Read Death in Little Doses, Part 1 of 2 first.

They called the day the Real Death Anniversary of King Julian, the day when he manifested the first signs of change. The pirates from Far Away, who had been stealing scandalous amounts of corn and rice from the community warehouse, had been killed using a plan of attack that involved stealth, a then-unheard-of way of penetrating enemy lines that Julian’s men and times would normally interpret as cheating. Although successful, killing the sleeping pirates deeply disgusted the cavalry. The stirrings began.

Slowly, from then on, they said, Julian began dying. One can sense the dissipating energy of the monarch, from the way his brows creased where it has never creased before, from the way his lips frowned, creating wrinkles that were never there before, and from the way his eyes seemed to lose the excitement in them, as if every day was just another day.

He made brilliant decisions every now and then, but they were more the product of logical deduction than actual insight on the problems at hand. This made him efficient for the time being, but his people knew his golden days were over.

And then one day, they found Julian dead. By his own hands.

*  *  *  *  *

Griffin was entranced. “And?”

The jester smiled. “And what?”

“And then what happened?”

“Nothing. He died. That was the end of the story.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Griffin’s face scrunched up in dismay. “What kind of story is that?”

“It’s a faerie tale. It’s supposed to shed some moral light on certain human values.”

Griffin snorted. “It’s a pretty stupid faerie tale.”

For a moment they were both quiet.

“You’re waiting for something,” the jester observed.

“Of course, you dimwit. You are going to tell me what the third gift was.”

The jester sat up straight, almost proudly. “That third brilliant wizard gave him the gift of foresight.”

“What does that do?”

“Every night, a man dressed in rags appears to him in a dream and tells him exactly what will happen the following day. From what food he will eat, to what big surprises will transpire, to which meetings will push through, and which won’t.”

Griffin looked at him uncertainly. “That’s not so bad.”

The jester nodded. “At first. But you must realize these prophecies are unwarranted. Whether or not he wanted to know what was in store for him the next day, he was going to know nevertheless. He tried fighting the future, doing everything in his power to steer events away from the inevitable, but as was the nature of fate, he failed each and every time. That began his ruin.”

“Why would it ruin him?”

“Because by knowing your exact future, you lose control of your life. And if there were one thing Julian valued higher than most, it was the power he has over his choices.”

Griffin nodded, finally understanding. “He lost his freedom.”

“He was going to be a fantastic ruler, whatever he did. That was his destiny. It was also his curse. What’s the use of watching a brilliant future play out when you know you did not have as much of a hand in making it as you thought you had? So he took the one way out of it.”

“That was to be in his future, too, then, wasn’t it? He had to know he was going to kill himself that day.”

The jester smiled again, this one a bit craftier. “Let’s just say it was his first glimpse of the truth.”

“What truth?”

The rocks were crumbling fast.

“That the wizard was nobody but a writer with a vast imagination and a unparalleled insight on certain human behavior.”

Griffin did not notice how much of the ground in front of him was slowly disintegrating into tiny bits of land falling headlong into nothingness.

“What?”

“They were predictions off the top of the brilliant wizard’s head.”

“So King Julian was never really confined to his ‘fate’? That’s unfair!” Griffin yelled, and, as he shifted his position in a sudden burst of emotion, the ground gave way. He plummeted into the brownish oblivion, food for the man-eating eagles.

“Life, as a general rule, is unfair, Griffin,” the jester said.

But Griffin, who was now very much dead, never heard him.

The purple blades shivered, mute witnesses to the murder of the lonely traveler, foot pads to the court jester, who walked away with a smile to reach his ears. ™