I dropped into the courtyard and stood still for a moment, listening. There was no sound but the dripping of water. But the cobblestones in the courtyard seemed unnaturally warm, like the surface of a stove. Something whizzed silently by my face. I jumped back, throwing up my arms, and realized it was a bat. More bats wheeled around the castle towers. What were bats doing out in the middle of the day?
For several minutes I walked through the empty castle. Giant grey toads squatted in several of the rooms, and heavy flies buzzed against the windows. Small dark shapes that I recognized as rats scattered as I opened doors. The door to my own chambers was closed, but the magic lock was gone.
I opened the door and stepped inside. Nothing looked disturbed, although the supernatural influence was very strong. I had worried about a stranger reading my books of magic, but a demon, whose own power could cut right through the natural powers of magic, would have no need to do so.
It occurred to me that perhaps what I needed to do was to light a fire in my fireplace, sit down and get warm for an hour or two, and make sure I actually knew what I was going to say to the demon. Almost by force I dragged myself from the fireplace, where I was already reaching for the kindling.
I knew perfectly well what I was going to say to the demon. The negotiations were straightforward. If what the world’s demonology experts had to say in the Diplomatica Diabolica was correct, at the end the demon would agree to release the Lady Maria’s soul, would agree to return to hell, and would look around for the life it had been promised. And the life would be there.
I went back out into the courtyard, closing my door and putting on a magic lock. They would remember me in future years by the rooms that no one could enter.
I started walking toward the great hall, thinking vaguely that I might meet the demon there, but stopped myself. I knew perfectly well where I would find it.
But I wanted to do one final thing. I went to the little room by the main gate and worked the winch to lower the drawbridge. Even if the royal party did not return until the end of the twelve days of Christmas, someone from the village would see the bridge down and come in to investigate. The constable might be worried about the store rooms, in spite of the heavy locks on the doors, but I was more worried about my body. I hoped someone would find it before it was too badly nibbled by the rats.
The bridge went down with a clang that vibrated through the whole castle. I opened the main gate wide enough to admit a man and forced my feet to cross the courtyard.
Thin swirls of foul smoke were wafting up the cellar stairs. More bats flew up as I reached the top of the stairs and flew back and forth, blind and disoriented. I took a final breath of clean air and went slowly down.
The key I had taken from Dominic a month ago, when we had been chasing the stranger, turned with a rusty screech in the lock. I propped the door open and started down the long, black corridor.
PART EIGHT — THE CELLARS
I
The faint daylight faded away behind me, and I paused to turn on the magic light on my belt buckle. It cast just enough light for me to see a few yards ahead. Motes in the coils of foul smoke danced in the light of the moon and stars. I pushed aside the thought that I should go back for a lantern or a magic globe and walked determinedly onward.
But my determination lasted only for a few steps. The cellars were absolutely silent except for the sound of my feet. Instead of being half a dozen yards underground, I could have been half a dozen miles. I did not even hear the dripping and scurrying sounds I had heard when last here. All I could hear was the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears.
“Maybe the demon’s gone,” the thought popped into my head. “In that case it’s silly for me to be down here.” But I dismissed the thought and continued slowly on. I might not be able to hear him, but I was pushing against a wave of evil like pushing against a headwind.
The hall turned, and I put my hand on the wall while trying to peer around the corner. The stone was wet under my hand, and the wet was stickier than water. I held my hand at the level of my waist to look at it in the faint light of the moon and stars. It was dripping red.
I gritted my teeth and forced myself onward against a terror that threatened to overwhelm me. Soon I had proceeded further than I had gone before, past the spot where the floor had been flooded. Now it was dry and ominously warm.
My knees began to tremble so hard that each step became an effort of will. My steps came slower and slower until I found I had stopped completely. The smoke made me cough, as my lungs desperately sought purer air, and the sound of my coughing seemed to echo throughout the cellars. “Where are you?” I almost shouted but bit my lip just in time.
“You know that’s not the way to open a conversation with a demon,” I told myself firmly. This was not a time for improvisation, for using good ideas and flashes of inspiration to cover up for a lack of preparation. If I was going to save my kingdom, I would have to be the wizard I never had been and proceed absolutely according to the rules.
But I wished I would find the demon before I lost my nerve. I made my feet start moving again. “Merciful saints,” I breathed, then shook my head. The Lady Maria’s soul was beyond the prayers of even the saints. Her only hope of any kind, and the only hope for the life and happiness of all the people living in the castle of Yurt, was for a negotiated compromise with the demon. And as I had reminded myself once before, the saints do not negotiate.
The corridor turned again and continued downwards. I glanced sideways at some of the rooms I was passing, afraid of what I might see in them. They no longer looked like store rooms. They looked like prison cells.
Once again, I had to keep myself from shouting, “Come out! Let’s get this over with!” If the demon wanted to drive me back out of the cellars with terror, he was close to succeeding.
I stopped, trying to steady my ragged breathing. I had no idea how much further the cellars went. The absolute stillness seemed to bear me down as though under a physical weight. But barely had I thought that any noise would be better than this silence when I discovered just how wrong I was.
A cloud of bats, squeaking frantically, rushed up the corridor toward me. Their wings flapped all around my head, and I felt the brush of tiny, hairy bodies against my face. At that I would have fled, heedless of the consequences, but my foot slipped and I crashed to the floor. Here the paving stones were damp, and as I sat up I could hear for the first time the dripping of water.
The bats were gone. I stood up, rubbing my bruises. It didn’t matter if I had cracked any bones, because I would soon be dead anyway. All I had to do was keep moving until the demon showed himself. Now the air was thick with scurrying noises, with unidentifiable reptilian calls, and with distant and ominous moans. Emboldened by any change from the deadly silence, I walked on as quickly as I could make my feet move.
Rats scampered down the corridor in front of me, and several times I nearly stepped on a scorpion or a snake that slithered across my path. Another cloud of bats burst out of a side room, but this time I was ready for them. But I did not like the moaning sound, and I was drawing closer to its source.
A flutter of movement caught my eye, just on the edge of my peripheral vision. I jerked around so fast I nearly lost my footing. It disappeared as I turned, but I had had a faint glimpse of an apparition with a human face.