Chapter Two
Lily
She was a spirit-child once more, swimming in the deep places of the earth. Everywhere, her sisters chased one another about, through high-vaulted, groined, cathedral-like ceilings and arched apertures of darkness as hints of eldritch, rainbow-hued coruscations; through the illimitable vastness of grand chambers and catacombs limned in a bas relief guess by their tenuous illumination.
Their presence was sensed more than felt, as an unborn child senses its mother, or a twin perhaps . . . much more than a kindred spirit.
This place was the womb of the Earth Mother, the very source of life of the surface that lay far above.
And not only was it the source of dreams, it was a dreaming in and of itself . . . self-contained . . . and in its way, perfect.
It was a forever-ness that knew nothing of ageing or dying or death, or of a before or after. It knew only of constant birth and rebirth. Only the spirit-children would ever know of mortality.
Of ending.
In all the long, slow, passing of the ages, this place had remained pristine, unsullied by any
violating touch of the Evil that lay far above.
But then, the shadow came, borne upon dark wings that beat out doom like some mad heart made rabid with hate or lust.