Excerpt from "Patron's War"

Before you depart this place, allow me to tell you a story I heard many and more years ago. I do not know that this story contains more than a grain of truth, for none but the Sins know for sure if the Devil ever really existed. Still, I will tell you this tale, exactly as I heard it, so that it may give you some idea of the realm that you now venture into:

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In a certain year, on a certain date, the lords of Purgatory and Hell made a pact. The alliance, inspired by the Devil of Hell, sought to liberate the two from their pre-ordained conditions. For, while the Lord of Hell reveled in his tyranny, the thought of imprisonment vexxed him sorely. And, though the grim Master of Purgatory was a creature of servitude and duty, he ached under the isolation he was bound to forever live in.

And so it was that, under bloody betrayal, the Devil departed from his realm, and accompanied the Lord Reaper to his Grey City of Clockwork. The conspirators moved discreetly, to evade the watchful eye of Heaven. Once his guest was safely succored, the Lord of Purgatory spoke to him:

So long as you are my guest, my home will be as yours, and my arrayed resources shall be at your disposal. Once your work is done here, I will escort you to the next leg of your journey, but not before.

So he spoke, for all were wary of the deceitful machinations of the cunning Devil. Never-the-less, the Lord of Many Ways returned to the Dark Reaper, his host:

Of course, my friend, our deal remains one of cooperation over trust, as is best. But, even still, after my work is done, there is a chance an unlucky word may fall and the Great Unseen's agents may act against me.

The stoic and pragmatic Reaper perceived his hidden meaning:

You need fear no betrayals on my part, Lord of Lies, but I will still act to allay your fear, to prove my conviction. When your work gains life, I will tell it of the means to escape Purgatory. In this way, one who is under your influence will know, even if I wish to withold the secret.

The Devil nodded with friendly aquiescence but, as a tiger long in the wait percieves a meal come into his power, so this cunning Lord of the Pit saw the advantage his well-meaning host had presented him with. For, it was within the power of the Devil to see events not yet written and he saw the diligence of the Master Reaper fail in the face of Emotion, and saw the betrayal that his Grim Host would foment, even if he himself did not yet know of it.

With these schemes in mind, the Lord of Many Ways began his craft. From the impatient denizens of Purgatory, the cunning Devil tricked and bartered away portions of their bodies. For, while any wound in Purgatory heals in time, any loss persists until a replacement is found. In this way, the Devil gained fingers, skin, organs, limbs, eyes, and even fragments of souls, covertly storing each part from the patrolling Fires of the Divine.

Many revolutions of Purgatory's great clocks came and went, and the Devil's cunning craft neared completion. To bind his creation to the Grey Lord of Purgatory, he needed a hand and an eye from the Reaper's own body. Tokens he gave willingly, reasoning:

Why should I sacrifice nothing to raise a mate, when pieces of a body are so easily replaced in this realm?

As the insightful Devil took these parts, his scheme to avert his Host's betrayal began. Affixing the tokens to teh woman he had built, he whispered into her ear subtle words:

Awaken, and know your father, the one who created you. With this hand and this eye, I bind you, my daughter, to a tyrant and a villain who seeks to enslave you and betray your father's good service. Know, however, that my love for you can forstall this grim future. Know that his dominion can fail if you choose to ally yourself to me. He will tell you a secret anon, which you must repeat to me, away from his sight. Do so, and I will remove the hand and eye that shackle you to this unhappy destiny.

The cunning words reached the patchwork-soul of his creation, and her eyes filled with compliance.

So it was that on the day the Reaper's Mate was presented to him, her heart was turned from him, and it was by will alone that she suppressed the shudders of revulsion that came at his unwelcome touch. And so, as a blind man avoids one chasm by fortune only to stumble into another, the Lord of Purgatory whispered the secret of Limbo's Trap to the very ear-piece of the crafty Lord of Hell.

Nor did the Created spare moments in doubt of her betrayal, but secreted the knowledge to the Lord of Many Ways:

Father, I have done as you bid me and I have gleaned the secrets for you at sore miseries. Now, I beg you, free me from the monsterous husband I was born to.

Preparing himself for the journey to mortal Earth, the Lord of Hell barely heard the misguided woman over whom he had no true claim of patriarchy- for no aspect of his own body had been sacrificed for her birth. She repeated her plea, and he gazed on her in annoyance. All at once, though, an idea came into his mind that pleased him exceedingly. He spoke with sly intent:

Daughter, I will keep my promise to you. Behold as I explain how you may be free of your Lord. The eye in your head and the hand on your wrist bind you to the Dread Reaper beyond even my ability to undo, but do not despair, for you have the strength to pluck forth the offending pieces. Do so in his sight and his malevolent will shall no longer rule you.

Trusting and sweet Bride of Fragments, alas for your innocence! The constructed woman took her false patron's words for truth and left his company to revenge herself on the diligent Lord of Purgatory. Full of vitrol and venom, she found him amid the newly reborn Reaper Servants he had made of the Lords' Betrayal. Busy placing the germ of souls into each husk, he did not mark her approch until she was nearly upon him. With a vicious tone and a rebellious heart, she called to him:

You name yourself Master and Husband of my body, but my spirit rejects your tyranny. I shall be my own mistress, free to plow my own destiny and to thresh the harvest thereof. Behold, as I sacrifice your component chains!

The fury of the impassioned speech jarred the Lord of Purgatory so sharply that his grip failed and the vessel of souls intended for his servants fell, shattering and ruining its precious contents. Turning and gazing between the sudden rebellion of his mate and the ruin of his servants, the Reaper Lord was paralyzed with pain and betrayal.

And, before his eyes, his blessed companion tore from her wrist that hand he gave from his true body, and plucked from her socket that eye he had sacrificed to give her the gift of sight. Casting both organs to the grey steel of the ground, she stood in impudent defiance of him who was, in truth, both father and husband.

And, as a great old lion may become tired with age and seem passive during peace, but who, once baited and scorned, rises up in horrible fury, so the Grey Man of Limbo became at once hate-filled:

You presume to defy me, who gave you life with sore effort, painful wishing, and personal sacrifice? How dare you deny my flesh and how dare you spurn these gifts with your over-reaching pride. Since you no longer desire them, I will take them back!

And, at that, a fierce black fire burned the discarded organs on the ground and the cavities of the one who cast them from herself. Crying in pain, the Fragmented Woman knew the heat of the flames would keep any replacement from ever restoring the function of her hand and eye. But, the terrible rage of her master was not yet spent:

You have sinned twice in this rebellion. Because of the force of your venomous tongue, the faithful souls I was to fill these wicked constructs with have been destroyed. Never again will your vitrol-filled words bring another soul to harm!

And, with those words, the Lord of Purgatory seized the woman by her jaw, and with a mighty force, tore her lower mandible form her skull, tongue and all. The woman collapsed, holding and shielding her ruined face while bitter, hate-filled tears fell from her cheeks and turned to crystals of ice upon the ground. For, while the Lord of Purgatory was not normally a cruel master, nor was he unpleastant of features, through the cunning ways of the Lord of Hell, the lies he had filled this woman with became, to her, as pure truth.

His fury spent, the Lord of Purgatory regarded the crippled and maimed form of his once beautiful bride. With a heart heavy under pain of loss, he spoke once more before leaving her side:

You wished to be free of me, and so you shall be. You and I are now equals, for as I have maimed your body, you have rent my soul. My last gift to you, then, shall be your name. Because you have plowed this bitter crop yourself, you must be the one to reap it. I name you for the destiny you over-quickly sought to claim. I name you "Thresher."

And so he left with those words, pacing the long, steel streets of Purgatory, deep in throught and conflict. He saw what fault may have been his, but again and again he could only see the nefarious hand of the Lord of Many Ways. With these suspitions festering in his breast, the Reaper's anger was kindled once more against his treacherous guest. Fetching at once the Great Blade, the Reaper Lord's own Scythe, which was used to end those fear-filled mortals who thought to cheat the natural order and which was the very darkness of death even to the dead, the Lord of Purgatory took this fiersome weapon in hand and, as a ravenous beast hunts what may be its last meal, he too stalked hungrilly after his prey.

Nor had the Lord of the Pit lingered overlong in preparations, but had made all haste to the sand-laden catacombs that formed the veins of the Clockwork City. In these mazes, the cunning guest made a careful study of the broken, abandoned hourglasses of all makes that once measured out the span of lives, rendered obsolete by their Masters' deaths. The thrum of echoing clocks and the rushing hiss of sand could not distract the vigilant, questing eyes of that hunted Lord.

The haste of Purgatory's scorned Father was not in vain, for he caught up with his former partner as the other stood just before a vast vault, wrought of a steel formed in the fires of the ethereal, Divine Realm. Rage beyond words consumed the jagged Man of Grey, and he flew at his prey with a falcon's focus.

The Master of Hell was not called He of Many Ways for naught, however, and while cunning and manipulation were his favored tools, battle and slaughter were well known to him. Brandishing nothing but fire-marked hands and a long staff of exceeding thinness, the Master of Sins turned aside the fell and fierce blow of the Master Reaper. Guiding the seeking sweeps of the terrible scythe with care-chosen parries and feints, the Lord of Hell dodged cunningly, allowing the scythe to strike the secluded and grisly vault, opening its heavenly-forged barrier.

With a grin more telling than any taunt of words, the Dark Deciever leapt at once into the vault and seized the object that lay within, a lantern of dark steel and rippling green glass. A hellish fire poured from his long-fingered hands, washing over the Reaper Lord and scouring the pleasant flesh from that diligent man. His final act of harm complete, the Devil Lord gave a cry of triumph that pierced even the Grey Reaper's cry of agony. And, at once, the Lord of Hell was no longer in the Limbo of Deathlessness and gone from all record.