Daemon legends said that at the beginning of time, when no fire burned and no lie was spoken, the Father of Darkness emerged from the primordial void, the first and mightiest being to ever do so. Great Uthar was snatched from the emptiness by his claws, and that first act of dominance marked the beginning of the daemon lands. These he populated, seeding the crags and fissures overflowing with molten blood with His own scales, which turned into the first daemons, the children of fire and blood and darkness.

At His behest, the daemons spread and multiplied, bringing their fires across all Uthar, erecting their Towers and Arenas and Temples. But in one place they never spread. At the northernmost limit of Uthar, opposite where the Unassaible Throne stood, there the world ended, opening in a ragged fissure from which Gold flew. No Daemon knew what Gold was, no Daemon could withstand its touch, their bodies and souls reduced to basic components at the briefest exposure. Uthar itself crumbled under its weight, devoured and reduced back to the void from which it was spawned..

The Iggexin, guards recruited among those daemons that had lost at the game of their race, were given the doomed task of containing the ever-spreading Gold. No Iggexin lasted more than a few Words, but their work made sure that Uthar wasn’t swallowed by the Gold.

By divine edict, all the daemons were banned from scrutinizing the Gold, and even addressing privately was frowned upon. Yet, there was no stamping out the legend that His Darkness, that nothing could faze or move, would look upon the Fissure from His throne, and look thoughtful, and frown.

So it wasn’t so surprising for the Ascended to be given tasks related to the Gold. Under the tightest wraps, the Demigods would scour the ragged border for samples of Gold dimmed enough to be contained, half-devoured bodies and whatever their God’s grim commands ordered from them.

At some point, though, that dangerous yet relatively safe control and experimentation wasn't sufficient anymore.

Sending a squad of Daemon close to the Gold was certain doom. Sending a group of Ascended into the Gold was unheard of, and Kiarak would have laughed in the face of whoever even suggested it, before stabbing him with both her tail and a sharp implement. But one didn’t say no to the Darkness, and one definitely doesn't laugh to His face.

Not when you’re just a chained dog. The resentful thought felt bitter, but there was no denying it. The Ascended were flaunted as this mysterious sect of unknowable daemons that transcended daemonhood itself. And in a way it was true. It was also true that whatever little freedom they had before was gone and dust from the first moment the Father took them at His service. Kiarak fingered the spiked collar around her neck, the runes of martyrdom glowing softly at the touch. And He knows how to keep his pets obedient, she thought ruefully.

Feeling sorry for herself, she didn’t even bother frowning at Zanbotis’ umpteenth command. Instead, she followed Zubar and Ulvanach, the three daemons falling in line with their elder sister to trace a pentacle into the sand.

Even if tracing wasn’t exactly the right word, Kiarak corrected herself. The granulate of the floor made for easy steps, but if you tried to even move a grain you would end up disappointed. It just didn’t budge, no matter how hard a demigod tried. Thankfully, they had paint among the many things the Father gave them. Once again, Kiarak cursed that place, and the moment He chose her for that cursed mission.

“Lighten up, Fossanti,” Ulvanach’s sudden address made her start. The daemon grinned at that, rows of teeth almost splitting his flat face in half.

“Don’t call me that,” she spat, cursing herself for letting her thoughts slip. Fossanti. Crippled bairn. She hated that nickname, always did. And hated him for bringing back memories she wanted buried.

Before things could degenerate, Ulvanach held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Just joking,” he said, grin and eyes telling the opposite. Then, he almost got serious. “For real, though. Instead of remaining all cooped up in your head, take a look around. We’re pioneers! What daemon can say to have touched the Gold, let alone traveled into it?” Ulvanach took a deep sniff, nostrils flaring wide. He sighed, eyes brimming with fierce delight. “I bet it’s full of good trophies.”

Kiarak rolled her eyes. Trophies, of course this meathead would be thinking about stupid trinkets. “You won’t get anything but a one-way travel to nothingness, idiot,” she pointed a talon against him. “Unless you screw your head right and think about how are we doing this, not your stupid collection. Or maybe you prefer to just die, so the Father won’t hear that you prefer thinking about that?”

She expected that to put him in line. To her dismay, Ulvanach shrugged. “Would make for a good story.” And just to prove it, he threw his head back and started singing horribly one of those lame songs about daemons fighting and dying for this or that reason, and somehow being worthy of being remembered as anything different than losers.

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Kiarak bared her teeth, wanting both to shake him and to rake her own face. What kind of unbelievable idiot thought that? Thankfully, her horns were still sharp enough that she wouldn’t be going whatever way he was, that was for sure.

“You’re both fools.” Zongatis didn’t lift her eyes from the pentacle she was writing, her tone frosty enough to freeze an Utharian golem. “Kiarak. The Father’s protection is unassailable, even by the Gold. To think differently is high treason.” Kiarak flinched at that, and then hated herself for it. “Ulvanach. Your hobbies are absolutely secondary to the objective of this mission. Am I clear?” The bigger daemon grinned, before nodding slowly after a sharp glance from Zongatis.

“Good,” she said, her tone shifting from frigid to only cold. “That said, Ulvanach is not entirely at fault. To be chosen in such an endeavor is the greatest of honors. The Father’s trust is treasure enough, of course. Observe.” Filled with awe, she reverently passed a tiny brush on the sand. It left a trace of such abyssal black that it was like she was erasing the world in those tiny lines. As she watched it, Kiarak felt a pulsing discomfort start to form behind her eyes. She turned away, feeling queasy.

If she was bothered by it, Zongatis didn’t show it, watching what she was doing with a mix of focus and admiration. “The Blood itself. Never would I have dreamed the day would come for me to be able to use it.” She fell silent, looking like she was focusing on a particular line, but Kiarak suspected she needed the moment to compose herself. “That said, we are pioneers indeed,” she said. As she put the finishing touches to the pentacle, Zongatis looked toward them, and Kiarak was startled by the intense gleam in her eyes. “It’s incredibly fascinating, don’t you think?” She said, and there was something that could have been awe in her words, as she let her gaze roam around.

In dismay, Kiarak looked at Zubar. They couldn’t be all crazy, right?

The fat daemon didn’t even try to meet her gaze, looking spellbound at Zongatis.

Schooling her features to keep the fury from showing, she followed Zongatis’ example in a much less impressed way, before making an annoyed sound. To her delight, Zongatis’ face feel.

“Ignorant,” she heard her mumble, before the elder daemoness stood up, fastidiously cleaning her cloak. “Can’t expect interest for learning from the simple, I suppose.”

Kiarak was just about to tell her what she could expect from the simple, when the pentacle flared to life. The absolute darkness contained in the line erupted, converging until there was a pentacle-shaped hole in the ground, so completely devoid of anything that Kiarak could swear she could just jump into it and disappear forever.

Without thinking, she stepped back, looking away. But the silent desert, with its tall walls looming in the distance, didn’t make for a better sight.

“Learning, sure,” she bit out. All the learning she wanted was in her house, away from whatever that place was, and the dangers it surely contained.

In a surge of anxiety, she controlled that Father’s spell held. To her relief, it did. He was very clear about it, in his stern, sadistic way. The Flood was inimical to daemonkind. His spells could keep them safe, but should they fall and be subjected to the Golden for even a medium period of time, their bodies would fragment. Kiarak shivered and gritted her teeth, feeling her molten blood going cold at the thought.

“Pioneers, sure…” She had to remain angry. Angry, biting and annoying. Because if she did, then that cold mass that that place provoked, and that was just barely concealed, wouldn’t come up. A demigoddess couldn’t be scared. Ever.

Sure, that traitorous, always doubting part of herself had tried to throw her a crazy rope. As the portal to the Golden opened before her, and she left Uthar for what she desperately hoped wasn’t the last time, it had whispered to her that if she couldn’t find what she wanted there, maybe, just maybe, she could in another place. Now, as she stood in a group but very much alone in that golden wasteland of silence and shifting figures, she knew for sure that whatever she was searching, it wasn’t there. Instead, what her well-honed survival instincts told her was that there was only thing to be found for daemons in that place…

Swallowing the word, chest heaving convulsively for a moment to make it happen, Kiarak refused the word. She wasn’t any death-seeking idiot or naive studious of the unknown. She would survive, no matter what. And if she found what she sought, so much the better. Life would be rewarding enough anyway.

Now steadier, she returned.

The pentacle’s darkness was flaring out, the golden sand flashing briefly as the ink burned itself out of existence. Fascinating, in a horrifying kind of way, but apart from Zongatis, her kin were more interested in the weapons that the spell had brought them. Ulvanach and Zubar’s eyes gleamed greedily as they clutched burned-out branches that could barely qualify as staves. Without looking away from the sight of the ink disappearing, Zongatis held out another for her. Kiarak snatched it away with a disgusted sound, but then all the air was punched out of her.

The staff thrummed with power, the same oily, staining painful one that calls upon the Darkness summoned. It pervaded her the moment her claws closed around the wood, so heavy and thick that she could taste it, black tar clinging to her skin and teeth. It took her greatest effort not to scratch at herself to try and take it away. Instead, she focused on listening to Zongatis.

“Father says that transporting these wouldn’t have gone unnoticed,” Zongatis stood up, brushing away non-existent dust from her robes. Her expression was studiously under control, but there was no mistaking the glint as she held the staff to her chest.

Kiarak perked up at that. Unnoticed by whom? Or what? The Golden? Was the Golden alive then? Or did she mean that strange intelligence she could still feel breathing in the sand? Lots of important questions, and she bit her lip not to start spouting them out. Her elder sister knew, though, and she felt a stab of suspicion and loathing at realizing it.

Not noticing her glare, Zongatis addressed them. “These Xon staves are imbued with the breath of Father himself,” she said sternly, making Zubar jump and Ulvanach frown respectively. “You will attend to it and preserve them, even at the cost of your own worthless lives.” She stared pointedly at each until they nodded grudgingly.

Kiarak snuck a peak at the staff she held in her hands. Xon. The weapons a daemon imbued with his own lifeforce, the unstealable swords. A Xon became as powerful as the daemon that tied his life to it. She never even heard of a Xon tied to the Father himself. For a moment, greed warred with fear. Eventually, she decided to keep it close. Just in case.

“What’s next?” Ulvanach growled. The taller daemon must have followed the same line of thought, since he had thrust the staff into his harness, just close to his beloved Hunt instruments.

Zongatis didn’t respond immediately. The elder daemoness turned toward the walls. They were closer now, looming threateningly.

“We make a hole.”

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I hum as I work, hitting the chisel rhythmically. The ebony rock obeys, splinters and chunks flying off in time with the music of my hammer and song.

I take a moment to admire my work, and giggle. The damage I did and that the planetoid had healed are back, far faster with my tools than with just my hands.

Delighted, I raise the hammer, admiring the way it gleams still even after all the battering.

I pause. Just now… Frowning, my ribbons flickering slightly, I check on that part of my mind ever-joined with my island.

Nothing. Everything is in order. I check my children, and sure enough, they are as happy as when I left them.

Mollified, I smile, and return to my cheerful hammering.