I braced my back against the stone wall and felt more dank blood seeping through my clothes. Giant roaches scuttled by my ears. The light from my belt was very faint, but I managed, after a few panic-stricken moments, to increase the brightness momentarily.
I was standing at a widening of the corridor where many doorways opened on either side. In each doorway was a barred gate, rusted open. There was no possibility of imagining that these were store rooms. These were prison cells.
A white form moved in the cell I was facing and started toward me. It wailed as it came, with a cry that melted my bones. It was a skeleton. It rattled with every step, and its eye sockets were gleaming. I tried the two words of the Hidden Language to break an illusion, and it kept on coming.
Fingers made of dozens of tiny bones reached toward me. My arms went up over my face, and I pressed back hard against the wall, waiting for the skeleton’s deathly touch.
The touch did not come. I opened my eyes again. The skeleton was gone. I did not know if it were an illusion, given voice and propelled by stronger magic than mine, or if it were a real skeleton, given life by black magic. All I knew was that the demon apparently did not intend to kill me by proxy. Either he still hoped to frighten me away, or he was saving me to kill himself.
This thought gave me the confidence to glance around at all the other barred cells. Skeletons or ghostly apparitions were in most of them. I had never known much of the history of Yurt and was unlikely now to learn more, but I remembered that, generations ago, there had been wars in the western kingdoms. These then would be manifestations of the souls of traitors, of prisoners, of men broken under torture. I shuddered as a ghostly hand passed through me, insubstantial but leaving a chill as an illusion never did. These apparitions might not be planning to kill me, but they could be drawing my soul toward hell with theirs.
I pushed away from the wall and staggered onward. Maybe I was being presumptuous, I thought, to try to save the Lady Maria’s soul when she herself had willingly sold it away. Maybe I could keep the cellars locked up, since I had the only key, and talk the young count and the knights out of their mad plan to attack the “renegade wizard.” Maybe, having nearly killed the king and then nearly killed us all with the dragon, the demon would now be satisfied and cause no more trouble.
But these thoughts scarcely slowed my steps. I had already had all these arguments with myself many times and had won-or lost, depending on whether or not one thought my own life worth preserving.
The dripping was steadier, and I had to step carefully, because a thin film of water was coursing over the floor. I had no idea how far I had come or how long it had been since I left the courtyard. It briefly occurred to me that I might be dead already.
The corridor turned again, and I paused, for ahead I thought I could see a light burning. Again, I barely stopped myself from calling out, “Who’s there?” I knew perfectly well who was there. The floor grew warmer and drier with ever step I took, and the noxious fumes grew thicker.
I turned another corner and found myself looking into a wide chamber, at the very end of the cellars. I walked warily into the room. The walls were glowing red, and the heat was nearly unbearable. The room seemed empty.
A voice spoke behind me. “Were you looking for me?”
I made myself turn around slowly and deliberately. The demon was standing in the doorway. I was struck dumb. He was only about a foot high, bright red, and had horns and burning eyes. If he hoped to lull me into complacency by appearing small, he was mistaken. He smiled, which gave his face the final touch of absolute evil.
“Greetings, Daimbert,” he said in a high voice. Since everyone in the castle called me Wizard, it was extremely startling to have someone use my name again, especially a demon.
I found my voice and closed my eyes against his face so that I could concentrate on the words of the Hidden Language. “By Satan, by Beelzebub, by Lucifer and Mephistopheles,” I said, as this was the correct way to begin a conversation with a demon. “I have come to offer you a bargain.” I spoke rapidly, before the pervasive evil could drain from my mind the memory of the words I had to say, before I could change my mind. “In return for a soul to which you may not be fully entitled, I offer you a life.”
A laugh forced me to open my eyes again. The demon was taller now, and he was not so red. “Come, Daimbert,” he said in the language of men, not in the Hidden Language. “Before you say anything you may regret, shall we talk for a moment?”
“Non-binding conversation,” I said, choosing the correct words of the Hidden Language carefully. I made it a demand, not a request. One is less likely to be tricked by a demon if what one says has been declared non-binding, but the Diplomatica Diabolica was very clear that one should never request anything from a demon.
“Non-binding conversation,” the demon agreed formally. He had continued to grow as we spoke, and he was now the tall, gaunt-faced stranger I had first seen when we returned from the duchess’s castle.
Now that it had at last begun, I was almost relieved, though rivulets of sweat were running down my face from the heat. The demon stepped into the room, conjured up two chairs with a wave of his hand, and offered one to me. “Then let us talk!”
II
“You want me out of your castle, Daimbert,” said the demon conversationally, crossing his long legs. I reminded myself not to trust his friendly demeanor for a second and repeated over in my mind the phrases I had selected from the Diplomatica Diabolica.
“I myself rather like Yurt,” he continued. “But I’d be willing to consider another castle. You know I won’t go back to hell empty-handed if I can help it, and I presume you didn’t even bring the chalk to try to capture me. Am I right? I knew you’d have too much sense even to try.”
“In return for a soul to which you may not be fully entitled,” I tried again, “I offer you a life.”
“We’re having a non-binding conversation, remember?” he said with a laugh. I could almost have borne it had it not been for the laugh. “Why do you have to be so melodramatic? Do you think anyone will appreciate it if you kill yourself senselessly? How much more sensible to move the chalk from outside the castle.”
“Move the chalk,” I repeated, not understanding. In a moment, I thought, my mind would go, and then he would be able to do whatever he wanted with me.
“You’ve seen, surely, the five piles of white stone outside the moat, forming a pentagram to keep me in the royal castle of Yurt. If you move the stones, I’ll leave Yurt and never bother you again.”
“But where will you go?”
“Does it matter?” he said with a wave of his hand. He fixed me with his enormous eyes. It looked as though he had tiny flames where a human should have pupils. “I’ll be gone, and I won’t try to capture anyone else’s soul. I promise!”
I reminded myself that this was a non-binding conversation. Besides, his words were not even close to the words which, according to the Diplomatica Diabolica, would actually engage a demon.
“A demon loose in the world is too dangerous,” I said. “And the Lady Maria’s soul would still be forfeit.”
The demon leaned forward and touched me on the knee. I had somehow expected his touch to be insubstantial, that of an apparition, but it was solid as iron and hot as fire. If he had touched my bare skin, I think it would have blistered.
“Why are you so worried about the Lady Maria?” he asked in tones of reasonableness. “If she didn’t know the consequences of asking favors of a demon, she certainly should have. She may have ‘imperiled’ her soul by talking to me, as you might put it, but there’s something you ought to know.”
“What’s that?” I said as he paused.