The Next Dimension

Chapter 1

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So far, everything was running smoothly. Sagarus Ayers thought that everything was reasonably under control, at least as controlled as falling through a dimensional portal could be. He'd done it many times and had become fairly good at controlling what dimension he landed in. Of course, he was still a bit rough on his timing and the exact location in a dimension he ended up in, but he figured he could work on the details later. Right now, his portal was taking him to the Hub of his home dimension. All portals to the home dimension would take a wizard to the Hub, a building that was constructed on a junction of three ley lines and controlled the powerful magic that kept time in order in the dimension. Basically, he would land in one of the open landing circles and not come in three days before he left. The wizards didn't particularly want any apprentices to be jumping around in the timeline and making a mess of things.

The dimensional portal he was currently in was like a great big tube, with light and colors swirling around him. He controlled where he went simply by raking his fingers through the sides, aligning the colors a certain dimension radiated to get there. The little knots and color flares were his weak point, the bits that sent him to different parts of a dimension's timeline and his landing location, even how high above the ground it would spit him out. There was no sound when portaling either - you were stuck with your thoughts, and it was impossible to make a peep. The quiet was deafening if you weren't prepared for it.

Sagarus had his fingers in the colors now as he free-fell through the portal, tweaking it with his energy and light brushes of the fingertips. He was helping a small dark knot of colors loosen. The Hub would take care of it anyways, but he had been falling for a while and was getting bored. The majority of the colors for his home were bright shades of purple, which was exactly what he had around him now. It swirled by him slowly, speeding around quickly and going slowly at the same time. The end of the portal was near, he could feel it like a tugging in his gut, and the purple was fading to gray. With a final flourish to get rid of a streak of blue, he pulled his hands out, preparing to land without breaking a leg.

But it didn't dispel him into a landing circle. Instead, the gray became one flat color, and he kept falling for several minutes after the portal should have ended. At first, he did nothing, too surprised by the strange occurrence to try anything. When it didn't appear that the hub was fixing whatever this was Sagarus started panicking, reaching into the tube wall and fishing around for a new color. But there was nothing beyond the gray, which was now rapidly darkening. He'd never heard of this happening before, no one had ever even mentioned being stuck in the gray at all, in the hundreds of years wizards had been portaling to other dimensions.

He reached deeper into the tube wall, until his whole arm was in the color, all the way up to his shoulders. It was a terrible idea, many wizards had lost fingers and hands by reaching too far, but it was his only option. The gray was now almost black, and he had a terrible feeling that if it got too dark he'd be in much more serious trouble than losing some fingers.

He waved his arms around, not sensing any other colors to pull towards him for several scary seconds. Then, his pinkie brushed something. He grabbed at it, trying to yank it towards him, but a sudden pain erupted in his right hand. It felt like he'd gotten a cut that suddenly went numb. He'd never had an injury in a portal but had been told that there were sometimes weird effects and sensations. Figuring that he must have gotten a cut on his hand he pulled the color he had snagged towards him with more vigor. When it finally surfaced on the wall of the tube –after a lot of struggling, it was somehow slippery- he was astonished.

The color he had pulled was a pale green, the color of a leaf that had not yet budded out. He'd never seen this particular shade before, and had little idea where it would take him, but was sure that it would be better than the continuous gray.