Shape of Things to come

Shape of Things to Come

Part 3:Seeds of Time

Chapter 40

‘All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts'
...William Shakespeare. As You Like It

Not so long after the second fight between witches and his demons at the San Francisco university, the still new demon Briareos sat on his throne in his empty lair once again contemplating his situation. He slouched low on his throne, his expression bitter and peevish, despite having many reasons to be satisfied with recent events. He was certainly, in terms of power and influence, some distance from the pain and agony of his time in the pits of hell.

He now resided in spacious comfortable residence in a private part of the underworld. One that was complete with public spaces that were in everything but name a throne room, and where he was served by obsequious underlings of his recent lost allies that he had claimed as his own. His personal powers now included the most obvious of the upper-level demons. He shimmered with a blithering red light. He could throw lightning flashes from his hands although despite his accolades the Source Tempus had not passed on some of the powers that Briareos still craved, including summoning and sensing, leaving the new demon angry and frustrated. Not even Evil applauding him after the almighty disturbance in the spirit winds when a fracture had formed in the Power of Three of the Warren line took away his bitter sense of being denied that which he craved.

Nothing eased Briareos’ cravings. Not even the Source recording the San Francisco battles in the demonic Book of Deeds as a great victory. Not even the upper-level demonic hierarchy speaking Briareos name with respect or at least the pretence of it. Not even the fact that Briareos no longer sought allies amongst the fallen and out of favour sects eased the new demon’s pain. The only thing that helped was the promise of future gains as the great demons and representatives of their factions queued to walk beside him when he graced the throne room of the Source, when large numbers of the ambitious creatures of Evil, grovelled to gain even minute acknowledgement from Briareos after he opened his own realms to what he called the riff raff of demondom. There was some fleeting satisfaction that Briareos no longer had to count his followers or be careful of losing them. Tempus’ ceding of the darklighters to him had ensured his empire by numbers at least was mighty.

However, to his dissatisfaction the acquisition of these warrior sects did come at the cost of the alliance Briareos had been ardently pursuing with the Perenimat. These were possessor demons that Briareos believed he needed to control the souls of institutional administrators, because he feared for his power if the Brotherhood were left to do this. Briareos considered these active demons a far more useful ally than the teeming darklighters, whose only form of alliance was to themselves and who were now openly and resentfully blaming Briareos for their losses. However, after observing the fate of the Renoves and the Agures, the Perenimat declined to continue talks of an alliance, to Briareos great annoyance and the Brotherhood allies’ pleasure, because Perenimat were another of their mortal enemies. The loss of an ally who could stem the Brotherhood’s stealthy and invasive claims on his growing powers, frightened Briareos as only those who had experienced the full thrust of Evil could fear.

Therefore, despite all his gains, the demon Briareos was neither satisfied nor sated by his progression to power in the demonic world. At the heart of his depression, the new demon, who in his mortal life had wielded unlimited power, recognised that the kudos he received was not truly deserved, and the respect that was being given him was only a reflection of the Source Tempus creating it for his own ends.

Briareos had made his legend as the most evil and powerful pope of the medieval world in his mortal life and one of the reasons for this was because he knew the difference between hollow victories and substantial ones. Briareos knew that his recent ‘great’ victories in the scale of Evil were neither spectacular nor a resounding successes given the number of his demons and minions that were lost compared to the gains he made. From his mortal role as the most evil pope to rule the Christian empire, Briareos understood the consequences when hollow accolades collapsed as they inevitably did. These consequences always included the humiliation and annihilation of the purveyor of these false victories, leaving Briareos constantly followed by a cloud of fear.

To his, extreme dissatisfaction, Good was holding its ground, and certainly not falling into chaos and self- annihilation. As he planned. Depressingly for Briareos, witches in India were holding against the onslaught of his demon allies better than had been anticipated and the retaliation and panic Briareos had hoped to initiate amongst them were far less than he needed. Even worse, the Indian riots had barely been recorded on major world news programs, just showing up as filler on background programs. In Britain the riots and social changes were recorded but they were really just a small adjunct of the many changes that were occurring in that country, seen by one side as just another example of decay and by the other as evidence that the wrong people were having to loud a voice.

Whilst Briareos plans to gain power through exposing magic and Good, and using Evil influence to destroy Good, starting in educational institutions were advancing slowly, it was too slowly. Having the whitelighter war thrust upon him slowed it down even further. The conflict between darklighters and whitelighters had taken Briareos by surprise and for one such as he, it was a foreign feeling. Briareos contemplating the results of his deeds, and not a fool when it came to his own ambitions, understood what Tempus was doing in ridding himself of the redundant darklighters, sniffers and trackers. Courtesy of Brotherhood infiltrators in Tempus court, Briareos had just discovered that Tempus as his Evil had grown in the last few years had almost achieved the development of a more satisfactory and manageable breed of what he hoped were unassailable warriors. Therefore, the Source needed to cause darklighter annihilation and he needed to do this without turning sect leaders who controlled useful addendums to darklighters such as shakers against him.

Almost from the beginning of his first alliance with darklighters, Briareos had discovered there were extreme disadvantages to any association with their sects. They fought amongst themselves, convincing them to follow Tempus order to sacrifice themselves, was a battle of monumental proportions always accompanied by the danger the darklighters would turn on those giving the orders, including him. Most importantly it was also clear to Briareos that whilst the siege the darklighter and their minions maintained on the realms of orbing creatures was effective in containing large numbers of Good in their lairs which helped Tempus, it was not effective in gaining Briareos more power.

Briareos, the most cunning political leader of his age, and indeed many ages quickly recognised that Tempus was using him for his own ends. The new demon understood that when those ends were achieved, then Tempus would not hesitate to get rid of him. Therefore, Briareos also knew that getting rid of Tempus was no longer just an aim, the time would come, far quicker than he imagined, that getting rid of Tempus would become a necessity to his own survival. But the only way to do it was to create his own empire, with his own totally loyal and fearful minions, and whilst he now had minions aplenty, he was highly dubious that any of them were completely fearful or loyal.

Just as bad, the first initial successes of the darklighter blockades were fading. Because only a few orbers were roaming the earthen realms at will, and evil was hearing rumours that those ones that did had magic protection, darklighter hits on Good were becoming rarer. Therefore, at Elisheeva’s suggestion or perhaps command, Briareos sent darklighters to their semi-tradition role of guarding the entrances and exits to the streams and eddies used by the minions of Good in the spirit winds. While this blockade was relatively effective, because Briareos was never adverse to sacrificing large numbers of adherents to gain any advantage, his minions were reporting that more and more very clever orbers were finding ways to circumvent the blockade by using magic that hid their orbs when they materialised and using eddies that originated in parts of their realms unreachable by Evil.

Even worse for Briareos, he knew that Tempus was not the only creature manipulating him. To gain ascendency over new darklighter allies he had had to rely on his Brotherhood allies, in particular the beautiful demon Elisheeva whose Evil was well and truly on the ascendency. He realised that the Brotherhood and Elisheeva were determined to disallow him any influence on the management of their grunts and minions and even though he had claimed his full share of the Evil and powers he and the Brotherhood won in their alliance, soon Briareos knew more battles were certain to occur.

Sitting alone on his throne in morose introversion, Briareos concluded that like many kings and leaders before him, he was in danger of becoming subject, even victim, to powers behind his throne. These creatures which gathered great power, while professing to humbly serve their nominal ruler. Briareos knew exactly who was responsible. However, Pope Innocent IX had extracted victory from such situations and reckoned he could do it again.

Nevertheless, the new demon Briareos contemplating the success of his ventures was a far from a satisfied demon. A dissatisfied demon was an unsated demon, and an unsated demon was in agony.

As he sat alone on his throne, pondering why he was still subject to Tempus’ whims and the misery this was causing him, the new demon Briareos was bought out of his reverie by the sound of a shimmer. Not hiding his disgust, he watched the Brotherhood demon Elisheeva materialise before him, gloriously sexy in her human form, wearing a long black robe that revealed everything she wanted revealed and hid everything she wanted hidden. It was clear from the expression on his face that Briareos was, by now, well immune to her sexuality, and from the expression on hers, she knew it and hated him for it, as he hated her.

Elisheeva, using her knowledge of Brotherhood traditional Sources of gaining Evil and power was, to Briareos fury and almost despair, having great success managing the minions and grunts the new demon had sent to infiltrate human educational, legal and government institutions and merge them into the Brotherhood fiefdom. A demon of her times she understood many of these institutions represented the present equivalent of the courts and judges of medieval witch wars which were responsible for the heresy accusations of the early part of the last Source’s reign. Elisheeva had found a way to use these institutions to metaphorically burn anyone in her way as a heretic, by destroying careers, livelihoods, and reputations while her victims were forced to suffer on the pillory of social media. An impressive succession of academics and leaders in British universities were being publicly shamed, dismissed and had their lifeworks diminished or overturned by false assumptions. All attributable to Elisheeva. The success of her plans was spilling into some American East Coast Institutions as well. In these universities, a long list of voices with alternate views were dismissed, overruled and declared heretics to popular opinions. They were unable to protest their treatment because the Brotherhood in their infiltrations over the last decade had ensured that such voices were no longer protected by the concept of tenure or if they were, the protections were so diminished that highly accredited academics were forced to sell their souls to the dictates of the demon inspired and controlled grunts and Powers that Be to remain relevant.

From her lackies in Tempus’ court, Elisheeva knew that, to Briareos’ great anger, after he had appealed to Tempus in the most subtle way he could, which for Briareos was not very subtle, to fortify himself against Elisheeva’s advances, Tempus had declined to assist. As many before him Tempus was cautiously attracted to the beautiful demon Elisheeva, and besides he knew that Briareos was eying his throne and anything that left the new demon seething in frustration was all to Tempus’ advantage.

Her purpose for visiting was succinct. Elisheeva did not waste her sexuality or her charm where it achieved her no dividends. So she only acknowledged Briareos with a smirking smile “I am unhappy” she announced.

Elisheeva’s beautiful face became murderous. “The Charmed Ones” she announced “I am displeased.”

“The Power of Three will be broken” Briareos snorted. “We now need to get all three into the spirit winds

“The Power of Three will go the way the Power of Three always goes with mortals” sneered Elisheeva who knew of history and prophesy. “It is the Charmed Ones I want to suffer. But by all means drag them into the Spirit Winds as a Power of Three.”

“And how do you wish to make them suffer?” Briareos asked knowing that arguing with her only prolonged her visit.

“Harm the children of the witch Phoebe and I will finish you” hissed Elisheeva her voice dark with Evil. “But the rest of their infernal clan. Do anything you wish.”

Briareos laughed mirthlessly “So the stories are true. You still believe your made-up son procreated with a witch” and he slapped his knee with delight.

She then brutally reminded Briareos that in the short time that Elisheeva had risen to higher power in the role of Brotherhood representative, she had made huge advances in his battle. Elisheeva told him that it was her and her alone, who she walked the path between Tempus subtle game and exposing Good to mortal sanctions and justice. She took a brutal pleasure informing Briareos that despite his mortal existence as pope, it was she who knew that all Sources had to create a godlike role so their minions could to worship at their feet. She also knew that all new Sources needed to create armies loyal to them and rid themselves of obsolete forces, especially those who refused to worship the new Source as a god. And made their alliances and plans accordingly.

The ex-pope laughed out loud again at the notion that creating a myth of godhood was the key to manipulating the Source, again slapping his knees in amusement. Elisheeva did not respond. She shimmered away to her own lair, already knowing how brutal her vengeance would be on the ex-pope.

Alone in her lair, unlike Briareos who sat slumped on his throne, Elisheeva paced the floor with a frantic energy and considered her plans. Elisheeva was a religious demon who attributed surviving the whole of the last Source’s reign and the rise of Tempus’ to her cunning and her religious understanding. Elisheeva was clever enough to know that part of the Brotherhood’s fall from grace in the early years of Tempus reign was because he saw them as an obstacle to his godhood. She had tried to warn her sect about this but she was out of favour in the early years of Tempus reign, courtesy of her now mythical son Belthezor and her sect did not listen to her. Then. They listened now. Mostly.

Thanks to her daughter-in-law Phoebe’s truthful but unintentional warning about the dangers of crossing Tempus, Elisheeva had found some favour with the new Source. She had every intention of increasing that favour, by organising near-annihilation of darklighters, an irritating and destructive warrior sect that whose religious rituals were focused on themselves not the new Source. However, Elisheeva had been around long enough to know complete obliteration of the darklighter sects was unlikely and demondom would ready itself for the titillation of lost warriors seeking revenge. She did not intend that she or her faction of the Brotherhood would be the focus of outraged and angry darklighter sects. That was why she was happy to let it be known that Briareos was the mastermind behind the catastrophic darklighter losses.

Because Elisheeva was a religious demon, she knew things that Tempus did not wish to recognise, and the brothers of her sect still chose to disbelieve. Elisheeva knew that there were some things written, and that which was written could not be unwritten. Elisheeva, guessed that some things that were written about Tempus reign, were already known to seers and sages, and now almost certainly Tempus. Things that were written which Elisheeva suspected gave Tempus the courage to change from his previous policy of non-confrontation with Good, and demand unadulterated worship from his minions.