Chapter 12: Aftermath: Part Two
Joan . . . wasn’t sure what had happened. She’d been struggling to force a bone in her wing back into place when the explosion of power had erupted from where Adam had been laying, so she’d missed it. By the time she had regained her senses whatever had happened was over.
She’d been able to feel herself healing thanks to the angelic vitality of her transformed state. Still, she had been disoriented, aware of what was going on around her, but unable to fit it together in her mind. She had taken a few stumbling steps in the general direction of Adam, but then froze stock still, her hand tightening around her sword as she readied herself for renewed battle.
All around her, she could feel a sudden surge of demonic energy. It was unfocused, mindless, but she could still feel the revolting mixture of suffering and malice, all bound together by an unrelenting drive that could only be called evil. For a moment it flared up around her, clouds of malevolent miasma that seemed to taint the very world.
She did not hesitate. She might have still been getting her bearings, but she was not going to sit back as a threat showed itself. Her sword slashed out, divine light playing along its edge as she added her magic to the power of the blow. The light extended the range of the blow, letting her cut huge arcs into the fog of hellish energies around her, and in the space of a few seconds, the clouds of hateful magic began to thin. For a moment the French saint thought that her task would be easy, that this was merely a remnant of the main battle, nothing more.
She should have known better.
Like a cobra waking from a daze, the hellish energies seemed to coil in on themselves, condensing, thickening into something that was on the verge of gaining substance. The condensed magic shot out, and Joan raised her weapon, ready to defend herself. It was a feint though, the magic changing direction with shocking speed, spearing towards . . . Adam!
Cursing her distraction, Joan did the only thing she could. Power gathered in her hands for a split instant then was released, a spear of light shooting out to strike the malicious energy construct before it could reach her charge. There was an instant of contact, and then another explosion rocked the ritual site, knocking the resurrected saint off her feet once more.
This time she was quicker to rise, and she was immediately looking for threats, but this time there was nothing to see.
The hellish energies were gone, the attackers were gone, the portal was gone, even the golem had been reduced to a melted ruin. Nothing stood against her now. There was an audible crack as her left wing straightened from its slumping pose, the main joint correcting itself. The sensation wasn’t one of pain, not like the breaking had been, but the shock of it was still enough to nearly drive her to her knees. No, no she couldn’t let this stop her! Refusing to collapse once more she forced one foot to move, then the other, then again.
Staggering along she came up beside the melted and blasted remains of the golem that had temporarily crippled her. She hadn’t had time to look at it properly before, but now she could not help but take in its ruined state. She could see the damage done surpassed anything she’d been able to inflict. She paused for a moment, oddly fascinated by the ruined remnants of a being that had more than matched her at the height of the power granted to her by His will. She could hear the tiny clicks and pops as superheated stone and metal began to cool. It was strange, this thing had been the first being to cause her injury since she had returned to the mortal plane, indeed the agony it had inflicted upon her had been a pain she’d never felt even in her previous life.
Tearing her eyes away from her former foe the resurrected saint stared at the recumbent form of her charge.
Under any other circumstances, she would have thought him dead, nothing more than a burnt corpse. However, she could feel the life radiating from him, so bright, so strong that there was no doubt that he was alive and well. But even though the mystic senses that had been imparted upon her assured her of this her own eyes disagreed. Adam was . . . there were no words for it. His hair was gone, his skin was nothing but a patchwork of red and black, his clothes were either reduced to ash or melted into his body. More than that though, he looked swollen, bloated in a way that was shocking to see. In fact . . .
Joan reached out to touch her charge and was surprised when it felt as though she’d laid her hand upon wood rather than flesh. What? What was this?
Her fingernail tapped upon Adam’s shoulder, but she might as well have been poking at a tree trunk. Her charge was petrified? How had that happened? Yes, the ritual had been interrupted, and the flows of energies had gone almost catastrophically wrong. Still, she couldn’t think of anything that could have led to this kind of result. Perhaps he had somehow absorbed too much of the elemental energies of the earth? Had those hellish energies been involved? She reached out with her divinely enhanced senses, trying to see if she detected them, but nothing leapt out at her. Instead, all she could sense were pure elemental forces, leading her back to her earlier theory.
It was a possibility, she had heard of human practitioners in ancient days transfiguring themselves into trees or plant spirits. Could that be the case here, had Adam somehow done this to himself in a bid to survive?
She frowned as her senses felt another surge in the life force of the form before her. This didn’t make any sense, what-
Her thoughts paused as she felt the transformation fade. She felt the loss of power as her wings and halo dissolved into sparks of ambient mana, which in turn dissolved into the natural mana field of the planet. She felt the strength leave her limbs as she was reduced from the physical might of a celestial warrior to the lesser level of a superhuman. Still, the senses that allowed her to monitor Adam remained, even though they grew duller.
She felt the urge curses like the soldiers of France she once fought beside, but managed to hold back. Instead, she took a deep breath, knelt and tried to roll her fallen charge over so that she could get a better look at him. She knew he was wounded, but at the same time, he felt completely healthy to her over their link. Had he felt weaker then she wouldn’t have risked it, but in his current state she was sure that it would do him no harm.
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She pushed against his side and was surprised at the level of strength she needed to use to roll him onto his back. He shouldn’t be this heavy, she’d kicked, thrown, tripped and generally knocked him over enough over the past week to have a good idea of how much he weighed, and it wasn’t this much. As he fell onto his back the resurrected Saint of France saw what had become of Adam, and for all her control and bravery she couldn’t help but draw back in shock, her repressed curses spilling forth.
It was as though the young man had bloated like an old corpse, his skin swelling up all over him as if his body had been filled with air or liquid. Even worse he seemed to have fused into a single lump, his arms were now welded to his body, his legs joined into a single mass. More than that, his flesh seemed to be hardened as she watched! In fact . . .
Joan narrowed her eyes as she looked down. No, it wasn’t her imagination, her charge’s form really did seem to be swelling even further. It was as though he was growing in size, but as he was doing so he was losing detail. Already he looked less like a recumbent form than he did a chopped-down tree trunk.
Experimentally she tried to move him and found that she was right. His whole form was rigid, as though he were carved from one big chunk of wood. In fact . . . she found she could easily pick him up and he didn’t bend at all. Unsure of what else to do she turned and carefully made her way back to the farmhouse, carrying him as gently as she could.
What was this? She might not be an expert on the awakening of demigods, but she hadn’t heard of anything like this happening before. True, there had been those that had taken on certain elemental properties, such as stone skins or hair of frothing brine, but not something like this. It was as though his skin had bloated out in order to encompass him in . . .
. . . In a chrysalis!
The realization rose up in her mind as she looked at him. Yes, that was it. His skin was hardening and bloating to make room for the new form within. She knew that some races of the Fey went through something like this as they reached maturity. But she’d never have expected Adam to undergo such a transformation. Why, in the name of God was it happening now?
Carefully she carried him through the main living area of the farmhouse to one of the back rooms. In days gone by this area would have served as a storage hall in winter and in summer would have been where dances and parties were held. With the refitting of the building, insulation had been added and wooden boarding covered the floor. One end of it held some extra furniture that she had received while getting the farmhouse ready, and it was to those piles that she now moved.
Among the tables, chairs, chests of draws and desks was a large sofa that she’d elected not to use in the main household. Despite being large and luxurious, the golden embroidery and red upholstery were too strident for her taste. It had been relegated to this storage room. Joan did not feel that her charge's current form should be just left on the floor, but leaving him propped up against a wall seemed even more inappropriate. She’d been planning to take him up to his room but then thought better of it as a few recollections about the changing of the Fey came to mind.
Some of them, those of an elemental affinity could be quite destructive when they emerged from their cocoons, doing so in bursts of fire, lightning, or pure magical force. In the faery realms, this was only a minor concern since the realms such fey lived in were already elementally aligned. What damage could a burst of fire do inside a volcanic chamber? Of what import was a burst of lightning upon peeks where such thunderbolts fell almost as often as the very rain? However, she doubted the farmhouse would be as suitable.
No, this sofa would serve as a cushion, and by placing him at this end of the storeroom he’d be distant enough from the main building so that if there was damage it would be away from the living quatres.
Probably.
The reborn French saint let out a deep sigh as she stared down at the rapidly darkening length of hardened flesh. It no longer really resembled a human anymore so much as it did a sealed sleeping bag made out of a giant beef jerky. At least it seemed to have stopped growing.
The ritual that she had used might have been relatively simple, but it was unquestionably powerful due to both the reagents used and the forces that it had called upon. Not only had Heaven been called upon, but the Earth had also contributed to the power amassed, an ideal mixture to Awaken one with blood ties to both the Heavens and the Earth. Unfortunately, the interference of the demon hosts and the golem wrecked the ritual, introducing new energies and disrupting the timing. It seemed Adam had been able to internalize most of the power. Had he not, then there would have been a far larger crater out on the ritual site, maybe one big enough to have swallowed up the whole farmstead.
All that power was now caught up inside his current form, so she had no way of knowing how much would be released when he emerged from it.
If he did, at all. There was just too much that she didn’t know, given how much of a mess the whole thing had become. For all she knew her charge would end up sleeping for a hundred years as his body slowly underwent the change from mortal to demigod.
No! No, she couldn’t let herself fall into such thoughts. The Almighty had been the one to set her on this path, and she had faith in Him and herself. She had not failed in her duties, Adam was alive, and the first attack upon him had been driven back. It had not been a total victory, but her charge was not taken and the foes had been driven back, that was worth something, wasn’t it?
“Bon Dieu, soyez de mon côté.”
God be on my side, it was a sentiment that she meant emphatically at that moment.
Gathering her strength she turned and began to consider what defences she could prepare in the event of another attack. The enemy had been beaten back, but her ability to assume her angelic form was exhausted for the time being. It would be at least a full day before she could use it once more. Until then she could only use the gifts that were inherent to her, her skills, her strength, her command over light and air. It wasn’t ideal, but she could not imagine that those behind an attack such as this one would have been able to muster another one so easily. The creation of a weapon such as the golem would not have been an easy feat. So, its loss would have given that particular quarter pause.
However, others would seek Adam, and if he was not in a position to defend himself then it was possible to force him to serve them. Some would not be cruel about it, she knew there were gods out there that genuinely had the best interests of the world and the mortals at their hearts. However such deities might seek to bind her charge to their cause, feeling that they would be able to best direct him to where he was needed.
That could not be allowed! The Lord had not told her one way or another what Adam’s fate was to be, but she had been told of what was coming. Her charge would need to be free, unchained by allegiance to any one faction. There was no harm in him forming alliances or friendships, but he could not be subordinate to any of them.
For now, she was going to have to guard him and ensure that he stayed safe for however long it took for him to complete his Awakening. The thought gave her resolve as she mentally repeated it. It was a goal she could focus upon, a task by which to orient her actions. Slowly she felt the near panic of a few moments before start to die away. Yes, the situation was not ideal, but she could still deal with it.
Her sense of duty would allow nothing less.
Dropping her hand to the hilt of her sword she decided to make a quick circuit of the farmstead, to determine the best place to stand guard. Then her watch would begin.