“She loves me! We met today for the first time, unfettered by the
insidious chains the Bodymaster has woven about us. Her name is Avis—Avis
Rohmer. She has told me all.
“Perhaps it is a part of his diabolical plan to allow us to see each
other. He knows that I will never seek to escape until I can take her
with me. Since my rebellion of the other night—I know not how long ago it
was, for time is as nothing in a brain that is partly dead—he has been
more careful.
“She, Avis and I, alone of all those who have fallen under his
supernatural power, still retain our minds. The others are mental wrecks,
their skulls mere empty shells in which their addled brains sizzle and
froth like half-worked wine in kegs. She has begged me to protect her.
And I have sworn to take her from this den of iniquity, although God
alone knows how I can ever keep my promise. For I am as completely under
his power as she.
“Victory makes him careless, while failure makes him redouble his
efforts. That is why this narrative appears piecemeal. I am like a man
sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, waking up occasionally for food,
then dropping off again. What he is doing during the intervals when I am
not myself I can only imagine.”