A Light from the Past

chapter 6

I

Anyone who knew D could well imagine the scene where a bloody mist hung in the air. However, the blood sprayed from the Hunter. Duke Dandorian’s sword had quite clearly slashed D open from the right shoulder to the left lung. Anyone would’ve recognized that the fight was over. The proof of that was the way Dandorian radiated delight from every inch of his body—but rather than topple as he should’ve, D made a great bound.

“What?!”

As the duke stood there in the wide, haughty stance of a temple guardian, a stark flash sank into his chest. From midair D had hurled a rough wooden needle—however, the duke’s shoulder quaked with laughter. Not surprisingly, D dropped to one knee when he landed on the grass some five yards away, and from there he saw something bizarre. The needle he’d hurled had stopped about four inches shy of the duke. Wrapped around it to halt its deadly flight were bandages steeped in blood and pus.

There was more than just one bandage covering Dandorian’s body. His face, hands, feet, and torso were all bound in multiple strips, the ends of which weren’t secured but fluttered in the wind. It was simple enough to see that two of them were wound about D’s projectile, but in light of the speed with which it’d been traveling, that seemed impossible.

“These strips of cloth guard me from any and all attacks. A cloth fortress, if you will. Wait, D! Cease your pointless struggling, for I now come to tear you to pieces.”

Perhaps the duke had entirely forgotten his deadly beckoning power now, but the eyes to be glimpsed from between the bandages gave off a blood light of hate and anticipation. Treading across the grass, the duke began his walk over to a foe dredged up from his past.

D didn’t move from where he’d touched down, and the blood spilling from his shoulder struck the black earth and green grass like a veritable torrent, never stopping for a second. And now he got right to his feet.

The duke stopped in his tracks. He was stunned to see D’s taste for battle hadn’t waned in the least. The Noble’s ungodly abilities to attack and defend gave him wholehearted confidence. Would the left hand he extended toward D make another deadly beckoning to the bloodied Hunter?

Dandorian started to take another step forward, but his leg suddenly bent at an angle. Before he could fall lengthwise, a hair-raising cry of agony from the mouth beneath the bandages was broadcast to the world.

“This is too . . . Damnation . . . The time for battle . . . D, we’ll meet—”

His voice cut out there, and the duke’s body fell onto the grass. Or rather, it crumpled. By the look of things, all that remained there was a mound of clothes and bandages.

D pressed his left hand to his wound. Once the massive bleeding stopped, he went and stood over what the duke had shed. Lifting one of the bandages with the tip of his sword, he put it in the grip of his left hand.

“They’re just regular bandages,” the hoarse voice said. “But there’s nothing normal about this pus and blood! I . . . geeeeeh!”

The strange voice made further retching sounds, and the left hand vomited up fluid. It wasn’t blood, but rather clear, like glass.

“Cut me loose—Hurry!”

Before the hand could vomit a second time, D’s blade flashed out. His left hand fell to the ground, where a human face quickly formed in its palm. Its features were twisted by horrible pain, and fluid gushed again from its nose and mouth.

In a voice like a death rattle, it wheezed, “Such . . . poison . . . For him . . . living must be . . . hell . . . He lives . . . to have his revenge on you . . . D . . . Him and his wife . . . both . . . need . . . to die!”

Then all five fingers clutched madly at the sky before unexpectedly going limp. And the face began fading from the palm.

Saying nothing, D picked up his left hand and tucked it in a pocket inside his coat. A faint darkness shrouded his body. The day was beginning to dim. Before long in one section of the forest where a stir from the push of darkness could be heard, a tall figure in black looked terribly solitary. D, now you are truly alone. Look down at your feet. You aren’t even casting a shadow.

“How much longer?” Meg asked.

Danae replied, “Approximately ten minutes.”

Though it looked as if he were working the vehicle’s control stick, in truth his hand was merely resting on it. The vehicle was avoiding the trees and rocks ahead all on its own.

Meg was deeply impressed. She wondered if a vehicle like this that moved without touching the ground might not work on the seas as well. If it did, fishing would become remarkably easy. She could make trips out to the fishing ground and back or catch up to schools of swift-fins quickly, and it would be easy enough to keep storm wyrms from ramming her craft.

“Girl,” Danae said.

“I have a name. It’s Meg.”

“Very well, then—Meg. What brings you to the island?”

“I already told you. I’m here to rescue the folks you and yours snatched.”

“That much I have heard. What I wish to know is the real reason.”

“The real—?! I told you!”

Infuriated, the girl was just about to give the Nobleman a tongue-lashing when his words hit her like a physical blow.

“You wish to be immortal—am I wrong?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Meg exclaimed, adding that he was an idiot. “When the time comes, everyone gets weak and dies. That’s normal and natural. When you’re human, that’s your fate. Just the thought of living forever gives me the willies.”

“Gives you the willies?”

“It means it frightens me.”

“Why is immortality frightening? It means living forever without pain or the fear of death!”

“I’m not afraid to die!” Meg snapped back. “Imagine day in and day out listening to the roar of the dark sea in the middle of the night. You get the feeling all the seas in the world are snarling out there. The roll and crash is fine. But then suddenly, one of them rolls way far away. And by one of them, I mean a portion of the world’s seas is suddenly far off, like you’d think it’d gone to the ends of the earth, only you can be sure it hasn’t vanished. Listen real close, and this time you’ll hear it coming. Its roar creeps closer, murky, real murky, until you think, Oh no, here comes the hell wave! This is the end of me and my village. This incredibly tall mountain of a wave is gonna swallow everybody and kill us. You can’t sleep. You’re scared, so scared all night that when you’re a little kid, you cling to your mother’s breast. But when you’re bigger, you lie in bed alone and cry. You don’t ever wanna put out to sea again. You don’t even wanna look at the sea. But the next day you’ve gotta go out in your boat. You’ve got no time for crying or daydreaming.

“And once you’re out on the waves, it’s hell beneath the ship’s planks. You run into bore sharks that can poke a hole through an iron hull, krakens that are about a hundred times the size of this island, and dancer rays that whip up giant whirlpools. Have you ever seen the sky from the bottom of a whirlpool half a mile wide and twice as deep? When you do, you’re not supposed to look at what’s all around you. Bones and pieces of ships sucked down centuries ago are spinning around in those sheer walls of blue-black water. Even though the skeletons have gone to pieces, their cave-like eyes meet ours and they call to us. Come, come to us. Join us, they say.

“Seven times Dad and me have looked up at the sky from the bottom of a whirlpool. Such a little spot of blue, but that’s the world where we live. White clouds sailing by, and gulls flying around. I wanna get back there. I wanna live to see that sky again—and with that determination, I’ve made it back. And yet, you know, sometimes I’ll suddenly think back on those whirlpools and kinda miss ’em. If one of those times the walls of water came crashing down, I could stay there under the water with all those bones, and that seems like it’d be a real happy life. I’m not afraid of death anymore. You get that? I think it’ll be real easy, and peaceful. And going to the end of time without dying would just be exhausting!”

Meg had let all that out in one burst.

Danae fell silent.

That did the trick, she thought, but she was mistaken.

“In order to know death, you must know life. You merely long for death as a rejection of life.”

He said it so matter-of-factly.

Meg bared her teeth, shouting, “I’m not running away from life, and I’m not tired, either. I don’t need any monster telling me how it is!”

“Monsters we may be, but we were your masters. We made exhaustive studies of human beings, both your bodies and your psyches. Though I would not say everything was left entirely clear.”

“Of course not. How could a Noble ever understand the human heart—”

The girl shuddered as she said the words, and at the end, they were punctuated by an impact.

Danae twisted his body around. Blood sprayed into the air. Stained red from the neck down, Meg screamed, and perhaps it was her cry that made the vehicle go crazy. Its unshakable glide went into disarray, and the vehicle crashed into a gigantic tree to their right.

Meg and d’Argent were pitched forward, sailing through the air. The girl knew they’d done two and half cartwheels before hitting the ground. Her right shoulder came to rest against something strangely soft. Meg’s brain was numbed by the impact, and she waited to give it time to recover. A few seconds sufficed.

Turning around, she asked the groaning d’Argent if he was okay.

“I’m all right. Sure felt that, though.”

“Hang in there. You’re ageless and indestructible, after all.”

“No, you heard what the Nobleman said. I just don’t get any older. So, what happened?”

“The vehicle and Lord Danae got shot.”

“Shot? By whom?”

“I don’t know. But when Lord Danae was sent flying, I heard a gunshot off in the distance. And we know our ride must’ve got hit, too, because of the way it spun all of a sudden.”

“A Noble, I guess, or one of their underlings. I’ve never seen them use firearms, though.”

“I think I might know who it was,” Meg said, helping d’Argent to his feet.

Just then, the ground trembled.

“Huh?”

A certain foreboding made the two of them stop cold, like they were made of iron. Their eyes dropped to their feet. The soft ground that’d spared them both looked for all the world like a normal expanse of dirt and grass. But it sank appreciably.

“You know, this looks like a trap,” Meg whispered to the former teacher. “It’s a pitfall for trapping enormous creatures. The earlier group of settlers must’ve made it. Any more weight than we’ve got on it now and we’re goners!”

The pair began slowly walking across it, bound for firmer ground.

“Just three more feet,” Meg told d’Argent. “Hang in there.”

“I know.”

With their next step there was a sound like something snapping, and the ground subsided massively. Feeling like her blood was about to freeze, Meg leapt.

The instant they touched down on solid ground, a scream rang out from d’Argent.

“Suck it up!” the girl shouted, turning around.

Their former location had been transformed into a bowl-like depression in the earth. It was swallowed up without a sound, leaving only a colossal hole.

II

As Meg stared down into it in disbelief, from beside her d’Argent asked, “So, it was a trap after all?”

“It sure was. Just look. The bottom of the pit has a bunch of stakes pointing up. We were gonna be impaled on ’em!”

Then she remembered something. Scanning their surroundings, she called out at the absolute minimum volume, “Lord Danae, are you okay?”

There was no reply.

“He was shot, but it’d take more than that to kill a Noble. I wonder if he’s lying low,” said d’Argent.

“I don’t know, but if that thingy is out of commission . . .”

Meg tried to envision their next move, but it didn’t go very well. Under the present circumstances, an immortal without the use of either arm was about as useful as tits on a bull.

Maybe I should just leave him behind?

That upstart of an idea skimmed through her head, but was swiftly forgotten. Out in stormy weather, she’d let their catch flop back into the sea because she wasn’t paying attention. It’s not my fault, was how the train of thought started, and it had gotten all the way to I never even wanted this job in the first place when the fist struck her. Meg’s father grabbed her and shook her bodily, saying, Love it or hate it, if you’re on the job, you gotta take responsibility for it. The world’ll be more than happy to pile responsibilities on top of the ones you deserve. When it does, don’t you dare run from ’em. Not even if it kills you. When you feel like calling it quits, that’s when you’ve really gotta bite your tongue. That was the first time her father had ever looked that scary to her, and the last.

“At any rate, we should hide,” d’Argent said, and he too scanned in all directions. “If push comes to shove, don’t you worry about me. Take off on your own.”

Well, what do you know? He’s braver than I thought, Meg mused.

“Because I’ll do the same,” the former teacher added.

So, you’d ditch your responsibilities, eh?

“Okay, I see,” the girl replied, and then she heard the sound of something treading grass behind them.

“Over there!”

Meg dashed over to a gigantic tree, and she and d’Argent took cover behind a trunk that looked twice as large as they could get their arms around.

There hadn’t been any road there to begin with. Anybody who’d walk through a world so choked with trees couldn’t be considered normal.

The girl was poised with her harpoon.

The footsteps were coming from up ahead and off to the right, and seemed to run along a stand of trees.

“Psst,” d’Argent said, gesturing to the weapon on his right arm. “Use this. A lousy harpoon won’t do you any good.”

“Who asked you? I’ve had nothing but harpoons to get me this far.”

“You were just lucky.”

“Screw you!” she snapped at him, but just then a figure she recognized pushed his way out of the high grass.

“You?!”

The hirsute giant had no trouble catching Meg’s voice.

“Who’s out there?!” he said, drawing the longsword from his back.

The rasp of it leaving a sheath almost ten feet long made d’Argent tremble. He’d started out a teacher. He probably wasn’t used to the field of battle, and now that he’d lost the use of both hands he’d probably be afraid of his own shadow.

The giant bellowed, “Come on out. Garigon’s the name. I’m a Hunter. I came here to hunt the island’s Nobility. So forget all that running and hiding and come right on out.”

“Some acquaintance of yours?” d’Argent inquired.

Meg nodded. In a sense, she was running into a member of her party again. She wanted to jump right out of hiding. However, something held her back.

“Oh, not coming out, are you? If you’re out milling about with the sun still bright, that means you ain’t a Noble. What are you, some reject who only got half drained? Not that it matters. I’m gonna flush you out right quick!”

The giant thrust his longsword out in front with both hands and held it level to the ground. The instant the swordsman’s eyes closed, Meg felt a powerful shudder go through d’Argent’s body. She herself had twitched.

The longsword stretched. Or rather, a beam the same width as the weapon shot from its tip. On coming into contact with a stand of trees, it tore through them like they were paper, then zipped off into the far reaches of the woods.

“Get out here!”

The giant spun. The beam of light filled the pair’s field of view. Meg had quickly ducked down, and now the air above her head wavered. Instinctively, she shouted, “Run for it!”

Beside her, the trunk of the gigantic tree they’d been hiding behind fell, shaking the earth in the process. The cut end was facing her, and it was so smooth it left Meg amazed. She’d thought it’d been a heat beam, but there were no signs of charring. Meg decided it had to be the work of a kind of energy beyond her imagining.

“It’s willpower, you know,” d’Argent said from right behind her. He hadn’t been kidding about being a teacher. “Though the human will is colorless and shapeless, there are times when it takes one form or another. Which is what that light is.”

As the mystery was explained away, a voice befitting that gargantuan form called down from overhead, “Why, if it ain’t Meg! Never would’ve expected to run into you out here!”

“How sweet of you to remember me,” Meg said, running her eyes across their surroundings as she got to her feet.

Suddenly, a vast clearing seemed to have come into being. All the way into the distance trees had been mowed down at the same height, with toppled trunks, branches, and leaves stretching on and on in a new land. No one would’ve believed all that had been accomplished by one man with a single swing of his longsword.

“You bet your buns I did,” the giant replied with a belly laugh. “Back in the tunnel, I got separated from the others. Hell, I didn’t even think you’d made it out okay. So, who’s this you’ve got with you?”

“A survivor from the group of settlers. Seems everybody else was killed.”

“Well that’s great,” the giant said, his eyes gleaming. “I haven’t run into nobody yet. So, tell me all about these Nobles.”

“I’m d’Argent. I was a teacher.”

“A teacher? You don’t say,” Garigon remarked, his smile becoming a mocking sneer. Teachers would be the eternal bane of ruffians like him.

“Know what became of the other bounty hunters?” Meg inquired in an effort to dispel the awkward atmosphere.

Immediately shaking his head, the giant replied that he didn’t. “The sheriff’s boy—his name was Wesley or something like that, right? He’s dead.”

Meg was at a loss for words.

“He took Lancer’s spear in the belly and was dying. With a wound like that, he was a goner.”

“And you didn’t try to save him or anything?” Meg asked as she tried to choke down something hot rising within her.

“Give me a break. I had these freaks on my tail, you know. Didn’t have time to dick around with that.”

Meg nodded twice. With the first she recalled the young lawman’s smiling face, and with the second it disappeared. He’d been swallowed up by rough seas. That was what Dad had taught her to do when somebody died.

“So, you headed anywhere in particular? Like the Nobles’ home?”

“We were doing fine until a little while ago,” Meg replied.

The girl searched for the vehicle, but couldn’t find it anywhere. But even if they had it, without Lord Danae along they wouldn’t know where to go.

“Things can never be easy, can they?” the girl groaned, but just then an unsettling laugh from nowhere in particular reached her ears.

“It’s close,” Garigon said, training his eye on the sky and turning to the left. That was the direction he’d come from.

The trio’s eyes focused on the figure that appeared from the bushes.

“A Noble?” Garigon groaned.

One look at the azure cape and clothing that called to mind the sea and a mask studded with jewels, and anyone else would’ve come to the same conclusion.

“No, scratch that,” the giant continued. “It’s still daytime.”

“They have items that let them walk around by day,” Meg said, countering Garigon’s assessment.

“You don’t say. So, it’s the real thing, then?” Garigon asked, his longsword still unsheathed. “That suits me just fine. I bet you thought rescuing the villagers was a job for the lawmen, and the rest of us were just along as bodyguards. Now, to get down to work! You two, hit the dirt.”

As he said that, the great blade flashed out, howling through the wind—and the masked Noble was visibly shaken as he made a great leap back. When he landed some fifteen feet away, Garigon already had the tip of his sword aimed straight at the Noble’s heart. The giant’s lips twisted into a smile. That smile was rooted in his overwhelming self-confidence. Would he call upon that same technique again?

“Down!” Meg shouted at d’Argent, lying flat on the ground. An endless sword of light flashed over their heads.

The gleaming willpower split the masked Nobleman’s head from his torso, then returned to being a normal blade.

Garigon’s eyes bugged. The Noble’s head hadn’t fallen off, and he saw his foe’s hand going for the sword on his hip.

“Raaah!” he snarled in anger, flashing out again with the blade of light.

Though split in two from head to crotch, the Noble bounded, his sword in turn cutting the giant in two from the head down to the lungs. An enormous quantity of fresh blood became a red wind whisking through the world and staining everything the same hue.

As Garigon dropped limply to his knees, Meg could only stare at him with desperation in her eyes. How could a giant of a man with such a tremendous ability be cut down so easily?

Heaven and earth alike rocked violently, and Meg dropped to one knee on the spot and tried to steady herself. In her ear, she heard Garigon say, “I think that’s about enough fun and games.”

Her surprise was so great, she immediately returned to her senses.

Garigon turned his face to her and smiled. His head wound was swiftly closing.

“You see now? I’ve long since been bit. Now I’m a faithful bodyguard to the Nobility.”

III

Once again dizziness assailed Meg. It was surprising that she could even speak.

“Garigon . . . Not you, too.”

“That’s right. Don’t think badly of me,” the giant said, and when he grinned, the fangs jutting from his mouth were yellowed. “Just accept that this is where you die and say yourself a little prayer to the sea god or whatever. I can wait that long!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. You’re the one who’s gonna die!” the girl screamed, and her harpoon flew.

The longsword made a diagonal swipe that cut the harpoon in two, and then the giant sailed easily into the air.

“Take that!”

The glow shooting out of the tip made Meg forget all else and throw herself on the ground—and less than an inch from her face the earth was split open for over fifteen feet.

“I really suck at this,” said the giant. “I went and missed you!”

When Garigon landed without making a sound, Meg found his smile mocking. He was toying with her. Though an anger great enough to make her tremble was building inside her, there was nothing she could do. He was too far out of her class.

“Okay, now for the finisher. I’ll cut the both of you in two—no, I guess that’d be four, maybe?”

Garigon’s longsword rose. So monstrous was his strength the weapon seemed to be made of wood. The beam of light rose vertically.

“Take that!” the giant roared.

Meg shut her eyes out of reflex. It was her ears that caught the change. She’d heard a cry of pain.

“Gaaaah . . . Geeerf . . .”

On opening, what Meg’s eyes beheld was the gigantic body arched backward with a stark piece of steel sticking from his chest.

“What the—?!”

It was a few seconds later that the girl learned the azure Noble’s sword had pierced Garigon’s heart from behind.

Letting out a roar like a carnivore, Garigon twisted around and swung his sword at the Nobleman behind him. The beam of light vanished in the distance, and the Nobleman who’d ducked it sprang back up and made a horizontal swipe of his blade, at which point Garigon’s head shot up on a geyser of blood like a fountain and landed again some thirty feet away.

Not even glancing at the fallen torso as it twitched, the Noble in azure shook the gore from his blade and turned in Meg’s direction.

Meg held her harpoon at the ready. Only two more remained. She felt helpless, and no fighting spirit rose within her.

An odd sense of calm seemed to flow from the Noble. Returning his sword to its sheath, the Noble turned his gaze to the bushes from which he’d come and tossed his chin in that direction. The gesture meant they should come with him.

Meg just stood there as if rooted, unable to make up her mind, but after the Noble had advanced another thirty feet or more, he turned around and gave another toss of his chin.

“Let’s go,” Meg said to d’Argent.

“Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Well, it looks like he saved us, and I don’t sense any murderous intent. Besides, just the two of us wouldn’t get very far on our own.”

However, their pursuit of him soon ended. Not ten feet away, a vehicle like the one from earlier was resting on the grass. The Noble pointed at it.

“Are you telling us to get on? What kind of Noble are you, anyway?”

In her heart, Meg thought with absolute certainty, He’s on our side.

“Thank you,” the girl said. “But I can’t. I don’t know how to work it.”

“That’s okay,” d’Argent told her from her rear. “I do. I’ll tell you how it’s done.”

The Noble nodded. And twisting to the left, he pointed in a given direction.

“That’s the way to the bay!” d’Argent exclaimed, eyeing the Noble suspiciously.

Just then, a shrill cry could be heard overhead. It wasn’t a bird. It came from a human being.

The crimson mass must’ve fallen from a height of at least a hundred yards. The instant it thudded to the ground, a silvery flash streaked out.

A bloody mist flew into the air. What’d fallen from the sky had split the masked Nobleman in two, from the top of his head all the way down to the crotch.

On seeing the figure who got up with bloodied sword in hand, Meg murmured in astonishment, “Lord Danae?!”

Aren’t these two fellow Nobility?

As if reading Meg’s thoughts, Danae stared at the staggering Nobleman who even now remained standing and said, “I’ve never seen you before. That being the case, you must be a foe pretending to be something he is not. Let us dispose of that mask that suits you so poorly.”

Though Meg herself wished to see the face behind the mask, just then Danae’s expression seemed to melt like wax.

The vermilion line where he’d bisected the Nobleman he labeled an imposter had quickly and completely vanished.

“Dear me, can it be—you actually are one of us?” Danae said in a tone that complemented his wary expression. “But I haven’t seen you before. What do they call you?”

“Wesley.”

It was the astonished Meg who murmured the name. The bisected Nobleman’s mask had fallen at his feet.

His complexion was pale and bloodless, like that of a completely different person, yet the face of the youthful sheriff showed the same bashful smile as before.

“I was going to see that you got home safely—no, I will see to it the girl at least gets home okay.”

His smile gave way to an absent-minded expression. Not looking at Meg or even in her direction, Wesley said, “Back in the tunnel, I was—well, Lancer got me with his spear, and I died. Or rather, I was just about to die when someone took me away. When I came to, I was a servant of the Nobility. The reason I came here is because I had orders to rescue Lord Danae and dispose of the two of you. And I was licking my chops as I set out. But the minute I saw you, Meg, all the feelings from when I was human came back to me. I don’t know why. I’ll hold off this Noble. Go to the bay, and hurry. This magno-car can run over water, too. Go back to your village and forget all about the island.”

“No, Wesley. I can’t do that. I came here to save everybody!”

Meg felt as if her heart were being torn in two. The group had come to rescue everybody—and Wesley had been their leader at one point.

“Here your unexpected and heartwarming reunion comes to an end,” Danae informed the other Noble in the manner of a judge pronouncing a sentence. “Fortunately, I am not in your debt. Though we have only just met, I will slay you as a traitor.”

“You can’t!” the girl protested. “You owe me a debt, don’t you? Don’t you lay a hand on him!”

“Were he one of your compatriots, I would comply,” Danae replied. “However, mockery though he may be, he is now one of our subordinates. These are rules of a world that bears no relation to you.”

“That’s right. Meg, keep back.”

Once Wesley had said that, the two humans ran over to where Garigon’s corpse lay, the wind whipping in their wake.

As soon as Danae’s eyes got a reddish cast, two beams of light pierced either side of Wesley’s chest. His face twisting, Wesley pursed his lips. Meg covered her ears. The sound waves, so sharp they seemed like they’d shatter eardrums, were apparently directional in nature. Danae also covered his ears, but from between his hands and his earlobes a massive amount of fresh blood sprayed out.

“Well, there’s no going back to the castle now. Meg, hurry up and go home. Your world is still waiting for you!”

From behind a stand of trees some thirty feet away she heard Wesley’s shouts.

“Wesley!”

“I have nowhere to go now. Can’t be a Noble, and can’t go back to being human. At least let me see to it you get home safe! Good-bye,” Wesley shouted once more, and Meg cried. Tears spilled from her with no end in sight, drilling a little hole in the black earth.

Someone grabbed hold of the girl’s shoulder.

Danae still had bright blood dripping from both ears as he said, “Have you finished bidding your lover adieu? Let us be off.”

“I’m done,” Meg replied, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“My vehicle was damaged by a bullet, but fortunately we have his. I’m sure it would please him if we were to use it for your purposes. However, our destination will not be the bay, but hell itself. Are you prepared for that?”

Perhaps Danae was in pain from the injuries he’d suffered, but his face wore an expression of evil unlike any they’d seen before.

“I sure am. And sooner or later, I’m gonna drive a stake through your heart,” Meg said flatly. Her heart had been wounded again, and her eyes burned with hatred-tinged flames.

“Ah,” Danae said, and he actually looked impressed. “You have the same look in your eye that I do. The most charming thing about humans is they are just like Nobles.”

This place seemed like a luxurious palace where no expense had been spared, and that might have been solely due to the presence of the figure who hovered in the milky white fog.

Through orderly forests of pillars, over stairways that seemed to go all the way up to the sky, beneath a canopy ceiling which itself seemed as large as the cosmos, down corridors spanning quadrillions of miles over trillions of levels, the futile moans of those who built all this and those who traversed it seemed to linger forever.

We cannot complete construction, they say. We shall never reach the end.

Those who’d fallen with their aims unmet and their unfulfilled desires alike were covered by the fog, making their words echo endlessly.

Indestructible alloys and natural gemstones, the living’s desire for death, the dead’s resurrection even as they screamed for it to stop, the strains of music that played, the painting displayed there as unmistakable “reality,” the steel sword still vainly stabbed into the rotting ruins of a castle, yes, even the path of the stars through the universe and the countless insignificant little lives brought forth in one corner of the planet—all these were lies.

However, on this island, so long as they were shrouded in fog, lies could wear the name of truth. For here, imitations were the real thing.