Chapter 12: Aftermath: Part Three
Far away enough to be well out of sight, but near enough that her mystic senses could pick up what was going on, the woman in battered clothing picked herself up off the ground. Before her were the remains of the supernatural tools that she had used, every one of them broken or burnt from the scale of the energies that she had channelled through them. The ground smouldered in the places where the rods had been buried. The other reagents she had placed beneath the ground had all melted into slag along with them. To the side her bag was in a sorry state, torn open in her haste to reach for the contents, now all but emptied.
“That . . . was harder than expected.”
She muttered the words as she picked herself up, wincing in slight pain as she put her weight on her left leg. Glancing down she saw that a deep cut had sliced through the upper outside of her thigh and a steady flow of blood was spilling forth. To a mortal, the amount of blood being lost would have been enough to warrant concern, but to her, it would normally have been only a minor annoyance. But these were not normal circumstances.
Even if she had been in the full flush of her power, what she had just done would have been taxing. The powers that had been invoked by the ritual had been both primal and mighty, probably more so than the agent of Heaven was aware of, and due to the battle that had broken out, those powers had begun to run rampant. Then there had been that sudden surge of the hellish energies left over by those fallen homunculi. One that had condensed then spread out. Without the ability to draw upon her full power she had been forced to use reagents and sorcery to calm the raging forces and bring them back into some sort of order, and then she’d had to frantically scramble to keep the demonic forces from tainting everything.
Had she not been there to do so . . . well, she wasn’t sure if Adam would have died, not given the potency of his bloodline, but the divine agent might have been consumed by the eruption of untamed power, and Adam’s Awakening would most likely have been tainted or distorted in some way. Both outcomes would have been less than acceptable, so she had worked desperately to stabilize or drive off the energies as soon as she realized how out of control they were.
It had not been easy, and she wasn’t sure how successful she’d been with the hell-born energies. Practically all her reagents had been used up in the effort, and replacing them was not going to be easy. Some, such as mint and sage, could be found in almost any modern supermarket and were easily prepared by her own efforts. Others, such as the powdered bones of virgin saints, or the tears of a gorgon, would be much harder to replace. Her wealth was spent, and hiding as she was, it would be difficult to recoup it.
Still, she’d been able to save the young demigod, so it was not as though her resources had been wasted.
Biting down with a grimace of pain she splashed water from a bottle onto her wound. She couldn’t help but feel a surge of amusement that she, of all people, would consider the use of her resources for the benefit of others to not be a waste. Once upon a time, oh so long ago, she would have been readier to give up her skin than she would have been to part with even the least of her possessions. Now she was content even though she owned virtually nothing. It was an irony she dearly wished she could share with someone.
Dismissing her wandering thoughts, she wiped her injury clean, bound it before more blood could be lost, and then tugged her trousers back up around her hips. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t fully recovered, but it would do for the time being. Even in her weakened state, her recovery would be faster than any mortal. This time tomorrow she might not be free from pain, but the wound would already have scabbed over. It wasn’t something to dwell upon.
No, what was of more importance was going over what she had been able to sense of the demigod’s Awakening.
Due to her preparations, she’d been connected to the natural flows of energy in the area, enough so that she’d been able to sense almost everything that had happened. The interference of the demon hosts had sent everything amok. Had she not been there to force the rampaging energies into some sort of order then there was no telling what the chaotic power might have done.
She’d done her best, but she was still worried about what the final results of her efforts might yield. She’d been able to preserve the core concept of the ritual, to channel the energies that it had gathered into the demigod so that they could be used to both jumpstart and fuel the process of Awakening his divinity.
By the time the process of driving the energy into the young man had begun, the mass of accumulated power had shifted from the carefully balanced union that it had been into a wild seething cauldron of chaos. There had been far more heavenly power in there than had originally been expected, and too much earthy essence as well. The moon, air, stars and fire had been reduced to a vicious medley, and to top it off all those demon hosts dying and releasing their spirits had also spiked the mixture with the essence of hell. As a final touch, the demigod managed to kick off the entire process by stabbing one of the stronger demon hosts with one of the feathers of a powerful archangel, thus triggering the whole thing with a clash of utterly diametrically opposing forces.
He had been able to absorb most of the mess of energies, she’d seen to that, but she had no idea of what effect the intake of such chaotic forces would have upon his divine Awakening.
That he would Awaken was not in doubt, but all else was thrown into uncertainty.
One thing was a given though, when he did Awaken the rest of the world would take notice. She knew that there were a number of special demigods in the current generation. Adam was one of them, and the only one she knew of. She knew they’d all be important though. And when such futures came into being they sent ripples about the world that beings of power could sense.
But the ‘when’ was uncertain, as was the ‘how’. His ascension would be as strong as he was, and if she was correct . . . well, it wasn’t outside the realms of possibility that the entire countryside might burn if his powers were incendiary in nature.
Such a possibility was fearsome, but she doubted that the Lord of the High Heavens would allow things to spiral too far out of control. True, He might be limited in what He could do, or rather what price He would pay in order to act, but this was not a matter He would remain idle upon. On that, at least, she was certain.
Taking a couple of experimental steps she nodded as there was a sting of pain, but hardly anything that could incapacitate her. Sweeping the remains of her ritual into her bag she turned and began to limp back towards the road. There wasn’t much she could do now, not with her resources as exhausted as they were, but she was pretty sure she could manage to hitchhike back to the nearest town. She still had a little money left, and it would hopefully be enough to let her buy some herbs and basic reagents. Most practitioners would need advanced materials, but not her. She had been at this longer than most countries had been in existence. She could do some pretty impressive stuff with some dried acorns, a few sprigs of rosemary, and a piece of malachite. She’d be able to use some basic magic to scrape some money together, enough to let her stay in the area for some time.
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Hopefully long enough for the demigod to Awaken.
In the end, it all revolved around him, about what he could become and what he would do.
About the chance that he could offer her.
She clenched her fists at that thought, the thought that had let her continue on for so long. She’d abandoned all her former allegiances, all her former privileges, all of it, simply on the hope that had been offered by that possibility. The young man held possibilities for her, possibilities for others. Possibilities she was unwilling to let slip away.
Sighing, she hitched her bag up again as it started to slip off her shoulder. This had not been how she was expecting things to go down. She had planned to do her best to ensure his awakening went as smoothly and potently as she could manage, then, once his power had manifested, she’d try to speak to him directly. Granted, the agent of the High Heavens would have been a challenge to work around, but she was sure that it would have been within her abilities. From there . . . well, she hadn’t been certain. She had something of an idea as to his personality, of how he thought and reacted, so she was sure she could get him to understand how valuable she could be, hopefully enough that he’d let her aid him despite the inevitable protests from the French saint.
Now though . . . She could wait around for a few weeks, and see how the situation developed. If the worst came to the worst she could see about finding ways to get him out of that cocoon herself. It would no doubt be costly, both in power and materials, but it would be more than worth the price to-
Her thoughts were interrupted by a pain in her leg. At first, she’d thought it was simply the wound acting up, but as she moved to take another step she felt it again, not the sharp pain of sliced flesh being moved, this felt duller, rawer, and that sudden difference concerned her. Her healing was good, but such a sudden shift in sensation was . . . not what she had been expecting.
Concerned she paused in place and undid her trousers. Having pulled them down she gingerly undid the makeshift bandage she’d wrapped around the cut, wincing slightly as it was pulled away from her skin to reveal . . .
. . . Scales?
Her eyes widened as she saw the small patch of skin that had been replaced with the reptilian skin. Around it, her flesh was red and raw, as though afflicted with a vicious rash. But in the middle of the reddened skin sat a small patch of scales the colour of freshly fallen snow. Experimentally her finger extended, the nail digging in under the scales, trying to pry them up. Blood leaked from around them and she bit her lip at the pain, but the tiny scales refused to come loose.
Letting go she cursed sulphurously, several of the oaths used being ones that had not been heard upon the planes of mortals for more than a thousand years. This was bad, very bad!
She’d thought that she wouldn’t need to worry about this until after she had won Adam’s trust! She’d thought that by then he’d be in a position to help her! Even if the powers he developed couldn’t be of direct aid to her she’d been sure that by then he’d have been able to call in some favours or deals with those that would have the power. Damn it! She’d been so careful, decades, CENTURIES, of hard work, or control, of self-denial, all to keep herself hidden and to avoid exactly what was happening!
It was an unnecessary complication and one that didn’t bode well for her long-term future. For now, this was manageable, a single small patch of the scales was nothing by itself, simply a hint of what was coming, but as time passed they would grow and spread, become what they had once been.
Damn it!
No, no, she had to stay calm, had to stay in control! This was a poor situation, but it wasn’t unmanageable. Options were still open to her, though most of them were less appealing than she would have preferred. Some of them would require resources she didn’t have access to though. Others would devour the time that was currently her most precious resource. Worst of all were the options that forced her to call upon the very power that she wanted to keep hidden.
Heaving an exasperated sigh she reapplied the bandages and tugged up her trousers again. There was nothing she could do here, she’d have to continue with her original plan and see about making her way back to town. Once she could find out what was possible for her . . . well, she could work from there.
Turning her back on the distant farmstead once more she continued to limp her way towards the road.
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The hellish energies had no mind, no thoughts. They did not plan or strategize; such a thing was beyond them. What they did have was a will, a drive created by a combination of the order that had been imposed upon them by the magic user, and their nature.
The nature of hell was both complex and simple. It was the enemy of all, everything in existence was to be brought to ruin and obliteration. The routes that could be taken to this goal were myriad though, as innumerable as the endless array of sins that existed for every being in Creation to fall prey to. A simple goal, but a complex method.
The energies once contained by the homunculi had never possessed a consciousness, but no portion of hell existed without the imprint of hell’s will. The will of hell drove the loose power to destroy all, the will of the mage drove them to destroy the young demigod. Both wills could have fought, but instead, they drove each other on, drove the energies on.
The energies had attempted to strike out at the helpless form of the demigod, but an attack of heavenly power had struck them before they could do any harm. This divine energy carried the power of the High Heavens, a force that could be considered the natural enemy of the powers born of the Deeper Hells. Measure for measure these forces were normally equal, with external factors determining the victor when they clashed. In this case, the heavenly power had the advantage, being directed by a powerful will and being backed by the skill and power of its user.
By contrast, the hellish energies had no backup, no force pushing them on. All they had was their own power and the imperatives driving them on. The difference between the two forces was as great as a rabble of lightly armoured foot soldiers being struck by a charge of heavily armed and armoured cavalry. There was resistance, but in the end, there was no doubt as to the outcome.
Scattered, broken, the energies lost the cohesion that had allowed them to act. The will was still there, but it too was fragmented. Under other circumstances they might have dissipated into the atmosphere, eventually broken down and reduced to nothing by the ambient mana of the world, however, one thing saved them.
Hurt and insensate though he might be, the demigod was still drawing in power as an unconscious man might still draw in breath. It was a small thing when compared to the flood he’d drawn in before, but it was still a thin current of energy.
A current the hellish energies could ride.
Once again there was no thought, there was just a reaction to the environment, as mindless as a plant turning to face the sun. Rather than dissipating the remaining energies condensed once more. This time they did not take a single unified form though, such was no longer possible for them. Instead, the energies that survived, that had enough power to react to the change, hardened into tiny flecks no large than a grain of rice. They were tiny wispy things, easily missed in the darkness after sunset and even more easily mistaken for drifting ash if they were spotted.
Drawn by the current of the demigod’s power they were pulled into him along with the tiny streams of mana he was swallowing up. Like seeds caught in a stream, they were pulled along, until the current ran out and they found themselves caught in the pool of power that was being accumulated. Under other circumstances they might have been subsumed, broken down and used as fuel to power the demigod’s ascension to greater heights, but something was different.
The Awakening was incomplete, stalled in place. Where the pool of power should have been consumed it was instead simply sitting there, untapped and unused.
For the condensed seeds of hellish energy, it was an opportunity. They were still tiny to the point of insignificance, so corrupting the pool was beyond them. What they could do was feed, to take some of the fertile power about them and use it to grow in strength.
They would feed, they would grow, they would gather. And when the time was ripe they would strike and complete their imperative.
The death of the demigod.