A Portal for Your Thoughts

by Jeffrey M. Poole

Pheron took the pen and drew an X.

  “This is where the girl lives.”

  Several other marks were added as the locations of homes and businesses were revealed. The final X was added as Graylan marked the spot on the map where the hunter had set up his last camp. Pheron stared down at the map and groaned. The X’s were scattered all across the village. There would be no help there.

  “The educator liked to go hiking,” Graylan recalled as he tapped the mark designating Quinn’s house. “The girl was presumably collecting herbs northeast of the village, here. Then there’s the woodsmith and the hunter. All had reason and motivation to go explore outside. Do you see this? The girl’s goldenseal location and the hunter’s camp are fairly close to one another. That must be significant.”

  “And then we have Melvyn, the drunk,” Pheron reminded everyone. He tapped a mark on the southern edge of town. “His parent’s house is nowhere near the northeast but we also know Melvyn was known to wander. Lieutenant Graylan is right. Ruan’s camp and the girl’s location for goldenseal are very close together.”

  “What does that mean?” Gunnar asked.

  “My friends, it means we need to find ourselves some herbs.”

  An hour later thirteen men had fanned out and were carefully inspecting a non-descript section of the forest northeast of Capily. Several of the men were even down on their hands and knees as they carefully sifted through pine needles, acorns, and anything else one would expect to find on a forest floor. Inch by inch they crept along, searching and hoping for some indication that the missing teenager had been there. So far their group was turning up just as much evidence as the king’s investigators had several months ago, which was absolutely nothing.

  His back was sore and his knees were aching. Pheron had found a small shrub less than a foot high and was inspecting the plant’s ovary. The leaves and stem resembled a raspberry bush, so he knew he had found a live specimen of the medicinal herb. The captain glanced up and watched several of his men poke and prod at various ferns and flowers that were sprinkled about the ground.

  “Just to make sure we’re all looking for the same thing, does everyone know what goldenseal looks like? If you don’t then look here. This shrub is what we’re looking for. Or, more specifically, a shrub like this that looks as though it has been harvested.”

  One of the soldiers pointed at the shrub and looked up at Pheron.

  “We’re looking for that? I thought we were looking for a tree.”

  Pheron shook his head. “Goldenseal is a shrub no more than ten inches high. Men, come here and get a good look. Everyone know what it is now? Good. Spread out. Look again.”

  While the soldiers fanned out once more Pheron turned to look back at the small seaside village nearly half a league to the south. He gazed silently at the distant rooftops of the village before slowly turning in place to look at the small shrub at his feet.

  “What are you doing?” another soldier asked. It was Gunnar, the youngest member on his team.

  “I’m trying to recreate what the girl would have seen had she come straight from Capily to here. This cannot be the only plant. It shows no sign of harvesting. Either she didn’t make it this far or else there was other shrubs nearby that would have attracted her attention first. Look that way and I’ll check over here. The roots of the goldenseal shrub are what’s predominantly used so look for signs of disturbance to the ground. She would have had to either pull them up or else dig them up. Either way we should see some signs.”

  Within moments Gunnar gave a shout.

  “Captain, over here!”

  Pheron hurried over to Gunnar’s position on the ground and looked at where the soldier was pointing. Sure enough, a small shrub had been dug out of the hard ground and was laying, discarded, on the ground. Its roots were missing.

  “Excellent, Gunnar. Keep looking. Let’s see if she found any more.”

  Twenty feet to the east they found another uprooted shrub, also with its roots missing. Thirty feet away, at the base of a rather large fern, they found a third uprooted plant, only this specimen still had its roots intact. Gunnar picked up the plant while Pheron knelt down to inspect the disturbed soil where the plant must have been growing. He could clearly see the marks Lissa’s spade had left in the soil as she had worked to extricate the plant from its natural bed.

  “She left these roots intact,” Gunnar observed. He held the plant out to the captain. “Why?”

  Pheron took the plant and straightened. He carefully looked around the quiet forest.

  “Isn’t it obvious? Something distracted her and prevented her from harvesting this. The question is, what? What did she see?”

  The hairs on the back of Pheron’s neck suddenly stood up. His nostrils flared. His right arm instantly jerked up and he held it in place, signaling Gunnar to be quiet. The young soldier was more than happy to comply.

  There was a faint acrid odor in the air, much like what Shardwyn’s workshop always smelled like after a failed experiment. Pheron squatted low – Gunnar instinctively dropped besides him – and scanned the surroundings. He couldn’t see any smoke anywhere but he could still smell it.

  “Do you smell that?” Pheron whispered.

  Gunnar nodded. “It smells like a potion gone wrong.”

  “Exactly. Stay close by me. Whatever is causing that smell must be nearby. Don’t let your guard down.”

  Gunnar nodded and rested a hand on the hilt of his sword. Pheron pointed east, towards a huge fern with fronds that were easily three feet wide by five feet long.

  “I think it’s coming from that direction. Follow me.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The two men carefully pushed aside the fern’s enormous fronds and poked their heads into the small space located directly behind it. There were additional ferns nearby which also had fronds stretched out in all directions. The small clearing was no larger than two square meters, but all traces of the actual ground was hidden from sight as no fewer than five different fronds from five different plants all overlapped one another, but only in the one spot. Intent on seeing what the fronds were hiding Gunnar pushed his way past the huge fern only to stumble and wildly flail his arms.

  Pheron caught Gunnar’s left arm as he toppled forward and gave him a violent yank backwards. Both men fell to the ground, but away from the convergence of giant fronds. Gunnar rolled to his feet first and came up swearing.

  “What the blasted hell is a stinking pit doing under all those leaves? Is this someone’s idea of a joke? It isn’t funny!”

  Pheron rose to his feet.

  “A pit?”

  “Aye. The ground disappeared. If you hadn’t of caught me then I would have fallen in. I probably would have broken a leg.”

  Pheron cautiously inched back towards the mass of huge ferns.

  “I want to see this pit.”

  “Be careful,” Gunnar cautioned.

  Together the two of them pushed by the closest fern and gently pulled the fronds away from the ground. This time it was Pheron’s turn to swear.

  “Wizards be damned! What the blazes is that?”

  Hidden from sight beneath the thick foliage of the nearby plants, and floating several inches off the ground, was what could only be described as a ‘disturbance’ of air. Sitting snug inside the protective enclosure the ferns had provided the gently swirling vortex of air beckoned invitingly.

  Gunnar poked a finger at the vortex but Pheron caught his wrist before he could make contact.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You have no idea what that thing is.”

  Gunnar nodded. “You’re right, captain. Don’t you want to find out?”

  Pheron snapped a small twig off the nearest tree and held it over the anomaly. He let go of the branch and together he and Gunnar watched the piece of wood blink out of existence the moment it hit the swirling mists.

  “I’ll stand guard,” Pheron told the soldier. “Find the others. Tell them they can call off the search. I t
hink we found what we’ve been looking for.”

  Half an hour later all thirteen men were crowding around the vortex. Everyone wanted to not only get a good look at the anomaly but to also toss in a rock, or a twig, or anything else that would fit through the disturbance. As before with the original branch Pheron had dropped, each item disappeared the moment it touched the swirling mists.

  “So why didn’t you vanish when you touched it?” lieutenant Tyril asked. “It looks as though these sticks and stones we’re throwing in disappear as soon as contact is made.”

  Gunnar was nonplussed. “So?”

  “So why didn’t you vanish? Find a large branch,” Pheron ordered. “Let’s see what happens when we only poke one end into the anomaly. Will the branch vanish? Will it be pulled down? I want to know.”

  Graylan chose two men from his group and retreated into the forest. They were back in less than five minutes with a seven foot long pole held between them.

  Pheron smiled. “Excellent. Be ready. If there is a sudden pull downward I want everyone to let go. Is that understood? I don’t want anyone touching that thing.”

  The three soldiers holding the pole all nodded. Pheron waved them through and indicated they should proceed. The tip of the pole was lowered and gently made contact with the disturbance.

  Pheron watched the pole and the three men carefully. Nothing was happening. After a few moments the soldiers carefully inserted another foot of the pole into the anomaly and then carefully pulled the pole out. Pheron was expecting the pole to have been a foot or two shorter but it wasn’t.

  “Try that again,” the captain instructed. “Poke it down as far as you can safely go. I want to see if you can feel anything on the other side.”

  The pole was lowered once more into the vortex. As before, the tip of the pole vanished into the swirling mists. A few seconds later, however, the pole was ripped from the soldiers’ hands and sucked into the anomaly.

  Alarmed, Pheron ushered everyone away from the vortex.

  “Is everyone alright? What happened?”

  Graylan was shaking his right hand back and forth.

  “What just happened was that I just got the biggest splinter of my life shoved into my hand.”

  “Could you feel anything with the pole?” Pheron asked as he pulled out his dagger and carefully dug out the sliver of wood that had lodged in his lieutenant’s hand.

  “No resistance,” Graylan reported as he wrapped a strip of cloth around his injured hand. “It was like someone grabbed the pole from the other side and yanked it in.”

  “On the other side? You’re saying you think this is some type of a portal?”

  “Captain, I don’t know what that is.”

  “Captain?”

  Everyone turned to look at Gunnar. His face was ashen.

  “Captain, if you hadn’t been there to prevent me from falling in then I would be suffering the same fate as those other people. I – I – “

  “Don’t get all blubbery on me, soldier. Men, I think we can now safely explain what has happened to the missing villagers. I need a couple of volunteers.”

  Two men hesitantly raised their arms.

  “Excellent. Eslac, Stamwick, relax. As tempting as it is, you two are not going in. Set up camp here. Stand guard. I don’t want anyone coming anywhere close to that thing, is that understood?

  Both soldiers nodded and saluted. And breathed a sigh of relief.

  “We have to inform the king and see what he wants to do about this. I’m sure he’ll want to set something up so that there won’t be any other villagers who suffer the same fate.”

  “Do you think they died in there?” Tyril asked.

  “We don’t even know what it is,” Pheron pointed out. “There’s no sense in trying to guess what has happened until we have as much information as possible. We’ll let the experts decide what to do.”

  ****

  “I honestly have no idea, your majesty.”

  “Shardwyn, you’re a wizard. Surely you must have read something about this. Can’t you tell us anything about it?”

  Captain Pheron had notified the castle that a singularity had been discovered which explained the disappearance of the missing villagers. Kri’Entu hadn’t wasted any time assembling a team of people and sending them to the kingdom’s largest seaside village. Since there had been a lull in activity around the castle the king himself accompanied the group west to see for himself what this strange phenomenon was and what would have to be done to neutralize it.

  However, upon arriving at the scene of the anomaly Kri’Entu had been informed by the captain that it was his opinion this wasn’t some type of portal as it didn’t conform to the same properties every other portal exhibited. How could it be a portal? There was no athe crystal to power it. There were no frames to contain it. It wasn’t possible for a portal to exist without those elements, yet there it was, defying all known explanations.

  “If I were to venture a guess,” Shardwyn was saying, “then I’d say this is nothing more than jhorun in its elemental form.”

  Kri’Entu frowned. “Jhorun does not exist in an elemental form. It’s something we are all born with. We can temporarily increase our own jhorun through the use of the joriis but those spheres are rare. The few joriis that do exist are safe and sound. No, I do not think this is jhorun, and if it is, we have no way to confirm that.”

  Down on his knees, peering intently at the swirling disturbance just above ground level, Shardwyn shook his head.

  “I mention it only as a possible explanation, your majesty,” the wizard informed him.

  “I have already sent for a second opinion,” Kri’Entu said with the beginnings of a smile.

  “Who could you possibly ask that would know as much as I would on the matter, your majesty?”

  “Me,” a strong gruff voice flatly said.

  Shardwyn stiffened with surprise and slowly got to his feet. He looked down his nose at the pugnacious dwarf standing before him and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Standing in front of him, with a smug look on his face, was an elderly dwarf everyone was quite familiar with. His beard was streaked with gray and had been tightly braided together and tucked into an ornate black belt. The dwarf was outfitted entirely in black. Tunic, trousers and boots; all were of the same hue. Draped over his shoulders was a heavy gray robe adorned with all manner of pins, patches, and various other accoutrements. The dwarf’s black eyes twinkled mischievously as they stared up at the tall wizard.

  “You.”

  The dwarf nodded. “Aye. Me. It’s a pleasure to see you, too, wizard.”

  “Master Maelnar. Don’t you have better things to be doing? What would your Council think if they knew you… how did you get here so fast, anyway?”

  Maelnar grinned and held up a glittering crystal key. It was such a bright yellow color that Shardwyn briefly wondered if the dwarf key maker had somehow managed to capture a piece of the sun’s essence and imbue it within the crystal. The dwarf nodded at the king, who nodded in return.

  “At Kri’Entu’s request, and with the permission of the Council, a new portal was commissioned and linked to your castle straight from Bohragg. Now I can visit at a moment’s notice. Isn’t that grand?”

  “It doesn’t explain how you arrived here so quickly”, Shardwyn pointed out. “We have Capily’s portal key. What did you use?”

  “I didn’t use anything. I came over with you.”

  “You did? I didn’t see you.”

  “I’m surprised. You’re always looking down your nose so I figured you would have seen me. I was there, as clear as the wrinkles on your face.”

  Shardwyn’s eyes momentarily flicked over to the king’s, who had to turn away in order to keep from laughing out loud. The feud between the wizard and dwarf had been going on for years now and gave every indication that it would continue for years to come. Shardwyn shoved his hands into his pockets and came close to pouting.

  “Well, you’
re here. You can at least make yourself useful. What do you make of that?”

  Maelnar followed the human wizard over to a clump of recently pruned ferns and looked at the ground Shardwyn was pointing at. The dwarf’s eyebrows shot up. He slowly approached the anomaly and knelt down on the ground to get a closer look. With wide wondrous eyes Maelnar looked up at Shardwyn.

  “There’s something you don’t see every day. What do you think that is, wizard?”

  Shardwyn appeared ready to give a sarcastic answer when he caught sight of the king standing quietly nearby, watching the proceedings. The king frowned at him. Shardwyn closed his mouth and sighed. He forced a smile as he looked down at the dwarf.

  “I say this knowing full well you’ll ridicule me but I do so anyway. I think this is an example of jhorun in its purest form.”

  “Jhorun doesn’t manifest itself physically,” Maelnar pointed out.

  “How would you know?” Shardwyn countered. “Dwarves don’t typically have jhorun. We have more experience with it so maybe we know something you don’t.”

  Surprisingly, Maelnar nodded. “I concede the point.”

  “What do you think it is?” Shardwyn asked as he squatted down to both inspect the anomaly closer and be closer to Maelnar’s eye level.

  Maelnar stared intently at the swirling vortex. “I was told that it has the characteristics of a portal. Is that true?”

  Graylan, standing nearby, raised a bandaged hand. “With the exception of having a long pole forcefully yanked out of our hands as we were conducting some tests, aye. It behaves like a portal.”

  “It just doesn’t look like a portal,” Shardwyn added, giving Graylan a friendly smile.

  “It cannot be a portal,” Maelnar concluded. “All portals require a power source. There is no frame or a place to conceal the athe crystal. If that’s a portal then it’s not one that I’m familiar with.”

  “Can you detect a power source?” the king asked as he appeared standing next to the two of them. “I would concur with Master Maelnar. If it’s a portal then there should be a power source of some sort.”