It was better not to ask how a demon gained knowledge about someone. “You’re starting from the wrong assumptions,” I said roughly. “I don’t want—” I stumbled over the words and started again. “I wouldn’t want any of the rest if I only had it because of you. All I want is the assurance that you have given up any hold over Antonia.”
“That sweet little girl will make an especially tasty mouthful for the devil,” said the demon, licking his lips in anticipation. “Why should I assure you of anything of the sort? After all, she summoned me herself and has already asked for a very large favor. Don’t tell me you think she’s not capable of making her own choices!”
Not yet, she wasn’t, I told myself desperately. She was still only five. And that the demon had tried to tempt her further, with an offer to see a dragon, suggested that he had at least some doubts himself.
Either that or he was toying with me.
“You are not entitled to her soul, Demon,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster, “and you and I both know it.” The room grew slowly but steadily hotter as we talked. “Don’t interrupt! Three reasons. First, she is well short of the age of reason, which is seven, and therefore cannot yet damn herself by her own actions. Secondly, she may have asked a single rather simple favor of you, but it was from the purest motives: she wanted to save another mortal. And third, if she ‘sold’ her soul to you she didn’t get what she wanted in return, for Cyrus is as thoroughly damned as ever.”
The demon waved his hand airily. “You ought to know that the reckoning of mortal years means little to us. Do you imagine that a child who plotted and executed the deaths of all his playmates would be safe just because he desisted the day before his seventh birthday? And, as I am sure she will confirm if you ask, she did not actually ask me to ‘save’ Cyrus, which I would have not done anyway. She only asked me to return another demon to hell.”
“And she asked for your help only from the purest of motives,” I insisted again. “Someone who selflessly gives his life to save another goes straight to heaven. How much more then someone who gives his soul?”
“Nice try, Daimbert,” said the demon, showing all his teeth. “But how could the devil take one soul in exchange for another if you claim that the second thereby saved itself? You’ll be trying to assert that hell has no claims to anyone at this rate.”
“She didn’t even know she was selling her soul,” I said, retreating to a backup position. “Souls are always judged on intention. If you now claim her it is on the merest technicality.”
I had nearly forgotten Elerius was there. Concentrating on the demon and on withstanding my own fears left me no time for anything else. When he suddenly spoke I jerked convulsively.
“The protocol between wizardry and demons has always been clear on this point,” he said, managing to sound impressively calm and assured. “A soul that might be forfeit, although only on the shakiest grounds, can be redeemed by the offering of a human life, not another soul.”
“And therefore,” I said, fast before my lips could freeze in terror, “I am here to offer my own life in return for Antonia’s soul.”
Both Elerius and the demon spoke together. “Not you, Daimbert!” Elerius hissed. “I’m trying to give him Vlad.”
“Not this bargain again, Daimbert!” said the demon with a laugh that made his enormous belly shake. “I unwisely agreed to such a bargain with you once long ago, and you managed to wiggle out of it. Did you think I would be so easy to mislead a second time?”
“All right, then,” said Elerius briskly. I was for the moment unable to speak, filled both with bitter despair that the one way I hoped I might have to rescue Antonia wasn’t going to work, and with a wild, desperate, and shameful relief that I might still live. “We’ll offer you another life instead, the life of a wizard right here in the castle.”
“Elerius, I’m so pleased to have a chance to meet you at last,” said the demon, the flames shooting from his eyes spoiling the effect of his friendly words. The room by now was as hot as a stove. “I can see you’ll be much more engaging to deal with than Daimbert, who always seems suicidally bent on throwing away his life. But you do have to understand something first. If you want me to take the life of this wizard-frog in return for the girl—and that was what you had in mind, was it not?—then it would have to be his own sacrifice. You could if you like give your own soul to the devil by murdering that wizard in cold blood, but if you want to bargain with me there must be less messy ways to do it.”
“There are other protocols to turn to in that case,” said Elerius, sounding abruptly much less assured.
Both my life and my soul, I thought. I could offer them together for Antonia’s release. That might do it. If I was dead as well as damned then I wouldn’t need to worry about the evil I would do to all the people I loved for the next two centuries. I found my mouth too dry to speak.
“Unlike Daimbert,” said the demon to Elerius, shifting his belly to a more comfortable position, “you have never paid much attention to the prattle of your religion. I’m sure you assume you’ll be going to hell in the end anyway, and therefore would be more than willing to gain some spectacular benefits in this world in exchange for a soul that would never have much chance for salvation.”
Suppose, because I was trying to save Antonia, the devil thought my motives were too pure and wouldn’t accept the bargain, even when I offered body and soul together? I might have to have an additional and entirely impure motive. Maybe I could stipulate murdering Cyrus as part of the agreement: an appealing possibility.
“Do not try to tempt me with talk of benefits, Demon,” said Elerius sternly. “We are here to talk about Antonia.”
“And I am delighted to do so. Since you seem so concerned about her, why don’t we arrange a simple trade, your soul for hers? Now before you start to tell me this is an unequal trade,” holding up a huge red hand, “wait until I tell you what else I can give you as part of the bargain.”
“You cannot give me anything I could not obtain on my own,” said Elerius. It came out low and thick.
“Elerius—” I started to say, but he motioned me to silence.
“Don’t interrupt,” he said in an undertone. “I should be able to negotiate better than you can, because I don’t have personal feelings to interfere.”
“You wizards must be the most exasperating mortals there can be to deal with,” said the demon with an evil chuckle. “Even priests aren’t nearly as stubborn, once they get past their initial hesitation. Of course there are things you want, Elerius, that you could not obtain without me. To start with, how about the immediate leadership of the wizards’ school?”
There was a long pause while I waited for Elerius to answer, and he did not.
So far my knees had been holding up fairly well. Now they started to shake so badly that I had to sit down quickly before I fell.
“The school already has a Master,” Elerius brought out at last in a thin, tight voice, completely unlike his normal way of speaking.
“Your choice then. Shall he have a little accident, or will he suddenly decide that failing health makes it necessary for him to step aside?” That was the problem of trying to deal with a demon. He might not know someone’s higher thoughts and aspirations, but he knew all too well the dark imaginings and cravings that one tried to hide even from oneself.
“I choose neither one,” replied Elerius after only a brief pause, appearing to rally slightly. “I plan to take over the school’s direction with my own unaided powers, but not for some years yet.”
“You’re certainly quick now to reject what you know you’ve always wanted,” said the demon softly. I tried unsuccessfully to speak, but this had nothing to do with me. “Why waste the best years of your life, the years of your greatest strength and mature abilities, waiting for an old man whose only real skill is an unusual ability to prolong his own life? Daimbert, I see, would like to give you an argument, but he’ll come around quickly when he realiz
es that I’ll let his daughter have her soul back as part of our bargain.”
Elerius ran his tongue along dry lips and barked out a very unconvincing laugh. “If I take over the school it will be to help humanity, not to further your own evil plans. This bargain will not help me at all.”
“Just too dismissive,” said the demon, shaking his horned head, “that’s your problem, just too dismissive of good ideas if they don’t accord with your own prejudices. Suppose we add a little rather unusual twist to our agreement? I’ll make sure you take over the school at once, but then I’ll step aside. I won’t try to tempt you further or direct your plans; you’ll be able to do all the ‘good’ you want without my interference. I promise!” He laid a heavy hand over what would have been his heart if he had one.
Dear God, I thought, unable to say anything, shouting mentally at Elerius to refuse at once and getting no response. All the damage a master wizard could do if he had sold his soul flashed through my mind. Between his own powers and the added abilities of black magic, not all the western wizards combined could stand against him. And someone like Elerius, who had always thought that one needed to bend a few rules to reach the final good and justifiable end, would find himself bending more and more rules, and would be quite surprised to find that he was entirely alone in believing that his goals were good.
I had come here intending to find a way to save Antonia. Now it looked like I would have to save Elerius’s soul as well—and it was almost too late.
III
There was a small, very serious voice behind us. “Don’t listen to him. That’s not a real promise. He’s not your friend.”
Elerius gave a great start as though coming out of a trance. I whirled around, finding my voice again. “Antonia! What are you doing here?”
She buried her face in my shoulder to avoid looking at the demon, who appeared delighted to have her back. Her voice was indistinct but confident. “Mother was trying to calm down some of the littlest children,” as though she were not one of them. “So I tiptoed away. You didn’t hear me coming, did you! I got here just in time.”
I looked over at Elerius, still on his feet but swaying. His face was ashen and running with sweat—not just from the heat of the room. He broke his gaze away from the demon and sat down very suddenly. “Thank you, Antonia,” he murmured.
“I told you that you needed me here to help you,” she said, starting to tremble now.
She had tried to help Gwennie and the twins by taking them off on a flying carpet ride, tried to help the Dog-Man by summoning a demon of her own, and really had helped Elerius by showing up when she did. But my stomach knotted as I thought what she might do in the very near future, still convinced she was helping her friends, once the demon’s influence began to work fully on her.
“You’ve— You’ve negotiated with a demon before, Daimbert?” said Elerius hesitantly. “Somehow I never heard about that.”
“I don’t think anyone but Zahlfast and the Master ever knew,” I said shortly.
“I know all the protocols from the Diplomatica Diabolica, of course, and I was aware that one had to beware of temptations, but somehow I had imagined them taking the form of wealth and pliant maidens.”
“When you’re in charge of the school, Elerius,” I said quietly, “be sure the demonology courses make it clearer that power can be the greatest temptation of them all.”
“We’re negotiating here, remember?” interrupted the demon. “If you start talking to each other instead we’ll never reach an agreement!”
And maybe we don’t want an agreement, I thought, but that idea too was a temptation. Doing nothing would mean Antonia’s will slowly turning to evil even while the demon remained imprisoned, and at some point, far in the future or very soon, an escaped demon roaming gleefully through Yurt and Caelrhon.
“You have to come now, Wizard,” said Antonia to me. “That’s why I sneaked away from Mother, to tell you the people are here.”
“The king is back with the flying carpet?” I asked, keeping my face resolutely turned away from the demon.
“Not him. I couldn’t tell who they are. But a whole group of people are climbing up to the gate, and I think some of them have swords. You have to come see them.”
Just a short delay wouldn’t hurt anything, I thought, leaping to my feet. Antonia was right; a group of people arriving unsuspecting at a castle with a demon in it was the last thing we needed. “Come on,” I said to Elerius. “Now that we’ve gotten the initial temptations out of the way, we can continue this negotiation shortly.”
“You go ahead, Daimbert,” he said, shaking his head. Antonia was tugging now at my hand. “We don’t dare leave the demon, even imprisoned inside a pentagram, now that we’ve started non-binding conversation. He could talk to anyone who wandered into the room— do you want him asking one of the other children to erase the chalk lines?”
Logically it made sense. But I didn’t dare leave him alone. “I’ll stay, then. You go with Antonia.”
The demon was growing more and more irritated that we weren’t paying attention to him, but at the moment I only had eyes for Elerius. “You don’t trust me, do you, Daimbert,” he said quietly. “At least give me credit for the intelligence to realize the flaw in what he’s offering. He’s right that I’ve never worried overly about the eventual fate of my soul, but I really do intend to use my magic to help mankind, and the first thing a demon would do is to make me unable to tell the difference between helping and harming.” He managed a grim smile. “And I’ve always been admired for my wizardly skills; don’t you realize how galling it would be to know that my future abilities would not be mine but a demon’s?”
“But I have more experience—”
“And are much more likely,” commented Elerius dryly, “to throw away your life and soul together in a reckless effort to save your daughter. Now that I have seen the dangers, I shall attempt what other means might be found.”
“I want you to come, Wizard,” said Antonia to me, tugging harder.
Still I hesitated. “If I leave you here, Elerius,” I said slowly, “and I find that you’ve deluded yourself, like Cyrus, into thinking that you can use a demon’s help without it affecting your own judgment and will, then I shall have to kill you: quickly, immediately, before the powers of black magic make you invincible.”
Elerius’s face had slowly regained its color. “I don’t think I’ll be in any danger of death from you,” he said, managing a smile. I wondered if he meant it as equivocally as it sounded.
“Hurry up!” Antonia cried. “If you don’t hurry the people will be here, and if you make Elerius go instead I’ll stay here with you.”
That decided me. I scooped her up and found myself running flat out up the passage away from the ruined chapel, almost tripping over Cyrus, who was huddled by the door. A voice in the back of my mind asked if this urging from Antonia might be the first sign of the devil’s influence, taking me away from where I really ought to be.
It felt so good to be out of the demon’s influence, back in cool morning sunlight, seizing a startled Theodora and kissing her again when I thought I had done so for the last time, that I almost didn’t care.
Briefly I told her of our progress—or lack of progress—so far and looked out the window. A group of people had left their horses at the base of the cliffs and were climbing up the broken causeway toward the castle’s front gate. And with a far-seeing spell I recognized them: Celia and Hildegarde, their parents, and the bishop.
For a few minutes I could imagine that everything was going to be all right after all. I flew down and met them outside the gate, telling them immediately that all the children were safe but leaving out, for the moment, any mention of demons.
Prince Ascelin sheathed his sword and slapped me on the shoulder. His face was gray with exhaustion, and all the lines in it had deepened, but he still managed a laugh. “Thought you could slip away without my knowledge, Wizard? You may have wanted to pro
tect me from what you would find here, but it’s not so easy when you’ve got the best tracker in a dozen kingdoms on your trail!”
I managed a smile in return. Let him think I had left him in Yurt out of concern for his safety. In fact, I hadn’t thought about him at all, only wanting to get to Caelrhon myself as fast as I could.
“I used to be able to hunt all day and all night—even on foot when everyone else was mounted—without getting this tired,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “Age is the best tracker of all; he gets on your trail and you never lose him. But by now I presume you’ve captured this Dog-Man and have the children all ready to go home?” he added cheerfully, looking up at the jagged turrets of the castle. “Terrible place, I must say, for children; good thing the twins didn’t know about it when they were twelve. It looks like your man used a spell to hide their tracks a lot of the way, but he was going fast and must have had gaps in his spells—plenty there for me to follow.”
I looked past him and the duchess to their daughters. “Celia?”
She gave me a grin. She still had all her hair and looked happier and more at peace with herself than she had all summer. “When you abandoned me like that, before I even had a chance to make my maiden vows, what choice did I have but to chase after you?”
“And,” put in Hildegarde, “she wanted to help me find Antonia.” She, like Ascelin, was wearing a sword.
Joachim stood at the rear, not saying anything. The part of me that wanted to be optimistic thought that bishops dealt with the supernatural every day, so Elerius and I could safely turn the demon over to him.
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