approaching
left off his chuckling and nodded.“And your list?”
“Done . . . but for the additions you so graciously sent us.” The redcap’s voice was anything but gracious.
“Ah. Well, we will eliminate them as well. Once that’s done, we can begin rebuilding. Building a new world.” Duncan looked over the small fleet of aircraft arrayed in the hangar, especially the largest of the ships, the one with the name Storm Cloud painted on its side. “You’ve done quite well, Angus.”
“I want you to have all the conveniences you need.”
“Angus? Is the ceremony done?” That call came from the far side of the hangar, and the speaker soon trotted into view: a blond man, elegant, almost inhumanly beautiful. “It is,” he continued. “I wish you’d told me.” The blond man slowed to a walk, approaching almost tentatively.
Angus waved him over and brought him face-to-face with Blackletter. “Duncan, let me present the boy, Darig. He has learned the business well. He will make you proud. Darig, this is the great man himself.”
Duncan took the young man by the shoulders and stared intently into his face. “I have not seen you since you were an infant.”
“I know, sir.”
“You are as handsome as your mother hoped you would be.”
“More so, I trust.”
Duncan smiled. “You know you will have to go to the grim world for a while.”
Darig shook his head. “I’d rather stay.”
“Well, if you do, you’ll have to die.” Duncan’s tone was friendly, reasonable.
“I know.” Darig smiled shyly. “I’d like to die as my world does. Help bring it about, even. Have you any need for a sacrifice to the gods? I’ve always fancied dying on an altar. Perhaps seeing my own beating heart before death takes me.”
Duncan beamed down at Angus. “You were right. He does make me proud.”
Harris settled into a schedule. Up just after dawn. Down to the gymnasium for a workout alone. Noriko would join him for instruction. Then she’d teach him for a while—techniques with knives, her sword, some of the grappling and tripping maneuvers she’d grown up learning in the land of Wo, not too different from the little bit of hapkido he’d learned once upon a time. When he told her that he barely knew one end of a gun from the other, she began taking him to the range on the same floor for practice with firearms.
Back to his room for a bath and clothes. Then he’d descend to the lab floor to graze from the food perpetually laid out on one of the tables. He might bump into anyone there, but it was usually