“I think the chambers up here were built for a visiting dignitary,” said Paul as we climbed. “It’s some of the newest construction in the castle, and it’s rather separate from the rest. The roof is still intact.”
“You know the castle too?” asked Cyrus, pleased. Paul bit his lip, but Cyrus did not ask more. Instead he seemed eager to show us into the chambers.
We all stopped and stared. The large room beyond the door at the top of the stairs was furnished with soft couches and tapestries, and a fire crackled in the fireplace. I blinked and tried the two words that would end an illusion, but this was no illusion.
“It should be nice and comfortable for you here,” Cyrus said, watching our reaction. He was hoping, I thought, for more praise and adulation. “Aren’t you pleased? Aren’t you impressed? And Vlad won’t find you. It will be for him as though this part of the castle didn’t even exist.”
“This certainly didn’t exist before,” said Paul, entering slowly. Justinia, however, rushed straight to the fire and held out her hands. The flames seemed real enough.
“The demon helped you out again?” I asked cautiously.
“Of course! It was the second-to-last spell on which I had his help. You’ll all find some dry clothes on that couch over there. Vlad told me there were some people with you, Daimbert, but I wasn’t sure how many or what sizes you were, but something should fit.”
He smiled, his eyes strangely bright. “And if you’re still worrying that I’m evil just because I occasionally have a demon help me, let me assure you that the saints help me as well. You implied that the miracles that made me famous in Caelrhon were all demonic, but I’ll have you know that rebuilding the burned street was due to the saints. I certainly prayed over it, and as I was walking home from the cathedral, thinking about it, an angelic messenger came and whispered in my ear.”
I looked away, feeling sick. The demon had started to toy with him already.
“Now!” Cyrus said cheerily. “I need to go show myself an obedient pupil to Vlad, appear to be helping him with his weather spells, so that he won’t be suspicious. But I’ll return soon. We’ll go see the children together when I do-the dear little things. You see how much I trust you? I’m not even locking you in!”
He hurried away, leaving us staring at each other. None of us, not even Justinia, showed any interest in dry clothes conjured up by a demon. “At first I didn’t believe it,” said Gwennie in a small voice. “But how else could he … I’ve never known anyone who sold his soul before.”
“Summoning a demon and asking for favors is certainly the surest way to damn yourself,” I said quietly. “I don’t think even the saints can help you then. But it’s still not the quickest or easiest way to damnation. If Vlad imagines his soul can still be saved just because he’s stayed clear of demons himself, he may have a nasty surprise on Judgment Day. At this point, a demon wouldn’t even be interested in him-no use making bargains for a soul that already belongs to the devil.”
“If we really aren’t locked in,” said Paul, trying the door, “let’s get out of here.”
“No,” said Theodora, short and hard. I noticed that, under the pressure we all felt, she too no longer treated Paul with the respect usually offered a king. “He said when he came back he would take us to the children. It may be our only chance to find Antonia, and we don’t dare make him angry. He and his demon will certainly be able to find us wherever we are in the castle, and if he’s telling the truth then at least for the moment we’re safe from Vlad.”
I nodded glumly, although the last thing I wanted to do was to wait, in a room filled with comforts a demon had provided for us, for a madman: one who had imagined that a demon’s soft voice in his ear was an angel’s, or for that matter that there was any way he, with human power alone, could break free of the devil.
The three women and I seated ourselves on the couch by the fire, our clothes steaming in the heat. The king remained standing, tapping his foot, ready for a fight that was not there. “I wonder if I’ll ever see my sword again,” he muttered, “and whether it’s still a snake.”
“Steel won’t do any good against wizards like these,” I said resignedly, “much less a demon. This castle was ruined by armies during the Black Wars, but the same armies that were able to do this much destruction were stopped by wizards who had become sickened by the carnage-and that was only wizards like me, practicing white magic. Come sit down.”
The storm continued unabated outside, but in this warm room it seemed far away. “I thought Cyrus was a preacher in Caelrhon,” said Paul, settling himself between Justinia and Gwennie. “Celia said he was studying in the seminary. What’s he doing practicing black magic?”
“He was a seminary student, all right,” I said slowly. “It makes no sense whatsoever. It never has. It’s almost as if he were two different people, one of whom wants to be genuinely pious, and another who has learned magic from Vlad and relies on a demon’s help for his most spectacular effects.” I didn’t add that it looked to me as if the conflict between these two personalities had pushed him over the edge into madness.
Theodora roused herself to tell the others about Cyrus’s first appearance in Caelrhon under the name of Dog-Man, his apparently miraculous healing of the children’s toys and pets, and his evolution, once he had been accepted into the seminary, into someone who preached Christian doctrine to large and reverent crowds.
“And who kidnaps little children,” said Paul grimly. “Since they’re all from Caelrhon they aren’t my own subjects, but it doesn’t make any difference. It’s a good thing you didn’t try to leave me behind again, Wizard. I couldn’t consider myself a king if I didn’t go after someone who did that to a group of helpless kids.”
I had no idea how Paul and Joachim managed to consider themselves fathers to entire kingdoms; I had enough trouble being the father of one five-year-old. “Just don’t kill Cyrus quite yet, sire,” I said. “For one thing, I don’t think you could. For another, at the moment he’s all we’ve got.”
“You don’t trust him, do you, Wizard?” Gwennie said incredulously.
“Of course not. Not even for a second. The third reason I don’t want Paul to kill him yet is that I want the pleasure of doing it myself. But in a ruined castle now harboring a wizard who is genuinely and unequivocally evil, a demon, and my daughter, I’ve got to use whatever fragile leads we may have to free her.”
We sat in silence then, listening to the thunder and the fire’s crackle. I wondered how long we had been in the castle and how many hours there might still be of night-or if the clouds would ever lift at all. We may even have dozed a little, warm and exhausted, but all our heads came up abruptly when there were quick footsteps on the stairs and the door swung open again.
“Good, I’m glad you didn’t try to slip away!” said Cyrus cheerfully. “Then I would have had the trouble of finding you all over again.”
“To deliver us to Vlad?” I asked fiercely.
“Of course not,” said Cyrus, coming to warm his own hands at the fire. “He still thinks you’re locked up where he left you. Weren’t you listening? I’m trying to protect you! I brought you to this nice room so you’d have a chance to start thinking better of me, but it doesn’t seem to be working. And you haven’t even put on the clothes I prepared just for you. You’ll have to learn to trust me.”
The others looked at me as though expecting me to know what to say or do. “If you want us to trust you, Cyrus,” I said carefully, “then we’ll need to understand a little more clearly why you should want to rescue us from your master, the man who taught you magic, to whom you brought the children of Caelrhon.”
“I told you all that back when we first met, Daimbert,” he said, flashing me a happy, crazed look from his deep-set eyes. “Vlad was my master once, it’s true, but when I entered the seminary at Caelrhon I decided to put all magic behind me.”