[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Novel - Episode 24] The Room Where the King of Flies Hung
The flies found the heat of the wound before they found blood.
Before he could even pass through the door, a black swarm rushed Alucard's left shoulder. He swung his heavy sword in a wide arc and split wings apart, but a single slash erased only the front rank. Flies surging from behind, slick with the fluids of the dead, latched onto him again. The smell of metal and rotting flesh lingered on the tip of his tongue with every breath.
Alucard pressed a palm over the bandages. The Heart thudded harshly inside his chest, driving out the venom the flies had left behind. The fever spread a little later, but it did not fade. He did not mistake the Heart's aid for recovery. It had only lengthened the time he could endure.
Deeper in the passage, a laboratory hung overturned.
Glass cylinders and iron tables were embedded in the ceiling, and from a shattered still, black liquid dripped one drop at a time into the open air below. Human wrist bones still remained in the leather straps of a dissecting table. Beneath the narrow walkway running along the wall yawned a darkness with no visible end, and within it something heavy hung from chains, turning slowly.
The first thing he saw was a foot.
A gigantic toe, blue with rot, rose out of the darkness below. Then came the knee, the burst-open belly, the black seepage pooled between the ribs. The enormous body hung in the middle of the room, skewered on several rows of chains and hooks. One arm had already rotted down to exposed bone, and the neck sagged to one side, unable to bear the weight of its own body.
It had no eyes.
Instead, flies poured from its empty sockets and from inside its mouth.
Alucard leapt to the highest platform, close to the creature's head. The instant he raised his sword to sever the neck, the swarm became a single black wall and blocked his way. The blade cut through dozens, but the rest clung to the steel and made it heavier. In that moment, the giant's right arm swung on its chain.
Not a fist, but the whole rotten arm came flying at him.
Alucard dropped low, but the back of the hand scraped across the platform as it passed. The iron railing tore free and fell into the void, and half the platform tilted downward. He drove the tip of his sword into the floor to hold himself up. His left shoulder pulled hard, and blood began to flow from the wound again.
The flies changed direction at the smell of blood.
Alucard pulled his sword free and dropped to a lower platform. His first judgment—to aim straight for the head—had been wrong. The giant was slow, but the flies around it claimed every path of approach first. He measured the distance between the chains and the platforms. There were six hooks suspending the body, piercing its shoulders, thighs, spine, and jaw. Each time the giant moved, the tension in the chains changed, and with it which part of the body came forward.
When he lowered his sword, the swarm spread wide.
The first wave did not come from the front. It climbed along both walls, then closed in at once from above and below. Alucard tried to slip through the gap by turning into a bat, but the flies instantly changed course, following the vibration of his wings. Dozens latched onto the smaller body. He returned to human form and rolled across the floor. The flies that had clung to his wings transferred themselves to his hair and neck.
The instant he scraped them off his throat with the back of his blade, a yellowish lump burst on the platform.
It was a maggot that had fallen from the giant's belly. Its body, thicker than a finger, writhed across the floor toward Alucard's boots. He stepped back instead of crushing it. When the maggot's skin burst, toxic fluid splashed wide, and the surface of the platform frothed and melted.
The giant had not thrown the maggot on purpose. Every time its decaying body moved, things inside it spilled free. Even that accidental fall worked in concert with the flies' attack, cutting off his retreat.
Alucard stopped cutting down the flies in front of him.
Instead, he aimed for the nearest left leg. The thigh, drawn taut by its chain, had the thinnest wall of flies around it. He sprang from the edge of the platform and slashed sideways. The blade carved deep through rotten flesh and struck bone. One blow was not enough to sever it. The giant lurched, its knee rising, and the impact struck Alucard in the chest.
His body slammed into the wall. Breath fled him, and a sharp pain flared between his ribs.
Before he could hit the floor, the flies covered his wounded shoulder. Tiny mouths tore at bandage and flesh together. The Heart's beat turned savage, and the venom that had entered his blood climbed hot as a line of fire to his throat.
Alucard let his body dissolve into mist.
While the flies briefly lost their target, he seeped into the inside of the giant's thigh. Reforming in the hollow between folds of flesh, he set his blade against the bone. The cramped space kept him from making a full swing. He moved the sword in short, sawing strokes. The vibration of grinding bone traveled up his wrist and into his shoulder.
At last, the leg came free.
The massive slab of flesh crashed down with one of its chains and shattered the platform below. The impact shook the entire room and ruined the giant's balance. As the body tilted to one side, the height of its head and right arm changed.
At the same time, the swarm changed.
Part of the black curtain wrapped around the giant dropped with the severed leg, then gathered again into two horizontal lines. The first line, coming from the left wall, flew low; the second, from the right, cut across at the height of Alucard's chest. He jumped over the first, but the second struck him in midair and covered him. Dozens of tiny impacts rattled against his armor, and sharp mouths sank into the place where his shoulder guard was missing.
He slid across the platform and raised his sword. The ranks of flies did not repeat the same height twice. The next wave curved down from higher above. He did not crouch. He ran forward. If he stopped, they would surround him. If he tried to evade too widely, the melted floor and the maggots would block his path.
He had to get close.
The giant's remaining leg swept beneath the platform. Alucard stepped on a chain and leapt. The iron links swayed and shoved his foot aside, and his left arm failed to catch his balance. Keeping the sword in his right hand, he drove its point between the giant's ribs. As he hung from the blade like a support, rotten fluid ran into his sleeve.
The flies covered his back.
Alucard did not climb upward. He pulled the sword free and cut the lower ribs instead. Each time a rib snapped, a black hollow inside the chest was exposed. There was no heart there, no lungs. Only fly larvae and black mud writhed within.
The giant's arm slammed into its own torso.
Alucard took the blow without letting go of the sword. The backplate of his damaged armor crumpled, and his body was driven deeper between the ribs. Blood no longer ran from his left shoulder in a single line, but in a broad sheet. He clenched his teeth. The Rib answered with heat inside his waist, bracing the ribs that felt ready to break.
Without that strength, he would have fallen.
The knowledge only made him more wary.
From inside the giant, Alucard drove the sword upward. The blade split rotten tissue and larvae as it climbed to the base of the neck. The moment it tore free, the giant's upper body snapped backward. One of the hooks holding its head ripped through flesh and came loose.
The head dropped lower.
A swarm burst from the empty eye sockets as if exploding outward. This time there was no formation, no curtain. They aimed for Alucard's face and throat like spearpoints converging on a single mark. He tried to turn to mist, but the pain in his shoulder and ribs broke his concentration. The transformation formed halfway, then collapsed.
The flies bit at the corners of his eyes and his lips.
Alucard removed his cracked glasses and slipped them into his inner pocket, then closed his eyes. He awakened Echo's senses. Invisible waves swept through the room and returned. The thickness of the chains, the height of the platforms, the giant's head, and the density of the swarm took shape as contours of sound.
He ran without seeing.
From the edge of the first platform he leapt to a chain, then hurled himself onward at the instant its sway reached its lowest point. The flies followed the scent of blood, but when he changed height abruptly, they tangled over one another. The giant's head appeared directly before him. Alucard tried to take the sword in both hands. The moment his left hand touched the hilt, his shoulder trembled.
He let go.
He chose an angle possible with one hand. Instead of splitting the head, he cut through the flesh around the hook that skewered the jaw. The iron tore free, and the giant's head snapped downward. The neck bones were exposed.
Before the swarm could gather again, Alucard turned into a bat and wheeled behind the neck. Flies struck his wings, but only for an instant this time. As he returned to human form, he dropped his weight into the sword.
The blade drove between the neck bones.
The bone split like wood soaked too long in water. The giant's head came away from the body and tumbled below. Each time the empty mouth struck the edge of a platform, more flies spilled out.
But the body did not stop.
Its remaining arm pulled on the chains and spun the giant around. Black liquid sprayed from the neck that had lost its head. The flies did not seem to have lost their master; they gathered along both walls as if obeying one final command. Three overlapping horizontal ranks began sweeping across the entire room.
Alucard threw himself flat on the lowest platform. The first rank grazed his back, and the second passed beneath the platform. The third changed direction and came back again. He could not approach like this.
He looked at the chains suspending the giant.
With the head and left leg gone, the center of weight had shifted to one side. If he cut only the chain through the spine, the remaining body would swing hard into the wall. That collision might break the flies' formation.
Alucard rose the instant the swarm had passed. Dragging the heavy sword, he ran beneath the chain. The motion of lifting the blade overhead tore his shoulder open again. Darkness crept along the edge of his vision. He did not try to sever it in one blow. The first strike carved a groove into the iron surface, and the second landed precisely in the same place.
On the third blow, the chain broke.
The giant swung like a pendulum and smashed into the wall. Glass cylinders and iron shelving collapsed all at once. The ranks of flies were caught in the shower of debris and black liquid and scattered apart.
Alucard waited for the body to swing back toward him.
The remaining arm passed over his head. He drove inward and cut the shoulder joint. Flesh split, bone showed. On the second cut, the arm fell away, and the last hanging torso spun defenselessly.
The tip of his sword entered the hollow cavity of its chest.
Alucard twisted the blade from within. The membrane holding the larvae and black mud together tore apart. What filled the body poured out like a waterfall. Maggots writhed across the platform, and the flies suddenly lost all direction and collided with one another.
The giant's movement stopped.
One by one, the chains snapped, and the remains dropped into the darkness below. For a long time, the sound of something being torn apart continued, until at last it could no longer be heard.
The flies did not die at once.
Masterless black specks drifted through the room, then slowly hid themselves in cracks in the wall and inside the shattered glass cylinders. A few settled on the platform wet with Alucard's blood and remained motionless with their wings folded.
He sank to one knee and set his sword on the floor. The bandage on his left shoulder could hardly be called a bandage anymore. He tore what cloth remained from inside his garment and layered it over the wound, pressing down hard. The Heart still drove the venom back, but the feeling in his fingertips had turned cold. The Rib held his ribs together, and the Ring gathered the pulses of the other relics into one.
That pulse was steadier than his own heartbeat.
After tying the cloth in place, Alucard kept his hand over his chest for a while. He could not tell whether the five relics were trying to preserve his body, or carry it toward the center.
The wall on the far side of the laboratory collapsed, revealing a new passage. The air within carried not the smell of decay, but the scent of dry stone and ancient ash. The floor sloped upward, and from far away a steady vibration traveled through the rock.
Once.
After a long silence, once again.
It was the sound of a massive staff striking some distant floor.
With the third vibration, a blue light flashed deep in the passage. Lightning ran along the cracks in the wall, and the fly-fluid left on Alucard's blade boiled white.
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