
“Oh, so that’s it, is it? Down here is the ol’ Sacred Ancestor’s—” Up ahead, something white swayed. The ghosts had pursued them even down there.
Sue clung to D for dear life. So handsome he even seemed to glow underwater, the young man kicked his way through the water straight toward the mound of sludge. Oddly enough, there was no other trash of any kind on the bottom.
Swimming with the grace of a fish, D raised his sword casually. Around him, an army of pale figures pressed closer. Another stark glint filled the water—whether or not it was D’s sword was unclear to Sue. An instant later, D headed back to the surface, and black water dripped from the girl’s face as they surveyed the empty expanse of the subterranean lake.
“The Sacred Ancestor’s essence—so, that’s where it was sealed away?” said the hoarse voice that rose from the vicinity of Sue’s waist—which was still underwater. “The second it was released, the ghosts were healed—not a bad ending.”
“I feel somehow refreshed,” Sue said, a calm look in her eye as she took in her surroundings. “And the lake looks so nice now.”
“The ghosts have moved on,�
� the hoarse voice remarked as D began to swim for shore.
The car was right where they’d left it.
“If that don’t beat all. The old geezer’s never around when we need him,” the Hunter’s left hand spat indignantly. “Hold on. The enemy has control of the car. So it might not be too safe to—”
D had just pressed the palm of his left hand against the door, crushing out the rest of that remark. That was his way of telling the hand to get it unlocked.
There was a slight rasping sound as the door opened.
“Control is back,” the left hand announced.
D headed straight for the count’s bedroom. The huge entry opened to allow him and Sue to enter.
“Oh!” Sue said, the fist she’d brought up to her mouth unable to extinguish her gasp of surprise.
“It’s empty!” the left hand remarked with amusement.
Though the extremely lavish furnishings remained exactly as they had been, the titanic coffin that was, in a manner of speaking, a womb for the count had unexpectedly vanished.
“This is big news. A case of a Noble being abducted—and a major one at that!”
“Did you mention someone named Kima?” D asked, a strange glint in his eye. After emerging from the subterranean lake, Sue and the left hand had filled him in on the situation.
“Yeah. Apparently he travels through space warps. And it looks like he can also move others through them at will. Where the hell did ol’ Braujou get himself hijacked to? This is serious trouble.”
Turning his gaze to the window, D said, “Maybe not.”
“What?”
This time, not only the left hand looked surprised, but Sue did as well.
“We might still be in time. Let’s go.”
Sue shot a glance at the left hand, but it was already headed for the door, along with the rest of D. Did D mean to suggest he knew the whereabouts of the fearsome foe who’d abducted the count, coffin and all? If so, then this gorgeous young man was the one who was really to be feared.
III
It was a very clear day. The sun was bright and hot. About three miles from the car there was an expanse of boulders, and in their center was an especially high pile of stone—at the summit of which rested an enormous coffin. It was over fifteen feet long. Furthermore, there was a figure in a long crimson robe sitting on its lid. Kima.
Tyrant's Stars: Parts Three and Four Page 9