in the dream—if it had been merely a vivid dream and not a real vision of Nechron’s world, of some manner of afterlife. What did afrits show everyone else? He closed his eyes and rocked his head. His existence was suddenly compressed, the whole course of a lifetime squeezed inside him. His eyes ached as if they’d seen too much.
He shuffled away from the water pipe, made it to the doorway and then out into the hall. No one was there, either. Candles still burned in a few of the chambers, but in most the curtains hung open upon darkened rooms. Perhaps even now Eskie was helping someone else back to the dormitorium.
He shambled along the hallway, looking into the darkened and empty chambers, wondering if everyone else was asleep and he the only one left.
The corridors proved to be confounding this morning. He would turn a corner but almost immediately forget what hallway he’d been in prior to it. In no time at all, he lost his way to the sleeping quarters. Down a corridor that should have returned him to the dormitorium, he found himself at the base of spiraling steps that he’d never seen before. What if they took him up and out of the paidika? Might there be an exit no one had been told about, that only Bogrevil knew? He had to see, because he couldn’t imagine he would ever find his way back here again.
He climbed slowly, carefully, using hands and feet, and sometimes knees. He felt like a turtle. Each step took all his effort, and he tried to count them as he climbed but too soon forgot the number. He became aware of a noise, not voices exactly, but cooing and deep groans. He raised his head and saw that the steps ended in an open doorway. Dim light spilled down from it. He crabbed up a few more steps until his head was high enough to see through the opening into what he knew immediately were Bogrevil’s private rooms. Neither of them saw him. Bogrevil was too focused on sensation, his eyes closed, mouth drawn back in a feral grin, and foam bubbling on his lips. Eskie lay with her arms out, head back. Her legs were locked around his waist. She moaned once, licked her lips, and turned her head, folding her arms around it in a gesture expressive of pleasure.
Diverus sank down and let his head rest on the cold step. He couldn’t drown out the grunting and murmuring. Beyond that what could he do? He could barely crawl. If he intruded, Bogrevil would kill him before he’d dragged himself through the doorway—and for what? Eskie wasn’t being harmed, wasn’t performing against her will, not like he had done. Then he imagined that he saw the sphinx again, and he forgot his will.
He slid back down the steps, more confused than ever. Eskie had warned him, protected him against Bogrevil, yet here she was, his mistress, his lover if love was involved in the repulsive bargain. He wanted to feel betrayed but foundered in prying loose enough emotion. Why did he have to know this? He didn’t want to know it. Better that the afrit should wipe away all his memory and return him to the imbecilic state in which he’d lived his former life. What good was knowing the truth of things?
He stumbled through the maze of halls again, and finally into a dark and unoccupied guest room, into the box, and onto his belly. Let the creature come for him, let it steal his soul and send him forever to live with the sphinx. He didn’t care.
He fell asleep like that, but no dreams came, and if the afrit perched above him, he never knew. He woke only when one of the boys came to clean the room and found him. Thinking him dead, the cleaner ran out, calling Bogrevil’s name and shouting, “Dead! Dead!”
Diverus pushed himself onto hands and knees. His joints ached. He was like someone who had been laid down by a fever and, having come through it, wants to get away from his illness. His legs held him as he plunged across the room. He was almost at the door when Eskie arrived. She’d run from wherever she was, and when she saw him her breath caught. She reached toward his face. “Thank the gods, you aren’t dead. I thought…I was looking for you, you need—”
He slapped her hand aside. “I don’t need