THE SPARE

Hoping no one was watching, Latia Astaroth adjusted the little bowtie-adorned top hat perched on the side of her head. On its lonesome the hat would have never stayed on, but a little bit of magic fixed the hat at an eternally awkward angle. It looked a little awkward, but what was more awkward was that this little bit of last-minute correcting was happening at Diodora Astaroth's funeral, the private service for the heir to one of the Pillars, and it was an awkward event all around. She supposed that it would have been the height of awkwardness had the hat fallen off during this solemn event.

She spotted Diodora's parents, Lord and Lady Astaroth— the real Lord and Lady Astaroth, as she sometimes told herself— standing near the coffin. Lady Astaroth wept silently, comforted by her maids and some of the Astaroth vassal lords' Astaroth stood silently like a stone, his face a blank mask showing no emotion even as he received obeisance and condolences from his vassal lords.

Latia and her parents were among them. They were Astaroths as well, but they descended from a younger son of the family who had been granted his own estate as a reward for his services during the civil war and as such were placed behind their cousins in the line of succession. It wasn't that her family were nobodies. Her uncle was literally Ajuka Beelzebub himself, but in this matter of family she and hers were simply the junior branch and followed the ancient order of precedence as it had always been.

Her father knelt before Lord Astaroth. "Lord cousin," her father said. "It pains me for us to meet under these circumstances. I grieve for my departed kinsman, and for you as well."

"The sentiment is appreciated, cousin. Rise." Her father rose.

She was behind her father. Hurriedly she touched her top hat to make sure that it was still there. Once her father had risen and moved off to the side, well- it was her turn.

Latia curtsied as she spoke. "My lord of Astaroth, today you have my condolences. Diodora was your family, and mine. I hope his killers face swift justice."

"You are your father's daughter in every sense of the word. Rise." Latia rose. Behind her, her mother— who had been an Agares before she wed Latia's father— curtsied, spoke similar words of grief, and was dismissed by Lord Astaroth. Afterwards father, mother, and daughter clustered together and spoke in hushed whispers.

Her mother was the first, glancing at Diodora's coffin as she spoke. "I've heard that there is no body in that coffin."

That was news. Latia raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow as a way of asking.

Her father concurred. "It's true. They left nothing behind for Lord Astaroth to bury."

"Even in exile, the Old Satans prove cruel and dangerous," said Latia's mother.

"They always were, dear wife. They began the civil war when they massacred thousands in Lucifaad. Exile hasn't changed them; if anything it has made them more bloodthirsty."

"He should have known better than to join the Old Satans," Latia said quietly. "And we—all of us, Lord Astaroth included— we should have known what he was doing from the beginning."

"But we couldn't," her mother insisted. "We do not live in the ducal palace, daughter— even with the gift of travel via magic circle we are always busy ruling our own estates, and only visit occasionally. It was not our place to know." She left it unspoken whose place it was to know.

"All the same," Latia said. "We should have known."

Her father was opening his mouth to speak when a louder voice drowned them all out.

"It is time. Hoist the coffin." This was from Diodora's grandfather and Lord Astaroth's own father, the previous duke of the Astaroth clan. He had elected to serve as master of ceremonies while his son and daughter-in-law were grieving from the loss of their son.

Eight devils hoisted the coffin. She counted among them the most trusted servants of the Astaroth clan who she recognized from her previous visits to the palace, as well as some of the most trusted and loyal Astaroth vassal lords. Together they lifted the coffin from where it had been resting on its dais and placed it onto the funerary pyre.

Every noble house of the Underworld had its own tradition regarding the dead. The Astaroths let them burn. In full view of the assembled, Lord Astaroth lit a torch with a small magic circle. He held it aloft, the flame flickering in the air and topped with small tufts of smoke.

"Now it ends," her father whispered.

The torch, however, remained where it was— held high in the air as Lord Astaroth looked down on his son's finely-wrought coffin. It was made of lacquered wood and adorned with enough gold plating that it was probably worth an entire minor lord's fortune. On the coffin and its base were transcribed the sigil and symbol of the Astaroth clan, the emerald A. In the light of the torch flame the A seemed almost garish and ugly- in the light of the torch flame that had not been set down to the pyre yet. Lord Astaroth, it seemed, was not ready to part with what remained of his son.

"There's nothing even in there," she heard a vassal lord whisper to another vassal lord. "What's he waiting for?"

Lord Astaroth stared at the coffin, torch held high in the air. A sudden gust of wind— Latia wondered who had opened the doors to let in such a draft—almost extinguished the flame, but fortunately the fire picked up again. Still Lord Astaroth refused to light the pyre. Murmurs picked up across the room, as the vassal lords began to whisper. Lord Astaroth must have heard them, because he opened his mouth to speak.

"I can't do it," he said. He sounded like he was talking through a fistful of cloth stuffed in his mouth. "He was my boy. My only son. I can't."

Lord Astaroth's father grunted. "He's gone. Light the flame and be done with it."

"Would you have done it, father?" Lord Astaroth said. Latia saw the tears in his eyes, the torch he held revealing rivulets of water on his cheeks. "Would you have done it if I was lying in there and you were the one lighting the pyre?"

"The thing in there would no longer have been my son. Burning it would have been the only thing to do."

To that Lord Astaroth had no answer. He stared at his father, at the coffin, at everyone around him. The torch remained uncomfortably ablaze in the air.

To Latia, it seemed like everything was slowing down. Almost like everyone and everything in that room was caught in that tasty human invention, molasses. It was like Lord Astaroth was planning to become a statue and hold that torch aloft in eternal vigilance for his slain son.

Then a magic circle began to form in the air, right next to the torch. And before Latia could say anything the magic circle cleaved the torch in two. Lord Astaroth recoiled and stepped back, but the upper half of the torch— the one that was aflame— fell forwards. It bounced off the coffin before falling into the kindling that made up the pyre. The pyre immediately caught flame, and soon Diodora Astaroth's coffin was ablaze, the wood crackling and popping as it burned.

Lady Astaroth burst into tears. Lord Astaroth stood there dumbstruck holding the remains of his torch.

The doors creaked open, and a new devil suddenly walked into the room, taking in the sight of the private service before him. Latia belatedly realized that it had been he who had opened the door and let in that sudden draft earlier; such was the size of the Astaroth palace that currents and jetties of wind would gather and blow on its ceiling.

She looked at this new devil who had barged into Diodora's funeral. He was a devil of middling height and build, with a face so ordinary that it was hard to say how old it was. It was true that devils aged extremely slowly—a devil who looked like a fresh-faced woman of twenty-five could in fact be aged over seven centuries— but his features were so fluid that it was impossible for Latia to guess his age. He wore a business suit, part of the imported human wave of clothing that the reincarnated devils preferred and he was clapping his hands together slowly as he walked up to the blazing inferno that had been Diodora's coffin.

"That took you ages," the devil said. "Losing a son is terrible, but when you've lost eleven the grief begins to subside a bit. It's why I laid down the law of burning in the first place. Building eleven tombs for eleven sons would have cost us dearly as the Great War was raging. But you knew all that, clearly!"

Lord Astaroth stared slack-jawed at the common-faced devil in the suit. Then he recovered, and pride and anger were written on his face. It was an emotion that Lord Astaroth understood well, even in the midst of his grief for his lost son. "You… you dare?" He raised the end of the torch as if he meant to strike the common-faced devil.

But Lord Astaroth's father stopped him. "You really don't know who you're talking to?" he said. Lord Astaroth stared at him, his face marred with tears and contorted in wrath. He took another good luck at the common-faced devil, and his eyes widened. He took a step back from the interloper, looking him up and down like a prize.

And Lord Astaroth knelt.

Lord Astaroth's father knelt too. As did Lady Astaroth and her small crowd of handmaids and the wives of the Astaroth vassal lords. Her father and mother knelt. The vassal lords knelt and the servants too, even one hapless server holding a plate laden with flatbread, olives, cheese and dried fruits which spilled onto the floor. Everyone was kneeling…

Except Latia.

"Hurry up and get down on your knees!" her father whispered harshly from his spot on the ground. "Hurry!"

Her lord father commanded it, so she flushed her skirts and was preparing to kneel when the interloper raised one hand. Her father stared at the interloper, and Latia stopped what she was doing.

"She won't kneel before someone she doesn't know, instead of following everyone else's lead!" The common-faced devil gave a warm and hearty laugh as he walked over to her, kicking some olives out of the way and into the fire where they hissed and popped. "This one has good sense and a good head on her shoulders, which is more than I can say for some of you."

Was he her grandfather? She'd never met him. But Diodora's grandfather was here and no one knelt to him the way they were kneeling in deference towards this common-faced interloper.

"Who… are you?" Latia finally managed to ask. "My lord." She assumed he was a lord, anyway.

"Some call me serpent-tamer. Others name me duke of interrogators and torturers, the guide to hidden treasures and foul handicrafts. I have even been called lazy and self-doubting, though I think that is just what happens when one subscribes to melancholy and rationalized philosophy. But to really know who I am, just look behind your own name, young Latia."

Vaguely she recalled those titles from history lessons in her childhood. But what importance did those history lessons hold now? He said to look behind her own name. Her name was Latia Astaroth, there was nothing behind her name. What did he mean by that? She hated riddles. She tried to think about it some more, and then...

No, wait. Her name was Latia. Which meant that—

Realization took her. Latia hitched her skirts and knelt before him.

Astaroth chuckled, and spread his arms.

"I am the stone that built this house—" he began. "—no, wait. That doesn't sound right." Her ancestor cleared his throat. "I am this house. You all sprung from my loins. I have been away for some time, and have returned to see that all is not in order. Lucifer willing, this will change. Rise, all of you."

Everyone rose, the sound of clothes and boots rustling on the floor as they did.

"Good," Astaroth said. He was looking at Latia all the while. "Shall we begin?"