The first time that I realized the world had accepted and learned to live with the full implications of the ‘new normal’ hit me was right at the start of June.
I was shopping at the local supermarket. It was a late Monday morning and it had finally been my turn to refill the flagging fridge and larder. Between extra shifts at the Well Grounded, recovering from the fight that broke out there, and my alleyway encounter during that fight between an angel and a demon, I’d ended up skipping my last few turns.
My first stop was the entertainment section. I always went to check there when I came shopping, especially on a Monday when new movies were released to buy. There was a longstanding competition between me, Doug and Chris to see who could buy the worst b-movie at a major outlet. So far Doug was the standing champ, with some film involving aliens reviving a zombie mammoth, but I was always on the lookout for a contender.
What struck me was that there was already a Blu-ray release for ‘Legendary’, the first movie starring the god Apollo. Normally there wouldn’t have been a release for it yet, given that the film was still showing in cinemas, but the sheer demand for it had forced it through at breakneck speed.
I’d looked at the smiling face of the god on the front cover, his perfect features surrounded by a depiction of some ruined city, his body wrapped in leather and armour. With him was some attractive new actress wearing far less and carrying a sword leaning against his side, one bare leg extended to show off her smooth skin and shapely muscles.
It was pretty typical for a fantasy sci-fi, something that had been thrown together in a hurry to appease Apollo’s desire to be in a movie. But once it had been finished and marketed it had turned out to be a smash hit that was already making records in almost all forms of sales right off the bat. There were already three more films coming out soon, Apollo’s magic presence letting them be filmed and readied at unbelievable speed, and the anticipation was through the roof.
And here it was, in my local supermarket.
Normally it would take longer for a film to move from the big screen to the movie aisle, but I guessed that when gods were involved the rules changed. Giving my head a shake I rounded the corner of the display, going from movies to books.
There, things were similar though. Rather than the books, I would have been expecting, things like cookery, the latest celebrity biographies, or reprints of the trending fantasy novels, I saw nearly three whole shelves devoted to two new releases. ‘The New World’, by Adrien Newberg, and ‘Demigods, the Myths and the Reality’, by Dr V.Roads. I heard about both books on the news the day before, but seeing them right here in front of me . . .
Reaching out I picked up a copy of Dr Roads’ book and took a look at the opening pages, reading them over.
The gods have existed upon the world since time immemorial, and so have the angels and demons, the monsters and the spirits. They have been present in all cultures across the world, their mark on human history indelible. For countless ages, they reigned, in some places they were rulers, in others, they were guardians, in others they were monsters. So, what changed? Why are they remembered as myths and legends, rather than beings that once walked amongst us?
There is much that is unknown, even to the gods themselves. However, as they slowly return to the mortal plane, some of them have been willing to share what they know with us, at least in part.
About three thousand years ago a change began to creep up upon the beings of supernatural power in the world, and their ability to exist upon our realm began to slip away, though the cause remains unknown. To begin with, it was a minor change, the effort required to leave their plane and come to our own increasing slightly, but as time passed it grew more and more difficult. Eventually, the creatures of magic and divinity that existed on other planes lost all ability to interact with the mortal plane while using any of their power.
Many of them could still come to our world, but they could only do so under great restrictions. Their memories were clouded to the point of being barely more than a recollection of a vivid dream. They possessed none of the powers of a god, no magic, no curses, no immortality. And they had to live in the bodies of normal humans. In this state, they could be injured or killed, but all that did was send them back to their own realm while leaving the flesh-suit that they had inhabited behind.
Of course, when this was first understood by mankind there was a great deal of fear and speculation. How could there not be? In the face of such knowledge humanity could only ask; had many of the great figures of history had actually been gods merely seeking amusement? Had Hitler been a deity seeking to cause bloodshed and war? Had Leonardo da Vinci’s brilliance simply been a false front for knowledge gained through powers? How much of history was truly humanity’s own achievements and how much was simply bored gods seeking entertainment?
Humanity has been lucky as it learns about this new world that we find ourselves in. Gods such as Hermes, Odin, Athena, and Thoth. Angels such as Birimiel or Raziel. Even spirits such as Coyote. All of them have been willing to speak to mankind, to answer our questions in their famous interviews.
It is their words that have laid such possibilities to rest. As they described it, the closing of the paths between worlds was not anything so simple as a mere lack of access to the mortal plane. Instead, it became as though our world actively rejected the presence of anything with any amount of divinity, so much so that even the acts of the gods as mortals have been forced from the recollection of history.
Those gods that incarnated as mortals could enjoy their lives, but they could not impact the world. They found that it was as though the laws of probability bent to ensure that any mark they could leave was minimized and buried. If a god somehow started a riot, then it would have minimal effect and would then soon be forgotten. If a god tried to fight in a war, then they might be successful, but their deeds would never be noticed, and any records of them would be lost. If a god tried to gain fame through some great scientific discovery, then no one would believe them, and their research and findings would be lost.
The more that a divinity tried to stand above mankind the more the world seemed to force them down. It was quickly learnt that efforts to fight this would only end in punishment, misfortune and pain dogging them for as long as they tried. A simple life, even an exciting life, was permitted, but not a loud one, not one that left an impact. The mortal plane was for mortals, at least so long as the Paths were closed.
So, the gods lived as mortals, as had angels, spirits and even some of the great monsters. The world turned on, and the lives of humanity continued, the memories and evidence of the supernatural beings that once lived alongside them eroded and buried until they passed into mere myth and tales.
For the gods and their ilk, the experience of incarnating as mere mortals was initially an interesting novelty, but in time it began to fall from favour amongst them. Coming to the mortal world was interesting, but it also left them weak and helpless, forced to struggle on upon the merits of their ingenuity and intelligence, not something that many gods were willing to do. More than that, due to the clouding of their minds some gods would act in ways contrary to their natures while incarnated. A god of war might live a life as a farmer, a god of thieves and trade might live a life as a starving artist. It all combined to make such a choice unappealing.
However, in the century or so preceding the Black Sun, it had become almost fashionable among them to incarnate upon the Earth once more. The advance of technology had made things interesting, and the sacrifices of living without divine power came to be seen as challenges to overcome, leading many bored deities to try to entertain themselves in that manner.
Gods of war tried to fight in both the world wars as soldiers. Gods of song and dance enjoyed trying to break into the evolving world of mass media entertainment. Many gods even chose to see how things naturally unfolded and tried to lead normal lives for a few years, just to see what it was like. Some of them only stayed for a few days, others lived for decades until they died of old age. Their activities ran the full gambit of human experience.
And, of course, many, many of them had children.
I could see why the book that the doctor had published was such a best seller. The narrative, the summation that he’d put together was a skilful assembly of the many disparate facts swirling around into a coherent and concise theory. The fact that he’d managed to get Apollo’s own stamp of approval on it was also a major contributing factor.
I flicked through it a bit more, not really reading, just taking in chapter names, a few outstanding passages, a few illustrations, and some printed photographs. The majority of the book was either legends of demigods in the past, like Heracles or Rama, or interviews and descriptions of some of the demigods showing up in the modern age. It seemed to be an interesting contrast between ancient myths and modern media. Along with several theories about how time might have changed the legends, and how the heroes of the past compared to the new ones of the present.
For a moment I considered buying it, taking it home for a bedtime read. Instead, I closed the book, putting it back on the shelf as I turned away. I didn’t feel like getting sucked into the whole Legends craze that seemed to be going on.
I think it said something about how I felt that I didn’t stop to look at the newest releases on video games.
I concentrated on shopping from then on. Picking up bread, tinned foods, fresh fruit and veg, the normal things that were needed in the kitchen. It was in the fresh food aisles that I noticed something else that was . . . off.
There were lots of signs saying things like ‘British Grown’ or ‘Homeland Produce’, signs that stated that they were all locally produced vegetables handpicked only a few days ago. Then I noticed that the produce on display was all better than usual. The tomatoes were all large, smooth, and vibrantly red in a way I’d only rarely seen in the past. Across in the fruit section, there were strawberries, large, ripe, with not a hint of white to them. The sort of strawberries that you dreamed of but could rarely find.
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Looking around I saw it was true for other things. Cucumbers, lettuces, cabbage, potatoes, all of them looked bigger, healthier, and tastier than I was used to seeing in my local supermarket. Where was the standard stuff, the produce grown to the lowest common denominator that the public was willing to accept? Why was I only seeing the sort of food you’d expect from high-class organic farms? And why was it so cheap?
It was only when I saw a few stylized crowns featured on some of the signs that it clicked for me. The King! I’d heard things on the TV about how his presence had changed things in the UK, how the land had become healthier just by him being back. And there were also the reports of farmers making up shrines to certain agricultural gods and goddesses . . . was this the result?
I honestly didn’t know how I felt about that, eating food that had been grown using . . . magic? Prayers? It wasn’t even a health concern, it was in the supermarket after all. It was the idea of putting it in my body, of actually taking in something that had been grown in this new way.
Still . . . the prices! I was willing to take a couple of risks if it meant chowing down on stuff like this if that was all I had to pay. Loading up some more bits into my trolly I moved on.
I noticed more changes when I got to the meat aisles. The proportions of food on display were different from what I remembered, less beef, less chicken, but more seafood. All the meat had big ‘organic’ and ‘free-range’ labels stamped on them, and the fish and shellfish all sported labels loudly proclaiming them caught by ‘traditional’ or ‘sustainable’ means, even that they were ‘wild’. It also didn’t escape my notice that they were all larger and fatter than what I was used to. The prawns were bigger than my fingers, the fish long and plump. There were even lobsters, packed and ready to be taken, and so cheap!
Seeing this the first thing I did was to grab one of the lobsters and begin to plan how much butter I could safely cook it in before my arteries began to protest. It was quickly followed by a couple of crabs, a salmon, and, to my delighted surprise, a whole squid nearly as long as my arm, something I’d never seen before.
My shopping continued, the sections for toilet paper, washing up supplies and toothpaste all mercifully unchanged, and the familiarity of a regular shopping trip crept back in.
That changed again when I drew near to the tills and saw the stand where the newspapers were on display. Over the last few weeks, I’d grown used to the headlines being about which god had shown up where, or what amazing thing was taking place. It wasn’t as though the gods and angels were swarming the world, but there were enough of them to keep a steady stream of major events going. There’d been interesting but harmless stuff, like the founding of Zeus’s company, or Apollo breaking into the movie business. Then there’d been the serious stuff, the aftermath of the whims of wild gods, or some town left deserted by a demonic invasion.
But today . . . the headline on the first paper I saw was about a fire in Nottingham. Not some fire set by rogue elementals or some reckless new magic user, it was a fire that had started due to poorly maintained electrical wiring. Sure, people had died, and there was a whole scandal about corruption and bribes, but it was just so . . . mundane.
Looking at the other papers I saw that their headlines were also quiet topics. A big fundraiser, one backed by priestesses of Hestia, had made record amounts of money for some charity or other. An actor being caught taking drugs while on the set of a children’s show. Even the tabloids were simply about some crazy girl trying to sneak into Buckingham palace to try to seduce the King. Unsure of what I was looking for I opened one of them at random, turning the pages as I tried to find something that would bring my confused feelings into some sort of clarity.
Some updates on discussions between King Arthur and parliament. Some puff piece about a new model making waves. A human-interest story about an old couple who spent a large chunk of their savings on some new product from Olympus Industries, and how they thought it was cheap at the price. None of them caught my interest though, instead I just kept flicking on, until . . .
It was a full-page advert that stopped me. Well, it wasn’t really an advert, more like a public announcement.
ARE YOU A DEMIGOD?
The question was printed out in bright red words, a colour that drew the eye instinctively. Beneath the question was some smaller print, something about a government-backed initiative to help new demigods understand their new powers and provide them with opportunities to legally use them to their fullest. A cynical part of my mind noted that this would also let the government legally track any demigods that came forward. Track them, influence them, grease palms here and there to make them take a path that would benefit those in charge. After all, demigods might be powerful, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be . . . managed by those with sufficient intelligence and resources.
Still, all of that was more of a background thought than anything else. The vast majority of my attention was focused on that single question. So simple, yet it represented something so complicated.
The Legends hadn’t just been gods and angels, there’d been other immortals too, such as the fey, immortal dwarves, monsters, even elementals. All of them seemed to have had access to the back paths between planes, the routes that let them incarnate upon earth at the cost of their power, immortality, and memories, and many of them had used them. However, for some, it had been easier than others. The gods paid a slightly easier toll, while angels had to surrender their entire identity to incarnate as humans. Monsters could only do so rarely and often lived brief and violent lives. Creatures such as the fay or elementals had it hardest of all, their almost alien minds having the hardest time adapting to human lives when they incarnated.
Still, these supernatural races all had members that were willing to pay the price for a life on earth, and in those lives many of them had children. Children that had children of their own, establishing bloodlines. Bloodlines that had in many cases survived to the present day. Bloodlines that carried the inactive spark of power that had been inherited from their legendary progenitor.
Through the centuries these inheritors had been unaware of what they were. With the realms of the divinities cut off from Earth these bloodlines were just like any others, save maybe for a tiny bit of talent in some field or other, such as music or strategy. They would live normal lives as farmers, soldiers, councilmen or beggars, all the many walks of life. They would grow old as time passed and die as easily as any other mortal. There was nothing to set them apart from the rest of humanity. At least, not until the days after the Black Sun.
That was when things changed. It wasn’t as though every carrier of powerful blood suddenly gained their powers all at once. Instead, it was that they regained the potential to use that power, to Awaken the sleeping divinity within them. Some found it easy, gaining their inherited power within days of the end of the Black Sun, but others took longer. It was an ongoing process, as more demigods around the world Awakened every day, adding another layer of complexity to the emerging new world order.
So far, some of them had chosen to use their new power to advance their own lot to gain wealth and status. Others, though, had felt something else. Demigods seemed to have a natural predisposition to seeking notoriety, and while some did indulge their darker aspects a great portion chose altruism and glory.
With the demigods making waves of their own it was hardly a surprise that we were all hungry to know more, to be able to make sense of the changing world. It was now known that there were two types of demigods, something that had been widely publicized once confirmed.
The first were the Direct Children, or simply Children for short. These were first-generation demigods, ones with a Legend being one of their parents akin to the demigods of legend, like Hercules or Perseus. They were powerful for the most part, the sorts that could, at least for a short time, go toe to toe with full deities. There didn’t seem to be that many of them worldwide, at least when compared to the Legacies. The exact number was uncertain, and constantly changing, but was thought to be in the hundreds.
The second, and far more common type, were the Legacies, descendants of the gods, or other Legends, removed by several generations. Back when the Legends incarnated as mortals in the far past the children that they sired would be unawakened demigods. These children would go on to have children of their own, thus establishing a lineage with divine power latent within it.
The power in such bloodlines didn’t just spread out. Rather than being diluted, this divine inheritance remained intact through each generation and was held by only one individual. Though, if the individual that held the divine inheritance died before having a child, then it would be lost
Legacies made up most of the demigods in the world and tended to be a bit weaker than direct children. According to gods willing to speak on the matter, this was due to them being further removed from the source of their divinity than a blood child of a Legend would have been. The difference was not great, but it was there.
Being a demigod had become a sort of lottery. The odds were against it, but they weren’t so great that you didn’t hear of it happening. There were already a few in the UK, and more in Europe, America, and Asia. There was no way to know who was going to Awaken next, no way to know who had inherited divine power.
As such it was hardly a surprise that demigods were followed by just about everyone. True, just like anything else that rose to the public’s fickle attention they would quickly fade from it if they didn’t remain sensational. Those that kept on in the spotlight were those that were skilled enough, competent enough, or just eye-catching enough.
People loved them, lived vicariously through them to a degree, I guessed. There was endless speculation on what the next threat they’d face would be, who could beat who, who was dating who, who hated who, who was richer than who, who was setting what trend, it just went on. It would have almost been comical, had it not been clear just how seriously everyone was taking it. The followings of the more popular demigods had an almost cult-like feeling to them, a real feel of the ‘fanatic’ part of fans.
There’d also been some pretty dark stuff happening. People desperate for power and recognition, for something to feel special about, putting themselves in danger in the hope they would get lucky and Awaken. People had been injured, crippled, or killed. But every time a demigod Awakened, every time someone went from ordinary to superhuman, it fuelled that envy, that desire, that tiny voice at the back of your mind that asked you ‘what if?’.
It could be anyone, that was the thing. So far there was no way to tell. It didn’t show up in genetics, at least not with the present testing, and even gods and angels had trouble finding the Legacies that had been hidden by time. So, it was hardly surprising to see an announcement like the one staring me in the face.
‘Are You a Demigod?’ What a question! The fact that it was there, printed out in a paper I read semiregularly . . . That it had to ask to anyone, including me . . . That it was actually a valid question for just about everyone on the planet . . . This was what the world had come to! This was the new normal!
Those were the thoughts that ran through my head, and my train of thought came to a screeching halt as the full meaning of them hit me.
This was my life now. This was the world I lived in. Food produced and farmed using the power of gods and heroes. Entertainment about the Legends, with gods in it, with demigods in it. The newspaper, the front page . . . some part of me gaped as I realized that people had grown to accept this new world so much that in some cases it wasn’t even making the front page anymore!
I’m not sure how long I stood there, staring at the page, my thoughts scurrying around like blind mice. It was only when someone bumped into me that I was startled back to reality. Embarrassed I shoved the newspaper into the trolly and headed for the tills.
It was only when I started to load up my car that it clicked for me. As mundane and simple as this task had been it was also the first time that I’d really gone out for a while now. This had been my first time seeing how the world had changed in such a short time.
Sure, I’d been keeping up on current events, but that was only through overheard discussions, short conversations at work, or distractedly watching the news in the morning while shovelling down my breakfast. I knew about the big events, but I’d lost track of the small stuff.
My shopping trip had been the first time going out for almost a month, and the full change, the fact that what would have been unthinkable a year ago was becoming the new normal, was hitting me all at once.
What was happening wasn’t just big events like the angel and demon fight I’d gotten close to. It wasn’t just far-off things like what was happening in America, Africa and China. It wasn’t even the stuff that was happening here in England, with Arthur and his knights. It was happening to me, to my life, to the little things in it. Even if I could continue with a quiet and simple life, it was still being affected by the return of the Legends. It wasn’t just the headlines or the papers, or things on the internet. It was the food I ate, the movies I watched, and the books I read.
This was now my life. I mulled over that as I made my way home.