The Stuff of Dreams (2 page)

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II

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Dcame to a halt in front of the gate to the village. Like any other village, it was surrounded by triple walls to keep out the Nobility and other foul creatures. The sight of verdigris-covered javelin-launchers and flamethrower nozzles poking out of those stockade fences was one to which most travelers would be accustomed. The same could be said for the trio of sturdy, well-armed men who appeared from the lookout hut next to the gate. The men signaled to D to stop. But one thing was different here—the expression these men wore. The looks of suspicion and distrust they usually trained on travelers had been replaced with a strange mix of confusion and fear . . . and a tinge of amity.

As one of them gazed somewhat embarrassedly at D on his horse, he asked, “You’re a Hunter, ain’t you? And not just any Hunter. You’re a top-class Vampire Hunter. Isn’t that right?”

“How did you know?” The soft sound of the man on horseback’s voice cut through the three of them like a gust of wintry wind.

“Never mind,” the man in the middle said, shaking his head and donning an ambiguous little smile as he turned back to the gate. Facing a hidden security camera, he raised his right hand. With the tortured squeal of gears and chains, the gate with its plank and iron covering swung inward.

“Get going. You’re going in, right?” the first man asked.

Not saying a word, D put the heels of his boots to his horse’s belly. As if blown out of the way by an unearthly wind gusting from the rider and his mount, the three men slipped off to either side, and D went into the village.

The wide main street ran straight from the gate into the village. To either side of it were rows of shops and homes. Again, this was a typical layout for a Frontier town. The kind of looks that’d greeted D outside the gate moments earlier met him again. People on the street stopped and focused stares of fear or confusion or affection on him, but it was the women whose gazes quickly turned to ones of rapture.

Ordinarily, women on the Frontier never let down their gruff and wary facade, even when the most handsome of men passed within inches of them. They were well aware that a pretty face didn’t reflect the mind behind it. For all they knew, they might be the only one who saw him that way. What guarantee did they have that he wasn’t, in fact, a poisonous crimson spider—a creature that not only had the power to hypnotize, but who could also give substance to hallucinations? Who could say for certain he hadn’t been sent by bandits planning to burn the village to the ground and make off with all their money and their women? To crack the Frontier woman’s hard-bitten demeanor took a beauty that was not of this world.

When he’d ridden halfway down the street—passing through odd looks and ecstatic gazes—a young woman’s voice called out to his black-clad back, “Um, excuse me!” Her voice suited the morning.

D stopped. And he didn’t move a muscle after that.

There was the sound of someone’s short, quick steps on the raised wooden sidewalk off to D’s left, a head of black hair slipped right by his side, and then the girl turned in front of him. A smile graced her face, which was fresh and rosy and bursting with youthfulness.

“You’re a Vampire Hunter, aren’t you?” The words were formed by lips painted a faint shade appropriate to her age. She was sixteen or seventeen—at the stage where she wanted people to look at her. Without waiting for an answer from D, she continued. “Well, if you are, please go out to the hospital on the edge of town. Sybille is in room seven.”

D’s expression shifted. Apparently, he’d recognized the girl, in her snowy white blouse and blue skirt with wine-red stripes, as someone worth talking to. “Have we met before?”
he asked.

The girl’s form tensed. D’s tone was no different from what he’d used with the men out at the gate. It wouldn’t be the least bit strange for it to leave a timid girl quaking. But this young lady just bobbed her head vigorously. “Yes. Only it—oh, just hurry!”

“Where did we meet?”

The girl smiled wryly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It’s better you hear it from someone upstanding, like a grown man, instead of from me. Hurry up and get to the hospital. The director will be so happy to see you.”

It was a bizarre discussion. Although somewhat lacking in explanation, it was clear from the tone of the girl’s voice that this was an urgent matter. What sort of conclusions were being drawn in the heart beneath that black raiment?

Asking nothing further, D resumed his advance. Once he was off the main street, the Frontier land rapidly grew more desolate. Almost all of the arable land had been bequeathed by the Nobility, given with the knowledge that fields which scarcely provided enough to survive were good insurance against insurrections. Of course, after the decline of the Nobility, there were some villages where crops and soil had been repeatedly improved, and, as a result of centuries of persistent toil, the townspeople had managed to make bountiful harvests a reality. But such successes never went any farther than the village level—they never spread across whole sectors. This desolate earth bore mute testimony to the fact there were only a dozen places on the entire Frontier that tasted such bounty, while elsewhere the battle against misery and poverty continued as it had for centuries.

But this community was actually one of those rare exceptions. As D’s eyes ran along the edge of the village, he saw vast expanses of fragrant green forests and farmland, all of which seemed to be nestled between hills covered with neat orchards of verdant fruit trees. This village of five hundred harvested enough to feed nearly twenty times that number. Four times a year, when the entire village was done packing up their bounty, fifty massive transport vehicles hauled the town’s excess food roughly sixty miles south to the freight station, where it was then shipped out to more impoverished villages on the Frontier or to the distant Capital. The reason homes and infrastructure in this village showed comparatively little wear was due to the income generated by their food surplus.

Following an asphalt-paved road for another five minutes, the Hunter saw a chalk-white structure atop a respectable-sized hill. The rather wide road forked off in several different directions before continuing up the slope. The flag that flew from the three-story building at the top of the hill had a five-pointed star on it—the mark of a hospital.

This must’ve been the place the girl had told him to go. But he’d never had any intention of doing what she asked . . .

The complete antithesis of the refreshing blue sky and greenery of morning, the black rider and horse reached the base
of the hill at their own leisurely pace. Although the young rider didn’t appear to pull back on the reins, his horse came to an immediate stop. Soon the beast changed direction, as if looking up at the hill, and they began to slowly ascend.

Twining the reins around a fence by the entrance, D went through the front door. The doors were all glass and were fully automated. As there probably wasn’t a power station nearby, the doors must’ve run on the material fluid power that’d recently gained popularity. But the village would have to be incredibly well-off if they could afford to use that recent innovation on something so trivial.

D went over to the information desk beside the door. The nurse behind the desk had a mindless gaze and a vacant expression on her face. Of course, the same went for the female patients and other nurses dotting the vast lobby. This was beyond the level of just feverish stargazes—they seemed like their very souls had been sucked out.

“I’d like to see the person in charge,” D told the nurse in a low voice.

Reaching for a switch under the desk, the woman said, “He’ll be right here,” though it was nearly a moan. Her syrupy tone seemed to have an almost wanton ring to it.

“He needn’t do that. I’ll go to him.”

“No,” the nurse said, shaking her head, “he expressly told me to let him know the moment you came in.”

“So, he knows me, then?”

“Yes. Actually, so do I . . . ”

It’d happened again.

D looked at the nurse. The light of reason had already left her eyes. He turned to the far end of the lobby.

Just then, footsteps echoed from one of the numerous corridors, and a figure in white came running toward him. The figure became an old man with a white beard who crossed the lobby at a lively pace and halted in front of the Hunter. Gazing steadfastly at D, he moaned, “Oh, my!” By the look on his face, he wished he were a woman. “Looks like I’ll have to move my female patients and nurses somewhere else. I’m Allen, the hospital director.”

“Call me D,” the Hunter said in his usual brusque manner. “So, do you know me, too?”

Director Allen nodded deeply. “Though I only just met you
last night.
Looks so good it even made a man like me lightheaded—not a chance I’d forget that. So, what brings you here?”

“A few minutes ago, a girl told me to come here.”

“A girl?” the aged director asked. His expression grew contemplative, and he asked, “Was she about sixteen or seventeen, with black hair way down to her waist? Pretty as no one’s business?”

“Yes.”

“That’d be Nan. Not surprising, really. You’re just the man for the job.”

“How did you know I’d come?”

“That was the impression I got last night.” As he finished speaking, the hospital director swallowed hard. D was calmly gazing at him. The black of his eyes, impossibly dark and deep, awakened fearful memories etched in the very genes of the director’s cells. Small talk and jokes had no place in the world of this young man—this being. Director Allen did all he could to look away. Even when the young man’s image was reduced to a reflection on the floor, the director was left with a fear as chill as winter in the core of his being.

“Please, come with me. This way.” His tone bright for these last few words alone, Director Allen started retracing his earlier steps. Traveling down a number of white corridors, he led D to a sickroom. A vague air of secrecy hung over this part of the hospital. There wasn’t a single sound. The room was surrounded by noise-dampening equipment that worked almost perfectly.

“So we don’t wake the sleeping princess,” the director
explained as he opened the door, seeing that D had noticed
the arrangements.

This place had turned its back on the light of day. In the feeble darkness of the spacious sickroom, the girl lay quietly in her bed. Her eyes were closed. Aside from the usual table, chairs, and cupboard, there wasn’t any other furniture in the room. The windowpane behind the drawn curtains was opaque.

The dream last night, the watchmen at the gate, and the girl with the long hair—they all had to be part of a plan to lead D here. But toward what end?

The girl didn’t seem to be breathing, but D stared down at her in pensive silence.

You should be out laughing in the sunshine
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“This is Sybille Schmitz—she’s seventeen,” the director said, hemming and hawing a bit when he came to her age.

“How many decades has she been like this?” D asked softly.

“Oh, so you could tell, then?” the hospital director said with admiration. The fact of the matter was she’d been that way for nearly thirty years. “One fall day, she was found lying out in the woods not far from the village. Right off we knew what’d been done to her. She had those two loathsome marks on the nape of her neck, after all. The whole village pitched in and we took turns watching her for three days without sleep so no one could get near her. In the end, the guilty party never did appear, but Sybille didn’t wake up, either. She’s been sleeping here in my hospital ever since. Our village was just about the only place that got along with the Nobility, so I don’t see why something like this had to happen.”

It was unclear if D was really listening to the man’s weary voice. In this whole absurd business, D had confirmed only one thing as fact. A young lady dancing on and on with elegant steps in the blue light. People laughing merrily at a never-ending banquet. D turned to Director Allen. “How did you know I’d come?”

The hospital director had a look of resignation. “I had a dream about you last night,” he replied more forcefully than necessary. He still hadn’t fully escaped the mental doldrums the young man’s gaze had put him in.

D didn’t react at all.

“And not just me,” Director Allen added. “Now, I didn’t exactly go around checking or anything, but I’d wager the whole village did, too. Anyone who had that dream would understand.”

“What kind of dream?”

“I don’t remember anymore. But I knew you were going to come. You’d come to see Sybille.”

Dreams again?

“Have there been any strange incidents in your village recently?”

The director shook his head. “Not only hasn’t there been any problem with the Nobility, but we haven’t had any crimes by outsiders or villagers, either. I imagine arguments and fisticuffs between those who’ve been hitting the bottle hardly qualify as the kind of incidents you’re talking about.”

Why, then, had the Hunter been summoned?

“What’s supposed to happen after I get here—can you
remember?”

The director shook his head. He almost looked relieved. It was as if he had the feeling that, if he became involved with this young man in any way, there’d be a terrible price to pay later.

D drifted toward the door. He didn’t give another glance to the girl or the hospital director. He was about to leave. There was nothing here to hold a Vampire Hunter’s interest.

Wanting to say something to him, the director realized he really had nothing to say. There were no words to address a shadow. When the door finally closed, the director wasn’t completely sure that he’d actually met the young man.

On his way through the lobby to the exit, D passed a man. He was middle-aged and dressed in a cotton shirt and trousers and, while both garments were clean, they’d also been patched countless times. His rugged face had been carved by the brutal elements. Anyone could easily picture him out working the soil to earn his daily bread. With a weary expression, he quickly walked past D.

Slipping once more through the feverish gazes of the nurse and patients, D exited the lobby. Silently riding down the slope, he came to a little road. It wouldn’t be much farther to the main road. But, just as he was going around a curve at the bottom of the hill, he found a dragon-drawn wagon coming from the opposite direction.