CHAPTER 6

-

I

-

Needless to say, D wasn’t on a battleground. On the other hand, it was far too vast to call it a castle. Valcua had referred to it as the “dimensional battlefield.” Surrounded by walls a thousand yards high, the grounds covered roughly forty thousand acres—encompassing mountains, valleys, rivers, plains, and hills all patterned after the outside world. Having positioned his infantry and a dimensional tank battalion on the plain and artillery units on the hills, the grand duke now waited for D and his forces to arrive. The battlefield could be entered by gates at the four points of the compass, and surveillance aircraft nearly a mile in the sky were monitoring all of them. Valcua guessed that D would be coming through the south gate. It was the shortest distance to travel, and once in it would be easy to move while keeping under cover.

“Now, how will he attack, and how shall I counter?”

In the headquarters that he’d established on top of one of the hills, the grand duke peered at a layout of the battlefield that was projected in midair. They would know every move D made, but their deployments would also be relayed to his side. Things would be equal, so to speak.

“The rest will depend on D’s ability,” he said, looking at Sue by his side. From the center where those disturbing biological experiments had been conducted, she’d been taken on a high-speed expressway right to Valcua’s castle. In her present condition, this had to seem ideal to Sue. As she sat next to Valcua, there wasn’t a hint of fear in her expression. Strangely enough, however, she didn’t look satisfied either.

“D has to come,” Valcua said. “An hour remains—and if he hasn’t come by daybreak, your life is forfeit. Though in truth, in your condition, you wouldn’t mind falling victim to me. Your older brother educated you well, didn’t he?”

Sue nodded.

-

Meanwhile, what was the eagerly awaited D doing outside the battlefield? The first thing he’d done was to select several experts at modification from among his troops. Out on the battlefield, engineers who scavenged parts from broken equipment to create something new were indispensable. On hearing D’s request, they were surprised at first, but then they smiled broadly.

“That’ll be a lot easier than turning a beast into a bird,” they assured him.

D went on to choose soldiers who professed to be excellent marksmen or were confident in their skill at hand-to-hand combat, and after a demonstration of their abilities he narrowed the selection down to five of each. For those good at hand-to-hand combat, D was their opponent. Coming at him with bayonets, spears, or swords, the soldiers were forced to surrender after a flashing movement of D’s right hand either snapped their blades or left their spears chopped in two. In the case of bayonets, the Hunter merely grabbed the gun and tossed it away every time, resulting in the elimination of every challenger.

D then turned his attention to the tank battalion lined up on the distant plain.

-

Thirty minutes passed.

The voice of the computer in Valcua’s command center rang out, announcing, “Forces approaching the south gate. Preparations for attack are complete.”

“Strictly by the book. Is that all D can come up with as a commander?” Valcua spat disdainfully, then ordered, “As soon as all his vehicles have entered the battlefield, blast them to pieces!”

The results were as hellish as the image the grand duke’s brain had conjured. The tanks under D’s command were powerless in the face of Valcua’s waiting tank battalion, which discharged their dimensional cannons in unison and banished the Hunter’s forces to another dimension.

“What’s his next attack?”

“There isn’t one.”

When the Ultimate Noble heard this reply, the first shade of suspicion skimmed across his face.

“Not coming on the attack? Why, that’s—”

At that instant, the door to the headquarters fell to the floor in flames. The handful of figures who rushed in quickly overpowered Valcua’s guards and soldiers, overrunning the room with their blades and laser rifles.

“Of all the underhanded . . .” Valcua groaned in a low voice, turning to look at Sue.

“D!”

With Sue behind him, the vision of beauty in black inquired in a soft tone, “What kind of marks did I get?” His voice was cold as ice, but he sounded slightly amused nonetheless.

“Given a full division, you opted for guerrilla warfare? Very well, I give you a perfect score, less one point.” The hoarse voice laughed. “That one point is for the commander personally heading such a reckless attack. And for coming to see me. What can an army do once it’s lost its commander? D, you don’t imagine that this settles everything, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then face me. To tell the truth, I find it lamentable that the plains of this battlefield haven’t rung with the cries of soldiers for the last five millennia.”

“Okay,” D said, sheathing his sword on the spot. A stir went through his group. “Order your soldiers to retreat from the battlefield. Tell them they’re not to take up arms again. And they’re to turn the girl over to whomever wins.”

“Fine,” Valcua said, only too happy to comply.

Several minutes later, the two of them squared off on the vast plain that was to be their battlefield.

“Before we begin, I must ask you something,” said Valcua. “How were you able to make a lightning-fast strike against my headquarters?”

That was undoubtedly the greatest mystery to Valcua.

“We took the engine and other parts from one of your tanks and made a stealth helicopter.”

“Oh really? I’m surprised you were able to make such modifications. That design shouldn’t have been possible.”

“Don’t you know the skill of the engineers you yourself created?”

Valcua leaned back in a fit of laughter. The sound caused buildings to quake.

“Now that you mention it, I don’t really know anything about this part of my domain. Hmm. I don’t know how many soldiers there are, what they eat, or even where the food comes from. Come to think of it, it’s been a long time since I considered such things. My only thoughts were that if I had ten million troops, I would win the battle even if it cost all of their lives.”

Taking ten men alone as D had done and making a strike against the central command was alien to the Ultimate Noble’s way of thinking.

“I suppose I’m like a drunken fool who can move mountains and change the movements of the stars, yet can’t walk in a straight line. However, against you man to man, I can probably cut you down.”

Glencalibur whistled from its sheath. Simultaneously, D drew his blade. His sword seemed to drink up the moonlight.

Both started running at the same time. The instant the two figures melted into one, red sparks scattered and the two switched positions.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed a hoarse voice.

A thread of black coursed down D’s forehead, spreading like the mesh of a net when it came to the bridge of his nose.

“Once Glencalibur has been drawn, it won’t be sheathed until it’s tasted blood.”

Before Valcua had finished speaking, D’s sword danced out. As the mysterious blade bore down on him like a black tsunami, Valcua managed to knock it away, but his stance was badly broken. Ignoring his sword as it sailed into the air, D had thrown himself at the Ultimate Noble’s chest, driving the dagger in his left hand through the armor beneath Valcua’s robe and into his accursed heart.

“You bastard!” Valcua groaned as he swung Glencalibur down, but D’s blade stopped it and the Hunter’s dagger gouged even deeper into the grand duke’s heart.

Heaven and earth took on a blue glow, for lightning had struck on this moonlit night. It wasn’t D that was hit but rather the blade of Glencalibur, though the Hunter was also singed by the electromagnetic waves.

Giving off flames and black smoke, the two men separated. A split second before they did, Glencalibur made a movement Valcua had never intended, splitting D’s right shoulder open. Black blood sprayed out.

The magical sword was raised again for another blow against D, but it then crashed to the ground. Valcua had fallen.

From all sides people pressed forward, carrying off Valcua and charging D simultaneously. A sword gleamed in the hands of each. However, before they could swarm over D, other figures flew in from the sidelines with flashes of laser fire and naked steel, scattering Valcua’s followers and spiriting D away.

D walked without any aid from his rescuers. Half his face and the right side of his body were stained with black blood, but if he’d swung the sword he’d transferred to his left hand, Valcua’s underlings would’ve invariably found that their heads had parted company with their bodies. Apparently his supporters understood as much, and none of them offered D a shoulder to lean on.

They guided D underground and got him onto a high-speed transport. Resembling a ski gondola, it ran toward the center of the territory at several hundred miles per hour. Leaving half the group on the platform, the other five boarded with him.

“Where are we going?” D asked.

“We’re bringing you to the medical treatment center,” one answered. Though assigned to D, they had once been Valcua’s soldiers.

“This is Valcua’s castle. Someone will come after us in no time. His computer oversees any treatment.”

“If we switch it over to manual mode, we should be able to stop the bleeding, sterilize the wound, and get you sewn up.”

“This wound won’t close!” said the hoarse voice, stunning the soldiers. “Glencalibur is just the sort of sword you’d expect the Ultimate Noble to love. No matter how I try to stop it, you just keep bleeding. This calls for radical treatment!”

“Wow, your left hand can talk?” one of the others said, his brow crinkling as he stared at it intently.

“What are you looking at? I ought to charge you admission!” the hand snapped, startling the man. “Instead of hitting some quack medical center, there’s someplace better to go. First off, let’s hurry to the reactor.”

-

The group halted before a massive door.

“Beyond this lies the antiproton reactor.”

D nodded, saying, “You men head back.”

“The defense systems are operational. They pose a danger to you in your current condition. We’ll accompany you.”

“Oh, and why is that?” D asked in a terribly hoarse voice. “I thought you boys had been given orders to rejoin your unit once the surprise attack was over. So, why don’t you go already?”

“We are prepared to die,” the first one said.

“Even if ours is an artificial life, that doesn’t mean we don’t fear death. And when our colleagues are slain, we feel sadness too.”

“Yet we were told we were born to die before we were sent to serve you, sir,” the third one said. “But you wouldn’t let anyone die. With just ten men you made a tactical strike against Lord Valcua to decide the battle—and that is something only a born commander can do.”

“You spared our lives—and now we’re here, ready to give them for you, sir. We who didn’t want to die have decided to give our lives for you—so please allow us to do so.”

“I can’t,” D said softly, yet his words had the knife edge of the wind to them. His face was pale as paraffin, and he continued to lose blood. “I’ll take the life I came here for. The rest of you should enjoy yours.”

And saying just this, the young man in black turned, his coat whipping out around him. Particle cannons mounted on the ceiling and walls turned on D without a sound and then deactivated. Saying nothing, D turned toward the entrance to the reactor.

The other men were frozen in place, but someone’s recitation of an ancient poem rang in their ears.

-

Piercing wind,

Freezing river of Yi.

The hero fords,

And he never returns!

-

It was unclear what kind of trick he used; the Hunter simply seemed to press his left hand to the door to force it open, and as the men watched him disappear into the white light, all they could do was stand in stunned amazement.

-

II

-

The reactor—the energy source for the Ultimate Noble—didn’t work by nuclear fission or fusion. The energy that maintained life in his domain all came from contact between protons and antiprotons. Because Valcua’s reactor produced energy that was far purer than any of the other forms of power currently in use in the world, the extremely delicate combination of the particles was conducted with a devilish attention to detail.

“This will be kinda hairy, D,” the left hand said. The fact that it called its host by name revealed its nervousness. “Combining protons and antiprotons is the toughest kind of work, even for a computer. One tiny little leak, and the delicate balance gets upset. After that, the reactor goes out of control. Once out of the reactor, the antiprotons could find endless particles to hook up with in the air, burning them all up. Not only Valcua’s domain would be wiped out, but the whole planet and maybe even the whole universe if antiproton production continued long enough.”

“Is there any other way?” D inquired softly.

“No,” the left hand replied, the tiny eyes that had formed in its palm staring at D’s feet.

Bright blood formed a trail across the glistening floor. It wouldn’t have been strange for someone in this situation to pass out or die from losing so much blood.

“I guess we’ll give it a shot, then. But we’ve got another problem.”

“Earth?”

“Right you are. Out of earth, fire, water, and wind, we don’t have the earth,” the left hand said in a tone dripping with distress. “Of the four elements, the main two are earth and water. No matter how much air or fire I take in, I can’t get pure energy without the other two. Normally, having just the other three would get the job done, but this wound is different. You got it from Valcua—the Ultimate Noble. There’ll be no fixing it completely without the element of earth.”

“Try,” D said flatly. Life and death didn’t matter to him, but his tone represented an iron will that absolutely would not give up.

D put his left hand against the wall of the reactor.

“Sure. Here goes nothing!” the hoarse voice responded.

D’s right hand went for his scabbard—and then he reversed his grip on the sword, driving it through the back of his left hand and deep into the reactor wall.

His sword was then returned to its scabbard.

The boiling-hot form of ultraenergy had already begun to spill through the crack his blade had made. However, the warning klaxons didn’t ring out, nor did the emergency lamps light up. And the Hunter’s left hand remained pressed to the crack.

A minute passed. Two minutes.

“Good enough,” the hoarse voice told him.

The fateful moment had come. D had to close the hole he’d opened.

“You know what you’re doing, right?” the hoarse voice inquired, wanting to be sure.

Making no reply, D merely stared at the split back of his left hand. But only for a moment. His steel flashed out, piercing the back of his hand once more, in precisely the same location.

“Good.”

At the same time the hoarse voice spoke, D pulled his sword back out. The first thrust had started the flow, and the second sealed it off—but what kind of trick had the Hunter called on? Even after his left hand came away, the burning heat remained contained. The wall of the reactor didn’t have a scratch on it as it continued to give off the same dull glow.

“Fire is all set. Now for water.”

D pressed his left hand against his shoulder. It went without saying what became of the blood spilling from the Hunter. Pulling his left hand away after it gave him the signal, he then raised the same hand high in the air. There was a whistling sound as it sucked air into its tiny mouth. The wind hissed in the otherwise-tranquil atmosphere. Deep in that tiny maw, a blue flame sparked to life.

“How’s that?” the mouth asked.

“No change,” D replied.

“Then it’s just as I thought. Without the element of earth, your wound can’t be closed. What to do, what to do . . .”

D went outside.

The others were waiting.

“I told you to go,” D said to the soldiers.

“This breach has been detected,” one of them said.

“We know that,” the hoarse voice replied.

D looked at the soldiers without saying a word. Once the intrusion into the reactor had been noticed, they would ward off Valcua’s attacks while D accomplished his ends. That was why the men had waited.

A number of footsteps could be heard closing on them from either end of the corridor.

“They’ve got us cornered,” the left hand said, sounding disgusted. “Given their numbers, escaping will be tricky—especially in your condition. If only we could find a clod of dirt somewhere, we’d have no trouble at all.”

Exchanging glances, the men looked at D.

“Did you say dirt, sir?”

“Yes,” D replied.

“In that case, why didn’t you say so earlier?”

The men nodded in unison, and then one of them drew the saber from his hip and plunged it through his own heart before anyone could stop him. His body thudded to the floor, instantly becoming a pile of dirt that filled his clothes.

“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. We’re homunculi fashioned from clay,” one of them declared proudly. “Now we can finally be of some use to you. Thank the gods. Best of luck to you, sir.”

And with that, the rest of them stabbed their chests in unison, returning to their true form as they fell at D’s feet.

D gazed intently at the remains of the brave warriors.

The hoarse voice said, “We didn’t even know their names.”

“Their sacrifice won’t be forgotten.”

D planted one knee on the floor and held his left hand out over the dirt. It was such a solemn scene it would’ve made anyone who saw it stop and pause in reflection.

-

“The guardroids sent to Antiproton Reactor A have been annihilated. All one hundred were destroyed.”

Valcua listened to the electronic voice’s updates from inside his coffin. His Noble senses told him that outside his castle, dawn was spreading like water. His body was cooling rapidly.

The stench of blood filled the coffin’s interior. Valcua could feel the unpleasant warmth of it soaking through his clothes. More than an inch of blood had pooled in the bottom of his coffin. His blood. Not even the medicenter installed in his coffin could do anything about the wound D had dealt him, and even now he continued to bleed.

“If not for you, I would’ve met with defeat, Glencalibur,” he said to his beloved sword, which lay by his left side. “But all you’re good for is cutting. I shall need to find some other way to close my wound. Are you listening, child?”

The grand duke turned to the right. Sue’s pale face was there. When D and Valcua’s battle ended in a draw, she’d been spirited away by the Ultimate Noble’s underlings.

“The irony of this is, there’s only one person in the whole world who can heal me,” he said, stroking Sue’s face with his hand. It was softer and more sensitive than she expected. “And no one but you can make him do it. Child, you must say exactly what I tell you now. Tell your revered D, ‘Please get the other man with your face and bring him to the grand duke.’ ”

-

Can you hear me, Braujou?

Can you hear me, Miranda?

They both already had entered the sleep of the Nobility, but the words rang out in their brains.

This is Grand Duke Valcua. I shall make this brief. At present, I’m wounded. The injury is so grave that even I might succumb. So I’ve undergone treatment. However, I’m powerless to do anything about it. Therefore, I’ve decided to call upon the services of the very best physician, the only one who can help me. Though he isn’t a resident of my lands, he was only too happy to accept this task. His name is—

-

In the darkness, Count Braujou’s eyes opened. They were burning red.

“You heard that, didn’t you, Miranda?” he said.

They were both in his bedroom, he in his own coffin and Miranda in another for guests.

“Indeed, I did.”

Miranda’s response sounded lethargic, and Braujou knew better than anyone that it wasn’t due to a lack of sleep. It was an enfeeblement brought about by her massive blood loss.

“I can’t believe he’d do it. But even if he’s the greatest Hunter, he’s still up against the Ultimate Noble. I suppose an offer of part of that fortune and power would be enough to bend even his iron will. It’s not inconceivable.”

“That’s preposterous!” Miranda snapped before donning a grin. “It’s surprising how little a man can know about men. Don’t you understand what kind of man he is? He’s pure steel, body and soul. He’d sooner die than go over to Valcua’s side. He absolutely wouldn’t do it. I can tell. I’m a woman.”

“What would a woman know about men?” Braujou spat. “At any rate, as soon as the sun goes down, I’m going to go find D and get to the bottom of this. And don’t try to stop me, Miranda.”

Their conversation died.

Naturally, telling the two of them that D had agreed to treat him was part of Valcua’s plot. Hoping to stack the odds against D, he wanted the Hunter and Braujou to fight each other, and if one of them were slain, the grand duke could then deal personally with the one who remained. Though it was a simple plan, it should prove effective against a warrior at heart like Braujou.

What would happen next?

As the players kept their various thoughts and schemes to themselves, the sun rose, then set.

-

III

-

An enormous horse and rider barreled through the darkness like a storm cloud, the man suddenly halting his steed with a masterful handling of the reins. Iron horseshoes scraped against the ground, shooting off sparks. And what a horse it was! Measuring ten feet from the ground to its shoulder, it was a good twenty feet from the base of the neck to the tail.

Astride this steed, a man who needed no introduction growled in a voice like thunder, “D, you son of a bitch, where are you?”

A long spear whistled in his right hand—but the Nobleman’s posture, his voice, and even his handling of the weapon were all clearly lacking compared to how they once had been. Concealed by his cape, his abdomen dripped blood that stained his saddle and dampened the back of his horse.

Count Braujou’s aim was to find D. That alone. While he was the very picture of bravery and frankness, the Nobleman doubted that D, of all people, would have agreed to treat Valcua, but the grand duke’s words had seared themselves into his consciousness and he couldn’t shake them. Not knowing D’s location, it was madness to ride into the middle of his foe’s domain. The Nobleman was that impulsive, and his anger ran that deep.

Three hours had already passed since he’d left his car, galloping on and on. The next thing he knew, his surroundings were lost behind a whiteness that resembled a mist.

“What’s all this? It doesn’t seem to be fog.”

Braujou went on. He’d made up his mind to do so, and no one could stop this Greater Noble.

Suddenly, what looked to be a collapsed building appeared on the other side of the fog. Focusing his night-piercing eyes on it from the saddle, he found that the foglike substance seemed to issue from the depths of the rubble.

“Even the Ultimate Noble’s buildings can come to ruin, can they?” the count couldn’t help but murmur wistfully, and when he turned his gaze to the right, a figure who’d come startlingly close appeared from the mistlike veil that shrouded him.

The face was none other than D’s. At first the count suspected it was someone or something imitating him, but on further consideration he decided only D could possibly possess those looks.

“D, what are you doing here?” he asked, thrusting his long spear forward. He made it seem like nothing short of an interrogation.

The other man didn’t reply. He just stood motionless, looking up at the count as if in a daze.

Feeling something was wrong with that vacant stare, Braujou continued, “I hear you’ve agreed to treat Valcua—is that true?”

Nothing from the other man.

“Since you don’t deny it, I’ll take that as an admission of guilt. But why?”

Not a word.

“As you won’t answer me, I shall have to consider you a traitor and deal with you appropriately. You understand that, don’t you?”

Silence.

A vein in the count’s temple wriggled like a fat worm. He uttered a curse that made his horse rear, and when its front legs touched the ground again, the Nobleman timed a thrust of his spear to coincide with it.

Without time to flee, D was pierced through the chest.

A cry of surprise rang out, but it came from Braujou. His spear had stopped dead, pinned under D’s left arm.

“Shit! Damn you!” Count Braujou cursed.

Hoisting his spear into the air, D and all, the count hauled back fiercely and snapped the shaft forward again.

Smashing into the mound of rubble, D was immediately buried beneath falling stones and chunks of concrete.

“Most disappointing. I’d expected much better from him,” Braujou said, but before he’d finished voicing his disappointment, he was struck by a flying chunk of concrete. He went numb above the shoulder. The size of the piece was partly to blame, but the count was also injured.

Another chunk came. This one he impaled. As D appeared, pushing his way out of the rubble, the count hurled the concrete back at him.

D batted it aside. The five-ton chunk of rubble was sent flying to his left with ease, where it immediately disappeared into the darkness. Off in the distance, a great thud echoed.

Wheeling his steed around, the Nobleman raced toward his opponent. But he wasn’t there.

Both the count and his horse rose in the air. Hurled before he could even cry out, Braujou executed a flip in midair and landed neatly, while to his right the cyborg horse smashed to pieces.

“You bastard—I was right about you!”

Not the least bit bothered by the spearhead he’d extended, D walked toward the count.

With a murderous howl, Braujou made a horizontal swipe of the long spear at the scruff of his adversary’s neck. The incredible force of the impact numbed the Nobleman’s very brain, but his eyes opened wide to find D with his left hand raised to ward off the blow, and now he was charging forward at full speed. A twisted metal fragment gleamed in his right hand. Thrown off balance and unable to do anything, the count cried out as the piece of metal whistled toward his face.

There was a sound of otherworldly beauty. And then the count saw it. He saw a sword blade biting into the metal fragment that had been brought down at him like a dagger.

Instinctively turning his gaze toward his savior, the count exclaimed in astonishment, “D! It seems I had the wrong man.”

Looking at the silvery D even the count had doubted at first, the D in black told him, “I’ve been looking for you. Fighting myself would be rather bizarre. If possible, put on a different face.”

The metal fragment was quickly drawn back.

“Is that . . . me?” the silvery D said in a tone devoid of cadence. “What am I doing here? Who are you?”

“I don’t know,” D replied. “What I do know is that there’s a certain man who has business with you. I need you to come with me.”

“Okay,” the man in silver said without argument, discarding the metal fragment.

D sheathed his sword as well. From up in the saddle, he called over to Count Braujou, “What’ll you do?”

“The only thing I can. Since my horse was smashed, I have no choice but to go with you. But now that we come to it—which one of you Ds agreed to treat Valcua?”

“Let’s go.”

Saying this, D started to lead the way, with the silvery version of himself and Braujou following behind him.

“How long will it take to reach that villain’s castle?” Braujou asked.

“We should get there just past noon tomorrow.”

“What?”

“If you don’t like that, walk faster. You can even run if you like.”

So great were the count’s anger and horror, he didn’t even notice that the Hunter’s final remarks had been in a terribly hoarse voice.

-

Fortunately, there was no need to run. After traveling for about three hours, they ran into Duchess Miranda with the count’s car.

“I told you to wait there,” the vehicle’s owner said, unable to admit he was glad to see it and her.

“Aren’t you less than charming,” Miranda countered.

Sue and Matthew had already fallen into the enemy’s hands, and now the two Nobles and the other two passengers were racing full speed across the plain by night. Was it to rescue the Dyalhis children, or to satisfy their own plans?

The moonlight was pregnant with premonitions of blood.

-

Presently, large buildings unlike anything they’d seen before filled either side of the road. The group didn’t know that at one time, two men had traveled out there and seen those same buildings. Their skeletons now lay by the side of the road. They caught D’s eye from the back of his horse, but he rode past the remains without saying a word.

“At long last. This really gets the blood pumping,” Braujou said to the duchess, who was behind him.

When she didn’t reply, he added, “Doesn’t it?” And then he turned to face her.

“She’s gone,” he mumbled to himself. No one could understand the comings and goings of the elusive beauty.

In no time, enormous steel gates opened to greet D and the car. The road ran through a front yard that seemed to stretch on as endlessly as the plains, eventually leading to the entrance of an oddly shaped castle.

Countless figures were lined up to greet them—women in white gowns and men in black formal wear. When D and Count Braujou dismounted, the greeters bowed in unison and sang out, “For Grand Duke Valcua!” Though they had the outward appearance of human beings, it was plain to see they were actually androids.

“Now that’s what I call a fine reception,” Braujou remarked with a satisfied snort.

Buffered by nearly a hundred men and women, the three guests were ushered into a stunningly opulent hall. Beneath a golden chandelier the size of a small ship there was a sofa, and it was there that Valcua lay.

“Now this is really something,” a hoarse voice from the vicinity of D’s left hand said with admiration. It wasn’t talking about the bejeweled splendor of the room. It was commenting on Valcua’s willingness to appear before would-be assassins in his injured state.

“You seem to be one shy,” was the first thing Valcua said.

“She does have a tendency to wander,” Braujou replied. “By now, she’s probably turned herself into a set of sheets so she can kill you in your sleep.”

Ignoring the count, Valcua asked, “When did you get treatment, D?”

There was no reply.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m quite pleased you found that fellow. Now, would you be so kind as to turn him over to me?”

“Give us the children first.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you don’t wish to, I’ll cut him down here and now,” D said, using his left hand to grab the other young man by the arm.

Rubbing his head, Valcua replied, “This will never do. What if I were to tell you I’ll kill them both if you don’t hand him over?”

“Then you’d die too,” D answered flatly.

With a wry grin, Valcua said, “Good enough. At any rate, I shall let you see they’re unharmed. Bring them!”

Less than five minutes after the grand duke gave this command, Sue entered, surrounded by guardroids. “D!” she cried, and no one tried to stop her from running over to him. The grand duke was being generous in that regard.

“And what of her brother?” Braujou inquired.

“He escaped,” said Valcua.

“What?”

“He was here just a short time ago. The surveillance system shows no trace of an intruder. However, it did record her brother talking to someone who couldn’t be seen.”

“I see,” Braujou groaned in a low voice.

“For the time being, you’ll have to settle for just that one,” Valcua said. “Everything else can wait until my treatment is finished. That’s when your fates, too, shall be decided.”

THE ULTIMATE NOBLE