[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Novel Episode 4] Two Shadows in the Alchemy Laboratory
A chain scraped somewhere inside the ceiling.
Alucard stopped before the sound could come again. From the stone beneath his toes, a thin tremor rose through his boots. There was no door at the end of the corridor. Instead, there was a square opening cut upward into darkness, a short flight of steps descending, and green candles dying along the walls.
The green light did not seem like flame. It wavered like phosphorescence trapped in a wet glass vial. When it brushed the back of his hand, his skin looked colder and paler.
He raised his eyes.
A single chain was moving slowly through the high ceiling. Somewhere beyond sight, weights and gears caught each other, and some hidden room remembered an order given long ago. The machines here did not behave like living servants. They were closer to corpses repeating one final habit. Stone shifted. Spikes descended. Crates remained in place. When someone’s foot pressed the exact point, a hidden passage briefly showed its face.
The laboratory smelled heavier than the other parts of the castle. Blood, dust, oil, dried herbs, and water rotting inside glass. Metal brackets jutted from the walls, each holding shattered flasks and liquids hardened like black ink. If the marble gallery deceived through beauty, this place did not hide its failures. Near the threshold, ankle-high spikes stood in a row. Beyond them, on a table, lay a cuirass reinforced with animal hide.
Alucard looked at the spikes first.
They rose at regular intervals, but one section of floor was a pressure plate. He touched it with the tip of his sword. Something heavy dropped within the wall. The spikes sank all at once. Too slowly. It had not been made to save anyone. It had been made to punish the one who rushed.
He measured the opening and crossed with his cloak held close to his body.
The cuirass was old. The inside leather had stiffened, and several metal rings were stained with rust. Yet it was better than receiving bone, spear, and fire with nothing but his flesh. He lifted it and fitted it to his shoulders. As he tightened the strap at his waist, his fingers paused.
Its weight was different from the armor he had once worn. This was not something made for his name. It was something found inside the castle. Something discarded by a former wearer, or something whose owner had died before wearing it at all.
He did not dwell on the difference. The castle had already taken what belonged to him. Those who survived used what remained.
Bone moved above the stairs.
The first skeleton held a sword. The blade was rusted, but the movement was not. Shoulder and elbow followed strangely late, and that delay made the timing of the strike uneven. Alucard stepped inside and cut through the wrist. Bone fingers scattered with the hilt still clutched between them.
The second was slick with blood. It did not fall even when cut. Its knees buckled, its ribs struck the floor, and a moment later it began to rise again. Alucard did not wait for its resurrection. Some enemies in this castle did not die. Some did not need to.
An axe flew from the right wall.
The sound came first—a low, curving ring of iron. Alucard drew in his chin and folded his body. The axe passed over his head and buried itself in a candlestick behind him. The flame burst and vanished. From the darkness ahead, a soldier in green armor walked out slowly. No face could be seen beneath the helm.
A faceless face was the most common face in this castle.
The axe knight drew its left arm back. A short stillness before the throw. Alucard memorized that pause. If the elbow opened and the shoulder rose first, the arc would be high. If the waist twisted first, the arc would come low.
This one was high.
He slid forward. As the axe traced its half circle behind him, his short blade entered the gap in the armor. Something dry snapped within metal. The soldier took two more steps, then sank to one knee.
The axe that fell to the floor was still warm.
Alucard picked it up and weighed it in his palm. It was crude as a weapon. But suitable for throwing upward. One edge was worn, and the end of the handle carried the grime of an old grip. He hooked it at his waist. The castle had already taught him too often that one sword did not reach everywhere.
Farther inside the laboratory, the path divided upward and downward. In a narrow chamber, an old leather shield lay on a table. Its emblem had nearly vanished, and its rim was torn. Alucard lifted it and held it toward the light. Thin. It would not endure long. But it might be enough to stop the first tongue of flame.
He strapped it to his left arm. The moment the shield settled against his wrist, the balance of his body changed slightly. The path of his sword became shorter, his shoulder a little more closed. In return, he could endure what came from the front.
He returned to the corridor.
This time, venom fell from the ceiling. Small things made of mingled bone and flesh clung to the walls, stretched their necks, and spat. The venom smoked white when it struck the floor. Alucard gathered his cloak aside and leapt diagonally. The second glob fell where he had been.
He stepped against the wall, lifted himself, and pushed once more in midair. The second leap he had learned from the previous paths was still unfamiliar. For an instant, his body abandoned the weight it knew, and the air beneath his feet became an invisible platform.
That brief rise brought him above the creature’s head.
His sword came down. A wet sound followed, and the thing on the wall dropped to the floor, twitching.
This new power opened paths, but it did not fight in his place. To rise higher also meant to fall from higher. Alucard bent his knees as soon as he landed. He checked the strength left in his ankles, then rolled his wrist once. The sword was light. Too light. A sword too light sometimes moved before the mind. He tightened his fingers around it again.
Before the second spike mechanism stood a wooden crate. It was old, its edges worn, but it had not been set deep into the floor. He pushed it with his shoulder. The box scraped across stone by small degrees, though it had no wheels. The sound rang strangely loud through the laboratory, as though it scratched the ears of things still sleeping.
He placed the crate atop the spikes, then pressed the plate again. The spikes rose, lifting the crate. The wood creaked, caught on the tips, and a new platform formed above them.
Alucard climbed onto it.
Darkness pooled thinly beneath the spikes. The castle’s mechanisms were cruel, but there was order even in that cruelty. Only to those who could read that order did it become a road.
In the upper chamber lay a length of red cloth. Too long to be mere fabric, too plain to be called a noble cloak. He lifted it with his fingertips. Dust rose. It did not seem to have been soaked in blood. That fact made it stranger. He settled it across his shoulders. It was light enough not to hinder his movement, and it softened the harsh line of the cuirass he had just taken.
A single worn cloth changed the shape of the body. In an enemy’s eyes, even that small change could become a difference in distance.
The passage narrowed.
On the left wall hung old diagrams. A human arm, a bat’s wing, a lizard’s spine, a bird’s skeleton—all drawn within the same circle. The ink had faded, but the lines remained stubborn. Some hand had drawn them to understand life. Some hand had drawn them to disassemble it. In this laboratory, the two were difficult to separate.
Alucard passed them by.
The red light in the save room breathed low once again. He stepped across the threshold and closed his eyes for a moment. Fatigue seemed to drain from his body. But his mind did not become lighter. The castle’s rest was always temporary. After a brief silence, a greater noise waited.
He left the room and checked that the hand axe was secure at his waist. The shield strap was not loose. The sword was in his right hand.
Then, from above, came the sound of wings.
It was not light. Not the wings of a bat, but the opening and closing of wet leather stretched wide. Once. Twice.
Then somewhere on the floor, the point of a spear struck stone.
The two sounds came from different heights, yet shared the same rhythm.
Alucard lowered his breath. At the end of the passage stood a large door marked with a red sigil. The sigil was dark like dried blood, and the closer he came, the more the air inside pressed outward.
He stopped before the door. He opened his fingers, then closed them again. A small sound came from his knuckles.
The door opened.
The chamber inside was wide. Unlike the other rooms in the laboratory, it held little clutter. It was empty instead.
Empty as though cleared for battle.
The floor stretched in a long rectangle, and rows of broken glass cylinders stood along both walls. Only dried streaks of fluid remained inside them. The ceiling was high.
Too high.
A room made for an enemy that used the air.
Before stepping in, Alucard looked up.
Two eyes opened in the darkness.
The spearpoint came first.
A long spear split the air and dropped straight down. Alucard rolled aside. The point struck the floor, throwing shards of stone. Then the body descended after it: a birdlike skeleton, a long thin neck, a hooked beak, green flesh clinging to bone, and a spear gripped in both hands. The shaft was taller than Alucard himself. As soon as the creature landed, it leveled the spear horizontally.
In an instant, the entire distance belonged to that spear.
Behind it, a blue beast slowly spread its wings.
Gaibon clung near the ceiling. Bat, demon, and lizard seemed fused into one form. Its wing membranes were torn like old sails, yet dark blue light bled through every rip. It did not open its mouth to cry. Instead, fire lit inside its throat.
A small fireball fell.
At an angle.
Alucard raised the shield. The flame struck the leather surface and burst. Heat drove up to his elbow. Smoke rose from the shield’s edge.
His first judgment was simple: a spear on the ground, fire in the air. If he faced one, the other would pierce the opening.
Slogra moved first. Its steps made almost no sound. Long bone legs folded and opened, closing the distance. The spearpoint drove toward Alucard’s chest. He tried to evade left, but Gaibon’s second fireball was already falling there. It had burned the path of escape beforehand.
Alucard leaned back at the last instant. The spearpoint scraped across his cuirass. Metal shrieked, and pain spread through his shoulder.
A mistake.
He had judged the spear’s length with his eyes alone and read Gaibon’s falling angle too late.
He turned his cloak across his body and withdrew. Slogra did not pull the spear back. It pushed forward again. This time Alucard ducked low. The spear passed over his head, and his sword cut short across it. He aimed for the shaft. But the bone monster twisted its wrist and lifted the weapon. The blade cut only air. At the same moment, Gaibon descended, raking past with its claws.
Alucard rolled across the floor. A talon tore the end of his cloak. The severed cloth hung briefly in the air before falling.
He rose.
Slogra’s spear was long from the front and short from the side. But the fire blocked the side. Gaibon’s flames were not fast, but they fell on slanting paths. He did not need to move quickly. He needed to find the empty square before those slants closed.
When the next fireball descended, Alucard stepped forward.
Toward Slogra’s spear.
Not away from it, but inside it.
In the instant before a thrust, when the creature drew the spear back, the long weapon emptied the space close to its body. Alucard placed his foot in that gap. His sword passed under the shaft and struck the bone of Slogra’s arm.
A crack formed.
Gaibon immediately descended. Its massive claws caught Slogra’s shoulders. Alucard narrowed his eyes. The two monsters had become bound into a single movement. Gaibon lifted Slogra into the air. The spearpoint turned downward. The pair rose near the ceiling, swayed briefly, then dropped toward him at an angle.
This was their habit.
Alucard did not run backward. He watched the center of the falling shadow. The spearpoint would arrive first, the body after it. It was not enough to avoid the point. He had to calculate the slide of bone and weight after impact.
He moved two steps right, then threw the hand axe upward.
The axe rose in a blunt arc. Its blade flashed white for one instant in the light. It grazed beneath Gaibon’s wing and struck Slogra’s spear arm. The two monsters wavered midair. The angle of descent broke. The spearpoint buried itself in the floor to Alucard’s left.
In that very instant, he drove forward and cut through Slogra’s ribs.
Bone split. Green flesh scattered.
Gaibon shot back toward the ceiling. This time it did not spit fireballs one by one. Three came in succession. The first at Alucard’s feet, the second at head height, the third behind him to cut off retreat.
He braced the shield and pushed the first aside. He lowered his body to let the second pass. He did not evade the third. Instead, he advanced and forced Slogra’s next thrust.
Slogra leveled its spear and charged.
There was no anger in that charge. It was mechanical and exact. The spearpoint aimed again for the crack in his cuirass. Alucard drew his left foot back and twisted his body. The point skimmed past his side. At the same time, he cut upward from below.
The spear shaft split. The first crack lengthened. With the second strike, the front half of the spear broke and spun away.
Metal fell to the floor.
Slogra stopped.
That brief stillness was more ominous.
The monster’s shoulders lifted. Its beak opened slowly. The long, hard point turned forward. It would use its own body now in place of its spear. The distance had shortened, but its speed would increase.
Alucard lowered the shield.
Slogra sprang.
Just before the beak pierced his cuirass, Alucard folded aside. The beak tore across the shield’s edge, ripping the leather. He used that force to turn his arm. As the shield was shoved away, it twisted Slogra’s neck to the side. The sword in Alucard’s right hand entered between neck bone and shoulder bone.
The blade caught.
The bone was hard. It would not come free.
At that moment, Gaibon descended. Blue fire gathered in its mouth again, close and bright. Alucard did not abandon the sword. He twisted his wrist deeper. One bone snapped, and the blade came loose. Instead of withdrawing, he shoved Slogra’s body forward with the shield, putting it between himself and Gaibon’s flame.
The fireball burst.
Slogra’s spine blackened. The creature made a soundless scream. Its mouth opened, but no voice emerged. Alucard did not miss the opening. He drove off the floor with his right foot, turned his body halfway, and cut through the neck.
The beaked skull rolled across the floor. The hand that had once held the spear grasped at empty air one last time, then loosened.
The chamber fell quiet for a moment.
That silence was not the end.
Gaibon came down from the ceiling. Red energy began spreading beneath its blue skin. At first it was a single point in the center of the chest. Then it traveled outward like veins through the wing membranes. Head, shoulders, back, claws. When the red had stained its entire body, the green candlelight in the room seemed darker than before.
Gaibon did not look at Slogra’s remains. It was not a beast grieving for a companion. The tactic that had belonged to two bodies had merely compressed into one.
The fire grew larger.
The first great fireball drove against the shield. The leather heated until it nearly stuck to Alucard’s arm. He did not clench his teeth. He loosened his fingers instead, letting the force travel through the whole arm rather than into the bone.
The second fireball came low. He jumped. In midair, he pulled himself higher with the second leap. The flame passed beneath his feet. But Gaibon had been waiting for that height. Its wings folded, and its body dropped like a projectile.
Alucard turned in the air. He did not avoid it completely. The claws tore across his shoulder. Blood splashed over the cuirass. He landed on one knee. The floor felt distant. More dangerous than the wound was the delay in his breath.
Gaibon did not miss that delay. Its red mouth opened again.
Alucard raised the shield.
Three shots. Evenly spaced.
He blocked the first with the shield, let the second glance off the edge, and ran forward before the third arrived. The fire burst behind him. Heat lifted his cloak. He used that heat at his back and moved faster.
Gaibon hovered low.
After spitting fire, its throat remained open for a moment. Its wings pressed downward to prepare for the next rise. That was the opening.
Alucard drew the hand axe again. This time he did not throw it immediately. Shield in the left hand, sword in the right, axe taken from his waist and held between his fingers. As Gaibon struck downward with its wings, he cast the axe upward. The blade struck the inner bone of one wing.
Gaibon tilted.
As it folded the opposite wing to avoid falling, Alucard reached its chest with a second leap.
The sword entered.
Not deep enough. Gaibon’s hide was thick and hot. The blade buried halfway and stopped. Gaibon’s mouth opened close to Alucard’s face. Firelight filled his eyes.
He did not push the blade deeper.
He bent the hilt downward.
The wound tore open.
Gaibon twisted. Its fire lost direction and exploded toward the ceiling. The glass cylinders shattered all at once. Fragments rained down.
Alucard fell to the floor. He rolled as he landed. Glass entered his palm. He did not pull it out. Pain could wait.
Gaibon descended to the ground. Its red body swelled and shrank. It was no longer flying so much as enduring. When both feet struck the floor, cracks spread through the stone. From its mouth, fireballs came low, fast, and in a line.
Alucard set the shield before him. The first impact cracked it. The second broke one strap. Before the third came, he threw the shield away.
The charred shield slid across the floor.
Gaibon poured fire at it. For a brief instant, it mistook movement for an enemy.
In that instant, Alucard circled to the side.
His cloak dragged low. His sword drew back. His breath stopped. After flame left Gaibon’s throat, before the throat closed again, there was a brief softness beneath the neck.
He thrust there.
The blade entered under the throat.
Gaibon spread its wings. One final ascent. The force was strong enough to lift Alucard from the floor with it. He did not release the hilt. His feet left the ground, and the shattered glass cylinders fell away below. Gaibon climbed near the ceiling, intending to smash him into the wall.
Alucard caught the monster’s shoulder bone with his left hand. The glass in his palm drove deeper. He did not let go.
The wall came closer.
He pulled the sword sideways.
The wound in the neck opened wide, and red light poured out like hot blood. One of Gaibon’s wings folded first. They fell together. As they dropped, Alucard turned his body and used the monster’s chest as a platform. At the final instant, he leapt away.
Gaibon hit the floor first.
The stone rang.
Alucard landed beside it on one knee.
Gaibon still moved.
Its wingtip trembled, and a small ember flickered inside its mouth. Alucard rose slowly. He pointed his sword downward. The monster’s eyes no longer saw him. The red light faded, and its body became blue wreckage once more.
He stepped closer and drove the blade deep into the opened wound at its throat.
The ember went out.
The silence afterward was long.
Even the mechanisms of the laboratory seemed to pause. No chain, no boiling echo from the glass vessels, no low trembling of gears within the walls. Across the floor lay a broken spear, a burned shield, blackened bone, and torn wing membrane.
Alucard drew the sword free. Blood and fire clung together on the blade. He wiped it against the inside of his cloak. The cloth grew dirtier, but that did not make the cloak any lighter.
He opened his palm. Shards of glass were lodged in the flesh. One. Then another. He pulled them out and let them fall to the floor. Each small sound rang too loudly. When the final shard came free, blood welled up. He closed his hand. The wound would soon seal. But the pain remained for a while.
That was enough. Enough to prove that his body was still here.
The light at the center of the room changed.
Behind the place where Gaibon had fallen, between broken glass cylinders, a faint white glow rose. Alucard approached. The light seemed less like an object than a small reward exhaled by the castle. He reached out. When it touched his palm, a thin ripple spread through the depths of his body. Fatigue drew back slightly. His lungs seemed wider. The heat of the wounds slowly lessened.
No voice declared the battle over.
Only the body that had survived was permitted to take the next step.
A door opened.
The right wall trembled low, and a gap appeared where none had been before. Not a hidden door, but a wall that became a door only after battle. Alucard glanced once at the broken spearhead. Slogra’s skull was already crumbling like black ash. Gaibon’s wing membrane dried slowly in a place without candlelight. For a while, the two would remain as traces, testifying to why this room had been empty.
He entered the opened passage.
The corridor was narrow and long. Metal pipes ran along the walls, dark liquid moving sluggishly within them. After several steps, he saw the lift. Beyond iron bars, the space descended deep below. A massive weight hung at the center, and doors opened at intervals along the walls.
The laboratory did not lead only upward. There were more hidden rooms below.
Alucard stepped into the lift. The platform accepted his weight, and the chain moved again. The same sound he had heard first—the scrape of iron remembered now beneath his feet. The lift descended slowly. Doors passed one by one. On one floor, something like a shard of mirror flashed. On another, a small blade could be seen in a chamber beyond. He rode to the bottom, then back upward.
The castle did not give everything at once. Every door passed by became a memory for later.
When he passed the uppermost door, the air changed.
The smell of oil retreated behind him, and the scent of cold, polished stone flowed in from ahead. The marble gallery. Paintings, statues, shining floors, and music too elegant not to be ominous.
Alucard paused at the doorway.
The paths he had seen before remained in his body: the heights that had been out of reach, the ledges that demanded return, the eyes of the woman searching for someone. Yet even the same path changed after battle. A hand that had swung the sword once more was not the hand it had been before.
He did not look back.
From within the laboratory, the chain sounded once more. It seemed like a closing door, but not everything had closed. Below remained rooms not yet reclaimed. Above remained gaps not yet reached. Even after the chamber of fallen monsters, the castle continued to deepen.
Alucard stepped onto the marble.
The floor faintly reflected him: pale face, black cloak, blood on his hand. With each step, the reflected shadow followed a little late. At first it seemed like a trick of light.
But three steps later, he stopped.
The reflected shadow also stopped.
One beat late.
Far away, at the end of the gallery, he heard footsteps at the same height as his own.
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