Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

When she returned, the adults gathered about the evening campfire. Her first words were simply:

"The name 'maia' is wrong. They are called owoc."

When she told Joseph, he nodded, and corrected her pronunciation.

Interlude: Nukurren

For Nukurren, the first two days after her capture were a blur. She recovered consciousness briefly, at several intervals. But beyond a vague awareness of Dhowifa, she recognized nothing before lapsing again into darkness.

Then, just after dawn on what she would learn was the third day since the massacre of the caravan, she awoke clear-headed. Very, very weak. But clear-headed.

The first thing she saw, out of her good eye, was Dhowifa. He was nestled under her cowl. From his closed eyes, and the way his beak and arms twitched, she thought he was dreaming.

"You're so cute when you're asleep," she whispered softly.

His eyes popped open, glaring at her balefully.

"I am not asleep. I'm thinking."

She began a retort to the effect that, the last time she remembered, he was as mindless as a snail. But the look of love in the curl of his arms, and the green hues which rippled across his mantle, stopped the words in her sac.

"Where are we?" she asked. Then, feeling a strange motion, she looked around.

She could only see to one side, but she saw that she and Dhowifa were being carried on a litter held by two of the hunnakaku. They seemed to be part of a caravan of demons and hunnakaku, climbing a trail on the side of a mountain. On the slopes above, she could see three demons stick-pedding alongside.

Those strange peds are very effective in rough terrain, she thought. Then, seeing the shades of brown in their skins: But why are they so miserable?

Her attention was drawn by another demon, who was stick-pedding alongside the litter. The demon was very large. Not as tall as the demonlord, but heavier. Nukurren was mostly struck by its color. The demon's skin was almost pure white, under the strange yellow armor which covered the top of its head and the rear of its upper torso.

That armor looks too soft to be much good. And this seems a strange time and place to be consumed by passion.

She voiced the last thought aloud. Hearing the sound, the demon looked down at her. The bright blue color of its eyes made her instinctively tighten her muscles. Only pure fury could turn a gukuy's eyes that color. But the creature did not seem enraged, and the tension brought pain to her ravaged body. She slowly relaxed.

"I don't think their emotions show on their mantles," said Dhowifa softly. "I have been watching them for days. They all looked the same to me, at first, except the big one. The terrible one who hurt you so badly. But now I can tell them apart, and their colors never change. Most of them are brown-colored, of one shade or another. But there is this big one"-he whistled amusement- "who looks like it's in perpetual heat. Some of the others are like that, although none is as white as this one. And there is the other big demon, who is always pure black. Nobody can be that implacable. Not even that monster."

"The demonlord."

Dhowifa glowed ochre.

"I am not sure they are demons, Nukurren."

Nukurren started to whistle amusement, but the rippling in her sac caused a wave of pain.

"And what do you know about demons?"

Exquisite turquoise-irritation, leavened by affection-rippled across Dhowifa.

"Would demons be friends with hunnakaku?" he demanded.

Nukurren pondered the question.

"It does seem unlikely," she admitted.

"And there's more, Nukurren. The-demons, whatever they are-you won't believe this, but I've seen it with my own eyes. They eat the hunnakaku ogoto. In fact, as far as I can tell, that's all they ever eat."

Nukurren was stunned into silence. "Ogoto" was the Anshaku word. The Kiktu called it "putoru." The hunnakaku themselves, in their own language, called it "childfood."

Gukuy spawn only lived on ogoto when they were newly born. Within a few eightdays, they were able to feed on soft meat. But the tough plants which were the exclusive diet of hunnakaku were much too difficult for the young sub-gukuy to chew and digest. So they lived on childfood-the regurgitated contents of the adults' stomachs-for years. Until they were half-grown.

"Are you saying these monsters are children? "

"I'm not sure, Nukurren. It would seem so-but if there's one thing I've decided, these past two days, it's that there are too many peculiar things about these-demons-to jump to any conclusions. But I'm sure I'm right about the ogoto. For one thing, there are seven hunnakaku in this party. They freed the four who were in the cages, but where did the other three come from? They must have brought the hunnakaku with them. Why would they do that if not for the ogoto? Hunnakaku can't fight."

A sharp pain stabbed through Nukurren's ruined eye. She reached up an arm, felt a strange thing covering it.

To her surprise, Dhowifa pulled her arm away.

"Don't touch that!" he cried.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Some kind of thing made of plants." He hesitated. "One of the demons put it there. On the first day. It put similar ones on your other wounds. I tried to pull the things off, of course, because I thought it was trying to poison you. But it wouldn't let me, and it's much stronger than I am. Then, it got this other one-" Dhowifa gestured toward the large white demon who was still stick-pedding alongside the litter "-to talk to me. It speaks Kiktu. I don't understand Kiktu as well as you do, and it's got a horrible accent, but as near as I can make out, it was telling me that the things will help you heal. And I noticed that it's wearing one too. I think it's one of the ones you injured."

Nukurren looked again at the white demon. On one of its upper-tentacles? no, they were jointed like its peds-its upper limbs, a large poultice was strapped.

"So I decided to leave them there," continued Dhowifa. "I think you should leave them alone."

He doesn't understand, Nukurren realized. Oh, Dhowifa, now I must cause you more pain. But better that than to lie.

"It doesn't matter, dear one," she said softly. "I am going to die, anyway."

She started to explain about the diseases which mantle-rupturing wounds always brought in their train. Dhowifa, the poor emotional little thing, tried to interrupt, but Nukurren plowed on. Better that he should face the truth now than to live in the fairy-tale world that truemales preferred.

Suddenly, to her astonishment, the truemale started slapping her with his arms.

"Will you shut up for a moment-you, you clamhead!"

Nukurren stared at him. The azure irritation which suffused Dhowifa's mantle was not, this time, mottled by any affectionate traces of green.

"I know about those diseases," said the truemale angrily. "Do you think I haven't been filled with anguish, worrying about it? Self-righteous fool. Snail!"

He took a deep breath.

"But this big white demon says-well, at least, I think that's what it's been trying to tell me-that you can be healed. When we get to where we're going."

"And where's that?"

Orange surprise. "Didn't you see it? We've already started up the slopes."

He stretched out a tentacle, pointing up and ahead.

"The Chiton."

Nukurren twisted, looked where he was pointing. The sight was awesome.

"We're going there? Why?"

"Because that's where the demons live. Or come from, I'm not quite sure. That's where the ones live who it says can heal you."

After a short silence, Dhowifa added:

"And, if I understand it, that's where the one lives who will decide what to do with us."

"And who is that?" She felt dread at the answer.

"The Mother of Demons."

Suddenly, a voice spoke in Kiktu: "How do you feel?"