Chapter 17: Making Magic: Part Two
I’d performed the sparking while focusing on my abdomen, just above my navel. It was an easy spot to centre my thoughts on, and its position in the middle of my body meant that I could bring out both mana and chi more easily than I would have been able to elsewhere. As the sparking took place I let my focus on chi fall away as I concentrated on my mana, that was how I ‘saw’ what happened with all my attention focused upon it.
In an extending ripple from the spot where the spark of chi had disappeared, my mana burst into bright vibrant colours. Brilliant red, radiant orange, shining yellow, emerald green, dazzling blue, deep indigo, shocking violet, and every shade and hue imaginable in between, all of them spread throughout my mana channels like wildfire roaring across a dried forest soaked in gasoline.
More than just the ‘visual’ display though, there was the raw sensation of power that seared through me along with the change. It was as though my blood had been replaced by fire and ice at once, I felt strong enough to crack mountains apart with my bare hands, I felt as though I could shout at the heavens and call down rain, snow, wind, or lightning as I pleased! I felt the earth beneath me and knew that it would heed my commands! I drew in a breath and knew that I could expel it as the fire of a dragon, the poison of a serpent, or as a disease that could wipe life from the planet! I felt my fingers twitch and knew that I could banish injuries with a touch, make the crippled whole, the diseased healthy, even the dead live! I felt powerful! I felt invincible! I felt . . .
. . . I felt that I had to get a hold of myself pretty quickly or else something was going to go horribly wrong!
I remembered Emma’s words and held onto them even as I felt the power growing within me.
“The problem is that after you spark your magic into life you’re going to have to deal with the Surge.” My questioning look had made my confusion clear, so she continued. “The Surge is the first swelling of magic after your mana is ignited, and it’s pretty powerful. All that mana that you’ve been producing all your life mostly flows out of you, but bits of it build up, accumulating in your body and getting more and more concentrated. It isn’t bad for you, it doesn’t hurt you, but it doesn’t really do much for you either. It just sits there for your whole life, slowly building up, and then it’s all released from your body after you die as your flesh starts to break down. Y’know how some people have those grave sites where things just seem to naturally grow on them, like the grass is extra green, or the flowers people leave there take root? That’s because the mana has leaked out of someone with strong potential and has slightly empowered the local area.
“The thing is that you’re a demigod, even if you’d never Awakened your divine blood. You’d still have been pumping out at least twice as much mana as the average guy. Now that your divinity’s up and running though you’ve been spending the last few hours putting out masses of natural mana. More than that though, your body has been trying to spark its magic on its own, so it’ll be doing its best to hold onto every scrap of mana it can. It won’t work, but it’ll try, that’s why when your Surge comes through you’re going to have masses of mana waiting to be converted.
“This means that after you spark it, the magic energy you’re going to have access to might be more than you’re ready to handle, but you’ve got to. The Surge is going to try to go outwards, to escape your body, but y’can’t let it y’got me? What you’ve got to do is compress it down, force it back into you until it starts forming proper magic channels in your spiritual structure. That’s not gonna be easy, far from it. In fact, it’s so difficult that most demigods can’t manage it when they get the chance. Well, it’s not that bad, even if you don’t manage it, you’ll still get your magic, but if succeed then you’ve got a chance of getting something special.”
Her lips had curved into a smile then, a strange smile that was at once predatory and gleeful yet didn’t feel like it was directed at me.
“Sure, it’s gonna be tough, that’s why most demigods can’t manage it, but you’ve got an advantage, your wings.”
I’d felt my eyes growing wider as I glanced down at my new appendages, then back to Emma.
“For angels, the wings aren’t just extra body bits, they’re where the extra spiritual structures are put, that’s why stronger angels tend to have more wings.” She held up a hand to forestall the questions I’d already opened my mouth to ask. “Look, I can tell you about it later, right now let’s concentrate on the important stuff, okay?”
I nodded, and she continued.
“Your wings are like an angel’s, okay? Especially since they’re inherited from Bath Kol, that means they’ll probably have some of the spiritual structures that are inherent to angels. What you’ve got to do is, as soon as the Surge starts, force as much of it as you can into your wings. This’ll let you wake up their power as soon as you can, and that’ll give you the edge you need. Y’see, the soul structures in angel wings let you control magic much more finely than most divine beings can manage without years of study and training. So, if you get them up and running fast enough then you’ve got a much better chance of being able to handle the Surge.
“Now, I can’t tell you exactly what to do, everyone’s magic is different, like fingerprints, y’know? But I can give you the basics.
“Establish a centre for yourself, the place where your core is gonna settle. Cores are like . . . okay, when your magic finishes forming, it’ll naturally form a new spiritual organ from which it’s generated. This is your core, and it can be anywhere. Your heart, your throat, your guts, even your head, anywhere can have a core. Don’t think about it too much, just go for where it feels right, then force as much of the magic from the Surge into it.
“Now, here’s the important bit; don’t let any of your magic escape your body if you can help it, y’got it? Keep it all in you, don’t let it get out, and then just squeeze it tighter and tighter, as much as y’can, understand? If some gets away from ya, well, that’s okay, just so long as you recover as fast as you can. The more ya can compress into the finished core, the better! Don’t worry, y’ll know when it’s finished, there’s no way you can’t. Now, here’s the important bit; when your core is finished it’ll try to let some magic loose, and you mustn’t stop it, y’understand? You let that magic go and do what it has to, trust me on that!”
Yes, I could definitely see what she had meant about this not being easy. The power inside me . . . it felt like it was trying to stretch my skin, like a balloon that had just been filled. The colours, the life, the power, they didn’t want to be contained, they didn’t want to stay where they were. They wanted out, they wanted release, and they weren’t taking being denied easily.
Still, denied they were, although I wasn’t completely sure just how that was happening. I could feel the power pressing against me from the inside, but my will was pressing back, sealing it into my body. It wasn’t painful, but there was an unmistakable pressure that might well grow into pain if I wasn’t careful. As to how I was holding it in, that was completely instinctual. As soon as I felt the pressure start to build I’d just . . . willed it to stay contained, and then something responded to my wordless demand. All I knew was that I had a chance.
Even as the pressure grew, I became aware of my wings, of something not quite right with them. My new pinions were still strange and new to me. That was hardly a surprise considering I’d only had them for less than two days. I could feel where they connected to me, where I’d developed new muscles to move them, new additions to my skeleton to support them, and it was at those points that I concentrated my attention.
It was something to do with the energies seething inside me. The power wanted to escape, but I was holding it in. However, it was when I shifted my focus from my body to my wings and back again that I realized my mistake.
When I’d followed Emma’s instructions to contain the magic, I hadn’t included my new body parts in my mental construct, because I was so unused to them. In my mind’s eye, the skin the magic was sealed into had been the outline of the form I was intimately familiar with, one without wings, so there had been not a sliver of power sent in that direction.
But with an effort of will that changed. I then felt the whole of the ‘skin’ which held in the new power running through me, and I willed it to flow along my back, reaching out to cover the wings that were now a part of me.
To my mental vision, it was spectacular to see, beautiful as a sunrise breaking through dark clouds. At first, my wings seemed almost dull, devoid of any flow of the mana I had seen in the rest of me. Then, like water long held back by a dam that had finally found a weakness, the magic surged out, eagerly racing through the opened passages offered by the change in my mental partition. With a sense of pure satisfaction, I could feel my new power cascading into them.
I thought that I could tell what Emma had meant when she’d told me about soul structures in them. I could feel the magic that flowed into them condensing down into lines or veins, rather than just filling their forms like water poured into a glass. These new paths of magic ran throughout the wings, through the bones, muscles, and feathers, and I could feel the magic growing stronger as it did so. What was even stranger was the layout of these new channels. They were perfectly symmetrical, every single line perfectly mirrored on the other wing, and they didn’t seem to be set up like some sort of circulatory system.
They didn’t look organic, that was the best way that I could think of to describe them. When I saw them in my mind’s eye they didn’t run through the wings like veins, they didn’t connect with thicker arteries to the main muscles, nor did they run along the bones as you would have expected. Instead, they formed a pattern that was clearly fit for some function that I didn’t understand. The way that the lines ran looked less like parts of a body and more like some sort of living three-dimensional circuits. The lines themselves were too even and straight, they clustered in certain places, creating areas of concentrated power, and looped around ‘empty’ areas to form blank spots that seemed to have someplace in the design. All of it was intricately sophisticated and almost artfully beautiful.
And it was powerful!
As soon as the structures finished forming it was as though something just clicked into place in my mind, and suddenly the wings that had been foreign and unfamiliar new additions to my body were as much a part of me as the fingers I’d possessed since the moment of my birth! I knew them, I felt them, and more than that, I understood the basics of how to use them!
The power in me was still struggling to get out, letting some of it flow into the wings had momentarily relieved the pressure, but it had come back almost as fast. It was as though after being given a bit of freedom it resented being held back once more and was redoubling its earlier efforts to escape. I could feel it pressing against the restraining skin of will I was using to hold it within my body. It felt like a balloon getting ready to pop, stretched taut under internal pressure. More than just that, I could feel it pressing against my will as well. The restraining aura might have a presence, one I could feel through my body and feel under my skin, but the sensation of it pressing against my mind as I tried to reinforce the aura was the most taxing thing about it.
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I knew that I had to do something before I lost all control. Emma had said my wings were my advantage, that they would let me tame this magic that was trying to run wild, so I had to put my trust in those words and hope they were true. She’d said it was the soul structures in the wings that would help me, so that was where I shoved my will. I had no idea how to use these new channels, even with my new connection to them, so all I could do was mentally drive the idea that I wanted to condense my magic down at them and hope there was some useful result.
The structures in my wings seemed to come alive, the magic that had made them up firming and solidifying until they in turn began to channel more magic through them. The original lines gained even more vibrancy as the power ran through them. Then the clusters woke up, there wasn’t any other way to describe it, and I felt my mind . . . not grow, that would imply greater size, rather it was as though a door opened in my head and I suddenly understood that I had new options open to me.
Granted, the options were only basic. These wings, I could see them doing so much, but at the moment it was as though I’d been given a new supercar, but only knew how to turn the lights on and operate the radio. It wasn’t much, only the barest fraction of what those structures were capable of when used with skill, but it was enough for what I needed.
The magic running wild within me began to relent in its pressure as a new force was brought to bear upon it. My will, refined and enhanced by the structures in my wings pressed upon it, enforcing my desires upon the roiling contained hurricane of ignited mana. It had been at least partly responsive to my wishes before, but that had been clumsy and instinctive, the actions of someone who suddenly found themselves with a limb they’d never had before. Now I felt just as clumsy as before, still as inexperienced in the use of my will, but I had more power behind it. I might lack finesse, but I could make up for it with brute force.
Little by little I began to shrink down the aura I’d been using to contain the magic of the Surge. It was hard, really hard. Getting up after being knocked down by Joan for the twentieth time that day had been easier, despite the bruises, aches, and pains. Forcing myself to move during that fight at my Awakening had been easier. I had to keep up the pressure on the trapped magic the whole time, not allowing any part of it to weaken or get too strong. It felt as though if I pressed too hard in one spot then the containing skin would rupture somewhere else. Instead, I had to carefully maintain my influence evenly across the entire aura as I slowly pushed it down to a smaller and smaller size.
At first, the aura was a slowly shrinking version of me, one with arms and legs and wings. But as I worked on condensing it down I tried to reshape it into a more uniform shape. I wanted a sphere, a simple form that I could easily apply even pressure to. The condensing magic seemed to respond more readily to my attempts to reshape it than it did to my efforts to compress it. I’d managed to condense the contained energies into a large blob the size of my chest with short stubs that had been my extremities. I felt I was making progress and let my guard down.
Maybe I pushed too hard in one place without noticing, maybe my concentration slipped, and I left a spot weakened. Whatever the case, a sudden jet of released magic burst out of the spot where my navel would have been on the condensed magic before it lost most of its human shape. The sheer force of the sudden eruption caught me by surprise but I was able to quickly rally back.
Closing the breech was difficult, especially as I had to maintain the rest of the containment as I did so, but I was able to manage it in fairly short order. Even though the effort of it made my brain pound. Power had been lost, a significant amount. I could feel the pressure lessening somewhat, which was probably the only reason I was able to keep the contained magic from rupturing elsewhere. As soon as the containing skin was whole again I began to compress once more.
Smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter, that was my mantra as I kept at it. My headache grew worse and worse as the lump shrank to the size of a watermelon, then to a football, then a grapefruit, then a cricket ball. By that point, it was taking all my focus to keep it contained, and it felt as though I was trying to hold the sun in my hands. I could almost feel myself starting to fray at the edges, and even through my meditation I could feel the sweat beading on my brow and face, feel my teeth gritting together as I strove to press it down just a bit more!
. . . More . . .
. . . More!
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Had the aggregate of hellish energies been more aware then it would have found itself trapped between a combination of agony and ecstasy.
About it the reserve of power it had been hiding within had sparked into life, dormant might surging with vitality, with possibilities, with magic! Such power, such strength! The clump of malevolent energies greedily began to consume all could. The demigod may have gained power from catalysing his stored power in this way, but it had also made himself more vulnerable to the parasitic energies hiding within him. Magic such as this was easily converted, and as the host had sparked his magic the aggregate was able to consume and corrupt more power than it had in all the days it had been hiding within its host.
More than that, the malignant growth of energies could feel paths opening that had been sealed before. The demigod was reaching into his well of might, and in so doing he was opening the defences that had kept the hell-born energies trapped. The primitive and unsophisticated drives that constituted its mind slowly came to a conclusion. It could not be called a plan, but it was an intention.
It would feast, it would grow stronger, and then it would flood through the open channels within its foolish host and consume him from within.
As though to mock the desires of the hellish creatures, the instant it settled upon what to do the environment about it changed. Pressure, unbelievable pressure bore down upon it, crushing it, trying to squeeze it from existence. Without thought the mass of hell-born power condensed once more, hardening its exterior and increasing its internal pressure in an attempt to endure. Ironically the pressure served to further feed the aggregate, more power being forced into it even as it struggled to survive.
But it did. The pressure crushed it, and the remnants of holy power burnt it, but it endured, it fed, it grew, and bit by bit it adapted.
It should not have been possible but for two reasons. The combination of it having infected its host while he was vulnerable and it being able to feed upon his rich and defenceless pool of power had allowed the hellish energies the opportunity they needed. They had gained resistance to their host’s internal protections, and they were using his own power to fuel their adaptation.
Still, it was not sustainable. Mindless though the aggregate of malevolent power might be, it responded to the growing pressure. At some point, the crushing force would surpass its ability to adapt, and then it would be doomed, eradicated. Inaction was death, delay was surrender.
Despite the forces bearing down upon it, trying to hold it in place, trying to expunge it, the collective of hell-born power moved, forcing its way along the channels of essence it had felt earlier. The pressure increased, the narrower environment more punishing than the pool of power it had swum in before, but the hellish parasite endured and continued. There was an opportunity that could be seized, a weakness that could be attacked. With all the tenacity of a tick buried deep and sucking blood, the aggregate of dark energies forced its way on, swimming, scrabbling, growing and discarding limbs of malignant energy as it advanced. It spread, forcing its way on, but leaving a trail of contaminated power and corruption in its wake.
On and on it forced itself, feeding, suffering, enduring. It was no longer the concentrated mass of energy it had been. It had allowed itself to become defuse as it made its way through the channels of power of its host, letting tendrils of itself extend through other lines of internal energy as it passed them. Like some sort of invading plague it spread, devoured and grew, yet remained so defuse, so thin, that it was undetected. The nature of the demigod’s internal energy still burnt at it, but the threads that spread out were just strong enough to survive, at least for a short time.
It would have to be enough. The aggregate would endure, it would persevere, it would continue. All for one goal that was written into its being as surely as the will to live was in any mortal being.
The demigod had to die!
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I could feel it coming together!
My head was throbbing from the effort of keeping my concentration focused. My skin felt as though it was stretched from holding in the pounding of my heart. My muscles burned as though I’d forced myself to work through Joan’s training for a whole day without rest. Still, none of it mattered, none of it held back the mad grin I could feel splitting my face.
I was so close I could practically taste it! The tight ball of power was so close to perfection, I could feel it, the last resistance giving way to the pressure I was applying, getting close to the point where . . .
There! The magic had reached a point of critical mass. All that magic shoved together, so close, so potent, it was reinforcing itself, a metamorphosis from concentrated ambient energy into a true structure. It was a miracle taking place. It was almost disappointing that I was the only one there to witness it.
Miracle it might have been, but I was more concerned with regaining my mental balance as the vast pressure on my psyche finally relented as the magic turned inwards. The crystallized energy structure settled into place just below my heart, even as I finally fell out of my meditative state. Quite literally so, as I found myself tipping over, one wing propping me up the only thing preventing me from completely collapsing. I couldn’t stop though, I had the bone-deep certainty that this wasn’t finished, the magic might have formed my core, but the process wasn’t complete.
My weakness passed quickly though, the pressure in my head subsiding to merely a dull ache so fast that it was almost scary. The same was true of the rest of me, the sweat faded away, the twinges I’d been feeling in my muscles were gone, even my jaw no longer ached.
I could feel the core now, something new and warm sitting just beneath my heart, pulsing in time with each beat. I could also feel that it wasn’t . . . finished. It was still changing, still advancing to a state where it would be complete. Energies were still settling into place, connections being strengthened as power flooded through them for the first time. I could feel it all, my awareness of my own being, shockingly clear. There was just so much, so much I could never have imagined. It was so beautiful, so complex but so elegantly simple. It was almost a work of art, it was almost-
Something was wrong!
The absolute certainty slammed into me only a split second before the pain did. It was almost a physical force, slamming me forward even as my arms instinctively came up to catch me, my dead beneath me, even as my weight held them in place. Behind me my wings jerked, the blade-like feathers cutting into the ground, scraping on buried pebbles. I felt all of it, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t even scream as a red-hot poker seemed to be trying to dig its way out of the spot where my neck met my spine.
But even as sudden and shocking as the pain was what made it even worse was the searing awareness of what was happening. It was as though my perspective had shifted, and what I had previously seen as nothing but shadows and overlapping colours was revealed to be . . . something else.
Wrong! Wrong! It was all wrong! That taint, that sickly oily blackness shouldn’t be there! The knowledge was visceral and absolute, with no room for doubt at all. The blackness was utterly foreign to me, and the sight of it was as disgusting and terrifying as the sight of a worm moving beneath my skin would have been!
For a moment I couldn’t do anything, fear, revulsion and sheer pain paralysing me. but as I felt the black stain within the channels of my magic moving again I was shocked from my stupor. Opening my mouth, I tried to shout, to draw the attention of either Joan or Hadriel from the farmhouse. I also tried to get up, tried to run to get help or get a knife to try and cut the disgusting mass out of myself. I tried.
But I did nothing.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out. My limbs trembled but didn’t budge an inch. No matter what I did I couldn’t make my body respond! For a moment I didn’t understand, then that strange awareness of myself narrowed in on the spot where the pain was greatest, where it burned as if scorching nails were being hammered into my back.
The thick seething mass of . . . whatever the hell that blackness was, had concentrated itself to that very spot. Tendrils of it ran off through the rest of me, contaminating nearly half of the magical circulation system I was still trying to come to grips with. The main mass was digging its way up along my spine, wriggling through the passage that connected my head to the rest of the system of magical channels running through me, but seemed to have paused in place.
I tried to move again, tried to do anything, but it was as though only a tiny part of my wishes was making it to the rest of me. I tried to reach up and all my arm did was twitch. I tried to get up, and all my legs did was shudder slightly.
Helpless, all I could do was scream in my head as I felt my power leave my control!