Chapter Text
In a space outside the gods’ conception, and a time smaller than a split second but longer than the universe, something broke.
Strands of spacetime snapped and twisted, and the natural order of the universe came apart. The opening grew in fits and bursts, carving a jagged path through the firmament. Places bled into one another, and time was overgrown. Through the middle of this chaos, a piece of information jumped from one unbroken strand to another, skipping over the void between them and landing intact, then hurried to reassemble itself in its new location. Yet, bathed in entropy for an infinitesimal instant, some fundamental unit of information had changed. Corrupted, some might say – but only those who sought to make entropy their enemy.
Heedless of the cataclysmic quantum magics that had been visited upon his essence, Thom the Drummer fell screaming through a portal, plunged twenty feet, and landed in a mound of offal. He glanced up at the portal, which dripped quicksilver from its edges like a wound in reality. On its other side, far above, he could see the floating city of Behjat-Askadalian – his city, his playground – trailing smoke from its burning districts. Feebly, he reached a hand upwards, seeing the floating city between his fingers. The portal shuddered unevenly and closed.
“I have got to stop traveling this way,” he groaned.
Then he sat up, slammed both hands into the offal around him, and screamed. Thunder boomed as the mound of offal splattered in all directions. Thom stood up and walked through a rain of blood and guts, ignoring the livers that burst on the ground like balloons, and the stomachs that impaled themselves on nearby branches.
He’d been winning. He’d won. They’d all won. They’d put in so much thought and effort (well, Valiff and Ghesh had; he’d just blown up whatever they told him to), and after years, they’d taken their prize. And then, at the last minute, some blonde with a sword showed up, and next thing he knew: falling from the sky, paralyzed by some bullshit spell he should have resisted—
As if on cue, the largest of his sword wounds flared with pain, and blue sparks lanced up his torso. Thom dropped to one knee and whined pitifully. Abyssal resistance helped stave off the lightning, but it didn’t stop him bleeding. Dimly, he considered checking his wounds. Then he remembered he’d just blown up a mound of offal in a tantrum, and he was soaked head to toe with blood – most of it not his. And all of it, now, likely diseased.
“Fuck.”
For years now, he’d pulled stunts like this with aplomb, confident that someone would hand him a potion, sing a magical song, or (in at least one case) sigh and use blood magic to disentangle the offending material on a molecular level, while giving him a lecture about how university study shouldn’t be used for such a pedestrian purpose as curing a hangover. But now he was alone. Now there was no one in sight – nothing but barren, thorny trees and winged creatures wheeling in the sky above. They didn’t quite look like birds, too many limbs… not the right shape for dragons… Thom squinted harder, but saw stars.
He groaned and staggered to his feet. Some of the winged creatures were flying in a particular direction – east, north, he didn’t know or care. On the off-chance there was something interesting there, he began to limp through the gray-black forest.
About five minutes later, Thom was bored. I could really go for one of Valiff’s lectures right now. Or Ghesh’s scoldings. “Oh, Thom,” he muttered patronizingly, “how could you blow him up? Couldn’t you tell he was the traitor paladin we were working with, not the normal paladins we were trying to kill – well, how am I supposed to know? They all wear the same armor and shields, it’s always silver or gold or some shit, and even the evil ones have an entire polearm up their asses… and he was really starting to get on my nerves with the whole rant about honor and justice, even if he’d reimagined it with some Nine Hells damnation crap that Valiff likes. Really, with Ghesh around, we’ve already got the grumpy knight archetype covered, we don’t need another – and isn’t Valiff always raving about branding, anyway? I did you all a favor.”
Thom tried to mimic Ghesh’s low, grumbling voice in a scathing response, but couldn’t seem to reach that bass range for some reason. He attempted an impression of Zhon Ra and his occult gibberish, but it came out strangely piercing and sharp. Thom began to wonder if the blonde had slashed his vocal cords, though he was pretty sure that would have killed him by this point if so. Then again, he hadn’t studied anatomy, so what did he know?
His scattered thoughts were interrupted when a child jumped out of a tree and landed her feet squarely on his stomach, sending him crashing to the ground. Thom prepared to reverse-orphan this child’s parents, only to find a brass dagger at his throat. The blade’s edge glowed red-hot, and he could feel sweat breaking out on his forehead – whether from the heat or panic, he wasn’t sure.
“O-M-G,” said the girl, “hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!”
Thom blinked. Standing on top of him was an olive-skinned child wearing a vermilion shawl. With her non-knifed hand, she tucked a stray lock of green hair behind her hood. Her mouth was veiled, but he could see a manic gleam in her large, purple eyes. “I didn’t expect to see a face like yours here. I’m Furfur! Who are you?”
Thom laughed, and straightened up as much as he could while prone. He liked seeing the look of dread in people’s eyes when they heard. “Why, you poor little child, I’m Thom the Drummer.”
Furfur didn’t immediately react. That was alright – he wasn’t the first name out of the bards’ mouths, that usually went to Valiff or Ghesh, they’d agreed on that. But she’d know this. “Member of the Brotherhood of Blood,” he added, flashing his sharpest tooth in a winning grin.
Furfur stared blankly down at him. Maybe she didn’t keep up on the news. “Ruler of the city-states of Antaria!” he bragged, though his voice turned up at the end and it sounded more like a question? Not for the first time today, he thought his inflection sounded strange. It lacked the charming tenor flair that ladies seemed to enjoy so much. Not that he’d expect a child to care, of course.
Thom’s face fell as Furfur’s remained the same. How many credentials was he going to have to list? “Champion of the Blood Arena! Slayer of Sarcoscyphus! Ultimate Administrative Vice Chairman for the Unincorporated Province of Kavau! Scion of Demon Lord Droth! …Tenor in the acclaimed Blood Brothers barbershop quartet. We won awards at regionals—”
Finally, Furfur’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Oh,” she cried, “you’re Droth’s kid!”
“Yes!” Thom said boastfully, though his voice boomed less than usual. “Wait, what?”
“Sorry I didn’t recognize you earlier,” said Furfur. “I was kinda confused, since…” She looked at Thom curiously. “Well, Thom’s not your truename, is it?”
Thom paused. Droth had explained this to him long ago. All demons – all extraplanar beings, in fact – had truenames, a phrase in the foundational language of the cosmos that perfectly described them. Learn a being's truename, and you held power over them. As a partial demon, Thom had a truename, though its effect was negligible. Still, Droth had refused to ever tell him, for fear he'd let it slip by accident and some potential enemy would gain the tiniest sliver of an advantage against his prized weapon. To the world at large, he was known as Thom the Drummer, named for his signature thunder magic.
“Of course not,” Thom replied, and narrowed his eyes. “Why do you ask?”
Furfur blinked. “It's just... well, for one, I’m pretty sure you’re mispronouncing it, it’s just ‘Tom’, the ‘h’ is silent, but either way — Thom's a boy’s name, right?”
“I prefer to think of mine as a man’s name, thank you,” said Thom, with a smug grin.
Furfur made a face somewhere between confusion and pain. Following her gaze, Thom looked down at his body laid out before him.
“Oh,” she said.
“Yep,” said Furfur. “I guess that’s new, huh? Didja get cursed or something?”
Thom shook her head. “No, it doesn’t feel like a curse. Probably just a temporary side effect from overexerting my magic. This stuff’s happened before. I once sneezed bubbles for a week.”
“That sounds fun!”
“Sure, up until they pop.” Thom ran a hand up her torso. “I guess it’s not the worst that could’ve happened. Kind of fun, actually. I always kinda wanted…” She blinked. “Wait. You know Droth?”
“Oh, sure,” said Furfur. “I did a stint in his army! Just a short-term gig, though, before I got poached by recruiters for Demogorgon. And let me tell you, he was much more my speed!”
Thom blinked. It wasn’t like Droth wouldn’t employ child soldiers – Thom herself had been one since birth – but he wouldn’t have any cause to employ mortal children. Sure enough, when Thom opened her senses to it, she smelled the rank essence of demonkind in Furfur… full demonkind. This kid-shaped abomination was more demon than her! And now that she could sense it… yes, of course. That was why this place felt so familiar. After many long years, she was back in the Abyss.
“Looks like I also didn’t recognize you,” said Thom. “My mistake. And I guess it’s my last one.” Too late, she remembered that demons were the top predators of other demons. “With my power, you should be able to evolve into something real strong. Do me a favor, will you – pick one of the cool ones? I always liked mariliths…”
“Huh? Oh! No, don’t worry about that!” said Furfur. “I don’t work for Demogorgon anymore.” She held up her wrist to show a brass bracer with a ruby emblem, one of two. “I work in the City of Brass now! One of the genie Dashim’s ten thousand servants. I’m actually under strict orders not to kill anyone important – I’m just here to scout the plain for shipping routes. Boss doesn’t want to start a war with a demon lord, just a trade war with Zerthadlun.”
“You… you let a genie bind you?” said Thom. “But he’d have to know your—”
“Truename? Yeah. It’s just Furfur,” said the demon with a shrug. “I don’t really try to hide it. Truth is, I don’t really mind bindings. Everyone who summons me tends to have a lot of people they want me to kill, and that’s all I’m really after anyway. Plus, they eventually die, and then it’s on to the next one. It’s a fun way to find work. Gotta make ends meet in the gig economy, right?”
“I… guess,” said Thom. “Doesn’t really appeal to me, though. I’m more of a world conquest kind of guy.”
“Well, you’ve basically lived your life the same way, right?” said Furfur. “I heard the stories. You got traded to Droth, did a stint serving him, then this Valiff guy summoned you–”
“No, no, no. We’re friends, and coworkers, I’m not bound to Valiff or anything. I make my own choices.” Furfur looked quizzical. “I guess I shouldn’t expect you to understand friendship,” Thom muttered. “You’re a demon.”
Furfur shrugged. “So are you.”
“Wait,” said Thom, “you said the plain… Is that where we are?” She looked around as best she could. Sure enough, the ground was soft and pliable like flesh, the clouds were billowing in distorted patterns, and the winged shapes above came into focus: vrocks, swarming by the thousands.
Pazunia, the Plain of a Thousand Portals, was the first layer of the Abyss, and its borderland with other worlds. It was the source of the quicksilver river in which Droth had immersed Thom as a child, which wove in and out of the portals that opened in the plain’s surface, like gaping red pores in its tan, fleshy earth. Valiff had theorized that was why Thom tended to open portals when in panic mode – she was bonded to the energy of Pazunia, able to add to its network of portals by over-channeling her magic. He’d tried to harness this intentionally, but had to abandon the effort when Thom lost control and flung herself halfway across the cosmos, landing in the windy tunnels of Pandemonium. It took days to successfully scry on her and pick her up, and she’d gotten the verbal lashing of a lifetime for it.
The good news was, Valiff wasn’t here to yell at her – and if she found the right portal, she could get back to the mortal world and regroup with him before he had time to get mad. “So, Furfur,” Thom said urgently, “how would you like to have an assistant on your scouting mission?”
“I guess it’d be nice,” said Furfur absently. “Boss didn’t give me one, though. Said most of his slaves would just be candy for the vrocks. I’m the only one he trusts to make it intact.”
“No, no. I’m talking about me,” said Thom. “What if I helped you out, for a bit?”
“Oh!” said Furfur. “You know, I was wondering what to do with you. Normally I’d have killed you on sight, but again – boss’s orders. I’m not really a catch-and-release kind of person, so it was just gonna nag at me unless I found an answer.”
“Great, so help me up, and maybe we can get some healing potions, and–”
“Still, I feel weird about sparing a demon’s life and not invoking the right of conquest,” said Furfur. There was a malicious sparkle taking shape in her eye. “It’s just not the done thing. And you know, having to curtsy and compliment the boss so much is kinda grating on me. So I’ll tell you what…”
The demon grinned, and Thom could see a hint of needle-like teeth lining her throat. “You can help me out, and I’ll even owe you a favor afterwards. But you’re not gonna do it as my assistant. I beat you, fair and square. Abyss rules means I own you, and you’d better do as I say.”
“I don’t think I like where this is going,” said Thom quickly, but knew it didn’t matter what she thought. This was the Abyss, after all.
Furfur stepped off, grabbed Thom by the arm, and yanked her roughly to her feet. As Thom regained her balance, she felt the warm edge of Furfur’s dagger poke the small of her back. Grimacing, she prepared to hear the demon’s demands…
“Gimme a piggyback ride!” said Furfur. “My legs are soooooooooooo tired.”
Thom rolled her eyes and let the demon child clamber onto her shoulders. Furfur kicked her legs in excitement, and ran her fingers through Thom’s knotted hair. “This long hair doesn’t really suit you,” Furfur jabbered. “Have you ever thought about how it’d look shorter?” Before Thom could respond, she felt the brass dagger slicing through lock after lock.
Thom sighed. She’d been lucky enough to meet the most harmless demon in all of the Abyss. Still… this was going to be a long journey back.