Of Shadows Past

There were seven, their faces shadowed by their black cowls, forming a circle. Shadows danced along the walls, cast by the four black candelabras in the center of the chamber. One of the seven read from a tome. The prone figure in their midst was a girl barely at the point of womanhood, her pale nakedness exposed save for her private areas. Her eyes were half closed, her head moving from side to side, her brow furrowed. The locks of her dark hair fell freely behind her neck.

She began a low moaning as the incantation approached its conclusion. The reader, noticing her response, raised his voice and sped up his recital. He added inflections to his speech that elicited a titter from one of the other six. Another one hushed him. As the incantation came to an end, the reader drew a symbol in the air with his right index finger. The woman gasped in shock and opened her eyes.

He opened his eyes and saw the seven faces above just staring at him. He got up to a sitting position and froze. He was almost naked-what? He felt his chest, the twin mounds that barely filled his cupped hands. His hands, slim, feminine. He reached for the genital area. What he discovered there shocked him. His face, clean-shaven-no, smooth!

Someone said something he did not catch.

"What?"

One word returned, completely meaningless.

"What have you done to me?" He caught the feminine quality of his voice.

One of them spoke to him. He caught one word here, one there, conjunctive words, mainly. Others sounded close to words he knew. Still others were unknown to him.

"What gibberish are you speaking? Make sense? Who are you and what did you do to me?" He tried to get to his feet but lost his balance. He fell back and felt himself grabbed and kept from falling. Once he felt his footing sure, he growled a curse and pulled his arms violently away. He looked at the faces again. Each had a questioning look that annoyed him. He frowned as he willed his mind to work and focus.

Gibberish again from more than one talking at once.

"Silence!" he snapped. "Get out of my way!"

He pushed himself clumsily through the circle of young men. They walked with him, trying to hold him back, speaking to him. He cupped his head in his hands and shook it. He looked about the chamber. It was empty, one door, no windows.

"Where am I?"

He whirled, trying to look at all seven at once--stumbled, but remained standing. His body did not respond as quickly as he would have liked. He felt drained. His memory was returning slowly.

He was dead, had been dead. He escaped through the Doorway-into the body of a woman! Anger welled up inside of him. He struck one of the conjurors in the nose, breaking it. The latter stepped back, blood dripping through his hands, yelling something barely comprehensible.

The reaction was immediate from the other conjurors. They grabbed the girl and attempted to subdue her. She fought back, clumsily, but with some effect. Scratching, clawing, kicking, biting, she fought.

A fist to her face made her lose her fighting spirit. They held her fast. They conversed heatedly among them.

A simple spell popped into his mind. He could not focus all his mental faculties but two short words did not need much thought. He spoke those words.

The seven young men cried out. They released the hold on the girl and began taking their robes off. Each began to scratch viciously. More cries were followed by more clothes coming off. They heard the girl laugh hysterically. They cursed her but continued to scratch even more violently. Soon they were rubbing their backs on the floor and screaming in their anguish. The girl picked up a fallen robe and walked to the door, still laughing.