AO 4 Ch 4 (Patreon)

Chapter 4

Hecate watched as the guests left the room, Gwen turning to face her immediately.

“My son seems to trust you.” Gwen’s tone was sharper than her words would otherwise imply. “Yet, why aren’t you teaching him magic?”

“I’m a goddess.” Hecate snapped. “Something so mundane would ruin his worship.”

“Which is important, or so I’ve gathered.” Gwen narrowed her eyes.

Hecate was using the mage as a way to stay close to Ard and watch over him while nudging the situation the way she wanted. It had the added benefit of being a blind spot for everyone involved. No one would even think of the goddess coming down to live as a maid.

It was so far out of the expected that it just wouldn’t occur to them that she could also be Missy.

She cursed, now she was calling herself that dreaded name. Ard enjoyed teasing her far too much.

The conversation of the Hollow Mage wasn’t great for her though. She’d much rather Ard put that unfortunate night in Hidavente behind him.

Truth be told, she was very concerned about him putting the pieces together and realizing she had worked against him that night. Thousands of years of bitterness wasn’t something a mortal could comprehend, nor was the spark of hope that came from him worshiping the idol.

At the moment, she was a mere shadow of her former godliness, but Ard’s soul held the barest sliver of divinity. It was the same sliver she’d given to Zenov all those years ago to give him magic. It radiated her power, and he wasn’t using it anyway. When he prayed, he gave her some of the energy that it put off.

Explaining her logic, that she had wanted to tear down the world but then he found that statue and prayed to her for the first time, was unlikely to sway him. She hadn’t even realized that he had a piece of her old power until that moment had occurred.

It changed everything.

“It is.” Hecate admitted to Gwen, returning to the conversation.

“Then what’s The Hollow Mage?” Gwen’s question hit the point. The woman was far too savvy.

Hecate had more composure than to groan or otherwise make an outward show of her discomfort at the question. “The leader of Garrish uncovered ancient knowledge on soul magic.” It wasn’t a lie, but she wasn’t going to say that she was the source of said knowledge.

Gwen frowned. “Is he the Hollow Mage?”

“I’m not the one who made up such a name. But to answer what you are asking, he’s far more powerful than your standard mage. Stronger than Ard is right now. Martin is the strongest threat against Ard, I can guarantee you that.” She wove between lying.

It appeared to be enough for the woman. “Can you help him survive? What about altering his spheres like you did mine, so he cannot be corrupted?”

Hecate shook her head. “Not necessary.” That sliver couldn’t be corrupted, not unless he willed it so. However, she felt if she told him that, he’d do something stupid.

Well, even more stupid of a move than he naturally would do anyway, she corrected herself.

That attempt at using his soul for magic had startled her even more than his comments about her. Back when she’d given Zenoc magic for the first time, it took him a week to begin using it, even with her guidance.

Ard was a damned natural.

“Then can I order you as my ‘anchor’ to go watch over and protect him?” Gwen’s voice lost its arrogance.

“I’m already interested enough in his survival to do that. However, I believe that trials will only make him stronger.” Hecate still wanted to keep her distance and remain an enigmatic goddess who rewards her loyal followers.

In her experience, becoming another being that walks the land with her followers never ended well. They would take her for granted, lean on her far too much and eventually betray her to that fat titted cow Freya.

She kept the huff inside. Just thinking of the cow made her furious. What she’d done to the mages and then stealing away with most of Hecate’s power had been a betrayal of the highest order. Zenov had given her the key for what? A few measly seeds of magic? She had given him so much more.

Rather than frustrate herself down the path that had led her to thousands of years of destruction, she focused on the way to build herself back up. Mainly, she focused on Ard.

“I see. Know that I will strip House Aldis and Avente of every idol of yours should something happen to him.” Gwen threatened her.

It was actually a decent threat.

Hecate needed that worship to restore herself.

“Fine.” She just waved her hand like she was bored. “I’ll be going.” She faded through the shadows. There were other pieces of the puzzle that needed her attention.

She stepped out into the shadows of a boat on the docks.

The female pirate with curly blonde hair twitched and looked over her shoulder at Hecate’s approach. “Scared me. Didn’t see you coming. Then again, you anchors move like wraiths.”

“How goes the preparations?” Hecate played her role as a servant of the house.

“About ready to set sail. We have enough to crew a good chunk of the boats out there, at least just into the docks. Trick is getting them out of that ice. Then we’ll take those sailors back and head towards the boats that Ard and I identified earlier. Aldis Merchants will have a fleet by the end of the day.” She gave Hecate a toothy grin.

“And you? You’ll be leaving shortly?” Hecate eyed the woman.

Izzy Stormheart scratched at her cheek. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate what Ard’s done for me, but I don’t like to stay in one place for long. My heart’s always pulling me to head out into the sunset and see something else.” The pirate grinned as if imagining her next adventure. “Besides, Ard promised me a boat.”

“You’ll get a boat.” Hecate nodded. “I just wanted to be sure before I gave you this.” A letter appeared in her hand. “When you sail out, if you run into a temple of Aphrodite, I want you to deliver this.”

The pirate snatched up the letter and turned it over in her hand.

Hecate wasn’t worried about her attempting to open it. Unless Aphrodite herself held it, the letter would stay closed.

At present, Hecate’s options were limited. She had no allies among the gods that had decided to descend upon this world.

Yet, there was something better than an ally, the enemy of her enemy.

Among the gods, half wanted in Aphrodite bed, the other half wanted her dead. Which half was which was easy enough to pick out.

“Can do. Though, I don’t work for free.” Izzy winked and held out her hand.

Hecate summoned a small stack of gold coins and slipped it into the pirate’s waiting palm. “They should give you more after reading the letter.” Aphrodite was fairly free with rewards.

What they might be? Hopefully the pirate didn’t mind getting a makeover. The goddess of love did that often.

The pirate bounced the gold coins once before they disappeared somewhere into her outfit. “That I can do.” She checked over her shoulder at the crew. “Well I’ll be…” She turned back and Hecate had already disappeared into the shadows. “Fucking magic.”

Hecate had retreated quickly because there had been a sharp tug on her person. This tug was far to the east.

She knew who it was without question and allowed herself to be drawn across the countries to Martin.

Resisting wasn’t free, and she was still conserving her energy as much as she could.

Instead, she slipped through the shadows arriving deep within Martin’s castle.

“You’ve arrived.” Martin sang with a lopsided smile.

“I thought I made myself clear that we were done.” Hecate’s tone was frigid. She didn’t much appreciate being summoned.

More to the point, Martin seemed even less stable than last time she’d seen him.

“I wanted to show you my creations.” He waved behind him.

When she had first taught Martin, he had been a healer bent on improving the world. Although his view of how that happened was through his own leadership, of course. 

Yet, she recalled this basement when he first took the castle. He had filled it with wounded soldiers, those who had been injured in the service of the previous king and discharged, deemed useless.

Here he had used his magic to restore them, turn them into his most loyal guards by breathing life and vitality into those who’d lost it.

Now?

The place was riddled with cages and smelled like a pig sty. Inhabitants howled in anguish as he experimented on them. He twisted their souls and spheres turning them into monsters.

Martin had been a mage with the serpent sphere, and it was almost like he’d gone from life to death. His own appearance gave the same impression.

He’d lost more weight, troublingly so. He was far more skin than fat, and it hung off of him where his weight had disappeared rapidly.

“Abominations.” Hecate corrected him, glancing at the cages.

“How could they be considered abominations? They are the progress of humanity!” Martin waved his hands. “My best one is out in the field though. I’m marching into Avente.”

“Yet you stay behind.” Hecate was bored with him already. Yet his creation that she’d butchered in Avente had allowed her to create the pendant that Ard used to siphon power to her.

She would entertain Martin long enough to understand what he was working on. At times, humans could be ingenious within their constraints.

And Hecate had many constraints on herself at present.

“Of course I stay behind! If I were to perish, the whole of Garrish would fall with me. No,  what is most important is that I continue my research. My newest and greatest kept his will. He bent himself entirely to me and my process. I’m not sure if he was unique in his mentality or if there was something special about his transformation. Thus, I must repeat the experiments until I’m sure that I can transform myself.”

He paced the laboratory as he ranted, waving his arms around in grandiose gestures.

Of course his final goal was to do this to himself. Why he would want to turn himself into some sort of soul vampire that could go around empowering himself by draining others was beyond Hecate.

The concept was crude, but he could probably become one of the most powerful mortals in the world if he was successful. Whether or not he would be able to keep his sanity was very much the question.

She wasn’t sure how much of that sanity remained at the present moment. His soul had been fragmented and inserted into many people at this point. His mind was quite literally scattered.

He had a far off gaze for a minute, likely operating one of his puppets. Martin started giggling. “So loyal, so powerful. Maybe I do not have to transform myself? Perhaps taking over another is the correct answer.” He had completely forgotten she was there, lost in whatever delusion of grandeur had taken him.

“Why did you summon me, Martin?” Hecate kicked at the runes below her, scuffing them enough that he’d have to start over if he wanted to summon her again.

“To show you. To ask for your guidance in how to refine this. Perhaps ask you to perform the procedure on me?” He rubbed his hands together.

“No.” Hecate scowled. “I believe I mentioned consequences next time you summoned me.”

“Yet they haven’t come yet.” Martin gave her a greasy grin.

With a wave of her hand, she crushed his most recent experiment, sucking its soul into her sleeve and storing it to pick apart later. “Someho—“

“NOOOOO.” Martin screamed and the laboratory shook with power as he called on the magic of all his puppets at once.

Hecate frowned. She did not like the feeling and power he was giving off. He had consolidated many of the souls that he’d infected with his own.

He wasn’t going to become a god, but he was becoming something else.

“Do not summon me again.” Hecate snapped and slipped into the shadows as she felt an overwhelming force try to crush down on her.

When it failed, he tried to use the now broken summoning circle to call her.

She even felt a slight pull with it broken.

“Not good. I don’t have the spare power to resist this all day.” She exited the shadows at her tomb. The place had been sealed to keep her fractured power from leaking.

It also protected her now as he continued to try and summon her.

“Perhaps I should give Ard more aid.” She pulled the soul of Martin’s experiment from her sleeve and tinkered with it. He had half fused the soul with a serpent sphere essentially, feeding the sphere with the souls it drained. The sphere was then corrupting the mage, giving them monstrous strength and speed.

Martin’s problem lay in his inability to control the sphere. It was the seed of a monster that would slowly take root in anyone who had this sort of experiment done to them. At best, they’d be a loyal dog, trainable but increasingly inhuman.

She continued to pick the soul apart, understanding how Martin had connected it to the seed without killing them.

It was so full of violence that it tried to strike her with fangs made from its very soul.

She crushed its fangs and then suppressed the soul’s intelligence until it was no better than a rock. “Dangerous things. They could even harm a god if they caught it properly.” She finished analyzing the soul.

At this point the soul was worthless and she crushed it mercilessly, taking the smallest fraction of her power from it in the process.

All of their magic came from her and she could easily take it back. Only the Zenov’s had enough for her to balance the cost of taking it.

She glanced back off to the west as Ard knelt at her statue. Giggling, she slipped through the shadows once more to go and gloat. Maybe he’d ask for her help and she’d make him beg for it!

***

I knelt at the statue, the very same one that I’d brought with me back from the manticore hunt.

The prayer was a simple one as my mind wandered.

Maribelle knelt next to me.

I’d gone a round in the manor to check on my anchors. Aurelia was making arrangements for her family members. Given the lack of any organization in Faylin as the city rebuilt, it was requiring her full attention today.

Emlyn had been true to her promise and I found her lying face down on my bed with her arms out to the side as if she’d fallen into bed and went straight to sleep.

Zuri had left to the sister city Linfay to do an inventory personally at the request of her father. With the port temporarily out of commission, it was critical that the war efforts had an accurate accounting of supplies coming.

So, I was left to my own devices and had stopped at the little chapel for a quick prayer, mostly to clear my head.

Missy’s presence filled the room. I was finding that I was increasingly sensitive to it.

“Ah. Missy you’re here. I was just checking in with everyone, having a nice stroll around the city? See anything you like?”

The form of the goddess pushed into reality to the side of the chapel on a couch. For whatever reason, I got the impression that she was happy to see me. Or perhaps she’d just gotten away from something unsavory. “You made a statue of me.” She was like a living piece of the night sky. I couldn’t make out any details of her features.

“Hey, it’s a pretty good statue if I’m honest. I bet you are a fantastic dancer.” I stopped praying to the statue and instead faced her directly.

“Flattery will get you everywhere.” Missy seemed amused and more willing to be available at the moment, which seemed for the better.

“That’s the hope. You’ll have to ask Emlyn how it is working.” I chuckled.

Maribelle stayed kneeling and ignored our conversation. She was oddly pious when it came to Missy.

“Sadly, I don’t dance much. No partners over here.” Missy waved towards the sky. “You are heading to war. Is there anything you’d like?”

“Eh?” I scratched my head. “Nope. Mostly just came here out of habit.”

“Nothing?” Missy leaned forward. Even if her body was wreathed in dark magic that I couldn’t see her features, somehow I could see that she had bountiful cleavage. “You don’t want to ask a goddess for anything?”

“Ah, you just gave me that bluesteel collar…” I glanced at Maribelle out of the corner of my eyes.

She flinched at the mention of the collar.

Got you.

“And the ax. That was enough. Besides, I'm going to swing through the capital for formalities.” At this point, I was almost sure she wanted me to ask for something.

She probably had some absurd deal that she wanted to strike with me. She was born a hundred years too late to fool an old hand like me.

Well, not in actuality. It still left an opening for me to play with her.

“Are you sure?” She asked.

“Hmm.” I hummed to myself. “There was one thing.”

“Yes.” She latched onto the small statement like a fish who took the bait. “You certainly need some supplies for your trip.”

“Yeah. So, can you just make me a god?” I asked as casually as I could, checking for dirt under my nails. I wouldn’t want to become the god of dirty nails.

Hecate was quiet for a moment. “What?” She picked out her ear with her finger. “Sorry, say that again?”

“You know, wave that magic hand of yours and turn me into a god.”

Somehow, I knew she was scowling at me.

“It doesn’t work that way and I’m not turning you into a god.” She let out a long suffering sigh. “Be reasonable. What is it that you really want?”

“Okay. Okay.” I held my hands out. “How about you go kill this Hollow Mage for me.”

“No.” Her tone was flat.

“Turn me into a giant wyrm? No, give me the ability to switch between the two.” I continued making unreasonable demands.

“No.” Her tone fell. “How about I give you a book about training your magic?”

“Na.” I waved her offer away. “That’s what Eva is for. I mean, what could you teach me Missy? It’s not like you're the goddess of magic… oh wait.”

She ran a hand along her face. “Why do I even try?”

“Honestly? I have no clue, but you are welcome to continue. I’m having fun. You haven’t offered me anything before. This smells beyond fishy.” I crossed my arms.

“You dug out my statue and have helped restore me. Sorry that I was trying to keep you alive.” She drew out her words like she was rolling her eyes through the whole thing.

“Oh. Then just make me immortal?” I offered.

“I’ve changed my mind. Maybe it’s best that you suffer and die.” She vanished with a pop.

I chuckled and glanced at Maribelle who stood up fluidly after the goddess left.

“Is it best to antagonize her?” Maribelle asked.

“She secretly likes it or she wouldn’t show up to try and get the best of me with some vague offer.” I smiled at the statue and patted the little goddess on the head. “There there. One of these days you might win.”

There was a silent scream in my mind.

Oh well. I really had what I needed. It was time to go pen some letters and send them out before dinner.

Next time, I decided I was going to tease her about how she hid her form. Maybe I could rile her up enough to get her to show her true self.