DESTROYED FROM WITHIN

CHAPTER 6

—

I

—

In the gloom, Lady Ann was thinking about D. Barring a miracle, she wouldn’t be able to escape from her present predicament. Most likely she felt nothing but satisfaction at having saved D when he was immobilized—that was good. There was no disputing the fact she’d helped a man who would’ve died. Perhaps that young man didn’t care a whit about Lady Ann. Nevertheless, she’d done all that she could.

“Lady Ann,” someone called out to her, but the girl made no attempt to turn in the voice’s direction. The young man in black still held a feverish dominion over her heart.

“Lady Ann.”

The second time, she finally opened her eyes, due more to the voice that was calling her than the fact that she was being called.

In front of the locked door, the shadow that fell on the floor of the murky room was that of Major General Gillis.

“I’ve disabled the surveillance system and alarms. Now it’s time to flee.”

“You’re a strange one, aren’t you, to—” Lady Ann said, breaking off. She didn’t know the outcome of the little experiment General Gaskell had done on Major General Gillis.

Out of love for his own life, the major general had sold out Lady Ann. However, it seemed that his disappointing compliance had all been an act. He’d decided to adopt an attitude that sickened even himself in order to deceive Gaskell so he could then rescue the young girl. Though his love was rather warped when compared to ordinary circumstances, there was certainly something to be said for the way he was willing to gamble his own life to save Lady Ann.

Perhaps Lady Ann knew as much, because though she still seemed half stunned and hateful, she also couldn’t help but sound impressed as she murmured, “How did you get in here?”

“A shadow has no thickness. If I were so inclined, I could even slip into the Sacred Ancestor’s bedroom. Now, there are some preparations to see to before we take flight.”

“What do you mean by ‘preparations’?”

“Can you move?”

“Yes,” Lady Ann replied, standing up.

“Then take your clothes off.”

“Excuse me?”

“I wish to claim part of my reward right here. Take your clothes off,” the shadow said, his voice rising. The whole situation had clearly aroused him. The very thought of getting a reluctant girl to strip down while every second counted in making their escape! Lady Ann was entirely justified in cursing him.

“You dirty old man!” she spat. “What do you mean by ‘part of your reward’?”

“That reward would be—you,” the major general’s shadow said. “But for now, I’ll settle for a look.”

“You intend to take more than that, do you?”

“We can discuss that—later.”

“There’s no need to discuss anything! If those are your conditions, I’m staying right here.”

“You fool! Naught but death awaits you if you remain. Rocambole lacks my appreciation of beauty and won’t be as gentle as I am.”

“You’re not gentle; you’re a deviant! A sick bastard like you—” The girl broke off there, and then continued, “I’d rather stay here and have Lord Rocambole kill me than take orders from a deluded sex fiend.”

“Rocambole is out to get D.”

The shadow’s words froze Lady Ann solid.

“That’s the reason he’s been revived. And if you stick around and help awaken him fully, you’ll be sending the strongest possible foe at D. Is that what you want?”

Lady Ann looked as if she’d fallen into hell. To her, Major General Gillis’s words must’ve sounded like a thin thread dangled down from heaven above.

“So far, he’s only absorbed the lives of two warriors. If you and I run off, he’ll be forced to fight D while still half asleep, in which case D will win. Rocambole wouldn’t have a chance. But if he awakens completely—D will be no match for him.”

“You’re wrong!” Lady Ann shouted, her body trembling. “He will win. The man I love will never be defeated, no matter how dire the situation might be. And if he is defeated—then I will perish along with him.”

For a while, the shadow maintained his silence. It was clear that shock had stopped his heart and choked his vocal cords.

“Okay, I see,” Gillis said with resignation. “If you feel that strongly about him, there’s nothing more I can do. Do as you like. I’ll be leaving now, too. But I must ask you this one last time. Lady Ann, have you no intention at all of escaping with me?”

“Not a hair.”

“I see. I have no desire to watch you die. I’ll be leaving now.”

“Fine,” the girl replied in a remorseless manner.

Saying nothing more, the shadow that represented Major General Gillis went to the crack under the door, and in no time at all he’d disappeared through it.

Letting out another sigh, Lady Ann lay down on the floor. Her thoughts were with D again. If she closed her eyes, a face of unearthly beauty was there gazing at her softly. The look it gave her was gentler than that of the real one.

Her body tensed for a moment. A black shadow had suddenly come up behind her and attached itself to her back. It was the shadow of Major General Gillis, who’d slipped back in through the same gap under the door that he’d used to leave. Before she could do anything, Lady Ann found herself paralyzed. She couldn’t say a word. Not only that, but when the shadow got up, she stood up, too. No, it’s probably better in this case to say that when Lady Ann got up, the shadow did, too.

At any rate, as Lady Ann approached the door with robotic steps, in her ear she heard Major General Gillis say in a low voice, “Oh, I couldn’t really leave the object of my affection to die here. I’ve undone the lock. So go. Or rather, the two of us shall head out into a new world clinging to one another.”

There was no sign of anyone in the corridor. As they were about to head for the staircase, they heard the sound of numerous footsteps coming up from below. And what should appear but featureless silver beings dressed as servants. Their smooth faces lacked eyes, noses, and mouths. They were androids.

When Nobles selected servants, many of those with more volatile tempers chose androids for the machines’ complete obedience. Human beings and others of their own kind tended to rub them the wrong way.

“Come to take my lady love?” Major General Gillis muttered, but by that time the androids had spotted Lady Ann and were moving toward her with powerful strides.

“You lousy piles of scrap!” the shadow laughed, and balling his hand into a fist, he drove it into Lady Ann’s stomach.

Spotting the shadow as he slipped from the girl’s limp, collapsing body to the floor, the androids fired purple particle beams at him from their foreheads. Leaving only those holes they’d burned in the floor, the shadow sped toward the androids’ feet. Lacking physical form, could a shadow even be destroyed?

Clinging to the androids’ feet, the shadow made his way up their torsos and then slipped off their backs. When he’d returned to the floor, the androids, which had been run through with a blade lacking density, began to convulse violently, black smoke billowing from their collars and wrists. Frozen in place, the first one let its head drop lifelessly, and then a second android began to twitch as well. It took less than ten seconds for five of the automatons to be reduced to scrap.

Creeping across the ground, the shadow, who’d dropped Lady Ann with ungodly speed, returned to her back. Lady Ann’s eyes opened and the girl got up, but still she didn’t speak. And then she saw the figure in deep purple who stood just behind the androids’ remains.

“General Gaskell!”

“But that voice . . . Ah, I see. Major General Gillis has taken possession of you, has he?” the great general said, a very human surprise filling his one visible eye. “So, my authority means nothing now? If I let no more than a Nobleman with a penchant for assassination defy me, the ignominy will haunt me for all time. I must take my revenge—are you prepared to face that, Major General Gillis?”

“I am.”

Lady Ann’s eyes went wide—the voice had come from her own mouth.

“But when you kill me, General, let me serve as the third sacrifice to fully restore Rocambole. And in return, I should like to ask that the legacy of Roland, the Duke of Xenon—my own beloved Lady Ann—be spared.”

“Oh? You would give your own life so that this girl might be allowed to leave?”

Extending one hand, Gaskell shoved the android standing in front of him to one side. Hitting the wall, it fell to the floor not with the rattle of metal but rather with the thud of a lump of clay. Its face had been knocked out of shape.

“Precisely,” Major General Gillis said, and then he—or rather, Lady Ann—took a step back. There was nowhere to retreat to—it was a dead end. The only way out was a single window, and outside was a sheer drop of three hundred feet down the wall.

“You know, I can’t believe it,” Gaskell said, continuing to advance. To either side of him an android smashed into the wall.

“What? That at the age of 453 I’ve found my one true love?”

Taking several steps back, Lady Ann finally found herself beside the window. Her eyes were tinged with terror. Although a drop from any height wouldn’t normally give an immortal Noble the slightest pause, she seemed to have an irrationally powerful fear.

“That’s a touching sentiment,” Gaskell said, crushing the last pair of androids to either side of him. “However, when you fall now to my hand, it won’t be for Lord Rocambole. It will be purely because you’ve betrayed me. Therefore, the girl will have to be used as the last sacrifice to raise Lord Rocambole.”

“That’s fiendish!”

“That’s the law of the Frontier.”

“Of course. But I don’t much care for it. You always were just a bumpkin Noble.”

Gaskell’s hand went for the hilt of his black sword. Behind his prey, there was nowhere to run. But his certainty of this made his movements too slow.

“What’s this?” he gasped, his blade streaking from its scabbard to mow through the space in front of the window, but Lady Ann and the Dark One that clung to her back had thrown themselves out the window some three hundred feet from the ground.

—

II

—

Lady Ann screamed. But her death cry only resounded in her head. She fainted.

However, she didn’t fall. Still attached to Lady Ann, Major General Gillis’s limbs reached out to grab the tower’s outer wall, and they began to descend like a lizard or some similar reptile.

Leaning out of the same window, General Gaskell shouted a single invective and hurled a short sword that scored twenty feet of the rock wall, but Lady Ann and the Dark One easily dodged it and reached the ground in no time.

Standing and turning to look back at the tower, Lady Ann laughed with Major General Gillis’s voice. But that laughter was cut short when he saw that the great General Gaskell had leapt from the same window he and his love had used.

“Damnation!” the shadow shouted before sliding from Lady Ann’s back to her front side. She then leaned forward.

Having controlled Lady Ann’s body up until now, the Dark One now carried her on his back as he began to run at an impressive clip. He moved with such unholy swiftness, it was as if the darkness creeping across the earth were his own body. Actually, if the darkness shared the same density that he did, then this probably would’ve been true. However, Castle Gaskell had lamplight spilling from the windows and illumination in the gardens, and countless other artificial light sources, and until he could reach somewhere the light didn’t hit directly, the dimness would be a weaker hue. The range of darkness under Major General Gillis’s control was limited to his own size.

There was a courtyard in front of the tower. By the time Gillis reached the center of it, General Gaskell was just picking himself up from his own fall.

We’re going to make it, Major General Gillis thought to himself with absolute conviction.

From the ground ahead, waves surged toward him. Rather uncharacteristically, Gillis made no attempt at a sudden stop, and the instant the waves touched him he halted, feeling as if every inch of his body had been ripped open.

I almost forgot about the other one, he thought.

Some sixty feet away stood the armored figure. The waves of murderous intent that emanated from the lord’s body continued to tear at Major General Gillis.

Impatience goaded Gillis on, for he could sense the presence of General Gaskell in the distance to his rear. The great general gave off an aura every bit as unearthly as he closed on his prey.

“General,” Lord Rocambole said. Unlike Gillis, he didn’t refer to Gaskell as milord. “Is either one okay? There are two of them.”

“It matters not to me,” the great General Gaskell replied, but he seemed a bit ill tempered. Apparently he would’ve preferred to be called milord. “However, if at all possible, make it the woman. I will dispose of Major General Gillis. Originally you wanted four lives, but you shall have to settle for three when you do battle with D.”

“Ah, the truth comes out,” Gillis laughed cheerfully—apparently he’d made up his mind. “Aren’t you forgetting something, milord? Has it slipped your mind that, along with Dr. Gretchen, I was also called ‘a Noble killer’?”

In the darkness, a turbulent hue skimmed across Gaskell’s vicious scowl. But the Dark One was faster in zipping across the earth. With the black shadow wrapped around it, Gaskell’s body arched so far backward he smashed the back of his head against the ground. Though this didn’t seem likely to have any effect on this giant of a man who’d just gotten up from a three-hundred-foot fall, the general was knocked out cold. And then the shadow stuck to his back slipped through Gaskell’s chest.

“Aaaah!” the great general cried, loosing a scream of agony more horrible than any cry he’d made in any deadly battle before, no matter how ghastly. Several seconds later, black blood spilled from his collar and chest, from his cuffs and between his buttons. Still unconscious, he bent backward and writhed in pain. His limbs twisted in impossible directions as he twitched to the dance of death.

Pulling away from Gaskell’s body, the shadow turned toward Lord Rocambole, who remained standing stock still.

Whistling through the wind, a gleam of black flew through the air to skewer Gillis’s shadow as he raced across the ground. The shadow flowed like water, leaving only the black sword behind. He moved from the soles of the stationary lord to his legs. From his legs, the shadow climbed to his trunk—and now he planned to finish Rocambole with a single blow!

However, just as he was about to do so, the most terrifying thing occurred. With the deadly shadow wrapped around it, Rocambole’s body collapsed to the ground—but not because Gillis’s power had rendered Rocambole unconscious.

“B-but you’re . . .” Major General Gillis stammered, his bewilderment quite natural. After all, how could his opponent have the same special power that he did?

As the two shadows tangled in their deadly clash, Lady Ann’s vacant gaze alone watched them. Suddenly, the pair pulled apart. One of the shadows let out an ear-shattering groan of pain. And the other shadow slid smoothly over to Lady Ann, slipping into the space between her body and the ground and carrying the girl with daunting speed toward the door to the nearest garden.

However—in the feeble darkness of the garden, a long, thin streak made a black sweep along the same path as Lady Ann.

—

“The bleeding’s quite bad,” Lady Ann muttered. But as the girl was still unconscious, the words came in Major General Gillis’s voice. “He’s not used to dealing with shadows. I managed to get the drop on him, but he’ll probably be after us soon—and it doesn’t look like I can last much longer. In which case . . .”

Lady Ann stopped moving. She was practically at the center of the vast rear courtyard—on a marble pathway.

A shadowy figure emerged from beneath the girl’s hunched-over form. The profile looked to be that of a man, and gazing intently at Lady Ann, he said, “I’ve managed to save you somehow, but this is as far as I can take you. Though I die here, I have no regrets, milady. I’m happy to have met a girl like you . . . but I can’t just leave you to be sacrificed to Rocambole. Before it comes to that, I’d rather you died by my hand.”

The shadow must’ve been drawing on the last of his strength, because as he moved toward Lady Ann, he seemed to be in a horrible kind of slow motion. His hand stretched for the girl’s form. Anyone the Dark One passed through—even the great general himself—would feel her body burn with hellish torment. Lady Ann’s destruction was assured.

His outstretched hand crept up Lady Ann’s chest—and then it twitched violently. The torso of the shadow that lay on the ground had the shadow of a longsword running through its heart and out its back. The arm that gripped the weapon was visible from the elbow up, and it belonged to Lord Rocambole, who was kneeling on the ground. When he drew it back, both his hand and the longsword returned to their original form.

“You . . . son of a bitch . . .”

Though Major General Gillis’s groan was weak, it still left the lord stunned. His deadly attack had clearly gone right through the major general’s heart, and it should’ve killed him instantaneously. This was true tenacity. A crazed devotion to Lady Ann kept the dead man from expiring.

“I won’t let you . . . have her . . . This girl . . . is mine.”

Easily fending off the two arms that reached for him, Rocambole put the tip of his blade against the ground. It turned into a shadow and made another thrust at Gillis’s shadow.

Major General Gillis bent backward and shook with one final spasm. That was the end of him.

Getting up, Lord Rocambole went over to Lady Ann and put the end of his longsword against her bosom. The steely tip pressed into the flesh of her chest. Pulling it away, Lord Rocambole said, “She’s a lovely girl. And as I recall, there’s one more. It’s not too late to compare the two and see which is more beautiful.”

And then he turned his eyes to the outline of the castle that towered in the distance.

—

Major General Gillis’s attack far surpassed anything the great General Gaskell had experienced or could even comprehend. One by one the cells of his body burned and melted—he suffocated, he felt like vomiting, he groaned and writhed in pain. His brain had died, and his heart and lungs had completely ceased functioning. It took ten minutes for him to come back to life.

“Need . . . liquid,” Gaskell muttered, raising his left forearm and sinking his teeth into it. Black blood spilled out. He drank it all up like a man stranded in the desert, swallowing at least a quart.

When he finally paused to catch his breath and wipe his lips, someone far behind him asked, “Satisfied now?”

Making an involuntary leap forward, he twisted around and landed some fifteen feet away out of surprise and fear that someone could come up behind him without his noticing, regardless of how he might’ve hungered. He had to wonder just how the owner of the voice had gotten there.

“D?”

Astride a cyborg horse sat a vision of beauty, and behind him one of the supposedly impassable gates was open wide.

“How did you get through the gates to my castle? Who the hell are you?”

“Where are Lady Ann and Rosaria?” All D did was ask the obvious question.

“One is in the basement of my castle, and the other is being pursued through my rear courtyard by Lord Rocambole. You’ll be seeing him again soon enough.”

“I can’t wait.”

The figure in black leapt down. As D stood beside his horse, there was the sound of the sword leaving the sheath on his back.

Feeling like this sound alone was enough to cut him, Gaskell drew his own longsword.

“Before we do this . . .” the general began, dropping the tip of his sword as he assumed a low position. His tone was strangely composed. “The way you got in here just now tells me something—it’s actually quite a surprise, but it doesn’t bother me that much. After the first time I met you, I think I must’ve realized it. However, there’s something I don’t understand. Why did the Sacred Ancestor order us to destroy you?”

A breathtakingly beautiful darkness spread over Gaskell’s head—a darkness known as the man in black.

Gaskell barely managed to parry the silvery glint that came down from that darkness. The clang of steel meeting steel seemed to become a numbness that raced through every part of him. His head grew fuzzy.

Incredible! He really must be the Sacred Ancestor’s own—

Without warning, the general was thrown off balance when D pulled away the sword that was locked against his. As the general staggered, the Hunter’s blade streaked toward his waist. However, his prodigious form rose above the sword like some demonic bird, and he landed behind D. The great sword sped toward the Hunter’s back in a slash aimed to cut him from the right side of his neck to the left armpit, but the blade was knocked back by a terrific impact accompanied by a shower of sparks. Without even turning, D had thrust his sword back over his shoulder to parry the blow.

Overcome for a moment by anger, the general brought his great sword back for a thrust instead. “Hyaaaah!” the general yelled as he made a lethal thrust that could pierce iron—and it did a perfect job of running D right through the neck. The instant Gaskell realized what he’d seen was only an afterimage left in empty space, the thrust D made with his own blade while falling backward jabbed cleanly into the left side of the great general’s chest.

Though he trembled and was unable to speak, Gaskell made a giant leap away. Continuing on for a second bound, then a third, when he’d jumped over to a door to a corridor into his castle, he shouted, “Sorry, D. My heart’s on the right side!”

Clots of blood spilled from his mouth.

Before D could kick off the ground again, the general shouldered his way through the passageway. The steel door closed, and a split second later a needle of rough wood bounced off its surface.

D didn’t go after him. Turning around, he headed for the rear courtyard. There he should find Lord Rocambole and one of the two women.

—

III

—

With the unconscious Lady Ann over one shoulder, Lord Rocambole returned to the castle. The great general had told him where to find the other woman—Rosaria. Traversing a labyrinth of stairways and corridors, he finally came to a steel door, behind which Rosaria lay on a plush crimson bed. Brushing the hair from her face to compare it to Lady Ann’s, Lord Rocambole donned a vicious grin. The vermilion lips unique to the Nobility gave a disturbing glimpse of white fangs.

“I see. Each is quite a beauty. At any rate, it would be a shame to take this girl’s life just now. Perhaps I should wait for General Gaskell.”

And saying this, the lord threw the girl down roughly, braced his sword against the floor, and leaned back against its hilt. His eyes shut—then opened again.

“An incredible presence is approaching,” he murmured to no one in particular. “It’s not Gaskell. Which would only leave . . . D. If he’s going to be here soon, I shall have to arrange something to throw him off his game.”

His eyes rested on Lady Ann, then shifted to Rosaria on the bed. Suddenly, he crinkled his brow.

“This woman . . .”

The way he said the words, they seemed to spill from someone else. Yet seemingly unable to be sure of something that filled his heart, his expression grew a bit more suspicious.

“Might you aid me in my battle against D?” he said, a devilish light in his eyes.

—

D stopped in the middle of the staircase. He sensed something was wrong. While he was certainly heading down, all five of his senses told him he hadn’t advanced a single step.

“You’ve fallen into a maze,” D’s left hand informed him in a tone brimming with curiosity. “If you’re not attuned to Gaskell’s castle, you could keep going around and around on these stairs forever. Well, earth and fire will be too much trouble. What say we give it a try with just water and wind?”

It was unclear whether it was D or the source of that voice who put the Hunter’s left hand out before him. A disturbing little face had surfaced in his palm. And it pursed its tiny, wrinkled lips.

Sticking out his right hand, D ran his left forefinger across its wrist. Although his fingernail didn’t seem particularly long, the flesh split open and fresh blood dripped out. All of it fell into the left hand he’d positioned below—to be swallowed by that tiny maw. Continuing this for about three seconds, D then placed his left palm against the wound. There was a sucking sound, and the bleeding stopped.

Taking his left hand away, D raised it high above his head. From the vicinity of the palm there was a faint hiss of wind. In less than two seconds’ time, it became the howling madness of a tempest.

The tiny mouth was sucking in air. And in the depths of that maw, a pale blue flame was rising.

D’s eyes gave off blood light. Black hair rose, one strand banging against another like needles. A pair of trenchant fangs grew out of his gnashing teeth. The blood that flowed in his veins had been made manifest—D had turned into a true vampire.

“You know what you have to do, right?” the hoarse voice inquired.

There was no reply. All that escaped D’s lips was a yell.

—

In an underground chamber, Lord Rocambole suddenly perked up his ears.

“Such a vicious cry. Such a powerful cry. Such a beautiful cry. And such a sad cry.”

At his feet, Lady Ann said, “I know. I can hear it. It’s a cry from my love. Which means he must be close.” Perhaps the girl had wakened on hearing D’s yell.

After speaking, Lady Ann stared intently at Lord Rocambole’s face and said, “It can’t be . . .”

There she broke off.

“Are you . . . crying?”

—

“Okay.”

When the hoarse voice said this, D’s cry halted. Like a gorgeous black statue on the brink of collapse, he swayed but did not fall. His trembling right hand reached over his shoulder for his longsword. Drawing the blade, D made a crude jab into the stairs beneath his feet. The stairway below him melted away like a swirling ammonite. D turned around—not a trace of the stairs remained behind him, either. The walls to either side had vanished, leaving him floating in the darkness on that one remaining step. A heartbeat later, he took to the air. There was no hesitation whatsoever. His coat spread like the wings of a mystic bird challenging a black abyss.

—

His body told him that zero time elapsed before the soles of his boots were back on solid ground.

D stood in a subterranean corridor. To his rear was the staircase.

How long had it been since he’d finished coming down those stairs?

A long cut from a sword remained clearly on the floor at his feet. To the right lay a dead end. D started down the corridor in the opposite direction. An iron door appeared. When he pushed against it, it creaked open.

There was no need to examine the situation. Rosaria lay on a crimson bed, and beside her an armored knight stood, as vigilant as a temple guardian. At his feet was Lady Ann, propping herself up with one arm.

“So glad you could come, D,” Lord Rocambole said softly in greeting. There was something calm about his tone.

“You can’t win like this,” D said.

A weird and invisible aura gushed from every inch of the Hunter and assailed Rocambole. Rosaria shook from head to toe, and Lady Ann let out a little groan as she wrapped her arms around herself.

“I’ll be damned,” D’s left hand moaned. For the instant the Hunter’s unearthly aura had touched Rocambole, it’d disappeared completely. “I guess that’s what you get with Gaskell’s ultimate weapon. He’s a real danger to you.”

Given the distance between the two men, these whispered remarks from his hand shouldn’t have traveled to the other’s ears.

“That’s right,” Lord Rocambole said with a nod. “I’ve taken on the life force of three warriors. Even at that, I’m still only equal to you. But now, I shall claim another life. D, if you were me, which would you choose?”

His cape was closed in front of his chest, but a hand in black slipped out of it. In it, Rocambole held a longsword. The tip of it touched Lady Ann’s left breast.

“Would it be this girl? Or—”

The blade moved darkly, pressing into the chest of Rosaria.

“—this woman? To tell the truth, I’ve already decided. Gaskell was brought back to life along with seven compatriots to help slay you—and I choose this girl, the last of them!”

Once again his blade jabbed at the swell of Lady Ann’s bosom. Perhaps the reason Lady Ann didn’t even look scared when he did so was because she was under the spell of Rocambole and the three lives he’d already claimed.

“Ordinarily, I would’ve taken this girl’s life a long time ago. Do you know why I’ve waited, D?” Rocambole asked, and there was a strange emotion to his query. Under most circumstances, it would’ve been natural for his tone to be triumphant and mocking. Yet his question was perfectly serious.

D didn’t answer.

Lord Rocambole continued, “I heard your voice earlier. It was beyond a doubt the voice of a Noble. It wasn’t even that of a dhampir. An honest-to-goodness, full-blooded Noble—D, who are you? If your Noble blood is that strong, why are you out to get us? And another thing, D. Why have we each been given a new life to slay you now?”

His voice rang so mournfully that it nearly became a component of the darkness. By Providence, the person he put this query to would have to respond.

D’s lips parted, allowing a voice like steel to escape. “I wouldn’t call it a new life.”

“What?”

“It may be a new destruction. Perhaps a permanent destruction.”

Rocambole fell silent. Beneath his visor, there was a definite turbulence in his eyes. In the mere seconds it took for it to pass, he came to his conclusion.

“A new and permanent destruction. Could it be that we were—”

So despairing even his surprise had paled, Rocambole’s tone made Lady Ann suddenly look up at him.

—

As he gazed up, his eyes met an enormous, towering stone statue. You might say it dominated the heavens, or that it was glowering down at the earth. Standing at its feet like a wrathful deity, the great General Gaskell had a strange glimmer in his eyes as he looked up at the distant stony visage.

“The new life you’ve given me, Sacred Ancestor, seems likely to meet the unhappiest of ends.”

From this statement, it was clear the statue depicted the Sacred Ancestor. Why would the great General Gaskell—a man who’d opposed him and proved the worst traitor in history—have a statue of the Sacred Ancestor in his own castle?

One look at the statue made the reason clear. The dignity that radiated from the ordinary stone figure overwhelmed all who beheld it, searing their minds with an unmistakable sense of terror. Having fought him once, it wasn’t surprising that General Gaskell kept the statue of his sworn foe in a room in his castle known only to himself.

“Six of the original seven have been slain, and only Rocambole and the girl remain,” Gaskell continued. There was something defiant about his tone, but a hint of sadness crept into it. “Once he’s taken the girl’s life, chances are very good that he shall triumph. That was the mission you gave us. It was carved into the stone tablet I have no recollection of placing in the hands of this statue I crafted of you. And along with that order were the names of seven assassins. The last name alone was so weathered I couldn’t make it out, but it must’ve been the daughter of the Duke of Xenon—”

The statue of the Sacred Ancestor still held a stone tablet. On it were carved seven names that were now worn into illegibility.

“All I had to do was assemble the seven of them. Their brains, too, had been impressed with the order to slay D, like a brand that wouldn’t fade for all eternity. However, six of them have been destroyed, and I myself have been grievously injured. Surely it wouldn’t have been impossible for someone with the Sacred Ancestor’s power to give them strength surpassing D’s. After five were slain, I noticed the truth, and at the same time I was captivated by a hair-raising conjecture. Sacred Ancestor! Could it be that’s what was intended for us? No, it couldn’t be—yet it seems to be the case. Not even the Sacred Ancestor would do something like that . . . We were merely assembled to slay D. If not, there’s no point in even trying to destroy him.”