White Devil Mountain

At the Foot of the White Mountain

chapter 1

I

W
hiteness dominated their entire field of view. Moreover, they were being madly tossed by seemingly impossible turbulence, which had left the aircraft groaning for the last thirty minutes.

“This is bad! If we don’t lose some altitude, she’ll never hold together!” the pilot said, taking the cheap cigarette he’d long since smoked down to the filter and crushing it against the floor before grabbing the yoke again.

Suddenly, the door behind him opened. The pilot clucked his tongue. Leave it to the most worthless guy he knew to show up at absolutely the worst time. Of course, there was no one else riding with them besides the guy in the coffin. The man had just stepped through the doorway when the aircraft lurched wildly to the right. More than the screams of the pest clinging to the door, it was the creaking coming from the aircraft’s panels that concerned the pilot.

“Hold on tight. I’m taking her into a dive!” the pilot shouted without bothering to turn around. He rapidly pushed the yoke farther and farther forward.

“Wh-wh-wh-what the hell is going on?” the pest asked, his teeth chattering.

“Damned if I know,” the pilot replied while desperately working the yoke. Half of his remark was him trying to put a scare into the man, but the other half was serious. It was too late to escape the turbulence, the aircraft’s screams were telling him. “Well, if we’re lucky we’ll pull a crash landing in the mountains, but if we’re out of luck we’ll break apart in midair. Hell, this crate wasn’t built for flying this time of year.”

“And you were paid a good sum on account of that. You’re in no position to complain about it now. You knew that before you took off.”

“Yeah, whatever. You’re right about that, egghead. But us fliers are a superstitious lot. We’re carrying that coffin—and if we go down, I’m blaming it on what’s inside it.”

“That alone will be saved!” the spindly pest—the archaeologist Geeson—shouted angrily. He was so determined, it moved the pilot for a moment. “Any researcher of Nobility on the planet would give their life or soul for a look at what’s inside. I don’t care if we end up smashed to pieces—we’ve got to get it safely to the Capital.”

“In that case, why didn’t you use the highways?” the pilot shot back. He focused his attention on the stark scene outside his windows, but he immediately turned back to the aged archaeologist. He’d felt a weird presence. Some part of the aircraft was groaning horribly—the panels that always worried him.

The face of the gray-haired and gray-bearded archaeologist in his midfifties had become a rictus.

“Why . . .” the man began in a voice like a specter. “Why . . . did you ask?”

“Huh?”

In front of the wide-eyed pilot, the scrawny, crane-like face cocked at an angle.

“Why . . . did you ask . . . such a thing? Oh, I hadn’t given it any thought . . . but now I’m forced . . . to answer . . . what shouldn’t be said.”

The man’s voice was joined by the brief sound of a signal. A radar warning.

The pilot turned his eyes forward again in regret. From the far reaches of that world of white, an even whiter shape was approaching. A mountain.

Given our location, that’d have to be Mount Shilla, wouldn’t it?
he thought.
Fuck! I’m not doing any damned emergency landing. I’d rather cut my heart out right now than try to survive up on that mountain.

Setting the fuel pumps to their maximum output, he focused his attention on the radar screen.

Altitude: thirty thousand feet—damn it, we’ve dropped too much. Gotta pull it back up soon.

As he shouted at the pest to get out of there, he heard the man cry out, “At first . . . it was my intent . . . to transport it via the Ghost Highway . . . But . . . there wasn’t time for that . . . No, that’s not right . . . Someone . . . ordered me . . . to go by air.”

The yoke wouldn’t move. Part of the problem was mechanical—the other part was that the pilot’s hands were frozen, so unsettled was he by the egghead’s tone.

“Who was it?”

In the distance, he heard a hard, rattling sound. The body of the aircraft told him they were losing altitude with ever-increasing speed, even without him touching the controls.

“Flaps down. Maintain oil pressure. Pulling her nose up.”

His words overlapped with another hard clank.

“The chains . . . are off,” the archaeologist said behind him, his hoarse voice trembling.

“So, what am I supposed to do about it? Damn it, grab hold of something! You’ll get tossed in the air!”

Bam! A terrific change in air pressure hit them head-on. The diving aircraft started leveling out.

“This can’t be . . . How could the chains come off?” the archaeologist said in a crumpled little tone. The sudden g-forces he’d experienced had left his body sore. Yet his voice carried a different fear.

In the pilot’s field of view, the fuel gauge lit up.

“Shit, it’s at zero. Did we have a leak? We had plenty of fuel a minute ago! We’re in trouble. Okay,” he told the archaeologist, “we’re making an emergency landing. Get back there and buckle into your seat!”

“I don’t want to!” the archaeologist shouted. “The chains have been cut. He’s awakened! Oh, I wish I’d never discovered those ruins. I positively refuse to go back there!”

“You idiot—in that case, hold on tight. Secure yourself to something. We’re going in nose first!” the pilot shouted, and then he felt his whole body freeze.

There was no reply.

He turned around.

The archaeologist’s back was just disappearing through the doorway.

“Where are you going?” he shouted after turning forward again.

“I’m going back.”

“What?” the pilot said, his ears barely catching the words. “Huh? What’s that? You’re being called? Hey, pull yourself—”

He didn’t have time enough for the final “together.” His field of vision had been filled with white. The side of the mountain! The instant the pilot realized what he was seeing, his body was jolted by a terrific impact.

–

“—And that’s why you’re here. We had radio communication from the pilot who crashed into Mount Shilla four days ago—just once, at the time of the crash, and then we lost contact. He’s probably dead by now.”

A man with a spectacular beard that came down into two points opened a desk drawer and pulled out a white cloth sack.

“Here’s thirty thousand dalas. Half is from us in the village of Mungs; the other half was fronted by them.”

The Hunter’s dark eyes shifted, capturing an old man in a suit and bow tie seated beside the man with the forked beard. The old man’s expression quickly melted into one of rapture—he’d essentially been out of his mind since looking into those dark eyes. About a half hour earlier, he’d introduced himself to the young man in black before him as Federico Marquis, director of the Frontier Ruins Excavation Department of the Noble Research Foundation, which was headquartered in the Capital.

“It’s a sizable expenditure for an impoverished foundation like our own, but the item that aircraft was carrying is irreplaceable. We ask that you somehow bring it back in one piece.”

“Let’s hear what this item is,” said the owner of those dark eyes—a young man in a long, black coat—speaking at last. Aside from giving his name at the beginning, it was the only thing he’d said.

“I must request that you refrain from asking that. It’s of the utmost secrecy. I’m unable to divulge that information to anyone.”

The figure in the black coat stood up. He intended to leave. Yet the way it looked like he was coming at them instead had to have something to do with his Noble blood. And in a strange way, both men unconsciously welcomed his approach.

“Please, wait,” Marquis called out to him. “I beg of you. Can’t you just do it without knowing?”

Though there was no wind, the hem of the Hunter’s coat flared out.

“Oh, very well—I’ll tell you!”

Still the young man in black continued to walk away.

The voice pursued him, saying, “The aircraft’s cargo was—”

A different voice shot him down. “That’ll do.”

It was unclear what the young man in black made of the girl who stood in the doorway. The other two saw a girl in her teens dressed in a stunning poncho embroidered with silver and gold threads. She wore gold boots that came up a foot past her knees, and a knife was tucked neatly into one of them. Her gracefully curved longsword adorned her back, just as the black-clad man’s did. The blue eyes set in what could be described as a beautiful and pure visage spoke volumes about the girl’s true nature. So deep, so hard, so thoroughly nihilistic—she could only be a Hunter.

In a low but definitely female voice she spelled it out, saying, “Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m Lilia. I’m a Hunter.”

Her boots clacked loudly as she walked past the young man in black to stand in front of the desk.

“You’re the mayor and the archaeologist, I take it. Well, you’d be better off hiring me instead of some guy who’s going to sweat every little detail.”

Displeased, the mayor said, “I don’t know what sort of Hunter you are, but we’ve entrusted this matter entirely to that man right there. We were just about to enter formal negotiations. You’d better leave.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said, though her radiant expression didn’t change in the least. In fact, her blue eyes were ablaze with defiance as she continued, “Tell me, Mr. Mayor—what’s the difference between him and me? Sex? Looks? Name? Achievements? Reputation?”