"What was that?" Their thoughts were all confused and panicked. Blaise was thinking it was another attack.

I just looked at them calmly and told them what it was. "It was a dream."

They just looked at me. "Go to the west wing," I told them. "The basement. You'll see. Go on-all of you. Leave me alone. I'm tired and I'm hungry"

They stared at me. Blaise was thinking that I'd finally gone mad; Kafka was puzzling; Peanut was gazing at me trustingly.

"Go on," I told them again. "Then come back and tell me what you've seen."

They were gone for an hour. I followed them, riding with their minds. When they returned, they were quiet, all of them. Blaise was regarding me with a grudging wonder and a touch just a touch-of fear. God knows what Durg was thinking.

I gazed at the remembered images in their heads, chuckling now. They were gorgeous, my caves. Walls of fluted smooth stone rippling from vast ceilings to distant floors; glittering, snowy patches of calcite crystals; deep pits where water roared in the darkness; hidden places where beasts of dreams walked.

Another world. A joker's land. I laughed.

Tachyon's grandson had wrapped his thoughts so I could hear very little of them. Only the barest tinge of his emotions leaked out. He asked me-knowing the answer-if I'd seen the caverns through their minds.

I told him that I had.

Then he asked me the question he didn't really want to ask because he was afraid that he already knew the answer. "Did you make them?"

I was too exhausted for anything but honesty. "I think so, Blaise," I admitted. "I'm not sure, but I've dreamed of them. Still

… there's a lot more there than what I dreamed. I don't control it. I don't know what-all is down there."

Blaise gave a brief nod of his head, almost a salute. Confusion radiated from behind his mindshields. He turned and left the lobby without another word.

"You don't think big enough," the penguin had told me. Well, was this the right size?

"It's not possible," Kafka whispered. "I saw it, but it's not possible. Ellis is just old ship ballast. It's not even a real island."

"Then it's the perfect place for a fantasy, isn't it," I told him. I wanted to laugh, but I couldn't.

While Night's Black Agents to Their Preys Do Rouse by Walter Jon Williams

Darkness masked the street, concealing its face. Those who walked in the Jokertown night wore their own masks, some visible, some not. In the darkness or in the cold unreal color of the neon light cast by the Jokertown cabarets and boutiques, it was possible to believe that no one, no one at all, was quite what he seemed.

Darkness itself rolled along the deserted sidewalks, absorbing heat and color unto itself, hunting…

The Werewolf lay in a doorway, bleeding. His Liza Minnelli mask lay crumpled at his feet. His olive skin was zebra-striped with red pigment, port-wine stains gone mad. One eye was swollen shut. The other two were glazed.

"Hey." The darkness opened, revealing an imperiouslooking black man named No Dice. He was dressed in a black leather Pierre Cardin trench coat with matching leather beret, a Perry Ellis sweater, a couple dozen gold chains, twohundred-dollar high-top sneaks, the kind with the little squeeze pumps, gold-rimmed shades, a palm-sized green-black-gold leather pendant in the shape of the African continent. "Hey." The man knelt fastidiously, touched the Werewolf's shoulder. "You hurt, homes?"

The Werewolf shook his head, focused his two functional eyes on the black man. He spoke through split, bleeding lips. "What happened? Why'd it get dark?"

"No idea, homey. But I heard shots. You been shot?" The Werewolf shook his head again. He tried to rise, but his knees wouldn't support him. The black man took hold of him, helped him steady himself against the doorway. The Werewolf looked at the flaking green paint on the door. Bewildered desperation entered his voice. "This is where it was going down! I gotta help Stuffy!"

"Police soon. You better shag outta here."

The Werewolf's hands searched through the pockets of his jacket. "Where's my piece? What happened to Stuffy?"

"Somebody hit you, man. Gimme your mask. Get outta here."

"Yeah." The Werewolf panted for breath. "Gotta split." He staggered away, feet dragging on concrete.

No Dice watched him for a moment. He reached into the pocket of his trench, pulled out a pistol, then put it atop the Liza Minnelli mask that was-this week, anyway-the Werewolves' gang emblem.

Darkness bled downward from the sky and swallowed him up.

The revival house was showing Jack Nicholson in Roman Polanski's Jokertown. The last showing had ended three hours ago, and the marquee was dark. The marquee swayed, creaking slightly, in the cold winter wind pouring down the street.

Across the street was a spray-painted slogan, dayglo orange on brown brick: JUMP THE RICH.

Beneath the slogan a young woman knelt, hunched over a chalk painting. She was dressed in thirdhand clothing-a shabby baseball cap, a pale blue quilted jacket, and heavy boots two sizes too large. She had to squint in the darkness to see her work, the chalk painting she'd spread across a full slab of concrete sidewalk. It was a bright fantasy landscapegreen hills and flowering trees and a distant rococo Mad Ludwig castle, a scene as far removed from the street reality of Jokertown as could be imagined.

A man named Anton walked down the shadowed street. He was a huge man in a large belted canvas trench coat, and he had a drooping mustache. He had a heavy diamond ring on each and every finger, sometimes more than one. In one pocket he had seven credit cards his whores had lifted off tourists in Freakers, in another pocket he had their money, and in a third he had a small supply of Dilaudid and rapture, substances his women were hooked on and which he sold to them in return for their share of the earnings. He wasn't worried about people stealing any of this because he had a pistol in his fourth pocket.

"Hey, Chalktalk. Baby. Ain'tchoo got a place to sleep?" The young woman sprang up from her drawing, faced Anton in a defensive crouch. The streetlight gleamed on needle teeth, flexed claws. A stray piece of chalk fell from a pouch on her belt, rolled unnoticed into the gutter.

" I ain't gonna hurtchoo, baby." Anton maneuvered to head off the young woman's escape. "Just wanna take you home and give you something to eat."

The street artist hissed, flashed claws through the air. "Aw, Chalktalk," Anton said. " I ain't dissin you. I bet you real pretty when you get cleaned up, huh? Bet the boys like you."

He had the girl back up against the wall. She was shifting her hips back and forth, trying to decide which way to bolt. He reached a hand toward her, and her claws flashed, too swift for the eye to follow. Anton jumped back, stung.

"Joker bitch!" He shook blood from his hand, then reached for the belt of his coat. "Wanna play for keeps, huh?" He smiled. " I can play that way, bitch. Bet I know just whatchoo like."

And then the darkness rolled over him. The girl gave a little gasp and flattened herself against the brownstone wall. " I believe, Anton," said a voice, " I told you I didn't want you in my neighborhood anymore."

Anton screamed as he was hoisted off his feet. The darkness was as complete as if an opaque mask had been dropped over his head. He scrabbled in his pocket for his pistol. There was a crack as his arm was broken across the elbow. Another crack, the other arm. Another crack, his nose. All had come so swiftly, one-two-three, he couldn't cry out.

He cried out now. And then cold flooded him. His bones seemed filled with liquid nitrogen. His teeth chattered. He couldn't summon the strength to yell.