“She was not looking at the Duke. Her black-red eyes, which had neither lashes nor brows, were on the goat-boy. In the time it had taken for the mouth of Hell to open, the last of the boy’s life had poured out of him. Now the child’s corpse lay still in the wet dirt.”
“‘You killed my child,’ the woman said as she emerged from the infernal mouth. ‘My beautiful Qwaftzefoni. Look at him. Barely a boy. He was perfect. He was my joy. How could you do such a heartless thing?'”
“At that moment one of the horsemen behind the Duke attempted to make an escape, spurring his horse. But the goat-boy’s mother raised her hand and at her instruction a gust of wind came up out of the depths of Hell, so strong that it drew her hair around her and forward, like a thousand filament fingers pointing towards the escaping man. He didn’t get very far. The wind she’d summoned was filled with barbs; like the vicious seedlings of ten thousand flowers. They spiraled as they flew, and they caught the Duke’s man in a whirling of tiny hooks. Blinded by the assault, the man toppled from his horse, and attempted to outrun the barbs. But they were fastened onto him, and their motion continued, circling his body, so that the man’s flesh was unraveled like a ball of red twine. He screamed as the first circling took off his skin, and redoubled his shrieks when a second cloud of barbs caught his naked muscle, and repeated the terrible cycle. Having drawn off a length of the man’s tissue, they described a descending spiral around him, leaving the victim clear for a third and fourth assault. His bone was showing now; his screams had ceased. He dropped to his knees and fell forward in his own shreddings, dead.”
“Overhead carrion birds circled, ready to gorge themselves as soon as the body was abandoned.”
“‘This man is the lucky one amongst you,’ the woman said to the Duke. ‘He has escaped lightly. The rest of you will suffer long and hard for what you have done today.'”
“She looked down at the goat-boy’s corpse, her hair crawling around her heels to fondly touch the body of the child.”
“The Duke fell to his knees, knotting his hands together to make his plea. ‘Lady,’ he said to her, in his native tongue. “This was an accident. I believed the boy to be an animal. He was running from me in the form of a goat.'”
“‘That is his father’s chosen form, on certain nights,’ the woman replied. Goga knew, of course, what was signified by this. Only the Devil himself took the form of a goat. The woman was telling him that she was Lilith, the Devil’s wife, and that the child he had killed was the Devil’s own offspring. To say this was not good news was an understatement. The Duke concealed his terror as best he could, but it was terror he felt. To be standing on the lip of Hell, accused of the crime before him, was a terrifying prospect. His soul would be forfeit, he feared. All he could do was repeat what he’d said: ‘I took the boy to be a goat. This was a grievous error on my part, and I regret it with all my heart — ‘”
“The woman raised her hand to silence him.”
“‘My husband has seventy-seven children by me. Qwaftzefoni was his favorite. What am I supposed to tell him when he calls for his beloved boy, and the child does not come as he used to?'”
“The Duke had barely any spittle in his throat. But he used what little he had to reply. ‘I don’t know what you will say.'”
“‘You know who my husband is, don’t you? And don’t insult me by pretending innocence.'”
“‘I think he is the Devil, ma’am,’ the Duke Goga replied.”
“That he is,” the woman said, ‘And I am Lilith, his first wife. So now, what do you think your life is worth?'”
“Goga mused on this for a moment. Then he said: ‘Christ save my soul. I fear my life is worth nothing.'”