needing armor to protect themselves. Here in Tartarus the master proclaimed dominance through superior arms and the servants competed to show their devotion to his principles. A politician would ignore these trappings and focus on the occupant of the throne. The Count's face was lined with the rage and exasperation of a master failed utterly by his servants. The skilled politician would look through this to recognize the desperation of a being that believes it is about to miss its only opportunity for survival.
Euryale's eyes took in all of this as the great doors swung open and admitted her to the room, along with one final similarity to the His Infernal Majesty’s court – the gutted carcass of overseer Oodusjarkethat still cooling on the floor. If Count and King shared anything, it was a healthy respect for the demonic tradition of taking out ones frustrations on ones underlings. That's the fourth one in as many days she thought. The interrogations were proving disastrous, not only had they failed to produce useful information but they had cut production to barely a third of its normal level. The lack of success along with Belial's retribution was crippling the demon's morale.
She strode forward into the throne room, flanked on the left by the long slithering form of Baroness Yulupki. As the most powerful of Tartaruan naga, Belial had charged Yulupki with preparing the chorus that would provide most of the power for the portal ceremonies. The first of the foreign naga had begun to arrive, borne on makeshift litters slung between pairs of Great Beasts, and the baroness's already inflated pride had swelled to new heights as she began to drill her expanded chorus into harmony. Euryale was still technically in command of the portal opening, but it was a strained relationship at best. Yulupki wasted no opportunity to demonstrate her kind's great superiority in psychic strength over the gorgons.
Euryale reached the dais and kneeled perfunctorily, but the naga was even quicker.
'Count Belial, my chorusss stands ready. The firssst of the foreigners are being broken in and I forssseee no problems in producing the level of energy you requesssted.', Yulupki hissed eagerly.
She fancies herself a rival for the count's favor thought Euryale, what a ridiculous notion. For a start, she has completely misjudged his mood.
Sure enough, Belial rose to his feet and rebuffed the naga. 'And of what use is your snake pile when we have no idea where to strike? Four days! Half our time gone and still no answers. How difficult could it be? Truly you are the dregs of hell, if I cannot even count on you to wring a few simple facts out of an ample supply of apes!'
Yulupki drew back, coiling upon herself and seemingly genuinely bewildered to be the target of the Count's ranting. 'Sssire, we naga are ready to play our role… it was the gorgonsss, sssire, who were supposssed to drag the truth out of the humansss. It was Euryale who promisssed to find their armoriesss for you!'
It was an obvious move and Euryale was ready for it. 'Sire, no demon can be blamed for the humans behaving so unreasonably. Something strange has gotten into them, something new, as it has their brethren on Earth. Your genius revealed the source of the earth human's new-found power and the stratagem to eliminate it. I am sure that we can discover the source of the slave's unexpected rebelliousness and counter it.'
The flattery went down smoothly and Belial sank back into his throne, his ranting abating to grumbling. 'If that hag Deumos would just send me some succubi we'd have answers in no time.'
Euryale gritted her teeth. Every gorgon quickly became used to being told they were not as effective at persuading humans as succubi, much weaker fliers than harpies, less powerful witches than naga, poorer fighters than a common lesser demon. And yet there was truth in his words, something odd had happened to Deumos over the last few days. She’d become reserved, distant, as if she was watching and calculating rather than participating. That didn’t change the fact that few demons appreciated flexibility and fewer still valued intelligence over brute strength. Belial usually did and that was the one thing that made being his consort tolerable, but sometimes even he succumbed to the official propaganda that cast the gorgon race as a failed experiment. She had long since learned to bide her time and treat the other demon's scorn as a blind spot to be exploited.
'Belial, succubi would not help. They'd get the humans talking all right, every single one would say whatever he thought the harlot wanted to hear. It would take weeks to sort out the sincere ones and even longer to find the useful ones.' The truth of her words was plain and the count slumped deeper into his throne.
Euryale paced in front of the dais, her tail lashing across the floor, thinking out loud. 'Collective punishment isn't working. The humans were already becoming inured to torture and now they think they can accomplish something by resisting. There are far too many to interrogate each one fully in the time we have. They now resist enthrallment so strongly that when we barb them repeatedly they go almost immediately from refusing to talk to saying whatever they think we want to hear.'
Her thoughts were interrupted by one of the barons speaking up. 'With all the chaos out there we can't afford to lose a significant number of humans anyway, who knows when we'd get fresh ones sent up.' Others began to whisper to each other and murmuring filled the chamber.
Euryale shook her head. Guruktarqor's statement was correct but irrelevant. The key question was… where was the human resolve to deny them answers coming from? They were actively killing their own kind to deny the demons answers. She found it hard to believe they were just being perverse. What did it look like from the humans point of view? Information about weapons, needed urgently, could only mean the demons were fighting humans somewhere. With that thought, understanding dawned.
'I see it now.' Euryale's voice rang out clearly and caught the attention of every demon in the throne room. 'By asking such direct questions, we have acted as unwitting carriers of the disease of hope. Clearly all humans are inherently prone to the insane belief that they can prevail against the forces of hell. It took hold on earth and drove them to create magic weapons that seemed powerful enough to justify their belief. Now thanks to our actions it had taken hold here too.'
'What is that antidote for hope?' she continued. 'We know it well, despair, the proper natural state of a human. But merely restoring despair is not enough, for apathy does not serve our purpose. We must corrupt their newly minted hope into selfish desires, harness it to drive the humans we want, and only the humans we want, to step forward.'
Euryale paused for a moment to let her words sink in and Yulupki took the opportunity to heckle. 'Pretty ssspeech gorgon, but just how do you propossse to do that? You are no sssuccubusss, to manipulate the humansss emotionsss at a whim.'
The gorgon flicked the naga a look of contempt, more for her utter predictability than anything else.
'I propose that we take the humans from one mine and have my gorgons enthrall them all. We will convince them that they are recent arrivals from earth and that the armies of hell are already marching triumphantly across the planet. But there are many fortified cities that will take long sieges to reduce. We must make it clear that the humans are doomed, but that it will take us many years and many demon lives to eliminate them all unless we can strip them of their weapons. We will release these humans individually into the other mines. Finally we will present the humans with a new, false hope. Any human who gives us the information we seek will be released from bondage and held in quarters on the surface. We will promise that should their information proves correct, the next human city to attempt surrender will be spared and given to them to rule. If it proves useless, they will suffer the personal attentions of our best torturers and then eaten alive.'
The whole court was stunned. Euryale's plan was so radical, so ambitious in its exploitation of the human mindset that they did not know what to make of it. Every head turned to look at the Count, looking for his cue on whether to treat this gorgon as a genius or a lunatic. For a long moment Belial's face remained impassive, unreadable. Then it broke into a vicious grin.
'I find your suggestion most suitable Euryale.'
She inclined her head. 'With my lord's permission.'
'Granted. All of you, give her whatever she needs.'
Euryale turned and fixed Yulupki with a predatory glare, which for a gorgon meant a scaled face framed by no less than twenty four spine-fringed tendril-eyes staring blankly at her target. The naga's will broke and she hung her head, coiling around herself and folding her own tentacles behind her back in submission. Thus vindicated, Euryale swept out of the throne room, her wings fluttering impatiently while she barking orders to the retinue now trailing behind her.
Belial was still smiling. She regularly failed to give him due respect, and this display had been forwardness bordering on insubordination, but somehow he still enjoyed being reminded just why he kept that gorgon around.
{Thanks to Alferd who contributed the first part and Starglider who produced the second}
