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.
Look at the facts. Fact: While you do make the Rox possible, we all know it's not a power you can turn on and off. Fact: The wall is as much for you as the jumpers, and the only way to get rid of it is to kill yourself, which you're not stupid enough to try. Fact: No one is starving here anymore because of the money your jump-the-rich scheme has brought in, which is good, but it also means that no one particularly wants to go back to the old way, which is what will happen if my people pull out of the deal. Fact: A lot of jokers want to keep this going because they want to buy a new body for themselves. Fact: You have a severe population problem. Our success is bringing more and more jokers here, and even with the money and rapture, you're already having problems finding places to put them.
And the last fact: If I pull out, you not only have lost the jump-the-rich scheme, you've lost your rapture connection. Tell me, Bloat, what would happen to the Rox if there was no rapture?
We don't need you at all, Governor. You had the idea; we're paying you for that. I have plenty of contacts to keep this going myself, and enough jokers in Jokertown who are hungry for a new body and willing to pay for it that I can pull in as much cash as I'd want. If I were you, I'd be happy with the twenty percent I'm offering. I'd be happy to get anything at all. After all, twenty percent will keep the Rox in food and rapture.
The fact is, Governor, that unless you have something else to bargain with, you have nothing to say about this at all. Latham smiled at me. "So, Governor," he said aloud, "what do you have to say?"
I didn't say anything. I couldn't. I looked at Prime, at the grinning Zelda, and the quizzical glances of my guards. "Get out of here, Prime," I said. "Just get out and leave me alone."
He smiled. He smoothed the crease in his pants and languidly uncrossed his legs. " I thought so," he said. "Good doing business with you, Governor."