Haven: Book Seven of "The Liminality"

Chapter 1: The Doozy

At the base of the caldera, smoke spewed forth from crevices in the ash, tainted by the stench of rotten eggs. The wind drove it in shreds across the broad slope, obscuring the mudflats and oily waters of the Sagmire Sea below, already veiled beneath a permanent misty pall.

Arms outstretched, fingers spread, Grehl stalked the slope like a dowser witching a well. She was feeling unsettled in a good way. It had been months since she last felt the presence of a seam. Her reputation was beginning to suffer. But now, flutters in her vision hinted that an interface might be near.

She stepped deliberately, senses attuned to the subtle tickle in the fingertips that could feel like the beginnings of an itch, a shimmer like heat waves rising off lava, a hiss and whine like a distant fumarole. Cinders crunched beneath the bone and leather of her makeshift sandals.

As per her request, the bulk of her entourage lagged a good fifty meters back. Members of her cabal intermingled with the usual crowd of hopeful gawkers, all kept in check by the massive basalt-tipped pike of Gijantus and Barth's obsidian scythe. Erasmus, her go-fer, mentor and one-time lover, strayed ahead of her bodyguards; keeping within earshot in case she needed assistance.

Grehl's most treasured possession—the singed and frayed cloak that served as her bed and blanket and dust shield—was threatening to slide off her shoulders. She paused to gather it up before thrusting her arms back out, palms upward. Cries erupted from the trailing horde as they misinterpreted the shift in her posture as a sign that she had located the seam. She turned to Erasmus and he signaled emphatically to the others that this was a false alarm.

The crowds of camp followers continued to grow. The pressure on Grehl to produce results mounted in proportion. Her fame now extended to every cabal and grovel pit in Sheol, her deeds whispered of in the light of fissures and fluorite lodes from end to end of this blighted realm. Souls gravitated towards her like iron filings to a magnet wherever she traveled, much to her chagrin.

Even in life, Grehl had been a very private person. She found her present celebrity highly unnerving. Few souls realized how tenuous the process of summoning seams could be even under optimal conditions. She had never been able to open a rift in the presence of others. Space and solitude were necessary for her to perform. To certain skeptical Grovelers, this absence of eyewitnesses provided affirmation of their doubts.

Sheol might have had many cabals but only one had a bona fide Summoner. There were plenty of posers, but Grehl was the only soul who had actually carried proof back from other realms. The lore was rife with stories of ancient Summoners, but none were extant in the memory of its present inhabitants.

The cabal had no doubt of her capabilities. Gijantus and Barth had crossed into realms after her when she was late returning. Erasmus had peered into every portal she had ever opened to assess their safety before her passages. Artifacts she had carried back were now coddled like holy relics in camps throughout the realm.

Once a seam open, their stability varied greatly. Many offered only fleeting glimpses of what lay beyond before slamming shut. A rare few created portals that would stay open for days. So far, none of the stable ones had proven worth exploring, never mind crossing into permanently. Their dream and plan was to locate a stable portal into a realm worthy of exodus—a 'doozy'—as Erasmus called one realm in particular, a place so bursting with life, it was indistinguishable from Earth.

The Doozy's portal had remained open for two glorious hours in one of her earliest excursions. She had explored a vacant structure across the portal that resembled a cottage from a fairy tale. She had looted her rather magical cloak from a wardrobe in a bedroom.