The Fallable Fiend by L. Sprague deCamp Read Free Book Online Page B

horse and kicked it to a gallop. He raced through the scattering carnival folk.
    The horse soared over the fence, and Bagardo was gone into the night. Constable Valtho shouted an order to his men, who began to spread out and surround the lot, and spurred clattering after Bagardo. Several carnival folk ran off into the dark, to cut their way through the fence before the circle closed. I said to Ungah:
    “Ought we not to flee, too?”
    “Why? Can’t get along on our own, for every man be against us. Best we can hope for is better masters. So take it easy.”
    Presently the constable came back from his fruitless pursuit of the showman, his horse puffing and blowing, to superintend the posting of his men. In the panic, one man had perished. This was the old drunkard, trampled to death at the entrance to the tent of monsters. There were many injuries, such as broken limbs and ribs. Besides these, every Oryncian who had even been jostled or gotten a spot on his coat had filed suit against Bagardo the Great. Had Bagardo been master of ten carnivals, each more prosperous than this one, he still could never have satisfied all the judgments against him. Had he not fled, he had probably ended in debt slavery.
    ###
    Before the magistrate in Orynx, I explained that I was not really a blood-thirsty monster but just a poor indentured demon trying to follow his master’s orders.
    “You do not sound like a fiend,” said the magistrate. “On the other hand, you are not human, so destroying you were no murder. Many citizens favor that measure for their own protection.”
    “Permit me to say that they might find my destruction difficult, Your Honor,” I told him, “as anyone who has dealt with the Twelfth Plane will tell you. Moreover, I can forestall such a fate by returning to my own plane.” (I was bluffing, having forgotten part of the decamping spell.) “So long as no extreme measure be attempted, however, I am fain to cooperate with the good people of Orynx in obeying their laws and meeting my obligations.”
    The magistrate—one of the few reasonable Prime Planers I met—agreed that I ought to be given a chance. About half the company had escaped from the lot ere it was surrounded. The members of the troupe who had been captured had so few possessions, that, rather than support them in idleness in the gaol, the magistrate let them go with warnings.
    The animals, including Ungah and myself, and the wagons, tents, and other properties were gathered, inventoried, and sent down the road to Ir to be sold. The auction was a dreary business, and I doubt if the plaintiffs in Orynx got a farthing to the mark on their claims. But that is how my contract of indenture was bought, at the auction ground outside the city, by an agent for Madam Roska of Ir.

IV
    MADAM ROSKA
    Ir is a peculiar city, lying at the edge of a cluster of hills beside a small tributary of the Kyamos, the Vomantikon. Save for the huge cylindrical tower surrounding the entrance, it is built entirely underground. It was conceived as a stronghold by Ardyman the Terrible, when he sought to unite all twelve Novarian nations under his rule. Finding a mass of solid granite in the hills of Ir, he caused the city to be dug into the mountainside, with tunnels and caverns serving the offices of streets and houses.
    When Madam Roska’s agent, Noïthen, had tucked my contract of indenture into his doublet, he said: “Come along, O Zdim. We wait upon my mistress.”
    A short, gorbellied man, Master Noïthen led me to the tower. This was a structure of well-fitted granite ashlars, over a hundred feet wide and thrice as great in diameter. A ramp, wide enough for a laden wagon, wound spirally about the cylinder, going up in such wise that he who ascended had his right or unshielded side towards the wall.
    A third of the way up, the ramp ended at a huge portal, with valves made of whole tree trunks squared and held together with bronzen brackets. This portal now stood open. From the