A Charter Mage Scorned...
Chapter ten: "Mana's a demon!"
Later that night... (Normal POV)
"Here you go." said Mana, throwing a pillow to Kisara, who caught it and put it down on the spare mattress that Mana had given her. She sat down on it and listened to Mana complain about the complexity of the magic Mahado was trying to teach her.
She had to laugh.
Some of the results of the spells that went awry were hilarious. Especially the time when Mana had accidentally hexed Priest Karim, who, in delusion, had got on the wrong side of High Priestess Isis. She had punched him on the nose, and because of the hex, he made no attempt to block it, and just stood there while she almost broke his nose. Poor Karim. Seth and Mahado, who had both been in attendance, had laughed their heads off, and they would never let him live it down. Odd comments such as; 'How's the nose?' and '...air deprivation' were common, and Seth and Mahado loved to milk it for all it was worth. Karim, however, was not so amused, and even blushed when it was mentioned. From embarrassment, surely, for it was one of the worst humiliations a man could suffer, and also, as Mana had whispered in Kisara's ear, Karim had a fancy for Isis. Kisara was unsure whether to believe this or not, as it was just Mana's personal depiction, but Mana was adament. Kisara opened her mouth to say something in return, but stopped the sound from coming out as a strange sound met her ears. Mana looked up, hearing it too. It sounded like a cow-bell, and a voice could be heard from somewhere near it. Both girls ran up to the top landing - where the High Priests' and the Pharaoh's chambers were.
"Aahh-salem-sala-mundo! Aahh-ma-damasal-mundo!" came a funny cry. Mana and Kisara looked along the corridor to see pitch blackness, and jumped back when they saw a light being lit, first in Seth's chamber, and not long after, Isis'. After a few minutes, both High Priests walked out of their rooms, half dressed, and wiping their weary eyes. Isis looked positively done in, whereas Seth, who possibly didn't suffer such fatigue due to his youth, didn't look quite so tired. Isis was wearing her normal dress with her shawl-thing, but she had no headdress or bracelets and the Millennium Tauk was nowhere to be seen. He straight black hair gleamed in the dim light and she tied it in a loose knot to keep it off her face. Seth was wearing his blue tunic and white pantaloons and shoes, but his headdress had been abandoned, revealing straight, chestnut hair which fell around his eyes and looked ever so slightly dishevelled. His blue and gold chestplate was also gone, and he couldn't be asked to fasten the few buttons at the top of his tunic, so it fell open, baring a glimpse of his well-muscled chest...
Kisara was glad that it was reasonably dark, because she could feel her cheeks turning scarlet again.
All of them looked up towards the stairway that led to the roof, and, moreover, who descended it.
The short figure of Pharaoh Atem was seen walking slowly down the stairs, cow-bell in one hand, inscense in the other. Atem was short - only 5ft - had a good figure, and a handsome face, but, Kisara found herself thinking, none of these features seemed to be as perfect as Seth's, and Seth was obviously more physically developed and easily twice as strong. Kisara shook her head as she felt the blush return. She thought, as did they all, that Atem would stop when he got to them. He didn't. As he walked past them, a curt 'hello' was all they received. Seth looked at him as if he was going to murder him, and followed him. He shot a jinx at the Pharaoh, but he was already around the corner, and it died as it his the wall. Seth picked up his own pace a bit, and the others followed him.
"Atem! ATEM!" he shouted after his cousin.
"What? What? What!"
"You're polluting the place what is that crap!" (A/N: I know this is a scene from Charmed but it's one of my favs & I had to put it in, slightly altered of course lol.)
"The strongest purification I could find." he replied, wafting the inscense around in the air, "I am cleansing the palace."
"In the middle of the night?" Isis lamented.
"And the fact that you can't yet get into the Book of Shadows doesn't dampen your spirits does it?" Seth asked maliciously. Atem scowled. The Book of Shadows was weird, evil couldn't touch it, and inexperienced sorcerers couldn't read it's contents. Unfortunately, Atem came under the catagory of 'inexperienced', and the Book would not reveal itself to him, whenever he looked at it the pages were completely blank. What was worse, was that Seth had been able to read it since he was thirteen. At nearly eighteen, he still saw nothing on the pages.
"Well, this had better work, because this residual evil is taking on a life of it's own. Look!" he said hurriedly, holding up his wrist to show an golden armband, "When I woke up, I was wearing this I was not wearing it when I went to bed!"
"I'll vanquish it in the morning Atem." he said,
"I am sick of it! This place needs some serious Feng Shui-ing!" Atem said, waving the incense around, making Seth wrinkle his nose in disgust at the smell.
"Give me that!" said Seth, seizing the incense and cowbell from Atem, holding it above his head to relieve them of the reek.
"As the Elders said they're just pests, and it'll go away... by... itself..." said Isis, trailing away as a plant pot floated in front of them. Things began to vibrate and jump off tables and a haunting voice echoed throughout the passage. Various items smashed, and Atem suddenly gasped and yelped as a spirit-thing grabbed him from behind and hoisted him into the air. Seth's eyes widened and he raised an eyebrow as the thing carried Atem to the high ceiling.
"Atem!" Seth and Mana said in unison. Isis gestured for Seth to give the incense and cowbell to her,
"Seth blow it up!" she said, not taking her eyes off the floating Pharaoh and poltergeist-thing. Seth flicked his wrists, and Mana and Kisara jumped as the sound of smashing wood and stone hit their ears.
"Whoa..." said Atem. Seth's attack had very nearly hit him, as the poltergeist was behind him. Dust and bits of brick fell about them, and Seth fired again, another narrow miss. Atem looked around, scared stiff, at the hole Seth had blown in the ceiling as more brick fell on him.
"Lightning, poltergeists don't like lightning..." Seth muttered under his breath, and numerous lighning bolts shot from his hands, hitting the poltergeist, but unluckily, Atem was on the receiving end too. To Seth, it had been a petty hit, Atem, however, thought differently. Both he and the poltergeist screamed as it surged through them, and the poltergeist swayed and disappeared into the wall, Atem, of course, hitting the wall, and fell to the ground.
"Oh..." exclaimed Isis, as Atem sat up, feeling like his body was on fire,
"You were saying?" he said in annoyance, as Seth and Isis looked somewhat guilty.
"Are you alright?" asked Mana through gritted teeth.
"No! I feel like I've been struck by lightning!" he moaned.
"Well, you kinda have..." said Mana, taking Atem's scowl as a signal to shut up.
"Well, I can get up at least." he said, standing. "Ugh... Or down..." he said, putting his hand to his eyes, and falling down again.
"It's the shock, it's speeded up his mind and the signals from it are going too quickly for his body to initially respond. He needs to sleep and wait for the effects of it to wear off." said Seth to Isis, who nodded in a business-like way.
"You think?" said Atem,
"Would you rather still be hovering up there? Because I can put you back up there quite easily." said Seth impatiently. Atem shook his head quickly, and Seth nodded, which was supposed to mean; 'well then?'
"Fine, I'll do a purification now." Seth grumbled, "Take him back to his chamber." he said to Isis, who whispered a spell, which picked Atem up and he floated back to his room, this time under Isis' dictation.
"Mana, Kisara, go with Seth and help him." Isis instructed, "I will be with you shortly." They nodded, and took off down the corridor to the Potion Pantry at a jog to keep up with Seth.
"Right, we need some dragonroot, sage, thyme, black poppy, some cadion I think, snakeskin, mandrake root, aaaand some meadow fescue." said Seth confidently, as he filled the cauldron with water and snapped his fingers briskly, making flames materialise from the long-cold stakes underneath it. Mana went to the shelves and gathered various pots, whereas Seth went to the other side of the room and picked jars up from the other side. Kisara saw the book on the lecturn,
"Do you need the Book your Majesty?" she asked politely. He shook his head in decline.
"No, I know the the stuff. Manifestations..." he said. Mana puffed out her cheeks in acceptance, with a miniscule doubt that he did, and Kisara shrugged her shoulders. However, as he began to put things into the cauldron, she stood corrected.
"How can you be so sure it wasn't a poltergeist. It certainly didn't like getting zapped, that's for sure." said Mana.
"Yes, but poltergeists are spirits, this was a manifestation."
"Of what? Barbez' evil energy?"
"Not just Barbez, but every bit of evil we've vanquished here. It seems to be collecting into some kind of being."
"Okaaay." she said uncertainly.
"Mana, can you prepare some of that mandrake root for me? Slice the root and roll it in the black poppy seed." he asked, not taking his eyes from the contents of the cauldron. Mana picked up a small bronze knife, and began to slice the mandrake root. Seth looked up for a second, and walked over to Mana.
"When you slice, make sure the meat is visible because it won't work with the other ingredients otherwise. Use the knife at an angle so the surface area is increased when you cut. And don't roll it in the poppy seed too heavily, lightly, we aren't trying to inverse the place." he said, smiling slightly.
"How do you know all this?" asked Mana,
"I had to study the Book." he said simply.
"Sounds frightning to me."
"When you've studied the Book of the Dead, then you can tell me that."
"The Book of the what?"
"Nevermind."
As Abhorsen, he has to study the necromantic Arts." said Kisara. Seth looked impressed, and Mana grinned at Kisara's newfound boldness.
"That is correct. How did you know that? No one knows that."
"The Abhorsen is the only sorcerer who can combine Charter Magic with Free Magic, so it does to have sufficient control and knowledge of both."
"That's a lot of magic!" exclaimed Mana, nearly dropping her mandrake root.
"What powers do you have Mana, I forgot to ask you." said Kisara.
"Telekinesis, Levitation, and Thought Projection - but that's very weak."
"Have you gone Obstructive Telekinesis yet?" asked Seth,
"No! I can barely lift a person by Telekinesis let alone throw one back!"
"I see."
"What are your powers your Majesty... I mean, if you weren't the Abhorsen, what would you have?" asked Kisara.
"Temporal Manipulation is my signiture power, I also have Electrokinesis (A/N: Energy balls are included in Electrokinesis), Electro-Mental Ignition (A/N: electrically shocking someones' subconscious mind. Always fatal), Orbing, Healing, Shapeshifting, Reconstitution, Cryokinesis (A/N: Being able to create and manipulate the cold), Pyrokinesis, and Clairvoyance."
"Wow..." said Mana, "...That's a very long list."
"Your Maj..." Kisara began,
"And call me Seth." he said, "Not your Majesty, not Abhorsen. Just Seth. Just because I'm the High Priest doesn't mean that I don't in fact have a name."
"...Seth..." she said nervously, "You're a whitelighter aren't you?" 'A very handsome whitelighter' echoed through her mind.
"I am."
"Then how do you have the powers of Temporal Manipulation and Pyrokinesis and Cryokinesis and Clairvoyance? They're witch powers" she waffled. He threw an ingredient into the cauldron and stirred it, as if he were coaxing the purple vapour that the potion gave off to the air.
"I'm half witch, half whitelighter." he said finally, looking at both girls.
"But... but, ...that's forbidden isn't it?" asked Mana, jaw dropping with this newfound information.
"It is." he said. Whitelighters were forbidden to have any kind of relationship with their charges that came under any other catagory than 'friendship'. The Elders worried that the offspring of the two types of good magic; the good-hearted, angels (A/N: literally) that were whitelighters, who could orb, heal, and reconstitute; and the fiery, ardent-tempered, dangerous-prerogative witches, whose powers could vary from Empathy to Temporal Manipulation; would result in person who for one, didn't lie in either catagory, and would also be more powerful than them.
"The Elders are still trying to get me to abdicate from magic completely."
"You're the Abhorsen. They can't do that!" said Mana.
"They are failing, although not for lack of trying."
"Anyway, you're the reason they are still Up There."
"Agreed, I don't see them wielding swords and bells and banishing Dead things. 'Passive and non-violent', they're supposed to be. Pathetic and volatile, strikes nearer."
"You know, as the overseers of good magic, they seem very callous."
"They don't want things to change. They don't like anything that they can't control. They take it out on Charter Mages and often the Power of Three. I told them once that they should take it out on the necromancers and demons... They stilled their tongues then."
Flashback
A slightly younger Seth stood in front of the lecturn, his eyes scouring the Book of Shadows. As he turned the somewhat yellow page, an Elder orbed in a few feet in front of him. He looked up in scorn, but the Elder kept an face that was expressionless as the white robes he wore.
"What do you want now?" he asked disdainfully.
"To question you." he replied, still expressionless.
"Why would that be then?"
"We are…" he said, struggling to find a subtle way to put it, "...concerned. About you."
"Since when have the Elders ever been concerned in me?"
"Since your powers started escalating out of your control."
"Excuse me?" he said, his voice lowered several tones.
"It is our verdict that your magic is becoming… on too greater scale."
"And?"
"This troubles us…"
"What? That I might… possibly… be more powerful than you?" he exaggerated the 'possibly', his voice dripped with sarcasm.
"No, we…" he said, but Seth interrupted again,
"Well that's tough. I have no control over my destiny."
"That's just it."
"What?"
he asked, this time in genuine surprise.
"You have no destiny!" he said, showing signs of concealed distress. Seth fell silent in shock and disgust.
"You were never even supposed to exist! Let alone grow up into what you are!"
"A Charter Mage?" he said eloquently, "The Abhorsen?" The Elder looked stern, although Seth could tell that uneasiness was simmering, nearer the surface than he would have liked. He shuffled slightly, but never took his gaze from the Charter Mage.
"Whitelighters are…"
"Not permitted to have relationships with their charges. I know that. But it happened alright and I was not around to stop it! So much for the great Elders! The overseers of good magic! What did you do? You broke my father, driving him to darkness and all but killed my mother! And you come to me now telling me that I am not supposed to exist! If you think you can demoralise me for being stronger than your petty, passive, 'philanthropistic' power, then you are sadly mistaken! Do you question me still! If so, I suggest YOU confront the demons, and the necromancers, and the Dead, and on my life, you'd not last a day!" he hollered, his anger boiling and simmering to the surface.
"Seth..."
"Get out." he snarled, "Out of my sight!" he raised his fists to blow the Elder up, but he orbed out, and he never got a good shot. He cursed himself and let his on hand fall onto the Book, thudding on the page. The other fell to his side and hit his thigh.
End Flashback
"Rest assured come the day they will spit on my grave. But until then I shall continue to scorn them." he said, "Right, this is almost done." he took on a fresher tone, scooping the mandrake root into the cauldron and standing back from the marigold wisp that followed.
"Essences of Yin and Yang;
Repeal this Spectre's Evils' sang,
Loose the ties that here doth bind,
Evil for Life that hither hath pined."
"Good rhyme." said Mana, nodding her head in approval.
"Now all we have to do is find the damn thing." said Seth.
"How do we do that?" asked Kisara.
"Well spirits are attracted to other spirits, so I can Astral Project, and it should come. Take the potion, and throw it at the ground below it when it comes, and be quick."
"Yes your High Priest-ness." said Mana, who seemed to have taken on a new state of hyperness.
"Did I mention that she occasionally goes hyper?" he said to Kisara, who looked wide-eyed to her friend, who was now giggling uncontrollably. He nodded they took a moment to watch her sides split with the giggles.
"Please don't leave me here with her." she said,
"I'm not going to find it, it's coming to find me. You'll have to throw the potion." he said, sitting down in a chair and getting comfortable. He closed his eyes, and his head lolled forward. His transparent soul-form appeared standing next to it. Kisara took the potion phial forceably from Mana's hand, who had fallen to the floor, and was apparently choking. Kisara kicked her on the side, and looked around from the thing. The door blew shut and a wind began to circulate. The figureless thing pulled itself from a wall on the opposite side of the pantry, and Kisara threw the phial. It smashed and the potion turned to a red gas, engulfing the thing. It screamed like it had done when Seth had shocked it, and exploded, a dark blue light erupting from it's centre. As it burst into little smitherines, the blue light grew, and flew into Mana, fading into nothing, and she suddenly stopped giggling and cocked her head to the side daftly, the new silence almost hurting their ears. She jumped up, and jumped up and down in the air twice. Seth and Kisara raised their eyebrows. She looked excited and even more hyper.
Worryingly so.
"Mana, are you okay?" Kisara asked, tilting herself to the side as if she might offend her and be attacked. Mana cocked her head to the side and then straight again, neck rigid.
"I'm fine." she said robotically, looking guiltily to her right.
"She's not fine." Seth whispered. Mana giggled evilly and grinned with equal malevolence. Then, without any indication whatsoever, she shimmered out and reappeared on the other side of the room. Seth's eyes widened.
"Oh. No." he said, pausing after the 'oh'.
"What?"
"Well, if the thing was a manifestation, then it was a collection of vanquished leftovers, but to come to life, it must have had some kind of power - the powers of the demons that were vanquished..."
"And..."
"Powers are tied to the soul. These powers couldn't be tied to the soul because it was fragments of different souls, so when we vanquished the thing, the powers it had couldn't go with the fragmented souls, so it had to find another vessel..."
"So Mana..."
"Now has demonic powers. Powers she isn't supposed to have."
"What do we do?" said Kisara, nervously eyeing Mana, who had started shimmering all over the room.
"We get it out of her!" said Seth, stepping to the Book and flicking through the pages with a newfound urgency.
"Hehehehehehehe..." laughed Mana, cocking her head to the side intimidatingly again.
"Okay..." said Kisara, nodding and trying very hard to take this in, "...Okay... so... Mana's a demon?"
"No, she's Mana with the wrong powers. I wouldn't entrust any destructive powers to Mana, let alone demonic ones!"
"Mana?" said Kisara, careful not to go too close,
"Who are you?" she asked bouncily.
"Kisara? Remember?"
"Are you good?"
"Yes, and so are you." she answered. Mana scowled.
"Ah, that's what I'm looking for." Seth said, and he walked next door to where the darker ingredients and potions were kept. Kisara walked to the doorway, but no further, so as to keep an eye on Mana, who just stood in the middle of the room like a very naughty child who was eagerly waiting to be told off, hands behind her back 'evilly innocently' and looked around at the ceilings, as if she were concucting evil schemes and desperately trying to hide it.
"What are you doing?" she said, as he lifted the lid of a box and started rummaging through the contents.
"Looking for something." he said, not turning his attention from the box. After he dug through what seemed to be most of it, he pulled out a dagger-like thing, and shut the lid of the box again.
"What's that?"
"It's a power-draining athemé... Oh it will only drain the demonic powers of course."
"What exactly do we do with it?"
"Stab her."
"WHAT!"
"I can heal her."
"Okay..." she said, still not too comfortable about Seth's plan. He walked back through from the darker ajoinment slapping the sharp silver blade of the athemé against the palm of his hand. Mana suddenly stared at him.
"You're the Abhorsen!" she said, dumbstruck, doing the head-thing.
"Yes. Mana, you know I'm the Abhorsen."
"Hehe! The Abhorsen with an athemé! What alliteration! Abhorsen can I kill someone?"
"NO!" they both yelled, Seth particularly surprised that she had called him 'Abhorsen'. What was more worrying was that it had sounded genuine, she wasn't mocking or scorning him. Mana never, but never called him 'Abhorsen', always 'Seth', or 'your Majesty', if others were in attendance, especially Mahado, who always reprimanded her for calling Seth and Atem by their first names.
"Pleeeaaaaaaaassssssseeeee! Please can I kill someone, I have to kill someone! Who can I kill!"
"Mana..."
"You're good, I can kill you!" she said, throwing an energy ball at his stomach, which missed, and brought the shelves behind him to the floor. She punched Kisara hard on the back of the shoulder, and Seth threw the athemé, and it struck her in the shoulder. She screamed and collapsed pretty much all in one go. He yanked the athemé out and bright red blood leaked out onto the floor, making Kisara squint sqeamishly. Seth held his hands over the wound and it disappeared in the golden healing glow. She woke up with a jolt and a gasp.
"I just had the weirdest dream..." she said, cradling the back of her neck, "I dreamt that I had demonic powers, and I tried to kill you."
"Well the bit about the demonic powers and the inept attempt to kill me was true. Where'd you get the dream from?" said Seth. She groaned,
"I really tried to kill you?" she asked, now come back down from her hyper streak.
"...Yup." he said bluntly, "But it was the powers talking."
"Amun Ra I'm so sorry!"
"Don't be, demons and various things try to kill me every quarter-moon. Just don't do it again." he said more sternly. She nodded nervously and got to her feet.
"Get some sleep now. Room." said Seth, waving his hand, orbing Mana out and back to her bedroom. He began to orb the phials back to the shelves, with Kisara helping him. Soon he gave her the task of separating the ingredients, save a few phials for future use, and putting them back onto the shelves. She sat down, and began to separate and filter the potion, putting the ingrediants back into the phials. This was tiring work however, and after she finished, and the cauldron lay empty, she collapsed forward, and fell asleep there in the Potion Pantry.