Chapter 5
what did you do to him you old hag.
" Kasim ", I call out to him but get no response. xel grabs my hand and tries to calm me down. just so you know it's never a good idea to yell at a witch.
the shaman looks at me, her eyes dead and lifeless, her lips are chapped, her fingernails are long and unkept, and to top it all off she smells like a combination of wet dog and old age.
she raises her hand towards me signaling that i come closer.
xel assures me nothing will happen as long as he is with me, and though I want to believe him, I'm not sure I can bring myself to trust a shaman.
" closer " she says. so I lean in.
" don't make me repeat myself, child "
so I lean in some more and then she grabs my broken arm and pulls it, and God help me the pain is so intense I scream as much as my lungs are capable. she takes a powder like substance and blows it on my face, bloody hell I thought the pain couldn't get any worse than my broken arm but what a way to find out I couldn't be more wrong. my arm hurts, my face burns, my eyes and mouth feel like hell, I can't think straight, I can't even cry because the tears are drying from inside my eyes. I can't see, I can't speak but my ears are still fine and I can hear her pouring something into a bowl, I'm assuming it's whatever was in the cauldron.
she tells me to drink some and apply the rest to my face, I need this pain to stop, but I'm hesitant, xel tells me to relax and just do what she says, so I do and the pain subsides, what a relief.
" I put your friend in a trance " she says.
" why "
" because he asked me to, what are you, his mother "
she tells me about his mental state and the remedies she has employed to help him heal, and though his healing will take effort and time, it is possible.
" you also have a problem, and if you'd like I can help you with it "
I refuse cause I'm not interested in any help she has to offer.
" lift your arm, the broken one "
I lift it, which I shouldn't be able to do cause it's broken, but I do, my hand seems to be all healed up. I'm at a loss for words, I thank her but she ignores me, rightfully so.
" why have you come here "
" I'm here to ask you about the demon tongue "
" ..... "
" did I say something wrong ? "
" what do you mean demon tongue ? "
I explain to her the incident with ace in full detail and she asks
" and how do you know he wasn't just mumbling rubbish "
I tell her that was my first line of thought, till I got closer.
then she asks how i could even identify the demon tongue in the first place, i tell her about my grandmother teaching it to me while I was younger though if you know me by now you know I never payed attention.
she looks at xel then takes a long look at me, and she says
" the only people I know who are even aware of the demon tongue are shaman's, warlocks, druids and dead witches ", she points out the fact that my grandmother knowing about it must mean that she is either a dark magic practitioner or is acquainted with one of them.
I think about it for a quick second and it actually makes sense. she then tells me that the demon tongue is an old and lost language that plays it's role in the dark arts, and since dark magic has it's origins tied to demonic forces, it is always associated with evil. the dark arts is a style of magic that can't be possible without the caster making the incantations in demon tongue as it's mostly used to perform blood rituals, dead resurrections and transmutations, the three most powerful dark magic spells called " Chant of the Nontrinite ", which also happens to represent the demons Beelferoth, Zeluras and Bucita. she tells me all about this and I suddenly don't want to get involved anymore, but something about this is really intriguing.
" so how did ace know about it, I didn't know him for long but he didn't seem like the type to dabble in any kind of magic "
" he must have been used as an anchor " she replies
" what "
" I'd Keep my eyes sharp if I were you, someone really close to you is practicing something they probably no nothing about "
as she says this the first person to come to mind is cept, he just fit the frame a little too well or maybe I was just making excuses and trying to find a way to blame him for isols death.
" now if there's nothing else I can help you with, get out "
the shaman chases us out of her shrine, then xel says something that scares me even more.
" I don't know much about dark magic, but if what the shaman says is true then the reason you guys encountered the Wakaani in the first place was because it was drawn to the anchor "
apparently the reason the Wakaani and werewolves split in the first place was because somewhere along the line they started practicing dark magic, which is forbidden amoung them. so that explains that, but now I'm curious as to why someone is f@#king around with dark magic.
we head back to the infirmary to meet with luvera and explain things to her, while we are talking we hear a loud noise and what sounds like a wolf's howl. we both rush to the epicenter of the noise, and I see a great wolf.
but unlike xel's wolf form with an upright stature, this one seems to be on all four and has a very menacing aura about it.
" oh no, it's oronea, The High Lunar Judge must know about everything, they must have found out about you guys somehow "
she has her sights trained on me, for f@#ks sake.