The servant drifted forward, now fearless. For a moment, the monster sensed a vaguely female form coalescing, stooping. It felt another flash of rage--but a quickly suppressed one. She dared to inspect its feed!
"Not much left," she purred, jeering. "But then, I imagine the old monk's soul was mostly gristle anyway."
The form straightened and moved back into the mist. The gray of the shadow servant merged at the edges into the gray mist that surrounded the monster everywhere. Only a vague fluttering was left to indicate her shape.
The monster recognized the pattern. Chernobog would now speak himself, using the servant's voice.
"You have done well, beast."
The monster's momentary relief was immediately shredded by another scarlet lash coming through the mist, ripping into its flank like an axe. Gray-black blood spurted from a wound that was insubstantial--healing almost in the instant it was formed--but agonizing for all that. The monster wailed again, and again, crouching in terror.
"Which is why I punish you so lightly for your insolence."
The servant's vague form was replaced by another of those horrifying forward surges in the surrounding mist. The ebony billow that was Chernobog himself, threatening to take full and visible shape.
Do not forget your place, beast. I allow you to be powerful, at my convenience. I could as easily make you a worm, for my dining pleasure.
For a moment, the monster caught another glimpse of Chernobog on that broken landscape. Hunching, this time, over a mound of squirming souls. Much like worms, they looked; especially as they disappeared into the maw that devoured them, a few spilling out of the gigantic jaws onto the charred-black soil.
Another image flashed through the monster's mind. Itself--himself, then--held down by Chernobog's enormous limbs while the master tore out his manhood with that same maw and left the monster a bleeding, neutered ruin. Less than a eunuch, who had once been a god.
The monster was now completely cowed. Its heavy brow was lowered, the muzzle that had once been like a man's pressed into its chest. Oddly enough, perhaps, the chest itself was still hairless--quite unlike the shaggy limbs and the heavy spine that protruded like a ridge, covered with a long and stringy mane of hair.
At another time, the memory of what that hairless chest had once signified might have brought anguish. Now, the monster had no thoughts beyond submission.
"Good." The monster felt relief at hearing the servant's voice instead of Chernobog's own. As much as the monster hated and resented taking orders from one who was even less than it was . . .
Nothing was a terrifying as Chernobog, unshadowed.
"Good," its master repeated. "Your recent task also. It was well done, beast. The priest burned very nicely. Though I believe you wavered once, before this shadow restored your courage."
The monster whined. The master was unfair! A holy symbol held by such as that one--encased in steel--was a thing of great power. The master knew that. Such a fearsome one should never have been allowed--!
Silence.
The monster's thoughts fled. After a moment, the master spoke again. Thankfully, through his shadow voice.
"No matter. As elsewhere, this servant has her uses. And now the way is cleared for the creature Sachs."
The gray mist swirled and billowed. From experience, the monster knew that Chernobog was retreating into his own counsel. It managed to restrain any overt sign of relief. The master would know its thoughts, of course, since Chernobog had taken its soul. But . . . so long as the monster maintained all visible signs of docility, it would not be punished.
Not much, at least.
* * *
How long it was before the master spoke again, the monster knew not. In that mist-shrouded place where it was kept--caged, for all intents and purposes--time had little meaning.
The servant's voice rippled with the master's own amusement. It was an odd sound--as if a torrent in a cavern were being heard through an echoing chamber far distant. Raw and unrestrained male power, channeled through the pleasant modulations of a female throat.