Pablo Picasso Ambroise Vollard

king tried to hunker down, and found he was sinking slightly into the floor. He pulled himself together and drifted upwards. Once a man allowed himself to go native in the ethereal world there would be no hope for him, he felt.
cerebration. He'd never had a Plan before, or at least one that went much further than 'Let's find something and kill it'. And here, sitting in front of him washing itself, was the key.Only close relatives and the psychically inclined, Death had said. There weren't many of either in the castle. The duke qualified under the first heading, but his relentless self-interest made him about as psychically useful as a carrot. As for the rest, only the cook and the Fool seemed to qualify, but the cook spent a lot of his time weeping in the pantry because he wasn't being allowed to roast anything more bloody than a parsnip and the Fool was already such a bundle of nerves that Verence had given up his attempts to get through.A witch, now. If a witch wasn't psychically inclined, then he, King Verence, was a puff of wind. He had to get a witch into the castle. And then . . .He'd got a plan. In fact, it was more than that; it was a Plan. He spent months over it. He hadn't got anything else to do, except think. Death had been right about that. All that ghosts had were thoughts, and although thoughts in general had always been alien to the king the absence of any body to distract him with its assorted humours had actually given him the chance to savour the joys of