Notes: Oh my god, this thing went through more rewrites than an NBC sitcom. Oh-ho, I am so glib. Anyway, the final two chapters just need some minor revisions, so they'll be up relatively soon.

The Changeling
"Circle"

There was something he'd forgotten about the summoning ritual: somehow, the ancient magic forced into your mind thoughts unbidden and unwanted. So the ancient magic showed things to Albert while he chanted, things he didn't particularly wish to see; he remembered things.

First: Elissa. First and always Elissa. In his mind, she was only a few months old. It was just after she'd started talking (and it had been so much more amusing to him than it was to Lydia that her first word had been a bastardization of "hungry"; Lydia had been hoping for "Mama") when he'd settled her down on his lap to read, because she was always imitating what he was doing and he was hoping she'd learn to read soon and would learn to comprehend so that he could share with her some of the political manuals he'd written. But it had been late and she'd been tired, so she'd fallen asleep, her hand curled clenching his shirtfront. When he'd bent down to resettle her, she murmured in her sleep, "Papa," and he'd been so utterly charmed that he'd just watched her sleep for a quarter-hour.

Then Lydia: Lydia, in their courtship, just after her father had introduced them. She'd been the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, pale hair, wide eyes, slim waist. How ridiculous she'd made him back then! He had never thought he would fall in love, but for those eyes he had fallen. When he'd gone on campaign in the south, he'd written her letters - not love-letters, but letters, and he had lived for her replies. That was what he thought of: how on that campaign and that one alone, the other soldiers had treated him like a comrade, because he, as they, understood the agony of waiting for letters. And he thought of the way he'd waited an agonizing month after his return to ask her to marry him, because he didn't want to be seen like the silly romantic soldiers who married their sweethearts as soon as they got back. And he thought of the way her hair had smelled when she'd said yes and he'd embraced her.

Then Caesar, who somehow came to him when a wise man would have stayed and stayed when the wise would have gone. And earlier that day, coming home from walking alone with his thoughts to find Caesar there, a crust of bread in his hand:

"Well, good to see someone's washed off the invisible paint. I managed to find food and everything, if not you, thanks for your concern."

"I'm surprised. I expected to find you gone." And if Albert had been anyone else, he might have winced, then, because it had sounded ungrateful even to his ears.

"Me?" Even though Caesar's laugh had been light there'd been a current of hurt in it. "What, you think I'd run away?"

"I'd at least have expected you to put up a few protests. There's none of your usual whining about how something isn't a good idea..."

"I'm glad to see you're feeling better. Look, I'm twenty-two years old, Albert. Maybe once I would have whined, but it's your plan, and you don't think I might have possibly matured a little?"

"No."

"You really are feeling like your old self."

"Are you sure you'll be able to go through with this?"

"You managed. If you managed, I can manage."

And then the memory of Elissa wailing when the demon laid his cold hand upon her, the memory of Lydia beating his chest and weeping until she had no more voice and no more strength, and he almost wanted to turn to his brother, standing behind him, and tell him that he didn't manage at all. But then his imagination summoned up a tiny mangled body, and he couldn't bring himself to give the warning.

Then, strangely, there was the thought of his father, the last time they'd seen him - he'd smiled warmly at Caesar, tousling his hair, then nodded curtly at Albert, then turned and gone to the woman who was waiting for him. And there had been such utter dispassion in his eyes, such coldness, that Albert could have turned to his brother, nine and small and fragile, and killed him for jealousy. But Albert pushed all that away.

He knew then without knowing how that he'd come to the apex of his chant. He drew a deep breath, inhaled the incense and scent of dank earth, and placed the rune beneath his foot. A few more words, and -

And Caesar, flashes of his brother, playing chess against himself to become better, waiting alone for Albert, studying, laughing, playing - Caesar, caught in the throes of an epileptic fit - Caesar, creeping into his room during a thunderstorm - Caesar, defending him to their father even though Albert sat silent - Caesar, bullied by the older boys that Albert had to step in - Caesar across a battlefield with chin set - And he knew that everything here was his brother's to lose. If tragedy would strike, it would strike Caesar, and he didn't know if he could inflict that even upon his brother.

But it was no time for indecision. It was critical mass. He leaned forward and the crystal split beneath him, the energy flying around the room, and he called, his voice ringingly clear -

"Pesmerga! Pesmerga! Pesmerga!"

And there was a crack, a scent, and a smoke-wreathed figure in the pentagram before him. And the spell left him with one last memory, Yuber smiling slyly and reaching for him as he shrank away, before fading from his mind entirely and leaving him alone in the basement with his brother and the demon.

Pesmerga was as large as Yuber had been back then, stood as tall as he had. He might have been his twin but for the fall of hair from beneath his visored helmet - dark where Yuber's had been pale. And while Yuber had started after that first moment pacing the confines of the pentagram, restless and feline, Pesmerga might have been a statue had it not been for the slight in-out of his breath. But still, they were so similar as to make Albert wonder if they weren't possibly of the same cloth.

"Pesmerga." He was pleased with the way that had come out - not resounding like before, maybe, but still firmly and confidently. "My name is Albert Silverberg."

"Silverberg," Pesmerga repeated, deep, cool, placid. There was not a hint of curiosity in his voice, not a hint of emotion, when he asked, "Of the family that bears ties to the demon Yuber?"

Warily, Albert said, "Yes."

"And you." With hardly a motion, hardly a breath, Pesmerga lashed out with his hands, grasping Albert around the throat and lifting him effortlessly until his feet scrabbled against the floor, unable to find purchase, and all Albert could think is This isn't right; he shouldn't be able to touch me; he shouldn't be able to reach outside the circle - But the breath that could hardly press itself flat enough to get by the demon's fingers struggled, leaving his heart and his mind pounding at their mortal barriers, trying to spring out into the air -

Pesmerga was still speaking. "You summoned him into this world."

Albert fumbled for the knife he'd put in his pocket, for the purpose of completing the ceremony, but his fingers didn't catch and it dropped to the ground and bounced away. And he was painfully aware of how ridiculous he must look, with his mouth working like a fish-jaw, his hands weak crooks, but couldn't bring himself to much care with the pressure building inside, with the pain of the metal of his gauntlets digging into his flesh. He lashed out with a foot, trying to kick the demon in the groin and missing again and again -

A flash to the left; Caesar was charging the demon, fist drawn back, a cry on his lips, and Albert redirected his kick towards his brother, half in the hope of knocking him away from the demon and half for the satisfaction of it. He missed again, but Pesmerga was there, lashing out with an elbow and catching Caesar beneath the ribcage so that he fell back with a sound, a whoomph that was almost comical, curling around the wound with a twitch and a grimace that were as far from funny as possible.

Then Pesmerga released his grip, and Albert fell, found his feet quite thoroughly unable to support his weight and fell a bit further. He couldn't stop coughing, couldn't stop himself from almost morbidly feeling at his neck. The grooves where the demon's fingers had dug in were tender - he had little doubt they would bruise, felt more than a little surprise that beneath those fingers his throat hadn't collapsed.

A shimmer in his periphery; Pesmerga slipped a knife between his clutching hand and his neck, its chill a threat so much more earnest in its darkness than Yuber's, mocking and cruel, ever had been. He looked up, and perhaps in the darkness of the demon's visor he saw a shine that might have been an eye, or perhaps nothing at all.

"Where is he?" Pesmerga asked calmly.

Albert tried to speak and found that his voice caught, tried again with more success. "This is unnecessary."

Pesmerga was having none of it, pressing his knife in harder, then drawing back. "Tell me," he said, "or I'll kill that one." He indicated Caesar with a tilting motion of his head. Albert looked over at his brother, who was only starting to recover, struggling to his knees, and swallowed.

"This is unnecessary," he tried again. "I've summoned you to find him. So you can take your revenge."

No reaction, save another slight pulling back, so that he could no longer feel the blade against his skin. "So I can take my revenge," Pesmerga said, without inflection, so that Albert couldn't tell if it was question or mere musing. He decided, for safety's sake, to treat it as the former.

"And mine."

"You would have me be a servant to you, then." At least there was a bit of emotion there, even if it was disgust.

"It's a symbiotic relationship." Albert gave as nonchalant a shrug as he was able, collapsed on the floor with a knife at his throat. "You won't be able to find him without me; I won't be able to kill him without you."

"Then you know where he is," Pesmerga said.

"I do." It was what he'd spent his fortune on - men who could track a demon to its lair, men who would give him the name of a demon consumed by hatred. Information of that sort was hard to come by, and a lesser man might have given up, but Albert Silverberg had decided that he was to have his revenge. "I do."

Pesmerga nodded and stepped back, sheathing his knife; Albert let out the breath he'd been holding, then gingerly, shakily, stood. "Very well," Pesmerga said, then paused. "I can't contract with you. Not with Yuber's taint on you." And the demon looked beyond Albert; Albert turned to look at Caesar, who was on his feet but looking haggard and looking scared, touching the trickle of blood where he'd bitten his lip. He noticed their attention and looked at them both warily.

"What?"

Now Albert hesitated. He'd intended for Caesar to be the witness to the deed, and while the obligation was not without risks, it certainly didn't have the same dangers as actually contracting. The demon couldn't attack the witness, just as it couldn't attack the contractor, though certainly it would be able to put either in a position to die if it so wished. But if a demon did want its way out of a contract, they almost always went after the contractor first. Albert didn't know if he would be able to ask Caesar to undergo that for a revenge that wasn't even his.

But he'd forgotten that Caesar was no idiot. After that first confusion, his expression cleared, and he shrugged. "Sure. Of course I'll do it."

"You know that it's dangerous?" Albert asked, and Caesar shrugged again. And if he was such a fool after all, who was Albert to turn him down? "All right. Then I'll serve as witness."

There was a moment of surprise, as though Caesar hadn't expected him to agree so readily, but that faded. "I don't know what to do. Walk me through it."

Albert closed his eyes a moment, running through the ritual in his mind, then looked around. He spotted the knife he'd dropped a bit behind Caesar; he went and picked it up and handed it to his brother. "First you cut your hand deeply enough to draw blood." Caesar pulled a face and lowered the blade to his hand. "Not too deeply, though," Albert added.

"Fun," Caesar said, and drew the knife across his hand lightly. He looked up at Albert and shrugged apologetically when it drew no blood, then tried again with a bit more force. "Ow, fuck."

"Good. You - " Albert looked up to see that Pesmerga was already holding out his hand, gauntlet removed, a deep score across his palm. His skin was exactly the same shade as Yuber's, he saw, and somehow he couldn't help but be fascinated - but he tore his attention away. In any case, it was clear that he needed no prompting in the ritual. "You clasp hands and let your blood mingle."

"Oh." Caesar looked at the demon's outstretched hand, then tried to peer into his face. "Promise me you don't have syphilis," he joked. The demon said nothing, and he looked at Albert. "That's one that's spread by blood, right? Syphilis?"

"I don't know." Albert looked at the demon and shifted uncomfortably as a bit of blood fell to the floor but Pesmerga didn't move in the least. "We should probably just go ahead and do this."

"Okay," Caesar said, nodded and muttered, "Okay." He grasped Pesmerga's hand and hissed a little in pain. "I'm okay," he said so softly that Albert was relatively certain he was saying it to himself.

"State your name," Albert said.

"Caesar." Albert tried to tell him, but couldn't get the words out, and how strange was that, that he couldn't even speak so simple a correction? But Caesar understood. "Oh. Caesar Thomas Silverberg."

Albert nodded. "And you. State your name."

"Pesmerga," the demon said.

"What duties do you lay upon Pesmerga, Caesar Thomas Silverberg?" Albert asked. And Caesar looked at him, as if for prompting; Albert shook his head, and Caesar shrugged.

"I, uh...I would have him destroy the demon Yuber."

"What duties do you lay upon Caesar Thomas Silverberg, Pesmerga?"

"To assist me in my search until the demon Yuber is destroyed," Pesmerga said.

"And do you each swear to assist and do no harm to the other, and to follow each the will of the other?"

"I so swear," Pesmerga said, and Caesar echoed him quietly.

"I, Albert Michael Silverberg, bear witness to this oath. So long as I live, its tenets are firm." He placed his hand over theirs, pressed them together, and released them again. Then he stepped back. "That's it."

Caesar looked up and pulled his hand quickly from the demon's grasp. "Seriously? No more?"

"Come on. I'll bandage your hand." Albert looked back at the demon and said, "You may use anything in this house to make your preparations until we leave tomorrow. You may not leave the house."

"That's not your order to give," Pesmerga said softly.

Albert hesitated. "Right. Caesar. Tell him."

"What?" Caesar looked up from massaging his hand, looked over at the demon. "Oh. Uh, what he said."

"Very well. But, Silverberg - " The demon was silent a moment, then said, "You will find me different from Yuber."

He didn't say anything else, and Albert wondered if that was a promise or a threat. So he just nodded and said, "All right." Then he turned to Caesar. "Come on."

Albert found a bit of clean linen and wiped the wound clean before tying it up. Caesar bore through it in silence, which surprised Albert quite a bit - he'd expected complaints. Concerned in spite of himself, he looked up at his brother. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," Caesar said, then shrugged. "I just...I don't feel well, is all."

"Don't feel well? Like..." Albert looked into his face, looking into his eyes. "You're not going to have a fit," he said.

"Are you asking or telling?" Caesar said and laughed half-heartedly. "No, it's not like having...Actually, it's exactly like I feel before I have a fit, but I'm not going to have one, it's not that," he said. "It's...This feels unnatural, Albert. This feels wrong."

The memory was distant, now, but Albert remembered thinking that very thought himself, back then. Even more distant, he remembered a time when he didn't feel like he felt now. He frowned and nodded, he understood, and he would have liked to have been able to tell Caesar that it would be all right, but the only sad comfort he could offer was, "You grow accustomed to it."

For some reason, this made Caesar laugh. "Well, that's good to hear," he finally managed.

Albert watched his brother's hysterics or mockery. "Are you regretting your decision?" he asked.

"No," Caesar laughed. "Oh, no, of course not." Then, slightly more seriously: "I try not to regret anything I've done, and this - well! Tying myself to a demon in order to exact some empty - " He cut himself off. "Forget it."

Albert tied off the cloth around Caesar's hand, nodded, and went off to be alone so that he could justify not feeling guilty over what he'd done.