Sofiyah’s Background
Being the daughter of a demon isn’t as exciting as you might think it would be. I don’t have horns, or cloven hooves, or anything like that. It might be different on another world, but on this one, woman makes her own. Since I’m part human, I can’t be influenced by demons without giving my consent. The biggest thing it’s done is make me a little tougher than average. I don’t get sick much, and smaller wounds heal pretty quickly. I’m not particularly strong, nor particularly quick. I’m not ugly, but not supernaturally beautiful. Or even pretty. At best, I’m healthy-looking. Athletic. Vivacious. I might be more clever than most people, but that could be from my human parentage. I can’t tell; I don’t really know them. What I do know, I know from my great-aunt.
My mother was a fool. When her husband – the man who should have been my father – found out what she’d done, he divorced her and left. It was a good decision, really. Within a year of my birth, mother was gone, taken to hell by her demon lover when she made a mistake in her summoning. My demon father couldn’t take me because on this world, humans have to give consent for that sort of thing. I was under the protection of the Order Nine, and still am.
Everyone screws up eventually. Everyone. Demonic assistance is a fast, easy way to power. You can get magic, sex, wealth, revenge, whatever it is that you want, just for the asking. There’s a price, though. By trafficking with demons, you give them influence over you. In the end, they will fuck you.
At times, my father’s blood burns within me, and I am compelled by it. Fortunately, the compulsions are not often violent – my particular vice is gambling. There are times when I would bet on anything. Dice, cards, the toss of a coin, that I could drink the most beer, that the sun would rise in the east. Sometimes – rarely – I win. More often I lose everything I have and then some. I’ve stolen to pay off gambling debts. It has cost me friendships. It is my shame.
At first I didn’t understand what the urges that filled me were, and I would literally run from them. Late at night, when nearly everyone was asleep, I would sneak out of the dormitory and run through the moonlit desert until exhausted. It helped some. It’s a miracle I wasn’t killed; there are predators in the desert, and many of them hunt at night. Blood and pain helped more, and I would cut my arms. I have scars from that, fine dark lines across my forearms. There are newer scars, smaller ones, but those are mostly from feeding spirits in exchange for their service.
Sometimes, only violence will do. I have some control over that: enough that I make sure to find someone bigger and stronger than me to pick a fight with. Under the right circumstances, getting beaten to a pulp can be very soothing. As long as I do some damage in return. I don’t fight people smaller and weaker than me, and I haven’t killed anyone yet.
~`~
My mother and her husband both gone, and my father on an entirely different plane of existence, I was left orphaned. My mother’s ex-husband’s family (it gets a little complicated, sorry) wasn’t about to take me in, knowing what I was. On my mother’s side, only my great-aunt Umma Sayyid was willing to take me. She had a son a little older than me; her husband had been killed in the war. She made it very clear that it was only out of familial duty that she gave me food and shelter. I was to stay away from her son Sayyid lest I contaminate him with my tainted blood. I was under no illusion that she loved me.I was only five years old when I was sent off to the School of Shining Sands. Great-aunt Umma Sayyid was happy to see me gone and her son safe from my supposed taint. This isn’t the best school of magic. In fact, it’s a rather poor one. Paper is dear and parchment worse, so we write on wax tablets with styli or on slate with chalk rather than on paper with brush or pen. All of the books in the library are old, most of them third- and fourth-generation copies. The teachers are mainly graduates of the school, unable to find work anywhere else. Still, I’ve learned some control over my magical gifts. Learning how to not hear them was a blessing; sometimes – when they want something from me – they talk and chatter and sing until I think I might lose my mind. Even when they’re relatively quiet they can still be distracting.
Even better was learning healing magics. I can not call myself a healer yet; I know only the most rudimentary spells, able to fix skinned knees and bloody noses but little more. Still, the healing magics feel good. It’s a delicious sort of pain, like dripping hot wax on the skin. I suppose it isn’t to everyone’s taste, but it makes me feel warm and soft inside. Maybe it doesn’t feel the same way for people who don’t share my bastard heritage. The witchcraft tutor didn’t say anything about it in class, and the other student witch is a complete ass and I don’t talk to him (witches are both male and female, despite the popular misconception of only women being witches). I hardly have any breasts and he still manages to leer at, stare at, and bump into them at every chance he can manufacture. There are days when I want to do something ugly to him. So far, I have managed to resist temptation. If he only knew what manner of creature he was dealing with.
It’s not required (recommended, given the war) that we take classes in the fighting arts, but in many ways I feel more comfortable in those than in the magic classes. My blood whispers to me that I could just have power without learning, just for the asking of it. That road leads to damnation, and my mother’s fate. (It has occurred to me that as a half-demon, I might find hell a congenial place. I’m in no hurry to find out. Besides, as only a half-breed, I would likely find myself at the bottom of whatever hierarchy exists there, and that’s not a good place even among humans.) There’s something cleaner about physical exertion, even with having to scrape the sweat and dust off afterwards. I’m an adequate archer, fair with thrown weapons like chakram and knives, and good with close-quarters combat, armed and unarmed.
~`~
My time here is probably coming to an end. I take stock of what I have, what I’ve learned, and it seems meager indeed. The dress I’m wearing and one other. Two cotton shifts. Goats-wool desert robes. A few scarves. Underthings. Rags for when my moon-blood flows. Wire-framed spectacles with half-moon lenses (I have a bit of trouble seeing things close up). One much-repaired pair of sandals. A leather belt with a no-longer shiny brass buckle. A comb made from the shell of a desert tortoise, beads and clips for my hair, a small jar of oil to dress it. A smaller pot of lacquer for my nails. A fourth-hand pair of scissors. A sponge, a cake of soap, and a tiny vial half full of patchouli oil. Lumps of A small sandalwood box to keep small things in. The chain around my neck with its pendant medal depicting the moons. This book I write in, with its notes on spells and magic, a brush made with bristles of my own hair, a steel-nib pen, bottles of sepia, sanguine, and black ink. Three wax tablets in wooden frames and styli for writing on them. Chalk, stones, bones, incense, and assorted oddments and paraphernalia of witchcraft. A deck of cards, dog-eared and water-stained. I drew the pictures on them myself. They’re not especially good, but it’s a complete deck: fifty-six suit cards and twenty-two trumps. Dice made from the knuckles of a goat. A knapsack to carry everything in and some water skins made from the stomachs of goats. A small but very sharp knife. An oilstone to sharpen blades. A very, very few coins, worn and probably clipped. I’d have more, but I lose most of what comes into my hands on games of chance.
In my head there rests the history of Sayd, complete with a laboriously memorized list of all the ruling Sheiks and the time of their reigns and an equally tedious list of major battles (glorious victories and tragic losses) in the war with Kesser. Magical theory, with an emphasis on witchcraft and the spirits of nature. A few spells that work and several that don’t. One was supposed to make my skin lighter, but only made my eyebrows grow several feet long. The theology of the Nine, and practices of worship. Stories of adventure and romance, of the Five Heroes, of the fall of Thorix, of Lord Axe and the Slave that Serves the Darkness. Any number of uncomfortable thoughts and disturbing dreams.
I have a few friends. I have my familiar (she’s a very pretty black-and-red beaded lizard) Felicitation. In my veins, I have the blood of demons. It’s not much to start a life, but it might be enough.