Mother of Demons by Eric Flint
Mother of Demons by Eric Flint
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
PART I:
The Threads
Chapter 1
As a young warrior, Nukurren had heard the demons come. She still remembered the enormous sound that ripped through the sky above Shakutulubac, capital of the Ansha Prevalate. She herself had seen nothing. The sound had awakened her from an exhausted sleep, and by the time she raced out of the barracks there was nothing to be seen but a huge red splotch on the eastern horizon. The strange mark on the sky was terrifying. The Mother-of-Pearl was always a featureless gray. What could turn it red with fear?
Others in the Warrior’s Square claimed to have seen the Great Kraken itself racing east toward the ocean, spewing molten ink across the sky. So great had been its terror! They had pointed, with quivering palps, to the red blotch.
The capital had been gripped with fear. The Paramount Mother had summoned all her priests to the Divine Shell. For days the soothsayers had rolled snails, consulting the whorl patterns and the subtleties of the shellpile. Nukurren had watched them, surreptitiously, from her position guarding the entrance to the Chamber of Mothers. In the end, after much quarreling, the soothsayers announced that the great sound had been a cry of anger from Ypu. The Clam-That-Is-The-World was warning the Anshac to forego sin and corruption. They concluded by calling for eight eightdays of fasting. And, inevitably, for increasing the tithes to the temples.
Looking back on it many eightyweeks later, Nukurren thought it was from that time that she first began to develop her contempt for the priests. She did not particularly question their conclusions. But after watching them from the rare vantage-point of a Motherguard, she had decided their motivations were far from holy. In truth, a venal and avaricious lot.
As she walked alongside the caravan, she remembered that day long past.
I haven’t thought of that in years, she mused. Why now? It must be all these rumors of demons. Then, with a mental grimace: Or maybe it’s that the rapacity of these slavers brings those priests back to mind.
For a moment, she pondered the question. For a number of eightweeks now, vague rumors had drifted across the meat of the Clam, telling of new demons. Not witches, which were feared but understood, but something else. The stories were vague in all details. But most of them placed the demons in the vicinity of the Chiton.
Which is probably why the caravan master is so edgy, she thought. Not that Kjakukun doesn’t have enough reason to be fearful, entering Kiktu territory in search of hunnakaku slaves.
Nukurren looked to the north. The Chiton loomed on the horizon, dominating the landscape like a behemoth. It was not tall so much as it was massive. Great canyons carved the slopes. Its shape had given the great mountain its name.
She whistled derisively. Half of the world’s legends belong to the Chiton. These “demons” are just the latest.
Although, the night before, Dhowifa hadn’t shared her contempt for the stories.
“It’s a fact that folk who’ve gone to the mountain haven’t come back,” he pointed out. “For many eightweeks, now.”
“It’s a big mountain,” countered Nukurren. “Huge. Enough danger in that to kill off any number of small parties.”
But Dhowifa had not been convinced.
“And what about this last party? That wasn’t a small group of Pilgrims, who just vanished. It was a whole slave caravan. They were found dead at the foot of the Chiton. At the foot, Nukurren, not in the mountain itself. The slaves were gone without a trace. And the slavers and the guards were all dead. Great, horrible wounds they had. So people say. Strange, deep wounds—as if they’d been attacked by some kind of giant uglandine.”
“Uglandine?” Nukurren had whistled derision. “You’d have to be asleep to be caught by a uglandine! Or crippled.”
She stopped and surveyed the caravan.
Not that asleep or crippled doesn’t describe this caravan pretty well, she thought contemptuously.