PART 2, CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
-
I
-
He was up against a great, ten-foot-tall man—a veritable giant. Even the bravest warrior would suffer a heart attack from the shock. But the preacher in the vermilion robe didn’t seem the least bit afraid as he said, “Please allow me to introduce myself. I am one of Valcua’s seven—Curio is my name.”
“What kind of tricks do you have?”
“That’s a trade secret.”
The giant guffawed at this. His was completely unrestrained laughter.
“You’re an amusing fellow. However, since you mentioned Valcua, I can’t let you leave here alive.”
“I might very well say the same thing to you.”
“The blazes you might!” Count Braujou bellowed, his right knee rising before he slammed his foot against the ground.
A line ran straight toward Curio. Halfway to him it split to either side, opening into an enormous crack.
Wringing a cry of terror from the bottom of his heart, Curio leaped to one side to escape. At his feet another crack opened, swallowing him up.
The count brought his foot down again.
Having seen his success, the giant’s eyes narrowed with satisfaction when he saw Curio trapped chest deep in the crack. The split had opened no further.
Letting out a deep sigh, the count made a light bound, landing next to the giant hawk. Artlessly extricating his long spear, he licked at the bird blood that clung to its tip. His eyes began to glow with blood light.
“It’s been a long time since I had a fresh meal,” he said, running his tongue around lips that already had a pair of fangs peeking from them. “I aimed for the hawk. You see, there are a number of things I want to ask you. I know the abilities of four of the seven of you. And I have a good idea about another one. As for the other two—of which you are one—what powers do you have? What’s the other one look like? And what’s his or her name? I stopped that crack you’re in. But I can make it swallow you with another tap of my foot. So you’d better start telling me what I want to know, unless you want to be smashed flat as a pancake in the depths of the earth.”
“I have nothing to say regarding the other member,” Curio replied. His tone was soft.
That only angered the count more.
“However,” the preacher continued, “as far as my own abilities go, I shall be more than happy to give you a demonstration. You see, it wasn’t you who stopped the crack, Count.”
“What?”
In the darkness, the Noble’s prim and proper countenance blackened with rage. He pounded a foot the size of a throw rug against the ground. But his ears caught Curio saying, “Stop that.”
Quaking, the crack widened a bit, and then stopped.
Firmly planting both hands on the ground, Curio slipped out of the deadly maw.
Oddly enough, the count didn’t launch his next attack. Shutting his eyes, he grimaced as if he had a headache, and he leaped back at essentially the same time Curio escaped from the fissure. It was difficult to tell what the Nobleman was thinking as he jabbed his long spear into the ground and put his hands over his ears.
“So you’ve discovered how my sermonizing power works? I should’ve expected as much from a Noble. Now that you’re powerless to do anything, you can just stand there while I destroy you.”
The preacher in vermilion drew a machete from inside his robe. For travelers or wandering holy men whose travels took them to trackless wastes, it was an essential implement for hacking through the forests that stood in their way or slaying beasts.
Raising it high, he shouted, “Forgive me,” and hurled it toward the giant. It pierced the Noble through the heart with amazing accuracy.
Count Braujou’s face grew paler in the moonlight. As the light faded from his eyes, his skin lost its luster and countless cracks spread across it, as if it were a dried-out riverbed. When the flesh fell off, the giant’s body was reduced to dust that spilled from his clothing to form a great pile on the windless ground. His clothes collapsed, and the dust, glittering in the moonlight, scattered.
“A confirmed kill,” Curio murmured, turning his eyes toward the village. He was perfectly calm, as if he’d fully expected this outcome. His demeanor might even be described as bored.
Was this any way for someone who’d slain a Greater Noble such as Count Braujou to act? How had he even managed to kill the count?
“I suppose there’s no point in giving chase now. Guess I’ll just have to be satisfied that I’ve destroyed one of our foes. That leaves D and the duchess—two opponents to make my blood run cold.”
While he wasn’t disparaging them, his tone was nevertheless one of supreme and unwavering confidence.
He sauntered over to the giant hawk. The chest still rose and fell in the body that Count Braujou’s spear had pierced.
“Well, I still have transport,” Curio remarked, bending down in front of the hawk’s face. A low mumbling flowed out into the night air.
About two minutes later, powerful wings began to beat. It was the giant hawk. The nearly dead bird began to climb up into the sky once more. Curio clung to its back. The wind stirred up by its wings swirled and dispersed the ash on the ground in all directions, and when that finally stopped, the moon alone was left dazzling in the darkness of night, with no sign of the hawk anywhere.
-
A bell announcing noontime could be heard in the distance. The man in the vermilion robe suddenly looked up, turning his eyes toward the massive crack in the wall sixty feet from the floor. A skinny figure with spidery limbs stood at the edge of the fissure, looking outside.
“Are they here, Speeny?” Curio the Preacher called out to him.
Speeny crossed his arms over his head to signal no, but suddenly stopped.
“Yes,” he replied, his answer flying down from on high. “They’re as good as we thought. I had threads strung all through the valley so they couldn’t get the drop on us, but this is D we’re dealing with here, and the woman is a Noble, sure enough. They came straight down the middle.”
“Yes, they would, wouldn’t they,” Curio said with a nod, a look of philosophical contemplation on his face. “That’s just what they’d do. If they didn’t, this fight wouldn’t be much fun.”
“Well, then—I’ll be on my way,” Speeny said.
“Yes, you run along. Thank you for acting as lookout—now get as far away from the valley as you possibly can.”
As soon as Curio finished saying this, Speeny leaped outside. But he didn’t fall. His body rose, zipping up past the crack and swiftly disappearing. Anyone who knew what Speeny was capable of would’ve found his haste quite strange and even cowardly.
Still facing the crack, Curio grinned, but it wasn’t a scornful smile. Rather, it was sympathy and understanding that drifted to his lips.
“Has he run off to the stratosphere? That’s probably not enough to allay his fears. Why, I see that even my own knees are shaking,” he said, his smile becoming a wry grin.
After turning his gaze to the right, where Matthew and Sue lay on the glowing floor, he looked back and finished what he was working on.
The crack had grown beyond sixty feet. It now stretched all the way to the top of the five-hundred-yard dome. The corridors that surrounded it were wide enough to accommodate a pair of small buildings side by side, but there wasn’t a single window in them. Normally, the temperature of this massive dome would’ve been kept at absolute zero, but the machinery responsible for doing so remained inoperable.
Curio now raised one hand and mumbled something to an immaculate machine that resembled a gigantic icicle. Three hundred feet tall, it was a colossal computer, and the base on which Curio stood was a good thousand feet in diameter. Once it was called Sigma, and it had reigned over this valley as a “god” the Nobility had created. Now it had lost its defensive systems and was covered with gray dust from the millennia that had passed since it had been discarded, but it retained its anthropomorphic dignity. It made a strong impression—even the Nobility had gotten goose bumps when they looked up at it—and that impression was not one of a mechanism, but rather that of a ruler.
What was Curio doing before this machine, a machine that might even be considered sacred? He was whispering. If one listened closely enough, she could make it out.
“Awaken. That is your mission. Rise now from the five millennia of sleep that have lain over this valley. That is your mission.”
Perhaps it was drained of energy, because the machine continued to lie still, but Curio’s words kept creeping toward it like a serpent. Like an admonishment, forceful but patient. Oh, so that was why he was considered a preacher . . .
Since dawn, he’d spent over seven hours in part of these magnificent ruins invoking the massive computer to come back to life. Tirelessly, he repeated the words again and again, speaking of how necessary and justified this awakening would be. As if there were no question that a dead, inorganic construct was capable of listening and understanding. Though his face was sweaty and the shadow of fatigue hung heavily on it, there was no despair or resignation there.
“A foe is coming. Coming to destroy both you and us. A fearful foe the likes of which even I have never encountered. To save yourself, and to save us, please awaken.”
Just as he finished chanting this prayer for the thousandth time, a grave echo shook the dome. Spinning around in amazement, Curio looked up to Sigma’s summit.
“Ah, at last—now the valley is awake again.”
His face was bleached white by light, and a long shadow was thrown across the floor. Every inch of Sigma had begun to glow. There were indications that something, somewhere, had gone into motion. The antiproton furnace. The defense systems. The cosmic-ray-analysis circuits. And more. Much more.
A few minutes later, Curio turned around. He’d given the machine all the information he had on the foe it needed to slay. The brother and sister being held hostage had also been dealt with. All that remained was to leave things to Sigma and the valley it controlled.
Speeny had escaped, and now the preacher fled as fast as he could too.
Curio found himself running down a road made of metal. Above him stretched a sky devoid of a single cloud. The rows of buildings to either side remained exactly as they’d been when they were created. That in itself was proof they had nothing to do with the daily lives of the Nobility.
In constructing factories and other installations, the Nobility brought all their science to bear, building things that would last forever. Factories had framework made of the greatest metals known to science, were built of parts and materials that would never rust or decay, and were permanently coated, while the most critical parts were each equipped with their own repair facility to guarantee them against failure. In contrast, the homes and gardens the Nobility inhabited by night, as well as their cottages and carriages, were often made of natural materials—wood, stone, and metal. This vividly illustrated the strange disposition and obsessive whims of these Nobles blessed with eternal life. Perhaps those who couldn’t be destroyed longed for destruction?
As Curio ran, he was painted white by the torrents of light surging at him from all directions. Robbing even the sunlight of its color, the light was proof that the valley had come back to life. A groan like an earthquake reached him through the soles of his shoes, and the ions in the air jabbed at his skin like lightning. He had to wonder if perhaps he’d made a terrible mistake. A feeling that resembled fear flitted through his heart.
Galleon Valley—not even his lord Valcua would explain what had transpired there.
We can’t begin to fathom what our lord might be thinking. Someone that grand could destroy this entire planet on a whim. All he said was this: Use Galleon Valley to slay D. Order Sigma to do away with him.
Suddenly, Curio halted. A pair of figures had appeared on the glowing road ahead. Had they been standing there all along? No, they’d definitely come through a nearby entrance to the valley, but in Curio’s eyes, their gorgeous forms gave him the impression they’d been standing there for a very, very long time.
Stopping again, he bowed respectfully and said, “A pleasure to meet you. I am one of the seven, known as Curio the Preacher.”
“I’m D.”
The Hunter’s voice and his handsome visage made the same man who’d brought a dead machine back to life again after five thousand years tremble with rapture.
-
II
-
“If you’re a man, I’ll thank you not to get weak in the knees upon seeing another man,” the woman in the white dress beside D said in a mocking tone. “I am Duchess Miranda. If you’re human, at least show us proper courtesy.”
“Please pardon my manners,” Curio said with a bow. “It is my utmost pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Much better,” the duchess said, grinning with satisfaction and looking at the blue candle D gripped in his left hand. Though its tiny flame melted into the sunlight, drops of wax were dripping from it clearly enough. Its nature was easily deduced from the fact that Duchess Miranda was out in the sunlight—it was Time-Bewitching Incense.
“Where are the two kids?” D asked.
Curio knew the young man would have nothing else to say. Any other words were unnecessary, and D was far too exquisite to say anything superfluous.
“I might ask you where your other member is, but I’d be a fool to do that. You see, I had the honor of slaying Count Braujou last night.”
“Oh, how cruel. He really was a gentle person,” Duchess Miranda said, but she seemed somehow pleased. “You’re a nasty one. But we shall soon return the favor by decreasing your group’s numbers by one.”
“Ah, that would be most appreciated. I could finally bid farewell to this disagreeable material world.”
As Curio said this, he felt his back growing cold and hard.
Why am I having this conversation? Is it because I don’t want to stop talking to the young man before me? Do I wish to hear his voice again?
That was ridiculous—it was a foolish thing to do. Look at the Hunter. The eerie aura that turned the preacher’s spine to ice declared that the young man had no use for anyone who wouldn’t answer him.
D stepped forward.
Imagining the pain of having his backbone severed, Curio shouted, “They’re in the central building up ahead. And they’re both still fine!”
D turned to run.
Curio tried to move away, but the glint in the Hunter’s eye made him freeze.
“Stop it,” he said reproachfully.
It’s no use, he thought, badly shaken. He’ll cut me down!
He felt the pain of steel biting into the top of his head before he saw D move.
“Aaaaah!” he cried, but, strangely enough, the cry was accompanied by a feeling of relief. The deadly blow hadn’t fallen on him.
Opening his eyes, he looked up and muttered, “Was that a dream?”
The Hunter in black and the Noblewoman in white had vanished. Still reeling with relief, Curio conjured a vision of D’s handsome features as he charged forward in the unearthly air with blade in hand. Ah, such beauty. For an instant, a strange emotion skimmed through Curio’s heart. He didn’t realize it was a desire to be cut down. Perhaps he’d seen a vision of the future.
-
D sped onward through the darkness. Curio no longer occupied his thoughts, and Miranda had vanished. In the instant he’d started to bring his sword down on Curio’s head, he and the Noblewoman had both been drawn into another space. He guessed the hole in space that had appeared without warning was the work of whatever controlled this valley. The Time-Bewitching Incense was in his pocket.
“You probably already know this, but our velocity has reached the speed of light,” the hoarse voice said. It didn’t sound at all shocked, but spoke as if this was the sort of conversation they had all the time.
D and the source of the voice were in a space that had been distorted four-dimensionally; they could have kept going forever.
“Looks like we’re gonna break the speed of light. If we do, it’ll be trouble,” the voice continued. “I’ll connect us to another extradimensional space. We’ve gotta escape. I ate some dirt earlier. Fire we can manage. Water I’ll leave to you.”
D transferred his blade to his left hand and extended his right arm.
“But the problem will be wind,” the hoarse voice said in a tone that conjured up a vivid image of a worried countenance.
Though they were moving at terrific speed, there was zero air resistance—it was like they were falling through the void of outer space. Yet they weren’t suffocating.
Bright blood gushed out. D had used the blade in his left hand to cut his right wrist. Returning the sword to his right hand, D used the palm of his left to catch the spilling blood. That was their water. Not a drop of it was wasted.
“Okay!” the hoarse voice exclaimed, and at the same time the Hunter’s left hand stroked the wound. Seconds later, all that remained was a faint red line that immediately faded.
“We’re passing the speed of light!” the hoarse voice called from the left hand D had extended. “And we’ve got no wind. Brace for impact!”
A tiny mouth formed on the palm of his hand. In it appeared a howling blue flame. Space twisted as the tiny mouth inhaled. The left hand vanished. At the same time, D felt a violent impact.
-
“Congratulations on breaking free of my sealed dimension,” an austere male voice said. “But it must’ve been quite hard on you. You’re under a spell, aren’t you?”
D was standing inside a huge dome. The voice issued from the tower that loomed before him.
“My name is Sigma. I’m an antiproton computer.”
“There are supposed to be two children here,” D replied. Talk of “Sigma” or “antiproton computers” meant nothing to him.
“There certainly are. Right here.”
A golden line appeared in the floor not three feet from where D stood, and it rose without a sound to create a space ten feet high and six feet wide. It had no depth and was invisible when viewed from the side. Matthew and Sue were inside it. Apparently they noticed D, because they reached out their arms and started to run. No matter how they pounded across the ground, they never came any closer. Though less than three feet lay between that space and D, the distance between the children and his dimension was infinite.
“D!” Sigma called out. “Earlier, I saved from your blade the man who awakened me. The command that man gave me was to dispose of you. However, as strange as it seems, another force has given me different orders. And five millennia later, I may now act on these instructions.”
“What kind of instructions?” D inquired. It was little surprise this had piqued his interest.
“To give you a test.”
At that point most people would’ve asked what kind of test, but D said, “Who gave you these instructions?”
“Grand Duke Valcua.”
If Count Braujou, Duchess Miranda, or even any of Valcua’s seven had heard the computer’s reply, they would’ve undoubtedly been astonished. The orders to bring Sue and Matthew to the Galleon Valley and awaken Sigma had been personally given by Valcua. Had he foreseen five thousand years ago that D would come here? If so, was that the reason why Matthew and Sue had been taken? No one would’ve ever thought it necessary to go to such lengths. As the assassins had said, Valcua’s aim was to have his revenge on the Dyalhis children.
“Valcua took an interest in you, did he? And five thousand years ago, no less. Things are starting to get interesting,” the hoarse voice murmured in a tone eddying with curiosity.
“Is there someone with you?” Sigma inquired, its ears apparently catching the murmurs. “Ultimately, I must follow the directions of my creator before acting on the command to eliminate you. D, you shall take the Sigma test. I’ll hold onto the two children until you’ve finished. Afterwards, you may take them with you—if you pass the test, that is.”
The dimension that imprisoned Sue and Matthew vanished, starting with the opposite end from which it’d first appeared.
“Let the test begin,” Sigma declared in a richly patinaed tone.
A heartbeat later, D stood in a wasteland of reddish-brown sand that went on forever.
“It seems to be a phantom reality zone,” said the voice from the vicinity of his left hand. “Transferring you into it was quite the sleight of hand. If it were a Noble, only one of the very oldest of their kind could manage something like that.”
Before the hoarse voice had finished speaking, they heard the echo of iron-shod hooves. A knight on a black steed approached with a black lance in one hand. The armor that covered him from head to toe was also black. The horse was covered with armor, as well. No matter what D did, it didn’t seem he’d be in for an easy fight.
About sixty feet away, the knight reached for his visor with one hand and opened it.
“I’ll be damned,” the hoarse voice exclaimed, and there was nothing feigned about its surprise.
It was Matthew.
“It’s the work of these hallucinatory systems. Don’t be fooled by ’em.”
Perhaps taking what the hoarse voice said as a signal, the knight with Matthew’s face kicked his black steed’s haunches.
As his foe charged in a cloud of dust, D gazed at him, with his sword lowered. He showed no signs of moving. Ordinarily, D would easily dispatch a foe like this. However, when his opponent wore the face of a boy he was supposed to rescue, how would the Hunter respond?
The vacant look on Matthew’s face suddenly contorted. His mournful expression seemed louder than the thundering hoofbeats as he shouted, “Save me, D!”
The lance gleamed in his right hand.
“My hands, and my whole body, are moving on their own. Please, you’ve gotta stop me!”
His voice was joined by a cry that was even more morose.
“D, don’t kill my brother!”
The voice belonged to Sue.
“That’s an illusion too,” the hoarse voice told him.
What did D make of these three voices? As he stood there, still and vacant, he didn’t demonstrate the tiniest inclination to fight back.
Matthew shifted the lance. Despite his words, murderous intent filled every inch of him.
“Please, stop it!”
Matthew bent backward.
“Stop it, D!” Sue cried out.
“They’re just illusions, I tell you,” the hoarse voice muttered, and a second later D was swallowed by the rumbling of the ground and the cloud of dust.
The lance flashed out.
A cry from Sue that would make anyone want to cover his ears streamed through the air.
D was in the air, too. Just before those iron-shod hooves could trample him, he’d dodged the lance and bounded over Matthew’s head.
Over what head? It was gone. As the horse galloped on, there was still a knight on its back. But his head had been cleanly removed, and fresh blood spouted from his neck. Some of that blood became a vermilion fog carried by the wind.
As D landed without a sound, there was a dull thud to his left. It was likely the head hitting the ground.
Not bothering to watch the horse run, D looked up, hearing the flapping of wings overhead. He saw the tiny form of a bird rapidly approaching. In less time than it took to draw two breaths, it became a great eagle with a wingspan of more than thirty feet. Beating its wings fiercely to remain at a height of sixty feet, the bird opened a beak that seemed almost metallic. Inside it was Sue’s face. A face drenched with tears and fear.
-
III
-
“You killed my brother, didn’t you?” Sue shouted, tears flying through the air to accompany her cries.
One of them fell on D’s shoulder. As he turned his striking features to look at the winged form above, there was nothing on them that might be termed an emotion.
“You killed him even after I asked you over and over not to. Kill me, too—do it!” she cried.
The giant eagle went into a dive.
“Stop! Don’t kill me!” Sue screeched as they fell.
D didn’t move.
The great eagle’s talons snapped open. A white flash mowed through the air. Bones snapped, and then the enormous talons went flying, severed from the bird. It was the giant eagle’s left leg. The right one caught hold of D’s shoulder, and the bird began to fly with terrific force.
As it beat its wings mightily, the giant eagle craned its head to look at D. From its mouth, Sue was heard to whimper, “D—please help me. I—I’ll be eaten up. I beg of you. Hurry! Quickly—you have to save me!”
Her usually determined face was a mess of tears as the Hunter’s sword shot toward it. Instantly killing Sue with a thrust that penetrated her throat and went all the way to the brain stem, D pulled his sword back out and directed another slash toward the giant eagle’s right wing. The great bird let out a death rattle.
They’d already climbed to an altitude of over three hundred feet. Although the creature made a desperate effort to keep flying, it went into a tailspin.
“Jump!” the hoarse voice bellowed. It was shouting at D. “Are you gonna jump or ain’t you? We’ll crash!”
Seeing that it got no response, it continued, “As landlords go, you sure are a pain in the ass!”
Just as it muttered that remark with disbelief, the earth swallowed up the gigantic bird.
-
Saying nothing, D found himself gazing at Sigma. It was clear that everything he’d just experienced had been an illusion created by the machine. And the young man had consented to what had happened and what he’d done.
“So, is the test over or what?” the hoarse voice whispered.
“Only the first part. However—”
The computer’s voice broke off.
“Is this the emotion they call surprise? My creator gave me the ability to feel it, but this is the first time I’ve actually experienced it. For the two situations I just presented, I hypothesized five thousand and twenty-five possible reactions you might have to each. And you’ve done a remarkable job of exceeding all of them. Truly you are a man to be feared . . . Who are you?”
“Return the children,” D said.
“The test is not over,” Sigma replied. “And if you should still live when the test results are in, then I shall dispose of you in keeping with my second directive.”
The world turned white.
The snow gusting at D already came up to his knees, and the north wind was so cold it threatened to freeze everything it touched as its howls shook a heavy, gray sky. Every breath froze his lungs, and they’d nearly ceased to function. Yet the steps he took through the snow were strong and precise, as befitted a dhampir.
“We’re almost to the summit,” his left hand said to him. “He should be waiting up there. Hope you’ve still got some strength left.”
In lieu of a reply, D halted. At the summit of the graceful white slope, the wind and eddying snow hindered his vision, but a figure had come into view. In D’s eyes, he looked like a towering black wall.
“So, you’ve come?” said the voice that fell from the sky—the voice of a great being. “You’ve done well to make it this far. However, you won’t be leaving, D. Not unless you slay me.”
A white light connected heaven and earth. The falling thunderbolts enveloped D, striking every inch of him with blistering waves of electromagnetism. In the depths of the white light, his left hand rose. The light wavered like a heat shimmer, churned, and sucked like a glowing mist into the mouth that opened in the palm of the Hunter’s hand.
D kicked off the ground. When he landed in the snow, he left no footprints. Perhaps he knew where the figure’s weak point was. The sword he swung from high over his right shoulder caused the sound of cutting flesh and ribs as it bit into the form.
Soundlessly, the figure and all signs of his presence disappeared.
D landed on the opposite side of where the shadowy form had been.
“It felt like you made contact,” the hoarse voice said. “To give him some lumps—or a slash, in this case—you really must’ve got—”
The voice broke off when it noticed what D was looking at.
About fifteen feet from him, a figure in a white dress stood in the snow. Snowflakes clung like white jewels to the black hair that billowed in the wind, but they quickly faded away. Dark eyes as clear as a holy night quietly reflected his image.
D! she said, her voice every bit as lovely as her eyes. Lay down your sword. And come into my waiting arms. I never got to hold you even once.
The woman opened her arms, and then looked up in the air in wonder.
The young man came down like a supernatural bird, showing no hesitation as he sliced through the woman from the top of her head down to her crotch.
-
“You cut down your mother, too?” Sigma said to the young man in black, the machine’s voice carrying all-too-human emotion. It had never imagined he’d do such a thing. “Where do you come from, and where are you going? Who—or what—are you?”
“Give me the children,” D said. “Your test is finished. If you won’t give them back, I’ll take them.”
The young man took a smooth step forward. He was imbued with force and an unearthly air. Sigma’s components began conjuring up the emotion known as fear.
A thin beam of light from the ceiling speared D. The Hunter’s expression warped with pain, and his body melted away.
“That enzyme dissolves bodies—your mind is deeper and stronger than I’ll ever know, but your flesh isn’t . . .”
A warning signal resounded somewhere in Sigma’s electronic thought centers. An intense “pain” shot through it, and its “eyes” were drawn to the blade of a sword stuck halfway into its casing. Blue electromagnetic waves stretched from it in all directions.
“That’s my . . . vital spot . . . You really are . . . something else.”
A puddle of ooze lay on the floor where D had been. It stood up. For an instant, it was only visible as something wearing clothes, but Sigma knew the strapping figure with dark eyes could only be D.
“DDDwhowhoareareareyouyouyouuuuu?—you?—you?—you?”
Sigma’s field of view rapidly dwindled to a spark of light in the Hunter’s dark eyes, and before long even that had faded into complete darkness.
-
“You cut your father, killed your mother, even did this to me,” Sigma said, its voice sounding a million miles away. Undoubtedly that was what a machine that had come to know great sadness sounded like. “Is this the thing human beings term ‘fate’? The test has ended. You may go, D. Your demise I shall leave to the assassin I’m about to produce.”
Once again the golden space appeared between D and Sigma. Sue and Matthew stumbled out of it. The boy managed to catch himself, but his sister collided with D’s chest before she finally stopped. As she slowly slid down him, he scooped her up to keep her from falling. The threads of strength that had been pulled taut had all been snapped by her relief.
D gazed at Matthew for a few seconds as the boy’s shoulders heaved in his battle to catch his breath, then said, “Let’s go,” and tossed his jaw.
Though the direction he indicated wasn’t the same way he’d entered, it was the right door nonetheless.
-
There were three cyborg steeds tethered at the entrance to the valley—horses purchased in Marthias. D had intended to bring the two children back all along. Sue had somehow managed to regain consciousness, but the Hunter put her on the back of his horse and pulled the extra mount along behind them.
From a distant rock pile, a trio of figures watched.
“This is a hell of a thing. All three of them are fine,” Curio the Preacher groaned in amazement, making no attempt to disguise his shock.
Beside him, one of the others said, “It would appear the effects of my song have faded. But that’s no reason to be ashamed. He’s incredibly powerful. It really is unavoidable.”
It was the fiendish diva Callas. As she watched the rider who’d dwindled down to the size of a pea, her eyes and her voice—which had caused Curio and Speeny to look at her so suddenly—seemed to melt away into rapture. But the two fierce gazes of condemnation returned to normal when the woman declared in the same delirious tone, “I won’t fail a second time, though. This fearsome man has made a mockery of my song and myself—and I, Callas, shall see to it that my song brings about his end.”
“But I don’t understand this. Did my sermon not work? There’s no way that could be.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Callas said, a faint grin rising on her lips. She wasn’t trying to console him.
“Why did Grand Duke Valcua tell us to take those children hostage? Wasn’t his goal to kill the two of them?”
This was something the assassins had already discussed at great length. And they hadn’t reached a conclusion.
“At any rate, let’s go back. We must form our next plan. Speeny!” he called out to the third member.
There was no response.
Turning, he found no one there.
“Where has he gone?”
A thought bubbled up in the preacher’s brain.
“Well, now. I think I’ll be going,” Callas said, and though she looked around, it was apparent at a glance the action was purely perfunctory. Of all the assassins, this beautiful woman was the most lacking in the spirit of cooperation.
As dignified as any philosopher’s, Curio’s expression was tinged with something that resembled sorrow as he said, “Don’t tell me that idiot’s doing what I think he’s doing.”
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