abstemious, nor so single-minded. In the days before the onslaught on the box he led a 
life that would have shamed a saint, focusing all his energies on the ceremonies ahead.
    He had been arrogant in his dealing with the Order of the Gash, he saw that now; but 
there were everywhere-in the world and out of it-forces that encouraged such arrogance, 
because they traded on it. That in itself would not have undone him. No, his real error 
had been the naive belief that his definition of pleasure significantly overlapped with 
that of the Cenobites.
    As it was, they had brought incalculable suffering. They had overdosed him on 
sensuality, until his mind teetered on madness, then they'd initiated him into 
experiences that his nerves still convulsed to recall. They had called it pleasure, and 
perhaps they'd meant it. Perhaps not. It was impossible to know with these minds; they 
were so hopelessly, flawlessly ambiguous. They recognized no principles of reward and 
punishment by which he could hope to win some respite from their tortures, nor were they 
touched by any appeal for mercy. He'd tried that, over the weeks and months that 
separated the solving of the box from today.
    There was no compassion to be had on this side of the Schism; there was only the 
weeping and the laughter. Tears of joy sometimes (for an hour without dread, a breath's 
length even), laughter coming just as paradoxically in the face of some new horror, 
fashioned by the Engineer for the provision of grief.
    There was a further sophistication to the torture, devised by a mind that understood 
exquisitely the nature of suffering. The prisoners were allowed to see into the world 
they had once occupied. Their resting places-when they were not enduring pleasure-looked 
out onto the very locations where they had once worked the Configuration that had brought 
them here. In Frank's case, onto the upper room of number fifty-five, Lodovico Street.
    For the best part of a year it had been an unilluminating view: nobody had ever 
stepped into the house. And then, they'd come: Rory and the lovely Julia. And hope had 
begun again....
    There were ways to escape, he'd heard it whispered; loopholes in the system that 
might allow a mind supple or cunning enough egress into the room from which it had come. 
If a prisoner were able to make such an escape, there was no way that the hierophants 
could follow. They had to be summoned across the Schism. Without such an invitation they 
were left like dogs on the doorstep, scratching and scratching but unable to get in. 
Escape therefore, if it could be achieved, brought with it a decree absolute, total 
dissolution of the mistaken marriage which the prisoner had made. It was a risk worth 
taking. Indeed it was no risk at all. What punishment could be meted out worse than the 
thought of pain without hope of release?
    He had been lucky. Some prisoners had departed from the world without leaving 
sufficient sign of themselves from which, given an adequate collision of circumstances, 
their bodies might be remade. He had. Almost his last act, bar the shouting, had been to 
empty his testicles onto the floor. Dead sperm was a meager keepsake of his essential 
self, but enough. When dear brother Rory (sweet butterfingered Rory) had let his chisel 
slip, there was something of Frank to profit from the pain. He had found a fingerhold for 
himself, and a glimpse of strength with which he might haul himself to safety. Now it was 
up to Julia.
    Sometimes, suffering in the wall, he thought she would desert him out of fear. Either 
that or she'd rationalize the vision she'd seen, and decide she'd been dreaming. If so, 
he was lost. He lacked the energy to repeat the appearance.
    But there were signs that gave him cause for hope. The fact that she returned to the 
room on two or three occasions, for instance, and simply stood in the gloom, watching the 
wall. She'd even muttered a few words on the second visit, though he'd caught only 
scraps. The word "here" was amongst them. And "waiting, " and "soon. " Enough to keep him 
from despair.
    He had another prop to his optimism. She was lost, wasn't she? He'd seen that in her 
face, when-before the day Rory had chiseled himself-she and his brother had had occasion 
to be in the room together. He'd read the looks between the lines, the moments when her 
guard had slipped, and the sadness and frustration she felt were apparent.
    Yes, she was lost. Married to a man she felt no love for, and unable to see a way out.
    Well, here he was. They could save each other, the way the poets promised lovers 
should. He was mystery, he was darkness, he was all she had dreamed of. And if she would 
only free him he would service her-oh yes-until her pleasure reached that threshold that, 
like all thresholds, was a place where the strong grew stronger, and the weak perished.
    Pleasure was pain there, and vice versa. And he knew it well enough to call it home.
    
    
    SIX
    
    It turned cold in the third week of September: an Arctic chill brought on a rapacious 
wind that stripped the trees of leaves in a handful of days.
    The cold necessitated a change of costume, and a change of plan. Instead of walking, 
Julia took the car. Drove down to the city center in the early afternoon and found a bar 
in which the lunchtime trade was brisk but not clamorous.
    The customers came and went: Young Turks from firms of lawyers and accountants, 
debating their ambitions; parties of wine-imbibers whose only claim to sobriety was their 
suits; and, more interestingly, a smattering of individuals who sat alone at their tables 
and simply drank. She garnered a good crop of admiring glances, but they were mostly from 
the Young Turks. It wasn't until she'd been in the place an hour, and the wage slaves 
were returning to their treadmills, that she caught sight of somebody watching her 
reflection in the bar mirror. For the next ten minutes his eyes were glued to her. She 
went on drinking, trying to conceal any sign of agitation. And then, without warning, he 
stood up and crossed to her table.
    "Drinking alone?" he said.
    She wanted to run. Her heart was pounding so furiously she was certain he must hear 
it. But no. He asked her if she wanted another drink; she said she did. Clearly pleased 
not to have been rebuffed, he went to the bar, ordered doubles, and returned to her side. 
He was ruddy-featured, and one size larger than his dark blue suit. Only his eyes 
betrayed any sign of nervousness, resting on her for moments only, then darting away like 
startled fish.
    There would be no serious conversation: that she had already decided. She didn't want 
to know much about him. His name, if necessary. His profession and marital status, if he 
insisted. Beyond that let him be just a body.
    As it was there was no danger of a confessional. She'd met more talkative paving 
stones. He smiled occasionally-a short, nervous smile that showed teeth too even to be 
real-and offered more drinks. She said no, wanting the chase over with as soon as 
possible, and instead asked if he had time for a coffee. He said he had.
    "The house is only a few minutes from here," she replied, and they went to her car. 
She kept wondering, as she drove-the meat on the seat beside her-why this was so very 
easy. Was it that the man was plainly a victim-with his ineffectual eyes and his 
artificial teeth-born, did he but know it, to make this journey? Yes, perhaps that was 
it. She was not afraid, because all of this was so perfectly predictable...
    As she turned the key in the front door and stepped into the house, she thought she