Alec felt hands touching him. M-mm, nice... He stretched, grateful that once in a while he got to have a good dream. These knowing hands were working on him, evicting all the knots of tension and filling him with wonderful warmth.

He drowsed, then turned again, slowly opening his eyes. The hands went on, continuing the satisfying massage, now more gentle and caressing... Wait a minute, the hands were still here?!

Alec turned, seeing a blond young man giving him massage, and sat up in one movement. He blinked, expecting the man to be a part of the dream. No, he was awake. And he still did not feel any presence in the room, despite seeing plainly the man before him.

"What are you?" he asked slowly, mentally berating himself for stupidity. A detector got so close and he slept on! Now was too late to run, but he'll be damned if he gets caught so meekly...

The man stared at him instead of attacking, and Alec's head began clearing. Whoever it was, he was alone in the room and not attacking. An untrained detector, not working for anyone?

"I am the Scrying Key, Master," the young man answered and added with a small bow, "I am here for your pleasure, Master."

At this surprising statement Alec automatically checked the man's thoughts to receive confirmation. And then checked again. Detectors gave him a blank shield, but they were *there* to be felt as a shield. This Key gave nothing. Nothing at all, no thoughts, no emotions, as if he wasn't there.

Alec stood up slowly, not paying attention to his nakedness. "But you are not a person, are you?"

"Master?"

"You're not even here," Alec added in a detached tone, trying to decide on a course of action. "I am the only living person in this room. Are you a robot?" he said thoughtfully, then shook his head. "No, if there were robots that advanced, they would be noticed — and put to better use. So what are you?" he repeated.

"I am the Scrying Key, Master. Your slave..." The eyes that stared into his were big and blue, the oval face was almost too perfect, but Alec was too distracted to observe the rest.

"Slave?" he asked with mild curiousity. "So is this a *sex* resort? To have such a... decorative slave..."

"Yes, Master!" the slave answered, obviously glad to be back on sure ground. He went on, but Alec stopped listening. This was no detector, so Alec directed a small part of his attention to watch over him — it — whatever and started to search whoever was behind this, outside of the room.

He quickly found something, some connection leading from this room away, further into the building. Someone was controlling the blond slave, Alec was sure. He never saw anything like this, but now that he caught the thread, Alec intended to find out what it was.

He clamped down on the link, using his finely honed attack skills, leaving the adversary's lines of communication just barely open. The blond slave wavered, his face blurred and he slumped down on the bed. Alec traced back the thread going to this... illusion, and here it was, the mind that made the illusion move and speak to him.

He — for it was definitely he — was surprisingly strong, though no stronger than Alec. And at the same time he was strangely unprotected, only now starting to erect hasty and ill-constructed shields.

::You're not used to this,:: Alec suddenly concluded. ::Do you only use your mind to control these illusions? And I'm still waiting for an answer - what are you? What do you want?::

::N-nothing... I told you — I'm the Scrying Key. Let me go!:: The mind-voice of his adversary still sounded slightly confused, but he was apparently collecting himself.

Finally Alec went all the way back to the source — and he met with an obstacle, and not of a kind he was used to meeting. The person calling himself Key was not trained to fight, and he could not keep Alec out of his mind, so by now Alec should have been seeing his true location. Instead, there was only blankness overlaid thinly by the picture of Alec himself as he could probably be seen by the illusion in his room.

Startled, he almost let his adversary go. Immediately the Key tried to throw Alec out of his mind. ::Very good,:: Alec chuckled. ::You almost succeeded.:: Now he was sure that it was no trap. Only someone uninvolved could combine such strength and such absence of training. But how did he manage to stay uninvolved? Was the Palace really so good a haven? Alec's vacation began to look more and more promising.

::But you did not need to waste your strength in an all-out attack,:: he added. ::It would be better to find the places where I'm holding you and apply force there.:: Very slowly he showed the Key the way it was done, one thread of his psychic energy untangling the other out of the Key's mind.

And then he found a possible explanation for the blankness inside the Key's mind and sat down, surprised. "You're blind?!" he said aloud, slipping away completely.

"Yes, I am," the blond man answered slowly, sitting up on the bed. "Why did you attack me, Master?"

Alec looked at him thoughtfully. "Interesting. I've never seen anyone with psychic abilities and physical disabilities. Then again, most of them probably do not survive childhood. How old are you?"

"I don't know, Master, but I'm no child. Master, why..."

Alec lifted a hand, stopping him in mid-sentence. "I remember. Why did I attack you? Well, you weren't what you seemed and presented a threat. I had to neutralize this threat. Though I must admit that you give wonderful massage..."

The Key answered him with a wide smile. "Thank you, Master! Shall I repeat it? You're all tense again."

Alec groaned. "Must you always call me Master, and in every sentence too? It started getting on my nerves already."

"How shall I call you then, Master?" the Key asked, moving closer to start the massage.

"Not now, or I'll fall asleep again," Alec said, standing up. "I wanted to take a bath..." He stretched, feeling well-rested and strangely content, then looked at his companion. "Call me Alec, why don't you? And I hope you have a name. I don't want to call you 'Key'..."

"My name is Cir, Ma... Alec," the blond man answered, also standing up. "Do you wish me to prepare you a bath?"

Alec stared at him in thought. When Cir first declared himself a slave, Alec had more pressing concerns about him. Now, though, the idea of a sex resort with slaves for every client seemed a bit too much. Still, he noticed no traces of abuse and coercion during his contact with Cir's mind, and a bath was just a bath...

"Why not?" he said with a shrug. "And feel free to join me in this bath. It looked big..."