The Magician: An Epic Dark Fantasy Novel: Book One of the Rogue Portal Series (14 page)

              "So 't is true, then?" she said. Her accent was beautiful, a stark contrast to the surroundings, and it sounded like a combination of Irish and Scottish, though it wasn't truly either of them.

              "Sorry?" he said.

              "Neve' ye mind," she laughed again. "Yer a real person, are ye not?"

              "I am."

              "Then 'ts true. By gods we knew it."

              "I'm sorry I don't..."

              "Ne'er mind. Ye have more pressin' things to hear."

              The albino visage of the woman made a few steps toward them, and Connor retreated as many steps.

              "Pay 'er no mind," said the woman. "She won't bother ye none."

              "How do you know?"

              "Because, lad, she's 'ere fer me. Not makin' it across this time, I'm 'fraid." She looked down. "But now that I've seen you, well - that be a'right."

              "I don't..."

              "Of course ye don't. Too early. Not even begun, have ya. But ever'one here knows 'bout you, one way or t'other." She looked at him dead in the eye. "Galveston."

              He stepped back

              "Ye best get used to people knowin' yer name, lad," she laughed. "Best get used to surprises. Yer in for a whole lousy lot of 'em I'm 'fraid." Her eyes pitied him.

              "Who am I?" The question surprised him as he uttered it, but she smiled.

              "Now yer askin' th' right questions, boy." She hardly looked old enough to be calling him "boy", but he let it go.

              "Well then?"

              "'Fraid there's no easy answer," she said, falling to her knees. The albino swamp lady took another step. "You've been expected fer quite some time 'round here. The Void. Other places, even. The Seer," her speech was interrupted by a violent cough. "The Seer told me I'd be a messenger to the Prince of Balance - least that's how it translates, sounds better in Veldic - anyway I...I didn't believe it. And now here I am," she smiled. "'n 'ere ye are."

              She coughed violently once more and spat blood onto the ground.

              "Prince of Balance?"

              "Indeed. That be the short answer to the question of who ye are."

              Thoughts raced through Connor's mind like deranged rats in a wheel - questions mostly - but one question seemed most important.

              "What was the message?"

              "What, boy?"

              "You said you were a messenger to the --" he paused, uncomfortable with owning the title, "to me. What was the message?"

              "Right ye are. Listen. You keep the portal safe. No matter what."

              "The what?"

              She pointed to the middle of her chest and eyed the same location on Connor. He looked down, held up the pocket watch, and met her gaze once more. "This?"

              She nodded, turning serious.

              "Indeed. You keep it safe. Never take it off. Not until ye assume your place. NOT until the quest is complete. Do ye understand?"

              He was about to reply that he didn't understand, not one bit, when she robbed him of the opportunity. Holding out a piece of parchment that Connor was quite sure had been created at the beginning of time, she continued.

              "Take it! You must take it, boy!"

              He grabbed it without thinking, and his fingers ran across something hard. He turned the paper over to reveal a dark seal, imprinted with an hourglass insignia. The wax had once been red, but time and travesty had colored it a muddy brick red.

              "Don't open it yet," she said, gasping for air now. The alabaster woman made several more steps in her direction.

              "When, then?" he asked.

              "Soon ye'll be back in the Void. Not in a dream, not for a time, but truly back. The Magician will send you. Your quest starts then, and only then will you open the seal."

              Connor nodded, not understanding, but not wishing for any more information.

              "Go now, boy! They're after you. They're coming!" she said, looking around in a panicked motion.

              Then, her gaze looked at him, through him, a hundred miles past him, and she collapsed to the ground. The alabaster woman made her way to the Messenger's body with slow, methodic steps. Reaching the crumpled form she picked it up with both hands, carried her in her arms toward the pit of muck from which she'd emerged, and sank with the steadiness of quicksand into the depths of the swamp.

              Before Connor had time to begin processing what was happening, he heard a shrieking scream. Spinning around he saw four approaching Demafae. They were swiftly coming at him, almost as if they were flying, and Connor stumbled backwards, attempting to flee, but it was no use. He fell to the ground against something hard, but when he looked he couldn't see anything there. It was as though an invisible wall had been erected.

              Connor looked up to see the Demafae just feet from him. One of them sprouted a mouth.

              "You will never make it through! You will have no passage!" It screamed.

              They were almost upon him. He reached for his pocket watch - what had the dying woman called it? A portal? He remembered a page from the book. Something about a rogue portal. No time. The demafae approached him, and he struggled to unlatch the  pocket watch. It reached out. Reaching for him. Managed to lay a freezing, bony hand on his face. He frantically pawed at the pocket watch, feeling for the release button. But just as he reached it he felt a harsh tug on his arm, felt himself fly backwards, and landed on his back on something hard, looking up into the eyes of a very frightened Kit.

              "Are you okay?!" she cried.

              "Yeah I'm...I..." he found his feet and she helped him up. He wasn't quite sure if he was okay or not. Or what had just happened.

              "How long was I gone?" he asked.

              Kit blinked. "Um...I mean only a moment, really. You touched the mirror and..and..then you were..going
through
it. And I pulled your arm and I pulled you back and..."

              Connor saw the fear in Kit's eyes. At that moment she no longer looked like the tough chick with the take no prisoners attitude. She looked terrified. Shaken. And then, clamping a hand over her mouth, she began to cry.

              He reached out and embraced her. At first she pulled away, but then she relaxed into his arms and wept. She clung to him as though he were a life raft in a storm, and in some ways that might have been true. For both of them. After a few moments she looked up and met his gaze.

              "I thought you were gone," she said in a whisper.

              "Well," he said cupping one side of her face in his hand, "unfortunately for you, I'm very much here."

              She smiled and laughed. Then stepped back. Wiped her face. Adjusted her shirt. Smoothed her hair. Replaced the stoic mask, brick by brick building up her wall again. He followed her lead.

              "I return victorious," he bowed, then looked up at her, "with something I think you'll like very much."

              "Oh?" she asked, laughing and crossing her arms. "And what might that be?"

              He stood again, holding up the letter that he still held in his hand.

              "Information."

TWENTY

⌛

Connor arrived at the hotel at eight o'clock in the morning. Upon entering the building he thought for a moment that they'd picked a hotel that was a bit too grandiose for their purposes. The interior was decorated in marble and gold, sapphire accents were visible in the rug, flowers, and chandeliers, and two grand staircases on either side of the reception desk led up to a balcony area that overlooked the nearby forest and lake. The receptionists were dressed in black suits or skirt suits, and the women all seemed to have consulted each other prior to arriving at work as to what hairstyle and makeup they would be wearing.

              Connor immediately felt out of place in his jeans and sweatshirt, and the few sideways glances he received were enough to tell him that his beleaguered appearance was noticed, if not entirely unwelcomed. He made a mental note to text Kit, Hazel, and Stuart later and advise them to expect a somewhat unfriendly atmosphere, but then he erased the note, figuring the walk from the foyer to the room couldn't possibly be trying enough to warrant a warning.

              Walking up to the receptionist, he gave her his name and she looked for a few too many moments at him, and then, after giving him a thorough once-over, she looked down at her computer with raised eyebrows and began typing.

              "Galveston, right?"

              "Yes, ma'am," he said, trying to be as professional as possible given the environment.

              "For...four people?" Another raised eyebrow.

              "Yes. Study group."

              "Of course."

              More typing.

              "You're in room 2026. Here's your key. Make sure the other members of your study group check in, as well."

              She paused before she said "study group", and though he resented her tone, he thought better of making a scene in a swanky hotel.

              "They will. Thanks."

              Taking his room key, he headed left down an expansive corridor, backpack over his shoulder. It was a long walk to the elevator panel, which was in a cutout in the wall that looked like it should have been a room, but had been opened up when the builders realized they had forgotten the lower elevators. The cutout even had doors that could be shut, and this disturbed him slightly.

              However, though odd, the elevator cutout was less disturbing than the hallway itself. The more Connor looked down it, the more distorted it seemed to become. Navy blue carpeting that was too thick and was speckled with an eye-bending pattern extended past at least a hundred doors, passing white columns tinged in gold, and lit by ten large chandeliers that threw odd patterns of light onto the walls, making everything seem tilted and scattered.

              The attempt at elegance, at least in Connor's opinion, had failed on an epic scale. What it amounted to was a rich person's funhouse full of items that were so ill proportioned to their use they had a creepy yet comic value to them.

              Approaching the elevators, he pushed a gold button to call the cab down. Another chandelier hung above him. The elevator chimed in a discordant fashion, and he stepped into a small. It was entirely lined with mirrors. More funhouse quirks. Facing the gold elevator doors as they closed, he looked at the room key.
Room 2026.
He pressed another gold button with the number "20" on it.

              Elevators had never been his favorite mode of transportation, and had it not been for the heavy weight of the books in his backpack he would have gladly traversed the twenty floors of stairs. Instinctively he reached for his pocket watch, which had become a habit in recent days. Any time he felt unsure or afraid he reached for it. And sometimes he reached for it just to make sure he still had it after the dying woman's stern warning to never take it off. It startled him still to feel the paper there, as well. Stuart had  given him the brilliant idea to put a binder clip on the chain holding the pocket watch and keep it around his neck. Running his hands ran across the surface of the parchment the thought occurred to him that the parchment might have been the catalyst for some of the stares he'd received.

              He checked the progress of the elevator cabin.
12
...
13...

              Out of the corner of his eye something glowed, and he turned his head to realize it was his pocket watch, reflecting in the mirror. It seemed to be several points of light, and then countless points of light, then streams of light as the multiple mirrors reflected it to one another and within each other. Connor's eyes darted around the elevator, willing the cab to shoot to the 20th floor immediately. He hadn't had too much experience with the pocket watch, but the experience he did have told him that whenever it glowed, someone from the Void was near.

              He kept his eyes fixed on the ascending numerals, hoping that if he didn't look, he wouldn't see anything. It reminded him of when he was little and his mother would refuse to answer his questions about his father. He'd go to bed and have terrible fears that his father would come back in the middle of the night and take him wherever he'd gone. Maybe he would do that thing they called die, too. To make himself feel better he'd duck under the covers, pull them tight around him, and focus on his nightlight. He believed that if he looked at the light, nothing could get him, and if he stared at it he couldn't see anyone who happened to come to take him.

              He was far from being six years old at this point in life, but recent events made him feel just as vulnerable, and the old trick was something he pulled out of the toolbox of his mind like a child takes out a favorite toy for comfort, even when the toy had lost its usefulness long before.

              The trick had about the same effect as it did when he was young, too.

              "Tick, tock, Galveston."

              It was only a whisper, but he started as though someone had shouted in his ear. He looked around quickly, grasping for any visual cues that someone was in the elevator with him and he simply hadn't noticed. No such luck. He refocused his attention on the numbers.
16...17...

             
The elevator was impossibly slow.

              "It's almost time to return."

              He looked around again, turning in a full circle, looking for the source of the ethereal voice.

              "Who's there?" he asked.

              The elevator lurched to a halt, and he almost landed on the ground. Catching himself with one hand on a mirrored wall, he saw that his entire hand was rimmed in a blue glow. Pulling his hand back from the mirror and righting himself, the glow disappeared. He replaced his hand, and the glow returned. Retracted his hand, and it went away. Suddenly all the points of light reflected from the pocket watch around his neck converged in the center of the elevator, and a holographic image appeared.

              A woman appeared, covered in a robe. She had piercing eyes, and the horns of a goat. Her fingers were long, and in her left hand she held a large staff. He looked at the visage before him and, while disturbed by the series of events that led up to their meeting - if she was really even there - he didn't feel threatened by her.

              "You have a long road, Prince," she said.

              He couldn't speak.

              "The Traveler spoke well when she advised you of your place."

              "What place?"

              "As Prince. We have long awaited your arrival. Some have waited for different reasons, but we have all anticipated this day, which is not so far off now."

              She did not smile, but she had a serene expression nonetheless. It was as though she didn't need an expression. Was somehow above expression, or beyond it.

              "I don't understand what you mean."

              "For now, you do not. But one day soon you will begin to understand. Your journey has not yet begun. And it will be a long journey, to be sure. But if you stay true to yourself, you will overcome whatever crosses your path."

              She spoke like a mother who was trying to explain something complex to a young child.

              "What must I do?"

              "It's not about what you must do. It's about what you will do. And given that what you will do is certain, there is nothing for you to do but wait."

              "Cryptic."

              "Perhaps it seems as such to you. But you will soon understand."

              "Who are you?"

              She smiled for the first time.

              "All will be revealed. For now, know that you will find what you seek."

              "Answers?"

              She nodded.

              "To begin with."

              "Will I find out what really happened to my father?"

              He swallowed hard, suddenly emotional. The goat woman's eyes turned sympathetic.

              "You already know, don't you?"

              "The logistics, sure. But..."

              "Your father was faced with a terrible choice, and an unfair temptation. But it was not his fault. Forces were at work far beyond him, beyond your mother. Beyond all of you."

              "Who are you? What's going on?"

              Connor found himself almost yelling at the holographic creature in front of him. He tried to suppress swelling seas of rage and anger and bitterness and confusion, all of which swirled around him like a tornado, whipping him one way and then the next and every way all at once. He was tired of feeling like a reed in the wind, having no control over his own life.

              "Connor Galveston, you have an important mission before you. You are receiving visitors from all sides of the Void because each of them wants you for their own purpose. The Traveler and myself have come to comfort you, and to warn you. To tell you that amidst all the evil you may encounter, there is good within it and behind it, and if you stay true to yourself you will prevail."

              "How can that be comforting when I don't even know what's going on? When I don't even know what this quest is?"

              "You don't know yet. But you will."

              He opened his mouth to ask another question, but as he did she disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared, the light from his pocket watch disappeared, and the elevator cab lurched again and he was heading up.
18...19...