IN> [Asmodeus Month] The Two Keystones (1/2) [fic]

[Saxon Brenton]

[2nd post, now in two parts]
 
Warning: contains the putrefying remains of In Nomine cannon that has 
been nibbled to death by rabid axolotls.
 
 
     "Do not bother struggling, Asmodeus.  You are going to die, and 
nothing will save you."
     Asmodeus struggled anyway.  This was not so much because his Word 
demanded that he be the one who dictated the orders in any game of
power.  
Nor was it mere Princely pride.  Truth be known it was simple survival 
instinct.
     In his more direst straights, overcome by enemies, severely wounded

(and possibly even permanently maimed), trapped in a single presence at 
a single location, lying bloody on the floor of his own Palace and half 
out of his mind with pain, Asmodeus struggled without foresight or 
cunning but instead from primal survival instinct.  It would seem that 
celestials and ethereals had more in common with the animals of the 
Corporal plane than they would have admitted.  Only the Prince of Dark 
Humour would have appreciated the irony.
     More galling -- to that part of his rational mind that was still 
working -- was the identity of who had attacked him.  The Game was *not*

supposed to work this way.
     Athena, goddess of wisdom and current head of the Greek pantheon, 
watched the Prince of The Game dispassionately.  A few more seconds and 
she could strike him dead.  In exactly the same way that her allies 
should have already struck dead the Archangel of Judgment.
     After centuries of work ethereal researchers in the Epimetheus
Group 
had finally isolated the Almighty Strand.  Rather than announce this 
for use as a propaganda tool against the oppressor celestials in both 
Heaven and Hell, it had been exploited as a weapon.  The minions of and 
rebels against the middle-eastern tribal god Yahweh were no longer the 
most powerful beings in existence.
     A few more seconds.  'Almighty Strand' was something of a misnomer 
in that regard.  It didn't allow you to do literally anything you wanted

when you wanted -- merely raise your amassed personal power to higher 
levels.  That, however, translated as having the wherewithal to do what 
you wanted when applied the right way.  Athena continued to hold off 
from applying the coup de grace.  It was not that she couldn't kill 
Asmodeus soul-dead right here, right now.  What she needed to do was 
kill him at such a time and in such a way that it destroyed his 
organisation as well.
     That was why Dominic had also had to be removed.  The celestials 
were too fractious -- Hell, explicitly so, Heaven, more subtly and in 
ways that the self-righteous angels would never have been able to admit 
to -- to be able to function without internal governors.  Those
governors 
were the secret police organisations of Judgment and The Game.  Together

they did more to shore up their respective political camps and keep them

cohesive and functional than most beings appreciated.  Athena did, of 
course, as did a few others with the provenance of wisdom.
     For the second time Athena passed her hand through Asmodeus's mouth

in order to keep him from using any Songs.  This was not an example of 
intangibility, with her hand passing without incident within Asmodeus's 
head.  It was that the ethereal gods had raised their reality quotient 
up above that of the celestials, and as her hand intersected his head 
he was disrupted, his lower face billowing away like a layer of smoke 
disturbed by a breeze.  His mouth and jaw would reform again in a few 
minutes, but by then it would be too late.
     Now.  Athena raised her spear and brought it down through
Asmodeus's 
heart.
 
---
Saxon Brenton   University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
The _Girl Genius_ comic of Phil and Kaja Foglio is now online at: 
     www.girlgeniusonline.com