They are very malleable and they have the property of binding very easily to human flesh. I suppose that is hardly surprising given the fact that the demons used living things as hosts for their young, rather like some wasps use caterpillars.”

“I don’t see what this has to with me,” said Ulrik, deliberately keeping his voice very flat. He was starting to suspect that he did.

“Then I will thank you for your forbearance. It will not take me too much longer to get to the point.”

“Please do.”

Valerius tapped the side of the jar and it darkened. He repeated the procedure on the second jar. The result was startling. When the light hit it the contents came to furious, scrambling life. Its claws scrabbled against the armour glass. Its leech-like mouth opened and shut obscenely. The thing looked like an insane hybrid of a spider, a scorpion and a demon. It assaulted its cage with a mad fury, the dangling tendrils flailing around like miniature whips.

“That’s quite enough of that,” said Valerius, darkening the creature’s prison once again. “That is what one the eggs looks like when it hatches. It’s a larval demon. Bound into the body of a host it feeds on its flesh and its blood and its soul and its pain. The process is quite agonising. Eventually it consumes the host, hatching from the flesh.”

Ulrik fought down the urge to leap on the wizard and grab him by the throat. “You haven’t…”

“I’m afraid I have. I bound one of those creatures to your nervous system and the blood vessels leading to your heart.”

Ulrik looked at the wizard, stunned by the import of what he was saying. “You bought me to use as food for your baby demon.”

“Not quite. The demon is bound by my sorcery, using ritual magic of a comparatively high order. All demons are bound using similar rituals. The difference is that I have not applied any fixative runes.”

“I am not a wizard. You will have to explain what that means to me.”

“It means that nothing keeps the demon dormant but the exercise of a small portion of my will.”

“It is dormant then.”

“Oh yes, and it will remain so for as long as I live. If I die, the binding spell will be broken and the demon will come to full awareness and potency, a thing that will be extremely painful as well as extremely terminal for its host, that is to say yourself.”

“You are mad.”

“On the contrary, by the standards of my family, I am extremely sane. I have bound our lives together in such a way that if I die, you die, thus giving you some incentive to keep me alive.” There was something in the way he said it, that gave Ulrik pause for thought.

“That’s not all is it...”

“You are very perceptive. If need be, and I hope that this will not prove to be the case, I can relax the binding spell, giving the demon a morsel of life and awareness and, not incidentally, causing you great pain. Indeed it’s possible that the pain might become so great that it alone would kill you. I trust there will be no need for me to demonstrate this.”

Mad rage at what the insane wizard had done filled Ulrik. He fingered the protective amulet around his neck then drew his sword, and said, “There is,” he said, leaping forward to grab Valerius by the throat.

 

Chapter Four

Valerius shrugged. Pain blasted through Ulrik’s head, forcing him to his knees.