Episode 15 — Darkness Leaves Behind the Bones of a Voice
Even after Alucard awoke from the nightmare, his mother’s voice did not disappear.
He stood beside the coffin and opened his hand. The Gold Ring held a dim radiance in the chamber, though there was no candlelight to reflect. It was the object he had taken from the place where the Succubus had crumbled into ash. No blood stained the small circle, nor did any jewel adorn it. Yet whenever he held it, he saw the eyes of the woman who had looked upon him through the flames.
Whether those eyes had been real, or merely fashioned by a demon, no longer mattered.
A demon could create a false face. It could create a false voice. But the wound into which that lie had burrowed had already existed within Alucard.
He rubbed the inside of the ring with his thumb.
Beneath the old soot, worn letters appeared.
Wear… Clock…
The rest of the sentence had been erased.
Wear it.
At the clock.
Alucard remembered the enormous clock chamber in the Marble Gallery. It was where he had first encountered Maria. Two statues divided the passage of time between them; whenever one opened a path, the other fell silent.
If the inscription meant that the ring had to be worn there, then this alone was not enough. The commands left behind by the castle were always incomplete. They were riddles designed so that men would die trying to complete the missing words.
He did not place the ring upon his finger. Instead, he slipped it into an inner pocket.
At once, it grew faintly warm.
It felt as though someone far away held the missing half of the same sentence.
Alucard raised his eyes.
Wind blew from beyond the chamber containing the coffin. Beneath the wet scent of the Underground Caverns lingered the odor of ash and rusted iron. It came from the direction of the Catacombs, through which he had already passed once before.
And within that wind was a peculiar sound.
Scrape.
Metal dragging across stone.
After a short silence, it came again.
Scrape.
It resembled the sharpening of a sword, only much slower. It was not the sound of something honing its edge for an attack. It was the sound of something sharpening itself so that it could continue waiting.
Alucard placed a hand upon Mormegil’s hilt.
The dark sword trembled within its sheath. Whenever death drew near, the blade rejoiced like a living creature.
“That path is not calling for you.”
Alucard removed his hand from the sword and left the chamber.
After he had gone, the coffin lid shifted slightly.
There was nothing inside.
Yet through the narrow black opening came a woman’s voice.
“Adrian.”
Alucard did not turn around.
---
The path leading from the Underground Caverns to the Abandoned Mine was wet.
The farther he went from the roar of the waterfall, the darker the water became. Small fragments of bone appeared between the patches of moss beneath his feet. Human finger bones and animal teeth lay embedded together in the mud.
The mine still carried the smell of a fire long extinguished: burned wood, sulfur, ancient blood. Claw marks gouged into the walls and broken chains remembered earlier battles, but the castle did not mourn its dead. Whenever an empty place appeared, smaller things crawled out to fill it.
Purple masses of slime dropped from the ceiling as Alucard entered the Catacombs.
He did not draw his sword.
He swept his cloak aside and continued forward. His shadow moved first. In the instant darkness folded and opened again, the creatures split in two. Only after Mormegil had returned to its sheath did their black blood spill across the floor.
To the left lay the enormous crypt where Granfaloon had waited.
It was the chamber in which hundreds—perhaps thousands—of corpses had moved while pretending to be a single life. There Alucard had witnessed how long the human body could remain useful even after death. His father called humanity worthless, yet the castle discarded not one fragment of it.
It drank their blood.
It built walls with their bones.
It fashioned monsters from their flesh.
It stole their memories and used them to create nightmares.
Contempt and greed were not opposing impulses. Often, what one despised most was also what one sought to possess most cruelly.
Alucard did not return to Granfaloon’s chamber.
The sound of metal scraping stone came from the passage on the right.
It was a road he had not yet explored.
An old bloodstain marked its entrance. Someone had tried to return while clinging to the wall. The handprints ended only three steps from the opening.
There was no body.
Instead, three severed fingers lay upon the floor.
Alucard picked up one of them. The cut was unnaturally smooth. No animal’s teeth or dull blade had made it.
He set the finger down and tossed a small stone into the darkness.
A metallic crash erupted before the stone could touch the floor.
Clang!
Two cleanly severed fragments flew back out of the passage.
Alucard stared inside.
Nothing could be seen.
A vampire’s eyes could distinguish shapes even beneath a starless sky. Yet this tunnel did not merely lack light. Darkness itself filled the space between the walls and the floor, as though the castle had packed it with something older than night.
Alucard pulled a single thread from the hem of his cloak and released it into the passage.
The silver thread drifted upon the air and touched the darkness.
Dozens of metallic impacts immediately rang out.
The thread did not return.
Alucard closed his eyes.
When sight becomes useless, the first thing a human sees is fear.
A bat was different.
To him, darkness was not an invisible wall. It was merely a space that had not yet been questioned.
His shoulder blades folded inward. His body became light, and his cloak transformed into black wings. Silver hair and a pale face diminished in an instant, disappearing into the form of a small bat.
He hung upside down from the ceiling at the entrance.
Then he released a piercing cry from deep within his throat.
Screech—
The sound traveled into the darkness.
It struck the walls.
Swept over the floor.
Slid along metallic edges.
Then shattered into hundreds of echoes and returned.
In that instant, a shape without light formed inside Alucard’s mind.
Spikes rising from the floor.
Blades descending from the ceiling.
Spears extending from one wall to the other.
Dry scraps of flesh and cloth still clinging to their points.
The path could not be seen, but the form of death could.
He spread his wings.
As he passed between the first set of spikes, metal snapped shut behind him.
Clang!
The tip of one wing was cut. Black blood scattered through the air.
Alucard released another cry.
Screech—
The echo returned.
An opening appeared along the right wall. He twisted and flew toward it, but the gap closed just before he reached it. A spike thrust from the wall, attempting to impale him.
Alucard’s form dissolved into black mist.
The spike passed through the cloud.
He tried to reform on the other side, but the air of the passage seized him. The mist scattered as if being drawn into cracks in the stone. If he maintained the Form of Mist for too long, he might lose the boundaries of his body entirely.
He restored his human arm first and caught hold of the wall. His shoulder, face, and torso then gathered around it within the darkness.
At that moment, the floor moved.
Alucard kicked away from the wall.
The power of the Leap Stone burst beneath his feet. His body sprang upward as he stepped upon the empty air a second time. Below him, spikes closed like the jaws of a beast.
He transformed into a bat again.
Screech—
The echo revealed the next path.
But Alucard did not move.
He watched the empty space indicated by the sound.
A moment later, three spikes shot into it at once.
The castle knew his abilities.
It was using the path revealed by the Echo of Bat as bait. The space was empty when the echo returned but would close the instant he flew into it.
Clinging to the wall, Alucard listened to the spikes move.
Scrape.
Clang.
Scrape.
Clang.
At first, the pattern seemed irregular. Yet after every collision came an exceedingly brief silence. For one instant, every spike waited for the others before moving into its next position.
He remembered his mother.
No—he remembered the Succubus wearing his mother’s face.
The demon had spoken lies in a voice indistinguishable from the truth. Had he trusted that first voice merely because it sounded true, he would have broken within the illusion of having pierced his mother’s heart.
What the eye revealed was not always truth.
Neither was the first answer returned by sound.
What mattered was not what one heard.
What mattered was where that answer was attempting to lead.
Alucard released another cry.
Screech—
The echo indicated an opening above and to the right.
He flew in the opposite direction.
The spikes rushed rightward to close upon the bait, briefly opening a path below and to the left. Alucard folded his wings and dropped through the gap.
Scrape.
A blade ahead began to move.
He activated the Form of Mist just before striking the wall. His body dissolved and passed between two spikes. Reforming as a man on the other side, he rolled across the floor.
His cloak tore.
A thin wound opened across his left shoulder.
As the scent of blood spread, the entire passage trembled.
The spikes began moving faster.
Alucard ran.
He could see nothing. His eyes were open, but they served no purpose. He sent out one echo after another. The overlapping waves formed and erased the shapes of death.
One step.
He lowered his body.
A blade passed over his head.
Two steps.
He planted a foot against the left wall and jumped.
Spikes rising from the floor grazed the soles of his boots.
Three steps.
He stepped upon the air again.
An iron spear descended from the ceiling and pierced his cloak.
His body was wrenched backward.
Alucard released the clasp at his throat. The black cloth with its crimson lining remained upon the spike. Without the cloak, he hurled himself forward.
His fingertips touched cold metal.
A door.
A blue seal glowed faintly within the darkness.
Alucard raised the Jewel of Open.
Light flowed from the jewel into the seal. The door slowly opened. The instant he forced himself through, every spike behind him snapped shut at once.
Crash!
The impact shook the door.
Alucard dropped to one knee.
When the door closed, the voice of the darkness ceased.
Only his breathing remained.
---
Dozens of candles burned within the chamber.
Their flames offered no warmth. Beneath the cold blue light, a suit of armor rested upon a stone pedestal.
It was black plate armor covering the chest and shoulders. Its surface bore countless wounds—punctures, scratches, and marks from heavy blows. Some appeared newly made, while others were so deep that centuries of rust seemed to have seeped into them.
Alucard approached slowly.
A skeleton lay before the armor.
The man had nearly crossed the passage. The front of his body remained intact, but his spine had been severed into dozens of pieces. One hand was still extended toward the armor. Less than a hand’s breadth separated the fingertips from the pedestal.
A hand’s breadth.
More than enough distance for a man to die.
Alucard looked down at the skeleton’s hand.
This man, too, must have believed he possessed the strength to cross. He had read the movements of the spikes, endured repeated wounds, and reached the final door.
Yet the armor had been placed just beyond the reach of the person who needed it most.
The castle’s cruelty did not lie merely in killing.
It lay in revealing possibility, then stealing away the final step.
Alucard knelt before the skeleton. A rusted metal plate had been caught between its finger bones. He carefully removed it.
A short inscription was engraved upon its surface.
Let those who fear the spikes turn back.
Those who fight the spikes shall die here.
Only those who accept them as part of the path may break them.
Alucard read the words twice.
Then he placed his hand upon the armor.
It was not cold.
The armor trembled almost imperceptibly. It seemed to be listening to the vibrations of the countless spikes moving beyond the door. It was not merely solid metal, but a substance that remembered the shapes of the things that had wounded it.
Alucard unfastened the Walk Armor.
The armor that had strengthened as it traveled through the castle fell away from his body. As he removed the armor that had accompanied him for so long, the cold of the underground penetrated the thin clothing beneath.
He lifted the black armor and placed it upon himself.
The shoulder plates closed.
The clasps of the breastplate locked themselves into place.
When the final fastening shut, every wound upon the armor began to glow red. Thin lines of light traveled through hundreds of scars and formed a single image.
A broken spike.
Alucard placed a hand upon his chest.
Inside the armor, he felt a heartbeat different from his own.
Thump.
A moment later, his heart answered.
Thump.
The two rhythms were not the same.
But each waited for the other.
Alucard looked toward the door.
“Spike Breaker.”
He read the name lingering within the armor.
Beyond the door, the spikes moved.
Scrape.
Only moments ago, the sound had been a threat.
Now it summoned an image before it summoned fear.
Alucard opened the door.
The black passage opened its mouth once more. The first spike shot toward his chest.
He did not evade it.
The point struck the armor.
A sharp impact passed through his entire body. At the same time, one of the scars upon the breastplate blazed red.
The spike shattered.
Fragments of metal scattered into the darkness.
A second spike rose from the floor.
Alucard stepped forward.
His boot came down upon it. The metal screamed and bent. A third and fourth spike lunged from opposite walls.
He continued walking.
Metal struck both shoulders. The armor rang. Unable to endure the vibration, the spikes split from their roots.
Clang.
One step.
Clang.
Another.
Every blade that had ruled the passage shattered as he passed.
Yet Alucard did not believe he had become invincible. The impact still passed into his body. His ribs shook, and blood continued to flow from his wound. The Spike Breaker was not armor that erased pain.
It was armor that prevented pain from blocking the path.
The difference seemed small.
It was enough to divide the living from the dead.
Halfway through the passage, Alucard stopped.
His discarded cloak lay upon the floor. It remained impaled upon a spike, its crimson lining spread like blood.
He pulled upon the cloth.
The spike touched his armor and shattered. Alucard draped the torn cloak over his shoulders once more. Its clasp was gone, so he fastened it around his neck with a strip of red cloth.
Then he walked the rest of the path.
When the final spike broke, candles along both walls ignited.
The absolute darkness retreated.
In the light, countless names appeared upon the walls.
They belonged to those who had died along this path.
Alucard looked at the empty line beneath the last name.
The castle had expected his name to be carved there.
He ran his fingers across the blank stone.
“Not yet.”
He did not know to whom he spoke.
Perhaps it was the castle.
Perhaps it was his father.
Or perhaps it was an answer to the mother who had called to him within the nightmare.
Alucard left the passage.
Behind him, the candles went out one by one. Just before the final flame vanished, letters carved themselves into the empty line.
ADRIAN FAHRENHEIT ȚEPEȘ
But no year of death appeared beside the name.
Even the castle did not yet know how his story would end.
---
As Alucard left the Catacombs, the Gold Ring grew hot inside his pocket.
He took it out.
The incomplete inscription glowed red.
Wear… Clock…
He brought the ring close to his ear.
A tiny bell sounded within the metal.
Once.
Twice.
Before the third chime, another sound entered between them.
A woman breathing.
Alucard stopped walking.
“Richter…”
It was Maria’s voice.
She spoke the name as though in prayer, but there was more fear than faith within it. It was not the voice of someone still searching. It belonged to someone who had already found what she sought and could not accept it.
The voice came from the Royal Chapel.
Alucard remembered the passage he had seen there long ago. White spikes filled the corridor beyond a blue door. Neither a bat nor mist had been able to pass.
The Spike Breaker vibrated softly.
The armor seemed to remember those spikes as well.
The heat of the Gold Ring intensified. At the same time, another piece of metal answered from far away.
Its resonance was colder and clearer than gold.
Silver.
A second ring.
The other half of the severed sentence.
And Maria was beside it.
Alucard began climbing the stairs. With every step, the scars upon the armor glowed faintly. The castle’s paths remained dark, but the darkness was no longer silent.
When he questioned it, the walls answered.
When he listened, the spikes revealed themselves.
And anything that revealed itself could be broken.
When he reached the top of the stairs, the bell of the Royal Chapel began to toll.
This time, it sounded twelve times.
As the last chime faded, a new word appeared inside the Gold Ring.
Wear… in Clock…
The sentence remained incomplete.
But Alucard knew where the missing words could be found.
He raised his head toward the Royal Chapel.
High above, Maria called Richter’s name again.
Behind her voice, someone else laughed.
Something was beside her.
It imitated a human laugh, yet drew no breath.
Alucard drew Mormegil.
The light of the Gold Ring and the crimson scars of the Spike Breaker reflected together upon the black blade.
He began ascending the stairs.
This time, it was not the castle waiting for him.
He was going to hear the castle’s answer.
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