Pain is no mere feeling, but a garment we all wear. In the case of Ahz, he wore little else. And when we first met, by circumstance alone I put a fresh wreath around his neck.

I was no longer in service to the Dagons after our somatic link. V inducted me into his inner court without giving me any official duties. I was not wholly free, however, as I would be called upon to perform various tasks in exchange for my privileged position. Otherwise I occupied myself with learning all I could of the city underneath, and found myself more and more in the company of Pothos.

"Victorious Victor, Our Lord of Fin, I may now smile and mean it," he would say whenever I accepted his invitation. On one particular night, I was told a travesty had been discovered, and he would need me to rectify it.

"Has someone offended you?" I asked, ready to bloody a decedent face.

"Oh, egregiously so," Pothos replied.

His foyer was alive with lewdness and smooth music. Were the place not filled with such a vulgar mix of young and old libertines, I might have enjoyed the melody played by the pipers. It was soothing, but carried an undertone that prevented grogginess. Though I suspected that if I were to manage falling asleep while it played, my dreams would be as real as waking life, and would obey my every whim. Such a sleep would be treacherous.

"How different do you want them to look?"

Pothos struggled to outpace me so he could bar my way. His belly shook so hard it almost dragged him off his feet, and when he raised his hands in protest, all I could think of were sausages stuffed in jiggling mounds of pudding.

"There are only friends here tonight, Victorious Victor. I am not offended for my own sake, but for yours, My Lord of Fin."

"Why do you keep calling me that? I no longer serve the Dagons."

"No, you are no servant at all. You are what I call you, and much more. Now, my beautiful broken boy, come with me. Our Lord of Torpor has made a terrible assumption of you, and those who have not yet learned to fear the White Shadow have dubbed you Yoel. But I know better. I know you've had a wife, and were very affectionate with her. The Dagons rue the bearing of children to married couples, but I say let the seeds sprout from every flower, married or no. My Lord..."

As he spoke, he led me through a labyrinth of parlours and drawing rooms laden with sprawling nymphets and lustful fops. He seemed to be steering me away from the ball room, which I did not mind. Every time I found myself in there I felt the need for a lengthy bath. Instead he took me to a boudoir of copious size. There were half a dozen beds at least, with numerous swooning couches and chairs of suspicious configurations. I did not try to see through the partially split curtains that hung from the closet doorway, but I could tell that the space beyond was cavernous. Unlike the noxious golden motif of nearly every other room in Pothos's mansion, this room was all crimson and deep velvet, with here and there a hint of green or brown. In front of us was a line of girls, all of them beautiful.

"I still love my Eris," I said, quite plainly.

Pothos faced me again, and with a pained, apologetic look said "But Victorious Victor, your Eris is dead."

"More reason to love her," I said. My stomach sank a little when something in Pothos's face told me he understood my words more than I expected him to.

"Please, look them over. You'll insult them if you don't."

He rattled off names as I walked down the line. A trifle in me stirred, though my desires had been dissolved along with Eris's bones, so my observations on the features of each girl were devoid of any feeling beyond admiration. Each one had poise, charm, and would surely be able to evoke a storm of feeling from a more interested partner than myself, even the very young ones, who seemed somehow all the more fiendish with their flirtations. As I felt of the targs when taken before Belail, I hated these people.

I paused next to a tan skinned adolescent named Dowajuseyo, and asked Pothos why he had only arrayed women.

"My friend, I've been at this game a long time. I can tell a person's wants from the way a stranger says their name."

I nodded and resumed humoring my host, for what it was worth.

"But now you have me curious," he said. "Why did you ask that question?"

When I grew so bored of the Neohedonists that I could no longer hide my apathy, Pothos would draw emotion from me with a question either absolutely ludicrous, or mildly surprising. I told him with a smirk that he'd been given a dose of his own medicine. Then I saw a girl who froze my heart, and I was ready with every muscle to cause someone harm that could not be healed.

"I'd hoped you'd choose her."

I left immediately with the girl under my arm. All of Pothos's guests were scantily clad, if clad at all, so lacking a cloak to commandeer I tore down crimson a canopy from one of the beds and wrapped it around the bruised little thing. We hurried to my room, and several times I gave threatening looks to people who were too inquisitive for my liking. When we were at my apartments, the girl, her hands shaking, dropped the canopy and began to unclasp the bronze halter that only partially covered her breasts. I took her hands and shook my head. Through the scars and contusions I could see that she was hopelessly confused, so I said the only word in her language that I knew.

"Zook."

Her lip quivered, and soon she was on the floor sobbing, holding her head in her hands and rocking back and forth. I knew better than to try to touch her, so I went to my kitchen and filled a small basin from my faucet to set in front of her. It wasn't until I was almost asleep that I heard her lapping it up.

She was huddling in the corner opposite my bed when I woke. The dried blood saturating my sheets explained her fear. I put the paring knife in the sink and sent my sheets down the chute, then covered dressed in all the gear she had first seen me in. She then acted like she couldn't decide whether to prostrate herself or go into hysterics. But she did manage to say two intelligible words.

"White Shadow."

"Yes. I am the White Shadow."

I asked her if Pothos had told her to call me that, but she would speak no more, and for the first time I refused to perform any of Lord V's errands.

"He does not accept refusal," said Loew, the uncharacteristically unmarred fomorian whom V sent to round up hostages and deliver messages with special weight.

"If you dare to speak to me again, insect, I'll kill you."

I didn't want to upset the girl, having recently coaxed her into monocum of calm, so when Loew repeated Lord V's summons to me, I stepped outside my apartment and closed the door before making good on my threat. I left him there, the only signs of trauma being inside his skull, and went back to the girl. She looked at my hands and started to scream, so I washed them in my sink and sat across the room from her. When she stopped trying to claw her way through my living room wall, I mimed putting food in my mouth, then pointed to her. She looked every direction at once, her eyes wider than I'd ever seen a pair of human eyes get, and after dropping her head in her hands to sob I rose to fetch her a morsel.

It sat on her plate until I dozed, and I was happy to see it gone when I woke. I had refused to resume eating after the somatic link, so I gave all in my ice box to her. After three days she spoke.

"Zook."

I nodded. "Yes. Zook."

"Cammo zook?"

I shook my head. "Just zook."

She nodded, understanding that I did not understand, and then went to sleep, thoroughly exhausted.

I left more food and water for her, then quietly left, uttering a command of warding to the djinn assigned to be my butler. Then I went to see Pothos.

"How is she?"

Somehow I couldn't bring myself to strike him, though I wanted to.

"Is that how you break them all in?" I really wanted to hit him.

"It's how some of them are inducted, yes. But I wouldn't harm a tickroach if it attacked me."

He waved away his servants; nubile boys who I suspected were far deadlier than any of V's fomorians, then gestured for a plush diva, though he only made it to a swooning couch, and sat on it most awkwardly. I remained standing. He spoke between labored breaths.

"They're brought to me, and I do what it takes to add them to my stable so they don't suffer the alternatives, which are far worse, difficult as that may be for you to believe."

I had to admit that I was aware of worse fates in Thirty-Third Day. What I wanted to know was how he was aware I had met her, and then he told me I had made a mistake to admit such a thing.

"You're safe with me, Victor. But be wary. be much more wary."

"Or what? Loew will come after me?"

He laughed heartily, then worked through a fit of productive coughing. A boy gave him a kerchief, and he failed to hide the blood as he folded it up. "Thank you for that. It sent a message, which I'm sure you're glad to hear. At this point, I don't think V knows what to do with you."

It was then that I noticed how empty his mansion was. As always, he could guess what I was thinking.

"You accidentally picked a good time to call. It's rare that I can send all the wrong boys out at once, with only the right ones watching over me. We have a few moments, if you'd like to really talk. But we don't have forever, so choose your topics well."

"The girl had a companion. A man, older than her. I assume him to be her father. Where is he?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure if anyone can find him..."

"Who are you Pothos? And what do you want with me? What do you want in general?"

He clasped his pudgy hands and came waddling towards me on his knees.

"I want all this to end, Victor. I want it all to end. All of it. Oh, I loved this life once. I loved this city. And I loved so many of its people. But I've grown tired of love, and tired of living inside this tomb. There's no place for me on the surface, and there's no place for the surface down here. One has to go, Victor. Either them or us. I can say no more, so never ask me again. The wrong boys will be back soon, and I'll have to play the game again. Please, take care of the girl. Find her dad, if he's still alive. Now hurry, help me stand. The wrong boys are coming back, and Lord V has sent Loew's inferiors."

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He guessed correctly, or somehow knew, and I was told that Lord V wished to see me, but my presence was merely desired, not commanded. I ignored the guards and made my own way to V's audience chamber, where he sat alone with Jadus's turncoat physician. Turk had gone some time ago, without saying goodbye.

"Basil completed the autopsy on my courier," V said.

"Then he wasted his time. I killed him. You need only have asked, or even assumed, honestly."

Basil leaned over the table and grinned. "It wasn't a waste of time at all. I must thank you, Lord Emissary. I learned a great deal analyzing the tissues touched by your ephemeral fingers. You made quite a jumble of poor Loew."

I looked at V. "I said all I had to say when I slew your brute. Keep sending them, and I'll keep slaying them."

He waved a hand, just like that. "I've no shortage of animals. You gave Basil a rare opportunity, as he said. I think you'll find what he's learned interesting."

"Well?" I said, wearing my impatience with this slum bazaar rendition of Doctor Danders like a courtesan wears a corset.

"There was," and he leaned back, spreading his fingers and fanning his hands dramatically outward, "nothing. It was as if you were never there."

"Before he mocks you, Basil, state your hypothesis."

"I have three," and he rose, snapped his fingers, then commanded Helios to display a smattering of caricatures and equations that meant nothing to me. He pointed to an image of a man floundering in a lake, and a younger man standing on the bank. He wore a three layered device on his head that looked like it might amplify his hearing by capturing sounds above his head, or, equally plausible, offer a perch for birds.

"Our Lord of Emanations found you in the Painted Lady's bath, so we know you went through some sort of transformation. We can't make much sense of her craft, but we know the bath is a catalyst to higher functions. So, what we know of this bath, is after it is administered, the blood changes, ever so slightly, to display more of your centipede's larvae under a microscope. The thing is, no other member of the Batch has shown any observable changes in terms of mastery, so it seemed the purpose of the bath was ceremonial. But you, Victorious Victor, have proved us wrong."

I felt pity for Jadus then, who for so long had put his trust in a spy. And then Basil flashed me a look.

"I can't hear you, but I can smell you, and see you, even with those mercurial eyes. You think I'm a turncoat. You think I' a plant. A sleeper. No. We've all been working on this together for quite some time. Our Lord of Alvia says that Jadus killed his father, but I'd say more technically he committed suicide."

I tapped the table, and in a voice I could only imagine sounded mildly perturbed, demanded that Basil explain how he saw and smelled my thoughts.

"Zap zap, squish squish," he replied.

I held him in my 'mercurial' gaze until he elaborated.

"Thoughts and feelings are as material as this table. You don't have to be a Boy of the Batch to have bits added. I wager you've met someone with these bits before, only didn't know it. Now, may I?"

I nodded, and he pointed to a man with one arm dark and one arm bright, standing in murk while a wretchedly drawn tyfloch handed him a cloth. There was a border of flora and fauna around the two figures.

"Before the bath, you bounced around Thirty-Third Day and left little smears all over the place. Oh I couldn't see, but the gorgons could, and of course so could our Lord of Destiny. But poor Loew's skull told us nothing. You were never there, as far as we could tell. So this here shows-"

"Basil," V interrupted, "explain the pictographs. He has no reason to give them any credit if he's ignorant of their origin."

"Forgive me, my Lord of Paths. A long time ago, when the Lady first fell ill, we gave her all sorts of things from her galerie des glaces to help her feel better. It made her sort of loopy, you see, so we asked her a load of questions and she drew these pictures. So this shows me that the bath was meant to clean you off, and I mean you specifically, so you could slip through the curtains better. If I ever doubted you were what Turk said you were, I don't now."

I rolled my eyes, mercurially. Then I turned to V and shrugged, asking with a shaking head why I was being forced to sit through this unpracticed thespian's routine.

He carried on, ignoring my scorn. "So here's the theories. That's it, and you're just cleaned off, so to speak, so now you can do... whatever you've got this skill for. Or, you left a mess behind before because you were pushing your way through, and now she, or somebody, is opening the door for you. Or, it's no longer you who goes somewhere, but all of us. I admit the last one's a bit of a stretch. Personally, I like the second one best, but I'm fancy. You're more of the hands on sort, so I'm expecting you'd rather think that bath just washed the stink off of you."

"All theories point to the same certainty," V said, "you are ready."

"For?" I asked.

"There is a ward guarding entrances to critical facilities. You're gift was needed for Turk's ultimatum to have weight. That ward is the doing of a djinn. One I liberated from the land we are to reclaim."

I nodded, slowly. "I see. You want an encore?"

"No. You passed the audition. We have a lot of work to do, Victor 39. Are you with me?"

I made a good show of mulling it over, then nodded, with just a dash of reluctance.

"You seem hesitant."

Another nod. "What we saw during our link was, a lot to take in, and very different from all I've been told before. But, I can't deny what I saw, or how. I will you make this promise, if you need stronger words than a simple yes, though I believe that a simple yes should do..."

He raised a hand, then smiled. "Words are wind, Victor. More wind will only rustle the leaves off the branch altogether. We go to where there are leaves on branches, Victor. I have faith in what we've both seen, and will trust in its power to sooth all doubts, even those instilled in you by Turk."

I chose my words very carefully, not being lulled by the comforting thought that I merely had to deceive myself, that being an easy thing to do. "I wouldn't call what Turk taught me a source of doubt."

"Then he must have changed a great deal, though I doubt it, considering the nature of his recrudescent youth. What good is rebirth, Victor? What value is there in restoring all that was shed, to cover up the glory that only the erosion of a hard, enduring life can reveal? If Turk's example doesn't seem like the sowing of doubt to you, then you've only seen his brightest side. This is good."

"He never counseled me much, other than to warn me not to act too impulsively."

V leaned forward then, and held me in a piercing stare. "And that does not sound like the sowing of doubt to you? I ask you, Victor, what else could that be? Did you not feel an impulse to act when you activated your first Nelumbo? Do you not feel compelled by impulse whenever you hear the bells? Did my pegasus not obey an impulse from you when you commanded him to rise? And what steered you here, Victor 39? Was it wisdom? Was it reason? Did Turk advise it? You need not answer, for I already know."

And there he had me, leaving me without need for deception.

"There is more for you to see, and, if our spirit aligns, more for us.

"What must I do?"

Basil was dismissed, and before V stood I asked him a question that had been gnawing at me since the somatic link. "If you cannot pass through, then how does it seem you do?"

"I have made myself more, Victor; deciding which gifts I am worthy of without the shackles of the Dolomites. Now, come with me."

I was taken to a tall room where the yantra is kept. The yantra is a mechanism like the Lady's bath, not an organic bond as V and I shared in that steel crypt where the Batch was incubated, but a device that probes the mind, leading one on a spiraling path and returning to the beginning each time the mind probes back. To satisfy the construct was arduous, and when I emerged from my final session, I had decided that I deserved V's full trust, whether he wanted to give it or not. And give it he did. There were no more errands for me, but a seat in council meetings, and a voice in plans for conquering the nation close to the world's beating heart. I weaponized the yantra then, allowing its message to texture my speech.

And so V and I were entertaining the Valkyr, watching the finest from Pothos's stable dance while the Valkyr feasted on foods from his own personal kitchen, when a man whose crown was inch beneath my collar barged in. His loins were covered by a scarlet cloth hung from a golden chain about his hips. He wore bronze greaves and bracers shaped like open mouths, and a headdress of golden hands caressing his shaved scalp and gripping his throat. As for his torso, it was mostly bare, with a web of chains held by studs pierced into his skin, nipples and navel. He was physically small, but undeniably deadly. I could not help but wonder if he was drawn from the same pool as the boys in Pothos's mansion.

I began to rise with Lord V, but Monanet, who was reclining on a sofa next to my chair, stopped me by clutching her wrist. Her strength excited me, but as I caught myself eying her lithe form in the scarce garb of her order, I thought of Eris's weakening heart struggling to thump beneath my hand in her final days. I looked away, and remained still, noting uncomfortably that her grip lingered for longer than it was needed.

Ahz looked at me the entire time his lord embraced him. I couldn't blame him. I may as well have been wearing clothes from his own wardrobe, embedded in the court as I was. The court that did not include me when he left. And there I was, next to Lord V, with my own plush chair, in silk robes with my chest and what the company I was in considered a mark of holiness exposed. But he did not look at my mark or my clothes, only my eyes.

"And why is the eidolon sitting?"

V did not like that.

"Stand, Eidolon. Greet me. Do as He does."

I did stand, but I did not do as Lord V did. Rather I stood over Ahz as a father does his errant boy.

"I am Victor 39, and I will do as I will."

"Brothers," said V, "don't quarrel here. You would lose, Ahz. He is as me, and came here from above. Even if you were to wound him, he would rise again."

Ahz circled me, nodding, looking me up and down. "Not an eidolon."

I turned when he reached my backside, and looked at him as closely as he looked at me. For such a slender man, his neck and trapezius muscles were obscenely pronounced, giving him the look of a grappler.

"You've been waiting a long time for this one," Ahz said.

"I've been waiting a long time for you," V replied.

Ahz whirled, and I marveled at his boldness.

"You gave me a satisfying task, Lord V. I was loth to leave until it was done."

"And I yearn to hear of your successes. Sit and eat, Ahz. Monanet has saved you a seat."

"Has she?" He strode to her sofa as brazenly as he turned on V, and flopped down so suddenly she spilled her drink on his chest. He wiped it up with his palm, then offered it for her to lick. I may have only wanted to see a look of disgust on her face as she licked his hand clean, but it did seem her amorous eyes looked pained. He turned to the dancers and spread his hands. "Why have you stopped?"

The dancers resumed, though not with the same fire they had before. Only Ahz and Monanet spoke with any volume. He howled at the dancers and spoke loudly to the Valkyr, calling them girls. "How've you girls been? I missed you girls. I could've used some of your girls at Thieves' Gate. Come over, girls. Lots of room on the couch."

V was watching constantly, and after I time I decided the night was in my hands. A question ages old was pounding within my head. Should I stay or should I go? I decided I wanted to stay, viewing Ahz as an insect who by chance of design was born with a potent venom. Yet it was Monanet who convinced me to retire early. I remembered the intent look in her eyes when she approached me above Monast Favri, and pitied her for the position she seemed to be in with Ahz present.

I was not ready for rest, and while I was curious to see my houseguest, I craved speaking company. I recall looking toward Pothos's mansion, and I felt a growing curiosity to learn more about the man and his motives. I'd gotten no more memories from the vault, and while the link had drawn a bolder line between V and I, I had yet to learn how to summon them. Now, writing this, I suspect that the yantra deadened those senses that the link awakened.

I pictured Pothos giving me some noxious welcome, and the wrong and right boys staring blankly while he blustered frivolities. Thinking of his boys called Dante to mind, and while nowhere in Thirty-Third Day felt like home, I did welcome the quiet offered by the Dagons. I walked until I came to a point where transport to the sanctum led to the left, and Pothos's mansion led to the right, and went to see my more sensible friends.

The guards in the large helms were slow to respond to me, but Onisefirot arrived and hurried me through. He seemed glad to see me, and we spoke for a number of hours while Dante supposedly slept.

"He's on the night watch," said Onisefirot.

The boys had been sent to other institutions for the most part, but a few who showed more than the expected dose of independence were held back. Summoned upon awakening, Dante came to Onisefirot's solar in a hurry, and one would have thought him my son or nephew when he ran to my chair, nearly jumping as he held back the urge to hug me. I patted him firmly on the shoulder and told him how happy I was to see him.

"You look well. Healthy and strong. If Eliezer has any sense, he'll keep you on as a cloister guard indefinitely."

He smiled, and rolled his eyes with a mischievous grin when Onisefirot explained that Eliezer did intend to keep him long term, but he had there were more advantageous posts for the boy than being a token guard in the most unassailable fortress within the city.

There was a toll somewhere. As I was enjoying my visit, I ignored it. But when the chime rang signaling the beginning of Dante's shift, I told him he best not be late, and said goodbye to them both. The fate of Zook's father had been gnawing at me, however, so I did not head straight home, but decided to visit Pothos afterall, and found him dead.