"It is not," said the Count in a distant, academic tone, "a perforated ulcer. I've had one of those, and this isn't the same." He crossed his arms over his chest. His breath was becoming shallow and rapid, not recovering its rhythm with sitting as Mark's was.

Something very wrong. A brave man trying hard not to look scared was, Mark decided, one of the most frightening sights he'd ever seen. Brave, but not stupid: the Count did not, for example, choose to pretend that nothing was the matter and go charging up the trail to prove it.

"You don't look well."

"I don't feel well."

"What do you feel?"

"Er . . . chest pain, I'm afraid," he admitted in obvious embarrassment. "More of an ache, really. A very . . . odd . . . sensation. Came up between one step and the next."

"It couldn't be indigestion, could it?" Like the kind that was boiling up acidly in Mark's belly right now?

"I'm afraid not."

"Maybe you had better call for help on your comlink," Mark suggested diffidently. There sure as hell wasn't anything he could do, if this was the medical emergency it looked like.

The Count laughed, a dry wheeze. It was not a comforting sound. "I left it."

"What? You're the frigging Prime Minister, you can't go around without—"

"I wanted to assure an uninterrupted, private conversation. For a change. Unpunctuated by half the underministers in Vorbarr Sultana calling up to ask me where they left their agendas. I used to . . . do that for Miles. Sometimes, when it got too thick. Drove everyone crazy but eventually . . . they became . . . reconciled." His voice went high and light on the last word. He lay back altogether, in the detritus and fallen leaves. "No . . . that's no improvement. . . ." He extended a hand and Mark, his own heart lumping with terror, pulled him back into the sitting position.

A paralyzing toxin . . . heart failure . . . I was to get alone with you . . . I was to wait, in your sight, for twenty minutes while you died. . . . How had he made this happen? Black magic? Maybe he was programmed, and part of him was doing things the rest of him didn't know anything about, like one of those split personalities. Did I do this? Oh, God. Oh shit.

The Count managed a pallid grin. "Don't look so scared, boy," he whispered. "Just go back to the house and get my guardsmen. It's not that far. I promise I won't move." A hoarse chuckle.

I wasn't paying any attention to the paths on the way up. I was following you. Could he possibly carry . . . ? No. Mark was no medtech, but he had a clear cold feeling that it would be a very bad idea to try to move this man. Even with his new girth he was heavily outweighed by the Count. "All right." There hadn't been that many possible wrong turns, had there? "You . . . you . . ." Don't you dare die on me, godammit. Not now!