At the Foot of the White Mountain
At the Foot of the White Mountain
chapter 1
I
Whiteness dominated their entire field of view. Moreover, they were being madly tossed by seemingly impossible turbulence, which had left the aircraft groaning for the last thirty minutes.
“This is bad! If we don’t lose some altitude, she’ll never hold together!” the pilot said, taking the cheap cigarette he’d long since smoked down to the filter and crushing it against the floor before grabbing the yoke again.
Suddenly, the door behind him opened. The pilot clucked his tongue. Leave it to the most worthless guy he knew to show up at absolutely the worst time. Of course, there was no one else riding with them besides the guy in the coffin. The man had just stepped through the doorway when the aircraft lurched wildly to the right. More than the screams of the pest clinging to the door, it was the creaking coming from the aircraft’s panels that concerned the pilot.
“Hold on tight. I’m taking her into a dive!” the pilot shouted without bothering to turn around. He rapidly pushed the yoke farther and farther forward.
“Wh-wh-wh-what the hell is going on?” the pest asked, his teeth chattering.
“Damned if I know,” the pilot replied while desperately working the yoke. Half of his remark was him trying to put a scare into the man, but the other half was serious. It was too late to escape the turbulence, the aircraft’s screams were telling him. “Well, if we’re lucky we’ll pull a crash landing in the mountains, but if we’re out of luck we’ll break apart in midair. Hell, this crate wasn’t built for flying this time of year.”
“And you were paid a good sum on account of that. You’re in no position to complain about it now. You knew that before you took off.”
“Yeah, whatever. You’re right about that, egghead. But us fliers are a superstitious lot. We’re carrying that coffin—and if we go down, I’m blaming it on what’s inside it.”
“That alone will be saved!” the spindly pest—the archaeologist Geeson—shouted angrily. He was so determined, it moved the pilot for a moment. “Any researcher of Nobility on the planet would give their life or soul for a look at what’s inside. I don’t care if we end up smashed to pieces—we’ve got to get it safely to the Capital.”
“In that case, why didn’t you use the highways?” the pilot shot back. He focused his attention on the stark scene outside his windows, but he immediately turned back to the aged archaeologist. He’d felt a weird presence. Some part of the aircraft was groaning horribly—the panels that always worried him.
The face of the gray-haired and gray-bearded archaeologist in his midfifties had become a rictus.
“Why . . .” the man began in a voice like a specter. “Why . . . did you ask?”
“Huh?”
In front of the wide-eyed pilot, the scrawny, crane-like face cocked at an angle.
“Why . . . did you ask . . . such a thing? Oh, I hadn’t given it any thought . . . but now I’m forced . . . to answer . . . what shouldn’t be said.”
The man’s voice was joined by the brief sound of a signal. A radar warning.
The pilot turned his eyes forward again in regret. From the far reaches of that world of white, an even whiter shape was approaching. A mountain.
Given our location, that’d have to be Mount Shilla, wouldn’t it? he thought. Fuck! I’m not doing any damned emergency landing. I’d rather cut my heart out right now than try to survive up on that mountain.
Setting the fuel pumps to their maximum output, he focused his attention on the radar screen.
Altitude: thirty thousand feet—damn it, we’ve dropped too much. Gotta pull it back up soon.
As he shouted at the pest to get out of there, he heard the man cry out, “At first . . . it was my intent . . . to transport it via the Ghost Highway . . . But . . . there wasn’t time for that . . . No, that’s not right . . . Someone . . . ordered me . . . to go by air.”
The yoke wouldn’t move. Part of the problem was mechanical—the other part was that the pilot’s hands were frozen, so unsettled was he by the egghead’s tone.
“Who was it?”
In the distance, he heard a hard, rattling sound. The body of the aircraft told him they were losing altitude with ever-increasing speed, even without him touching the controls.
“Flaps down. Maintain oil pressure. Pulling her nose up.”
His words overlapped with another hard clank.
“The chains . . . are off,” the archaeologist said behind him, his hoarse voice trembling.
“So, what am I supposed to do about it? Damn it, grab hold of something! You’ll get tossed in the air!”
Bam! A terrific change in air pressure hit them head-on. The diving aircraft started leveling out.
“This can’t be . . . How could the chains come off?” the archaeologist said in a crumpled little tone. The sudden g-forces he’d experienced had left his body sore. Yet his voice carried a different fear.
In the pilot’s field of view, the fuel gauge lit up.
“Shit, it’s at zero. Did we have a leak? We had plenty of fuel a minute ago! We’re in trouble. Okay,” he told the archaeologist, “we’re making an emergency landing. Get back there and buckle into your seat!”
“I don’t want to!” the archaeologist shouted. “The chains have been cut. He’s awakened! Oh, I wish I’d never discovered those ruins. I positively refuse to go back there!”
“You idiot—in that case, hold on tight. Secure yourself to something. We’re going in nose first!” the pilot shouted, and then he felt his whole body freeze.
There was no reply.
He turned around.
The archaeologist’s back was just disappearing through the doorway.
“Where are you going?” he shouted after turning forward again.
“I’m going back.”
“What?” the pilot said, his ears barely catching the words. “Huh? What’s that? You’re being called? Hey, pull yourself—”
He didn’t have time enough for the final “together.” His field of vision had been filled with white. The side of the mountain! The instant the pilot realized what he was seeing, his body was jolted by a terrific impact.
–
“—And that’s why you’re here. We had radio communication from the pilot who crashed into Mount Shilla four days ago—just once, at the time of the crash, and then we lost contact. He’s probably dead by now.”
A man with a spectacular beard that came down into two points opened a desk drawer and pulled out a white cloth sack.
“Here’s thirty thousand dalas. Half is from us in the village of Mungs; the other half was fronted by them.”
The Hunter’s dark eyes shifted, capturing an old man in a suit and bow tie seated beside the man with the forked beard. The old man’s expression quickly melted into one of rapture—he’d essentially been out of his mind since looking into those dark eyes. About a half hour earlier, he’d introduced himself to the young man in black before him as Federico Marquis, director of the Frontier Ruins Excavation Department of the Noble Research Foundation, which was headquartered in the Capital.
“It’s a sizable expenditure for an impoverished foundation like our own, but the item that aircraft was carrying is irreplaceable. We ask that you somehow bring it back in one piece.”
“Let’s hear what this item is,” said the owner of those dark eyes—a young man in a long, black coat—speaking at last. Aside from giving his name at the beginning, it was the only thing he’d said.
“I must request that you refrain from asking that. It’s of the utmost secrecy. I’m unable to divulge that information to anyone.”
The figure in the black coat stood up. He intended to leave. Yet the way it looked like he was coming at them instead had to have something to do with his Noble blood. And in a strange way, both men unconsciously welcomed his approach.
“Please, wait,” Marquis called out to him. “I beg of you. Can’t you just do it without knowing?”
Though there was no wind, the hem of the Hunter’s coat flared out.
“Oh, very well—I’ll tell you!”
Still the young man in black continued to walk away.
The voice pursued him, saying, “The aircraft’s cargo was—”
A different voice shot him down. “That’ll do.”
It was unclear what the young man in black made of the girl who stood in the doorway. The other two saw a girl in her teens dressed in a stunning poncho embroidered with silver and gold threads. She wore gold boots that came up a foot past her knees, and a knife was tucked neatly into one of them. Her gracefully curved longsword adorned her back, just as the black-clad man’s did. The blue eyes set in what could be described as a beautiful and pure visage spoke volumes about the girl’s true nature. So deep, so hard, so thoroughly nihilistic—she could only be a Hunter.
In a low but definitely female voice she spelled it out, saying, “Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m Lilia. I’m a Hunter.”
Her boots clacked loudly as she walked past the young man in black to stand in front of the desk.
“You’re the mayor and the archaeologist, I take it. Well, you’d be better off hiring me instead of some guy who’s going to sweat every little detail.”
Displeased, the mayor said, “I don’t know what sort of Hunter you are, but we’ve entrusted this matter entirely to that man right there. We were just about to enter formal negotiations. You’d better leave.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said, though her radiant expression didn’t change in the least. In fact, her blue eyes were ablaze with defiance as she continued, “Tell me, Mr. Mayor—what’s the difference between him and me? Sex? Looks? Name? Achievements? Reputation?”
“It’s ability.” The reply came not from the mayor, but from Marquis.
“Really?” An innocent smile spread across the face of the girl, Lilia.
The blood drained from the faces of both the mayor and the archaeologist. They didn’t know why.
“In that case, why don’t we do a little comparison? If it doesn’t work out, I’ll throw in the towel, no problem. How does that strike you?”
Her rosy lips allowed a faint gasp to escape. The figure in black was just going out the door.
“Hey, wait a second—you can’t go now. If I don’t beat you, they’ll never hire me. Wait!”
The mayor and the director saw the girl’s right hand reaching over her shoulder for the longsword. A blue streak split the glow of the gaslight in the mayor’s office. A cry of agony rang out.
II
The mayor and the director craned their necks, looking upward. A heartbeat after that cry, there was a terrific thud at the pair’s feet as an enormous ocher insect landed. The creature’s segmented body resembled a caterpillar’s, but of its six bristle-covered legs, the two nearest its head were shaped like human hands, and each of them clutched something resembling a nearly three-foot-long sword. A pair of weapons were now lodged in the abdomen of the six-and-a-half-foot creature. One of them, a rough wooden needle, came from D. If the other one, an eight-inch-long throwing dart, was one of Lilia’s weapons, she must’ve hurled it with the same speed as D. And judging from the way the weapons formed a V at the single point where their tips met—right in the creature’s heart, most likely—she was just as accurate as D, too.
The mayor and the scholar both let out a scream. Without a second to spare, the two Hunters raised their hands, and the bizarre bugs that fell one after another from the ceiling began twitching in their death throes.
The mayor was left speechless, but in his stead the gray-haired scholar said, “Those look just like the western Frontier’s—”
“That’s right. They’re gladiator bugs,” Lilia replied. “Recent weather anomalies and frequent geological shifts have caused changes in the home ranges of some creatures. This must be one of them. Usually they make their nests up in attics, so we’ll have to watch out.”
As she enthusiastically explained the situation, two more of the insects flew down right in front of her. These came down differently. They weren’t wounded. Standing erect on their lowest pair of legs, they pointed the swords they held in their hands at the two Hunters.
Gladiator bugs—as the name suggested, these insects used real swords. Needless to say, they weren’t a product of the natural world. Nobles in the western Frontier had created them for their own amusement, monsters born in their laboratories to do battle with human slaves. After the fall of the Nobles’ civilization, most of them were exterminated, but it was said the less than ten percent that escaped into the Frontier gave rise to the hundreds of thousands that now lived there. As specialists in combat, the Nobles had input formidable swordsmanship skill into the bugs’ brains.
Slashing down from a high position, the blades locked together, and Lilia’s expression became one of mild surprise. One of the swords made a horizontal slash at her abdomen. As Lilia leapt back, about four inches of her coat were torn open.
“Not too shabby,” she said, her voice faltering.
The body of the insect that lunged at her from an angle to her right then pitched forward wildly. A heartbeat later her blade slipped into the crease beneath its head, removing that segment neatly from the insect’s body.
Quickly shifting her eyes from the twitching bug to D behind her, Lilia pursed her lips in apparent dismay, saying, “What’s this?”
D was just sheathing his blade. At his feet lay an insect that’d been quartered by horizontal and vertical slashes.
“Quicker than me? You’re good, stud,” Lilia said, jabbing D’s shoulder with the longsword she held. “Sorry, but I need you to draw again. We need more than bugs to settle this once and for all.”
“Perhaps this little business has changed his mind. Why don’t we negotiate?”
D turned his back to them and headed for the door.
“Just a—” Lilia caught herself. Once D had left and the door had closed, she said to no one in particular, “Great. I picked a fight with him when I shouldn’t have, and now I regret it. He cut that bug down without moving an inch from where he started.”
–
“Um, excuse me!”
Hearing the voice of the woman chasing them, the hoarse voice from the vicinity of D’s left hip remarked, “It’s her. What are you gonna do?”
“Just let it be.”
“But she sounds all fired up. I don’t think she’ll just let it be. Hell, she’d follow you into the men’s room!”
Ultimately, Lilia caught up to the Hunter where he had his cyborg horse tethered to a hitching post.
“I told you to wait, didn’t I? Didn’t you hear me—partner?”
“Partner?”
The reply caused Lilia’s eyes to go wide with a look of uncertainty. She’d heard two voices. One from D, up in the saddle, and one from his left hand gripping the reins—a hoarse one.
“That’s right. Right after you left, the mayor hired you and me both! Probably had something to do with the way we hacked apart those gladiator bugs, naturally.”
“Unfortunately, I haven’t hired on with anybody.”
Cracking the reins against the cyborg horse’s neck, D started forward on his steed.
As she looked back and forth between where she’d left her own horse and the young man riding away, Lilia said, “Let’s do this. Let’s work together. The mayor told me to get you to stay. That was his first job for me.”
“You’ll get a smaller cut,” the hoarse voice said.
“That’s not a problem. They agreed to thirty thousand dalas each, and not a dala more. But they said if it was just me, the chances of success would decrease, so it’d only be twenty thousand dalas. That’s why I can’t have you running off anywhere else!”
As Lilia walked alongside the cyborg horse, she seemed to have run out of things to 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 front of the bat-wing doors. As Lilia furrowed her brow, another one tottered through the doors and took his place at the top of the pile before her very eyes.
“What is this?”
She was sure something was wrong. Swiftly dismounting, she went over to the man who’d just collapsed, and then she heard laughter from inside the saloon. It was hoarse.
“It’s him!” she said.
Spinning on her toe, Lilia pushed her way through the swinging doors. Though she’d smelled it from outside the saloon, the fierce stink of alcohol now assailed her nose. That alone would’ve been enough to leave a child with alcohol poisoning. The saloon could hold perhaps thirty people total. But it looked as if twice that number were crowded in front of the tiny counter.
Nudging some of the farmers who lay strewn across the floor with the tip of her boot, she said, “What’s with these guys?” Kicking one of them in the side to roll him over, Lilia grabbed four of the villagers who were crowded around the counter by the scruff of the neck, jerking them out of the way before pressing forward.
“Okay, pretty boy, now it’s time for you to throw down with yours truly!” said a giant of a man seated on one of the center stools, his right hand lifting a whiskey glass.
The figure to his left said, “You country bumpkins and your big talk!” The caustic remark came from a hoarse-voiced D. “You think because you’re one of the hardest-drinking fellas in the godforsaken sticks of the Frontier you can beat me? Dream on!”
His left hand indicated the men on the floor. The motion was jerky, as if somewhat forced.
The giant was easily angered. “Now you’ve gone and said it! Hey, Bob! This glass takes too damned long. Bring us some beer mugs!”
A cheer went up. The villagers must’ve been expecting big things from their local hero.
The mugs were set up in front of them. They were filled to the brim with salsa booze—a kind of alcohol that was said to be ten times as potent as absinthe. Both raised their mugs. The rule was that they’d drain them simultaneously.
“Well, prost!”
The man’s mug tilted, and its contents swiftly began to disappear. The giant’s Adam’s apple bobbed frantically. “Whew!” he roared, and he was just about to set his mug down when a din erupted, more gasps than cheers. D had already set his empty mug down.
“Pretty boy here—” The giant stopped, somewhat tongue-tied. “Hey, let’s have another round, Bob!”
“Sorry, Baska, we’re all out.”
“Whaaaat?”
“Think about it: We’ve emptied five kegs in twenty minutes’ time. But what worries me more than how I’m gonna open for business tomorrow is these guys lying all over the place.”
“Okay,” the giant said, clambering off the stool. Raising both hands and taking a boxing stance, he said, “We’ll settle it with these, pretty boy. A man’s gotta prove himself with his fists, not his cups.”
III
“Sure,” the hoarse voice replied magnanimously. And then it hiccupped.
“Are you drunk? Your face is paler than a damned moon gourd. The god of alcohol can’t help you now. I’ll send you to the ground with just one shot to the gut. Anyway, your voice don’t match your face at all, mister.”
“True enough.”
“Oh, he speaks!”
The giant’s eyes went wide, but he rolled up his sleeves. The pose he took looked like something he’d taught himself.
“What’s with that goofy fighting stance? You really are a bumpkin, aren’t you—ouuuuf!”
D’s left hand squeezed into a fist, crushing out the insult, but that didn’t stem the giant’s anger. Hauling back with his right hand, he bellowed, “You son of a bitch!”
His fist arced out, plowing through the air.
“Huh?” he cried in astonishment after the punch that should’ve caught D right in the ear met only empty space. He was about to spin completely around, but he stopped himself halfway and returned to his stance. That was actually rather remarkable—his whole body was like a spring. And then the man let out another cry of surprise. By the time he’d resumed his stance, D was standing right in front of him. Dark eyes of impossible depth reflected the giant’s ruddy face. Their depth probably frightened the man.
Usually, the giant would get in a few shots in rapid succession while drawing his opponent in for a hook and then a body blow—but he forgot all about his winning combination and just took a swing. Still, the man couldn’t find a hole in his opponent’s defenses, which would’ve been easy if he’d been up against an ordinary human.
A hard slap reverberated. The man’s fist had stopped in midair. D’s left hand was wrapped around it.
Cries of surprise rang out in the room. They only whipped the giant into a frenzy. Letting out an unintelligible cry, he struck to the left. Before his blow could connect, the giant was sailing through the air. Easily flying over the heads of the oohing patrons, he landed at the other end of the room, right in front of a door that led to the back. The saloon quaked.
“Not bad at all,” Lilia said, her eyes agleam. “Slammed him headfirst, eh? He won’t be—” Her amused tone broke off there. “Apparently he will be okay after that.”
Rubbing a neck as thick as a log, the giant used his other hand to lift his upper body from the floor. The way D had thrown him, it wouldn’t have been surprising if his neck had been broken. He was like toughness in a pair of pants. Giving just one shake of his head, the giant used his hand to easily lift himself from the floor. And the bumpkin wasn’t even shaking when he resumed his stance.
“Caught me off-guard. Shouldn’t underestimate you just ’cause you’re a pretty boy. Okay, time for the real deal.” His drunkenness must’ve left him completely, because his face had a look of what some might term integrity as it twitched with murderous intent.
“Oh, he means business,” Lilia said, a daring smile skimming across her lips. She was starting to enjoy this.
The floor creaked. The giant had gone into motion. His unbelievably light footwork put looks of amazement into the eyes of the villagers that testified they’d never seen it before. He’d never had a need to show anyone until now.
“Have at you!”
Leaving only his words behind him, the giant glided to the right.
Lilia’s eyes bulged in their sockets. The deadly battle resumed. And this time, it was for real. It wouldn’t stop until blood had been spilled.
Just then, from the door to the back room a voice called out, “That’ll be all for now, Baska. We’ve got an urgent patient!”
It was a cultured female voice. Everyone turned to look, and the giant—Baska—grimaced with regret.
Standing in the doorway was a middle-aged woman in a long white coat. The face framed by her graying hair was surprisingly youthful and brimming with rationality. A decade earlier, she wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere without turning the head of every man.
“Mr. Shova’s boy has a stomachache. The symptoms sound like appendicitis. Go get the wagon ready.”
She sounded like a boss giving orders to an employee.
Baska turned and said, “Hey, Doc, hate to tell you this, but I ain’t your freaking slave. No need to be talking to me like that in front of all these folks.”
“And you can make all the bones you like about that after you’ve paid me back that five thousand dalas. Just how is it that a man whose gambling drove off his wife and kids, a man who had mobsters going after him for the money he borrowed, is living safe and sound now?”
That one icy blow showed just how sharp she was.
Quaking from head to toe, Baska fell silent. He was like an active volcano given human form. His anger bubbled like lava.
“Sooner or later, he’s going to explode,” Lilia said, shrugging her shoulders.
“Hurry up!” the woman he’d called “Doc” ordered, walking out into the room. The villagers in front of her cleared a path.
Clucking his tongue, the indignant Baska left.
Right in front of the doctor was the dwindling back of a figure in black. As D walked toward the bat-wing doors, the doctor called out to him, “Just a moment, please.” Realizing he wasn’t going to stop, she increased the length of her strides and went after him. “Won’t you hear me out? I’m Vera. I’m the village doctor,” she told him. “You have such good looks—could it be you’re the man they call D?”
D pushed against the doors. A heavily wrinkled hand grabbed his shoulder.
“If you are, listen to what I have to say. I was hired by the Sacred Ancestor to do a certain job.”
D turned around fluidly.
Vera was frozen—partly due to astonishment at his speed, but the rapture on her face said the real reason was something else. D was right there in front of her.
“What was it?” the dashing figure in black inquired. That alone seemed like it would suffice to make even the most tight-lipped person tell all. And no one would’ve blamed them. The young man was that gorgeous.
“What was . . .” Vera began, repeating him as if suffering from some sort of dementia.
At that point, they heard someone say, “Don’t tell him.”
A split second after D stepped to one side, the swinging doors opened. It was one of the men the Hunter had met with in the mayor’s office—Director Marquis.
“What are you . . .” Vera began, the bewilderment showing in every inch of her as she gazed at the face of the tall, thin old man.
“You mustn’t tell him. I came out here looking to somehow keep him from leaving, and now I’ve found my ace in the hole. D, if you want to hear what the doctor has to say, I need you to agree to go up the mountain.”
Now it was Dr. Vera who was at her wits’ end.
“No matter how handsome you may be, that won’t work on Vera. It may be three years since I last saw her, but that doesn’t change the fact she’s my daughter,” the old man said boastfully, but then a hint of anxiety suddenly crept into his expression. It spread across his entire face in the blink of an eye.
Taking his eyes off his daughter, the director looked at D. He then hurriedly tried to look away—but it was too late. In a heartbeat, both father and daughter were captives of his beauty.
“What was it?” D asked once more.
“It was . . .” Vera began.
Something whistled through the air. It looked as if it went in through one of D’s temples, out the other, then ripped right through the bat-wing doors.
“Don’t tell him!” Lilia cried, her left hand still poised from throwing the dart as her right hand reached for the sword on her back. “If he won’t agree to go into the mountains, that leaves me in a bind. Because I was hired on condition of getting him to go along with me. So, that being the case, I’m in your corner.”
“That’s how it is, then,” Director Marquis said, shaking his head. It was like waking from a dream. Or from a nightmare of unearthly beauty. “How about it, D? We don’t have to stand around here jabbering. Would you care to discuss this in the private room in the back? Lilia and Vera, you two come along, too.”
“Sorry, but I have an urgent patient to tend to,” said Vera.
“It’ll have to wait. This is the top priority. You can’t be a widow playing country doctor for the rest of your life. I’ll bring you back to the Capital with me.”
“Another ace in the hole.” The doctor shrugged her shoulders. Lowering her voice, she continued, “I’m sick and tired of living out in the sticks, tending to a bunch of filthy farmers. Take me with you. But not right now.” Glancing at the bat-wing doors, she said, “Baska’s back. See you later, Dad.”
And with that she left, shaking her head from side to side.
The old archaeologist kept his eyes diverted from the Hunter as he asked, “Okay, D—what’s it going to be?” Though he spoke rather triumphantly, he couldn’t imagine what the future would hold.
