He hadn't done anything to deserve this! Darm willed the ethereal white noise as loud as he could stand it, and he swore it was for the last time. He'd stopped keeping track. Knowing how long he'd been trapped here would just add to his misery. He could understand the need. Not a problem, but blast it all, how could they expect him to live like this?

The pain of it had jammed his love for learning into an all out-lust - a small comfort. He could forget about the mess he was in for a while. But that wasn't good enough - nowhere near!

The squealing was still scraping on his nerves. Oh, Buneld was right. He hung on to memories too tightly. The outer space sounds were more than loud enough to drown out the ghouls. He wasn't actually hearing them - he was remembering what he listened to all day long as he banished them. One by one, by one. All by himself. It would take eternity to get rid of them all ...

The Masters wouldn't move him from this room near the dungeons. He had to teach himself to be free from the memory or he'd lose it completely - uh-uh. He had to be free of this horrible place. Oh, it wasn't the place. It was the task ... And he was done with it! Visherel was coming tomorrow and he was going to tell her flat out he'd had enough. He'd teach the ghoul hunters, but he wouldn't live this way - exist this way!

He got ready for bed, but as he climbed in, Darm felt burning on his chest - blast! The stone Kiata gave him - was it on fire? He clawed the chain away from his skin. A thought flashed into his mind. To be stuck here because he'd missed something important was absolutely unthinkable. The last little bit he had to read might hold the answers he needed.

He got back up and went at the book the Master had given him with a vengeance.

The little stone cooled and stayed that way.

***

Visherel's laughter burned his ears. Darm didn't want to imagine the color of his face. That he'd assumed it was just a matter of teaching the ghoul hunters the correct spells and it would all be good - how could he be such a dope? His heart didn't ache. Every cell he was made of did.

His days of moving from place to place, hand to mouth, the clothes on his back his only furniture - he would never have believed it at the time, but it was heaven. He'd traded an eternity of bliss for a musty old book and look where it got him! The word, idiot should be changed to his name in every dictionary -

The daemoness finally quieted down and laid back on the lounge in the corner of her study. "Come here, Darmon."

His self-loathing and embarrassment vanished, replaced with deep dread. He did not want her touching him with those lovely, transfixing, addicting -

"Don't keep me waiting."

Swallowing was like trying to get a big, pointy rock down his throat. He forced his feet to take him. The second he was close enough, she had a hold of his hand, pulling him to sit beside her. One little bit of wing-tip touched his arm, and the pleasure of it streamed through him, electric. He twisted away, gasping.

"You're incredibly sensitive! I only want to make you feel better. But your high-strung nature presents some ideas. Perhaps I should have mentioned it before ... I had doubts, but I'm sure, now, that it's worth investigating. There may be opportunity hiding."

It wasn't enough to be a dolt. No. He couldn't make sense of what she was saying, one touch from her wing and he was a complete dick-head on top of his moron-hood. Opportunity? Oh, yeah. Chance of an endless lifetime -

"Is your masochism bottomless? Stop self-flagellating and listen! Your sensitivity likely has a biological basis. It serves some useful purpose. It occurs to me that since you, alone, can banish ghouls - and you, alone, have this peculiar sensitivity - that these idiosyncrasies might be linked."

Darm fought to straighten out his confusion. Or at least wipe it off his face - what was she getting at?

"I'll get to the point. It may be possible to train others to reach the level of sensitivity that you maintain naturally. This should make it possible for them to cast effective spells -"

"You mean it?" His resentment of her mind-reading flew right out of his head. Joy hit him like a ziptrain. driving him to his feet. "When do we start? How do we do this? Tell me how we do this? Please! I have to know!"

Wide-eyed, she shook her head. "Never have I met such a flighty spirit! I'll take the matter up with the other Masters. You can stay in the room you had when you first arrived. Fratide will bring your meals and anything else you need. I can't say how long it'll take, but there's no shortage of books to amuse yourself with." She got up and showed him the door.

As he walked out, her wing brushed his arm, triggering raging flames of desire. He leaped into the hall like a startled deer. Peals of laughter stalked him all the way to his room.

He didn't care how many cold showers it took - that fire was going out.

***

"Nothing could be simple," Darm groused under his breath. Seven Masters, all with wings that set him off into arousal so intense that blowing his load in his pants was a constant threat. And what did they need to do to examine the 'nature of his sensitivity'?

The water blasting from the shower nozzle was so cold he had an ice cream headache. He looked down and a grim smile spread across his face. Gone. Totally gone. Now he could sleep. He hoped to blazes the 'wise ones' were finished with him! He slapped off the tap and groped for the towel.

The knocker crashing against the door jolted him and he nearly slipped. Blast! No one had bothered him after dinner before ... He pulled on clean pants and, fearing the worst, he reluctantly shuffled across the room to open it. His low spirits crashed through the floor. The Master. Grinning at him like a ... a .... daemoness. "Come in," he said, his voice filled with the sense of his own doom.

She swept through the doorway in a swirl of metallic fabric every shade of the rainbow. He should've been awed at the sight of her. The numbness induced by the icy water -

"Nonsense," she said, still smiling. "You're afraid I have bad news and it's polluting your attitude. Well, surprise! It won't be necessary for you to teach the hunters. We've successfully taught our first subject to reach the pitch required to cast the spell effectively. And we chose the one we thought least likely to achieve, to begin with. He's been busy all day at it and hasn't missed once. It won't be any time at all before every hunter can deal with the vermin in the field. You've done a great service -"

"I've done no such thing," he growled. "The Masters have. If it wasn't for all of you, nothing would've changed." Her face dropped into furious lines and every muscle in him tensed. All mouth and no sense. He'd done it this time - what? Now she was smiling ... The room started to spin and he lost his balance. She caught his arm just as he was about to tip over.

"I see your point," she said as she righted him. "But you forget. If you weren't so ... unjaded, so innocent, none of us would have realized it was a matter of vibratory level. You would have already learned to cover up your touchiness. You're as responsible for the success as the rest of us, however unskilled and subliminal your method. You'll be rewarded. Sleg is coming to get you. He'll be here by midnight."

Darm forced his jaw back to where it belonged. He was going home? Sleg would be here? It was ten - the room slipped across his vision again and his hand went out reflexively, seizing her arm to keep from falling.

"I'm sending for the azu," Visherel said, frowning. She led him to a chair. "You aren't well."