“What was that?” Asked Urathenemon. Everything felt... different. It was like a voice in their head had left. The devils who served Urath stood completely still while the ones they just captured began to boredly undo their bindings.

“Ugh!” The snake one groaned as she stepped out of her bonds and away from the still bound ghost she left behind, “Why do we always get left in these shitty places?”

“What are you talking about?” Urath asked as they took a few exploratory steps around their majestic atrium. “What is this illusion of me?” They asked, pointing at the ghost that stood where they had when The Stage slipped. “Why is it moving?”

The vibrantly colored, translucent image of the Great Fiend was half walking but going nowhere. Sometimes it would swing its flanged mace. Urath bit snaggling teeth into their lip, once again reconsidering whether they shouldn’t have not listened to their mother and gone with the mace that had the lovely orb carved in that entrancing swirl they had seen.

Their mother had scratched their balls and said, “It needs to look dangerous!” They had said. “With all that is within your power to change, you are saying something by your choices,” Urath had looked at their tastefully distressed breechclout. The deathmask of a nun who was sent to hell for witchcraft after the mortality rate of a village fell significantly when she taught everyone the secret rituals of handwashing screamed silently from Urath’s groin. “Your weapon needs to be in accord so that you are always saying how deadly and dangerous you are.”

Their mother had laid a hand, ripe with the sour, familiar scent of mother’s balls, on Urath’s shoulder. “You have to say this and be this because if anyone even thinks they hear you say anything else, that is all they will hear and it is what they will tell others and then I will kill you rather than suffer the indignity of watching my child be cut down from a thousand jealous parasites to your power as they prey upon perceived weakness.” After a tender kiss on Urath’s head, their mother finished with, “Just like I did to your brother.”

“Why can’t we get left in a hot springs spa?” Asked the tentacled one, taking off his boots and rubbing his slimy feet.

“Did you hear what I said? What is happening?” Urath asked.

“Or at a Holy Day Feast?” Said a small voice, wriggling out from the hole in the wall where Urathenemon had smashed the skull of a server into when Urath thought the server had gotten their order wrong. They had covered up the hole with a potted plant while they waited for more tradesmen to commit sins. Urath hadn’t wanted to divert any of their existing tradesfolk from their current, important work involving monumental erections.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Ignore me at your own peril, mortal. For I, Urath-”

“Or in bed with a good book?” asked the snake one.

Urath decided to slowly rip one of them in half.

“Don’t bother.” the little one who had crawled from a hole in the wall said after Urathenemon had made several attempts to rip them in half and had succeeded only in ripping ghostly echoes from his body while the sneaky thing remained largely unphased. “It won’t work for quite awhile.”

“Explain.” Urath commanded, using his most seductively commanding voice.

“Explain, what?” prompted the little one.

“Explain all this!” Urath growled, gesturing at the ghostly images and the frozen forms of his minions.

“Explain all this, what?” the little one replied piquishly.

“He wants you to say ‘please’!” said the invisible one.

“I am a Duke and do not plead with trespassers.” Urath said, although he was less certain than earlier.

“Remember that banquet that was held in our honor?” the small one asked.

“The one after we saved the city from the ogres?” the tentacled one asked. He had stopped rubbing their feet and had begun going through his belongings, looking for something.

“Or the one for when we returned the kidnapped queen?” the snake one added.

Urath smashed their mace down into the fine imported tiles that it had cost them a great deal to acquire. Each square foot had been carefully tormented from the bones of a living rock giant and they exploded beneath Urath's fury.

But then again, they hadn’t. The tiles still lay intact as the debris slowly faded. The little one also stood there, also intact.

“That was only half a banquet.” said tentacles.

“Well, that might be generous considering what fraction of the queen returned.” said snake.

“We returned what we could find.” the small one said. “But I was referring to the banquet the genies threw us after we freed their prince from the terms of their gym membership.”

Urathenemon had heard about that. Gym memberships were one of the more lauded technologies of hell and the fiend who had ensnared the genie had won an award. If these were the heroes who had freed the djinn, they must be powerful indeed.

“You wish the stage would have left us there?” asked snake.

“I do.” said small.

“please.” said Urath, their voice barely making it over the enormous wall of pride they bore.

“The food was literally magical.” tentacles said. Nearly everything was out of their pack by now, spreading out in a pool of clothes and food and blankets.

“I miss the musical fruit that played a melody while you chewed it.”

“Please.” Urath said, louder this time.

“What is that you say, friend?” asked tiny.

“Fiend," corrected Urath, "Please, tell me what is happening.”

“We’d be happy to,” began tiny.

“Speak for yourself!” said tentacles. They had found a small paint set in their items and had begun drawing mustaches on the frozen minions and bystanders.

“I’d be happy to,” amended tiny.

They took a seat at a table where already sat a heartbreakingly adorable baby calico goat. Two devils sat frozen beside them, both of their cups of tea, one half way to the lips of the drinker, had small goat poops floating in them.