Chapter 8: To Sate The Hand of Fate

Viv backed up as if she was going to walk down the stairs. "Oh here it comes. Some Faustian bargain where we lose our souls if we don't say your name right three times at midnight."

"You will give something up, but not everything. Now, why would I ask you to sacrifice something? Well, you cannot fight evil without some sacrifice. In order to obtain great power, some other trait must be traded in. In this case, in order to make you appropriate vessels for the power I may lend you, you must have space for it."

The pillar on the right began to glow more intensely, and Solomon heard the rustling of pages as a breeze flipped the empty pages around.

"See here. A book of your own soul! Each page is a memory from your life. Tear but a single page from it, and I will rewrite your story with power from on high! I will give you knowledge of the workings of the world, of the nature of what is right and wrong, and you shall fight evil as archons, instead of mere mortals."

"I think I've heard this story before," said Felicity as though she was trying to place something.

The spirit didn't have a face, but the folds formed a structure that looked eerily like an eye. Solomon found it difficult to focus on that place, but he tried out of stubborness.

"What do you mean rewrite and with what kind of power?"

"Simply tear a page from that book over there. It isn't as blank as it appears. When you have selected your page, simply feed it to one of those stone beasts on the disk."

"And then what happens?" Felicity demanded. "We become wizards or something?"

"You will gain the power of that beast."

"But we lose whatever memories are on the page?" Conlan said, staring at the disk. They were all pondering the choice before them. Were these monsters carved into rock? A dragon? A lion?

"You will lose a small part of yourself. It's difficult to quantify. In return each of you will gain the power of one of those creatures," the spirit's hue shifted slightly every few seconds. It almost seemed to sparkle as Solomon gazed at it.

"How will we choose which of us gets which beast?" Cass asked thoughtfully.

"You aren't actually considering this, are you?" Felicity interjected in astonishment, but he simply shrugged casually.

"You will choose yourselves, I have no part in that decision," the spirit said.

"What happens if we don't take the offer?" Solomon asked as tactfully as he could. Did they have any way out of this? Or was it simply an illusion of choice?

"Then you will face those blood wizards as you are now," it said without any threat or emotion.

"Fuck that," Pat blurted out as he pushed past them to rip a page out.

"Uhh. We have to choose together, hello?" Viv called out, but Pat was already speeding around the edge of the disk to the beast at the head of the circle. The dragon.

"No fair!" Felicity shouted as she grabbed her own and chased after him.

"What the hell Felicity? You changed your mind pretty fast!" Solomon yelled after her. He still wanted to think about this.

Even as he was thinking, he saw Pat throw a wadded up paper ball into the maw of the lifeless stone dragon. As it landed in the creature's mouth, the carving transformed from stone into light. The form of the beast dissipated as the light concentrated into a ball that entered Pat through his mouth.

Pat's body contorted and twisted as he began to writhe and swell. Skin grew green and scales formed across his back which burst through his athletic-wear. Smoke poured from his nostrils and he swelled to the form of a human-sized serpent with wings. They all froze in place trying to take in Pat's transformation, all of them except Solomon had found a carving whose powers they wanted, but what had happened to Pat?

In a second they heard a loud voice come from the dragon.

"Oh fucking sweet!" the dragon said.

"Pat?" Conlan called out.

"Yeah. What is it bro?" The dragon's voice was seductive and smoky. Or maybe that was just Solomon's imagination.

"Can you turn back?" Conlan yelled back.

"I ... think, yeah give me a minute," the Pat-dragon replied. The green skin seemed to deflate, the wings shrank, and the teeth and maw retracted back into his bare human form. "Oh hell yeah, this is awesome."

Every one of them except Solomon threw a paper wad in and began their own transformation, who was having trouble taking his eyes off of Pat who wore only a grin on his face. Soon enough the disk was surrounded by a dragon, unicorn, lion, griffin, nine-tailed fox, and large shimmering bird that Solomon guessed was a phoenix.

"Sol. You're gonna join us buddy," the Pat-dragon stated flatly.

"Ugh. Fine." He tore his page out and walked to the center of the disk. "I guess the stupid tree is the only one left," he said in frustration.

He glanced at the page to see something his father had told him just before he passed away, nestled in with a lot of junk memories he didn't care about.

It said: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

A tear came to his eye as he pushed the page into the crook of the tree at the heart of the disk. The last thing he remembered was his body swelling to impossible proportions. That and being sleepy. He was so sleepy. He heard chattering around him.

A bird and a tiny little lizard. Was this a forest? He wondered. He was a tree, so yes, a forest it must be! And suddenly so sleepy; He heard them calling his name, but he was so, so tired – he never wanted to wake. "Sleep," he said to his animal friends. "Sleep."

And nobody could wake him.