As clarity returned she found that the weather beyond the atrium had stilled. She looked up. High above her, beyond the reach of the statues, and the projected weave in its three-dimensional glory, the sky cleared, and a stream of sunlight lit the little hollow hill in an eerie glow and a strange silence engulfed the world. The air suddenly seemed to pull at her skin.

She had heard long ago that there was a still place at the center of a magical tornadoes were the skies were clear, and there was no rain, and also were magic unwound. In this place, any external magic could be slowly sucked away. And she could see it happening. The top of the weave was getting unwound and started vanishing. But at the bottom of the weave, the tame magic was still dense and had her trapped. The magic intoxication here left her limp, and pinned to the ground, while high above death was slowly inching toward her.

Why was her brain so clear when it ought to be intoxicated and so high that she would not be aware of anything like the two people in front of her!

Goddess! Where these two not the man and the child. How had she not noticed it earlier! Her brain had a OH Shit! moment when she realized she was not the only one who had been pulled and trapped by the weaves. She would be first to admit that her magic was too weak and she could be easily influence and trapped. But the man had been so strong, how could he not have sensed anything? Had the weave been so strong that it had attracted all the three of them here?

The man had the child wrapped inside his arms and a weak protection weave that surrounded the two, stubbornly resisted the magical on slaughter. The man had his eyes closed in a grimace as he tried to resist the intoxication and maintain the protection. Wrapped in his arms, the child was un moving in the shadows and Chira was unable to even know if the child was alive or not.

Then a chill struck her as she realized that the tame magic would intoxicate them and keep them captive till the unwinding weave would completely disintegrate them if the center of the storm did not move on in time.

What surprised Chira more was the mellow comfort radiating from her pendent. Her pendant had not reacted to the possibility of death! Perhaps it too was intoxicated. Could in animate objects get intoxicated? In any case it had temporarily lost contact with her. A small mercy. Till the end it was a useless piece of junk. She cursed all selfish and self-serving pieces of jewelry that put their benefactors into more danger. Why had it pulled and encouraged her to come here instead of running away from this place? Then she sighed at the uselessness of her curse. Very soon the magic intoxication would take over her brain and she would not know alive from death. It would be the most blissful and invisible way to die!

She dropped to the floor, a little distance from the man and the child, in a confused tumble wondering why her brain was not getting high on the magic. She wished she could at least put a protective spell like the man, to buy some time. But she was out of luck. While she was surrounded by tame magic and could technically create a protective weave as long as her mind was intact. That that was possible only if she knew how to create a protective weave. She had all the tools, but no knowledge! Her mind started to slip into intoxication slowly.

A sharp pain in her head brought her back to the world. With the amount of magic in her body she could not understand why her mind had these slips of clarity. In fact, here at the center she seemed clearer of mind that she had been when she was at the tunnel. Then she looked up at the weave that was projected out of the floor in its three-dimensional glory, and wished her brain was intoxicated so she would not be aware of what was to come, which she could so clearly see.

A tragic calmness settled on her natural cynicism. This was perhaps what it felt like escaping from the frying pan and falling into the fire. She had worked hard to escape from the monastery. Suffered through death defying watery escapades and brutal trees, in the middle of a magical hurricane that could kill her at any moment. In all probability, she should have died long ago in the most violent and brutal way. And yet like the little ivory ball in the oracle temple she managed to escape the wooden labyrinth, and was now plunging downward only to reach the end, in the most peaceful and blissful way. What were the odds!

She strangely found that she was not so unhappy about this kind of ending. She had suffered both mentally and physically these past few years. The vindictive nature of her heart would have liked to do a bit more to specific people, but she had done the best with what she had been handed. She had also fulfilled half the deal she had with the wretched pendent. And the pendent had helped her half way through, despite its self-serving means. Philosophically the transaction was even.

She had faced death in all her moods, bravely, angrily, cowardly, sadly, helplessly, right from her first bid for freedom. She had known she was near her end long before the news of the storm. All the magic in her body had hit rock bottom in the most painful way and yet she had lingered for so long. Unable to live and unable to die. This attempt at escape had been her last bid to try or die. When you were going to die anyway, you could be a bit reckless in the pursuit of freedom. She just did not want to die there. More importantly she did not want to leave her body there in that terrible place. The pendent around her neck reminded her of what would happen if she died there.

She remembered an old story about forests sprits. It was believed that mysterious and powerful spirits were created when certain creatures died and left their deepest magic behind. She did not have much magic, but the thought of dying and leaving a bit of herself behind in “that place” made her shudder. That story had given her a purpose to escape the wretched place. Strangely dying here in an unknown cave in the middle of goddess knew where, did not dis satisfy her. A bit of herself dissolved by the storm and becoming a part of the storm and the world was somehow wonderfully freeing.

She had against all odds succeeded in escaping. It was an unimaginable fluke. She was oddly satisfied that at least at the end, luck had been kinder to her. She felt a sourness in her nose, and her vision blurred. In spite of the mellow feeling of tranquility the magical intoxication injected into her, a mild background astonishment reared its head. Was she crying? The blurred vision turned to soft salty tears, and her jaws tightened on reflex to control her emotion. Finally, here in the middle of nowhere, far from anyone who knew her or would shed a tear for her, she was …crying? And the wretched pendent was not reacting to her emotions. She felt that in spite of all the intoxication a warm wet trickle of tear escapes her eyes after blurring her vision. Her nose felt sour and tingly. Well, at least now, far from the eyes Jaisu Thana and the other Thanas, she was entitled to a bit of self-pity, wasn’t she? When was the last time she had cried? She did not remember. She could cry a bit for herself, where no one would see, couldn’t she? She had been stubbornly strong, not giving the bald old monk any satisfaction for so long. The warmth of fresh tears comforted her cold wet face, and her heart.

She did not want to think back to her past. There was nothing to remise. But how does one control memories when they want to ranpage?

But her mind supplied images that she had long suppressed. They were like chaotic activities of a passing station between the rush of the travelling void of the journey. A weather beaten and wrinkled hand, the smell of cookies, and a song that seemed to slip out of her mind like a memory of dream that did not want to be recalled when awake.