by Sam Hall
"Nah, it’s just a town. Busy, smelly, too full of people for its own good, like all the others. Look, you want this stuff or not?"
"Um, I've got plenty of money, but not enough gold."
Natty exhaled noisily, scratching at his head for a moment before snapping upright and away from the door frame. ”Right, I’m off to Gump’s. I'm sorry for your loss and all, but I've got a living to make."
“A moment, good sir,” Merlin said. His tone was mild, but we all stopped still at the sound of it. He shifted a pile of books and drew back an old carpet on the floor, waving me over to show me a floorboard with a finger hold cut out of it. I crouched over it, back to the door to block Natty's view as much as anything. I pulled the board up to find several battered cash boxes there. "This may help," the wizard said and the locked lid of the one I'd grabbed snapped open. Sure enough, little gold nuggets filled the container. I counted twenty-one out quickly and returned the rest to its hiding place.
"One extra for your troubles," I said, depositing the gold in his calloused paw. He nodded slightly and had the gold squirrelled away, quick as a flash. The ambergris and disgusting feathers were dumped into Tess's hands without ceremony.
"Pleasure," Natty said, sounding anything but, before he turned on his heel and walked away.
"So, Merlin, you are all knowing and all that," Tess said. "If I went through the portal, what would be the problem?"
"Well–"
At that moment, the doorbells jingled and I heard Gabe calling, "Hey, Ash, where you at?" I shoved my sister away from the portal and slammed the door shut, just in time for the biker to appear at the doorway of the storeroom. "You having a staff meeting or something?"
“Ah, no, just trying to work out where to put the rest of the books."
“Who’s this? King Arthur’s aide?” he said, nodding at Merlin. I turned, ready to explain why another guy was dressed in Ren Faire gear, to see Merlin standing there in a polo shirt and some khaki pants.
He came over, moved to shake Gabe’s hand and said, “Gabe, was it? Nice to meet you, Mervin Taliesin.”
“Right, well, you weren’t joking about there being a lot of books. I was going to suggest the guys bring the rest in here, but . . ."
“I know, I know,” I walked with him out into the shop, away from my wanderlusting sister and the court magician of King Arthur. “We’re going to have to put them against the wall here." I frowned as I pointed to the right-hand wall where Nan had set up a nice reading nook, complete with natural light from the window and comfy chairs and tables.
"Can do, but isn't that going to mess with your shop layout?"
“It's going to look a mess, but it doesn't really matter, no one comes in here anyway." The words were out before I put any thought into whether this info was appropriate to share with a new tenant.
Well, that killed the conversation. Gabe watched me with those grey-blue eyes, burning into my skin as if he was recording everything to save for another day. He took a step closer, putting a hand on my shoulder. ”Look, love, I could easily lease this whole shop from you. This is just a side investment, my day job is back at my workshop. Flea's good, he's in demand and business is really picking up. I've been waiting for a bigger space to hire some new guys on. Double what we originally agreed to would be a dream for me right now. The guys would even help move everything to your place if you needed it.”
I looked around at the dark-wood furnishings, the velvet-covered armchairs, the richly gleaming display cases of semiprecious gems and arcane equipment. I’d pressed my face up against the glass as a kid, making crazy stories up for each one, aided and abetted by Tess when she was old enough. For a while, we used to come by every day after school, sitting at Nan’s big carved desk–ostensibly doing our homework–until Mum could pick us up after work
I shook my head, "That's a generous offer, but I can't. We have to try and make a go at this place, for my Nan."
His hand slid to my shoulder blade, rubbing small circles there. It was crazy inappropriate to let someone who was about the begin a business relationship with me touch me like this, but standing there, surrounded by his woody scent, his hand a warm weight on my skin, it was too nice to shrug off.
“Gabe!”
I didn’t get a chance to approve or not because the door jangled open and a tall, slender woman with long waving black hair and a full sleeve tattoo walked in, flinging her arms wide when she saw us. She launched herself at the biker as soon as she was close enough, his hands pulling free of me and grabbing her waist on reflex, her hands twining around his neck. Uncomfortable and feeling slightly guilty for touching another woman’s man, I looked over at the glass case behind me, giving some imaginary fingerprints a buff.
So, the new guy had a girlfriend. Of course, he did; he was bloody gorgeous. Blokes like that didn’t run around free-range unless they were unmitigated bastards and even then, probably able to find someone to put up with them, if they could curl up next to that landscape of man flesh every night. And she was exactly what I would expect a hot-looking biker guy would want in a partner. She had low-rise denim jeans and a cropped black singlet on with what I assumed was Gabe’s bike shop's logo on it. This revealed a considerable expanse of golden toned, well-muscled, lean abdomen. I could do a thousand crunches every night and not get anywhere close to her perfection.
“I’m Amber,” the girl said, finally noticing I existed. She stayed within the circle of his arms but held out a heavily ringed hand for me to take, a wide flirty smile on her face. Pretty sure that wasn’t for my benefit.
I took it and gave it a firm shake, “Ash.”
“Oh, you’re Ash! I thought you were a guy,” her eyes swivelled back to Gabe’s, “and you let me think that.”
“It’s just business,” Gabe growled at her. Damn straight it is, mate, I thought to myself. “Look, this is going to take a bit longer than we thought. How about you get Ash to show you some of the silver jewellery she has? I had a quick look, it’s right up your alley. Dragons and fairies and shit. Why don’t you pick out something nice, on me, while you wait?”
I waited for her to stiffen, get huffy or something. It was nice of him to spring for some jewellery, but his tone was a little too much ‘run along little girl’ for most of the women I knew. Instead, she squealed, jumping up and down and clapping. Really? The chick who’d sat through a full sleeve tatt was squealing like a little girl? I fought the urge to shake my head, plastering my professional retail smile instead. “I figured it might help you out,” Gabe said in a little more reasonable tone. Thank God for that, as I wasn’t sure how far my professionalism stretched.
“Thanks, that’s kind of you, but you needn’t for my sake . . .,” I said.
“Ooh! These ones! They have amber in them! Can you open the cases?”
“Yep, just got to go in back and grab the keys and Jez. She’s our shop assistant, she’ll help you out.” I nodded to them both and disappeared gratefully. Once I was away from them, I let out a huge breath I hadn’t realised I was holding. My chest felt tight and kind of achy. My heart was beating much faster than usual, and I felt like I was pumped with adrenalin, yet also kind of . . . disappointed. Really, I thought to myself, are you crushing on the new tenant? I slapped myself on the forehead, which had everyone turning around to look at me. Great, as if this couldn’t get any more embarrassing.
“Jez, Gabe’s girlfriend is in the market for a new amber ring. Can you take the cabinet keys and help her out?”
“Sure, what’s her name?”
“Amber.”
“Amber . . . wants an amber ring. Right.”
“Amber wants to put money in our till, which is a goddamned blessing, irrespective of her name. Help her out, please.”
“Yeah, sure,” Jez grabbed the big key ring off the hook and went outside.
“Where’s King Arthur?” I asked, noticing we had one less body in the storeroom.
“I returned him to Camelot,” Merlin said.
“He is sorely needed in his realm and as I was the one you seek, I thought there no reason for him to stay here. He was beginning to get some rather odd ideas.”
9
“Don’t want him to start getting ideas about democracy? Might put an end to the Round Table before it even starts,” I said.
“No, no, but he is quite taken with cars. He was re-imagining them as war machines, but we need to leave something for people to do in World War I. Anyway, your sister is keen to find out more about the portal. Shall I educate her alone, or will both of you be participating?”
I looked over at Tess. I saw the shine in her eyes and the almost quiver in her body. She was forcing herself to sit there quietly and act like this was no big thing. I looked at the door and considered it.
“Should we be learning to use it at all? When people need us, they knock.”
I watched Tess’s eyes flash as she jumped to her feet, her chest swelling as her body prepared itself for the rant that was about to begin. “If you think for one minute I’ll–”
“If I may? Apologies, Lady Tess, but I think I have a simpler answer. The portal is a tool, a powerful tool. Learning how to use it is the key to the success of your enterprise,” I rolled my eyes at this, “and in keeping yourself safe.” OK, now he had my attention. “A portal gives access to your shop and at the moment, that access has been granted to people who have behaved reasonably and fairly with you, yes?” We both nodded at this. “You have a small fortune in gold in the floorboards, you have rare and arcane ingredients, mixed in with some terrible dross, I must say, which powerful people desire. Not all of these people are prepared to deal so reasonably. People who will not be deterred by anything as mechanical as a lock. By learning how to use the portal, you learn how to control what happens to your shop and yourselves.”
“Control’s good. Sign us both up.”
“Reality is the Word made flesh,” Merlin said, swirling his hand in the air and showing us the green lettering again. “Someone, something described what is, and it came into being. Some say it is a god or many gods, some say it was merely some gifted individuals. For our purpose, it is merely important to remember that underlying all you see is the Word.”
“So, like, the moon was created by a Word. Someone thought, ‘Hmm, wouldn’t it be good to have a round lump of dead rock circling the Earth?’ and then said the Word and lo, it was so? That doesn’t make sense,” I said.
“I know not how the moon came to be, or who created the Language, all I know is the Words are there and when you can see them and understand them, you can manipulate and change them.”
“So, what, we learn the word, sorry I mean Word, for ‘open’ and ‘closed’, and we’re done?” I asked.
“No, we’d have to learn ‘where’ and ‘when’, wouldn’t we?” Tess asked. “I mean you’re from another time, not just another place.”
“Yes, exactly. You can imagine the dimensions your portal visits like this.” He drew several glowing green circles in the air. “Each of these is a world, or even the same world, that has somehow branched out in its development and created different versions of itself. Imagine them arranged like this.” He shifted them with his hands so that that they were jammed together in a line, the shape of them beginning to turn more oval than spherical. “A straightforward transition would be to open from one world, yours, to another, in the same place, same time. You must know the sign or symbol for this place, this time and then be able to input this into the portal.” He did something incomprehensible with his hands and then opened the door. “Oh,” he said and stepped back.
We peered into the doorway but didn’t see much. It was almost pitch black, I could hear the whine of the wind and saw something tumble by as a dark-grey shadow and that was about it. Tess shivered and pulled back. “What’s wrong with this place?”
“Some worlds are . . . not as successful as others. This is one of the risks of the portal,” Merlin said.
“It can’t be that bad,” Tess said, moving to grab Nan’s old lantern torch. She came back and switched it on, shining it into the dark.
She was wrong. The darkness was soon filled with strange silvery lights everywhere the light shone, dull and glistening. “What is . . .? Oh!” Tess aimed the torch at the nearest, and we soon found out what was the source of the strange reflection. It looked like a fruit bat, hanging upside down from a power line but big, really, really big and with teeth no fruit eater would need. Its leathery wings shuffled and it turned those great moon-discs of eyes towards us, opening its mother-fucking huge jaws, a long forked tongue flickering out as if to taste us.
Merlin slammed the portal shut and muttered something quickly, the blue light around the door frame dying away to nothing. “You see the dangers, we know not which worlds are safe to open a door to,” he said, panting slightly. “Your grandmother, she should have a list somewhere, of the codes or symbols for the dimensions and times she has visited. This would be invaluable and save time and possible injury. Would she have kept a document like this?”
“She kept notes on everything. We just have to sort through it all,” Tess said, her shoulders sagging. All of the spark had faded out of her. Her eyes kept flicking from the portal door and then back again. She shrugged, “I guess we’ve just got to get started going through them.”
“Hmm . . . journals of successes and failures are common in my profession, but it would be unlikely she would keep this information in that kind of book. It would need to be easily accessible, not scattered across many journals.”
“We’ll have a look, but there’s so much stuff here. . . . It’s hard to know where to start.”
“Hmmm . . .” Merlin looked around at the chaos, "perhaps this will help.” He grabbed his staff and made a grand gesture and all of our books were swept up in a swirling cloud, only to line themselves neatly inside the door of a cupboard that flicked open.
“How the . . .? This cupboard was full,” I said.
“I amended it.” He gestured and the door opened onto what looked a lot like a walk-in wardrobe, the shelves folding away as we walked to let us in.
“Where are . . .? How?” Tess said.
“In some ways, this mimics your portal. The additional space exists in an alternate realm, one I frequently use for just this sort of thing. It is stable and relatively unpopulated. No humanoids, just some single-celled organisms. This is a sterile environment, none of the indigenous creatures will make their way in, but I find it a useful way to add space when needed. This is how portals are used more commonly. At any rate, the information is not in these books, so this may narrow your search.”
“But if we find the symbols, then what?” I asked, looking over at the door. It just seemed like a door, it didn’t have a keypad to enter information. Would we just draw the symbols on the door?
“You’ll need to learn the art of inter-dimensional travel. It’s quite a complex science, particularly as you have no prior training, but within several years, I believe you may grow competent enough to chance going through a portal to a friendly dimension and back again.” I looked over to see Tess’s shoulders slump further forward.
“Hey, I’ll ring Pa and see if I can come and collect some of her books to look through. Now that we have an unlimited storage space, we can probably just store them here.” I pulled my iPad from my bag and handed it to her. “Why don’t you show Merlin here an episode of Stargate? It might get him thinking of an easier way to use the symbols.”
I grabbed my bag and was about to head out when Jez burst in. “You sure you want the books near the window? Biker boy is saying you cleared it, but it’s gonna look ugly.”
“Apparently not, we now have a magical bookshelf, though with its Tardis-like proportions, probably not good to let the guys see it. Have them dump them on the counter and we can move them in.”
“You sure you don’t want to give them the intel?” Jez asked with a smirk.
I stared back at her, my gaze flat, hopefull
y masking the thrill of adrenalin in my chest when I thought about the idea of talking to my new tenant. She was right; he was like a taller, hotter Charlie Hunnam and that was just weird to me. People who looked like that, they belonged on TV screens and in the beds of supermodels, not in my bloody shop.
“Well, the girlfriend might look like an airhead, but she bought all five of the amber pieces we had and asked when we were getting new stock in.”
“You serious? That’s almost five hundred bucks worth!”
“I know. I hope tall, blond and tattooed has deep pockets as his lady friend has expensive tastes. Want me to break the news to him?” Jez asked.
“Nah, I’m on my way out, I’ll make sure he’s OK with it.”
“Might be a good idea,” Jez said. “They’re really starting to make some changes in there.”
10
Pa and I loaded as many of the books I could fit into the car. There was another load there, but we were both tired and hot after the first lot. I called Tess and picked her up, happy to just close the shop early and head home. No surprises but Jez had taken up an offer from the guys to go to the pub.
“Try not to read anything or watch any movies,” I said with a groan as we pulled up outside her place. “I need a hot bath, a long sleep and no dramas in the morning. We have to move all of these into the new and improved storage facility without alerting the tenants that it exists tomorrow.”
“I’ll try . . .,” Tess said, her voice wavering a little.
“Tess . . .”
“What?”
“Definitely nothing about Merlin. If I have to wake up to him wanting to show me his sceptre tomorrow morning, I will be pissed.”
“I wouldn’t read anything about him! I shouldn’t have even watched that movie. They portray him in a completely unreasonable light!”
