Daughter of Magic

by C. Dale Brittain

  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.”

  Elerius nodded slowly. “If someone has sold his or her soul, the only chance to get it back is through negotiation, before rather than after the demon returns to hell.”

  Evrard wrinkled his forehead in surprise. “Aren’t the two of you getting a little overexcited here? Wizardry doesn’t worry about people’s souls. And even if she didn’t get off for being so young, she’d still have seventy years or so to worry about it. And—”

  Before he had a chance to tell me reassuringly that she would probably damn herself a dozen different ways in the next seventy years anyway, Evrard found himself propelled backwards hard and fast through the air. He hit the wall and subsided slowly.

  “All right, all right, I get the hint,” he said good-naturedly.

  “Daimbert!” said Theodora, who had been following our conversation from a little distance away.

  But that hadn’t been my magic. That had been Elerius.

  We sat quietly, close together, our eyes locked. “Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Why are you trying to help me?” In part I realized I was stalling; as long as Antonia was asleep, as long as the demon down in the ruined chapel was imprisoned in the pentagram, things could not get any worse than they already were. But in part I wanted to understand.

  “We all take oaths to help humanity,” he said slowly. “A little girl is part of humanity. But there is of course more, Daimbert, as you and I know. If we called the school, the demonology experts would doubtless tell us that the theoretical danger to a girl’s soul, a danger they would have to discuss with the priests to assess properly—which they have no intention of doing—is nothing compared to the very real danger of a demon loose in the world. Back to hell with it at once, the school’s masters would tell us, before it breaks out of the pentagram, and if one girl is sacrificed it’s still worth it.”

  The castle was quiet around us. The children dozed again while waiting, and the only sounds came from Cyrus, who sat a short distance from us, his head in his hands and muttering. Evrard and Theodora were listening but could have been miles away. “That sounds like the kind of logic that would appeal to you, Elerius,” I said. “You always claim to be working for the greater good of humanity, even if a few standards or a few people have to be sacrificed along the way.”

  He was not insulted. “I am speaking openly, Daimbert. I know perfectly well that in trying to help Antonia—and she is a delightful little girl, one that anyone of any sensitivity would want to help—I am not following the school’s standards. But there is a higher good here. I have spoken to you of this before. Someday, probably sooner than they think, the masters of the school will have to step aside for younger leadership. It’s no secret that everyone assumes—including me—that I shall be part of that leadership. And when that time comes I will want your help.”

  I looked away, not able to meet his calculating gaze any longer. “You said all this once before, but I would have thought it would be clear now that I could never join the school faculty. They don’t want wizards who have families.”

  “Because such a wizard would let his judgment be swayed by personal considerations?” said Elerius with half a smile. “It is a good policy, but I may have to make an exception here. Certainly I will not now tell the school what you yourself have managed remarkably well to keep hidden from them. By the time I assume the leadership I will be in a position to make my own rules. I don’t know what it is about you, Daimbert. Your grasp of academic magic is scarcely better than Evrard’s”—the red-headed wizard cringed—“and yet somehow you are always in the right place at the right time.”

  I seemed at the moment to be in the wrong place at entirely the wrong time, but I didn’t interrupt.

  “And you have imagination and a flair for improvisation, and you have a daughter who knows more magic at five than most first-year wizardry students—someone who, if she is not perverted by a demon, could be very useful to organized wizardry herself when just a little older. Yet you have always been suspicious of me. Call this calculation if you like, but I want your friendship. Trying to save Antonia is but a small price to pay for that friendship.”

  I was not quite persuaded yet. “You realize,” I said slowly, “that if these negotiations go the way I think they may, I won’t even be around to help you in your plans and projects.”

  “That is why you need me now, Daimbert: another wiza
rd to give you a chance to get both of you out of this alive. Unless your mistrust of me weighs heavier than your fears for Antonia?”

  “I’d deal with the devil himself to save her,” I said, looking at him quickly and then away. “And it looks as though I will.”

  We woke Antonia gently. She didn’t want to wake up and kept digging her knuckles into her eyes and trying to turn away from the light. But when she spotted Elerius she sat up in my lap and gave him a broad smile. “I remembered everything you taught me about frogs,” she said with enthusiasm.

  I myself had nearly been forced to leave the wizards’ school because of all my trouble with those frogs in Zahlfast’s transformations practical. She had to get this ability from Theodora.

  “So that was you who turned the man into a frog?” Elerius asked. We had sent Evrard off to scour the castle for Vlad.

  “That’s right. He really was a bad man. After I’d summoned the demon he came running into the room where we all were, very excited. I think he was looking for the Dog-Man. He had been very quiet and pretend-polite when I saw him before, so it made me even more scared because he was shouting and threatening— That’s when I turned him into a frog.” She smiled happily. “I think he was surprised.”

  “I’m sure he was,” said Theodora from across the room. “I still can’t do transformations myself.” So the Lord knew where she had gotten this ability.

  And the devil knew where she would get her next startling abilities if we couldn’t reclaim her soul.

  “But I want to hear more about how you summoned the demon,” said Elerius gently.

  Antonia would clearly have preferred to discuss the frog some more, but she reluctantly agreed to provide details. “When he appeared in the pentagram I told him I wanted a dem—a demastr—a demonstration. The book said sometimes they would do one for free. And I said for my demonstration he should catch the other demon and make him go back to hell.” She laughed. “That’s like a joke—demon, demonstration.”

  “And what did he say?” I said, abruptly hoping against hope. Maybe Evrard was right, and I’d gotten myself all worked up for nothing.

  “He said that was too hard to be a demonstration. That’s when I told him I was Mistress of the Pentagrams and he had to do it whether he wanted to or not. He did, too,” she said, pleased at the memory of wielding such power. “I had to make an opening in the pentagram to let him out, but I told him I only did it if he promised to come right back. I made the second pentagram to hold the demon he caught while I was waiting for them.” She sighed. “That was probably the worst part of all, with two demons right there in the room, before the Dog-Man’s disappeared and I was able to redraw the line to keep mine in.”

  Elerius and I exchanged glances. We might be able to persuade the demon to return to hell with no one’s soul, to convince him that all of this fell into the category of demonstrating demonic powers before reaching agreement on a soul’s sale. I doubted it.

  “Don’t you think,” suggested Antonia, “that now that the Dog-Man doesn’t have a demon any more he’ll be happier?” Cyrus was making low whimpering noises at the moment. It was a nice thought on Antonia’s part, but it hadn’t worked: with the demon back in hell he had simultaneously lost his power to do black magic in this world and any hope for the redemption of his soul in the next.

  I stood up, clenched and unclenched my fists, and walked over to Theodora. I had been kissing her for over a minute before she realized that this public display of affection meant that I was saying good-bye.

  II

  “Should we ask Cyrus for his help?” asked Elerius. “He’s certainly had experience dealing with a demon.” He paused. “I never have.”

  We both looked toward Cyrus. The Dog-Man, the miracle-worker with the key to the city of Caelrhon, the failed seminary student, was huddled in on himself: a broken man without the demon who had long accompanied him. “Not unless we think we could pass off his soul in trade,” I said in disgust. “But at this point I doubt even the devil would want it if it wasn’t long since his.”

  “You and me, then,” said Elerius, and we started down the passage toward the ruined chapel. Antonia reluctantly accompanied us, holding both our hands. Either one of us could have sent the demon back to hell at once since it was already imprisoned in a pentagram, but we needed Antonia to start the conversation if we were going to try to negotiate.

  At the last minute Cyrus looked up and rose to slink along behind us, but he had the good sense to stop well short of the chapel. A hundred reasons why it would be much better to put this off struck me, but I kept on walking, teeth tight together to keep them from chattering. Knowing the feeling of raw terror was about to strike made it no easier when it did.

  The chapel was pitch black, even though outside the windows it was now early morning. The only light came from the demon himself. He was alive, glowing, yet essentially motionless. Our feet slowed and dragged as we crossed the room toward the pentagram. Antonia faced the demon squarely, visibly struggling to keep from sobbing again. He gave her a wide and evil grin, as if she were a dainty morsel he was about to consume.

  “By Satan, by Beelzebub,” she brought out between trembling lips, and my heart wrenched to hear her have to say it, “by Lucifer and Mephistopheles.”

  At these words of summons he abruptly became twice as alive, twisting in a veil of smoke within the pentagram. “I am yours to obey, Antonia,” he said pleasantly—or his best attempt. “What can I bring you? What enemies of yours can I destroy?”

  “I don’t want anything,” she said stubbornly, keeping her eyes on the floor. “But you have to talk to these wizards.”

  Not quite the language recommended by the Diplomatica Diabolica, but it would do. “Quick, get back to your mother,” I whispered, giving her a push.

  “But I have to help you, Wizard,” she whispered back, retreating only a short distance. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Theodora half way down the corridor and motioned to her.

  But before I could make sure Antonia was well on her way the demon spoke again. And he spoke to me.

  “Daimbert, what a surprise! Are you back to take me up on some of the offers you rejected last time we met?”

  The final scraps of my courage vanished. Just as I had feared. Thousands of demons in hell, and Antonia had summoned this one. Maybe Yurt was his territory just as it was mine.

  The demon fixed me with a malevolent eye. “Before we begin,” he said conversationally in his high voice, “you’ll have to let me out of this pentagram so I can work for you. I can take your soul, of course, if you’d like to hand it over, but I assume you’ll want some benefits in return? I thought so. They usually do.”

  “No ‘benefits,’ Demon,” I said harshly, trying to make myself furious because it was the only alternative to abject terror. “You’re staying right there until we’ve finished negotiating.”

  “But I know someone who would like something from me,” said the demon coyly—or as coyly as something red and bulging could manage. “Antonia,” he called, “come erase the pentagram, even just a single chalk mark as you did before, and I’ll bring you something you’ll really like. Haven’t you always wanted to see a dragon?”

  “A dragon? Really?” She turned and took half a step toward us, then looked fully at the enormous mouth and fiery eyes and raced up the passage toward her mother.

  I let my breath out all at once and had trouble catching it again. A good thing this demon didn’t have experience trying to be tempting to little girls while trapped inside a pentagram.

  “We have come to bargain with you,” I said as firmly as I could. “Let us begin with non-binding conversation.” I glanced toward Elerius, wondering when he was going to add something, and saw him trembling hard. In some ways that was the most terrifying thing I had seen yet.

  “Non-binding conversation,” agreed the demon good-naturedly, showing a remarkable number of pointed teeth. “That way you can ask me for whatever you want withou
t worrying about the results.” This was actually not accurate, but the Diplomatica Diabolica did make it clear that one was less likely to be tricked by a demon if the conversation had been declared non-binding.

  “You say you want to negotiate,” continued the demon, “but you have, I fear, caught me in a position of weakness.” He gestured at the pentagram with an enormous hand. “You see me imprisoned here. If you and all your friends just walked away, I wouldn’t be able to play any of my little tricks that seem to annoy you so much, I wouldn’t be able to whisper suggestions in Antonia’s ear, and, in short, you could forget I even existed! So your coming around talking of negotiations suggests you’d actually like something from the devil but are just too shy to ask.”

  “Not at all,” I said sternly. So far, so good. The temptation to leave him in the ruined chapel and run lasted for only a second. “You know you’d like nothing better than to be left right here.” I glanced surreptitiously at the pentagram; it appeared well-drawn, without flaws. “Sooner or later the chalk would wash away, or dry up and blow away, or someone would come exploring the castle and break the chalk lines without realizing the danger. Leaving you here would only postpone the problem—or make it a hundred times worse if we had to chase you and capture you. I’m not going to walk away and leave you here, and I’m not going to let you out. And I’m also not going to ask you for favors in this world.”

  “If you keep on rejecting what I could offer you before I even offer it,” said the demon with a flash of fire from his eyes, “you risk getting nothing at all!”

  “Fine,” I said shortly. “I only want Antonia’s safety.”

  The negotiations seemed to have begun. “Now, you claim to want no benefits from me,” said the demon, settling himself comfortably in the center of the pentagram, “but you and I both know that’s not true. You’d like to be a better wizard, you’d like to find a way to combine marriage to a witch with continued association in organized wizardry—and, oh yes, I don’t want to forget, you’d like some assurance that your daughter has not yet ‘lost’ her soul, as your so-called religion so quaintly puts it.” He grinned evilly. “This sounds to me like a lot to expect in return for one soul that’s already fairly well stained!”