Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The very first applause came from the farthest away. As the men gazed silently at the pale and dainty hands the girl was clapping together, they realized she was weeping.

  “Damn, you’re good!” Granny said in a voice perilously close to tears.

  “Damn straight I am, hag! See, sodbuster?” Clay said, glaring around at the others with loathing before puffing his powerful chest out in Tae’s direction. “How’s that? Pretty great, wasn’t it? Unlike a certain Hunter, I got more than just looks going for me. Yeah, I reckon anybody with an eye for men could tell in a flash who’s the best around here. How about it, missy? Forget about going back home—oh, that’s right! As long as the sodbuster’s alive, I ain’t supposed to woo you. Well, don’t take it too hard.”

  And having said everything he wanted to say, the younger Bullow went right back to his blanket, pulled it up over his head, and went to sleep.

  Turning to each other, Granny and Lance grinned wryly. Even Tae was smiling. Some people could prove useful in the most unexpected ways.

  For a long time, no one moved or said anything.

  “Why don’t you get some sleep?” D finally suggested.

  “I believe I will,” Granny said as she got up. “You get some shut-eye, too,” she told Lance. Her tone was amazingly amicable.

  Lance didn’t move. Though he kept staring at her, Granny said nothing more to him and climbed up to the driver’s seat.

  “Head inside now,” the old woman told Tae.

  The girl didn’t move.

  Granny’s brow furrowed. Fine blue veins bulged to the surface. The crone then let out an exasperated sigh. Shooting Lance a look he wouldn’t soon forget, she hunched her back and disappeared into the wagon.

  Both hands folded neatly in her lap, Tae sat staring straight ahead. Seating himself by the fire, Lance wrapped both hands around his knees as he gazed straight ahead, too. Tae watching Lance. Lance watching Tae. The pile of logs must’ve collapsed, because the flames danced wildly and released a flurry of sparks.

  As Lance closed one of his hands around the other, they were both trembling a bit. “Um, I . . .” he mumbled. He sounded like someone else entirely. What would come next?

  The flames blazed, and Tae patiently gazed at the emaciated young man.

  “Stupid bastard . . .” a jet-black voice grumbled from under the blankets.

  Clay’s hand crept to his harp, and then stopped suddenly. Something slim and white had zipped between his hand and the instrument, pinning his blanket to the ground. Even without seeing the finely honed tip, he knew it was a wooden needle. Rattled to his very bones by anger and horror, Clay then heard the steely voice of the one who’d hurled it.

  “Human or dhampir, no one knows what’s going to happen.”

  Lance turned to D in astonishment. In the Hunter’s words he’d heard the very thing he’d been struggling to say. I want to spend my life with you. An almost heartbreaking decisiveness surfaced on his face, and he headed toward the wagon.

  D’s eyes thrust open and caught a glimpse of ripples on the water’s surface. Black as the darkness, the Hunter jumped up. Something whizzed loudly through the air, and whatever it was then spattered black blood all around him.

  A cry of pain arose nearby.

  When D looked back, Lance was pinned on the ground with what looked like a black spear protruding from his chest. The body of it stretched back to the lagoon, painting a gentle yet disturbing parabola that sank back into the water at one end. There was no mistaking what it was—a tentacle tipped with steel.

  MELODY OF DESTRUCTION

  CHAPTER 6

  .

  I

  .

  Lance!��� two people called out at once. One was Tae, leaping down from the driver’s seat. The other was Clay, who threw off a blanket that’d been run through as well.

  Several tentacles that’d been severed by D squirmed away, but new ones shot from the water’s surface, stretching for the Hunter, Tae, and Clay.

  Forgetting her own fear, Tae raced to Lance’s side, but the tentacle that had impaled him instantly wrapped around the girl’s body. Assailed by the agony of being bound tight with steel cable, Tae could barely scream, let alone breathe. But the second it jerked her toward the lake, a figure in black blew in like a veritable gale and severed the tentacle.

  Zing! Zing! Zing! Tentacles continued to tear through the air to attack the group.

  “Get in the wagon,” D said, lending Lance his shoulder as he gave Tae a shove.

  Lance convulsed. The tentacle piercing his chest thrashed fiercely despite the fact that it’d been cut off. The naked blade flashed out once more, slicing off its tip and putting an end to its movements.

  “Cover your ears and hit the dirt!” Clay shouted.

  For a moment, there was nothing—and then the most exquisite melody filled the night air.

  They watched. All of the fiendish limbs whirring through the air broke apart, reduced to shattered fragments, and then faded before they reached the ground. Not only that, but the rocks of the waterfall, the trees on the opposite shore, and even the now-frothy water disappeared, robbed of their molecular bonds.

  Perhaps unable to take any more of this, what remained of the tentacles retreated into the water. There would be no further attacks from them.

  Clay’s harp was truly something to be feared. If the sonic waves of death were only focused in an extremely narrow kill zone and not capable of being directed with an ease that was itself terrifying, then a monster moving as fast as the wind might be able to avoid them. However, the slightest touch by a single finger of the warrior’s hand would send the deadly melody out at anything within listening range. Who could possibly defend themselves from ultrasonic waves that fanned out from the instrument, breaking virtually any material down to its constituent atoms?

  “What in blazes is it?!” Granny cried as she flew out of the vehicle. Trusting Tae and Lance to the old woman, D hopped onto his horse. Clay followed after him.

  “We’re getting out of the woods. Follow me.”

  Leaving only his words behind, D galloped off. The wind snarled in his wake, but a second later, the strangest thing happened. All around them the light rapidly faded. Even the glowing fungi were under the desert’s control.

  Abandoning the path they’d come by, D shot straight through the forest. Throwing up a cloud of dust, the wagon and Clay followed close behind.

  “D, where are we going?” Granny shouted shrilly from the driver’s seat.

  But the old woman’s query was quickly obscured by Clay as he cried, “Here they come!”

  When Granny took a peek in her omni-directional safety mirror, her hair stood on end. Once more the surface of the water had grown rough, and tentacles began to rise from its depths. Beyond numbering, together they looked like a single gigantic tree.

  Every detail then vanished from sight for all of them. Darkness had claimed the world.

  “Dammit! I can’t see anything!” Clay howled.

  “Tae,” Granny shouted, “break out the glow bugs!”

  Scant seconds later, a dazzling circle of light gave a bluish glow to the back window of the wagon and its surroundings—yet the light wasn’t strong enough to reach D’s back as he rode ahead of them.

  Could D tell the way out in the pitch blackness? His super-keen dhampir senses could. D had noticed an imperceptible sound coming from above him. He sensed that it was silently descending. Before the spider person had a chance to bring a blade down on D’s head, he sliced its torso in two. The Hunter’s steel blade cut through the air in an arc, knocking back a number of would-be attackers on either side. They made not a sound, as their deaths were instantaneous.

  “They’re coming from above us!”

  D’s words were replaced by the roar of a gun and its fiery trail, and something heavy seemed to be blown off the wagon. There was a repulsive thud near one of the tires, and then an ear-splitting scream arose from the same area.

>   Tae had her arm out the rear window of the wagon, holding the light-giving glow bugs out to guide Clay, when suddenly long, insect-like fingers grabbed her hand from above. Despite her screams, the fingers tightened their iron grip. The glow bugs fell.

  Thunder shook the vehicle’s interior. The bullet of iron that had punched through the roof ripped open the spider man’s abdomen and hurled him off into the darkness.

  “Lance!” Tae cried. Forgetting the pain of her red and swollen hand, she latched onto the young man, who still held a gun in one hand.

  His pale face smiling above a blood-soaked torso, Lance asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry . . . I’ll always be here . . . to protect you . . .”

  “I know you will,” Tae replied, tears spilling from her eyes. Just then, she heard a jubilant cry from Granny that sounded miles away.

  “There’s the way out!”

  A pale gray light enveloped the world. D was in the lead, but the wagon was close behind, seeming to pounce like some gigantic animal as it bounded out into the moonlight. The horses’ hooves and wagon wheels sank into sand.

  “Yahoo! We’re out!” Granny exclaimed, smacking the floor of the driver’s seat with one hand. Tightly gripping the reins with the other, she prepared to apply the brakes.

  “Keep moving!” a low voice urged her, though she had no idea how it drifted all the way back to her from some twenty feet ahead.

  “Bu . . . Bu . . . But . . .” the old woman stammered. Before she could finish asking why, an unbelievable scream arose from inside her wagon. “Tae?!”

  The door opened and the girl burst out. Her hands and bosom were bright red with fresh blood.

  “What’s wrong?” the old woman asked.

  “It’s the forest—the forest!”

  “The forest?!” Granny exclaimed, the earth-shattering news shaping her expression.

  The forest wasn’t shrinking in the distance. Rather, it was getting closer. The whole expanse of trees headed toward them like a wave of epic proportions.

  “D, is this another mirage?”

  “No. It’s real,” D said as he rode beside them.

  “You don’t say,” Granny replied with a grin. “In that case, I should be able to deal with it, too.”

  Shifting the reins to her left hand, the old woman went for the jar on her hip with her right—the source of the same insane power that’d wiped out the sand people in a heartbeat out in the desert.

  What sort of picture would the sand from her jar paint?

  Knees far apart, Granny pulled her hand back out of the jar. Beautiful colors poured smoothly from her tightly balled fist before spreading across the floor of the wagon. Granny gave a series of small shakes to her hand. But just what sort of unearthly rite were her five fingers working as they held that sand? Flowing steady and unbroken like a thread, the sand seemed unaffected by the motion of the vehicle, or else it incorporated the jolts into its design. Though somewhat fuzzy, the image that formed at the crone’s feet was clearly something that existed in this world. It was, in fact, the very forest that was coming up behind them now.

  Granny’s hand halted. The picture was complete. Now all she had to do was—

  It was at that moment that the door behind her opened.

  “Mrs. Viper—” Tae said, her face pale. “Clay’s been left back in the woods!”

  Granny whipped around. “How the blazes did that happen?”

  “I, um . . . I dropped the glow bugs. Then after a while, I couldn’t hear him behind us anymore . . .”

  “Damnation!” Granny growled, grinding her teeth together.

  The edge of the forest was following less than twenty yards behind them.

  “That bastard Clay. Do you suppose he’s dead?” Granny shouted to D.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He’s dead. I’m sure of it.”

  “No,” D said with a look over his shoulder.

  Following his lead, Granny stopped breathing. Perhaps she caught the faintest of sounds.

  A black spot suddenly appeared in the otherwise unbroken wall of tree trunks, and from it bounded a figure on horseback. Wildly kicking up sand, the rider chased along after them.

  Now out in the moonlight, Clay was licking his lips. And then suddenly the warrior’s body lurched wildly forward. His horse had caught its leg on something! As the beast nosed into the ground with a great cloud of dust, Clay sailed over its head, curling himself up in a ball. Amazingly, he landed on his feet when he hit the ground. The way he straightened smoothly from the landing was superbly acrobatic. However, instead of lauding his feat, the forest behind him merely continued its silent advance.

  There was no time to make a dash for his cyborg horse. Clay’s right hand grasped his harp, but no matter how far and wide the deadly sounds could fly from his weapon, the warrior was up against a vast forest that was miles across. The strings twanged. The number of trees that disappeared must’ve been in the hundreds . . . but that wasn’t enough.

  Clay watched absentmindedly as the wall of colossal trees loomed over him. But even in the depths of his despair, he managed to hear something running up behind him, as only the greatest of the Frontier’s warriors might. Even before he knew for sure it was the low rumble of hoofbeats, he’d launched himself into the air. He had no idea as to the distance or speed of the rider—well-honed instinct was all he had to rely on. But that was enough to put the warrior’s massive frame squarely on the back of D’s horse after the Hunter’s sudden stop and complete change of direction. By the time the shadow of the forest swallowed the spot Clay had previously occupied, the cyborg horse had galloped forty feet ahead.

  “Looks like that’s another one I owe you,” Clay said, baring his teeth. The words had been a groan of pure hatred.

  “Save your thanks for Granny.”

  “How’s that?”

  “She told me to go save you,” said D.

  “Sheesh. What an old busybody.”

  In a matter of seconds, their horse was alongside the wagon.

  “The forest is picking up speed,” Granny shouted to the two men.

  “We can’t outrun it,” Clay said, gnashing his teeth. A second later, his eyes went wide.

  The wagon had engaged its emergency brake. At the same time, D halted as well.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Clay stammered, foam flying from his mouth.

  Grinning at him, Granny said, “Just you wait and see. Watch what I can do!”

  The weird sand painting at Granny’s feet was still completely intact. While it wasn’t all that large, Clay could still make it out clearly in the moonlight. Knitting his brow, he looked to the rear—at the vast forest pursuing them. That’s what her picture was. The pattern that had emerged on the ground was the moon and a desert and a forest—the very same forest rolling after them to swallow them all.

  Clay forgot all about taking flight. No matter how they struggled, victory seemed impossible. In seemingly impossible cases, he’d normally flee without a backward glance. That was the way Clay was. The only way he and his brother had remained alive and famous for so long was by avoiding futile battles. But now Clay was caught in a raging storm of desire to see the old woman work her magic with his own eyes, a desire that suppressed even the strongest of human urges—that of self-preservation.

  Without a sound, a mountainous shadow hid the stars. The chain of enormous trees bearing down on them was like some demonic beast. Clay’s field of view was far wider than that of an ordinary person, and it now held two spectacles: Granny, and the forest.

  The old woman leaned far forward. Her tiny chest swelled to nearly twice its normal size. She’d taken a deep breath. And then, with all the force of a bent fire-dragon bone snapping back into shape, the old woman leaned forward in the driver’s seat and violently expelled the breath in her lungs through her pursed lips. Scattering dazzling colors in the moonlight, the sand painting blew away,
and a cry of astonishment slipped from Clay’s mouth.

  Now bending forward from the overwhelming mass of the vast forest behind them, the foremost rank of trees was suddenly touched with a blinding iridescence, and a second later they had utterly vanished, like dust driven before a mighty gale.

  All around D and Clay—the latter of whom sat dumbfounded on the back of the Hunter’s steed—glittering particles of light drifted down from the sky. While Clay realized they were the grains of sand that Granny had scattered, he didn’t even have the strength to hold his hand out to catch some.

  The desert lay flat in the moonlight. It all seemed like a dream.

  “Oww,” Granny moaned, pounding on the small of her back up in the driver’s seat. Her voice sounded weary, and her face looked strangely exhausted. “That was a heck of a thing to be doing at my age! Would it be okay if we took a breather, D?”

  “Your wagon has an autopilot setting, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re a heartless one, you know that? You want an old lady like me at death’s door up here bumping along like no one’s business? My wagon’s controls aren’t really in the best condition, either. Left to its own devices, there’s no telling where this thing may end up.”

  “That forest was just a sample to test our strength. We didn’t hurt the desert that badly. It’ll attack us again.”

  Apparently grasping the situation well enough, Granny reluc-tantly said, “Okay already,” and nodded.

  Just then, Tae came out of the vehicle. Her eyes were puffy. She looked just like a fairy who’d come bearing ominous tidings.

  “What is it?” asked Granny.

  “Lance is dead,” Tae said in a firm tone.

  .

  II

  .

  It took less than thirty minutes to make the small mound of sand. As everyone stood in a circle around it, D took a steel pipe that’d been in the wagon and stuck it in the center of the mound.

  “Kind of a strange shape for a grave marker, isn’t it?” Granny said dubiously.

  A little bit above the center, the long metal pole had a shorter piece strapped perpendicularly with cord. No one there noticed the change in D’s expression when he took the marker in his hand. Like a shadow of pain, the palm of his hand was seared and bruised in the same shape as the pipes.