09 Fireplace, Contract, Lullaby of the Fire Demon

Episode 09: Fireplace, Contract,Lullaby of the Fire Demon

In the middle of the night Sophie was woken by someone snoring. Shejumped upright, rather irritated to discover that she was the one who had beensnoring. It seemed to her that she had only dropped off for a second or so, butMichael seemed to have vanished in those seconds, taking the light with him. Nodoubt a wizard’s apprentice learned to do that kind of thing in his first week.And he had left the fire very low. It was giving out irritating hissings andpoppings. A cold draft blew on Sophie’s back. Sophie recalled that she was in awizard’s castle, and also, with unpleasant distinctness, that there was a humanskull on a workbench somewhere behind her.

She shivered and cranked her stiff old neck around, but there wasonly darkness behind her. “Let’s have a bit more light, shall we?” she said.Her cracked little voice seemed to make no more noise than the crackling of thefire. Sophie was surprised. She had expected it to echo through the vaults ofthe castle. Still, there was a basket of logs beside her. She stretched out acreaking arm and heaved a log on the fire, which sent a spray of green and bluesparks flying up the chimney. She heaved on a second log and sat back, notwithout a nervous look or so behind her, where blue-purple light from the firewas dancing over the polished brown bone of the skull. The room was quitesmall. There was no one in it but Sophie and the skull.

“He’s got both feet in the grave and I’ve only got one,” she consoledherself. She turned back to the fire, which was now flaring up into blue andgreen flames. “Must be salt in that wood,” Sophie murmured. She settled herselfmore comfortably, putting her knobby feet on the fender and her head into acorner of the chair, where she could stare into the colored flames, and begandreamily considering what she ought to do in the morning. But she wassidetracked a little by imagining a face in the flames. “It would be a thinblue face,” she murmured, “very long and thin, with a thin blue nose. But thosecurly green flames on top are most definitely your hair. Suppose I didn’t gountil Howl gets back? Wizards can lift spells, I suppose. And those purpleflames near the bottom make the mouth—you have savage teeth, my friend. Youhave two green tufts of flame for eyebrows....” Curiously enough, the onlyorange flames in the fire were under the green eyebrow flames, just like eyes,and they each had a little purple glint in the middle that Sophie could almostimagine was looking at her, like the pupil of an eye. “On the other hand,”Sophie continued, looking into the orange flames, “if the spell was off, I’dhave my heart eaten before I could turn around.”

“Don’t you want your heart eaten?” asked the fire.

It was definitely the fire that spoke. Sophie saw its purple mouthmove as the words came. Its voice was nearly as cracked as her own, full of thespitting and whining of burning wood. “Naturally I don’t,” Sophie answered.“What are you?”

“A fire demon,” answered the purple mouth. There was more whine thanspit to its voice as it said, “I’m bound to this hearth by contract. I can’tmove from this spot.” Then its voice became brisk and crackling. “And what areyou?” it asked. “I can see you’re under a spell.”

This roused Sophie from her dreamlike state. “You see!” sheexclaimed. “Can you take the spell off?”

There was a poppling, blazing silence while the orange eyes in thedemon’s wavering blue face traveled up and down Sophie. “It’s a strong spell,”it said at length. “It feels like one of the Witch of the Waste’s to me.”

“It is,” said Sophie.

“But it seems more than that,” crackled the demon. “I detect twolayers. And of course you won’t be able to tell anyone about it unless theyknow already.” It gazed at Sophie a moment longer. “I shall have to study it,”it said.

“How long will that take?” Sophie asked.

“It may take a while,” said the demon. And it added in a soft,persuasive flicker, “How about making a bargain with me? I’ll break your spellif you agree to break this contract I’m under.”

Sophie looked warily at the demon’s thin blue face. It had adistinctly cunning look as it made this proposal. Everything she had readshowed the extreme danger of making a bargain with a demon. And there was nodoubt that this one did look extraordinarily evil. Those long purple teeth.“Are you sure you’re being quite honest?” she said.

“Not completely,” admitted the demon. “But do you want to stay likethat till you die? That spell has shortened your life by about sixty years, ifI am any judge of such things.”

This was a nasty thought, and one which Sophie had tried not tothink about up to now. It made quite a difference. “This contract you’reunder,” she said. “It’s with Wizard Howl, is it?”

“Of course,” said the demon. Its voice took on a bit of a whineagain. “I’m fastened to this hearth and I can’t stir so much as a foot away.I’m forced to do most of the magic around here. I have to maintain the castleand keep it moving and do all the special effects that scare people off, aswell as anything else Howl wants. Howl’s quite heartless, you know.”

Sophie did not need telling that Howl was heartless. On the otherhand, the demon was probably quite as wicked. “Don’t you get anything out ofthis contract at all?” she said.

“I wouldn’t have entered into it if I didn’t,” said the demon,flickering sadly. “But I wouldn’t have done if I’d known what it would be like.I’m being exploited.”

In spite of her caution, Sophie felt a good deal of sympathy for thedemon. She thought of herself making hats for Fanny while Fanny went gadding.“All right,” she said. “What are the terms of the contract? How do I break it?”

An eager purple grin spread across the demon’s blue face. “You agreeto a bargain?”

“If you agree to break the spell on me,” Sophie said, with a bravesense of saying something fatal.

“Done!” cried the demon, his long face leaping gleefully up thechimney. “I’ll break your spell the very instant you break my contract!”

“Then tell me how I break your contract,” Sophie said.

The orange eyes glinted at her and looked away. “I can’t. Part ofthe contract is that neither the Wizard nor I can say what the main clause is.”

Sophie saw that she had been tricked. She opened her mouth to tellthe demon that it could sit in the fireplace until Doomsday in that case.

The demon realized she was going to. “Don’t be hasty!” it crackled.“You can find out what it is if you watch and listen carefully. I implore youto try. The contract isn’t doing either of us any good in the long run. And Ido keep my word. The fact that I’m stuck here showsthat I keep it!”

It was in earnest, leaping about on its logs in an agitated way.Sophie again felt a great deal of sympathy. “But if I’m to watch and listen,that means I have to stay here in Howl’s castle,” she objected.

“Only about a month. Remember, I have to study your spell too,” thedemon pleaded.

“But what possible excuse can I give for doing that?” Sophie asked.

“We’ll think of one. Howl’s pretty useless at most things. In fact,”the demon said, venomously hissing, “he’s too wrapped up in himself to seebeyond his nose half the time. We can deceive him—as long as you’ll agree tostay.”

“Very well,” Sophie said. “I’ll stay. Now find an excuse.”

She settled herself comfortably in the chair while the demonthought. It thought aloud, in a little crackling, flickering murmur, which remindedSophie rather of the way she had talked to her stick when she walked here, andit blazed while it thought with such a glad and powerful roaring that she dozedagain. She thought the demon did make a few suggestions. She remembered shakingher head to the notion that she should pretend to be Howl’s long-lostgreat-aunt, and to one or two other ones even more far-fetched, but she did notremember very clearly. The demon at length fell to singing a gentle, flickeringlittle song. It was not in any language Sophie knew—or she thought not, untilshe distinctly heard the word “saucepan” in it several times—and it was verysleepy-sounding. Sophie fell into a deep sleep, with a slight suspicion thatshe was being bewitched now, as well as beguiled, but it did not bother herparticularly. She would be free of the spell soon....