Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence.

In the series, Iblees (the devil) offers a deal to every new ruler: He gives the ruler something they desire, but extracts a cost. For instance, King Zaal, Kamran’s grandfather, sought a long life since Kamran was not yet ready to inherit his kingdom. However, to prolong that life, Zaal gruesomely fed on the brains of young children, orphans killed for that express purpose. The grotesque conditions of Zaal’s longevity illustrate that dealing with the devil deeply corrupts one’s soul. Though Iblees is positioned as an external foe, by succumbing to the temptations he offers, rulers like Zaal show that evil lives inside humans as well. The text uses Iblees as a metaphor for the cost of unbridled greed and lust. Such greed always demands a cost. While the Zaal-Iblees story is a direct parable about the cost of dealing with the devil, Cyrus’s case complicates the simple equation, raising interesting questions about free will.

While making a bargain with the devil is framed as an act of free will, Cyrus’s case shows that the concept of free will itself is complicated.