Chapter 42: Second World
Tanya’s hand closed hard on Cheering’s shoulder as her fingers dug in just enough to pull his attention away from the fight.
"Do you have it?" she asked.
Cheering did not look at her right away. His eyes stayed fixed on Baal. The demon stood across the broken ground facing a woman Cheering had never seen before.
But...
She carried the same heavy presence that clung to Baal, the same faint thread of Amon’s essence that still lived inside both of them, inside him. It was like looking at two pieces cut from the same source and set against each other.
Cheering nodded once.
Tanya’s grip tightened. "Then we go. Now!"
He almost refused right away. Every part of him wanted to stay and help Baal, maybe it was something because of Amon’s essence, maybe it was something else.
The fight looked uneven already, and the woman across from Baal moved with the calm of someone who had done this many times. In many ways, he should have been helping him.
But Amon’s last message had been clear. The key came first. Everything else came second.
Cheering turned to Tanya and the other demigods and followed right away, leaving Baal behind.
Tanya moved fast. Two other demigods kept pace with her, one carrying a short spear, the other surveying the edges of the ruined courtyard.
There was no time to speak, only action.
They ran through side passages and low walls that still stood after the earlier battle. Cheering kept the key pressed against his side under his coat. It felt heavier than it should have.
Halfway down a cracked stairwell he stopped.
"Wait..."
Tanya turned. "What now?"
"One key isn’t enough. There are two more."
She stared at him. "You only said you had the key."
"I do. But Baal has the others." Cheering looked back the way they had come. The sounds of the fight still reached them, metal on stone, the wet snap of something breaking.
"I need to take it."
Tanya’s jaw tightened, but she did not argue. Instead, she ordered everyone to wait. Cheering cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted once, loud enough to carry.
"Baaaaaaaaal!"
For a moment there was only the noise of the fight. Then Baal’s voice came back, steady and almost amused.
"I know! Keep moving. Everything is going according to his plan."
Cheering hesitated only a moment longer, then turned and ran after Tanya and the others.
Behind them, Liliana’s face changed.
She had heard every word. The calm she had worn since the fight began cracked open into something sharp and furious.
"What did you mean by that?" she demanded. "What do you mean by his plan?"
Baal only smiled.
He watched Cheering and the demigods disappear down the stairwell, and the smile grew wider.
That had been the whole point of Amon’s order. Get the boy clear with the first key. Everything else was secondary.
Liliana’s voice rose. "Answer me!"
Baal still did not answer. He raised one hand, ready to call the demons that circled the edges of the courtyard. Before the first of them could reach him, green and yellow vines erupted from the ground and the broken walls.
They came from every direction at once, thick, barbed, moving faster than ordinary plants ever should. Several of them punched straight through Baal’s side and shoulder. Others wrapped his legs and arms, pinning him in place.
"Ohhh, missy is not alone..." he muttered.
Figures stepped out from the shadows of the ruined buildings.
Young women in dark robes, each one carrying the same green and yellow power that now held Baal. Witches, students of the first ever witch.
Some of them already had Baal’s demons under control, vines wrapped around the smaller creatures, holding them still while the witches chanted under their breath.
"You think this is enough? You bitches can’t do shit!"
Baal tried to pull free but the vines only tightened. One of them drove deeper into his chest.
"Aaarrrr!" he growled in pain. He coughed once, black blood hitting the stone, and stopped struggling, knowing full well it was done and over.
Liliana walked closer. She reached into the air near Baal’s belt and pulled out the two remaining keys. They glowed faintly in her hand, the same dull light Cheering’s key had shown earlier.
"Hahaha! There is no plan. He is locked with me forever." She laughed. "So this is what Amon trusted a demon with." She held the keys up so the students could see them.
"He sent you here with these, and you let the boy walk away with the first one. How long did you think this would last?"
"Haha..." he laughed.
"Hahahahah!"
Baal laughed too. The sound was rough and wet, but it was still a laugh, like he was trying to compete with the mother of witches herself.
With every breath, the two keys in Liliana’s hand began to crack. Thin lines ran through the crystal surfaces and pieces flaked away and turned to dust before they hit the ground.
Liliana’s laughter cut off as she stared at the crumbling keys, then turned her gaze gradually to Baal.
"They were never real," he said. "They were never fucking real!" His voice was louder now, but clear. "Amon never left the real ones with me! You bitch!"
Liliana’s face went flat. She raised one hand. A single thick vine shot forward and drove straight through Baal’s throat.
He jerked once and the light in his eyes went out. The body sagged against the vines that still held it, then hung there without moving.
Liliana let the fake keys fall as they hit the stone and finished breaking apart into nothing.
She stood still for several seconds, breathing hard.
"Haaaa..."
Then she turned to the students who waited in a loose half-circle around the courtyard.
"I will ask this once..." she said, her soft voice trying to calm the boiling rage inside.
"Will you follow your master one more time?"
There was no hesitation. They all bowed as a group, voices overlapping.
"Yes, Mother!"
Liliana nodded once. "Then we go to the Second World. And wreck his so-called plan."
The witches closed ranks around her. Green and yellow and purple light gathered under their feet.
The courtyard stones cracked wider as the power built. In another moment the whole group vanished into a column of vines and light that punched upward and then disappeared.
Claude felt something in his coat. He still did not understand how it had gotten there, but he could feel it. It was indeed there.
Amon had already explained what they were for and where they needed to go. Claude did not question that part. He only questioned the man walking beside him now.
The man wore a plain dark hood that hid most of his face.
Claude kept pace. "You’re really going to take me to the Second World?"
The hooded man nodded. "It is already decided."
"What are you?" Claude asked. "You really don’t feel like the others. Like Liliana, like me..."
The man was quiet for a few steps. Then he answered in a voice that sounded older than the body that carried it.
"I am just another cursed man, the same as you. The difference is that I was given the heaviest mind amongst all of you. I see the lines where fate crosses itself.
You can call me the Oracle if that makes it simpler. And I know what you carry in your pocket."
Claude looked at him for a long moment, then looked away. He did not ask anything else. He took it out: two crystal keys, which Amon had somehow passed to him.
Cheering, Tanya, and the two demigods reached the edge of the old city just as the last light of the day began to fade.
Ahead of them, the ground rose into a wide stone platform that had not been there the day before. At the center of the platform stood a pair of tall gates made of black metal and pale crystal.
No one had touched them. No one needed to. The moment Amon was gone, the seals that had kept the Second World closed had died with him.
"It’s really open, then what you said was indeed true, Cheering." Tanya muttered.
She slowed as they approached. The spear-carrier and the lookout demigod took positions on either side of her without being told.
"This is it. Fulfill your prophecy, Cheering. There is a reason you are now bathed in gold."
Cheering stopped a few paces behind them. He could feel the key under his coat reacting to the gates.
The air beyond the gates looked different from the air on this side. It was thicker, darker at the edges, carrying a pressure that made the skin on his arms tighten.
Tanya spoke without turning. "Once we step through, there is no easy way back, everyone. You all understand that."
"Yes!" the demigods replied.
"And the other two keys?"
"Another disciple has them," Cheering said, trusting the word of Baal. "He’s already on his way."
Tanya accepted that with a short nod. She looked at the other two demigods. Both of them met her eyes and gave the same small signal, ready.
"Let’s go then. Our family awaits."