Forest Kingdom Trilogy 2 - Blood and Honor

slightly. 'You were Prince Viktor to the life. And stepping in to help Damon Cord against the Unreal was a good move. It never hurts to be conspicuously brave in front of the right people. It might even draw us some popular support at Court later on.'
    Viktor sniffed. 'That's as maybe. In the meantime, we'll let you know if your work's not up to standard, actor.' He rubbed tiredly at his forehead, and gestured pettishly at Gawaine. 'I've done enough for one evening. My head hurts. I'm going back to my quarters.'
    'Not yet, your highness,' said Roderik quickly. 'We still have the other glamour spell to do.'
    Jordan gave Roderik a hard look. 'Another glamour spell? No one said anything to me about another glamour spell.'
    'It's just a little something to help you in your performance as Viktor,' said Roderik smoothly. 'You've done very well so far, considering, but while you look and sound very much like Prince Viktor, you still wouldn't convince anyone who knew the Prince well. It's not your fault. You haven't had a chance to meet his highness in person before now, so you haven't been able to acquire all the little mannerisms, phrases of speech and so on, that help to make up his private and public faces. This new glamour spell will graft these things directly on to your memory, much as the first spell gave you Viktor's appearance.
    That's really all there is to it.'
    Jordan thought about it. There was something about this new spell that disturbed him very deeply. The first spell had simply altered his outer appearance. That hadn't been so bad, once he got used to it.
    Actors did it all the time, with costumes and wigs and make-up. But this new spell would change the way he spoke and moved, perhaps even the way he thought . . . And yet he couldn't say no. They were right.
    There wasn't time to learn the part by observation, he had to be perfect straight away. And this was the only way.
    'All right,' he said steadily. 'Let's do it.'
    Roderik gestured for Jordan to sit down in a chair facing the Prince, and he did so. His palms were wet with sweat, and he
    rubbed them unobtrusively against the chair arms to dry them. The Prince was sitting up straight in his chair, despite his obvious tiredness. He didn't even look worried, the smug bastard. The Lady Heather looked at Jordan as if he was some interesting exhibit in a private zoo. And stuff you too, thought Jordan, just to keep things impartial. He tried to settle himself more comfortably in his chair, but each position seemed worse than the last. It was all in his mind, he knew that, but it didn't help his nerves at all. He hated to be kept waiting. Robert Argent was watching him closely, and Jordan kept his expression carefully calm. He glanced across at Sir Gawaine, hoping for a little moral support, but the knight had turned his face away, as if he couldn't bear to watch what was about to happen. Jordan began to regulate his breathing, keeping it slow and steady, and set about calming his nerves as he had so often before, standing in the wings of a stage, waiting to go out on the boards and do what he was born to do. His composure slowly came back to him, and his muscles began to relax in ones and twos. He was the Great Jordan. He could handle this. Roderik looked at him and then at the Prince. He nodded, satisfied, and
    then raised his left hand and gestured sharply. Static sparked and snapped on the air before him. He forced out a short, jerky sentence in a harsh, guttural tongue, and the world disappeared.
    Night fell. There was no light, and the darkness was everywhere. Jordan discovered he couldn't hear or feel anything either, and fought down a brief surge of panic. He clenched his hands into fists, but he couldn't feel the chair arms they rested on, or even the pressure of the fingers against each other. The darkness swirled about him in a slow, steady rhythm, and his panic slowly ebbed away. There was nothing disturbing about the dark; in fact, it was almost restful. Like lying in bed at night with your eyes closed. He waited patiently. Something came into the darkness with him, and without knowing how or why, he knew it was Viktor. They drifted closer to each other, and then Jordan tried to scream as a flood of information washed over him in an endless tide.
    The garden was full of flowers. Their rich and heady scent filled the air now that the rain had finally stopped. He picked a rose, and the thorn pricked his thumb. The drop of blood it drew was the same