THE GENERAL’S INVITEE

CHAPTER 4

I

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The train arrived at Jalha Station thirty minutes behind schedule. It was so rare for one to be that close to arriving on time that the stationmaster and his employees exchanged glances.

D rode around back to the receiving bay with Gordo, Juke, and Sergei, and he remained mounted, as if to cover the other three after they got down off their horses. Out here on the Frontier, they couldn’t relax simply because the train had arrived safely. The names of all the stations that’d been hit by bandits just as a train arrived and then burned to the ground would make a list a mile long. Showing his work papers to a railway worker, Juke got permission to make the pickup.

When they went through the receiving bay and out onto the platform, there was a figure in vermilion walking from the far end of the train. From his top hat to the cape hanging down to his knees, his jacket to his bow tie, the man was clad entirely in one shade of red. Though his face was youthful, a neat beard graced him from the nose down, and his right hand held a blue walking stick with a golden handle. Out in the sunlight, his face and hands glistened as if they were coated with some kind of cream. Though the dapper young man had his left thumb in his mouth and sucked it as he went along, when he passed by the trio he pulled his hand away from his mouth, touched it to the brim of his hat, and bowed his head slightly. The trio ignored him—they took him for some sort of snob. This was due in part to their being so busy getting a wagon and making other arrangements after their arrival in town that they hadn’t had time to sleep.

Not seeming to take any offense, the man went back to sucking his thumb, walking another fifteen feet or so before halting. To his left was the receiving bay. D was there. The man in the top hat made an easy turn in D’s direction. Their eyes met.

Somewhere, a cry of surprise rang out. A shadow had suddenly passed across the sun.

D’s hair billowed. The hem of the vermilion cape swirled wildly. It was the wind.

There was a flash of light in the ashen sky.

Juke, Gordo, and Sergei all noticed. So did the station workers. Even with the wind and thunder and lightning, they knew that this was a battle. D was up on his horse, the man in the top hat down on the ground—and in the space between the two of them, invisible sparks flew.

“Where’d you come from?” D asked, as if he were an interrogator grilling a suspect for a confession.

Smiling thinly, the man in the top hat replied, “From quite some distance.” He said it as if he were an honest defendant incredulous of the charges against him.

“Where are you going?”

“Quite some distance more.”

“If it’s General Gaskell’s domain, that certainly is quite some distance.”

“You’re well informed,” the man in the top hat said, his smile deepening.

Not taking his eyes off him, D said, “That freight car stinks of blood. As does your left hand. Are you an invitee of the general?”

Astonishment spread across the face of the man in the top hat. Though he tried to hide it, he quickly gave up.

“When I received the invitation, I wondered what kind of incredible individuals I might encounter, but this is more than I ever expected. If you know the legend of the invitees, you must be—D?”

“I’m D.”

The light in the sky bleached D’s visage white. A rumble of rapture went up—it had escaped from the transport-party trio and the station staff. That instant of beauty had snatched their very souls away . . . as it had another’s. He looked up at D vacantly.

“In return, allow me to introduce myself. I am Baron Schuma.”

“I’ve heard of you,” D said, his words slammed by thunder.

“As you may know, I am not the only invitee. I’m sure at some point you shall be seeing all of us. May I pass?”

“The road belongs to the station, not me.”

“In that case—” Baron Schuma turned forward again and was about to walk off to the ticket gate. Every fiber of his being was focused toward his intent—but then he halted.

A flash adorned the pair with pale blue. Lightning.

The tip of the baron’s cane rose smoothly. D didn’t move. Everyone present was convinced that this unexpected battle would surely end with one of them dead.

At that moment, the ring of iron-shod hooves was overlaid with the sound of wagon wheels out at the entrance to the station, which gave way to screams of urgency that soon halted. Amidst the wind and lightning, a clear voice, but one that didn’t seem to belong to any warm-blooded human, said, “Has Baron Schuma arrived? The administrator of the southern Frontier’s third sector, General Gaskell, has sent a carriage for him.”

It was several seconds before the dire meaning of these words dawned on the station staff. Their souls had been imprisoned since D and Baron Schuma squared off.

“Dear me!” the baron exclaimed, the tension draining from his body. The smile never leaving his face, he thrust his walking stick in D’s direction. “It would appear my ride is here. That will be all for today—”

And then his smile vanished.

There was no change in D. The whole world might suddenly alter, but this gorgeous young man would never stop until the foe before him was destroyed. The battle continued.

The baron was about to raise his stick when a black cloud of indignant despair covered his face. In the next few seconds, matters would probably be settled between the pair one way or another.

However, heaven didn’t allow that to pass. With a series of strange shouts, humans came down from the sky. They were men with balloons strapped to their bodies, the gas-filled bags appearing to be the internal organs of some creature. There was no need to see their vicious scowls. One look at their clothes and the way they were armed with spears and swords made it clear they were a mob of bandits. There were tiny propellers attached to the front and back of their bodies, which apparently allowed them to control their heading.

Outlaw attacks from above like this weren’t uncommon at Frontier train stations, and ordinarily an eye was kept on the skies. Security was especially tight when a freight train loaded with lots of cargo pulled in. However, today of all days the people’s attention was entirely focused on the unusual pair’s face-off. The moment the guy manning the watchtower on the roof of the station building swung around the kind of heavy machine gun rarely found in poor Frontier villages, he was fatally stabbed by a bandit who pounced on him. Aided by another man who’d descended with him, the killer attached a balloon to the entire gun and its store of ammo, and then filled it with an incredibly buoyant gas from a cylinder. The weapon that floated up was an important part of their spoils, and it would be carried off to where the bandits’ cargo wagons waited in the distant mountains.

One after another grenades rained from the hands of the men in midair, blowing the station and its helpless staff in all directions.

“Get in the freight car!” the stationmaster cried. Those goods were what their foes were after. There was no way they’d blow the car carrying them to kingdom come.

The station staff also started to fight back, managing to shoot down a number of the outlaws with bows and pneumatic rifles, but caught unaware and severely outnumbered, they had no choice but to take cover in the station building.

At the same moment, the men who’d landed on the roof of the train attached a transport balloon with truly amazing speed, and the train floated up into the air like a toy.

From above D and the baron, the foes descended, raining arrows all the while. What happened next could only be described as bizarre. On landing, the bandits all slumped right to the ground. And what should be jutting from their chests and abdomens but the iron arrows they had launched at D only seconds earlier. Motionless in the saddle, he’d had the reins in his left hand while his right had plucked the deadly missiles and hurled them back at the attackers with a mere flick of his wrist.

“I should’ve expected as much,” the baron said with a grin. “They’re like infants trying to fight a grown man. I wonder how I’ll fare?”

From either side of the platform, men armed with swords and staffs barreled toward the Nobleman. Scowling viciously and churning with a thirst for blood, the men came to a dead stop about fifteen feet away. The color instantly drained from their horrified faces, and cold sweat poured from them. Their numbers were bolstered then by three men who leapt down off the freight car—but that trio was also paralyzed.

“What’s wrong? Come now,” the baron called out.

Still the villains wouldn’t move—or rather, they couldn’t move. They were stopped cold, as if taking even a single step would mean instant death.

Raising his walking stick, the baron pointed it at the pair on the right. “Come,” he said.

And with that, the ones he’d indicated tottered forward as if they were marionettes or had been mesmerized. After they’d taken a few steps, the baron’s stick was thrust forward and immediately pulled back again three times. It moved less than four inches. Squawking like chickens, the men tumbled backward, clutching their throats. It was only after they’d landed on their backs that bright blood gushed out from between their fingers. The wounds were indeed at the same level the baron had moved his walking stick. However, being more than ten feet away at the time, it didn’t appear there was any way it could’ve possibly come in contact with them.

The stick shifted to the Nobleman’s left hand—and pointed at the men to his right.

“Come to me,” the baron said, his voice like some suggestion they simply couldn’t resist. That pair also staggered forward.

One of them—a man with a staff—barely managed to plant his feet, and with a savage cry he swung the weapon. Though the staff was about six feet long, at least that much distance remained between him and the baron. A split second later, a black chain flew from the end of the staff and wrapped around the baron’s walking stick. Like a man possessed, the outlaw tugged with all his might. Not only was he skilled with the staff and chain, but he was also a giant of a man. And though he seemed to be three times the size of an ordinary person, his incredible muscles were so well defined that he actually looked slim for his size.

Pulled tight, there was no slack in the chain, but the baron didn’t budge an inch. Suddenly, he waved his cane. What resulted was a phenomenon that was physically impossible. While the two of them remained exactly where they were, a series of waves raced down that once-taut chain, driving the staff against the man’s wrists. His wrists broke, along with his staff.

It was shortly after that that the man let out a scream. Once the extended walking stick waved four inches from side to side, fresh blood spilled from his throat and the man collapsed on the spot, still clutching his new mouth.

Only one remained. He was motionless, as if entranced, but the baron called to him, “Come to me.”

The spell was broken. The man made a break for the railroad tracks, but the train had already floated up into the air. As he ran directly under it, he fiddled with the gas cylinder and propeller on his belt.

The baron said, “Observe.” Whether that was addressed to D or a concession to his own Noble vanity was unclear.

His cane limned a vicious arc. All the ropes on the balloon lifting the train were severed, while blood shot from the men who’d held them.

The fleeing man had just left the ground. The falling train struck him in midair, and the instant his feet were pressed back down to the ground, he was transformed into a titan bearing the weight of the world. His screams were effaced by the crash of the train and ground coming together.

Another sound rang out. Off to D’s left, someone in midair had lobbed a grenade. On the back of his spinning horse, D raised his left hand to fend off the blistering-hot shrapnel flying toward him, and then swept out with his right hand. The rough wooden needle that went sailing through the air pierced the man through the windpipe as he prepared to hurl a second explosive, and both he and his grenade blew apart in midair. Needles jabbed through three more in rapid succession, at which point the thieves began to flee, spewing invectives all the while.

As D remained motionless on the platform, Juke and his two companions raced over to him. Apparently they’d offered what resistance they could, as their clothes were torn and they were filthy with blood, sand, and gunpowder residue.

“We saw what happened, and it was incredible! You never even got down off your horse in that crazy skirmish, and you put down around ten of them in the blink of an eye.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? Hey!”

Ignoring their cries of joy and astonishment, D had turned his gaze to the end of the platform.

Just as he was about to slip through the turnstiles and out of the station, Baron Schuma halted and turned in the Hunter’s direction, bringing one hand to the rim of his hat and giving an easy bow before disappearing.

“D, was that character a Noble?” Juke asked, his expression stark white.

“Yes.”

“Impossible! He was walking around in broad daylight,” Gordo said. His previously yellowed turban was now stained with blood.

“It happens occasionally.”

“A Noble who can move by day—he’s unstoppable,” Sergei said in a subdued manner.

“He said he’d been summoned by General Gaskell, didn’t he? What’s that supposed to mean? For a long, long time now the general’s been . . .” Gordo muttered, not seeming to want to say the rest.

Juke elbowed him, saying, “We’re talking about the Nobility here. He must’ve come back to life. Time means nothing to them.”

“I guess not—oh, the carriage has taken off! Does that little weasel think he’s off to see General Gaskell?”

“What’s it matter? It’s got nothing to do with our route. That’s a relief,” Juke said, letting out a long sigh.

At this point the station staff came over and asked them to inspect the cargo of the smashed freight car.

“This’ll take all day. Sorry, D, but we’ll have to ask you to stick around,” Juke said apologetically.

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II

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Fortunately, out of the three freight cars, the one that was left had more cargo in it than the other two combined. Having hired people to help load their wagon, it was well past noon when they finally left the village.

“Next stop is the village of Jelkin, isn’t it? We won’t make it there before sundown,” Juke said from the driver’s seat with displeasure. “At any rate, we’d best hurry.”

The eyes these words lit a fire in were not Gordo’s but rather those of Sergei, who sat beside him in the front seat. The normally taciturn man took an uncharacteristic glance at the sky and said, “We’ve got three hours till sunset. It’ll take another three hours after that to reach the village. How about we camp out and get there first thing in the morning? That’d only put us two days behind the date in our agreement.”

“You idiot! Don’t you know how anxiously those villagers are waiting for this stuff? If the medicine we’re bringing gets there even an hour late it could mean somebody’s baby dies from a poison scarab bite. I hear any more crap like that out of you and I’ll knock you flat.”

At the sight of Juke with veins popping out of his forehead, Sergei quickly fell silent. He didn’t seem at all the sort of man who lived out on the Frontier.

Having heard their exchange from the top of the wagon, the grinning Gordo walked to the back, climbed down to the rear deck, and called back to D, who was guarding their rear, “That Sergei’s an odd bird. He’s not a bad person, and he does a good job. It’s just that he seems to lack a certain something for living on the Frontier. Everything he says is so damned rational. Guess maybe he’s what you’d call an intellectual. Whoa! We’re picking up speed. Looks like ol’ Juke is hell bent on reaching Jelkin before the day is out.”

Presently their surroundings grew more desolate. They were on a road through plains without a speck of green to them. In scattered places there were huge holes perhaps a hundred yards across, and strange rocks were piled in pyramids in what might even be described as some kind of bizarre art installation. As the white smoke that rose in so many places was a poisonous gas, the area was littered with the bones of countless birds and beasts.

“The wind’s taken a bad turn. It’s blowing right toward us,” Gordo yelled down to the driver’s seat, having returned to the roof of the wagon.

“No problem. There’s not all that much of it. If you were to breathe some in, it wouldn’t take more than a few months off your life,” Juke replied.

“I suppose you’ve got a point there.”

The two of them then heard a masculine but captivating voice say, “Not today.”

Nearly falling under its spell, the pair—or actually, all three men—quickly scanned either side of the road. Normally the white smoke merely drifted weakly across the ground, but suddenly it was coming toward them, churning and white, so heavy it hid the color of the earth beneath it. The distant forests and mountains were also hidden by white smoke, leaving only their silhouettes—and soon even those slipped from sight.

“What the hell is all this?” Gordo said, eyes bulging in their sockets.

Juke shouted to him and to Sergei, “Shut your eyes and hold your breath. We’ll be through this in a minute.”

The only thing unaffected by the gas attack would be the cyborg horses.

“Hyah!” Juke shouted to his team, cracking the reins to make the horses pick up speed. Though the gas wasn’t advancing at a great speed, the cargo wagon was also at a disadvantage. It was heavy.

“It’s gaining on us!” Gordo shouted.

Having already hidden the road behind them, the gas was pursuing the wagon, just like a living entity.

“Hurry!”

“It’s no use. It’s gonna catch up to us,” Sergei said, managing to squeeze the words out in a despairing tone as he looked behind them.

Beside them, they suddenly sensed someone.

“D?”

To either side of the driver’s seat there was room for three guards to sit. D had come over from his own galloping steed. After forcing the two men to the far end of the front seat, the Hunter stood like a guardian deity gripping the reins. A sudden change came over the horses—that was the only way to describe the way their speed increased.

“Oh, shit!” Gordo exclaimed in amazement, clinging for dear life to a handle on the wagon’s roof.

“They’re fast. Damn, they’re fast! These horses have gotta be top notch!”

“That’s not it. It’s the driver that’s incredible!”

Ignoring the closely pursuing cloud of gas, the wagon started to pull further and further away, and before long the road ran into a valley with cliffs rising to either side of it. D raced onward. All he had to do was hold the reins and the team of six cyborg horses tore up the turf like thoroughbreds groomed for the honor of the winner’s circle. Even running over the smallest rock made the wagon jolt madly—or perhaps exuberantly.

“Stop it already!” Gordo yelled.

Since D had taken the reins, the man had spent more than an hour clinging to the handle. Along with the wagon his organs had been jolted and his brains rattled, and his bones had been snickering at him. For a whole hour now. The other two gripped the handrails, and the ride was so rough they had all they could do to keep from falling off.

While they were shrieking and groaning, they came out of the valley, the road descended slightly, and between verdant trees the homes of villagers began to come into view. Leaving the shouts and screams of the three men in its wake, the wagon tore into the village of Jelkin. The gates weren’t locked during the day. Ignoring the villagers, who didn’t know what was going on and thus froze in their tracks, they went down the main street and straight into the square. Sparks shot from the horses’ hooves as they struck rocks, and the wagon wheels tore into the earth.

Suddenly, calm descended.

Pushing the hunched-over Sergei off his back, Juke got up. “You okay?” he called up to Gordo on the roof.

“No, I’m dead, you big dope!”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.” Looking down from the front seat, the thought that slipped from his brain was, Oh, damn!

A mob of villagers was closing on them, and every last one of them wore a wrathful visage. Naturally some of them carried spades and mattocks, others sickles and longswords—some even had bows and arrows at the ready. There were cries wanting to know who was in charge and the men looked around with eyes as big as saucers, but there was no sign of D.

Turning to the mob, Juke said in a loud voice, “We’re cargo transporters.”

“So you say, but you sped through here like damn maniacs,” one of the farmers shouted, waving a giant scythe. “Scared my granny half to death, and she nearly threw her back out!”

“What are you gonna do if you scared my chickens so bad they stop laying, huh?” a young farmer said, gnashing his teeth.

“Oh, no!” a panicky voice cried out in the distance. “Yapei’s mother started foaming at the mouth!”

“You bastards!”

“You think we’re just bumpkins and you can treat us like shit.”

“Let’s torch the lot of ’em!”

If Juke and his two compatriots dealt poorly with the villagers crushing forward, they wouldn’t get off easily.

Just then, an indistinct voice that sounded like it surely came from a mouth missing quite a few teeth called out, “Come on. Hold up now.”

Suddenly the lust for blood drained from the villagers. The mob parted, revealing an old man bent over parallel to the ground and seemingly a century or two in age. The cane he used was a thick tree branch that’d been polished.

“Long time no see, Mr. Juke,” the codger said with the same slack mouth. “And Mr. Gordo as well—the other fellow’s a newcomer, I take it? It’s been a good six months since the last time I’ve seen you, but I remember you sure enough.”

“We appreciate it, Mr. Mayor,” Juke said, relieved to the very bottom of his soul.

“You fixing to unload your goods? Okay, everybody, let’s give them a hand.” The mayor made a toss of his jaw.

Who knew what had become of their malice, because the villagers were all smiles as women, children, and old folks alike pressed toward the wagon.

“Keep back!” Juke shouted at them. Perhaps he was used to doing this, because his tone was loud and rattling.

The crowd stopped dead.

“Oh, don’t be so cold. I’m just trying to help you out is all,” said the aged mayor.

“That’s okay. Just step back,” Juke said, letting them see the pistol he wore on his hip.

“Okay, set the goods down. And don’t let anyone come any closer,” he ordered his two compatriots.

__

By the time the goods had been unloaded and they’d received payment from the mayor, it was sunset. Amazingly enough, D had covered a distance that should’ve taken three hours at top speed in less than one. Paying enough to stay for a single night, the trio was preparing to pitch camp when they found that D had come up behind them.

“God!” Juke exclaimed in surprise, inquiring somewhat caustically, “Uh, where have you been up till now, anyway?”

“Why not rent a room in the village?” D inquired.

Where lodging for travelers was concerned, rooms could usually be rented in villagers’ homes in smaller communities, while in larger ones there were full-fledged inns for just such a purpose. If they were to spend just a little more money, there’d be no need for them to sleep on the ground.

“You’ve gotta be joking, D,” Juke said, his snorts resounding through the twilight. “You might be the very top of the heap in Hunting, but you don’t know a thing about anything else, do you? If we gave the folks in this village any kind of opening, they’d pick this wagon clean inside of a minute. Look over there, behind that house and those trees. There’s a couple of people hiding there, right? And every one of ’em is out to get our goods.”

And that was the reason why he’d forced the villagers back when they wanted to help the men unload their cargo.

D glanced at Juke and said, “And yet, you look so happy.”

“Can you tell?”

“Yeah.”

“Being responsible for all this, I’d have to beat the holy hell out of anyone trying to rip us off. But I really like these folks. Out here in the sticks—in a little hick village where you take one step out of town and the place is crawling with monsters raised by the Nobility—they’re living as best they can. Hell, of course they’d wanna steal something. If I was them, I’d have long since lifted half of what we’ve got left. In that respect, they’re kinda thickheaded and kindhearted.” Juke had a tranquil look in his eyes. “Just like my dad.”

But just as he was saying this, Sergei came from the opposite direction and asked, “Could I have just two hours off?”

“Sure—but what are you gonna do?”

“There are ruins on the edge of the village. I’d like to have a peek at them.”

“What?” he exclaimed, teeth jutting from his beard. But glancing at the darkening sky, he told the man, “Be back in an hour and a half.”

Sergei thanked him, and Juke watched the man as he was leaving, his brow furrowed as he said, “He’s a strange one.”

He then turned to look over at D. But nobody was there.

__

III

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Urging his cyborg horse to run as fast as it could, the man arrived at the ruins in less than thirty minutes. Stretching beneath a sky that nearly had the hue of darkness was a wasteland devoid of a single blade of grass. These were called ruins because of the strange things that poked out of the sand. Things that looked like twisted metal antennas, parts of massive cylinders that called to mind turbines, pieces of intricate machines the true nature of which no amount of head scratching was likely to reveal, and chunks of saucer shapes that were rumored to be aircraft—if any archaeologists from the Capital had been there, they’d have been ecstatic over this mountain of treasure.

As Sergei headed into the ruins on his horse, his face wore an intellectual excitement that made him seem like an entirely different person. Approaching a metal form that’d obviously been ravaged by a heat ray, he ran his hand over it, studying it. Circling a half-broken crystalline mass repeatedly, he seemed to bore into it with his gaze. It was as if the Frontier delivery man had suddenly been transformed into a scholar. For Sergei, the better part of an hour spent here was pure bliss.

Looking up at the sky just as the darkness closed over the last trace of light, he clucked his tongue.

“Satisfied now?” D asked from behind him.

Turning, he let out a deep breath and said, “Don’t startle me like that!”

D walked over to stand beside him. “The world of the Nobility will be here in less than five minutes. Better head back.”

“You’re right. I just got so absorbed. Close call.” After looking around once more, he muttered regretfully, “Looks like I won’t find out after all. Damn!”

“Find out what?” D inquired.

Sergei had no way of knowing how rare that actually was—that it was akin to a miracle. Looking like the head of the class fielding a question in his best subject, he replied, “These aren’t really ruins so much as they’re the remains of an ancient battlefield. Just look at the stuff lying around here—the wreckage of giant radar dishes, generators, tanks. The better part of them is underground, and if you were to do some serious excavating out here, you’d probably hit Noble weapons no matter where you dug. And do you know what battle was fought here? This is the site where General Gaskell and forces from the Capital vied for supremacy. Sheesh, it makes my skin crawl. Ah!”

With a snarl like a beast Sergei waved his right hand. On seeing D, he finally returned to his senses.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I got carried away again. Looks like this transporter’s just a big ol’ jabberjaw, eh?”

At that point he tried to avert his gaze, but his eyes were drawn to D’s and couldn’t pull away.

“There’s supposed to be a repository out here that holds an account of the battle,” he confided. The fervor was beginning to sweep over him once more. “The legendary conflict between the general and the allied forces of Nobility. Wouldn’t you like to know more about it than we already do? More than just what the fight was about and what its outcome was? Even among the Nobility this battle was legendary. In fact, no one even knows how it really played out. Buried somewhere in this battlefield is a building made of marble and an impenetrable metal, and inside it the truth is hidden.”

“Quite the scholar, aren’t you?” D said quietly.

“Give me a break. I’m just a delivery man with a bit of an interest in history is all. Okay, I can accept it now. Let’s head back. Even with you along, D, the night still kinda gives me the creeps.”

D moved forward.

“Uh, the village is that way,” Sergei said, pointing.

“Come with me.”

That was all D said, and as he advanced, his horse started to go faster and faster. Like a man bewitched, Sergei drove his horse on, too. The pair galloped full speed into the heart of the darkness, which was like a black cloud.

__

After about ten minutes, D halted his steed. Still in the saddle, Sergei adjusted the beam on a light that he carried. That he’d managed to somehow keep up with D was no mean feat. Having finally set the beam, he looked all around from the back of his horse, protesting, “Hey! There’s nothing out here at all!”

Not replying, D walked forward.

“Say, just where do you—” Sergei began, intent on climbing down and going after him, but the darkness was so deep it put terror in his legs and just as he tried to advance, he tripped.

“Oof!”

As he desperately struggled to rise, his eyes caught something on the ground.

“Hey! This is where you went before, isn’t it?”

And saying this, Sergei got back up and dusted off the front of his trousers.

“Damn!” he exclaimed, hurrying off after D. The young man in black was becoming an inky shape, as if to challenge the very darkness. Sergei didn’t feel like being left alone out there.

“There were footprints. Yours, I take it. You must’ve raced to the village like that because you wanted to come out here, right?”

Now he could understand why D had disappeared when they’d first arrived.

Their walk through the darkness ended before they’d gone thirty feet. D halted. Before him stretched nothing save darkness and desolation. But more than this bizarre situation, it was the view of the beautiful Hunter from behind that left Sergei dazed.

D raised his left hand. Sergei got the feeling he might’ve been gauging the speed of the almost imperceptible night wind, or else checking the weight of the light from the stark moon in the heavens above. And then, from the front of that hand, an oddly hoarse voice was heard to say, “Okay. Accursed repository, open now!”

From the Hunter’s palm, a streak of deep red shot out in the moonlight. It was swallowed by the depths of the darkness far beyond what Sergei could see. When D lowered his hand again as if nothing had happened, not a single drop fell from it.

What in the world? Harboring his doubts, Sergei was terrified both by the fact that he already knew the answer and by the answer itself. Would it come back to life? The legendary thing of which the odd voice had spoken—the accursed repository. Would it?

Through the soles of his feet, slight tremors reached him. The wind pounded him head on, and the pain of it made Sergei put his hand over his face before he could even turn away. Still, he peeked between his fingers. And swallowed hard. His breath froze in his lungs.

A glittering silver cloud that plowed across the earth bore down on him from the depths of the darkness. The only thing that kept him from turning away was the immovable silence of the figure that stood before him. The silvery cloud had already covered both the heavens and the earth, with the ground rumbling noisily. Just as it was about to swallow D, Sergei closed his eyes. Every inch of his body stiffened to meet his fate. Expectations of terror and pain nearly made Sergei pass out. However, he held on to some hope that he’d be all right so long as he was with the young man before him. Incredible air pressure pounded every inch of him—and then stopped.

Sergei opened his eyes. He was scared. Something no one was ever meant to see probably lay before him. He saw D’s back. Relief pierced his chest for a heartbeat.

The immense object that towered before the beautiful young man caught Sergei’s gaze. The silver cloud. It was moving. Its surface eddied without making a sound. And yet, it wasn’t spreading either. Sergei shifted his gaze upward. The silvery cloud seemed to stretch all the way up to the sky. He wasn’t sure when it was that he was finally able to speak, only that it was after he noticed something moving to the rear of D.

“What is that thing?”

“The repository,” that hoarse voice said. Sergei didn’t even have enough presence of mind to wonder whom it belonged to.

“Earlier, the time wasn’t right for it to make an appearance. Okay, come with me,” D said, walking away.

After some hesitation, Sergei followed after him. Rather than be left alone to face the monsters and ghosts of the battlefield, he definitely preferred to go with this young man as gorgeous as the dead and step into the world of the unknown. However, he wasn’t sure whether or not that was really the right thing to do.

The sea of clouds swallowed D’s form. Halting before the whirling miasma, Sergei took a deep breath and then a giant step forward. It didn’t even feel like he was shrouded in fog. Sergei opened his eyes. Blue light surrounded him on all sides. For he was in the heart of the cloud. As D stood stock still up ahead, he had to wonder if perhaps the Hunter hadn’t moved at all from the very beginning.

“Are we—in the middle of that cloud?”

“Where else do you think we’d be?” the same hoarse voice sneered back at him.

Sergei realized he’d been shut away inside a hidden space. The ceiling, walls, and floor were all eddying cloud. They formed a space twenty or thirty feet in each direction, and that was where the pair stood now.

“Don’t stand there like a dolt. Take a look outside. It’s not every day you get to see the inside of a repository.”

He soon learned what the hoarse voice meant by that. Through the sea of clouds, the scene outside was visible. And the space that surrounded Sergei and D had become a sphere and was now on the move. However, what a vast and desolate panorama it was! Even the ancient battleground itself hadn’t been filled with such death, stillness, and nihilism. Dark and black, a plain of steel stretched as far as the eye could see. Despite the fact that darkness crushed his field of view, Sergei could distinctly make out the wreckage of some sort of vehicles and the enormous ruins toppled on the plain.

“This isn’t the same as outside. We’re inside the repository. The ruins are what’s left of defensive systems to guard against invaders, and the vehicles were the tanks and mobile artillery those invaders used,” the hoarse voice said steadily. “Those who came in search of the repository’s secrets weren’t little archaeologist worms like you. They were some of the Nobility’s greatest military forces, and there were visitors from another galaxy as well. From what I see now, the fighting inside the repository must’ve been more intense than it was outside. Look at this ghastly death and destruction.”

But compared to the tone of the voice that spoke, the scenery that flowed steadily under his watchful eyes was a million times more tragic. Collapsed buildings snaked off to the distant horizon, and when occasional flashes that didn’t seem to be lightning palely illuminated the plain, voices that couldn’t be identified as living or machine formed a plaintive chorus. Did they still live, sealed away in the darkness as eternal victims of that light?

“That a shooting star?” the hoarse voice said as something white split the darkness far away. In no time a blue flash shot from the distant terrain, seeming to spread in that direction for the briefest of seconds before vanishing without a trace.

“Or maybe a meteor missile some Noble shot over here? They have bases in the asteroid belt, but it’s been thousands of years since anyone alive was able to control them. Still, I’m surprised they were able to punch a hole in the repository’s shields.”

Sergei also got the impression that a great part of history was coming back to life.

“Where we’re going next, no one else has ever been. No one, that is, except for its creator, General Gaskell—and the Sacred Ancestor.”

To Sergei, it looked as if D nodded at the hoarse voice’s words.