Heaven and earth alike rocked violently, and Meg dropped to one knee on the spot and tried to steady herself. In her ear, she heard Garigon say, “I think that’s about enough fun and games.”
Her surprise was so great, she immediately returned to her senses.
Garigon turned his face to her and smiled. His head wound was swiftly closing.
“You see now? I’ve long since been bit. Now I’m a faithful bodyguard to the Nobility.”
III
Once again dizziness assailed Meg. It was surprising that she could even speak.
“Garigon . . . Not you, too.”
“That’s right. Don’t think badly of me,” the giant said, and when he grinned, the fangs jutting from his mouth were yellowed. “Just accept that this is where you die and say yourself a little prayer to the sea god or whatever. I can wait that long!”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. You’re the one who’s gonna die!” the girl screamed, and her harpoon flew.
The longsword made a diagonal swipe that cut the harpoon in two, and then the giant sailed easily into the air.
“Take that!”
The glow shooting out of the tip made Meg forget all else and throw herself on the ground—and less than an inch from her face the earth was split open for over fifteen feet.
“I really suck at this,” said the giant. “I went and missed you!”
When Garigon landed without making a sound, Meg found his smile mocking. He was toying with her. Though an anger great enough to make her tremble was building inside her, there was nothing she could do. He was too far out of her class.
“Okay, now for the finisher. I’ll cut the both of you in two—no, I guess that’d be four, maybe?”
Garigon’s longsword rose. So monstrous was his strength the weapon seemed to be made of wood. The beam of light rose vertically.
“Take that!” the giant roared.
Meg shut her eyes out of reflex. It was her ears that caught the change. She’d heard a cry of pain.
“Gaaaah . . . Geeerf . . .”
On opening, what Meg’s eyes beheld was the gigantic body arched backward with a stark piece of steel sticking from his chest.
“What the—?!”
It was a few seconds later that the girl learned the azure Noble’s sword had pierced Garigon’s heart from behind.
Letting out a roar like a carnivore, Garigon twisted around and swung his sword at the Nobleman behind him. The beam of light vanished in the distance, and the Nobleman who’d ducked it sprang back up and made a horizontal swipe of his blade, at which point Garigon’s head shot up on a geyser of blood like a fountain and landed again some thirty feet away.
Not even glancing at the fallen torso as it twitched, the Noble in azure shook the gore from his blade and turned in Meg’s direction.
Meg held her harpoon at the ready. Only two more remained. She felt helpless, and no fighting spirit rose within her.
An odd sense of calm seemed to flow from the Noble. Returning his sword to its sheath, the Noble turned his gaze to the bushes from which he’d come and tossed his chin in that direction. The gesture meant they should come with him.
Meg just stood there as if rooted, unable to make up her mind, but after the Noble had advanced another thirty feet or more, he turned around and gave another toss of his chin.
“Let’s go,” Meg said to d’Argent.
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Well, it looks like he saved us, and I don’t sense any murderous intent. Besides, just the two of us wouldn’t get very far on our own.”
However, their pursuit of him soon ended. Not ten feet away, a vehicle like the one from earlier was resting on the grass. The Noble pointed at it.
“Are you telling us to get on? What kind of Noble are you, anyway?”
In her heart, Meg thought with absolute certainty, He’s on our side.
“Thank you,” the girl said. “But I can’t. I don’t know how to work it.”
“That’s okay,” d’Argent told her from her rear. “I do. I’ll tell you how it’s done.”
The Noble nodded. And twisting to the left, he pointed in a given direction.
“That’s the way to the bay!” d’Argent exclaimed, eyeing the Noble suspiciously.
Just then, a shrill cry could be heard overhead. It wasn’t a bird. It came from a human being.
The crimson mass must’ve fallen from a height of at least a hundred yards. The instant it thudded to the ground, a silvery flash streaked out.
A bloody mist flew into the air. What’d fallen from the sky had split the masked Nobleman in two, from the top of his head all the way down to the crotch.
On seeing the figure who got up with bloodied sword in hand, Meg murmured in astonishment, “Lord Danae?!”
Aren’t these two fellow Nobility?
As if reading Meg’s thoughts, Danae stared at the staggering Nobleman who even now remained standing and said, “I’ve never seen you before. That being the case, you must be a foe pretending to be something he is not. Let us dispose of that mask that suits you so poorly.”
Though Meg herself wished to see the face behind the mask, just then Danae’s expression seemed to melt like wax.
The vermilion line where he’d bisected the Nobleman he labeled an imposter had quickly and completely vanished.
“Dear me, can it be—you actually are one of us?” Danae said in a tone that complemented his wary expression. “But I haven’t seen you before. What do they call you?”
“Wesley.”
It was the astonished Meg who murmured the name. The bisected Nobleman’s mask had fallen at his feet.
His complexion was pale and bloodless, like that of a completely different person, yet the face of the youthful sheriff showed the same bashful smile as before.
“I was going to see that you got home safely—no, I will see to it the girl at least gets home okay.”
His smile gave way to an absent-minded expression. Not looking at Meg or even in her direction, Wesley said, “Back in the tunnel, I was—well, Lancer got me with his spear, and I died. Or rather, I was just about to die when someone took me away. When I came to, I was a servant of the Nobility. The reason I came here is because I had orders to rescue Lord Danae and dispose of the two of you. And I was licking my chops as I set out. But the minute I saw you, Meg, all the feelings from when I was human came back to me. I don’t know why. I’ll hold off this Noble. Go to the bay, and hurry. This magno-car can run over water, too. Go back to your village and forget all about the island.”
“No, Wesley. I can’t do that. I came here to save everybody!”
Meg felt as if her heart were being torn in two. The group had come to rescue everybody—and Wesley had been their leader at one point.
“Here your unexpected and heartwarming reunion comes to an end,” Danae informed the other Noble in the manner of a judge pronouncing a sentence. “Fortunately, I am not in your debt. Though we have only just met, I will slay you as a traitor.”
“You can’t!” the girl protested. “You owe me a debt, don’t you? Don’t you lay a hand on him!”
“Were he one of your compatriots, I would comply,” Danae replied. “However, mockery though he may be, he is now one of our subordinates. These are rules of a world that bears no relation to you.”
“That’s right. Meg, keep back.”
Once Wesley had said that, the two humans ran over to where Garigon’s corpse lay, the wind whipping in their wake.
As soon as Danae’s eyes got a reddish cast, two beams of light pierced either side of Wesley’s chest. His face twisting, Wesley pursed his lips. Meg covered her ears. The sound waves, so sharp they seemed like they’d shatter eardrums, were apparently directional in nature. Danae also covered his ears, but from between his hands and his earlobes a massive amount of fresh blood sprayed out.
“Well, there’s no going back to the castle now. Meg, hurry up and go home. Your world is still waiting for you!�
�
From behind a stand of trees some thirty feet away she heard Wesley’s shouts.
“Wesley!”
“I have nowhere to go now. Can’t be a Noble, and can’t go back to being human. At least let me see to it you get home safe! Good-bye,” Wesley shouted once more, and Meg cried. Tears spilled from her with no end in sight, drilling a little hole in the black earth.
Someone grabbed hold of the girl’s shoulder.
Danae still had bright blood dripping from both ears as he said, “Have you finished bidding your lover adieu? Let us be off.”
“I’m done,” Meg replied, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“My vehicle was damaged by a bullet, but fortunately we have his. I’m sure it would please him if we were to use it for your purposes. However, our destination will not be the bay, but hell itself. Are you prepared for that?”
Perhaps Danae was in pain from the injuries he’d suffered, but his face wore an expression of evil unlike any they’d seen before.
“I sure am. And sooner or later, I’m gonna drive a stake through your heart,” Meg said flatly. Her heart had been wounded again, and her eyes burned with hatred-tinged flames.
“Ah,” Danae said, and he actually looked impressed. “You have the same look in your eye that I do. The most charming thing about humans is they are just like Nobles.”
This place seemed like a luxurious palace where no expense had been spared, and that might have been solely due to the presence of the figure who hovered in the milky white fog.
Through orderly forests of pillars, over stairways that seemed to go all the way up to the sky, beneath a canopy ceiling which itself seemed as large as the cosmos, down corridors spanning quadrillions of miles over trillions of levels, the futile moans of those who built all this and those who traversed it seemed to linger forever.
We cannot complete construction, they say. We shall never reach the end.
Those who’d fallen with their aims unmet and their unfulfilled desires alike were covered by the fog, making their words echo endlessly.
Indestructible alloys and natural gemstones, the living’s desire for death, the dead’s resurrection even as they screamed for it to stop, the strains of music that played, the painting displayed there as unmistakable “reality,” the steel sword still vainly stabbed into the rotting ruins of a castle, yes, even the path of the stars through the universe and the countless insignificant little lives brought forth in one corner of the planet—all these were lies.
However, on this island, so long as they were shrouded in fog, lies could wear the name of truth. For here, imitations were the real thing.
A Longing in the Fog
chapter 7
I
Mizuki, your grace,” called out what was distinctly the voice of an old man.
“Is that you, Zangleson? What is your business with me?” replied the voice of Duchess Mizuki Dandorian. Though it was fuzzy, it came from what seemed to be an enormous throne. From the sound of it, she wasn’t sitting bolt upright but rather languidly draped across the arms of the chair.
The one who called out to her didn’t stand before the throne but rather was down on one knee in the ancient display of fealty.
“A short while ago, this item was left in the square before the main castle gates.”
After a short pause, the duchess said, “Why, this is—?!” There was the sound of the Noblewoman drawing a sharp breath. “It bears an image of that man. However, this is human skin.”
“It would appear to be the skin from the palm of a hand,” said the servant. “That eye is drawn in normal ink, but the image it contains also holds everything about that person. With this, a person’s location and all their actions are ours for the knowing.”
“Who could make such a thing . . .”
“None other than—”
That was as much as the servant said before falling silent. But not out of puzzlement. Rather, it was out of anticipation, knowing that the person he addressed knew the rest.
“—his grace?”
“I should imagine.”
“Why has he not returned? Even though everyone and everything has been restored, and it has all begun anew?”
There was a long interval. Undoubtedly that was an expression of some sort of objection.
Presently, Zangleson replied, “His grace will not be returning. Long ago, he bid your grace adieu and took his leave of the castle—and that is the truth of it for him. Even now, that has not changed.”
Somewhere, someone nodded. Listlessly and sadly.
“Your tone—for all its consolation, it hides a blood-soaked blade. Perhaps the blade is called torment? Do you wish to say that I bear responsibility for all of this?”
“As you say, your grace.”
“You are correct,” said the duchess. “And I myself am well aware of as much. Of all our followers, you are the deepest, the truest, and the most fervent. His grace will not be returning. Even if one of the two is slain, they are likely to battle on in hell for all eternity. And I think that is for the best.”
“Your grace?!”
Unmoved by this cry of commingled surprise and reproach, the woman said, “You of all people must know. Long ago, I loved the one who brought destruction to this project, and to all of us. Not only was that a betrayal of all of you, it also was a moral breach against the Sacred Ancestor. For this project spilled through the Sacred Ancestor’s own fingers, coming down to us.”
Duchess Dandorian’s words were neither a simple deposition of memories nor a monologue to rouse herself. It was a viscera-shredding act of self-destruction, a confession given while blood poured from every orifice, a prayer uttered while swallowing one’s own teeth.
“But your grace fought that man—a man you loved—in an attempt to destroy him,” the servant said, his voice suddenly full of sorrow and pride.
“That is so. And I was defeated with disappointing ease. And not I alone. Gildea and Danae were as well, and you, and the ten thousand soldiers stationed on the island. He drove cold, black steel through the hearts of everyone, and lopped off the heads of all save Gildea and Danae. His will was as inevitable as the coming of night, and he displayed no emotion, as if he were a murderous machine shaped from ice. All was lost. Every last one of us was reduced to dust, the castle decayed, the facility burned, the test subjects ruined . . .”
“And after all that, why? Why have we now been resurrected? Is it to prove the truth of the legends that for the Nobility, peaceful sleep is but a dream within a dream?”
“For a feeling,” said the duchess. The way she said it was bizarre, as if she didn’t know which emotion the words should carry. “No, jealousy—enough to eat away even a body and stomach made of iron. Am I mistaken?”
“No,” Zangleson’s voice responded. “That is correct. However, that is not the full extent of it.”
The silence was the duchess’s creation.
“Kindly return that to me,” said the servant. “I shall keep it.”
The exchange was conducted in the mysteriously swaying fog. Or rather, it was nearly conducted.
“That will never do, your grace,” said a rough voice that left the fog in turmoil, fleeing from the speaker like a coward.
“Gildea.”
“Baron.”
“Are you well, Zangleson?” the figure who’d approached from the milky depths said in an affectionate tone. “You are an idiot who knows not his place, and this is folly—for which you will be punished once this matter is concluded. Your grace, kindly give that item to your humble servant, Gildea.”
She declined, saying, “I cannot.”
“But you must,” the baron countered, denying her in turn.
There in the heart of the syrupy fog, conflict sparked like a fire.
“If your grace keeps it, the same fate will be repeated. To wit, we will be destroyed, and none will stand in the rotting remains of this castle save that vision of beauty in black. And it ma
y well be that such is not his desire, either.”
From the female figure, who was like a faint ink-wash painting, there came an intense feeling of curiosity, but she never gave voice to it, nor did Baron Gildea reply.
“Can you tell me the reason why I must not have it, Gildea?” the duchess said, her voice carrying a slight horror that someone would feel. The baron.
Gildea said, “Because you still love that man.”
The shadowy figures froze. Even the fog that clung to them was robbed of its motion.
“Your grace was less than twenty years of age when the duke took you as his bride. You were as beautiful as some princess from the moon, and though none ever breathed a word of it, all of us resolved that you alone would never know the filth and cruelty of the world. And as we had predicted, your grace was an individual lovely and endearing, as well as being far stronger and more ferocious than we had ever expected. When you walked with the duke in the garden to enjoy a bright moonlit evening, a group of young lords who envied the way your grace looked upon the moon said they would wipe it from the sky, whereupon they fought their way into the Bureau of Planetary Control. And during a demonstration match in the fighting arts, your grace took up bow and halberd with her pale and delicate hands, exhibiting such skill we were left no choice but to battle in complete earnestness, and even then we could get nowhere near you.
“With all that skill your grace fought that man, and was consequently defeated and destroyed. I say this bearing not a mote of criticism. However, your grace—love sets its roots deep in the young. Your grace was not yet twenty years of age when you encountered that man, and even knowing him to be the enemy, you were captivated by him from the very first glance. That tells me that even now, after dying and rising, your love for him still burns. There is a stanza in a poem that goes, The life of love is like that of a Noble, and I cannot deny the truth in that.”
“It is as you say, Gildea,” the duchess conceded. “However, I, who fought the bringer of destruction, am confident that all will find me a fit wife for Duke Dandorian and his house.”
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