The part of me that was realistic knew that the aura of the saints around the bishop would so terrify the demon that he would refuse to talk to him at all—maybe retreating back to hell, but if so taking Antonia’s soul irretrievably with him.
Before I could say anything to him, I saw past his shoulder a flying dark red shape approaching rapidly: the flying carpet. Justinia dipped it over our heads and Paul and Gwennie waved. “You’re just in time to help out!” called the king. “There are a lot of eager parents waiting back in Caelrhon.”
The carpet shot in through a broken window high above us. Everyone clattered through the gates and up the stairs to join them. It was much easier finding our way through the castle in daylight, and without having to worry about Vlad, than it had been at night, especially with the castle invisible around us.
But it had been, I thought, a cold sweat breaking out down my back, a very long time since Evrard had gone off in search of Vlad . . .
The duchess went straight up to Justinia. “A pigeon-message arrived in Yurt for you about half an hour after you and the wizard flew off. It looked like it had been transferred a number of times: it was from Xantium.”
“Didst thou mark who had sent it?” said Justinia eagerly.
“I did more than that,” said the duchess, slightly shame-faced, producing it from her pocket. “I’m afraid I read it. Well, everyone else who transferred it probably read it too, so why shouldn’t I? It’s from a mage—I can’t pronounce his name—and he says that your grandfather and the Guild have worked out their differences. He’s going to come to Yurt himself to accompany you home.”
“This is joy and gladness!” cried Justinia.
So, I thought, Vlad wouldn’t have gotten anything from the Thieves’ Guild for Justinia anyway. There were distinct disadvantages to traveling slowly and only by night: one’s information could be seriously out of date.
Antonia ran to greet the twins, and Hildegarde swung her high over her head. “You had everybody worried, you scamp!” she said with a great laugh.
“I know,” said Antonia seriously. “I didn’t want to leave town without telling Mother. But I couldn’t help it.”
“That even happens to grownups sometimes,” said Celia, smiling. She turned to Joachim. “Your Holiness, I have been thinking ever since yesterday, when we all left the nunnery so abruptly. I don’t really have the vocation to be a nun. What took me there, I now realize, was only despair. Don’t think—” she added hastily as though the bishop had been going to interrupt, which he hadn’t. “Don’t think that I look down on women who want to devote their days to prayer. But I want to help others, not just worry about my own little sins. I intend to serve God but I will have to do so actively in the world.”
“Are you certain this is your own decision, my daughter?”
Celia smiled again. “Well, it’s certainly not my parents’, if that’s what you’re wondering. You’ve been with us the whole time, so you know they haven’t said anything one way or the other.”
“Though I had to bite my tongue more than once,” said the duchess with a grin. “And the fact that you’re twenty-one now did nothing to stop me. Rather it was the memory of all the things that people used to tell me I couldn’t do.”
“I shall have to write to the abbess,” said Celia more seriously. “She was very kind to me. And, Mother, we really ought to give the nunnery something. It’s not their fault I changed my mind.”
Paul and Gwennie were getting a second load of children onto the carpet, with Hildegarde’s assistance. Justinia, delightedly reading and rereading the letter from Kaz-alrhun, was no help. Most of the children were awake now, and some of the boys suddenly decided it would be exciting to race off and explore the castle rather than traveling home again, even on a flying carpet. Hildegarde’s long reach and her offer to let children who did not run off hold her sword stifled an incipient break.
“Maybe I should rethink those dozen children,” said Paul to Gwennie, prying loose from his leg a sobbing girl who had been more terrified of the carpet than anything else until she saw Hildegarde’s sword. “Even aside from what my queen would think . . .” He looked at her silently a minute. “Though I don’t think I’ll be getting myself a queen for a while. It’s going to take me a very long time to find another woman who could be half as much my friend as you are.” He let it hang, still looking at her, then suddenly turned and shouted to some boys, “Sit down again! Don’t you know how dangerous it can be to stand up on a flying carpet?” This was a curious comment given that they had, for once, been sitting demurely.
“You realize,” the bishop said to Celia, “you still cannot be a priest.”
“I thought you would say that,” she said soberly. “How about visiting the sick as your representative? How about talking to women who are confused and want spiritual guidance but have good reason to feel uncomfortable around men? How about just sitting very quietly in the back of classes in the seminary?”
Joachim lifted an eyebrow. “You seem to have thought of a number of possibilities. I shall have to give the question of seminary classes some consideration. Many of the students are still trying to reconcile themselves to giving up close association with women. . . . But then they will have to deal with women as well as men through their ministry for the rest of their lives,” he added briskly. “Yes. When we are all home again, come talk to me at the cathedral office, and we will see what can be arranged.”
Celia kissed his ring with a barely concealed look of glee and hurried over to finish settling children onto the carpet. At last I had the bishop to myself.
For several minutes, surrounded by people who, if not reaching their hearts’ desire, were at least working out compromises that might temporarily satisfy, I could put the demon out of my mind. But he was still there, trapped in the pentagram in the ruined chapel, not thirty yards away. He still had Antonia’s soul. And unless I did something very soon, my nerve would fail me completely.
“I’d like you to give me the last rites, Joachim,” I said quietly. “Though it’s not going to do much good. Antonia has sold her soul to the devil trying unsuccessfully to save Cyrus from his demon—Theodora can give you the details—and it’s going to take my life and soul together to redeem her.”
He was going to give me an argument. I just knew it. “There’s nothing you can do,” I said, speaking rapidly. “You know priests can’t exorcise people who have summoned demons themselves, only those who have been invaded by free-roaming demons. And you could use the liturgy to drive the demon out of this castle, certainly, but he would have her soul just as certainly.”
Before Joachim could reply—and he looked very ready to do so—I heard a step in the passage leading to the chapel and whirled to see Elerius emerging through the doorway.
He was so haggard he could hardly stand. “Maybe you’d better try again yourself, Daimbert,” he gasped. “That demon intends to drive a hard bargain.” He noticed with vague interest the others who had arrived and then looked back at me from dark-rimmed eyes that had lost all their irony and calculation. “I haven’t given in to his offers, if that’s what you’re wondering. It’s the raw terror, I think, that wears you down, until he hopes you’ll agree to anything just to get away. Watch! I can still walk right up to a bishop.”
He staggered more than walked. “Even Cyrus can walk up to the bishop,” I snapped, not completely sure whether to believe him, then stopped.
“Help me!” a voice echoed down the passage from the chapel. “Help me!” That was Cyrus’s voice.
What could I do? For twenty-five years I had been trying to help mankind, sometimes with limited success but trying. Without even making a conscious choice I flew down the passage into heat and darkness, gritting my teeth against the wave of evil waiting for me. And then I realized that Cyrus was not calling for my help.
“I can’t go on without my powers! Help me get them back!” He was calling to the demon.
I dropped to the
ground just inside the passage from the chapel and leaned my forehead against the stone doorframe. This was it. No matter what Cyrus was trying to talk the demon into, successfully or unsuccessfully, when I went in there to join him I wasn’t going out. I hadn’t gotten the last rites from the bishop, I hadn’t said good-bye again to Theodora, but twice was all I could manage. If I had to face that raw terror and raw evil a third time, I would just have to let Antonia be lost.
“And why should I grant any particular powers to you?” the demon was saying. “It is not as though you still possessed a soul with which to bargain!”
I looked a last time up the passageway, in the direction of daylight and the people I hoped I would never see again, because they, unlike me, would be in heaven. Elerius put his head into the passage but I waved him back, and he retreated, looking relieved.
“But I used to be able to do things!” cried Cyrus. “Good things! I helped children! I rebuilt the high street of Caelrhon, and they loved me for it! And now,” his voice cracking, “the angels won’t listen to me, and my demon is gone, and I can’t do anything!”
Let the demon explain it to him, I thought, trying to take deep breaths to steady myself. The poisonous fumes floating across the room didn’t help.
“You wizards really are difficult to deal with,” said the demon, sounding irritated. “You always try to pin us down with specious protocols and bargains you have no intention of keeping, and then make ridiculous demands. Can’t you understand that the demon who used to help you is no longer here?”
I was barely listening, trying instead to rally what little strength I had left. No more of this non-binding conversation, in which a demon might blithely offer anything. I would force him to accept binding negotiations, in which he would swear by Satan’s name to release Antonia in return for my immediate death and the reception of my soul in hell.
IV
There was a step behind me, and I whirled to see Theodora striding determinedly toward the chapel. She saw me but didn’t stop until I wrapped my arms around her.
“Please, Daimbert,” she said in a very small voice. “The bishop thinks I’m here to talk you out of it. My courage is going to evaporate in about thirty seconds. Let me go.”
I knew immediately what she meant. “Joachim told you? But you can’t! You don’t know the terms for binding negotiations!”
“Then tell me,” she said against my chest, “and tell me quickly. If one of us has to die to save Antonia, it has to be me.”
“No, I can’t let you!” I whispered. “Theodora, my last happy thought before descending into eternal torment is going to be knowing that you and Antonia are safe. I couldn’t go on living if I knew that either of you was in hell.”
“And you think I could if you were there?” she said, almost angrily but also in a low voice. “The demon may be satisfied with my life and not insist on my soul. The bishop and Elerius told me that this demon already knows and distrusts you, but he’s never met me. And listen,” wiggling an arm out of my embrace to cover my mouth, “even in this world you’re a lot more important than I am. I’ve thought all this through, so don’t argue. The whole kingdom of Yurt needs you. The only person who needs me is Antonia, but she can live with you. The king might still be uneasy about a married wizard, but he’d be happy with the wizard’s daughter.”
She didn’t want me to argue so I didn’t, but there was no possible way I could agree. I held her so close that for a moment I imagined we might fuse into a single person. Life, even in a dark and fetid passage, seemed at the moment almost unbearably sweet. “I’ve loved you ever since I met you,” I murmured. “In six years you’ve given me more delight than most people experience in their whole lives. I do wish we might have been married, just so I could say before God and all our friends how much I love you, but it’s still all been worth it.”
She tried to struggle but not very convincingly, and she couldn’t speak with my mouth on hers. In the chapel, Cyrus and the demon were still talking. “Well, maybe there is something you could offer,” the demon said cunningly. “I could at least consider giving you all the powers of black magic again, but first you have to let me out of this pentagram.”
I spun around so fast that I knocked Theodora bruisingly against the doorframe. She gave a brief cry, but the sudden terror in her eyes was not of me. Still holding onto her, I plunged into the chapel.
It was too late. As I raced across the floor Cyrus finished rubbing out one of the main chalk lines. “I have indeed ‘considered’ giving you your powers back,” said the demon to him with a leer that showed all his razor-sharp teeth, “and I have decided not to!” And with a white flash and a smell of brimstone, he vanished.
Cyrus gave a heart-wrenching cry as daylight reasserted itself in the room. No demon in the pentagram meant that the miasma of evil was rapidly draining away from here—and going wherever the demon was hiding now.
I advanced toward Cyrus, slowly now. He was huddled on the floor, his face on his arms, but he looked up as I reached him. I must have looked even worse than I felt for he gave a screech and fled up the passageway.
Theodora and I collapsed where we stood. She rubbed her shoulder absently. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” I said. It seemed so inadequate a comment that she didn’t even respond.
“Does this mean—” she asked instead, not daring to hope.
I shook my head. “It only means we have to have this whole discussion over. Now that the demon is loose there are all sorts of evil tricks it may try—and doubtless will—and it still has Antonia’s soul. We’ll have to negotiate again once we corner it.” As I spoke I wondered if I would have the energy for anything, much less chasing a demon, but I didn’t have much choice. “If it doesn’t want to talk to us that could take days. We’d better get everybody else safely out of here as fast as we can and call for the demonology experts from the school.”
We walked slowly, hand-in-hand, up the passageway. The demonology experts would never let Theodora in on the negotiations, I thought. It was the single bright point.
Voices reached us as walked up the passage, excited and cheerful; I wondered vaguely if I myself had ever felt that way. Only Elerius sat against the wall, his face in his hands. I wondered if he was regretting not taking the demon up on his offer of the leadership of the wizards’ school. But everyone else seemed fully occupied.
The second load of children was gone, and the twins and their parents were busy trying to keep the rest occupied until the carpet returned for its final trip. Theodora took Antonia aside and held her in her arms, not speaking, until the girl started to become restless and wanted to join the other children in running around, but still Theodora held her. “Some of these youngsters are almost as rambunctious as you two were,” said the duchess to her daughters.
They still didn’t realize what was happening in the chapel, and I had no intention of telling them. “Prince Ascelin,” I said, my voice coming out indescribably weary, “could you do me a favor?”
He looked up, extremely weary himself, but nodded.
“Somewhere, probably down in the lower, darker parts of the castle, there’s an ensorcelled frog. Find him. But if you start to smell brimstone at any point or hear bones clattering, get right back here and tell me. The frog may have started turning back into a wizard, so he could be dangerous. I sent Evrard to find him—you remember Evrard, the red-headed wizard of Caelrhon—but he’s not returned.”
“I’ll go, Father,” said Hildegarde, jumping up. “You did all the tracking but I haven’t done anything yet this trip.” She hurried happily away before either Ascelin or I could say anything. He took two steps after her but then turned back with a smile. “I think Hildegarde can manage a frog on her own, even an ensorcelled one.”
Joachim lifted his eyebrows at me from across the room, where he stood a little distance away from the rest. I walked slowly over to him. Cyrus lay on his face at the bishop’s feet.
“All I ever wanted to do,” th
e Dog-Man choked out between sobs, “was to be recognized and admired for doing well. When I realized how evil my master was I decided to break away from him and help little children to make up for killing Daimbert, which of course I had promised my master to do. I didn’t mean to do magic in the guise of religion. That’s why originally I avoided you when the people of Caelrhon started to talk of my doing miracles. But when I finally met you and realized that if I became as pure as you I really could do real miracles, and when the angels told me I had restored the burned street—”
“You have sinned, my son,” said Joachim gravely, “and sinned grievously. You have fallen through your pride and false belief that you can become truly good through your own, unaided human efforts. But—”
“I’ll say he’s sinned,” I growled, not caring if I was interrupting a confession. “He’s just let a demon loose. And it’s still got Antonia’s soul.”
“But God always listens to the prayers of a contrite heart,” the bishop continued as though he had not heard me. “He who sent His own Son to die for our sins will not forget us, if we are truly penitent and seek the redemption He offers.” I decided not to mention that Joachim himself had once told me that someone who sold his soul to the devil would not be saved until the devil himself was redeemed, at the end of infinite time.
“I want to make restitution for all of it,” Cyrus babbled. “For kidnapping the children, for my pride, for attacking Daimbert—even if he did have it coming!—for endangering sweet Antonia, the dearest of little girls.” I didn’t like the way it sounded on his tongue, even though I agreed with the sentiment. “If I can only become worthy of you again, Holy Father—”
“Do not try to be worthy of me,” said the bishop sternly, “a sinning mortal like yourself. Prepare yourself rather to accept God’s grace, which He brings to all of us though none of us are deserving.”
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