Chapter 25: The Tin Soldier
Their footsteps continued to echo through the winding hall and into the next room, a circular chamber with a domed, 20-foot-high ceiling set with a sea of softly glowing gray crystals. A round counter stood at the middle of the room, its five-foot-tall sides walling off a single black door on the inside of the counter. A cracked, gray crystal ball sat at the center of the countertop. Unlike the crystals above, it did not glow. Behind it stood a seven-foot-tall statue of metal gears and parts, its face as smooth and alien as the lid of a silver platter.
With no time to waste, Mathal vaulted over the countertop. Her feet never touched the ground. A cold metal hand of gears and parts clamped over her throat and dangled her in the air. She dug her claws into its arm, witchlocks slamming its face as she pulled back.
The statue, entirely unphased, kept its suffocating grip. Chelon screamed. It lifted her over the countertop...and simply dropped her on the other side.
"Do you have a contract?" they asked in Infernal, their voice as cold and hollow as an empty tin.
Tarvi and Gorvio ran to Mathal. Though coughing and wheezing, she pushed up to standing on her own. Gorvio picked Kulata off his backpack and held the devil between the three of them.
"What are they talking about?"
"It wasn't me this time, swear to the Godfiend."
To bind Liebdaga, any devil, to service required a contract. The late Lord-Mayor Arvanxi had inherited Liebdaga's when he took office. Now that he was dead, the contract was up for grabs, provided that it could be found.
"Crosael," muttered Mathal.
Tarvi approached the counter.
"Excuse me, did a guy in a floppy hat and a rag dress come by here?"
"No. Do you have a contract?"
"Everyone must still be looking for it. Or Crosael has it and they're all looking for Crosael. Damn, I wish I hadn't flushed him away."
Like the turd that he was.
"Can we send Liebdaga back to Hell without the contract?" asked Gorvio, eyes on the lonely door.
"That's where we all end up, eventually. But anyone with the contract could simply call Liebdaga back."
Not only did they need the contract, they needed to destroy the contract. But with Liebdaga continuing to bring in their army from Hell-
"We don't have time to wait around for Crosael," said Mathal quietly.
"You have an idea…," said Tarvi. "A bad one."
"Kulata-"
"No! Mathal, no!"
"Woah!" said Gorvio. "Wait, before you do anything that drastic-Kulata, is it possible for someone to wish for the contract?"
"Small item fetching is literally the safest wish you can make. It's when you start thinking big and nebulous that you run into problems. Simply wishing the pit fiend away, for instance."
"And even if someone did wish for the contract, would they be able to sign themself onto it?"
"Typically no, but the last holder of the contract is dead, so...yes. As long as they sign before a new mayor is appointed or the contract will be inherited."
Westcrown was chaos, but mayors were appointed by the royal House of Thrune who ruled from the entirely different city of Egorian. They could appoint a mayor at any time if they hadn't already.
"What's the deal with wishes?"
"For you, I've got a special three-wish for one-soul limited time offer."
"I'll do it," said Tarvi.
Mathal grabbed her friend by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eye.
"No. You're too good, Tarvi. You'd never survive Hell."
"Mathal's right," said Kulata. "Your soul is only lemure material. You know those blobby, wax-flesh devils who are about as sentient as you'd imagine a living blob of wax would be? Mathal's, on the other hand, could easily become a bearded devil. At least they have brains that aren't semi-solids."
You only have one soul, said Chelon.
Yeah, but it's mine. I can do what I want with it.
Mathal grabbed Kulata by a horn, crumpling attached papers.
"Contract. Now."
Tarvi started forward, but Gorvio, eyes fixed on the ground, took her arm and pulled her back without a word.
"Excellent. Sign or bleed on the bold line and your soul will be mine. You'll also receive your three wishes."
"Just spit it out."
Kulata opened wide. A parchment scroll inked in reddish-brown unfurled off the top of their tongue.
Mathal snatched the end from the air as it rolled past. She ran her thumb down its side, the straight edge slicing just deep enough for the tiniest red line. She pressed her thumb to the bold line. The contract flared rust red and sapped all the heat from her body. Her shaking hands couldn't keep hold of Kulata or the paper.
But devil's head remained in place, floating and grinning with their tongue still stuck out like a gargoyle's. The contract whirled around them, shrinking with each erratic orbit until it was no larger than a hand. As it reached the same size and shape as the rest of Kulata's papers, it punched itself down on a horn, joining the others.
Mathal collapsed onto unsteady hands and knees. Even then, she could barely hold herself up. Tarvi and Gorvio crouched beside her offering words she couldn't hear and heat she couldn't feel. The cold came from the inside, something cold and something empty.
Chelon?
Chelon?
Chelon?
"Kulata."
Tarvi and Gorvio staggered back as though shoved. The floating devil's head turned, the grin smacked off their face and replaced by a look she instinctively wanted to rip from their skull.
"Kulata. Where is my turtle?"
"Your...familiar."
"You knew."
"You're a witch! The turtle was your familiar! How could you not have-"
Mathal's scream was an inhuman scream. Her aura burned rust red as her body hexed itself, witchlocks flaring. She flung herself at the devil. She ripped and tore and screamed until all she knew was red, rust red, cold red in her skin, her eyes, her nails, her throat. She tasted its raw metal shoveling out her insides and leaving her with-
She fell to the ground, every cough and wheeze stinging her raw throat. Her skin left sweatprints as she pushed up from the floor.
Kulata stood on their stump before her still with that soft, wretched look on their face, completely unharmed. The contract had protected them from any direct harm.
Mathal spoke. Her rasping voice cracked.
"I wish I had him back."
That look, that [redacted] look.
"Mathal, you can't make a wish that violates the terms of the contract."
She lunged forward. Tarvi's hand caught her right shoulder. Gorvio's caught her left. She slumped back down to her knees.
"I wish...I had the contract of the pit fiend Infernal Duke Liebdaga," she croaked, "right here in my backpack."
Tarvi placed a golden scroll inked in reddish-brown in her hand. It had worked. They could do it. They could stop the apocalypse. Yet as Mathal pressed her papercut thumb to the bold line for the tiniest red smear, she didn't feel the slightest sense of victory. She didn't feel anything.
The contract flared red as the dawn. Tarvi and Gorvio helped her to her feet. They approached the countertop.
"Do you have a contract?"
She slid the red-flaring gold across the countertop. The red light died in the statue's mechanical hands. They scrolled through every line in mere seconds and handed it back to Mathal. They opened a hidden door in the counterwall, but stepped into its opening when she, Tarvi, and Gorvio all tried to walk through.
"Do you have a contract?"
Mathal turned to face her teammates, standing directly in front of the rigid statue.
"You don't."
"Be careful, Mathal," said Tarvi.
Gorvio said nothing, instead stooping to retrieve Kulata.
"We'll wait right here for you."
"Don't. There's nothing you can do here. Go back to the crater. There've got to be more devils by now."
Tarvi and Gorvio looked at each other without a word. There was nothing left to say. They left, first walking, then running.
The statue held the final door open for the one who had the contract.