Chapter Twenty-Five

Helen shifted in her seat uncomfortably, facing the sisters. Will sat on the couch beside her, also watching the Morrigan sisters carefully; remembering the last time they had dealt with the witches. Henry was at a laptop, ready to input data for a search if the sisters said anything that could be a lead. Nikola was standing at a table with a decanter of wine, filling a glass for himself. "Do you know this... 'Prophesy' you mentioned? Did the scientist ever recite it for you, or is it from another... vision?"

Danu exchanged glances with her sisters. "When he had found it, he said it was odd... for it was found in this times rendition of English, even though it looked hundreds of millennia old. It was preserved in ways even the Egyptians could not imagine." She cleared her throat, and haltingly at first, the sisters sang a evocative melody.

"The world is dying, the earth and sky all brown

"Nations and leaders fight their way to an oil dipped crown.

"Human's escape the only way they can

"Sending their minds to a faraway land.

"The underworld is rising from within

"As battles are fought among kith and kin.

"From the ashes, the cries call out

"And the darkness of the world does so mount.

"Now of the truly powerful, there is three

"Made of air, fire, earth and sea,

"Where before there were more, long moving to divinity

"After gaining the ancient blood vines enmity.

"As they see the chaos and the path drawn

"They wish to resurrect a great new dawn.

"So when nature gives a growth of her mixed mighty brood

"And a single blood vine rejoins immortals' brewed...

"A hundred circles around the sun and more

"A being brought back and reborn from lost lore

"T'which will carve the world to a new age

"And free all Mothers creatures from their cage."

They continued the last dying note for a while until it finally became silence. It was a haunting poem and held awkward nuances that the women overcame with remarkable harmony. When they took a steadying breath, they found that all four of the others were staring at them with varying degrees of enchantment or daze. The prophesy didn't seem all that happy, but it wasn't grim either. It just was. Added with it the three voices of the witches, starting and stopping with each lyric like a twisting ethereal braid of song; it was quite eerie.

The sound of Nikola placing the decanter back on the tray after refilling his cup shook everyone out of their reverie. "Well, that was interesting. Where did you say this ...scientist found it?"

All at once, the Morrigan shook their heads; they were all a bit weary of the vampire, but as he seemed to be a welcome guest and one of the two who caused the Cabal massive damage and forced the Cabal to step back and regroup, they endured his presence. "He never told us. Just recited it to us every night before we slept, hoping we would have dreams, I think. We memorized it and said it back to him. Now it has been given to us, no matter the means, and we are its keepers."

Helen shook her head, more to get rid of the words that seemed to ring a bit close to home. "So what happened next?"

"Tatha had her vision." Caird said. "Showing us what we needed to look for."

"We dared not tell our keeper what I saw." Tatha put in. "But suddenly it seemed that we starting to see opportunities for us to escape. At first we thought they simply couldn't afford to guard us like they used to. That they thought we were not a threat."

Danu nodded. "At the time of our escape, we didn't think too much of it. We were simply happy to leave our captivity. But then, as we travelled and searched... we began to see the faces..."

Caird nodded as well. "It didn't take long to realize we were being followed and watched."

"That's when we devised a way to find out how they were tracking us, and neutralize it." Tatha said, not going too much into the methods they used.

"We had help, though." Danu interjected. "It was when we went underground... literally and ran into some Hollow Earth people. With the technology they still had, they helped us escape the Cabal completely and even took us to someone with knowledge and lore about what we were seeking." She sighed. "The Praxian people did not war overmuch with themselves like us surface dwellers. They never had their histories destroyed or altered. Since even before the age they were at war with the vampires," she shot a glance at the indolently stanced Nikola, "they have kept a thorough record of the world's history as well as their own. And... The woman said that while the beings we seek disappeared only a few centuries before their war with the vampires... decades ago, she came to them and lived amongst them for many, many years."

Helen pursed her lips. "This woman... her name didn't happen to be Ranna, did it?"

Eyes widening, Danu and her sisters nodded. "Yes! And she told us about you, or else we would not have thought to come seeking you as well."

Looking over at Nikola, Helen gave him a questioning glance. "What do you think?"

Nikola shrugged while slowly swirling his wine. "I think whether it's the Cabal behind it is no real great matter. Another agency has Gwen and we must get her back." He said plainly. "Though I am convinced SCIU is using a Cabal base we didn't know about."

"Who is Gwen?" Danu chanced asking.

With a sigh, Helen turned back to Danu; a much more confident witch from five years ago. "Gwen is the woman you seek. She is of a hyper species that died out before the Praxian War. Gwen always wondered if her species were the origins of abnormal life." She confessed with another sigh.

"There's really know way of knowing for sure; even if they seem to think so." Nikola commented, gesturing to the three women. He approached the back of the chair Magnus was sitting on. "And I don't think she'll be exactly thrilled to find out she's some sort of messiah." He added dryly.

~. ~. ~.

It had never occurred to her that there could be pain this intense, or that she would not be able to handle it all. With her metabolism and pain threshold, Gwen had been able to endure many trials in her hundred plus years. Perhaps it was because this time, the pain seemed to always be around.

Or maybe it was because her strength was waning. Wary of Matt's motives as well as those of the scientists who seemed to be constantly camped out at the door of her cell, Gwen abstained from eating anything they gave her and only drinking when it was absolutely necessary. When Devonport noticed this, he stopped coming to visit, putting her "care" into the scientists who seemed to want to see how long she could go.

Now, she lay on her cell, on the raised and padded platform, gazing absently up at the white ceiling. Gwen herself wondered how much longer she would last. Not only from eating, but from answering Devonport's more sensitive questions. About Hollow Earth and Praxis. About the Sanctuary and where the surface and underground abnormal's had gone after the Fifth Ward had been abandoned. He asked the same questions sometimes over and over, all the while holding that bloody remote. Fortunately he couldn't just all out torture her, there were rules, but Gwen could tell that he was tempted. Her silence was starting to frustrate him, which only encouraged her to hand on even more. Unfortunately Gwen suspected that when he was done, or gave up, the ones in the lab coats would get their turn.

She just had to keep her secrets and give them as little as she could until Gwen could either find a way to escape or her family did.

Gwen was musing away when she noticed that she must have fallen asleep: the ceiling wasn't a ceiling anymore. It was now open sky; and she was now standing. She was in a large room with larger than life marble columns and flooring. She looked ahead to see a semi-circle of raised platforms; the sides extending out, making up most of the half circle, while the pinnacle had a detached platform as its apex. There were three thrones; one on the middle platform as well as the two on each side. Beyond the three dais and the gigantic columns was a never ending expanse of cloud covered mountain tops. As Gwen turned her attention back to the podiums, three figures had appeared. To her left, was Kainen; the large, bald, dark-skinned human male avatar; the magma traversing hyperspecies Magnus had given aid to while she was in Praxis. Next to him, in the middle throne stood the gloriously dressed and poised Kali wearing her usual blue outfit, and then there was the red-robed Native American chieftain-ish avatar seated at her right.

Well, wasn't this a surprise.

She strolled calmly to the trio. "Long time no see, Kainen, Kali." She paused, nodding at each; she gave the last a small smile. "Kahit." Gwen always thought it was funny that their names all started with the same letter, but they never seemed to get the joke. "How've you been?"

"There has been great turmoil within my domain." Kainen said with his usual stoicism.

Gwen sighed. "Yes. The Praxian's are going through a civil war, as well as the refugee's have, mostly inadvertently, caused some problems when they popped up on the surface and started claiming bits that were already called for." She cleared her throat. "So …am I dying?" she asked outright.

Kali actually smiled and Kahit sighed. "No. We pulled you in here because we have something to discuss." Kali explained in her soft, even tone.

"I didn't think the Praxian's situation would really concern you, it's not exactly your thing. Not to mention that things have started to finally calm down." Gwen replied, her expression quizzical.

With a grace that even Gwen was jealous of, Kali stood up from the middle throne. "This is about you and your future. All the signs tell us that you are more than what the other creatures of this earth are. You are like us." Her hands swept to both sides to include the other two avatars. "You have great power, which also means you have great responsibility."

"Never in my years have there been one to come that is as powerful as the three of us." Kainen contributed. "Nor one so small." He added. Sometimes he thought he had a sense of humor.

Pursing her lips, Gwen crossed her arms. "Considering my people went extinct before you were hatched, I can believe that." She allowed. "I still don't understand why you would bring me here… now…"

"It is because you are finally ready." Kali answered. "We have watched and waited, Gwen. While we three have all elements at our combined command, there has been one thing we could not truly control. Things that are too small and too complex for us to understand."

"We have tried." Kahil uttered; his voice deep with resonance which bespoke a greater wisdom. "Through the cultures and species that called to us, but the population of both the gifted and basic have grown too great, and their ways have become too foreign."

Kali nodded. "We even have trouble understanding the ways of the Praxian's and the peoples within their realms."

Kainen shifted, putting his elbow on his knee and leaning towards her to emphasize his words. "The humans on the surface have lived in ignorance for too long. They have grown ignorant as well as arrogant. And their arrogance will destroy this world." He said. "You know this."

Gwen took a breath; knowing exactly what he was talking about; knew when she was human, knew when she watched the world continue on the destructive path she knew it would take. All because humans, and even some abnormal's, thought it was okay to suck the life out of the world without giving anything back. Without saying anything, she nodded.

"It's not, yet, too late." Kali continued. "We can save this world. You can save it."

She didn't like the sound of that. "And how will I do that?"

Kali smiled, knowing that the being in front of her was dreading her next words. "By becoming the spirit component of the Avatars. By representing the surface as well as the essence of all creatures on this world. By paving the way for both humans and the earth's special creatures to live in harmony with each other, and with our fragile world."

The skin of her face slowly went pale and her eyes widened so that no color showed. Gwen looked from one Avatar to another with an expression that was half shock, half panic. "Hu?"

"It's why we took such strides to send you back." Kali continued.

"What?" Was all Gwen was able to say.

With a gentle smile, Kali took a breath. "The Avatar Council, with the help of lesser hyper species," she added with slight chagrin, "were the ones to send you back in time. Back to a time when a group of up worlder's had and intended to experiment with what they called Source Blood."

Gwen took a step closer to Kali's podium. "Wait. You're telling me that you were the ones that sent me back?" She took a moment to process that as Kali nodded. "So Tesla's machine had nothing to do with it?"

"We used his efforts to tap into the earth's energy as a conduit to send you there." It was Kainen who answered.

"But back through time? Wouldn't you need massive energy and, and research?" Gwen asked, gesturing with her arms.

Kainen answered again. "In another reality of our world, there was a cataclysmic event that led to the destruction of Praxis and many species of the underworld. That event allowed a tear in the fabric of time to be opened." He paused. "We used that occurrence to change the outcome. Instead of sending the mortal back in time, and causing Praxis to be destroyed, we focused the energy from the device and used it to transport you instead to a much earlier time."

"When we found you in your mortal form, we knew we had to awaken the bonds of life you had dormant inside you." Kali added. "When the opportunity presented itself… we took it."