[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Novel — Episode 18] The Bandages That Wrapped a Name
The water flowing across the ceiling stole Alucard’s blood.
It happened shortly after he left the Reverse Clock Tower. A black river moved over the ceiling of the low stone passage. It followed the surface that would have been the floor in the lower castle, while pale-bellied fish swam upside down within it.
When Alucard pressed a hand against his side, blood welled between his fingers. Darkwing Bat’s fang had entered the same wound twice. The droplets did not fall to the ground. They rose in thin threads.
The water above received and swallowed them.
A red line spread beneath the black surface.
The Ring of Vlad beat inside his coat.
Thud.
A second pulse answered from somewhere beyond the water.
Thud.
Alucard stopped.
The two sounds were not alike. The ring’s pulse was low and solid. The other seemed dry, echoing from within a cracked bone. Yet each was reaching for the other.
He looked up.
The current divided around the place stained by his blood. The red line continued to the bend in the passage, then entered the wall. Whenever the castle offered a path, its kindness resembled a trap.
Alucard tore away another strip from what remained of his cloak.
The cloth had consumed too much fire and blood and resisted his hands. He caught one end between his teeth and pulled, then wrapped it around his side. Tightening the knot forced fresh blood from the wound. Its scent filled the corridor.
The fish on the ceiling stopped together.
Dozens of pale eyes looked down.
Alucard walked with one hand resting on Mormegil’s hilt. The fish did not follow. Only after he passed did they move again, now swimming against the current.
The narrower the passage became, the drier the air grew.
The water above ended without warning. Its final wave struck an invisible boundary, rose farther upward, then vanished into the ceiling. Beyond that line, the smell of water gave way to salt, resin, and incense burned too many years ago.
Sand covered the floor.
Though there was no wind, the grains moved in fine lines. They withdrew from Alucard’s boots and gathered again behind him. The lines resembled writing, but he could not read them. They were less like sentences than strokes left from names erased long ago.
The Ring of Vlad beat again.
Thud.
This time the pulse beyond the wall was close.
Alucard did not reach into his coat. He already knew where the ring wished him to go.
A yellow stone door stood at the end of the corridor.
There was no handle. Twelve stone columns shaped like human ribs interlocked from either side to form the door. A scrap of black cloth protruded from the central seam.
No.
It was not cloth.
It was the yellowed end of a bandage.
When Alucard stepped closer, the strip slid through the gap and vanished.
The columns opened like ribs.
The door parted.
There was no coffin in the burial chamber.
The entire room had been built as one. Black wood covered the walls and floor, its edges engraved with golden patterns. Braziers as tall as men stood in the four corners. Their fires were dead, yet ash drifted slowly upward and adhered to the ceiling.
Alucard stopped at the threshold.
A heap of bandages lay at the center of the chamber.
There was enough linen to wrap several bodies. The aged strips shifted faintly where they lay. The movement resembled a breathing chest, but no air entered or escaped.
Only a dry heartbeat sounded beneath them.
Thud.
The Ring of Vlad answered.
Thud.
One strip loosened from the heap.
A second followed.
The bandages crawled across the floor like serpents and rose into the air. The mass at the center slowly assumed a human form. Two legs appeared first. A bent waist. Arms that were far too long. Finally, two black hollows opened where a face should have been.
Akmodan II stood.
Its body was larger than any desiccated corpse. Blackened flesh showed between hundreds of layers of linen. The center of its chest had been wrapped more thickly than the rest. Golden stitching crossed the bandages in a ceremonial pattern. Beneath a headdress rising like a crown, there were neither nose nor lips.
Yet it exhaled.
Hot air came from the black hollows. The smell of a tomb opened after centuries filled the room.
Alucard drew Mormegil.
The first bandage flew toward him.
It did not travel straight. It descended near the floor, rose to his waist, then curved toward his shoulder. Its motion folded three times like a wave.
Alucard raised his sword and cut the linen.
The black blade divided it in two.
Neither severed end stopped.
One wrapped around his wrist while the other coiled about the blade. A second bandage came from the opposite side and bound his elbow. Alucard retreated and pulled, but the tighter he drew the cloth, the shorter it became.
Akmodan II spread its arms.
Every strip contracted at once.
Alucard was dragged forward.
The black hollow in the mummy’s face opened wider. Three violet embers formed within it.
The first ember came toward him.
It drifted slowly over a short distance, then accelerated before his chest. With both arms bound, Alucard twisted and received it against the right plate of the Spike Breaker.
The ember burst.
The flame was not hot.
It was cold.
Violet fire entered the metal rather than burning it. Alucard’s heart missed a beat. The second ember grazed his left shoulder. The holy burn and the wound beneath the missing shoulder plate darkened together.
The third sought the cloth tied around his side.
Alucard dissolved into mist.
The bandages around his wrist and sword tightened upon empty air. Black vapor slipped between them. Yet the blood soaked into the strip around his side remained as a red line within the mist. The violet ember followed it into his scattered body. The knot that had consumed his blood turned black.
The curse entered the wound.
Alucard regained his body at the opposite end of the chamber.
The fingers of his left hand would not move.
He looked down. A black pattern extended from his side, crossed his chest, and entered his arm. It resembled the strokes of the erased names in the sand. Whenever the pattern advanced over his wrist, another finger lost sensation.
Akmodan II lowered its arms.
Its body collapsed.
Hundreds of bandages fell to the floor. There were no bones or flesh beneath them.
Alucard turned his gaze to the right.
Linen rose from behind a brazier. The headdress and long arms rebuilt themselves in another place. Akmodan II did not walk. It unraveled its body, traveled as cloth, and wrapped itself into shape again.
It swept one arm through the air.
Three strips came at different heights.
One for the ankles.
One for the chest.
The last passed overhead to close the space where he might jump.
Alucard did not swing his sword.
He stepped upon the first strip and lowered himself beneath the second. As the third descended, the Leap Stone carried him onto another step in empty air and over it.
The bandages did not strike the rear wall.
They passed through it.
A heartbeat later, they emerged behind him.
Alucard turned, but his left arm moved too slowly. The black pattern had reached his elbow. One strip wrapped around his throat.
Akmodan II closed its hand.
The linen tightened.
Alucard caught it with his right hand. Mormegil remained in his left, but the stiffened fingers could no longer hold the weapon properly. The cloth around his throat smelled of salt and resin. Beneath those odors lay another.
Blood.
Not his own.
The blood of hundreds had dried within the linen. The final warmth and fear of those wrapped in it clung to his skin as black dust.
The curse was not a power that killed.
It erased movement piece by piece.
First the fingers.
Then the arm.
At last, even the reason a heart should continue beating.
Alucard released the cloth choking his throat.
Instead, he transferred Mormegil’s hilt to his right hand.
The sword glowed darkly.
He did not cut the bandage. He struck the golden pattern on the wall from which it had emerged.
A ring hidden between stone and wood broke.
The bandage around his throat went slack.
Alucard unwound it and threw it aside.
Akmodan II’s black hollows faced him.
The bandages did not move freely through the air. They passed through dozens of rings fixed within the walls, floor, and spaces behind the braziers. The entire chamber was the mummy’s second body.
Alucard swung at the nearest ring.
Mormegil’s black light entered the metal.
Before the ring shattered, the design over Akmodan II’s chest burned red.
The darkness released by the sword flowed along the bandages and was drawn into the mummy.
Its bent back straightened.
Severed strips adhered to its body like new flesh. Red fire ignited within the empty eyes.
Mormegil trembled with pleasure.
The sword revealed its power when death was near. But the death in this chamber was not something it could consume. Akmodan II received the blade’s darkness as another layer of burial cloth.
Alucard lowered the sword.
His first judgment had been wrong.
Cutting one bandage created two attacks.
Using the sword’s darkness restored the creature’s body.
He sheathed Mormegil.
Akmodan II threw back its head.
Violet embers poured from the face without a mouth.
There were too many to count.
They did not travel across the entire room. They remained in a circle around the mummy and burned whatever approached. At the same time, bandages rose from the floor and walls to narrow Alucard’s path.
It was changing the battlefield.
At first, it had sent linen outward to pull him close. Now it remained inside a ring of flame while the bandages sealed the outer chamber. If Alucard approached, the violet fire deepened the curse. If he kept his distance, linen came from every surface to bind him.
The black pattern on his left arm reached the shoulder.
The entire limb hung at his side.
The remaining weight of the Spike Breaker pulled him to the right. Alucard spread his feet to recover his balance. At that moment, the sand beneath his boots moved.
Fine lines curled around his feet.
A name was forming in the sand.
He could not recognize the first two characters.
When the third stroke was completed, Alucard understood that it was imitating his name.
Yet it was neither of them.
Neither Adrian.
Nor Alucard.
It was the new name Akmodan II gave to its dead.
Alucard moved his boot and erased it.
“My name is not yours.”
The mummy did not answer.
Only the red pattern over its chest became brighter.
The Ring of Vlad beat within Alucard’s coat.
Thud.
A pulse answered inside Akmodan II’s chest.
Thud.
For the briefest instant, the bandages stopped between the two sounds.
Alucard raised his head.
Whenever the ring beat, one layer of linen around the mummy’s chest pulled tight. The relic inside was trying to come outward in answer to the Ring of Vlad. Akmodan II wrapped it down again.
The relic was both the creature’s power and its prison.
It had been the same with Darkwing Bat.
The guardian did not hold the relic captive.
The relic held the guardian and would not let it depart.
Alucard looked toward the four braziers.
Their fires were dead, yet heat remained beneath the ash. Each time Akmodan II released its embers, the cinders glowed red. The mummy was drawing even its flame from the burial fires of the chamber.
He kicked the nearest brazier.
The heavy metal vessel toppled. Red ash spilled across the floor.
Akmodan II extended one arm.
Bandages converged upon Alucard’s ankles.
He did not evade them. He caught one strip. A black pattern began forming on the back of his right hand. Without releasing the cloth, Alucard ran backward.
The bandage drew taut.
Three rings in the wall sounded together.
Akmodan II’s body tilted forward.
Alucard pulled the strip across the red ash.
The linen caught fire.
The flame was blue rather than yellow. Resin and embalming oil absorbed over centuries awoke and carried it along the inside of the bandage. It did not travel toward Alucard. It ran toward Akmodan II.
The mummy tried to unravel and move.
Its bandages collapsed to the floor.
But the burning strip still passed through the wall rings and remained connected to the entire body. The flame followed before it could rebuild itself elsewhere. Blue fire spread to the linen rising from behind the braziers.
Screams came from all four walls.
Akmodan II formed again at the center of the chamber. This body was incomplete. Half the linen on its right arm had burned away, exposing blackened bone. The cloth peeled from its face, revealing a vertical fissure where its mouth should have been.
The fissure opened.
Black sand emerged instead of violet fire.
It did not fall to the floor but flew toward Alucard. Thousands of tiny letters moved within it—the erased names of those who had died inside the bandages, carrying the final memory of who they had been.
Alucard did not use the Form of Mist.
If he dissolved, the letters would adhere to every scattered part of him.
The Leap Stone drove him upward. Black sand passed beneath his boots. He stepped upon the air once more and crossed above the mummy’s head.
Akmodan II turned.
Unburned bandages extended from its back like spears.
Alucard drew Mormegil in midair.
He did not awaken its darkness. He suppressed the sword’s hunger within his grip and reduced it to a simple blade. Instead of cutting the bandages, he severed the golden threads between them.
One.
Two.
The design constricting the mummy’s chest came apart.
The Ring of Vlad beat hard.
Thud.
A bone knocked against the door of Akmodan II’s chest.
Thud.
The mummy crossed both arms over itself. Its burned wrappings tightened for the last time. Alucard landed upon its shoulder and lowered his body.
He placed Mormegil’s point not against the linen but into the blackened fissure at the center of its chest.
The remaining hand closed around his throat.
Dry fingers entered his skin. The black pattern climbed to Alucard’s jaw. Color disappeared from the edges of his sight.
The new name began writing itself in the sand again.
Alucard did not release the sword.
His left arm would not move. With only his right hand, he twisted the hilt.
The hardened chest split.
White light shone from within.
A single rib stood vertically inside the bandages without a drop of blood upon it. It was longer than a human bone, and its surface bore the marks of ancient fire.
The Rib of Vlad.
Alucard pushed the sword deeper and cut the golden thread binding the bone to the mummy.
The final knot opened.
Strength left Akmodan II’s hand.
Alucard pulled out the rib.
The instant the relic left its chest, every bandage in the chamber stopped.
So did the blue fire.
The black sand.
And the cursed pattern climbing Alucard’s skin.
For one moment, there was perfect silence.
Akmodan II stepped backward.
The black bones exposed between the linen collapsed one by one. It did not fall. Still standing, it emptied from the inside. Its headdress became dust before touching the ground. Its long arms loosened into strips of cloth.
One final bandage crawled toward Alucard’s ankle.
It was not trying to seize him.
It touched the toe of his boot, then fell still.
Alucard did not cut it.
The cloth became ash by itself.
Hundreds of names appeared upon the walls of the burial chamber. They had been hidden beneath the golden designs. None were complete. Some retained only the first letter, others only the final stroke.
As the curse receded, sensation returned to Alucard’s left hand.
One finger.
Then another.
Slowly, he closed his fist.
The black pattern vanished from his skin, but one narrow line remained at the wrist. It resembled the mark of a bandage recently removed.
Alucard looked at the rib in his right hand.
The relic was not cold.
It held something close to human warmth.
When he brought the Rib of Vlad near his chest, his own aching ribs straightened from within. Strength had not returned. Rather, his body had remembered the shape it was required to endure.
The Ring of Vlad touched the rib inside his coat.
Both relics beat together.
Thud.
Thud.
For one beat, it sounded like his father’s heart.
For the next, Alucard’s own heart answered.
He separated the relics.
The pulses continued.
Three directions now answered them.
One carried the smell of stitched flesh and lightning.
One held inverted prayers and the breath of stone.
The last sounded with small scythes striking together in darkness.
The dry heartbeat beneath the water had vanished.
He had found the second relic.
Alucard wrapped the Rib of Vlad in the remaining cloth of his cloak. He did not use any of the bandages that had covered the mummy. When he placed it beside the Ring of Vlad, the weight of his coat changed slightly.
The rib-shaped door on the far side of the chamber opened.
A long gallery lay beyond it. Broken sacred statues lined the floor and ceiling. Some covered their eyes. Others had sewn their own mouths shut.
Alucard stopped before crossing the threshold.
The nearest statue was an armored knight.
It had not been carved.
Dry flesh and fingernails showed between the plates. It was a man whose entire body had turned to stone while fleeing with his sword. His face preserved no anger of battle, only the terror of someone who had seen what should never be seen.
Something thin moved beneath the statue’s feet.
Scales scraped over stone.
There was more than one.
Dozens of serpents rubbed their bodies together in the darkness.
Alucard did not take out the Holy Glasses.
Something ahead must not be seen.
With his eyelids half lowered, he closed his hand around Mormegil’s hilt.
A woman laughed deep within the gallery.
Stone dust fell wherever the sound passed.
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