Prince of Fools

“Prince Jalan?”

I shook my head to find the damnable little man snapping his fingers in front of my face. If I hadn’t wanted something from him, I’d have kicked his arse all the way to the Triple Gate. Well, if he hadn’t been a sorcerer as well. Not people to rub the wrong way. Rubbed the right way, though . . . as with Aladdin’s lamp, I might get my wish. At least I knew now that he wasn’t a charlatan with the mirrors and the smoke and the quick hands.

“Prince Jal—”

“I’m fine. Came over dizzy for a second. Come in. Sit. I need to ask you about something.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and blinked a few times to refocus as I walked a less-than-straight path back to my chair. “Sit.” I waved at another seat.

Sageous took an elegant ladder-back but stood behind it rather than following my bidding. Tan fingers ran over wood so dark as to be almost black, investigating each polished and gleaming curve as if seeking meaning. “You’re a puzzle, Prince Jalan.”

I bit back on my opinion and resisted damning him for his impudence.

“A puzzle of two pieces.” The heathen watched me with those placid eyes of his. He released the chair and ran his fingers over his forehead, brows, cheekbones, cheeks. Everywhere his fingertips touched it seemed that for a heartbeat the tattooed script grew darker, like fissures through his flesh into some inner blackness. He cocked his head, then looked back towards the corridor. “And the second piece is close by.”

“I would have expected no less of someone from whom a king such as Olidan seeks counsel.” I flashed my best grin, the one that says “amiable bluff hero with the common touch.” “The truth is I got caught up in some foul spell along with the Norseman I’ve brought with me. We’re bound together by the magics. If we get too far apart, bad things happen to us. And all I want to do is have someone unbind us so we can go our separate ways again. The man who could do that would find me a very generous prince indeed!”

Sageous looked far less surprised than I had expected. Almost as if he’d heard the story already. “I can help you, Prince Jalan.”

“Oh, thank God. I mean, thank any god. You don’t know how hard it’s been, yoked to that brute. I thought I was going to have to trek all the way to the fjords with him. Cold does not agree with me at all. My sinus—”

Sageous raised a hand and cut off my babbling. Unconscionable that he should interrupt a prince, but it’s true that the relief of it all had overloosened my tongue.

“There is, as in many things, an easy way and a hard way.”

“The easy way sounds easiest,” I said, leaning forwards, for the heathen spoke very soft.

“Kill the other man.”

“Kill Snorri?” I jolted back, surprised. “But I thought if he—”

“On what grounds did you think this, Prince Jalan? A sensible man may fear certain possibilities, but don’t let fear turn possibility into certainty. If either of you dies, the curse will die with you and the other may carry on unencumbered.”

“Oh.” It did seem silly that I had been so sure of what would happen. “But I can’t kill Snorri.” I didn’t want him dead. “I mean, it would be very difficult. You’ve not met him. When you do, you’ll understand.”

Sageous shrugged, the slightest raising of shoulders. “You are in King Olidan’s castle. If he commanded the man dead, then the man would die. I doubt he would refuse a prince’s request for the life of a commoner. Especially a man from the ice and snow, given to the worship of primitive gods.”

My early enthusiasm escaped me in a long sigh. “Tell me the difficult way . . .”

EIGHTEEN

I woke in a cold sweat, the bed warm around me. For a moment I wondered which tavern I was in. I even thought for one instant that Emma might be lying beside me, but my questing fingers found only linen sheets. Fine linen. The castle. I remembered and sat up, blind night on every side.

Nightmares had been chasing me, one into the next, and my heart still pounded from the exercise, but I couldn’t recall any details. Nothing came to me save the memory of something dreadful stalking me through dark places, so close I felt its breath on my neck, felt it clutching, snagging my shirt . . .

“Castle, Jal; you’re in a castle.” My voice rang thin as if I were in some vast and empty space.

The candle I’d left burning must have blown out—not even a scent of it remained. I had tinder and flint, but they were in a saddlebag wherever Ron had been stabled.