Brennus stood before the thaumaturgic triangle, incanting the summoning. Shadows and arcane power whirled slow spirals around him, around the room. The thrum of gathering energy formed the dark seed over the triangle, expanded into a window on the Hells. Screams and stink poured through the opening. Brennus called the name of the archfiend over the tumult and his voice boomed across the planes.
Mephistopheles answered. The shadow of his muscular, winged form appeared in the planar window. Brennus gagged at the charnel reek. The power peaked and Mephistopheles manifested within the circle. His white eyes fixed on Brennus, narrowed. Unholy power rippled from his glowing red flesh.
"You presume to summon me again, shadeling? For that-" He stopped, sniffed the air, and frowned. His mouth split in a fanged smile. "You are not alone."
Telemont, Hadrhune, and five archwizards of Telamont's court let the shadows around them fall away.
"No, he is not alone," Telemont said.
As one, the shadow mages incanted words of power. Mephistopheles roared, and grew in a heartbeat to the size of a titan. A three-tined iron polearm longer than Brennus was tall appeared in his hand, sheathed in a black cloud of unholy might.
He stepped from the circle, piercing Brennus's binding with ease. He held out a hand and a bolt of black energy arced from his palm, struck one of the archwizards, and reduced him to a pile of twitching gore.
Telemont, Hadrhune, and the remaining archwizards completed their spell and chains of shadow squirmed from the floor at the archfiend's feet, shackling him at ankles and wrists. Telemont made a cutting gesture with his hand and a final chain, thicker than the rest, sprung from the floor and ringed the archfiend's waist.
Mephistopheles beat his wings, pulled against his bindings, but the chains, composed of the stuff of Shade Enclave itself, rattled and held him fast. He glared at Telemont and viridian beams shot from his white eyes. They struck the Most High and shadows exploded around him. He groaned, staggered backward, but kept his feet. Telemont shouted a word of power, held a hand before him palm out, and the chains on Mephistopheles tightened.
Mephistopheles exhaled a cloud of power at Telemont but it stopped a few paces from the fiend's face, dissipating into the dark air.
"The shackles suppress your power now," Telemont said, his voice strained.
Mephistopheles roared, beat his wings, and pulled in a frenzy against his bindings. Brennus backed away, his heart racing.
Power seethed around the archfiend, a black cloud shot through with lines of crackling green power. Veins and sinew looked like ropes in his straining muscles. He roared again and chunks of quartz from the dome above rained down, shattering on the floor into hundreds of jagged shards. He lurched from side to side and yanked against his bonds. The whole of Shade Enclave bucked and rolled. Brennus fell and the shards of quartz skittered across the floor.
Telemont and Hadrhune merely watched, their eyes aglow.
"You have him, Most High," said Hadrhune.
After a time Mephistopheles ceased his struggles. Huge breaths expanded his mammoth chest and his lips peeled back to show his fangs.
"You cannot harm me, shade," he said to Telemont. "Even on this plane, in this form, I am well beyond you. And you cannot hold me here forever. Yet forever is how long I have." He nodded at the archwizards and pulled at the shadow chains. "How long before one of your lackeys errs and these chains weaken? I forget and forgive nothing, Tanthul."
Brennus stood, remembered to breathe. The shadows around him churned in time to his racing heart.
"You speak truth," Telemont said. The Most High glided forward until he was nearly within reach of the archfiend. Dark power shrouded them both, though Mephistopheles towered over Telemont. "But your realm will suffer in your absence."
Mephistopheles snarled. "And your realm will suffer in my presence."
Telemont inclined his head, conceding the point.
"We will free you if you tell me what I wish to know."
Mephistopheles's eyes flashed cunning at the mention of a deal.
"Ask and I will decide whether to answer you with truth, lies, or not at all."
"Kesson Rel's death will free the Shadowlord's stolen divinity. I wish to divert it before it returns to the god or enters another of his Chosen."
The statement seemed to surprise the archfiend. Behind the white eyes, Brennus saw the complicated workings of an ancient, powerful intelligence calculating.
"It cannot be done."
The shadows around Telemont swirled. He glided forward another step and said, "A lie. I can detect them even from you."
Mephistopheles pondered for a moment, perhaps considering Telamont's claim.
"Can you?" he murmured.
Telemont waited, saying nothing. The archfiend looked past him to the archwizards, to Hadrhune, to Brennus, where his gaze lingered for a moment. Brennus again sensed the fiend's mind working through possibilities.
"Perhaps Baalzebul has noticed your absence already," the Most High said. "Perhaps he prepares a move against Mephistar while you scheme in your chains."
At the mention of one of his rivals, Mephistopheles's eyes narrowed. His flesh brightened to crimson and smoke exited his nostrils.
"Very well, shadeling. It can be done."
"Tell me how."
Brennus listened with interest as Mephistopheles told them the series of spells and the focus necessary to do what they intended. They would have little time once Kesson Rel was dead.
Afterward, Telemont nodded, and backed away. "My thanks, Lord of Cania. You are free."
The Most High gestured and the shackles opened, though the chains remained near Mephistopheles, ready to re-bind him should he do ought but leave. Power sizzled in the air around the archfiend. The shadows in the room darkened.
The archfiend began to fade. Before he did, he pointed a finger at Brennus.
"You wish to know the name of he who murdered your mother?"
"My Lord!" Hadrhune said, stepping forward.
Telemont gestured as if to cast a spell but did not complete it in time.
"Your brother," Mephistopheles said. "Rivalen Tanthul murdered your mother to seal a pact with Shar."
With that, the archfiend vanished in a cloud of smoke and brimstone.
Silence expanded to fill the room. The dead or nearly dead archwizard made wet sounds.
Jumbled thoughts bounced around inside Brennus's skull. The shadows around him whirled and spun in response. He grabbed hold of the thought that Mephistopheles was a liar, that he had, in fact, lied. But the archfiend would also know that Brennus could use his spells to determine the truth of the claim.
Why lie, then?
Hadrhune breezed past Brennus to Telemont. "He says nothing out of pique, my lord. He plans to seize the power, too. This complicates matters."
Telemont nodded. "It does. But we must trust in the Lady, Hadrhune. Events will be what they will be."
Brennus could not understand his father's indifference to the fiend's words.
"Did you hear his accusation, Most High?"
Telemont shared a look with Hadrhune, with his archwizards. The latter bowed and vanished into the shadows after teleporting the gore of their fellow from the room.
The Most High and Hadrhune turned to face Brennus and their somber expressions told Brennus all he needed to know.
It was true. Rivalen had murdered his mother.
And his father had known.
"You knew?"
The Most High looked away and Brennus flew at his father. Hadrhune interposed himself but Telemont moved him aside with a hand. Brennus grabbed his father by the cloak, shook him, stared into the thin, dark face. The light of his platinum eyes did nothing to illuminate the blackness in the hollows of his cheeks, the circles under his eyes.