THE GHOST DRIFTED ACROSS the parapets. There was a chill wind blowing over the stonework, but the ghost didn’t feel it. Since his death he had constantly felt cold anyway. He didn’t like being dead. One day alive, breathing, drinking, surrounded by toadies, bootlickers, yes-men, and groveling sycophants, as a leader should be. Ruling a small kingdom, but one that had potential. Suddenly he was cold all the time, he felt like he couldn’t breathe (he couldn’t, of course, but it wasn’t a pleasant feeling), and it was lonely up here on the walls. Twice he had managed to sink down inside the castle for a few minutes. There he had seen himself in a mirror, and it was a depressing sight. He hated himself in white. It made him look fat.
His only consolation was that he had fallen asleep on his final night with a bottle in his arms. At least he had that with him. He took a drink now, and blew on his hands to warm them. It didn’t have the slightest effect.
A voice behind him said, “Whither thou, ghost?”
The ghost jumped a foot in the air.
“Damn it, Charlie,” he said irritably. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“I wasn’t sneaking. You’re the one who’s drifting around silent and translucent.”
“Well, you’re hard to see. What’s with the black clothes? No, let me guess. You’ve decided to become a ninja, right?”
The Prince looked down at his clothes and gave a small, resigned shrug. “Yes. Exactly right. Dad, it’s cold, it’s dark, it’s night, I’ve had a long day, and I’m tired. Let’s get this over with. You called me out here to tell me something, and I suspect it was not to comment on my sartorial habits. Come on, out with it.”
“Don’t rush me, Charlie. This is important.” The ghost took a pull from its bottle. “You didn’t happen to bring anything to drink, did you?”
“I stopped drinking when I left Damask. Alcohol makes me short-tempered and irritable.”
“Oh, that’s what does it, eh? Okay, I’m not going to repeat this, so listen up.” The ghost put one hand on its hip and held the other one out in what was apparently supposed to be a dramatic gesture, although the bottle in its fist somewhat lessened the effect. It spoke:
But soft, the gibbous moon and starry night
Give witness to the secret I reveal
For whence I journeyed to the Land of Nod
And there did meet a most unnatural death
There in my bed, while deep in slumbered bliss
Foul poison entered in my trusting veins
Thus curdled blood…
“What the hell are you going on about?” Charlie interrupted. “Are you trying to do iambic pentameter?”
“Quiet! I’m dead, I’m bringing you a message from beyond the grave. Of course it’s in blank verse. There’s a protocol to these things.”
“Well, save it for the open-stage poetry slam at the Cuppa Java.”
The King was momentarily thrown off topic. “What is it with those coffee shops?” he muttered. “They’re everywhere. One and three for a mocha frappuccino? Where do people get the money to burn?”
“If we could return to the subject.”
“Charlie, I did not die from natural causes.”
Charlie gave him a like-I-care look.
“I was poisoned, Charlie.”
“I’m not surprised. Alcohol poisoning is the first thing I’d suspect.”
“Not alcohol poisoning!”
“You were bit by a snake?”
“Two snakes. Packard and Gregory. My own brothers. They poured poison—extract of hebenon—in my ear while I slept.”
“No kidding? That really works?” Charlie patted his pockets, looking for a pencil stub. “Let me write this down. I may need to try it someday. Extract of hebenon?”
“Damn it, Charlie! Your uncles murdered me!”
“Good for them. They should have done it years ago. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it myself.”
The ghost glared at him. “Your sovereign and father was murdered. It’s your duty to avenge my death. What are you going to do about it?”
“Give them a medal? No, too public. Perhaps just a thank you note and a bottle of wine.”
“Charlie…”
“Dad, I have to ask myself a question. In what way, exactly, is Damask worse off by your death? And you know, nothing is coming to mind.”
“So you’ve turned against me, too,” the ghost said bitterly. It looked despairingly over the ramparts.
“I’ve never been for you.”
“Why? What have I done to deserve you opprobrium?”
“You must be joking. You want the whole list or just the top ten? Let’s start with something you didn’t do. Specifically, you didn’t marry my mother.”
The ghost did its best to look innocent and aggrieved. “Really, Charlie, is that what’s bothering you? Come now, I’m hardly the first man in the kingdom to sire a child out of wedlock.”
“You banished her from the castle. You threatened her with death if she ever came in your sight again.”
“Yes, well, that was for her own protection. To stop rumors.”
“Rumors! You denounced her in public! You called her a slut and a whore!”
“Foul lies! Honestly, Charlie, you know that a king always has opponents who will try to smear his reputation. You should know better than to believe stories like that. Where did you hear such nonsense?”
“From you. When you got drunk and started bragging to your cronies about your sexual conquests.”
“Um, okay, but the point was that you were around to hear those stories. I recognized you as my son, didn’t I? You are called Prince Charlie, aren’t you?”
“You know damn well that’s an unofficial title. You didn’t recognize me as your son until everyone else in the kingdom was already calling me Prince Charlie, when it became obvious that we looked so much alike.”
“Don’t change the subject,” said the ghost, changing the subject. “Did you come out here just to whine about your unhappy childhood? I tell you Packard and Gregory are not to be trusted. They’re up to something. You’ve got to warn the new king.”
“Warn the new king?”
“Right. Tell him to be on his guard. Whom did they pick, anyway? Was it Richard? Richard is the obvious choice.”
“I thought so, too,” said the Prince. “But no. They offered it to someone else.”
“Jason, I’ll bet. I’m not surprised. I always thought he was pretty stupid. That’s the kind of guy they want.”
“You think so?”
“Oh yes. I know my brothers, and they’ll pick some dumb chump they can easily manipulate. That’s why you’ve got to act quickly. Get in to see whatever brainless idiot they’ve set up on the throne, and persuade him to come to the ramparts at night so I can tell him about…”
“It’s me,” said Charlie.
“It’s always about you. As I was saying, get the fool up here where I can talk to him.”
“You’re talking to the fool now. It’s me, Bad Prince Chump.”
The ghost stared. “Ridiculous. Why you?”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad. Now let me ask you something. You said you were murdered while you were sleeping in bed, right?”
“Right.
“By someone pouring poison in your ear. While you were asleep, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, so if you were asleep, how could you know who poured the poison in your ear?”
The ghost sputtered. “I know because…because…I’m a ghost, damn it. Ghosts know these things.”
“Totally convincing. Okay ghost, you’ve said your piece. You are released. No longer must your tortured soul haunt the environs of your sad demise. You may continue your interrupted journey to that ethereal plane to which we all ascend upon our dying breath. Et cetera, et cetera.”
The ghost looked exasperated as only a ghost can. “All right. God only knows what Packy and Greg are up to, but I’ve got to trust you. Charlie, I’ve got something else important to tell you.”
“I don’t want to hear it. Ciao.” The Prince started to walk off.
“I mean it. This is important.”
“I’m sure it is and that’s why I don’t want to hear it. I know how ghosts work. You’re going to start telling me something, and just when you get to the critical details, you’re going to fade away, or be interrupted, or yanked down into Hell, leaving me with an impenetrable mystery to solve. Well, forget it. I’ve got enough to do already.”
“You have to find Thessalonius.”
“I’m not listening.”
“Quit fooling around. Get your hands away from your ears. Would I go through all the trouble of haunting these ramparts night after night just to tell you half a secret? Now start acting like a king…”
“Prince regent, actually.”
“Like a prince regent and pay attention.” The Ghost once again assumed a dramatic pose. Charlie rolled his eyes but sat down on the wall and listened.
Destruction of the city is at hand
If weapons magical are come to light
“Not verse again,” the Prince muttered.
Too strong the power that in this kingdom lies
Sorcery that can wreak a havoc great
“That last line doesn’t scan.”
“Shows what you know,” said the ghost. “It’s a trochee.”
Thine uncles seek to make this weapon theirs
And thereby to destroy Noile’s strength
Their army shall be rendered into mush
Like boiled zucchini too long ’ere the pot
“Enough!” snapped Charlie. “Get to the point. You’re telling me that Thessalonius developed some sort of magical weapon?”
“Yes. One with immense destructive power. If ignited at the right place and time, it can destroy an entire army.”
“And you think Uncle Packard and Uncle Gregory want to use it to invade Noile?”
“Exactly. I know them well, Charlie. Territorial expansion has long been an ambition of theirs. They suspected that Thessalonius had developed a Weapon of Magical Destruction for me, and they wanted it. They poisoned me when I refused to even consider their schemes.”
Charlie shook his head. “Dad, you have it completely wrong. They don’t want to take over Noile. They want Noile to take over us. They’ve already sold out to Fortescue. They put me on the throne to have someone that Fortescue could easily overthrow.”
The ghost shrugged. “Fine, have it your way, Charlie. That only makes it worse. Fortescue is the last person who should get his hands on a WMD. You can’t deny that he is warlike and ambitious. He’d use it without a second thought.”
Charlie made a sound like an exasperated sheep. “Bah.” He turned away and leaned over the wall. There were still a few lights in the city below, glowing in the windows of late-night taverns and restaurants. He watched them for a while, thinking that he wasn’t prepared for this. He had expected to walk out tonight and meet a typical ghost with a typical secret—“The will is hidden behind the cupboard” or “the gold is buried beneath the old oak tree” or “the real heir was switched at birth with a swineherd’s daughter.” Now he was getting dumped on with another important responsibility.
He turned back to the ghost, who had emptied the last few drops out of the bottle and was licking the rim. “All right. I agree for the moment that Thessalonius made a WMD and is hiding it somewhere. Tell me where it is and I’ll see that it is destroyed. Does that make you happy? And why did you even allow him to build such a device if you weren’t intending to use it?”
“I can explain that,” said the ghost. “We intended to—hark!” It cupped a hand to its ear.
“What?”
I hear the feathered herald of the dawn
The harbinger of early morning light
“The what?”
“I heard a cock crow.”
“You did not!”
“Yes, I did. There it is again.” The ghost began to fade away.
“We don’t have cocks in Damask!”
“Um, it was a peacock then.” The ghost was little more than a white shimmer.
“Peacocks don’t count! Get back here!” Charlie screeched. He grabbed at the ghost, but his hands passed through empty air. Overbalancing, he ended up hanging over a parapet, looking at the courtyard below. A handful of guards were staring at him curiously. He straightened up and waved. “Just talking to myself a bit. Not a problem. Carry on.” He backed away from the stone wall and stood for long minutes, scowling at the place where the ghost had been. Then he said aloud, to no one in particular, “It’s cold out here,” and went back inside.