The bolt slammed into the Mad God’s forehead, whereupon his body took on a trembling rictus. The final bolt blossomed and soon joined its infernal energy to the others, Pilgrim seeing a dark shimmer spread across the floor beneath the twitching body. It was vague at first but soon deepened, the edges hardening to create a portal through which Pilgrim could see distant fires burning.
Player stepped close to the edge of the portal, removing his mask as he turned to regard Pilgrim. The demonic features were even more misshapen than when first revealed. A series of large pustules marred his faced from check to neck, the depredations of the snake’s venom Pilgrim supposed.
“It spat me out,” Player explained with a grimace. “I wasn’t to its taste.” He gave one of his florid bows, speaking in much the same theatrical tones as before, though his voice had gained a good deal of depth. “Thank you for leaving my mask. Its glamour concealed my presence in his domain, you see.”
“You are very much welcome,” Pilgrim assured him in a groan, getting painfully to his feet. “Tell me,” he said. “Was there ever a real Player?”
“Oh, yes indeed. A famously inept Arethian actor with a foolish notion of making pilgrimage to the Execration to beseech the Mad God for the talent he craved. I made him a better bargain. Now, he plays to very appreciative audiences in a performance that never ends.” Player inclined his head at the portal and the distant fires below. “In there, where I must now return.”
He started forward but paused again. “The seven cursed blades were set upon the earth for a purpose,” he said. “To release the demons that dwell within them, that purpose must be fulfilled, for that they must be brought together.” He gave Pilgrim a grave smile. “If you still wish to be freed from it, that is.”
He turned his gaze on the shuddering form of the Mad God and sighed as he laid his hand upon it, muttering in the demon tongue, “They should have allowed me to extinguish thee, my lord. Thou were as much blight upon our realm as theirs.”
They fell then, disappearing into the portal in a blaze of near-blinding energy. Pilgrim averted his eyes, blinking tears until he saw only a bare marble floor and no sign of either demon.
“What was he?” Pilgrim asked the voice. “The Mad God, in the Infernus.”
A demon lord of the First Circle, also a warrior and general of great renown. Demons do love to war with one another, and he loved it more than any other. I was his most trusted spy, for a time. It didn’t last.
“His name?”
Best left unspoken.