Assassin from the Sky

chapter 5

I

The body of the flying object was constructed of a wooden frame covered by metal foil. The tens of thousands of control nerves spread across the frame and foil skin were endowed with miraculous regenerative abilities. This was accomplished by a combination of magic and engineering skill. That was what allowed it to continue flying after a blow from D’s blade.

From the ground all the way up to the stratosphere, a single thread stretched the entire one hundred and sixty thousand feet. This thread, like the control nerves, was the dark fruit of millennia of repeated collaborations between sorcery and technology.

Down on the surface—out in the middle of a plain about sixty miles east of the valley where D and his compatriots were—one of the galloping steeds suddenly halted.

Perhaps sensing something, from the back of another cyborg horse came the question, “What’s wrong, Gorshin?”

It didn’t come from a person. Rather, it issued from a black coffin secured with thick chains. The voice belonged to the person who lay inside it.

And the other horses that’d halted each bore an identical load.

“It’s odd,” the black coffin he’d called Gorshin responded. “It found D and moved in to attack. But his sword got a lick in first. I know this because my Flying Predator Unit has replay capabilities. However, according to communications down the command thread, a malfunction is affecting the FPU.”

“What kind of malfunction?” inquired the first coffin. It belonged to the man calling himself Benelli.

“I don’t know. That’s why I find it odd. Now that I think of it, when it suffered his attack, I felt a chill run down my spine.”

Another coffin said irritably, “Attack him, and be quick about it. No matter how unassailable he may fancy himself being on the ground, he won’t be able to fend off an attack from the air. Or are you buffeted by the winds of cowardice?”

“Someday I shall make you eat those words. And it will be too late after I’ve dropped a mini nuke on your head of curls!”

“Stop it, Gorshin and Benelli,” a third coffin interjected. From the tenor and gravity of the voice, it was immediately clear it belonged to their leader.

“As you wish, Lord Gillian,” Gorshin’s coffin said, the tone changed. There was fright in it.

“Have the FPU continue its assault. I should like to learn more about the skills of this man called D—firsthand.” This voice, too, came from a coffin.

Gorshin’s coffin fell silent. That was the work of suspicion and fear.

“But Lord Gillian . . . The FPU will only—”

“I know. Attach the control thread to me.”

Gorshin was at a loss. The air around the four coffin-bearing horses froze. The chill was generated by the reluctance of the other three.

“Gorshin.”

The soft voice shattered the ice. Still glittering, it vanished like steam.

“I understand. I shall come out now.”

The tail of Gorshin’s words overlapped with a creaking sound. Other sounds joined it, and when the fourth and final creak had ended, four figures stood beside the steeds. A hazy moon glowed in the still-deepening blue of the sky. But the moon threw no shadows at their feet.

One of them—Xeno Gillian—held out his right hand. His sleeve had been rolled up nearly to his shoulder, exposing an arm that looked terribly thin and weak.

“Gorshin.”

The figure he indicated stepped to the fore.

The man wore apparel that was dazzling even in this fragile glasswork of moonlight, and he stood before Gillian and took the man’s wrist. Beneath skin as fair as any beauty’s, blue veins could be seen. The man with the aquiline nose—Gorshin—hesitated. All eyes were focused on the wrist he held. He pressed his lips to it. An almost blinding line of vermilion streaked across the white skin.

“And now your power is mine as well,” Gillian said in a voice like stone. “Now, give me the thread.”

Gorshin pulled his mouth away. Licking his vermilion-stained lips once, he then grasped the index finger of his right hand with his left and tore it clean off. His complexion unchanged, he held out the finger, and, surprisingly enough, Gillian too twisted a finger off his right hand. They exchanged the digits. Then Gillian pressed Gorshin’s finger against his bloody wound. That alone was enough to attach it. Not only that, but he could bend and straighten it at will. After testing that several times, Gillian gave a satisfied nod.

“The thread has been connected. Now to take the true measure of the man called D with this finger.”

And saying that, he curled the finger like a claw, with not so much as a scar left at the base of it.

“It’s coming back down!” the hoarse voice reported in full tension mode. D had his left hand raised up over his head. “Coming back from the stratosphere. This ain’t good.”

“Why go all the way up to the stratosphere?”

“Because the Nobility had bases up there. Actually, they’re still around. We’d best assume it snagged something there.”

“Something?”

“A bomb or missile, for starters. Oh, it’s fired on us!”

D’s eyes reflected the stars adorning the evening sky. Two of them were rapidly growing larger.

“It’s the aura-sensing type—the oldest model, but still, once they lock on, there’s no escaping ’em.”

Without a sound, D kicked off the ground. Though the jump barely took him off the surface, it carried him more than thirty feet. After he’d made four such bounds, the black missiles dropping from the sky fixed their sights on the enemy’s back and immediately kicked in their boosters. Sensors set in their noses detected D’s aura even as they read something massive behind him.

D was standing with his back against a rockface. His left hand reached out to his side and touched the rock. When it came away, the missiles read an aura there identical to D’s own. Without the slightest hesitation the missiles went for the false D, but a split second before they could strike the rockface, D’s right hand flashed into action. As one of the projectiles gouged a fiery crater in the rockface, the other one shot straight up, booster still going full throttle, and scored a direct hit on the FPU where it hovered in the stratosphere.

Both the explosion and the death of the device were relayed to the ground through the control thread. Gillian doubled over and a cry of pain escaped him.

“As I expected,” Gorshin said, nodding morosely. “The transplanted control thread transmits any impacts to the person currently controlling it. Even a few nanoseconds of the condensed information is more than a living creature can bear. Even if that creature is a Noble.”

In other words, for a span so brief it was practically negative time on the cosmic scale, Gillian’s body had been subjected to the flames and concussion of the missile. However, as the three cousins watched in amazement, Gillian quickly rose to his feet again.

“I felt it . . . D’s ability . . . To be able to destroy the sensors on a missile flying at supersonic speeds, then deflect it to score a direct hit on the FPU . . . he’s a freak.”

His pale, stiffened face gradually formed a horrible expression. One of malice—with a grin.

“But now . . . I recognize D’s trick . . .” Gillian continued. “When we come face to face, I will surely slay him . . . Mark my words . . .”

And then his blazing eyes glared ahead. His eyes were indeed tinted crimson.

“Gorshin,” he called to his cousin. “Have you the intention of making a new FPU?”

“Of course.”

“How long will it take?”

“If you would give me but half a day’s time.”

“I shall give you a day.”

A surprise too raw for words swept through the group.

“But in return,” their leader continued, “make it an FPU I can ride. I believe D is not our only foe. It would seem reports of our revival have reached the ears of Krishken’s descendants. My take is that D’s involvement in this matter is purely a coincidence. In order to save the girl, her father or other relatives will have sent rescuers after her. We must do away with them before they encounter D and his party.”

“As you wish.” Gorshin put his hand to his chest and bowed.

A dauntless smile rose on a face pure with resolve.

“Okay, this is where I leave you folks,” the old woman said, throwing both hands into the air. That was a parting gesture unique to this region. “But be careful out there, will you? And whatever you do, don’t head into Django’s Lot!”

“We’ll be careful,” D replied with a nod. Then he asked, “Sure you won’t come with us?”

“Appreciate the offer, but traveling solo suits my style. I’ll see you again, fate be willing.”

Not asking again, D turned his back to Granny.

Where the stone roadway turned, Pikk looked back. The darkness was swallowing up the figure of the old woman.

“Strange old girl, ain’t she? Being an arms dealer at her age!”

“The enemy’s found us. From here on out, best to figure they’re watching us at all times.” Those were Hiki’s words.

D didn’t reply, but he was listening to a low voice issuing from the vicinity of his left hand on a wavelength only he could hear.

“Better watch out for that one. He’s playing innocent, but the way he carries himself, the look in his eye, the way his hands move—they’re all the marks of a pro fighter. Skinny as he is, it wouldn’t be strange if he could fly too. At any rate, seems he tangled with something in the sky over the pass that rainy day.”

“You’re right,” D said in a voice that no else could hear, naturally. Between rocky walls that towered in the moonlight, only the sound of the cyborg horses’ iron-shod hooves echoed.

“Don’t figure he’s part of Gillian’s bunch. Just the opposite—probably hired by that snip of a girl’s family. You should put him down, and the sooner the better.”

“It’s no concern of mine,” said D. He’d been relieved of his duties.

“So you say, but you know what they say about fellow travelers making the trip or something—if you don’t wanna be mixed up in any more of the girl’s trouble, you’d best get on a different road real quick.”

“Exactly,” D replied.

In no time at all they were through the valley and out onto the plains. The wind alone moved dustily across the desolate ground.

“Well, time for another parting,” the hoarse voice gaily called back to the other three riders.

“So, kid, where are you headed?” D looked at Pikk, who was on horseback.

“Ain’t it obvious?” Pikk replied, puffing out his chest. Not the least bit uncertain, he continued, “I’m going with her. After all, the pay’s real good.”

And having said that, the feigned cheer that colored his expression changed. For the boy had seen the smile that skimmed across D’s lips. A warmth filled the boy’s chest.

“Happy trails to you,” the hoarse voice told him, and the figure in black turned his steed to the right and galloped off in the moonlight.

After watching the horse and rider instantly disappear into the darkness, Pikk spat, “Not the most personable guy ever.”

“Feeling lonesome?” Hiki inquired mockingly.

“Who, me? I’m glad he’s gone!”

Even though Pikk glared at him, Hiki didn’t hide his sneer as he said, “Well, we should head out now, too. Relax. We’ll be in the village of Krishken in no time.”

His tone was swimming in a self-confidence both the boy and Annette found dubious.

II

A full day later, many different colors of lamps rocked in time to mirthful voices in the depths of the night. The music of a fairly accomplished band was overlaid with the singing of rustic men and women. This was Lawless Years, an entertainment district out in the wilderness.

Even on the Frontier, densely populated areas were favored as more comfortable environs—the exception being towns that were constructed in “mobile locations,” as the pieces of movable property were known. But out in the wasteland where not so much as a tree or blade of grass grew, the eyes of many far-ranging travelers would pop at suddenly spotting an entertainment district there, strung with endless lights and bathed in music.

Just as oases existed in the desert, out in the wilderness people gathered in search of water, oil, and tonics. In the case of Lawless Years, they’d discovered springs containing countless minerals and a “rejuvenating substance” that defied analysis, then spent the next three centuries or so delivering their spring water not only around the Frontier but to the Capital itself in a huge mobile factory, all the while singing the praises of the prosperity to be found out in the deadly, wind-churned wasteland.

True to its name, there was no law there. Though there was a sheriff, he was strictly a figurehead in charge of cleaning up the corpses. That night, trouble in the saloons had already seen three dead and seven more hospitalized. Those responsible, of course, were back gambling without a care in the world, while no one knew the identity of the three slain.

The altercation had taken place at a cathouse on the town’s main thoroughfare. A hooker who was a favorite of the employees of the waterworks was being monopolized by a group of prospectors from a nearby mine, and the disagreement about whether or not they would turn her over brought out the blades. True to form, the sheriff and his deputies only arrived on the scene after the fight was over. The dead and injured were carried out, the blood was wiped up off the floor, and, as always, that should’ve been the end of it.

And then a certain man came. With the smell of blood and a sense of slaughter still heavy in the air, he stood in the foyer and demanded they bring out their prettiest girl. Judging from his enormous size, the way his eyes and mouth were nearly buried in the flesh of his face, his manner, and his tone, the madam figured he was no ordinary drifter and tried to satisfy him with the most presentable of her unoccupied girls. When the girl came out, the man sent her flying. The bouncers raced in only to have both arms dislocated in a flash, at which point the man repeated his demand for their top girl, this time by name.

From amid the women and customers watching the situation as if to say Again? one girl stepped to the fore. This was the girl the man had requested.

She told the panicked madam, “I’m sick of the same old customers every time. I want this one.”

In a voice like the winter wind blustering from a cavern the giant said, “Sure do speak your mind, don’t you? I’ve heard stories about you, and always wanted to look you up. I’m on a job at the moment, but figured I’d blow off a little steam.”

“A pleasure,” the girl replied, looking up at the customer with no small amount of seductive power in her eyes.

The customer was nearly six and a half feet tall, and seemed almost as wide. A number of what looked to be weights hung from the belt of his long robe, seemingly odd accessories.

That night, the cathouse was apparently a magnet for trouble. As the pair was about to go upstairs, the miners who’d prevailed in the earlier brawl surrounded them. They had been the girl’s customers that night. As the men suggested they take it out back, their eyes were already bloodshot.

The customer was going to step out alone, but the girl said, “Okay,” and clung to his arm. On glimpsing the peaceful expression on the beautiful face beneath her heavy makeup, anyone would’ve become obsessed with a certain notion.

Though the madam screamed and shouted, it did nothing to change the situation, and the pair and ten thugs started to leave the establishment.

Suddenly the giant halted and asked, “Missy, you wanna see this cathouse knocked flat?”

The girl smiled thinly. “Sure. That’d be great.”

Her smile froze when she saw the giant’s grinning face. He couldn’t be serious.

“My name’s Quake Resden. Remember it.”

And saying that, the giant looked around at the miners. The moonlight gave a vicious gleam to the steel blades. Longswords, scythes, machetes, and javelins—their weapons certainly had variety to them.

“Hop on my back,” Resden told the girl, raising his right leg up by his side. It was unclear if any of the spectators realized this was the sort of leg stomp a sumo wrestler performed.

“Here we go!”

The instant he brought his foot down, the ground thudded noisily. Astonishment spread across the faces of all but Resden. The lamps and electric lights adorning the building’s eaves swayed back and forth.

“I might be big, but I was born with awful balance, you see,” Resden said with a grin. Though his mouth and eyes were hidden by plump wads of flesh, it was obvious that he was smiling. He touched his hands to the weights around his waist. “To stand up or walk straight, I’ve needed these since I was a kid. Now, all told, they’re a ton.”

The girl on his back bugged her eyes. Not only the miners, but even the spectators went pale.

“Way back in the day, they were lighter, but I got used to them, and as I was going about my business something strange happened. This!”

His other foot rose. When it came down, this time the earth most definitely shook. The girl on his back let out a shriek, and people reeled regardless of where they were in town.

“Okay, come at me—you hole-digging dipshits!”

The roughest of the miners rose to his bait. His weapon was a great scythe. Gore from the waterworks employee he’d stabbed to death still clung to it. Raising it high, the miner charged forward, but suddenly the ground before him opened its maw. Resden had planted his right foot—and the crack had raced from beneath the sole of his shoe.

“Ouf!”

Sunk waist deep, the miner planted his hands on either side of the split and tried to pull himself back out.

Resden raised one leg.

“Don’t do it!”

To the accompaniment of the miners’ cries the crack closed. The miner’s upper body toppled backward to face the sky, fresh blood gushing from his nose and mouth.

“Bad news, we’ve had a casualty. And when that happens, the aftershocks continue for a while.”

Resden gave them a smile with those indiscernible eyes and lips, and his words must’ve had a disturbing ring to them, because the rest of the miners then screamed and turned their backs to him. Before they’d gone three paces the madly shaking ground threw the men like a bucking horse, and the deadly mouths that snarled open swallowed them. Desperately reaching out for life, several of the men’s hands were left sticking from the cracks when they brutally closed. People frozen in shock from witnessing these horrible deaths couldn’t help feeling like they were bound to the victims by invisible chains.

Once again the giant did a sumo foot stomp, and a fierce tremor assailed the town. Buildings crumbled like papier-mâché. The first to go was the cathouse. The customers and girls inside were ruthlessly dispatched by the crushing weight of the beams and roof.

The only one able to frame her thoughts was the girl on Resden’s back.

“Stop it! Stop it!”

“What are you crying about?” asked the man. “I squashed the place you hated, and the madam. Now let’s go somewhere and have ourselves some fun.”

“How on earth could I do that? Quit it already. Are you out to ruin the town? Oh, even the factories—”

“Yeah, if you’re gonna do something, you’ve gotta go whole hog, I figure.”

For him, this destruction might merely have been an opportunity to display his power, because he continued striking his limbs against the ground, and in less than two minutes Lawless Years’ three centuries of history were reduced to rubble.

“What do you say? Feels good, right?” Resden said boastfully, while on his back the girl sobbed. “Okay, let’s go. We’ll have our fun in the nearby woods.”

The giant turned around and headed for the one safe spot—the hitching post where he’d tethered his cyborg horse.

Five minutes at a gallop and they were close to the woods. Leaving the road, Resden rode in on the cyborg horse.

“You know, it’s not that I mind camping, but isn’t this dangerous?” the girl inquired, being well aware of how terrible a forest could be by night. Lands of trees and vines where maneating plants were commonplace and supernatural beasts and monsters roamed, they were ominous places where humans feared to tread.

“Actually, it does run contrary to my nature. See, it really reduces the effectiveness of my power. But if I’m gonna have some fun with you, I think doing it on a bed of grass would be better. I may not look it, but I’m real big on chivalry.”

“Thanks,” the girl said, shrugging her shoulders.

To be sure, it was thanks to this man that she’d escaped that hellish cathouse. She’d witnessed his terrible power with her own eyes. However, now that she was free, she found the man’s ultra-violent actions and the fact that his conscience allowed him to commit them so impassively a disturbing thought. In short, he was now a hindrance.

Soon after entering the woods Resden found a clearing and dismounted. The girl followed his lead.

“I’m cold,” she said, pulling closed the front of the coat Resden had loaned her. Perhaps that bit about him being chivalrous was actually on the mark. But in this case, the coldness she felt was due to nervousness and the atmosphere of the woods.

“I’ll get the portable heater going,” said Resden. “But there’s a better way to get warmed up!”

Fighting back an expression that would’ve read Ugh, here we go, the girl quickly donned a smile. At any rate, she was in his debt for getting her out of the loathsome establishment. Also, he’d provide the protection she needed until she reached another town.

The heater he’d set on the ground began to glow red as it generated heat.

“It’s warm, but won’t the stone-flies come if you leave it going?”

Those were monstrous insects as big as your thumb that came flying at insane speeds whenever they saw fire. Just buzzing in would’ve been bother enough, but they would heat themselves to blistering temperatures, then explode. This presented a real problem for people and livestock in the vicinity. A stone-fly’s body was encased in a carapace as hard as stone, pieces of which could cause grave injuries when they scored a solid hit, though that was still better than the not-infrequent cases of instantaneous death.

“It’s okay. You can put your mind at ease.”

And saying that, Resden raised one knee. He’d been sitting cross-legged. The ground must’ve shaken from the same power that’d leveled Lawless Years. No sooner had the girl noticed an irritating buzzing in her ears than something angled down to strike the ground. On seeing the black shape that’d stopped moving soon after impact, she said, “But that—it’s a stone-fly?!”

“Yep. My power doesn’t just work on the ground. It shakes up the air, too. Not a problem for people, but for bugs like stone-flies the shock is like getting hit with a tornado. See how handy I can be?”

“Yeah. But one bug’s not going to do much. Stone-flies form swarms when they attack, don’t they?”

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” Resden chided.

“What’s that crack supposed to mean?!” the woman asked sulkily.

“Stone-flies, you see, are like a kind of hive mind. First, they send out a couple dozen scouts to find a target and see just how dangerous it is. These act as eyes. If any one of them gets smooshed, all the rest know about it. Now, when a person gets one of his eyes poked out, you think he wants to go anywhere near the guy who did it? The stone-flies won’t come near us again.”

The girl let out a relieved breath. “Good,” she said.

The man’s hands took hold of her shoulders.

“What—so soon?”

“Something wrong with that? I happen to be your savior. It’s only natural you give me my reward, right?”

Resden’s lips pressed against the girl’s.

At that moment, the two of them flew apart the way two similarly charged magnets would.

III

As Resden looked over his shoulder his right hand struck the ground. A power invisible to the human eye shot through the earth. It was an instant later that the colossal tree towering before him toppled on its side. By the thick roots that’d ripped free of the ground there were indications that someone had been startled. Still, nothing but darkness took shape, yet Resden grinned.

“Surprised? I don’t know who the hell you are, but anyone who stands in the way of love deserves to be roasted to death by a fire dragon. You can either get out of here without any more trouble, or have every bit of meat stripped from your bones!”

“That sounds intriguing,” a youthful male voice responded. It was so lovely, it made the eyes of both Resden and the girl go wide. “I saw your prowess in that town earlier. You are a Hunter of Nobility, are you not?”

Tension filled every inch of Resden’s body with the urge to fight. In a split second, he knew the true nature of the speaker.

“So, you’re a Noble? One of Grand Duke Xeno’s clan, I take it?”

“I am Xeno Gillian—and the Grand Duke was my father.”

The first response, made after time enough to process these words, was a scream from the woman. Falling flat on her behind, she scrambled madly in an attempt to back away. She was driven to do so out of fear for her very soul.

Catching her crazed activity with his peripheral vision, Resden showed his teeth in a laugh. Then, hugging his arms around himself, he said, “Oh, I’m trembling to the core. Never thought I’d run into such a big fish right from the get-go, you see. And I’m gonna land you for sure!”

He was looking forward. However, all that lay there were darkness and a moonlit stand of trees where quiet was settling once more. Where was the source of the voice—Xeno Gillian? And why was Resden keeping his composure so well?

“Legend has it your parents got destroyed, but you managed to survive, eh? I hear there were some Noble Hunters in the mob that stormed the castle. You didn’t run into any of them? Well, you were one lucky son of a bitch, but here’s where it runs out.”

“You certainly don’t lack confidence, human,” came the voice of the Noble. It rang from the heavens. It echoed from the depths of the earth. “But can you see me? Without seeing me, how are you to slay me?”

“Oh, you’re right there,” Resden said with a nod. “I can’t see a damned thing. At least, not with my eyes. But my power—that can see!”

What did he mean by that?

Resden raised his right foot, then brought it down as hard as he could. A dull whump! was heard in the woods. At the same time, a massive shock shook heaven and earth. Each and every tree fell at length. Not only that, but when they hit the ground the bark tore off them, their trunks came apart—to be precise, they went to pieces. In the same way, these ultra-intense vibrations would shake flesh from the bone or concrete from steel-reinforcing rods. The split ground swallowed up the fallen trees. Who could’ve imagined cracks in the earth swallowing the whole woods?

From the woods that were breaking into bits that dropped straight down like a demolished building instead of trees, there came a sound like birds’ wings flapping, serpentine bodies resembling vines writhed as they fell, and simian figures tried in vain to jump only to find empty air. And in no time the rumbling had departed heaven and earth alike, leaving the moonlight to shine on a massive depression more than a mile wide and Resden, who stood on the brink of it and roared with laughter.

“What do you think? Not even a Noble can defy Mother Nature’s wrath. Spending the rest of your eternal life thirty miles underground is part of your Noble privilege!” Resden laughed at the ground at this feet.

The girl slumped weakly. Her face’s pallor not entirely due to the moonlight, she looked up at him with terror in her eyes, her mouth hanging open.

“How about that? Did you think I was just an ordinary Noble Hunter? If you were surprised, you can tell me about it later, sweetie.”

An electric jolt raced down Resden’s spine. The girl wasn’t looking at him. At what, then?

Even before he turned to look, he knew.

The silhouetted form of Xeno Gillian stood there casually, and Resden pressed his hand to the Nobleman’s shoulder. Gillian’s form grew blurry.

“You’re a lucky man to get to experience my power up close and personal. Now watch real close as Noble flesh gets stripped from Noble bones.”

Resden’s last remark was directed toward the girl. The ultra-intense vibrations his hands gave off were especially to be feared. But what should happen at that moment but the Nobleman’s blurry arms stretched out toward Resden. His hands latched onto Resden’s shoulders. At that instant, Resden’s body also became a foggy blur. The intense vibrations that could split the earth were now coursing through him. Flesh fell from his gigantic frame, and the bloody bones too were destroyed in an instant.

Unable to shut her eyes, the girl could only watch it happen. She didn’t even have enough presence of mind left to realize it was due to the very same phenomenon Resden had caused.

From a mouth agape like a cavern a single panicked syllable continued to escape. In response to her endless cry, the young Nobleman told the woman softly, “I shan’t kill you. Be at ease. You yet have a role to play. However, that is only after you’ve been made my servant, body and soul.”

His eyes, red and blazing with light, had drained the woman of even her fear.

There are roads even in the wilderness. Roads taken by monsters and demonic beasts. Roads traveled by humans and wagons. And still others—

The transparent white tube disappeared at the horizon. More than a hundred yards in diameter, it ran through towers and a building twice that high.

The building had an area of nearly four square miles. Who would’ve imagined that, despite having enough space to build a city, it was simply a train station? One of the great mysteries of the Noble mind was their nightmarish sense of scale. The lower part of a tower that touched the very heavens contained a two-mile-long home platform. A heavy stillness hung over it, but for the first time in five millennia part of the platform rang with furtive sounds. The sound of hoofbeats.

Astride his cyborg horse, D was bathed in the afternoon light that poured through the roof of the platform’s ceiling.

“They’re strange ones,” the hoarse voice said. “Even though they knew daylight was the death of them, their buildings are bolder in their use of natural light than humans’. It’s almost like—”

“Like they wished to be destroyed?”

D’s words had surely caught his left hand off-guard. The hoarse voice was clearly shaken when it next stammered, “Th-th-th-that’s right. There’s a bunch of evidence that could only be taken as the light-hating people of the night actually loving light. Countless paintings, seemingly purposeless openings in the walls of their mansions, the excessive dedication their scientists showed in their research on ‘daytime,’ the adoration of ‘light’ so often discussed at balls that it finally developed into a whole philosophy . . .”

At the very end, the voice had regained its customary sarcasm and composure.

“That may be.”

The platform was vast. A facility in the land of the dead, with not a human figure anywhere. Light may have filled the emptiness, but it remained light all the same. And through it, the gorgeous darkness known as D rode onward in silence.

“A ‘train’ moving through a tube over a hundred yards in diameter? They sure thought of some crazy stuff. Plus, the only passenger was the unknown Noble who built this place. Must’ve been one real empty trip, eh?”

In addition to the vaguely glum words of the hoarse voice, D could hear another faint sound. Something flat and insect-like glided across the thousand-foot-wide floor of the platform. A cleaning robot.

Although the identity of the Noble who’d created the tube train was still a mystery, various legends about him remained. One was that he was inordinately concerned with cleanliness—with some going so far as to say he had a phobia about dirt. The station, an opulent hotel that would never host any guest save the Nobility, power plants, and more were all sealed off from contact with the air outside, while all the air inside would periodically be replaced. All of these were his own personal property, and the fact no thought had been given to their preservation or use by anyone else after he was gone only served as commentary on the dark nature of the Noble psyche.

“I thought once we were here it’d be a leisurely ride over to the eastern Frontier sectors, but since the Castle ain’t here, there’s not much we can do. Let’s hit the road.”

Not replying to the hoarse voice, D gave a light kick to his steed’s flanks. Cantering down the corridor and galloping up a staircase, D came to an enormous doorway. Turning his horse parallel to it, the Hunter put his hand against the surface of the doors, the sound of a lock unfastening rang out, and the doors began to magically swing to either side. Even after D had slipped through the opening they still didn’t stop. The doors themselves were fifteen feet thick.

A white cylinder alone loomed modestly in air nearly at the freezing point. Thirty feet in height, it was set in a room covering about ten million square feet and with a ceiling more than three hundred feet high, where it looked like a humble artifact.

“The control room,” said the hoarse voice. “Though actually there’s just the one control system computer, and, by the look of things, that handled everything from driving the train to maintaining the station.”

“And still handles them.”

Dismounting, D walked toward the tower. Something like a terribly dangerous intent was focused on every inch of him. The pendant at his chest began to give off a bluish glow. And the device’s ill intents vanished as if they’d been a dream.

On reaching the base of the tower, D placed his left hand against its smooth surface. Though he didn’t hear it, at that very moment something awakened out in the distant wilderness. Energy flowed through a nerve center that’d been dormant for five millennia, spreading throughout its steel body in the blink of an eye. Without a sound, the massive shape resting at the bottom of the tube floated upward.