Undermind Book 5, Chapter 1: Serpent (2nd draft)

Coiled around the scarred steps of his great ziggurat, Rothgorad the Serpent King watched his servants stream skyward, shedding their bodies as he might shed his skin. He could do nothing for them. Their fate was preordained.

Into the vast maw in the sky their souls flowed, joining those of the last world, and the one before that; on and on to the dawning of time. The Old God Ixathi fed well this morn. Straddling the mountains from horizon to horizon, Ixathi spread wide Its flailing tendrils and screeched; a sound that froze the blood in Rothgorad’s veins and set the earth shuddering around him.

The Winged Prophet had foretold this day. “Ixathi will gather you all,” she had proclaimed before the jeering crowd. “Every last one of you. You who have grown fat with the souls of your forebears.” Then she had gazed up into Rothgorad’s eyes. “Except you, my king. Your fate will be different.”

At the time, the Serpent King had not heeded the Prophet’s words. Her purpose had been to sew chaos, and chaos had indeed followed in her wake. Slaves had turned on their masters. Contracts had been sundered. And all of Rothgorad’s efforts to quell the unrest had come to naught.

But the Prophet had spoken true. Ixathi had descended upon the world, bringing earthquakes that toppled mountains, sandstorms that swept away cities. And now the gathering of souls. Every soul, living or dead, from here to Lochluvien on the far western shore, drawn up into the Old God’s maw.

Every soul save one.

Why Rothgorad was being spared the fate of his servants, he couldn’t say. Perhaps it was a reward. Perhaps a punishment. Perhaps neither. Ixathi was a force of nature, beyond judgement, beyond morality. The Prophet must have understood in some small way the purpose behind all of this. Rothgorad wished she were here now, so he could ask her. Then again, no answers would have issued from those lips—not even with the knife poised to spill her entrails atop the ziggurat. He had seen her laugh into the snouts of those who nailed her to a pentagram. And then…

Well, it didn’t matter any more. Nothing mattered. For the world was ended. And Rothgorad the Serpent King now ruled over naught but stone and sand and faded dreams.

He watched as Ixathi withdrew Its tendrils from the world, receding behind the red moon with an almost sensuous slowness. Receding, yet not forever departing. The Old God had always been there, circling the sky; biding Its time. And so It would always be.

In the beginning of the lonely eternity that followed, Rothgorad paid little heed to his surroundings; thought little of the passage of days. For he had fallen into a deep malaise. There were no more slaves to feed upon, so he did not eat. He slept, and woke, and slept again; on and on, until he couldn’t tell the difference between waking and sleeping.

Then, one day; one year; one aeon, his body finally gave out. By the time he realised what had happened, his mortal shell was already naught but bleached bones strewn across the ziggurat, half buried under the sand. Rothgorad the Serpent King had died in his sleep, and neither noticed nor cared. Now he was neither serpent nor king. He was just a frayed soul, drifting across the sands of a dead world.

But the world was not quite as dead as he had supposed. Summer storms brought fresh downpours from the western skies. And in their wake, a sprinkling of greenery began to peek out from beneath the soggy sand. In what seemed barely an eye-blink to the wandering soul’s stretched senses, the desert gave way to an encroaching forest of vibrant green. Rothgorad had never imagined there could be so much green. The old world may have ended, but in its place there bloomed a new world, which he, in his infinite modesty, named Rothgoria.

In time, bugs and beasts and birds came to Rothgoria—slithering and crawling and hopping and flapping from the ocean to claim their new home. As yet, they were just creatures of mindless instinct and ravenous hunger. But as the world turned, they would give rise to beings more subtle; more complex; more interesting. All he had to do was wait.

And so he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then he tired of waiting and decided to speed things along.

The inhabitants of his world were clay for him to mould as he saw fit. He could see that now, as clear as the waters of a mountain spring. What was the Serpent King without a kingdom; without subjects to rule; without slaves to bow to his every whim? He would create the perfect subjects: beings whose loyalty to him was woven into their very cores.

Across the ages of this new world, Rothgorad had from time to time claimed a mortal form as his own and lived anew, insofar as one could live in the body of a primitive beast. Now he claimed another, but this time with purpose.

The body he inhabited was that of a small, winged creature. A rather unimpressive specimen, all things considered; far beneath the great wyrms that had once birthed the Serpent King. He chose this silly little critter because it was small and short of life and quick to breed—perfect for experimentation. And because it reminded him of a certain creature from the old world.

He took a mate, and passed to his children some very particular traits, nudging them in the direction he wanted. His children were smarter, more cunning and more devious than any of their kin—except for him, of course. When his body aged and died, he took another, selected from among his descendants. So he continued, passing through thirteen successive generations—each a little closer to the creature he envisaged—until finally he was satisfied with the result: a breed he named after the old-world imps they so resembled.

These new imps, like the old ones, would serve as messengers and scouts and menial labourers for his new kingdom. In the last world, imps had been a source of minor annoyance, but after that world was ended, he’d found himself missing their callous pranks.

The imps were an important first step in his bid to recreate what he’d lost—and more. He’d rebuild stronger and better than before. All it would take was time and patience.

Time, it turned out, was not in endless supply; not even for him.

The Serpent King was barely four generations into his next project—a race of insectoids called locuzu—when a strange new people arrived on the shores of Rothgoria. They brought with them a menagerie of creatures whose like he’d never seen before: long-legged beasts of burden, dull, placid meat-animals, and small barking creatures that seemed especially fond of sniffing each others’ butts.

These invaders—these so-called humans—were weak; laughably so. Even a tiny imp might be able to fell a man if it caught him by surprise. But for all their physical weakness, humans were surprisingly clever, well-equipped, and well-organised. Forests soon gave way to their fields, roads and fortress-cities. They enslaved some of the imps, and drove the rest into the receding wilderness. His other children fared even worse. The nascent locuzu, still dull of wit compared to the human invaders, were all-but annihilated, leaving just a handful lurking in the world’s deepest hidden places. They might forever remain incomplete, for now he had more important things to do than breed locuzu.

These humans were an enigma, a potential threat—and an opportunity. They were already clever enough—perhaps too clever—but what else might they become under his guiding hand?

His initial attempt to possess a human body didn’t go as planned. After he devoured his host’s soul, the body quickly withered and ejected him, leaving behind a husk that rose and turned on its former brethren with ravenous hunger, until they cleaved its head from its shoulders. The human body had rejected his soul. Inside the man’s meat brain, some stubborn spark had resisted him. Then once he was gone, it had kept the body alive for some time without any soul at all—albeit at greatly diminished capacity.

Rothgorad soon discovered similar properties in all the animals the humans had brought with them. All of them had, in some sense, two minds. One, housed in the soul, was succulent and delicious, and full of colourful memories. But the other…the other remained firmly entrenched in the physical body. Nothing the Serpent King did could pry it loose. What strange creatures they were. Strange…and fascinating.

A breakthrough finally came when Rothgorad learned he didn’t have to devour a soul to possess the body. They could coexist inside it, forming an uneasy union between his soul, the host brain, and its original soul—with himself in command. As long as he didn’t remove the soul, and the host soul remained at least somewhat amenable to his suggestions, the brain was content to let him guide them both. This level of control was much easier to achieve in animals than in humans, so his early manipulations began with them. Specifically, the noisy, slobbery beasts called dogs.

Thirteen generations later, the first true fell hounds were born. There had never been anything like these beasts in the old world. Outwardly, fell hounds resembled their human-bred ancestors, but they were larger, meaner, considerably smarter, and red of fur. Their breath could dissolve the flesh of their prey. The Serpent King had outdone himself this time.

For his next challenge, he wanted to see if he could make something out of the fat, stupid meat-animals known as cows. There wasn’t much to work with. These had to be some of the most ridiculous creatures he’d ever encountered. But he persevered, and slowly shaped them into creatures worthy of his dominion. Thus came the beezlebulls.

Satisfied by his mastery over human-bred animals, Rothgorad turned his attention back to the humans themselves. It took several attempts, but finally he found a tribe of humans amenable to his suggestions. He led them to the volcanic plateau of Mount Avuzim, where the furnace of the world burned bright and hot. There, he worked his influence over successive generations.

Some of his descendants grew tall and heavy and stern of demeanour. These became his personal guard, the stoic, deadly dread knights. Others became lusty succubi and incubi; his missionaries who would go out into the world, seducing receptive humans into serving him.

But Rothgorad wasn’t the only one who had been studying the art of soul manipulation. Some among the disparate human tribes and kingdoms and city states had learned to bind the souls of the dead to their own, harnessing untold power from the union. These human magicians, called soulbinders, were wreaking havoc upon all of his children, from imps to dread knights. They called his chosen people demons, and sparked a crusade against them. Furthermore, the humans had learned of Rothgorad’s presence, deduced much about his true nature, and named him their ultimate enemy.

Humans, when threatened, possessed an uncanny ability to set aside personal grievances and unite against a common enemy. It was an admirable trait, even if he was that enemy. His demonic warriors were individually more powerful than any human, but they were few against many. Thus the pendulum of fate swung back and forth many times in the wars that followed, with neither side gaining the upper hand for long. Though the Serpent King would never admit it to his underlings, this was just as he intended. A kingdom without enemies would grow soft and weak. Now they had a worthy enemy against which to hone claws and blades.

Beyond that, Rothgorad simply loved to fight. His memories of the old world had dulled with time, but the things he could remember most vividly were the battles he’d fought. He relished every one of them. He loved nothing more than to grind his enemies into the dirt and feast on their souls. He loved squirming his way back from the brink of defeat. He loved killing, and he loved dying—so long as he could come back in a new body to reap sweet revenge.

And so the war rumbled on, year after year, century after century—until the day his enemies sprang their final trap.

Standing amidst the burnt buildings of an enemy village on the scorched plains of Agonda Voros, Rothgorad grinned at the human phalanx advancing upon his raiders from all sides. They thought they were so clever for surrounding his demons thus. He would show them the depths of their foolishness.

Today the Serpent King wore the body of a dread knight: a suitable vessel for the bloodletting to come. His lips curled back to reveal impressively pointed incisors. All the better for rending flesh and gorging on spleens.

“Mmm…how generous of you to bring me so many spleens,” he said to his enemies. “I do so relish those abdominal treats. So purple and juicy and delicious. Almost as succulent as your souls.”

If his words shook the humans, they showed no sign of it. Their jaws were set, and they continued to advance at a measured pace, tightening their noose around the sacked village.

“What say you, my servants?” he said to the demons gathering around him. “Are you ready for a feast?”

“Aye!” shouted the dread knights, thrusting swords to the sky.

“Grooaaar!” roared the beelzebulls, pounding hooves into the dirt.

“Eheheheyeyeyeah!” cackled the cacodemons, waving their stubby little limbs in the air.

“Woof woof woof!” barked the fell hounds, spilling rivers of acidic drool across the parched earth.

“Um…nope,” chirped one of the imps, reclining on the back of his fell hound steed. “I just ate. But don’t let me stop you!”

Rothgorad was about to crush the little smartarse into paste when he beheld another swarm of imps flitting above the humans’ heads. His flash of irritation turned to suspicion. Those imps weren’t part of his raiding party. Imps may not be his most dependable servants, but they wouldn’t fly into open battle against him. Unless…

There were warlocks among these humans.

Frail and subservient, imps were the easiest pickings for humans who wanted to bind a demon’s soul. Some daring warlocks sought to bind a succubus or fell hound. Occasionally they succeeded. Most became food or love slaves for those they sought to control. To the humans, the latter was a fate worse than death. Rothgorad liked to visit the kennels and listen to the fell hounds’ love slaves begging to be fed to the succubi.

But though their triumphs were few, warlocks were among the more troublesome human soulbinders the Serpent King had encountered over the centuries of their long war. Because of their efforts, he could never be entirely certain his servants weren’t enemy spies, saboteurs or assassins. He’d had to slaughter entire settlements that had been infiltrated by warlocks’ minions.

Still, these warlocks had to be utterly mad to attack him directly. What did they hope to achieve? To bind his soul? The idea was laughable. He was the Serpent King. His soul blazed with the light of a thousand demons. He was immortal. And they were…food.

“Well what are you waiting for?” he bellowed to his servants. “It’s chow time!”

A cacophony of roars and barks and cackles arose from the demons as they surged towards the phalanx, eager to sink blades and claws and teeth into some haughty humans and their traitorous imp slaves. The humans gave an answering, though somewhat less rowdy, war cry, and dug their shields into the earth, hunkering down against the oncoming storm.

Let them cower there behind their shields. They would find no shelter there.

Releasing all constraints on his power, Rothgorad allowed his form to expand to the limits of what this vessel could contain. Soon, he towered over all of the combatants. His carapace ignited, and tongues of flame reached hungrily across the battlefield, scorching shields and the men behind them.

Chaos rippled through the enemy ranks. The Serpent King let out a rumbling laugh, relishing in that moment of exquisite horror the humans must be feeling as they began to comprehend the magnitude of their mistake.

Bolstered by his unfathomable strength, the demons tore through the line of shields like claws through…shields. Rothgorad would leave it to his succubus bards to come up with a poetic simile for this occasion. The symphony of screams emerging from the maelstrom of battle was enough of an aural delight for him right now.

The fluttering enemy imps unleashed a volley of darts down upon him, while swooping to evade his own imps. The Serpent King didn’t bother to dodge, for there was no need. He felt barely a sting as the darts clattered off his shoulder and chest. Even if they had been able to penetrate his hardened carapace, he was immune to just about every poison they could cook up.

Smashing through the enemy lines, Rothgorad pummelled his enemies with spiked fists, shattering pikes and caving in skulls and breastplates. It was glorious. Too rarely did he get a chance to truly revel in the chaos of open battle.

Except the Serpent King’s rampage was not entirely chaotic. He did have a goal. That goal waited atop a small hill overlooking the main force: a small group of lightly armoured humans on horseback, guarded by a contingent of heavily armoured defenders. Those were the generals and warlocks and other soulbinders who didn’t want to risk their precious heads in a direct confrontation. They had sent the soldiers to their deaths against his demons, and for what? He would see that they lost their precious heads regardless.

Without bothering to wait for his servants to catch up, Rothgorad charged up the slope towards the human leaders and magicians, half-expecting them to flee like the cowards they were.

They did not flee, and as he came near the group, his legs skidded to a sudden halt. Not because he chose to stop. Because his legs wouldn’t move.

Growling in frustration, he glanced down—and felt a tingle of alarm. He had shrunk back down to the size of a normal dread knight. But that wasn’t his biggest cause for concern. What bothered him was what he saw beneath his feet.

“Stay back!” he warned his servants who drew up behind them. “Binding runes beneath the soil. Clever humans.”

His words were for naught. Before the demons could escape to fight another day, bolts of demonsbane loosed upon them from dozens of outstretched hands. The roiling energy obliterated armour and scales and the flesh beneath, leaving only charred husks behind. Rothgorad knew that the demonsbane could just as easily burn through his own flesh. But equally, he knew that such an act would accomplish nothing. If the humans slew this body he wore today, his soul would be free to claim another. And they knew that too. So they must have some other goal in mind. Whatever that goal was, he suspected he wouldn’t like it.

This whole battle had been a ruse. They’d sent their men and imps to die against his demons in order to lull him into complacency. So he’d think they were easy meat.

And now he was trapped, unable to move; his power contained. How utterly humiliating!

“Whoever devised this plan, I applaud you,” said the Serpent King. Then, swallowing his pride, he uttered the words he never thought he’d say to a human: “I wish to parley.”

“I think not,” said a voice from atop the hill. It was soft and sensuous, not unlike the voice of one of his succubi. But this voice, he recognised, and it belonged to no succubus.

“You!” he hissed. “How are you…?”

“Alive?” said the Winged Prophet. “That is not for you to know.”

“Then what is it you want from me?” he growled, still straining to free himself from the runes.

“What do I want from you? Nothing. Not now. Not for a very long time.” She hefted a silver spear in one hand, and strode down the slope towards him, before circling around beyond the reach of his mortal eyes. Feeling the brush of her wingtip against his arm, and the tickle of her breath against his ear, he shivered inwardly. “All you need to do is…”

A sharp spike of pain drove down through his chest, followed by spreading numbness. His flesh…his flesh was turning to stone.

“…sleep.”

The Serpent King didn’t sleep. Not quite. A thin trickle of awareness lingered inside him as he knelt trapped in his stone prison, impaled through the heart by the prophet’s spear. Impaled, yet unable to die; unable to fly free and claim another body as his own.

The humans built a temple around him, and a labyrinth beneath. In time, they went away. Time held little meaning to him now, trapped as he was, unable to see the turning of the sun and stars beyond the temple walls. He was alone. Always alone.

And then one day he wasn’t.

Deep in the labyrinth, he felt her presence. He sent feelers of awareness, long unused, to investigate. And what he found astonished him.

A single imp, lurching drunkenly through the air as though she were a newborn fallen from a branch.

An imp! Never had he been so glad to see one of those fickle little creatures. What was she doing there!? How had she gotten there without him noticing?

Those questions could wait. First, he had to enlist her aid.

A whispered suggestion here, a little nudge there, and soon the imp was fluttering through a lighting tube to his prison. Assuming she would lack the strength to pull the spear from his chest, he gathered some of his own power to lend to her—only to discover that it wasn’t needed. The spear came free with seemingly little effort. Rothgorad’s body became flesh once more. He sagged to the floor, and succumbed to his wounds.

At last! After all this time, he could scarcely believe his turn of fate.

“Thank you, little imp, for setting me free!” he spoke into her mind.

“Uh…you’re welcome…I guess?” she said.

Oh this was too good an opportunity to pass up. The body of an imp—and a female imp at that—would be a significant downgrade from that of a dread knight, but beggar kings couldn’t be chooser kings. He could always trade it for a new body later.

“I accept your invitation,” he said.

Unable to suppress a gleeful chuckle, his soul floated free from his broken body, and into that of the tiny imp.

Once inside, her own soul lay bare for him. It had taken the form of a leafless tree, standing alone on a sun-drenched plain. How odd, but no matter. A soul was a soul. Only by consuming it could he lay claim to the imp’s body. Rothgorad’s own soul form was, of course, that of a serpent. He coiled about the tree, biting into it with glistening fangs.

Back in the waking world, the imp dropped to the floor, writhing in agony.

“Mmm…your soul is exquisite,” he told his meal. “So many layers; each one a unique and delectable flavour.”

“What are you doing?” she gasped, acting for all the world as though she didn’t know who or what he was.

“Isn’t it obvious? Tasting the sweet nectar of a juicy young soul, offered freely.”

“I didn’t—”

“Offered freely,” he insisted. “Such a deliciously generous gift.”

No sooner had he spoken than he sensed a change come over her. The bark of the tree seemed to grow harder, blunting his teeth. And the Serpent King felt the fist stirrings of fear.

“We’ll see just who devours whom,” hissed the imp.

Sharpened spurs shot out of the branches and trunk, piercing the very substance of his soul. The tree shifted around him, holding him tight, stopping him from wriggling free.

“W-what…?” spluttered the Serpent King. “How are you doing that!? You’re just an imp! You can’t restrain me!”

“Oh but that’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “I’m not just an imp. You should have done a little research before you tried to eat this soul.”

Not just an imp? What was she talking about? Could she be like him: an elder soul in possession of a lesser demon body?

And that was when he saw it: another soul, like a tiny chrysalis clinging to her tree. And it wasn’t the only one.

She was a soulbinder! How was this possible…? Imps couldn’t be soulbinders. That was human magic. But this…thing was no more a human than she was an imp. The imp was but the tip of a branch, reaching into this world from…somewhere else.

Flailing in confused panic, Rothgorad began to sink inside the tree. The edges of his soul began to fray, and he could already feel his awareness shrinking. It would take some time, but eventually he would become part of the tree, and everything he had, everything he was, would be hers. After waiting all these ages to be free—free to exact his revenge on the humans and the Winged Prophet and Ixathi Itself—the Serpent King would meet his end, devoured by this strange entity masquerading as a lowly imp.

Saskia Wendle blinked away the fog of sleep, and for a disconcerting moment she thought she’d woken up in some bizarre upside-down world. Then she remembered it wasn’t the world that was upside-down. It was her. This was the only way she’d been able to get any sleep last night: hanging by her talons from a dead branch, with her wings wrapping around her body like a leathery sleeping bag. Imps, it seemed, were the bats of this world.

Because yeah, surprise! She was an imp now.

That fact seemed tiny in comparison to what she’d just learned from her dream of the Serpent King. It was more than just a dream; that much was obvious. It was a memory. A memory of the demon she’d…oh.

Had she been lying down, she would have sat up abruptly. Instead, she unfolded her wings and launched herself into the air, flapping wildly to steady herself.

“Hey Ruhildi,” she murmured, though her voice came out as more of a chirp. It would take a while to get used to these impish vocal chords. Assuming imps even had vocal chords. “You awake?”

“I don’t sleep,” came her friend’s voice in her head.

“Right. Well, you know that demon from the statue who tried to devour my soul yesterday, only I kinda-sorta…ate him instead?”

“Aye…no? What’re you on about, Sashki?”

“Huh. Guess you must’ve missed that part. So yeah, that happened. And…funny story. Turns out he’s a bit…bigger than I thought.” A small burp escaped her lips. “Damn, and now he’s giving me indigestion.”