Chapter 169: The shaman's vision

The shaman pauses before she recounts her entire vision. She feels ants crawling through her scalp down to her neck, spreading throughout her back. It has been hundreds of years since she has had this feeling showering over her - the feeling of her goddess's presence, Karta. 

Shamans don't usually reveal the specifics of their visions because they keep them holy. Those visions are like their special connection to the goddess who watches fate. They are incredibly personal. Seeing such an opportunity arise, Lin and Ian become attentive to what she has to say since she seems awfully shaken by it.

That day, the ritual is done with the usual dry herbs, spices, stones, and inscriptions. The air becomes dense in aromatics, and the shaman connects to the world around her. She strengthens the link to her soul, reaching out to the mechanisms of fate. Suddenly, she feels electricity crawl through her body, and a sharp pain pierces deep into her heart. The shaman feels shaken by the sudden disconnection in the middle of her ritual. Panicking, she tries to reconnect, and a light shines upon her, impairing her vision for half a minute.

When the shaman opens her eyes, she finds herself standing inside a shallow body of water. She realizes that she is currently inside the vision. 

The murky water reaches her ankles. She looks around, feeling the presence of her goddess, but Karta is nowhere near her. As she walks forward, the sharp sand and pebbles graze the soles of her feet. Random branches of dead trees peek out from the dark water. 

With her mortal eyes, she can vaguely see the split between the body of water and the dead sky. The traffic of comets fill the heavens, and the celestial bodies leave trails of stardust to indicate where they come from. With only those comets to light the sky, the world inside the vision is in shades of grey.

She is waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but staying still is a waste of time. With the poor lighting, the shaman walks around, her ankle pushing through the viscous waters. 

Her vision abruptly turns dark as she slams into a bouncy slimy wall. She falls back and lands on the murky water. Her hands glaze over the sharp objects from the bottom of the lake. Her dress is soiled with mud, and she frowns from the uncomfortable feeling of wet clothes. She looks up. With her eyes slightly more adjusted to the darkness, she sees the shape of the mount that she slammed against. She squeezes her eyes to look closer, and she sees a dangling head.

She screams but quickly seals her mouth with both of her hands. The bitter taste of mud and blood manages to enter her mouth. While trying to tame her shakiness, she steels herself to look closely at the mount of corpses. She finds that the corpses are marked with tiny characters and ancient inscriptions. 

She has seen those inscriptions before. When she has traveled into the ruins that used to be the city of Udarr, she has found similar symbols in tablets. The corpse with the head hanging upside down opens its mouth, and a giant insect walks out of it, scaring the shaman silly. She falls again to the murky waters while crawling away as fast as she can. The insect's body continues to crawl out like a snake with thousands of goosebump-inducing legs. It's a giant centipede.

She recognizes that the giant centipede is a type of Gu. Gu is a deadly poisonous insect that is bred by making the insect survive numerous trials. 

The process is usually very inhumane where only the law of survival of the fittest exists. Inside a large vase, Gu breeders would put different poisonous insects. Then, they would wait until one of the insects would eat through all the other insects to survive. That last insect comes out with a stronger type of poison in its body. Some breeders would repeat the process multiple times until that surviving insect reaches a level that could be considered a Gu.

The practice of Gu has been long abolished because it has a heavy repercussion. Gu curses the possessor with death, and those insects are indestructible. Thus, those insects are sealed to the depths of the earth to stop the curse from spreading. 

Shaken by the large centipede, the shaman only manages to murmur, "Cursed fate."

The foresight tells the shaman that Ian is cursed, and his curse is indestructible. However, a curse always has causation, either from a caster or indirectly caused. She stands back up while looking around with her better-adjusted eyes to darkness. The mud drips off the corners of her robe, disturbing the peaceful surface of the shallow lake.

Her attention quickly centers on the random pieces of black thread floating in the air. She grabs a bundle of tangled strings, and as soon as she touches it, it disintegrates. The shaman narrows her eyes from the familiar feeling that comes off the strings.

Thus, she tries to catch more, but all end up turning to dust as soon as they contact her skin. Nonetheless, she is sure what they are now. They are Ian's fate threads. It has taken the shaman a few tries before she pinpoints the answer because she has never seen fate threads cut into pieces. 

The normal fate threads are long and red, not in pieces and black. The shaman exhales in disbelief. 

'Are these threads the reason why Ian is cursed? Then, the mound of corpses symbolizes the curse that comes from the severance of fate.'

Although the shaman feels sorry for Ian, the shaman has never seen anyone live different from what fate wills. The only escape from cursed fates is death. However, nothing she has seen before amounts to the cruelty written for one person to bear. Worse, the shaman knows that a deity must be responsible for such cruelty. That god must be a high leveled deity with enough essence to sever something as untouchable as fate. 

The questions start to surface.

'Why? Why sever the fate of a mortal? Why would a deity go through the lengths, trouble, and sacrifice?'

The shaman has come in to find answers for her inability to pinpoint Kyrie's exact future, but she ends up with more questions. Despite her rapid depleting mana, she decides to stay. She looks around to find that other than the mountain of corpses and the broken fate strings, nothing could help her build on her interpretation. 

Remembering her predecessors, she recounts how one has taught her to look at the specific elements that help build her interpretation. So, she re-examines the mountain of corpses and the broken fate strings.

Nothing more than she can interpret from those two elements. 

'Is this another dead end?'

Looking down defeated, her eyes catch something shining inside the murky waters, so she scoops a handful of sand. Mixed with the sand, there are particles of gold that melt into the air as soon as they are taken off the water. Some of those particles get absorbed in her skin as energy. 

'Essence is mixed in the sand…'

She grabs another handful and sees those particles evaporating, leaving the sand behind. Only when she is starting to ponder for a reason, she sees that the body of water is moving in a direction. The movement is very settled that the shaman has not noticed before.

The shaman races toward the direction. She enters an invisible barrier that took the air out of her lungs for a few seconds. She looks back to see her own reflection, and when she touches the barrier, she finds that she cannot get through it any longer.

So, she decides to walk toward the source of light that she can see at a distance. On the way, she catches how the broken fate strings are moving the same way. With the last bit of mana left to sacrifice, she sees a silver goblet in the sky with a young tree growing inside. Gold threads hang on the branches of the trees, and their ends are slowly reattaching with the black broken strings.

She extends her hand to touch one of the gold strings. Once her fingertip brushes over the string, the string immediately wraps around her wrist, turning red. No matter how much she tries to break free, the gold-turned-red thread does not break. She tries to use her weight to break free, so she walks until the thread cannot extend anymore. However, to her surprise, the thread seems boundless. No matter how far she walks, the thread never reaches its maximum length. 

Without any warning, her vision ends. She opens her eyes to see that her consciousness has returned to her room. She covers her mouth as she coughs up blood for overusing her mana. Looking at the red in her hand, she remembers the thread wrapped around her wrist in the vision.

The old shaman stops recounting her memories and remains quiet as she processes her own thoughts. Lin and Ian look at each other, understanding what that red thread is.

That thread is a fate thread.

"Before, I couldn't understand what that silver goblet and gold fate threads meant. All until Lin brought his injured son, and I was able to feel that kid's mana and essence inside. That kid's energy has the same feeling as those gold threads."

Lin finds the entire vision hard to process, "What then does that mean?"

"It means that Ian's fate could restore to its original state through Kyrie," the shaman points at Ian with her dagger, "and I also think that this is the will of my goddess, the guardian of fate, Karta."

Ian widens his eyes when he hears that name, "Did you say goddess Karta?"

The shaman nods. 

That is Phanes's elder sister, and Ian has met her when he's trapped with Kyrie in the city of Udarr.

"Nonetheless…" The shaman darkens her expression, "That does not mean that this kid's curse will not affect the people close to him."

"Why do broken fate strings affect anything? Or cause a curse?"

"There is no such thing as not having fate threads, Lin. For each person you meet in life, you are connected to them one way or another. Not having fate threads means that you will never form a relationship with anyone in life."

"But…" Lin points at himself and at Ian, showing that they have a relationship - even if the relationship is acquaintanceship. However, Lin's relationship extends more than that because of his son's relationship with Ian.

"That is why your relationship is a contradiction to how this kid's fate is being recorded."

"So?" Lin becomes frustrated because the shaman is feeding him chunk by chunk.

"It means that fate will sooner or later correct itself and make sure there are no other possible ways to further that contradiction… And… And… Death is the fastest way. Unfortunately, that is also the way fate normally leans toward."

Lin narrows his eyes, reflecting some pain from them.

"Is there any way that we know when fate does that?"

Ian finally breaks his silence, "Yeah. There is."

"How… How do you know?" Lin's heart is banging on his chest as he voices the question. 

Ian takes out his arm off his shirt, showing red string marks on his skin coming from his heart. Although there is no pain, he now knows that fate is starting to work on him.

During the exploration of the gates, Imogen coincidentally sees the red string marks.

What she has said still occasionally echoes in Ian's mind, "Dude… You are dying..." 

Imogen has never been surprised by anything that has to do with Ian because she has seen everything that she has to see. Yet, at that moment, Imogen's face has twisted in a pained but amusing way that Ian could not get his mind off of her expression for many days.