The portal radiated with energy that stung and hurt in a pleasantly familiar way. Kiarak basked in the throb, relieved to have at least a reminder of home at last. But relief wasn’t enough to keep her from frantically scanning the makeup of the portal’s energies, or to sneak only seemingly casual glances to the gestures and whispers that Zongatis made as as she stood before the ragged fissure in space.
In her studies and trainings, Kiarak had touched almost all of the magical and war traditions of Uthar, and that she barely recognized what she was doing meant only one thing. Those were the Il’Kanak, the Forbidden Unrivaled, the arts and spells and magicks of the Father himself. No daemon worth his scales would be so foolish as to show his secret arts in a way that allowed potential rivals the chance to steal them. But the Father was the Father. Such a bold show of His secret might was proof just as much of His unassailability than of His iron-clad dominance.
Kiarak thirsted for it, so much that she almost felt she could just extend her hand and grab it for herself. Or she would have, if she was an idiot. Still, she observed, and remembered.
To her relief, the swarm of little monsters had shifted its attention from her to Zubar. The fat daemon had transformed, going from the vague-eyed, distracted glutton to a benevolent, likable friend. He waded among the monsters’ reaching arms, basking in their touches, delighting in every little thing they presented him with, always more than happy to answer a question, or to play a silly game or two, or to put his own forward.
The little monsters adored him, marveling at the little baubles his sack seemed to have an endless supply of and crowding for his attention. They lined up enthusiastically to hug him, gift him a pretty leaf or whatever or just to be… patted? Was that the word? For some reason, they practically lit up with joy when Zubar put his hand on their heads, shifting from avian to two-legged form as they rustled feathers and smiled brightly respectively.
Kiarak had to grudgingly admit Zubar’s skill. Her scales still tingled with phantom pain from where the monsters prodded her.
A little monster waddled closer, and she repressed the urge to kick him by turning sharply to Zongatis’ work.
The portal shuddered and jerked, before stabilizing in a steady thrum. It radiated a blood-red aura, and Kiarak felt a thrill of longing as she peered in the sanguine vista it gave off. Ah, to be back home…
It changed as she watched, and all good feelings were banished away by rising dread. The blood was tinted and corrupted and overwhelmed by black, until there was a ragged scar into reality, giving out into an abyss. And deep into that abyss, something enormous stirred, like a Rigaloth buried beneath ash. An overwhelming force, one Kiarak was far too familiar with, intruded into the area, fraying folds of abyssal black sneaking from the portal as it asserted its influence.
Falling to her knees and rubbing her face against the dirt was as obvious and natural as breathing. All her instincts as a demigoddess and a daemon, that pushed her to dominate and control and thirst, now were easily turned to the opposite, to the prey that had to slave and bend and crawl in the mud to avoid the fang. All the agenda and choice and will were stripped away ruthlessly, leaving only terror and the burning awareness of life and sanity’s threads, so easy to snap.
She felt Ulvanach doing the same, the daemon hunter instantly hiding away any trace of lingering disappointment. Even the little monsters stopped their rustling and smiling and waddling as a flock of confused looks turned blinking to the portal. And all of a sudden, Zubar’s pleasant smile had turned brittle, and it was uncertain if the hands he kept on two monsters’ heads were to steady them or themselves.
The Father of Darkness loomed close, and nothing could remain undisturbed.
A beating heart of fire emerged from the black abyss, an eye of terrible attention that took in everything and everyone, bared souls and unveiled thoughts, piercing and cruel and merciless.
The Tolgran seemed to bend and melt as the Father’s full presence asserted itself, their branches shedding leaves like silvery tears. The breeze stopped, and the ground withered, as all the grass lost its luster and the dirt itself lost its color. Kiarak heard a chorus of choked little sounds. She didn’t lift her head to watch who let it out.
In the absolute silence, only Zongatis remained standing.
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“Father,” she curtsied, her claw tracing a flourish as she bent in an elegant bow.
The Red Eye didn’t answer. Tendrils of energy radiated from the portal, carving bloody paths through the air like a scalpel dragged leisurely across flesh. The Father was licking that new world, taking in it, inspecting it.
As a flicker of His attention strayed on her, Kiarak’s forehead pushed harder against the dirt, the very real sensation of a crushing weight pushing against her neck making itself known. He always did that, their Father. Reminding them that they were nothing, their desires and ambitions and lives as inconsequential as the ash upon his foot, and just as easy to blow away. The sensation didn’t leave her as the pressure moved away.
The voice spoke a single word that seared through the world and into her like a flaming blade thrust into her gut. It spoke to her of the True Darkness at the beginning and the end of the world, of absolute dominance and control, and all the pain and suffering that would unflinchingly come upon those who would dare to defy it.
“Speak.”
As Zongatis started her report, Kiarak gritted her teeth, knowing what was coming. Live as a daemon was to suffer, to inflict and be inflicted wounds. The Father gifted them with the vitality and strength to recover from those wounds, to grow scars to close them and grow stronger from them. But just as a gift was free to be given, so it was freely taken away. He always did that, their Father. Reminding them what they were and what they had to be. Especially after a time away from Him, and everything that made His Power. Before such a concern, having all the memories of those wounds reawoken at once was nothing, the greatest of mercies. That’s what Kiarak kept repeating to herself as the world became agony, and again as, after what felt like a lifetime of pain, a blessed void came upon her.
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Zongatis let out the breath she was holding as her rapport was received and found worthy of the expenditure of His priceless time.
She didn’t turn to acknowledge the way his kin writhed in agony, or how the little inhabitants of the land seemed to have gone unresponsive. All that mattered, for the sake of her continued survival
and for the respect she was to give, was the Father’s pleasure. She was His ever-dutiful daughter after all, she repeated to herself, as His blessed touch mercifully scarred her mind with the reminder of duty.
“You shall learn about this Mother,” the Father’s voice and will thrum through her, setting her teeth on edge and her bones shaking. “You shall dedicate yourself entirely to this task, disregarding all else.”
Zongatis gladly surrendered to the weight upon her, pushing her hands against the ground as she kneeled deeply.
“By the will of Darkness,” she intoned.
There wasn’t a need for her to make her inconsequential points and questions. The tendril of darkness searching into her mind, leaving bloody furrows as it did, took everything that had to be taken.
“The will inset deep into this land is not this Mother.” A pause. “We shall take care of it.”
Such an awesome intrusion couldn’t pass unobserved, even if Zongatis knew that the Father could have if He so willed. But who would dare to stand in His way? And even so, who would manage?
The earth-will seemed uncaring of such things. The presence of the daemons, clothed in the spell of the Darkness, had gone unnoticed by its unblinking gaze. It had puzzled over the shift in activities of the Children, almost piercing but not quite managing to those magicks of bewilderment and hiding. But the Father’s very presence couldn’t be unnoticed, and, faithful to its own nature, it sprung to the defense of its charges.
The ground trembled and then split, forcing Zongatis to jump back as tower-sized tendrils of sand and rock erupted. They thrashed, smashing against the portal with the sound of broken glass, before wrapping themselves around it, trying to mend the breach.
The presence pulsed stronger, the intrusion forcing Zongatis to the ground as her head throbbed with agony.
A purple splotch, like a bruise on naked skin, appeared on a tendril, it quickly expanded, covering the others, and they seemed to lose integrity, jerking and twitching as they crumbled. It wasn’t enough. Flame-soldiers, dozens of them, emerged from the withered ground. As one, they jabbed their spears into the corrupted tendrils, the weapons easily piercing through and sinking into the portal.
Zongatis recognized the weakness of the flash of concerns rippling through her, but couldn’t stop it. It was unwanted and unneeded.
The portal discharged a pulse of raw power, a wave of iridescent energy that engulfed the creatures, the daemons, the forest, everything. A dome of crackling energies extended over the desert, growing and growing. Then, it ended.
As Zongatis blinked afterimages away, she saw that everything was frozen in place. The flame-soldiers stood thrusting their weapons, their fire stopped in a flickering moment. Swarms of leaves were suspended mid-air, making the air glitter and gleam. And finally, the intelligence she had felt nestled into the sand beneath her feet since their arrival here was frozen as well, blocked in a moment of will and intention like a mote of ash trapped in amber.
The demonstration of power left her breathless. Daemonlords could encroach on their own relative time perception only by din of their Dag’Drohma. But to be able to freeze and keep frozen such a massive stretch of land was… divine.
“Your power is, as ever, unmatched, Father,” she said honestly, bowing to the portal.
What remained of the tendrils crumbled away under a fraction of the power just unleashed as the Father’s annoyance made itself known.
“Stay your tongue.”
Zongatis obeyed, disciplinately closing her mouth.
“Guard the little ones,” the voice rumbled. “We have preserved them from our spell for such an aim. You shall use them in whatever dealings this Mother forces upon you. Enslave her if you can. Find out about her if you can’t. Both your survival and those of your pawns are secondary to the accomplishment of these two objectives.” A pause. “Two beings have escaped my spell. Enslave them both. Kill them if it proves impossible. But they would prove useful in any further dealings. You shall not disappoint me, daughter.”
With that, the presence retreated, the portal dimming and dimming until what remained was only the sanguine light.
Zongatis let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She put a claw on her chest, feeling her hearts beating fast. It was always such an emotion to stand before Father, to bathe and breathe and be infused by His unrivaled power and dominance. She sighed, shaking her head. So many of her kin didn’t understand, pointlessly clawing and spitting and biting as they were forced into obeisance by His undeniable will. Useless, foolish, but more than that, ungrateful. What greater honor there was than being the instrument of such an exalted Being? What greater destiny than to sacrifice one’s time and life for the fulfillment of His pleasure? For herself, her lone ambition was to be His perfect tool, to see His will realized. She toiled with passion and relentlessness for that. After all, what greater happiness there could be than serving a God?