The boy walking down the Osetarian road in the middle of the night with a lantern in hand was a terrible sight to behold. The green eyes could have belonged to a mad beast and a single look was a promise of horrible violence. Tears had to fight their way out for him to cry but cry he had. Drops of salt had washed away the dirt on his face and left behind trails like scars. His hands were blistered and bleeding and far too large for his wrists. His overalls were stained and torn at the knees.

He cast a shadow befitting a titan.

When clock struck midnight, he could see giddy flames dancing in the air. Ghost lights the color of eerie morning mist. The boy put out his lantern and like a hunting tiger began following the will-o-wisps into the outer dark of the night.

It was there that he found what he had been looking for.

Anyone who had fought the boy no matter how much bigger and meaner they were, would have sworn the boy was too mad to feel fear. He fought dirty. He had bit off fingers. He had gouged out an eye. He did not stop throwing punches even when the skin on his knuckles had split. When a local lordling had tried to force themselves on his mother, he had burned his home down in the middle of the night and waited outside with an ax in case anyone made it out in time. The boy had sworn to his blind mother that the world would break before breaking him.

When he saw the demons dancing and celebrating in the crossroads, the boy knew fear and reached for the only beautiful thing on him. A small idol of a Wyrding god gifted to him by his mother in the shape of a wolf’s head.

He whispered a prayer while holding the idol.

"In our long Path, they watch over us,

Light of the Balefire guides us,

Shade of the Dark hides us,

Might of the Storm protects us,

Fruits of the Soil nourishes us,

Wisdom of the Mountain consoles us,

Knowledge of the Deep advises us,

Touch of the Quiet nurtures us,

Fury of the Wild drives us,

They won't let jaws of the Screaming devour us,

And to the Green Lands they welcome us."

The demons did not come to him as beautiful women or smooth-talking tricksters. There was no mistaking of what they were. Horned and hoofed, with darkhaired bodies. Horrid mutant chimeras where you could not tell where the man ended, and the animal began. Even the beautiful ones were terrible to behold. A swashbuckler with a bird’s head was showing off his swordsmanship. A handsome young man was riding a camel and doing tricks. A light-hoofed demon with horns and a furry body was playing the violin and dancing while the other demons were laughing and cheering on. He danced and danced. Like a man dancing on the grave of a hated enemy. He danced and danced, promising that one day the world would belong to them. He danced and danced, swearing that a day would come when nothing would exist except for the leave of their emperor.

Then he saw the emperor of all demonkind.

A figure sitting on a throne of wood. Watching the celebration without taking part in it. The hood of his robe hid his face and the shadows he cast were deeper and darker than the bottom of the ocean. A wound in the world full of endless hunger and malice.

Then suddenly the dancing demon stopped playing the fiddle and looked straight at the boy’s hiding place. He had high arched eyebrows and a pointy beard. His horns were the color of dirty snow.

“I told you, my pretties, didn’t I? I said we would have a guest of honor here tonight. Now who doubts the Wise Mephisto?” The demon said and beckoned the boy to them: “Come. Come and join us. We have gifts for our guest of honor.”

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The boy’s feet were no longer his own and he stepped out of his hiding place and walked amidst the demons. They looked at him like a treat they had been saving for a long time and could not wait to gobble up.

But the boy did not care for any of them.

He could not take his eyes off the demon king. The Devil. And the Devil was looking back at him. The boy could not make out his eyes in the darkness of his hood, but he could feel his gaze. Under those eyes you knew how small, weak, and insignificant you were. There were no secrets from those eyes.

“What a brave boy.” The dancing demon Mephisto said: “Such a bold lad. When was the last time someone dared to approach us? It has been too long. What brings you here, our fearless hero?”

It took a moment for the boy to realize that the demons were waiting for an answer. But the Devil would not let him speak. His gaze was a vise that would not let him go.

Unless he tore himself free.

It wouldn’t have been more painful if he had ripped his own arm off, but he managed to struggle himself free of the hold the Devil had of him and face Mephisto’s gaze that felt like nothing after peering into the darkness where the Devil lived.

“I buried my mother today.” The boy said.

Mephisto giggled.

“Oh, yes. Your poor, blind abused mother. Her only comfort was her beloved son by her side.” Mephisto said.

The boy crossed his arms like he was trying to hug a ghost while the celebrating demons laughed and raised a toast to his dead mother. And all other dead mothers who had ever been buried in a pauper’s grave.

“A soldier… forced himself on her… during the Twelve-Year-War.” The boy said and every word burned his tongue like acid.

“But she fought back. Like a lion and blinded the man who pumped his seed in her. As revenge she was blinded too. And cut into pieces. But she lived and gave birth to her rapist’s son.” Mephisto said.

The demons laughed and hollered like this was the funniest joke they had ever heard. The Devil slouched on his throne and rested his head against his fist.

“I want revenge.” The boy said: “I want to find my father and kill him.”

The demons cheered and hollered hearing this. They began to chant a single word. Revenge! Revenge! Revenge! Revenge! Mephisto grinned and his teeth were like a row of tombstones.

“You would kill your own father? How very naughty of you. Kinslaying is serious business.” Mephisto said and pointed his fiddlestick at him: “You have come to the right place. Our master also killed his father. He was weak and bowed down to Girusai rather than die on his feet like a king, so our master gutted him. So it goes.”

The boy looked at the Devil and saw what he needed to be. Powerful enough to challenge nobles. Ruthless enough to slay his own blood. And fearless enough to live with what he had done.

“Where is he?” The boy asked.

Mephisto wagged his finger.

“Now, now, nothing worth having comes for free. You must have something on you. Something precious. Something that is a bigger part of you than you realize.” Mephisto said and fished out the amulet from under his shirt with his fiddlestick: “Like this.”

The boy stepped back and hid the amulet in his fist.

“It was a gift from my mother.”

“And now she is dead. It didn’t protect her. Won’t you part with some bauble to avenge her?” Mephisto asked.

Fine silk rustled when the Devil moved his hand and a wind carried words only Mephisto could hear. The demons had suddenly fallen quiet and stared at their master in fearful revelry. When Mephisto turned to look at the boy, the demon’s smug smile was gone and replaced with… pity?

“Our master gives you leave to approach him.” Mephisto said quietly.

The boy lost control of his feet again. He squeezed the idol his mother had given to him and approached the Devil in all his terrible glory. The closer he got, the bigger he grew until his head stood amidst the stars and his robes covered the world. The boy stood before him feeling small, ugly, worthless, and insignificant like a bug waiting for the boot to come down but he did not avert his gaze even then.

The Devil put out his hand.

When the boy tried to place the idol on the Devil’s hand, the idol clung to him. He could hear a voice whispering to him from it. Warning him that he was giving up far more than just a gift from his mother. What he was giving up was something every man needed to be a man and even if he somehow got it back one day, the scars of guilt and shame might be more than he could bear. More than anyone could bear. It was not too late to turn back yet. He could still go home with his soul intact.

“Well?” Mephisto said: “Are you just going to accept a world where lords can rape and murder kids with a shit-eating grins on their faces?”

The boy stared at the idol and could have sworn the wolf head was looking back at him. He remembered the first tenet of the Balefire his mother had taught him so long ago.

A just Path is stronger than all the host of errors.

She had taught him so much. The value of kindness, honor, and defending those who couldn’t defend themselves. She had been everything a follower of the Balefire should have been. The world had never broken her.

And the Balefire had let her down.

She had died poor and blind in a cottage while her murderers lived in palaces. His mother had never betrayed the Balefire. It had betrayed her! A Path that led you to misery and suffering was a trap! He would blaze down a Path all of his own!

“No.” The boy growled and dropped the idol in the Devil’s hand.

When the idol fell from his hand, the boy felt something rotting away inside him. Something that’s value he had not understood until it was gone.

But he no longer cared.

His heart had turned to stone.

When he stared into the dark shadows cast by the Devil’s hood, he saw everything men feared. The monsters lurking in the dark. Everything they did not know but dreaded all the same. The darkness that had driven them huddle around their small fires and worship the light.

He saw himself staring back in the dark.

Somewhere far away, a mother wolf let out a mournful howl.

“Very good, boy.” Mephisto said and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder: “Your father lives in the kingdom of the deposed Fire Kings. A blind lord with a child and a wife and a greater lord for a brother.”

This gave the boy pause.

“A lord? My father is a lord?” The boy said and clenched his hand into a fist: “If Garuccia is where he is, Garuccia is where I shall go.”

“Then go and bring hell with you.” Mephisto said.