by Paul S. Kemp
“He is spoken for, devil. But not by you.”
“Truth,” Riven added, as he, too, rose.
Mephistopheles looked from Magadon to Cale and his lips formed a hard line. The dark fire around him flared. He beat his decayed wings and the wind of Cania answered with gusts. The cold cut through Cale’s protective spell. The archdevil’s voice was as gelid as the plain.
“All here is mine, shade, even the shadows. You will never leave here. Your lot is to be punished. I will flay your souls and the screaming tatters that remain will be playthings for my gelugons.”
Cale did not bother to deny the archdevil’s claim. He instead said, “We will hurt you first. I promise you that.”
“Hurt you so you remember it,” Riven added.
Unholy power, dark and cold, flared around Mephistopheles’s form.
“Do not,” Magadon said, and Cale was not certain if he was speaking to his father or his comrades.
Mephistopheles kept one hand possessively on Magadon and held his other out at his side. A wickedly pointed iron polearm as tall as Cale appeared in his fist. Magic crackled on its point.
“Hurt me? Think you so?”
Cale stared into the face of his own death and affirmed his claim.
“Think we so.”
Shadows haloed him, thick and dark, and he drew strength from them. Riven twirled his blades and invoked Mask’s power until his sabers bled darkness.
“Seems Mask is here after all,” the assassin said, and spat in the archdevil’s direction.
“But not for long,” the archdevil said.
A soft popping sound heralded the arrival of a gelugon beside Mephistopheles. It stood nearly as tall as its master. The white orbs of its insectoid eyes stared down at Riven and Cale. It held a huge hooked spear in its clawed hand. Frost and soot covered its naked exoskeleton. Wet, steaming respiration leaked through its clicking mandibles. Another gelugon appeared on the other side of its master, another, another. A dozen popped into existence around Mephistopheles, then a score materialized around Cale and Riven and Magadon.
Cale stood in the midst of threescore devils certain in the knowledge that he would die. But he resolved to give Hell to the Lord of Hell before he did.
He called to mind the words to a spell that would charge him with divine power, Mask’s power. He looked at Riven and said farewell with his eyes. Riven looked back and nodded.
They turned to Mephistopheles.
“Enough,” Magadon said.
The mindmage’s words hung in the air, as frozen as the ice. Magadon looked up at his archdevil father and, for the first time, Cale noticed the uncanny resemblance between father and son—the eyes, hair, horns, and jaw.
The archdevil cocked his head with curiosity and the unholy storm of dark energy gathering about him subsided to a simmer.
“Enough, father,” Magadon said.
As sudden as a lightning strike, Mephistopheles backhanded Magadon across his head. The force of the blow knocked the mindmage sprawling to the ice. The gelugons clicked eagerly, shifted on their clawed feet. Cale and Riven started forward.
“No!” Magadon said, halting Cale in his steps. He rose to all fours.
Mephistopheles loomed large over Magadon’s prone form.
“You dare speak thus to me, half-breed? You are the happenstance of my spraying seed, nothing more. Your life has provided me with a measure of amusement, but that life is over now. I will kill your soul, the same as theirs, but your suffering I will prolong.
Blood trickled from Magadon’s nose. He spit out a tooth and lifted his gaze to his father, but only for a moment before he bowed his head in despair.
Cale realized that he and Riven could fight before they died. Magadon could not. It was not in him, not then. Cale had to find another way. He said the first thing that popped into his mind.
“A bargain, devil.”
Mephistopheles kept his eyes on his son as he answered.
“You possess nothing of interest to me except your pain. And that, I claim as my own.”
He raised his polearm high. The wind howled.
Cale’s mind raced. He tried to imagine what he could offer that might appease the archfiend.
“Kesson Rel,” he blurted, and the shadows around him swirled. He swore he heard chuckling on the wind. He had gambled. He knew only a little of Kesson Rel.
The archdevil cocked his head, his weapon leaking evil into the cold air. The gelugons clicked and grunted.
“That is an old name,” Mephistopheles said softly.
Cale heard the curiosity in the archdevil’s tone.
“Will you hear more? I have more to tell.”
Mephistopheles regarded Cale with a thoughtful look. He lowered his weapon and signaled his gelugons. They gave disappointed grunts and blinked away, one after another, back to their sport with the damned.
“What more is there?” Mephistopheles asked. “Choose your words well, shade. There are not many left to you.”
Cale debated on how much to say, what to offer. He looked at Magadon, prone and bleeding, afraid. He glanced at Riven, who stared at him intently.
Cale took a deep breath and did what he must for his friend—he defied his god. He had no choice.
“Kesson Rel possesses something that belongs to another. You know what it is. I will get it back … and give it to you.”
The archdevil’s eyes flared, but with anger or excitement Cale could not tell. Cale didn’t know what Kesson Rel had taken, only that Mask wanted it back and that Mephistopheles seemed intrigued.
Mephistopheles said, “The divine essence of your god, stolen by the first thief of the Lord of Thieves? You make a promise you cannot keep. Have you not already promised it to another?”
Cale quailed when he learned what he had offered, but his words bound him. He nodded. “I have made a promise to another,” Cale said softly, feeling Riven’s eye on him. “But I will keep my promise to you nevertheless.”
Mephistopheles stared at him, into him, through him.
“Words have meaning in Cania, shade. Promises are not idle here—not to me.”
“I know what I have done,” Cale answered.
What he had done was make conflicting promises to Mask and Mephistopheles. He owed a god and an archfiend the same thing—the divine power stolen by Kesson Rel.
Mephistopheles looked out across the plain.
“Speak,” Cale dared say. “I have made you an offer.”
Mephistopheles grinned, showing fangs. “I am considering it.”
Cale moved forward and helped Magadon to his feet. He whispered a healing spell to Mask—expecting full well that the god would not answer him—and sighed with relief when healing energy flowed out of his hands and into his friend.
Magadon squeezed his shoulder gratefully and did not let him go.
“Erevis …” Magadon began.
“Quiet, Mags. It is not over.” Cale looked up at Mephistopheles. “I have given you my terms. Do you accept?”
The archdevil said, “Your god would not be pleased if he knew what you offered.”
“My god often finds me displeasing.”
“So do all fathers their sons,” Mephistopheles said, looking at Magadon. “If I accept your offer, how will you guarantee payment of your debt?”
“My word is all you get. It was enough for him. It is enough for you.”
The archdevil shook his head. “No. I am not as trusting as the so-called god of thieves.” His eyes hardened and fixed on Magadon. “I shall keep my son to ensure you do not default.”
Cale put himself before Magadon. “No.”
“Erevis,” Magadon said, and tried to step out from around Cale. “I will—”
“No,” Cale said to Magadon, to Mephistopheles. “Non negotiable.”
“Everything is negotiable,” the archdevil said.
“Not this.”
Mephistopheles stared into Cale’s face, measuring his resolve.
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��Very well,” Mephistopheles said at last. “I will accept a compromise.”
The archdevil waved his hand in the air and motes of sickly green energy sparkled over Cale and Riven’s skin.
“What is—”
The magic cut Cale’s words short and held him immobile. He could not speak, could not move. His heart hammered against his ribs as Mephistopheles grew to twice his already enormous size and reached around him … for Magadon.
Magadon tried to hold onto Cale, but Mephistopheles peeled him loose.
“I will keep half of him instead of the whole,” the archdevil said.
The mindmage, unaffected by the spell that held Cale immobile, squirmed like a fish in the archdevil’s hand.
“Father, no!”
Mephistopheles wore a smile that Cale had seen before only on madmen. The archdevil stepped back so that Cale and Riven could see everything.
Black energy pooled around father and son. Magadon screamed. The archdevil, as tall as a titan, laid Magadon across his palm and stabbed him in the abdomen with the tip of one of his dagger-sized claws.
Blood poured from Magadon’s torso; he wailed with pain as the devil opened his body.
“No! No! Erevis, help!”
Cale struggled against the enchantment that held him immobile, felt around the edges of the magic and tried to slip the chains of the spell. To no avail. Shadows swirled around him. Frustration and anger rose in him so strongly that he thought he must burst. He broke through enough only to voice a scream.
“Stop!”
Mephistopheles paid him no heed. He tore his claw through Magadon’s torso, opening his abdomen fully, and spilled his innards. They fell in a steaming heap to Cania’s ice.
Magadon’s screams died. The hole in him gaped.
The archdevil shook out the corpse to empty it of blood and organs. A shower of crimson spattered the ice.
Mephistopheles took Magadon’s limp body by the ankles and torso and tore it in two at the waist. The sound of tearing flesh and cracking bone sent bile up Cale’s throat. He could not swallow and it burned the back of his tongue, acrid and foul. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes and froze in the cold air.
The archdevil held aloft the two pieces of Magadon and chuckled. “A half-breed, truly.”
Cale vowed with every breath that he would kill the archdevil, punish him, cause him pain.
Mephistopheles dropped both halves of the body to the ice. Magadon’s face stared at Cale, the dead eyes and mouth wide with pain. The mindmage’s arms spasmed grotesquely in his own gore. Cale prayed it was only a reflex.
Mephistopheles reached down into the pile and with two fingers drew forth a glowing, silver form, a ghostly image of Magadon.
A soul. Magadon’s soul.
Cale wanted to close his eyes but could not.
The form squirmed in Mephistopheles’s grasp as the archdevil held it up before his face. He leered and his eyes glowed with hunger. The face of Magadon’s soul contorted in terror, pounded its fists against the archdevil’s hand, but could not escape.
The archdevil lifted the soul high, tipped back his head, opened his mouth, and bit the soul in half. He swallowed it down as the other half writhed in his grasp. The silence with which Magadon’s soul endured the agony made it all the worse to witness. Cale heard the screams only in his own imagination.
The Lord of Hell cast the remaining half of the soul back into Magadon’s remains. He shrank back down to his normal, merely giant size, bent low, and exhaled a cloud of vile power over the gore.
To Cale’s horror, the bloody pile began to stir. Magadon’s eyes focused directly on Cale and his mouth opened in an animal scream that rose above the wind, that dwarfed the wails of the damned.
Slowly, the mindmage began to pull himself together. Screaming and gibbering all the while, he scooped his innards back into his torso, pulled his upper and lower halves back together. As the parts reunited, Mephistopheles’s magic stitched the bloody pieces back into a man.
The archfiend waited until Magadon was almost whole, then grabbed his son by his hair, pulled him up, and put his mouth to Magadon’s ear. He whispered something that Cale could not make out. The terror in Magadon’s eyes made Cale thankful that he could not see Mephistopheles’s lips to read them.
The archdevil released his son and Magadon collapsed to the ice. Mephistopheles eyed the immobile Cale, circled behind him.
Cale never felt more vulnerable. He waited for pain.
It did not come. Instead, he felt the archdevil rifling in his pack.
“Here,” the archdevil said. “I knew I smelled the tang of a goddess. This, too, I claim as mine.”
He circled back into Cale’s field of vision and Cale saw that Mephistopheles held in his hands the black book that Cale had taken from the Fane of Shadows. The archdevil flipped open the back cover of the book and flipped through the pages, thumbing from back to front.
Cale could see that the pages contained more writing than the last time he had opened the book in Stormweather Tower. Precise purple script covered the sheets. It appeared that the book was … rewriting itself from the back to the front.
“Another interesting toy,” the archdevil murmured. He snapped the book shut and smiled. “Interesting times lay ahead.”
Mephistopheles flicked his wrist and the book disappeared in a puff of foul-smelling smoke. He looked over to Magadon, who was once more whole, but prone on all fours, slick with gore, and coughing. The archdevil moved to Magadon’s side, grabbed him by the arm, and jerked him to his feet.
“No more,” Magadon said in a broken voice.
“Your obeisance comes too late, half-breed.”
To Cale, Mephistopheles said, “What’s left of him is yours. But if you renege, I will destroy utterly what I have taken and come for the rest. You cannot protect him. Bring me what you’ve promised, and I shall vomit him up and do him no further harm.”
With that, he threw Magadon toward Cale.
At the same moment, the spell holding Cale and Riven immobile ended.
Cale could do nothing but catch his blood-slicked friend, who groaned and collapsed in his arms, but Riven twirled his blades and stalked toward the archdevil.
“No, Riven!” Cale shouted immediately. “No!”
The assassin did not look at Cale but stopped his advance. His breath came like a bellows.
“Not now,” Cale said.
The assassin stared hate at the archdevil.
Magadon started to shake in Cale’s arms. It took a moment for Cale to realize that he was sobbing.
“Riven,” Cale said, more softly. “We are leaving.”
Riven looked back at Cale, saw Magadon, and his expression softened. He turned back to the archdevil, spat at his feet, and sheathed his blades.
Mephistopheles only cocked an eyebrow in amusement.
Cale held his friend and stared into Mephistopheles’s face, into his eyes, and did not blanch.
“I will get you what I’ve promised and you will return the rest of him to me. And when that bargain is concluded, I will exact payment for this.”
“And the price will be high,” Riven added, as he stepped beside Cale. He put a hand on Magadon’s shoulder, gently, the way Cale had seen him touch his dogs.
Mephistopheles lost the amused expression. “You make another promise you will find difficult to keep, First of Five.”
Cale shook his head and stared. “I have never made a promise more easily kept.”
“That’s truth,” Riven added coldly.
Mephistopheles did not even glance at Riven. He studied Cale’s face for a moment.
“You, too, could have been one of mine, I think.”
Cale stared. “You know nothing about me.”
“I know you entirely. I know what you want. I know what you are willing to do to have it.”
Shadows oozed from Cale’s flesh. He felt Riven’s eye on him, Magadon’s eyes.
“Shall I say it?” the
archdevil asked. “If I do, it will never happen.”
“You know nothing,” Cale said, but his voice lacked conviction.
Mephistopheles looked upon Cale and smiled. “You wish to transcend, wish it desperately. So do all men who hate themselves. But you never shall. Not now.”
The truth of the words was too evident to deny.
Mephistopheles filled the silence with a chuckle. “Now, begone from my realm. Skulk back into the shadows in which you cower and get me what you’ve promised.”
He blew out a black cloud that engulfed the three comrades.
“And remember always that I am a liar,” the archdevil said.
Cale’s stomach lurched as they moved between worlds.
Elyril sat cross-legged and nude on the carpeted floor, her back to the hearth. The darkness in the chamber caressed her skin, teased pleasantly at the soft hairs of her arms and legs. She took a pinch of minddust from the small metal box on the floor at her side. The pungent drug took effect immediately and her consciousness expanded.
The flames from the fire behind her cast malformed shadows on the pale plaster wall opposite. The minddust darkened them, sharpened their lines. Elyril watched them dance and spin and tried to understand their truth.
What do they say? projected Kefil.
The enormous mastiff lay curled beside her, a mountain of black fur, muscle, and teeth.
They keep their secrets, she answered. Silence, now, Kefil.
Kefil sighed, licked her hand, and shifted position.
Elyril watched faces and shapes form and dissipate in the chaos on the wall. She willed them to speak, to give her wisdom. She wished to know the secret of the sign and the book to be made whole. She held her arms aloft, stirring the shadows, and whispered, “In the darkness of the night, we hear the whisper of the void.”
Her words set the images to roiling. Dozens of faces formed momentarily in the darkness and leered at her from the wall. They said nothing, offered her no secrets, and her frustration grew. She shifted her position to change her perspective. Kefil groaned and rolled over on his back. Elyril inhaled another pinch of minddust and lit her senses on fire.
The wall darkened and the faces withdrew. Stillness ruled the room. She was alone in the darkness. The air thickened. She saw her heart beating in her shadow.