The daemons were strange creatures. Created by their Father of Darkness to be the purest expression of individuality, they had a scheming, self-serving nature coupled with a middling intellect and no moral compass, forever obsessing over obtaining power over others while watching for attempts from others to steal what power they had. Their Father had given them the means to express this driven nature by creating a dizzying array of titles, posts and roles that gave one power over subordinates while slaving him to a superior, an interwoven net of jurisdictions with blurred lines that gave His children endless meat to slake their hunger for entertainment and struggle.
Only the Unassailable Throne of the Father couldn’t be touched, only yearned for by these thirsty children, and at the foot of its ebony shadow stood the Demon Demigods, direct descendants of the Darkness. Born to a life of strife and scheming, these Demigods shared their lesser kin’s desires but none of their mediocrity. They were deeply intelligent, deeply devious and with appetites that made lesser demons balk, matched only by their raw strength. From their Black Towers, they moved against their supposed brothers and sisters by playing games where the pieces were armies and the stakes encompassed nations, putting wit against wit and strength against strength, all to win the ultimate prize of being First Under His Gaze, the favorite son and greatest of daemons.
They were the best of the best, immortal, powerful and with kingdoms and armies at their fingertips. But they also risked suffering the Lull, the bane of daemonkind. When a Demigod stood on top of the world, at the foot of the Throne, his time was well spent on the struggle to keep opponents from seizing his place. But when he found himself well-secured, both his armies and walls made of the bewildering array of precedents and rituals that kept daemon society from crumbling into chaos keeping his position unassailable, and at the same time he couldn’t move up anymore, his path barred by impassable odds. Like a fish taken out of the water, like a runner suddenly having run out of road, that was when a Demigod was assailed by a strange malady that sapped his until then unexhaustible vitality. Unable to give up his place, a possibility unthinkable for a daemon, unable to continue his purpose, he slumped on his gilded throne for centuries on end, his mind struggling and failing to understand the reason why.
Boredom. Apathy. It could kill a Demigod in the end, their burning life dimming to an ember and then flickering away to nothing.
Some of these slumbering Demigods were left to their own withering, but a few among the most promising were taken by the Father himself into His own service. There, they were given a new purpose as His elite guards and raiders, to bring His will wherever He demanded, be it against wayward children or the stranger, esoterical threat from the Golden Flood. The Father’s touch remolded them, freeing them from the endless rat race, and they stood at his side, the Ascended, privileged above all.
Or at least that was the public gist of it. As she carefully stalked after her kin, Kiarak didn’t feel much privileged.
Demigoddess 39 generations removed by the Darkness, she had clawed her way through the ladder, compounding the dimming potency of her blood with sheer willpower, cunning and spite. She had managed where thousands of lesser daemons faltered, and won her own Tower and a place worthy of herself. And then, just as the safety she had struggled all her life to get was finally in reach… nothing. Suddenly, she was a climber that ran out of cliff faces. She still remembered that horrible, sinking sensation, like there was no more air for her to breathe, no more ground under her feet.
She remembered wallowing away on her throne, her thoughts a mess of hopelessness and confusion. And then… she remembered Him.
For all their talks of being the Father of Darkness’ children, only a handful of daemons ever set their eyes upon Him. She wished she could say she didn’t belong to that handful.
He “saved” her, remolded her in a way that even her years of study of magic couldn’t even start to fathom, but it lessened the thirst, and awoke new ones. It happened to all Ascended, she was told. Freed from the single-minded drive of the race, they developed new interests and features. Zubar had grown more cowardly, and enjoyed stuffing his face with every kind of food, no matter how disgusting as long as it was a novelty. Ulvanach relished in what he called “The Hunt”, be at the Father’s behest or to fill up his overflowing trophy room. Zongatis was all for elegant, flowing dresses and the study of the magic Father gifted them. At their core, they were all still the same, self-serving, ruthless individuals who lusted for power and control and were only held in check by the terror Father inspired. But they grew more nuanced, just… more, powers notwithstanding.
For herself, she was insatisfied. Oh, there always was a part of her that doubted. Of the race to the top, of her kin, of everything. Her clutchmother said it made her “strange”, and she believed it. So she smothered it, pushed it in a dusty corner of her soul and fought the daemon fight. After Father’s touch, though, a restless insatisfaction took root inside. She tried her hand at various things to try and quell it, but nothing worked. The worst thing was that she didn’t know what she wanted, only that there was something wrong. She didn’t mind playing the inquisitor, it allowed her a degree of freedom she never knew, and seeing daemonlords turn pale when you appear in their throneroom in a burst of concussive shadow never stopped being funny. But there was always something missing, something out of sight she couldn’t quite make out. That the vaunted Ascended’s life was little more than a chained dog’s did nothing to help. And now, this…
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Pay attention!” Zongatis’ snapped order made her flinch. She never let her attention waver from her sorrounding, even while reminiscing, but being ordered around was a slap in the face. She frowned at the back of her “elder sister,” imitated by Ulvanach’s bold glare and Zubar’s subdued one. This skank… who in the Darkness’ Dread did she think she was?
Reluctantly taking her eyes away, she mimicked her kin’s actions, throwing herself on the ground and covering her head with her claws. The enchantment of the Father felt as a painful throb inside her chest as it activated. The golden sand beneath her and the sky above turned strangely distant and out of focus as the spell swathed her in a bubble of non-existence, all sounds turning muted.
Two… things made of what looked to be the same golden granulate everything was made out of drifted silently by, flames making up more than half of their bodies. To Kiarak’s well-refined senses, they appeared as two unblinking, flaming eyes, their difference in bodies doing nothing to mask the fact that a single being was peering through them. The same, cold consciousness she felt pulsing beneath her, no doubt.
“This whole place,” Zubar began as soon as it was clear the two sentinels were gone, “is alive. It’s… everywhere.” Kiarak felt a note of disdain at the panic clear in his expression.
“Silence,” Zongatis ordered, and Zubar’s jaw snapped close. The demoness gestured, somehow making the casual movement look majestic to Kiarak’s annoyance, and they followed her.
Thankfully enough, the going was easy. As vaguely rough as it was, the rocky desert wasn’t a match for what terrain strong daemon legs could negotiate. Their claws easily found purchase among the granulate, allowing them to maintain a quick, steady pace.
Kiarak watched the walls in the distance, looking no closer than they had since they started. Worrying about the possibility that the Father plonked them in the wrong place was tantamount to treason, so she busied herself wondering about the mission.
“I am always watching,” she murmured snappishly. Zongatis didn’t answer, watching the road ahead. Kiarak clicked her tongue, annoyed. Blowhard, she thought. Unluckily, the Father didn’t allow any killing between his hounds, no matter how much you wanted to bury a claw into a back.
She was watching. She always did. She could be wringing a daemon’s neck and reviewing a report at the same time and still nobody would be able to sneak on her. And what her senses told her was the same everywhere. The golden desert stretched as far as the eye could see, interrupted only by the walls in the distance. Despite the featureless, rough terrain offering no cover, the Father’s spell also meant they were unspottable. She could feel the attention of whatever it was that resided inside those sands meander over, sliding over her form and finding nothing, and the same was for those gliding sentinels, if they put some attention in.
She knew of the Rigaloth, the daemon-souls bound inside volcanic rock that built their bodies out of the bones of Uthar. Is this the same? If it is… Walls aside, the place had no end she could see, and the presence of the Rigaloth-thing didn’t dim, no matter how fast they ran. Kiarak felt a shiver. A Rigaloth of that size would be… her mind automatically turned to all the ways one could destroy those bound souls. None of them simple, let alone with a monster like that.
For the umpteenth time since the moment Father’s choice fell upon her, she cursed her luck.
“Get a move on, you slug” she hissed when Zubar slowed down, the fatter daemon struggling to keep up with his limber brethren, and the latter not caring enough to slow down.
Ulvanach’s laughter was rumbling and spiteful. Kiarak smirked.
“We’re going to leave you behind,” she singsonged. “And then this place is gonna eat you.” Her smirk got larger at the panic on Zubar’s fat face, the daemon pushing himself frenziedly.
“A toglach wouldn’t want to eat this tiggoz. Mannod takanoz zu’kath,” Ulvanach chortled. The ancient dialect never left his speech, and he seemed to take delight in watching other daemons struggle to follow him, like Zubar was doing at that moment if the worry in his strained expression was anything to go by.
“I say we put him out of his misery,” Kiarak suggested slyly. She always got kicks out of bullying Zubar. “He’s just slowing us down anyway. And we gotta eat sooner or later.” Ulvanach barked a laughter at that, but then he stared at hims thoughtfully, making Zubar start sweating.
“Enough.” Annoyingly, Zongatis’s sharp command cut through their fun. “Focus on the mission, or you will be the ones disposed of.”
Ulvanach lowered his head, growling, and Kiarak snorted. Blowhard.
A snappish reply was prevented by the appearance of an object on the horizon. The daemons narrowed their eyes, barely slowing down, and was rewarded by the sight of a shining moon emerging from the desert. Polished like a mirror, it glowed with a brilliant shine as it slowly spun its way up the sky.
Something stirred inside Kiarak, and she found herself unable to tear her gaze away. All of a sudden, all the mission, the duty and the fear of the Father that pushed her to it didn’t seem so important. No, they weren’t. Why did she even think they did?
The golden moon revolved slowly on its axis, serene and undisturbed.
Peace filled Kiarak as all concerns slid off her like old scales. Yanauva, a voice told her, and she knew it was the name of something she didn’t know she needed in her life more than anything else. What was she doing again? Oh, that moon was so… she didn’t have the word for it. It was there, watching her and she watched it, and she was happy and satisfied, more than she had ever been and…
A hand impacted against her cheek, tearing her out of her contemplation. Memories slammed back into their place, and she skittered back with an alarmed yell.
She blinked, watching Zongatis’ disdainful expression. The elder demoness snorted delicately, before turning away and resuming the march.
Still blinking, Kiarak watched Ulvanach and Zubar, the two daemons growling derisively and showing their teeth respectively. She was still trying to gather her bearings when they ran after Zongatis leaving her in the dust.
She froze for a moment as she felt the moon’s glow on her back, a soft pressure both on her mind and body, inviting her to turn. Panicked, she clung to the Father’s magic, and the pressure dissipated.
Not bothering to repress a shudder, she broke into a run after her kin. Maybe she did need to pay more attention after all.