Darkness and Hellfire

Interlude 12

"Let us stop here." Isaac told his daughter. "This is as good of a place to stop as any. I'm not sure if I would have called it a great adventure or not, but it was certainly something."

"How did Shamesh's sparring with the local adventurers go?" Amaranth wondered.

Isaac waved her off. "Fine. Only three even bothered to try but it was hardly a serious endeavor. It wasn't some grand event but rather the afterparty that most people forgot about not long afterwards." He explained.

"We have taken plenty of breaks while writing over the last month, why stop the volume here? Does its length matter that much?" Amaranth questioned her father.

"Any book over a thousand pages is unwieldy." Isaac spoke as if it was just a simple law of the universe. "But that's not the only reason why I want to stop the volume here. You're going to have other things on your mind during the coming days. We will continue sparring in preparation for your Architect of Magic debut, but I figured that an old friend of ours would be able to help get your mental state into the right place for this. Becoming a demigod is no easy feat, but you would have a solid shot at it if we did your debut tomorrow. Waiting a few more months won't hurt anything and having Walter set your mental state up for success will only be a boon."

"Walter is coming?" Amaranth asked with genuine surprise. He had been around for Cel's first birthday party so another visit from the wandering artificer so soon was nearly unheard of.

"He's already here." Isaac told her with a grin. "You don't have very many mentors left, it would be best to get as much out of this one while he is still alive. He isn't going to die of old age in this century but he definitely isn't as young as he used to be." Isaac frowned as he stared through eleven walls and across a mile of open cavern. "Call the pope of El'Gra, whatever the new one's name is, and have them teleport here sometime within the next month. Walter is limping, again."

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"How does he always get hurt so badly?" Amaranth couldn't help but wonder but then remembered Walter's words that she had just written down not that long ago: "If I don't get hurt then it wasn't a good fight." She grumbled under her breath. "He is going to get himself killed one of these days."

Isaac shook his head. "That isn't likely. That man has the luck of devils and angels. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, but he will also always survive it by the skin of his teeth." He then sighed and got to his feet. "Take the next month to talk with Walter and spend time with your family. We will train every evening, two hours after dinner." Isaac looked like he was about to say something else but stopped and shook his head again. "Get some rest. Your mother and I are going to greet Walter and Gypsy. I'll have him stop in to say hi to you and your family in the morning, it is already getting late."

Amaranth nodded and stretched. "I do not know how you do it, father. Do you ever stop?"

Isaac chuckled. It was deep and dark like the one that gave so many people nightmares, Amaranth was used to it though and usually just attributed it to her father being dramatic. "Darkness is one of the few constants in the universe, it is its default state, just like space, time, and gravity. Have you ever heard of them resting? Or the great wolf that follows the moon around the world? It has nothing to do with who I am as a person, I am the Demigod of Darkness. That means that I lack any and all inherent need or want to help others, it must always be a conscious choice, I can never stop existing, not even to sleep, and bright light elicits a fear response."

Amaranth paused from the last thing that Isaac had told her. She looked at him with confusion more than anything else. "What?"

Isaac already knew what part of his statement had given her pause. "The first time I saw the sun after my ascension, it threw me straight into a frenzy. It was as bad as being hit with the Fear Command from a Word of Power. I have it pretty well under control, now, but it was a rough first few days in the sun." He confirmed. Isaac didn't wait for a goodbye and just vanished along with his sofa chair and the last pastry from the cart that had been left within arms reach of both of them.

Amaranth had only had five to Isaac's thirteen. At least he hadn't taken all of her favorite ones first, that time, but she had seen him hesitate multiple times. He didn't even like the strawberry lemon tarts, he just did it to annoy her. Her eye twitched as she remembered all of the times that he had done it to her. She took a deep calming breath and reminded herself that it was his domain that constantly put pressure on him to be an asshole for no reason, not that he really needed help with that, so she should be thankful that he stopped subconsciously tripping everyone who walked by him. Darkness was much more complicated than shadows and skeletons. To be the Demigod of Darkness meant that he was also the demigod of the dark things inside of people, like negative emotions, it was even better if they were directed at him. Only Lenna, and his unwavering will to do right by those who he cared about, kept him from trying to plunge the world into darkness.

Isaac wouldn't learn for a while but apparently he wasn't the first demigod of darkness. The last one had required a subjugation squad capable of annihilating every human kingdom simultaneously just to put him down. But that was enough thinking about her father, Amaranth had her own family to think about.