MENDA OF THE NORTH

CHAPTER 3

-

I

-

"Good thing the motion detectors still work,” that D continued.

Not knowing which was which, Mia looked from one to the other. Not only did they look exactly the same, it seemed as if there was one D existing in two places simultaneously. Mia’s cheeks flushed red. There was twice as much beauty.

“I knew there was someone else wandering around this underground facility besides me, but it looks like we’ve finally caught him now.”

From that, she could tell it was the fake D.

“Who are you, old-timer?”

“Neer,” the old man answered weakly. Like Mia, he was mad from the gorgeous features of the pair.

“Given your age, you’ve probably got seniority over me. How long have you been here?”

“Since about five thousand years ago.”

“Five thousand years?” the fake D said. As he knit his brow, his right hand unleashed a flash of light.

The old man’s shirt split open from the base of his throat to the solar plexus, revealing iron-brown skin. It was a flexible metallic epidermis that looked and moved like genuine skin. With it, he might well last another five millennia.

“So, old-timer, you’re a cyborg?” the fake D said with a grin.

“I prefer to be called a demihuman!” Neer snapped.

Gazing at his bloodshot eyes and the foam that spilled from his lips, the fake D once again lashed out with his blade. This time the old man’s helmet was split in two, falling to the floor. Once Neer’s hairless pate was exposed, the fake D stared at him intently and pointed to his right temple.

“That scar—I don’t know who gave you it, but it’s from a sword. I see. So that’s why your brain-support system malfunctioned. But the support systems the Nobility put into their cyborg servants are supposed to be made of an indestructible metal. Even I couldn’t cut through it.”

Touching one hand to his temple, the old man said, “I’m not funny in the head. Leave the girl with me and get right on out of here.”

“What do you intend to do with her?”

Neer’s eyes were drawn to the other D, who stood over by the throne. It was he who’d posed the question. Once she’d determined which was the fake D, Mia had gone to the other D’s side.

“Make an offering of her to my god.”

“No way,” the girl said, clinging to D’s arm. It felt like she was touching steel. She automatically let go of him not only due to her shock at that, but even more because the very act of latching onto D filled her with an almost religious feeling, like she was committing a sin. She was as shaken as a person who’d just heard the voice of the gods.

“There’s something down there below the window—but it’s no god,” Mia said, pointing a trembling finger at the devastated glass, then at the tentacle that’d finally stopped moving.

Looking down at it, D asked Neer, “Is this your god?”

The breath caught in Mia’s throat—the old man had bugged his eyes and shook his head vehemently. He was the picture of complete insanity.

“Don’t be absurd. My god isn’t a repulsive creature like this. It is a being of rare beauty. Because I myself created it.”

“Created it? You made a god?”

For the first time, Mia truly felt how insane the old man was. All that was down at the bottom of that light was this monster.

“This god you say you created—I’d like to see it,” D said softly.

Neer scoffed, “Surely you jest. My god belongs to me alone. It is a god precisely because only those who are worthy can see it. And that means me and him.”

“Him?”

“The master of this chamber. The one for whom I built this place.”

“This whole spread—you made it?” Mia said, her eyes wide.

“Indeed. I was an engineer who worked exclusively for him—that is, the great one.”

“An engineer—so that’s why you’re called Neer.”

“Look at us,” the fake D said, grinning broadly as he gave a toss of his chin to Neer. “Take a good long look at this face. Doesn’t it bring back anything?”

Not a word from the old man. Crazed though they were, his eyes managed to focus intently for a few seconds—and unexpectedly opened as wide as they’d go. Hues of fear and astonishment had taken hold of them.

“It . . . it can’t be . . .” he mumbled, his lips barely letting the words out. “It can’t be . . . It’s simply not possible. He . . . The two of you . . . are his? Are you the great one’s?”

“The light!” Mia exclaimed in a shrill voice, pointing toward the window. “The light’s coming up!”

“Old-timer, what was this room for?” the fake D asked as he watched the window out of the corner of his eye.

“This one—this is where offerings are made . . .”

“You fool. That’s just what you’ve been doing here. I mean originally. What was it in the beginning?”

“In the beginning?” Turbulent clouds closed in Neer’s eyes. He knew. But terror rooted in some deep psychological level guarded him from understanding and confessing.

“Look—Look at it! That’s—”

The color drained from Mia’s face, leaving her pale as a waxwork.

Light filled the room. The source of the light shone beyond the window, and in its depths, a form familiar to them all flickered, trying to take shape.

“It’s a face!”

Oh, how striking its features were, and how gorgeous.

“I’ve got it!” the fake D exclaimed, nodding. “What are you thinking about now, old-timer? That thing? Him?”

There was a succession of strident sounds. Neer’s teeth were chattering out of fear. “I . . . I was . . .”

Seizing him by the chest, the fake asked, “You were what? Who were you thinking about? That—”

As he pointed toward the face beyond the window, his own expression was a ghastly sight.

“No, it was him, wasn’t it? The master of this chamber, right? That is your god. A sick god created by a sick old man—yes, I do believe it was you who made that thing. In this room, the light beyond the window takes the form of your thoughts.”

“That can’t be,” said Mia. “Then what I saw was—”

“It was whatever you were thinking about at that moment. Weren’t you scared, utterly terrified, thinking that the thing in the light would be your worst fear? Well, that’s what appeared.”

Both D’s form and his words were swallowed by the light.

“Stand back,” D said, taking Mia by the shoulder and pulling her back by the throne. The light also enveloped the chair.

“D!”

The gorgeous form launched himself at the waves of light. His whole body quivered.

Light is made of particles and waves—photons and light waves. A single wave of that light or a single photon contained a ruinous amount of energy. Some passed through D’s body; others sank into his muscles, his organs, his bones, discharging their fatal power. Imagine a human being exposed to a powerful dose of radiation.

“Are you all right?” the fake D said from nearby.

“Yeah, more or less.” Perhaps D bothered to respond to each and every remark only from a sense of closeness from being the same.

“What’ll we do?”

“Don’t I know that without having to ask anyone else?”

“Oh, shut up,” the fake D replied furiously, staggering. The intense energy load had overwhelmed his body’s defenses. “Damn, it’s gotten to my legs. Okay, I’m gonna kill the old-timer. It’s his imagination that gave rise to this monstrosity.”

Neer was laid out on the floor. As D turned in that direction, his legs buckled badly. Both knees hit the floor, and then his hands followed suit.

“D,” Mia said, peeking out from behind the shelter of the throne.

“Stay where you are.”

Rising to his feet, D staggered over to Neer.

The old man’s eyes were wide open with fear. He realized D’s intention.

Moving, D tried to say something, but no words came out. His body melted into the whiteness. The gigantic face had lined up with him and was blasting him with a concentration of light energy. D was expressionless as he bore the agony of being seared to the bone.

“Do it! Kill me. Do it in the name of Muma!” Neer shouted, his mouth open as far as it would go.

Right before his eyes, D drew his sword. The edge of it gleamed white.

“Aaaah!” the old man blathered as D took care that the edge didn’t strike him, hitting him instead with the flat of the blade and knocking him out. As a product of Neer’s imagination, the titanic face should vanish once the old man lost consciousness.

“I’ll be damned,” the fake D groaned from nearby.

The face didn’t vanish, and the light within it only grew brighter.

“Time to move,” D said. Whether he was addressing himself or the fake D was unclear.

As D kicked off the floor in a manner suggesting he didn’t give even a thought to the ferocious attacks, the fake D sprinted after him. His hair fell out, and the skin on his face began to peel and fall off. At ten paces, D went through the face. Running another ten, he turned around. The face was closing on him.

“This thing’s gone beyond its creator,” a hoarse voice said. “It can maintain its existence through its own will, and it’s out of its mind with a savage hatred of you.”

“It’s my job that it hates.”

The enormous mouth opened as wide as it could go, and D jumped back fifteen feet. Right to the base of the throne.

White flames tinged the face’s lips. It had gnashed its teeth together. A momentary delay resulted.

D flew into the air. Leaping up onto the throne, he looked like a blisteringly hot knight. The face continued to pursue him. Swirling white heat enveloped both the throne and D. Within it, there was a single blinding flash of light.

The colossal face suddenly donned an agonized expression and reeled back. Its closed eyelids were enveloped by flames, its screaming mouth split open, and muscle fell from jaws and cheeks that could take no more. White flames burst open, and from the cracks even hotter flames erupted, connecting with others and burning everything off the face. Just for a second, the face turned to the heavens and howled. It looked like a scream from a gigantic severed head that’d been set on the throne. A heartbeat later, this golden instant of death dissolved into flames. And when the last of the self-destructive flames melted into the air, all that remained standing on the throne was the young man in black.

“You did it!” the left hand said with genuine admiration to D as he silently sheathed his longsword. Perhaps it was amazed. “There was nothing you could do but counter a monster produced by a crazed mind with an even stronger force of will, though smashing it like that—wow, blood really will tell.”

Was that the reason for his success?

But in return, D’s face was horribly melted, and his coat and traveler’s hat still had smoke and white flames coming from them. The blade of his sword was ruined.

“Even if I didn’t do anything to help you, your own regenerative abilities could handle burns like these. But you’ll have to replace your clothes and your sword, you know. So, what do you wanna do?”

“Don’t worry about that,” another D called up from the ground. Needless to say, it was the fake one. “Have you forgotten who this facility was built for? Come with me. No parent would want to leave his newborn child to lead a deprived existence, after all.”

A few minutes later, the fake D had guided them through a door, and beyond it lay thousands or even tens of thousands of splendid garments—a gorgeous palette that filled the vast hall completely. In the next room, D chose a longsword from the weapons that covered all the walls. Its elegant curve, the sturdy workmanship of its hilt and sheath—everything was exactly the same as his accustomed blade.

-

II

-

The next thing they had to do was to pay a call on the medical center—the two Ds weren’t the only ones who’d taken a direct hit from those high-energy waves. Mia and Neer both lay on beds with treatment systems that were barely operational. Though Mia had taken cover behind the throne, sticking her face out had given it a thorough exposure to the light energy, which left it with a condition resembling a sunburn.

“Looks like the system’s not fully operational,” the fake D said, giving the sputtering treatment equipment a kick. Its alloy body dented.

“So it won’t be possible to treat them for the light energy. They’ll need to be hospitalized in the Capital. To make matters worse,” he continued, throwing a look that could be described as both cold and sympathetic to the groaning Neer on the distant bed, “he’s too far gone. I looked at his scans, and both his organs and his brain are lousy with tumors. You know, if we’d put him down earlier, he might’ve been spared all this pain.”

His remarks were directed at D.

In reply to that, D said merely, “It’s Muma.”

That silenced the fake D. Then he asked, “Does he know about it?”

“Back in the light, he mentioned it.”

The eyes of the two Ds met. Astonishingly enough, the melted flesh on their faces had almost been fully repaired, and their hair was back to normal. The metabolic functions of these two must’ve had an almost infinite amount of energy to draw upon.

Putting his hands together, the fake D cried, “Yahoo! In that case, we’d better do this while he’s still among the living. Let’s hurry up and ask him.”

But he knew that was impossible. Neer was rocked by spasms, and the words that came from his mouth were the senseless gibbering of a madman.

“His mental stabilizers are shot. This is hopeless.”

As the fake D folded his arms, D extended his left hand in front of him. He put the palm of that hand against Neer’s forehead. Five seconds passed . . . Ten . . . And then Neer’s tightly shut lids opened wide. Seeing that a light of unmistakable sanity shone in them, the fake D groaned, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“This . . . is the medical center . . . isn’t it?” Neer inquired after looking all around.

“That’s right,” said D. He’d already taken his hand away.

“Come to mention it, I have this feeling . . . like I had a long dream . . . or something. Are you . . . treating me?”

“No, but listen to me. You’re going to die soon.”

“Hey!” the fake D exclaimed, his eyes bulging.

Mia sat up at that, too.

“Is that so? I suppose I am . . . I have lived . . . too long.”

“Where is Muma?” D asked, cutting him off.

“Muma?” Neer said, something murky spreading through his eyes.

“Yes, Muma.”

“Muma . . . Muma . . . What in the world . . .”

Suddenly an intense hue of terror took possession of the aged cyborg’s face.

“Muma—ah, yes! Muma!” the old man exclaimed.

From the vicinity of his chest there came a little sound, like a motor spinning out of control.

“His artificial heart just went haywire,” D’s left hand muttered.

“What is Muma?” D continued.

“It’s . . . It’s . . . something I built.”

“What?” the fake D cried, staring at the old man.

“The great one . . . had the initial idea . . . and I studied the feasibility of it. And then . . . I had complete authority . . . until it was built.”

“What is it? Is it some kind of machine?” the fake D interrupted.

“No . . .”

“Is it a place, then?”

Neer shook his head from side to side. At the same time, spasms rattled through every inch of his body.

“This ain’t good. He’s almost in his death throes.”

As the Hunter’s left hand said, certain death was catching up with the cyborg after five thousand long years. His eyes lost their sparkle, and his expression became that of a puppet.

The two Ds turned around.

Mia stood there. Walking over to the aged cyborg as if she didn’t even see the other two, she squatted down by the old man’s head and took his half-melted hand between both of hers.

“Hey!” the fake D called to her, but his tone wasn’t especially forceful.

“In addition to fortunetelling, my mother served as a priestess at funerals. Her job was to see the dying off,” Mia said quietly. “She taught me how to do the same. I couldn’t help but hate the idea of watching people die for a living, but then I found this person who’d collapsed out in the woods and there wasn’t time for me to go get anyone else. The person died in my arms. At that point, I finally got the feeling I understood what the job was all about. No one wants to die alone. I realized that being with someone when their time comes isn’t a job, it’s my duty as a human being.”

White beads had formed on the brow of the aged cyborg. Circulatory fluid was probably seeping through his skin due to mechanical failures. Mia wiped them away.

“Go gently,” she said as if addressing the old man. Or D. Or the fake D. Or something that wasn’t here now, but which intently watched over everything. “No one is going to ask you anything. You needn’t speak. Go gently.”

Neer’s closed eyelids twitched a little. Tears spilled from them.

“Muma . . . When you leave here . . . go north. My niece Menda . . . should be there . . .”

And having said that, he started to take a breath and stopped in the middle of it. The air caught in his throat, and he wheezed. He clutched at Mia’s fingers. A hint of pain passed across the girl’s face. But that was it. The ancient hand let go of Mia’s fingers, and then rolled off the edge of the bed.

Mia slowly lowered her head.

After a short time, D asked, “Have you seen him off?”

“Yes.”

“That old-timer was a lucky man,” the fake D said enviously. “The way things were going, his rusted old body would’ve dropped somewhere in this underworld and been a meal for the monsters, but instead he got sent off to the next life by a sweet young thing.”

“Don’t put it that way!” Mia cried, glaring at him. Something glittered in her eyes.

“Oh, my apologies.”

“You needn’t apologize to me. I’d appreciate it if you’d show some respect for the feelings of the departed, however.”

The fake D was at a loss for words.

“How are you feeling?” D asked.

“Huh?”

“How’s your condition? Your face was burned.”

“I’m okay, really. I took medicine that helps wards off energy, too.”

“Isn’t your finger broken?”

“It’s—” Mia began, lightly taking hold of her right index finger. That alone made her groan. It seemed to be broken from the third joint up.

D took her finger gently in his left hand.

“Oh!” she gasped in surprise, but that soon gave way to fresh bewilderment. The pain had left her completely.

“Consider yourself lucky,” the left hand said boastfully.

“Well, time to get down to the main event,” the fake D said somewhat awkwardly. “Thanks to babycakes here—”

“The name is Mia.”

“Thanks to Mia baby, it looks like the location of the treasure will finally be learned. North it is, my other self!” he called to D. He was positively buoyant. If that was his true character, D would have to be a huge liar putting on a great show.

“Menda to the north,” D muttered.

“Is that enough for you to go on?” Mia asked.

“No problem. While you’re headed there, you’ll run into people coming this way. You can ask them. After all, we’re talking about this old-timer’s niece. Anyone would know about someone like that.”

D turned around without saying a word.

“Hey! Wait a second. That was all my idea. I’m going with you!”

As the fake D started after the Hunter, he changed direction.

“No, you’re not. I’m going with him,” the girl said.

“Come with me back to the surface,” D said, having halted but still facing forward. “Then you should go back to the village. And forget about everything else.”

“Yeah, you do that,” the fake chimed in. In this regard, the two Ds were in complete agreement.

“I don’t want to.”

“There’s nothing more you can do. You’d only get in the way.”

“I can divine things.”

“This is no job for some penny-ante bone tosser from the sticks. Stay out of it. I don’t know why your mother didn’t teach you—”

Surely D had let this play out intentionally.

A sharp slap rang out, and Mia stared dazedly at the right hand she’d used to land the blow while the fake D held his cheek and grinned wryly.

“Sorry. But I won’t have anyone insulting my mother,” the girl declared flatly.

As the fake D looked at her, his eyes had a chillingly malevolent glow, but it swiftly faded and he said, “No, I was at fault. Well, you just leave the rest to me. You’re a lot more likely to get results that way. But I’ll tell you one thing, baby.”

“It’s Mia.”

“Okay, Mia baby. As you can see, he and I are one and the same. Never forget that.”

Mia turned to face D, looking head on at his handsome features. “Please take me with you.”

“I told you to go back to the village.”

“In that case, promise me something. That you’ll avert the crisis the world faces even if I’m not there. Swear that the two of you won’t go off and just fight for your own cause.”

“I’m under no obligation to promise you anything.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

“You’ll be going as a complete stranger.”

Mia’s breath was taken away—he’d accepted her instantly. It was the rule of the Frontier that everyone lived on their own.

“Understood. I won’t be a nuisance to you at all. No matter what happens, just leave me be.”

“No talking to me, either.”

A stunned silence from the girl. Mia’s blood froze and she wondered if the words hadn’t come from an entirely different person.

“What did I tell you? I’m a hell of a lot kinder, aren’t I?” the fake D said, his voice skimming vainly through her mind.

“Very well. But at least escort me as far as the exit.”

“There’s nothing stopping you from following along if you like.”

“Okay,” she replied, but how she had to muster the energy to say that one word! Mia desperately fought back what was rising within her.

When the three of them reached the surface, it was evening. A fourth person—Kuentz—was draped across the back of D’s cyborg steed. Mia was stupefied that the pair’s horses had been tethered outside the entrance at some point, but the apparent culprit—the fake D—didn’t say anything to her.

Mia got on the horse behind the fake D.

“Put your arms tight around my waist,” he told her.

“Okay.”

The begrudging manner in which the girl complied was hardly in character for her, where a spiteful remark would’ve been more in order. But she knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“Tighter,” the fake D said, watching D out of the corner of his eye.

“Okay.”

“Let’s go,” D said.

“Oh!” the fake D exclaimed as something went flying into the air from behind D and landed right in his lap. The slumbering Kuentz.

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Entrusting him to the one who gets results,” D said without even turning to look.

“Hey!”

“Catch up to me later.”

And with that, the rider in black galloped away in a cloud of dust. To the north.

While he trailed the Hunter in a daze, the fake D bared his teeth and snarled, “The nerve of that guy. The next time I see him, he’ll have to answer for this.”

Behind him, Mia added, “I’ll say. As soon as we get Kuentz to the hospital, let’s head right out after him.”

At that, the fake D laughed aloud.

-

III

-

Three days and three nights D kept his horse ceaselessly galloping down the road north, finally arriving at the first tiny community. There he left his exhausted cyborg steed, asking that the animal be serviced and its needs attended to. When he asked at the stables about a woman named Menda, the reply he got was, “Ah, you’re too late, you are. She passed away three years back.”

Though her home had also been demolished, he asked where it’d been located, heading out there on a horse borrowed from the stables. Sure enough, nothing but the house’s foundation remained in the hilly region spreading to the west of the village. As he was looking at the surrounding area, a wagon came along. It stopped in front of D.

“You there, pretty boy—what are you up to?” a personable-looking farmer in a battered hat called out to him from the driver’s seat. “There’s nothing left there. A witch woman who was no-one-knows-how-many centuries old used to live there, you see. Caused all kinds of trouble, and on account of that, her house was burned to the ground. Even now, the will-o’-the-wisps light up the place come nighttime and strange, shadowy characters creep around. I don’t mean to tell you your business, but you’d best be hurrying on your way.”

“Does she have a grave?” D asked in return. Although he was over thirty feet away, his low voice reached the farmer’s ears without the least bit of distortion.

“She does. The village holy man said a body with no one to see to it was just too pathetic, so he set up a grave for her. From where you’re standing, you can see that hill off to the right, can’t you? It’s at the foot of that.”

Giving the man his thanks, D got back on his horse.

It was less than five hundred yards to the hill. In a shallow depression that’d been dug in the slope there stood a tall, slim gravestone. On it was carved Menda’s name and a date three years earlier. There was no date of birth.

Staring for some time at the humble grave, D then set his left hand on the top of the gravestone. To an observer, he might’ve looked like a dashing man wracked by deep emotion at the thought of the departed. And then, said observer would no doubt have imagined that the grave’s occupant was a woman of peerless beauty now lost to him.

“Well?” D asked. His inquiry was directed not to the gravestone but rather, as illogical as it seemed, to his left hand.

“There’s no hideout here. It’s a grave all right. Except it’s made of incredibly heavy stone.”

Processed stone was renowned for being essentially as dense as iron, and it was used to bind ghosts and vengeful spirits that might harm the living.

“And inside it?”

“That much I can’t tell.” Perhaps noticing that D’s right hand was reaching around to his back, the voice hurriedly added, “You—you can’t seriously be thinking of stabbing your sword into that stone, can you?”

It was more of a desperate plea than a question, but before it had even finished, D’s right hand flashed into action. Drawing the blade from his back, he made a thrust. Naturally, the sword should’ve limned an arc and then streaked straight forward in a piercing blow. But it merely looked as if D’s blade had flown straight from the sheath to the gravestone.

Stabbing into the base of the gravestone at roughly a sixty-degree angle, the blade appeared to stop for a second when it was a third of the way in, but it merely slowed a tiny bit before sinking in halfway.

“Oh, my—here it comes!” the left hand shouted.

For some reason, whenever a person referred to the arrival of something inhuman, they invariably said some variant of “It’s coming!” And something certainly did come. At the same time D’s blade was being pulled back out, a clearly visible miasma-like substance was rising from the gravestone, but it then dispersed in the air.

D turned around and looked.

There stood a woman in a white death shroud. The scenery behind her was visible through her transparent skin.

“Menda?” D asked as if he were addressing a living person.

“You’re—D.”

“You know me?”

“Surely you know the power of the soul. Everything that’s been said about you reaches my ears.”

“Where is Muma?” D asked. Though he’d confirmed who she was, he didn’t seem the least bit surprised. Of course, he didn’t seem at all frightened, either.

“Do you want to know? If so, you must grant me a favor.”

“Name it.”

Joy tinged the cheeks of the transparent woman. Her right hand rose to her chest. It stopped there for a moment, and then came away again. Within her blurry body, a black lump swelled and shrank by turns. It was obvious at a glance. That was her heart.

“The great one—oh, but then you must know of whom I speak. He put this into me. Even when I was killed, it beat on. And it prevents me from undertaking my eternal journey. If you wish to know the way to Muma, I want you to stop this.”

D saw tears well up in the woman’s eyes. Could a soul cry?

“You must’ve come from the subterranean realm where my uncle was. I am not uninformed as to what transpired there.”

“Hmm,” the left hand replied.

The woman smiled thinly.

“I was one of those who worked there. You see, the great one’s experiments required not only the science of the Nobility, but also the primitive magics of every race. As it continued, it affected my mental state—in truth, it got to the point where even the minds of the pitiless Nobles working there could bear it no longer. Weird children born one after another—oh, I can still hear them! This heart carries the noise to me. The heartrending whimpers of the babies deemed failures. All of them were discarded in a bottomless pit. No one can know how the sight of that has tormented me. On the brink of losing my mind, I talked with a number of my associates, and then we set the subatomic reactor to overload and fled the subterranean realm. I galloped off on a horse then, riding a full year until I took up residence in a freezing village nestled between the glaciers.”

One after another, the woman’s words rang out with a despair that was denser than the dark of winter. And it was because of this that D remained silent and listened to her.

“But alas, as I feared, I wasn’t safe there. Those who’d labored at forbidden tasks in the subterranean realm would never be allowed to escape the black arms of the great one. Every day and every night, I heard his voice in my dreams whispering to me, Come back. And after living there a hundred years, I turned my back on the glacier village. For the next three centuries I walked across the Frontier, looking like some wandering wraith, and then I settled on this village. All the bizarre experiments I conducted here were done at the great one’s bidding. As a result, I wound up cursed and killed. Not that I’m resentful of that—I was painfully aware that the great one never forgave traitors when I chose to rebel. However, the fate the great one bestowed upon me was not the peace of death. My ears ring with the cries of desperately clinging babies who realized their fate just as they were about to be hurled into a dark hole. Babies who wrapped their arms around my neck. When I close my eyes, their faces appear, begging to be spared. I have been locked away with the very things I sought to flee. And for the rest of time I’ll be unable to escape them. Not so long as I have this heart—the heart the great one gave me in place of my own when he appeared to me in a dream the night before the villagers murdered me.”

The woman covered her eyes. She plugged her ears. She wrapped her arms around herself. As overly dramatic as these gestures were, they laid the woman’s misery bare.

“Stop this heart of mine,” the woman said, her words growing slurred. She was desperate. It wasn’t life she desired. The freedom of her soul hung in the balance. “No one can stop a heart made by the great one. Except for his one success, that is.”

You were my only success.

“You know the way to Muma, don’t you?” D asked, just to be sure.

“Oh, will you do it, then? Of course I know the way. I was a handmaiden to the great one.”

D didn’t move from that spot, but held his sword ready in his left hand, drawing it far back under his arm. Poised for a thrust. Could the same blow that’d pierced the superdense stone destroy the heart housed in her spirit—an artificial heart that’d been put into her in a dream?

D’s eyes glowed with an intense light. His eyelids slid shut, and a second later, the sword blade pierced her black heart.

Menda screamed. Though the writhing figure clutching her heart was semitransparent, she was just like a real person of flesh and blood experiencing real agony.

D lowered his sword. He knew his blade had met no resistance—it was like stabbing into thin air.

There was no change in the evil beating of the black heart. An artificial heart made of the same material as a dream, and which, when damaged, put the soul into hellish agony—what in the world was it, and how on earth could it be destroyed?

“Stop this. You’ll only torture her soul,” a hoarse voice choked with distress called out to stay his hand.

“Looks like I failed,” D said to the soul of Menda, which had finally finished twitching. “What do you want to do?”

“How about you? Do you pity me? Are you loath to make me feel the same pain again? Do you wish to run away with your tail between your legs?”

She looked up at D with tears in her eyes. That single blow had left her face gaunt, but a hopeful smile gradually spread across it.

“You’re ready now, aren’t you? You’re going to do it. You really, truly intend to free me from this accursed existence. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Stop this madness,” the left hand urged them. “Her soul won’t die. But every time you fail, she’ll go into agonized convulsions. Unless you have some proof you’ll succeed next time, this is just torture. Gaaaah!”

Opening his hand again from the tight fist he’d just made, the Hunter closed his eyes. He was focusing his mind.

Would the second thrust bring salvation, or would it give rise to tragedy?

A chill spread through the air—a paranormal phenomenon associated with D’s intense concentration. Once more he held the sword by his side—and when it blistered through the air, it impaled the black organ again, snapping Menda backward.

At the same time, D clutched his chest and staggered forward. A steely arrow ran into him through the back and poked out of his heart. Someone had shot him from behind.

Ordinarily, the Hunter would’ve sensed the murderous intent before his opponent had even fired and gone on the offensive. However, his intense concentration hadn’t allowed him to do so.

Reaching with his right hand for the part that protruded from his chest, D yanked it forward. Pulling eight inches of gory arrow out, he then fell forward as if in keeping with the speed and angle of that tug.

“Oh, D! D! D!” Menda cried, forgetting her own pain and clinging to him, but her face was heavily tinged with the hollowness of one who knew her own fate.

The wind blew across her grave. Aside from the fallen Vampire Hunter, there was no sign of anyone else there. For her soul wasn’t permitted to exist in the ordinary world.

To D’s rear—actually, on the road some fifty yards away—a wagon was stopped. In the driver’s seat with a twelve-pound crossbow propped against one shoulder was the same personable farmer who’d told D about this place.

“You were just so good-looking I knew you had to be up to something, so I follow you out here and sure enough, you’re getting into all kinds of weirdness. Trying to help the evil spirit of that witch after I went to all the trouble of sealing her up in that stone—that’s patently offensive. Shooting you in the back might’ve been unsporting, but heaven’s wrath shows no mercy. You can go straight to hell.”

Lowering the crossbow, he took off his hat. There wasn’t a single hair on his head. Then he took a folded-up monk’s cap from his chest pocket and put it on. The holy man who’d erected Menda’s grave was this very same man.

Fixing a cylindrical magazine of arrows to the crossbow, the monk got down from his wagon.

“The ghost of Menda is cursed. She’ll never be able to pass on. But if she lingers long in this world, she’s sure to cause harm. That’s why she was confined to this grave, until you stuck your busy little nose into this!”

Walking over to D, he kicked the Hunter’s face as hard as he could. D’s lips split and blood went flying.

“Stop it!” Menda cried out, bending over D.

“Are you trying to get smart with me, you vile spirit?” the monk cursed at her. For he could see souls.

Pointing the end of his crossbow at Menda’s heart, he pulled what looked like an earphone from one ear.

“I got this listening device from the Capital. I heard the entire conversation you two had. Now I’m going to see whether or not emptying every arrow I’ve got into your heart will send you to the hereafter,” he declared with naked loathing.