Dantalion gets a new task

“What did you think?” Myrddin snarled. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Dantalion tossed his head and shrugged his wings. “You might have thought it was the elf Lar himself.”

Myrddin hopped up and slapped the jinni’s cheek. “Does the elf Lar have a mark like this?”

“They might not have noticed it.” Dantalion paused to rub his cheek. “But you have given me an idea…”

“Oh no! Oh no! You shall not be putting your mark all over God’s creatures!”

“I was only thinking that in the future I should go naked and give the young ladies something else on which to rest their eyes. But you have given me a second idea…” He laughed.

“It is no laughing matter!” Myrddin cried, red with fury. “Already the Abbot has seen it, and those two young ladies have seen it, and he may already have figured out it’s the same.”

“Pardon me – were you referring to my mark or to my something else?”

“To the mark!” Myrddin growled. “And that unblinded elf has seen it, and the elf Vash – ”

Dantalion laid a hand on the man’s bony shoulder to still him. “Unblinded?”

“It’s a miracle!” Myrddin huffed. “The Abbot baptized him, and suddenly he could see again. Named him Paul, too. Quite a tale!”

Dantalion chewed thoughtfully on a claw. The Abbot should not have been able to work miracles unaided for years yet. But matters in the world were beginning to proceed in unexpected ways, and in the valley itself there reigned little more than mere anarchy. It was, as the old man said, quite a tale. At times Dantalion was amused enough to watch it unfold that he did not regret being trapped on this plane.

“Are you listening to me?” Myrddin shrieked.

“No.” Dantalion spat out the tip of his claw, near enough to the man’s foot to make him jump. Then he smiled sweetly and purred, “I beg your pardon, Master. What were you saying?”

Myrddin grasped his beard in both fists, panting for a moment to calm himself. “I was saying,” he growled, “that I forbade you to molest those girls, and yet you did – against my command!”

Dantalion stood to his full height and straightened his wings behind his back.

“That is enough!” he roared with the voice he used to command his hordes of shades and lesser demons.

Myrddin cringed. Dantalion thought it might only have been out of fear that some of the men might have heard the echoing thunder of his voice, but it was certainly agreeable to see.

“You have forgotten who I am, mortal,” he said softly, “and you have forgotten the nature of your hold over me.”

“That I have not, Your Grace!” Myrddin sneered.

“I must do as you task me, but what I do when I am not working for you is my affair. You may not ‘forbid’ me anything. And my affairs are of far greater importance than you and your modern-​​day Pendraeg.”

As he spoke, Dantalion ostentatiously studied the claws of his other hand, as if they too were of far greater importance.

“Raping young girls in their bed is of great importance?” Myrddin cried.

“That is not why I was there,” Dantalion sighed.

“Why then?”

The jinni lowered his hand and leaned down to stare Myrddin in the eyes. “Was I not clear?”

He pressed his nose nearly against Myrddin’s face, though the old man did not flinch. When he spoke, his breath tossed the locks of hair on either side of the man’s head.

“What I do,” he said slowly and clearly, “when I am not working for you is my affair.”

“Then you shall work for me!” Myrddin drew back his head and clapped his hands. “Listen, Minion!” he crowed. “I have a task for you.”

Dantalion saw too late that he had once again slipped into a trap of his own making. He bit his accursed tongue between his clenched teeth until it bled.

“I have a spell to cast which is of far – greater – importance than your little dalliances. Your task is to bring me the saltiest grain of sand from the beaches of Dywyll Island. And to be certain you bring me the saltiest, you shall taste every one. Personally. At least until I summon you back to me for a task of still greater importance.”

Dantalion screeched and bit off the tip of his tongue in his fury. He spat it into the man’s face, but Myrddin only frowned and said, “You will be needing that.”

“What spell is this?” Dantalion slurred.

“A very important spell. For salting fish,” the old man chuckled. “They don’t eat enough of that here, and I have a craving…”

Dantalion howled. With such unholy sounds echoing in the night, Myrddin would be forced to hurry back to the abbey again before he was caught conversing with a black and winged demon, but Dantalion could do no worse to him. This mortal vermin had tricked him again. Unless he found a trick of his own, he would not even be able to make it to Rome in time for the election of the new Pope as planned.