Mother of Demons Read online

death not end

  give

  life not life

  Strangely, it made sense. The hunnakaku were plant-eaters. They viewed carnivores, including scavengers, with horror. The horror was not the product of personal fear. Because of their size, the hunnakaku had few natural enemies. (Except us, thought Nukurren.) It was due to their belief that all meat-eaters were parasites, who stole life without returning it back to what they called the "Coil of Beauty." To be eaten as meat was to be denied re-entry into the Coil, to be doomed to eternal non-existence.

  Or so, at least, the Kiktu had explained it to Nukurren. And it was certainly true that, within the limits available to their fundamentally carnivorous needs as gukuy, the Kiktu attempted to follow similar precepts. It was these attempts, of course, that produced the dietary rules and restrictions which Nukurren and Dhowifa had found so irksome.

  Nukurren's tentacles twitched with irritation.

  "You can't expect me to bury her!"

  She whistled with derision at the idea, and began to march off.

  Another hoot:

  horror horror horror

  is

  horror horror horror

  She stopped, arrested by the tone of unmistakable anguish in the voice of the hunnakaku. After a moment, she made a decision and marched to the toolkeeper's yurt. The plaintive hoots of the hunnakaku followed her.

  "Give me a hoe," she commanded. Without a word, the toolkeeper disappeared inside and returned a moment later with the tool. Her mantle, Nukurren noticed with bleak amusement, glowed bright pink with apprehension.

  Taking the hoe, Nukurren stalked back to the cage. She began digging a trench on one side of the trail, but as soon as she started the hooting began again.

  must not waste

  root

  wrong there reeds

  She whistled sharply with anger. The hunnakaku withdrew fearfully from the bars, cowering in the interior of the cage. Her mantle flushed brick red. Fear, allayed by determination. She continued to hoot the same plea.

  "You're as bad as the Kiktu and their damned fetishes," said Nukurren. But she abandoned the trench she had begun and waded off into the field of akafa. There, even though the reeds made the work far more difficult, she dug a new trench. Finished, she went over and grabbed the slaver's body. She was tempted to use her fork to drag the body, but she knew it would upset the hunnakaku. For some reason, the thought of causing further pain to the gentle giant was repulsive. So, ignoring her disgust at the snails which were by now crawling all over the corpse, she picked up the body of the slaver in her two great tentacles and carried it over to the trench. She lowered the body down. It was short work to hoe the soil back in.

  When she was finished, she stared at the small mound in the reeds.

  "You're still garbage," she said softly. "But for whatever it's worth, welcome to the Coil of Beauty. Personally, I hope you come back as a slug."

  She left the reeds and went back to the cage. For a long moment, she and the hunnakaku stared at each other. She saw a creature whose basic shape was similar to her own. Bigger, of course, despite the fact that Nukurren was huge for a gukuy. The hunnakaku's peds were very short and bulky relative to its body. She lacked true tentacles. Instead, she had eight arms instead of six. The arms were bigger than a gukuy's, and clumsy-looking—they ended in a simple bifurcation, instead of the delicate triad which made gukuy arms such marvelous instruments for precise manipulation. The beak which Nukurren could see within the hunnakaku's arm-cluster was blunt and ridged, suited for chewing tough plants. Not at all like Nukurren's sharp-edged gukuy beak.

  And what does she see? wondered Nukurren. A monster, I imagine.

  There was no way to tell. Another wave of world-weariness rolled over her.

  In truth, they are a better folk than we gukuy. But they are timid, despite their size and strength. And slow, and stupid. So we make them our slaves, when we do not butcher them outright. And now they are a dying race. The slavers catch fewer and fewer each year, and they won't breed in captivity. And if the Kiktu are destroyed by the Utuku, more slavers will come to this refuge. Kjakukun is just one of many.

  She turned away.

  And I am Kjakukun's flail. For three wires of copper an eightday.

  On her way back to her yurt, she took some satisfaction in the fearful glances sent her way by those she encountered. As she passed Kjakukun's yurt, the caravan master stepped from between the hides which served as an entryway.

  "Why did you bury her?" she asked. She seemed genuinely puzzled.

  "The hunnakaku asked me to."

  Orange astonishment rippled across Kjakakun's mantle.

  "Why should you do its bidding? It's nothing but a slave—a sub-gukuy."

  Anger boiled over, and this time Nukurren made no effort to control her mantle. Blue blazed. Despite her own impressive self-control, the caravan master could not prevent a pink flush from entering her own mantle.

  And when Nukurren stepped suddenly near, the pink was replaced by scarlet terror.

  "I work for you, slave-master," said Nukurren softly, "because I have to. I need the money, and—"

  She did not complete the thought. Nor, even though she could have, did the caravan master.

  Because only a filthy slaver would hire a pervert.

  Nukurren waited, wondering if the caravan master was bold enough to sneer the words. But Kjakukun was silent.

  Very wise, slave master. Very wise.

  The blue faded from Nukurren's mantle.

  "I work for you, Kjakukun. But I am much closer to the Kiktu in how I see the Old Ones."

  The red faded from the caravan master.

  "The Kiktu will kill you as quick as anyone!"

  "True. Even quicker, for they would look upon me as a traitor."

  Nukurren turned away, then back.

  "Do not ever ask me questions, slave-master. I am your bodyguard, no more."

  "I am your employer," protested Kjakukun.

  Nukurren allowed a tinge of contempt to yellow her mantle, as she walked toward her yurt.

  Dhowifa was in his usual place, perched on the cushions in a corner. After Nukurren entered, the two lovers stared at each other in silence.

  "It's been a bad day," she said finally.

  Dhowifa's mantle rippled with the chromatic complexity of which only truemales are capable. Sadness. Sympathy. Empathy. And, the undertone beneath and the sharpest accents, green love.

  "I know. I watched from here."

  After some silence, he spoke again.

  "I have brought much misery into your life."

  "Much happiness, also."

  An intricate wave of pastel humor washed over him. "True. True. But still, I wish—"

  "Wish what?" demanded Nurukken. "That we hadn't fallen in love?"

  "No—never that! But—"

  "The world is the way it is, Dhowifa. Why should you complain? Isn't that the heart of your dukuna?"

  Dhowifa's arms coiled in a manner suggesting respectful disagreement leavened by good feeling. Not for the first time, Nukurren was struck by the truemale's incredible delicacy of expression.

  "Not exactly," he demurred. "The concept of dukuna has a more impersonal philosophical thrust. It's not really—"

  "Enough!" barked Nukurren. But the good humor was obvious on her mantle. And, glowing ever brighter, the white of passion.

  "You're insatiable," complained Dhowifa. But his own mantle rippled ivory, and there was no reluctance in the way the tiny truemale came toward her, his arms extended.

  As he climbed into her mantle cavity, his tentacles gripping her head firmly while he extended his arms deep inside, Nurukken whistled her pleasure at his touch.

  Yes, she thought, you have brought me anguish, Dhowifa. But I wouldn't give you up for anything. Joy of my life. My love, who had none.

  His arms found what they were seeking. Pleasure turned into ecstasy, and forgetfulness of all pain.

  Chapter 2

  T
he demons attacked at dawn.

  Nukurren was awakened by a shrill hoot of fear and alarm. With a veteran's instinct, she was instantly awake and scrambling for her weapons. She hesitated for a moment at the thought of donning her ganahide armor, but decided she didn't have time.

  "Wait here!" she said to Dhowifa, who was stirring to life in his cushions.

  She rushed through the hide flaps of the yurt and onto the ground beyond. There, she crouched for a moment in battle stance, fork and flail ready, to gain her bearings.

  What she saw, in the faint light of the dawn, was at first more confusing that anything else.

  What are those—things?

  They were like nothing she had ever seen. Very tall and slender, like reeds. They moved with blinding speed, in a strange, jerky motion that she found hard to follow.

  Before she could register anything else, she saw one of the demons spring toward a caravan guard. The guard was crouched, holding up her fork and flail in trembling palps, whistling with terror. In a movement faster than anything Nukurren had ever seen, the demon thrust forth some sort of huge stinger. As the stinger hurtled at the guard, Nukurren saw a brief gleam from its tip.

  Metal! But what kind of metal shines gray?

  The stinger plunged deeply into the camp guard's head, right between the eyes and into the brain. The guard died instantly, without a sound.

  The demon planted a—a ped? wondered Nukurren; was that long and skinny thing a ped?—onto the dead guard's head and wrenched the stinger loose with its two tentacles.

  Except they're not tentacles. They're like sticks tied together. And that stinger's a weapon of some kind.

  That last thought restored her courage. They might be demons, but if they needed weapons they had to be vulnerable. Somehow.

  She had no more time for thought. From the corner of her eye she caught a flickering motion. Then the gleam of a weapon coming straight toward her.

  She was totally unprepared for a straight-thrusting weapon. No gukuy could deliver such a blow. But she instantly raised the shield protecting her palp on the crossbar of the fork, in the reflex of a fighter fending off blowpipe darts.

  The weapon glanced off the shield and drove along her mantle, gashing a long but shallow wound. Nukurren ignored the pain. Her mantle was already criss-crossed with battle scars, and no mantle-wound was serious so long as the mantle itself wasn't penetrated. But she found time to regret the absence of her armor.

  Nukurren whipped her flail around and struck a terrible blow on the lower portion of the demon's ped. The flail-tips did not penetrate. There was some sort of armor there. But she heard a strange cracking noise, and the demon collapsed to the ground, wailing horribly.

  She drew back her flail for the death-stroke, but turned away. Her duty was elsewhere. The demon seemed incapacitated, and she was responsible for the safety of the caravan master.

  She raced toward Kjakukun's yurt. On the way, she caught glimpses of the chaos around her. The guards and slavers were no longer attempting to fight. They were fleeing every which way in utter terror. But the demons which swarmed everywhere moved much faster than gukuy. Right before her, she watched as a fleeing slaver was overtaken by two demons. Pitilessly, the monsters drove their weapons into the slaver's peds, pinning it to the ground. A third demon flickered around to the front of the shrieking slaver, and drove its weapon straight into her brain.

  How do they do that? wondered Nukurren. She recognized the utterly deadly nature of the blow. No part of a gukuy's body was more vulnerable than the soft spot between the eyes, behind which the brain lay unprotected. But the very nature of a gukuy's tentacles made such a direct blow impossible. The dart from a blowpipe could strike there, but very few pipers could drive a dart hard enough to penetrate through the flesh into the brain. Eyes were a piper's target.

  She heard a loud hooting from the cages holding the hunnakaku.

  Are the demons slaughtering the pitiful things?

  But when she risked a glance, she saw that the demons were smashing the locks of the cage. They were releasing the sub-gukuy! And now she recognized that the hoots carried no trace of fear.

  Just ahead of her was Kjakukun's yurt. She was almost there. She saw the caravan master step out through the hides, carrying a flail.

  Get back inside, you idiot! I can't protect you out here!

  It was too late. From somewhere, a demon flickered into view. It drew back the stinger in one of its strange tentacles, and then jerked it forward in a blur. Astonished, Nukurren watched the stinger fly through the air, like a gigantic dart from a blowpipe. It struck Kjakukun right between the eyes. The caravan master was dead before her body could fall.

  More than anything else she had seen, in that dawn of terror and chaos, the sight of the flying stinger shocked Nukurren. Except for blowpipes, gukuy almost never used missile weapons. Some of the primitive tribes to the far southwest used slings. The Anshac had experimented with the awkward devices, before concluding they were well-nigh useless. To be sure, the stones struck with considerable impact. But gukuy could withstand a great deal in the way of blunt impacts, and no gukuy had the tentacular dexterity to use the slings with accuracy. Even the southwestern primitives used them rarely.

  Despair washed over her. How can you fight such terrible creatures?

  But she had no time to dwell on it. A demon was racing toward her. Knowing what to expect, she twisted to one side to avoid the brain-thrust. The stinger drove into the front of her mantle. The wound was harmless; hardly even painful. Nowhere on the mantle of a gukuy was the tissue tougher and thicker than on the edge of the cowl.

  She lashed upward with her fork, striking the demon's tentacle. Again, that strange cracking sound. The demon ululated.

  Full of fury and triumph, Nukurren whipped her flail around at the monster's upper torso. The blow was fast and powerful, but the demon's uncanny speed enabled it to interpose its other tentacle, which bore some kind of armor. The armor splintered. She heard another crack; the demon was hurled to the ground.

  They can be broken! came the thought.

  Another demon. Another. And another. Twisting like a slug, faster than she'd ever moved, Nukurren managed to avoid the death-blows. But this time the stingers penetrated through her mantle, into the flesh of her body cavity. The pain was intense. Even more intense was the knowledge of her certain doom. Such wounds invariably caused lingering death, by horrible diseases.

  With no thought now but to wreak havoc, Nukurren hurled herself at her tormentors. Her fork and flail struck hard. One of the demons fell to the ground, clasping its side. Nukurren's flail had torn out a great swath of—flesh? A second demon, a huge one, was stripped of its weapon by a smashing blow of the flail on its tentacle. The third demon withdrew, moving with an odd gait, hopping on one of its bizarre peds.

  A pause. She spun around, feeling agony as the stingers sticking out of her mantle flapped with her motion.

  She was surrounded by demons. They were standing back, however, beyond reach of her weapons. Peculiar sounds were coming from them. Horrible sounds, full of spitting and gasping. A language, she realized, but like no language she'd ever heard. Through the haze of pain, she was finally able to discern some details of their shape, now that the demons weren't moving in a constant flicker.

  Those are heads, she realized. Those strange growths on the very top of their bodies. And the sounds are coming from those moving parts in front. Are they lips? Is that tiny thing a beak? It can't be—it only has one jaw.

  Then she saw the eyes. Those, at least, she had no difficulty in recognizing. They were almost like her own, except that they were so small.

  Why aren't they attacking?

  She moved toward one side. The demons there flickered back.

  They're afraid of me, she realized. The slavers were butchered like uju. But I injured several. Some may even die.

  But the tiny hope faded. She heard a demon's voice, lower-pitched than the others. Turning to face
the voice, she saw two demons in the circle surrounding her flicker aside. A new demon appeared, stalking slowly through the ring.

  The new demon was much bigger than the others. Taller, and wider in its upper torso. It moved slowly, for a demon, but she instantly recognized the total poise of its stance. As bizarre as the demons were in their shape and their movement, she had no doubt of what she was seeing.

  A great warrior. Demonlord.

  The thing began circling her. Faster and faster. She spun around. It reversed its circle. She spun again. She could feel the stingers in her body tearing at the flesh. She realized the thing was deliberately forcing her to wound herself further.

  She had no chance in a prolonged battle. Suddenly, she hurtled forward, whipping her fork around at the monster's head. With triumph, she saw the demon block the blow with its stinger. She had time to marvel at the strength and—solidity—of the creature, before she brought her flail whipping around at the demon's peds in the same blow which had crippled the others.

  But to her astonishment, the demon avoided the blow by—flying? No, he leapt. Straight up, lifting his peds over the whistling flails, and back down on the ground. Still perfectly poised.

  She knew, then, that these were truly demons. No natural creature on the Meat of the Clam could do that.

  She saw the death-stroke coming. But now she was off-balance from missing her own strike. She could not avoid the blow. She could only make a last, futile attempt to twist aside.

  The stinger plunged straight into her left eye. Deep, deep, deep. Bringing an agony so great it left her paralyzed, as well as half-blind.

  Dimly, she realized her last twist had avoided the brain-strike. But now she was doomed. She watched helplessly as the demon champion took a new stinger from another demon. Watched as it flickered slowly toward her, the stinger held in strike position. She was even, now, finally able to analyze the strange motion of its peds.

  Like sticks, tied end to end. They don't really flicker, they jerk back and forth where the knots would be.

  Suddenly her vision was occulted. A small body was swarming onto her maimed head, whistling with fear and anguish.