<< Go Back

The Crystal Portal

By Travis Perry, Mike Lynch

Order Now!

CHAPTER 1

Lehkahn’s eyes were half-open in the dreamless sleep of the elves. Dreamless, he nonetheless saw something not there—something part imagination, part memory. His wife stood before him, smiling, holding their infant son.

Something moved in the corner of his right eye. Before his heart’s next beat, he was on his feet, his sword yanked free of its sheath, ready to destroy whatever enemy prowled this place.

“Hold it, hold it,” whispered Char in the common tongue. “It’s just me.”

“Char,” Lehkahn said in a soft voice, sheathing Eleutherotes—called in the Black Rock speech the Liberator. “I didn’t hear you. No son of men has ever approached me before without me hearing him.”

“You were asleep.”

“True. Yet your stealth increases. Well done.”

“Thanks,” said Char with his wide toothy grin. At twenty-one years old one could say he was a grown man, though his height hadn’t increased much since the day Lehkahn first met him. Char had been twelve then, a small, half-starved human boy. He remained as bone-thin as ever, even though he ate endlessly. But now his arms and legs showed wiry muscles that weren’t there before and there were blond hairs beginning to sprout above his upper lip and on his chin.

“Why did you wake me?” asked Lehkahn softly.

“I thought I heard something, sir. Outside camp—but I couldn’t find anything.”

“Very well, let’s look.”

The elf and youthful human strode towards the edge of the camp, which itself was on the edge of the Saheel Oasis, the last source of water on the nomad road to Balal. They moved past the border of the sandy desert, a bowshot distance away from the nearest tent, moving to the left in a great circle.

They stopped and listened. It was past the middle of a moonless night, into the second watch. But the sky was clear and the stars shone like sparkling jewels, so Char could see a little of the desert. Lehkahn, whose eyesight had been recounted in many a tale, could see very well.

Other than a jackal moving parallel to the camel track headed east, toward Balal, there was nothing much to see. Lehkahn began walking again.

They moved like this for a long while, in short silent stages, followed by stops to listen and look. When they walked, each of them moved as quiet as a cat. It took Char a little longer to cover ground with that sort of stealth, so each time he fell perhaps a dozen paces behind, catching up only after Lehkahn had come to a halt.

After stopping about halfway around the camp, Char crouched down and rubbed his shoulders, moving his hands inside the sleeves of his wool tunic, his left hand passing over the three lines scarred into his right shoulder—a number three in the style of the Latins. He’d been born into the Brotherhood of Black Rock; the number stood for the number of times Sargon of Balal had destroyed their city. Every member of the Brotherhood longed for the day of Sargon’s destruction, especially Char. At the age of nine, he’d been captured by Sargon and forced to join his “Sons of Eternity.” He’d escaped, the only boy ever to have done so, by climbing down the massive wall of Balal barehanded and swimming the vast Pishon River.

“I’m cold,” he whispered.

“It’s the desert,” replied Lehkahn.

“Yes. Be hot by noon, I guess.”

Lehkahn saw no reason at all to reply to this. After listening a bit longer, he started out again on his silent walk.

After rounding a large boulder, Lehkahn noticed a reddish star near the horizon, not far from the bright planet Haleel. Something about the flicker of light set low in the sky drew his attention, as if it was calling to him. He stopped to look.

“Lehkahn!” shouted Char, a dozen paces back. The young man’s tone of voice told him all he needed to know.

He swung around, pulling Eleutherotes free. A dark shape rose from the sand, a shadow darker than the night itself, nearly invisible, even for his eyes. He knew without thinking that Char had found this monstrosity with his ears, without seeing anything. And himself, he had heard nothing.

Lehkahn hurled himself in the air, back towards the beast, but before he could reach it, Char advanced, swinging his own sword wildly, blindly. The manmade steel blade was useless against this creature of the abyss. Yet the shadow still turned back and wrapped its darkness around the young man and injected its poison into him.

Lehkahn landed and with two slices of his golden blade left the creature a pulsating mass of blackness, no longer shadowy. It was a Nightslayer, creatures used as assassins by Sargon Balal. This assassin had meant to kill him, waiting for him to pass by so it could attack from behind. Clearly, it had never expected that a mere human would know it was there. Not until after it killed Lehkahn, anyway.

Char was on his back, twitching. His face paled, his skin beaded with cold sweat, he breathed fast and shallow. Lehkahn knelt next to him.

“Let Black Rock rise again,” said Char with as much power as he could muster. It was something all the members of the Brotherhood swore to say with their dying breath. But it was hard for him to really mean it. He’d never even seen the place Black Rock had once stood—and death isn’t a good time for slogans.

The next thing he said came more naturally, “Kill Sargon for me, will you? Stop him…”

“I will,” answered the elf, “Sargon’s rule is finished.”

“Yeah…” The twitches in Char’s body were becoming a stiffness that would soon cut off all breathing. A skilled healer might have saved him, but they were all too far away.

“Without you, the beast would have killed me,” said Lehkahn, “I thank you.”

“Do I get an extra ration of sweet bread for that?”

He let himself smile at the joke. “For a hero like you, two extra rations.”

“Oh good…I wouldn’t want to die for nothing…”

“I will tell the Brotherhood of your deed.” This made the young man smile, briefly, a flash of his old grin.

“Stay with me…will you?” These were the last words Char forced from his mouth.

“I will stay,” said Lehkahn. He took Char’s right hand and held it until the very end.


CHAPTER 2
The former Palien ambassador drew both layers of wrinkled skin around her mouth and forced a smile. Her species did not naturally pull their lips upward when they experienced positive emotions as humans did, but the ambassador had lived many years on Earth and long ago committed herself to mimicking human behavior whenever possible.

“Tomorrow at six then,” said the Palien in flawless English. The elderly alien and her two young escorts walked down to a hovercab parked at the curb. Typical of her race, the ambassador was tall, her skin waxy and pale, both eyes solid white, and her hair the color of fresh snow.

“Until tomorrow,” answered 9.06, in the ex-ambassador’s native language. Then he balled his metallic hands into fists and put them together under his chin in the Palien gesture of happy friendliness.
“Greet your master for me,” she added with a nod.

The lead escort pulled the rear door open and stood at attention as the former ambassador negotiated the narrow opening. A melodic hum pulsed through the hovercab. Low at first, it rose in tempo and tone when the door slid closed. All at once, the yellow machine rose two meters above the ground and darted off towards the merge route that would take them into hoverway Z492.

“The correct term is ‘owner,’” muttered the robot. “I have an ‘owner,’ not a ‘master.’” Though 9.06 suspected it hadn’t been the Palien’s intention, he still found it disagreeable to say he had a master, like someone had to tell him what to do all the time. That might be typical for an inferior brand of robot, but not for him. An owner, that was different—that was someone he was programmed to be loyal to and want to help. He wasn’t anyone’s slave.

Despite these reasoning protocols, 9.06 still felt an impulse to get angry, but his canterole reacted to the impulse, smoothing it over. The accompanying systems diagnostic indicated all was well. It had been, after all, a simple mistake by someone who occasionally struggled with the nuances of the English language.

He turned and walked back into the house. Tomorrow was the fifty-sixth anniversary of the first time a human being had ever met a Palien. That human was his owner.

A man not particularly bright in 9.06’s estimation, who had the uncanny luck of being at the right place at the right time more times than he could count, his owner had once been a freelance space freighter captain and part-time adventurer. He’d been the first human being to encounter three different intelligent alien species, though his meeting with ones he named “Palien” had been by far the most important. It had started out as a joke, but the name stuck. “Wily creatures,” he used to say, “and pale.” The most significant early alien encounter on record. Pale + alien = Palien.
Whatever their sentiments about the nomenclature assigned them, the Paliens never once verbalized any unease or ill feeling towards their new benefactors.

With the discovery of this new alien life in the galaxy came the fame. Thousands of people showed up for the yearly celebrations to commemorate his meeting the Paliens, including three presidents of Earth.

His owner became so rich from his fame that he could afford luxuries like a state-of-the-art robot servant, which was what 9.06 had been designed to be. He’d also accrued a large mansion and many other expensive statuses of wealth. But he’d lost just about all of it over time—he was a man who liked to gamble in the Sirian casinos.

Now his owner lived in what used to be his grandmother’s house, which was just one home among millions in the sprawling suburbs of New Los Angeles. Over time, most people forgot who he was and took for granted the benefits of his discoveries. There were only six confirmed to attend tomorrow’s celebration, including the three Paliens.

But a celebration was still a celebration, and preparations were still required, even for just six. 9.06 walked into the kitchen and opened the cabinet that held the good silverware. As he took out each utensil and counted them, he felt the warm glow of the canterole in his chest. It made everything a delight; the silver, smooth and heavy, almost seemed magical in its properties.

As he counted, he accessed the “to do” list stored into his Mental Visual Processing unit. MVP gave him a mental window that laid over what he could see with his eyes. He scrolled down the list and checked off what he’d already done.

At that moment something changed in the background of his field of view. He dropped the mental window and scanned with his eyes. The change triggered a self-defense protocol, an automatic search for any moving threat.

His initial scan came back negative. Nothing out of the ordinary within a five-meter field of view, no unusual movement. “Strange,” he commented to himself.

Engagement protocols zeroed in on a hovercar parked across the street and widened the search area accordingly. Incoming data streamed into his central processing unit within a nanosecond, stopping when his field of vision happened upon something in the yard that hadn’t been there before. It was a stone arch. He ran an architecture identification subroutine, a program his owner had downloaded into him in case the topic came up in polite conversation. Back in the day when he mingled with people of importance, his owner often occupied his thoughts with such considerations.

The subroutine came up with, “Arched doorway, early Roman Imperial.”

His logic circuits bristled at the absurdity of the result, and scanned the object again.

“DATA READINGS CONFIRMED.”

9.06 scratched his head. Not that it itched. But he’d been programmed to interact with humans, which included having a full range of human gestures and emotional responses. His owner had a habit of scratching his head when puzzled. Over time, 9.06 had learned to do the same.

“How in the world could a Roman doorway suddenly appear in the middle of the yard?” His right hand reached out to his canterole, the large rose-hued gemstone set in the middle of his chest and gently stroked it with his fingertips.

Seven seconds later a loud thud sounded near the back door. “That’s odd,” he said. His owner shouldn’t be back from his doctor’s appointment already. And why would he be banging around back there? Was he trying to do yard work? His owner usually assigned such tasks to him.

His curiosity got the better of him, so 9.06 started towards the rear of the house, his scanners set at maximum. He hadn’t gone more than a few steps when his left peripheral sensor detected movement. His head whipped to the left. There, at a distance of eight meters and increasing, a man with shoulder-length blond hair ran through the yard, a huge black sword in his hands.

The robot charged toward the front door, the direction the man with the sword was running. He intended to get out the door before the man reached the front of the house—that way he’d be able to head off the sword-wielding lunatic and shout at him to get out of the yard—he was trespassing!
The old house, a relic from the days when houses were made of wood, rattled as 9.06’s metal feet pounded against the floorboards. He threw open the front door without hesitation, only to see the blond swordsman already past him, turning the corner to the other side of the house.

9.06 turned back and ran full speed toward the rear door. Based on the latest set of data, his math sub-processor worked to calculate how fast the swordsman was running—a precise figure eluded him because of the myriad of variables involved—rate of movement, physical ability, fatigue, adrenaline, and potential neighbor interventions changed the results significantly. But a fuzzy logic processor told him the man was moving about the same speed as an Olympic sprinter.

As 9.06 ran past the kitchen window, he caught a glimpse of the arch still in the yard. But something had changed. Standing in front of it was a small dark-haired boy whose facial features didn’t match any of the children living in the neighborhood. Two intruders!

Defensive programs instantly kicked in, and he made a 911 call on his internal installed cell phone.
The answer on the other end was a recording made decades earlier, “You have reached the greater New Los Angeles Police Department. All phone lines are now busy. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered as quickly as possible.” Figures, thought 9.06, that’s just the kind of efficiency you’d expect from the NLAPD!

9.06 jerked open the back door and leapt onto the concrete back porch. Looking to his right, he expected the yellow-haired man to be coming from his last known location near the front of the house. Instead, no one, nothing.

“Those blasted variables,” he muttered under his breath, acting as if a robot had breath.
A sound came from behind him the same moment his rear peripheral sensor detected motion. His head turned back quick enough to see a broad-shouldered Middle-Eastern-looking man with long braided hair and clothed in a magnificent red robe. A golden sword rested tight in his hands and he swung it fast and hard in the air. Straight at his neck.

CHAPTER 3

On the other side of Sargon’s portal, Lehkahn of the Northern Elfwoods found himself in a land as hot as the plain of Balal. Foul-smelling air drew into his lungs as he breathed and a single yellow sun bore down on him from above. A building of some kind, painted white, with overlapping planks and glass windows lay on his left. To his right, a fence made of metal poles and a kind of wire covering that looked like chain mail armor with large gaps between the links offered him another odd sight. Beyond the fence was still another building, much like the one to his left. He perceived there to be many such buildings in this place, each surrounded by rectangular-shaped meadows of green all cut the same way.

A little up ahead, about four hundred yards beyond the building on his left, a stream of moving carriages flew above the ground, suspended by some unknown means. His eyes drawn towards the unexpected movement, he intuitively understood the carriages had nothing to do with him—they represented no threat.

Lehkahn looked back down at the meadow beneath his feet and studied it with the skill of a tracker his age. It was quite short, leafy, with spindles of green shafts that stood up straight. Traces of depressions outlined the shape of Sargon’s feet among the cut blades, in a regular pattern moving away from the portal, their wide spacing indicating speed. Sargon had run this way, not long ago.
He took off in a sprint, following the trail of footprints outlined in the small meadow. Without a doubt, Sargon had fled his world into this place, taking Lehkahn’s sword with him.
But justice would find him soon.

Zachariah stepped through the doorway and found himself in a completely different place. He hadn’t known what to expect exactly, but the sudden change was shocking. One foot in the doorway and he’d been in Nazareth, at night, in the Roman barracks building. The next foot forward and he found himself in this other place, where the sun stood high in the sky. But the sky was also hazy, as if a dust storm were blowing in.

A man sprinting away from him interrupted the mystery and awe of the moment, a man with shoulder-length blond hair and a wide sword clutched in one hand. He ran faster than Zachariah had ever seen anyone run before, disappearing behind a white building on his left.

He found himself walking in the same direction the man had run, almost staggering with amazement at the strange world around him, with its oddly-spaced buildings and short green grass.
Banging thuds from the inside rattled through the walls, moving very quickly past him to the other side of the white building, like a man running. A heartbeat later, he realized he’d caught a glimpse of a blurred shape in the window going by, very fast.

The sound turned his head towards the building’s wall. His eyes glanced on something there that surprised him. The wall was white, but it was not made of stone as a white wall would be made in Nazareth. It showed a wood grain pattern, which meant it was wood, painted white.

Wood grain along the whole wall meant the entire building was made of wood. The thought seemed incredible. Who in the world would have enough wood to build an entire house out of it? But then he remembered asking his father about northern barbarians and telling him he’d heard stories that they lived in great forests full of tall trees. Maybe the northern barbarians could build a house all out of wood. But he’d never heard of them using sawed and sanded planks, like the ones in front of him.
Am I in the far north now? Zachariah wondered. Is that where going through that strange doorway took me?

A ping of metal hitting metal rang in his ears, coming from the direction the running thuds had gone. Followed by more metal, crashing. The sound came from his left, from the end of the building in the opposite direction of the way he’d first been walking.

Slowly, he turned back, wondering what the sound meant, his heart pounding in his chest. The arched stone doorway he’d seen in Nazareth lay a short distance away. Then he noticed something odd. It wasn’t attached to any building; it just stood there by itself on top of a small patch of green, about twenty cubits behind him. As he approached it, something else caught his eye. The doorway had changed. No longer did it look brand new, as the arch did when it had been a part of the Roman barracks. The edges of the stones were rounded, darker in color, most of them no longer lined up perfectly like they had been before, as though they’d been sitting there for a very long time.

A heavy man who looked like a stronger version of his uncle Shimon came around behind it. He wore a red robe and had a very long mustache, though his chin was clean-shaven. His arms and legs were a normal brown hue, but his face seemed unusually pale. But what got Zachariah’s attention more than anything else was that the man was carrying a gold-colored sword and running very fast, his eyes blazing with rage. And with horror, he realized where the man was running—straight at him!

Order Now!

<< Go Back