Just as he was getting over the shock from Fauna’s sudden kiss, the world exploded in a vibrant display of light.

  His body was moving – but it didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. The sense of motion was attached mainly to his mind. His consciousness lurched – like an elastic band being stretched to its limits – towards the skies. The sea of Argwyll fell away beneath him. The mountains of Eastmarch became blips on his peripheral vision. The clouds flew by him and then the stars merged into one white blanket of color covering the void of space and time.

  And then he felt himself falling into a field of green.

  He hit the ground with a sharp thud and immediately tried to get his bearings. He opened his eyes, breathed, and stretched his wings. It seemed that his body had traveled with him after all.

  Around him he saw a verdant field speckled with flowers that swayed in a gentle breeze. He could feel its touch on his face. It was not unlike artistic depictions of paradise – Eden – that he’d seen in his old life.

  Unoriginal, Kaedmon, he thought.

  The one notable landmark at the very center of the field was a large oak tree that dominated the horizon. The skies loomed behind it – shades of pure blue with not a cloud in sight. The whole environment, though clearly sculpted to be naturalistic, had a distinctly artificial feel to it.

  Somehow, that was entirely befitting.

  He got to his feet with a start, fighting against the odd feeling of disorientation that every movement brought with it. The landscape looked peaceful, but he got the distinct impression that his every move was reacting against it. It was not unlike the sensation of swimming against a stubborn current, or walking through wind that was on the verge of becoming dangerous.

  The moment he took his first steps towards the tree he felt something else – something he couldn’t believe he hadn’t clocked already. There was something missing inside him. Something that should have been there.

  Sys?

  No response. That fact was cause for concern.

  Ethan double blinked, calling up a brief System screen as quickly as possible:

  Ethan Hawke

  HP: 3500/3500

  Skills: Ready.

  He breathed a short sigh of relief. His Skills were still usable, but it seemed that Sys wasn’t around. No matter how much he rooted about in the confines of his mind, Ethan couldn’t detect his partner’s presence. Such isolation wasn’t exactly the worst thing that he’d expected from Kaedmon’s heaven, but it told him that there may yet be a few surprises in store for him yet.

  “Guess I’m doing this one on my own, for now,” he said.

  And, receiving no response, he began his treck up the field.

  On the way he fell to wondering what game the mad old God was playing, here. He got the sense that he was being watched. Kaedmon knew he was here. How could he not? He’d made him wait long enough. In fact, this long stretch of verdant green taking him towards what looked like just a simple oak tree might have been the God’s own personal vengeance.

  He told himself to remember his plan. The foundations had been laid. All necessary steps had been taken. All holes filled – there would be no errors, now. He’d gone through too much, losses and gains, to falter now. He needed by one skill to take Kaedmon down. And he got the feeling that the God of Argwyll knew that already.

  He also got the feeling that he’d do what he could to stop him from getting close. After all, Ethan was in his own little land, now. There were no more enemies. No more little servant Greycloaks or humans or mad doctors left to cross. It would be now what they both knew it would always come down to: God and Devil.

  As Ethan approached the old oak, however, he saw that he truly wasn’t alone.

  A humanoid with the face and wings of a hawk was standing to attention at the side of the tree, dressed in attire more befitting a hotel bellhop than a creature of heaven: black bow-tie, paisley-pattern waistcoat, and long sleeves ending in cuffs from which the feathered pinions of the bird-man protruded. In its right ‘hand’ it held something long and rather heavy. Only once Ethan had made it to the base of the tree did he see that this item was, in fact, four different items: four coats, each one of them a different hue and size from the other.

  “Evening, Sir,” the birdman said – in a voice that sounded like one of those old-timey radio show personalities. “Lovely night for a stroll.”

  Ethan regarded the creature quizzically, then took one look up at the pale blue sky.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Bit bright out for evening.”

  “Apologies, sir,” the birdman replied with a slight head-bow. “I was speaking metaphorically. Evening means the end of things, does it not? In that sense, I think this is a perfect evening.”

  Ethan’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t push the matter further.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  The birdman blinked its beady eyes.

  “Yes, Sir,” he said. “You’re here to see the evening show, are you not? Your friends went in ahead of you, I’m afraid. But if you enter now, you should be able to catch the beginning. It is necessary to catch the beginning of a story, is it not?”

  Ethan nodded, slowly.

  Who the hell knows, he thought. A show? If Kaedmon wants to make this a performance, I’m game. But he must know that all I have to do is use the [Judgement] Skill to bring him down, then do nothing more than sit myself on top of his divine head. It’s not going to be much of a fight.

  “Why don’t you tell your master to step outside here instead?” Ethan asked. “If he knows I’m here, then he knows what’s coming for him.”

  The birdman seemed rather bemused.

  “Oh dear,” he said. “I’m afraid that will be quite impossible, Sir. You see, the master is quite preoccupied at the moment. He is a big fan of theatre, and becomes rather immersed when watching his favorite plays. The evening show tonight is, in fact, his most watched performance.”

  “Let me guess,” Ethan scoffed. “He likes Tragedies the most?”

  “Comedies, Sir.”

  “Go figure,” Ethan shrugged. “Alright. Where is this ‘evening show’, then? I’ve got a few words to say to its director.”

  “He has a few words for you too, Sir,” the birdman bowed. “But it would not do to talk through the performance, don’t you think? It may spoil the proceedings.”

  As Ethan opened his mouth to speak, the birdman snapped his feathered fingers and the oak tree’s bark began to vibrate with sudden, inexplicable life. Before Ethan’s eyes the trunk split open like a door, revealing a black hallway within its wooden innards.

  “This way, please, Sir,” the doorman said. “I would hate for the show to start without you.”

  “Somehow I doubt it will,” Ethan murmured. Then, nodding at the birdman’s heavy load, he asked, “Don’t you want to ask me for my coat before I go in?”

  The doorman blinked in the odd way he did, and then flashed him a toothless smile.

  “Ah, no,” he said. “My services are reserved for after the show’s conclusion. The spectators – your old friends – you must understand that they rarely require their coats when the performance is over, Sir.”

  Ethan licked his lips, staring down the old bird with narrowed, knowing eyes.

  “I’ll bet they don’t,” he said.

  He then stepped through without paying the doorkeeper any more attention. Knowing Kaedmon, the old bird had probably been placed there just to mess with him.

  Though the hallway had certainly seemed dark from the outside, as Ethan crawled through the trees innards he suddenly felt the space grow exponentially. The moist bark of the tree faded to a much more elegant, bronzed hue, and then images morphed into being in the hallway. A series of paintings – not unlike those he’d seen in Lamphrey’s dream-vision during her possession – started to form to line the hallway to the theater. Each of them had a plaque beneath that had been eroded with age, presumably, but the images they showed were clear enough to Ethan’s wandering eyes: one bore the figure of a hooded man with a bow, another a rather scantily clad man wielding an axe, a third showed a bald man with a spear, ready to slay some monstrous beast, and another bore a man with a long, star-filled cloak, looking out onto a mountainous realm with a sense of adventure. A desire to conquer. To grow. To progress.

  And just as Ethan was beginning to think that these images seemed eerily familiar to him, he came to a set of ornately carved double-doors. The doors, evidently, to Kaedmon’s little theater.

  He licked his lips as he touched both knobs, mind racing, trying to predict what ghastly horrors probably awaited on the other side.

  But he was also way passed fear now. It was like Sys had said – he was the most powerful being on Argwyll, capable of stopping time itself. Whatever Kaedmon had in store for him, he was ready. He had to be.

  And so he threw open the doors to find…a theater.

  Just a theater.

  A theater not unlike the Renaissance-style theaters from his own world. Rows of plush, time-darkened seats climbed away into shadow, their velvet cushions still faintly rich in colour, the arms polished smooth where countless hands had rested. A horseshoe gallery wrapped around the walls above, its carved balustrade picked out with fading gold leaf—cherubs, laurel wreaths, and cracked masks grinning down at nobody. The air carried the faint, stale sweetness of dust, perfume, and wood that had absorbed too many winters.

  The stage itself thrust out into the emptiness, boards warped and glossy with age. Heavy curtains, once crimson, now dulled to a bruised wine, were drawn back but not quite fully, as if someone had left in a hurry and never returned. Footlights, long dead, sat like a row of blind eyes along the edge.

  Above, where the ceiling curved into painted heavens, the strangest feature waited.

  From a tangle of ropes and beams, eight oval frames hung down in pairs, swaying almost imperceptibly in the still air. They were spaced evenly across the top of the stage like a line of carefully chosen witnesses. Once, perhaps, they had held portraits; now each one was a perfect, empty void, their pale interiors catching what little light there was and returning nothing of it.

  They did not hang flat against the wall, but dangled from ropes, suspended over the stage with just enough slack to let them tilt and turn. In the half-light, the ovals looked less like ornaments and more like nooses frozen at the moment before a drop. The paired arrangement only deepened the unease: two and two and two and two, like some ritual pattern.

  There was no sound but the faint creak of timber and the soft, almost imagined groan of old rope. No audience, no actors, no orchestra—only the waiting stage, the cosy red seats watching in silent ranks, and the eight blank ovals turning slowly in the air.

  At least, that’s what Ethan thought upon first entering.

  As he walked through the aisle, checking for a seat that looked like his, he saw a figure sitting in the third row down in front.

  He was, in totality, a completely unassuming image. A little older than the oldest man Ethan had personally met in life. A little more well-dressed – suit and black-tie – than most people he’d associated with. And a little frailer than how Ethan had imagined him. His thin, grey beard was pulled into two drooping locks wrapped with threads of silver silk. His face denied the expectations of age – there was not a single wrinkle there, not a single suggestion of shadow beneath his eyes. And yet one look in those eyes told Ethan that he was staring into the face of a being who was beyond age, beyond time itself.

  Introductions were not necessary. He raised a thin arm and waved Ethan over to his spot, offering him the seat beside him.

  When he spoke, he did so through a jovial smile – the kind of smile a parent gives a long-lost son.

  “Hi Ethan,” Kaedmon said. “You’re just in time for the show.”

  ? Reborn as a Demon Hat (Read for free on Amazon KU) ?

  In the action-packed first book of this portal fantasy series, the monster messiah will rise—not the hero they need, but the hat they deserve

  [Possess] creatures and [Steal] their skills.

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