"Okay I can explain." I turned to the trio right after I sent Jelmak to the Abyss.

"We are your allies? Oh mighty demon lord." Ephemia asked, cheekily.

"Yeah, I kind of realised that me being a bound demon may hurt the morale of the troops. So that whole song and dance just came to me. Will you be playing along?" I asked, not expecting them to do so.

If not, well I can just shift to another set of lies. Perhaps they betrayed me and bound me. But that does not seem wise, the best lies are sort of the truth. Wait a second, I stopped in mid-thought. When did I start becoming comfortable crafting a web of lies?

"I will have to think about that. But as long as you can keep them in line and on target. I do not care how you manage them." She said, quite reasonably. "That being said, how will you explain the binding link between us? It is clearly a one way link that anyone with wizard sight or whatever demons do, will be able to identify." She added, completely toppling my tower of lies.

"Shit." That is all I could say.

"I suppose I will leave that to you. But for now, we have other matters to attend to. I command you by your true name, Asmin. You will not leave this room, nor seek to harm any of my people therein." She commanded and I felt the compulsion wash over me.

"Continue to summon your demons, I will inspect them later." With those words she left the room, the pair trailing close behind.

What replaced them was a young man in wizardly robes. He set out a chair and stared impassively at me. He looked bored and not at all terrified. He was of average height, probably five and a half feet tall, with sandy brown hair, clean shaved and dull green eyes.

He was clearly a wizard based on the robes and his aura. I was not sure what school he studied, but based on the spell components at his waist, I would guess he was a thaumaturge. It's odd that a wizard of that profession would be so calm in the presence of a demon.

"And you are?" I asked, puzzled.

"Gerald." He answered simply, with no intention to elaborate.

"You are a thaumaturge?"

"Yeah, what's it to you?" The wizard replied, a very odd fellow.

"Just an observation, may I ask why you are so calm in the presence of a major demon?" I prodded before sitting down on a nearby chair. I sprang up instantly as my wings did not like that.

The thaumaturge chuckled, finding my reaction apparently humorous. "What's so funny?" I said, sourly.

"Did you forget you had wings demon?"

"Maybe." I grumbled. "Do you remember you have hands?" I questioned, a little annoyed.

"Valid point." He replied, a man of few words I guessed.

This wizard was weird, man of few words aside, he was chatting with a demon and I couldn't smell a trace of fear. Wait a second, I can smell fear. When could I do that, I only just noticed these odd scents and for some reason, they smelled like an emotion.

I shook my head, I needed to get back on track. "Why are you so calm?" I asked and he gave me a puzzled look, so I elaborated. "I mean I understand why your mistress was calm, being a conjurer does that. But you seem quite at ease being around a demon."

He shrugged, turning to his belt bag and withdrawing a pouch. It was small, leather-bound and tied with a string. He loosened the opening and poured out a minuscule amount of powder onto his hand. Leaning over he proceeded to snort it, making wild motions before settling into a jittery focus.

"In answer to your question." The wired thaumaturge began. "You are not the first demon I have met, in fact I have seen several major demons. The masters used to flaunt them like trophies." He put his pouch away and I got a good look at his bloodshot eyes.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I wondered what was in that pouch, but his other statement caught my attention. "What masters?" I asked, puzzled.

"The conjury masters from Towmond." He answered like it would explain everything.

"Who are they?"

"Oh yeah, your not a local." He stated the obvious. "Towmond is the preemeninte school of Wizardry in the Duchy. The masters I spoke of were the conjury masters, they loved to haul out their major demons. Pompous snobs the lot of them." He spat those words like they were poison.

"I would assume you were a student?"

"You would assume correct, demon." He confirmed, mockingly.

I liked this guy, as odd as he was. Clearly, he was a drug user, but I'm a demon so I can't judge. Moving towards him, I noticed he didn't flinch at my approach. I wondered if he had some countermeasure or was just certain his mistress command was absolute.

The wizard had nothing to fear, I had no interest in harming him. I had a different thing in mind. I sat against the table, leaning back, and resumed our conversation.

"So how did you end up in her service?" I asked.

He shrugged, a gesture he will likely repeat as we converse. "Not much of a tale, we attended Towmond. She was a nobles daughter that went into conjury and was heralded as a prodigy. I myself was just a mediocre thaumaturge that her most high took pity on and hired m."

"She hired you as what? Castle wizard or something." I suggested, not entirely certain about the relationship.

"Nope, she had this crazy idea of establishing her own school and it was probably in her reach since she was a noble. Peasents like us don't get that privilege."

"Yes, that is generally the lot in life for peasents." I felt for the man, I myself saw first-hand the unfairness of the aristocracy. But magic was always the great equaliser.

"Indeed." He nodded.

"By the way, what can you tell me about this upcoming siege? Who is the enemy?" I inquired, trying to dig up information.

"That's surprising." He exclaimed, one eyebrow raised. "Generally demons don't really care about the details, just who they can kill."

"I am not so unsophisticated, I at least want the lay of the land before I start setting it on fire." I chuckled, it was true since I'm not the sort to start flinging spells for no reason.

He nodded, accepting my point, withdrawing his pouch and snorting another line. "Well how I heard it, the besieging army is a bunch of sellswords and vampires. Hired by our mistresses dear brother, the current baron, after the two had some sort of spat after there father died."

"Her own brother sent a paid army to beseige his sister?" I said, incredulous.

"Yeah I know, some family huh." He leaned back on his chair relaxing.

"Must have been big a disagreement to warrant such a reaction."

"Oh yeah it was." He leaned forward, hunched over to speak conspiratorially. "The way I heard it, he tried to marry her off to some far off pampered lord."

"That's it, I'm assuming she objected, but that seems hardly grounds for a civil war." I was stunned, that seemed like such a slight reason for bloodshed.

"There nobles, I'm not sure if you have any of those in the abyss. But they tend to make there personal problems, everyone else's." The Wizard made a valid point.

Even back home the nobles were no better. But they generally went to war for larger reasons, at least that is what they usually told the public.

"Yeah but there is more to it. You see the mistress and her dearly departed dad, had a pact."

"A pact?" I asked.

"Yeah some kind of deal, not sure of the specifics. But apparently if she succeeded in becoming a master wizard, she would be absolved from any family obligations, including arranged marriages." He snorted another line before continuing. "And as a bonus she got this castle out of the deal and decided to start her own wizard school. Wildholds School of Wizardry, named after the castle I think."

"So what went wrong?" I questioned, fully engrossed.

"Dear old dad dropped dead and big brother declared the prior pact null and void. Ordering baby sister to return to the palace and hand over her castle and land to that vampire lackey of his." He chuckled, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the situation.

"What an asshole." I spat angrily.

"You can say that twice, everything I heard about him. Asshole seems an apt description." He nodded, agreeing with my outburst.

I shook my head, trying to absorb this crazy story. If it was true, I would love to throw a fireball at him. This situation was crazy, but it felt a little better to know I wasn't alone in this crazy world.

"Crazy world we live in. But that being said, how come you are so relaxed around me? It cant be just because you have seen demons from afar." I questioned, genuinely curious.

"As I said, been around demons too much to be scared. Besides your not that bad of a conversationalist, for a demon." He complimented.

"Really, arent you worried I'm full of lies and deceit, ready to corrupt you with my demon ways." I joked.

He looked down at his pouch of drugs, snorted and clapped his hands. "You sound like those religious freaks from Eton." He mentioned a place I didn't recognise. "You can't corrupt me, I'm already on that slippery slope of immorality. Besides everybody lies, once you realise that. Demons aren't much different then our sorry excuse of a race."

I didn't wholly agree, but he wasn't wrong, humans can be duplicitous, untrustworthy and downright evil at times. But that can't be all we are, surely we aren't pure evil like demons?

I quickly realised I was a demon and if my hypothesis was proven true, then the whole demon being pure evil, would be called into serious question.