“It might’ve been him . . .” the others in the doorway heard Toto mutter as he faced the darkness that swallowed the end of the road. “He can travel by night. And all alone.”
—
II
—
Early the next morning, Wu-Lin left the lodging house; she didn’t even bother to eat. The innkeeper and the other guests were still asleep, and the eastern sky was just beginning to shine with a watery light. Dressed in the same clothes as the night before, she was shouldering a vinyl backpack.
Three minutes’ walk brought the girl to the edge of town. Beyond the fence, a cedar so huge it would take three men to get their arms around it stretched up to the blue sky. In this region, it was customary to grow enormous trees on either side of the main road through town. It was hoped that doing so would bring the community some of the same mysterious vitality the trees possessed. Past the massive cedar, the rows of trees continued.
Opening the gate and then shutting it again behind herself, the girl was just about to walk off when someone appeared from behind the foliage.
“Professor Krolock?” Wu-Lin said.
A gray-haired head bobbed at the receiving end of her tense gaze.
“Good morning, young lady. Off to an early start, I see.” Placing one hand on his chest, the professor bowed elegantly.
“So are you,” Wu-Lin replied. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be out before me.”
“Actually, I couldn’t get much sleep. At any rate, if it pleases you, would you accompany me to Cronenberg?”
“Are you headed there too, Professor?”
“Actually,” the old man said, “I am. My carriage is parked behind yonder tree.”
“You sure I wouldn’t be intruding?” Wu-Lin said, staring intently at him in his scarlet cloak.
“Whatever could you possibly mean?”
“Why ask me way out here?” the girl inquired.
“I might’ve suggested it back at the lodging house, but there was a certain boisterous individual around.”
“And you wanted me all to yourself?” asked Wu-Lin.
“Precisely,” the old man replied, a smile forming on his lips. “Approaching you in town was going to be troublesome, so I simply waited out here. I wouldn’t be so cruel as to say I don’t care what happens to a young lady like yourself. Please, join me. All I ask in payment is that bead you have in your possession.”
“I thought as much. I guess it’s a good thing I showed it off so no one got too curious and slit my throat while I slept.” Wu-Lin asked the old man, “Do you know what it’s worth?”
“Probably better than that rabble last night,” the professor said, closing his eyes and nodding to himself. “But, as yet, I don’t have a good idea of its true value. To really ascertain as much, I’d need you to hand it over to me.”
“Sorry. I travel alone.” As if in jest, the girl bowed exactly as the professor had, and then a second later she sprinted off like the wind.
Not bothering to chase after the girl as she swiftly dwindled in the distance, the professor muttered, “Such a tempestuous child,” and thrust both hands into his cloak. What they came out with were very strange items indeed. His right hand held a quill pen, and his left hand held a brownish scrap of paper—or rather, a dried piece of animal hide.
Returning to the tree and leaning against it, he raised his right hand. Without seeming to particularly steel himself for the task, he took the sharp tip of the pen and stabbed it into his left wrist. Not even glancing at the gore that spread across his skin when he pulled it out again, he took the blood-dipped pen and began to draw something on the surface of the parchment—what looked to be a human face. After about ten seconds, the pen’s movements ceased. Running his eyes over his handiwork at length and nodding with satisfaction, the professor then embarked on an even stranger course of action. Lovingly bringing his face closer to the portrait of darkening red, he began to whisper something in a low voice.
Having already run more than a hundred yards, the girl suddenly found her feet getting heavier. A hue of bewilderment rose in her face. While she didn’t stop, she had noticed a rather odd phenomenon—her legs seemed to be gradually losing their strength, to the point where she couldn’t run any longer.
“I—why is this happening . . .” With those weary words, Wu-Lin squatted down right then and there.
Less than a minute later, a wagon drawn by a pair of cyborg horses rumbled along with a sound that hardly suited a road at daybreak, stopping right behind the girl as she crouched down, cradling her knees. It went without saying that the man who sat in the driver’s seat holding a whip was Professor Krolock. The grotesque parchment was rolled up in his left hand.
From his lofty perch, the professor said, “You mustn’t keep these problems to yourself. I’ll be happy to hear them. Won’t you climb into my carriage, so the two of us might mull over your dilemma? Come.”
All exaggeration aside, the old man’s tone truly swam with affection. At the sound of his voice, Wu-Lin got up and began to walk toward the wagon without the slightest hesitation.
And then something equally bizarre occurred. The professor’s right hand abruptly shot out, and with a sharp crack from his whip, the wagon made a wide turn toward town—back the way they’d come. Odd as it may seem, the same professor who’d taken the trouble to follow Wu-Lin then cracked the whip again and, scattering fragments of the dawn’s light like so much dust and ice, started off in the opposite direction in a great hurry.
As the old man and his wagon vanished down the road, another figure stepped out from behind the trees that towered by the roadside and into view of the paralyzed Wu-Lin. He was leading a horse. His right hand was clearly toying with a pair of gold rings that kept clinking together.
Waving his left hand before the eyes of the mesmerized Wu-Lin, the mysterious young traveler—Toto—made a wry face. “He calls himself a man of learning, and then he goes and puts some weird spell on a girl like you—that’s really tempting the wrath of heaven. That said, I must confess I’m after the same thing myself. Don’t take it too hard,” he told the girl. “Looks like I was right when I guessed that bead was really something after all. Allow me to be of some assistance.”
Wu-Lin seemed to have had the very soul drained out of her, and at this point a baby probably could’ve taken what it wanted from her. Tapping her pale cheek with his right hand as if humoring her, the man was reaching for her pouch with his left hand when something hot whizzed right by the end of his nose.
“There she is!”
“Don’t let her get away!”
Not only could a cacophony of shouts and hoofbeats be heard coming from the direction of town, but the sharp whistles that came from the figures closing on the pair soon became steel arrows in flight.
“Just as I thought—company! And here that old innkeeper was trying to come off so friendly and all. The world’s a nasty place. Sorry, but this is where I make my exit,” Toto said.
But as the young man’s hand reached once more for the pouch, it was caught by Wu-Lin’s. Just as the shock was re-coloring Toto’s complexion, his wrist was expertly twisted back against the joint and the man was physically thrown a good ten feet down the road. And yet, the way he executed a skillful one-hundred-eighty-degree roll and landed lightly on his feet was truly an eye-opening display of acrobatics.
“Hey! Wait just a second!” Toto shouted, but just as he was about to charge back to the girl, a number of arrows flew over his head. As he hit the ground despite himself, the sound of iron-shod hooves and excited shouts reached his ears.
A shadowy form leapt over his head. Needless to say, the rider holding the reins of Toto’s cyborg horse was none other than Wu-Lin.
“Thanks for the horse. See you!” With that brief shout, the girl, who’d escaped from the professor’s spell before Toto even caught on, slammed her right heel into the mount’s flank and galloped away as fast as she could.
Riding for a full hour at breakneck spee
d, Wu-Lin was a few miles from an intersection with the main road in an area still lit with the cold, clear rays of dawn before she finally let her horse rest its legs. At any rate, she was probably safe for the moment. She never would’ve thought those two men would be lying in wait for her, and it’d certainly been a mistake to fall under that mysterious spell, but since she’d managed to extricate herself from the situation, none of that mattered anymore. Having acquired a horse in the bargain, it was likely she’d reach Cronenberg at just past noon instead of in the evening.
Recalling the stunned look on Toto’s face as she’d thrown him, Wu-Lin smiled innocently, but it took less than two seconds for that smile to freeze. The sound of hoofbeats was again growing nearer.
She thought it might be the “professor,” but there was no squeak of wagon wheels. What she saw were a number of horses—and racers, at that. They wouldn’t be out delivering mail at this hour. Was it the last group that’d shown up as she was leaving?
Just as Wu-Lin was about to give a kick to her mount’s flanks, something whistled through the air as it dropped toward her. Sparks shot up on the right half of the road about ten feet ahead of her, and a fierce shock wave knocked both horse and rider down on their sides. It was the work of a portable firebomb launcher. An expert could hit a target the size of a brick from over two hundred yards away, but if they were only trying to blow something up, all they had to do was increase the amount of gunpowder.
Wu-Lin immediately got up. For the time being, her foes were only trying to slow her down, and fortunately for her, they seemed to be concerned about damaging the bead and had adjusted the amount of gunpowder accordingly. As a result, the girl hadn’t been fatally wounded, or even broken a single bone.
As Wu-Lin tried to get her horse back on its feet, she coughed—the urge to vomit was building within her. In truth, she’d taken a blow to the stomach when she fell. Jamming a finger down her throat, she retched immediately. As she vomited, she realized her horse was a lost cause—its neck was twisted grotesquely. If it had been one of the models cherished by the Nobility, it would’ve continued to run even if the entire head had been torn off, but this one was intended for humans. Wiping her lips, Wu-Lin shouldered her bag and looked around. The woods were thick to either side. Behind her, the silhouettes of riders formed hazily in the white light. She couldn’t afford to hesitate.
Wu-Lin ran to the right—the woods might serve to restrict the movements of horses. The trees and bushes would probably provide her with some cover from the explosives as well.
Just when she thought she’d melted into the grove of the trees, an impact slammed into her from behind, and a sharp pain shot through her back—probably a branch or a small stone. The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground. Putting all of her strength into her limbs, she tried to get up.
Right behind her she heard a familiar voice say, “Give up already. We’ll make it quick for you.” It was the innkeeper.
Wu-Lin got to her feet without looking in his direction. About five yards ahead of her was a thick grove. How many seconds would it take me to get there? she wondered.
“We don’t wanna blow that doodad of yours to kingdom come, you know. So we won’t finish you with the mortar. What do you fancy, a sword or an arrow? Or would you prefer we garrote you?”
More voices than she could count laughed in unison.
Wu-Lin started to make a break for it, and then stopped. At the same time, the laughter dwindled as well.
Why is everyone always popping out from behind trees? Wu-Lin wondered.
The newest arrival was a dashing figure. He wore a wide-brimmed traveler’s hat and a black long coat that sheathed his tall form elegantly. The longsword on his back had a graceful curve to it. For a second, Wu-Lin had to wonder whether it wasn’t a moonlit night at present. But the reason she and the men behind her froze was because they unconsciously knew that an aura of extreme danger lingered around the gorgeous stranger.
“Who the hell are you?!” someone asked, his voice quavering.
Wu-Lin swiftly circled around behind the figure’s back. “Help me!” she cried. “They’re bandits!”
The stranger didn’t move.
“Out of the way, pretty boy,” the innkeeper said.
There were half a dozen men on horseback, with the innkeeper leading the pack, and all of them wore vicious scowls. Surely their racket consisted of finding travelers with something valuable, then following them when they left and killing them. They were armed with swords and spears, but the man to the far right was the only one with disk-shaped bombs loaded into a crossbow-like launcher pointed at the ground.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” the innkeeper said to the huge fellow to his right. “Now that he’s seen our faces, it’s not like we’re about to let him live. We’ll send him to his reward along with the girl.” To the pair he added, “Just consider this your brief romance, and kiss each other goodbye!”
As she listened to his cruel words, Wu-Lin clung tightly to the back of the shadowy figure. But something suddenly became apparent. The man in black wasn’t looking at the other men. At the end of his gaze was a grove of trees and sparkling green leaves. Between him and the other men faint beams of light swayed—sunlight peeking through the trees. Wu-Lin looked up at his profile—there wasn’t a hint of sadness on his face. It put Wu-Lin’s heart at ease.
Broadswords and spears glittered in the men’s hands. With wild shouts, they charged the stranger.
Still, Wu-Lin remained entranced, enchanted by the beauty of this strange young man.
Hammering the earth beneath them, a pair of riders raced by the stranger—one on either side—and kept right on riding, with blood streaming out behind them. From the waist up, the riders no longer existed. Before the rest of the killers realized what had happened, the upper bodies of their compatriots were lying at the shadowy figure’s feet. Bloody mists tinged the white sunlight.
When the startled man with the launcher readied his weapon, the figure kicked off the ground without a sound. The hem of his coat flickered like a dream.
A head flew. The innkeeper’s torso fell in two distinct pieces.
Seeing what looked like the figure’s chest being penetrated by spears thrust from either side, Wu-Lin cried out. But the shadowy figure was in midair now. What the murderous implements had pierced was merely his afterimage.
A circular flash slashed through the necks of the last two men. When the figure landed on the ground again, there was one more flash of light as he flung the gore from his blade onto the green grass, and then the weapon returned to the sheath on his back. A head landed on the ground far off, and the rest of the body dropped off at the horse’s feet.
The massacre had unfolded in the time it took to blink.
Dazed, Wu-Lin rubbed her eyes. The images she observed weren’t the least bit ghastly. The sunlit scene of carnage was like some shadow-puppet show.
It’s his fault, she thought fuzzily. He’s so beautiful; he even makes death look good.
The shadowy figure returned. His footsteps made no sound at all; he could walk across water without making a ripple. He was a young man. That was all she knew. The cool mood the tall man in black seemed to generate didn’t allow the girl to return to her senses until he was in the middle of putting a saddle onto a cyborg horse that was tethered to a tree not far away.
Wu-Lin ran over to the stranger in spite of herself and bowed. “Thank you,” she said. “You saved my life.”
As the young man loaded what looked to be a sleeping bag behind his saddle, he asked, “Are you on foot?”
Perhaps any other information about the girl or the circumstances surrounding that deadly battle didn’t matter. They had attacked him, and he cut them down. Brutal as it was, that was a perfectly natural way to live on the Frontier.
“Yes,” the girl replied.
“Use one of their horses.”
“Um—” Wu-Lin stammered, but before she could say anyth
ing more, the man in black was on his mount. “Are you going with me?” she finally managed to say, but her words struck the stranger’s broad back as he’d already ridden a few paces.
“I’m looking for somewhere to get some sleep.”
Wu-Lin didn’t understand his reply at all. The world was swimming in light.
“At least tell me your name. I’m Wu-Lin,” the girl called out, her shouts blocked by the grove.
And then a reply came from the very same stand of trees: “D.”
—
III
—
Cronenberg was a town that stretched across the plains one hundred and twenty miles north of the center of the Frontier. This small city, with its population of thirty thousand, was a far cry from the scale of the Capital, but as a place where goods were collected from all over the Frontier it kept the roads well-repaired, and the community maintained a decent level of activity all year round. They maintained cold storage for seafood shipped from the coast, vast processing plants for livestock that grazed on the plains, drying houses for vegetables and grains—and for the rest and relaxation of those involved in the transportation of all these things and the guards that kept them safe from bandits and beasts, there were saloons and hotels, casinos, and women.
The chatter of men and women persisted all day long in the area where the drinking establishments could be found, but once dusk settled like a thin wash of ink, the multicolored lights grew brighter and the strides of people on the streets got lighter. As the number of monsters and supernatural beasts in this plains region was comparatively low, the streets were never empty from evening to the wee hours of the morning.
It was at twilight that Wu-Lin arrived at the settlement. The cyborg horse she rode was one that’d belonged to the thugs D had killed in the woods. Asking one of the guards about a certain shop as he opened the gate for her, Wu-Lin then proceeded to the center of town.
While it wasn’t especially uncommon for a woman to travel alone, it still came as little surprise that the remarkably untamed beauty of the girl’s face and body drew the eyes of men on the street.
Mysterious Journey to the North Sea, Part 1 Page 2