Kiarak hated everything. She hated the cloying warmth around her neck, rasping its way inside her chest and into her two hearts. She hated that place, everything in it, and all the circumstances that led her to it. She hated Zonbatis with a passion bordering madness, and hated with as much intensity that the Father saw fit to bestow upon the elder daemoness the magic formulae needed to activate the Band of Submission each Ascended was forced to wear. And she hated herself for allowing herself the briefest, smallest flicker of hope that it wouldn’t be so. Someone had to keep the leash, and if not the Darkness, why not His favorite pet?
But more than anything, she hated that there wasn’t anybody for her to turn that explosive mixture searing her soul upon. The babbling little monster currently hugging her lap would have been a good target, damned what others may say, and for spite and fury and natural fear, she furiously willed her fire-wreathed claws to sink into it and rip it apart. But her will wasn’t met by the resulting actions, the heat from the collar digging deep into her with tentacles of agony that smothered what should have been natural. Instead, she was forced still, the only movements available to her leaning her neck backward in a token effort to get away.
“G-get…” The words felt like a molten rock as they poured out of her throat, and she choked on them.
If it heard her, the tiny monster didn’t listen, babbling enthusiastically as it dug its ugly, round face into her stomach. Fear and discomfort shook through her at the foreign contact, sending painful spasms through muscles that couldn’t move otherwise.
“Get… I-It… o-ff…” She hissed as the rest of her team cautiously emerged from the Tolgran-things. To her outrage, Ulvanach and Zubar didn’t even bother to try and hide the smug pleasure of seeing her so thoroughly bound. That she would have done the same didn’t matter. Being kicked while down was a humiliation for any daemon with strength enough to back her words, and she cursed them.
Zongatis watched the monster with an analytical gaze. She nodded at Ulvanach, and relief shot through her as the daemon, with surprising attention and care, obligingly lifted the monster off her; and again as she saw what little hope remained in his expression die away as the little monster’s only reaction was to giggle and wave and kick happily.
“This is not worthy prey,” Ulvanach protested, watching Zongatis as she had just cheated him of a blood-price.
Zongatis ignored him, meeting the monster’s gaze, who stopped his flailing to look at her with wide, curious eyes. He opened his mouth in an almost comic O as he did so, broke into an awed smile and started blabbering away again.
Zongatis glanced at Zubar, the fat daemon watching the monster with a calculating, greedy look.
“Not a Uthar language,” he admitted after a while. “Can’t recognize a single thing.” He chomped on another fruit, his slaver mind already running with possible employment and limits of usage for another likely Thilgra.
Zongatis clicked her tongue, and Kiarak felt a wave of savage glee at seeing her flounder in uncertainty.
And that was when the monster’s tongue changed.
“New friends!” He thrilled, startling all of them enough that Ulvanach let him go, and he plopped on the ground with a plop, rolled and was back on his feet without missing a beat.
“Mother made you?” He asked, waving his hands enthusiastically in what didn’t feel like a question at all. “New friends from Mother? New friends from Mother! Do you know new games? We know lots! Play? Play! Play! Play!”
The word “Mother” sparked a flurry of wary glances around, but when no oversized version of the little monster trundled out of the Tolgran, the attention moved back to it.
Kiarak didn’t need to ask Zongatis the reason for her piercing look. The minuscule charge inside the monster stretched out of its body, appearing as tendrils of glowing light to both physical and spiritual senses. They… reached for them, in an effort that she would have called welcoming if the word was part of her vocabulary. Interestingly, the charge showed itself to be more complex than what could be gleaned with a single glance.
Ignoring the wariness of her kin, Zongatis lowered herself to one knee, so that she was at eye level with the monster.
“We know lots of games,” she said levelly. “But we need to find Mother first. Do you know where… she is?”
That must have been the wrong question, because the monster put a finger to his lips, looking confused.
“Mother… where?” He repeated. He pointed at the ground. “Mother,” he said, like it was obvious. He spread his arms wide, like he wanted to include the multide of Tolgran-things around them. “Mother,” he repeated, and brought his arms higher, including the sky too. “Mother,” he nodded sagely.
Zubar and Ulvanach exchanged a glance. Their instincts, like Kiarak’s, told them that they should just dispatch or consume that little monster. It felt strange, unnatural, with that hideous light coming out from inside it. But there was no beating the Bands’ commands.
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Zongatis nodded slowly, before stepping back. The monster watched curiously but didn’t follow. “He must mean the intelligence we feel suffusing this land,” she murmured. They could all see how that would be good. Their protections made it impossible to register from that invisible thing. But at the same time…
“Wouldn’t interacting with this Thilgra make us visible?” Zubar hissed with rising panic, stepping back from where the monster was watching them. The fat daemon stopped abruptly, his body seizing all at once.
“We’ll do what we need to gather any information,” Zongatis declared, holding a claw up. She lowered it, and Zubar almost slumped, gargling a breath.
“Mother,” Zongatis nodded, lowering herself again. “Do you like Mother?”
The little monster didn’t even think about it. He nodded so enthusiastically that he was bouncing up and down.
“I love Mother!” He said. Kiarak felt the need to gag.
“And you’d do anything for her?
“Yes! Yes! I love Mother!”
“Mother made us too. What we say is what Mother says. Do you understand?”
“Yes!”
“Good.” The glint of cold-blooded satisfaction in Zongatis’ expression reflected on the little monster's wide, trusting eyes, making Zubar grin and Ulvanach frown. “Are there many others like you?” And then, at its affirmative answer. “Bring us there.”
“Will that make Mother happy?” The little monster asked, all honesty and desire to please.
“Of course it will.”
There wasn’t a need for more. Eager to comply with his new friends and Mother’s wishes, the Goldling broke into a little run, only to stop to excitedly gesture for them to follow.
Zongatis slowly got up, straightening her cloak. “It seems that we found our way in.” Then, noticing that Kiarak was still frozen, she flicked a finger. Suddenly free, Kiarak barely caught herself on one knee. She glared, but Zongatis was already walking away, cloak billowing in the breeze, the other two daemons fast on her track.
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“What is it supposed to be?” Kiarak asked, grouchily slapping a branch aside.
The little monster made for a very bad guide. He flittered about erratically, shifting seamlessly between his avian and two-legged forms as his attention was taken by a falling leaf, a shiny fruit, or a particular blade of grass that seemed to Kiarak just as boring as the other millions of stupid blades carpeting that place, but to it it must have been special, judging from all the aaahs and ooohs. More often than not, it got so taken by whatever boring thing got his attention that it forgot they were there at all, and it took Zongatis’ level-headed calls to keep it from wandering off. The elder daemoness had also tried to make small talk, but gave up on it when it became clear that half of it was unknown to it and the other half risked to reveal their true identities.
“Don’t care,” Ulvanach grumbled. He had been in a bad mood since it became clear there probably were only Drulanath there, Prey-Without-Fire, and Kiarak didn’t bother to try and snap him out of it. He deserved it anyway.
“Obedient flesh is good flesh,” Zubar chimed in. “Another Thilgra would sell handsomely to the lords. Set us up just nicely for rounds of good flesh for us.” He croaked a laugh, and Kiarak had to stop herself from smacking him. At least he had stopped stuffing his face. Instead, he was pouring on skins, making note after note with a glowing finger.
Not like she truly cared. Another Thilgra would have made for more slaves and more meat but changed nothing about her situation. But she was at least glad that the little monster kept away, it set all her scales the wrong way when it came close, and she didn’t want to have another seizing from that skank Zongatis. Even if she had to admit that seeing the look of steadily exhausting patience on the elder daemoness’ face made her forgive the monster a little.
And now I know who holds the leash. A not so useful information, for now. But she still filed it away for later.
Unluckily, she didn’t get to witness an outburst from her elder sister. Instead, the Tolgran opened, and they stepped into a large glade. For Kiarak, it felt like she had just stepped into a shiny nightmare.
One of those little monsters had been enough. There had to be hundreds in that place, flitting among the Tolgran, playing with the leaves and each other, tumbling and laughing and another dozen of useless-looking pursuits, many of them beneath a massive Tolgran that burned her eyes if she glanced its way and by a pitifully small brook of what looked to be blue liquid.
With a delighted noise, the little monster bounced down the ridge leading down into the glade, when Zongatis appeared at its side.
“Hold.” The daemoness made to touch it, then thought better of it. “Take this.” When asked about its name, the little monster looked confused and when explained what a name was, it gestured to himself. The tiny black brooch Zongatis handed to him would be useful to make him recognizable in case she lost sight of him among the crowd of similarly looking beings and couldn’t find another as agreeable.
The monster looked absolutely blown away by the brooch, snatched it after making sure it was for it, then charged down the ridge, waving its new treasure and calling.
For all their looking taken by their pointless games, the crowd of monsters was quick to put them aside and gather to see what the hubbub was all about. Admired aaahs and ooohs went up as their brother went around showing its new thing, and, defeating the purpose Zongatis handed it out in the first place, the brooch was passed freely from hand to hand and disappeared just as quickly.
Kiarak shot a grin to a fuming Zongatis, and almost regretted it as her body moved on its own, making her march down into the glade.
The monsters made for an obnoxious sight, their trusting, admiring and guileless expressions the opposite of everything a daemon found attractive, something made worse by the fact that their golden charges, each inconsequential by itself, seemed to act in concert when together until Kiarak felt all her body running with goosebumps and barely restrained loathing.
Zongatis tried her little speech again, to a small sea of wide eyes and mouths, but it quickly became clear that their first encounter must have been a specimen with a particularly long attention span. As Zongatis spoke, tiny monsters kept wandering off and getting distracted. One waddled close, curious gaze attracted by the shine of Zongatis’ hair-stones. Another found it more interesting to pick some colorful growths among the grass. A dozen kept interrupting with questions like “Where is Mommy?”, “Do you want a yummy treat?”, or “Wanna play?”, or observing how funny-looking their scales and horns were.
Zongatis tried to keep it as brief as possible, establish their role there, but the speech must have been too boring because the monsters just decided they wanted to investigate further, and swarmed forward. It should have ended badly, but even in the rare moment of panic, Zongatis kept enough of a level head to force Kiarak to stand her ground in her place. In a moment, she was submerged by the monsters, tiny hands pulling her fingers, prodding at her face and inspecting her scales, while a rain of questions came by.
“You are so pretty! Has Mother made you like this?”
“This skin is strange… what are these?”
“Do you want a yummy treat? Mother wouldn’t mind.”
“Let’s play! Let’s play!”
Kiarak wanted to scream, but the Band kept her still and trapped in her personal purgatory.
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Zongatis watched as the lowborn disappeared between the swarm. She sighed in relief, thankful for her quick reflexes, but then steadied herself.
“It’s becoming more and more clear that we have nothing to fear from the inhabitants of this place.” Ulvanach nodded grudgingly, while Zubar did so eagerly. “I posit that the concentration of this… Gold as it flows into Uthar is what makes up its danger, maybe a side-effect from the funneling in the transplane tunnel. In here, that same substance seems diluted enough that Father’s spells are more than enough to easily ensure long-term survival.” She consulted her notes, comparing what she had seen with previous experiences of cannon fodder. “A full confirmation is still needed, especially regarding this Mother of theirs, but I’ll say that our results are satisfactory enough for a first report.” Satisfaction brimmed inside her. Father would be greatly pleased with her work.
As for these… gold-things, she was confident Zubar could find a usage for them like the Thilgra had been. They would make good slaves, and if not, good food, no matter how repulsive their inner charges were. Lowborns were used to eating worse after all.