The Magician: An Epic Dark Fantasy Novel: Book One of the Rogue Portal Series (9 page)

              "It'll be okay," Stuart said.

              "I know. I know." Hazel was undoubtedly smiling.

              Only after he heard the door close did Connor turn around to face Stuart, who looked like the most confused man in the world.

              "If you're wondering, the answer is yes, she likes you." Connor winked.

              "Oh...no I mean, it's not...I mean she..."

              "Hey, chill out. It's great. She's a great girl."

              Stuart opened and closed his mouth a few times, unable to find words to further indemnify himself, and finally broke into a flushed smile.

              "Yeah. She is."

              "You think you're going to get any sleep tonight?" Connor asked.

              "I sincerely doubt it."

              "Yeah, same here."

              "I think maybe I'll grab a shower first."

              "Okay. I'm going to read for a little bit, I guess. Calm my mind down."

              "Sounds good, man. I'll be right back."

              Connor grabbed a change of clothing and headed out toward he showers, which were located just down the hall. He wondered how in the world reading a book that was identical to the one that magically disappeared in his past, if it wasn't the exact same book, could possibly do anything to take Stuart's mind off of the subject, but he wasn't one to argue with him. Maybe he hadn't thought of it. And Connor wasn't about to ruin his one moment of solace.

              Just as Connor got to the end of the hallway and turned the corner into the shower room, he froze, his blood running cold. A garbled whisper came from his room, down the hall, met his ears but seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It reminded him of Darkness, not
the
darkness, but Darkness, the entity itself that whispered to him at home. The being that had taken over the house and those within it.
You're losing it,
his inner voice told him. And maybe it was right.

              It was late, and he thought for a moment that perhaps it was just someone in another room. But the sound increased in volume. It began as almost a whisper. And then it grew, into what sounded like several demons chattering.
Maybe it's a television,
he thought. But somehow he knew it wasn't. The noises grew into a laugh - the kind of laughter that sent shivers along his skin and through his soul. A laugh uttered by one being with too many voices.

              "
You have been chosen, and you cannot refuse the call. Your time is coming."

             
The voice whispered and barked at the same time. Perhaps the movies had gotten it right all along - the stereotypical demonic voice of evil beings. For a moment there was no sound. Too little sound. The silent forest returned, predators making their presence known.

              He felt his heart beat in his chest, pounding in his ears, counting the seconds of pregnant silence.
Silence. Silence. Silence.

              And then a blood-curdling, hair-raising scream.

              It was Stuart.

THIRTEEN

⌛

              "Hey, man. Here."

              Connor handed Stuart some water.

              "Thanks," he said. It was the first word he'd spoken in almost half an hour.

              "You okay?"

              Stuart shrugged. "I don't know."

              "Yeah. I get it."

              A few moments passed and Connor sat with his friend on the floor. Stuart hadn't returned to his bed. Hadn't moved from the spot Connor had founded him in at all, save for the fact that his back was now rounded instead of being plastered to the wall. Stuart kept eyeing the copy of
Moby Dick
suspiciously, which sat across the room sprawled open on the floor. Connor suspected that it had had something to do with Stuart's screams. Maybe it even had something to do with the voice. But he didn't want to push Stuart too far too soon. So he waited.

              At long last Stuart spoke.

              "Did you see them?"

              "Did I see who?" Connor asked, his eyes narrowing in concern.

              "The...things."

              Stuart made a motion with both of his hands, one of them still holding the water bottle, as though he were outlining a woman's silhouette.

              "The woman?"

              "No, no. The...I don't know...ghosts?"

              "Oh. Were they holding their heads?"

              "Yeah! Yeah, those."

              "Yeah. I saw them in my vision."

              "No, I mean here. In the room." Stuart searched Connor's eyes with a pleading expression.
Tell me I'm not crazy
, they said.

              "I didn't see anything," Connor said, then quickly added, "but it could've just been that I didn't get to the room in time. I heard a...swoosh. Like wings."

              "They flew. Just...sprouted wings and flew." He paused, swallowing hard. "What are they?"

              "I don't know," said Connor. 

              "Me neither. Not sure I want to."

              "Seriously."

              "But," he said after a moment's pause, "I suppose at some point we'll have to."

              "Yeah, I suppose your right."

              Another breath went by.

              "I saw her."

              "You saw...?"

              "My sister. The one I told you about who went missing."

              "What um...I mean how..." Connor wasn't sure how to pose the question.

              "Not good," Stuart replied, "Not good at all."

              "Man, I'm....I'm sorry," said Connor, running a hand through his hair, at a loss for how to help Stuart.

              "She was in the ocean," said Stuart, as though he were a thousand miles away.

              "The ocean?"

              "Yeah. It was weird it was like..." he held his hands out, trying to show Connor an invisible painting that only Stuart could see. "...like she was real, but..."

              "But far away?"

              "Yes! Yes, precisely. She...she looked at me, Connor. She looked me right in the eye like she could see me there. Begging me to help her. And I couldn't, I mean I..."

              He trailed off, tears forming in his eyes and making their way down his cheeks.

              "Stu?"

              "Yeah," he said, still eyeing the book, not looking at Connor.

              "How...how did it all start?"

              Stuart raised an arm, pointing toward the book.

              "I was reading the book," he said, lowering his arm. "I opened the page and started reading it, and then the words they just...kind of spun. Like a whirlpool, you know?"

              He finally met Connor's eyes and kept talking.

              "It was like they were sucking me in. And then I was in this room with...well I think it's the one you've been to. With the hourglasses."

              "Oh, right. Yeah."

              "Yeah, and Rumsfeld was there. Only he was in that red suit you keep talking about. And he walked me to this wall and brought down my sister's hourglass, and showed me it was empty. And then he....he smashed it."

              "He...did what?" Connor was confused.

              "He...you know, smashed it," Stuart replied, throwing an invisible object to the ground with force. "Said that hourglasses showed how much time a person has left. You know, in life. And that an empty hourglass means someone hadn't run out of time, but had taken their own time away."

              "You mean like...suicide?"

              "Yeah. Like suicide." Stuart removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose as he answered.

              "So then why smash it?" Connor asked the question more to the empty room than he did to his friend, but Stuart's eyes suddenly lit up.

              "Because if it's empty, maybe it can be filled up. Maybe the big hourglass is like..."

              "...the Sands," Connor finished.

              "What?"

              "Oh m God, the Sands. That's what it says on the big one, it says
the Sands."

              "Connor, I..."

              He grabbed Stuart by the shoulders.

              "The Sands of Time, Stuart."

              His eyes grew wide with understanding.              

              "Oh, my G..." His mouth gaped where the "-od" should have been, his voice failing him.

              "The Void..." Stuart continued after several minutes.

              "What?"

              "The Void, that's what the book said. That's what the map said it was called."

              "Yeah, so?" Now it was Connor's turn to be confused.

              "Connor, think about it. If the giant hourglass is truly housing the Sands of Time, then the Void is the perfect name for that region. Think about how it's set up like a clock. If you're the location of Time, then Time can't really...exist for you. At least not in the sense that it does for us. It would be like...like..."

              He moved his hands around as though massaging a giant dog.

              "Like putty?" Connor offered.

              "Precisely! Malleable, flexible."

              "The Void...the place in the Universe where there's a void between...well between..."

              "Everything." Stuart finished Connor's sentence.

              They locked eyes.

              "Stuart," said Connor.

              "Yeah."

              "We need to go get that book."

FOURTEEN

⌛

Connor and Stuart made their way down the dark streets of the campus toward the dormitory where Kit and Hazel lived. They learned, relatively quickly, that there was apparently something about two guys walking into the girl's dormitory at eleven o'clock at night that people found off-putting. At least some people. Like college girls in bathrobes.

              "You'd think we had signs that said we were here to kidnap someone," Stuart mused under his breath.

              "Well we do look like hell."

              "Mm. Probably so."

              "You know which room they live in?"

              "Not...particularly."

              "Oh. Well I don't, either, and I don't think anyone around here is going to be much he--"

              "Excuse me, sorry. Do you know where Kit and Hazel live?"

              Stuart cut him off as he asked a somewhat friendly looking girl for help. His geeky charm must have done something to ease the tension because she softened and smiled.

              "Oh, sure," she said, "Room 26."

              She was smiling still, but her eyes darted between Stuart and Connor like pin balls inside a machine during a particularly aggressive game as though she were making mental notes of the details of their appearance so she could inform the police later when her friends went missing.

              "Thank you very much," Stuart replied.

              "Sure," she said again, tucking a piece of blond hair behind her ear before turning and walking away.

              "So...this way, then," Stuart motioned, noting the order of the numbers along the wall.

              "Who knew you had a way with women, huh?"

              Stuart nudged him with his elbow and rolled his eyes. 

              "No, it's the glasses and sweater vests. Nobody thinks I'm dangerous. Which is strange. Because if they paid attention they'd know that just about every serial killer in every murder mystery wears glasses and a sweater vest."

              "You know now that you mention it," Connor said, grinning.

              "Yeah, yeah. Hey, twenty-six. This is it."

              They had arrived at a white door with a gold 26 on the front of it. The paint was peeling as though it hadn't had a fresh coat in several years, and the hallway itself smelled of an odd combination of perfumes and shampoos. Connor was quite certain they weren't supposed to be there at that hour of the night, but he didn't care. This was important.

              They knocked, and waited.

              "Who the hell's there?"

              It was Kit, of course. Connor smiled.

              "Connor and Stuart, let us in."

              A  slight shuffling of feet. Some scraping noises. Then the door opened. Kit was standing there looking, if possible, worse than Connor and Stuart did. Hazel was behind her, cowering against the back wall.

              "Go away," she said, looking frantic.

              "Kit, please open the door," said Stuart. "We need to talk to you about the b--"

              "I said go away, you deaf?"

              Connor thought he'd try his hand.

              "Kit, please," he said gently. "Please, we need to talk to you guys."

              She sighed.

              "Fine, come in, but make it quick."

              Connor entered the room and stopped briefly, taking in the most diametrically opposed room he'd ever seen. If yin and yang could be personified, their realizations converged in something like this. One side of the room boasted punk rock decor, black and red tones, an electric guitar, and a few books lining a black nightstand. Gears, mechanical parts, and odd clocks had been collected in front of the books like an odd industrial shrine.

              The other side of the room was adorned with strings of flowers, butterflies, and a quaint bookcase crafted from natural, unfinished wood. On top of  the bookcase was an alter, or something like it. The alter contained various Buddhist symbols, a few metaphysical books, candles, a couple of miniature statues, and, situated in a triangle, a small dish of water, a saucer of salt, and cone incense on a tray.

              It didn't take a genius to figure out whose side was whose.

              "Talk about the Odd Couple," Connor mumbled.

              "You got something important to say, or are you guys here for the next episode of Cribs?"

              "Cribs? Way to date yourself," Connor retorted.

              "I'm not in the mood, Connor."

              "Yeah well I'm not in the mood to have my head ripped off by one of the only people who understands what in the hell is going on, if that's alright with you."

              Everyone in the room seemed to shrink a little bit under the sharp scrutiny of his words and tone, but he'd had a long night and wasn't about to be run over by anyone. Even if it was Kit. Even if she did look a fantastic, beautiful mess.

              She relaxed.

              "You're right. I'm sorry. Just...you'd never believe what just happened."

              "Actually maybe they would," said Hazel.

              She was eyeing Stuart with caution and concern, and had picked herself up out of the corner of the room to come stand next to him. She didn't look at Kit when she spoke, but kept her eyes fixed solely on Stuart, even though Stuart was looking at Connor.

              When she reached out to take his hand, Stuart jumped a mile high, and then relaxed just as suddenly as he had started and smiled.

              "Sorry. Little jumpy tonight."

              "Me, too. It's okay."              

              Their hands finally found their way together and interlaced.
Unbelievable,
thought Connor. But then again, fear and confusion had a way of doing things to people. Making them seek out affection and act in ways they perhaps wouldn't have under normal circumstances. If normal existed at all.

              "So what happened with you guys, then," Connor asked.

              Kit walked over and sat down on her bed, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Once again she talked to the floor. Connor walked over to her and sat down next to her the way she'd done for him, the mirror image of the scene that had played out earlier in the day. She looked up at him from an angle, peeking beneath her arm like a dog peeking out from under a blanket after the last clap of thunder has long since passed.

              Only the storm hadn't gone anywhere. Not really. Not yet.

              "The book struck again," she said.

              "Join the club," said Stuart, whose hand was still interlocked with Hazel though both of them had moved to sit on the floor.

              "What are you talking about? We had the book," said Kit, now looking at Stuart.

              "Yeah, but I still had
a
book. Remember?"

              "No shit, really?
Moby Dick
?"

              "Indeed."

              "Damn."

              "So what happened?" Connor asked.

              "We were looking through the book trying to get information," said Hazel. "We thought we'd just take a peek before bed, you know. See if we could find anything of immediate use. But....when we opened it..."

              Her gaze suddenly went past Connor, through him, through the wall, just like Stuart's had. Stuart broke their hand embrace, but only to put his arm around her. She moved closer.

              "When we opened it," said Kit with an edge in her voice, "The damn thing...screamed."

              "It did what?"

              "Screamed. You know, "ahh", screamed," she said.

              "And it sounded so...horrific. Like...like..." Hazel was massaging the air trying to materialize a description.

              "Like ten voices and one voice all at the same time," offered Connor.

              "Yes! Yes just like that! How did you..."

              "Because that's what I heard talking and laughing right before....well...before Stuart screamed."

              She nestled closer to Stuart.

              "What the hell is going on?" Connor asked, not to anyone in particular but to the entire Universe at once.

              "Actually we may have an idea on that one," said Kit.

              Connor raised his eyebrow as if to say "Oh?"

              Kit walked over and, after a millisecond of hesitation, picked the book up off the desk. She began to look through the book, concentration pinching her brow.

              "We found out something of use, too," said Stuart as Kit continued to search.

              "What's that?" Hazel asked, smoothing her dress though no wrinkles could be seen.

              "Well it turns out that the room with the hourglass holds, quite literally, the Sands of Time."

              Kit abandoned her search for a brief moment to give Stuart a questioning look, then looked over at Connor for confirmation.

              "No, it's true," said Connor. "The Void? We think it means a literal Void between time and...well, whatever's beyond it. Or around it."

              "It appears that in this realm called the Void there is no time at all. Or, if there is, it's very different from what we have here." Stuart carried on. "We think each of the realms is laid out like the hour of a clock face for a reason. Each of the Hours corresponds to a realm - could be an entirely independent world - but they're all connected in spokes to create..." He paused. "Well, to create the clock face of the Universe. Time itself."

              "Holy shit," said Kit.

              "Yeah, exactly," said Connor.

              Kit resumed her search for the page that had gone missing, and in one fell swoop whisked the book off the desk, crossed the two steps to the bed, and opened it.

              "Get a load of this," she said.

              Connor's mouth dropped open. The top of the page declared
The Rogue Portal
. On the bottom was a brief, handwritten description.
The only portal capable of traversing all Hours and realms without the assistance of the Alchemists.

              On the center of the page, drawn with incredible skill and detail, was the exact representation of  his father's pocket watch.