His chin was covered with mere human bristles, but as the hairs moved back toward his large, round ears they became thick and tough as a beast's. He looked, in fact, like a human trying to climb out of a bear, or perhaps backing into one, but his eyes burned with compassion.
Burned with compassion? Perhaps I mean consumption. Compassion doesn't burn people, does it?
Anyhow, it oughtn't.
He was an ursinal, a creature born of kindly deeds and stern vigilance, a combination of traits that pretty much defined him. In addition, as fit his present incarnation, he was a sage.
I was his student. One of them, I mean.
He was trying to tell me about the baatezu, a race of fiends he felt it advisable for everyone to know as much about as possible - knowledge being, he said, the very best of weapons. He quoted heavily from the research of Nomoto Sinh, going on about their several means of seduction and persuasion, and glossing over their anatomy and distinguishing characteristics. Finally he came to reproduction.
"The horrid baatezu race has three horrid genders - you've of course read all about the Rule of Threes in the first book of Beliem's Glossography of the Spheres. The genders of baatezu are as typical for hominids across the multiverse - male, female, and neuter. Of these, only the males are fertile."
I interrupted him. "Master," I called, my right arm in the half-mast, visible-but-not-overly-eager position, "If both are infertile, how are the female and neuter genders different?"
Those eyes swiveled toward me. "A good question, Miss Melmoth. There is, of course, more to gender than the ability to bear young. The female baatezu are the ones with the fluting voices, the skin-tight gowns, and the mammary glands for suckling imps with."
My face burned hot, and giggles lept from mouth to mouth all around.
"Most of these characteristics," he continued, oblivious, "are designed to elicit archetypal responses in their victims, and are discarded when not relevant. The imp-suckling, however, is relevant to the baatezu race itself, because female baatezu not only feed the young imps, but actually incubate them.
"The she-devil swallows a larva, a fresh one not yet given to nupper. The transformation takes place within the fiend's barren womb, carefully tailored essences bleeding from the uterine walls, urging the larva through its metamorphosis. Some sources claim that mortal seed taken from sorcerers is actually used to give the proto-imp a sense of form and sympathy for its future victims, which might make it a kind of semi-fiend or tiefling, but this is unverified. Finally, the imp is ejected out of the fiend's body in the usual way and given to nurses, usually spinagons or erinyes except in exceptional cases.
"Neuter baatezu have no sexual organs at all, although they are occasionally given leave to receive pleasure through sharp knives.
"As for the imps," he continued, "They grow quickly, and within a year are ready to serve as familiars to mortal sorcerers. If they don't bring back a quota of new larval souls, they remain imps forever, and eventually grow into asperim, swollen creatures more toad than imp damned to hop after their baatific betters, cursing and laughing inanely. Those found worthy are melted down into lemures and reforged into spinagons or something even more deplorable."
He smiled at me, flashing teeth flat in front, sharp and deadly in back. "Thank you for contributing, Miss Melmoth."
For a moment, he let a bit of his soul shine out, his love filling the room like a silent roar.
I nodded in acknowledgement, tears running down my face.
On all fronts, the giggles started up again.
---
rip van wormer
The elf-queen took a demon lover, and her children were born with skin as black as pitch, their hair white as bone.