A Bad Spell in Yurt - Wizard of Yurt - 1 (26 page)

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 wil . 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 cel ars. "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 al 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 cel s.

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 cel ars with terror, he was close to succeeding.

I stopped, trying to steady my ragged breathing. I had no idea how much further the cel ars went. The absolute stil ness 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 frantical y, rushed up the corridor toward me. Their wings flapped al 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. Al I had to do was keep moving until the demon showed himself. Now the air was thick with scurrying noises, with unidentifiable reptilian cal s, 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.

I braced my back against the stone wal 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 cel s.

A white form moved in the cel 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 il usion, 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 wal , 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 il usion, given voice and propel ed by stronger magic than mine, or if it were a real skeleton, given life by black magic. Al I knew was that the demon apparently did not intend to kil me by proxy. Either he stil hoped to frighten me away, or he was saving me to kil himself.

This thought gave me the confidence to glance around at al the other barred cel s. 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 chil as an il usion never did. These apparitions might not be planning to kil me, but they could be drawing my soul toward hel with theirs.

I pushed away from the wal and staggered onward. Maybe I was being presumptuous, I thought, to try to save the Lady Maria's soul when she herself had wil ingly sold it away. Maybe I could keep the cel ars 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 kil ed the king and then nearly kil ed us al 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 al 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 careful y, 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 cal ing out, "Who's there?" I knew perfectly wel 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 cel ars. I walked warily into the room. The wal s 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 lul me into complacency by appearing smal , 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 cal ed me Wizard, it was extremely startling to have someone use my name again, especial y 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 ful y entitled, I offer you a life."

A laugh forced me to open my eyes again. The demon was tal er 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, shal we talk for a moment?"

"Non-binding conversation," I said, choosing the correct words of the Hidden Language careful y. 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 formal y. He had continued to grow as we spoke, and he was now the tal , 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!"

I

"You want me out of your castle, Daimbert," said the demon conversational y, 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 wil ing to consider another castle. You know I won't go back to hel 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 ful y 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 wil appreciate it if you kil 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'l leave Yurt and never bother you again."

"But where wil 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'l 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 actual y engage a demon.

"A demon loose in the world is too dangerous," I said. "And the Lady Maria's soul would stil 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.

"I can see the future. Even if you romantical y throw your life away for her, in two years she wil commit a mortal sin so great that even the saints wil 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 fel 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 wel on the way to sel ing 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 tel ing 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 wil ."

The demon dismissed this. "If you'd rather believe a priest than someone who has actual y seen what wil 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 al ."

"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-fel owship. "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 al 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 wil fal into mortal sin in a short time anyway. Instead, if you're determined to die, maybe you and I can agree on something that wil 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."