he felt for this girl.

Via, what were the only means available, via what were – whatever it was that the philosopher intended to reveal to him - he could only assume of what was Theust.

- Following what were presumably engineered lines and folds – he didn't think this was/

Momentarily feeling Art run out the back of his head – he felt Art run out the back of his head - an example of an occasional rising to the conscious -

the Hero was in something, perhaps something not too dissimilar to what was unfolding before Pheel.

Some body. Some opening. Some subterranean lair of prophecies and lies; he didn't know if it was all - real, all interior. It happened in the world. This was of course the power of Old Works. But it was disconcerting to feel it now, in Theust. It was Art, Art/Art[ion] Mlckk'n Inchance-rify, Count Art[ion] of the Thing off his Throat. The Prince of the Multicoloured Organs, the Duke of Wanting, the Marquis of Multi-hued Mendacities; The Knight of Simulation. Lie Boy. The Hero of the Pink Ear. The Conquistador of Organ Corridors; that Sack of Glands and Want; The Dream Slave and The Dream Slave that was who he was and he could - feel him a long, a long way beneath.

But consciously. Opening wounds in a body that wanted to keep him the same time imparting knowledge that, not just of his titles, an indulgence of Pheel's, in more than one sense but – something in those titles; he thought as he traced the helix of the inner ear and what it turned into; no, there was something else.

he ran through them in his head again, not self-indulgence he felt for perhaps the first time in his life; no, these names, they actually meant something - the Prince of the Multicoloured Organs, the Duke of Wanting, the Lord of Colourful Lies - titles he had heard.

The hero of the Pink Ear, Art,/Art[ion] Mlckk'n Inchance-rify, Count Art[ion] of the Thing off his Throat. The Prince of the Multicoloured Organs; the Duke of Wanting; the Marquis of Multi-hued Mendacities; The Knight of Simulation... Dissimulation. Lie Boy. The Hero of the Pink Ear, The Conquistador of Organ Corridors; that Sack of Glands and Want/

the Avatar of Want/The Simulation of Need/The Slave of Wanting. The slave of... what title had a slave, the slave of dreams. The Dream Slave. The Dream Slave. It was that. The Dream Slave. It was - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave - Art, Art[ion], Prince Art[ion] of the Disembowelled Complexion. Count Art[ion] of the Thing off his Throat. Art[ion] Mlckk'n Inchance-rify, the Prince of the Multicoloured Organs; the Duke of Wanting, the Lord of Colourful Lies - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave - The Dream Slave – Art – The Dream Slave -

It was the Dream Slave.

This was what she was.

This was who Art was; this was his absolute primal self; his soul-identity,

like, like, like all of them, like me, like, he thought, Pheel thought this Pry thought this, like this poor girl; saying the words in his head to himself, consciously telling himself a story.

Pry, perhaps not fully consciously working himself into whatever was happening with Art inside that demon's flesh dungeon; consciously repeating to himself the words, Pry thought: this poor; poor girl; like Art, like me, like all of us - but working something much further below, working himself: tying the bonds of his own destiny to that of Art's in what could only be a final – it was either complete self-hatred, self-abnegation, to choose such a destiny or it was, you poor, poor creature - reaching out to her, it was either that or it was, Pry thought; I love you, it was love.

You poor, poor girl - it helped poor shallow Pheel to focus all this pouring out of him; this desperate need to love, onto this girl, onto this pretty face, the pretty face, but all of them, that tenderness, it encompassed them all and he felt so sad, so... sorry.

/ashamed that he had – that he'd ever – he traced the folds all the way from the bottom to the top, again, and he inserted his hand around the inner fold of the hood, at the top, pulling back the hood, he observed, that contained... it was a globe.

Not so much a glans beneath that as a globe that... Art swept his hands across the front and behind and there was something, glancing at her face, he saw the/a: face that showed a pause between agonies -

this was as much as Pheel could ascribe to it.

But sweeping across the face of the taut, blue-veined globe he – his hand met something; not mechanical, in strict terms, but it felt like a plug or a lever or some form of, made entirely from dense spongy fibres, a connection, that -

if he only,

his hand swept back and behind, following an impulse that – a click.