Portal

The Walker howled in impotent rage, struggling to heal himself even as he slipped away.

With an invisible hand Garth grasped the spell that opened the portal of worlds, that changed reality, twisted the flow of time, and made all things possible. He struggled against the Walker to take as well the mana that bound and controlled the spell.

The Walker started to recover, screaming in rage as that which gave him access to the world of his origin was pulled away from his grasp. Garth struggled and swayed, ignoring the explosive pain to his hands, trying not to feel, not to notice that fire was curling his fingers black.

He felt his hold on the Walker’s spell starting to slip as his foe regained his strength. Reaching inward Garth drew on what little he had left and in that moment his own power and mana were doubled. He wrenched the control of the planes gate away from his opponent and fell backward. The Walker came back up and, howling with a mad demonic rage, raised his hands and pointed.

Damn, now that I’ve got it, how do I use it? Garth wondered, even as the blow hit him.

He felt fire racing over him, a heat as intense as the sun engulfing him. Garth One-eye pulled his strength inward and focused it on the power of the gate. The Walker, screaming hysterically, attacked yet again and Garth felt himself falling away.

(...)

Long he fell, so that he was not sure if he had slipped into eternity or if perhaps time itself had ceased to exist. He could sense as well the pursuit, though it was distant. He had slammed the door shut into the world from which he had come, but he knew that somehow he had not bolted it with sufficient mana to keep it thus barred forever.

Gradually his strength returned and he found a sudden joy, a realization that he had indeed crossed through the final barrier, that he was now a Planes Walker. The universe, with all its multiplicity of realities, awaited him if he dared. And yet he sensed as well the barriers that hemmed him in on all sides, the realms guarded so jealously by the others, and there were indeed others. He could sense them, some locked within their realms like demented misers, who kept the doors into their miserable realms locked out of fear that someone would want the squalor they had created. Others fought with a mad-insane-glee, struggling simply for the joy of it. There were triumphs and defeats, exaltation and despair. And all too rarely there was tranquility behind walls erected so high and so strong that no one could pierce into the gardens thus created. And he sensed as well the truth of how they had achieved that.

He felt temptation take hold of him, offering him all the powers of a demigod, for indeed in this brief moment that is truly what he had become, a Walker who could stride across the universe and do battle with forces dark or light as he might choose.

***

Arena, Chapter 15