“How’s that? Here’s another,” he said, bracing the crossbow against his shoulder again.

But just then someone called out from behind him, “Knock it off, you bald bastard.”

The second he realized the voice was the same low tone the young man in black had used earlier, cold steel pressed against the base of the man’s neck, and he froze before he could say a word.

“Got here quicker than I expected. Have a look at him,” said the other D, who stood with his longsword at the ready. Mia was by his side, naturally, and as she rushed over to the Hunter she cried out, “D!”

But his eyes beheld a shadowy figure rising smoothly to its feet. A veritable spirit of the black earth—however, if that was the case, this spirit of the earth was undoubtedly an avatar of beauty.

“You—you’re alive? Even a Noble dies if you shoot it through the heart!”

“You see, I am special,” the fake D said, watching proudly as D effortlessly pulled out the arrow jutting from his chest.

The blackness that clung to the Hunter’s lips was blood the monk himself had drawn. It was the source of the energy behind his revival.

“If I hadn’t stopped you, you’d have been whacked in half before you got off that third shot. You see, that me isn’t as nice as this me.” “Are you two twins?”

On hearing this, the monk looked bewildered. But when he saw the other D approaching, his panic reached an all-time high. “He-help me,” he stammered. “He’ll kill me!”

“Well, that’s to be expected, isn’t it? You’re the one who shot him in the back out of the blue.”

“And was it for the peace of your village that you shot not one but two arrows into a defenseless soul?”

“Of course I can. After all, he’s me and I’m me, too. Anything he can do, so can I. Anything he can’t do—well, I suppose that’d be out of the question.”

“His power is at work in Menda’s heart,” the Hunter said. “Though she was killed by the villagers, that heart has kept her from moving on. Upon learning this, he went and sealed Menda’s ghost away in superdense stone.”

“I see. So, that’s why he took a shot at you for busting her grave open? What a tricky bastard!”

“By torturing a spirit in distress? What’ll you do with him?” the fake D asked the other.

D turned to face the monk. His handsome features were unaltered. However, his mien had changed completely. His eyes gave off blood light, and it looked like sanguine tears might fall from them at any moment. The corners of his slender lips pulled up, and a pair of threatening incisors poked from the crescent his mouth formed. And those lips stained crimson could mean only one thing—

Saying only that, the monk slumped to the ground limply. He’d fainted dead away from surpassing fear.

“I’m sure he’s telling the truth about doing it for the village,” the fake D remarked with apparent amusement. “But this weasel is a sadist, through and through. Sooner or later, he’ll accuse some gypsy or migrant girl of being a witch and drag her off to his temple under the pretext of saving her. I can just picture him poking her with needles, roasting her with flames, and even slapping her around. Oh, what’s this now?”

His voice grew fainter. For he’d just seen D’s right hand flash into action.

The monk was in a kneeling position, but fresh blood spurted from his throat and crotch. The crotch wasn’t hard to figure, but why had D cut his throat?

Holding both places, the monk rolled around on the ground, but not a sound came from him.

“Did you cut his vocal cords? He won’t be chanting any prayers now. And seeing where you also cut his manhood, he won’t be

feeling too randy, either. He’s finished as a monk and as a man. You know, you—I mean I—am looking crueler all the time.” Saying nothing, D sheathed his sword and walked off toward Mia. The fake D quickly followed after him, and the two of them stood by the fallen Menda.

“Could you do anything for her?” D asked. His expression had returned to normal—the madness of the Nobility had left him.

“You’ve been through quite a lot—will the next time be the same?” “This time, let me try,” the fake D called out, and that made Menda’s eyes go wide. She’d finally noticed that there were two Ds. “Sit back and relax. I’ll take one swipe at it for starters.”

“Why the long face? If the first shot doesn’t work, I’ll give it a second whack—”

“What?” the fake D shot back angrily at the woman, but D put a hand down on his shoulder. “Let go of me.”

“Oh. Just so you know, your successes are my successes, and your failures are my failures. So don’t embarrass me, okay?”

“What was that I just heard?” he said, looking down at D’s left hand. “You’ve got something strange inside of you, do you? That’s something I don’t have. What is it?”

Tension filled the air—even the fake D retreated a good distance. Menda was motionless, as if frozen solid.

D reached for the hilt of his sword. His eyes were closed again. When they opened, the sword flashed out.

Slowly getting to her feet, Mia tried to slip past D, but he caught her tightly by the wrist. Before she even had time to scream, she was pulled close as if her body weighed nothing, her pale throat laid bare before D’s panting lips.

“Don’t!” someone shouted, but whether it was the fake D or the left hand was unclear.

Red lips were closing on Mia’s throat—but just before they did, D hoisted Mia high into the air. His fingers sank into her wrist, and Mia sensed that the skin had broken. A warm stream dripped down from her wrist. It spattered noisily against the ground. For some reason, Mia didn’t look at D. The air snapped taut as a bowstring, making her body tremble, and just then she heard a groan in D’s voice. Actually it’d come from the fake D, and when Mia raised her head again, D’s blade was sliding back into the sheath on his back without a sound while the illusory Menda wavered before him.

“Ah . . . It’s true . . . after all . . . You really are . . .” the fading woman said, tears spilling from her eyes. The tears vanished in midair.

As D tumbled to the ground, Mia went right after him with a handkerchief still pressed to her wrist.

There was no longer any sign of Menda, but her voice flowed from somewhere that was neither the sky nor the earth.

“She’s gone,” the fake D said, sounding deeply moved. Beside him, Mia had rolled D onto his back and had one ear pressed to his chest. “But who’d she tell, and what?”

“How?” “I don’t know. You’re part of D, aren’t you? Well then, hurry up and get him to wake up!”

Mia fairly flung the words at the fake D, but he had an unexpected reply for her.

On the spot on the ground he indicated with a toss of his chin, Mia saw that D was reaching out with one hand. When it stopped, the index finger was pointing toward the plains straight ahead.

The two of them looked off into the distance. The twilit plains were darkening with a deep and endless blue.

“Ready?” the fake D asked, putting the other D over his shoulder and rising again.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Mia replied, having already started walking toward the wagon.

D was walking across a vast expanse of clouds in an unfamiliar place. He had passed out. This was the world he was seeing while unconscious—he knew it was a dream. He was walking. But where was he headed? He wasn’t at all concerned about what might be happening to his physical self. He knew that this place, where Menda had brought him, was the entrance to Muma. It would have defenders. And they wouldn’t stand idly by when someone reached the entrance. Menda had most likely been given this ability while in the service of the great one. Who that was, D must’ve surely known.

On the sea of clouds, a titanic lozenge-shaped structure could be seen. It seemed as if it might be reached in a few steps and at the same time as if he might never get there.

“There’s a gate,” his left hand whispered, but was that just part of the dream? “Beyond it is Muma. But first, you’ve gotta unlock the gate.”

D halted, but not because what his left hand said had alarmed him. Something stood between him and the gate. While it was a presence devoid of substance, D could still distinctly sense its weight, its density.

So, you made it this far? he heard a voice say. It wasn’t a sound ringing out to tremble against his eardrums, but a voice nonetheless. I suspected you, of all people, might. Still, it is truly remarkable.

I’d never do anything of the sort. To begin with, I’m not even here. What you feel here is no more than an illusion spun by your own senses. You sense me because you want to, and now you’ll try to slay me yourself. It’s an exercise in futility, D.

D resumed his strange trek. Beneath his feet, the clouds swirled fiercely, surging up all around him.

This voice, too, is nothing save what you yourself wish to hear. In other words, it is nothingness. Muma might well be the same, D. And you, and the whole world too.

D felt the presence drawing nearer by the second. And yet, it too was probably no more than a product of his own will. The real question was whether or not he himself thought this was pointless.

Still holding the reins, Mia turned to him and replied with equal ease, “Yeah.”

“When I give the word, jump over to me, okay? I’ll catch you.” “I’m counting on it.” While the girl smiled and seemed calm enough throughout the exchange, her spine iced up from the tension she felt. She sensed a strange, murderous intent emanating from the back seat.

“Is he directing that at you?” she asked, her characteristically calm tone melting into the twilight, but the words conveyed a matter of deadly seriousness.

“Nope. It might sound strange, but the killing lust from that me is quickly being funneled away somewhere. My guess is that’d be wherever my consciousness is.”

“In our head—or else in our subconscious. If it goes poorly, even I might not ever make it out again.”

Disregarding his terrifying news flash, Mia asked, “How will he get back here?”

“One way would probably be to slay his opponent. The other—well, not to put a jinx on this or anything, but that me would have to die.” “Help him. You’re him, aren’t you? You must know what to do.” “This time, I’m afraid not.”

“You know, I wonder about something,” Mia began, spitting out the next fiendish thought that popped into her head. “Yes. This is just speculation, but if the D behind me—if the you behind me dies, won’t you die, too? You’re like one and same person, aren’t you?” The fake D was clearly shaken. Mia’s words were more potent than she’d imagined, being right on the mark.

“Hmm, that may well be,” he said after some consideration, and it almost sounded like he was directing the comment at himself. “In that case, I can’t relax and think that I’m safe just because I’m out here. So, fortuneteller, got any bright ideas?”

The way he asked that with a completely straight face made Mia question if this man was truly D’s other self. But she couldn’t answer

that. The ghastly aura against her back was almost at its limit. “How could I possibly know that if you don’t?”

“Don’t be that way,” the grinning fake shot back, but his eyes gave off blood light.

It was miraculous how Mia acted without any pause or delay. Without a second to spare, she jumped from the driver’s seat toward the fake D.

The sound of ripping fabric made her blood freeze. The hem of her jacket had snagged on a nail poking up from the edge of the seat. The fake D reached out.

D changed his stance, holding his blade out at eye level, while above him a voice gravely intoned, It would seem I am not the only one who would interfere with you. You must triumph, D. Not over me, but over yourself.

Having parried D’s unconscious sword blow, the fake D looked down at his own blade. It was unclear whether he was talking about the matter of the sword or Mia. As for the girl, he’d caught her at first, and then returned her to the driver’s seat.

Still gripping his sword, the gorgeous Hunter had fallen back into that strange slumber. Had the fake one not narrowly managed to draw and swing his own blade, Mia would’ve undoubtedly been bisected from one shoulder down to the opposite armpit. For the fake, parrying the blade had been far faster and easier than grabbing Mia and reeling her in.

“Shouldn’t we take away his sword?” Mia suggested, but the fake D shook his head.

“On the other side, I have to fight. We can’t be sure that our meddling out here wouldn’t have a negative impact. Let’s just leave him like that.”

“If you’re that worried, come ride with me. At any rate, I can’t let my movements be constrained.”

“The two of you—from what I’ve seen, you’re enemies, but you help each other at the strangest times. Is that how it is with twins?” “I don’t know,” the fake D said, looking off into empty space. Shrouded in bluish darkness, his profile showed the sorrowful traces of what looked like fatigue. However, he quickly reclaimed his intense expression and stared at the distant outline of mountains that lay before them.

“It could be a long trip, it could be short—at any rate, all we can do is get going.”

The gate drew nearer. And in the aura that surrounded him, the killing lust grew stronger and stronger. If what the voice said was true, the murderous intent came from D himself.

“Calm down, D,” his left hand told him. “Something’s not right in your head. The way you’re secreting adrenaline—” The voice cut off.

Though the approaching figure’s face couldn’t be discerned, anyone could’ve told who it was. The dashing silhouette, the elegant curve of the longsword on his back, that gait—all exactly like D.

Suddenly besieged by a new wave of murder lust, Mia froze in the driver’s seat. What an endless, deadly battle it must be! Feeling more threatened by the slumbering D, Mia turned to the fake D.

What she found there was his horse alone. The other D had unexpectedly vanished right out of the saddle.

“Is that you, me?” D asked, apparently sensing that this D might be the fake D he knew.

“Yes, indeed,” the new D replied, showing his pearly teeth. His cheery tone certainly sounded familiar. “I don’t know how it happened, but it looks like you called me. What’s more, it would seem we’re gonna have to have it out, eh?”

D already had his weapon drawn. The fake D drew as well, menace emanating from every inch of his body.

“I don’t know where we are, but it’s not a very pleasant setting. There’s all this pointless hostility blowing around.”

The fake D tilted his head back and groaned at that. “So, does this mean I was born to be a homicidal maniac? This is more than I can handle. What we need is something to take the edge off, I’d say.”

Pondering this for a moment, the fake D then said, “Not really. It seems both of us are fated to travel troubled paths. I suppose it wouldn’t be too bad if we were to settle things here.”

Two blades rose smoothly into the air, and from them a transparent will to kill surpassing any malice rose in unseen flames.

If the two Ds crossed blades with all their lethal skill, what could possibly be the outcome? For anyone who lived on the Frontier, the answer to that was sure to be of interest—especially if what the fake said was to be believed, and that he was absolutely identical to the other D. Which would triumph? Which would be defeated? Though there was no one else there to see it, a deadly battle of the most staggering proportions was about to occur.

“Stay out of this, you hear?” D said, oddly enough. The remark had been addressed to his left hand.

It seemed for all the world as if they dug into the ground simultaneously. More than the steely war cry of sword meeting sword, it was the power in the legs they planted on the cloudlike ground that was astonishing, for the front foot of each sank in ankle deep.

The two shadowy figures stiffened. In power, they were equal. In accordance with the laws of physics, neither of them could move a muscle. Whichever one moved would be cut down. Both of them knew it.

But before they could sink into a motionless morass, both leapt away, one to either side. Flashes of white light intersected. They landed identically, each falling onto his left knee. A stark gleam protruded from the chest of each. Needles of unfinished wood.

“Knock it off!” the left hand shouted. “Keep fighting and you’ll both die! You’re perfectly matched in power.”

Apparently the only effect this attempt to stop them had was to fan their animosity. Like fierce black jungle cats, the two charged at each other. But this time was different. Choosing the shortest distance, D lunged from the right. The fake D used all of his weight to strike from the high position, as if splitting firewood. The result would be clear in a millisecond.

In a heartbeat, the two stayed their blades, flying back like ominous black birds. A slender figure had appeared in the path of their swords: the way they’d halted blades that’d been swung with all their might just before they made contact was a display of ungodly skill.

“How did you—” the fake D began to ask, but then he fell silent— having come there himself, there was nothing strange about Mia coming, too. If anything was mysterious about it, it was that at the very instant Mia appeared, the pair felt the raging storms of ill will within them fleeing like the tide. A second later, Mia had disappeared from view.

“If that doesn’t beat all! All of a sudden, I’m all peaceful. I bet the same goes for the other me, too. Looks like we’ll have to call it a tie, eh?”

“What did she come for?” D said accusingly, but his voice had lost its intensity.

The fake D stood there somewhat awkwardly. Noticing the sword he still gripped, he sluggishly returned it to its sheath.

“All appearances to the contrary, that girl’s got a core of steel running through her. The fact she was able to get into your world so easily is proof of that. To be able to make two guys geared up for a bloody battle lose the will to fight just by poking her head in—yep, that’s one scary female.”

Though the fake D was scratching his head, the other D quietly stared forward. There lay the gate.

“What is it?” the fake D asked from the back of his steed. “Don’t give me that look.”

“I’ll kindly thank you not to give me any funny looks,” the girl countered.

“Hey—that’s what I thought, too. I didn’t see you. But then, a second later, everything was back to normal—uh, was that what happened with me, too? I wonder what on earth went on there.”

“Well, I get the feeling I did battle with that me over there,” the fake D said, his gaze on where D lay.

“Well, if you did, it doesn’t seem to have had any unfortunate results. Look. His face looks so peaceful in his sleep. I’m sure no one’s ever seen that look on him before.”

“I’ll say. Come to think of it, I get the feeling I ran into you in that dream.”

“No, really,” the fake D said with a nod. And then he stared at Mia as if looking on something of great importance.

The wagon and horse advanced through the darkness. All they could do now was wait for D.

As D got closer, the gate revealed itself in all its immensity. Its height must’ve been in excess of five hundred yards. There was a gigantic door, and the frame that supported it—and that was all. Though the door appeared to be made of wood, it had a horrible luster to it, and in that respect it was just like the apparent stonework of its frame. Its width was unknown. To either side, it melted away into walls of roiling cloud.

D quietly drew his sword. “If this world is of my mind’s making, my will alone should be enough to do something.”

Precisely, the voice remarked. You summoned me. Not to hinder you. To slay you on the spot. There is nothing more mysterious than the workings of the human mind, you know.

D advanced toward the door. His left hand pressed against it. “So, its thickness is infinite? That’s about what I’d expect from his mental defenses. D, how are you supposed to unlock it?”

D held his sword at the ready, poised for a thrust. Somewhere a cry of pain could be heard.

The clouds eddied. An almost imperceptible light played across their surface as they churned. It was unmistakably an energy current.

“What’s this?” the left hand shouted. He’d just felt D’s body absorbing the energy. “You really are something. Now you’ve finally learned how to control the very life of this world and make it do your bidding. Heil, it’s not even control, it’s just simple concentration. With that alone you—”

Eyes shut and not moving a muscle, D looked to be a beautiful sculpture. And the silently raging energy cloud was being drawn into his body.

The horse and the wagon stopped simultaneously. Before them, a black chain of mountains stood in their way. The top ridge had fused with the darkness.

“That’s the North Lake Mountain Range, isn’t it?” Mia said. “Yeah. Orogenetic activity formed them about two hundred million years ago. So, Muma lies somewhere in them, then?” “Probably. Don’t you know?”

“I haven’t a clue,” the fake replied, being perfectly clear on that point. “What I do know is—”

The fake D’s breath was frozen and white. This was no atmospheric abnormality. His lungs, or actually all his organs, were freezing up.

Mia had started to get up and was frozen with one hand extended. White breath discharged from her mouth, and then stopped.

Moving the frozen Mia back behind his saddle, he said, “This time, he plans on opening that gate, I’d say.”

And having said this, the fake D scanned the wagon’s surroundings. “Oh, looks like we’ve got some odd participants gathering to celebrate the opening.”

Mia strained her ears, but she heard nothing. As the daughter of a fortuneteller, she’d received special training to sharpen all five of her senses. Even in a good-sized throng she’d be able to pick out any sound within six hundred feet, and in a quiet setting she could even hear footsteps a quarter mile away.

She was just about to ask where on earth they could be coming from when she was startled to see the fake D dismount. Stroking the back of his steed, which was the ordinary sort of cyborg horse they sold in every village, he was the picture of kindness as he gave his beloved mount some condensed nutritional supplements. As the horse’s muscles unknotted and its eyes watered, he turned his gaze to Mia and said, “They’re here.”

Mia had also noticed that, in the direction from which they came, a semicircular ball of spirit fire seemed to be bearing down on them. Standing out in the darkness like glowing wraiths were definite human forms on horseback. However, both the horses and the people were all bone. Bones pale as will-o’-the-wisps came into view in the darkness, swaying closer and closer in the kind of spectacle witnessed rarely even on the Frontier.

Coming to a halt some ten to fifteen feet from the pair, a skull attached to a particularly impressive skeletal frame asked them, “Are you the ones who hurt Barga?”

“The monk back in the last village. He got in touch with us and asked us to go out and avenge him. Said we’d be looking for two guys with the same face and a girl, don’t you know.”

“A colleague, by some stretch of the word. After travelers staying at his temple have left, he secretly sends us word of their destination. His cut is a bit high, but I guess that can’t really be helped.” “You’re highwaymen?” the fake D said. “Even at that, those outfits are too much. In these getups, you must be going after women and children, eh?”

Glancing at the ten-strong riders, he continued, “I don’t owe it to anyone to take you guys out. Just make tracks. There’s going to be some trouble here soon.”

Needless to say, the trouble he was talking about involved D. His tone was derisive.

“We’ll take your severed heads and hang them at the entrance to our village. And that monk can handle your funeral. Not that you’ll be getting into heaven, mind you.”

“Hold up just a second,” the fake D said, one hand raised. “What did you boys do to those travelers?”

“What do you think, we apologized and sent them on their merry way? They’re all planted in the ground around here. Including the women and children you mentioned.”

The fake D leapt, coming down in front of the skeleton he’d been talking to and its horse, but no one even noticed him until he’d taken the heads off both the rider and the steed. His speed was incredible.

The booming shock wave when horse and rider fell roused the rest of the skeletons. Tightening their grips on glowing reins and kicking the flanks of horses with only bones visible, they made a mad rush at the fake D.

In the voids that had been the horses’ eye sockets, fireballs glowed. They shot out at the fake D in rapid succession, and where his blade parried them, a dazzling sphere of fire quickly swelled. One fiery sphere became two, then three, engulfing the fake D in light and turning that whole area into glowing ground. Everything dissolved into the white light, and before long that grew fainter, but no sign remained of either the cyborg horse or the fake D.

“One of our guys knows how to control the Nobility’s nuclear power. He showed us how to use that weapon you just saw there. Hardly puts out any radiation at all, so you can relax.”

“Now that I’ve had a good look at you, I can see that even if you’re a bit boyish, you’ve got a sexy mug on you. Instead of getting rid of you out here, we might be better off selling you to a traveling slave factory.”

“No chance in hell,” the girl snorted, turning her face away with distaste until bony white fingers sank into her shoulder.

“Get down from there,” a skeleton with a dirk ordered her, but Mia vanished right before him, appearing without warning five or ten feet away at the nose of a different horse. The startled mount whinnied and reared up. This was repeated with all the horses, plunging the group into chaos.

There were those who somehow managed to control the animals rising on their hind legs, those who fell from the saddle, and those who were trampled by the horses after falling. Screams and whinnies shook the night air.

Suddenly a ghostly light formed in one spot, swelling into a little fireball about three feet in diameter. Though it didn’t emit the radiation associated with nuclear fission or fusion, its core temperature still reached ten thousand degrees. When the fireball began to contract, the paralyzed Mia appeared right next to it. At the same time the glowing sphere of fire faded, she toppled forward. The left half of her body, which had been exposed to the light, was smoking.

“That did the trick. Half her face is burned, but what the hell, we’ll still get good money for her,” the one who’d unleashed the fireball guffawed from the back of his steed.

Kicking the skeleton whose head had been so neatly severed right off his horse, the fake D gave an angelic smile from his place in the saddle to the badly shaken bandit group. The bony white steed beneath him seemed to suit him better than it did the skeleton rabble.

"What the hell?” the skeletons exclaimed, fearful cries spilling from their mouths along with the flames. The fake D already knew that the skeletal horses and riders were just spooky costumes covered in luminescent paint. There was one off to his right—and the fake leapt at him from the back of his horse. Although the guy went for the stake gun holstered on his hip, he didn’t even manage to draw it before being run through the heart.

In midair, the fake D muttered, “Huh?” That wasn’t the way he’d intended to slay the man. And the reason he was the tiniest bit off balance when he landed was because he hadn’t come down in the pose he expected.

A rider shot a white-hot bolt at him, but it only grazed his left shoulder as he dashed forward and to the right—toward three men who’d been thrown from their horses. Unbelievably powerful to begin with, his legs kept any attacks from landing. The leftmost skeleton had an insect gun leveled.

He was braced to slash his opponent from one shoulder to the opposite armpit—but even though his arms shifted position without any thought on his part, he still pierced his foe with a remarkable thrust through the neck.

What the hell’s going on? This thought flashed through his mind just for an instant while he executed a half turn and delivered a thrust to the middle skeleton that killed him instantly, leaving only the third.

Making a great leap, the fake had his sword in the high position as he came straight down at a guy armed with a double-barreled shotgun who’d grabbed onto a horse to get back on his feet—but for some reason, both his arms and his blade took up different positions. And that slowed him down.

D heard his own voice, the shout sounding a million miles away. He was aware of the exquisite balance of tension in the muscles of his legs and abdomen, his back and chest. They were supporting his two arms and his sword.

As the blade glided forward, the thrust was perfect. The tip of the blade formed a right angle to the door as it slid in as smoothly as if he were stabbing a mirage. All of the energy in this world was channeled through D’s body and into the blade in a split second.

The gate grew indistinct, losing its shape and allowing the scene beyond it to come into view. A vast wilderness stretching into the twilight. D realized that this was simultaneously the world that he presently occupied and the real world. Fact and fiction were in complete agreement.

In the moonlight, the fake D was crouched down, applying a white cloth to Mia’s face. It was a radiation-removing stupe— something he’d found in the skeletons’ saddle bags. It went without saying who all the corpses lying around him belonged to. There were no survivors. They had made an enemy of the young man who called himself D.

“Was she hurt?” D asked. His voice was like iron, utterly devoid of warmth. There stood the Hunter, as always beautiful and cold as ice.

“Got tagged with a little radiation. Her life’s not in any danger, but her face got trashed. There’s nothing that can be done for her out here. The Capital’s the only place they could fix this.”

Mia hadn’t passed out. She was intently gazing at D—not that she was blaming him for the pain she’d suffered. The look in her eyes was one of joy at D being safe. And this was how he rewarded her?

Not surprisingly, the fake D took exception to that, saying, “Hey, isn’t that a little cold?”

“It’s fine. Because he’s right,” Mia said, stopping him. Brave as her expression was, it was unavoidable that some hint of sadness hadn’t left it.

“When did you get here?” D inquired as he looked far out across the desolate plain. From where they stood, a lone road stretched in a straight line through the middle of a boulder-strewn expanse.

“It’s known as the Highway of the Dead,” the Hunter’s left hand said. “Now I remember. Seems my memory was wiped out, too. Till we found this place, that is.”

“But if there’s a road to the far north, we would’ve gotten there sooner or later. Why’d that woman Menda take such a roundabout way to explain it? All that business with the gate . ..” “Hey, hold on there. This wasn’t here from the start,” the fake D remarked with amazement after exchanging looks with Mia. “In the beginning, there was a chain of mountains. It’s called the North Lake Mountain Range, and it’s on maps and everything. The highest peak is Mount North Lake at fifteen thousand feet above sea level. There were three more mountains over twelve thousand feet, and another seven in the ten-thousand-foot range. And all of it, just like that—well, I’d say it couldn’t have taken two seconds for them to be laid flat.”

“That’s right,” Mia said, finally sitting up. One hand pressed the stupe against her left cheek. Her shirt and slacks were also charred on her left side, but fortunately the flesh beneath was unharmed. “It was just like a dream. That huge mountain range shook just like it was an illusion, its lines blurred, and in an instant it turned flat. Then after that, this plain formed.”

What the power of Mother Nature had raised tens of millions of years earlier had now become this smooth expanse of earth and stones. Where had the other billions, nay, trillions of tons of rock and soil gone? Had the gate D stabbed into been the North Lake Mountain Range? The mystery had been transformed into a desolate plain slumbering in the light of the moon.

The trio stood there, feeling the weight of the moonlight. D didn’t ask why it’d been given that name—he knew his left hand wouldn’t answer. And there were other matters to attend to.

He began to walk toward his cyborg horse. That was all he could do. There could be no retreat for this young man, and the road that called him led to slaughter and strife.

The fake D also settled into the saddle, and Mia returned to the wagon. Two horses and a wagon advanced in the moonlight.

“By the way,” the fake D said to the Hunter as he rode alongside him. Not waiting for D to reply, he continued, “How did you get the gate open?”

It was a few seconds before the fake D accepted this, saying, “I see. I guess that figures.” For he hadn’t forgotten how every last attack he’d launched against the skeletons had turned into a thrust.

The Highway of the Dead—they didn’t know the reason it carried this disturbing appellation, but the plain and road that an entire mountain range had been used to conceal stretched out in the moonlight with no end in sight, just one craggy rock after another in a scene that would’ve transformed even pioneers aglow with hope and dreams of exploration into prisoners of madness and despair.

A great emptiness assailed Mia. If she’d been out in the sunlight, things might’ve been a little better. However, as dhampirs, the two men chose to travel by night. That couldn’t be helped, and she realized she was only getting in the way, but there was no way for her to fight the mental devastation as they continued down the desolate road. Anyone who lived on the Frontier had surely had a similar experience. A road thick with monsters by night, a highway strewn with bones. Three days and three nights it had continued, over an interminable distance. And yet, she didn’t understand why these feelings of fear and helplessness were creeping into her.

Without even realizing it, Mia had let go of the reins. No longer driven to hurry, the horse slowed to a stop, and the vehicle’s speed dropped at the same rate until it soon halted.

The two Ds, who were riding ahead, quickly raced back to her. It was the fake D that asked her, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Somehow, this seems so—futile. After a little rest, I’m sure I’ll be better.”

“Well—” Mia began, hemming and hawing. She couldn’t give him an honest answer.

“Do you want to stay here like this? Do you simply not care what happens anymore?” D asked her, his words piercing her breast. Unable to lie to him, Mia conceded, saying, “Yeah.”

“I see,” the fake D said, looking at D. “So, is this why it’s called the Highway of the Dead? Why don’t you ask your left hand?” “Right you are,” a hoarse voice replied, acknowledging the truth of his statement in a dejected tone. “Try going a little further. You’ll soon see. Actually, you can do that even from here.”

The trio surveyed their surroundings. A weird miasma blew against the napes of their necks like some unpleasantly warm wind.

“Look at that, would you,” the fake D said, tossing his jaw to the east—the right-hand side of the highway.

Beyond the rocks and dirt stood human forms—an emaciated figure clad in rags, with another beside it, and still another beside that, and behind it. . .

“They’re the folks who’ve followed this road,” said the hoarse voice. “Headed toward Muma. As far as I know, this has gone on for more than five thousand years, and the road has been taken by more than twenty million people.”

“I don’t know. But they didn’t come here of their own free will.” “How’s that?” said the fake.

“They were summoned. By the one known as ‘the great one.’ ” “All twenty million of them?”

“Seems he was doing some sort of experiment in Muma. And for it, he needed strong human beings—men and women not just physically but also mentally tougher than millions of others. This highway is, so to speak, a test course to evaluate the humans he selects.”

Humans lacking drive—those without sufficient strength of mind—would lose everything out here, unable to advance or turn back until they shriveled into corpses by the roadside.

“They just keep staring at us. It’s spooky,” the fake D said in a tone that didn’t sound spooked at all.

“They can’t do anything,” the hoarse voice replied. “If they could, they’d go on or turn back.”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s the only thing we can do. Okay, come here,” the fake D said, slapping the back of his saddle.

“Here’s the scary part about the Highway of the Dead. The strong ones carry those who are worn out. They bring them along. But they quickly see the grave error in their ways. In other words, they find out that apathy is contagious.”

“Sorry,” the fake D said, pulling back. Mia was left in the wagon. “If that’s the case, baby here—”

“She’ll have to be left behind. No matter what, sooner or later the highway’s atmosphere’s gonna gnaw its way into you, but at least this will buy you some added time. Especially since you two are special.”

“After a little while has passed, she won’t even want to be bothered with lamenting how she’s been left behind. That’s what true apathy is like. So relax.”

“Is that right? In that case, I feel better about it,” the fake D said with a nod. “Sony about this, baby. Looks like this is as far as you go.”

Mia nodded. She fully understood the import of the three-sided conversation and knew what she had to do. “It’s all right. Please, go on . . . I’ll stay here.”

“When you say that, it only makes this harder. But I guess there’s nothing we can do. So long,” the fake D told her, wheeling his horse around.

Perhaps Mia had lost the will to watch him go, because she kept looking down, but a single tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek. A burned, twisted cheek.

“You did great making it this far,” D said in a cold, gentle voice to the girl with the burned face. “You can go the rest of the way, can’t you?”

“Yeah,” Mia replied, taking a firm hold of the well-formed fingers he offered.

The wind snarled across the wilderness. With her face pressed against D’s back, Mia thought dazedly, I wonder where it blows from?

It wasn’t Mia’s hands that had bound her to D. At first she’d wrapped her arms around him, but that strength had left her, and now a thin rope tethered her to him. In all honesty, it was even too bothersome to think.

How’s it going with D? she wondered. They said my apathy is contagious. Even if they’d done nothing they would’ve been affected, but if he catches it from me then dhampir or not, he’s bound to feel the effects. How far have I gone swaying on this horse’s back? Everything seems so melancholy now. I don’t care if I die like this.

She was ready to throw in the towel, but then the last bit of will in her snapped back, A fortuneteller works for everyone’s sake. You haven’t completed your mission yet.

That was the code of the fortuneteller, which her mother had drilled into her since before she could remember.

How many times had she lost consciousness, and how many times had she come around once more?

The fake D’s words shined a narrow beam of light into her dimming consciousness.

“Eh?” she grunted, putting her hands around D’s waist and sticking her head out to one side. She wasn’t even cognizant of how she managed to move her body. Her eyelids opened. The image her optic nerves conveyed to her brain was of a prickly form coming into view out in the moonlight. A building without a single soft line dominated the horizon.

“Uh, yeah,” Mia replied, but at the same time she was speaking, she was surprised by D’s question. Had the young man been keeping a silent watch over her condition?

“Who cares what you think,” Mia said, turning away indignantly. She harbored a bit of resentment toward him for refusing to take her on his horse.

“Looks like even pretty boys can fall out of favor. That’s what you get when you make the mistake of treating a woman unkindly.”

“But you know, even though you and D are the very same person, you differ in some essential part. I wonder why there’s this difference? Hmm. Maybe we should ask whoever’s in that factory?”

The road ran straight to the black building. It was three hours later that the trio passed through its massive and imposing entrance, which was more like a castle’s gatehouse. The gates were off their hinges, and the impression of devastation they’d garnered from afar continued into the courtyard and to all the buildings and towers beyond.

“If this is Muma, then the sway reactor should be here,” D said, looking around.

“Hold your horses. First we’ve gotta find the medical center. Baby here needs to have her cheek seen to, you know.”

“No!” Mia cried raptly. “Instead of worrying about me, I want both of you to go look for the reactor.”

The second they’d entered the factory’s premises, her apathy had vanished without a trace.

“It’s okay,” the fake replied. “I’m not particularly interested in the reactor anyway. I just thought if I came here, I’d find out why I was born. I suppose we could poke around a bit, though.”

“You think this is any time to be taking it easy?” the left hand snapped at him. “From what I’ve seen, this place isn’t Muma.”

“What?” the fake D exclaimed, and not only he and Mia, but D as well looked at the Hunter’s left hand.

“You seem pretty full of yourself for a freaking hand. Show me your proof this isn’t Muma,” said the fake D.

“My proof is the Highway of the Dead. Look at it. As you can see, it runs straight in through the front gate and cuts right through the middle of this spread. It’s paved and everything. In other words, this is a different factory that was built in the middle of the highway. Most likely the highway keeps going like that and goes out through a back gate. The longer we stay in this pointless place, the more time we’ll be wasting. Once the girl’s been patched up, the best idea would be to move out as soon as possible.” “Hmm, that’s one theory,” the fake D said, rolling his eyes. “But, you see, this isn’t just some factory. The layout’s the size of a major city. It’s more remarkable than that underground facility. If this isn’t Muma, what the hell is it?”

“I don’t know. But from the look of the devastation, it certainly must’ve fallen out of use a long, long time ago—huh?”

The fake D had wheeled his horse around and stuck one arm out. Mia had been just about to fall from behind D, but he’d caught her firmly by the shoulder.

“I’ll go try to find the medical center. You can play tourist in the ruins for all I care.”

Once the fake D had departed indignantly with Mia, the left hand said to the Hunter, “Is he gonna be okay? He seemed pretty hot under the collar.”

“At least where that girl is concerned, he’ll probably do whatever he has to do. Even if it puts him in harm’s way. Like you, his own death means nothing to him. But if she becomes an obstacle to his aims, that’s another story.”

“You remember what I said—that you and he are essentially the same being?”

“Well, I’ve kinda lost my faith in that statement. He and you are—hell, I don’t know.”

D was already walking toward a building that towered especially high behind a front yard as if he didn’t care at all about his own origin, which was probably true. The exquisite young man’s callous eyes weren’t focused on the past or the future.

In the dust-covered lobby of the ground floor there was a computer-generated map of the facility that was still operational. Apparently energy concealed somewhere kept this spot out in the

middle of the desolate wastes alive. That power was three thousand stories underground in the central research center, in an area that had no name. Surely that had to be the core of this facility.

The fake D also found the medical center right away. He’d assumed that any facility this vast was bound to have humans working at it. The Nobility had no fundamental need for medical aid, and based on the heartless cruelty of their rule over the human race, it would be expected they wouldn’t provide any kind of health care whatsoever, but on this point the pride of the Nobility might’ve come into play. Without exception, the medical institutions that greeted their human manual laborers were furnished with equipment incorporating the latest treatments and technology.

Having discovered a computer-generated map in another building, the fake D had brought Mia up to a hospital five hundred stories above the ground. Though it consisted of but a single floor, it was a hundred times better stocked than any of the great hospitals in the Capital. But for all that, it was incredible the way the equipment suggested it could hold only about a hundred patients—which had probably been the number of human laborers.

“With a place like this, you could bring the dead back to life,” the fake D muttered with a wry smile.

The superscientific medical gear was indeed impressive. The problem was, there wasn’t any power to operate the machinery. Since the elevator had worked, the place wasn’t completely without power, and perhaps the relay system had malfunctioned, but even the fake D couldn’t find and repair the problem. He thought about getting her medicine, but all the drugs were dispensed by a computer that wasn’t operating. One of the pitfalls of a completely automated system.

“What a joke,” he said. “I’ll go find you some medicine, so wait here, okay?”

The fake D gained entry to the pharmaceutical storage vault. Since the access computer was dead, he pried the door open with brute force, somehow managed to find drugs for treating radiation, and then returned. Three hours had passed.

“It’d be just like him to be hiding somewhere, getting his kicks making a fool out of me. Come to think of it, my presence—isn’t here!” he cried, twisting his upper body around.

As he struck right from the draw, streaks of blue wrapped around the blade of his sword only to be reduced to cut hairs that spread across the floor.

The man who stood in front of the door didn’t seem to react to what the fake D said. But that build, those features, and the hair that’d just been cut down—he was definitely Yuma.

No—on further examination, the fake D corrected himself. This man was too short and seemed too heavy to be Yuma. His movements were slower, too.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked the man he now considered a completely different person.

Running low to the ground as another deadly wave of hair blew at him, the fake D came up on one side of Yuma and slammed the back of his blade against the nape of the man’s neck. As he fell, he certainly had Yuma’s face. However, there were subtle differences.

Bringing him around, the fake looked into dazed eyes as they opened and asked, “Where the hell did you take the girl?”

“Want to know?” sneered the fake Yuma—or rather, Yuma #2. He clearly had to be the culprit.

Pressing the tip of his blade right up against the base of the man’s throat to wipe the smile off his face, the fake D asked him, “You’re some sort of reject Yuma, aren’t you?”

Suddenly, the fake D forgot he was the one in a position to make threats and froze. A certain thought had left him astonished.

“Hey!” he said, grabbing Yuma #2 by the chin and shaking him. “Don’t tell me this whole layout was to make you guys ...” “Precisely,” he heard a voice say behind him—or rather, from all sides. Yuma’s voice. “He was just a decoy to put you at our center. No matter where you go or how fast you move, you won’t be able to guard against our attacks.”

“I’ll be damned,” the fake D said, pulling his blade away from the throat of Yuma #2.

A thin smirk grew on #2’s face as he got back up, and the man suddenly pursed his lips. But he ended up swallowing the spit he had been about to launch at his foe. For the fake D had brought his blade up, and he cut the man open from the top of his head to his breastbone.

With murderous intent and a bloody wind howling at him, the fake D raised one cheek with a daunting grin and said, “Don’t fuck with me, reject!”

“As we might’ve expected, the man named D is quite skilled.” There was one voice, but it came from more than a score of people in unison. For a second, the fake thought it might’ve been some kind of ventriloquism, but he could sense a great number of people there.

“Not exactly, but not far from the mark either,” they laughed as one. “We’ve all been implanted with the same memories and the same mission, in order that we might dispose of those who learn of Muma’s existence. Ultimately, only one of us was chosen, but it looks as if those of us who were discarded have also been given a purpose in life.”

A second later his whole body was tinged with the color of twilight. Indigo hair had flown at him from all directions and wrapped around him. At the same time, several of the Yumas that surrounded him had fallen backward silently. Wooden needles jutted from their chests.

The fake D became a black cyclone, flying through a rent in the descending net formed by the hair of his attackers. Though he moved with such speed that they didn’t even have time to launch another attack, the fake hadn’t gone fifteen feet before he thudded loudly to the floor. Bright blood went flying. The thousands or tens of thousands of hairs that’d wrapped all around the fake D’s body had pressed deep into his skin, splitting his flesh.

“Though you might call us rejects, we have power enough to slay you. There are twenty-five of us here. More than a sufficient number, we’d say.”

A different hue danced out into the gloom. Day was about to break. The color was white—the hue of rough wooden stakes. Twenty-five hands gripped them, raising them high.

“We shall accomplish one of our missions!” they cried, all of them like blue moths swarming a black beetle as they surrounded the fake D. Now a stab from any one of them would prove a fatal blow. “Meet your destruction, D. The Sacred Ancestor’s own—”

The chorus lost its harmony there. The truncated sentence became a pained groan, and all of them turned their gaze in one direction. Their eyes filled with turbulence and rapture.

Like flowing blue water, the figures moved around this new D. They were trying to surround him. A silvery flash cut down a storm of hair, the blue wind falling limply to cover the floor until D alone stood there dejectedly. Every last one of the twenty-five Yumas was laid out around him.

D walked over to the fake D and sliced off the hair sinking into the fake’s flesh with a single light stroke from his right hand. He didn’t even leave a mark on the other man’s skin.

Suddenly, a bloody fog erupted. And while it did, the fake D stood there as impassive as a temple guardian. The wounds left by the hair closed instantly. Not only his body, but also his wardrobe returned to its original state, which suggested that it made use of different materials than the real D’s clothing.

“What you just did was totally unnecessary, you know,” the fake griped as he rotated one shoulder. “Well, I’m sure you think you saved me, so I’ll thank you anyway. This facility—”

“We traveled down into the heart of the facility,” D said in a hoarse voice.

“We’ll put some life into one. Make ’im talk,” the hoarse voice suggested, chortling until it was choked off in a cry of pain.

Left hand still clenched in a tight fist, D went over to one of the corpses piled around him, grabbed it by the collar, and hoisted it off the ground. Though the two Ds quickly breathed life back into him, the body said he knew nothing where Mia was concerned and turned away indignantly. Even after a merciless slash from the fake D lopped off both his ears, his reply remained the same. The two Ds decided he was telling the truth.

“If it wasn’t these clowns, then who took her?” the fake D said with a faraway look in his eyes. “And where?”

Engraved with colorful patterns, the long, thin object was made of metal and measured about eight inches. It was no thicker than a conductor’s baton. D was just about to pick it up when he halted for a moment.

Without really looking at the stick he held, D threw it down on the floor again.

Falling with a clang, the stick didn’t roll the way it should’ve, but rather swept around in a clean arc and stopped itself again. It pointed in the very same direction as before it’d been picked up.

“I suppose it’s telling us she’s that way, eh? To be sure and go after her. When you picked it up a minute ago, it didn’t move, did it?”

Shoulder to shoulder, the two figures headed toward the door. When they reached the road, they felt heavy shocks traveling up through the soles of their boots.

D reached up and grasped his saddle, saying, “Only it seems that I slightly miscalculated. It’s about ten minutes early.”

“You’re awfully calm about it,” the fake D said as he urged his cyborg horse into a gallop.

Ten minutes later, the pair was racing down the highway when they were struck from behind by a terrific shock wave that bowled them over, mounts and all.

Mia was in the midst of chaos, but she hadn’t noticed that this was the same chaos D had been in and which she herself had slipped into once before. As she walked through the mysteriously pervasive clouds, she sensed someone or something incredibly huge up ahead. An eerie feeling knifed through her. It was fear—the kind of terror so thick and intense that one misstep might mean she’d never recover from it. However, oddly enough, she wasn’t afraid of that happening, and this frame of mind saved Mia. It was unimaginably deep and cold and, strangest of all, warm. Due to this, Mia didn’t halt.

There’s quite a resemblance, she thought. Although the scale differed so greatly, in some basic respects they were like two peas in a pod. This one and D.

You’re right, echoed a voice from somewhere, but Mia was neither surprised nor frightened. To the contrary, she let a question slip right out.

The power of the imagination is a thing to be feared, the voice replied, seeming to laugh. However, that’s one of the most beautiful things about humans. Because of that power, the human race hasn’t died out, and you have come here.

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone mention those. I should’ve expected as much from the daughter of Noa Simon.

“Stop that!” Mia said aloud, speaking in spite of herself. And with that, she finally realized that up until now she’d merely been thinking the words.

Even I don’t know that, said the voice in her head. Can you understand what it’s like to wonder if the things you want to do are really what you want to do?

I can’t do that. It would seem you don’t yet grasp what it is you’ve done.

Anxiety spread through her like a black stain. Her heart began to pound madly. She’d have to use a spell to bring it back under control.

The pressure of the air surrounding her increased sharply, causing Mia to flinch. At the very least, it could be said for certain that there was an intense mental link between D and the source of this voice. The possibilities boggled the mind.

If I pulled D back, what’s the problem? she asked after gathering her courage.

The being up ahead had begun to bombard her with fierce and unearthly air. She thought she was going to black out—however, it wasn’t an awful feeling.

Such a dignified spirit, Mia declared, surprised in the strangest way. It looked like she wasn’t going to be tortured to death.

He came to Muma. A place he shouldn’t have gone; nay, a place he had to go. Sooner or later, he’ll probably learn a great many things. However, that is a mistake.

“A mistake?” she said, once more speaking by accident. She got the feeling that one phrase from this being was packed with tremendous import. It was almost as if a god were perfectly content to give someone on earth the order, “Die.”

His arrival in Muma was supposed to come in the far-distant future. But due to unavoidable circumstances, it has happened much earlier. Though this isn’t the problem, a small error has set off a chain reaction, spreading out to such an extent that now it can no longer be undone.

A certain thought popped quietly into Mia’s head. Like a small, cold speck of light, it instantly ignored Mia’s self-restraint, armed as it was with an overwhelming conviction.

Mia closed her eyes. She didn’t really know if she wanted to hear that answer. She’d been right; it had been an error. There was no way there were supposed to be two men that beautiful. It flew in the face of the natural order of the world.

Just then, the voice said, Taking one’s own hole-riddled opinion as the truth based on the scantest of information is a human characteristic, but that doesn’t serve a fortuneteller.

It was like someone had landed a punch to the side of Mia’s head. The drunken sensation of floating in midair even made her feel dizzy. The one she’d met first was the real one, the one that she liked.

Which is the real one? Or let me put it to you this way: What exactly is the real one?

CHAPTER 6

The two of them raced down the highway, their horses side by side. They weren’t cantering. The cyborg horses galloped with all their might, their manes streaming in the wind as they gouged a path through the ash gray world.

It was overcast. Leaden clouds bunched overhead, their weight making the wind divert around them like pools of stagnant water as they crushed down on the weedy ground. Already it was past noon, and nothing could be seen at the end of the highway.

“So, just how far am I going?” the fake D called over to his other self.

There was no reply.

Clucking his tongue, the fake D glared at the Hunter out of the corner of his eye, but while he was doing so, he began to go into a daze and had to hurriedly face forward again. D’s handsome features had captivated him—even though it was his own face. He could recall seeing it in the mirror hundreds of times before. And each time it had held him spellbound. Undoubtedly that D lacked the narcissism the fake D had in abundance.

“What the hell?” he spat, perhaps fearing the strange movements of his own heart, or maybe he was simply embarrassed.

They rode in silence for another ten minutes. Without warning, D’s steed tumbled forward. Like a shot from a gun, D started to

pitch headlong—but by planting both feet firmly in the stirrups and using his knees to grip the barrel of the horse, he was able to lean back and maintain his balance. Dismounting, D examined his steed’s front leg and determined that it was hopeless. There was a crack in its lightweight alloy framework. Even if it were welded, the animal couldn’t possibly gallop along as it had until now.

“What’ll you do?” the fake D called down to him from his own mount, having seen the situation and gotten a faint inkling of the troubled future.

“You’ll have to let me ride behind you. Or the other way around, if you prefer.”

“I thought you’d say that, but no way. I’ll ride ahead. For starters, we haven’t even seen a trace of Muma yet.”

The fake D looked down from the saddle, gritting his teeth. “I can’t do that. Common sense says you’re not supposed to see yourself, because you see your own bad points a hundred times clearer in someone else. I hate this. This must be why they always say people who see their doppelganger meet an earlier death. They aren’t killed by their other self; they kill themselves. But when I look at you, it doesn’t really bother me or anything. After a little while I get infatuated, actually. I wonder what the story is with that? Well, there’s no way around it, I guess. Climb aboard.”

“Hey! Just what do you—” the fake was saying when a tinge of surprise skimmed across his countenance. “Aha! So, someone’s following us, eh? Who is it?”

Though he focused his keen gaze back in the direction from which they’d come, he seemed to reconsider this almost immediately, tugging on the reins and driving his steed forward.

“See you! I think I’ll leave the rest to you after all,” he called out, his mount taking five or six strides before he looked back, but D had already turned the other way.

Seeing that broad and solitary back, the fake D had a look in his eyes for a second that might best be described as sorrowful, but then he delivered a strong kick to his horse’s flank.

Once the echoes of iron-shod hooves had vanished behind D, his left hand said, “He went? When he goes and does something like that, he’s just like you. Sometimes I can’t tell which of you is which. D, it might not be such a good idea bringing him to Muma.”

“It’s too late,” he replied coldly, but was that in answer to his left hand or a remark relating to whoever was closing on him?

D didn’t answer, so it continued, “White blood cells and red blood cells both show marked decreases. Your bone marrow’s been ravaged. Typical radiation poisoning.”

Earlier, he’d undoubtedly been exposed while destroying the proton reactor in the Yuma factory. Of course, D was nearly immortal. His Noble blood wouldn’t allow him to die from such a thing. But short lived though the effects might be, they came right when he might need to stand against a foe closing on him.

“Well, hurry up and feed me some dirt. Then get me some water. You should still have some in your canteen. Your horse’s piss would work, too. Gyaah!”

Closing his fist tightly, D squinted his eyes at the highway, which ran on and on and dwindled down to a thread. Though physically attractive beyond words, he was shrouded by a grimness as unchanging as a diamond. However, if anyone but D had sensed the nature of what was closing on him, they would’ve undoubtedly run for all they were worth in an attempt to get as far away as they could.

Down at the far end of that lone ribbon of road, wasn’t it sort of cloudy? Better yet, a sound could be made out clearly now. A rumbling of the earth. Beneath the gray sky, those advancing toward D weren’t just a hundred or two strong. There were certainly more, on the order of several thousand of them. And they came, pounding across the ground. They were about five hundred yards distant.

“The living dead,” D replied. It was a question he couldn’t help but answer.

Just as they were about to run into him, he leapt to the side of the road, and before him passed countless men and women dressed in rags, shaking the earth as they marched on in silence. The faces of all were pale, lacking vitality. The eyes were those of dead fish. And yet, they were not dead. Their feeble gait was that of the living. More importantly, they were breathing. Their chests rose and fell. And on the nape of each, over the carotid artery, there were two black spots—fang marks.

“Where have they all come from? They’re his victims,” the left hand said, and even its voice had a gloomy ring to it.

Ah, a mob of living dead traveling down the Highway of the Dead. At one time, victims summoned for some sort of experiment had used this road. Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of living dead had traveled this way toward Muma. After that, for reasons unknown, the highway had become a mountain range. Surely this had been an unforeseen turn of events for those who’d been summoned. Victims of the Nobility, they were driven out of towns and villages, wandering and waiting for thousands of years for the road to their destination to reopen. As proof of that, the rags they wore all had to be clothes from decades or centuries earlier.

“See his power?” the hoarse voice said. “All their faces are glowing with joy! No Noble, no matter how powerful, can leave an expression like that on the faces of people he’s fed on.”

But how did the people’s faces look to D as they surged forward like pilgrims bound for some holy land?

Victims of the Nobility were captives of a kind of sensual rapture, and it was due to that that they waited for the vampire’s second or third visit. It was common knowledge that under close scrutiny, they would kill the very family members who were trying to protect them just to get outside. However, on the faces of those who passed before D in silence was a kind of religious rapture far beyond the sensual level—an expression of supreme bliss that could even be called sublime. Such was his power.

“He must be in Muma,” the left hand said. “Can you slay him?” D didn’t answer.

The left hand heaved a deep sigh. “That being said, I don’t actually know. What I do know for sure is that if we follow them—”

D was already walking down the road. He had no horse. Among the sprinting living dead, some had been on horses, but they hadn’t even glanced at D.

Without warning, a wagon raced toward him from the sullenly advancing mob. It halted in front of D, and muddied but well-shaped eyes stared down at him from the driver’s seat.

“You’re—” muttered a fair-skinned girl who was clad in rags like the rest of them. Even with the face of a corpse, she retained enough beauty to suggest she must’ve been stunning before.

“You’re . . .” she muttered once more, shaking her head and adding sadly, “No, I’m mistaken . . . But why .. . Why do you look exactly like he does?”

“He is ... you.” The girl blinked her eyes. “No ... that’s not right. He ... is supposed to be up ahead ... not out here ...”

“I can’t... You aren’t like us . . . You weren’t meant to travel this road . . .” she said, trying to get her team to turn.

The words hadn’t come from the mouth of the gorgeous young man, but from his left hand, although the girl didn’t know that.

“As you can see, he and I are close,” that voice continued. “Out of these tens of thousands of people, how many do you think he’s gonna choose?”

“Look. The chances of you being selected are less than one in ten thousand. When the time comes, this guy—I mean, I—could put in a good word for you, right?”

“You . . . could help me . . . stand by his side?” the girl said, and from the way vigor seemed to return to the death mask that was her face, she looked to be quite happy.

D had made a fist again, but this time it wasn’t as tight. You could tell because the scream managed to escape.

“In that case . . . sure. You do promise, don’t you? That I’ll really be able to be by his side . . . That you’ll speak up for me . . .”

“Uh . . . sure. You’ve got yourself a deal,” said a barely passable imitation of D’s voice.

“In that case ...” The girl gave a toss of her chin to the wagon bed behind her.

A second later, D was in the vehicle. On seeing his swiftness and the way he landed without making a sound, the girl said in an enraptured tone, “He . . . was that way, too . . . Walking as quick as the night wind . . . and as soundless as the light of the moon . . .”

The girl swung the reins, and the horses quickly dashed forward down the Highway of the Dead, now bustling with living-dead traffic.