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know," he said. "It is true. He took me, night after night. The pale king, yes, I thought that, thought I was... but Julian vanquished me, time after time, and I submitted. His eyes, Abner, you have seen his eyes. Darkness, such darkness. And old. I thought he was evil, and strong, and clever. But I learned it was not so. Julian is not... Abner, he is mad, truly. Once, he must have been all that I thought him, but now... it is as though he sleeps. At times, he wakes, briefly, and one senses what he must have been. You saw it, Abner, that night at supper, you saw Julian stirred, awakened. But most of the time... Abner, he takes no interest in the boat, the river, the people and events around him. Sour Billy runs the Fevre Dream, devises the schemes that keep my people safe. Julian seldom gives orders, and when he does they are arbitrary, even stupid. He does not read, or talk, he does not play chess. He eats indifferently. I do not think he even tastes it. Since taking the Fevre Dream, Julian has descended into some dark dream. He spends most of his time in his cabin, in the darkness, alone. It was Billy who spied the steamer following us, not Julian.

"I thought him evil at first, a dark king leading his people into ruin, but watching him... he is ruined already, hollow, empty. He feasts on the lives of your people because he has no life of his own, not even a name that is truly his. Once I wondered what he thought of, alone, all those days and nights in darkness. I know now that he does not think at all. Perhaps he dreams. If so, I think he dreams of death, of an ending. He dwells in that black empty cabin as if it were a tomb, stirring from it only at the scent of blood. And the things he does... it is more than rashness. He courts destruction, discovery. He must want an end, a rest, I believe. He is so old. How tired he must be."

"He offered me a deal," Abner Marsh said. Without breaking his labored stroke, Marsh recounted his conversation with Damon Julian.

"You had half the truth, Abner," Julian said when he'd finished. "Yes, he would have liked to corrupt you, as a taunt to me. But that was not all. You might have agreed and never meant it. You might have lied to him, waited for a chance, and tried to kill him. I think Julian knew that. By bringing you aboard, he toyed with his own death."

Marsh snorted. "If he wants to die, he could cooperate more."

Joshua opened his eyes. They were small and faded. "When the danger is real and close to hand, it wakes him. The beast in him... the beast is old and mindless and weary, but when it wakes it struggles desperately to live... it is strong, Abner. And old." Joshua laughed feebly, a bitter laugh without humor. "After that night... after it all went wrong... I asked myself, over and over, how it could have happened. Julian had drained a full glass of my... my potion... it should have been enough, it should have killed the red thirst, it should have... I did not understand... it had always worked before, always, but not with Julian, not... not with him. At first I thought it was his strength, the power of him, the evil. Then... then one night he saw the question in my eyes, and he laughed and told me. Abner, you remember... when I told you my story... when I was very young, the thirst did not touch me. Do you remember?"

"Yeah."

Joshua nodded weakly. The skin was stretched tightly over his face, red and chafed-looking. "Julian is old, Abner, old. The thirst... he has not felt the thirst in years... hundreds, thousands of... years... that was why the drink... had no effect. I never knew, none of us did. You can outlive the thirst, and he... he did not thirst... but he fed, because he chose to, because of those things he said that night, you remember, strength and weakness, masters and slaves, all the things he said. Sometimes I think... the humanity of him is all hollow, a mask... he is only an old animal, so ancient it has lost even the taste for food, but it hunts on nonetheless, because that is all it remembers, that