Sorcerer's Son (45 page)

“Fire demons are all fools,” said another voice.

“I will keep my pledge,” said Cray.

“Come out, come out,” called another voice. “Come out and play with us, human.”

“When my host comes home,” said Cray, “I will ask for his permission to do so.”

The clouds moaned and whispered among themselves, and they pushed at Cray’s fire demon until its light flickered like a candle in a drafty room. Cray feigned attention to his book again, only smiling whenever the air demons repeated their invitation, until a rift broke in the darkness, like sunlight pouring through disintegrating storm clouds. Elrelet, small and sharply defined—in contrast to the Free—had arrived.

“Back off!” Cray’s host shouted in a voice as large as any of theirs, far larger than mere size betokened. “I’ll have no crowding around my house. Back off or suffer!”

In response, the clouds broke apart, and Cray was able to count ten individuals, each as large as a dozen horses together.

“This human is my guest!” said Elrelet. “Any affront to him will be an affront to me.”

The demons muttered, and one of them said, “Are you afraid we’ll harm him, Elrelet-slave?”

“If any harm comes to him, I shall tell my master the name of the guilty one, and he shall exact punishment.”

The demons fell silent on a gust of air like an indrawn breath.

“Come out, Cray,” said Elrelet. “Let them look more closely upon the enemy.”

Cray found the door and swung himself through it. He called Yra to his side, a ball of pale light in the sky-glow.

“My lord,” said Yra, “I am no match for such a crowd in a fight. I would be overwhelmed and unable to help you.”

“Go home, Yra,” Cray replied. “I only needed you for light.”

The fire demon flashed away, like a spark spit out from a crackling log.

The air demons crowded close. “So this is a human,” said one of them, sending a tendril of cloud to touch Cray’s foot. A puff of air ruffled his hair; a stronger draft set him tumbling slowly, a leaf before the autumn breeze. Elrelet expanded into a ring of cloud and encircled his waist like a fat belt, halting his rotation. “Enough of that,” Elrelet said. “Play your games with something else.”

“We came here to invite him to play,” said one of the demons. “Just for amusement, you understand, nothing serious.”

“He has no time for amusement,” replied Elrelet. “He has much work before him, and you shall not interfere. Begone now you’ve seen and touched him. Begone!”

Like mist evaporating before the morning sun, they thinned away to nothing, leaving only a single sigh behind, the merest sough of wind. “You, too,” said Elrelet, and even that was gone.

Back inside the house, Elrelet said, “They only wanted to frighten you. They wouldn’t have shown themselves to your eyes if they had meant real harm.”

“Well, they succeeded in their intention,” replied Cray. “I thought the walls would give way any moment.”

“Not these walls,” said the demon. “Stay inside, and none can touch you. They’ll be back, I’m sure.”

“For what?”

“To coax you into playing. They have a game, you see—a rather rough one it would be, too, for a human being. That’s how the Free spend their time—playing.”

“What of the slaves? Don’t they play in their leisure time?”

“Not like the Free. Not with such single-minded devotion. The Free wager on their game. And because material goods like gold and jewels have no value for demons, they wager with their names.”

“With their names? How?”

“Each round of play pits two demons against each other, and the loser must add the winner’s name to its own, and answer the sorcerous summons directed at that name if its own is not called first. The more often one loses the game, the more names one carries, the more likely one is to be summoned. Conversely, a frequent winner is protected against the summons by the many who carry its name. There is a demon among the Free whose name is carried by more than a dozen others, while it carries only its own.”

“A dozen?” said Cray. “How do they decide which of them answers the summons?”

“The one who lost longest ago answers, unless it has already been called to some other name.”

“And when that demon answers, what happens to the other names that it might be carrying?”

“They stay with it. After its master dies and it is Free again, it is bound to them still. The game is costly, you see, Cray, and the cost does not diminish with time. Only a winner can afford to stop playing, one who has won often enough not only to pass its own name to a number of other demons but to get rid of the names it may have acquired by earlier losing. One who loses more often than it wins can escape only one way: when it is given its freedom by a sorcerer, given the ring that summoned it, that commands it. Only then does the compulsion of the game disappear.”

“Compulsion?” said Cray. “But what if a demon refuses to answer a summons for one of the names not its own?”

“Impossible,” replied Elrelet. “We are trapped by names, Cray; they are as real and tangible to us as your flesh is to you. When a demon accepts the wager of a name, it is bound by that; if it loses the game and must take the name, it can only rid itself of the name through the game. Of course, one is never rid of one’s own name.”

“But why would they want me to play, Elrelet? I’m not bound by any name compulsion. Winning from me wouldn’t do anyone any good.”

“Perhaps not.”

“What do you mean, ‘perhaps’?”

“You are in our world now, Cray. You live by its rules. Perhaps some sorcerer could enslave you, if you bore a demon name. That would amuse the Free greatly—a poor weak human answering a sorcerer’s call.”

“I can’t believe it’s possible.”

“Don’t play with them, Cray. I’m sure you don’t want to find out.”

“I’m sure I would be terrible at the game anyway, not having a demon’s powers. And I haven’t the time, as you said yourself.”

“They will taunt you and tease you,” said Elrelet. “Today’s visit will not be the last, in spite of my anger. They will wait till I am gone again.”

“I’ll try to ignore them.”

“I hope you can. Gildrum will never forgive me if something happens to you.”

“You two are very old friends, aren’t you?”

“Very old.”

“Did either of you ever play the game?”

Elrelet hesitated. Then the cloud that was the demon’s body darkened. “A long time ago, when I was young and foolish, I played and lost. That was the summons that I answered, not my own. My own name has never been called. If I hadn’t played, I would still be Free.”

“And Gildrum?”

“Gildrum advised me not to play, and many times I have wished I had taken that advice. Gildrum has never played. In our youth, you see, the game had not yet taken hold so strongly among the Free. We were less foolish than the Free are today, or so we like to think. Perhaps it isn’t true. Every demon born is a fool; only a few have time to learn wisdom before they are enslaved.”

Cray pursed his lips. “Demons are born?” he murmured.

Elrelet laughed that light breathy laugh. “Did you think we come into existence out of nothingness, Cray?”

“Well

I don’t know. Flame, air

they seem to partake of nothingness.”

“We have a legend—and it may be the truth—that, ages ago, the first demon coalesced from nothingness where the four worlds meet. It was a creature that combined all four demon aspects—air, fire, water, and ice—and immediately after its inception, it separated into those aspects, and each of the four parts retreated to the appropriate dwelling place, to become ancestor to all demons of that sort that came after. But we no longer come into existence in that fashion. We mate, we bear our young alive, we raise them until they can fend for themselves. It is not so different from what humans do.”

“Do you have any children, Elrelet?”

“Quite a long time ago I chose to have one. We are long-lived and do not breed very often.”

“Elrelet

” Cray smiled somewhat sheepishly. “How does one tell, with demons, which are the males and which the females?”

Again, the breathy laughter. “One doesn’t, Cray. Those are human distinctions that do not apply to us. Our masters may give us the forms of men or women, but those are just outward semblances. Inside, we are still

as we are.”

Cray’s smile faded, the corners of his mouth sagging, his brows tightening. “Elrelet,” he said, “do you know about Gildrum and my mother?”

Elrelet’s sigh was a breath of warm wind. “We are old friends,” the demon said. “I know, but I confess I that I do not understand. Gildrum has been among you humans more than most of us. Gildrum was always sensible, but I suppose that one cannot be sensible in all things.” The cloud contracted a trifle and expanded, a pulse like a shrug. “We slaves are compelled to do so much against our own wills, sometimes we have none left. Not Gildrum though. Not Gildrum. For myself, the threat of the master’s punishment would be greater than any desire I might have for anything. Or anyone. I would have killed you, Cray. I tell you that honestly. I would have killed you rather than play this dangerous game with my master. And he is far softer than Lord Rezhyk. Disobedience is the greatest crime a demon can commit, Cray

because it must be done by being cleverer than the master. Sorcerers don’t accept such cleverness with very good grace.”

“You think Lord Rezhyk will find out eventually?”

“How can I know? Eventually, yes, of course, when you are ready to combat him. Sooner than that? Study hard, Cray, that you may cut his thinking time as short as possible.”

Cray nodded. “I feel like I’ve played the Free game and lost.”

“Something close to that,” replied Elrelet

Cray opened his books once more.

The Free came back, as predicted. This time they did not blot out the light. They appeared, instead, as white cirrus clouds, feathery and effervescent, darting about Elrelet’s home as if there were a wild windstorm going on beyond the walls. Cray could not help watching them. After a while, he noticed that they were bouncing a small object about among them, but even with his nose pressed against the cushiony wall, he could not determine the nature of the thing. Once, while he observed, it ricocheted off the outside of the wall, missing his face by only the invisible thickness of the surface, and he recoiled reflexively and tumbled a moment before he could right himself, to the rhythm of mocking, booming laughter. The cirrus clouds scattered abruptly shortly afterward, at Elrelet’s arrival.

“They were rather amusing this time,” Cray said to his host. “They were playing some sort of game, I think.”

“Yes,” said Elrelet. “The only game they ever play.”

“You mean that was it, the terrible game? It seemed so simple. Like children tossing a ball.”

“When one’s future hangs on the outcome, such a game is never simple. The ball, as you call it, is a cube with a different number of clots on each face. The two players each choose a face as their own, and between them they start the cube spinning and soaring; each must touch the cube at least twice or the game is disqualified, but in fact they generally touch it far more often, and so it tends to make mad gyrations. The object of the game is to strike the cube against some surface, and the player whose symbol is opposite the surface wins. When the cube strikes face-on it sticks tight; striking with edge or corner will cause it to bounce away. And there is a certain minimum distance from the surface, within which neither player is allowed—about three of your body-lengths Cray. Some games last quite a long time before they are decided.”

Cray asked, “Were they using your wall as their surface, or were they just passing by on their way to somewhere else?”

“They were using my wall,” said Elrelet. “They were trying to annoy you.”

“Like children.”

“Some of them are.”

Cray smiled. “It’s hard for me to imagine a cloud as a child. Are they smaller when they’re younger? This lot seemed small.”

“No,” said Elrelet. “They are born as large as they will ever be. These only appeared small because they wanted to.”

“I’ve seen fire demons and air demons now; what are the other two sorts like—water and ice?”

“Ah,” said Elrelet. “Curiosity.”

“Well, yes. Why not?”

“I spoke to Gildrum recently, Cray, and have more lessons for you.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that kind of curiosity.”

“You have much studying left ahead of you.”

“I know that,” said Cray. “But if I’m to be a demon-master, wouldn’t it be appropriate for me to find out what the different kinds of demons are like, so that I may choose wisely among them? Unless

the compulsion of the game extends so far that if I summon a water demon I may get an air demon instead, in spite of the considerable difference in procedure for the two.”

“No, it does not extend so far,” said Elrelet. “And for that reason, the game is played only among one’s own kind. Otherwise there is no meaning to winning or losing. There are different variants of the game, too, in the different domains, each suited to the nature of the place. Ice demons, in particular, have an extreme variant because objects do not float freely, unobstructed, in their area.”

“I should like to see an ice demon,” Cray said.

“Are you thinking of enslaving some of them?”

“I don’t know. I know almost nothing about them. Gildrum has given me very little information on them.”

“Well, fire and ice, Cray,” said Elrelet. “They mix poorly, and so that is not a place that Gildrum frequents.”

“Do you know much about them?”

“Some,” said Elrelet. “But I thought you were going to concentrate on fire demons.”

“I don’t know. Any of them would be valuable, I’m sure.”

“You’ll begin casting your rings soon. You must choose.”

“Fire demons would be the easiest, of course. Gildrum has taught me more about them than all the others combined. Still, I would wish a few of each.”

“Each? No human being has ever commanded more than two kinds; few more than one.”

“I think I will need all four kinds for my purpose.”

“I would think

fire demons.”