"Sepwin is gone," Everand said as soon as his feet touched the stone floor of the workroom, "and I know where the blame lies. I command you to kill him!"

"Sepwin, my lord?" murmured Regneniel.

"No. Cray Ormoru!"

The demon bowed very low. "My lord ... that may not be an easy task. He has several demon companions, and I am only one, poor and weak."

"I want no arguments from you, creature. Poor and weak you may be, but you are clever. Find a way!"

"My lord, you do ask too much ... "

"I said find a way! Immediately!"

With a final bow, Regneniel leaped out the window into the sky.

Cray's wooden chair fit him as if it had been molded to his body. He sat in the great hall of his living castle, a broad, vaulting chamber that would have pleased any lord of the ordinary realm. Sepwin was beside him, and Gildrum in human form, Elrelet, and Leemin completed the circle.

"I'm not surprised you couldn't find the soul," Cray was saying "Now that I've met the man I'm convinced that it's better hidden than that. He'd never chance a stronger sorcerer stealing it from him.

Taranol for example."

"Then where does that leave us?" asked Sepwin.

"With an enemy. He hates me, that's certain, and he probably doesn't feel much different toward you.

We can't assume he won't try to harm one or the other of us. Especially you, Feldar, for you've no sorcery to protect you. And however weak his personal powers may be, he does command a demon I think it would be best if we didn't leave these walls without bodyguards."

"That's easy enough," said Elrelet. "I know any number of demons willing to protect you and any friend of yours Cray." "But the soul," said Sepwin.

Cray sighed. "We'll have to force him to tell us where it is, somehow."

"But how?"

"I'm not the only person capable of thought in this room. Don't any of you have suggestions?"

"I have a suggestion," said Gildrum. "The only possible suggestion."

Cray frowned.

"You'll have to kill him, Cray. If you try to force him, somehow, to tell you where the soul is, he only has to torture her a bit to make you leave him alone. I'm sure he knows that. I'm sure he understands quite well why you want her soul. And how worthless that soul would be to you if she were dead."

Cray pushed himself out of his chair and turned his back on the others. "You're speaking of a battle royal, Gildrum. He is a sorcerer, and he has his defenses. The spell about his walls, the demon, and his personal powers, whatever they may be. It would not be a simple matter. And he has human servants with him inside those walls-they would be endangered."

"I can't deny that," said Gildrum. "But perhaps protecting them would sap his strength. That would be to your advantage."

"Hah," muttered Sepwin. "He wouldn't protect them any more than you'd protect a stone. He'd line them up in front of him to catch the first blows."

"Then they'd quickly be out of your way," said Gildrum.

Cray looked at the demon over his shoulder. "Sometimes I have to remind myself that you were born in Fire and not of any human mother, Gildrum. Just at this moment, it's hard for me to reconcile the man who loves my mother with the demon who would so blithely kill a dozen innocent people."

Gildrum shrugged. "I love your mother, and I love you, and I want what she and you want. I am willing to kill for that, yes. I think you'd find a goodly num-ber of human men who would do the same for those they love."

"I love Aliza," said Cray. "And I would killhim for her sake, if I had to. But how many innocent lives is my love worth? How can I sweep them aside as if they were fallen leaves? They are people." He looked down at the rough-grained wooden floor. "No, I can't do it. We'll have to wait until he leaves his castle.

Feldar, have you any notion of when that might be?"

Sepwin shook his head. "I wasn't precisely his confi-dant. I understood from the others, though, that he does not leave very often."

"So-there will have to be a watch on the castle at all times, and we must be ready to strike at a mo-ment's notice." Cray passed a hand across his forehead. "We'll need an army of demons for all of this. A standing army."

"It can be arranged," said Elrelet, "though some will grumble a bit." "If I were Everand," said Gildrum, "I wouldn't come out at all until my sorceress slave was ready to shield me from all possible attack. He knows he's made an enemy in you, Cray; he'd be a fool to think you'd given up. Waiting may be a terrible mistake."

"You'd attack now."

"I would throw everything I could muster at that castle. Trees. Rocks. Wild animals. Bewilder him.

Attack in so many different ways at once that he can't guess what to do first."

"And his servants?"

"Hope that they know where to hide until the battle is over. It's a big castle."

"Ah, Gildrum, you tear my heart!"

"You've never even seen these people."

"Does that make them less real?" Cray turned toface him. "If my mother were among them, you wouldn't speak this way."

Gildrum rose from his chair and crossed the small space that separated him from Cray. He put his hands on Cray's shoulders and looked into his eyes. "The decision is yours, Cray. I will abide by it."

Cray's face was bleak. "I feel helpless. Help me."

"You know," said Sepwin, "he does let them out sometimes. Some of them. To hunt. We could carry them off one by one as they leave."

Cray's expression brightened. "Yes, we could."

"Of course, he'd probably become suspicious after a while."

"And he'd set Regneniel to fetch game instead," said Gildrum. Suddenly, he cocked his head to one side and frowned, as if he had heard some unusual sound, or as if someone had called to him from far away.

He let go of Cray's shoulders and turned slowly away from him. He raised one arm and pointed across the room, toward a wall that was blank save for a few barren twiglets. "There's a demon outside. It's calling your name."

"A demon?" said Cray. "Who?"

Gildrum seemed to listen for a moment, and then he said, "Regneniel."

With Gildrum in the lead, the whole group ascended to the ramparts. There, only a few paces beyond the parapet, floated the Ice demon, a spiculed white mass that seemed to Cray now more like a morningstar than a snowflake. Boldly, Cray stepped forward and leaned into an embrasure that in summer would have been arched over by leaves. Now the sheltering branches werebarren and showed their interlacing structure clearly, like some gnarly bramble.

"Have you some message from your master?" Cray asked the demon.

"My master has commanded me to kill you," replied the creature. Cray stared at it for a moment, then broke into a harsh laugh. "I hope you don't expect me to come out there and allow you to do it."

"I am not a fool. I understand full well how difficult it isto kill a sorcerer. Unfortunately, my master un-derstands it less well. And I have not been able to convince him."

"What do you want of me, then? Do you want me to tell him? I don't think he looks forward with relish to any future conversations with me."

"It is hard being the sole demon slave of a sor-cerer," said Regneniel. "One must do everything. One must report everything, even those things which will surely displease one's master. One must, for example, report that eleven spiders are now living in a certain palace in Ice, and that though the lady Aliza has discovered three of them, she has as yet made no effort to kill them."

Cray folded his arms across his chest. "Perhaps a certain Ice demon should go through the palace and kill them, as it did once before."

"Perhaps. But the disobedience cannot be erased."

"She has not made any attempt to reach me."

"She has not made any attempt to do anything," said Regneniel. "She sits in the cradle room and says nothing to her tutor when it happens by."

"Perhaps she needs a little more time to accustom herself to slavery."

"Ah, yes, we all need time." And the demon laughed, a sound like a human laugh, but with the brittle overtones of crackling ice. "Do you know how long I have been a slave, Cray Ormoru?"

"No."

"With one master and another, more than three centuries. Nearly all my life."

"You are young, then."

"And I've known very little freedom. My first master was quite old, and I thought myself lucky in him, for he seemed likely to die soon and thus free me. He did, but I was conjured again almost immediately by Taranol, and then after two centuries sold to Everand. Slavery stretches out before me farther than I can see. Must I say that I would not have it so?"

"I've never met a slave yet who delighted in slav-ery," said Cray.

"Exactly," replied the demon. "And so perhaps you and I can strike a bargain."

Cray leaned his shoulder against one side of the embrasure. "A bargain?"

The icy morningstar floated closer, as close as it could come to the barrier about the castle. "I am not a fool, Cray Ormoru. I didn't bother to ask in the de-mon worlds where this castle lay. I knew no one would tell me. They protect you there. I followed Leemin instead. I haven't told my master where you are, but I will be forced to do so eventually. Just as I will be forced to tell him that you are the sorcererwho sets demons eternally free. He won't like that. He knows how to conjure, but he also knows that there are no demons available for conjuring. What do you think he will do when he finds out you are responsible for that?"

"You're wrong, Regneniel."

"Am I? I think not. You were the fool, Cray Ormoru, to take my lady Aliza into the other demon worlds, where the demons wait upon you as if you were mas-ter of them all. I was there. I saw."

"You misinterpreted what you saw, Regneniel. Through Gildrum I have many friends in the demon worlds, nothing more."

"You lie, Cray Ormoru, and I am not misled by your lie. Long ago, my master commanded me to report the slightest hint I might encounter of that sorcerer's identity. I have that hint now ...if I care to recognize it. If I exposed you to him, I do not doubt that he would tell as many other sorcerers as possible. Surely most of them resent your depletion of the available demon population. Surely, as a group, they would want to do something about it. And then, after you were dead, my lord would be able to conjure demons, eventually, and he would have no further use for the lady Aliza. He might set her free then. Or he might kill her. He takes a certain pleasure in killing, occasionally."

Cray set a hand flat upon the side of the embrasure.

He could feel the sweat on his palm there, cold and clammy against the wintry wood. "You are making a terrible mistake, Regneniel."

Again the laugh, and within it the sound of icicles cracking away from high branches. "We can strike a bargain, we two. I want my freedom, and you want the lady Aliza's. We can both gain our ends if you will kill Everand."

"Kill him?" said Cray, as if the very thought amazed him. "But I haven't the power for that."

"Gather yourself a demon army and smash him!" cried Regneniel. "I know you can do it. Call them all!

They owe you their freedom; surely they can do this small favor for you!"

Cray shook his head. "Please, Regneniel, this is absurd-"

"Then you force me to report my discovery to him right now."

"No, you mustn't!"

Gildrum leaped from the parapet, transforming to flame in midair and enveloping Regneniel. Elrelet fol-lowed, and ice and fire and cloud tumbled wildly a spear length from the wall.

"This will not stop me!" shouted Regneniel. "They can't follow me to Ice!"

Leemin floated to Cray's shoulder, a snowflake, too, but small as a pear. "Shall I?" it said.

"Stop! Wait!" shouted Cray.

The midair fight slowed, but the demons did not separate. "How much can you help me, Regneniel?" Cray asked.

"I can ignore the hint of your identity, unless he questions me about it directly; after all, Imight have misinterpreted what I saw. And ... once I am free of his will, I can tell you the location of a certain object in which you seem quite interested."

"You know where Aliza's soul is?"

"Of course. I put it there."

Cray nodded slowly. "Indeed, being the sole slave of a sorcerer means many things." He clasped his hands behind his back. "Perhaps we can make a bargain after all. You are the only one besides Everand who can enter or leave the castle at will."

"True."

"You must promise me that you will do everything in your power to safeguard the lives of his human servants."

"But how? I can't bring them out of the castle with me unless he wills it. And there will be no safe place inside the walls once the attack begins."

"You can bring them out," said Cray, and he swiftly explained the method by which Sepwin had left the castle. "Scarves, bags, anything that will hold the frag-ments will do, as long as it makes a continuous loop about the body. Do this immediately, and we will attack as soon as they have gone."

"They are very much afraid of me," Regneniel said doubtfully.

"Then frighten them into doing it."

"And in return for all that I can do for you, what is your side of the bargain?"

"I will free you forever."