Noble Front

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “So, that’s what you’re capable of,” Baron Agrippa said with amazement. “I can see why Bergenzy would keep you around. You may be able to give me what I want.”

  “What you want?”

  The baron sat down in a rustic chair. The chair was bent to its limits.

  Looking concerned about it, Vyken continued, asking, “What might that be?”

  “I want you to torpedo the agreement between Bergenzy and this ‘Professor’ individual.

  Vyken nodded without a second thought. After realizing what he’d done, he hastily looked up to see the Nobleman’s roly-poly face beaming and nodding in agreement.

  Now I’ve really gone and done it, Vyken decided.

  “But why, my good baron?”

  “Because he has forgotten the pride of the Nobility.” Planting the soles of his boots on the floor, the baron leaned back, chair and all. Looking up at the ceiling, he continued, “The humans will get our technology and the knowledge of its use, and in exchange we get regular offerings of blood from them. How is that any different than the basest peddler of vices? Why must we even enter into a give-and-take arrangement with human beings in the first place? The Nobility are an honored class that reigns over the human race. The great take from the small. Fly in the middle of the night to the home of some beautiful maiden. Kill her guards, kill her family, and burst into her bedroom. And let us not forget the sublime pleasure of sucking the blood from her pale throat after overcoming all her resistance. That is what it means to be a Noble, that is what we are—and don’t look at me that way, now. I believe you understand what I’ve left unsaid. Bergenzy must reclaim his pride in being a Noble. And in order to do that, I need you to die.”

  Vyken had no reply for that.

  “And no, it won’t end there. I swear this to you, as sure as my name is Baron Agrippa. You have my promise that once you’re dead, or even in the unlikely event you make it back alive, I shall make you one of our kind.”

  “That’s a very kind offer, but I’m afraid I have to clear up a misunderstanding here,” Vyken said, staring at the baron. “Not once have I ever wished to become a Noble. And the grand duke is well aware of this.”

  “Why are you here, then? Humans who serve the Nobility do so with an aim toward being made Nobles—is that not the eternal truth?”

  “There are exceptions. In my case—well, I suppose I wanted the sort of life of luxury I could never know in the village.”

  “I see. So, you’re a traitor, then?”

  Smiling wryly at the baron’s matter-of-fact remark, Vyken replied, “That’s precisely why I don’t want to lose his grace, the grand duke. I would do anything to keep him here forever.”

  “Even take action against other human beings?”

  “Yes.”

  “That might include your fellow villagers.”

  “I’ve been prepared for that ever since I came to the castle.”

  “Very well,” the baron said with a satisfied nod. “Let us move on to the nuts and bolts of a more concrete plan of action.”

  “Please, wait a moment,” Vyken said, stopping him. “I know this isn’t a matter of life or death for his grace the grand duke. To the contrary, I believe the grand duke truly wishes to bargain with the humans.”

  “Because he doesn’t realize the road he treads leads to ruin. If this folly is allowed to continue, the humans will see how easy this is and dangle even sweeter bait in front of the Nobility to learn their secrets. Bergenzy won’t be able to prevent it.”

  “But that’s—” Vyken began, but his words faltered.

  “I know what you’re trying to say. No matter how much we may compromise, when push comes to shove, we are still the Nobility. We can incinerate a million humans with a snap of our fingers. But will he still be able to do that once he learns how sweet it is to negotiate with the human race?”

  “My good baron, you should say no more.”

  “Oh ho! I’ll stop at that, then,” the obese Nobleman chortled. “I didn’t expect you’d immediately take me up on this impromptu offer. Take some time to mull it over. Let’s get together again. But with or without you, I will take action.”

  The baron rose from his chair and left.

  Not bothering to see him out, Vyken mused, “So, ultimately he’s asking me to kill the grand duke, is that it? Damn you, baron, just what have you got up your sleeve?”

  He looked out the window. It was dark. A deep blue hue.

  III

  D’s physical condition improved with the coming of darkness.

  “I can’t believe it!” That was all Françoise could say when D got to his feet. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “The grand duke’s resting place.”

  There was no place else he’d want to go.

  After some hesitation, she countered, “But no one knows where he sleeps.”

  “Only one place it could be. In a coffin underground,” said the hoarse voice. “We’re going. You’d better come along, too. Sooner or later it’s gonna come to light that you helped us out. That’s something only you or the grand duke could’ve done, right?”

  Françoise quickly made up her mind, saying, “Okay, I’ll go.”

  As D headed for the doorway, the woman followed after him without the slightest hesitation.

  “Are you sure we’ll be okay?”

  Françoise’s question wasn’t really a question at all. In a manner of speaking, it was just the sort of thing you said in a situation like this.

  The real Françoise was entranced by the beauty of the young man walking ahead of her. He seemed to project an alluring glow as he pushed on in silence. Françoise felt like she was held by invisible bonds. And if D had willed her to die, there was no doubt she’d have complied in her throes of rapture.

  There was no reply. D pressed on without even looking back at her.

  “You’ve only been inside the castle twice, is that right? So how do you know your way around so well?”

  “Instinct,” he replied in the hoarse voice.

  “Instinct?”

  “What’s got you so jumpy?” the hoarse voice jeered. “Any road my friend here’s taken once, no matter how complicated, he can retrace without ever getting lost. Not only that, but he can even follow a path that isn’t there, like he’s doing now.”

  Françoise grew bewildered.

  “What the—?” the hoarse voice groaned.

  A glow like that of a fable ghost light had sparked in the corridor. It quickly took on the shape of crystal candelabra and large candles ensconced along either wall.

  “The sun’s down at last. The creatures of the night will be on the move.”

  D’s voice overlapped with the hoarse one, saying, “Let’s go,” as he wrapped an arm like steel around Françoise’s waist. An instant later the girl was moving like the wind past the glowing flames, flying toward the head of a staircase leading underground that had been visible a short distance away.

  Nothing displayed the Nobility’s nostalgic tastes more than their castles. Walls, ceilings, and floors were all carefully crafted of rough-hewn stone. Light in that era was provided by sconces. The corridors they traveled twisted and turned to make eternal prisoners of any invaders, and staircases stretched on forever. As a result, even the residents feared to set foot in areas outside the bounds of their daily activities. A single step could confuse their sense of spatial recognition and suspend the functions of the semicircular canals, which detect movement in three dimensions.

  As D advanced into the depths of the castle without the slightest hesitation, stark bones began to appear down at his feet.

  “Why—they’re wearing servant garb!” Françoise exclaimed in horror.

  “Butlers who took a wrong turn,” D told her by way of explanation.

  Françoise was stunned. “Who—who are you?”

  Finally, D stood before a massive iron door. Françoise saw him press the palm of his left hand against its black surface.

&n
bsp; “We’re too late,” the hoarse voice remarked at the same time D lowered his left hand.

  “What’s wrong?!” the girl inquired.

  “The grand duke’s not here.”

  “What?”

  “This is undoubtedly the crypt, though. It seems we were just a little too late.”

  “What’ll you do?”

  “Search him out.”

  D sped back the way he’d come, the wind churning in his wake. And it wasn’t just from his change of direction. The wind had carried a voice. Even Françoise had heard it.

  The grand duke is in the subterranean power room.

  “It’s a wind comm,” the girl said. “People in the castle use the wind to convey messages.”

  “Whose was that just now?”

  “They all end up sounding the same. But usually the speaker will give their name and location.”

  “It’s probably a trap,” said the hoarse voice.

  Françoise was gazing at D. He’s the kind to say he’s going anyway, she thought.

  “Let’s go.”

  That’s what I thought, Françoise told herself with satisfaction.

  “This is where we part company,” said the hoarse voice.

  “Huh?”

  “Hunting Nobility is dangerous business. You’d only get in the way.”

  “But where am I supposed to go?”

  “To the village. You’ve gotta know somebody there—oh, yeah, there’s that guy underground.”

  “Underground?” Françoise said, furrowing her brow.

  “Damn it,” the left hand said, and it was just about to cover its mouth when it was jerked away. D had given it a good shake.

  “Underground—that’d be Sagan’s Kingdom!” the girl exclaimed.

  “What the hell’s that?” asked the hoarse voice.

  “About a hundred years ago, a little boy named Sagan accidentally discovered a series of crisscrossing tunnels under the village. But by the time I was a kid, people just said it was only a legend. Not a person alive had ever been in there.”

  “Hmm. Well, that ain’t the case anymore,” the hoarse voice said, punctuating it with a chortle that was abruptly choked short.

  His left hand balled tightly, D said, “I don’t know whether or not it’s your brother who’s down there. But he’ll probably help you out. And I’m not saying that you have to stay there until I get back.”

  Françoise’s expression was one of bewilderment with the faintest touch of anger, but it firmed into surprise. For she understood what D meant. I could end up dead—that’s what D was saying.

  This is just a way of life for him! she thought, feeling like she’d been dunked headfirst into a cold, clear stream. “I see,” she said. “I’ll head back. And I won’t worry myself too much about you.”

  A faint smile wafted across D’s lips—or so it appeared to her.

  “Good-bye.”

  What she really wanted to say was See you later. But Françoise choked back those words.

  D turned his back to her. And he didn’t pause for even a second before walking off.

  Taking a deep breath, Françoise set off on foot. She felt like there was a gaping hole in her chest.

  After she’d gone about a hundred feet at a rapid clip, something odd happened to the wall to her right. A six-foot-square stone slid out of the wall and fell to the floor. There was no crash of it making impact. What were clearly metallic legs stretched out from all four sides of the stone to support it.

  “A trans-forcer . . .”

  Mechanical creatures with the ability to mimic anything, they were scattered throughout the castle. Although Françoise had seen them on a number of occasions, not once had one of these enforcers ever blocked her path. That was because they’d confirmed her identity with the main computer. Now, that computer viewed her as some unknown intruder. Undoubtedly something had seen her with D.

  Françoise moved to the left. The trans-forcer also shifted to that side.

  “I guess I don’t have much choice,” said the girl.

  Realizing that this passageway led out of the castle, the trans-forcer commanded, “Halt. Resist and I will be forced to fire. Come with me.”

  “Sure, whatever you say,” Françoise replied, raising her hands so the backs of them faced outward. The particle launcher concealed in the bracelet around her left wrist sent a blinding band of emissions at the six-by-six cube. The cube raised an antenna-like paralyzer to strike, but it was swiftly reduced to a molten mass.

  “Poor thing. This is some of my handiwork,” said Françoise.

  Racing past the boiling mess of stone and machinery, the girl soon halted. A figure had appeared from around a corner about twenty yards distant. One glance at his black hair, and Françoise cried out to him, “Vyken?!”

  Research in Hell

  Chapter 7

  I

  “Shouldn’t you tell the grand duke you’re taking some time off?” Vyken asked, and though the query was calm, there was no laughter in his eyes.

  “I’ll write him a letter later,” Françoise replied. “Or maybe I should contact him with a wind comm?”

  Vyken responded to her impish remark soberly, saying, “Like the rest of us, you came here of your own free will. If you’re turning your back on us, your brother must be mixed up in it somehow, am I right?”

  “I don’t know, are you?”

  Vyken’s lips moved the tiniest bit. Perhaps he’d said Françoise.

  “Don’t try to stop me,” she told him. “Just let me go.”

  “Wait a moment.”

  “Until that gorgeous specimen slays the grand duke? Who was it that used the wind comm, I wonder?”

  Vyken could say nothing to that.

  “If the grand duke is destroyed, he’ll leave, too. But those characters from the Capital and their ‘contract’ will still remain. Do you intend to serve in the grand duke’s stead, Vyken?”

  There was no reply.

  “Vyken, do you think humans can do anything with the Nobility’s technology? Are they supposed to make a maglev highway work when they can’t even comprehend the concept of hyperconductivity? If they use an antiproton reactor before they know how to stop antiproton generation, they’ll destroy the whole universe. With all that at risk, what would be the price for handing it over to the characters from the Capital? Surely not blood, right? Money, then?”

  “That’ll be quite enough, Françoise.”

  “Yes, it will. So let me pass.”

  “I told you to wait,” Vyken said, a look of sadness skimming across his features. “Your clothes and mine were given to us by the grand duke. Take them off, and good old Vyken Lovelock and Françoise Rene will be left. A man and woman from the village. If we explain things to the villagers, they’ll understand.”

  “They’d understand even without us explaining anything if we were our old selves,” Françoise said softly, gently. “But it’s too late now, Vyken. You and I both changed when we came to the castle. And knowing that full well, I still intend to leave here. With that in mind, do you intend to stay?”

  “Will you go to Jozen?” Vyken asked in a low tone.

  Françoise’s eyes had a piercing gleam to them.

  “Then he does still live, just as I thought,” Vyken said, raising his right hand. The weapon secreted in his ring wasn’t a paralyzer. It was a destructive beam that reduced anything down to atoms in the blink of an eye.

  “I’m so sorry,” Vyken said, shutting his eyes.

  A light enveloped the woman’s body. Through eyes squinted down to the tiniest slit, Vyken saw the light scatter.

  “A dimensional barrier?!” the Nobleman’s servant said, frozen in his tracks. Françoise’s pale and beautiful face smiled back at him.

  “Science and technology don’t exist for your benefit alone, you know.”

  A blistering beam stretched between the two of them. As the dimensional barrier sent that off into another world, Vyken felt despair burning away at
his heart. But despair can give birth to power. Vyken charged forward.

  Graceful limbs narrowly dodged the vicious shoulder he threw at her.

  “What the—?!” Vyken exclaimed, crashing into the stone wall.

  Françoise was sprinting away. Vyken took aim at her back.

  “How do you think it feels not to have dreams, but to appear in the dreams of others, Françoise?”

  Already more than a hundred yards away, the woman suddenly lurched. In less than a second, she’d vanished.

  Vyken’s expression wasn’t one of victory. Rooted in place like a criminal facing reproach, all he felt was the wind blowing down the corridor.

  “Too late, eh?” the hoarse voice said, snapping Vyken back to himself. The young man in black stood behind him.

  Vyken gazed at D without saying a word. He wanted to say something, but his voice failed him.

  D turned his back to the man. The way he did it, it was as if Vyken didn’t even warrant a glance. As he watched the figure walking away, in his heart of hearts Vyken groaned to himself, Give him hell. My future depends on whether or not you can slay the grand duke. Beneath the castle lies a treasure to give rise to a ruler of the world of man. I don’t want it all. Even a millionth of it could make a ruler of me. I’m counting on you, D!

  There were two people there in addition to the grand duke. One look at the tableau before them froze the gray-haired, gray-bearded one in awe, while the bald, middle-aged one trembled like it was the end of the world.

  The scene before them was beyond imagining. And there should be limits to just how far beyond that things could go. They were in pitch darkness. Unbreathing and freezing cold, they yet lived. Stars burned in reddish or bluish silver. A vast nebula spread before the two men. From one end of the universe to the other, the result of hundreds of millions—perhaps even trillions—of stars glimmering, wiping each other from existence, growing, squabbling, devouring each other, and embracing was emblazoned into the retinas of the trio. But there was no life there. No, there was no one there at all. Nothing there to touch, nothing to hear them, and they couldn’t even move. All there was, was unspeakable solitude.