Tangle in the Dark - Kassidor

calms me down.”The woman looked at her like she was from 61 Cygni.“Just stand straight, balance yourself on both legs evenly.Look straight forward, head and eyes, head level, then closeyour eyes. Take a deep breath, let it out. Keep your eyesclosed until you feel your heart rate slow.” Ava tried toimagine herself an Elven priestess in Alan’s church. Shethought of the beautiful waterfall where she had seen thatceremony, where setting Kortrax makes brilliant rainbows inthe mist every week. It’s forty miles across the CentralWescarp Valley from the Yoonbarla Vale, and ten milesbeyond the streetcars of Hazorpean, but since she kept thatfloater around, it was there and back in the same day. Shetried to float like they did on the way home that evening, withthe gentle breeze across the wide valley in the three-hourKassidorian dusk.When she opened her eyes the matronly but still beautifulwomen said, “there, now just keep all the anger and strife outof your mind and you’re now ready to meet the Adept.” ‘Itmust have been the skin of green that she and Alan broughtwith them on the floater that evening,’ she thought as shefollowed the woman into the dimly-lit and draped inner room.Tometahin slowly lifted his head to look at her. He wascompletely hairless, pallid in color, but nothing like the greyin the gnomes of the Yakhan of Alan’s world. It could be Alanwas just getting a little more sophisticated in his constructs,528