The Tiger in Winter Read online

  Death to an Odd Sort of Noble

  Chapter 1

  There was only the faintest of winds. It wasn’t on account of the figure the hue of darkness, who entered through the main gate, that the blades of green grass filling either side of the marble road swayed. The boots the figure wore didn’t make a sound. There was nothing at all to betray his presence. Even the cowardly insects that were like a blanket under the moonlight wouldn’t move. Perhaps he was made of the very same stuff as the darkness.

  The figure went into the ruins. The front garden was so vast it seemed it would take the wind days to sweep across it, though naught but weeds grew there, poking their faces from tumbled stone walls and mounds of rubble to give the place an air of desolation. It was clear that the ruined minarets and ramparts in the distance had suffered explosions. Even the paved stone road the figure traveled showed definite signs of damage from fire. The light of the crescent moon poured down like a white waterfall. As if to say, This is a world of decay, and there are none of the living here.

  The shadowy figure halted.

  The half-collapsed marble gate could be considered the main feature of the garden, and beneath it there glowed a silent woman in a white dress. Black hair that hung all the way down to her waist swayed incessantly. There was no wind. It had died out a short time ago.

  The woman called out the shadowy figure’s name. “D”, she said. Her tone was low, like a sigh. A pale purple veil covered her mouth.

  “Yes,” the figure said. He had a cold, hard voice that seemed as if it could freeze the moonlight or the wind. “Are you Sirene?”

  “Indeed, I am.”

  “I’d like to confirm the job—you wish me to do away with Duke Van Doren, administrator of the northern Frontier sectors?”

  “You are correct, sir.”

  “A hundred thousand dalas.”

  “Here,” the woman said, taking something small and glittering off her right index finger. “Catch.”

  It arced through the moonlight, as if drawn to D’s left hand.

  “It’s moonstone,” said a hoarse voice that didn’t reach the woman’s ears. “Just a chunk of rock to the Nobility, but humans would pay a million dalas for it. If folks find out you’ve got it, everybody we meet’s gonna try and make like a thief!”

  “I’ll give you your change,” D told the woman—Sirene.

  She shook her head and replied, “You needn’t bother. I won’t be needing it anymore.”

  “In that case, give it to your relatives.”

  “Please do that for me. Give it to Myosha Lanaway in the village of Wihemin, Darigles County, the northern Frontier.”

  “My job is doing away with Nobility.”

  “I don’t have time to look for anyone else. I must be going soon.”

  “Oh,” the hoarse voice responded.

  Whether or not Sirene took that for D’s voice was unclear as she continued, “My real name is Cecilia Lanaway. A century ago I became the wife of Duke Van Doren. Myosha is the name of my former husband.”

  D didn’t say anything. There was no way her former husband would still be alive. And she must’ve known that, too. But the young man in black had no interest in other people’s lives.

  “Your request is accepted. Where is the duke?”

  “In his primary castle, about forty miles northwest of here. He didn’t even flee when the people under his dominion rebelled.”

  “I understand,” D said, turning his back to her. The hem of his coat sailed out like the wing of a supernatural bird.

  “Please, wait,” the woman said to him, extending one hand. The voice suddenly sank.

  D halted.

  “I say this just so you’ll know. Both the citizens of his domain and bandit groups are after the duke. And in a few days, an armed ‘survey party’ from the Capital should be coming. Please don’t slay the duke until he has slain all of them.”

  “Sounds like Mister Popularity,” the hoarse voice said mockingly. This time, it reached Sirene’s ears. “Everybody’s underestimating the Nobility. This Duke Van Doren guy seems like he’s incredibly lazy or just a coward. But even at his weakest, he’d probably have enough power to turn those under him to dust with one finger.”

  “You’re exactly right,” Sirene said, a ring of surprise to her voice. She hadn’t taken those disparaging remarks just now as coming from D.

  “So, you hire this guy to do away with your husband because you don’t want the greedy bastards to get to him first? Which means what? You want your husband destroyed at your bidding?”

  “A very good question. I—I simply couldn’t let him go on that way.”

  “Sometimes there are folks like that. As a human, you’re odd enough for wanting to serve the Nobility with all your heart. Love ’em too much, and you push yourself to the point where it can’t help but destroy you. Let’s get one thing straight; a Noble can’t love a human as a person. At best, they might love ’em about as much as people love cats or dogs, you—gyaaaaah?!”

  His hand still clenched in a fist, D started to walk away.

  “There is something I’d like to ask you about,” said Sirene. “Why didn’t you ride your horse all the way in here?”

  There was no reply. The figure in black just kept dwindling in the light of the moon.

  “Could it be that it was because the paving stones were simply too beautiful? These stones were chosen and their arrangement decided by my beloved.”

  The figure had nearly vanished.

  Sirene reached a hand around to her back for her dagger, tossed away the scabbard, and plunged the blade through her own heart without the slightest hesitation.

  “I hear that dhampirs have Noble blood in them,” she said. “I hope my beloved might, at the very least, be destroyed at the hands of one who understands the Noble mind before he’s swallowed up by tragedy. Death and destruction are the end.”

  Bluish-gray dust flowed from the bottom of her dress. The white garment lost its shape as the body within it became something else.

  “D . . . I beg of you . . . let my beloved . . . be buried . . . with my thoughts and memories,” said a girl who looked to be only sixteen or seventeen, barely squeezing out the words before she turned to dust.

  “She’s gone,” the hoarse voice said wearily as the Hunter was up in the saddle, riding his cyborg horse away from the castle. “Suicide, eh? Been a while since I’ve seen one of those. A rare thing with the Nobility dying out, but leave it to a human to do that.”

  “She was a servant of the Nobility.”

  “Hey, now,” the hoarse voice started to say, but then it stopped. It had given up. No one had a harsher opinion of the Nobility and the humans they’d bitten than this young man.

  “But the job itself is a problem,” the left hand continued. “From what I hear, Duke Julius Van Doren, administrator of the northern Frontier sectors, is a valiant leader and soldier. Even you couldn’t tackle this like you normally do. And the bandits prowling the area are the Pitch Black Gang. They’re a band of ruthless outlaws that’ve tamed monsters the Nobility created, and rumor has it they can even use some of their weapons. Plus, there’s that survey party from the Capital—‘survey’ has a nice ring to it, but they’re all just a bunch of jerks slobbering over a chance to swipe some of the Nobility’s inventions or technology and make themselves rich. And they ain’t above murder.”

  And after saying that, the voice trembled a bit as it continued, “And now you can’t drop it. A curse on her for setting it up that way. She might want Duke Van Doren to have a peaceful death, but it sure ain’t gonna be easy.”

  Not even the hoarse voice’s assertion could draw an answer from D.

  Light like ice spread across the e
astern sky, and the darkness around him was losing its hue moment by moment.

  The northern Frontier was called a land of black forests and lakes. Paint a page completely black, add a few splashes of blue, and you’d have a map of the northern Frontier. Winds constantly roamed the plains, nimbus clouds relentlessly hung overhead to provide rain, but occasional sunlight was allowed to peek from between the clouds. When it did, the light gave the mountains, plains, and villages a golden glow, and children and animals alike raced outside to enjoy the sunlight to its fullest.

  It was thirty minutes later that D arrived at the base of the hill overlooking Castle Van Doren. He’d covered forty miles at a gallop. For him, that was slow.

  There was no rain, but the color of the heavens was far from blue, and there were occasional rumbles of thunder in the distance, investing the heavens with a dull light.

  “Strange domain, ain’t it?” remarked the hoarse voice from the vicinity of the Hunter’s left hand, which gripped the reins. “Here’s a land where the Nobility still has complete control over the folks in their domain. Through fear, namely.”

  “Can we get in?” D inquired. It was rare that he asked a question.

  “Easy as pie. He ain’t even got a force field up. Either he’s a Nobleman who likes to leave himself wide open, he’s incredibly self-confident—or he ain’t even trying.”

  The reins shook, and then the cyborg horse started down the road to the castle. To either side of the road stood a row of enormous Legran cedars, with branches large and small intertwining to form a natural canopy about a hundred and fifty feet above the road. Even when the sun was at its highest, the road would likely remain in gloomy darkness.

  Climbing a stone-paved road with a gentle incline that couldn’t have even been ten degrees, the Hunter came to a square before the main gates. The stones that made up the road spread like wings there, paving the whole ground.

  “What, no welcoming committee?” the hoarse voice jibed.

  From dawn to dusk, the abodes of Nobles had impenetrable defenses for two miles all around. Lasers and land mines and monsters for starters, dimensional cannons or orbital plasma cannons, systems for using asteroids from our own solar system as meteorite bombs, temporal vortex cannons and the like would be waiting for any invaders.

  There was none of that here.

  “On top of that, there ain’t any signs at all of fighting here in the square. I’d heard there hadn’t been any rebellions, and it looks like it’s true. Wonder if that outpost castle we were just at was destroyed after it was abandoned. I don’t care how mild-mannered a Noble is, humans would’ve left a mark or two on their castles back in the days of the Great Rebellion. Was this Nobleman really that good of an administrator for ’em?”

  As the voice spoke, D rode on.

  Before the main gates was a moat about sixty feet wide. Its black waters reflected the cyborg horse and D where they halted at the brink.

  “So, how are we getting across?” the hoarse voice asked, but then it immediately groaned, “What the hell?”

  The distant gate was slowly falling. It doubled as a drawbridge.

  “Strike that remark about the welcoming committee. This is a real warm welcome.”

  Ignoring the hoarse voice, D rode onto the bridge. Perhaps he gave no thought to this being a trap, for he rode on in silence, crossing the bridge without saying a single word.

  Within the gate was an inner courtyard. Ramparts that looked to be about a hundred fifty feet high surrounded it, and from atop those walls countless old-fashioned cannons were pointed in the Hunter’s direction. By the look of them, they used gunpowder and fired cannonballs. There were figures beside the cannons. Beneath that ash-gray sky, they gazed at D without moving a muscle.

  “They’re androids. I don’t sense any human presence or vitality around the castle.”

  If one were to look more closely, they might have spied figures in the windows of the towers and minarets. They took the shape of young Noblewomen with golden hair, red-headed ladies-in-waiting, and black-haired servants. Those in uniform were probably guards.

  When D reached the very center of the courtyard, a voice from the top of the castle walls to his right called down to him, “Halt!” It was youthful. The voice of a man in his thirties. However, it was that of an android.

  Halting his steed, D turned toward the speaker.

  “Someone will be out to meet you presently. Wait there,” the android said, rather unexpectedly. He wore a deep blue cape over his military garb. He was an officer.

  “I’ll be damned. Not only are they gonna sit back and let you waltz in, but now they’re sending somebody to greet you? Watch yourself. No telling what they’re up to!”

  D turned forward again, for the doors to the castle had opened.

  A golden light had come into the dim world.

  The trio of women had blonde hair that nearly touched the ground, and it swayed faintly in the breeze. Leaving the ones in the cerulean and indigo dresses behind, the woman in the azure dress came forward. She halted about a yard shy of the cyborg horse. She was so lovely the left hand let out an appreciative groan. And the instant she saw D, the woman brought her hands up to her cheeks. Pink quickly suffused her face. She wasn’t a human being. This was the reaction of a mechanical person—an android.

  The left hand let out another gasp. This time it was for a different reason.

  “I am known as Shyna. The master is waiting.”

  If ever there was a voice like golden chimes, it was hers.

  “Van Doren can remain awake in the morning?” asked D.

  “For a short time. This way.”

  Shyna turned, introducing the waiting Mysch in the cerulean dress and Najina in indigo. The cheeks of both had long since flushed. The two of them flanked the cyborg horse. They were not simply a reception committee. They also doubled as guards. And they had another role—as assassins.

  D got off his steed just in front of the door.

  The castle was filled with the light of morning. There was no frosted glass, no curtains or shades drawn.

  Letting in an abundance of natural light—though that hardly suited a vampire’s physiology, it was wholly in keeping with the “nostalgic taste” imprinted even more deeply into the DNA of the Nobility. The Nobles had taken no greater pains than to ensure so much sunlight got into their stone castles that it seemed like it would melt the place. It was this very abundance of light that always surprised scholars investigating the Nobles’ ruins.

  On seeing the round stones paving the floor, the hoarse voice said, “Must be an old-timer.” It wouldn’t reach the ears of the three women. Fooling androids was quite an accomplishment. Naturally, there was a reason for its snide remark.

  Even Nobles had their own personalities, and each of them had their own favorite “era.” Two styles of architecture from human history were favored by the Nobility. There were those who preferred the baroque architecture of the modern age, while others insisted on rococo style or nothing at all. Sixty percent of the Nobility fell into one of those two camps, twenty percent had varied tastes, and the remaining twenty percent liked the most ancient styles—to wit, the fortresses of medieval Europe, which were focused entirely on practical concerns and gave no thought at all to aesthetic matters.

  While the main design naturally reflected the Nobility’s super science, the castle through which D strode had no walls or cathedral ceiling embellished with lavish murals, and illumination was provided by dishes of oil resting in recesses carved in the stone. There wasn’t even glass in the windows, but iron frames and heavy woven curtains kept the wind at bay. Instead of “simple,” “stark” might’ve been a better word to describe the place.

  “Hurry,” Shyna said, raising her right hand when she came to the first corner. A crimson ring glittered on her third finger.

  Though the stone pavement beneath his feet began to move, D showed no surprise.

  The transportation system flowed along much
like the waters of a canal would. The flow rose vertically up a wall. The force of gravity shifted accordingly, and D continued right up the wall. They were traveling at quite a good speed—over a hundred and twenty miles per hour.

  In less than a minute’s time, they came to a wooden door, the surface of which had been scorched black. Taking the brass communication tube from beside the door in hand, Shyna announced, “I have a guest with me.”

  “Enter,” the voice of a man of advanced years replied without a moent’s hesitation, sounding somewhat melancholy.

  Shyna took hold of the brass door knob.

  At that point, D was looking down at the blurry streaks of black that stretched from the sides of the door. There were two of them. Both of them seemed to reach all the way back down the corridor.

  The door opened.

  It was a large room. Some might even call it vast. Even D, with eyes that could see as well in pitch blackness as in broad daylight, took a little while to make out the figure who stood before an enormous stone desk that was set in the center of the room.

  He was a towering figure, wearing a long, long cape of the fur of the sacred fire beast, and in his right hand he held a black cane with a golden handle. His crown was of the very simple spiked style, fashioned from a silvery, nearly indestructible metal and, oddly enough, devoid of so much as a single jewel. Though it was a tad comical in appearance, it didn’t make him look like a jester at all.

  “D, is it?” he said, his voice low but seeming to reverberate through the vast chamber. “So good of you to come. I am Duke Julius Van Doren. Sirene told me about you. She left a note relating exactly what she was thinking before she headed out to meet you.”

  “And you didn’t stop her?”

  “This is the act of a woman who stood by me for a century without once complaining. No one had a right to criticize her. Myself included.”

  “Then you must know what brings me here, right?”

  “Of course. For your information, you need not heed Sirene’s wishes. Worry not about the human invaders. I shall be happy to settle with you here and now.”