I SWAYED IN A soft dream, buffeted as by wind, floating on Lethe's gentle forgetting out of a province deeper than sleep.  The current rocked me, and I dozed, limbs sluggish as they had been when I awakened from fugue aboard the Pharaoh.  The light ahead dimmed, as if we'd passed under an overhang or into the mouth of some cave.  Mouth.  Remembered terror jolted me to wakefulness, and I lurched for my feet.  I couldn't find them.  My legs gave out and I fell back into the deep bowl of the seat.

"Why don't you get comfortable, Lord Marlowe?  Since you can't walk," the drawling voice said, punctuating the deep quiet.  "We've a ways to go yet."

What sounded like a tram rattled overhead, shaking the office - if office it was - in which I was undoubtedly a prisoner.  A pair of couches stood in the corner opposite, along with a rack of shelves glittering with bottles and crystal storage chips neatly ordered.  The walls hung thick with Eudoran theater masks, brightly painted and wildly emoting.  The Painted Man itself reclined on the couch opposite, perhaps five yards away.  It held a strange device in its too-long hands, an oblate silver disc bristling with buttons and switches.  A cable ran from it in a tangle to a spot behind the homunculi's ear.  As I watched, it pulled the wire free of its head with a mechanical clicking sound.

Saying nothing, I focused on my injuries instead.  I felt fairly certain that I was only stunned.  That meant functionality would return before feeling.  I tried to lift one leg, to cross it over the other.  I thought I felt a brief twitch, then... nothing.  My arms moved, though - that was something.  When at last I was sitting straight, I asked the obvious question.

"What are you going to do with me?"

"with you?"  The homunculus grinned evilly, setting its silver device - some sort of terminal, I didn't doubt - aside.  "Nothing at all, dear boy.  If by with you you mean to you, that is.  You re no good to me dead.  It reached into a bowl on the table beside its seat and produced a set of silver and bone-white rings, which it began fixing about its fingers.  It eyed me over its long red nails, licked its teeth.  "We might do something together."

Teeth clenched, I said, "I beg your pardon?"

The creature rolled its eyes, painted smile vanishing a moment.  "My my, you Imperial palatines aren't all so serious, are you?"  It swung lightly to its feet, pressing its hand against the wall for balance as it crossed the distance between us, passing a heavy metal trunk of the sort used to carry small-grade firearms straight from the manufactory.  "You're very valuable, don't you know?"  It reached down and ruffled my hair.  "I'm sure the rest of that mercenary outfit of yours will pay to have you back... the way you were just throwing money around."

"Ransom, then?" I asked, massaging my legs.  "That's your plan?"

It shrugged, turned away, its spindly arms akimbo.  "For my trouble."  It sank back into its seat.  "You destroyed nearly all my SOMs.  They're not cheap, you know."

"Your what?"

"My little helpers."  It waggled its fingers.  Reaching back with one hand, it rummaged in the folds of its couch before drawing something out.  My sword.  Olorin's sword.  The homunculus poked a hole through the fingerloop in the rain guard and twirled it about its finger.  "Now this is a pretty thing."  The Painted Man tightened its fist around the grip, and silently the exotic matter of the blade sprang forth with its faint iridescence, reflecting moonlight that was not there.  The homunculus reached up with one finger and gently pressed it against her single gleaming edge.  The silver-blue metal rippled, shimmering, recoiling as if burned by the inmane creature's touch.  The Painted Man's huge black eyes widened, and it drew its finger back.  Briefly I saw the blood incarnadine against skin like aged china.  "Where did you get a thing like this?"

I saw no reason to lie.  "It was a gift, from one of the Maeskoloi of Jadd."  What Sir Olorin Milta might say about a blood-born homunculus touching so sacred an object to his order as a sword I did not like to think.  Nothing good.