“I can see the future. Even if you romantically throw your life away for her, in two years she will commit a mortal sin so great that even the saints will turn their backs on her.”
“And what’s that?” I burst out.
“Are you asking for information?”
“No,” I cried, adding quickly in the Hidden Language, “I seek no help or information from you!” This was too close an escape for comfort.
He fell silent for a moment, watching my face. I tried ineffectively to wipe my forehead with a wet sleeve. If he tricked me into asking for knowledge beyond that possible in the natural world, I would be well on the way to selling my own soul.
But could he be right about the Lady Maria? There was no way to know, but I had to act as though he were wrong. “You’re lying,” I said firmly. “I don’t want to have a conversation with a lying demon.”
“I’m telling the perfect truth,” he said easily. “Even if you don’t believe me, you certainly should realize I have the power to discover such things.”
“You can’t know the future, even you,” I said, trying desperately to remember a fragment of a conversation I had once had with the chaplain. “Only the past is knowable and repeatable. If the future were fixed, that would deny free will.”
The demon dismissed this. “If you’d rather believe a priest than someone who has actually seen what will happen- But think, Daimbert. Even if you could ‘save’ the Lady Maria’s soul, why throw away your life for someone you don’t even particularly like?”
“I’m responsible for her and for everyone else in my kingdom,” I said stubbornly, “and you imperil them all.”
“But you’ve asked yourself the same thing, haven’t you, Daimbert?”
I didn’t dare answer.
The demon leaned back in his chair. “You’re surprisingly obstinate,” he said in a macabre parody of good-fellowship. “I gave you a good excuse with my apparitions to go back without having to meet me, but you kept coming anyway.”
“I should have known all along you were here,” I said. “From the moment you first broke the magic lock on my chambers, you’ve been teasing me, eluding me. I’m not going to let you do it any more.”
The demon shrugged. “Why don’t we leave for the moment the question of ‘saving’ a soul that will fall into mortal sin in a short time anyway. Instead, if you’re determined to die, maybe you and I can agree on something that will make your final days of life more pleasant.”
“I’m not agreeing to anything,” I said cautiously.
“Let me offer it before you agree!” he said pleasantly.
“I came to make a different bargain!” Although I had long since despaired of my life, and my body would not stop trembling, my mind was momentarily clear. I was almost beyond terror. The demon had first tried to frighten me away before I had even reached him, I told myself, and now was trying to distract me with pointless conversation, because he knew that my bargaining position was sound.
The demon seemed to be growing again, and the chair he was sitting on with him. “Suppose I accept your bargain, Daimbert,” he said, “your life for the Lady Maria’s soul. That is what you’re offering? Good. Now, why should you have to die today? I’d be happy to put off your death if you would.”
Against my will, I felt hope surging up.
“Think what you could do if you and I just added a few details to our bargain. It would be easy enough for me to offer you whatever you want.”
“I don’t want anything.”
He laughed again. “You know that’s not true. You’re just being stubborn. I know perfectly well what you want, Daimbert. You want to be a master wizard.”
He had me there. I closed my eyes and clamped my jaw shut.
“Why should you and I be enemies? You and I are so similar in so many ways. We’ve both failed: you in being a competent wizard, and me in being an angel. You knew, didn’t you, that demons are fallen angels?”
“I have nothing in common with you,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You’ve had to get by with halfway knowledge and the occasional brilliant improvisation,” the demon continued, his high voice almost gentle. “Think about it: with me working with you, you could have magic powers beyond the imaginings of any of the other students of your wizards’ school, even beyond that of the teachers.”
I kept my eyes closed, but a series of images raced across my unwilling mind. I could see myself returning to the school in triumph, performing magic that would stun Zahlfast and the other teachers. “No,” I said to these images, and “No,” I managed to say out loud. “I’m not becoming involved in black magic. I want to save the Lady Maria’s soul, but I’m not going to lose my own.”
“And why are you so sure about that?” asked the demon, softer than ever. “Did you ever think that you might belong to the devil already?”
At this I had to open my eyes, although I immediately wished I hadn’t, for the demon smiled at my expression, and his mouth was full of dozens of razor-sharp teeth. As he grew, he looked less and less human.
“Yes, Daimbert,” he said companionably. “Your soul is already ‘lost.’ You can’t give me an argument about free will there. I know your soul, and I know the sins you have already committed.”
“You’re lying.” I felt I was rapidly losing whatever advantage I might once have had, but there seemed no way to stop this conversation.
“Not at all. Think about it for yourself: have you always had the impossibly ‘pure’ mind and heart that your religion laughingly makes the condition for what it calls salvation? As long as you belong to the devil anyway, why not take advantage of it during the next two hundred years?”
I almost believed him. But the Diplomatica Diabolica made it clear how full of trickery a demon could be. I had no more competence or good ideas; all I had left was stubbornness. “No,” I said again. “You wouldn’t now be offering me anything for my soul if you already had it.”
“So you aren’t interested in the powers black magic could give you,” the demon said thoughtfully. “Maybe this will interest you. I can offer you the queen.”
I gasped so suddenly that my mouth was full of the evil fumes I had been trying hard not to breathe. By the time I had finished coughing, I was able to make my lips say, “No,” although at the last moment they almost said, “Yes.”
“But think about it!” I was thinking about it. “That head of midnight hair lying on the pillow next to yours, those emerald eyes and that smile greeting you every morning, those soft arms greeting you every night-”
“You can’t know what I think!” I cried.
“And you could prolong her life to match your own. Two hundred years of bliss together! And for what? Agreeing to give up a soul you’ve already thrown away years ago. I’d even let the Lady Maria go.”
“But-what about the king?”
“He’s an old man already. He won’t be a problem.”
I breathed very shallowly, feeling I was choking. “You’ve made a mistake there, Demon. I’m not going to do anything that would hurt the king. You lost your chance that the Lady Maria gave you, to take the rest of his years from him, and you’re not going to get a second chance from me.”
“So wait a little while, and the problem will solve itself anyway,” said the demon casually. “When he dies naturally, as you know he will within a few years, I can make sure the queen’s affections turn at once toward you.”
“No,” I repeated, looking at the floor because I did not dare look at him. A viper was crawling near my foot but I didn’t even bother to move. “I would not consider two hundred years with her as two hundred years of bliss if I knew I owed her love to you.”
The demon laughed, a deep laugh now that seemed to resonate in his belly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you liked the Lady Maria better than the queen!”
The viper moved away. I forced myself to look up again. His mention of the Lady Maria brought me back to the knowledge of why I was here in the first place. “I’m only making one bargain with you,” I said. I had to drag this discussion back to the reason I had originally come, before the demon tricked me out of my soul without conceding anything, or he simply killed me with fear.