Shadow of the Avatar

Chapter 17 -- Past Lives: A Meeting of Minds

Telepathy, mind bending, rapports, under-speech, all that stuff was just fiction to me. Then, I started doing it. I always knew I was odd...but that odd?

--Wren

Wren knelt by Desiray's head. Two large circular welts stood out between her eyes where Corona's round hilt had struck her. Welts. The woman's head should have been staved in. Wren ran a finger across the mistress' skin.

So smooth. Perfect. Her fingernail couldn't even make a mark when she pressed. The woman looked like a normal person yet her skin seemed tough as hard leather. How could that be? Was her body somehow denser? Desiray was slim and barely a half-hand taller than Wren. The ground had shaken when she fell though.

The hand that held Corona began to itch. She looked down at the weapon. The hilt had started glowing. She felt her arm being urged to move. Some feeling said she should move the weapon to the wounds. Why? To heal Desiray as well? She pressed Corona to Desiray's forehead. The dagger hummed. The red gem pulsated, the crimson illumination grew brighter. This time the dagger's humming was more than audible, it rang in her head. The gem itself seemed to grow. Or did she shrink? The sounds and the smells of the dark alley vanished as something tugged her toward the gem's blood colored light. Corona's humming grew louder. She felt as if she were falling. Her heart pounded as she flailed for some way to halt her plunge into the redness spreading around her. Her hands found nothing.

"Corona!" she screamed. "What are you..!"

The words came too late. The alley was gone. She drifted as though submerged in an ocean of translucent red. It was as if she'd been sucked into the heart of Corona's jewel.

What had happened? More importantly, how would she get out again..?

Wren fought to control her panic as she oriented herself in the red haze she floated in. Every direction felt 'up'. Her limbs met resistance when they moved, but there was nothing tangible to touch or grasp. Occasionally, glimmers of gold winked far in the distance.

Am I really inside Corona's gem, or is this some mind trick that makes it 'look' as if I am? Why am I here?

She tried to find reason in what Corona had done. A solution. As she focused, she realized she'd forgotten the question. A solution for what? There must be an explanation. She scanned around for some clue, nothing but red space sprinkled with gold.

One sparkle looked closer than the others. On instinct, she reached for it. Her fingers closed around it. Long slender silhouettes flooded into the space around her, whirling and snapping like long holiday banners. In the streamers, she glimpsed images.

Intuition said these strands held the key to getting free of this crimson prison. The streamers spun and dipped right out of reach.

She lunged. Her hand closed on something hot. Light flared around her...

Wren stood in a slovenly shanty leaning against a rickety table. Her back burned. Someone--something held onto her arm. Confused, she tried to twist away. It happened so fast, one moment in the redness, the next...Despite the surroundings being completely new, they somehow felt familiar. The air reeked of spoiled grain, overripe tallow and stale sweat.

She tried again to twist away from whatever gripped her. Stringy black hair fell across her face. Her hands didn't look right. In fact, nothing was right. What was this place? She'd grabbed for an image and...a jolt of agony disrupted her thoughts. A hulk of a man loomed over her. Her heart pounded as she saw his deformed face. The muscles and skin hung slack on the right side, making the flesh appear half melted. His left eye gleamed while the other stared off in a different direction. She'd never seen this grotesque hulk before, but she knew his name. Maldar!