“You can’t slay me without running me through the heart. And my heart is right here,” she said, and as she did, she swung her right arm.
Her heart collided with Valcua’s tiny sphere, disappearing in a terrific burst of white light.
“Braujou, I leave the rest to you!”
And then she tumbled forward in her red dress and moved no more. The instant her heart was gone, her immortal life reached its conclusion.
After watching her meet this unnatural end, Braujou turned a terrible gaze on Matthew. “Am I to defend this wretched human?” he said, spitting the words like so much gore.
The count bit his lips. His teeth tore through them, spilling bright blood.
“As a Noble I shall keep my word. D, I leave the two of them in your care!”
His massive form kicked off the ground.
Matthew, who undoubtedly remained out of his mind, took aim at the count and fired an arrow at the speed of sound.
A silvery flash intercepted the missile in midair, becoming D’s blade as he landed in front of Matthew and struck the boy over the head with the flat of his sword.
As Braujou bounded, his hand raised a longsword with a ten-foot blade. He must’ve had it under his robe. He brought the blade straight down on Valcua’s head, but the second the Ultimate Noble blocked it with his left hand, the weapon vanished. That was the work of the other little ball that floated in front of Valcua’s left hand—another blood sphere.
“So, I’m really no match for him? Well, my blood has a few tricks of its own!”
Braujou did an about-face. Turning his back on the Ultimate Noble, he reached his left hand out toward D.
“Lend me your sword!”
D threw him the same longsword that had laid out Matthew. Catching it, the count used both hands to take it in a reverse grip.
“Valcua, this is from Miranda and me!”
With a shout that shook heaven and earth, the count stabbed the blade into his own body. Its tip went through him and stretched toward Valcua’s heart with calculated precision.
The Ultimate Noble seemed to be waiting for this, moving his blood sphere up to meet it as if it were a force field. The tip of the sword was stained with gore—there was a sound like a pop as the blood sphere vanished, and the deadly blade proceeded right on target to pierce Valcua’s heart, the same blade that had pierced Braujou’s heart and absorbed his blood.
A shout that was nothing shy of a death rattle flew from Valcua’s throat, and then he fell flat on his back. Grabbing the blade with both hands, he tried to extract it. Given the girth of Braujou’s chest and the distance between the two men, the grand duke couldn’t have had more than eight inches of the blade in him. But it didn’t come out. Not only that— “Well, I’ll be! It’s still sinking into him, isn’t it?”
Just as the hoarse voice had indicated, Valcua’s struggles were in vain as D’s sword—covered with Braujou’s blood—slowly but surely sank into the men’s overlapped forms.
His strength perhaps spent, Valcua took his right hand away from the blade and reached up into the air. It snatched at the drifting fog. A second passed, then two—and the hand fell limply.
Sue raced over to D. Before showing any concern for Matthew, she said, “I wonder if he’s dead.”
The first words out of her mouth were what concerned her the most: Valcua.
“Nope,” the left hand said curtly. “He’s still clenching his fist.” When Sue’s eyes finally focused on Valcua’s hand and the bit of white that spilled from it, the Ultimate Noble’s eyes opened and gave off a golden light. The light shot up into the void. Like a magnificent but vain attempt to contact extraterrestrial life, it connected the dark heavens with the earth.
“Take Matthew and go outside,” D told her, pulling out needles of plain wood and hurling them at Valcua’s heart. They struck him, or at least they appeared to for a second, and then they reversed direction and were stopped by the left arm D held up. The five needles stuck in him from the wrist to the elbow, and bright blood coursed out.
When D lowered his arm, he looked over at Valcua. He stood like an angry deity with Braujou’s longsword- skewered corpse at his feet and his face turned up to the void.
In a tone that carried true astonishment, the hoarse voice said, “This clown took the part of the akashic record that shows his death and squashed it in his hand.”
“Precisely,” Valcua responded. His voice was transmitted directly to D’s brain without his lips ever moving. “I’ve acquired telepathy. Do you know how? It was given to me by creatures in another galaxy using a hyperlight communications system faster than a laser. Oh, here comes another one! It seems they simply can’t restrain their desire to make their existence known and share their knowledge and power.”
D ran. The Ultimate Noble was getting powers from extraterrestrial civilizations. He had to be destroyed before he truly became the ultimate form of life!
As the Hunter dashed, his right hand reached down. Getting a grip on the longsword with his fingertips, he made what was literally a do-or-die strike—driving the sword hilt-deep into Valcua’s heart. For a second, the hyperlight communication ceased.
“Ah, the power’s leaving me. So, this is how Glencalibur feels?” Valcua’s magic sword pierced its own master.
“Destroyed,” Valcua said, staggering. “I am destroyed . . . No, I would’ve been destroyed ... once upon a time. D, I’ve received the power of immortality from countless millions of miles away.” Without a sound, Glencalibur flew straight at D. The instant that D got a grip on its hilt to stop it, Valcua slowly opened the eyes he’d had shut. His eyes had no pupils, just a golden glow.
III
“I can manipulate the akashic record as I choose, tapping the knowledge of the universe—I’m more than just a living being now, D,” Valcua said, his voice clear and resounding.
In the depths of the white fog a golden light glowed. The leak from the record was growing stronger.
“What are you, then?” D asked. Valcua’s declaration should’ve been shocking, but neither it nor the mysterious vigor that accompanied it seemed to shake the young man’s psyche in the least.
“What you see before you—call me an entity.”
“Are you trying to say you’re the pinnacle of evolution?” the hoarse voice said, adding in a sneering tone, “Another name for that might be has-been."
Valcua’s eyes stared at the Hunter’s left hand.
“Gaaaaah!” it screamed, its tiny face sinking back into the palm at the same time D made a horizontal swipe with Glencalibur at Valcua’s neck. Though the Hunter felt it make contact, the grand duke didn’t fall. A minor spasm passed through D’s right hand. It was a very bizarre reaction. Searing pain burned in his brain.
As the young man in black fell backward without a word, Valcua said, “Ah, the death throes of one so beautiful are an entertaining sight. However, that’s just proof that I haven’t yet become the Ultimate Noble. The fact that something like beauty can still affect me . ..”
While D was down on one knee mastering his pain, Sue ran over to him, saying, “D—hang on!”
When she turned to look at Valcua, her eyes glistened with tears. “Stop it already! Count Braujou and Ms. Miranda are both gone now, all to protect us. Just quit it. I don’t care what happens to me! Once I go to see my mother, it’ll all be over. Just let him live!” Shrouded in fog, Valcua listened to her admirable plea, coming like a cry from her very soul. He nodded.
“That’s a good attitude to have. And my aim was the two of you. Very well, I shall spare D. However, D, you have to drink the girl’s blood. If you do, I’ll guarantee your survival.”
Tears spilled from Sue’s eyes as if forced out of her. And the light that shone through those tears was one of pure anger.
What a heartless demand, to have the person who wanted to defend Sue drink the blood of the very girl he should’ve saved!
“No, no, no!” Sue cried, shaking her head madly
. The Noble before her eyes was someone she absolutely could not accept. The moment Matthew had raised his hand against Miranda, she’d been freed of his brainwashing. “Aren’t you supposed to be the ultimate? You’re just—just a monster that got more power than it deserved. Why, you can’t even control your power properly.”
“I can’t? You say Valcua can’t control his own power? This is most bizarre . . .”
Golden eyes with no pupils glared at Sue, and a part of the fog drifted in front of them.
“Ah, the akashic record informs me that something interesting is about to occur. Humans don’t give up easily either, I guess.”
The grand duke raised his right foot.
At that moment, somewhere, a certain button was pushed. The megaquake generator located six miles beneath the Capital sent a transmission of a massive earthquake to the northern Frontier at light speed, and said message was opened directly beneath the center of that sector—at a depth of a scant hundred yards. One trillion joules of energy was considered sufficient power to level not only Valcua’s kingdom, but also the entirety of the northern Frontier.
Lowering his foot gently, Valcua said, “This brings to a conclusion my relations with the human race.”
At that instant, the megaquake energy vanished without a trace. Here was a Noble who could make an asteroid disappear or negate vast subterranean energies—he even had the power to rewrite the history of the universe as he saw fit. Who could slay him? Who could even fight him?
“Dear me, at some point I’ve become inured to the Hunter’s beauty. Very good. D, drink her blood. Then you may leave this land as if nothing ever happened and continue hunting Nobility. I’ll have nothing further to do with the humans now. Here in my castle I shall explore the wisdom of the universe for all eternity.” Sue felt something clamp down on her shoulders with substantial strength. She didn’t want to know how the face of the young man behind her appeared as he looked at her.
“It’s okay, D,” the girl said, and then she glared at Valcua. “You still have something against me. Until you move beyond those feelings, you’ll never be the ultimate anything!”
“D,” Valcua said, prodding the Hunter. “It’s written in the akashic record. Your fate is to do exactly as I told you. Go ahead and drink.”
Sue shut her eyes.
A white fog drifted through their world.
Hot breath fell on the nape of Sue’s neck.
I knew his breath would be warm, she thought.
A mysterious peace of mind enveloped Sue.
Her right shoulder grew lighter unexpectedly. Reaching his hand out before him, D had caught hold of something.
“No! You—” Valcua cried out in shock.
He saw two points of light blazing from the depths of the fog, so red they froze his blood—they were D’s eyes.
“You—you son of a bitch,” the grand duke stammered. “You can change the akashic record?”
Sue felt the warmth of the hand that rested on her left shoulder. There was no mistaking the strong palm of the hand of the man who’d kept her safe.
“You’ve played me false!” Valcua shouted, although whom that was directed at was unclear.
Crouching down, he grabbed D’s sword from where it lay in the ashes of Braujou’s chest. Above him, the vision of beauty in black was descending. In the eyes of both Valcua and Sue, he looked for all the world like some gorgeous supernatural bird. Then there was a gleam of silver—and the sharp clang of steel meeting steel.
Valcua held his blade horizontally overhead, while D stood poised as if chopping wood. The fog split vertically, and in exactly the same fashion Valcua’s head opened down the middle all the way to the throat.
Discarding his blade, Valcua used his hands to press his head back together again. His flesh closed. When he opened his mouth, a number of red spheres spilled out, drifting toward D.
In D’s hands, Glencalibur zipped out and the blood spheres fell to the ground, where they scattered in ordinary splashes of red.
“You must hear me out,” Valcua said.
Splitting open from the top of his head to between the eyes, the grand duke had a vermilion line from the bridge of his nose down
to his lips that would no longer fade away. With every word Valcua spoke, the gap grew wider and blood bubbled out. His robe was no longer golden.
“Listen to me, D,” the Ultimate Noble continued. “I was created by the Sacred Ancestor. And he told me something: That I was his only success. I didn’t know what that meant. It was five thousand years later that I became crazed with slaughter after the meaning of those words and the hopelessness of my fate came to me. He told me then he didn’t consider me his only success. He’d given that title to someone else, he said. And he told me what fate lay in store for me. Knowing that, I had to fight, had to kill to live. D, so long as we can be destroyed, no Noble can be the ultimate!”
His face split, and the blood that flowed out splattered on the floor. His grip had loosened. The power of Grand Duke Valcua—the Ultimate Noble—was now nearly spent.
Suddenly, he looked up. There were a hundred billion stars in the night sky.
“While I was in exile out there, I learned a great many things— about the Nobility, about humans, about their feelings ... D, I didn’t even want to return to Earth.”
Coughing harshly, he spat up blood. In midair the blood became a tiny sphere that glided without making a sound—toward Sue.
“Who brought you back?” D asked.
“There is only one person who could’ve. The bastard intended to see me slain. I see that now. Because he’s inside of me. Perhaps he was afraid that if he left me out there in the depths of space I might come back someday. Or perhaps he feared I might become a threat to the universe itself. He brought me back after five thousand years, D, because you were here. A man who could slay the Ultimate Noble—his only success.”
It was unclear whether he noticed the blood sphere, but D didn’t move a muscle. Nor did Sue. Fresh tears filled her eyes.
Turning his right hand around, Valcua made a sweeping motion. The blood sphere burst.
“Ah, at long last,” the Ultimate Noble cried out to the void. His eyes and even his countenance glowed with superhuman joy. “I have moved beyond hate. Your wish has been granted, O Sacred Ancestor! I am finally the Ultimate Noble—”
A heartbeat later, his body split vertically, collapsing on the spot with a fountain of blood that seemed to turn the place into a sea of red.
“He was a success,” D muttered in a low voice.
“No, a failure,” a voice said.
The strange man was standing in the spot where Valcua had stood. He had the face of the Sacred Ancestor, but at the same time it also looked like Valcua’s face, and D’s.
“You were my only success,” he said. “But that’s not to say you’re perfect yet. Your spirit is strong but too soft. And that is why—”
D sensed someone to his rear.
“Matthew?”
“What’s he doing?” D asked, never taking his eyes off the man.
“Where are you going?” Sue asked, her eyes catching an image of Matthew going deeper and deeper into the fog.
“He’s headed toward the vault and the akashic record,” the man said. “The boy has part of my—which is to say, Valcua’s—nature still planted in his brain. Perpetuating my will, he’ll most likely modify the record by force. I might yet live again and change the world.”
Taking Sue under one arm, D broke into a run. Beyond the fog spraying toward him, he could make out a hazy black figure.
“D, if it comes to that, and I mean if,” Sue said, looking up in desperation, “if there’s no way to make Matthew his old self again, and he tries to mess with the akashic record ...”
Her voice dying out, Sue bit down on her lip.
“I entered a contract to protect the two of you.”
Though fog lay on all sides of him, D could tell they were in a tremendously vast place.
He couldn’t feel any weight in his left hand. And there was no trace of Sue. Human beings couldn’t enter the vault of the akashic record.
Matthew was up ahead. To the naked eye, he seemed to be thirty feet away. However, the distance was actually infinite.
Clawing with both hands, Matthew tore at the fog.
D ran without saying a word.
Matthew turned in his direction. His lips were twisted into a grin.
“Stay back, D,” he said, straightening himself up. “You understand, don’t you? I obtained part of the Sacred Ancestor’s power. And the great Valcua, too, is within me. Alone, there’s nothing you can do. Ha! I can read this. I can read the whole akashic record. Valcua is telling me to resurrect him—but what the Sacred Ancestor has to say is even more incredible. He says I should erase this world completely from the record. Interesting, isn’t it, D? Which should I do?”
Matthew grinned. He’d been warped from the very beginning, before the Sacred Ancestor or Valcua had come into his life. However, the reason they entered him and he obeyed them was because his will was weak, as anyone could see. Lusting after Sue, he’d been able to fight back his urges and pretend to be a good older brother only because his mother had been there. When that great weight had been lifted from him and his true self had been unleashed, he found that he didn’t mind being a servant of the Nobility. The Nobility had knowledge and power. And when they gave him those gifts, he’d displayed the typical weakling’s reaction by laughing haughtily.
He could read the record. The past, present, and future of everything in the universe . ..
“Ah, yes. D, let’s see who you really are.”
A fiendish look spread across Matthew’s face, and he stuck his right hand out in front of his chest, plucking a bit of fog from the air. He could pull whatever he liked from the record at any place and time.
As Matthew stared at the fog, his expression changed immediately.
“Impossible ... It can’t be!” the boy exclaimed, his surprise so great his face wore a look of utter stupefaction as he stared at D.
The Hunter had closed to within six feet of him, but Matthew wasn’t worried. He knew although it appeared to the naked eye to be six feet, the space between them was infinite.
Tyrant's Stars: Parts Three and Four Page 26