We caught our breaths for a minute. All a big mistake, I told myself again. Baptized children went straight to heaven, as long as they had not yet reached the age of reason and therefore could not commit intentional sin. Didn’t they? What was the age of reason? Seven for sure. Yes, that was right. Seven. Antonia was only five.
Did demons recognize how old a person was in human years, or did they ask only if they had functioning reasoning abilities-if, for example, they could read and work magic?
“When I was little,” said Paul, “I always thought it would be exciting to meet a demon. Now that I have met one, I can’t say I particularly care to repeat the experience. Did you see that belly? Those eyes? But I do remember learning about pentagrams. Looks like your daughter, Wizard, must have drawn a pentagram to imprison it-she’s an amazing little girl, and you have no reason at all to hide her. One of her chalk lines, I couldn’t help noticing, looked scuffed, but it was redrawn carefully. And the demon appears pretty well trapped now.”
“Yes,” I said reluctantly. “It can’t move away or hide, and it can’t make itself invisible. As long as no one lets it out, it shouldn’t be able to do anything to terrify us, such as bringing more vipers and apparitions.”
“Oh, I’m terrified quite enough already, if it asks,” said Paul cheerfully. “But it looks like we’ve won, then! Cyrus seems to have broken down completely without his demon to help him,” with a glance in his direction, “and Vlad’s a frog, so once it’s a little lighter outside one of us can fly the carpet back to Caelrhon and tell the parents all their children are safe.”
That reminded me. I had better try to find Vlad again.
“And I guess sending the demon back to hell is something you wizards know how to do,” Paul continued lightly. He looked around at children starting to sit up groggily, many of them apparently deciding the whole episode had been a nightmare and lying down to sleep again. The Princess Margareta was awake but lay silently, as though trying to make it all make sense in her own mind.
“Maybe Mother has a point,” the king went on. “If I got married I could have children. Maybe not a hundred. Say, a dozen or so. Wouldn’t that be great, to have a dozen little princes and princesses running around the castle?”
“You’d better consult your queen on that.” Gwennie managed to say it as a joke. Margareta, looking startled, rose on her elbows.
Paul laughed without seeming to notice either’s reaction. For him, all our troubles were over rather than just beginning. “All right. Maybe I’ll settle for three or four. Too bad I don’t have any brothers or sisters of my own, or I could have nieces and nephews. And if the duchess’s daughters aren’t going to marry-” He stopped. “That reminds me, Wizard. Is Celia a novice nun now?”
I had completely forgotten about the twins since leaving them at the nunnery. “I suppose so. They would have had to finish the ceremony without a spiritual sponsor.”
“I’ll ride down there in a few days,” said Paul lazily. “They probably won’t let me see her, but at least I can find out if everything is going smoothly. I was looking through some old ledgers-thanks again, Gwennie, by the way, for helping me find them-and it looks as though previous kings of Yurt sometimes made gifts to the nunnery, so maybe I should too.”
Suddenly, unexpectedly, a voice floated through the window. “Hello!” It sounded magically amplified. “Is anyone there?”
I knew that voice. I jumped up so fast I almost slipped and leaped to the window. Outside, hovering somewhat tentatively in mid-air, were two wizards, one black-bearded and one with a red bandit’s beard: Elerius and Evrard.
Paul joined me at the window and waved enthusiastically. “What’s that older wizard’s name, Elerius, is that right?” he asked me with a low chuckle. “It seems like he’s always showing up just a few minutes too late, just after you’ve finished disposing of the enemy. You’re going to make him jealous at this rate, Wizard!”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him how wrong he was.
“We’d been combing Caelrhon almost inch by inch for any sign of you and the children,” said Evrard. “At first Elerius”-with a nod toward the other wizard-“was able to pick up the remnants of the tracer spell you’d put on the flying carpet earlier this summer, but the spell disappeared as we came upriver. And we could have sworn this castle wasn’t even here!”
Elerius meanwhile was introducing himself to Theodora. They had spoken on the telephone but never actually met. “So this is the witch of Caelrhon,” said Elerius pleasantly, regarding her from under peaked eyebrows, “for whom Daimbert has been willing to flount all the traditions of wizardry.”
“But about half an hour ago,” said Evrard, continuing his story, “Elerius said he could sense a major spell breaking up somewhere in this direction. And as we approached a ruined castle suddenly materialized before us, towers, battlements, and all!” His cheerful blue eyes looked concerned for a moment. “And there wasn’t much question about the presence of the supernatural….”
I flew down to the base of the cliffs to retrieve the carpet, and Paul and Gwennie began loading children. Justinia, with no desire whatsoever to stay in this castle, agreed to pilot it back to Caelrhon. “We should be able to take them all in three or four trips,” said Paul. “Princess Margareta had better be in the first group, or it could provoke an international incident!” He laughed at his own humor. “Yes, that’s right,” to one of the children. “You’ll be back with your mother very soon.”
“So the demon’s already trapped in a pentagram, I gather,” said Elerius, looking at me thoughtfully. “That certainly saves the hard magic of chasing it around the castle. We won’t need the demonology experts from the school; the person who summoned it can just send it back.” He waited expectantly.
The first carpet-load of children took off, awake and laughing now. The king and Gwennie accompanied them, while Theodora stayed with the rest. Antonia was still asleep, curled up on the hard stone floor with her chestnut hair loose across her face.
I turned back to see Elerius still looking at me. I realized slowly that he was wondering just how desperate I had been to rescue her. Evrard himself was just working out that I even had a daughter and seemed shocked-at least in part, I thought, because everyone here but he seemed to know about it.
I took a deep breath. This was going to take all the wizardry we knew between us. “I didn’t summon the demon myself,” I said, not mentioning that in only slightly different circumstances I might have. I went on to tell them how Cyrus had long been working with a demon, ever since his apprenticeship days in the eastern kingdoms with Vlad-who I still hadn’t found-and how Antonia had decided the easiest way to save him from it and to get all the children rescued was to summon a demon herself.
“What did you say she was, five?” said Evrard. “Too young to have to worry about her soul, then. Pretty sharp move, Daimbert!” giving me a punch on the shoulder as though it had all been my idea. “Let’s wake her up and have her return it to hell. If she could lisp out the words to call it she should be able to send it back all right.”
Elerius had known Antonia; Evrard had not. The former had the good taste not to take for granted that there was no problem. He gave me a long, sober look from his tawny hazel eyes. “I swear on all the powers of magic, Daimbert,” he said quietly, “I did not teach her any demonology.”
Evrard looked back and forth between us, realizing there was more going on than he realized. I shook my head. “I didn’t think you had. That’s not what’s bothering me.”