Daughter of Magic - Wizard of Yurt - 5 (35 page)

“So the demon’s already trapped in a pentagram, I gather,” said Elerius, looking at me thoughtfuly. “That certainly saves the hard magic of chasing it around the castle. We won’t need the demonology experts from the school; the person who summoned it can just send it back.” He waited expectandy.

The first carpet load of children took off, awake and laughing now. The king and Gwennie accompanied them, while Theodora stayed with the rest. Antonia was stil asleep, curled up on the hard stone floor with her chestnut hair loose across her face.

I turned back to see Elerius stil looking at me. I realized slowly that he was wondering just how desperate I had been to rescue her. Evrard himself was just working out that I even had a daughter and seemed shocked— at least in part, I thought, because everyone here but he seemed to know about it.

I took a deep breath. This was going to take al the wizardry we knew between us. “I didn’t summon the demon myself,” I said, not mentioning that in only slightly different circumstances I might have. I went on to tel them how Cyrus had long been working with a demon, ever since his apprenticeship days in the eastern kingdoms with Vlad—who I stil hadn’t found—and how Antonia had decided the easiest way to save him from it and to get al the children rescued was to summon a demon herself.

“What did you say she was, five?” said Evrard. “Too young to have to worry about her soul, then. Pretty sharp move, Daimbert!” giving me a punch on the shoulder as though it had al been my idea. “Let’s wake her up and have her return it to hel. If she could lisp out the words to cal it she should be able to send it back al right.” Elerius had known Antonia; Evrard had not. The former had the good taste not to take for granted that there was no problem. He gave me a long, sober look from his tawny hazel eyes. “I swear on al the powers of magic, Daimbert,” he said quietly, “I did not teach her any demonology.”

Evrard looked back and forth between us, realizing there was more going on than he realized. I shook my head. “I didn’t think you had. That’s not what’s bothering me.” Elerius nodded slowly. “If someone has sold his or her soul, the only chance to get it back is through negotiation, before rather than after the demon returns to hel.” Evrard wrinkled his forehead in surprise. “Aren’t the two of you getting a litde overexcited here? Wizardry doesn’t worry about people’s souls. And even if she didn’t get off for being so young, she’d stil have seventy years or so to worry about it. And—”

Before he had a chance to tel me reassuringly that she would probably damn herself a dozen different ways in the next seventy years anyway, Evrard found himself propeled backwards hard and fast through the air. He hit the wal and subsided slowly.

“Al right, al right, I get the hint,” he said good-naturedly.

“Daimbert!” said Theodora, who had been folowing our conversation from a little distance away.

But that hadn’t been my magic. That had been Elerius.

We sat quietly, close together, our eyes locked. “Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Why are you trying to help me?” In part I realized I was staling; as long as Antonia was asleep, as long as the demon down in the ruined chapel was imprisoned in the pentagram, things could not get any worse than they already were. But in part I wanted to understand.

“We al take oaths to help humanity,” he said slowly. “A litde girl is part of humanity. But there is of course more, Daimbert, as you and I know. If we caled the school, the demonology experts would doubtless tel us that the theoretical danger to a girl’s soul, a danger they would have to discuss with the priests to assess properly—which they have no intention of doing—is nothing compared to the very real danger of a demon loose in the world. Back to hel with it at once, the school’s masters would tel us, before it breaks out of the pentagram, and if one girl is sacrificed it’s stil worth it.” The castle was quiet around us. The children dozed again while waiting, and the only sounds came from Cyrus, who sat a short distance from us, his head in his hands and muttering. Evrard and Theodora were listening but could have been miles away. “That sounds like the kind of logic that would appeal to you, Elerius,” I said. “You always claim to be working for the greater good of humanity, even if a few standards or a few people have to be sacrificed along the way.”

He was not insulted. “I am speaking openly, Daimbert. I know perfectly wel that in trying to help Antonia— and she is a delightful little girl, one that anyone of any sensitivity would want to help—I am not folowing the school’s standards. But there is a higher good here. I have spoken to you of this before. Someday, probably sooner than they think, the masters of the school wil have to step aside for younger leadership. It’s no secret that everyone assumes—including me—that I shal be part of that leadership. And when that time comes I wil want your help.” I looked away, not able to meet his calculating gaze any longer. “You said al this once before, but I would have thought it would be clear now that I could never join the school faculty. They don’t want wizards who have families.”

“Because such a wizard would let his judgment be swayed by personal considerations?” said Elerius with half a smile. “It is a good policy, but I may have to make an exception here. Certainly I wil not now tel the school what you yourself have managed remarkably wel to keep hidden from them. By the time I assume the leadership I wil 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 redheaded 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 litde older. Yet you have always been suspicious of me. Cal dus calculation if you like, but I want your friendship. Trying to save Antonia is but a smal 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 wil.” 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 al 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 castie for Vlad.

“That’s right. He realy was a bad man. After I’d summoned the demon he came running into the room where we al 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 stil 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 demonstration. The book said sometimes they would do one for free. And I said for my demonstration he should catch the other demon and make him go back to hel.” She laughed. “That’s like a joke—demon, demonstration.”

“And what did he say?” I said, abruptly hoping against hope. Maybe Evrard was right, and I’d gotten myself al 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 al, 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 hel with no one’s soul, to convince him that al of this fel 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 anymore he’l 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 hel 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 hel 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 wel 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 essentialy 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 command, 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 Diplomatica Diabolica, but it would do. “Quick, get back to your mother,” I whispered, giving her a push.

“But I have to help you, Wizard,” she whispered back, retreating only a short distance. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Theodora halfway down the corridor and motioned to her.

But before I could make sure Antonia was wel 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 hel, 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 conversationaly in his high voice,

“you’l 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’l want some benefits in return? I thought so. They usualy 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.”

“But I know someone who would like something from me,” said the demon coyly—or as coyly as something red and bulging could manage. “Antonia,” he caled, “come erase the pentagram, even just a single chalk mark as you did before, and I’l bring you something you’l realy like. Haven’t you always wanted to see a dragon?’

“A dragon? Realy?” She turned and took half a step toward us, then looked fuly at the enormous mouth and fiery eyes and raced up the passage toward her mother.

I let my breath out al at once and had trouble catching it again. A good thing this demon didn’t have experience trying to be tempting to little girls while trapped inside a pentagram.

“We have come to bargain with you,” I said as firmly as I could. “Let us begin with nonbinding conversation.” I glanced toward Elerius, wondering when he was going to add something, and saw him trembling hard. In some ways that was the most terrifying thing I had seen yet.