§ § § - December 23, 2001

"Naturally," Roarke agreed with faint amusement, "but before you begin, I must insist on seeing the contract, in order to verify Christian's responses." He looked expectantly at Count LiSciola.

"I don't think you have to—" the count began.

"Give it to him, LiSciola," Mephistopheles barked. "Even if Roarke doesn't have the right to see it, by law, the prince does. So do it, and shut your mouth." Unhappily the count gave Roarke the contract, which he slowly unfolded and examined carefully. Mephistopheles turned to Christian and demanded, "First, what date were you born?"

"The twenty-fifth of June, 1958," Christian answered.

"Nineteen fifty-eight?" Mephistopheles repeated, looking astonished. "You hardly look that old, young man."

Christian raised an eyebrow at him. "I hope you're not going to insist on my birth certificate," he said with an edge to his voice. Leslie shuddered at his side and closed her eyes; Roarke glanced at him in quiet warning.

But Mephistopheles only shrugged. "I suppose you should know your date of birth better than anyone else here…and of course, you know better than to lie to me," he remarked with a meaningful look. "All right then, and what date was that contract signed? Roarke?"

"The fourth day of January, 1981," said Roarke. He tilted the page enough to allow Christian and Leslie to see it; Christian reached out for it, and Roarke let him take it.

"So that means you were how old at the time, young man?" Mephistopheles asked.

Christian looked up and off into the distance, doing some quick mental calculating; then he replied, "I was twenty-two years, six months and eleven days old when this was signed." His eyes narrowed as they settled on the count. "More than old enough to make my own decisions. And moreover, in January 1981 I wasn't even in the country. I was in the middle of my mandatory six-month military service, on a ship within sight of the Faeroe Islands—approximately two hundred kilometers beyond Lilla Jordsö's borders." The entire time he spoke, his grip on Leslie's hand increased until it was debilitating and undoubtedly painful for her; but she stood silent and expressionless all the same and simply maintained her own grasp on him.

"Well, well, well," murmured Mephistopheles. "It looks very bad for you, LiSciola, I can tell you that right now. Not present at the signing, and of age at the time…very bad indeed." He looked deliberately at the count, who had gone pale. "It's beginning to sound to me as if you and the young man's father were trying to put one over on him."

"The contract was valid!" snapped the count insistently. "His father signed it!"

"Whose name is on the contract?" demanded Mephistopheles.

For the first time Christian looked at the page he held, scowling at the fine print in the body of the contract before his eyes skipped to the bottom of the page. His own name stared up at him from the first signature line. "It's my name," he said, "but it's not my signature. As I said, I wasn't in the country."

Mephistopheles leaned over to peer at him. "Just to protect my own interests," he said, "you'll understand if I insist that you sign your own name on something…"

Christian shrugged. "I don't object," he said tonelessly. Mephistopheles handed Roarke a small notepad and pen, which he seemed to have conjured up from thin air, and Roarke gave these to Christian. Leslie released his hand and he shook it out once or twice, then knelt long enough to write his full name on the notepad. Leslie watched him sign; his handwriting was very legible, with a long narrow loop in the H of Christian and the B of Tobias, and the final N, L and D of Christian, Carl and Enstad carrying a long finishing line with a small downstroke at the end. Most notably, out of lifelong habit, Christian preceded the whole thing with the abbreviation HKH and the word Prins. He had given Leslie the contract to hold while he wrote; having seen his signature, she shifted her eyes to the one on the contract and shook her head slightly. As on the notepad, the signature was written out as HKH Prins Christian Carl Tobias Enstad, but the writing was indicative of a shaky hand and the I's in Christian and Tobias had not been dotted. The H in Christian had no loop, and the crossbars of the T's in the first and last names were little more than dashes, whereas Christian's crossbars were long and definitive. Christian gracefully arose beside her, handed the notepad and pen to Roarke and folded his arms over his chest.

"Let me see the contract, Leslie," Roarke requested, and she gave it to him without a word. He carefully compared the two signatures and shook his head, then passed them on to Mephistopheles. The count sidled over to take a look and turned even paler.

"Definitely not the same signature," Mephistopheles remarked, directing a particular look at Count LiSciola that made him back off four or five steps. "Now, what's this H-K-H thing at the beginning here? It's on both of these."

Christian loosed a tiny huff of amusement at the reminder. "It stands for Hans Kunglig Höghet—in English, 'His Royal Highness'. I still have the habit."

"Is there some reason you shouldn't?" Mephistopheles asked.

"I relinquished my title when I married Leslie, and that took official effect over the summer," Christian explained. "I'm still adjusting to it."

"Oh, I see." Mephistopheles peered at the count even more oddly. "He's not even a prince any longer, LiSciola. The more I learn here, the more I wonder why it bothers you this much. You can't break up the prince's…that is, the former prince's current marriage, nor your own daughter's; and the man you've been so proud to call son-in-law isn't royal. I'm growing more and more annoyed with you…"

The count looked desperate. "I tell you, the contract was legal and binding!"

"Hardly, old man," Christian retorted frigidly. "It was nothing of the sort. Even if all the previous reasons we've cited weren't already enough to prove my case, this would be. Look underneath the signature of my name on that contract. What do you see there?"

"Nothing," Mephistopheles said, frowning. "Young man, don't beat around the bush. We don't have time for it."

"Of course you see nothing there," Christian said to both him and the count. "When my father signed my name to that contract, he failed to add his own name with the quantifying phrase acting signatory. By jordisk law you must add those words if one person acts as power of attorney for another. Because of that omission, the entire contract was null and void from the very date it was signed. It should never have been enforced at all." He watched LiSciola's face abruptly go from pale to florid. "Perhaps that would be enough to completely erase all official record of my second marriage entirely, hm? I could have walked away at any time and there would have been nothing you could have done about it."

"Roarke, is he on the level?" demanded Mephistopheles. "Even I could choke on that smug, bitter attitude of his. Before I decide to lose my patience with him, you'd better make sure he knows exactly what he's talking about."

"He does," Roarke said, extracting a folded sheet of paper from a pocket. "This is a photocopy of the pertinent page from a law text of Christian's country, provided for us and translated by his older brother, who was a law student at one time. Feel free to examine it yourself." Leslie glanced at Christian in sheer surprise, but he didn't notice.

Mephistopheles carefully read the entire page while Roarke, Christian, Leslie and the count waited. When he looked up at long last, he had a dangerous look about him that both Roarke and Leslie knew all too well. "LiSciola, you'll remember that I warned you that if that contract proved to be anything other than airtight, you'd regret it—because I'm going to take your soul now, rather than the prince's. I rarely go for third-party sales, and this merely reminds me of why. But when I do, I always put a clause in the sale contract that specifies that the soul of the third party is included in the deal, even if I don't get the soul that was originally offered. I'm of a mind to enforce that, LiSciola, simply because you wasted my time here. For lack of one miserable detail, you are doomed."

Count LiSciola backed away from Mephistopheles, looking panicked. "Roarke, help me!" he cried frantically.

Roarke let out a very small sigh. "Mephistopheles, you must have known he would object to such a thing," he said. "Do you have the agreement with you?"

"I most certainly do," Mephistopheles said, offended. "Did you really think I'd be that ill-prepared? Here, take a look. You can't do anything for him." He whipped out a sheet of paper and gave it to Roarke, who looked it over at some length and then handed it back with a regretful look at the count.

"He's correct, I'm afraid," Roarke said to the count. "I have no power to help you, and I can think of only one loophole, which may not be available to you."

Mephistopheles glared at him in outrage. "Damn you, Roarke, you and your endless loopholes! Do you never run out of ways to squirm out of my grasp?"

"I was never in your grasp, Mephistopheles, and well you know it," Roarke told him, amused. "My presence here was almost extraneous, since Christian himself did most of the work required to disprove the count's case against him. No, I think the only one who has anything to fear here is Count LiSciola."

"What's the loophole?" the count cried desperately.

Roarke eyed him, looking very dubious. "One that Mephistopheles appears to have forgotten, since it's been so long since he last dealt in a third-party sale. The third party may be rescued from damnation if the owner of the soul that was originally offered for sale grants forgiveness. In this case, that means that if you are to avoid going to hell, you will have to depend on Christian to arrange it."

Everyone went completely still, and all eyes focused on Christian. Looking stunned, Christian let his hands fall to his sides, gawking at the count in disbelief. His mouth fell open, but nothing came out. For his part, the count somehow managed to look annoyed and discouraged simultaneously. "Well, that annihilates my chances entirely," he said sourly. "I know how much the young prince loathes me…almost as much as I do him. It's galling to have to depend on him for my salvation, and yet here I am."

"Not 'almost as much'," Christian said. "More."

Mephistopheles grinned. "Well then, is there really any question about it? Go ahead, young man, make it official. You see, now that Roarke has reminded me of that accursed loophole, I have to admit he's right. Whichever way you decide, you need only say it in so many words, and I will have to abide by it."

Christian hesitated; his expression gave away the fact that he was very sorely tempted to take the easy way out, to make irrevocably certain that this man would never be able to disrupt his life again. He took in their expressions. The count still looked upset and resigned all at once; Mephistopheles looked hopeful. Christian turned to Leslie, who only shrugged; it was plain that she didn't care what he did. When he looked at Roarke, he encountered no expression at all. Christian hung there, indecisive, and in the expectant silence, a doleful bell began to strike. Automatically everyone looked up as if the thing were about to materialize over their heads.

"You're out of time, Christian," Roarke said quietly.

Christian blew out his breath. Something in his father-in-law's demeanor told him that he, at least, would disapprove mightily if Christian gave in to temptation. And when he got right down to it anyway, he found that he just couldn't do it. Disgusted with himself, he shook his head. "I'm probably going to regret this," he muttered, "but all right, you shallow, bitter old goat, I'll forgive you…on one condition."

"Anything," wailed Count LiSciola. "Just hurry."

The bell had tolled six times. "Don't ever try to meddle in my life again," Christian warned him. "Don't even contact me, or anyone I know. If you ever do, I'll retract that forgiveness, which for all I know will mean that Mephistopheles will immediately gain access to your soul and lay prompt claim. Do you promise to abide by that?"

"Yes," the count howled, nearly drowning out the tenth chime.

"Then I forgive you," Christian said, with admittedly ill grace.

The bell tolled the final time and Mephistopheles growled low. "Roarke, I don't know where you get these people. You've robbed me of your own and who knows how many other souls; your daughter snatched you out of my clutches once; and now your son-in-law has denied me yet another soul. You really do live a charmed life, don't you? Just you wait, one day that phenomenal luck will run out, and you'll be mine."

"It's not luck," said Roarke. "It's just very careful planning. I believe our business here is completed."

"Seems so," Mephistopheles muttered grouchily. He happened to notice LiSciola standing some few yards away, clutching his chest as if about to have a heart attack, and rolled his eyes. "LiSciola, if you don't make yourself scarce this moment, the prince's amnesty will go ignored and I'll take you anyway. I find the sight of you provoking in the extreme."

The count gave him one terrified look and took to his heels; Mephistopheles shot Roarke a disgruntled look and simply walked away from them, off into some sinister red glow in the near distance. "We'll meet again, Roarke, you can count on it," were his parting words. Then there was absolute silence.

Roarke took in Christian's uncertain look, Leslie's visibly deteriorating control, and smiled at them. "Relax, you two," he said gently. "It's all over."

Christian looked at Leslie, and she looked at him, and then they threw themselves at each other, hugging hard and desperately. The moment she touched him, Leslie exploded into body-racking sobs, all her pent-up terror and loneliness and need having burst the dam at long last. Her high-pitched wails carried into the trees. It was more than Christian could bear, and he too broke down, crying as he hadn't done even in the wake of Arnulf's death. "Please, my darling," he begged helplessly through his own tears, "don't cry so…"

"Christian," she cried, keening, over and over again. They clung as if to never let go, their emotions having completely taken over. Roarke stood nearby and watched in silence, his dark eyes misty with empathy, waiting for the storm to pass.

It took them almost ten minutes to finally fall quiet. They stood there trembling badly, their reserves just about exhausted, still clinging; Christian clutched her to him, cradling her head with his face half buried in her hair. Leslie stood shivering against him, her eyes closed and her fists clenched around handfuls of his shirt, breathing hard. Roarke moved then, coming around to where they could both see him when he spoke. "Christian, Leslie? It's time for us to return home."

Christian lifted his head just enough to register Roarke's presence, nodding wordlessly. Leslie's assent was a whispered, barely audible "Okay, Father…" But neither of them moved just yet, as though afraid to let go of each other. Roarke noted this, saw Leslie's violent shivering and the tremors in Christian, and in a deliberate motion laid one hand on Christian's shoulder and the other on Leslie's. He let them remain for perhaps five seconds or so, then stepped back; their trembling was now gone.

"I think you can make it back," he said and smiled at them again.

Slowly Leslie and Christian drew back enough to look at each other with shy hope in their eyes; they both smiled tentatively at the same moment, and Leslie's eyes brimmed with tears again. When one fell, Christian kissed it away and then kissed her forehead before letting her go with great reluctance. Leslie took his hand again, and they followed Roarke away down the trail.