Chapter 6

Adam slowly pulled himself back into a sitting position, cradling his left arm in his lap. The imposter stood over him, beaming down self-righteously. "Nobody crosses me and gets away with it. Not Skeletor, and certainly not a wimpy little prince like you." Adam didn't respond. He had plenty to say, but saw no point in saying it. If you don't like Skeletor, then why are you attacking us? You do know that hurting me and my father will make old bone face happy, don't you? But he didn't feel like pointing out to this brute that they had anything in common.

"Now, you had better start eating your meals," the imposter said, clearly starting on a long lecture.

Adam glowered at him. "Do I have to clean my plate, too?" he asked before thinking whether or not it was sensible.

It looked like the imposter was grinding his teeth. Adam found that he liked to watch that. "Do you want me to kill your mother?" The prince felt all the anger drain out him to be replaced by horror. "I got the impression you were fond of her. She certainly seems fond enough of you, though I can't imagine why."

"Don't you touch her!" Adam grated through his teeth. "I won't do it again."

"You won't get the chance to do that again, I assure you."

"Don't you even go near her!"

"I can't keep her away from me. Do you know, she asked me if your father was acting oddly toward me yesterday. I must have a talk with the old man. He seems to be arousing suspicion." A thoughtful look came into his eyes. "Though if everyone is suspicious of him, they won't be looking at me." Adam growled wordlessly. "You seem to be a tiresomely popular boy. In fact, I'd better get back before one of your obnoxious friends comes looking for me."

Adam wanted him gone. But he didn't want him back at the palace. He closed his eyes and thumped his head back against the wall. Was this worse than Skeletor? He couldn't decide. Skeletor definitely planned to kill him, but this guy said he was going to let him go at the end. Skeletor had never gone and lived in his life, though, doing lord only knew what that Adam was going to have to try to explain later.

He opened his eyes in time to see the portal vanish. Life sucked

-------

"Dorgan, how did he get that burn?"

"That's his business, Duncan." Randor felt a blanket being drawn up over him. "It's not related to his passing out if that's what you were thinking."

"Is that better?" Duncan demanded incredulously. Randor wondered what they were talking about. His arm ached, his head ached, and he knew there was something far worse wrong, but he couldn't think what it was.

"I'm not sure what you're asking, Duncan." He sighed. "I've done what I can here. I'd better go look in on some of my other patients."

"I'll stay here," Duncan announced. He's certainly in a priggish mood today, Randor thought. What's put a bee in his bonnet?

"Suit yourself." Footsteps moved away, and a door opened then closed. Randor heard the sound of Duncan settling himself in a chair by the bed. Am I sick? That doesn't seem right, somehow. My arm . . . what had happened to . . .

He sat up. "Adam!" he cried.

"Randor, it's all right," Duncan exclaimed, standing up and trying to push him back down. "You passed out here in the infirmary, and –"

"It's not all right!" Randor said, shoving Duncan's hands away and feeling in his pockets. "Where is it?" He started to swing himself off the bed, but Duncan pushed him back.

"You'd better stay in bed. I don't know what's –"

"Dorgan!!" he yelled. "Get Dorgan now!"

"Randor, what is it?" When the king didn't answer, Duncan shook his head impatiently. "Stay on the bed and I'll get Dorgan." Randor nodded. Dizziness had swept over him as he'd tried to stand, so he was willing for Duncan to be his legs. The door opened as his man-at-arms reached it.

"Dorgan!" Randor exclaimed. "What happened?"

"It's all right, sire. Things are – they're all right."

Randor sat back, breathing heavily. "You're certain?" Dorgan nodded. Both the healer and the king started when the door shut with a bang.

"All right. What in the name of the elders is going on here?" Duncan demanded. Randor stared at him, not sure what to say, where to start, whether to start, or even which way was up. Dorgan just looked shocked that anyone was being so authoritarian towards him in his own realm.

Duncan planted himself solidly across the doorway and began enumerating points on his fingers. "This is what I've got so far. Orko's depressed. Adam's acting like a jerk when he's not hiding in his room. Cringer wants to eat him. Marlena's worried. Mekanek is spying on you and reporting to her. Ram-Man thinks Adam doesn't like him anymore. You've got the rest of the masters, apart from Teela, searching the far corners of the globe for materials to build a digging machine for god only knows what purpose. Teela is fuming because Adam dismissed her from his presence not once but twice, and that's just today. You haven't eaten anything that anybody's seen in two days. You ran around like a madman at midday today collecting things from paintbrushes to potted plants. You apparently were injured in your son's room during a private meeting when you delivered the above items to him. Adam's legs seem to have magically healed practically overnight." He took a breath. "You're lying to me, you're lying to Marlena, and Dorgan is apparently in on it, aiding and abetting you in this chaotic spree." Dorgan and Randor exchanged a glance, stunned. "And there hasn't been a peep out of Snake Mountain in days. They're being alarmingly quiet. Have I missed anything?"

Randor took several deep breaths. "Quite a bit actually," he said. Duncan crossed his arms and leaned back against the door in an expectant pose.

"So this is why he's your second in command," Dorgan said in an awed voice.

A silence fell over the room. It lengthened uncomfortably. Finally Duncan said, "Randor, you look awful. You do see that you have to tell me what's going on?"

Randor buried his face in his hands. The room was spinning. "I think I'm going to pass out," he muttered. Dorgan got him to lie back down and, opening a nearby cold store, pulled out a pitcher of the green, viscous liquid called glop. "Oh no," Randor muttered. "Not glop."

"I told you to eat."

"I just couldn't." The healer held a glass ready, but Randor shook his head. "No, not until I see him. Where is it?" Dorgan glanced at Duncan, shrugged, and pulled the viewer from the pocket of his smock.

"I didn't know how to turn it off."

Randor snatched it from his hand and took a look. Adam had taken off the shirt of his pajamas and ripped it into pieces to bandage his burn. He was sitting at the table now, finishing off a bowl of soup with a piece of bread. The lunch plate was gone and had been replaced with a hearty-looking casserole. The glass of water was there as well, but to it had been added pitcher. As he watched, Adam shoved the soup bowl aside and started in on the casserole. "Oh good, he's eating." Utterly undone between the stress, the pain and the total relief of seeing Adam alive and calm – he's eating, thank the Elders – Randor closed his eyes and let his hand fall to his side. The viewer slipped out of his fingers and fell onto the coverlet. He felt someone pick it up and opened his eyes briefly to see Duncan gazing into it. He groaned and threw one arm up over his eyes.

"Does somebody want to tell me what I'm looking at?" Duncan said in that deceptively calm tone he used when he was resisting the impulse to run screaming in circles. Randor was very familiar with that tone. He ignored him. "I left Adam eating dinner in the great hall not an hour ago," Duncan added.

A low rumbling emerged from Dorgan. "That rotten, sadistic, cruel, callous, deceitful, fiendish, brutal, heartless, vicious, twisted –" Dorgan didn't seem to be having nearly the trouble with adjectives he'd had earlier.

Duncan cut him off. "I think I get the idea. So just who is it I left eating dinner in the great hall?"

"I don't know his name," Randor said. "I've been calling him 'weasel' in my head."

"Could somebody start at the beginning? Please?" Duncan sat down in the chair beside the bed. "Before I start running in circles, screaming."

Randor couldn't help it, he laughed. "We can't have that. Think what it would do for morale."

"Well," Dorgan said suddenly. "I don't know about you two but I'm rather reassured by all of this." Duncan looked at him like he was insane. Randor couldn't muster a good glare, so he tried for bewildered. The healer seemed a bit taken aback. "Well, it's good to know that if Randor ever went utterly, barkingly mad, people would notice."

Randor closed his eyes and shook his head. "Thank you, Dorgan. Leave it to you to come up with a silver lining in this mess."

"Randor," Duncan said. "I'm going to go utterly, barkingly mad if you don't start explaining."

The king sighed. "Three days ago, the day Cringer attacked Adam, I got a visit from the weasel informing me that he had Adam and that if I didn't build him this digging device, he'd kill him. And that if I told anyone that he was not really Adam, he'd cripple him in a way that neither I nor he would ever forget."

Duncan blinked. "I see. Well that explains the lying and sending people all over, and Adam being a jerk. Why did you stop eating?"

Randor bit his lip. "I sort of lost my temper at the weasel when he suggested putting Cringer down to keep 'us' safe." Duncan's breath chuffed out, and he looked appalled. "I pinned him to the wall of my study by the neck." Dorgan whistled. "So he decided that Adam would go without food for awhile."

"So you stopped eating too?"

"I had that thing," Randor said, pointing at the stone. "He sent him plates at regular mealtimes. Empty plates. The first one had a note that told Adam that I'd angered him and that's why there was no food." Randor shoved himself up to a sitting position, leaning against the wall. "He didn't feed him for two days straight, Duncan. I couldn't watch him receiving empty plates and eat myself."

"I think I can understand that," Duncan said.

"Well, I can't," Dorgan snapped. "Drink your glop."

They were forced to pause while Randor swallowed some of the horrid stuff. It by itself was a reason not to get sick.

"Tell him what happened today," Dorgan said as he finished up the glass.

"Yes, what did happen today?" Duncan asked.

"Adam got depressed. He's been exercising a lot, and you can see what he's done to the walls." Duncan nodded. "This morning he sort of ground to a halt and spent about three hours just sitting on the floor staring at nothing. That was after he punched the wall repeatedly. Then lunch was delivered and there was actual food. Real, appetizing food. And he just looked at it. He didn't eat it, he didn't even taste it."

"Ouch," Duncan said.

"I got upset again. You see, if you look in there and see that chest with the marigolds." Duncan nodded, "that wasn't there before today. It was just the bare walls and the furniture. And Adam. He was going out of his mind with boredom. I asked the twit to give him something to do, and he said he'd think about it." Randor shook his head, trying to dispel the anger that was welling up again. "So today I went and I gave him an ultimatum. When he said he'd cripple Adam, he finished it off by saying he'd still expect the digger, right?"

"Right."

"So I told him today that if he didn't give Adam something to do, I'd cripple him. But he'd still get that stupid machine. He didn't like it, but he agreed."

"Hence the running around and fetching things."

"And then he reminded me that he's not nearly as weak and powerless as he seems. He grabbed my arm, and – and –"

"And the burn on Randor's arm is shaped like a hand," Dorgan finished for him.

Randor gritted his teeth. "Like Adam's hand," he growled. Duncan and Dorgan exchanged a worried look.

"How bad is it?" Duncan asked.

"It's a fairly serious second degree burn," Dorgan said. "Speaking of which I need to get you some antibiotics."

"Why? It's not infected, I came straight here."

"It will be. They always are."

"But, then Adam!" Randor exclaimed, leaning toward the healer urgently. "How bad was his? Could you tell?" The king stared into Dorgan's eyes desperately, willing him to answer.

After a moment's consideration, he said, "It wasn't any worse than yours, for sure."

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Duncan said looking back and forth between them. "You're not saying that he went and did it to Adam, too?"

"Yes, that's what we're saying," Randor said.

"And then went to the great hall and ate dinner?" Duncan asked incredulously.

"Evidently."

"Was he punishing you? What about that chest? I don't understand."

"He must have packed all the things I sent for Adam into that chest. He took it there and then started talking to Adam. I couldn't really tell what they were saying."

"It was just a juvenile slanging match really," Dorgan said. "Up until Adam attacked him, that is."

"Good for Adam," Duncan said, nodding decisively.

Randor opened his mouth, then closed it, miserable. "He grabbed a broken piece of pottery and launched himself at him."

"Shows resourcefulness."

"And the weasel sent a blast of energy at him that knocked him into a wall."

"Is that what burned him?"

Randor shook his head. "No. Adam got himself back onto his feet, facing off with him. You could see that Adam was barely holding it together. What did he say, Dorgan? He held up his hand and said something that seriously alarmed Adam."

Dorgan swallowed, looking uncomfortable. "He said, 'Have you forgotten what I can do?'"

Randor felt the blood drain from his face. "So has he done it before? Is Adam burned somewhere else? Oh Elders, I don't think I – I –" He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. His dizziness was coming back.

"Well, I know who we can ask," Dorgan commented wryly.

"Yes, and I think I know how we can convince him to tell us where Adam is," Duncan put in.

"Absolutely not," Randor said flatly. He didn't have the energy for firm. "It's a digging machine. It's not worth Adam's life. Once we've got Adam back, I'll declare open season on weasels, but until that time, he can't be harmed."

"Right," Duncan said, grimacing.

"He can't even know that either of you know. I don't doubt he'd cheerfully go back and – and –" Randor thrust all the images that came to mind out of his head. "And cripple him. Oh, and he expects a progress report tomorrow morning."

"On the device?" Duncan shrugged. "I'm at something of a standstill until Man-E can get back with the dendromine. That'll take another day at least. Sy-Klone and Buzz Off have split up looking for the elpinar, and neither of them has had any luck so far."

"I don't suppose it looks finished," Randor asked.

Duncan shook his head. "The dendromine is needed partly to finish off the leads. There are wires hanging off it everywhere."

Randor sighed. "Well, get Man-E back as quickly as you can."

"When Stratos returns, I plan to send him after the elpinar but –"

There was an urgent knocking at the door. "See who it is, Duncan." Man-at-Arms nodded and went to the door. Dorgan unlocked a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of pills. While he was dosing Randor, Duncan opened the door a crack to see who was knocking.

"I must see the king, Man-at-Arms." Stratos sounded deeply concerned about something. Randor's heart sank. What new crisis could possibly have developed?

"I'm sorry, Stratos, but Randor is not well, maybe lat –"

"No, Duncan, let him in. It would be better to know now." Now, while I'm still kind of numb. He sat up, clearing his throat and trying to seem himself. "Come in, good Stratos. What troubles you?"

The Lord of Avion walked into the exam room, eyes going immediately to the king. "Your highness, I'd heard you were unwell, but not how badly."

Randor shook his head. "It's nothing," he said firmly. "Mostly due to my own foolishness."

Duncan opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. Stratos appeared unconvinced, but his own news seemed too great to hold in. "I see." He paused, pursing his lips. "Your highness, has some new threat to the prince developed? If so, why was I not called back from Avion?"

All three of them stared at Stratos in bafflement. "What do you mean?" Randor asked, finally.

"But, surely –" Stratos seemed taken aback. "But, why else would you have had a duplicate take Adam's place?"

Eyes wide with astonishment, Duncan and Dorgan both turned to Randor to see what he had to say. As Randor opened his mouth to speak, he felt the blood rushing to his head again and his vision went dark around the edges. "Oh blast," he muttered as he felt himself lose consciousness.