stunning her, while at the same time soaking her in dark fatigue. She tried to reach out and sense the energy of different planes, to seek out a physical reality where she could anchor herself, but everything around her tumbled in a multicolored chaos.
The channel through which Chandra plunged became fearfully black, an entropic void sucking at her life force. Just as she thought she would lose consciousness, fire became water, cold and viscous. Chandra panicked as a drowning sensation enveloped her before everything became white, binding and smothering, and surrounded her like an unbearable weight. A shift to green created pain she didn’t understand, as if her bones were trying to push through her skin. And when fire engulfed her again, she welcomed the familiar agony.
When the pain became so familiar that it ceased to register, Chandra was so disoriented and exhausted, she couldn’t move or think or react. She floated erratically in the whirling mana storm that surrounded her, dazed and inert for what seemed a very long time. Consciousness had become a relative state: it was becoming harder for her to separate herself from her surroundings. She told herself many times to gather her senses and find a way out of here before she died, yet she remained still, unable to move, as if her mind had become disconnected from her body. She had to focus on something tangible.
Kephalai…
Memory penetrated the haze of chaos. Chains on her hands and feet. Combat with other beings. Running. Panting.
She focused on these memories, coaxing them into vivid life in her scattered, confused mind. Kephalai… Sanctum of Stars…
Knowledge of her physical reality, of her life on the planes of the Multiverse, started returning to her. And with this knowledge came the fervent, forceful desire to rejoin the dimensions of physical existence. To overcome her gradual absorption into the?ther. To escape the Blind Eternities and find a plane on which to reclaim her power, her physical life, and her mental coherence.
She concentrated on the most vivid of the memories that were dancing around the edge of her consciousness. Memories of fear, anger, pain, urgency. She didn’t remember the details now, but she vaguely knew she had lost the scroll, had failed to achieve her goal. This infuriated her, and she welcomed the rage, letting it warm her blood and sharpen her senses.
But she still wasn’t strong enough. She instinctively recognized that she needed even more visceral connection to her physical life. So, with foreboding, she opened herself to the old memories, to her past, to the sensations she had banished to the realm of nightmare, to the events she never thought about, recalled, or acknowledged.
She opened herself to the fire of sorrow and grief, of shame and regret, to that which consumes innocence.
In the echoing corridors of her memory, she listened to their screams, hearing their agonized cries now as clearly as if it were happening all over again. In her mind’s tormented eye, she watched their writhing bodies now, just as she had watched them then. Helpless. Horrified. Consumed by guilt. She forced herself to dwell on the memory of what their burning flesh had smelled like. She felt the pain of the sobs that wouldn’t come out of her mouth.
And when the blade of a sword swept down to her throat, to end her life…
Chandra sprang into awareness.
How long had she been wandering here, falling and floating between the physical planes of the Multiverse?
She banished the question. All she must think about was escaping the chaotic, sense-warping maze of the Blind Eternities. Until she was safely on a physical plane again, nothing else mattered, and no other thought could be allowed to penetrate her vulnerable focus.
She spread her senses and tried to find something familiar to orient her. She felt the flow of mana, which was reassuring, but it mingled with so many other forces in a bewildering whirlwind of color that she felt wrung out and frustrated as she tried to bond with it. Still, with no other way to survive and escape, she concentrated, summoning all her will, all her rage and heat and passion, and focused on channeling the magical energy.
When she finally felt ready, Chandra propelled herself through the undulating, swirling colors that consumed her, seeking the solid energy of a physical plane. She was vaguely aware that there was someplace she wanted to return, a place where she had a community and a purpose… but she couldn’t even recall it well enough to look for it, let alone control this planeswalk to that extent. Right now, all that mattered was finding a plane, any plane at all. Later, she would think about where exactly in the Multiverse she wanted to be.
Then she sensed it. A dark, bitter energy… but blessedly physical, solid, and tangible. And because she could sense it, because her will drew her toward it, a path to it began opening before her in the?ther.
She hesitated. The plane she was approaching didn’t feel at all familiar, and it certainly didn’t feel welcoming.
Should she travel further? The next plane might be a better choice.
No. The next plane she encountered might just as easily be a worse choice. Or, in her weakness and confusion, she might not find another plane at all. Not before she succumbed to the consuming whirlwind she was trying to escape.
It must be now. Here. Go.
She moved through the?ther, following the path that beckoned her to the physical plane she sensed. She let the plane’s sullen energy lure her forward as she focused with all her might on making the transition away from the eternal flow surrounding her to the finite, solid reality that lay ahead of her.
Her body, her senses, her mind, all felt torn apart, stretched to the breaking point between two realities. She fought fear and struggled for control. She reached for the dark plane she sensed, stretching toward it with all her will.
Chandra’s feet touched solid ground.
The sensation was so startling, the weight of her own body so unexpected, that she fell down, collapsing into an awkward heap with a choked gasp.
Then she lay there, eyes closed, her face pressed into the damp earth with grateful relief. She spread her palms against the ground, reveling in its solid, unyielding presence.
I’m alive. Alive!
The worst was over. She had escaped Kephalai and the Prelate’s dungeon; escaped death by slow torture at the hands of the Enervants.
Right now, being lost on some wholly unfamiliar plane that radiated dark energy didn’t matter. Even losing the scroll to that mage didn’t matter. She was just very, very happy she wasn’t dead.
Lying on the ground, soaking up the wonderful feeling of being alive, Chandra gradually became aware of a scuffling, scurrying sound nearby. When she opened her eyes to see what had made the noise, she realized that it was nighttime. She pushed herself to a sitting position and looked around, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dark shadows of her surroundings.
High overhead, a full moon glowed white in the endless, starless black of the night sky. Its cool, silvery light shone down brightly on an eerie landscape of twisted trees, squatting bushes, dark expanses of emptiness, and the tumbled ruins of crumbling stone structures. The trees and bushes that Chandra could make out in the moonlight looked strangely stark and bony.
She realized none of them had any leaves.
That seemed odd. The temperature was mild. The air was cool, but not uncomfortably so-certainly not enough to suggest winter or a season of dormancy. The damp ground suggested preciptation. Indeed, the air itself felt humid. Obviously, drought hadn’t caused the absence of leaves on all of the trees and bushes around here.
She wondered what had caused it. Had there been a fire here recently?
Curious, she rose to her feet, intending to examine some of the denuded branches more closely. The act of rising, however, made her so dizzy she almost fell down again. Her vision swam darkly, and she felt lightheaded.
That was when she realized she was desperately thirsty. She recalled now that she had been thirsty even back in the dungeon on Kephalai. And who knew how long ago that was? What seemed like days could also have been minutes-or even longer. Regardless, her physical needs were reasserting themselves now.
Chandra took a steadying breath and realized she must find water. Her stomach rumbled, and she realized
