a smile. “It is a good policy, but I may have to make an exception here. Certainly I will not now tell the school what you yourself have managed remarkably well to keep hidden from them. By the time I assume the leadership I will be in a position to make my own rules. I don’t know what it is about you, Daimbert. Your grasp of academic magic is scarcely better than Evrard’s”-the red-headed wizard cringed-“and yet somehow you are always in the right place at the right time.”
I seemed at the moment to be in the wrong place at entirely the wrong time, but I didn’t interrupt.
“And you have imagination and a flair for improvisation, and you have a daughter who knows more magic at five than most first-year wizardry students-someone who, if she is not perverted by a demon, could be very useful to organized wizardry herself when just a little older. Yet you have always been suspicious of me. Call this calculation if you like, but I want your friendship. Trying to save Antonia is but a small price to pay for that friendship.”
I was not quite persuaded yet. “You realize,” I said slowly, “that if these negotiations go the way I think they may, I won’t even be around to help you in your plans and projects.”
“That is why you need me now, Daimbert: another wizard to give you a chance to get both of you out of this alive. Unless your mistrust of me weighs heavier than your fears for Antonia?”
“I’d deal with the devil himself to save her,” I said, looking at him quickly and then away. “And it looks as though I will.”
We woke Antonia gently. She didn’t want to wake up and kept digging her knuckles into her eyes and trying to turn away from the light. But when she spotted Elerius she sat up in my lap and gave him a broad smile. “I remembered everything you taught me about frogs,” she said with enthusiasm.
I myself had nearly been forced to leave the wizards’ school because of all my trouble with those frogs in Zahlfast’s transformations practical. She had to get this ability from Theodora.
“So that was you who turned the man into a frog?” Elerius asked. We had sent Evrard off to scour the castle for Vlad.
“That’s right. He really was a bad man. After I’d summoned the demon he came running into the room where we all were, very excited. I think he was looking for the Dog-Man. He had been very quiet and pretend-polite when I saw him before, so it made me even more scared because he was shouting and threatening- That’s when I turned him into a frog.” She smiled happily. “I think he was surprised.”
“I’m sure he was,” said Theodora from across the room. “I still can’t do transformations myself.” So the Lord knew where she had gotten this ability.
And the devil knew where she would get her next startling abilities if we couldn’t reclaim her soul.
“But I want to hear more about how you summoned the demon,” said Elerius gently.
Antonia would clearly have preferred to discuss the frog some more, but she reluctantly agreed to provide details. “When he appeared in the pentagram I told him I wanted a dem-a demastr-a
“And what did he say?” I said, abruptly hoping against hope. Maybe Evrard was right, and I’d gotten myself all worked up for nothing.
“He said that was too hard to be a demonstration. That’s when I told him I was Mistress of the Pentagrams and he had to do it whether he wanted to or not. He did, too,” she said, pleased at the memory of wielding such power. “I had to make an opening in the pentagram to let him out, but I told him I only did it if he promised to come right back. I made the second pentagram to hold the demon he caught while I was waiting for them.” She sighed. “That was probably the worst part of all, with two demons right there in the room, before the Dog-Man’s disappeared and I was able to redraw the line to keep mine in.”
Elerius and I exchanged glances. We might be able to persuade the demon to return to hell with no one’s soul, to convince him that all of this fell into the category of demonstrating demonic powers before reaching agreement on a soul’s sale. I doubted it.
“Don’t you think,” suggested Antonia, “that now that the Dog-Man doesn’t have a demon any more he’ll be happier?” Cyrus was making low whimpering noises at the moment. It was a nice thought on Antonia’s part, but it hadn’t worked: with the demon back in hell he had simultaneously lost his power to do black magic in this world and any hope for the redemption of his soul in the next.
I stood up, clenched and unclenched my fists, and walked over to Theodora. I had been kissing her for over a minute before she realized that this public display of affection meant that I was saying good-bye.
II
“Should we ask Cyrus for his help?” asked Elerius. “He’s certainly had experience dealing with a demon.” He paused. “I never have.”
We both looked toward Cyrus. The Dog-Man, the miracle-worker with the key to the city of Caelrhon, the failed seminary student, was huddled in on himself: a broken man without the demon who had long accompanied him. “Not unless we think we could pass off his soul in trade,” I said in disgust. “But at this point I doubt even the devil would want it if it wasn’t long since his.”
“You and me, then,” said Elerius, and we started down the passage toward the ruined chapel. Antonia reluctantly accompanied us, holding both our hands. Either one of us could have sent the demon back to hell at once since it was already imprisoned in a pentagram, but we needed Antonia to start the conversation if we were going to try to negotiate.
At the last minute Cyrus looked up and rose to slink along behind us, but he had the good sense to stop well short of the chapel. A hundred reasons why it would be much better to put this off struck me, but I kept on walking, teeth tight together to keep them from chattering. Knowing the feeling of raw terror was about to strike made it no easier when it did.
The chapel was pitch black, even though outside the windows it was now early morning. The only light came from the demon himself. He was alive, glowing, yet essentially motionless. Our feet slowed and dragged as we crossed the room toward the pentagram. Antonia faced the demon squarely, visibly struggling to keep from sobbing again. He gave her a wide and evil grin, as if she were a dainty morsel he was about to consume.
“By Satan, by Beelzebub,” she brought out between trembling lips, and my heart wrenched to hear her have to say it, “by Lucifer and Mephistopheles.”
At these words of summons he abruptly became twice as alive, twisting in a veil of smoke within the pentagram. “I am yours to obey, Antonia,” he said pleasantly-or his best attempt. “What can I bring you? What enemies of yours can I destroy?”
“I don’t want anything,” she said stubbornly, keeping her eyes on the floor. “But you have to talk to these wizards.”
Not quite the language recommended by the
“But I have to help you, Wizard,” she whispered back, retreating only a short distance. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Theodora half way down the corridor and motioned to her.
But before I could make sure Antonia was well on her way the demon spoke again. And he spoke to me.
“Daimbert, what a surprise! Are you back to take me up on some of the offers you rejected last time we met?”
The final scraps of my courage vanished. Just as I had feared. Thousands of demons in hell, and Antonia had summoned this one. Maybe Yurt was his territory just as it was mine.
The demon fixed me with a malevolent eye. “Before we begin,” he said conversationally in his high voice, “you’ll have to let me out of this pentagram so I can work for you. I can take your soul, of course, if you’d like to hand it over, but I assume you’ll want some benefits in return? I thought so. They usually do.”
“No ‘benefits,’ Demon,” I said harshly, trying to make myself furious because it was the only alternative to abject terror. “You’re staying right there until we’ve finished negotiating.”
