The Oathbound

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Because it isn’t my curse. I don’t give a damn whether it’s broken or not. I told you I’d summon a demon—I didn’t say I’d bind him. That takes more skill—and certainly more wil—than I possess anymore. My bargain with you was simple—one demon, one bottle of Lethe. Once it’s here, you can do your own haggling.”

  The man smiled; it was far more of a grimace than an expression of pleasure. “All right, old fraud. Work your spell. I’d sooner trust my wits than yours anyway.”

  The mage returned to his scribbling, filling the entire area lit by the lanthorn suspended overhead with odd little drawings and scrawls that first pulled, then repelled the eyes. Finally he seemed satisfied, gathered his stained, ragged robes about him with care, and picked a dainty path through the maze of chalk. He stood up straight just on the border of the inscriptions, raised his arms high, and intoned a peculiarly resonant chant.

  At that moment, he bordered on the impressive—though the effect was somewhat spoiled by the water dripping off the beams of the ceiling, falling onto his balding head and running off the end of his long nose.

  The last syllable echoed from the dank walls. The man-woman waited in anticipation.

  Nothing happened.

  “Well?” the stranger said with slipping patience, “Is that all there is to it?”

  “I told you it would take time—perhaps as much as an hour. Don’t fret yourself, you’ll have your demon.”

  The mage cast longing glances at the shadow-shrouded bottle on the floor beside his visitor as he mopped his head with one begrimed, stained sleeve.

  The woman-man noted the direction his attention was laid, thought for a moment, weighing the mage’s efforts, and smiled mirthlessly. “All right, old fraud—I guess you’ve earned it. Come and get it.”

  The mage didn’t wait for a second invitation, or give the man-woman a chance to take the reluctant consent back. He scrambled forward, tripping over the tattered edges of his robes, and sagged to his knees as he snatched the bottle greedily.

  He had it open in a trice, and began sucking at the neck like a calf at the udder, eyes closing and face slackening in mindless ecstacy. Within moments he was near-collapsing to the floor, half-empty bottle cradled in his arms, oblivion in his eyes.

  His visitor walked over with a softly sinister tread and prodded him with a toe. “You’d better have worked this right, you old bastard,” he muttered, “Or you won’t be waking—”

  His last words were swallowed in the sudden roar, like the howl of a tornado, that rose without warning behind him. As he spun to face the area of inscriptions, that whole section of floor burst into sickening blood-red and hellish green flame; flame that scorched his face, though it did nothing to harm the beams of the ceiling. He jumped back, frightened in spite of his bold resolutions to fear nothing.

  But before he touched the ground again, a monstrous, clawed hand formed itself out of the flame and slapped him back against the rear wall of the cellar. A second hand, the color of molten bronze, reached for the oblivious mage.

  A face worse than anything from the realm of nightmare materialized from the flame between the two hands. A neck, arms, and torso followed. The hands brought the mage within the fire—the visitor coughed on the stench of the old man’s robes and beard scorching. There was no doubt that the fire was real, no matter that it left the ceiling intact. The mage woke from his drugged trance, screaming in mindless pain and terror. The smell of his flesh and garments burning was spreading through the cellar, and reached even to where the man-woman lay huddled against the dank wall; he choked and gagged at the horrible reek.

  And the thing in the flames calmly bit the mage’s head off, like a child with a gingerbread mannikin.

  It was too much for even the man-woman to endure. He rolled to one side and puked up the entire contents of his stomach. When he looked up again, eyes watering and the taste of bile in his mouth, the thing was staring at him, licking the blood off its hands.

  He swallowed as his gorge rose again, and waited for the thing to take him for dessert.

  “You smell of magic.” The thing’s voice was like a dozen bells ringing; bells just slightly out-of-tune with one another. It made the man-woman nauseous and disoriented, but he swallowed again and tried to answer.

  “I ... have a curse.”

  “So I see. I assume that was why I was summoned here. Well, unless we enter into an agreement, I have no choice but to remain here or return to the Abyssal Planes. Talk to me, puny one; I do not desire the latter.”

  “How—why did you—the old man—”

  “I dislike being coerced, and your friend made the mistake of remaining within reach of the circle. But I have, as yet, no quarrel with you. I take it you wish to be rid of what you bear. Will you bargain to have your curse broken? What can you offer me?”

  “Gold?”

  The demon laughed, molten-gold eyes slitted. “I have more than that in mind.”

  “Sacrifice? Death?”

  “I can have those intangibles readily enough on my own—starting with yours. You are within my reach also.”

  The man-woman thought frantically. “The curse was cast by one you have reason to hate.”

  “This should make me love you?”

  “It should make us allies, at least. I could offer revenge—”

  “Now you interest me.” The demon’s eyes slitted. “Come closer, little man.”

  The man-woman clutched his rags about himself and ventured nearer, step by cautious step.

  “A quaint curse. Why?”

  “To make me a victim. It succeeded. It was not intended that I survive the experience.”

  “I can imagine.” A cruel smile parted the demon’s lips. “A pretty thing you are; didn’t care for being raped, hmm?”

  The man-woman’s face flamed. He felt the demon inside of his mind, picking over all of his memories of the past year, lingering painfully over several he’d rather have died than seen revealed. Anger and shame almost replaced his fear.

  The demon’s smile grew wider. “Or did you begin to care for it after all?”

  “Get out of my mind, you bastard!” He stifled whatever else he had been about to scream, wondering if he’d just written his own death-glyph.

  “I think I like you, little man. How can you give me revenge?”

  He took a deep breath, and tried to clear his mind. “I know where they are, the sorceress and her partner. I know how to lure them here—and I have a plan to take them when they come—”

  “I have many such plans—but I did not know how to bring them within my grasp. Good.” The demon nodded. “I think perhaps we have a bargain. I shall give you the form you need to make you powerful against them, and I shall let you bring them here. Come, and I will work the magic to change you, and free myself with the sealing of our bargain. I must touch you—”

  The man-woman approached the very edge of the flames, cautious and apprehensive in spite of the demon’s assurance that he would bargain. He still did not entirely trust this creature—and he more than certainly still feared its power. The demon reached out with one long, molten-bronze talon, and briefly caressed the side of his face.

  The stranger screamed in agony, for it felt as if that single touch had set every nerve afire. He wrapped his arms over his head and face, folded slowly at the waist and knees, still crying out; and finally collapsed to the floor, huddled in his rags, quivering. Had there been anything left in his stomach, he would have lost it then.

  The demon waited, as patient as a snake, drinking in the tingles of power and the heady aura of agony that the man was exuding. He bent over the shaking pile of rags in avid curiosity, waiting for the moment when the pain of transformation would pass. His expression was oddly human—the same expression to be seen on the face of a cruel child watching the gyrations of a beetle from which it has pulled all the legs but one.

  The huddled, trembling creature at the edge of his flames slowly regained control of itself
. The quivering ceased; rags rose a little, then moved again with more purpose. Long, delicate arms appeared from the huddle, and pushed away from the floor. The rags fell away, and the rest of the stranger was revealed.

  The visitor raised one hand to her face, then froze at the sight of that hand. She pushed herself into a more upright position, frowning and shaking her head; she examined the other hand and felt of her face as her expression changed to one of total disbelief. Frantic now, she tore away the rags that shrouded her chest and stared in horror at two lovely, lily-white—and very female—breasts.

  “No—” she whispered, “—it’s not possible—”

  “Not for a human perhaps,” the demon replied with faint irony, “But I am not subject to a human’s limitations.”

  “What have you done to me?” she shrieked, even her voice having changed to a thin soprano.

  “I told you, I would give you a form that would make you powerful against them. The sorceress’ geas prevents her from allowing any harm to befall a woman—so I merely made you woman in reality, to match the woman you were in illusion. They will be powerless against you now, your enemies and mine—”

  “But I am not a woman! I can’t be a woman!” She looked around her for something to throw at the demon’s laughing face, and finding nothing, hurled curses instead. “Make me a man again, damn you! Make me a man!”

  “Perhaps. Later, perhaps. When you have earned a boon from me. You still retain your strength and your weapon’s expertise. Only the swordswoman could be any danger to you now, and the sorceress will be bound to see that she cannot touch you. My bargain now, bandit.” The demon smiled still wider. “Serve me, and it may well be I shall make you a man again. But your new body serves me far better than your old would have. And meanwhile—”

  He drew a swirl of flame about himself. When he emerged from it, he had assumed the shape of a handsome human man, quite naked; one whose beauty repulsed even as it attracted. He was still larger than a normal human in every regard, but he no longer filled a quarter of the cellar. He stepped confidently across the boundaries of the circle, reached forward and gathered the frozen woman to him. She struggled wildly; he delighted in her struggles.

  “Oh, you make a charming wench, little toy; you play the part as if you had been born to it! A man would have sought to slay me, but you think only to flee. And I do not think a man would have guessed my intentions, but you have, haven’t you, little one. I think I can teach you some of the pleasures of being a female, as well as the fears, hmm? Perhaps I can make you forget you ever were anything else—”

  His laughter echoed through the entire house—but the rest of the inhabitants did no more than check the fastenings of their doors and return to the safety of their beds, hoping that whatever it was that was laughing would overlook them.

  With another gesture, the demon transformed the bleak basement into a setting from a whore’s nightmare; with his other hand he held his victim crushed against his chest while he reached into her mind with his.

  She gasped in shock and dismay, feeling her will crumble before his, feeling him take over her senses, and feeling those senses rousing as he wished them to. He ran his hands over her body, stripping away the rags until she was as nude as he, and in the wake of his hands her skin burned with fever she could not repress.

  As the last remains of her will fell to dust before his onslaught, her body, too, betrayed her; responding as the demon desired.

  And at the end, she did, indeed, forget for that one moment what it had been like to be a man.

  Kethry twined a lock of amber hair around her fingers, leaned over her cup and hid a smile. She found the side of herself that her swordswoman-partner was revealing disarming, and quite delightful—but she doubted Tarma would appreciate her amusement.

  The common room of their inn was far from being crowded, and the atmosphere was relaxed and convivial. This was really the best such place they’d stayed in for months; it was well-lit, the food was excellent, the beds comfortable and free of vermin, the prices not outrageously extortionate. And Tarma was certainly enjoying the company.

  As she had been every night for the past three, Tarma was embroiled in a religious discussion—a discussion, not an argument; although the two participants often waxed passionate, neither ever found offense or became angered during their disagreements.

  Her fellow-scholar was a plump little priest of Anathei of the Purifying Flame. He was certainly a full priest, and might even (from his cultured accent) be a higher prelate, yet he wore only the same soft, dark brown, unornamented robes of the least of his order’s acolytes. He was clean-shaven and quite bald, and his cheerful brown eyes seemed to regard everything and everyone with the open-hearted joy of an unspoiled child. No straitlaced ascetic, he—he and Tarma had been trading rounds of good wine; tonight reds, last night whites.

  Tarma looked even more out of place seated across from him than she did with her sorceress-partner. She towered over him by a head, her every movement proclaiming she knew very well how to manage that sword slung on her back, her hawklike face and ice-blue eyes holding a controlled intensity that could easily have been frightening or intimidating to a stranger. With every article of her weaponry and earth-brown clothing so precisely arranged that what she wore might almost have been some kind of uniform, and her coarse black hair braided and coiled with militant neatness, she looked as much the priest or more than he—half—barbarian priest of some warlike order, that is. She hardly looked as if she could have anything in common with the scholarly little priest.

  She hardly looked literate. Certainly no one would expect erudite philosophy from her lips, not with the warlike accoutrements she bore; yet she had been quoting fully as many learned tomes as the priest—to his evident delight and Kethry’s mild surprise. It would appear that service as a Sworn One did not exclude knowledge as a possible arena of combat. Kethry had long known that Tarma was literate, and in more than one language, but she had never before guessed that her partner was so erudite.

  Kethry herself was staying out of the conversation for the moment. This evening she and her partner had had an argument, the first serious disagreement of their association. She wanted to give Tarma a chance to cool down—and to mull over what she’d said.

  Because while it had been unpleasant, it was also, unfortunately, nothing less than the truth.

  “You’re not going out there alone, are you?” Tarma had asked doubtfully, when Kethry had voiced her intention to prowl the rather dubious quarter that housed the gypsy-mages. Kethry had heard that one of her old classmates had taken up with the wanderers, and was looking for news of him.

  “Why not?” she asked, a little more sharply than she had intended.

  “Because it’s no place for a woman alone.”

  “Dammit, Tarma, I’m not just any woman! I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself!”

  “Look—even I can get taken out by a gang of street toughs.”

  “In the name of the gods, Tarma, leave me alone for once! You’re smothering me! I can’t go anywhere or do anything without you rushing to wrap me in gauze, like a piece of china—”

  She’d stopped then, appalled by the stricken look on her partner’s face.

  Then, like lightning, the expression changed. “You’re imagining things,” Tarma replied flatly.

  “All right—have it your way.” Kethry was too tired to fight with her. “You will anyway. Any time you hear something you don’t like, you deny it and shut down on me—just like you’re doing now.”

  And she had turned on her heel and led the way into the inn’s common room, ignoring the fact that Tarma looked as if the sorceress had just slapped her.

  The voice of the little priest penetrated her musing.

  “Nay,” he said. “Nay, I cannot agree. Our teaching is that evil is not a thing of itself; it is simply good that has not been brought to see the truth. We hold that even a demon can be redeemed—that even the most vile of
such creatures could become a blessed spirit if someone with time and patience were to give him the proper redirection.”

  “Always supposing your proselytizer managed to keep from being devoured or ripped to shreds before he got a single word out,” Tarma croaked wryly, draping herself more comfortably over the edge of the worn wooden table. “He’d better be either agile or one damned powerful mage! No, I can’t agree with you, my friend. Aside from what Magister Tenavril has to say about them, I’ve dealt with a few demons up close and on a quite personal basis. I have to side with the Twin Suns school; the demonic beings must have been created purely of evil forces. It isn’t just the Abyssal dwellers that are bad clear through, either; I’ve known a few humans who could pass for demons. Evil is real and a reality in and of itself. It likes being that way. It wouldn’t choose to be anything else. And it has to be destroyed whenever a body gets the chance, or it’ll spread. Evil is easier to follow than good, and we humans like the easy path.”

  “I cannot agree. Those who are evil simply don’t know what good is.”

  “Oh, they know, all right; and they reject it to follow pure selfishness.”

  “I—” the little priest blinked in the candlelight.

  “Can you give me even one instance of great evil turned to good once good has been pointed out to it?”

  “Uh—” he thought hard for a moment, then smiled triumphantly. “The Great Demon-Wolf of Hastandell!”

  “Oh, that’s too easy. Warrl!”

  A shadow in a corner of the hearth uncoiled itself, and proved to be no shadow at all, but the kyree, whose shoulder came nearly as high as Tarma’s waist. Closer inspection would reveal that Warrl’s body was more like that of one of the great hunting-cats of the plains than a lupine, built for climbing and short bursts of high speed, not the endurance of a true wolf. But the fur and head and tail were sufficiently wolflike that this was how Tarma generally thought of him.

  He padded over to the table and benches shared by the ill-assorted trio. The conversation of all the other occupants of the inn died for a moment as he moved, but soon picked back up again. After three days, the patrons of the inn were growing a little more accustomed to the monster beast in their midst. Tarma had helped that along by coaxing him to demean himself with a few tricks to entertain them the first night of their stay. Now, while the sight of him still unsettled a few of them, they had come to regard him as harmless. They had no notion of his true nature; Tarma and Kethry had tactfully refrained from revealing that he was just as intelligent as any of them—and quite probably could beat any one of them at chess.