Account of a Bloody Noble Battle

chapter 8

I

A blast had occurred between the wagon and its reflection on the road not twenty yards ahead. The blinding flash of white light carried enough heat to instantly vaporize the falling rain. It evaporated the moisture alone, not even singeing anything else. Iriya and Meeker were both unharmed, and while the pile of bandages in the driver’s seat was steaming, the cloth wasn’t charred.

The strange heat dart had been hurled by Don J, who’d since given up the ghost. As proof of his confidence in his ability to exact vengeance on his foe even on the brink of death, his face wore a rictus that was practically hysterical with mirth.

When D and Gianne arrived on the scene, the wagon carrying Iriya and Meeker had halted, along with the horses pulling it. Though remnants of the wondrous battle between fire and water still remained, D paid no attention to them, climbing instead into the back of the wagon. He immediately put his left hand to Meeker’s brow, and the hoarse voice informed him, “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

At the same time, Meeker opened his eyes. His hand reached out for Iriya.

A drop of water splashed against the back of it.

“Kraken,” Gianne said from the back of her steed, shaking free the bow she wore over her left shoulder. It wasn’t the repeating-fire kind. Hers was an old-fashioned half-moon bow that fired one shot at a time. Nocking the first arrow, she waited with four more sandwiched between the fingers of her left hand. The half-moon bow might not have repeating fire, but it could be shot in a manner so artistic and unholy no crossbow could match it.

The silky threads of rain from the artificial storm swiftly became a torrential downpour. Covering Meeker and Iriya with a waterproof tarp from the wagon, D stood tall and looked all around.

Gianne’s breath was taken away.

The rain-hazed stand of trees ahead unexpectedly blurred like a watercolor painting dropped in a puddle, the trees crashing down as if they were pillars of water. Next, a closer tree dissolved, then a second was transformed into water.

“D, at this rate it’s going to get us too!”

D didn’t respond to Gianne’s cry. When he saw the fifth tree away from them melt into water, he threw a rough wooden needle into the fourth. An unearthly cry of pain shattered the droning downpour. The stand of trees remained as it was, and the rainfall concentrated beside it.

Shrouded in what almost looked like white smoke, a colossal figure more than ten feet tall came into focus like an image in India ink.

“Viscount Kraken?”

It was unclear whether Gianne was cowed by his overwhelming size and his air of malevolence, but on the back of her rearing cyborg horse she kept her arrow unerringly trained on the giant’s heart.

Closing his massive hand into a fist and pulling something from the left side of his chest, he hurled it straight at D with a grunt.

Easily catching the rough wooden needle that’d pierced the giant’s heart in his left hand, the Hunter introduced himself, saying, “I’m D, and I have something to ask you.” Either he didn’t realize he was in no position to be making requests, or he was showing his confidence that his deadly skill could slay the giant where he stood.

“Ah,” said the voice that fell from ten feet high, carrying evident surprise. “I believe I have heard that name before. You are an exquisite man, I see. Now I can understand why Nobles could be so taken with the sight of you that they’re easily cut down.”

Striking the left side of his chest, he said, “You made me experience pain for only the second time in my life. You’re a man to be feared. However, if all that skill cannot slay me, then it matters not! See what it is to battle in Kraken’s watery hell—and then die.”

An arrow whined through the air, sinking into the Nobleman right between the eyes. Seemingly having no effect at all, the arrow came out through the back of his head.

“Did you imagine an arrow would have any effect on water? The man known as D is special!” Viscount Kraken declared in a voice like bubbles bursting. In fact, something foamy was actually spilling from his thick, toad-like lips. It didn’t fall to the ground, but rather rose high into the darkness.

“You know, there’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while now,” Gianne said in a fashion that was actually rather bold. “Isn’t water supposed to be taboo for the Nobility?”

“Correct,” Kraken replied without the least delay. “Before I became like this, I was a Noble living on dry land. That was four and a half millennia ago. However, one spring day a faulty setting on the aircraft carrying my wife and daughter caused it to crash in the lakes region. This is the result.”

Changing the subject, he continued, “What do you think are the ways to destroy a Noble? A wooden stake driven through the heart, decapitation, burning in fire? All will suffice, and all do a splendid job of reducing us to dust. All save drowning. My wife and daughter were ladies who placed more value on their Nobility than anyone I know. All their lives it was so. I know not how many times they scolded me for my own lapses. However, when the two of them were fished from the lake, they were foul swine bloated with all the water they had inhaled. It was then that I swore I would master water. And it took me some three thousand seven hundred years to reach this point!”

“A Noble who wanted to be a fish—that wouldn’t even make a good routine for some comedian out in the sticks,” the hoarse voice spat venomously.

“I of all people can solve the riddle of this girl’s physiology. Why is it that time and again she has felt the fangs of Nobles, yet instead of being made their servant she raises her hand against them? This may very well be a boon to the declining Nobility. D, I shall take the girl now!”

A great splash of water bounced off the waterproof tarp. Focused rain. And look! The tarp, shrouded in gray, misty spray, lost its shape and color, and then began to disappear as if it were dissolving in the water—along with the two figures beneath it.

“That ain’t good!” the hoarse voice exclaimed from the Hunter’s left hand. D had just placed it on the tarp.

See how that veritable waterfall of rain became a single column of water that was swallowed by the mouth that opened in the palm of the Hunter’s hand.

In the darkness, the mountain of a Nobleman gasped.

Gianne’s bowstring twanged twice, sending its projectiles toward his heart. She knew full well the attack was in vain. However, when they pierced the heart of that colossal figure, they became scorching balls of flame.

“Gaaaaaah!”

Kraken—the great sea beast—doubled over, clutching his chest. Beneath his hands, it glowed crimson. Just then, fireballs and black smoke gushed from his mouth, nose, and ears, followed shortly by more from his stomach and crotch.

“Count Langlan was good enough to give me these flame arrows. He thought if there was any weapon that could slay Viscount Kraken, this was it.”

The giant jerked his head back and opened his mouth. Smoke still poured from his mouth like it was a chimney, and his whole body twitched.

D didn’t wait for the smoke to stop. The instant he saw that the rain on the tarp had diminished with the viscount’s spasms, the Hunter launched himself into the air. His legs were so powerful he easily sailed more than thirty feet, drawing his blade an instant later and swinging it at a neck as thick as a giant tree trunk.

The Nobleman’s head fell. By the time it passed his chest it had become a ball of water devoid of eyes and a nose, and before it hit the ground it had fallen to droplets.

“What the—” Gianne exclaimed, pulling tight on the reins as the Nobleman’s body also turned to water and gushed toward her.

D was immersed in the weird water up to the waist, though it quickly receded again.

“That was easy, wasn’t it?” Gianne said, but her expression was stiff. It was too easy. There was no way defeating him should’ve been so simple.

D went back to the wagon. He wanted to check that the pair under the tarp were okay.

Meeker gave him a weak thumbs-up.

“D,” Gianne called out.

His left hand told him why. “We got company!”

From the way D looked up, it was clear he’d been aware of thatas well.

A stubby aircraft descended without a sound from the same sky that continued pelting them with rain, coming to rest on the ground a scant twenty yards away. In the sunlight, it would probably have appeared silver. D watched as part of the craft opened and three shadowy figures appeared.

The one in the fore glanced up. He stood well above the others as they walked toward the Hunter. Lightning flashed. A face appeared from the shadows.

“Count Langlan,” Gianne murmured in a tone that carried fear.

II

Viscount Kraken had been turned to water, and now, amid howling wind and rain and flashes of light, Count Langlan, the last of the Nobles in question, had appeared. In the sun, his golden cape would’ve undoubtedly called to mind waves of light. Now its hue was subdued, and whipping in the wind, it was reminiscent of the spreading of dark, thick blood.

D climbed down from the wagon. Straight ahead of him, the group halted about ten feet away. This time it was D’s face illuminated by the lightning.

“My word—the stories don’t begin to do you justice,” the tall Nobleman declared in a tone of obvious admiration. “I imagine you have already learned as much from the archeress, but I am Count Langlan.”

“D.”

Flashes of light illuminated the two figures by turns.

“I watched you battling that bastard Kraken from above. You did well to dispatch that monster.”

“He’ll be back soon.”

D’s reply drew a surprised reaction from the count. He groaned at the precision of the Hunter’s assessment.

“Before he does, I should like you to accompany us to my castle. You have my oath that you shall come to no harm. I think it most unwise to wait for Kraken in this rain. But I would ask that you not awaken the girl in the wagon. What I wish to know will be more easily discovered in her present condition.”

“It’s you that she’s after.”

“I realize as much. And once I learn what it is I wish to know, I shall be only too happy to let her attack me.”

“And you won’t go back on that, will you?”

“I saw her from above. How she has grown. And her years are a measure of my sin.”

“Very well.”

“You will be so good as to accompany us?” The count commanded the guards to either side of him, “Prepare our guest for the journey.”

“No need for that,” D said, turning his back to them. Until the Hunter entered the aircraft carrying Iriya and Meeker, the count remained there as still as a statue.

†

“It looks like we’ve arrived,” the left hand informed the Hunter less than ten minutes after they took off.

Beyond the door that now opened, a vast castle loomed.

“If you would be so good as to proceed to my research center.”

As the count led the group down a corridor, D said to him, “It’ll be daybreak soon.”

The time when Nobles must sleep was coming. Even when shielded from sunlight, Nobles as a rule fell into a kind of coma from daybreak to sunset. It was this major failing that made the humans’ resistance to their rule possible.

“Even during the daytime I am able to move about freely. I do require the aid of the darkness, however.”

“So, you’ve modified yourself, eh? And here I thought the Nobility were so full of themselves they didn’t make any progress.”

Perhaps the count was perfectly aware of the nature of the hoarse voice, because he didn’t show any confusion as he replied, “Actually, that is precisely the case. My research is not born of doubt and denial of the Noble condition. It is the result of purely academic pursuit.”

The group walked down a long corridor, boarded a linear elevator, and then walked some more before entering a room where old-fashioned lab equipment sat side by side with the very latest technology.

“I would have them wait in a back room until preparations are complete—through that door.”

Once D had set Iriya and Meeker down on sofas in a room resembling a salon, Gianne—who’d followed him—said, “Lovely girl, isn’t she?”

As she gazed at the sleeping Iriya, the archeress wore the expression of an ordinary woman. Hunters couldn’t really be human. But there were times when this ironclad rule was broken. There, beside the one who’d made her lower her guard, Gianne set down her bow and quivers and leaned back against the wall facing the doorway.

“D,” she called over to the Hunter, “I don’t think the girl’s cut out for this.”

“How can you tell?”

“There’s no better way to read a person’s true character than to look at their face while they’re asleep. She’s too peaceful.”

She got no reply. Without another word, Gianne hit the wall with her hand.

D was standing on a sunlit plain. The winds that riffled the grass made his hair flutter.

“Off in the distance are silvery mountain peaks and a lake like a bright blue jewel,” the hoarse voice commented. “Such childish imaginings.”

“How romantic. How sentimental. How humanistic. Is this the true nature of the Nobility? Do they really just wanna be human?”

That harsh tone caused D to return his gaze to the archeress.

The Nobility’s virtual reality technology could create original scenes or duplicate sights they’d actually seen. Which was this?

The scenery changed.

It was evening in a valley. The river’s flow reflected the color of the dusky sky, and by its banks lights glowed in a lone log cabin. The smoke from a cooking supper rose from its chimney.

Watching in silence, Gianne suddenly pulled away from the wall and turned toward the house. Without hesitating, she stepped into the river, waded across undiscouraged by its rapid flow, and approached the log cabin.

D heard a number of people laughing.

Gianne halted at the front door; then, after a moment or two, she went over to a window and peered in. Light spilled out. Her expression was peaceful.

Someone began singing to the accompaniment of a strummed tune. A young woman.

“Nice pipes,” the hoarse voice said. “She’s even got the darkness bewitched. I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life in this godforsaken valley if it meant I could listen to that.”

In D’s field of view Gianne had remained motionless for quite some time, but she quietly backed away from the window and returned to him.

“Make you homesick?” the voice from his left hand teased.

“Such a big family,” Gianne replied, going back to her original position by the wall. In a little while, dry lips that never saw lipstick slowly began to hum a melody.

“That’s the same song,” the hoarse voice said.

Just then, the scene changed three times. No sooner had the room returned to its original state than the count’s voice announced, “I shall begin now. If you would be so good as to step inside.”

D walked over to Iriya without a pause.

Putting the still-sleeping girl into an examination pod, the count tapped lightly on the container’s light-green surface.

“Three millennia of accumulated trial and error—this should be nearly perfect, though I cannot say that with complete confidence.”

He was unable to conceal his pride or his apprehension, but then, as if he’d just remembered something, the count glanced at Gianne standing by the door and said, “It would seem a mass murder was perpetrated in a village the girl passed through. More than forty people were killed. Did you not notice?”

“When was this?” asked D. With that he turned his gaze to Gianne, then returned it to the pod, saying, “Get started.”

The count’s right hand pressed something, and while the silence remained unchanged, it began to alternate between darkness and light. The longswords and spears decorating the walls sank into darkness, then appeared again. Visible through the pod’s window, Iriya’s face was bathed in the same steady blue light.

On the wall in front of D and Gianne, innumerable glowing characters began to flash. The characters were unlike those of any human language in style or structure.

“Those are what they call ‘Noble characters,’ ” the left hand explained.

A different light tinged the room red.

“Unusual developments beneath branch three,” a fluid mechanical voice informed them. “Everything is turning into water. I repeat: everything is turning into water.”

“Come, have you, Kraken?” Count Langlan grumbled, his whole body trembling.

Turning to the ceiling, he commanded, “There is no need to counterattack. Ignore him.”

Then he put his hand inside his cape and pulled out what appeared to be a gold bar. Beckoning to Gianne, he took her hands and closed them around the bar.

“Here is your compensation. I hope it will be sufficient for you to reclaim your memory.”

Gianne looked over at the pod, then at the door that led to the corridor.

“Five thousand Noble dalas—that’s three times what we agreed on! I’ll have to throw in a little extra effort.”

“You are to do no such thing. Take the child and flee this place,” the count said, eyes on the door to the back of the room.

The child in question was Meeker.

Staring at him coldly, Gianne said, “There’s nothing a huntsman hates more than having his game snatched away from him. If that lousy sea monster makes off with the girl, it’ll leave me in a bad mood for the rest of my days.”

Her lithe form zipped away.

“So long, D,” she called back casually, as if she were just going to hop in the bath.

“Gianne.”

The count’s words met only the back of the solitary figure.

D said nothing.

The door opened, swallowing the girl with the quiver on her back when it closed again. Not once had she turned around.

The count went back to the characters on the wall.

“That’s the opening of The Noble Declaration,” the hoarse voice declared after a cursory reading of the characters, and the count confirmed it.

“That is correct. But why would this be encoded into the DNA of a lowly human . . . ?”

“It’s a safeguard,” said the hoarse voice.

The count nodded weakly. “Their number is infinite. Let us approach from a different angle.”

The speed of the shifts between darkness and light increased.

The Noble characters warped, their positions shifting, taking on weird new structures and arrangements.

“But these are . . . ?”

The count became a stone statue. Only his lips moved.

“These symbols—I saw a recording of them in the Capital, at the House of Peers Library. They—”

“They’re Sacred Ancestor characters.”

Stunned, the count turned to face the speaker.

Said to be used solely by the Sacred Ancestor and his family, these characters had become the stuff of legend even among the Nobility, yet now they filled his wall.

“Initiate translation,” the count commanded as he kept his eyes riveted on D.

He immediately received an answer: “Translation impossible. Translation impossible. Persons capable of deciphering said characters: only one at present.”

“D!” the count called out. “Can you read this? You can read it, can’t you? I will not ask you how—but please tell me. What is the secret to being bitten by a Noble but not becoming a Noble? Also, is there any more to it—special abilities, or side effects?”

The room rocked uneasily. The walls, ceiling, floor, and everything else were losing their firmness, becoming pliable.

“Come, have you, Kraken?”

The count raised his right hand. Lightning shot from it, halting the transformation into water. No, only slowing it slightly.

Purple waves of electromagnetism coursed around the pod, the lid of which opened wide.

“No!”

The count was just about to move away when a figure slowly rose before him—Iriya. It was unclear whether this had been the invader’s intent, or whether it was purely coincidental.

Ripples ran across the surface of the door leading out to the corridor, and then what should appear but a dim shape that took human form and passed through the door. Though he was dressed in the ornate raiment of a Noble, he had a face and build so youthful it would’ve been difficult to even call him a young man.

“Chulos.”

Both the count and D heard Iriya’s voice. The Huntress was out of the pod.

“So nice of you to come, Sis.”

The last member of the family that’d once lived peacefully in a valley—her younger brother Chulos—sadly greeted his sister.

III

“But you’re too late.”

Tears glistened in the boy’s eyes. Glittering, they slid down his cheeks, stopping at the jaw before falling to the floor.

“I wanted to go home. Back to our little cabin in the valley. I wanted to go home to Mom and Dad, to Yan and Pol and Maggie. To work in the garden with everyone, hunt beasts, sit down to dinner together . . . I wanted to hear Gia’s songs, too . . . But now it’s too late!”

Deep in Chulos’s eyes, a dull red glow began to shine.

“At the very least . . . You could join me, Sis . . . Become like me . . . It’s not really true that you went around killing all the others, is it? Don’t kill me, at least . . .”

“Chulos . . .”

Tears rolled from Iriya’s eyes, too.

The letters on the wall changed. The workings of the girl’s mind were having an effect on the mysteries encoded in her DNA.

“Forgive me, Chulos . . . I have to . . . You need to . . .”

“Please don’t kill me, Sis . . . If you do . . . I’ll . . .”

The boy grinned evilly.

“Chulos . . .”

The Sacred Ancestor characters looked as if they were about to change again.

“I’ll do this!”

Chulos snapped his mouth open wide.

Iriya’s eyes were drawn to the Noble’s fangs, a sight to make even the most indomitable human look away.

“Forgive me,” Iriya said, all emotion vanishing from her face.

The boy sailed into the air. Like a shooting star freed from gravity’s bonds, he zipped straight toward Iriya’s face.

Iriya’s right hand came up. There was no sword in it for a counterattack.

Sister and brother became one, melting together. Not as family—but as human and Noble. A flash of silver fluttered through the air.

The world stopped. So that the boy, who’d circled around behind Iriya, could show his intentions of burying his fangs in his sister’s pale throat.

When movement returned, the boy thudded to the floor. His little head left his body, and bright blood shot out.

“Chulos.”

Iriya stooped down and picked up her brother’s head. The eyes opened. Sad and weak, they were the eyes of a human.

“I’m sorry, Sis,” he said, moving lips covered in blood. “But . . . your throat . . . My teeth marks . . . aren’t on it. I’m glad . . . Sis . . . You didn’t . . . end up like me.”

Darkness and light tinged his face, and in one of those stark flashes the boy breathed his last. Iriya didn’t hold the head close but rather set it down on the floor by her feet, then folded her hands together and recited what seemed to be a sadly perfunctory prayer.

The letters on the wall had stopped. They’d ended when she’d decapitated her younger brother.

“You must tell me, D,” the count insisted. “You should understand . . . You of all people.”

D was gazing at Iriya.

The hoarse voice murmured, “Are there gonna be side effects?”

Heaven and earth shook violently—and before they knew it, everything was sinking into the floor. No, into the water! Laughter echoed from beneath the gray floor, and as D, the count, and Iriya watched, the floor rose up like a mountain. From a spray of water that rivaled a waterfall—no, not water, but a spray of the floor—the enormous form of the mighty Viscount Kraken came into view.

“Is that what it takes to master water, Kraken?” Count Langlan bellowed, and his disappointment was understandable.

The skin on the giant’s face and hands was as swollen and purple as a drowning victim’s, while his enormous form wobbled like a sack full of water. A thin covering of mold grew on his skin, and those dead fish eyes of his contained not a single spark of vitality.

So, this was a Noble who lived in the water? This was another shape for the Nobles who danced their splendid waltzes in the moonlight, lent their ears to minstrels’ tales, and whistled tunes up and down highways of indestructible metal that ran all the way to the moon?

“Even the sight of you is revolting. Die, Kraken!”

From all over the ceiling red beams of light converged on the titanic figure. These were no ordinary lasers or heat rays. They were bizarre beams of scalding heat that evaporated water alone.

Swirling with steam, the water boiled. Viscount Kraken’s colossal form was rapidly changing shape.

“Be the water you so love, become steam, and spread across the entire planet. Life comes from water. Kraken, it is you who—”

In the midst of his roaring laughter, Count Langlan was pierced through the back and chest with a transparent stake. A stake made of water. One twist of it sent the count’s body flying against the wall behind, and as that wall had been transformed into water, Langlan sank halfway into it.

A different opponent charged the giant head on. When the Hunter’s blade pierced the Nobleman’s heart, the gigantic figure became a wave of water that swallowed D.

Pain enveloped the Hunter. As descendants of the Nobility, dhampirs feared running water. It wreaked havoc with their metabolism and left them unable to breathe.

D rose through the water. But there was no surface to it.

“You are within me,” Kraken said, his voice ringing sharply through the Hunter’s head. “You cannot escape. I will not let you go! Experience the same agony my wife and daughter did before they perished. You shall be joining them. And know you this: my mastery of water springs from the teachings of the Sacred Ancestor! No one but those of his line could ever defeat it. D, prepare to meet your maker!”

At that point, crimson wisps enveloped D’s face. Before Kraken realized the Hunter had bitten through his own lip, D swung his blade.

Such a cold, cruel face he wore! Fangs peeking from between the lips that’d given him that taste of lifeblood. D, are you too a descendant of the Nobility?

Perhaps it took the sword of a damned man to slay the damned, because D’s blade sliced through the water, and he leapt out into the air through the cut. Though a number of watery spears jabbed after him, a flash of silver mowed through them all, reducing them to splashes of water that fell back onto Viscount Kraken’s split belly.

“Impossible,” the enormous figure drifting on the floor said in a dazed tone. “The only thing that could destroy me . . . is the Sacred Ancestor’s . . . Could it be . . .”

His voice gave out at the same time his body dissolved.

A wave bore down on D, but he skillfully landed on it and rode it out. His feet hit the floor. It was firm. With Kraken’s death, the water’s spell had also been broken.

Iriya lay in front of the door. D was just about to go to her when a dying voice called out his name.

Imbedded in a wall that had regained its solidity, Count Langlan called to mind a bizarre sculpture. His right hand pointed straight ahead.

The letters on the wall were still emblazoned on its surface.

“Please tell me . . . D . . . What does that mean . . .”

D went over to the count, whose face was already a rictus, and placed his left hand on the Nobleman’s brow. Several seconds passed—and then the count’s eyes opened wide with astonishment.

“I can read it, D . . . But this . . . Is this the truth? Only . . . that would mean . . . failure . . . Side effects were too great . . . D . . . You alone . . . were a success . . .”

And then the count’s neck snapped.

Stepping away from the body that was quickly turning to dust, D turned around.

“It was a failure,” he murmured, but who would hear his words?

Nobody save one. Iriya.

How long had it been since she’d risen to her feet? How long since she’d pulled a sword down off the wall? How long had she been staring at D that way? How long—had her eyes been tinged the color of blood—or had fangs poked from between her lips? And who was Alucard?

With a beastly howl, Iriya charged at D. And D kicked off the floor, too. When the two figures passed each other, Iriya fell with blood on her chest, and D turned around. As he looked at Iriya, his expression was cold. That’s what it meant to be a Hunter.

Lying on her back, Iriya watched through eyes fogged by white smoke as the young man sheathed his blade and walked toward her.

“D . . . What did I do?”

He didn’t answer.

“It seems . . . I did terrible things . . . lots of them . . . in everytown . . .”

In the town of Clements. On the night before she’d donned the wedding dress.

Who was Alucard?

“You know . . . I . . . I’m lonely . . . I don’t feel anything . . . Killed my brothers . . . my sister . . . and wasn’t the least bit sad then . . . Is that . . . possible? When I was myself . . . when I was afraid . . . even having someone with me . . . it didn’t make me happy . . . And to think . . . I’m going to go out not feeling anything . . . Hey . . . where are you going?”

D soon returned.

“Iriya . . .”

Meeker looked down sadly at her. When she saw how his eyes glistened, Iriya’s eyes filled with tears as well.

“You’ve made me so happy . . . Meeker . . . Thanks . . . I . . . I’m glad . . . So glad . . . So scared . . . but I’m happy you’re here with me . . .”

Her voice dwindled rapidly.

“Miss Iriya,” Meeker whispered.

Iriya’s eyes, just about to close, shifted.

“Chulos? Is that you, Chulos? I . . . I’m so glad you came to see me off . . . Do you mind if I ask you something? Can’t remember just when . . . but I get this feeling . . . I heard Gia’s song . . . As if our sister . . . was here with me . . . And Yan . . . and Shezk . . . and Pol . . . and Maggie too . . . They all came . . . Oh, how nice . . . I’m glad . . .”

D took his left hand away from the forehead of an ordinary girl with a smile on her face. Iriya had left with her family.

“Iriya . . .” the boy murmured. “I don’t know what to say . . .”

“Say goodbye,” D told him.

A long time had passed since a fresher goodbye had been carried off by the wind. In a tiny hamlet near the ruins of a certain Noble’s castle was a graveyard with a small grave. The sturdy rock tablet was inscribed with the name of a certain family, and the mason who’d carved it could well remember the young man of unearthly beauty and the innocent boy who’d ordered it. There was also an aged grave keeper who recalled a young man who paid a visit on the same day every year. Just once did the grave keeper ask that young man his name as he offered his prayers at the grave. The young man smiled but didn’t reply.

And then one evening years and years after the stone had been erected, the grave keeper visited the cemetery and found a figure in black before the grave. The nearsighted grave keeper didn’t get a good look at his face, but as the man rode by on his horse, he asked in a voice like iron if anyone ever visited that grave.

“Yep, every year without fail,” he replied, at which the young man on the horse is said to have smiled quietly.

“Putting that smile there is the only thing in my dull old life I’m proud of!” the grave keeper would always say. He never tired of telling the tale.

the end