"Just love me," she said. "Then everything will be right."

"I can't . . . I shouldn't. . . ." But he had his arms around her waist, in self-defense if nothing else, to keep her from wriggling along the length of his body. "You're just a child."

"Stony limits," she reminded him, and her giggle was so unexpected he almost smiled himself.

And I am Fortune's fool. The quote swam up like the fish in the tiny, tended stream gurgling a few meters away.

Fortune's fool. He lifted his head and kissed her. She gave it back to him with all the untutored enthusiasm of her age, her breath sharp and fast, and after a moment he had to lift her away from him and sit up. The grass slowly sprang back erect where they had lain.

"My true heart," she murmured, tears in her eyes.

He could think of nothing to say back to her. Romeo and Juliet, he thought. Good Christ, look what happened to them.

"I have something for you!" she said suddenly. She reached into the collar of her nightgown and withdrew a tasseled bag that hung around her neck. She shook something small and glittery into her hand and held it out toward him. It was a silver ring with a blue-green stone cut into the shape of a feather. "It was a present from my father," she said. "I think it was my mother's once. He brought it back for her from North Africa." She held it up until the feather-shape caught the light, sparkling clear as a tropical ocean, then passed it to him. "He said the stone is a tourmaline."

Paul stared at it. The feather was strikingly carved, something light as air made from stone, the solidity of earth turned into a puff of wind.

"Put it on."

Still in a sort of trance, he slipped it onto his finger.

"Now you can't leave me." There was more than just pleading in her voice—it almost had the force of a command or an incantation. "You can't ever leave me now." An instant later she had crawled into his lap and put her arms about his neck, pressing her lips to his. He fought it for a moment, then surrendered to the full, forceful tide of madness.

"Oh ho!" someone said.

Ava shrieked and threw herself backward out of Paul's arms. He turned to see the grinning, misshapen face of Mudd peering at them through the trees.

"Naughty, naughty," said the fat man.

Suddenly everything went dark, sucked away as if down a long drain. The light, the air, the sound of Ava weeping, the trill of birds and the rustle of leaves, all fled. Nothing was left but blackness and empty silence.

He had been in the dark for so long that he had almost forgotten there was anything else. Then something cold crashed down over him and he woke up screaming.

Paul Jonas struggled up out of the emptiness, his skin raw and shocked, his head hot and swollen, as though he had been left out in the desert sun for hours. It was not sand or sun that he found when he opened his sticky eyes, though, but the flickering semidarkness of a cell.

The dull-faced priest Userhotep stood over him, still holding the clay water jar which he had emptied over Paul's bound body. Frowning as at a piece of machinery which had proved to be shoddily manufactured, the priest examined Paul for a moment, testing his pulse and pulling back his eyelid with a grubby finger before stepping away.

Robert Wells' yellow, hairless face split in a clownish grin. "My God, once you get started you don't shut up, do you?"

Paul tried to say something but could only moan. The arteries serving his brain seemed to be pumping something far more thick and caustic than blood.

"But we still haven't learned much," Wells complained. "So you found out something about the Grail—well, golly, I could have guessed that. It still doesn't explain why the Old Man didn't just have you killed. And it's clear from what you remember that his operating system was even more unreliable than we guessed, than even Jongleur guessed—that it achieved some kind of consciousness. But we stopped just short of the really interesting stuff." He shook his head. "That last part of the block is pretty strong, which suggests it was the thing he originally wanted wiped out. So, of course, that's what I want to learn."

Paul's throat was as rough as sharkskin, but he at last mustered the saliva to speak. "Why do you care? It's all over now. Jongleur's dead, my friends and I are prisoners, Dread's in charge. What does it matter?" The truth was, he didn't want to touch any more memories. A brooding disquiet lay over all that had returned to him, a sense that something horrible waited just around the corner. "Go ahead and kill me, if you really aren't any better than your new boss." It would be an end at least to the pain, it would be an end.

Wells wagged a lemony finger. "Selfish, Mr. Jonas, very selfish of you. If the Old Man's dead, that's all the more reason we need to know as much as possible. You may not be on the guest list, but the rest of us intend to make our homes here for a long, long time. If we have to replace the plumbing; we need to know the extent of the problem." He leaned forward until his face was very close. "And I must admit I'm curious about you. Who are you? Why did Jongleur single you out for such star treatment instead of just dumping your body in his private swamp?" He's had us taking very elaborate care of you at Telemorphix, you know. We really wondered who you were."

"You won't find out the rest," Paul said hoarsely. "The brainwashing, the hypnotic block, whatever it is, it's too strong."

"Hmmm. I think we can go a long way toward testing that theory without killing you." Ptah the Artificer moved back and the lector priest Userhotep stepped forward again. "I was wrong to think we could do the job with only minimal damage, though. We'll have to push the envelope a bit—see how much you can take. It's amazing what the brain will do to cope with extreme pain, you know. Some pretty extreme neurological effects. I wouldn't be surprised if we have you singing like a bird before we've done much beyond taking the top layers of your skin off."

Robert Wells crossed his bandaged arms over his chest, stared at Paul for a moment, then nodded cheerfully to the priest. "Well, Userhotep, I guess you might as well get started."

NETFEED/NEWS: Doctor Sued for Keeping Patient Alive

(visual: Dr. Sheila Loughtin and Beltings' parents at news conference)

VO: In what the International Medical Association is calling "a frightening low point in corporate compassion," a doctor is being sued by an insurance provider for keeping a patient alive past the point which Trans-European Health Insurance claims is "either ethically or financially supportable." The patient, ten-year-old Eamon Sellings of Killarney, Ireland, has been in a Tandagore coma for almost a year, but his parents and doctor refuse to remove his life support despite the demands of the insurance company. . . .

"I'm sorry," Sellars told her, but it has to go all the way to the back. That way it will be hard for anyone to find the source—that might buy you an additional half an hour to get out."

Olga wiped the sweat out of her eyes and leaned back into the duct, wedging her shoulders so she could keep her hands free. The basement hadn't seemed that hot when she started half an hour earlier, but it was beginning to feel like she was working in a sauna. She angled the camera ring to pick up the corner where the flashlight had splashed white, trying to make sure Sellars could see. "Back there?"

"Yes, that should do it. But see if you can get it behind that bundle of cables so it's a little less visible."