The Magician: An Epic Dark Fantasy Novel: Book One of the Rogue Portal Series (17 page)

              She deflated and nodded.

              "Exactly. And that's why I'm not giving this portal to anyone. It stays with me."

              Kit resumed her stance next to him, and had visibly relaxed since she walked off. The room was much larger than a typical hotel room, but walking away still wasn't bound to get her very far. Even so, Connor was proud of her for staying as calm as she did, even if it wasn't intentional. He smiled at her, and she returned a terse attempt at a comforting grin.

              "I agree with Connor," she said, clearly trying to control her voice. "I mean in the first place it's his pocket..I mean...portal to do what he wants with. And secondly, Rumsfeld and his kind are the last people I'd give it to if it were mine. It might be easy, but it certainly isn't going to be right."

              Connor nodded.

              "And plus," he added, "I can't help but thinking we all are gathered for a reason. Something bigger than us brought us together. These tragedies, our being here...it's not a coincidence. We might have a battle to fight, and it might not be fun. But we all have people to fight for, and things to live for. And that's probably more than they have."

              "Not only that," Hazel chimed in. "We're motivated by love. Which automatically gives us a head start. Love is far more productive than hate."

              She sighed, realizing she'd just defeated her own point.

              "I'm sorry Connor. I shouldn't have told you to give it back. I just...it's all so..." Tears threatened to escape over the brim of her eye, and Stuart put an uncertain arm around her.

              "It's okay," said Connor. "We're all scared. We're all out of our comfort zone. It's completely understandable."

              Kit didn't look as though she agreed too much with the latter part of that statement, but kept her feelings to herself on the matter anyway. It wasn't like her. Her silence was almost unnerving. Sure, she could be brash and vulgar, but silence didn't become her. For a moment he entertained the thought that nothing was wrong with Kit. That it was just his mind playing tricks on him. The oddities of the last week or two were just piling up and he was projecting his own uncertainty and fear onto other people. But none of those excuses worked. None of them could assuage the growing fear gnawing at his gut that something was just not right. Fault lines were beginning to emerge within the group. They weren't clear yet, and he doubted that anyone else noticed them. But he could sense them. They were faint, like storm warnings. Division was taking root, and somehow he felt that everything was about to burst wide open.

              It was the eerie quiet before the storm. The silence in the forest again when the birds stop chirping. Like they did in the library. Perhaps the storm wouldn't be as immediate, although it wouldn't surprise him anymore if Rumsfeld materialized in their hotel room, but nonetheless something was off.

              "Hey look at this!" Stuart's voice broke the silence. In Connor's mental absence he had returned the pizza box to the table, taken some, and everyone was gathering around the book again.

              Connor followed Stuart's gaze and looked at the page before him. It was the page he'd remembered. The one that talked about the Rogue Portal and that it could traverse all the realms. That it was the only portal that could do such a thing.

              "Yeah we saw that," said Connor.

              "No...this," Stuart said again, pointing with his finger to the opposite page.

              Connor pulled the book closer to him and began to read what was on the page opposite the drawing. He wondered for a fleeting moment how he hadn't seen this page the last time, and then remembered that a metaphysical emergency had broken his train of thought when he'd last opened the book.

             
The Rogue Portal works differently than any other portal in the Void. While others exist and can be used to traverse from one place to another, the Rogue Portal does not have any specifications about how it can be used. Put differently, The Rogue Portal is not one that takes the traveler from a given place to one, set, specific place or location in time. Instead, it's the wild card of the realm, giving its possessor the ability to travel anywhere, at will, at any time. Not only can the Rogue Portal take its owner anywhere in the Void, it can also provide passage between realms, including the Realm of Mortals, Realm of Gods, and, though hardly a person would have the desire to go, the Realm of the Damned.

              To activate the Portal and be transported to Zentarum, the Central Region of the Void, the portal must be open, at night, set to midnight (should the owner be outside of the Void and in a realm with time). The owner must fall asleep before midnight, and will be transported to the Celestarium. Here, he or she will have ninety minutes in which to accomplish a mission, self-imposed or given, after which point the owner will be transported back to the place in which he or she fell asleep. Alternatively, the owner can choose to leave the Celestarium, at which point no time limit on the owner's visit would exist. This would, of course, require that the owner traverse the Maze of Souls successfully.

              The third and final option for travel within the Void requires a certain map. Residents of the Void and Alchemists will all know the map to which this text refers. It is not to be named, and will not be named here. The combination of map, portal, and the intention of the owner will allow the owner to travel anywhere at any time. This certain map has other valuable properties which may help guide the traveler.

              The owner of the Rogue Portal has a great many powers. However, if anyone, with or without the Portal, is brought into the Realm of the Void without intentionally traveling there, they are bound to different rules, no time limit will bring them back, and their return to the realm of their origin is uncertain at best, impossible at worst.

              Connor immediately thought about what the goat woman had told him in the elevator. Something about going there. Something about it taking a long time. No, that wasn't quite right, but it was close, wasn't it?
I really should start writing this stuff down.
Immediately, he felt for the second time since his arrival the distinct pang of guilt that accompanied his realization that he still had not told the rest of them about his encounter in the elevator. But what was the use? He hadn't learned anything particularly useful, had he? Other than more jibber jabber about realms and traveling and missions and...what was it the Traveler had said?...something about being royalty.

              After he'd finished reading the page, he'd passed it along to Kit, and now everyone in the group was reading it and passing it along. As soon as one person had finished the page, their face would take on the identical expression of the person who had just read it, and when the book had circled around the four of them, everyone had a look of blank shock plastered on their faces like masks. It was a contradiction in terms. But so were they. So was everything.

              "This is so much bigger than we know." Hazel's voice had broken the silence. Her comment seemed prophetic in a way, although she said it with the soft insecurity of a child who had awoken in a forest and was only just realizing the job they had of finding a way out. Everyone agreed without saying a word.

              The day took on a more serious tone after that. Connor felt that everyone suddenly understood with clarity and certainty that their mission consisted of much more than thumbing through an old book like kids breaking into a haunted house on Halloween. This was no prank. This was not just a cool book to look through. This was, for all intents and purposes, a mission. They were studying. Preparing for some kind of battle, even.

              "You want to pass that over here?" Kit's voice had a distinct edge to it.

              "Why don't you mind your own business and let me finish a page for once?" said Hazel.

              "Hey don't be such a selfish --"

              "Watch what you're about to say to me! I'm not your slave!"

              The sudden argument interrupted his train of thought. Hazel and Kit were arguing feverishly over the book, with Hazel currently being in ownership

              "Give it back! I need to look something up and you've had it for quite long enough. Unless that's how long it takes you to read a single page!" Kit was fuming.

              "You know what --"

              "SHUT UP! Both of you!"

              Connor surprised himself. His voice was louder than he'd meant it to be, and he had managed to stun both Hazel and Kit into silence. They looked at him, their mouths frozen in mid-assault, and he glared at both of them. He was in it now; might as well keep going with it.

              "You're both acting like children! Stop it! We have two entire days here. I don't think we need to be quite so petty about how long someone has had a book. We'll all get to look at it. Grow up!"

              "Oh and who are you, our dad?" Kit retorted.

              "No, but that's how it feels when you fight like first graders."

              "And how would you know what it feels like to be a dad? Or have one?"

              Kit's words were as sharp as a dagger, and she thrust them with the force of a warrior. An audible gasp escaped Hazel's lips, and Stuart shook his head in disapproval. Yet Kit stood, unapologetic, her eyes boring into his own.

              "You're a piece of work, you know that?" he said.

              "It's intentional."

              "Well good job, then."

              The argument between Hazel and Kit had ceased, and Hazel, trying desperately to act as though she hadn't heard the personal and painful attack Kit had leveraged, was flipping through the pages of the book without reading any of them. Connor and Kit had dovetailed into their own argument, which, though quieter in volume, was deafening in its own way.

              Kit grabbed a library book she'd brought with her and threw it into the corner, following its path across the room, and sitting down next to it, her back turned to the room, reading. The fracture lines deepened. The cracks in the glass chipped away. Everyone could see them now. But Connor still felt as though he was the only one who understood their implication at the deepest level. They weren't imploding; they were being chipped away by some external force. If asked to produce evidence to this effect, he couldn't have. And if asked to explain his reasoning for believing such a thing, he wouldn't have known where to start. But he knew it was true nonetheless.

              Hazel's eyes darted between him and the book, and Stuart had long since taken a sudden and intense interest in the edges of the book's pages.

              "Sorry guys," Connor said.

              Hazel looked up, compassion in her eyes. "It's okay. Are you...okay?"

              "Yeah," he lied. "I'm fine." He shot her his best smile and set his plate of uneaten pizza aside. He'd lost his appetite.

              "We noticed this and thought it was interesting," said Stuart, inviting Connor to look at the book with them.

              It was Stuart's way of putting salve on the situation, and Connor appreciated the gesture. Stuart had his own set of issues, but still took time to make Connor feel better about his. Stuart hadn't forgotten the video or the library; Connor knew that. But he was doing his best to be present at today's meeting, and Connor wanted to honor that.

              They showed him a picture that someone with very capable hands had drawn in the book. It depicted a variety of items that seemed to be completely unrelated. The page had no heading, just hand-drawn images of a ring, a dagger, a key, and several other items. They spent the rest of the day poring over the book, and up until the last half an hour Kit had stayed in her corner, buried in her library books, her back to them - and the world.

              Connor looked at the clock. Ten o'clock at night. Some ten hours had passed since the argument, and they'd been so enthralled in research none of them had bothered to look at the time. His awareness of the hour provoked a sudden sense of exhaustion, and this feeling spread over all of them when he brought it to their attention.

              "Call it a night? Start again in the morning?" asked Stuart.

              "Sounds good," Connor replied.

              There was an awkward moment when they realized there were four of them and two beds. Nervous glances passed between them like a ball in a game of Hot Potato.

              "The couch looks comfy," said Connor, internally wincing at the oddly shaped ornate sofa by the window.

              "Yeah, I've always been a fan of the floor myself," said Stuart, grabbing an extra blanket from the cabinet and putting it on the ground.

              The two girls visibly relaxed, and each claimed a bed. Hazel's bed was nearest the wall, at the foot of which Stuart had set up his makeshift bed. Kit chose the bed nearest the window, right by the sofa Connor had volunteered to sleep in. There was no disagreement about the choice of bed; it was a simultaneous action on both their parts. Connor smiled to himself, wondering just how coincidental the choice had been. Subconscious maybe, but amusing nonetheless.