Eichora

Over the decades, I’ve had a few blogs. But I don’t remember having ever shared any of my own fictional writing. That’s changing today. I’m in the process of writing several stories, and Eichora’s is one of them. While my intent is to eventually include this as part of an epic fantasy, a lot happens between this and that, so who knows how her story might change by then. I think that fact probably prevents a lot of writers from sharing their WIP. I know it has made the idea challenging for me…but I have always loved a good challenge. This is just a taste, but hopefully I’ll be up for sharing more of it soon. Please enjoy.

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Eichora wanted a cure for her husband, and so she approached the temple as she would any other, though it was a new, somewhat foreign, cult to her. She knew that if she just pretended to belong, people would believe that she did. She walked up the steps, to the anterior room, and knelt in an unoccupied space on the floor. Candlelight flickered on her face, reflecting off the gold rings in her nose, creating little medallions of light on the walls and reminding her why she was there. She peered upward, past the statue and through the hole in the ceiling, into the night sky. As she began her prostrations, muscle memory born of repetition took over. Soon, she sat back on her haunches, crossed her ankles, and closed her eyes.

She heard a gasp, and a vision of light exploded in her head.

“So beautiful,” said a voice, and her eyes popped open, searching for the source. She felt a flutter in her throat, and her face turn hot from being startled.

She hissed, “This is some kind of trick.”

“No, close your eyes,” the voice spoke, near enough to her that it could have been a whisper.

Somehow feeling she could trust the voice, she closed them again, and instantly saw flashes of something – a cage? “Who are you? Where are you?” She whispered.

But the voice did not answer, so she searched the darkness behind her closed eyelids for what she thought she had seen before. Finally, she saw it again – the bars of a cage, and a filthy floor. It was gone in a flash, and she started to hear a low moan, repeating, growing louder, until it sounded like a cry for help that touched her so deeply, her eyes flew open again. But the cry was only that of a crow, perched on the little toe of the statue in front of her.

Eichora, by Jamie Carrieri