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.