It was a day of brilliant, unforgiving sunshine. The air on Mount Pelion was crisp and clear, filled with the scent of pine, thyme, and the faint, ever-present tang of Chiron's medicinal herbs.
"Now remember, Cyd," the centaur's voice was a steady, familiar rhythm against the backdrop of forest sounds. "Be wary of strangers offering food or shelter. Do not agree to seemingly simple requests without examining them from every angle. If you encounter individuals whose behavior seems… theatrically tragic, grandiose, or just plain unhinged, create distance. Immediately."
Today, Master Chiron is just as much of a mother hen as ever, Cyd thought with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. He shifted the weight on his shoulders. The pack he carried was not large; it was monumental. A massive bundle of cured deer hide, lashed tight with sturdy rope, bulged with supplies. It was nearly as tall as he was and wider than his torso, resembling a small, misshapen boulder more than a traveler's kit.
"Master… the pack," he grunted, his knees buckling slightly. "It's full. It can't possibly hold more."
Chiron stood before him, holding one last bundle of dried, silvery leaves. He looked from the herbs to the straining, spherical pack, then back. A slightly sheepish smile touched his wise face. With a magician's deftness, he found a minuscule gap in the lashings and wedged the final bundle inside.
"I can't help but worry," Chiron admitted, placing a heavy, comforting hand on Cyd's shoulder. The weight almost drove the young man into the ground. "The world is for you to explore, yes, but safety is paramount. I will not always be there. And you have learned only the arts of… peaceful disengagement." He cleared his throat. "The innermost layer, wrapped in the black wolf pelt—those are the toxic herbs. Aconite. Wolfsbane. A pinch on a blade tip will stop a man's heart before he hits the ground."
Cyd's grip on the pack straps tightened. "Master."
"But do not fret!" Chiron added hastily. "So long as you don't brew it into a tea or rub it into an open wound, you could bathe in the powder and suffer no ill effect. Your skin is quite impervious now."
"Master, I think I'd have to suffer a severe cranial trauma before I'd consider coating myself in wolfsbane," Cyd said dryly, sticking his tongue out in mock disgust. "Couldn't you have packed more healing salves instead?"
"In this world, even a god would find it difficult to breach your body from the outside," Chiron said, his tone matter-of-fact. "And if something does manage to injure you, my poultices and salves would be like trying to put out a forest fire with a cup of wine."
"That is… strangely reassuring," Cyd muttered.
Either I walk away unscathed, or I'm instantly paste. No messy middle ground. Very efficient.
"Now, go," Chiron said, his voice softening. He reached out and gently cupped the back of Cyd's head, his fingers tangling in the white hair that now brushed the young man's shoulders. It was a gesture of profound, paternal affection. "Go and become the man you wish to be."
He looked into Cyd's pale eyes, his own brown ones warm and serious. "Whether that man is ordinary and unknown, or respected and revered…"
"You will always be a student I am proud of."
---
The journey away from the mountain's protective slopes was… eventful.
Some days later, in a less-traveled stretch of woodland…
"So…"
Cyd set his gigantic pack down on the forest floor with a soft thud that nonetheless seemed to vibrate through the roots of the nearby trees. He walked to a nearby mossy boulder, sat down, and crossed one leg over the other. He steepled his fingers, resting his elbows on his knees, and adopted an expression of polite, almost academic inquiry.
"…would any of you gentlemen be so kind as to direct me to the forge-sanctuary of Lord Hephaestus, the divine smith?"
His audience was not ideal. Six men, naked as the day they were born, dangled upside-down from the lower branches of a sturdy oak. They were suspended by their own belts and bootlaces, which had been expertly knotted and thrown over the branches in a series of complex, inescapable hitches—a skill Cyd had perfected for securing game. Their faces were flushed purple with trapped blood and terror.
They stared at the young man with the snow-white hair, who looked for all the world like a scholar who had taken a wrong turn. They had made that assumption an hour ago. It had been a catastrophic error.
"S-spare us, good sir!" the one with a single milky eye stammered. He had been elected spokesman by the desperate, silent glares of his five companions.
"How curious," Cyd mused, his voice light. He reached into his pack, rummaged for a moment, and withdrew a perfectly polished red apple. He took a loud, crisp bite. "If our positions were reversed—if I were the one hanging there, begging for mercy—what would you have done?"
"We… we would have let you go! Of course!" the one-eyed bandit lied, the words tasting like ash. "We're not murderers!"
"Is that so?" Cyd took another bite, chewing thoughtfully. "How… neighborly of you."
He wasn't an idiot. He'd heard their crude boasts as they'd surrounded him, drawn by the sight of a lone traveler with a pack that promised riches. The promises of what they'd do to him before they killed him, the graphic descriptions of how they'd divide his (nonexistent) wealth… he'd filtered most of it out. But the intent had been clear.
"Yes! Very neighborly! We're all friends here!" One-Eye pleaded, a tear of pure panic leaking from his good eye.
Right. Cyd swallowed the bite of apple. The bandits' strength had been their downfall. They'd charged him as a group, a wall of grimy muscle and rusty iron. Cyd, trained for three years by a being who saw the flow of combat like a master composer reading a score, had simply… not been there. He'd used their own momentum, their clumsy swings and overcommitted charges. A sidestep here, a hooked ankle there. A precise, shin-kicking stomp to disrupt balance. A palm-heel strike to the solar plexus that didn't need to break ribs, just paralyze the diaphragm for ten seconds. One by one, they'd fallen, wheezing and stunned, until he stood amid a groaning pile of would-be predators. Disarming them had been simple. Stringing them up had been a practical exercise in knot-tying.
"So, my 'friendly' acquaintances," Cyd said, leaning forward. He used his boot to scuff a small hole in the soft earth, then carefully placed the apple core inside. "Where might I find the forge of Hephaestus?"
One-Eye's face went slack. The question was absurd. It was like asking a slug for directions to Olympus. They were dirt-poor bandits, not pious scholars. But to not answer was to invite a slow, inverted death by exposure or thirst. He had to say something.
"You… you go west!" he blurted, the first direction that popped into his head. "Through this forest! Keep going west! You'll find… a mountain of bronze! A whole palace of it! That's where he is! I swear it!"
Cyd raised a pale eyebrow. He used the toe of his boot to gently cover the apple core with soil, patting it down.
"You swear?" Cyd's voice was dangerously mild.
"I do! By all the gods on Olympus, I swear it!" One-Eye cried, the oath ripping from his throat in a final, desperate bid for credibility.
"Is that so?"
Cyd reached down and plucked a straight, foot-long twig from the ground. He held it up, examined it, then, without ceremony, tossed it spinning into the air above the clearing.
"O, gods who witness oaths," Cyd intoned, his voice taking on a formal, ritualistic edge that made the hanging men freeze. "Guide this branch. Let its pointed end show me the true path I should take."
What in Hades' name is this? One-Eye's brain short-circuited.
"If the point faces west," Cyd continued casually, "I shall take your word as truth."
Sssssss-WEST! The mental scream from six inverted brains was almost audible. As one, the bandits craned their necks, their eyes bulging, tracking the spinning stick as if their souls depended on its trajectory. One-Eye focused his entire willpower, his singular eye wide with insane concentration, as if he could psychically nudge the wood through the air.
The stick tumbled, end over end, in the lazy afternoon light.
It began to descend.
The pointed end wavered, shifted… and settled, pointing unequivocally to the east.
The blood drained from the bandits' faces, leaving them a sickly, greenish-white. In their world, men like them were the monsters in the dark for ordinary folk. But men like this—the calm, unnaturally skilled ones—they were the monsters for them. They were the heroes. And heroes showed no mercy to bandits. They took heads as trophies, did things just as brutal as any outlaw, and were celebrated for it.
One-Eye stared at the pale-haired youth, seeing his death in those calm, icy eyes. He closed his good eye, waiting for the blade.
CHEEP-CRASH!
A small, drab, sparrow-like bird shot out of a bush, chirping in apparent alarm. It flew a erratic path directly into the descending stick, striking it with a soft thwack. The stick wobbled, spun once more, and landed again.
Now, its pointed end faced west.
Cyd tilted his head, his expression one of profound bafflement. He looked from the stick to the little bird, which was now sitting on a nearby branch, looking dazed and ruffling its feathers.
Well. He hadn't believed a word One-Eye said. The stick toss had been a randomizer—he'd planned to go in whatever direction it pointed, as long as it wasn't back toward Pelion. The "swearing to the gods" bit had been theatrical flair to scare them.
But this? A bird, altering the course of a randomly thrown stick to align with a blatant lie? That wasn't coincidence. That was a message.
"Huh," Cyd said aloud, scratching the back of his head. "It seems you were telling the truth after all." He stood, hefting his colossal pack onto his shoulders with a grunt of effort. "Still, I can't very well cut you down. Consider this a time for reflection. The wildlife will eventually chew through those laces, or a traveler with more charity than sense will find you."
Without another glance at the sputtering, disbelieving bandits, he turned and began walking west, following the direction the stick—and the bird—had dictated. He vanished into the deepening shadows of the forest.
For a long minute, there was only the creak of leather and the ragged breathing of six upside-down men.
Then, a choked laugh bubbled from One-Eye's lips. It turned into a full, hysterical cackle. "We… we lived! Boss, we actually lived!"
The large, bearded man hanging next to him, the de facto leader, joined in, his laughter booming and relieved. "HA! Did you see that? Luck of the gods! A damned bird!"
"Once we get down," the boss gasped between laughs, "we find that little shit, get our gear back, and hit the next caravan twice as hard! Fortune favors us, boys!"
On the ground below, unseen by the celebrating bandits, a large, patient-looking cow ambled out from behind a thicket. The drab little sparrow fluttered down from its branch and landed on the cow's broad forehead. As it did, its feathers seemed to melt and reform. The plain brown plumage darkened, lengthened, became sleek and formidable. In seconds, the sparrow was gone, replaced by a majestic, sharp-eyed eagle.
The cow shook its head, and a woman's voice, dry and amused, emanated from it. "You see? I told you they wouldn't repent."
The eagle preened a wing feather, and a man's voice, deep and resonant, answered. "The boy is still too soft-hearted. A lesson unlearned is a danger repeated."
"What shall we do with them, then?" the cow asked, swishing its tail.
"They swore an oath. To us," the eagle replied, its gaze fixed on the dangling men, who had frozen once more, their celebratory grins melting into expressions of primal, superstitious horror. A talking cow. A shapeshifting bird. This was the stuff of campfire tales told to scare children. It wasn't supposed to be real.
"But they lied," the cow pointed out.
"Then they must be punished."
"Turn them into fruit?"
"They would taste foul."
A coil of rope, seemingly woven from shadow and sunlight, appeared on the ground beneath the oak tree.
The cow dipped its head in a nod and turned, ambling back into the thicket. The eagle spread its wings with a sound like a heavy cloak unfurling and launched itself into the sky, climbing toward the sun.
In the suddenly silent clearing, the oak tree rustled. Where six naked, terrified bandits had hung, now six large, peculiarly lumpy and sour-looking apples swayed gently from the branches, their skins an uneasy, fleshy pink.
Cyd, miles away and blissfully unaware, shouldered his pack and muttered to himself, a fundamental rule of this world solidifying in his mind:
Greek Survival Rule #5: Never swear an oath to the gods unless you mean it. They are always, always listening.
-o-
"Stuck again! By all the gods, is this some kind of cosmic joke?!"
Cyd grunted, reaching behind him to wrench his massive, ungainly pack free from yet another low-hanging, claw-like branch. With a sharp crack, the dry wood snapped, sending a shower of splinters to the forest floor. He'd been walking for what felt like an hour since leaving the bandits swinging, and the "short trek through the woods" the one-eyed liar had described showed no sign of ending. The trees just got thicker, the undergrowth more tangled.
And now, this.
He sighed, a long-suffering sound, as he eyed the new arrivals. They'd emerged from the shadows between the trunks with the silent menace of grey smoke. Five of them. Lean, hungry, their eyes reflecting the dappled light with a dull, predatory green. Timber wolves. Their ribs showed faintly beneath their thick winter coats. It was the lean season.
Of course. Because why wouldn't there be wolves? The wildlife around here is downright excessive.
Cyd rolled his shoulders, working out a knot of tension. He heaved his monstrous pack up and wedged it securely into the sturdy fork of a nearby oak, well above the ground. Then he turned to face the encircling wolves. He didn't draw the knife at his belt. Instead, he clapped his hands together twice, sharp, dismissive sounds that echoed in the quiet.
"Alright, come on then. All at once, if you don't mind. I'm not big on drawn-out cruelty, so let's make this quick and clean, yeah?"
The wolves didn't understand the words, but the tone—the dismissive, almost bored body language—was a universal insult in the animal kingdom. A low, collective growl rumbled from five throats. The alpha, a scarred beast with a muzzle gone grey, gave a signal only they could hear.
Four wolves launched themselves as one, a coordinated blur of matted fur and bared teeth. They were smart. They didn't go for the kill. Two aimed for his legs, to cripple and bring him down. Two more went for his outstretched arms, to disable any weapon he might hold. The alpha itself, larger than the others, gathered its haunches and sprang in a high, powerful arc, jaws gaping wide for the pale, exposed column of his throat. The stench of its breath—rotten meat and wet fur—hit Cyd's nostrils like a physical blow.
"The limbs, fine. Whatever. But buddy," Cyd said, his face screwing up in genuine disgust. With his left hand, he pinched his nose shut. "Could you at least brush? That's just rude."
His right hand shot up, not in a fist, but open. It moved with a speed that belied its casual appearance. His fingers, strong as iron bands from years of hauling, climbing, and training, closed around the alpha's thick, furry neck in mid-air, just below the jaw. The impact should have broken his wrist. It didn't even shudder.
The alpha's furious snarl died in a strangled whuff. Its momentum vanished. It hung there, suspended by its neck from Cyd's grip, its paws paddling uselessly in the air. Its expression wasn't pain or rage, but pure, unadulterated bewilderment. What?
A matching look of stunned confusion was on the faces of the two wolves currently attached to Cyd's forearms. Their teeth, sharp enough to splinter bone, had sunk into the fabric of his tunic and… stopped. It was like biting into seasoned oak. No give. No tear of flesh. Just an immovable, unyielding hardness. They hung from his arms like grotesque, furry bracelets, unsure of what to do next.
"Aw, damn it," Cyd groaned, looking down. The two wolves at his legs were more persistent, worrying at his leather breeches, the ones Chiron had tailored for him. He heard a distinct rrriip. "You tore them! These were custom-made!"
He shook his head, a teacher disappointed by unruly students. "You lot really need to learn when to quit."
He focused. It wasn't about strength; it was about release. For three years, Chiron hadn't just been teaching him how to avoid blows. He'd been breaking down the mental barriers—the limiters—every human mind places on its own body to prevent self-destruction. The human form is a reservoir of potential power, Chiron had explained during one of their theoretical sessions, his voice echoing in the firelit cave. What you see in athletes, in warriors, is a trickle from a vast lake. The body is the dam, the mind is the lock. Fear of breaking yourself keeps the gates shut. Cyd's Styx-forged body was no longer a fragile vessel. It was a conduit of solid adamant. The limiters could be eased. The lake could be tapped.
The first month with Chiron had been pure, unrelenting agony. The centaur's philosophy was that the quickest way to learn defense was to understand attack—intimately. He'd pummeled Cyd with fists, feet, staffs, even the flat of training swords. The invulnerable body felt no pain, but Cyd's pride had smarted. He refused to be a punching bag. He'd forced himself to forget the safety net, to see each blow as lethal, to move. It had taken six months of being a human piñata before something shifted.
He'd been hunting, tracking a massive brown bear that had shrugged off his arrows. Cornered, with the beast roaring in his face, instinct had overridden thought. He'd not dodged. He'd planted his feet, twisted his hips, and punched. Not at the bear, but through it.
His fist had shattered ribs, pulped muscle, and emerged from the creature's back in a spray of gore. The bear had died instantly, its roar cut short. Cyd had stood there, arm drenched to the elbow in still-steaming blood and viscera, horrified and exhilarated. The dam had a crack. The lake was leaking out.
Now, he let a little more flow.
His knees bent slightly. The muscles in his legs coiled, not like human sinew, but like steel springs under immense pressure. The soil beneath his feet compacted with a soft crunch, and fine cracks spiderwebbed outwards.
Then he moved.
He didn't jump; he uncoiled. The world became a blur. The alpha wolf was a weightless toy in his hand. He shot upward, a human projectile, clearing the canopy of the tallest oak in the vicinity. The wolves attached to him whined in terror, the ground falling away with nauseating speed. For a moment, they hung in the open sky, sun-dappled leaves below, endless blue above.
"Later," Cyd said.
He crossed his arms in front of his chest. The two wolves on his wrists were smashed together with a sickening THWACK of colliding skulls. Their jaws went slack. At the same time, he brought his legs up and scissored them outward in a powerful, spreading kick. The wolves clamped on his calves were ripped free and sent spinning away into the greenery below.
He landed a second later, the impact as soft and controlled as a cat's. Around him, five wolves lay in various states of unconsciousness, limbs twitching, utterly defeated.
"Huh," Cyd said to himself, flexing his fingers. "This body really is something else."
He retrieved his pack from the tree, hefting it with ease. "Still… just want a quiet life," he muttered, turning to continue west.
SNAP.
The sound was crisp, deliberate. Not a branch underfoot, but something thicker. Something breaking.
And the smell hit him next. Coppery, fresh, and thick. Blood.
Cyd's easygoing expression vanished, replaced by cold stillness. He turned his head slowly, following the sound and the scent.
Back where the wolves lay, a new figure had arrived.
It was a lion. But not the scraggy, desert lion of Africa he vaguely remembered from another life. This was a creature of mythic proportions, a Nemean echo. It stood as tall as a pony at the shoulder, its muscles moving beneath a tawny hide like boulders under a golden rug. Its mane was a thick, dark thundercloud around a broad, imperious head. It was already feeding, one massive paw pinning a dazed wolf to the forest floor while its great jaws, capable of biting through a man's thigh bone, tore into the animal's belly with wet, rending sounds. The wolf, awakened by agony, could only emit faint, dying whimpers as it was consumed alive.
Cyd watched, his stomach tightening. He wasn't sentimental about the wolves—they'd tried to eat him minutes ago. But this… this was different. This was a violation of the natural order he'd just established. It was disrespectful.
"Hey," he said, his voice flat. "That's not yours."
The lion paused. It lifted its blood-smeared muzzle, a long string of glistening intestine dangling from its teeth. Its eyes, amber and intelligent, found Cyd. They held no fear, only a bored, regal contempt. It gave a soft, dismissive chuff, a sound that clearly meant, "It is now, insect." Then it went back to its meal.
Cyd's jaw tightened. Every survival instinct, every scrap of Chiron's "avoid conflict" teaching, screamed at him to walk away. This was no ordinary beast. It had an aura, a palpable sense of otherness. It was trouble.
He sighed, a sound of profound resignation. He slung his pack off one shoulder and reached inside, his fingers closing around the cool, familiar wood and iron of his compact crossbow. He loaded a bolt with practiced efficiency.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. The smart, peaceful, ordinary thing is to back away slowly," he murmured, raising the weapon and centering the iron sight between the lion's eyes. A wry, fatalistic smile touched his lips. "Too bad I'm just a dumb human."
THWIP.
The bolt flew true, striking the lion square on the broad forehead with a sound like a hammer hitting an anvil.
PING.
The iron tip didn't penetrate. It didn't even scratch the hide. It deformed, flattened into a useless metal pancette, and fell to the ground.
The lion stopped chewing. Very slowly, it raised its head again. This time, the boredom was gone, replaced by a low, simmering anger. The expression was unnervingly human: the annoyance of a king who's just had a pebble thrown at his throne. Not enraged, but insulted. It would swat this nuisance, then return to its dinner.
A deep, vibrating growl built in its chest, a sound that Cyd felt in his own ribcage. The lion lowered its body, muscles coiling with terrifying power, and began to advance. It moved with a stalking, deliberate grace, each paw placement silent on the leafy ground. It would teach this fragile, pale insect what true despair felt like before it killed him.
Cyd's eyes widened. The bolt hadn't pierced. The casual, almost arrogant way it shook off the impact… A cold suspicion crystallized in his gut.
"You… you're not just a big cat, are you?" he whispered, taking an involuntary step back.
The step back was a trigger. In the language of predators, retreat is weakness. Weakness is an invitation.
ROAR!
The sound was a physical force, a blast of hot, meat-scented air that shook the leaves. The lion exploded forward. It covered the distance between them in two bounds. A paw the size of a dinner plate swept out, claws—black, curved, and longer than Cyd's fingers—fully extended. It wasn't a killing blow; it was a brutal, casual swat, meant to disembowel or break every bone it touched.
Cyd, for all his training, was still surprised by its speed. He managed a half-turn, but the blow caught him across the chest.
WHUMP-SCRATCH!
The impact lifted him off his feet. He sailed backward, skidding across the forest floor on his back, tearing a shallow furrow in the earth and mulch before slamming to a stop against the base of a tree. The force would have reduced a normal man's torso to hamburger.
The lion sat back on its haunches, satisfied. It lifted a paw and began licking it clean with a long, rough tongue, already dismissing the encounter. The human would be lying in a spreading pool of his own blood now, guts spilling, a final lesson delivered.
Pathetic creature, it thought, the concept forming in its primal mind.
"You have got to be kidding me," a voice grumbled.
The lion's tongue froze mid-lick.
Cyd pushed himself up from the tree base. He looked down at his chest. His tunic was in tatters, four parallel gashes torn clean through the fabric. Underneath, his skin was unmarked. Not a scratch. Not a bruise. Just pale, unbroken flesh.
"This was one of my only two shirts," he complained, poking a finger through one of the holes. He looked up at the lion, his own eyes narrowing. A competitive, dangerous glint entered them. "So… you're like me, huh? An 'invulnerable' type?"
The lion stared. Its brain, ancient and cunning, struggled to process the scene. The prey was not only not dead, it was… complaining about laundry? A low, confused rumble escaped it. Then confusion melted into something darker, more primal. This was no longer prey. This was a rival. A challenger in its territory. A being that should not exist.
Its playfulness vanished completely. Its body seemed to swell, muscles bunching and rippling with a power that promised annihilation. The amber eyes locked onto Cyd with singular, murderous intent.
This one must die.
"Not letting me walk away, are you?" Cyd said, shaking out his right hand. He rolled his neck, the bones popping softly. A slow, fierce smile spread across his face, one Chiron had seen only a few times—usually right before Cyd decided to stop holding back in a sparring match. "You know what? Fine. Me too."
He bent his knees, settling into a loose, ready stance taught by the centaur—a stance meant for receiving a charge and redirecting it.
The lion gathered itself, the ground trembling faintly under its paws. It prepared to unleash a fury that could level small trees.
And Cyd… vanished.
Not with magic, but with pure, explosive kinetic force. One moment he was there, the next he was a pale streak blasting backward into the dense forest, moving not toward the lion, but away from it at a speed that shredded leaves and snapped small branches in his wake. He'd used the lion's own focused aggression as a feint, and bolted.
A second of stunned silence.
Then…
ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!
The lion's roar of betrayed fury and utter frustration shook the very roots of the trees, a sound of pure, incandescent rage that echoed for miles through the ancient forest. Birds exploded from the canopy in panicked clouds. Small creatures froze in their burrows.
---
Several miles away, in a sunlit clearing on the opposite side of the vast woodland, a young man of Herculean build paused while sharpening a massive, crude club on a flat stone. He had wild, dark hair and eyes that held a strange mixture of gentle simplicity and latent, earth-shattering power.
He lifted his head, tilting it like a hound catching a distant scent. The faint, but unmistakable, tremor of a bestial roar of pure outrage carried on the wind.
A slow, curious smile spread across his face. He hefted the freshly sharpened club onto his shoulder, the weight negligible to him.
"That sound…" Heracles, son of Zeus, murmured to himself. "Found you ."