<strong>Balthazar</strong><br/><br/>Such a prize indeed.  He could not resist running his hands briefly over her, touching lightly her shoulders and upper arms... her chest and the sides of those soft mounds... her smooth belly... that perfect little triangle of hair... the soft curves of her thighs and ass...  Then he stepped back and turned to begin walking down the corridor, away from the cell and the chopping block, instead deeper into the passages.<br/><br/>"You will keep you hands where they are and follow me."<br/><br/>He guided her past more cells, where the inmates growled and jeered like animals.  Their cries and clamoring filled her ears with the foulest suggestions and promises and wishes for her tender body.  And then they left these behind as they moved into the catacombs where rested the castle's dead.  Whithered husks and eyeless skulls leered at her instead of prisoners as they made their way deeper.<br/><br/>At last, they left the dead behind as came to a door.  Black steel like an oven, dark and somehow malevolent as it loomed before them.  And upon it there was no latch or keyhole or means to open it.<br/><br/>Balthazar lifted his hand, signet glittering in the wane light of his flickering torch.  And the grim doors parted for him. The room beyond was circular, and set with many doors.  The center featured a small altar, the symbols corrupt and inverted and the circular mosaic before it a vile perversion full of shamlessly coupling angels.  Bookshelves and tables were set about the room's edge, against the walls between the doors.  Globes of arcane light floated above to illuminate the blasphemious sights, proof of Balthazar's unholy ways.<br/><br/>"Now slave, you shall enter the Black Chambers.  Get down on your hands and knees and crawl across the threshold."<br/><br/><strong>Darius</strong><br/><br/>He smiled, unable to resist the warmth her simple praise filled him with.  "You should stay close, it might be unsafe.  And make sure to be careful.  This passage might not be stable."<br/><br/>He pulled the handle, tugging at the rusty metal until with a sudden lurch it gave and the panel beside the fireplace creaked open on long unoiled hinges.  Darius held the long prybar, ready as either tool or weapon and waited for Aurora to light her torch before entering.  It was a narrow passage, barely three feet wide if that much.  It began, almost immediately, to decend, a narrow and steep stair following the chiminey down.  And down.  And down.  At last it emerged, it's end not covered or hidden but simply one niche among the many of the catacombs.<br/><br/>Darius emerged into the dusty hall, long ago blocked off from the dungeons and brushed at the cobwebs he had cleared from the path for his princess.  And as her light cast it's flickering light on the grim hallway, they saw that monsterious door.  It was as black and sealed as in Sophie's dream.  Rust marred it's forbidding surface, but it seemed as secure as ever and as somehow malign.