Evolutionary Darkness

  By the time Hercules reached the other shore of the river, the water that coated his body had been literally evaporated. Without casting a look at Deianira, he extracted the arrow from the dying body of the centaur Nessus. Nessus, could have put in motion the first scheme of revenge, but at the last moment changed his mind. His blood was too pure to bath the body of a simple, anthropomorphic being. His last words fallowed very close the blood pouring through his mouth:

  —Hercules —he said— I know very well that the Oracle of Delphic ordered you to complete another labor, the number thirteen, to expiate the killing of your own children and the pain in which that action threw Megara. King Eurystheus couldn't have given you a harder task; for not even the Olympians gods can fathom the riddle of this new creature which, from the darkness of the forest, deliver death throughout Greece under the dim and ghostly look of Hecate. A creature that's not a fix hybrid like the sirens or my own species, the centaurs —but keeps itself flouting between human and animal form; a creature that really belongs to a coming time, to a coming mythology... Darker than ours. Here this mirror. The next time Hecate cast her round look upon the earth, behold it under her pale light... for on its shining crystal you'll see reflected the real identity of the mysterious creature.