Rivalen understood the implication immediately. “And now he serves Mephistopheles?”
“He was betrayed by Mephistopheles! We both were!”
Rivalen saw an opportunity, used his power to put guile into his voice. “And the archfiend’s betrayal turned him into. . that?”
The man nodded hard, once.
“What’s your name?” Rivalen glided forward, closing the distance between them.
“What difference does it make? It’s all lost now. Everything. It was all for nothing.”
The words pleased Rivalen. He pulled the man’s name from his mind. “Sayeed. Your name is Sayeed.”
Sayeed’s brow furrowed. He took another step back, sword and shield ready.
“There’s nothing to fear,” Rivalen said, waving a shadow-strewn hand dismissively. “A minor cantrip. Your name hovered at the forefront of your thinking because I asked the question. You serve the archfiend as well, Sayeed?”
The man’s jaw tightened as he chewed on rising anger. “I serve myself. And my brother.”
“Your brother is gone. Whatever he was, that isn’t him.”
Sayeed’s expression fell but only for a moment before he recovered his stoicism. “We were-”
He cut himself short, shaking his head.
Again, Rivalen knew his words before he spoke them. “You were cursed. But not by the archdevil?”
“No, not by him. The Spellplague changed us.”
“Ah,” Rivalen said with a nod. “But Mephistopheles promised you release.” Rivalen gestured at the bound devil, Sayeed’s transformed brother. “And that is how an archfiend honors his word.”
The man glared at Rivalen, his hands opening and closing on the hilt of his sword. “A Shadovar is no better.”
Rivalen smiled. “Oh, you are world-weary, Sayeed. I see it clearly. I’ve known others like you, many others.” His memory flashed on Tamlin Uskevren, whose pain Rivalen had used to twist the young nobleman to his ends. “The world has treated you harshly. Hope wanes. Despair rises, replaced by bitterness. It’s warranted. You’re afflicted by hardship. I was, too, once. The Lady offers a place to lay such weight.”
Sayeed shook his head, looked away, but Rivalen saw something awaken behind the indifference. “The Lady? Shar?”
He said the word as many did, in hushed, fearful tones.
Rivalen stepped close to Sayeed, the two of them eye to eye, Sayeed caught up in Rivalen’s shadows.
“Shar, yes. The Lady of Loss knows your pain. What burden do you bear, Sayeed brother of Zeeahd? I’m her servant. Confess it to me.”
Sayeed swallowed. “No. It’s mine to bear.”
Rivalen admired the man’s stubbornness. “Share it. Perhaps I can help ease the weight.”
Sayeed stuck out his chin. “I require no help.”
Rivalen recognized the ground Sayeed stood on, offering the last bit of defiance. He saw potential in the man, a possible use. His despair and bitterness ran deeper, perhaps, than even Brennus’s. Shar had put Sayeed in Rivalen’s path, and Sayeed was but a small step away from where Rivalen needed him to be.
“Well enough, then,” Rivalen said. “Luck to you.”
He turned and glided away, allowing Sayeed a few moments to think.
“You’ll leave us?” Sayeed said to his back.
“What are you and your cursed brother to me, Sayeed?”
Rivalen started to gather the shadows around him.
“Wait!” Sayeed called, and Rivalen knew from the man’s tone that he had him. He let his hand brush the holy symbol of the Lady he kept on an electrum chain about his neck.
“You said you could help,” Sayeed said.
“I said ‘perhaps I could help.’ You’re yet to give name to your affliction.”
“My affliction,” Sayeed said, and started to pace in agitation. “My affliction.”
Rivalen waited, letting matters take their course.
Sayeed walked a circle, an animal filled with pent-up anger. His voice gained volume as he spoke. “My affliction is that I’m no longer a man. I don’t taste food or drink. I don’t take pleasure in a woman’s touch! I feel nothing! Nothing! Not even pain!”
Before Rivalen could act, Sayeed slid his hand along the length of his sword. He didn’t wince. Blood poured from the wound, but only for a moment before his skin closed. He held up his hand for Rivalen to see. It was unmarred.
“I’m not alive, but death is kept from me. Can you help me with that, Shadovar? Can you? Kill me if you can!”
Rivalen thought of Shar’s eye, of The Leaves of One Night. He stepped close and put his hand on Sayeed’s shoulder.
“I can help you. Indeed, I can.”
Sayeed looked up, his eyes clear, as dead as those of a corpse. “I want. . help.”
Rivalen steered Sayeed around until he faced his transformed brother. “You’ll have it. And you will help me in the process. Will you do that, Sayeed? Help me? Help the Lady?”
Rivalen felt Sayeed’s body sag at the request, but he nodded vacantly. “What things?”
“A small thing, but important. I need you to read something, is all.”
“Read something?”
The man was lost, broken, as soulless as a living human could be. He was exactly what Rivalen needed. He would serve even better than Brennus.
“I’ll explain in time. But now you must do something else.” He nodded at the bone devil. “Kill it. Kill what’s left of your brother. Kill what’s left of your life before today, before this moment.”
Shaking his head, Sayeed tried to step back but Rivalen held him fast, shadows swirling around him. “That’s my brother. I can’t. I won’t.”
Rivalen tightened his grip on Sayeed’s shoulder. A man who felt pain would have cried out. Sayeed gave no response.
“That is, indeed, your brother, but you must do as I say. He’s a tool of Mephistopheles, Sayeed, and Mephistopheles betrayed your brother and you. But you will have your revenge. I vow it. You will see Mephistopheles suffer. But first, you must do as I’ve asked.”
Sayeed stared at the bone devil, the towering fiend held helpless by Rivalen’s spell.
He needed reassurance, so Rivalen gave it to him.
“This is how it must be. Free him, Sayeed. Give him death. End his suffering.”
Sayeed’s jaw tightened. He nodded, his mouth set, his brow furrowed. He took his blade in both hands. “Release him.”
“There’s no-”
“I won’t execute him while he is helpless!”
“Very well.”
A minor exercise of will freed the bone devil from the spell. Instantly, the creature rushed forward, bony claws raised high, the spike of its tail curled up over its head.
Rivalen backed away as Sayeed ducked under the devil’s claw slash and sidestepped the spike of its tail, which drove deeply into the soil. Sayeed rode his momentum into a spinning slash that severed the devil’s leg and sent it toppling to the earth.
Sayeed was atop it before it could rise to even a sitting position.
“I hate you!” he screamed, and drove his blade into the devil’s chest again and again. “I hate you for this!”
Rivalen didn’t know if Sayeed was speaking to him or his transformed brother or to Mephistopheles, and he didn’t care.
“Your bitterness is sweet to the Lady,” he muttered.
Sayeed would be perfect. Perfect.
Presently it was over. The devil’s body was chopped apart, ichor staining the grass. Sayeed wiped his blade clean on the turf and sheathed his weapon over his back.
“You did him a service,” Rivalen said. “And now you’ll do so for me. The Lady’s eye is on you, Sayeed. She sees you clearly.”
He gathered the shadows about them both and rode the darkness from that place to Ordulin.
Brennus materialized in his safe room in Sakkors, a vaulted, lead-lined chamber stocked with multifarious magic wands, staffs, scrolls, and potions, and warded with the most powerful abjurations he knew. Two iron golems greeted his arrival with creaky nods; the towering metal constructs were obliged to attack anything and anyone that appeared in the safe room unescorted by Brennus.