Author's Note: I've decided to take part in Camp NaNoWriMo this April, so this story will take a backseat again, unfortunately. It won't be put on hiatus, but updates will be slower (not that updates ever have been fast or regular...).

I'll tell you the truth and it's up to you to live with it. -- William Goldman, The Princess Bride

"Why were you sliding down the stairs anyway?" Hjalmar demanded once he stopped complaining about how his ribs were most likely broken.

"I was bored," Solvej said defensively.

Hjalmar shut his eyes. His mouth moved silently. Solvej got the impression he was either praying for patience or counting to ten.

"I was bored, too," he said, opening his eyes, "but I dealt with it by going for a walk, not by wrecking the palace!"

"We didn't wreck the palace," Solvej objected. "We didn't even scratch the stairs. I made sure of it. If you hadn't walked in then, nothing would have gone wrong." She paused, suddenly remembering something. "Why did you walk in? I'd have thought you'd be at dinner."

Hjalmar took the ice-pack away from his eye and set it on the table Solvej used as her study-desk. "I met Rigmor. Or... whatever that thing is."

Solvej sat up straight in her chair. So, the parasite was now wandering around the palace? That was alarming. "What did it do?"

"Nothing, really. She just asked why I trusted you and didn't seem to understand that when I backed away from her it meant I didn't want to be near her."

"The Magician's creations as a rule have difficulty understanding that." So did the Magician himself, come to think of it. Must be a family trait. "It didn't try to attack you?"

Hjalmar frowned thoughtfully. "No, but I didn't stay around long enough for her to try."

That was probably the best way of dealing with the Magician's plots, Solvej mused. "Well, the deadline is tomorrow. We can give her the answer then, and the first part of this ordeal will be over. Let's just hope she stays away from everyone until then."

~~~~

Hjalmar tossed and turned for most of the night. His chest and arms were bruised from his collision with Solvej earlier, and when he took a deep breath he felt a dull pain in his chest. Part of him wondered if he should be worried about that. The rest of him was too busy worrying about the morning.

Is this what condemned criminals feel like? he wondered as he pulled his quilt over his head.

A minute later he tossed it back again. He tried lying on his left side. Then he turned to his right. He lay on his back and then on his stomach.

It's strange but true that the harder someone tries to fall asleep, the harder they will find it to fall asleep. Hjalmar tried lying with his eyes closed. He tried counting sheep. He tried pushing his pillow and quilt aside, but changed his mind after a minute of shivering with the cold.

The sky had turned from black to grey when he finally fell asleep. It felt like mere minutes later that the bells rang for seven o'clock.

It was a very sleepy, grumpy Hjalmar who made his way down to breakfast that morning.

"You look awful," Solvej said when she saw him.

"Thank you," Hjalmar said sourly. "Pass the coffee."

He had scarcely poured himself a cup of coffee when the door opened. It didn't fly open, nor was it opened roughly. In fact he didn't even notice it had opened until Solvej froze, her eyes fixed on something behind him.

Oh no. That could mean only one thing.

The parasite took a seat at the table beside Hjalmar as if she had every right to be there.

"I'm waiting for an answer," she said without preamble. "Of course, I know it will be the wrong answer, but I'd like to get on with killing the two of you as quickly as possible."

Solvej made a choking noise. It was the sort of noise someone made when they began to speak but changed their minds before they could get a word out. The parasite looked at her enquiringly.

"Yes?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Oh, nothing," Solvej said airily with a dismissive wave of her hand. "You're counting your chickens before they've hatched, that's all."

The parasite's eyes narrowed. They were always a dull red, utterly unlike Rigmor's grey eyes, but now they seemed to glow blood-red. Hjalmar tried to subtly move his chair further away from hers. The chair creaked as he moved it. The parasite's head snapped round at the noise. Hjalmar froze.

"Well?" the parasite asked, turning to Solvej. She had apparently dismissed him as unimportant. This might have been insulting, if he wasn't so relieved that those eyes were no longer fixed on him. "What is your answer?"

Solvej made a "hmm" noise. "What do most people expect a woman to think of all the time? Her appearance and her clothes. What is a magical entity created by a curse least likely to think of? Its appearance and its clothes."

An interesting change took place on the parasite's face. She had been smirking triumphantly before Solvej began to speak. But now, the smirk slipped off her face. Her eyes widened. Her lips pursed. Her fingers drummed rhythmically against the table. Hjalmar watched her as a mouse might watch a cat.

"Wouldn't you agree, Hjalmar?"

He started. He hadn't realised Solvej was speaking to him.

"Oh... yes. Of course," he said uncertainly, and hoped that was the right answer.

The ghost gave him a look that said quite clearly, 'I know you weren't listening'. Well, he supposed he had been rather obviously at a loss to know what she was talking about.

"This is all very interesting," the parasite said with a forced smile that looked terrifyingly out-of-place on Rigmor's face, "but will you give me your answer now?"

Solvej hummed thoughtfully. "I don't know for sure what it is." The parasite's smile became more genuine, and no less uncanny. "But I think Hjalmar does."

The parasite's smile vanished. Hjalmar almost choked.

"I... I do?" he spluttered. Solvej raised an eyebrow. Feeling very foolish, he mumbled, "Oh. Yes. I... do. Ahem."

Eyebrow-raising seemed to be the order of the day. Solvej raised the other eyebrow, while the parasite raised both of hers.

Hjalmar cleared his throat and tried to look more confident than he felt. If Solvej's half-suppressed sigh was anything to go by, he failed. Quite miserably. "You're thinking of..." Oh dear. Was he to make a wrong guess first, and then give the right answer as if by accident? Was he to give the right answer at once? What was he to do?

He silently cursed ghosts who landed their friends so deeply in trouble it might take a dredging outfit to get them out of it again.

"You're... uh... thinking of clothing," he said.

The parasite recoiled as if he had struck her. She stared at him with wide, shocked eyes. Then she managed another forced smile. "'Clothing' can mean so many things -- a dress, a blouse, a coat... Even a hat or a pair of glasses, if you stretch the definition enough. What sort of clothing am I thinking of?"

"A shoe." This time, Hjalmar had no hesitation in speaking. "You're thinking of a shoe."

The parasite's mouth dropped open. Solvej grinned. Hjalmar was tempted to breathe a sigh of relief -- the first challenge was over! Surely that called for a celebration! He restrained himself, however, because the parasite was sure to react to this in some way.

She sat perfectly still for a moment, her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish's. Hjalmar suddenly found himself picturing the Magician giving orders to a goldfish, and had to fight back a smile.

"How?" the parasite murmured, her eyes as wide as dinner-plates. "How did you find out?" Her eyes suddenly narrowed. Her head snapped round and she glared at Solvej. "You! How did you find out?"

Solvej shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm afraid I don't see how I could have anything to do with you asking a ridiculously easy-to-solve riddle."

Hjalmar decided the wisest course of action was to keep his mouth tightly shut.

The parasite made a noise like an engine letting off steam. Hjalmar reconsidered his earlier thought. The wisest course of action was getting out of here quickly.

He tried to scoot his chair towards the door. Alas, all he did was draw the parasite's attention back to himself.

"It was you, then!" she hissed.

He abandoned trying to subtly leave. He stood up and began to inch towards the door.

"No, no, it was most definitely not me," Hjalmar said, hardly aware of what he was saying. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

Solvej, who seemed remarkably unperturbed by these events, rolled her eyes and sighed in a put-upon way. "Are you going to give us the second challenge or not?"

The parasite paused and blinked twice. The befuddled look on her face would have been funny, if Hjalmar was less worried for his safety.

"Second challenge?" she repeated, as if she hadn't a clue what the ghost was talking about. "But--"

"We answered the first challenge correctly," Solvej said. "So there are two more."

The parasite looked back and forth between Solvej and Hjalmar. Again, her mouth opened and closed like a fish's. That was a habit Rigmor had never displayed. Hjalmar wondered suddenly, just how did the curse work? Were they speaking to some strange curse-induced part of Rigmor's mind? Or was she, as Solvej's name for her suggested, some alien creature that had taken up residence in Rigmor's head? He wasn't sure which possibility was more disturbing.

"Ah, yes," the parasite said uncertainly. "The... second challenge." She cleared her throat. "My second challenge is the same as the first. You have a week to guess what I am thinking. And I can assure you, the answer this time is not a shoe."

"We didn't think it would be," Solvej said, unfazed. "Not even you would be that stupid."

The parasite glared at her. "We'll see who's laughing next week."

Solvej merely smiled.

~~~~

"Here we go again."

"Oh, don't take such a dim view of everything!" Solvej said, giving Hjalmar a light shove. "I'll get the answer this time too, and everything will be fine."

"I'm glad you're so confident," Hjalmar said dryly. "Now are we going to tell the King and Queen about this? I think they'll want to know."

~~~~

The King and Queen did want to know.

"You guessed correctly?" the King repeated in a dumbstruck tone. His face split into a massive grin. "You guessed correctly!? HURRAH!!"

Then, to Hjalmar's undying amazement, the King -- the short, fat King, in his fine if garish clothes and with his medals pinned to his jacket -- leapt out of his chair and danced a jig on the spot.

The Queen smiled and shook her head at her husband's extraordinary behaviour. "Dear, what will our guests think of you?"

The King stopped dancing about. He looked rather sheepish as he realised what a spectacle he'd made of himself. "Sorry, my love."

He sat down and mopped his forehead with a massive handkerchief he produced from one of his pockets. The Queen took advantage of the distinctly-awkward silence that followed to turn to Solvej.

"Are you sure you can find the correct answer this time too?"

"Of course I can." Solvej looked mildly insulted by the implication that she couldn't. "I'll just have to be more careful not to be caught. They'll be more suspicious this time."

Hjalmar felt a sinking sensation in his chest.

~~~~

The parasite was in no mood to wait before consulting the Magician this time. It left the palace that night.

Solvej was on the look-out for it. Her cape was in her hand and the window open, so she would have to waste as little time as possible. The minute she saw the parasite fly past, she threw the cape on and shot out the window.

The parasite didn't head towards the Magician's lair. Instead, it veered off to the right when it was over the city's outskirts. Solvej followed.

What does this mean? she wondered as she struggled to keep the parasite in sight. Where's it going?

They flew on, over villages and beaches and finally over open sea. Solvej flew lower in hopes of being less conspicuous. Spray shot up from the waves and got into her eyes. The parasite was almost invisible against the dark clouds.

A black shape loomed out of the water ahead of them. Solvej strained her eyes to see it more clearly.

It was an island. The parasite was heading straight towards it.