“I wanted to get you alone to talk,” Valeria said a few minutes later, in my room in the annex. “Not to have sex with you.”

“I figured,” I told her. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Those demons outside, the guards. They’re evil, too.”

I nodded as I peeled off my clothes. I pulled a sponge and a container of water out of my bag and started cleaning myself. “I guess I could have figured that. I mean, probabilities, and demons, and all.”

Valeria started cleaning herself, too. As always, I enjoyed the sight of her muscular but shapely body. “Exactly. We can’t take our eyes off them for a moment. Talos and I will keep watch through the night, and Kathy, if we can enlist her, so that you can enjoy yourself with Kendala and Lesseth.” She paused. “You could marry Kendala, you know. She’s sticking around.”

“I could, but I don’t think she’d like that as much.” And we were still getting to know each other, in many ways. Regardless, if I understood Kendala’s kink, she’d rather have a collar than a ring. “Anyway, we’ll all keep watch. Kathy and Talos together. Kendala with you on first watch. Me with Lesseth on last watch.”

Valeria smiled. “I’m glad you’re taking this seriously.”

“If it weren’t for the damage the gate could cause, I would have never invited them here,” I said.

“I have one more thing to say. I – I don’t make demands of you, usually, do I? I don’t insist that you do things my way. I might encourage you in what I think is the right direction, but I don’t insist. Correct?”

“Correct. What demand do you want to make?”

“Don’t sleep with Metatonefukuthulu.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Just so I’m clear, don’t have sex with her, either.”

I didn’t like the idea of poly with veto powers. But if there was a time for it, it was before a relationship even got off the ground. And I understood why that was a line with Valeria. She’d been pretty accepting of Lesseth, but she took the “detects as evil” thing seriously, more so than I did. I didn’t have any intention of getting into bed with Meta anyway. She was cute, and yes, sexy. But my life was complicated enough. I wasn’t looking to add more people, and that was even more true after my recent entanglements with three lovely orc women. And Lysandra, for that matter; I still didn’t know how that relationship was going to work. “Not planning on that, either.”

“Don’t change your plans.”

“I won’t, unless there’s a very good reason. Fate of the worlds, and all that.”

She smiled slightly. “Fate of the worlds. That would be a very rare excuse for most people, Abby. But still, with you it will have to do. Just realize that – well, I think it would be either her or me.”

“I’m married to you,” I told her. “And intend to stay that way.”

She smiled. “Thank you.” Her bathing finished, she clutched her clothes to her body and headed for the door. “I’ll send in Lesseth.”

“Aren’t you going to put clothes on first?”

She shook her head. “No. Although modesty is a value, I think it’s better if Meta thinks you just ravished me.”

I wondered if her motivation was as objective as all that, but maybe it was.

A few moments later Lesseth oozed in under the door, and a few moments after that, I wasn’t thinking about anything but her. At least not until Kendala joined us.

Dawn gave us a sunrise just as good as one made from orange juice and grenadine, even though it was filtered by the trees. I lounged on one of the zero-gravity chairs, and Lesseth busied herself re-organizing the bag, and popping out now and then to check to make sure that I was awake and watching.

I was, but I also knew that with the chair pulled close to the “front door” no demon was sneaking past me, so I was also trying to think of optimizations for the windmill. Very little construction could take place on it without me supervising, and I was eager to get back to it. And yet, leaving the gate with eleven demons around didn’t seem like a great idea, either.

None of them woke up in time for breakfast, which was in the form of cereal, milk, and orange juice. By the time we were done I had a plan, but it required the demons to wake up.

We waited. I did some little fix-up projects around our home, but I was antsy to make progress on either the gate, or the windmill, or both. Kendala rode out on her bike to deliver the more urgent goods to the trading posts.

At ten, the demons were still asleep. I could hear them snoring. We had been all up rather late, I supposed. And daytime came late to Tartarus, so their circadian rhythms were probably changed accordingly. Actually, most college students would sleep in like that if they didn’t have classes. But there were things to do, dammit.

They got up around eleven, and I explained the plan. I was going to go to build the windmill, which meant my guard was coming with me. That reduced the number of evil demons at the gate to one, which was fewer than the number of paladins that would be staying behind.

“You’re having me work with her?” Meta asked.

“I don’t like it any better than you do,” Valeria retorted.

“That’s the thing about compromises,” I said. “They make everyone a little unhappy.” Actually, I knew that Valeria didn’t want to let Meta out of her sight, which meant that she had just told a little white lie. I chose to regard it as character growth.

“Alright,” Meta said. “As my Uber Archfiend wishes. Am I to explore the possibility of constructing a new, separate gate? And if so, where would you like it to come out.”

“How about right here, next to the breakfast table?” I suggested. “You don’t intend to actually make such a thing, do you?”

“No,” Meta said. “It would take weeks. Like a building, such things have to be planned first. I need to memorize both locations and have them fixed in my head. But I have made a realization about the reason the puzzle was made the way it was. You see, it meant that you performed the magic, unwittingly, to create the other side, from a place you were familiar with. And because the puzzle depicted the destination, and the process of putting it together forced you to study that destination more thoroughly than you would have had you just had a picture, you were able to create the connection to this place in our world.”

“Ah. Good. Don’t make any changes without consulting me.”

“Of course, Uber Archfiend.”

I looked at Valeria, in case she had insight about the conversation, but she just shrugged at me. So, off I went, with my entourage. Lesseth stayed in the bag, to organize. I carried a lot of lumber in it.

I told the demons to wait outside the village. I didn’t want to look like I was walking in with an army. Then I looked for Gregor. He was busy on someone else’s house, although he offered to drop it to help me. I said no, but managed to get a few of his men together, and we went back to collect my demonic guardians.

They made the trolls uncomfortable, and I could understand that. They weirded me out, too. They thought they were guarding me, and I thought I was keeping an eye on them. We all went to the windmill and started work.

“The zombies obey your orders,” Bapho said.

“Yes. They’re my zombies.”

“I wondered, when I saw the zombies outside, who the necromancer was. You know, the rumor in Tartarus was that you were a seductress.”

I opened my mouth to tell him I had two classes, but he really didn’t need to know. “I’m a necromancer,” I said.

“That’s magnificent, Uber Archfiend.”

Well, they say many hands make light work, and the demons had four arms each. Once Gruush and I had taught them a few skills, they were useful, even though only eight of them would work at a time. The other two kept guard, ready to protect me from whatever danger they imagined.

I stood on a ladder, pounding in nails for the wooden superstructure of the windmill.

It hadn’t sunk in until now that I was probably stuck with the ten guard demons.  And while they were there to protect me, they might also have orders to stop me from doing anything that the Archfiend didn’t want. I couldn’t let the title of Uber Archfiend con me into thinking that I was actually in charge of anything. I had some sway, enough to get Meta here, although she could be gathering information for the Archfiend. How much power I really had was uncertain.

The other demons were probably also there partly as spies, and I was going to have to be careful, even when I was at home. If they were spies of the Archfiend, well, fine. I meant him no harm. But they might serve some faction or other in demon politics I knew nothing about, or indeed, they might not all serve the same people. I’d worked to keep knowledge of the gate to a minimum, and information was bound to get out now, which made the existence of the gate an even greater danger. An attempt by demons to invade Earth could only end in disaster.

According to Valeria they were all evil. I couldn’t keep them all charmed. I could imbue them with some fetish that made it easier to control them, but I didn’t really want ten four-armed demons lusting after me. Really, I didn’t even want one. And anyway, just because Valeria’s spell said they were evil didn’t justify warping their minds. Besides they probably thought I was part of the evil club, too. Necromancer, and all.

So, musing about these things rather than paying attention to what I was doing caused me to hit my thumb with a hammer. I knew better than to get distracted during a project. I knew better than to yelp and jerk back when I hit my thumb, too. I had a moment to reflect on that as I cast Dimension Step to avoid hitting the ground.

I knew better than that, too. Now I was still falling, but from higher, and still accelerating. The thing to do was to shorten the fall, not lengthen it. So I looked at the ground and, wincing in advance, and said, “Dimension Step.”

You don’t have to say the name of the – ow!

Ah, that’s right, he felt everything I felt. And what I felt now was pain. I looked up and saw that there were eight arms, belonging to two demons, stretched out to catch me and cushion my fall, which I’d cleverly avoided by teleporting past them. I took most of the hit on my butt, rolled to absorb some on my back, and only hit my head a little. So graceful.

“Are you alright, Uber Archfiend?” one of them asked.

They didn’t seem very evil to me, right then, whatever Valeria said. And I was really regretting that Valeria was back at camp, watching Meta, because I could use a heal right then.

“I think – I think nothing is broken,” I said.

“You think, your Uberness?”

“Sometimes,” I said ruefully, accepting a couple of hands offered to help me up. “Uhhhh.”

“We tried to –” one started.

I waved him off. “Yeah. You did your best.”

“We accept any punishment you choose to dole out,” the other said.

Bapho stopped what he was doing and came over. “You two!” he said. “Climb the ladder and jump off!”

“Yes Sir!” they said in unison, and saluted. They ran for the ladder.

“Stop!” I said.

“Yes Ma’am!” They said, freezing.

“Go!” Bapho said, and they were off again.

“Simon says stop!” I ordered.

“Ma’am?” Bapho said. “Who is Simon?”

Okay, maybe I’d hit my head harder than I thought. “They tried to catch me. They shouldn’t be punished.”

“It isn’t the intent of actions that matters, it’s the results,” Bapho said. “People are responsible for what their actions caused, regardless.”

“Uh, maybe.” Sure, people fucking up were always claiming good intentions, but that didn’t mean intentions didn’t matter. “In this case, however, the actions responsible were mine, not theirs. And you’re not suggesting that I climb the ladder and fall again, are you?”

Bapho stared at me. “No, Ma’am!”

“Good.” I raised my voice. “Break time!”

I felt my body gingerly, hoping that “break” wasn’t too literal. But I had a resilient body, and it seemed okay, just sore.

“Thank you, Enash,” I whispered, thinking I must have hit my head pretty hard to say those words.

Heh. You’re welcome. You can reward me by making some people climb ladders and jump off.