Thing of Nightmares

This is not a story about me.  It is a story about my father.

He wasn’t human, not even close; he walked on all fours and could not speak a word of any human tongue.  But he was not an animal, father of mine, not a mindless beast.  He was nothing like anything you will ever see.

I had three mothers.  Only one was my true mother, but I was never told which one.  They were witches who lived alone, far out in the desert of South Farat.  They were ageless, and beautiful, and terrible.  I loved them all, but wanted to love the one who birthed me best of all.  Perhaps that’s why they never would let me know.  They would not let me choose a favorite.

They couldn’t stop me, though.  I simply chose my father as the favorite over all of them.

He lived in the depths of the desert caverns, and never ventured forth in the light of day.  He would never have come out at all, but for to walk with me across the sand.  We did not care about the dark, we preferred it that way.  We did not speak, only walked together along the desolate ridges and valleys and through stretches of sparse growth.  We left curious inhuman tracks, two and four, side by side.

My mothers had to summon him with flame and blood and ritual the first time.  There were four of them back then.  They say he was terrible and frightening to behold, a creature of darkness, fanged and slit eyed.  He mated with each of them in turn, filling them with burning black seed.  Only one conceived, and one other died.  Even for powerful witches such as my mothers, there was risk and danger in calling an ancient demon forth from his slumber.  They fully expected a sacrifice to achieve their goal.

Make no mistake.  Their goal was nothing less than world domination.  They could never control my father long enough to accomplish this, but with the spawn of the demon in their possession they planned to strike fear in the hearts of humans and take all they wanted.  I was their tool of destruction, of power.  A dark force, a half demon, the Destroyer and Bringer of Death.

I was nothing more and nothing less to him than his own flesh and blood.  He was not terrible to me.  I never needed to summon him from the depths, I only need stand by the mouth of his lair and wait, and he would come.

My mothers bided their time.  I spent long years growing up in the desert, never venturing forth to see the cities and towns of humans.  I knew nothing of the world I was to overthrow.  I had no concern for it, and no desire.  What I would do, I would do to please my mothers.  I gave the world to them, beaten and bloody like a prize kill.

When the world lay at their feet, and they were queens over everything, I retreated to the desert.  My home.  I lived in the caverns and only walked out at night with my father at my side.  I wanted nothing else.  I needed nothing else.

Everything dies.  This I learned.  My ageless mothers were not so ageless after all.  They had their time of glory, their reign of power.  But they died and passed into legend, the Three Sorceress Queens of South Farat.  Humanity took back their lands and time went on.  I was a shadow in the desert, a bedtime story to strike fear in the hearts of the young or quicken the steps of those outside after dark.  Ameri, a thing of nightmares.

My father was more ancient than all my mothers put together, but he lasted longer.  And then I stood outside his lair and waited and he didn’t come.  I stood outside for several days and nights before going in.  I went deep, deep into the earth but did not find my father.  I did not see him ever again, though I waited there every night for many years.

I lived alone in the empty, inhospitable places of the world for all those long years.  Until one day a Son of Auriel found me.  And he did not think I was terrible and frightening, but wonderful, majestic, like a goddess.

Like my mothers, the Airidanis wanted to use me as a tool to strike down those that stood in their way.  They called me Queen but I was not a queen like my mothers, for the desire to rule was not my own.  But I went with the Son of Auriel and was wielded by his people as a weapon nonetheless, for even a thing of nightmares, a creature of darkness, cannot stay alone in a cave forever.

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