Legend LXXI – The Shaman of the Bone Cave

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In the heart of the Shadow Mountains, where even the wind dares to whisper, lies the Bone Cave—a place older than humankind, older even than the language they use to name their fear. Those who venture inside see the ancient symbols at the entrance: spirals, eyes, hunting animals, and figures too large to have ever truly existed. But the most important symbol is that of three circles, superimposed like moons falling into one another. It signifies: Here reigns the one who walks between worlds. The shaman. No soul knows how old he is. Some claim his feet still felt the warmth of the first sun. Others say he is not human at all, but a gift from those spirits who ruled the land before time. His body is lean, sinewy, covered in scars that look more like runes than wounds. But his mask is most famous—a colossal skull with curved horns, so smooth it seems sculpted from the very breath of the earth. Those who gaze into the dark eye sockets see not blackness, but movement. A shimmer, as if something within listens to every thought. It is said that the shaman can discern with a single glance the shadow a person carries. When the stars shone a strange green that night, he emerged from the depths of the cave, the staff in his hand, its tip gripped by crystals like petrified fingers. His breath mingled with the wisps of a fire that did not burn red, but surged in emerald-green flames, still and cool as water. This fire was his tool—and his punishment. For whoever stoked it summoned the dead. Not those who slept beneath the earth, but those who never found their way to oblivion. That evening, the shaman listened long and hard to the breath of the world. The rock walls told him of a restlessness that stirred beneath the mountains like an animal awakening from its stony armor after centuries. The paintings on the wall shimmered in the green light and seemed to shift their forms—animals became humans, humans became shadows, shadows became eyes. A vision came over him. He saw a path of bones winding across the mountains. He saw a child who belonged to no one, yet was sought by everyone. And he saw a voice—yes, a voice—so ancient that it could only be silence. It did not call; it waited. The shaman knelt and, with his bone knife, carved a new mark into the cave floor: a spiral, but not like the previous ones. This one turned inward, not outward. A warning. When the spiral turns inward, the worlds begin to breathe. He rose and raised the staff. The green fire expanded like a wave, and with it, the bones on the floor stirred. Some rolled, others piled upon one another as if by an invisible hand, until small figures emerged—half animal, half spirit. They waited for his command. But the shaman did not speak. He did not even think. He allowed the cave itself to decide what must happen. The spark jumped back and forth between him and the walls, like an ancient song remembering itself.