[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Novel, Episode 19] The Face Seen Only with Eyes Closed
A stone hand seized Alucard’s boot.
He had taken only three steps into the corridor leading toward the Anti-Chapel when the fallen knight at his feet moved. Two petrified fingers dug between the laces of his boot.
Alucard did not draw Mormegil.
He lowered himself and closed one hand around the statue’s wrist. Beneath the cold stone surface, he felt the faintest pulse.
Once.
A long silence.
Then once again.
The knight was not entirely dead.
Terror had hardened across his face. Even the inside of his open mouth had turned gray, yet a dry breath still escaped from somewhere beneath the root of his tongue. The flesh visible between the plates of his armor had stopped midway between skin and stone.
He was not trying to hold Alucard in place.
He was pushing his ankle backward.
Do not go.
From deeper within the passage came the scrape of scales against stone.
Sssrrrk.
Alucard loosened the knight’s fingers one by one. The stone was cold, but warmth lingered beneath the nails.
“Stay here.”
He expected no answer.
The knight did not move again. Yet when Alucard released him, a small handful of powder fell from the tip of his forefinger.
It did not descend to the floor. Drawn by the gravity of the inverted castle, it drifted upward and settled on the ceiling, where the dust of countless others already lay like snow.
Alucard walked on.
Sacred figures stood along both walls. At first, they appeared to be ordinary carvings. As he passed, other details emerged. One statue had a dried vein protruding along its throat. Another still held a broken arrow. On the face of a kneeling woman, tears shed before her transformation had hardened into clear crystal.
They had not been petrified while praying.
They had been caught while fleeing.
A blue radiance filled the corridor. Its source could not be seen. There was neither stained glass nor candlelight, yet a faint azure glow lingered between floor and ceiling like suspended mist.
It was the opposite of the warm gold light that had filled the Royal Chapel below.
The light here revealed nothing.
It beautified surfaces and invited the eye to remain upon them.
Alucard lowered his eyelids halfway.
The Holy Glasses remained inside his coat. Lenses that pierced wicked illusions could not protect him from every truth that should never be seen.
A snake crossed in front of his boots.
Its black scales carried a blue stripe, and smooth flesh covered the places where its eyes should have been. Blind though it was, it showed no hesitation. Its tongue tasted the warmth in the air, and it vanished deeper into the corridor.
A second snake followed.
Then a third.
Soon, dozens emerged from between the statues. They did not attack Alucard. All of them crawled in the same direction, leaving narrow scratches across the stone.
It looked as though someone’s hair had grown long enough to spill through the entire passage.
A woman laughed again.
This time, the sound did not come from ahead.
It came from directly beside him.
Alucard did not turn his head.
The face of the stone angel to his right began to move. Its lips parted, and the head of a black serpent emerged from its mouth. The woman’s quiet laughter echoed through the hollow chamber of the angel’s chest.
Alucard placed his hand on Mormegil’s hilt.
“I need not look.”
The serpent opened its mouth.
Before its fangs could reach his cheek, the sword moved. Mormegil’s point drove through the serpent’s neck and pinned it to the wall. Its body twisted several times before hardening into stone.
At that instant, every statue in the corridor turned its face toward Alucard.
The grinding of stone continued without end.
He tore the sword free and ran.
Behind him, dozens of stone eyes opened.
Blue light cut across the passage.
Alucard leapt with the power of the Leap Stone. The ray swept beneath his boots and raked the floor. Three serpents caught in its path became white limestone in an instant.
He stepped against empty air a second time and hurled himself toward the door at the end of the corridor.
Above it stood a statue with inverted wings. Its head pointed downward, and both hands covered its eyes.
As Alucard approached, blood ran between its fingers.
The door opened.
---
The chamber beyond was an inverted sanctuary.
An altar hung from the ceiling. Prayer stones had taken root in the slab beneath Alucard’s feet, rising from it upside down. Paintings of fallen angels covered both walls. Their wings had been cut away, and serpents emerged from the wounds to coil around their throats.
At the center of the chamber stood a woman with her back turned.
Above the waist, her body appeared human: a pale back and two long, slender arms. Below it, instead of legs, extended the body of a colossal serpent. Green scales gleamed like wet jewels beneath the blue light.
A curved sword rested in her right hand.
A round shield in her left.
Her hair consisted of dozens of living snakes.
They rubbed their bodies against one another as they searched for Alucard. Those nearest the crown lifted their heads toward his face. Those at the middle coiled at the height of his chest. The lowest pressed their jaws against the floor, waiting near his boots.
Medusa slowly turned.
Alucard looked no higher than her chin.
Her lips were smiling. She made no sound, but the serpents scraped their scales together in a chorus of mockery.
The relics answered one another.
The Ring of Vlad.
The Rib of Vlad.
And from inside Medusa’s chest, a third pulse replied.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The Heart of Vlad lay within her.
Medusa raised her shield over her chest. Its surface had been polished from blackened silver, and Alucard saw himself reflected there.
Armor missing its left shoulder plate.
Half a cloak stiff with blood.
Eyelids lowered halfway.
The Alucard inside the shield opened his eyes first.
He immediately dropped his gaze.
Pale blue-white rays burst from Medusa’s eyes.
They did not travel in straight lines. They expanded through the air as broad ripples. The first wave struck Mormegil’s blade. The second swept across the breastplate of the Spike Breaker.
The third brushed his left hand.
His skin turned gray.
The stone began at his fingernails and crept over the joints toward his wrist. The black lines left by Akmodan II’s curse glowed before the petrification reached them. Along the marks made by the mummy’s bandages, the stone spread more quickly.
Alucard hid his left arm behind his body.
Medusa raised her sword.
But she did not approach.
The tip of her blade indicated his petrified hand.
Lightning fell from the ceiling.
Blue current struck his stone fingers. Cracks spread across their surface. The impact ran through the bones of his arm and reached his heart.
Alucard dropped to one knee.
The serpents in Medusa’s hair hissed as though laughing.
The petrifying light was meant to stop him.
The lightning came afterward to break what had been stopped.
Alucard planted Mormegil’s hilt against the floor and forced himself upright. The stone had stopped at his wrist, but his left hand would not move.
He advanced while keeping his eyes away from Medusa’s face.
She closed the distance first.
Her serpentine body slid across the floor. The curved sword swept upward from below. Alucard caught it with Mormegil. Blue sparks scattered where the blades met.
Medusa drove her shield into his chest.
The Spike Breaker rang. As Alucard slid backward, her eyes appeared on the surface of the shield.
Their reflected gaze turned toward him.
Alucard twisted his head away, but too late. The edge of the ray passed across his right cheek. A patch of skin hardened like stone.
His first judgment had been wrong.
Avoiding Medusa’s face was not enough.
Her shield, the blade of her sword, the blue glass set into the walls—even the varnish covering the paintings could become an eye.
Anything capable of reflecting her could carry petrification.
Medusa swung her sword sideways.
Alucard ducked. The blade passed through strands of silver hair. At the same moment, three serpents detached themselves from her head.
The first came at the height of his face.
The second at his chest.
The third close to the floor.
The highest lunged for his throat. Alucard lowered his head. The middle serpent sank its teeth into the spine of Mormegil’s blade. The lowest wrapped around his boot and pulled at his leg.
Medusa’s curved sword rose again.
Alucard invoked the Form of Mist.
The blade and serpents passed through black vapor. Yet the petrified portion of his left hand did not dissolve completely. Gray fragments remained suspended in the air, anchoring the rest of his body.
Medusa rotated her shield.
A petrifying ray reflected from its surface and turned toward the stone fragments within the mist.
Alucard forced himself back into human form. He caught the petrified wrist with his right hand and rolled away. The ray passed over him and turned one of the prayer stones white.
Medusa allowed him no pause.
Sword.
Shield.
Serpents striking at three different heights.
Between each assault came another blue-white ripple from her eyes.
Alucard retreated. Mormegil’s point scraped the floor. He tried to read the attacks without looking, but the hissing of the snakes, the whistle of the sword and the impact of the shield against Medusa’s own scales all overlapped.
He blocked the first cut.
The shield struck the wound in his side.
His body folded.
A high serpent bit toward his throat. Before its fangs entered his skin, Alucard seized its head and threw it against the wall. Another coiled around his right arm. A third struck at his ankle.
Medusa opened her eyes.
Alucard closed his completely.
The world vanished.
A sword came from the left.
He heard it and blocked. But the shield made no sound. Concealed beneath the clash of metal, it struck him in the chest.
Alucard slid across the floor and stopped beneath the altar.
Medusa’s laughter filled the sanctuary. The serpents beat their bodies against the stone in time with it.
Alucard did not open his eyes.
He drew his shoulder blades inward.
His body shrank. The remaining half of his cloak became black wings. Even his petrified left hand diminished into a small gray claw.
In bat form, Alucard did not hang beneath the altar. He pushed away from the floor and flew upward.
Medusa’s light passed beneath him.
To a bat with closed eyes, light meant nothing.
Alucard released a sharp cry from deep in his throat.
Kreeee—
The sound traveled through the sanctuary.
Pillars.
Inverted prayer stones.
Paintings along the walls.
The enormous serpentine body at the center of the chamber.
The returning echoes gave shape to them all.
Medusa’s hair appeared as dozens of narrow lines. The sword in her right hand became a long, thin plane. The shield in her left appeared as a round absence.
Within her chest lay a hole from which no sound returned.
The Heart of Vlad swallowed every echo.
Alucard folded his wings and descended.
Medusa lifted the shield over her chest. Three serpents flew toward him from above, the middle and below.
Kreeee—
A second echo.
Alucard passed over the highest serpent. The tip of one wing brushed the middle. Before the lowest could change direction, he had circled behind Medusa.
She thrust her sword backward.
Alucard folded his wings and dropped. The blade passed over his head.
The shield followed.
He released another pulse.
Kreeee—
A round absence approached from the front.
Alucard returned to human form and swept Mormegil upward from below.
The dark blade struck the rim of the shield.
He did not awaken the darkness within the sword. He drove upward with nothing but steel and the weight of his body.
The shield flew from Medusa’s hand and spun toward the ceiling.
Her chest was exposed.
Between the blue scales, something dark red pulsed.
Thud.
The Heart of Vlad.
Alucard moved to thrust.
Every serpent in Medusa’s hair bent backward.
Dozens of mouths opened at once.
They fell upon Alucard’s face, throat and arms. He raised his left arm to protect his eyes. His petrified hand received the fangs. The serpents bit into stone and writhed.
Medusa drove her curved sword into his abdomen.
Alucard twisted aside, but the point found the gap beneath the Spike Breaker. Blood ran along the blade.
Medusa did not pull it free.
At close range, she opened both eyes completely.
Alucard looked into them.
They were neither green nor gold.
Within her pupils floated the faces of those she had turned to stone. Each expression she had last witnessed remained preserved inside her eyes. A knight. A woman at prayer. A soldier holding an arrow. All of them trapped in the moment when escape became impossible.
The petrifying light erupted.
Alucard’s chest began to turn gray.
The muscles surrounding his heart became stone and pressed against its beat. Petrification spread along his right arm. His fingers hardened around Mormegil’s hilt.
Medusa parted her lips.
Lightning gathered above them.
When the current descended, his hardening chest would shatter.
Alucard closed his eyes.
Not to erase the faces he had seen.
To reclaim his own.
From deep within his throat, he formed a resonance no human voice could produce. Without completing the transformation into a bat, he drew upon the Echo of Bat.
A short, ragged pulse expanded between them.
Medusa’s shape returned through sound.
The arm holding the sword.
The eyes calling down lightning.
The hollow in her chest from which no echo emerged.
Alucard released Mormegil with his stiffening right hand.
The sword struck the floor.
He raised his left hand of stone and seized Medusa’s curved blade. Its edge cut into the stone of his palm, but no blood appeared.
He pulled the sword from his own body.
At the same moment, he dragged Medusa toward him.
Her chest came closer.
Inside his coat, the Ring and Rib of Vlad beat together.
Thud.
Thud.
The heart inside Medusa answered.
Thud.
Between the three pulses, the lightning above them faltered.
Alucard opened his right hand and pressed it against Medusa’s chest.
Beneath the scales, he felt two hearts.
One beat quickly and lightly—the combined rhythm of dozens of serpents beating as one.
The other was slow and deep.
His father’s heart.
Alucard pushed his fingers between the scales.
Medusa screamed.
The serpents in her hair coiled around his arm. Fangs pierced his flesh. This was not a curse but poison. Cold spread into his fingertips.
He did not withdraw his hand.
His fingers closed around the Heart of Vlad.
The heart was not flesh.
It was something between dark red crystal and congealed blood. Irregular cracks covered its surface, and black light pulsed within every fissure.
Medusa tried to pull away.
Alucard gripped her shoulder with his petrified left hand and tore the relic toward himself.
Inside her chest came the sound of dozens of serpents being severed.
The Heart of Vlad came free.
The lightning fell.
But it did not strike Alucard.
It entered the empty cavity in Medusa’s chest.
Blue current raced through her scales and the serpents of her hair. Her body arched backward. Petrifying rays scattered in every direction from her open eyes.
The paintings on the walls turned to stone.
The inverted prayer stones became white.
One by one, the serpents in her hair hardened into limestone and broke apart.
Medusa’s curved sword fell from her hand.
She looked at Alucard.
The faces of her victims were gone from her pupils.
Only two empty black hollows remained.
Her lips moved.
No words emerged.
A crack began across her face and spread through her throat, chest and serpentine body. She was not turning to stone. It was as though a body that had been stone for centuries had only now remembered what it was.
Blue light escaped through the fractures.
Medusa collapsed.
Her face split first. Then her arms and serpentine body scattered into hundreds of stone fragments. Before the pieces touched the floor, they became small snakes.
They did not attack Alucard.
They fled in every direction, slipping into cracks in the walls and beneath the statues.
One final serpent remained upon Medusa’s shield.
It bit its own tail.
Forming a perfect ring, it hardened into stone.
The sanctuary became silent.
Alucard looked down at the Heart of Vlad in his right hand.
The relic continued to beat.
Thud.
With every pulse, the petrification across his chest fractured. Skin appeared beneath the gray shell. The stone around his left hand also began to crack from the wrist downward.
Alucard moved his fingers.
Fragments fell away.
The black marks left by Akmodan II’s bandage curse had not disappeared. They appeared darker now that the stone had broken away. Gray powder settled into them, leaving two overlapping scars around his wrist like the marks of an ancient shackle.
He brought the Heart of Vlad close to the Ring and Rib.
All three relics beat together.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The entire castle trembled slightly.
Two directions remained.
From one came the scent of stitched flesh, lightning and wet iron.
From the other came the whisper of small scythes circling through darkness.
The inverted prayers and the breath of stone gave no further answer.
The third relic had been found.
Alucard did not wrap the Heart in his cloak. He did not wish to smother its beating beneath the cloth. Instead, he unfolded the soft material that had protected the Holy Glasses, wrapped it around the Heart and placed it beside the other two relics.
He felt their pulses before their weight.
Against his chest, the three relics beat in different rhythms. After a time, they began to settle into one slow cadence.
Alucard’s heart did not follow them.
It kept its own pace.
The door on the far side of the sanctuary opened.
The blue light faded, and a cold wind entered. Beyond the doorway lay a narrow passage running along the outside of the castle. Clouds and lightning flowed below. Above, the inverted ramparts stretched without end.
Alucard retrieved Mormegil from the floor. The black blade trembled, as though displeased that it had not tasted Medusa’s blood.
He returned it to its sheath.
When he took his first step into the exterior passage, lightning flashed in the distance.
For an instant, white light revealed an enormous figure beyond the ramparts.
It resembled a human body.
But its head had been stitched lower than one shoulder, and its arms were of different lengths, as though taken from separate corpses. Blue current flowed between the thick iron bolts joining its neck and chest.
The figure continued moving after the lightning vanished.
A chain dragged across stone.
One step.
After a pause, another.
Inside Alucard’s coat, all three relics beat toward it.
Alucard opened his eyes.
What waited ahead was not something that must never be seen.
It was the result of someone seeing far too much—and choosing to look away.
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