While they were fighting Callas, they must have gone quite a distance. Three armored transport vehicles passed the two of them less than a minute later, and then stopped. The morning light glinted off the bodies of the vehicles.
The Dyalhis children were frozen in place, waiting for someone to climb out.
“These wagons belong to that survey party,” Sue said, finding the answer after tracing back through her memories.
The dinged bodies of the vehicles were motionless in the stark light. Not a trace of movement could be detected within them.
“That’s odd,” the girl said.
They looked at each other, and Matt immediately said, “Let’s go inside.”
He went over to a door.
“Don’t, Matt. There’s something funny about this. No one’s up in the driver’s seats. Stopping like this in the morning sun just ain’t right.”
Grinning, Matthew said, “Then they’re just like the count’s car. So there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Already used to riding in one strange conveyance, the young man might’ve guessed these were similar.
Swiftly climbing up to the higher vantage point of the driver’s seat, he peeked in and said, “They’re not in there.”
He then went over to the vehicle’s entrance. Reaching for the knob, he gave it a twist.
“It’s locked from the inside, so there’s no way to get it open. Hey!”
Sue turned around.
About sixty feet away, the unsightly form of a guardroid was gliding toward them.
Apparently the boy harbored no ill will over being shot through the nose, because he smacked the palm of his hand against the vehicle and told the android, “Okay, do something about this door.”
Matthew really couldn’t guess just how far the count’s androids would obey their commands.
Suddenly, a crimson beam of light penetrated the doorknob. In less than a second, the brief glow had faded.
“Now that’s more like it,” Matthew remarked, smirking as he reached for the knob.
“Ow, that’s hot!” he exclaimed, pulling his hand back.
In the end, the task fell to the android. The fingers of its metal-alloy arm reached skillfully through the still-red-hot hole and pulled it open.
“Step aside already!” Matthew ordered, but as he peered into the vehicle, he grew tense.
“Matt?”
Seemingly nudged ahead by Sue’s voice, he climbed the steps into the vehicle.
Reading something that resembled delight in him from behind, Sue was terrified. And yet, she also couldn’t help wanting to take a peek herself.
“Excuse me,” she said to the android, moving in front of it from one side as she went for the steps. Suddenly her body trembled. An ineffable chill had come over her. It was the same sensation she’d had when they first met Count Braujou and Duchess Miranda.
It can’t be! Sue thought, intending to back off the steps. But her feet kept climbing the stairs.
The walls to either side were strung with hammocks, and aside from a narrow space that served as a path, the floor was covered with sleeping bags. She saw all this by the light coming in through the door. The windows had been painted black.
The room was already dark. Had they wanted to make it even darker?
She recognized the faces of the men that poked from the sleeping bags. They now looked slightly different. Their complexions were waxy, with strangely red lips, and from them jutted pairs of lengthy fangs.
“How in the hell... I mean, what. ..”
As the girl murmured this, her foot brushed one of the sleeping bags on the floor. It held the one they’d called Kenny, if memory served. His lids snapped open. The eyes beneath them blazed vermilion.
Gnashing his fangs, Kenny groused, “Don’t go waking me up when I’m trying to sleep!”
CHAPTER 2
I
He’d already slain three opponents: a parasitic organism that came back with tougher armor every time it was cut down, a hallucination beast that cast an illusory corridor leading straight into its maw, and a flesh-eating virus that tried to enter the Hunter’s DNA and devour him on a genetic level. Each and every one of them had fallen before D.
“I suppose that’s the last of them,” the hoarse voice said, sounding rather tired of the whole affair. Its nerves must have been made of stern stuff, because the tiny mouth on the hand’s palm yawned. “We’re finally coming to the exit, but there’s one thing bugging me.” Though its beady eyes looked up at D thoughtfully, the Hunter ignored them as he advanced coolly.
Spitting a remark of disgust so that D wouldn’t hear it, the left hand continued somewhat obstinately, “You know, everything you’ve slain up until now has sent out a kind of message just as it gave up the ghost. Assuming it was about you, it’d have to be about your strength—in other words, they threw themselves at you just so they could tell Valcua what kind of skill you’ve got.”
As D continued to disregard it, his left hand finally started to sulk, snorting, “Hmph!” before falling silent.
“Powering himself up, is he?” D remarked.
“Don’t try buddying up to me now,” the hand replied, still in a perfectly foul mood.
“After the way he fought earlier, I could still beat him,” D said, baiting the trap.
“Ha! Are you soft in the head?” his left hand sneered, springing back to life. “He’s the freaking Ultimate Noble! There’s no way of knowing if even you could take him. Plus, if I’m reading this right—
“No rest for the wicked, eh?”
“Damned straight. He’s got that magic sword, and if he’s as good with it as you are with a blade, he’ll murder you. Worse yet, if he’s gotten even more power, you don’t stand a chance. We’d better get out of this labyrinth quick and find where Valcua’s hiding himself. Before it’s too late.”
D turned the corner. A glow enveloped the figure in black.
“It’s dawn, is it?” the left hand asked, seemingly blinded by the light. “Well, time to go find Valcua.”
D looked around. He was in a bizarre and spacious chamber. In it were arrangements of stone slabs that were triangular, rectangular, and other strange shapes.
“Looks like that won’t be necessary,” said the Hunter.
“What?”
D was gazing ahead to the left. A figure in a golden robe stood without moving. In his right hand, Glencalibur glowed with a disturbing sheen.
There was no need to say another word. D glided closer without making a sound. Valcua raised his longsword to strike.
“Watch yourself-—from that stance, it looks like he aims to finish this with one shot!”
The hoarse voice sailed through the air. The blow would come down on the motionless Valcua from directly overhead.
D slashed through space. Though Valcua remained motionless, he wavered like a heat shimmer. Just as D touched back down, he made a leap back.
“Damn!” the left hand groaned. It realized that if Valcua had swung
his blade down at that point, they couldn’t have dodged it. Even if the Hunter had parried it, his sword probably would’ve snapped. “Fall back—this clown’s gotten stronger!”
This only seemed to give D more impetus as he charged forward. From a mighty thrust the blade scraped the ground, rising to strike at the right side of his opponent’s neck—and while each blow was on the mark, Valcua moved like a ghost to parry them all. It was unbelievable footwork and twisting.
Likewise dodging a horizontal slash to the right, D slammed on the brakes. As the Hunter tried to right his slumping pose, Valcua came right at him.
“Don’t!”
The cry rang out in response to the thrust made a moment later at Valcua, who seemed to be inviting it. The fully extended sword robbed D of his stability. The Hunter was left in no position to dodge or parry when Glencalibur was finally brought down on the nape of his neck.
“Outstanding!” Kima declared from behind him.
> Valcua didn’t respond, his shoulders heaving as he struggled to take a single deep breath. If he didn’t do something, it felt like his heart would explode—yet nothing happened.
“That’s the strength of D when he reached the end of the labyrinth. And you were able to just stand there and dispatch him with a single blow. The only way to describe that is remarkable.”
Raising Glencalibur, Valcua returned it to its sheath. Doing even this made his arm feel like it was about to fall off.
What an opponent that young man in black was! Though Kima spoke of dispatching him with a single blow, if the two of them had crossed blades one more time, it was probably the Ultimate Noble’s head that would’ve left its shoulders. What’s more—
“He has yet to face his final opponent. His true strength remains unknown. Do you think he could beat me the way I am now, Kima?”
“That all depends on you, milord.”
“The Ultimate Noble has pushed his body to the limits,” Valcua said, digging his fingernails into his own chest. He coughed, and bright blood splashed around his feet. That was what it meant to be strengthened.
Wiping his lips with his fist, Valcua whipped around.
“Beyond a doubt, the power this Hunter possesses comes from him. Which would mean that he and I are—ah, that’s where things get interesting.”
Halting there, he stared at the figure in the red robe and said, “If necessary, I’ll split your head open and search your brain. However, at the moment I have something else to amuse me. Look at what has become of Valcua, even if it is at my own request. I don’t suppose the Sacred Ancestor will punish me for having a little fun with this.”
Once Valcua had gone, Kima was left alone with an expression on his face that defied description as he murmured, “I believe that if all of this were to be erased from the very start, it would be best for both of them—my present lord and my former lord. Let the price of my life be payment for overstepping my bounds.”
D was silent. If he hadn’t already said he knew this was the way to the exit, anyone traveling with him would have been nervous.
It was unclear how much time had elapsed, but further down the passageway a golden coffin came into view.
“Interesting—maybe this is the last assassin?” the left hand whispered.
When he was ten feet shy of the coffin, D halted.
Hey! This is . . .” the hoarse voice exclaimed, its fear evident. “It’s his aura. A fitting final obstacle for this labyrinth. But that sure is one hell of a plan to come up with. Leave it to good old Daedalus!”
That was the legendary craftsman who had constructed King Minos’s labyrinth. He also built a flying machine using feathers, but when his son Icarus used it, the boy flew too close to the sun and plummeted to his death when the wax holding the feathers melted.
The lid of the coffin opened slowly. Once it’d finished, a shadowy figure sat up. Under the circumstances, that was hardly strange. However, the mere act of sitting up sent out a howling air that was terribly weird and unholy.
“Oh, crap!” the left hand cried, pulling its features back in.
“D!” the figure said, and now he stood beside the coffin. It was unclear what he looked like or what he was wearing. He was just a black shadow. However, even if D’s vision didn’t serve, his other superhuman senses perceived the figure towering before him like a mountain.
“It’s been so long since we last met. Perhaps we just needed a suitable place?”
D kicked off the ground. As he swung his sword down, it was like a gale-force wind, but the figure was now standing behind D, swaying.
II
Not even turning around, D made a backward thrust by his left side.
Though he was stabbed, the figure didn’t fall.
Pulling his blade back, D turned to face his opponent.
“So, is this your land?” he asked.
“The ruler’s name is Valcua.”
“I hear you banished him into space, but let him bring this kingdom with him. The same kingdom that bears your mark a little too plainly. Who is he?”
The shadowy figure shook violently—perhaps this showed the turbulence of his mind. A pale hand reached out from the shadow’s chest—his right hand. The great ring on his little finger gave off gleams of gold. The back of his hand had a single tuft of black hair, which lent a touch of ferocity to his aristocratic elegance. From the third joint up his forefinger moved, beckoning the Hunter.
Suddenly, D was beyond the earth’s atmosphere. His remaining oxygen swelled his lungs to the point of bursting, and his blood boiled.
“Can you make the cut?” the left hand inquired in a voice he shouldn’t have been able to hear. “Valcua did it. We’ve got no earth, water, fire, or air. But this might be your best chance. Even without a Glencalibur, you of all people could probably do it.”
It was unclear what D thought of that inaudible voice, but he raised his blade. Watching over him was nothing save the pitch-black void of space and the stars of the Milky Way a thousand light-years distant.
D’s eyes were ablaze, burning with the color of blood. Not saying a word, D swung his right arm. Simultaneously, his lungs exploded.
The last scrap of the sun stained the distant plain a deep red as it sank, and when it was gone, Matthew’s lips twisted into a grin. Valcua’s will still remained in his brain, and it was telling him what he should do next. It wanted him to take command of all the members of the survey party, and it must’ve had some way of making that possible. The destruction of the guardroids and all information pertaining to the survey party had been hidden from Braujou. The computer was fed data that suggested Sue had gone out on an ordinary walk.
Before Braujou awakened, the boy was to go outside and use Valcua’s will to bully the survey-party members into servitude. He had no instructions beyond that.
Getting out of the vehicle was easy. Everything was controlled by the computer, and as long as the computer was fooled, they could do whatever they wished—this was undoubtedly the doing of Valcua’s will. All the boy had to do was reach for the doorknob, and it simply unlocked. The reason he’d had Sue ask Braujou for permission to go outside during the day was because they wanted things to appear as normal as possible.
Today, he’d made a lot of progress in brainwashing Sue. The day when his foolish younger sister would become a vassal of Grand Duke Valcua couldn’t be far off.
Taking care to muffle the sound of his footsteps, Matthew ran toward the survey party and opened the door to the same vehicle they’d entered before. He was greeted by glowing red eyes and hungry fangs.
“It’s a human being.”
“A human!”
Their voices, now nearly those of beasts, crept through the darkness that held sway over the vehicle’s interior.
“Don’t get worked up, now! ” the boy said, sounding worked up himself. He’d noticed that the group was looking at him as nothing but prey.
The men stopped. Already clinging to the walls and ceiling, their pale hands reached out for Matthew from above and below.
“I’ve received instructions from Grand Duke Valcua. I have a matter to discuss with you,” said the boy.
“What kind of... matter?” one of the fiends asked as they looked at each other.
“From this day forward, all of you will become servants of Grand Duke Valcua.”
“Oh—and who the hell is that?” another one asked.
Matthew became furious. “You bastards have become creatures of the night and you don’t even know the grand duke’s name? What idiots! I’ll have to punish you immediately for your insolence.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” one of them laughed loudly. “Ha, ha, ha ... Oh, ho, ho, ho!”
Suddenly his voice and its laugh became that of a woman. Matthew was stunned—not by the strangeness of this, but by the fact that it sounded familiar.
“But—but you’re .. .”
“How pathetic are the creatures known as humans.”
From behind the pale-faced men, a Noblewoman in a white dress suddenly took shape.
“How foolish of you to forget me or my name—but before I punish you for that, you would do well to remember me. I am Duchess Miranda.” Walking easily through the cramped vehicle toward the speechless Matthew, the lovely Noblewoman added with a haughty laugh, “And these men are my servants, one and all. I won’t allow them to be commandeered.”
A pale hand reached out.
Perhaps it was due to Valcua’s will that Matthew was able to jump through the door. Nearly tripping over his own feet, he backed away five or six steps before bumping into a thick tree trunk and stopping.
The pale Noblewoman and her men alighted from the vehicle. Red embers glowed in the darkness.
“Where are you going? Didn’t you come here to scout my underlings?” Miranda called out to the boy.
“Quite an interesting discussion you’re having,” said a voice that called to mind a lion’s roar, raining down on Matthew from the tree above him. The voice resembled Count Braujou’s.
Just as the boy was about to bound away, he was snagged by the collar and hoisted high into the air, giving him a panoramic view of the wasteland.
“I have only one thing to say to you,” Count Braujou informed Matthew in a tone that crushed down through the night as the boy dangled from the Nobleman’s hand. “I’ve been following every move you’ve made. I also know that Valcua’s brain is inside yours. The only reason I gave you free rein was to learn what you were plotting. I was going to let you run a bit more, but unfortunately the situation no longer allows that. I may have to get rough, but I shall show you things through something other than Valcua’s eyes. Miranda, would you be so good as to overlook the commandeering incident?”
“I suppose I can, given our relationship.” When she spoke, Miranda smiled in such a manner it was plain she was hiding something. “In return, will you entrust me with the task of correcting the boy?”
For a second, hints of surprise and displeasure skimmed across that gigantic face, but they immediately gave way to a tremendous smile as the count replied, “I suspect you may prove a tad harsh, but they say the best medicine tastes the worst. I shall leave it to you.”
Tyrant's Stars: Parts Three and Four Page 16