Passage – A #Fantasy #Shortstory

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Rippling waves of translucent violet light erupted around him, causing him to raise his hands over his head and stoop low. At the same time, a strange sound like strident bells clangorously chiming combined with a heavy, monotonous drone seemed to spin around him and disoriented him in an instant. Beneath his feet, the earth lurched sideways without warning and he tumbled to the ground in a heap. Before he could orient himself, the oscillating sound was replaced by the unmistakable clashing of metal upon metal.

Looking around from beneath the protection of his raised arms, he found himself in the middle of a violent battle! Warriors dressed in strange green and silver armor grappled against others wearing robes of deep scarlet red. Thousands of men and hundreds of massive, six-hooved beasts surged around him in a chaos of noise and calamity and he barely had time to avoid being trampled in the melee before the thunderous sound of hooves rushed up behind him. Rolling away instinctively as one of the six-hooved beasts trampled past, he bumped against something solid and, at the contact, the images blurred and began to spin.

A lot like his stomach.

Gritting his teeth against the rush of sickness swelling inside him, he pressed backwards against the opposing force he could not see and the sharp droning sound returned. Once again, he was enveloped within undulating waves of violet light and, as abruptly as the phenomenon began, it ended.

Closing his eyes to catch his breath, he shook his head, desperately trying to assimilate what had just happened. As a man with an engineering degree, he knew everything had a rational explanation, but logic didn’t seem to apply to what he’d just experienced. He looked around, but the battle and strange creatures were no longer there. Flummoxed, he pushed himself up from the grass covered ground to gaze around yet again. The field where he’d been walking was exactly the same as it had been. No warriors or strange glowing lights; no curious sounds or clanging swords, nothing. Just an open meadow filled with wild growing grass and flowers…and the remnants of an old stone well that was practically invisible, concealed by the thick grass.

He’d kicked it by accident, but that was all it had taken to send him tumbling into….whatever it was he’d tumbled into. Taking a step away from it cautiously, he examined it with a critical gaze. To the unsuspecting glance it was little more than an irregularly shaped circle of rocks. The perimeter wasn’t much more than two feet in diameter, but its depths fell away beyond view, shielded by darkness, despite the fact that it was a bright, clear day and he should have been able to see down into it quite a way. Leaning closer to peer more carefully into its darkness didn’t reveal anything and he couldn’t stop himself from finding a rock to drop into its deep chasm.

Not entirely unexpectedly, the stone was immediately swallowed up by ripples of violet light and vanished.

“What in the…” he couldn’t find an expletive to match his bewilderment. Standing dumbstruck into silence, he considered several possibilities, but, regardless of how many times he tried to argue the point with himself, only one explanation seemed to make any sense. He’d literally stumbled across a portal.

Inexplicable? Yes.

Impossible? Apparently not, because although he didn’t remember how it happened, his forearms bore the evidence of his first foray into the unknown. They were bleeding and he knew grass didn’t cause road-rash. Brushing himself off absently, he stared at the well trying to reason out what he’d just experienced. Grabbing his phone, he opened it to the camera and snapped a quick a picture, but upon reviewing the image, he discovered the only image captured was grass. Perplexed, he stepped back from the well, aimed more carefully, and took another picture, but it resulted in yet another image of lush green grass. No rocks, no well.

“Impossible.” Aggravated, he strode closer to circle of rocks that was rapidly becoming more vexing than curious, pointed the viewfinder down the center of the well and shot again. The result was a ring of green grass with a blurred patch of blue and purple in its center, blurred like a fingerprint on an old Polaroid. Staring at it with a potent combination of frustration and confusion, an unexpected sense of deja vu washed over him. Something about the image felt familiar, but, although he stared at it for many long moments, the answer he sought eluded him.

Without warning, his phone rang.

Jerking back at the sound, he dropped the device and watched as it bounced off the edge of one of the rocks encircling the well and landed face up with the name Peadrick glaring at him. Rolling his eyes at himself with a supplementary curse, he stooped to retrieve the now silent phone and swiped across the surface to read the message from his co-worker.

Weston, todays mtg r/s to 9/14

Bring reports II, XI, & XV

“Perfect.” Now he had all the time in the world to figure out what was going on instead of having to rush off to work. Taking a moment to change his calendar before replacing the phone on his belt, he looked down at the well again. Despite having walked that field nearly every day for the last five years, he’d never once stumbled across it before; yet today he’d literally walked right into it. Was it possible he simply hadn’t seen it for five years?

How? He’d walked that field a hundred times before and never once ran into a wall of purple light or ended up nearly trampled by a figment from the myths and legends he’d studied in primary school. Yet there it stood, a passage into the unknown silent and waiting.

No, not silent. It didn’t make a sound, not now, but he couldn’t deny it beckoned him. Somehow, it drew him to it like a magnet and, though he tried repeatedly to dissuade himself, he couldn’t stop wondering where this lost vestige of time had transported him? It had taken mere seconds; yet it seemed he’d traversed centuries of time, or, perhaps, countless light years. If he stepped into it again, would it send him back to the same place, right in the middle of a bloody battle, or would he end up somewhere else? Did it go to only one place or many?

As he stood considering, a bright image flashed in his mind’s eye that made him raise his hand to his head and close his eyes. It was gone almost instantly, but the memory of the vision remained. Blurred and bizarre, it held him transfixed and he stood with his eyes closed as he struggled to retain the imagery. An alien landscape, dark and mysterious. A luminous, violet-pink sky, the light flickering like a candle and in that sky, a myriad sparkling stars. Shaking his head, he tried to comprehend the vision. It was neither a scene from a movie nor a place from any book he’d ever read. Still, it felt strangely familiar.

There was something else as well, fleeting and barely perceptible. Hazy blue figures that seemed to glow from within danced in his mind, wavering like a mirage; yet not as alien as they should have seemed.

Looking down at the circle of rocks, he took a moment to feel his head for any bumps or bruises. It was possible he’d hit his head when he’d fallen and was now suffering the consequences, but his head was fine. At least, outwardly it was. Stepping away from the well…the portal….whatever the hell it was, he wondered. Had it been a hallucination of some sort? Had he just imagined the battle?

Of course not. Imaginations didn’t cause you to bleed and, whether he could explain it rationally or not, something had happened. Standing perplexed, he let his thoughts run wild. Where had he gone? What race of people had he encountered and what dangers, other than beasts with six hooves and warriors bearing weapons, might he confront if he crossed again? Would he return to the same place or would he be transported somewhere else? On the other side, would the portal stand ready to return him or would he be lost in a vortex of time and be unable to find his way back?

There were too many questions, too many variables and he was a fool to even be considering them. If the impossible was actually possible and the circle of rocks was more than just an old well, but a portal instead, could it be a doorway into the past or the future, or it could be a trap waiting to swallow him alive? Was it an entrance into realms unknown where he could explore cultures, races and creatures beyond his wildest imagining or was it a danger beyond his most horrible nightmares? Would it close over his head and trap him forever in oblivion?

The morning light’s splendor stretched across the field and the ancient rocks encircling the portal, sparkling in the chasm of its center as if it was still filled with water. It urged and whispered with silent tones, but they were impossible to ignore. He couldn’t explain how or why, but he couldn’t deny that it asked him to step forward. It prompted and compelled him, coaxing and luring, and each moment its urging became more urgent.

Glancing around the open meadow, he drew a deep breath. At any other time in his life, he would never have considered doing something so inherently dangerous, at least not without performing a few hundred tests and analyzing the results until no questions remained. Yet now, the silent well persuaded him with unspoken persistence and with each passing moment his resistance faded. Should he step within or remain amid the languid familiarity of his present reality?

Another flash of bright, violet light filled his mind and he squeezed his eyes closed, desperate to see the images more clearly, but again they were fleeting and strange. Silhouettes of hazy blue danced around the periphery of his mind. Sparkling lights melded with the sound of voices speaking in a beguiling language he didn’t understand, but which sounded….somehow… familiar. As he listened, a single word formed out of the incomprehensible sounds. It floated on the shifting breeze, echoing out of and into the silence and when it reached him, the face of a woman flickered in his memory.

“Weston.”

Opening his eyes to stare down at the well with startled bewilderment, a determined expression overtook his features. Logic and caution be damned. Moving to the edge of the well, he made a motion as if to step across, but paused. He might be inescapably tempted, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. Not yet, anyway. Grabbing his phone, he returned to the message from his coworker and typed a hasty response.

Pdrick, If I don’t show at 9/14 mtg, come to Astonbury Corners. Find old well roughly ½ mile from road. Possible portal. I stepped within.

Nodding once with satisfaction, he replaced the phone on his belt, drew a deep breath and stepped forward to kick the stones of the well.

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Words and Art by ~Morgan~

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