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  THE LAST PORTAL

  (Book 1 of the Mytar series)

  ROBERT COLE

  Published by Robert Cole

  Copyright 2016

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events depicted in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved.

  Acknowledgements

  No-one writes in isolation. I would like to thank my children for their inspiration, my mother for her proofreading and my colleagues for their many thoughtful comments.

  Map of Cathora

  Contents

  Prologue

  Map of Cathora

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1: Schoolyard Bullies

  Chapter 2: Cathora

  Chapter 3: Mind Over Matter

  Chapter 4: Into the Storm

  Chapter 5: An Ancient Race

  Chapter 6: A Road Less Travelled

  Chapter 7: Strange Happenings

  Chapter 8: The Zentor

  Chapter 9: Down a Hole

  Chapter 10: Under the Mountain

  Chapter 11: The Portal

  Chapter 12: Demoss

  Chapter 13: A Battle of Wills

  Chapter 14: The Journey Home

  Other books by Rob Cole

  Prologue

  The dawn was windless and cold, allowing the smoke from hundreds of smouldering fires to spiral high into the atmosphere of Cathora. Zelnoff surveyed the smouldering ruins of dozens of towns, and the wreckage of many ships still burning along the river banks. This region had once been an important trading and agricultural centre. Now only ruins remained. The sight gave him immense satisfaction. The night’s attacks had gone well. Another of the few pockets of resistance left on the planet had been crushed, and the guardian that ruled this area had been killed. Even now, his forces were dismantling his portal for transport to Zelnoff’s home base. Everything was going to plan. The few guardians that remained could never mount any serious opposition and he now possessed most of the portals. This planet, like so many others before, would soon fall to his rule.

  Chapter 1: Schoolyard Bullies

  The two boys made a strange sight as they wrestled their way through the lunchtime crowd of students at Stanworth High school. The larger boy was well muscled, with short, neatly spiked hair and broad shoulders. His arms were firmly clamped around the head of a much smaller boy that he was dragging around the playground in a head-lock. When the pair reached the base of a tree, the larger boy flung the smaller one into it and viciously kicked him in the side as he slid to the ground.

  All around a crowd was gathering, their faces bearing the faint smiles of anticipation - everyone knew what was coming. Jeff stood over his victim, legs slightly apart, like a gladiator displaying his defeated opponent. Chris climbed onto his knees; he represented a stark contrast to Jeff, small, even for first-year high school, with unkempt wiry brown hair and a narrow face which culminated in a pointed, deeply cleft chin that gave him an almost cartoon-like appearance.

  “You’re such a pathetic creature,” Jeff sneered, his newly broken voice booming out amongst the gathering crowd.

  Chris wiped a few spots of blood from his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

  Jeff leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You know, E.T., the problem is that huge nose of yours. It gets in the way. Maybe I should re-arrange it for you, so you’re not so ugly.”

  Chris risked a glance up at Jeff. His spiked blonde hair was still neatly in place and his pale features remained perfectly calm; only his grey eyes, like liquid pools of ice, betrayed his cruelty.

  “Come on, get up,” Jeff taunted, “can’t grovel in the dirt forever.” He crouched down to Chris’s level. “What’s up?” he whispered, “TOO SCARED!” he shouted directly in Chris’s face.

  Chris pulled himself up against the tree, but made no attempt to climb to his feet. He knew Jeff’s routine all too well. He would bully kids to stand up, only to push or knock them down again. Eventually his victim would burst into tears. That was his measure of success, and what the crowd, his devoted followers, were waiting for.

  Jeff stood up and placed both hands on his hips. “Come on, get up E.T...” He gestured with his hand. “Come on, up.”

  Chris didn’t move.

  “UP!”

  Chris kept his face turned away, giving Jeff nothing to work with.

  “A-li-en, a-li-en, A-LI-EN!” The chant quickly gained momentum as the crowd thickened around them.

  Jeff sighed theatrically, then grabbed a fistful of Chris’s hair and began pulling him to his feet. Chris swung a punch into his mid-rift, then another, then another. With each punch the roar of laughter from the crowd intensified.

  Jeff joined in the laugher. “Is that it? Is that all you’ve got?”

  With a hand still holding Chris by the hair, Jeff turned to his audience, like an actor bowing after a performance. Chris grabbed Jeff’s outstretched arm and dug his nails in deep. Amid a stream of swear words, Chris was spun around, and then thrown back against the tree. His face met the tree with a sickening smack on its way to the ground.

  Seconds passed before Chris slowly rose up on an elbow. His head felt dizzy and something wet was spilling down his face. This time, when he touched his nose, his hand came back covered in blood.

  “Leave him alone!” Joe Parkinson, a pear-shaped boy about Chris’s size, with beady eyes and fat pink cheeks, pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He knelt down and examined Chris. “You’ve done it now,” he said, glaring up at Jeff over his shoulder. “When the teacher sees this, you’re history.”

  Jeff eyed Joe. “Shut-up, Piglet. You say anything and you’ll be history.”

  “Yep, you’ll be suspended alright,” Joe added, pushing back a mop of greasy brown hair that had fallen over his eyes.

  Jeff looked down at Chris, who was wiping away more blood with his sleeve. “E. T. just ran into the tree.”

  This comment sent a wave of chuckles around the crowd.

  “You threw him into a tree.” A tall girl stepped forward with a mop of springy, sandy-coloured hair that appeared to sit on her shoulders rather than hang down from her head.

  “He dug his nails into me, like a girl.” Jeff displayed three red marks on his right arm to the crowd.

  The girl placed her long, impossibly thin arms on her hips. “You had him by the hair.”

  Jeff pulled himself up to his full height, only slightly taller than the girl. “That’s because he’s too gutless to stand up.”

  “What? So you can hit him again? You should be ashamed of yourself, you’re twice his size.”

  Jeff opened his mouth but no words came out. Clearly there was no arguing this point.

  “You’re just a coward,” the girl added, pushing her flecked covered nose closer to Jeff’s.

  Jeff’s features hardened at the word “coward”. No one called him that. The general rumble of the crowd stalled as everyone listened for his response. “You watch who you’re calling a coward or I’ll…”

  “Hit me,” she mocked. “You big brave man.”

  “That’s right... and you’re an ugly…”

  WHACK!

  Jeff’s face jolted back. His look of arrogance momentarily slapped away. The
seconds passed, but only Jeff’s deepening frown showed any sign of movement. Chris could almost feel what Jeff was thinking. No guy in his right mind would hit him, but a girl? Jeff was like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights of a car.

  Some of the girls were beginning to giggle and the guys were trying not to join in.

  “Now what are you going to do?” the girl asked, pushing her face closer as though daring him to hit her.

  The girl’s finger marks spread across Jeff’s pale features, leaving a perfect imprint of her hand. This sight set another wave of giggles through the crowd. Now completely red-faced, Jeff turned to Chris.

  “You’re such a loser, E. T. You even need a girl to stand up for you.” His eyes surveyed the three of them. “You three are all just freaks anyway,” he concluded, before turning and pushing his way through the crowd.

  Chris hauled himself up to a sitting position. Susie was one of his best friends, and had a formidable mouth on her, especially when it extended to injustices, such as environmental issues, bad exam results and bullies. But hitting Jeff? This was a step up. It was like pulling the pin of a hand grenade and hoping it wouldn’t explode.

  With the entertainment finished, the crowd dispersed, amid much laughter and chatter. Chris wished Susie hadn’t slapped Jeff. This would only make things worse. He could already imagine the taunts about a girl coming to his rescue.

  “You alright?” Susie asked.

  Chris wiped the blood from his nose with some tissues he found in his pocket. “Yeah.”

  “So what was it about this time?” she continued, wearing her most earnest expression.

  In typical fashion, Susie was demanding an explanation from him for Jeff’s actions. “How would I know?”

  “Well everyone has…”

  “A reason for doing things,” Chris completed her sentence.

  “That’s right, maybe you …”

  “No, I didn’t annoy him. I spend most of my lunchtimes trying to get as far away from Jeff as possible.”

  “Well it’s time we went…”

  “No.” Chris shook his head. “You’re not telling the teachers.”

  “Well, how else are you going…”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  Susie flicked back some of her hair off her shoulder in a gesture Chris knew meant she was becoming irritated.

  “Well at least you can show some …”

  “Gratitude? Thanks for the help, but don’t do it again. I can fight my own battles.”

  “Will you stop finishing my sentences for me? You know how annoying that is. And that’s the last…”

  “…time I’m going to help you. Yeah, I know.”

  “Chris Reynolds, you are so…”

  “…rude and ungrateful.”

  Susie’s eyes widened and she grunted loudly, then spun round and strode off.

  Joe, who had been listening in the background, pulled out a large and rather dirty looking handkerchief and handed it to Chris. Chris accepted it, trying not to think where it had been. Joe was the only person he knew who still had a handkerchief, which was fine in itself, except he remembered seeing that same handkerchief for months, slowly getting dirtier and dirtier. Much like his clothes, Chris thought. Joe had a tendency to wear his clothes until they physically fell apart on his body. Not a good look.

  “I was sure Jeff was gonna do something,” Joe said. “I wouldn’t have put it past him to hit her back.”

  “Nah, he’d never hit a girl.”

  “Uhh… How would you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Oh yeah, that psycho thing…”

  “Psychic,” Chris corrected.

  Joe rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

  Chris finished wiping away the remaining blood, then screwed up the handkerchief and handed it back to Joe.

  “You know, Susie is pretty mad at you,” Joe said.

  “Well, it was a stupid question, anyway,” Chris replied. “Picking on other kids is just what Jeff does. He doesn’t have any mysterious reason for doing it, other than it’s fun.”

  Joe nodded slightly then lowered his head. Chris instinctively knew what he was thinking. Joe was overweight, seriously overweight, and bad at most things. Jeff, and an equally large bully called Matt, preyed on him mercilessly most lunch times. To Joe’s credit, there was one thing that he was really good at - hiding. If hide and seek was a school subject, he would get an A. Some lunch times, even he couldn’t find Joe.

  The bell rang for class.

  Chris rushed to the toilets and washed the blood off his face. He was glad to see that his nose had stopped bleeding, although it was now so clogged with blood that he couldn’t breathe through it any longer. His shirt sleeves presented more of a problem and took some determined scrubbing to remove all the blood. By the time he had finished he looked as if he had taken a bath up to his elbows. Sighing to himself, he rolled up his sleeves and headed off to class. This afternoon was biology with “blowfly Kennel,” the Science teacher who earned his nickname from his unfortunate habit of rubbing his hands together, like a fly.

  When they reached the classroom, Mr Kennel was standing by the door.

  “Today we’re studying insect biology,” he announced, as the students filed past him. He was tall, with thinning hair, wide-set eyes and no chin, rather like a praying mantis, Chris thought. On each classroom bench was a large glass container filled with a clear liquid and large, spiky objects.

  “I want you all to draw the insects in the jars on the sheets of paper provided,” he went on, in his usual monotone drawl.

  Looks of disgust and horror spread across the students’ faces as they realised the spiky objects were actually cockroaches.

  “The cockroaches have been preserved in alcohol. I would like you each to take one using the tweezers provided, not your fingers.” He scowled at Jeff, who was already flicking the liquid contents of a bottle at some girls. “Follow the instructions for dissection. The worksheets on each bench explain what I want you to do. Hurry up,” he added, “there’s a lot to do this afternoon.”

  “Cockroach dissection, just what I feel like after lunch,” Joe sighed.

  The feeling was echoed in collective moans around the class. They looked just like the monstrous black cockroaches that Chris regularly saw scuttling around the school. He had visions of Mr Kennel creeping around the school late at night, armed with a net and a bottle of alcohol.

  A bench further back, Jeff and his friends were already in their usual spot. Amid giggles and muffled screams, Jeff was threatening to drop a cockroach down Cathy’s top. When he saw Chris, he whispered something to Cathy and they both burst out laughing. Chris tried his best not to notice, although every giggle and whisper felt like a gun aimed at the back of his head. Susie had already taken out her cockroach, and dropped it on the floor. She was now bending over awkwardly to pick it up with a pair of tweezers. Chris got a view of a pair of long, white legs and bony arms plucking away at an upturned cockroach. After several attempts, she managed to lift it halfway to the bench before it fell back to the floor. Susie was left holding a black, hairy cockroach leg firmly grasped in the prongs of her tweezers. An immediate burst of laughter erupted from the bench behind. Cathy was leaning over the bench, her hand held over her mouth as she giggled.

  “You’re such an unco,” Jeff smirked, casually leaning over next to Cathy.

  Susie went slightly pink. “If you’ve got nothing intelligent to say, just don’t talk.”

  “But you’re such a rich source of entertainment,” Cathy said. “No one in school is as hopeless at sport and spends her whole time buried in nature books and lecturing everyone on the environment. You’re an unco, nerd.”

  Jeff burst into laughter again as Susie went bright red.

  “Well, I prefer to read books than spend my whole time making stupid comments and giggling like a six-year-old,” she counted.

  Cathy’s response to Susie was someth
ing resembling a snarl of a dog accompanied by a rude hand gesture. Chris could never work out why they hated each other so much. Only last year, Susie and Cathy had been the best of friends. They were always around each other’s places. But then something had happened. Chris wasn’t really sure what. Something to do with Susie losing some of Cathy’s textbooks, he thought, although it seemed a really silly reason for breaking up a friendship. Since then, Cathy had refused to speak to Susie and had gravitated to Jeff’s group. Now they couldn’t stand each other.

  Chris noticed Mr Kennel, now at the front desk, lean over a thick textbook and attempt to lift it from the desk. The book, however, seemed to have a mind of its own, and wouldn’t budge. His face went from confusion to annoyance. Then, with a loud ripping sound, the book gave way and Mr Kennel nearly toppled backward on to the floor.

  There was an immediate burst of laughter from behind Chris. When he turned around, Jeff and Cathy were prodding each other in their sides and sniggering. Mr Kennel held the textbook in his hand, now ripped in half, the bottom part still firmly attached to the desk.

  “Superglue!” Mr Kennel’s already pink cheeks went a deep red.

  “Who did this?” He strode to the front of the class and slammed the torn book on a bench. “This isn’t funny!”

  The class went silent.

  “Jeff Wilock,” Mr Kennel called. “What are you laughing at?”

  “Arr…nothing.”

  “Nothing? You think this is nothing?”

  “Arr… I wasn’t laughing at your book. Cathy just told me a funny joke.”

  Mr Kennel continued to stare coldly at Jeff for some moments. Chris knew what he was thinking. The likelihood that Jeff was involved was almost certain. But he hadn’t a shred of evidence to prove it.

  “Right.” Mr Kennel stood directly in front of the class. “I want everyone to close their books and sit with their eyes directly in front of them. No one will say or do anything until the class is finished.”

  The remainder of the period was spent in complete silence while Mr Kennel roamed the benches much like an enraged bull. At the end of the lesson he gave everyone the extra homework of completing the section of the practical that was supposed to be covered in class using the internet.

  After school, Chris, Joe and Susie gathered to walk home. Chris could see Jeff in a corner of the playground amongst his friends, in full animation, describing his latest exploit.

  “That was so cruel,” Susie said, also watching Jeff.

  “Yeah, but it was funny,” Joe said.

  “Not really,” Susie replied, “since we’ve all been given at least an hour’s extra homework.”

  Chris watched Jeff, now impersonating Mr Kennel trying to pull the book off the desk. A small group of his devoted followers were trying their best to outdo each other laughing at his antics. He turned away in disgust.

  That night, Chris had one of his strange dreams. He was walking down a narrow lane close to his house. It was night, but part of the sky still had a blue tinge, as though the sun had only just set. He was dressed in his school clothes and still had his school bag slung over his shoulder. Someone or something was following him, but there were no footsteps or sounds of any kind, only the feeling of a presence. Each time he turned to face whatever it was, there was nothing, no sound, except the rise and fall of the wind whistling in the overhead wires.

  When he walked on again, the sense of something closing in on him became stronger. The urge to break into a sprint became almost overpowering. He quickened his pace, then moved into a jog, switching between laneways in an attempt to lose an invisible pursuer. His heart began to pound in his chest and his breath became laboured, but the presence never faded. It was always there, just behind, never seen. Eventually the laneway ended in a high fence, topped with razor wire. All around him were brick walls with no street lights to fend off the gathering night. He was trapped. He turned and stared into the blackness. It was still there, closing in through the darkness.

  Chris woke up with a start. He’d been having dreams like this for weeks, always being followed but never able to see his pursuer, only the scenery in each dream changed. His bedside clock read 8:10. The bus would leave for school in fifteen minutes. He shot out of bed, threw on his clothes, grabbed his schoolbag and tore down the stairs.

  Chris’s little sister, Fiona, was sitting at the kitchen table, lazily smearing large chunks of strawberry jam on her toast. She looked different today; her hair was neatly pinned back into two tight little plaits. Chris concluded that his mother must have attacked her hair before breakfast.

  Fiona looked across the table at him and frowned. “You’ve missed the bus again. Now you’ll have to walk all the way to school.” She flicked back a long strand of brown hair that his mother must have missed and gave him a big beaming smile.

  Fiona was a year younger than him and still in primary school, and her bus followed a different route so she didn't have to leave until half an hour later, something she always liked to point out when Chris was late.

  “I’m still good,” Chris grinned back.

  Fiona fluttered her eyes at him. “I don’t think so.”

  Chris leaned across and snatched her toast, grabbed his school bag, then ran out of the house. He could hear Fiona shouting abuse at him as he sprinted up the front path, and his mother telling his sister off for yelling.

  The bus drove off just as he reached the bus stop. Chris could see Joe and Susie waving merrily from the back.

  Even if he ran all the way, he would never reach the school before classes started. This meant automatic detention if he didn’t have a note from his parents. He thought briefly about writing one, but knew he could never copy his mother’s ridiculously complicated signature. Besides, after yesterday’s incident, he felt less inclined to serve as another day’s entertainment for Jeff. He looked up at the sky. It was brilliant blue and the sun was warm and inviting. He took off his jumper and tied it around his waist. He was in no hurry. If he was going to get detention for being late, he may as well give them a good reason for it.

  A short distance away the road dipped sharply into a forest, nestled in the crease of a valley. At the valley’s lowest point, a creek gurgled under an old wooden bridge. Chris ran down to the bridge and leaned over the railing. Autumn rains had swelled the normal trickle of water into a swiftly moving torrent. Plastic bags, cartons and aluminium cans marked the highest point of the recent rains. In one of the rock pools he noticed something reflecting the sunlight and climbed down to investigate. Unfortunately, it wasn’t money, as he had hoped, but some type of key. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand. Its shape was odd. Instead of being flat, like normal keys, one end was splayed out at right angles in four different directions, as though it fitted some type of three-dimensional lock. It looked like metal, but had almost no weight. He tried bending it without success, then he noticed the colour change; first to pink, then dull red, finally ending up bright red. Some type of electronic device possibly, he pondered. He was just deciding what to do with it, when some movement on the bridge caught his attention, but when he looked up there was nothing. Yet he felt there was something there, a presence. For a moment he struggled to pull the feeling from the back of his mind. Then he remembered; the same presence was also in his dreams. With a growing sense of unease, he pocketed the key and took off at a slow jog.

  He arrived at school only to be met by Mrs Wright, the History teacher, who seemed to take particular delight in prowling around the school entrances and catching straggling students. Chris had recognised her bullfrog face thrust out of the front gate some distance away. She bellowed out his name from the gate, and then cheerfully marked him down for Friday detention.

  The rest of the day went routinely enough. Jeff pushed Joe down some stairs and into the Geography teacher. Susie, who was always losing her things, lost her English book, but found a Maths book from last year which belonged to Cathy, who didn’t appreciate getting it
back. It wasn’t until late afternoon, when he was walking home with Susie and Joe, that Chris remembered the key. He placed it on a fence post in front of Joe and Susie. As he anticipated, it changed from red to a metallic grey in front of their eyes.

  “Cool.” Joe snatched it up, his face breaking out into a smile when the key changed to blue in his hand.

  When Joe handed the key to Susie it changed to bright yellow. “Where did you get this?” she asked.

  “I found it in a rock pool.”

  She held it up and inspected it for a hidden battery compartment. “Must be some new kind of gadget. Does it change colour every time it’s touched?”

  “I’m not sure,” Chris replied.

  Chris took the key and immediately it changed back to red. “No, it seems to change to a certain colour depending on who’s touching it.”

  “How’s it powered?” Susie asked.

  Chris shrugged. “No idea.”

  “I know,” Joe said. “It’s solar powered.”

  “If the key was solar powered it would become dull if I covered it with my hand,” Susie said, flicking a condescending glance at Joe, “which it doesn’t.”

  “Well, it’s probably got a battery then.”

  “There’s no room for a battery,” Susie went on. “Besides a battery would make it heavy and it barely weighs anything.”

  Chris couldn’t help smiling. Susie was the smartest person he knew. She always came top in Science and spent much of her free time caring for animals. Over the years she had cared for everything from rabbits, guinea pigs, frogs, ferrets, two cats, three dogs; even salamanders and goldfish, until they ate all her tadpoles and she had to get rid of them. And she was forever taking home birds with broken wings, lizards, sick native animals that she would nurse back to health and then release back into the wild.

  Her ability to learn languages was also uncanny. She even studied French and Italian as an extra-curriculum activity. None of which made her popular, of course. She was considered a nerd and avoided by most of the year - boys and girls alike. But she fitted in perfectly with Joe and himself. All three would rather read a book than play sports. And Joe and he had other oddities that made them unpopular. Apart from being overweight, Joe smelt funny and had a habit of saying the wrong things to the wrong people. And as for himself, well, he was just considered a weirdo. Not in the sense of knowledge, like Susie, he just sensed things, knew what people were thinking. It freaked people out. Over the years he had learnt to hide this part of himself. But his funny looks and mannerisms still set him apart. It was only with Susie and Joe that he could be himself. Their combined weirdness made them great friends.

  “This thing is really strange,” Susie commented.

  Chris could see a disturbed and deepening frown creasing her forehead.

  “I’ve never seen anything that behaves like this,” she continued, turning to Chris. He knew exactly what she meant. If it was a key, it was the strangest key he had even seen. His mind went back to the creek where he had found it, and the presence that appeared to be lingering there. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t know what.

  That night, Chris was again pursued by someone in his dreams. As always, the scenery changed. This time he was walking along a creek bed. He recognised it immediately as the same creek where he had found the key. The presence was there again, but this time when he turned around he saw a tall, grey-skinned man with pale green eyes and long, greasy black hair, combed back against his skull. He was dressed in a blue robe that reached past his knees and was tied by a thin strip of leather. The man made no attempt to move, he just stood watching Chris.

  Summoning all his courage, Chris called out. “What do you want?”

  With still no response, Chris ventured a few steps toward him.

  The man flickered, like an image on a TV set, then vanished, seemingly into thin air.

  At breakfast, his sister sat sullenly across from him at the table. Chris could tell from the way she crunched through her cereal that she was still angry. Apparently the fight between her and their mother had gotten seriously worse after his quick exit. Fiona had accidently knocked over a fruit bowl in the resulting argument. This drew the penalty of no pocket money, or TV, for the next week. Chris smiled pleasantly at the thought.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  Chris noted one of Fiona’s hands was clenched tight on the table. He continued smiling.

  “It’s your fault anyway,” she said. “If you hadn’t stolen my toast...”

  “If you hadn’t lost your temper,” Chris pointed out.

  “You should be banned from the TV too.”

  “I didn’t break Mum’s best China bowl,” Chris reminded her with a grin.

  This had its desired effect. Fiona’s face flushed red and she looked as though she was about to launch herself across the table at him.

  “Both of you stop it!” Their mother appeared, frowning disapprovingly.

  Fiona shrank back into her chair and shot a disgusted look across at Chris.

  Chris knew he would have to play things carefully. Any slip-up would result in a similar fate to Fiona’s.

  “Have you done all your homework, Christopher?”

  His mother only used his full name when he was in serious trouble. “Yep, all done,” he said brightly.

  “While I hold your sister largely responsible for the trouble yesterday, your behaviour left a lot to be desired.”

  “Sorry, Mum.” He smiled across at his sister.

  She replied with a rude sign.

  “Fiona, that’s enough.”

  “Well it was his fault anyway.”

  “That’s no excuse for smashing my best China. You have to control that temper of yours.”

  Fiona glared at Chris and then climbed to her feet, ensuring everything in the vicinity was knocked or banged in the process. “I’m not staying in the same room with him for another second,” she spat, before stalking out.

  Later that day, several storm fronts hit the city, accompanied by high winds and nearly horizontal sheets of rain. While rain was not uncommon at this time of the year, the frequency and ferocity of the weather was unprecedented. At school, several trees lost large branches and some classrooms developed leaks that quickly turned into floods when the wind peeled off large sections of roofing.

  The rain had cleared by the time school had finished, but the sky still looked threatening. Chris, Susie and Joe decided to take the bus home, but as it neared Chris’s home the sky darkened to the south and the wind dropped. Although it was only a little after four in the afternoon, the light dimmed to the point where passing cars had to use their headlights, and the streetlights came on. Chris loved storms, and this one showed real promise. He could see the whole sky flick on and off like a faulty light switch. Always the optimist, he never took a raincoat to school, figuring there were always enough trees to hide from the rain between the bus stop and his home. This time he was proved wrong. The sky opened up. Despite sprinting from tree to tree, he got drenched, and then pounded with hailstones.

  He arrived home with a collection of the biggest hailstones in his trouser pocket. But when he proudly showed his mother, she just looked horrified and got mad at him for collecting hailstones in the middle of a hailstorm. Since he also looked like he had just crawled out of someone’s swimming pool, she shooed him upstairs to the shower and scolded him for not having a raincoat.

  When he came back down later, he found his parents sitting in the lounge watching the family’s new smart TV. The images on the news showed flooded streets, houses with missing roofs and people moving down flooded streets in motor boats. The commentator was standing on the roof of a house surrounded on all sides by water and explaining that the number of droughts, freak storms and floods was unprecedented. She went on to describe similar events across the world, concluding this weather pattern was a world-wide phenomenon.

  Chris’s father, a tall, balding man with the same cl
eft chin as Chris, was shaking his head slowly. “We’ve caused all of this,” he concluded. “Too much greenhouse gases and not enough will to change.”

  His mother pushed back some strands of brown hair behind her ears and nodded her agreement. “I worry for the next generation,” she said, across at Chris. “I wonder what you will inherit.”

  The front door opened and Fiona burst in wearing a raincoat, but still completely soaked. “I accidently fell into a pool of water on the way home,” she explained.

  Fiona, like him, loved playing in the rain. More than likely she was jumping in water puddles on the way home, Chris thought. She was also ordered upstairs to change.

  When the hail stopped Chris looked through the window, the garden and street were buried under a layer of glistening white hailstones.

  “Come on, let’s go outside.” Fiona was back downstairs, pushing her hair under the hood of her raincoat, her anger at Chris momentarily forgotten at the thought of a hail fight.

  Amid calls from their mother to come straight back inside if it started to rain again, Chris put on his raincoat and ran outside. Immediately, Fiona started throwing hailstones at him. Chris was always a better aim than Fiona, and soon scored several direct hits. But Fiona cheated by trying to turn the hose on him when his back was turned. The game only ended when more rain arrived and the wind picked up, accompanied by loud thunder. When they ran back inside, the TV was filled with more reports of fallen trees and broken roofs across the city.

  Then the power went off. In the growing dusk, the house was plunged into near darkness. Their parents scratched around in the kitchen and came back with a battery-powered lantern and an assortment of torches.

  Their father placed the lantern on the lounge table and started examining the torches. He picked up the largest torch and inserted four batteries.

  “Can I have that one?” Chris asked.

  “But I’m really scared,” Fiona said. “Can I have it?”

  “You love storms,” Chris said.

  Fiona shook her head earnestly. “No, they really do scare me.”

  Chris could hear the clear note of attempted sincerity in her voice and looked across at his father. He had that “you poor little thing” expression on his face and Chris knew immediately he had already lost.

  “Sure, Fi. It’s all yours.”

  Fiona accepted the torch with a sweet smile and, when their father had turned away, she stuck her tongue out at Chris.

  Outside, the storm, like some enraged, groaning monster, flung objects against the side of the house. Chris settled on the couch with his sister, who was flashing her torch everywhere. Each time there was a lightning strike he could see his sister with a broad grin on her face. The lightning and thunder were now almost simultaneous, and the house shook with every thunderclap. By the next lightning strike, he noticed that Fiona had slid up next to him and was staring at something in the pocket of his jeans.

  “You know; your jeans are glowing.”

  He rummaged through his pockets and pulled out the key. Its glow lit up half the lounge room.

  “Wow,” Fiona grinned, “that’s cool, is it one of those glow-in-the-dark toys?”

  Chris didn’t answer. He had an unreasonable urge to run to the closest toilet and flush the key away.

  Fiona lunged forward and snatched the key from his hand. It changed immediately back to grey, but the glow still remained. Chris knocked the key out of her hand and it slid under the couch.

  “What did you do that for?” she asked indignantly.

  The room lit up a split second before the crack of a huge lightning strike rattled the house. Chris rushed over to the window just in time to see the neighbour’s tree burst into flames. “Awesome!” he gasped, watching the showers of sparks and shattered branches spraying across the front garden as the tree turned into a giant torch. Seconds later, there was a cracking sound and the tree split down the middle, with half toppling over the fence, headed directly for their lounge. Chris and Fiona dived away just as the front window exploded. Glass, broken branches, and splintered wood sprayed everywhere.

  Chris looked around for his family and saw Fiona huddled in the corner of the room, still clutching her torch. His mother rushed across and, after checking Fiona hadn’t actually been hit by anything, hugged her hard. Chris and his father ran into the kitchen, filled some buckets with water and doused the few flickering flames that still clung to the tree trunk. The strengthening wind blew out the remaining glass panels of the window, spraying everyone with more glass.

  His father pulled Chris back and signalled the others to retreat into the adjoining dining room to wait out the storm.

  In less than half-an-hour the storm front had passed and the sky had cleared. The family filed back into the lounge room to inspect the damage. The tree trunk now rested squarely on the couch where Chris and Fiona had been sitting. Glass was everywhere, and parts of the curtains and the wooden window frames were burnt. Only the sheer volume of water dumped into the lounge room during the storm had saved the house from being guttered by fire. They had been very lucky.

 

  When Chris looked out of his bedroom window the next morning, he could see his neighbours busily cleaning up the debris from last night’s storm. Fallen trees and branches were liberally strewn across driveways and along the road. Several fences lay in tatters and a newly constructed garden shed had lost its roof. His father was already up and inspecting the fallen tree with the neighbour. But the sky was a brilliant blue and the sun was out. All the fears of the previous night seemed to evaporate. Chris dressed quickly for school and ran downstairs, only to be informed by his mother that school had been cancelled for the rest of the week, due to severe storm damage.

  “Yes!” He ran back upstairs and changed into an old tattered pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then ran down stairs and retrieved the key from under the couch. The glow was gone, but the red colour returned when he touched it. He had come to a decision. Somehow, everything was connected; the key, his dreams, and the creek under the old wooden bridge. Once and for all, he was going to solve this. Although he had spent many long hours clambering along the local creek beds, he had never walked up this particular one. He rang Susie and Joe and asked them to meet him down by the wooden bridge.

 

  When he arrived, they were both waiting expectantly. He explained the events of the previous night, and the strange glow that had come from the key at the height of the storm. Susie and Joe took it in turns to hold it. As previously, the key changed to a different colour each time someone touched it.

  “Maybe it responds to the heat from our hands,” Susie suggested.

  She climbed down to the stream, which had swollen to a torrent, and being careful not to get too close to the muddy water, dipped in one end of the key. It remained bright yellow, despite the water being much colder than her hand.

  “It’s still warm,” she announced.

  “We’re all warm,” Joe said.

  “No, that’s not what I meant. Whatever this thing is... it’s generating heat. It’s warmer than my hand, even the end I dipped in the water.”

  Chris was only partly listening. He started heading downstream to where the valley narrowed between steep cliffs. Between these cliffs, the stream seemed to disappear. He shaded his eyes from the glare of the sun, but still couldn’t see anything beyond a certain point. It was as though he was looking through a heat haze.

  He hadn’t gone far when Susie caught up to him. “It’s getting warmer.”

  “Uh…”

  “The key...”

  She pressed it into the palm of his hand. The heat was unmistakable. Chris turned back towards the stream. Now that they were closer to where the stream seemed to disappear, he could see a circular area that appeared blurred. They climbed over some boulders and arrived at the point where the stream narrowed. A little further on, everything, the rocks, the water and the bushes that hugged the banks of the stream,
all seemed to blur.

  “Can anyone see where the stream leads?” Chris asked. He could tell from the frowns and squinting eyes that it wasn’t just his imagination. They finally stopped directly in front of some type of distortion. Ahead was a blurred area with the stream flowing through its centre.

  “This is unreal,” Chris muttered under his breath.

  “Awesome,” Joe agreed, drawing alongside him.

  The distortion started spinning. The key flew out of Chris’s hand and vanished into the blur. Suddenly they found themselves struggling against a powerful wind that threatened to suck them into a growing vortex. Chris felt himself being dragged forward as the vortex spun faster and faster, increasing the strength of the wind. As the wind increased, the stream itself appeared to lift up and funnel into the centre of the vortex. Leaves, branches of trees and even small rocks flew past him. The force continued to build until Chris felt his feet sliding on the loose gravel of the creek bed. Susie flew past and vanished, followed closely by Joe. Finally, Chris was swept up and sucked headfirst through the vortex after his friends.

  Chapter 2: Cathora