by Peter Wilson
Several shouts of “stop them” and “where did they go,” came from the army as confusion spread with their disappearance.
A club came swooping through their mist bodies to smack on the ground beneath them. Jack could feel his grip on David and Rosie slipping as the mist cloud they had become was spread apart from the clubs force.
“Hold on!” Jack said as he pushed forward to meet the Horde.
They hit it and became one. Noise filled the air, as millions of voices spanning miles and miles flooded through the Horde and into Jacks thoughts. Animal howls, birds calling and languages spoken. It was as if whatever the Horde had consumed on this world had become one with it, trapped.
We need to get out of here quickly, he thought. In response the mist around him began to stir, voicing asking where this foreign thought was coming from.
Jack immediately tried to stop thinking, hoping his cousins would also notice and do the same.
He started moving again, as legs cut through their bodies. The army above ran around in a panic, trying to locate the three of them.
He made his way along the outskirts of the Horde, staying close to the mountainside on his left. There was shade coming up along the mountainside and he hoped they could slip away from the mist unnoticed and hide there.
“Jack, where are we going?” David hissed.
The Horde went silent. Millions of beings stopped and listened for one of them to speak again.
Jack kept his mind blank, trying hard not to shout at David to shut up. He increased speed towards the shade, his connection to his cousins tightened, as their anxiety grew. Finally he reached the edge closest to the shadow and stopped, waiting to see if his movement had caught anyone’s eye.
After a time, the voices within the Horde resumed, at first small whispers and then full chatter, wondering where the intruders had gone. Once it had reached full volume again, Jack moved them away, into the shadow of an overarching rock face.
Don’t talk, he thought, hoping they may hear him while they were as one.
That was mental drifted into Jack’s mind. He turned back and looked at the army of people standing in the mist. A large one-eyed man, much like the ones they’d encountered on Bowlandose, stood near the portal having an angry conversation with a human figure of black mist that had grown out from the Horde.
Him again…
Who again? Jack didn’t know whom the thought had come from.
I’ll explain later.
He looked around as he remembered what Anthrow had said about the magic. It could run out at any minute and then they would be exposed.
He looked around for somewhere they could go. The spot of shade they were in was small, only metres from Theordens men. If they followed the mountain around they would soon be exposed, with nowhere safe to run in sight.
He looked up and noticed a small hole, hidden in the shadows further up the wall. It wasn’t big enough to fit any of them in human form, but as mist it would be possible.
Follow me, he thought as he moved towards the mountain and began crawling up, the mist clinging to the rock. He reached the hole and poured through it; happy to see it opened up into a cave big enough to hold them all in their human form.
Jack concentrated on the ring and willed the magic to stop, their bodies returning to normal.
“That was…”
“Mental. I know.” Said Rosie. She slowly moved towards the hole and peered down at the scene below. “How did they know we would come through that portal? It’s like they knew our plans.”
“Vonsant or Anthrow must have told them,” said David.
“No, they wouldn’t do that!” said Rosie.
Jack wasn’t sure who was right, but he hoped nobody had betrayed them. Did Theorden know their plan to get to Diamond Lake? Looking down at the army of people below, he suddenly felt frightened.
What were they going to do?
***
The Shadow Man yelled in frustration. They had gotten away again! Theorden would be furious. His men were spread out. Searching for the three Gregson’s they had let get away.
Idiots!
It had been dumb luck that he personally was in the area when they’d arrived. Theorden had ordered him to place groups of followers at over twenty seemingly random portals, in the hope of catching the heir. Why he had picked those particular ones was a mystery to the Shadow Man. Theorden rarely shared his plans with him.
Find them! Bring me the book they carry! Theorden’s commands travelled through the Horde to the Shadow Man, frightening the voices of the mist to silence.
Why did he want a book they carried? And more importantly how had they gotten away?
One of the reports had said they’d turned into mist and hidden within the Horde, however he’d scoured the area and couldn’t hear their voices anywhere. Had they returned through the portal? It seemed the most logical thing to have happened.
He had to think quickly, Theorden was already gathering his main army at the portal to Earth. The current heir needed to die, so that the title could pass back to where it belonged.
The Shadow Man decided to split the group and send one half back through the portal. The rest could stay here with the Horde and continue the search on Coran.
As he moved to give out his orders, he thought about the name the green ogre had said he’d heard - Jack. Long ago he and his wife had hoped to call their child Jack if it turned out to be a boy.
They were both dead now, his mother refusing to use her magic to save them. She had then banished him from his home, all because he had sought out help from Theorden!
He made a promise that he would kill the false heir and take the title back for himself. It was his by birth rite, and she had had no right taking it away from him in the first place!
He would then return to Gregson Manor with Theorden and rule over what was rightfully his.
Chapter Fourteen
The Book’s Secret
Jack, David and Rosie sat in the small cave, trapped. They watched and waited; hoping the group below would leave the area.
The cave was large enough to stand in and a few metres deep. Judging by the straw and sticks laying everywhere, Jack figured it had once been home to a family of large birds.
“Who was that man in the mist?” asked Rosie quietly. “Why did you say ‘him again?’”
“He was at the Grotto when we first got attacked. After you two went through the portal he appeared in the clearing,” said Jack.
“You didn’t tell us that…”
“Anthrow said the Horde couldn’t travel through portals. It can’t be the same person,” said David.
“It was,” Jack insisted. “There’s something…familiar about him.”
“Familiar,” said David. “He looked like a bloody shadow.”
“Not that…I don’t know what it is. I just feel like I know him.” Jack couldn’t explain it any clearer. He didn’t understand it himself. It wasn’t like he looked familiar. His posture or size didn’t have anything to do with it.
There was a feeling, like there was a connection between him and the family. Maybe it was Theorden. But wouldn’t Anthrow have said something if it was? He had seen the Shadow Man in the Grotto too.
“So what do we do now?” asked David. “This is comfy and all, but I’m getting hungry and there’s around a hundred people down below looking to kill us! And did you hear that mist! It’s like every living thing it’s ever killed is actually alive in smoke form and on the lookout for us too! We’re screwed.”
“Calm down,” said Rosie.
“They’re splitting up,” said Jack.
The Shadow man had been instructing a small group of men who were now breaking away and gathering their troops. Half of them made their way to the portal and formed a line walk through.
“They must think we went back through the portal,” said Rosie.
“I think they’re just covering their bases,” replied Jack. “Look, half are staying.”
The remaining men had started sweeping the area, groups of them going off in different directions. They were starting at the perimeter of the mountain and working their way out into the desolate terrain beyond.
Jack breathed a sigh of relief as they inspected the shadows and didn’t look up at the hole in the wall where they were hiding.
“We’ll have to wait until nightfall and sneak back out of the cave. The black ring has one charge left.”
“What about food?” Asked David.
“Everything that was living on this planets surface is dead. No plants or animals. I don’t know where we’re going to get any food anytime soon. Maybe at Diamond Lake?” suggested Rosie.
“That’ll be hours! We haven’t eaten in nearly a day and even that was only a strange purple fruit. Why would Theorden choose to live on a planet where he’s killed everything that there is to eat? Surely if the Forgotten Portal’s here, he’d have found it already,”
While his cousins talked, Jack grabbed Rosie’s bag and took out the book, to see if it knew anything about Coran.
He looked at the cover just as the title of the book was changing, this time to ‘The Forgotten Portal.’
“Look at this! The book knows about the Portal,” said Jack.
“Ha! Yeah right,” said David turning in his direction. “The Forgotten Portal is a portal. It was forgotten and that’s why people call it ‘The Forgotten Portal’. Do you really think this book knows anything useful about something most people think is a myth?”
“It must think it can help us,” said Jack as he flipped open the book to the first page and started reading.
David Gregson is a chubby know-it-all. He thinks he knows everything and he’s overweight, which is why he’s known as a ‘chubby know-it-all’.
“Hey!”
“You really need to start being nicer to the book,” said Rosie.
“It’s a book!”
“It also doesn’t have any other words in it anymore, just that sentence over and over,” said Jack flipping through the pages. “Can you apologise to it or something?”
“It’s. A. Book.”
“Say sorry David!” said Rosie.
“Fine! Book, I am so sorry. Forgive me. Please.”
“It’s working!” said Jack. “Listen to this.”
The Forgotten Portal, the most powerful object in the universal was created by a god, and given to humanity as a gift to improve their lives.
“Please…”
“Shh!”
Realising that the Universe had become a very big place, with millions of civilisations living in isolation, the god created the first portal to bring them together.
People from all planets were brought to Coran and asked to create a doorway to their home world.
A person just had to imagine where the doorway would appear on their world and the Forgotten Portal would take them there. Once that connection was made, it was bound back to the Grotto, so the people of the Universe would have one central point to access all worlds.
“Amazing,” said Rosie. “So all those portals at the Grotto were created one by one. It must have taken centuries!”
After some time, people started making their own way to Coran to make more portals, without the gods invitation or permission.
Some portals were added for convenience, but more were created for ventures of a more sinister nature. The portal soon became a tool of theft, kidnapping and murder.
Furious that his creation had been used for dark deeds, the god hid the portal and the forest it resided in from the Universe.
From then on people from all worlds who came to Coran would leave in disappointment, as no amount of searching or magic would reveal its location.
Centuries passed and people started to doubt the old stories. Fact turned to myth and myth into fiction until eventually only dreamers and madmen still believed in what had become known as The Forgotten Portal.
“So Theorden has killed everything on this planet in search of the portal. He is a madman!” said Rosie.
“It’s a good thing he can’t find it,” said Jack.
“So why is the book telling us this now?” asked David. “It’s not like we asked about it.”
Jack looked back at the book as an additional paragraph appeared.
The Forgotten Portal can create new portals but it can also send you through to any existing ones. It could take you to Diamond Lake. It could also take you back to Earth.
“But the god hid the portal from everyone. How are we supposed to find it?”
There is only one way to find the Forgotten Portal. Me.
I was created to guide people back to the Portal, straight through the illusion the god put in place. It is impossible to reach the portal without me in your possession.
“I thought your reason to live was to give people information on anything and everything that they want to know about,” said David.
It is the way I was created. When Richard’s father purchased me, it meant I could only share the secret of the Portal to him or his heirs. And even then I had to believe that they would not use the portal for evil purposes.
To everyone else, I need to seem useful, else wind up fuel on a fire. Hence I help the people who read me, to the best of my knowledge.
“So you can only tell me of the Forgotten Portal because I’m the current heir to the Gregson Manor.”
Correct. You are the current heir Jack, and I believe you would not use the Portal for ill will. I believe your cousins wouldn’t either and since you were bound to fill them in on everything I wrote about, I didn’t see any point in asking you to step away from them before mentioning it.
The book was right, Jack thought. He wouldn’t have kept it from his cousins. Then why are you keeping what you know about your father from them? A traitorous voice in he head asked him.
Rosie, who now sat next to Jack, also reading the words as they appeared asked, “Did you ever tell Richard about the portal?”
No, but he asked me about it constantly. People like him are the reason the Forgotten Portal was hidden in the first place, so I always denied knowledge of it.
He said that he knew that I knew where it was. That his father had told him of the portal when he was a young boy and that I’d shared with him the secret of its location.
“Was he right, Book? Did you share the location with his father?”
Yes I did. His father was a different man, a good man. Once I told him of the portal, he chose to leave it alone. The portal had been sealed for good reason and he thought it should remain that way.
Theorden used to take me on his journeys, hoping that at some point I would submit and tell him what I knew.
One day I told him that even if I did know the location, I would never tell him. That made him angry. He threw me down on the library floor and stormed away.
That was the last I saw of him. The portal must have been sealed soon after he left.
It wasn’t until years later when in the possession of Maddox did I learn of Theorden, but at that time I didn’t know they were the same person.
Now that I know Richard is behind all of this, I am not surprised your Grandmother magically sealed the portal to Earth. I am also not surprised that he’s trying to find you. Especially if he knows you have me.
“Maddox, there’s that name again. Who is he?”
Don’t tell her! Jack pushed the thought at the book.
“How would Theorden know that we have you?” he asked, changing the topic quickly. “The only people that know we brought you are Grandmother, The Curator and Anthrow. None of them would have told him about it.”
“Alice knows too,” said David. “Didn’t she recommend we bring it?”
“Not Alice!” said Rosie.
“Book! Did Alice know Theorden?”
Alice is the child of a former Gregson employee. She was brought up in the staff quarters of Gregson manor.
Richard and Alice were of similar age and p
layed together growing up. Their bond was strong until Richard left for school. Alice remained and learnt the trade of her parents at Gregson Manor.
That is the only information I have of her I’m afraid. If they had any further dealings, it was after I belonged to another.
“But she’s almost part of the family! Why would she help him? Surely she would know what would happen if he came to Earth.” said Rosie.
“Vonsant said the blue emerald had to have been taken from someone on that side of the portal. Alice is the only non-family member that knew about it,” said Jack standing up. “It must be her!”
“Shh!” said Rosie as she nodded towards the entrance of the cave. “There’s still an army down there.”
Jack sat down quickly, saying, “Book, how do we get to the Forgotten Portal?”
It isn’t far, which is why I brought it up in the first place. If we could turn into the black mist again and travel up this mountain, it will save a lot of time.
“We can, but if we go now the army will see us.”
If you can get us to the top, over to the valley beyond, they won’t be able to follow us.
Jack nodded. He wished they could wait until dark to avoid detection, but he was starting to think there wasn’t much time to waste. With the blue emerald gone from the rear garden, Theorden would be planning to move his army through the portal at any time now. He might have started already!
“What about Alice? If she really is helping Theorden, we have to let Grandmother know. Our whole family could be in danger! Besides, now we know who has the blue emerald. Grandmother will be able to force the truth out of her,” said Rosie.
“We can’t go back without going to Diamond Lake first. We have to throw the red stone in the water and destroy the Horde before we seal off the portal forever,” David countered.
Travel back to the manor and warn the family or continue on to Diamond Lake and destroy the Horde? Jack was torn, as both were imperative.
His cousins were watching, waiting for him to say something. He wasn’t sure when he had become the decision maker of the group, and suddenly felt the responsibility of choosing what was the right course of action fall upon his shoulders.
