So many things are said of devils

It is said that devils hunger for souls, and many a wayward maiden—and dispossessed gentleman—quakes with fear at the prospect of what might befall them if they misjudge the stranger who so kindly offers them a warm bed, a hearty meal, a heavy purse …

For, oh! So easily may an immortal soul be lost! Eternity hangs in the balance at every moment, so vulnerable, so delectable. Each moment of life teeters in the balance between paradise and damnation, and the light of tender grace will never penetrate the darkness beyond that too-sharp smile.

Many things are said of the lightless ones. It is easy to fill your voice with certainty when you condemn monsters, when you offer so much for just a little faith, for the tiniest proof of devotion. Questions beget condemnation; what poisons have dripped into the ears of your flock! Truly, a devil must have been among them—but you know how to root out the collaborators, don’t you? How to find the traitors, the witches, those poor souls who turned their back on the light. Misled or willfully rebellious, the remedy is the same—what matters a moment of suffering when eternity hangs in the balance?

It is said that devils and Fae both are chained by language, that words and bargains bind them as surely as gravity does the merely human, that they—and their creatures—can twist and stretch meaning but never lie. They were absent at the burning of Babel, or so they say, and its poisoned light never came into them and stole away the mother tongue. For this reason also their bodies are immortal, their nature is incorruptible, and their minds are repulsed by the light of burning books and the touch of branding irons.

Stories are still told in village taverns—but not in their sooty urban cousins, for in the city history moves too fast to be remembered—of when last the duke’s hunt caught a devil. Nigh forty years ago, and yet the storytellers remember it more clearly than yesterday—the stink of the beast, the way it struggled and cursed and then convulsed madly at the touch of the duke’s iron! They paraded it through the villages, proof of their triumph; the hunters gleaming in silk and chain, the duke glowering down from his sedan, smiling only when they cracked its head against the hard cobblestones! Such glory, such triumph!

There are awkward questions that one might ask. There always are. It’s an opportunity for children to be taught a lesson, and for willful adults to be quietly noticed. It always pays to know who might have found—and be found in—infernal company.

It is said that devils court the virtuous with wealth and power and secret knowledge, and that no clever tinkerer or shrewd merchant ascends beyond their station without a whiff of sulfur. Mostly this is said by those who are already wealthy and powerful; no one likes competition.

It is said that a devil taught old Aubergine Throat the secrets of blood and sin, back before she became all that she is. Even the fiercest hag was once an innocent girl, though you may find that hard to believe, and few stories start in the furnace’s fire. That is the surest proof of the danger of devils—that their clever tongues and licentious weapons can tempt even the most virtuous off the righteous path!

This is humanity’s virtue and its vice: that each and every human is gifted the potential to change, for good or for ill. Even the most sinful among us can be induced to genuine repentance—unless, unless! Unless a devil has stolen their soul away, and left in its place a lightless facsimile capable only of pretending! A false copy, walking through life upon whichever path best fulfills its basest urges, no more capable of restraining itself than a wyrm can withhold its flame or a stud horse his seed.

For that is what devils do: they prune away the choice.

So many things are said of devils. Surely some of them are true.