Chapter 61. The Mystic.

  Sid turned and seen Fenrir sitting with a stranger in a wonderful lilac covered cloak. The stranger in purple from Fenrir’s shared vision.

  When she lowered her hood Sid was a bit disturbed at the sight. Her face—it was reptilian. She had thick dirty dreads, some locked with polished stone and gems. Her eyes had been gouged, only pits of crusted darkness, looking as if she had been crying blood her whole life. Face covered in soft welted patterns striping her high cheek bones. Her lips also sown shut leaving a small slit for speaking—he knew this face, but from where?

  “What happened to you?” He asked with concern. The two fire hounds leapt to her side, and Fenrir to Sid’s.

  Her expression tightened greatly. Sections of her forehead, cheeks and nose pulled. She looked disgusted with his question, lifting a half curled pointing finger, she questioned the man. “What happened to you?”

  As she asked this, a wind roared from behind her. Small branches and weak limbs exploded from the trees, raining the debris over Sid and Fenrir.

  Sid lifted a red smoky wrist. With the motion came a shrouding shield. Coving the shadow who could not defend itself.

  A small bead of blood began to build at one of the threads pulling the stitched lips. Lips that curled into what had to be a painful smile. “Are you him?” She mumbled softly.

  Reaching for one of the blue hounds, its milky orange eyes flared up the direct moment of the woman’s touch, the creature locked eyes with him.

  “Who?” the mustache asked.

  “The keeper of balance, he who Pan entrusted centuries ago. The one who is burdened with the daunting task of dethronement. He who must shoulder the weight of the forest…”

  The one who must shoulder the weight of the forest? He who Pan entrusted centuries ago? What was this damaged woman speaking of.

  “I know nothing of what you’re asking.” Sid squeezed and wrung the water from his hair, watching with an expression of thunderstruck.

  The woman fell from the embankment with grace, revealing that she was not just a normal human, but was a naga hybrid. Pale blue scales of a snake body—easily twice his length maybe ever thrice as long—all slithered behind her, gently pushing the female torso along the soft sand.

  “You refuse to bow to a Mystic?” She asked—only because of the eyepatch did he see it—but her thick aura aggressively flamed. A roaring opal fog fumed from the hybrid. The fog emitted a pressure so heavy, Sid couldn’t help, but drop to his knee. It didn’t matter how hard he fight. How bright those stars in Willpower shone. His chin tucked. He dipped his head. Bowing to this naga who referred to herself as ‘The Mystic.’

  He's heard of this fable. ‘The Mystic’ is a class so few that only the one is selected every one hundred years. They are never ever to reveal who they are. Mystic’s are chosen by the Seven. The Mystic serves as a mediator. A muse. A tutor. She is the only one who can oversee the Seven. Assisting the group or aiding just the one—in his book this being was a babysitter.

  “Are you not the king?” She asked past tight lips.

  The blue fire hounds stepped to her sides, placing her hand upon another, its milky orange eyes gleamed in Sid’s general direction. His stomach dropped as she asked the question. Earlier he had told Scarlet to warn Briareos, that the Bear-King was returning.

  “What does the mystic want from me?” He asked, carefully coming to his feet.

  “Nothing at all, I was only checking in, has Pan sent any visions for you? Or a messenger?” The Naga asked, as threads stretched and pulled at the sown lips, causing them to reflect a moist red gloss, as her mouth began to bleed.

  “Both, she took my eye…” He said pulling the hood back revealing his eyepatch, before speaking again. “She also had Scarlet tell me everything…” He stopped for a second thinking about earlier.

  “Scarlet follows Briareos, God of Greed.” The Mystic corrected “What exactly did she tell you?” She added curiously.

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  “She told me of an evil sorcerer named Xulu, how he was corrupt with power, causing genocides every few cycling of seasons, She told me that Briareos killed my son only messaging me he needed assistance in destroying this Xulu, apparently the sorcerer is becoming far to strong and is wanting to challenge the god, she gifted me with these enchanted items and a weapon for my journey.” Sid explained himself to the Naga her hand still upon the blue fire hound, as another held the head of the other, who seemed to listen with more interest as her hand touched.

  “Hahahahaha, ahh that girl… I see why Briareos admires her game, she plays a cunning one… some of that is true, let me catch you up with what’s going on.” The Mystic laughed, causing the blue hounds to yelp excitedly, like laughing hyenas, and joking coyotes.

  “Centuries ago, the last Rot-Claw, your ancestor. He agreed to be a tool in a game the Seven play to sustain their life. The man played a remarkable game from what I’ve been told too. Anyways the only reason why the Rot-Claw had been documented is because of your ancestor and Pandora, well her sisters Tatheliea and Ammarosa came up with an attack plan to end Pandora’s wrath, and it was a successful attack too…” As she completed her sentence, a loud gurgling turn of a stomach rolling in hunger.

  Fenrir and the two hounds of blue fire looked at Sid’s stomach, all slightly cocking their heads.

  “The sisters destroyed the Bear-King and reproduced their most faithful followers like rabbits, hoping one child would be the son of sick, and here you are, Sick-Sid, the salacious son of rot. And that monster. The cyclops that destroy your home and murder your son…” She stopped and looked Sid over. “…Where are the ashes?”

  He reached for his neck, patting his body like he was covered in baby Widowmakers. “I must of dropped them.” He stuttered frantically feeling his neck, and under his loose hair, then in the jacket.

  The foxes looked at each other then up at the Naga who slightly smiled. The soft orange eyes then looked back at that heavy fellow.

  “…Anyways that cyclops wasn’t sent to destroy your son, it was meant to kill you, Ammarosa heard about your day of shifting, ages ago when you were only a child, you and your family caused an uproar that day… excuse you! I am not finished!”

  Sid started to walk off still looking for his sons ashes. That invisible force that pressed Sid to his knee minutes ago, was pressuring him to the ground again. The Mystic slither around, waited for her hounds, and began her speech again.

  “As I was saying, a lot of blood was spilled that day, and a lot of good pieces for the game had been destroyed… Ammarosa heard word about you, the rotting cub that shifted that afternoon and how the townsfolk shouldn’t have trusted shifters, and how they should have killed the Birch family before any of this could have ever happened.. and so again the sister of Envy schemed a plan…”

  A loud commotion across the river caused from five chubby trolls. Each breaking shorter trees and tossing them in the river. Than all laughing as multiple beavers popped up and collected the logs. River rodents chomping at branches, gnawing the trees, until perfect rounds, before others would appear to guide the ready rounds upstream back to the dam.

  “ …. Stupid aren’t they..…Anyways she fueled the beast with envies’ temptation, over and over, as being a stupid creature, it had to be tricked repeatedly. Only until finally, only by stupid chance. There were three settlers, who just so happen to be from your settlement, returning from a so-called hard day, practically luring the cyclops with a game cart of stag… and then the other two bring him straight back to you… but then.. your stupid swine of a son had to interfere…”

  As she said this, Sid could hear the threads in her lips stretching, as she painfully laughed at her own remark. Her fire hounds too cackled with her, before all stopping silent. The Mystic continued as Sid’s ears burned from her words.

  “…Yes that thoughtless son of yours, you beat him stupid didn’t you King… yes… yes you kicked and thrashed that poor boy senseless… keeping your mistake hidden from others…”

  “I let him outside! He played with children! My boy was not stupid.” Sid roared coldly at the ground, The Mystic still had a pressuring aura over him.

  “Yes… you did let him outside… I remember now… you would let him out… only to let him watch the other children play… but nobody wants a dullard thinker for a friend…”

  “He was not stupid.” Sid forced a stand, only because The Mystic released her aura, wanting him to stand tall. Only so she could she closely, speaking lowly

  “Don’t interrupt me.” She coiled around the hefty man. He wasn’t sure if was her or the aura again. or the pressure of her coil. Maybe a mixture of both, but now the tension was taking his panicked breath away.

  “I could kill you right now Bear-King… and only one of the Seven would be upset with me…” She said in a calm tone, one that was unsettling. “…Unless… I brought back your blood of course...” She said again, gently brushing his face, her cold scaly hand pulled at his whiskery cheeks.

  Fenrir barked loudly getting everyone’s attention, well except for Sid who couldn’t turn his neck that far. The Mystic’s face was directed at the pups general direction, as he growl, and snap, warning the godly mediator.

  “Kill it.” The gruesome twosome of fire hounds sprang for Fenrir, who was quite larger, but, these were Guardians of the Mystic, the Embryx.

  Fire blue hounds, developed for the one who see no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil—isn’t that some bullshit right there. The hounds allow the being a slight connection through touch. A creature of marvel and wonder, arguably smarter than the gods or mediator themselves. The hounds were immortal. One of few animals that are passed down each century. The Embryx have no fur but a light fiery blue body, with a silver flame over their chests—they were some very handsome creatures. Noble. Majestic. Hellish.

  Sid could hear the yelping snarls of the terrible three. Each biting and snapping at one another, or more so of two attacking one. The whimpers and growls were all that could be heard for the longest thirty-seven heartbeats.