White Devil Mountain Read Free

say.
    “What was the aircraft carrying, anyway?” the hoarse voice inquired.
    “Huh? I haven’t asked yet. I’ve had all I could do just catching up to you.”
    “It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving,” D said in a voice like exquisite ice. As he made a move to leave the grounds of the mayor’s estate, he appeared emotionless, as if he’d already abandoned them.
    “So, you mean to tell me the guy who bothered to ask what it was carrying doesn’t care anymore? Something doesn’t add up here. Stop playing me for a fool!”
    Saying nothing, D left. The air seemed to be stirred with shattered ice as it took on a bluish tinge, trying to lend the same hue to the silvery chain of mountain peaks in the distance. The village was surrounded by a mountain range.
    Once he’d gone through the gates, Lilia stopped.
    “I haven’t given up, you know. I’ll chase you down through the very gates of Satanus’s hell!”
    –

    On the way down the road back to the village, the hoarse voice said, “Peace and quiet at last, but she’ll be coming again. Not that I have anything against that type. Why, before I wound up like this—well, it was quite a long time ago, but I seem to recall chasing one or two like her.”
    “A long time ago?” D said, looking up at the heavens. The moon was out. The moonlight seemed to lend a white glow to his face, but that was because D’s beautiful face radiated a light of its own.
    “Yep, a long time ago,” the hoarse voice replied. “But then, what’s a long time? How long have the two of us been alive? And what about you know who? Could you even call what we do or what he does living? What are life and death? I suppose only he can answer that. You know, D, I have to wonder if we aren’t chasing after him to get him to tell us that.”
    “Are you tired?” D asked, turning his eyes to the silvery chain of peaks. “If so, I can take you off right here. You can go wherever you like.”
    “Hold it right there. Neither you nor I can do anything of the sort.”
    “We’ve never tried. How about it?”
    “I’ll pass. For the time being, anyway.”
    The blueness over the rustic route deepened as the gorgeous silhouette rode down it—and the pair’s conversation died out.
    Presently, the cyborg horse came to the busiest part of the village.
    “As I recall, they’re supposed to make a kind of salsa booze in this village. Let’s go have a drink,” the hoarse voice suggested.
    “Resist the urge.”
    “No can do! Let me drink some of that salsa booze. I could down twenty or thirty gallons of the stuff. I’ll take on all comers!” The hoarse voice became an angry shout that seemed likely to reach the edge of the village and beyond. “I’ll pay ten thousand dalas to any man that can outdrink me. Lose, and you won’t owe me any money. But the offer’s only open to men with wives, or those with daughters over seventeen!”
    D was just about to lash his steed with the reins when the doors to the saloon on his right opened and figures bundled in heavy overcoats streamed out, blocking the cyborg horse from going any farther.
    “I’ll take you up on that!”
    “Me, too!”
    “No, I’m first!”
    It was as plain as the noses on their ruddy faces that all these farmers were already well into their cups. They ranged from those who looked to still be in their teens all the way up to a hunched-over bald man who had to be over a hundred.
    “Okay, my friend, step into the saloon,” one of them said. “We’re glad to have you.”
    “Very well. I’m only too glad to accept your challenges,” said the hoarse voice.
    “Kinda a husky voice you’ve got there—but you’ve got nerve, and I like that! The village graveyard has a corner where they bury everyone who drinks himself to death.”
    –

    It was about twenty minutes later that Lilia, having collected her cyborg horse, galloped up to the saloon.
    “What’s going on here?”
    A number of the villagers were stacked in a mound in