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Cerberus

Chapter 8: The Three Heads

Sneak Peek

Flynn was floating, hovering in a silvery white light. He felt like he was moving in a current, but he didn’t have the strength to fight it, nor did he want to. He was being whisked away on that current through this world of white. He couldn’t tell if he was blind, or if the world really was this bright. He felt himself being gently cradled in that stream, and then placed softly on the ground. As soon as his foot paws touched the soil, it gave way, and so did the world of light.

Flynn blinked as he saw the barren wastes before him. Dunes of lifeless dirt, bleached of life, and despite how bright it was, there was the night sky, brilliant and dark with only the lightest pinpricks showing the stars.

“What the hell,” Flynn spoke, but his voice was…soft? His voice refused to carry on the wind, muffled as it was. He looked about and saw the moon up in the sky, and paused. It looked so big, and…blue?

Flynn gasped and realized exactly where he was. He was on the moon. The earth hovered in the sky half formed.

“Keep going…”

Flynn heard the words, the voice that spoke to him before. That current was still drawing him somewhere. It was like he was at the bottom of the ocean, a current pushing him along as his toes bounced off the sea floor. Then there was something there that caused him to take pause. A large, gnarly tree with brilliant branches, overflowing with leaves.

A yew tree, on the moon?

In the crook of the yew, there was a place where the branches forked into two different directions. In that cradle was a glowing white sphere, like the moon itself was held inside it. As he got close, he saw that the orb of light was chained to the tree. The entire tree had shackles and chains lashed around it, climbing up through the branches. Some had fused with the branches where they grew around the old rusted iron.

He slipped through the branches, flowed through the bark, and slinked across chains as he was drawn up into that orb. He slipped through the sphere and found himself inside a living room, the place large and warm. Red carpet, velvet furniture, thick tapestries strung up around the windows to keep out the silvery moonlight. A crackling hearth glowed with reds, yellows, and greens, and as soon as he touched down, blue flames flickered in the hearth as well.

The three sisters were there already sitting on couches and armchairs, Cerberus was leaning against the wall while a fifth person poked the flames.

“You made it,” that voice murred from the hearth, the voice he had been hearing in his head was now out of it and speaking to him plainly. It wasn’t a hallucination, he heard her. She stood up from the hearth, her flowing robes were black, pinned with cosmos as though the night sky were a tapestry on her back. Red and white ribbons adorned her flowing white hair, her face almost angelic with how white her fur was. Pale as the moon with kind yet piercing red eyes. She was a polecat, her fur dazzling white; her stature tall and dignified yet relaxed. Her ageless features made it impossible to tell how hold she was. She walked up to Flynn, her arms outstretched. She was taller than him, able to pull him gently into her breast, a mother’s embrace. Her one hand stroked his hair while the other kept him close.

“You’re finally able to open your eyes,” she spoke, her voice soft, yet powerful, as though multiple people were talking at once but with the same mouth.

Flynn felt that hug deep in his bones. He felt his aches bleed away, his fatigue melt, his icy veins thaw, and his mind clear. He took a deep breath and sighed it out slowly. This was home, this was love, this was the place he belonged. He knew it deep in his heart that this was where his home was. With her.

“Yes, you’re home,” the polecat affirmed his thoughts, pulling away and looking down at him, the gentle curls of her white hair coupled with various braids and ribbons.

“You’re Hecate?” Flynn asked.

“Yes,” she smiled, her teeth dazzling like moonlight. “Though you can simply call me mother, mom, ma, whatever tickles your fancy. We’re family after all.”

“H-How?” Flynn stepped back. “I mean…yeah, how?”

“Didn’t your sisters explain?” She cocked a brow and looked at them. Hemala nodded as she kept her talons crossed. She was dressed in dazzling white robes. “I guess it bears repeating.” Hecate shrugged. “When a child is to be stillborn under my moon, I can reach through and grant them life with my essence. My cage here is impenetrable to gods, but mortal souls and children of gods can slip through the bars.”

“So, I was never supposed to be born, but you gave me life?”

“Your body was never to be born or grow, but your soul, that is the part of me that thrums through your veins.”

“You’re the Blue Moon,” Kamila said from the couch, her body clad in flowing red robes. “Our mother’s only son, and blessed with the blue moon’s graces.”

“I mean…I don’t really know what that means,” Flynn furrowed his brow.

“I know,” Hecate said, gently taking his muzzle and directing it back to her. “I know it must be confusing, but we don’t have much time to doddle. So let me lay your lineage bear. You are my only son, a son of the moon, the youngest of my children and blessed with the blue moon’s graces.”

“It means you’re lucky,” Tiahna said as she nibbled on a cookie from the coffee table, she was clad in black robes. “The blue moon is known for luck, enchantments, gateways, and most importantly, connection to the divine.”

That last bit struck a chord with him.

“Connection to the divine?” Flynn echoed. “So…is that why my mana is bottomless?”

“Yes,” Hecate smiled, brushing Flynn’s cheek with her thumb. “You have access to the very essence of magic, my magic, the primal source of all that is arcane. You are bottomless because there is no limit to the magic you can hold, only a limit to how much your body can sustain. Remember this,” She said, putting up a finger in front of him, her nails long and pristine. “You have the power of a god, but the body of a demigod. You must know the difference. You are limited by that mortality. Even demigods can only handle so much before buckling under the weight of their patrons.”

“I…I think I understand,” Flynn was more confused, but he decided he would simply learn in time. He lifted his hands and realized he was wearing robes. They were black, trimmed with red and had a white shawl. “So, I’m the three in one? Why is that?”

“The blue moon encompasses all phases of the moon,” Cerberus grunted from behind Flynn. “That’s what makes it so powerful. Figures,” he huffed.

“Okay, what’s with the attitude—” Flynn spun around and paused, his eyes wide, his words caught in his throat as he looked at Cerberus. He was completely nude, his jewels fully on display, his sheath plump and full. How did he not realize before? He looked up, blushing, but the cocky bastard already had a shit eating smirk on his face as he bounced his eyebrows.

“See something you like?” Cerberus kissed the air, his collar of runes the only thing on him.

“Sh-Shut up!” Flynn huffed before his eyes went wide. “Wait, did you say you were headless before? What are you talking about with that?”

“Stowe it, you dirty brat,” Cerberus snarled, but he glanced at Hecate and his ears folded back before he huffed and looked down.

“That’s actually why I wanted both of you up here,” Hecate moved to the loveseat and patted the space next to her. “Blue? Can you come here?”

Flynn’s ears twitched as he came over to her and sat down. “What do his heads have to do with all this.”

“They have everything to do with this,” she answered. “You see, many years ago, long before you or any of your sisters were born, magic was far more potent and advancing rapidly. I had many children in my coven, and each one sought inspiration from me, but one in particular was very ambitious. I don’t blame her for what happened, but she brought forth a very potent magic, birthed from a mind inspired by my guidance.”

“What kind of magic?” Flynn paused.

“Necromancy,” Cerberus snarled from where he was leaning.

“Necromancy? Isn’t that just reanimation of corpses through magic?” Flynn cocked a brow. “It’s not even practiced that heavily today. It’s so impractical.”

“It’s weak,” Hecate agreed, putting a hand on Flynn’s shoulder. “It’s weak, because I was imprisoned shortly after it was conceptualized. To halt its advancement.”

“Wait, what?” Flynn furrowed his brow. “So imprisoning you somehow stopped necromancy from advancing?”

“Darling, Blue,” Hecate leaned in and kissed his forehead, speaking right into his brow. “It stopped the progression of all magic.”

“All magic?” Flynn pulled away to look her in the eye. “But we’ve done massive advancements in magic since ancient Greece.”

“Have we?” Kamila cut in. “All magic has stagnated, no new magic can be born that wasn’t already conceived or lost to the ages. All we’ve done is found ways to augment it, using special machines to weave magic and make it easier to perform, making it more convenient. But precision can’t always compensate for potency.”

Flynn’s ears perked up. He learned in medical school that there are limitations on what magic can and cannot do. That no matter how hard we’ve tried, we can’t develop a spell that’ll be able to cure cancer or eradicate HIV. It’s all about magic stitching and making smaller and smaller stitches to pinpoint treatment, but ultimately, medicine and science outshined stitching in terms of preventative care and rehabilitation.

“So…there is no limit to how much magic can grow, but it’s capped while you’re in this prison.”

“Yes,” Hecate said gently petting Flynn’s hair and brushing it out of his eyes.

“Really? All that to stop one kind of magic?”

“It’s because it’s an affront to the natural order,” Cerberus snarled. “It threatened the balance of all things. Hades would never allow souls out of the underworld, nor should he. It’s not their place, and Necromancy, as infantile as it is now, poses more of a threat to the world than the atom bomb.”

“You’re overreacting,” Tiahna waived off Cerberus’s concerns.

“Am I?” Cerberus barked. “You don’t see Ares in a cage, now do you? War has been off leash for millennia because it’s part of the natural order. No matter how many new kinds of weapons that freak comes up with, it won’t be an affront to the natural order because it only speeds up the inevitable end of all mortals. He may put bodies in the ground before their time, but the Fates accounted for loss of life, they didn’t weave the tapestry of time with the intent of anything ever coming back out of the dirt after it’s been buried.”

“Cerberus,” Hecate started.

“No! You don’t get to lecture me, not after what you did!”

“I never intended to have that happen,” Hecate was almost pleading.

“Then WHY DID YOU LET IT HAPPEN,” Cerberus roared. “You were my patron mother! You were supposed to protect me, and I was supposed to serve! NOW LOOK AT ME!”

Cerberus clawed at his face, the head vanishing in a wisp of smoke, his body scarred and scraped, torn and beaten, and headless. Only a shadowy image of his head was there where three necks hung limply.

“YOU DID THIS TO ME!” He snarled.

“I know,” Hecate answered. “But I’m trying to fix it.”

“You can’t fix shit!” Cerberus’s face flashed back to normal, tears streaming form his eyes. “If I could, I’d gut you here for what you did! You betrayed me. I trusted you with my life, and you turned my patron father against me.”

“Cerberus, that’s enough,” Hemala glared at the dog.

“No,” Hecate put her hand up. “Let him speak. I owe both him and Flynn that much.”

“You owe me that and more!” Cerberus snarled. “I should have never let you by, I should have never let you in. It was my job to guard hades, to keep the underworld safe and secure, but you…you told me to step aside. I moved my legions, my sons and daughters, my husbands and wives, my pack, my family, and told them to stand down. To let my patron mother through. And what did you do while the gate was open? You changed the underworld. You built a back door that could never be closed. All so your little skank of a follower could continue with their magic, continue with their perverse idea of bringing the dead back to life. Hades knew immediately once one of the souls was gone. Shredded and torn to pieces by that monstrous magic. Whatever came back, it wasn’t human. Changed by its time in the afterlife and fucked up into a mockery of humanity and forced to tread the mortal plane.”

“Cerberus, I’m sorry,” Hecate pleaded.

“NO! Hades was furious. He was more mad than ever. His loyal guard dog had betrayed him, so his dog would pay the price. I had my heads cut off and was banished from the afterlife. It was that or Tartarus.”

“Yes, and that became my cage,” Hecate sighed. “Haven’t we both suffered enough?”

“I only wish Hades made your cage tighter so you wouldn’t be able to have visitors, then maybe you’ll know a fraction of the solitude I’ve had to bear.”

“What if I told you I could restore your heads?” Hecate answered.

“Don’t lie to me, bitch! We both know you can’t do that,” Cerberus snarled. “You can’t do shit inside this cage besides fling your crotch goblins down to Earth.”

“I can’t, but Flynn can,” Hecate put a hand on Flynn’s shoulder like a proud mother.

“Him?” Cerberus scoffed. “He can’t even keep off my dick long enough to form a simple spell, let alone undo a god’s cage. You think my other heads could be slain by him?”

“I do,” Hecate nodded.

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