Xahn found himself in a room that was small and white, but it wasn’t the temple’s infirmary where he and Dahn had drifted back to sleep earlier. It was lit by the steady dim glow of crystals in the ceiling, arranged to look like stars. He lay upon a thin bed, dressed only in a gray robe. The room was bare except for a small painting hung on one wall, which he couldn’t make out in gloom. There was a strange smell that reminded him of an approaching spring storm.


    Rising, he placed his feet on the cold flagstone floor.  Xahn felt strong and clear headed as he stood up and looked around. He wasn’t quite sure where he was. The small bed, the crystals in the ceiling, the painting, and an empty doorway were the only features of this room. It wasn’t large enough to do much more than walk around the bed or walk out. He took a step toward the hand-sized painting to examine it. It was a night scene, painted on stretched canvas in a dark frame of carved wood. The artist had depicted one of those rare nights when all three moons were full at once. Beneath the shining orbs were sharp mountain peaks Xahn didn’t recognize. His attention was drawn to the enormous statue near the center of the painting. It was of a woman, nearly as tall as the mountains around her, carved from a single crystal of a color he’d never seen—a sky blue tinted with light green. Her face was strangely shaped, with prominent cheeks and overly full lips. A waterfall poured over her head and shoulders, forming her hair which fell to her bare feet. She was dressed in flowing robes like Tern wore in the Crossroads. A river flowed out from her feet to the edge of the canvas, reflecting the light of the moons. It was an alien scene that made him feel strangely calm and relaxed. As he stared at it, Xahn thought he saw the water move and clouds form in the sky. He blinked and the illusion was gone.


    There was a strange familiarity to the place. Strange because he was certain he’d never been there before. And the familiarity … it made him uneasy. When had he seen this place? It was like a memory of a dream.


    Slowly, he became aware of a sound coming from beyond the doorway. It was like a distant thunder that never diminished. Curious, Xahn stepped to the opening, looked out and gasped in surprise and dread. Total blackness. Outside the doorway it was dark in a way he’d never witnessed. After a few moments, however, he noticed a light, far away on his left. It resembled the flicker of a single candle, so distant that it was barely a point of light, like one of the star crystals in the bedroom ceiling. The sound seemed to be coming from that direction.


    Cautiously, Xahn crept from the bedroom and into the pitch blackness. Moving slowly toward the point of flickering light in the distance, Xahn felt drawn to the pinprick of brightness. He reached out his hands on both sides. The fingers of his right hand touched something hard and smooth, like marble but warm to the touch. In the dark, he thought he could see a faint green luminescence around his fingertips. As he walked, Xahn placed his palm and fingers solidly on the surface and dragged it with him. A nearly imperceptible trail of green light smeared out from under his right hand as he moved, then quickly faded. His left had remained untouched. Xahn realized the hallway—more of a tunnel—wider than he could reach.


    With each step he took, the thundering sound grew louder. And he noticed something else: a faint dripping noise. As if an icicle were melting in a thaw. In a few moments, Xahn found that the walls were growing cooler. After a couple of steps, the fingertips of his left hand grew wet, as if the wall were covered with mist. He was feeling it on his face, his feet, in his hair, even on his outstretched left arm and hand which still touched nothing. Soon, he was walking through puddles of water or some liquid that smelled like it. The distant light grew brighter and larger until Xahn found himself gazing out of the opening of cave, not too far ahead. He could see a greenish glow, stars in a night sky, and mountain peaks lit up by moonlight. Xahn caught his breath and stopped where he was, just a few paces from leaving the dark hallway. He knew where he was; he was in the scene depicted in the bedroom painting. Before him stretched the outstretched arm of the turquoise statue.


    As intrigued as he was afraid, the young man walked out onto a road made of the turquoise-colored crystal. The sound of thunder was deafening, and he could immediately see why: he was standing between two halves of a waterfall. One half fell on his right hand, where he’d been touching the tunnel’s wall, the other on his left. Wind whipped around him so quickly that it pulled his robe into the sky and left him standing there naked and shivering. The sky was bright with stars and with—


    Impossible! he thought. Above him in the sky were the three moons, all bright and all full. He looked above his head, already knowing what he would see. Far overhead with eyes that seemed to be looking down to examine him, was the face of the strange woman from the painting.


    Xahn screamed.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


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    Dahn found herself lying on a cot, shivering under a thin blanket. She sat up suddenly, looked around frantically and gasped in fear and confusion. Where was Xahn? This place was not the infirmary. It wasn’t even in Ekatern’s house! This was a cavern. A huge one, as far as Dahn could tell. There were natural rock walls around her that rose so high she could only see blackness above her. The small cot and walls around her were only dimly visible because of the light from a few small white crystals that protruded randomly from the rock.


    She stood up quickly in a panic and grabbed the sheet from the bed when she realized she was naked. Wrapping the sheet around her, shivering so violently in the icy cave air that she could barely move, Dahn walked barefooted across the rough floor, trying to figure out where she was. Other than the small cot—which was simple, made crudely of hewn wood and woven grasses—there was nothing human made that she could see. Then her eyes fell upon a small wooden frame leaned against one of the stone walls. Carefully crossing the uneven, stone-strewn floor, Dahn made her way to the frame and picked it up.


    It was a painting, small enough to fit in her two hands. The image on it was a tunnel, brightly lit by red, green, blue and even turquoise crystals. Dahn had never seen nor heard of turquoise crystals before. The path was wide and smooth, the tunnel was very large and appeared to be a cavern, like the one she was in. There were people on the road, gathered in a large group in the center. She squinted. It looked like all the people were naked, like Dahn, but they had no sheets to cover them. They appeared caught between a large group of … creatures … on the right hand, and one large dark figure on the left. Unable to move forward, backward, or to escape they were frozen in terror. The painting made Dahn’s hand start to shake.


    “Dahn!” a voice called from deep within the cavern. It echoed so that Dahn couldn’t tell where it came from. “Come help me, please!” It was a woman’s voice. She sounded distressed. Dahn placed the disturbing painting on the cot, wrapped the sheet tighter around her, and began walking around to see if she could locate the woman.


    There were enough crystals in the walls of the cavern to light the path before her a few steps ahead and behind, but everything else was wrapped in a blanket of darkness. Sounds travelled, though. Dripping water. Scraping of rock on rock. Tiny pebbles bouncing sharply against walls and floor. At every sound, Dahn jumped and whirled to see what made it. But each noise came from just beyond the light. The sounds could be nothing, just the ambient sounds of a cavern as it warmed and cooled. Or she could be surrounded by the creatures in the painting. Her breath came quick and shallow. She turned and started running back to the cot. After a few quick steps, Dahn realized that she no longer knew where the cot was. Dropping to her knees, she started to cry.


    Unbidden, a memory of her mother came to her. Dahn must have been very young in the reverie, because Suhan had seemed like a comforting giant, leaning down to care for her as she’d fallen and broken the skin on her knees. Taking a cloth from her inside her loose gray clothing, her mother and wiped away the blood. “There,” she had said, all those years ago. “That isn’t so bad now, is it?”


    Dahn remembered shaking her head as she looked with amazement at her knees. They looked almost undamaged now that the blood was gone. Just a tiny scrape. Her younger self had stopped crying and had smiled up at the comforting giant. “Remember,” her mother had told her, “things aren’t always as bad as they appear. Don’t panic. Calm your mind. And always, try to breathe, slowly and deeply. That helps us remain calm. Do you understand?” Dahn found herself nodding to her long-gone mother, breathing more normally. There was even a hint of a smile on her lips.


    “Thank you, Mother,” she whispered.


    “Please, help me!” Again, the woman’s voice came from somewhere in the cavern. It sounded louder now, like it was closer. Calm and composed, Dahn stood, adjusted her sheet and looked about her, trying to see, hear, or feelanything that might help her locate the woman. Then she saw it. Far away in the darkness, she saw a green light. Just a point, as if it were at the end of a tunnel. She started walking once more, cautiously, trying to avoid sharp rocks.


    It seemed like an hour—though Dahn thought it was probably only a few minutes—before she reached the green light. As she approached it, the scene became more clear. There was a woman—perhaps the one who had been calling—lying on her back in the middle of the cave floor. She seemed very old, with white hair and wrinkles. She was dressed in green and had a silver circlet around her forehead which held a green crystal that was glowing brightly.


    “Ekatern?” she asked, softly. Though they had never met, Dahn had heard many tales of the crystal witch, and she recognized her at once.


    At the name, the woman’s eyes flew open, and she looked at Dahn with desperation. “Help me!” she said again. That was definitely the voice Dahn had been hearing. “I am trapped!” Dahn examined the woman’s body and found no ropes or chains or anything else that might have held her in place.


    “How are you trapped?” Dahn asked. “I don’t know how to free you.”


    “Take the crystal,” the woman begged. “It is meant for you. This is your task.”


    As if she were compelled by the woman’s words—though she did not understand them—Dahn reached out her hand to grasp the crown. A hissing sound came from behind her. Not just a single hiss, but dozens, maybe hundreds. She whirled around to find enormous terrifying creatures of every shape and description coalescing from the darkness and moving towards her.


    “Behind you!” screamed the woman in green, her voice rising in panic.


    Dahn spun around again to find a giant dark figure in a hooded black robe emerging from the darkness on the other side. This is the painting! Dahn thought. She looked into the blackened face of the being before her, as she heard the sounds of hissing and shuffling getting closer behind her. The face was empty except for two glowing eyes. She knew those eyes. It was the Entity.


    “Release me!” the Entity shouted at her. “You must release me!”


    Dahn screamed.