The Demon's Whisper

The snow elk appeared like a revelation and vanished like a ghost.

“Wh-Whoa…!”

A moment ago those eyes had been vivid enough to leave an afterimage still shimmering in the air, and yet far out across the grass there was nothing at all. The soldiers milled about, thrown by the contradiction.

“Hyah!”

“Y-Your Grace…!”

Only Keith Paragon spurred his horse, like a man with something riding him. Nobody knew it, not even Keith himself, but his eyes could see a silver trail. The path the beast had run along shone exactly like the Milky Way.

“Stop right there…!”

He was desperate. Nothing else in the world existed for him. When the thing you have wanted so terribly is right there in front of you, what man would not reach out for it?

“Please…”

Keith flattened himself against the horse. His black hair streamed back to bare his clean forehead, and the forest smeared past on every side.

“Neeeiiigh!”

“Ngh—.”

At some point his beloved horse snorted and refused to go a step further. It bucked as though it had eaten something bad, and in the end it forced Keith down off its back.

“Damn it. Asimov…! What is the matter with you!”

He tried to soothe the agitated animal, but his touch only set it off worse.

“Pfrrrr…”

It blew hard through its nose, turned, and left its master. The clatter of its hooves came urgent, as though something were chasing it.

“Hah.”

Dumbstruck, Keith clenched his back teeth hard. Then, without losing a moment, he set off running along the snow elk’s tracks.

“Hgh, hgh. Hhaagh.”

The breath he swallowed carried the smell of blood. His heart pounded as though it would burst.

But Keith Paragon did not stop.

By now he looked like a man in the grip of some madness. Sweat soaked him through, his muscles felt as though they were tearing apart, and he could no longer even run properly.

Baby…

His eyes, stained black, throbbed like a leaping heart. They swelled until the black seemed to swallow the whites entirely.

“Hgh, hgh…”

Before he knew it a dull fog had settled over his mind. And then the beam of a lighthouse split the sea fog, as though guiding a lost ferryboat home.

Baby, come here. Keith…

Mother. His bloodless lips barely moved.

“I’m coming. Mother.”

The silver snow elk’s tracks had already vanished. He shuffled on like a walking corpse, and ahead of him lay nothing but empty darkness.

— Bwoooo, bwoo…

At the uncommon sound of the horn, Pai stopped where she stood and drew a deep breath.

“Woof-woof! Woof, woof…”

The rough baying of hounds broke apart faintly, like an echo.

She closed her eyes and poured everything into her senses, straining to catch the noises coming from farther off.

“…”

Horns sounding one after another were the signal for large game. One long, one short.

“A bear? Or a snow elk?”

Bring down a bear or a snow elk and first place was a sure thing. The two beasts carried the same score, but taking the rarer snow elk would surely make the better show.

She opened her eyes and loosened her shoulders a little.

“Good luck to them… And please, don’t come this way.”

Pai was after the antler, and she had no need whatsoever to compete with that lot. If anything, it was easier for her if they kept away.

“Well. Not that our paths are likely to cross anyway.”

Not much was known about the silver snow elk. Since it was a beast of sacred power, the accepted view held that it would never go near the Black Forest, eaten away as the place was by demonic energy.

“But would demonic energy matter to a spirit-beast that highly evolved?”

The creature had reached a plane that transcended anything like demonic energy. It kept to itself and preferred quiet surroundings, so of course it would have come into the Black Forest as well. It would have been nice to meet it the day she explored the Great Labyrinth with Hamel, though it had not been shedding season then anyway, so it hardly mattered.

“Timing-wise, this one week is the golden window.”

She took her main gauche in one hand and headed deeper in.

Before long a red rope came into view, marking the no-entry line. It had rotted so far it looked ready to crumble at a touch, and she vaulted it in one go.

As luck would have it, she found an antler sooner than she had expected.

“Lucky me!”

She pulled a pouch from her waistband and stuffed the limp silver cast-off inside. A glittering powder clung to her hand, as though she had dipped it in flour.

“Ooh, cold.”

Perhaps because it had come off a snow elk, her hand was as cold as if she’d been gripping an icicle. She shook out her forearm, prickling with gooseflesh, and something cold fell into her eye as well.

“Nn…!”

A small snowflake.

She looked up at the sky. Thin snow was scattering down against a background of clear pale blue.

Snow out of a clear sky was nothing to be surprised at; the North’s weather was fickle.

What was truly surprising was Keith Paragon, snagging at the edge of her vision.

Pai rubbed her eyes.

“…That’s no phantom.”

It really was Keith Paragon.

What about the hunt? What about the soldiers on his team? No, more to the point, why come all the way out to the Black Forest? One question led straight into the next.

As for an excuse for her own presence, she could always say she had gotten lost… The problem was that Keith was walking into the Great Labyrinth.

And with a vacant face, at that.

“Daaamn it…! I really hate déjà vu.”

The unfocused eyes, the loose swaying movements, all of it was familiar. He was clearly sleepwalking.

How he had managed to fall asleep in the middle of a hunt could wait. Stopping him came first.

“Keith! Stop!”

She shouted, though she knew that calling his name was useless. Keith had already gone into the labyrinth, and not even his shadow was left in sight.

Pai bit her lip and went in after him. Shoving through the Devil Bee thicket, she raised her voice.

“You damned sleepyhead, what do you think you’re doing falling asleep on a horse!”

In that instant a chill crawled up her spine. She whipped around on instinct and dropped into a guard.

— Krrrrrumble…

The labyrinth shuddered, and the maw that had gaped so wide began to close.

“What… what is this…!”

She had gone in and out of the Great Labyrinth countless times, and never once had she known such a thing to happen.

“Stop!”

The entrance was not even far, and still she could not hold back the earthen walls as they narrowed like a funnel. That mouth had stood open as though it would suck in anything at all, and now, right in front of her nose, it became a wall that let through not one point of light.

— Thud!

Pai hurled herself at the solid wall.

— Thud!

“Open up!”

— Thud! Thud!

— Thud!

“Hgh, hgh…”

Nothing came of it but a fall of stone dust.

She caught her breath and blinked; her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and she could make out the man’s silhouette clearly enough.

“This is maddening.”

Ignoring the foreboding that clung damply to her skin, she moved forward with care.

The labyrinth’s layout had changed. Unfamiliar passages were a problem, but the greater threat was the traps, which could spring out at any moment, from anywhere. And she had to protect not only herself but a man who had dropped off to sleep heedless of it all.

“Let’s go back now.”

Pai closed the distance quickly and seized Keith’s forearm.

Fortunately he did not try to throw her or attack her as he had before.

“Somehow, I’ll…”

No, this was nothing to be relieved about. The situation was worse than being attacked.

“You…”

Keith’s eyes were wrong. There was no telling white from iris; they were black clear through, as though someone had poured black ink into a small liquor cup. And beneath the thin, pale skin, dark capillaries stood out like a spiderweb.

“Hk…”

A moan leaked out between Pai’s lips.

She knew this look. Not a pure human, and not a beast either.

“Demonization…”

A half-demon born with a demon’s blood was sensitive to demonic energy. In proportion to the amount of the exposure and its duration, demonization advanced by degrees, until madness took hold and in the end the human self was lost entirely.

But why now?

In the previous life, Keith had not lost himself for good until the world stood on the very brink of ruin. That was how strong a self he had.

It has only just begun. It can still be turned back.

She swallowed dryly and got a grip on herself. She drew a deep breath, stepped closer, and opened her mouth.

“Just wait a little. I’ll get you out of—”

But she could not get the rest of it out. Because Keith reached out and took her face in both hands.

Cold enough to set her back teeth aching.

“Miss Pai…”

He whispered, and turned his face slightly. The sharp bridge of his nose brushed hers, their noses grazing together first.

Just before their lips met, Pai instinctively drew in a breath.

“I… you…”

Because she expected it would be a long kiss.