Free A Darkness at Sethanon by Raymond E. Feist Page A

palace, ignoring the startled people he passed. This apparition in black was a most uncommon sight. He was battered, an angry lump decorating his visage, and he reeked of the sewer. Twice Jimmy asked the guards about the Prince’s whereabouts and was informed the Prince was en route to his private quarters.
    Jimmy passed a startled pair of familiar faces as Gardan and Roald the mercenary stood speaking. The Knight-Marshal of Krondor looked tired from a long day yet unfinished and Laurie’s boyhood friend looked half-drunk. Since returning from Moraelin, Roald had been a guest in the palace, though he still refused Gardan’s constant offer of a place in Arutha’s guard. Jimmy said, ‘You’d better come along.’ Both took the boy at his word and fell into step. Jimmy said, ‘You won’t believe what they’re up to this time.’ Neither man had to be told who ‘they’ were. Gardan had just informed Roald of the Upright Man’s warning. And both men had faced the Nighthawks and Black Slayers of Murmandamus at Arutha’s side before.
    Rounding the corner, the three found Arutha about to open the door to his quarters. The Prince halted, waiting for the three to come close, an expression of open curiosity on his face.
    Gardan said, ‘Highness, Jimmy’s discovered something.’
    Arutha said, ‘Come along. I have a few things I must attend to at once, so you’ll have to be brief.’
    The Prince pushed open the door and led them through the antechamber to his private council room. As he reached for the door, it opened.
    Roald’s dark eyes widened. Before them stood another Arutha. The Prince in the door looked at them, saying, ‘What …?’ Suddenly both Aruthas were drawing weapons. Roald and Gardan hesitated; what their eyes told them was impossible. Jimmy watched as the two Princes engaged each other in combat, the ‘second’ Arutha, the one who had come from within, leaping back into the council chamber, gaining room to fight. Gardan shouted for guards and in a moment a full dozen were approaching the door.
    Jimmy watched closely. The resemblance was uncanny. He knew Arutha as well as he knew anyone else in the Palace, but while the two men fought a furious duel, he couldn’t tell them apart. The impostor even fought with the same skill with the blade as the Prince. Gardan said, ‘Seize them both.’
    Jimmy shouted, ‘Wait! If you grab the wrong one first, the impostor may kill him.’ Gardan instantly countermanded his own order.
    The two combatants thrust and parried, moving about the room. Each man’s face was set in a mask of grim determination. Then Jimmy raced across the room, no hesitation marking his lunge for one of the men. Striking out with his dirk, Jimmy knocked him backward. Guards flooded into the room, seizing the other combatant as Gardan ordered. The Knight-Marshal was uncertain what Jimmy was doing, but he was taking no chances. Both men would be held until the matter was sorted out.
    Jimmy grappled on the floor with one of the Aruthas, who struck out with a backhand blow, stunning Jimmy and knocking him aside. That Arutha began to rise to his feet, then halted as Roald levelled his sword point at the man’s throat. The man on the floor shouted, ‘The boy’s gone mad. Guards! Seize him!’ Then, as he rose, he clutched at his side. His hand came away covered in blood. The man looked pale and began to wobble. He appeared on the verge of fainting. The other Arutha stood quietly, enduring the restraining hands of the guards.
    Jimmy shook his head, clearing it from the effects of the second serious blow of the day. Seeing the condition of the wounded man, Jimmy yelled, ‘ ’Ware a ring!’
    As the boy spoke, the wounded man placed his hand before his mouth, and as Roald and a guard seized him, he slumped down, unconscious. Roald said, ‘His royal signet is false.