"I've a gift," he informed the Keeper of the second gate, who stood behind the iron grill, before a gatehouse likewise sheltered from the sun. Behind this rose the Way of a Thousand Steps, and the inmost gates. "Then," that one whispered, opening wide the gates, "there will be a good hunt tonight, won't there?"

He climbed on, panting now, and with a weakness in his knees that was not all his lack of exercise, his habitude of ships. Above him the Lotus Dome of the palace loomed against the morning, far, far up the steps worn into hollows by the passage of feet, of the Keepers up and down, and of the victims. . . up.

"I've a gift," he informed the Keeper of the third gate, the very doors. That one merely grinned, showing sharp blue teeth, and let him pass.

Belat walked on, into the long inner halls of lotus-stem columns, which twisted their way up and writhed across vaulted ceilings; and far, into yet another hall, where the stems rose to stone lily pads and marble lotuses on the ceiling, stems behind which coy golden-scaled fishes lurked. . . beneath which a throne like one alabaster lotus flower, and languid golden limbs disposed upon it, and dark, kohl-smeared eyes regarding him. The Tyrant frowned at him, a cloud upon the youthful brow, a sudden quick movement of a jewel-nailed hand, a gesture to begone—mercy now twice given. Twelve years old was Elio DCCLII, petulant, spoiled. . . dangerous. "Go away," the boy whispered, "— foreigner. We sent you away last time. Do you think we forget?

Do you think we forgive?"

"I've brought you a gift," Belat said, and watched the old interest grow unwillingly in the Tyrant's eyes. . . interests like pleasures which quickly came and quickly fled, which made this handsome, golden child the ruler he was—most skilled of dreamers, worker of finesses and deadly dangers the most jaded could not match, a coolness which insulated him from shocks and let him shape the dreams his way. Assassinations had been tried before—in vain.

"Your last gift," the boy said, "failed."

"This one," Belat said, venturing a step closer, "this one will not."

"What have you brought us?" the boy-Tyrant whispered, leaning forward on the Lotus Throne.

"Something—new?"

"A dreamer," Belat whispered back, and before the pouting, painted lips could frame a word. . .

"A differentdreamer. A wild dreamer. Something you've not hunted, majesty, something Earth has never seen."

The familiar petulance trembled on the childish lips, the frown gathered, deadly shadow in the kohl-smeared eyes. . . fresh from the night's hunt was Elio, and perhaps sated, or perhaps—disappointed. "You mean to stay," the Tyrant lisped, "and record this. . . with your machines. We should submit to this—distasteful intrusion in our sport. And you sellthese things, do you not?"

"I have to travel far," he said, cautious on this point "Consider only, majesty, that I search the worlds for you. . . to bring you such a gift. And the record makes it possible again."

"You intrude."

"Don't I bring you the rarest treasures, majesty? Can the dull creatures out there match mine?

Don't I bring you always the most unusual, the greatest sport?"

"You boredus, dream-stealer. You raised our hopes, and you failed them, and are there not others—seller of our pleasures—who would fill your place more cleverly? Ships would still come and go at the port. The factor would still be there. And perhaps the next trader would be more careful. . . might he not? You boredus. So long we waited for what you promised, and it failed. We let you go once. Not again."

Belat sweated, resisted temptation to mop at his face and admit it. Rum was on the one side. On the other—"You'll take my gift," he whispered. "It's my expense, majesty. And if it pleases, the tape. . . to take with me."

"Ill take it," the boy said ever so softly. "And let you make your tape; but, Belat, this time there will be no forgiving. We'll hunt youif it fails to please." He shivered, stared into the boyish eyes, and hated, smothering that hate, striving to smile. "I am confident," he said. "Would I risk coming here again—without cause to be?" The eyes took on suspicion, the least suspicion, quickly fled, and a childish hand waved him gone. Belat took his cue, gathered his life and his sanity into his two hands and walked velvet footed from the lotus-stem hall—walked the long way down, past curiosity horning in the Keepers' eyes, curiosity which itself was, in the Eternal City, a commodity precious more than gold.

The sun climbed higher, and outside, the City sank into its daytime burrowings; and the Lotus Palace sank into its daily hush. Elio bathed, a lingering immersion in a golden bowl only slightly more gleaming than the limbs which curled in it, serpent-lithe and slender. He walked the cool, lily-stemmed halls, and stared restlessly out upon the only unshielded view in the Palace, upon the ruin-flecked valley below the hill, upon the catacombs sheened by the daystar's terrible radiations, and behind him his attendant lesser lords observed this madness with languid-lidded eyes, hoping for something bizarre. But he was not struck by the sun, nor did he leap to his death, as four Tyrants before him had done, when amusements failed; and he turned on them a look which in itself gave them a prized thrill of terror. . . remembering that to assuage the pangs of the last failed hunt—a minor lord had fallen to him in the Games, rare, rare sport. But he passed them by with that deadly look and walked on, absorbed in his anticipations, often raised, ever disappointed.

The kill was always too swift. And he knew the whispers, that such power as his always burned itself out, that it grew more and more inward, lacking challenge, until at last nothing should suffice to stir him.

He imagined. Such talent was rare. The sickness was on him, that came on the talented, the brilliant dreamers, who found no further challenges. At twelve, he foresaw a day not far removed when his own death would seem the only excitement yet untried. He knew the halls, each lotus stem and startled, golden fish. He knew the lords and ladies, knew them, not alone the faces, but the very souls, and drank in all their pleasures, fed by them, nourished on their darkest fantasies, and was bored.

He probed the deaths of victims, and found even that tedious.

He grew thin, pacing the halls by day, and exhausting his body in dreams at night. He terrorized captured laborers, but that waking sport palled, for the dreams were more, and deeper, and more colorful, unlimited in fantasy, save by the limits of the mind. And these he had paced and plumbed as well.

At twelve he knew the limits of all about him, and had experienced all the pleasures, heritor of a thousand thousands of his sort, all of whom died young, in a City which found its Eternity a slow, slow death.

Perhaps tonight, he thought, savoring the thought, I die.

He sat much, in the cell. This day—if it was day—he knew that they were watching him, and they had not, before. This they were free to do, and he could not protest. He sat, and stared at his hands, and waited. There would come a time that they would insist he must eat and drink; or they would make him sleep and force this upon him. He sat still now, not betraying that he knew that they were there. He had had dignity once. They had none, who peeped and pried and did not come before his face, but that was his shame, who had fallen to the like of these. One day they must tire of this, he thought, when he let himself think at all, and then they must decide what they would do. Perhaps today, he thought, but did not let himself hold that thought, for that was ultimately to put himself in their power, and he would neither react nor think of them. He was alone. They had made him so. More than this they had to come and do to him. He would not help them.