A Heart's Crucible

As Ahriman yelled, the Dev responded with a loud howl. Through his clanging chains, their baying echoed. From their perches and roosts, the imps swarmed the throne room — a black cloud in an ink-stained world, exciting their small audience.

A spitting Ahriman thrust out his chest. He jutted his chin, enjoying his ghoul’s response to the aerial antics in the chamber. Unbalanced Soul flailed Slugger above his head, where the spikes grazed his bald scalp. Dying Ember’s sole ear cocked to fathom a piercing babel. Thirsty Sea taunted his raised net, trying to catch the Dev whom he taught to use the mesh snare. Crumbling Dust jabbed his cudgel to impale any imp within his jumping range. Meanwhile, Gasping Wind aimed his darts, a nasty mash of barbed wire thistles, to sting any lazy low-flying fiend.

Ahriman salivated at his looming destiny. His black army rocketed to the stalactites of Mount Kaf.

The Dev’s cackling racket appeared unstoppable.

“Attend.”

The single word bellowed by the Dark Lord. Yet the Dev ignored Ahriman’s command.

The Dark Lord, who never suffered ‘no,’ only laughed at himself. He smirked as nettled quills fired by Gasping Wind lodged into the behind of a wayward plum-eyed Dev. The creature howled, plucking buckshot from a bleeding black bottom.

“Disregard me!” shouted Ahriman, swinging his chain in a monotonous loop.

The Dev marshalled in a silent phalanx across the massive bone-littered floor. A cohort headed by Kashm, the sly, green-eyed one, who sharpened his claws.

Assembled, the Dev appeared as lumps of charcoal, yet separately, their skin resembled black rice. Grouped, clawed fingers clutched coal-coloured nets and ebony flute-sized blowpipes. Their grey eyes transmitted a sea of emotionless, sooty specks. Only three sets of twins, the yellow, orange and plum-eyed pairs, wobbled like errant ocean buoys.

The Dev possessed grey fangs the size of rabid boar tusks. Suckled on blood, they craved human juice. Malevolent wings spread bat-shaped, yet sleek as a jaguar pelt. The fiend’s spade black hearts thumped in their tight-skinned chests. Foul breaths oozed the stench of dead fish.

The Dev from childhood displayed a volatile nature. If instructed to do one thing, they chose the opposite. Told to stand, they sat. Ordered to relieve themselves in the corner, they sprayed from the spiked ceiling.

Here lay the cunning Lord’s challenge, how to frame the capture of the Peri to the Dev.

Should he risk the order, ‘Kill the Peri.’

Ahriman aimed to trick the imps into trussing the sprites and misleading them into tossing the winged fairies through the portal. He relished the hellish command delivered in a lung-bursting screech.

“De-petal the Peri bitches and rip out their soppy pink facking hearts!”

A chorus of wolf whistles, catcalls, and obscene insults rippled through the cavern. The Lilin maids pushed themselves into the shadows. There they remained whilst the Dev launched a blitzkrieg of whooping and hooting each time The Dark Lord spat on his ring. A cue allowing the Dev to portal from Abandon and plop on earth at twilight.

Ahriman revelled in a jig. In a flash, his hoard ascended and disappeared to do his will. He admired the Dev wings spread in flight. Well, his brand, on their skin, the eclipse pattern of his ring.

A finger stroking his chin, he garnered his ghoul’s response to being denied the greatest of hunts. Unbalanced Soul crunched a bone, releasing marrow to suck. The flurry of the search stirred him. Ahriman recalled his role in training the Dev. The moody ghoul gathered locks of stunning sprite hair from where they bathed. Silky strands from the Shenandoah River rock pools matted into a fur ball in Abandon. A shoddy toy glued using spittle to nurture into the Dev the Peri odour to chase.

Dying Ember’s fingers flared blue; he wished to lead the raiding party. Rash swinging his sword, Ahriman humoured this ghoul. He promised he could brand every Peri. The Dark Lord observed Thirsty Sea, a battle brute who never projected life beyond the immediate. He mumbled obscenities, hoping the Dev used their bloody nets as taught. The ghoul feared the wrath of failure. Crumbling Dust wandered feral, cursing at missed chances to add notches to his cudgel. His excitement rose as he came within an inch of stabbing one of the slower-moving orange-eyed Devs.

Gasping Wind received Ahriman’s attention, whistling ‘hurt so good.’ An intelligent ghoul equalled a dangerous lackey. Even one who created nasty darts to paralyse the Peri — a vile concoction mimicking razor wire ripping through veins. He half-saluted Ahriman; they both knew why the ghouls missed the heinous hunt. Only the Dev portended a match for the Peri in the air. He eyed Ahriman. The Dark Lord sensed this ghoul understood the taxing pressure of power though he aspired to the heights. The draining effort of will to cast forth a thousand imps.

When the last Dev disappeared into the portal, Ahriman scraped his temple. He slumped on his throne into a wide-leg exhaustion. No demigod on display, only the ravages of aeons of incarceration. Under his shielded eye, Gasping Wind’s focus strayed to his ring finger. The one ghoul who possessed the guts to strike off his ring!

Ahriman drew back his shoulders; he knew the cunning ghoul’s schemes for personal advancement. In Kaf’s confinement, the Dark Lord dredged every secret. Ghouls blabbed, sleeping beside the Lilin maids. He knew, too, the Dev mission raised concerns. But, servile, no ghoul dared to speak.

Thirsty Sea took Kashm on bloodbath test runs. Returning, he grunted at every Ahriman question. Later in supposed secret, the half-tongued ghoul told Gasping Wind intense sunlight made the Dev slow. They prowled better at night. And worse, their stench betrayed—a few seconds’ warning of their approach.

Thirsty sea said, “Kashm was a tough bugger but hot-headed.”

Then stammered the worst, “when caught, he ended up paralysed by a simple pin. A single darning needle plunged into his wing by a desperate girl whom we later gutted.”

Truths uttered, intoxicated by wine and the Lilin maids.

Ahriman’s ring hand slipped and dangled. The sliver of silver glinted akin to an eclipse in the gloomy cavern.

Gasping Wind ogled his signet.

“You’re conspiring?” accused Ahriman, opening and cocking one black eye.

His four horns flexed blue.

“Never,” whistled Gasping Wind, sidling away, “I’m entertaining myself with a Lilin. You can’t roll a leg over and plot, my Lord.”

Ahriman belched — he yearned to dine on a Peri heart. He imagined the sweetness of ambrosia. A delight denied him since his fall from heaven.

The Dark Lord yawned; he craved rest. But he pounded the floor. A star alignment favoured hell tonight — a planetary occultation and a lunar eclipse. His chest pumped. A left talon etched into his basalt throne, Dev, while a right spur mutilated the word Peri.