Captive

Captive

chapter 1

I

D fell feet first. To be precise, he did a half flip in midair. The moment he landed, he should’ve bounded to a new location, but instead he fell to one knee. Gilzen’s rib sword had punctured his internal organs.

A shadow drifted on the floor behind him like a stain. Though lacking physical form, it was actually a two-dimensional being.

“Stop!” The call for restraint rained down from the summit of that enormous dais. “You’re not to lay a hand on that man. Back!”

The shadow halted. It remained where it was, unwilling to relent.

Gilzen’s voice grew even louder, carrying hints of coercion and intimidation as he shouted, “Kindly back away—Mother.”

The shadow finally backed off. With intense speed it fled in the same direction it’d come.

“I suppose there’s no point in hiding it any longer. D, that was actually my mother.”

D got up. Not even turning to look, he bent his knees slightly. He was preparing to pounce. The young man hadn’t yet lost his will to fight.

“I am no longer in the room.”

D caught the position from which the words fell, high in the air above the dais. There were grave indications of something opening behind him. The door.

“Exit that way, and you’ll find Jeanne. She’s to be your personal attendant. She’s only a poor imitation, but she has delectable blood!”

A stark flash flew in the direction of the voice: a rough wooden needle.

There was no response, and soon after Gilzen’s voice faded, D walked off toward the door. Apparently the wounds from the ribs had already healed. His gait was the same as always. After he was through, the door closed behind him. Still sensing it behind him, D looked at the young woman before him. It looked as though she hadn’t moved an inch since parting company with the Hunter.

“I’m surprised you’re still well,” Jeanne murmured, as if the words were a pious litany.

“Where is Gilzen?” That was D’s only question.

“That I don’t know,” the young woman replied, her words like a groan in the unearthly air that froze her.

D’s body swayed, and he put more strength than necessary into his legs to support himself.

“Looks like his poison’s making its way through you, eh?”

Jeanne’s surprise freed her from the bonds of the Hunter’s supernatural aura. No doubt she had to wonder how such a horrible, hoarse voice could come from a gorgeous young man like him.

“It’s an ancient kind of poison, one unknown even to me. Hey, girlie, give us—I mean, give me some help here.”

“I have been instructed to do so,” Jeanne replied, nodding respectfully. Coming up by D’s side, she extended a hand to take hold of his arm.

“Don’t touch me—let’s go,” the young man commanded in a beautiful voice that suited his ghastly appearance.

–

“This is a hell of a place to be locked up. Let me out! Let me out of here! Let me out, I say!” the outlaw shouted, but there was no response from the corridor beyond the iron bars or from any of the other cells.

There was some light, which was a relief, but there was no sign of anyone anywhere. The stone corridor and iron bars kept silent, invested with a stillness from days of antiquity. Who could’ve imagined that this structure had just been completed?

After thirty minutes of hollering and bar shaking, Crey finally gave in. No matter how he protested, there weren’t any guards around to do anything about it.

“This is like boxing with the drapes,” he murmured, paraphrasing a proverb he’d learned while wandering in a distant island nation. “This isn’t good, no sir.”

His spirits were wilting. He couldn’t even guess how he’d been brought here. They’d been camped out in the snow when the giant, the kid, and the doctor had suddenly vanished. While he was stunned, there’d been a tap on his shoulder—that was as far as he could recall. The next thing he knew, he was here. His clothes were just how they’d been, but the mountain-climbing gear was gone. As was his knife, of course. He’d been abducted, and there hadn’t been a thing he could do to stop it. That fact drained the wanted man to his very core. His energy would return sooner or later. If it didn’t, he couldn’t live. But it would take time. At the moment, his spirits were at rock bottom.

Just as he sat down cross-legged on the stone floor, to his left he heard a voice he recognized say, “Mr. Crey?”

“Squirt—so, you’re okay?” It seemed that Lourié was locked in the neighboring cell. “I’ve been shouting for a while. Didn’t you hear me?”

“I just woke up. In my dream there was this dog barking, but was that you, Mr. Crey?”

“Shut up, you little dope. Forget that—can you tell me how you got here?”

“You went outside, sir, and then Mr. Dust came over. A voice from outside spoke to us. And when we opened the door, I suddenly got all dizzy—the next thing I knew, I was here.”

“Were you tapped on the shoulder?”

“No. How about you, Mr. Crey?”

“It was Gilzen or someone, I guess. Weird thing to do. But that’s fine by me. Later on, I’ll get my payback. What about the other two?”

“They’re somewhere else,” another voice suddenly said.

Crey got the impression he heard the rustle of fabric against the ground. Pressing his face against the bars, he looked down the corridor to his right—in the direction the voice had come from.

Along came a ghostly, pale figure.

“Miss Lilia?”

It was Lourié that called out to her first. Crey was so angry, it took him longer to speak.

“You lousy . . .” He didn’t finish the rest. In its place was the sound of teeth grinding.

Without the sound of a single footfall, the lovely Huntress came to stand before Crey. Crey fell silent. Not out of anger—in a rare turn of events, his spirit had been undermined by sympathy for another and despair.

Lilia’s face was pale, her lips floating like a solitary island of crimson, and from between them what should protrude but the points of a pair of fangs.

“You . . . got bit by a Noble . . . ?”

As the outlaw murmured stupidly, the Huntress before him twisted her lips into a grin. Stark fangs jutted from her gums. Lilia brought her right hand up to her neck. There was a white scarf wrapped around it.

“She hasn’t changed completely!” Lourié cried out with joy.

Lilia hadn’t been wearing a scarf back in the village or in the refuge. The reason for this change of dress was simple—she didn’t want anyone to see the wound beneath it. The teeth marks from where a Noble had bitten her. She unconsciously touched the wound—something only victims still in the process of change did.

“It’s okay. If we slay the one who bit you, you’ll go back to normal. Just hold on until then!”

Lilia pressed one hand over her mouth. She turned toward the boy. For all their cruelty, her eyes also held an odd spark of peace.

“Thanks, kid. But it’s okay. You see, I’m satisfied.”

“You can’t say that. You have to overcome the temptation of the Noble blood. Control yourself—and fight!”

“You’re such a sweet child.” Lilia grinned. It was a human smile.

Suddenly her face jerked up. Her expression changed. The smile vanishing, she said, “They’ve caught you at last. So much for resisting!”

“Caught who?” Crey asked, rattling the bars. “The doctor and Dust must’ve ended up like us a long time ago. Which would leave—D?”

“Captured—him . . .”

Crey had never heard Lourié sound so hopeless before.

“Give up. To that one, it would be child’s play to catch God in heaven above. They should’ve done away with him ten thousand years ago.”

“‘That one’ ? Who’s that? Gilzen? What’s he intend to do with us?”

“Are you curious?”

“Of course.”

“The one thing Nobles always crave is hot blood.”

Lourié had the wind knocked out of him.

“So that’s what you gave him? Then he’ll just have to settle for what he got outta you.”

It didn’t look like she was walking at all, but Lilia now stood right in front of Crey’s bars. Her face neared his. The two of them glared at each other. Crey’s entire countenance was suffused with vermilion, and a faint smile came to Lilia’s lips. Connecting the faces of the two was a current of hatred as hot as fire.

“You don’t even know your own world. Poor, pathetic human—if only you were like me. Then you’d see what incredible creatures the Nobility are.”

“I don’t give a damn about that crap,” Crey spat, baring his teeth. “As far as we’re concerned, Nobles are just monsters, drinking human blood and making ’em into more of the same. They can’t enjoy the light of the sun; all they can do is skulk around in the darkness all the time. Let’s get this straight: the dead ain’t supposed to come back again. That’s the way of the world.”

“Why shouldn’t they come back?” Lilia inquired.

Crey bugged his eyes. “Are you some kind of idiot or something? Think about all the dead coming back to life, one after another. What could be creepier than that? This world belongs to the human race.”

“Wouldn’t people be happy to have dead family members come back to them?”

“Sure, they’d be happy. But if that means popping fangs all of a sudden and trying to sink ’em into my throat, then no thank you! They’d have to be sent to the next world all over again.”

“You just don’t see, do you?” Lilia said, her eyes giving off a red glow. “Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about when you don’t understand the joy and possibilities of this other world, this other way of life. Fine. I’ll kill you myself. I’ll be damned if I’ll let you find out what this joy is like.”

Letting her breath whistle out, Lilia bared her teeth. Or rather, her fangs. Even Crey pulled back in spite of himself.

At that point Lilia seemed to sense something, because she stepped away from the bars, flicked her gaze down to the opposite end of the corridor, and turned and ran off as if the two of them weren’t even there.

“Why did she—the lousy traitor,” Crey spat, and on noticing that he was wiping sweat from his brow he clicked his tongue in disappointment and lowered his hand again.

“Mr. Crey,” Lourié called out.

Noticing the fright the boy’s voice carried, Crey went over to the side of his cell.

“Someone’s coming.”

“I know—the sound of fabric rustling, right?”

“I don’t know.”

From where Lourié was, he couldn’t see anything.

“Well, I know. But I don’t know just who it could be. Most likely a woman, and a real important one, at that. Squirt, get into the corner of your cell and curl up in a ball. Don’t look at ’em.”

“No. I have to get a good look too . . .” His voice quavered.

That’s a hell of a kid, Crey thought to himself.

Now the distinct sound of fabric swishing against the floor reached the captives’ ears. The sound stopped right between the two cells. So tense they felt like their hearts were clotting solid, the two of them looked at the woman.

II

The room that’d been prepared for D was as sumptuous as that of any palace. The ceiling, walls, and floor—none of them made use of rough stone and mortar. All were fashioned of marble and glittered with gold and jewels.

“There’s no antidote for the poison the duke uses. You can only rely on your own constitution. Still, it’s incredible. You won’t even lie down.”

D had taken a seat on the sofa, and he didn’t even put the cool, wet towel Jeanne offered him against his forehead.

“Your body will seem like it’s burning, yet it’s still freezing cold. Severe pain should be racking your muscles and bones without a moment’s respite. No matter how tough the person, most die instantly, and no one’s lasted two days.”

The lovely young lady must’ve seen quite a few deaths.

“Don’t worry about me. Once I’m better, I’ll slay Gilzen. Go back and tell him that. If I don’t get better, then that’s the end of it.”

“I was ordered to see to your needs. I can’t do that.”

“That clown’s gotta have a mess of spies besides you.”

Jeanne turned her blue eyes toward the source of the hoarse voice, which was like that of an entirely different person. It seemed to be coming from the Hunter’s left hand.

“Look, those paintings and sculptures are all alive. Go on, tell me I’m wrong.”

The hoarse challenge was followed by a different voice, this one like iron: “Vigesh’s Portrait of the Glutton, Sandberg’s sculpture Eurydice Trapped in the Underworld—they’re priceless, aren’t they?”

Jeanne stared at D in astonishment. “You’re quite knowledgeable, aren’t you? Both artists worked exclusively for the duke, creating artwork for this castle. Very few people even know their names.” Jeanne closed her eyes, there was a pause, and then without cadence she began to list those people out of the past: “The duke, his mother, myself, the chamberlain, and—”

“—the Sacred Ancestor, right?” said the hoarse voice.

Jeanne nodded, then got a stunned look on her face. “How do you know that name? Who in the world . . . ?”

“Haven’t you heard? You might be pretty, but you’re a rank amateur.”

Perplexity stained Jeanne’s face as she stared at D’s left hand.

Making a fist, D said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Not quite knowing what she wasn’t supposed to worry about, Jeanne nodded.

“I’m going to get a little sleep,” D said.

Jeanne got a dangerous gleam in her eye. “I’ll stay here with you,” she said.

“That dagger up your sleeve—go ahead and use it if you like,” said the hoarse voice.

Every ounce of blood in Jeanne’s body froze. No matter how he might appear on the surface, the Hunter should’ve been feverishly hot on the surface and freezing cold inside—and even mired in those twin hells, the young man had seen into her heart of hearts.

“But . . . how did you . . .”

Jeanne’s query was tinged with fright. She knew at a glance that the gorgeous young man before her was no ordinary assassin. However, she hadn’t known there was this much to him.

“You’ve had a blood lust wafting from you from the very start,” D said in a low voice. “When there’s some hesitation you can hide it, but a true will to kill always leaks out.”

D already had his eyes closed.

Jeanne ran. With incredible speed the woman advanced about six feet, then leapt. In midair she flipped a hundred and eighty degrees, intending to dodge a counterattack by D. She didn’t hurl her dagger, but rather came drifting down like a flower.

D’s left hand went straight up. Before Jeanne’s eyes could go wide at the tiny mouth in its palm that snapped open, her weapon’s tip—fine as a ray of light—was caught tight between those little teeth. The Hunter’s left hand swung to the right with the grace of a dancer, and Jeanne was thrown in an arc, her shoulder striking the floor. Based on her skill in making that leap, she should’ve been able to land on her feet, but her shock and despair brought about a different conclusion.

Using her other arm to prop her body up, she lifted her head, only to have something jab into the floor right under her nose: the dagger that D’s left hand had spat out.

“For reasons you can imagine, I can’t die just yet. Once I’ve gotten rid of Gilzen, I’ll take you on.”

Jeanne grasped the dagger. Though despair riddled every inch of her, she still burned with the will to fight.

“I won’t allow you to attack the duke. Even if it costs me my life . . .”

“Your poor imitation of life?”

That one remark from the hoarse voice made the young woman stop. “What . . . How do you know about that?”

“From Gilzen, who else?” the hoarse voice replied.

Jeanne lifted her upper body, moving as if she’d been mortally wounded. Her shoulders were quaking.

“You can’t kill me or heal me like that,” D said. “Go.”

“No,” she responded in a barely audible tone. Golden hair swayed to either side of her face like seaweed beneath the waves. The young woman didn’t realize what a miracle it was that she’d leveled a weapon at D and yet lived. “Hurry up and get your rest. I’ll kill you later for sure.” She chewed the words over, as if saying them for her own benefit, but D was no longer listening.

Two people were in that vast room weighted heavily with the eddying emotion of a life gambled away. One of them was at the center of that vortex, plagued by it, while the other remained coolly indifferent to the whole matter.

–

Down a stone passageway colored by a dim blue light walked the young woman in her armor. The purple cape flaring out behind her manifested the intensity of her resolve, yet for all that, her footsteps didn’t make a sound. She stopped in front of one in an endless row of cells, and her eyes snapped wide open. The cell was empty. And there was no sign of the boy who should’ve been imprisoned in the one to its left.

“Who did this?” the young woman groaned, investigating the door set in the bars. It was still locked. These doors locked and unlocked in the usual fashion. “They went to the trouble of relocking the door?”

The young woman looked up. There would be a surveillance camera somewhere.

“Play back,” she ordered.

A ten-foot-wide screen of light came into being in the middle of the corridor. It showed an overhead view of the prison.

“Display only these two cells. Just the part where the intruder is present.”

As she said that, the light faded.

“Nothing was recorded?”

The young woman was rooted in place.

There was no malfunction in the computer that controlled the camera. If there had been, the master computer would’ve instantly put a new camera into operation. The intruder had ordered the master computer to erase all data about their activities.

“Did you hear that? The only one who could do something like that . . .”

The young woman’s lovely visage was twisted by a terrible hatred. Hate changes people—Jeanne was the perfect proof of that.

Jeanne halted before the same great door that a young man of unearthly beauty had entered, then exited, a few hours earlier.

“My good duke, it is I, Jeanne.”

After the span of about two breaths, an enormous, solemn voice rang out beyond the door. “What do you want? I believe I ordered you to serve as D’s personal attendant.”

“A boy and a man have escaped from the special G III level cells.”

“What of it? You come to pester me with this? For those humans, this whole castle is hell itself! The fools. They’ll learn they would’ve been far happier staying in their cells and waiting for their blood to be sucked from them. Such is not worthy of notifying me.”

“They were liberated by someone from the castle.”

“Oh, yes?” Although he must’ve been surprised, his tone was lethargic. Perhaps that was what became of those who’d been cut off from all worldly connections for so long. “By whom?”

“A personage who could free prisoners from the finest-quality cells, without unlocking the doors, and command the security camera and master computer to delete their image.”

Gilzen’s voice fell silent. The fact that Jeanne referred to “a personage” meant she probably had a good idea who it was.

“I see. Return to your duties.”

“What do you intend to do?”

At that instant, her chest plate was rent diagonally and her body enveloped by pale electromagnetic waves that threw her fifteen feet before slamming her into the floor. She slid another fifteen feet across the floor before coming to a halt. Just as she was about to get up, a mass of fresh blood dropped on her from above.

“That blood won’t come off. Not until you’re dead, that is. That’s your punishment for letting a minor incident drive you to such idiocy.”

Jeanne raised her gore-spattered face. Due to the way she’d fallen, only the left half of her face was stained with vermilion.

“As you command,” she said with a bow once she’d gotten to her feet again.

“Next time, I’ll cut off your breast on that same side,” the distressed-sounding voice informed her. “What’s more, I’ll pull out all your teeth, so you’ll look like a five-hundred-year-old hag. Though that would still be far younger than you really are. Do not bother me with your insipid blathering again.”

As soon as Jeanne had left, a voice just in front of the door said, “This is Budges.” It was the formless being.

“Keep an eye on Jeanne,” the grave voice ordered him.

“Yes, milord.”

Perhaps the orders of the being beyond the door were ironclad, because Budges didn’t ask why he should be spying on an ally.

“Brought back to life after ten millennia, and before I even have time to enjoy it the same concerns from ten thousand years ago begin to gnaw at me again. She has orders to see to D’s needs, but if she does anything disquieting—dispose of her.”

“Yes, milord. Women are truly bothersome.”

“True enough.”

“Pardon my abruptness, but may I speak?” This was how questions were usually broached.

“Very well.”

“Before Jeanne or anything else, there’s a man who should be disposed of first.”

“I know.”

“He is more powerful than any foe we fought ten millennia ago.”

“Are you too trying to say that I, Gilzen, might taste defeat?”

“No, it’s just, that man—there’s something fundamentally different about him. Different from humans and from us. I don’t know what it is, but if ignored, he is sure to become a fearsome opponent. Dispose of him as soon as possible.”

Lightning raced through the air, and an earsplitting cry of agony rang out.

“Gilzen needs no instructions from you. All of you need merely do as I say. And refrain from doing what I tell you not to.”

“Yes, milord,” Budges replied, the pain still raw in his voice.

III

Vera and Dust were imprisoned in neighboring cells. Both had lost consciousness for reasons unknown, and the next thing they’d known they were there. Though they didn’t cause a ruckus like Crey, their situation was still just as hopeless. Since they woke up, two hours had passed during which they’d been powerless to do anything. They figured that this was probably Gilzen’s castle, but not even being sure of that, there wasn’t much point in talking.

“I’m sorry,” Vera apologized.

“For what?”

“For causing you nothing but trouble right to the last. First your daughter, and ultimately you.”

“If you’re talking about the present situation, guarding you is my job. This has nothing to do with my daughter. Also, this isn’t the end. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”

Their conversation was taking place through a set of bars.

There was truth to what Dust said.

“You’re right—sorry,” said Vera.

“Don’t be so quick to apologize. It gets to be a habit. You’ll get to thinking if you screw up you can just apologize and that’s the end of it, Doctor. Try pulling that with a man whose daughter you killed and you’ll get yourself murdered.”

Vera didn’t know what to say.

Dust seemed to snap out of it, saying, “That just slipped out. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Vera smiled wryly. “But don’t be so quick to apologize.”

Coughing once, Dust looked around and said, “Anyway, we’ve got to think of some way to escape.”

Essentially, these cells were the same as those where Lourié and Crey had been held—though the two of them had no way of knowing that.

“What about everybody else? What about the child—Lourié?”

“I don’t know. At any rate, we can’t look for anyone till we get out of here.”

“But it’s no use. All we can do is wait for whoever locked us up to come back.”

Dust fell silent. He had to recognize the soundness of her argument.

“But this prison is really old, inside and out,” the doctor continued. “It really doesn’t seem like a reconstruction of something from ten thousand years ago.”

“Anachronism suits the Nobility’s tastes.”

“Even so, don’t you think they’ve taken it a bit too far?”

“How so?”

“Even the Nobility’s science wasn’t the very best at the beginning, right? It would’ve progressed little by little, eventually reaching the level it’s at now. Yet even for the worst Noble of ten thousand years ago, doesn’t this seem a bit much to do, all of a sudden? I mean, all that time he’s been sleeping deep in the earth!”

“Hmm. Now that you mention it, you’ve got a point there.” Not one to put on airs, Dust tilted his head to one side. Apparently his motto was, “What you see is what you get,” but to accept this theory in their present condition required a fairly broad mind.

“In the village archive of ancient texts there was a priest’s diary that recorded Gilzen’s activities. They ran it through a translation machine they picked up from a traveling merchant, but there was no mention of his technology being this advanced. Of course, the translator was secondhand, so it might be on account of that.”

“In that case, you mean,” Dust furrowed his brow, and after a brief silence continued, “while Gilzen was asleep for ten thousand years, his underlings acquired this superadvanced technology. No, but that doesn’t fit. I’ve never heard about any stragglers causing trouble. Which would mean they also went to sleep, along with their master.”

“Right.” Pressing her face against the bars, Vera looked around the prison. “So quiet, so still. It’s hard to imagine it being anything but ten thousand years old. How did they reconstruct it? Did the Nobles use technology from another dimension?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It was in the diary. About six months before the day Gilzen’s savagery came to a sudden end, the skies—”

Dust was the first to whip his face around. There were footsteps drawing closer. Forceful ones, and coming at a rather rapid pace. Before Vera could even turn in that direction, a figure shrouded in a purple cape stood before the two of them.

“I am Jeanne. I’m one of the Sacred Protector Knights,” the armored woman said, introducing herself in a clear and resonant tone. The left half of her face was stained red. “You’re the doctor, aren’t you? Your skill is needed.”

As the young woman looked at her, Vera became snared in a veil of suspicion. To treat whom? It was common sense that the home of the ageless and immortal Nobility wouldn’t have a doctor, so if there were someone needing medical attention, would they be a human?

“Can you tell me whom I’m supposed to help?” she asked in spite of herself.

“Don’t ask pointless questions. You need only do as you are told. Open it.”

As she said that, the door to the cell unlocked without the young woman lifting a finger. “Follow me.”

Vera stepped out through the door.

Rattling his bars, Dust shouted, “Let me out, too!”

Ignoring him, Jeanne walked back the way she’d come.

As she followed after the Noblewoman, Vera informed her, “I don’t have any medicine or my medical instruments.”

“Don’t worry. Everything you carried has been safely stored,” Jeanne replied without ever looking at Vera. It was a supremely arrogant way to address her.

“In that case, why not treat them yourself?”

“I don’t know how to use human medicine.”

“Well, isn’t that a kick in the pants?” Vera said, feeling strangely confident. “So, my patient is a human being? Or is it—”

“It’s me.”

“Excuse me?”

Vera finally noticed that ever since she’d first appeared, the Noblewoman had kept her cape closed over the front of her body. However, she didn’t seem to be in any pain, and her complexion had been pale from the start.

Suddenly the floor beneath their feet moved, and Vera let out a cry of surprise. Somehow she managed to keep her balance. The six-foot-wide section of floor moved forward at an impressive speed. It was a form of moving sidewalk that could still be found in the castles of the Nobility, but the fact that it’d been realized ten thousand years earlier was hard to believe. What she and Dust had been discussing a short time earlier skimmed through her mind.

“This is quite a device to be ten thousand years old. I wonder, was your master some sort of scientific genius?”

“Regretfully, the duke is no scholar.”

“Really? Who helped him, then?”

“I believe I told you not to ask any unnecessary questions. You don’t need your tongue to work on me.”

At that threat, Vera couldn’t help but button her lip.

In the next few minutes they turned untold corners, ascended a slope, and halted on a stone pathway. Before them lay a row of iron doors. As Jeanne approached, one of them opened without a sound. At the same time, she collapsed.

Dashing over out of pure reflex, Vera asked, “Where are you hurt? Forget that for the moment—can you stand?”

Bracing one hand against the floor, Jeanne tried to lift herself but swiftly sank again. Vera guessed she wouldn’t be able to move the woman.

“Lie down. Where’s the trouble?”

The young woman managed to lie flat on her back. Her resolute bearing up to their arrival had been the result of great self-denial.

“You Nobles don’t make it easy, do you? Open your cape.”

The problem was undoubtedly beneath it.

The instant she saw the left side of the woman’s chest, Vera had the wind knocked right out of her. The heavy chest plate had been split diagonally, and fresh blood stained the woman’s upper body.

“D?” the doctor murmured.

“That stripling?” Jeanne laughed in a low voice. Hers was the pale face of the average Noble, but to Vera it looked like a death mask. “This was a punishment from the duke. When you’ve been cut by the master, the wound won’t close until his anger has subsided.”

“That’s just insanity. Nobles are ageless and immortal—meaning you could remain in pain forever?”

Jeanne donned an odd expression. “Does that bother you? I should think a human would rejoice at the thought of a Noble in pain.”

“Not when it’s my patient. I’m a doctor, you know!”

Vera tried to remove the woman’s chest plate, but couldn’t even understand how to work the clasps.

“I can’t do anything for you here. Is my medicine in this room?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And this armor—can you get it off?”

Jeanne gave a small nod and reached for the armor with her left hand. Her painfully slow movements spoke volumes about the depth of her wound.

“Hold on,” Vera said, getting back up and turning toward the door. Heavy footsteps and what sounded like voices had rung out behind her.

“What?”

Only the astonished Jeanne down on the floor turned to look, as Vera was paralyzed.

Fifteen feet behind the doctor, a shadowy figure stood at the other end of the corridor. In its right hand it carried a long spear, and when a fist that looked like a mass of intertwined wires twisted in the opposite direction, the weapon grew another six feet in length.

“But . . . you’re . . . ? When . . . did you . . . get out?”

The object of Jeanne’s groaned query stood almost six feet eight inches and was covered by a tangle of silvery-gray wires. Although generally human in appearance, there was one difference—this thing had four arms. On its back it had something resembling a crossbow, there was a longsword on its right hip, and on the left hip was a weapon that could only be a pistol with a grip mounted on the front. Its head and neck were covered by a domed mask. Perhaps it was this mask that lent the creature its inhuman sense of menace; there wasn’t a single bump or recess on it. Apparently its mask was responsible for sight, hearing, and the other senses.

Jeanne groaned, “Get back . . .”

The figure didn’t move. This mysterious warrior who would not follow a Noble’s commands in a castle of the Nobility was a creature from another world. Its spear pointed at Jeanne.

Jeanne twisted herself around. Her right hand moved toward the sword on her hip. Her movements felt like those of a tortoise with a million miles of road before it.

The figure didn’t even move its hand, but the spear flashed out to pierce Jeanne. It seemed that certain death would result.

Black stars winked in the young woman’s face: her pupils. Pulling herself up, she grabbed the sword at her side without hesitation and headed for the door.

“Better now, are you?” a hoarse voice said with admiration. Jeanne knew the masked figure grinned, even though she couldn’t see its expression.

The deadly spear stretched. And then it stopped.

The shadowy figure turned and looked. It faced the opposite direction from which the two women had come.

“You’ll have to deal with me!”

Face pale, lips alone strangely crimson, and baring beastly fangs was the warrior woman now made a compatriot of the Nobility, Lilia, reaching for the longsword on her back with her right hand.