The Ruler sat straight and rigid. The throne in his quarters was built for relaxation, plush and padded, but he always sat poised on its edge, as if ready to jump to his feet.

The throne crowned a stark white dais tall as an office building, and occupied an audience chamber amphitheater cut from ice, vast enough to stage a music festival if anyone cared to do so in a place buried in eternal winter. And yet this was only his oceangoing throne room on the vessel now crashing through the Atlantic waves, bound for his home country where his personal grounds—the hunting grounds, three fishing lakes, and the palace on its cliff by the sea-occupied a fourth of the nation's square mileage.

All around the chamber's circular wall, walled up in the crystal ice, stood his new purchases: missiles like the Apollo boosters, awaiting their debut from his home launchers to surprise and shock all of Europe. He liked seeing them, having them around him, as one Vlad the Impaler liked to dine among his skewered victims.

Above the Ruler's head hung a chandelier, an intricate thing formed of ice crystals, that fanned out into fluted designs like a snowflake. Where it joined the ceiling, branches crawled down the bulkheads like crystal ivy, shining lights within, and it was these that provided the dim chamber's modest lighting—the Ruler did not like things too bright. But the chandelier served another purpose as well. As the Ruler watched, it came alive with lights, twinkling and flashing out a pattern that only the Ruler could understand.

A shadow crossed his face. After fuming and spitting curses, he sent for the Investor.

The Investor shuffled into the chamber, puffing frosty breath. A big man, the Investor was, but bigger was the collection of diamonds and gems that he kept not in a safe, nor a safe deposit box, but displayed all over his person, on necklaces and pins and rings crowding every finger, and fairly encrusting the obscenely-priced black suit he wore—black, the better to highlight the sparkle of his new wealth.

"You called for me?" His voice echoed in the ice-cut cathedral. It also shook slightly; he always faced the Ruler with the look of a man staring down a shotgun. "Sorry I couldn't get here quicker...you know, is there a faster way? It always takes me a half hour to get through all those twists and turns, and sometimes I run into dead ends and have to backtrack...do you think I could at least have a map?"

"You should consider yourself privileged that you can reach my sanctum at all." The chamber echoed the Ruler's voice into a dozen resounding rebukes. "Those who aren't invited get lost in the tunnels, and are never seen again."

"Oh. Ah—thank you, Excellency."

"Don't thank me until you've heard what I have to tell you."

"Yes?"

"It's the Fangs. I just heard back." The Ruler drummed his fingers on the throne's armrest. "How many of them did I send? At your urging, I might add?"

He waited. The Investor swallowed. "Five thousand."

The Ruler nodded. "The entire corps. Every last one." He leaned forward, glaring down at his partner. "And do you know how many returned?"

The Investor tugged at his collar. "How many, sir?" He asked in a small voice.

"One."

Silence.

"You mean one thousand?" No answer. "One hundred?"

"One. Single. Man." The voice was icier than the cathedral.

"What happened?" the Investor cried. It had to be some kind of natural disaster, a tornado, something like that! "What did that man say?"

"A missile happened, for starters. Your darling stepdaughter rode it, if you can believe that, along with the other members of her little high school clique."

This simply couldn't be happening. "They...rode...?"

"And jumped out, before it exploded and wiped out all but a few of my brave, valiant warriors. The rest were so much 'mincemeat' for the girls, in the words of the survivor, who was practically in hysterics by the time he reached me. The last few were murdered by none other than the target herself, with one of their own rocket launchers!" The Ruler was on his feet now, shouting down at the cowering Investor. "So much for guaranteeing the outcome!"

"Yes, yes your Excellency—"

"Yes your Excellency, what? So tell me, my slob of a friend..." The Ruler resumed his throne. "Any more bright ideas?"

"No, sir, no! But maybe...well..." Sweat trickled down the side of his head. "She has all her friends back now, you know...so, um...maybe she'll just get on with her life and forget—"

"She rounded them up to come after us, idiot!"

The Investor hung his head, and dared say no more.

"Get yourself and your diamonds out of here. I need to think."

The glittering man bowed deeply, turned and fled.