There was a chill in the morning air, and a thin fog rose over the Blouche River. On the bank great puffs of mist rose from Korak’s snout as he slumbered.

Leaned against his friend’s hairy side, the ancient wizard’s eyes shot open. He could scarcely wait to begin. Remnants of last night’s plans were still wheeling about in Charlot’s head. He felt far better rested than a man who’d slept against a bear had any right to.

What a morning to be alive! The thousand aches of his body could not keep pace with the galloping tempo of his mind. They were on the trail of the thief! Furthermore, there was the matter of an imprisoned devil to investigate, and a deadly trap. Most of all, he wanted to see if the wolf had made it through the night.

Charlot rose and found the wolf still beneath the deerskin. Its eyes were open and, for a moment, Charlot was afraid it had perished. But they moved to track Charlot as he approached.

The wolf lived.

Charlot watched carefully. He’d been tricked by this one before! But the wolf was still. Was he too weak to move? If so, Charlot knew he would have to abandon him. It might have all been for naught.

Charlot inspected the spit. The fire had died down, and the venison was surely cooked through. He took the spit off the fire and cut himself a generous slice with the phase dagger, somewhat wishing he had a less spectacular knife to use for such a mundane task.

The venison was cooked through but not dried out, the edge crisp and not too charred. From one of his innumerable pockets, Charlot drew a packet of salt and seasoned the thick slab of venison before he took a bite. What a way to break his fast! The juices filled his mouth as he chewed, and he shut his eyes, humming with contentment.

The sound of eating woke the bear as quickly as a ringing bell, and there was a great yawn as the bear stretched out, his stubby tail wagging. When he saw the bear on the move, the wolf found the strength to rise, scrambling from beneath the deerskin and getting distance from Korak on shaky legs. The bear watched the wolf for a moment with some interest but swiftly turned his attention back to the meat.

"All right, you two, look at me," Charlot said, pointing the knife from bear to wolf. He had their full attention.

"Look, an even split. Let there be no inequity between us," He said, cutting right through the spit to divide the loin into three pieces. He tossed one piece to Korak. "Mind you, don't eat the stick, Korak," Charlot cautioned. Korak already had the whole thing in his mouth. A moment later, he spat out the skewer.

Next, Charlot threw the second piece to the wolf. The wolf shied away, and Korak's eyes immediately focused on the fallen meat. There was no danger it would go to waste. Charlot sat down and ate his own piece. He'd left enough of the spit that he could use it as a handle and quite enjoyed gnawing at it like some savage wendig.

"It's safe to eat," Charlot assured the wolf, who snuffled the ground near the hunk cautiously. "Would I save you from poison only to poison you again? Use some logic, wolf."

Whether he arrived at the conclusion by reason or by simple hunger, the wolf took an exploratory lick at the meat, and then made short work of it. The night’s ordeal had left him famished. Charlot wished he could have given the wolf the greedy bear's share, but that would make them instant rivals. It was better this way.

The pair both watched him eat, their eyes bright. At last, he took the end of his piece and cut it in two.

"Half each," he said, showing them the pieces. He tossed one to Korak first, and the bear caught it with a rapid snap of his giant maw, and it vanished as if it never was. He threw the other to the wolf and was surprised when it did the same, gulping it out of the air.

"Quick on the uptake," Charlot murmured in approval.

He tidied up the camp, performing his morning essentials, wondering if the wolf would run off now that there was no food left, but he was surprised to see that it hung around watching him, keeping a wary eye on the giant silverpaw. Korak seemed to have accepted the presence of the wolf without much concern. He was busy scratching his back against a tree, which seemed in some danger of being knocked over by his bulk.

"All right, you two. I shall see what all the fuss is about in the cavern. Don't quarrel in my absence," Charlot ordered, thinking any dispute would end rather badly for the young wolf.

* * *

With magnificent Flaccaro in hand, the master arcanist carefully climbed the slick rocks to the cave beneath the little waterfall. He had to stoop to step into the cave mouth, but once he was a few steps in, he could stand comfortably.

In his damp robe with the rushing water at his back, Charlot smiled, happy to have found this secret place. He murmured a cantrip, and steam drifted upward from his robe in wisps, and within a few moments, he was nearly dry. Power well spent. If he encountered danger within, he did not want to be distracted by aching joints.

Charlot slipped on the ring of protection and, at once, the sound of the waterfall diminished. He did not believe for an instant the demon had told the truth about the sigil of death. If it was truly the boy the devil had seen, it was most likely the demon had killed him.

Still, the lad had a knack for surviving things he shouldn't. Any traps might still be unsprung. The hollow beneath the waterfall was natural for about six paces back, and then a wall had been constructed of mortar and stone to seal the cave. Charlot approached the wall with slow and observant steps.

Well beneath the waterfall now, Charlot bid Flaccaro to give him light, and the grand staff gave it to him, bright as noon. Charlot suspected the staff was as eager as he to see what was inside. The sealing wall had crumbled over time, leaving a hole big enough for a man to climb through. Charlot took great care examining the outside of the wall, dipping his eyes through the planes one by one, just as he'd done when he inspected the shadowflame ring. No spell bound the outside.

Graven into the intact capstone at the top of the wall was a warning, written in three languages. There were lines in Uld Iltry, Wyrth, and even in wendig hunting marks.

In Uld Iltry, it said, "SEALED BY YTRIOS - A WICKED DEVIL IS WITHIN - MAY THIS BULWARK HOLD SO LONG AS THE STARS SHINE," and Charlot raised an eyebrow, thinking it rather vain of Ytrios to include his own name in the warning. Overly wishful as well, and short-sighted. What fool expected simple mortar to hold until the end of the stars? Yet, Ytrios surely deserved some respect, for he had bound a demon in this place.

Charlot knew only four of the five wendig hunting marks for certain. TRAP - ABOMINATION - AVOID - BAD DEATH, and he thought the last sigil meant DISASTER or perhaps AVALANCHE. The wendig had several signs and words for death, BAD DEATH was opposed by GOOD DEATH, the kind you got on a hunt or in battle, or during a childbirth where the child lived. BAD DEATH came from disease, old age, freezing to death, or being turned on by the tribe.

As he recalled, if a wendig was too sick to go out with a fight, they would build a pyre and burn them alive. This supposedly made the bad death into a good one. Having burned a few men alive, Charlot disagreed. Again, he felt a pang of regret for the burnt deer.

In Wyrth, it simply read, "DEATH INSIDE."

Satisfied there was nothing on the outside that would harm him, Charlot peered within, again shielding his gaze. A few paces within, there was a magic sigil carved into the floor. He had to only glimpse it for an instant in the Demiplane before he knew it was a death trap, just as the demon had said. Charlot stood on the outer side of the breach, trying to puzzle out what had happened.

Inside the cave, he could hear only silence, and even Flaccaro's brilliant light revealed little from this vantage point. Peering delicately through the planes, Charlot saw the arcane structure of the trap.

Once there had been a great deal of power bound within those graven lines, but far less than it had once held. He speculated it was diminished to the point where the sigil could not even activate. The weakened trap could be dispensed with in two gestures. Yet still, he probed at it, always suspecting a trap within a trap.

Though it was greatly weakened, Charlot could plumb the echoes of sorcery to discover the trap's original purpose. Again! A connection to Yala. The shadowflame ring, the deathtrap, and the demon! All woven together, and he was certain the one who'd made the ring had set this trap.

Now, he had the name of the Wyrth mageslayer. Ytrios!

"Your time is nearly up, pretender!" Charlot hissed, his voice drowned out by the waterfall at his back.

Charlot observed the ceiling of the cave and found no sign the sigil had fired recently. The floor was not scorched, either. Was it merely a defective sigil? Had it only faded with time? He suspected not and, at last, he felt sure enough to enter the cavern, crouching low and angling Flaccaro so the staff did not scrape.

The ceiling was low here and slick with moisture. Charlot could see where stalagmites had been shattered long ago and begun to grow back. The corridor led to carved steps that wound downward. He would have to cross the sigil to descend.

Again, Charlot peered through the planes looking for anything he might have missed. At last, he found them, faint lines of force, so dim they were nearly undetectable, winding into the depths. Observing them, he believed he had his answer.

The demon was siphoning power from this sigil! Slowly, exceedingly slowly, over decades, the demon had sipped at the sigil's energy, drinking from it until the trap no longer had the power to kill. Why in all the gods had someone placed a sigil linked to Yala near a bound demon? It was utter folly. If the sigil had been as overcharged as the ring, it was a wonder the demon hadn't broken free.

Satisfied with this conclusion, Charlot set Flaccaro's butt against the sigil and shattered the forces that bound it, letting the staff consume the remaining power. Then, before he dared to step over the sigil again, Charlot checked once more for anything he might have missed. That second glance was all too often the difference between a wise old magician and a smoldering corpse. Yet, all was still.

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Charlot moved at a snail's pace, searching now not only for arcane traps but for mechanical ones. The place had a cool and damp smell, of water and stone, endlessly intermingling. Were it not for the rent in the wall, he would not have been willing to descend without tossing down some flaming brands to purify the air. Sealed caverns were often filled with poison, which Charlot knew well. He’d often captured their gasses for his experiments.

Charlot's keen nose twitched for any sign of lingering toxin, and he descended the stairs with exceeding caution. He pressed heavily on each step with Flaccaro, feeling for the slightest give, alert to the smallest sound. The cave was roughly circular. Though snakes of built-up sediment rolled down the edges, he could still see the bare walls that had been hewn by sorcery. Setting a hand on the stone, he could still feel the lingering violence of the magic that had torn through solid rock.

So much senseless power! So much waste! Ytrios bled power like a punctured keg. Each of the steps had a sigil carved into it, but these were passive sigils of binding, only lending strength to the circle of protection below.

Flaccaro's light could illuminate the whole of the cave at last. Once these walls had been smooth as glass but, over time, mineral deposits had built up. There was a proof against water in the ring, no doubt, but it was nearly impossible to keep a cave beneath a waterfall dry, especially with the broken wall.

New stalagmites and stalactites were forming, though they were little more than nubs mottling the ceiling and places on the walls. Given enough time, they would break the circle. Only a shortsighted fool would bind a demon beneath a river. Charlot was revising his estimation of Ytrios’ age. He had to be much younger than Charlot had previously assumed. He gave time no regard.

Charlot's eyes flickered through the planes until he was certain nothing would harm him by sight alone, and then he dared to look with his unshielded natural sight. He could see the stairs winding down to the circle of protection, deep lines cut into a flat disc of stone by sorcery. Surrounding this disc was a chasm of a foot wide, dropping down into nothingness. It served as both a drain and to sever the demon from the land so it could not draw strength from it.

Mistakes upon mistakes! Rings of protection should never be made with stones cut by magic. The echoes of the power lingered and could spell disaster. Furthermore, those sigil lines ought to have been filled in with a metal that would not tarnish so that when the water inevitably got past the bane, the sigil's power would remain. The waterbane had indeed faded, and moisture seeped into the ring from above.

It was only a tiny bit of water, really, but against the face of eternity, it was significant. Water carried sediment. As that sediment built up and the sharp lines of the sigil wore down, there would be a slight obfuscation of the meaning of the magic lines. A clever devil could use this to twist their meanings and break free.

Under his exacting stare, Charlot could see that it had already begun. There was a deposit building up in the corner of a rune, a junction between the sigils T'ree and Simahee. More than enough of a foothold for a crafty demon to spring itself, and they were all crafty, all devious to the core.

Charlot could not help but grimace at the incompetence, and he was eager to see what awaited him below, but he did not skip a step, checking each stair, straining his senses to their limits. At last, he was close enough to see the object at the circle's center.

From the stair, it seemed a blob of obsidian, but as Flaccaro's brilliant light drew closer, his ailing eyes made out the relic more clearly. It was a mask of black crystal, laid flat so that it stared up at the cave's roof. Charlot stood at the edge of the circle and strained his eyes to see. Damned that it was black, within a cave! Even the staff's light was not enough.

Still, he could see it clearly enough to know it was the work of a devil. The face was wrought in sharp angular planes, the corners diminishing into fractal details that he could not see clearly, but he knew they would be so fine even healthy eyes could not perceive their subtlety. The whole of it appeared formed from a single flawless piece of black crystal, only a sïthur could make such a thing.

The mask sat perfectly still, and he examined the ring of protection for other faults. It would be a great folly to assume the demon was as incompetent as the one who bound it here. Here in its prison, the shade would be far stronger, and there was no telling how powerful the mask was.

Lost in thought, Charlot was startled by a growing heat in his pocket. The shadowflame ring was burning hot! He nearly cast it away, but he fought the pain and held on to it. He felt his ring of protection working to keep him from harm. If he'd followed his instinct and thrown the ring away, the shade could have wrenched it into the circle!

What a blunder!

Charlot had made a grave mistake bringing a thing of Yala this close to the circle. Somehow, the mask was siphoning energy from the ring and drawing it into itself. He had to act quickly! With three rapid words of power, Charlot created a nullifying sphere around himself, and he plunged into total darkness, drifting without weight or substance in a soundless void. The energy siphon was severed instantly, and he had a moment to prepare his next spell.

In his left hand, Charlot gathered power until it pulsed with scathing white light, defying even the Void. With his right hand, he shattered the null sphere and roared back into the world in a burst of captured shadowflame. The purple flames coursed through the cavern, and every surface hissed and sizzled. The flames bent around the circle of protection like a stream flowing around a stone.

Charlot unleashed the power he'd gathered in a piercing ray. It shattered the circle of protection, and then he brought his will to bear. He needed to disintegrate the sediment obscuring the sigil without melting the stone beneath it.

Careful as a jeweler, he burned through the buildup, and then his spell ended abruptly as the circle's power returned, so swiftly it nearly knocked him backward!

In his palm, the shadowflame ring was as cold as ice, and he returned it to his pocket. He felt a great emptiness in his chest. He’d expended a great deal of power in a few moments. Charlot resisted the urge to sit down, leaning on Flaccaro for support. Cold beads of sweat ran down his temples.

How close that had been! How powerful the circle was when it had not been compromised! Threefold stronger than it had any need to be. Yet still, with all that brute strength, it had nearly been subverted.

Charlot took his time to recover, waiting for his breathing to slow and his heart to stop racing. Nothing could be rushed when dealing with a demon. When he was perfectly calm, he peered at the mask again.

"Now! Show yourself, devil!" Charlot invoked.

The black crystal mask lifted from the ground, and shadow boiled from it in a dark cloud of smoke. With a sudden wrenching feeling, Charlot remembered the killing mist of Adder Vale. For a moment, he had the awful sense he was being pulled back to that dark day.

But this was no work of the Raven. The mask lifted to face him, and the cloud of darkness deliquesced into a rippling black fluid that flowed into the vague outline of a human. It continued to flow until it was the stretched-out, distorted frame he'd seen in the woods the night before.

As Charlot shook free of the unnerving sensation, the demon solidified, and then it stooped down into a squat to face him.

"A DEAL," the demon rumbled in the black tongue. Bits of stone and debris knocked loose by the shadowflame eruption rattled around the chamber from the force of its voice.

For a moment, Charlot did not speak, he only observed. How much power had the demon stolen? He waited to see if it was enough to break free, yet the devil remained within the ring, crimson eyes peering out from behind the black mask.

"HOW CLOSE TO ESCAPE?" Charlot demanded in the devil tongue. The black words stung his mouth as he spoke them.

"I COULD NEARLY TASTE IT," the demon groaned, and its crimson eyes blazed behind the crystal mask.

"Imagine the taste of a thousand years sealed in this cave," Charlot said, switching to Yarlee. "I am no patzer like the one who sealed you here."

“GIVE ME THE RING," the demon demanded.

"Speak Yarlee or not at all, shade. Demand a single more thing from me and this negotiation is ended. I shall seal up the cavern, and then you can see how clever you are in the face of a true master. No more stone rain shall fall upon your circle, this I promise."

For a moment, the shade hesitated, gauging the situation. This was promising to Charlot. Many sïthur were too mad, too alien to deal with at all. They could only be banished or destroyed.

"As you command," the shade said in the antiquated Yarlee. He could detect surprise at his poise. The sïthur expected fear and found none.

"Oh, yes, I've dealt with your sort before, moonchild. What is your name?"

"What is yours?" the demon retorted, and Charlot pointed a finger at its hand. The demon closed it into a fist at once, his eyes flashing with remembered pain.

Charlot had the urge to grin, but he kept it bottled. The motion was a bluff. It would take far more power to sever a finger through the ring of protection than Charlot wished to spend. He felt sure the devil did not know this.

"I am Adon, Master Sage of Urth'Wyrth," Charlot said, his voice sure.

"Is that a lie?" the demon asked in Wyrth, seeking to catch Charlot out. The demon's accent was flawless. Wyrth was slow to change.

"I ask the questions! Answer me, demon!" Charlot demanded in perfect Wyrth of his own.

"I am Lak.”

"Well, at least it's not one of those stupid tense names your betters are so fond of. 'Now' and 'Morrow' and 'Ever.' How insipid. However, I asked your name, and I want your true name. Give it to me."

"Set me free, and you shall have it," the devil said, a quiver passing through its dark form. How desperately it did not want to give up its true name! Yet, there was no other outcome Charlot would accept.

"I shall have it for nothing but the promise not to seal you up in this hole until the end of time. I am no fool like the one who entombed you here. I'll leave you no trail of breadcrumbs to the Yala. Only darkness eternal! Tedium without end! The sun shall be but a cinder before my work cracks."

Now, the demon was silent. It was time to deal.

"I offer you two options. Listen to me now, shade, for I shall not repeat them. One, I can offer you an end to all your suffering. I shall unmake you as if you never were and spare you the pain of existence. No dreams, nothing but nothing."

The shade began to protest, but then it mastered itself. How long had it been sealed in this prison?

"Second offer! I will seal this place up, undo the blunders of Ytrios, and renew the waterbane. No more water will ever drip upon that botched junction just by your left foot. Don't act as if you haven't been prying at that conflux for a century."

Charlot indicated two sigils on the ring of protection where he'd disintegrated the buildup. Even in the inhuman eyes of the devil, he could see all hope flee. That was its last chance for freedom.

“In exchange, you will tell me your true name and everything you know about Ytrios.”

"I beg you, let me ask only one thing," the demon pleaded.

"The deal! It is that or nothing, shade!" Charlot's voice was nearly a shout.

"Please! Don't destroy me! Turn me back!" The demon cringed backward to the bounds of the inner circle, expecting the words of annihilation to come.

"Turn you back?"

"Turn me back into a human!” the sïthur begged.

Charlot's eyes went wide.

"Impossible!" Charlot uttered. He peered through the planes, searching for any sign the demon told him true.

"I see no sign you were ever a man. If you ever were, it has been too long. Only a devil remains. I cannot make this promise." Charlot's voice was as grave as an undertaker's.

"I was never a man. My name was Emymu. I choose destruction." The devil closed her crimson eyes and bowed her head, awaiting her doom.

"A woman!" Charlot was well and truly flummoxed by this twist.

Was it a lie? He sat and weighed it. How likely was it that a woman would know that ancient mode of Aranic? Just the same, the fact that the devil had not escaped the ward despite the flaws in the circle and the power it had stolen from the sigil lent credence to the idea it had once been a human.

"Tell me your tale, Emymu, and then we shall talk of deals," Charlot bid. The true name felt right. He could feel its power, sure as a key in a lock.

The devil sobbed, and he knew she had truly once been human. The children of the moon did not weep.