Chapter 06: Birth of Ksh’zar

  An intense, unidentifiable pain jolts me awake. I am being moved on what feels like a litter, tightly bound by numerous ropes. Something soft covers my eyes, like a blindfold, and even my mouth is gagged, leaving me unable to do anything but groan.

  My mind is once again flooded with a myriad of questions. I recall dying, once more being eaten alive but this time by a school of carnivorous fish.

  Could I have been reborn yet again?

  I struggle very hard trying to untie myself but it’s apparently useless. Damn it! Why can’t my rebirth be as a normal mammal or something where there are fewer difficulties for the newborn involved? I struggle some more until something hard hits me in the head.

  I awake again with a little less overall pain but still tied up. At least it seems I am not being transported anymore. There is a constant sound of water dripping and strange rattles echoes around me. Come on, what the hell is going on? Someone please just help me to get out.

  And as if answering my prayers the blindfold is removed revealing the scarred and wrinkled face of a really ugly and enormous lizard. Both its eyes are blind and huge scars and strange piercings made of bone cover most of the creature’s head.

  It resembles a horrifying blend of a malevolent witch doctor and a tormented, sightless lizard. In its grasp, a long, sharp knife emanates a glow, hinting sinister deeds yet to come. I struggle with increased fervor, but the ropes remain unyielding.

  “Not only alive but sshhsh this energetic”! With some kind of older female voice, the strange lizard speaks to me. “Do not be a shhhshhh little boy, I protect you from bad froggies”.

  What the hell is this supposedly lizard old hag talking about and why speak to me like a child? Have I not died in that pit? Just wondering what this goddam lizard will do to me with this knife makes me desperate.

  “Oh, you shshhh so much. Such youth will make old Magba jealous”. Despite being blind, she skillfully cuts the ropes untying me and when my head is finally free, I discover I am in my same old (?) lizard body.

  Immediately I check to see if everything is still in place… but unfortunately, it’s not!

  It seems my regenerative abilities aren’t strong enough to heal a missing limb as my left arm closed in a stump just after the elbow. Additionally, half of my already small tail is also missing.

  I try to stand up, but sharp pain forces me to lie down again. The lizard grandma runs her claws along my body and I’m too weak to stop her. “Such a poor little boy, they cut your arm off” (So now I know, I’m definitely a male). Yeah! Just what I need right now is the pity of an elderly lizard. “But you shhshh be thankful to still be alive with all shhsh injuries”.

  “Didn’t I fall into a pit full of fish that ate me”? I ask the old lizard, still curious about my unexpected survival.

  “That is what shhhshh have happened, yes! But little Shokar saved your life down there”.

  So, she is saying that boneless lizard who was kneeling and begging to the boss frog just hours before actually rescued me from certain death? This sounds very dubious at least.

  “How and why did he do that? I’m just another Lizardling”. I ask Magba these questions and for a while she only shows me an intriguing smile.

  “How not important, but why… Why is shhhsshh.” She says to me enigmatically.

  “It all starts with a story about sshhhhh of our species and how we came to be slaves for those shhhhhhhh shhhhhh toads shhhhh”.

  Her speech was going well until she began what seemed to be a very graphic description of her thoughts on the frog people. Despite my apparent innocent understanding of Lizardman language there were lots of good promises there.

  Finally! For the first time in this world, I believe I have found someone who not only can but wants to explain things to me. And I desperately need more information.

  “I want to hear all of it!” I ask her and she just nods with an enthusiastic expression.

  “Good, good little boy”! She lifts both her claws and touches my forehead with her really long nails. Suddenly, a strange blue light surrounds her hands and reaches my head. “Not be scared now child, just a little bit of magic.”

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  What?? Does this place even have magic? And why do I specifically know the word for it?

  Many questions surge in my head at the same time, but as soon as the light touches me, I can feel something messing up with my head like some kind of anesthetic effect in the whole brain.

  A sudden nausea hits me and, in an instant, just when I close my eyes, strange dreamlike visions surge in my mind.

  In a completely dark place, a giant ethereal version of Magba’s head appears and speaks to me, sounding like some sort of ghostly narrator.

  “I’ll show you a tale of when old Magba here was just a Lizardling like yourself, and you’ll see why you may be a precious existence to us.” Her voice sounded much different, like the words came not from sounds, but over thoughts and even images.

  Still, not so sure about the safety of the procedure, I take a leap of faith and somehow nod to this magic intrusion inside my head.

  “Good, good I like your determination little one!” Well, at least one of us is enthusiastic.

  “This story starts with the birth of a very special lizard, years before today”. As her voice fades the scenery changes to a cavern very similar to the one I was born in.

  In the depths of the cavern, long before the reign of the Frogmen, a lizard unlike any other hatched from his egg. He was one of us, yet different. From the moment he crawled out of his egg, he acted completely different from any of the other newborns.

  This was the birth of the one who was later named Ksh’zar.

  Unlike the rest of us who struggled through our early days, Ksh’zar never knew fear. As he fought from the moment he could stand, his first evolution came faster than any of us. And through many battles, he gained a very special trait where all his wounds would close almost instantly after receiving them and even different types of toxins had little effect on him.

  And so, within just a couple of days, he had subdued all the other newborns and became their leader.

  As we left the cave and started our training, I was the first to willingly follow him. Not out of fear, but out of something I couldn’t quite explain at the time. Maybe it was curiosity, maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was the fact that, despite his monstrous ability, he spoke unlike any other of our kind.

  Ksh’zar had a way of seeing the world that was… strange. At first, talking to him was difficult. He did not speak of food, or strength, or even survival as the others did. He spoke of something else…

  And I listened.

  As we continued to evolve and started going after bigger hunts, our battles grew fiercer. But Ksh’zar would always recover, even from wounds that should clearly have been fatal. His regeneration had accelerated beyond what was natural. No injury lasted long, no poison took hold. By the time he reached the Lizardman stage, he was already a monster. And then… he kept going.

  After a particularly vicious skirmish, we sat together, catching our breath. The scent of blood and the low murmurs of the other lizards filled the night, but for a moment, there was silence between us.

  “You hesitate.” Ksh’zar finally said, his voice was even and calm. “That is why you take longer to grow.”

  I glared at him. “I do not hesitate. I survive.”

  His mouth curved slightly. “Survival is a delay of death. To truly live, one must dominate.”

  I frowned. “And what if I don’t want to dominate? What if I just want to live?”

  He tilted his head, his glowing golden eyes unblinking. “Then you will be ruled by those who do.”

  When he finally became an Alpha, he was untouchable. He towered over us, his golden eyes gleaming with a hunger that was no longer just for food or survival, it was for something more. Something none of us understood at the time.

  But Ksh’zar’s rise was not without challenge. Our tribe’s leader, another Lizardman Alpha, named Murgar Iron Scales, would never relinquish his rule so easily. A battle for supremacy became inevitable, and every lizard in the tribe gathered in the cavernous pit to witness the clash between these two Alphas.

  The duel began with an earth-shaking roar from Murgar as he charged, his scales as hard as stone, his claws like obsidian blades. Ksh’zar stood his ground, his stance relaxed but his eyes locked onto his foe. When Murgar’s massive claw swung toward him, Ksh’zar twisted his body just enough to let it graze his side, only for the wound to heal instantly, as if it had never been there.

  Murgar hesitated for just a moment, but it was all Ksh’zar needed. He countered with a flurry of strikes, claws slashing, fangs snapping. The duel raged on, an even match of power versus endurance. Murgar struck with raw force, aiming to crush Ksh’zar’s bones, while Ksh’zar dodged, adapted, and regenerated faster than any wound could take hold.

  The battle reached its climax when Murgar, already frustrated and desperate, lunged with all his might. The full force of the attack struck Ksh’zar's head, creating a wide and undoubtedly fatal injury.

  But then, before the very eyes of the tribe, something impossible happened.

  As Murgar’s claws tore through Ksh’zar’s flesh, a second head erupted from his shoulders. A new mouth, filled with fresh fangs, clamped onto Murgar’s throat and a second set of eyes gleamed with newfound hunger.

  Murgar fell, his throat torn, his legacy ended in a single moment of horror. The duel was over.

  Ksh’zar stood over the corpse, both of his heads turning to face the watching tribe while gore still dripped from his new mouth. He did not need to speak. We all knew what had just happened. He had not only won and become our leader; he had also become something else.

  There and then he named himself Ksh’zar, which in our language means…

  A clear image of an enormous monster, rising from a deep swamp with its multiple serpent-like heads and voracious teeth completely fills my mind.

  … The Hydra.