"Demons beget demons. He is destined to stray from ordinary life. He will discover his own abnormalities, which are beyond his control." The Sorcerer Supreme gazed at the bright star in the eastern sky and said to his disciples, "His talent is far greater than yours, which is not necessarily a good thing. He will encounter the same strangeness you have not encountered in your future. There is no need to envy him, Mordo, Kaecilius. I will impose responsibilities that do not belong to him, and he will suffer."
—--
Jezebel's stomach ached—she had been abandoned, or rather, she had abandoned herself.
She had no one to turn to in this vast New York City.
When she fled her country to escape the marriage arranged by her father, she had only a few U.S. dollars, but now she had paid them all to the smugglers. If it had not been for the small hammer she found on the boat, she might have lost her virginity.
But she had no regrets. Even though the cramped space on the boat was barely enough for everyone to stand, even relieving oneself was difficult, and people were constantly thrown overboard due to illness and fever, she never regretted fleeing the country.
She did not want to marry the balding old man next door, Korah. Since she was ten, Jezebel had trembled whenever Korah's slimy eyes slid over her. But when she was nineteen, Korah asked her father for 100,000 new shekels to marry her, and he agreed without hesitation.
Not only did Jezebel's brother, who had never served in the military, need a large enough house for his future marriage, but her many siblings would also require sufficient funds, not to mention the enormous cost of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
She wanted to scream—there were few Haredi families as poor as hers, but their neighborhood was full of the poor. The men in the family only knew how to nod and recite prayers, and the women provided all the financial support. Their family could not afford to let her study math and science.
Jezebel did not want to live like the women who stood dazed, clutching their children on the dusty streets. She had seen them before, their faces revitalized only when the government subsidy arrived. Jezebel imagined that if she married Korah, she would become a lifeless puppet like those women.
She resisted, but all she received was beatings and double labor from her father, who hoped she would become a docile wife—at least one Korah could afford to pay for.
During that time, she constantly chanted the name of Jehovah, hoping for a prophet to take her away from this place. Then, one day, the water from the faucet turned to blood. This continued for seven days, but her father dismissed it as mere rust and refused to take it seriously. Jezebel, who had only studied the Torah, was amazed. She saw it as a revelation, like Moses persuading Pharaoh. Without hesitation, she stole the U.S. dollars her mother earned from her work and fled, arriving in this country that boasted of democracy and freedom, a land said to flow with milk and honey, hoping for a new life.
However, how could a young woman with only basic religious knowledge and no other skills find a job? Even if she worked diligently, without identification she could not sign any contracts.
Jezebel struggled to survive on a meager daily wage, even disguising herself as a pagan, wearing a veil to conceal her fair complexion and avoid harassment from street thugs. But one day, she felt sick—a fellow illegal immigrant who worked with her told her she was pregnant.
She could not believe it; she was still a girl!
Her panic grew. After a physical examination, she confirmed her virginity. As her belly grew, she dreamed of a figure bathed in light, who said to her, "Give birth to him, and you will be sanctified."
This frightened her, for this was a god from pagan stories. Even if this god were real, she did not believe she could be blessed by him. She was not Mary, and Jezebel did not know if it was an illusion or the real Holy Spirit.
But she was truly reluctant to give up. This child was destined to be fatherless, and she would not rush into marriage with some unfamiliar Joseph. In any case, religious doctrine prohibited her from having an abortion, so she abandoned seeking medical help.
Jezebel dragged her encumbered body to work diligently, but her meager wages were insufficient to provide for both mother and fetus. She gradually lost weight, her limbs weakened, and she found it difficult even to work. Losing her job also left her without a place to live, but fortunately, a priest took her in after hearing her story (although he did not believe it, out of sympathy), allowing her to clean the benches during the day to earn some bread and leftover wine from the Eucharist. She was also allowed to live in the parking lot behind the church, and the priest provided her with bedding and hot water.
Jezebel was very grateful for the priest's help. As the child in her belly grew, she became less and less able to move, but she still forced herself to eat, just to ensure the child's healthy birth.
On this cold, starlit night, she sensed the impending birth of her child. However, her body was already weakened by chronic malnutrition, the child within her womb like a parasite, consuming its mother's nutrients with relentless greed.
When the Ancient One, clad in yellow robes, appeared before her, she could only weep, barely rising from a crouching position, and in a weak voice, pleaded with the Sorcerer Supreme to save her child.
"I follow the stars." The Ancient One crouched beside Jezebel, pointing upward to the sky. "Your child will be born, and he will be my disciple," she declared.
The Sorcerer Supreme opened a box and placed the gold, frankincense, and myrrh beside Jezebel, using magic to sustain her life force, a candle in the wind. When the child was born, the Ancient One saw circular wounds on each of the crying infant's ten fingers. Red light streamed from these wounds, but Jezebel could not see.
"I can no longer save you. Your pregnancy was horrible." The Sorcerer Supreme saw a soft white light surrounding Jezebel. It was this white light that stabilized her body, which had been on the verge of collapse. But with the birth of this unique child, these positive energies dissipated, and even the Supreme's magic could no longer sustain Jezebel. In her final moments, she closed her eyes with tears.
"Salomon," she said.
"Salomon Damonette. He will be the one who works miracles," the Ancient One said. Jezebel nodded with her last remaining strength.
"Your soul will return to heaven."
Then, a huge white beam shot up into the sky, and inaudible chants echoed through the air. Jezebel closed her eyes. The Sorcerer Supreme wrapped the child in a red sacred cloth. The wounds on the baby's fingers healed immediately, leaving only ten ring marks. the Supreme opened a portal and brought the deceased Jezebel and her newborn child back to Kamar-Taj.
When the church priest was awakened by a massive beam of light, he arrived in the parking lot to find only gold, frankincense, and myrrh left on Jezebel's bed; the young woman was nowhere to be found.
Upon the Sorcerer Supreme's return to Kamar-Taj, she was immediately surrounded by her young disciples, who had already sensed the unrest in the city. However, the Supreme stopped their questions and handed the child to them, then buried Jezebel in a mausoleum near Kamar-Taj.
On the night of Salomon Damonette's birth, the number of Abyssal creatures invading Earth suddenly increased. Although these were merely the spontaneous actions of low-level demons, they were enough to keep the mages of Kamar-Taj in a state of panic for a while. Ultimately, the Sorcerer Supreme personally visited the Abyss and met with several Abyssal Lords to bring the unrest to an end.
The Sorcerer Supreme called the wounds on Salomon Damonette's fingers a stigmata. The Ancient One wrapped them with a sacred shroud to stop the bleeding, then magically healed them, and the stigmata disappeared.
Salomon Damonette himself, however, was trapped in a sea of memories. After being brought back to Kamar-Taj, he was placed in the care of several female mages with childcare experience. When he opened his eyes, he no longer cried, but instead appeared confused.
His mind held many different memories. Sometimes he was a dormant resident, living an ordinary and joyless life. Sometimes he was a mage favored by a god, but his paranoia drove him mad, leading him to be reduced to ash by another god. After three hundred years, he became a lich and was ultimately slain by twelve paladins. Sometimes he was a great mage from Golarion, a lackey of the Great Old Ones.
Furthermore, with the Sorcerer Supreme's departure, the stigmata on his ten fingers glowed with a flickering light, but before his soul finally fell into madness, they all extinguished.
Salomon Damonette could finally sleep peacefully.
-End Chapter-
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