Closing her eyes, she pressed her lips against his hand. "Blaise, you have won. Now I am begging you. Take me from this place. I am frightened by the dark, and I am weary and hungry."

"Cody… never believed me," said Blaise, and the scorn was heavy in his voice. "But I always was twice the man you were." He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back until her terrified eyes met his. "Say it. Call me master!"

Hate was closing her throat, but she finally managed to force it out. " I acknowledge you my master."

He released her contemptuously. Threw over his shoulder to one of his nervous pimple-faced boy guards, "Take him upstairs. Get him a bath and some food, and tell one of the girls to find some maternity clothes." Turning back to Tachyon, he said with a grin, "I'm going to enjoy watching this process. This is so gross. You'll just get fatter and fatter, and when you finally pop out this one, I'll give you another. I can. I'm a man now, and I own you."

The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat

I dreamed. I knew I dreamed, but I couldn't wake myself.

I could hear the Princess sobbing, echoing in my head. The eerie sound of her pain reverberated from the depths of the place I somehow knew was called the Catacombs, and I couldn't bear the sound of it. Even though I knew that this was the Pretender's domain, this time I had to go to her physically.

With the thought, I found myself-the tall, lithe, and muscular Outcast-standing at the yawning, broken archway to the Catacombs, deep under the Crystal Castle where jokers walked. A rapier hung at my wide leather belt; I was dressed in fine supple leather and wore a wide-brimmed hat of stiff black cloth. With one last glance back at the sunlit world, I took the torch guttering in the wall sconce and entered the cold, empty darkness.

There were stairs, leading always down. I could hear the brush of the leather pants against my legs and the weeping of the Princess. Her anguish drew me and led me through the labyrinthine stairwells, among the multitude of corridors leading away right and left. This was a maze, like the dusty tombs I'd followed in my imagination in role-playing games.

Yet this felt like no game in my mind. I was the Outcast, the Hidden One, and I followed the distress of my distant imprisoned love. I moved cautiously, as silently as possible, since I knew I couldn't risk being seen here by the Pretender or any of his companions. He couldn't know that I plotted against him. It was only because I could never shut out the voice of the Princess that I came here-because I had always loved her from afar and now she was in pain. Because we talked with our minds and she knew me.

It seemed hours later that I came at last to a deep landing. It was cold here. A chill foulness emanated from a crevice in the wall to my left, though the passageway led straight ahead. Still, some compulsion drew me to the crevice first. It was a thin jagged crack from floor to ceiling, too small for me to fit through easily. From it issued that strange coldness and a bitter stench. I was glad the Princess wasn't down there; I didn't know if I could have gone to her. I tried to see into that darkness. Beyond there were series of caverns. The torchlight glittered from frozen falls of crystals; shimmering stalactites and stalagmites formed columns leading into the unknown depths. For a moment, I thought I caught a glimpse of a large dark bird lurking there, a penguin who looked at me with human, amused eyes.

Then it was gone.

The Princess cried out again, and I turned from the opening. I followed her compelling sobs until I came to a thick oaken door banded with great steel straps. A small hole, stoutly barred, was set in it. I let the light of my torch fall inside and peered in.

She lay in a pile of filthy straw in one corner of the bare stone cell. her golden hair spread out around her. She was more beautiful than my memory of her when I would watch her walking outside.

"Princess," I called softly.

She turned, gasping at the sound of my voice. "Yes," I said. "I am the Outcast."

She rose to her feet. Her plain cotton dress was torn, her face, arms, and legs bruised with the Pretender's abuse, but she was still enchanting.

She limped to the door and gazed at my face in wonderment. "So handsome," she breathed, as if voicing her thoughts. "I've heard your voice in my mind…" She touched my face with soft warm fingers, wonderingly. The tears began again, bright crystalline spheres tracking down her cheeks. "Please. I want out of here, Outcast. I can't stand this anymore. Please."

Her pleading tore at me in my helplessness. "Princess, this door's too strong; I don't have the keys." I didn't know what to say to her or how to explain. I couldn't help her, not that way.

"I understand," she said, and I knew she did. "You will find a way. You will."

"I'll try. That I promise you. I give you my oath, because I love you."

From somewhere nearby there was the sound of bolts rasping and hinges groaning. We could hear rough male voices, laughing, and what sounded to me like the low grumbling of some monstrous toad. "Quickly," the Princess said. "Go now."

"I'll send someone to help you," I promised her, twining her fingers in mine one more time. "I have friends. They'll help me. I'll be back."

"I know. But now you must go." The Princess kissed my fingers.

I moved back into the dark maze of stairs, returning to the sunlight above. Long before I reached it, though, I heard her scream.

And the scream woke me.

It was Tachyon, crying in Kelly's voice in my head, over and over again.

Prime looked around the lobby, nodding faintly. Zelda stood behind Prime and my guards, her muscular forearms folded in front of her and the thought Fuck you if you're listening rattling through her head like a mantra.

"It's nice to have money, isn't it," Prime commented at last. "Wide-screen projection TV, expensive sound equipment, fine art, tapestries on the wall-you have quite the modern castle here. Very nice, Governor." Prime looked at me with a cold gaze and colder thoughts. "I suppose you know why I'm here," he said.

I did. I didn't like it either. "No is the answer," I told him. "But I suppose you're not going to just take that and leave."

Prime smiled slightly. He pulled one of the Chippendale chairs toward him and sat. Zelda moved alongside him.

"I didn't think so," I said. "But eighty percent of the take is out of the question."

If he was offended by my blatant theft of his thoughts, he didn't react-but then, Prime never reacts. He just crossed his legs, folded his hands on top of the immaculate and neatly creased pants, and shrugged. "My jumpers are doing most of the work in this little scheme," he said.

"The jumpers are the engine, yes," I admitted, "but it's jokers who are the body. Your little gang of juvenile delinquents doesn't like the drudge work of guarding the bodies and keeping the records straight so that we can pull off the blackmail. And you're making a lot of money from the jokers themselves, the ones who want new bodies. I expect you to give some of that back to us. Fifty-fifty was the deal. It was my idea, my setup, and my jokers administer it." I was getting angry. (I knew this was coming; Kafka had warned me that it would happen. "They'll get greedy," he'd said. "You just watch.")

"You can't do it without us, Governor."

"And you can't do it without me," I shouted back at him. "You're forgetting that I'm the Rox. Blaise and the rest of your hoodlums need this place."

Latham didn't say anything. But he thought a lot. I am going to do you a favor and not say this aloud. Don't threaten me, Governor, especially not with a weak argument like that.