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The Portal Problem

Episode 1: A Prince

By Amanda Flieder

www.amandaflieder.ca

Copyright © 2019 Amanda Flieder

Cover Photo: Felipe Santana 330

www.unsplash.com

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, and recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief passages quoted by a reviewer in a newspaper or magazine. To perform any of the above is an infringement of copyright law.

1

Aston slapped out a hand to break the circle and then landed with a thud. Just like last time, he waited for the world to stop spinning before opening his eyes. He picked up the handful of stones that had brought him here without thinking about it, knowing he had them all from the tingling that erupted up his arm when he palmed the last one, and dropped them into his pocket.

Once assured that the stones were safely stowed, and fairly certain that the earth holding him up was no longer treacherously tilting and heaving, he allowed his eyes to slit open. He had landed in the middle of what at first glance appeared to be a forest, but the terrain still looked like it was shifting so he closed his eyes again and waited for the nauseous feeling to pass. Aston wasn’t immediately concerned where he was, his instincts told him that this time he was at least alone.

Grimacing at the fresh talon wound in his back, Aston sat up and put one hand to his forehead so he could massage both temples at the same time. His other hand gently probed at the bottom half of the bleeding gash to test how deep it was. He stretched a bit to test his back and was rewarded with everything still working like it should, which meant that the wound wasn’t too bad. He’d definitely had worse.

The angry dragon had seemed to be waiting for him at the last location the stones had dropped him. Before Aston had said anything, it had accused him of using the portal stones in an attempt to sneak around for a bit of thieving in the dragon’s lair. He briefly wondered if word of the stones was getting out but quickly passed off the thought. Dragons were usually paranoid, the stones had been created in secret, and Drevin wasn't one to allow secrets to be let out.

He mumbled quiet curses at his older brother for allowing the stones to be made, then at the mages who had created them, and then he cursed at himself for volunteering to be the one to test the kingdom’s newest magical item. Then, while he was at it, he cursed his father for ailing at a very bad time for the kingdom. Aston instantly regretted the last string of expletives, following it up quickly with a plea for forgiveness and another string of cursing aimed at himself.

The idea of creating the stones had come up when Kort, their King (and also Aston and Drevin’s father), became too sick to travel by ship off their island kingdom. Drevin and the Advisors had discussed it with the High Mages, and the mages came up with the idea for creating a method that allowed non-magic users to travel through a magical portal instead of by more conventional means. This would allow the ailing King the ability to continue necessary trade negotiations with their neighbors, without the hardships of traveling. The rumors of their nearest allies preparing for war started during the development of the portal stones, and the King’s health failed to the extent that he wasn’t able to lead the army who volunteered to go to their ally’s aide when the rumors became fact.

Once the time came to begin testing the stones, Drevin had already been sent to the mainland with Tovin – Drevin’s teacher and personal Advisor – to lead the small army of volunteers they were bringing to the war, and Aston couldn't stand the thought of his sick father being the first to attempt the portal after the mages had proven it safe. So, after being shown how to use them, he had set the first circle and stepped through. Right into the middle of nowhere. That had been weeks ago, and a lot of things had been trying to kill him since that first day.

Aston sighed heavily, cringing at the protest from his wounded back. What sounded like a young girl's giggle from somewhere in front of him startled him out of his moping. He forgot his current injuries and pulled himself into a quick crouch, making a grab for his sword. His hand closed on nothing but air above his empty sheath. His sword was lying on the dry riverbed at the base of the valley below the dragon's lair. Beside his pack. And all the rest of his supplies.

Out of time to grab for his knife, he forced his eyes to focus at the point of the giggle's origin. He was ready for anything except what was there.

2

What was there at first appeared to be a girl. As she drifted closer it soon became apparent that she was a very small woman. Smooth and fragile featured, her fine boned height barely reached the distance of his feet to his waist. Her hair and clothing looked white, but as the details settled into place in his mind he could see hints of color. The air behind her shimmered and danced as she hovered in front of him.

It took a couple of blinks, but he finally realized that the shifting air behind her was light reflecting off her nearly transparent wings. Her tiny hands were held clasped to her mouth, and her wide, upward sloping eyes were full of laughter. She touched down within arm’s reach of him, her wings folding out of sight behind her.

"I shouldn't be laughing," she dropped her hands to reveal a sweet smile. "But you look just as shocked friend Drevin said you would."

Aston gaped at the tiny woman, feeling as shocked as she’d been told he would look that his highly confidential, High Prince brother would send out a public notice for him to be looked for. "Friend Drevin?" he finally managed to ask.

She giggled again, nodding. "Yes. He said you would be tired and worn." Her smile widened further at the corners of her bow-shaped mouth around her small, pointed teeth. "Friend Drevin also said that you 'would be likely to be wounded'."

Aston stiffened at the tone in the little woman's voice. Her words weren’t at all something that Drevin would say, but she suddenly sounded like Drevin used to when scolding for troublesome. Usually that tone was followed by Aston doing something clumsy and self-injuring, and then the tone would shift to an angry. And always – always – Drevin would have been right.

Through Aston’s eyes, Drevin was well on his way to becoming the exceptional King he’d been raised to grow into. Just like their father, Drevin was wiser than his years, smarter than he looked, and more dangerous than he posed. That was why he had been sent to lead the kingdom clear of the war that their ally was losing. The threat to their island was real as they reached the end of their father's reign. Aston, however, was often clumsy and didn’t really understand the situations he was in until he was in trouble. Like right now. He was sitting wounded in an unknown forest with nothing but the clothes on his back, the knife in his boot, and the magical stones in his pocket. He had a strong suspicion of having proved capable of living up to his established place as the family screw-up rather well.

The woman chimed out a sweet laugh. "Friend Drevin did not say your face would make so funny a look as it just did!" With that, she doubled over laughing. Aston rolled around a few choice words in his head for the next time that he and 'friend Drevin' met. (Not that he would say them out loud, but he would definitely be thinking them.)

She started speaking again as soon as she could. The woman, named Murial he soon learned, called herself a Forest Fairy. She took his hand and, pulling him to his feet, began leading him through the trees as she happily babbled about this and that. He half listened to her. She seemed content to do the talking, so he remained content to mostly ignore her as he followed where she led.

Not for the first time, Aston wondered at his exceptional lack of wisdom in wanting to test the stones. Knowing Drevin, Aston had few doubts that the Mages were now under orders to find him and bring him home as quickly as possible because Drevin was always the one getting Aston out of trouble. Drevin may be the perfect King-in-training and an older brother, but he still always tried to help Aston not to be such a... well, failure. So Drevin would be looking for him, and probably have half the army involved by now. Aston hoped, anyway.

As long as nothing during the past weeks had happened to him while he was leading the army. Into a war. Far away from home.

The forest was slowly darkening as Aston and Murial walked on for seemingly endless hours. Aston felt his body growing wearier as they walked. The slice from the dragon's talon, starting at his left shoulder and crossing to his right hip, was a constant burning pain filling his back with every movement of his body. Soon he stopped paying attention to his little companion entirely, preferring simply to focus on getting one foot continuously in front of the other as he followed her promises of food and shelter.

3

"May I see them?" Murial's question broke into his head as she stopped and looked up at him with her innocent, wide-eyed features. Aston nearly fell as he tried to pause mid-step and focus on her.

"See what?" Aston asked in response once he'd gained his balance, genuinely confused. He’d stopped listening to her what seemed like hours before, and had lost track of all thought not long after. It had been mid-afternoon when he’d fled from the dragon, and now it was getting dark.

"Why, the stones that brought you here." She looked sweetly surprised, her little girl's voice slightly shocked at his ignorance.

"Oh, um..." He shook his head to try to clear it. "I think… I think that would be okay.” He dropped his hand to the pocket that held the small, smooth rocks. The familiar tingle was dull in his hand the moment his fingers were close.

Her image collapsed on itself. The landscape behind her tilted as a haggard figure leapt at his hand before he had even pulled it from his pocket. Aston ducked sharply out of her path, striking out with his other hand at the stinking thing she’d become as it flashed past the place he’d been a split second earlier. Dropping into the fighter's stance that had been ingrained from years of Tovin’s training and Drevin’s teasing, he turned to face what had been his friendly, chatterbox, walking companion.

The harpy howled in rage and lunged directly for him out of the sickly, melting forest. He caught her charge with a kick, his large boot contacting hard with her narrow chest and knocking her flat. Without so much as a second thought to what was happening to the forest around him, he dropped and drove his knee into her gasping face. The hollow bones crunched and she stopped moving.

Suddenly free of the illusion she’d held him in since he’d arrived, the rich forest snapped away to leave behind only boulders, barren dirt, gnawed bones, and sharp cliffs in the distance. She’d been leading him toward the cliffs. His stomach knotted and heaved at the change in his surroundings, but Aston could now hear the rest of the harpies calling out from the stone wall ahead and forced his stomach to hold on to what little food was still in there. The flock would have heard the howl of the one he had just killed, and were probably already coming to where she had been. Where he still was.

He had no time for vomiting.

Working as quickly as he could, Aston pulled the dagger from his boot and scratched a hasty circle on the relatively flat rock by his feet. It wouldn't be perfectly round by any stretch of the imagination, but should be good enough to at least get him out of this place once the stones were laid out, and hopefully into some place that was better this time.

His chanting was ragged from exhaustion and his hands trembled as he placed the center stone. The trembling soon subsided as he laid out the familiar pattern that should’ve taken him home the first time.

The twelve stones lifted as he chanted, rising into the air as if they were adhered to a plank that opened to the side like a trap door hinged by his left foot. The eleven outer stones traced the rough circle shape he’d scratched as they began orbiting the stationary center stone. Like the rim of a wheel, the track of each of the eleven stones soon blurred to create what appeared to be a line in the air before him. Then the stones pivoted to open the portal, shaped just like the rough circle he’d scratched into the rock. The circle grew until it was of a size he could easily step through. The center stone held absolutely still in the middle of the doorway. Ripples of light shone out in all directions from the edge of the portal where the eleven stones were now spinning so fast that they could no longer be seen.

Aston grasped the center stone like a tiny doorknob and felt the dizziness overtake him as he stepped through. In the back of his mind, behind the concentration that the High Mages had instructed would hold the door open for him, he prayed to whatever might be listening that this time he really would go home.

The doorway collapsed out of existence, the eleven edge stones following the center stone through the portal in a flash of brilliant light, leaving no trace of the Low Prince or the magic he’d used save for the hint of ozone hanging in the air.