Alien Portals: A SciFi Alien Multiverse Romance Novel

by Ruth Anne Scott

  Galadriel felt as though her body were giving out on her by the time that they finally stepped into the stone temple. Somehow, she had imagined that the wall would be smaller in the other streams, appearing more like the segment that they had found in the desert, yet this looked exactly like the temple where Vyker had brought her in his stream. She let herself sink to the floor and stared up at the black stone wall. In the darkness, she thought that she would barely be able to make out the engravings, but the strong glow from the moon outside provided enough of a wash of light that she could see them.

  “Vyker,” she said, “you have to carve it. Now that we got here, you have to change the engravings.”

  “He can’t change the wall!” Jacob protested.

  “Yes, he can,” Galadriel said. “Not only is he the protector of the temple and the one in the galaxy tasked to defend it, but he has done it before. The engravings on the segment of wall when your team found it in the desert aren’t the same that they are now. They changed while the wall was sitting in the museum. That’s what brought me to the desert. He’s already made this change, so he has to do it again. If he doesn’t, it will be as though we never found this stream.”

  Vyker took a thick metal tool from his bag and the imprint from Galadriel’s. He carried them over to the wall and got on his knees in front of it. It was a moment of solemnity, almost close to prayer. His hand moved swiftly as she listened to the high pitched sound of the bits of stone falling away under the metal tool.

  “It’s so bright in here,” she commented, watching as he brushed away the final bits of stone dust from the new engraving. “Even though there are fewer stars here than in your stream, it seems so much brighter.”

  “It’s the ice,” Jacob said. “It’s a reflection.”

  Vyker’s back straightened, and he turned sharply.

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  “It’s a reflection,” Jacob said again. “The ice on the ground reflects the moon and starlight. It makes it look much brighter in here at night.”

  “But it’s not real,” Vyker said, almost as if to himself. “It just looks like it is.”

  “What?”

  “The reflection,” Vyker said, gesturing toward the glow that illuminated the front of the black stone wall. “It looks like there is more light, but there isn’t. The ice doesn’t create more light, it just takes the light that is already there and reflects it. It is the same amount of light, just more intense.”

  He sifted through Galadriel’s bag again and pulled out the imprint.

  “That’s the engraving that you just did,” Galadriel said.

  “Not all of it,” Vyker said. He pointed at the paper. “This line. When I first read it, it seemed like it was just repeating the section about my parents’ grave because the words are similar. Twice reality and yet unreal. All the more and yet nothing at all. It sounds like it is just talking about my parents again, but it’s not. It’s talking about the reflected light. It’s a reflection just like any other. It looks completely real, like there is another of the thing that it is reflecting, but there isn’t. There is still just that one object.”

  “There’s more, and yet there’s nothing.”

  Vyker nodded at Galadriel.

  “But I don’t understand. What does that mean? You told me before that the moon is gone in the dying streams because the light from the moon is just a reflection of the light from the stars. Obviously, it doesn’t matter to the StarKillers if the light is reflected.”

  “That’s not the point. It’s not the light.” Vyker rushed back toward the dark stone and rested his palm against it. “It’s the wall.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “This wall,” Vyker continued, running his hand along the stone, “this temple. They aren’t real. They showed up after the original was built, and the understanding of the power that it contained spread. This one, like the ones in all of the other streams, are just reflections.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s false knowledge. Part of why any creature accessing all of the knowledge that is contained within the temple would be so dangerous is because, while knowledge provides power, false knowledge takes it away. There is a reason that the knowledge that each kind is given at the dawn of their time is what is chosen for them. That’s because that is the knowledge that pertains to them. It is what impacts them and molds their existence. There is no need for them to know anything else, or for them to know what the others know.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want people to know everything that they can, though? Why does it matter what species they are or from where they originated?”

  “Because the knowledge of one person is not the knowledge of another. Each kind is meant to maintain the same knowledge as the others of their kind. It’s what tells them who they are and how they fit into the world around them. Without that knowledge, or with a compromised version of it, they may feel more powerful, but they would be out of control.”

  “Isn’t that limiting?” Galadriel asked. “Aren’t you forcing people to settle for only knowing a small amount and thinking that is all that’s important, when knowing more might help them to make a difference?”

  “You are confusing knowing and thinking,” Vyker said. “You can travel throughout the galaxy and meet with every type of species that exists. You could have them tell you everything that they can about themselves, their people, and their lives. Hearing those facts, though, doesn’t mean that you know them. You can think through them, but until you have lived them, you don’t know them. The knowledge that is contained within this wall, that is honored by this temple, is fully internalized, experiential knowledge. It isn’t just something you can say to someone, but something that you have to be with everything that makes you. It is integral to yourself. Accessing the wall would put that level of awareness and attachment for all things and all kinds within you. The conflict and confusion would tear you apart. Rather than knowing everything, you would actually know nothing. There would be nothing that carried any meaning or that could possibly influence you in any way. Instead, it would become only a means of manipulating and controlling others. That would destroy the universe as much as the loss of all of the light.”

  “I don’t understand why that slowed down the StarKillers,” Galadriel said.

  “Consuming the light from the moon in each of the streams is the only other time that they are exposed to false light. When they are doing that, it doesn’t really impact them that the light isn’t real. Here, though, they are surrounded by rebounded light. Rather than doing the much harder work of consuming the stars themselves, they settle for subsisting on the reflected light. While some did as tradition held and took away the stars themselves, others started consuming the false light. While this makes them feel as though they are satisfied, it actually weakens them so it is more difficult for them to do what they are meant to do.”

  “That engraving can’t just be about the light,” Jacob said. “Knowing why this one particular stream is only slowly dying as opposed to total destruction can’t matter that much.”

  “It doesn’t,” Galadriel said, realization washing over her. She looked at Vyker. “It’s not about the light. It wanted you to see the light so that you would realize about the false knowledge of the walls. Even if these walls don’t have the true power of the temple in your stream, there is enough in them that it is guiding the StarKillers to the true wall. The first step in protecting the temple from them is to keep them from being able to access your stream. That means getting rid of the walls.”

  “But they were doing that already,” Vyker said. “I told you that in each of the streams that the StarKillers killed, they first destroyed the wall. It’s like they’re practicing for when they actually get to the real temple. They know that until my kind are gone, I’m the only one who will be able to touch the wall. They have to gain the power of it in a different way, and that means destroying it.”


  “What if they aren’t the ones who destroyed them?” Galadriel asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if it wasn’t the StarKillers that destroyed the wall in each of those streams? Did you ever actually see them do it?”

  “No. I just found the rubble.”

  “We’ve been looking at this wrong, Vyker,” Galadriel continued. “They don’t come and destroy the wall so that they can kill the stars. They come and kill the stars because the wall has already been destroyed.”

  “I don’t understand,” Angela said. “I thought that the light was the most important thing to them.”

  “It usually is, but the power within the temple is even more important. What if they came to the streams and started killing off small stars to eat, but also to cause panic? The growing darkness would be terrifying, enough to give them access to the wall. They have no way of knowing which one is the real one. They have obviously figured out some way to glean the false knowledge from these walls and use them to carry them into the next stream, getting them closer to the real temple and the true power. When they show up in a stream where the wall is already destroyed, though, they can’t learn anything from it. They kill the stars, and they move on. There’s someone else who destroyed those walls. Someone who knows that they have to sacrifice some of the streams in order to guard the one that is most precious.”

  “But who could that possibly be?” Vyker asked. “I’m the only one of my kind who moves through the streams, and no one else would understand the significance.”

  “I don’t know, but you said that when you learned to travel from your stream to the one where you found me and back that you found a group of your kind. Then one time when you came back, the village was burned, and the wall was destroyed.”

  “Yes.”

  “You assumed that it was the StarKillers that did both, but if it was someone else it means that they probably knew that you were there, and they destroyed the wall to protect you.”

  “So where are they now?” Vyker asked. “Why is this wall still standing?”

  “You have to destroy it,” she said. “That’s the point of the engraving. We’re here to find Angela and Jacob, and to end this stream. This is the stream that your father thought was the most dangerous. It must mean that there is something more powerful inside this wall than in the others. Even in a weakened state, the StarKillers should have been able to take the stars from this stream in all of the years that have passed, shouldn’t they?”

  “Yes,” Vyker agreed. “They must be getting more from this wall, which is why my father wanted so much to end this stream. He knew that this one was incredibly dangerous to our kind. That’s what he must have been doing the day that he died. He was coming to destroy the wall.”

  Galadriel looked back at the wall. There was something about it that struck her strangely. It wasn’t just that this temple was a replica of the one that Vyker had showed her in his own stream. There was something different about it that she couldn’t quite identify. She took out the picture of the wall in the museum and compared it. The irregular edges of the segment made it more difficult for her to detect the differences, but the longer she looked at it, the more her thoughts of the true wall and this one converged, and she was able to see the details. At the upper corner of the rectangle of engravings something sparkled differently, standing out against the rest of the smooth wall.

  Vyker stepped up close to it and examined it. He rested his fingers on it and then pulled on it, dislodging a small stone.

  “It’s a star stone,” he said, holding it out to Galadriel on his palm.

  As he said it, it seemed that the image of the true temple became clearer in her mind. She remembered the small, glittering stones positioned every several inches around the engravings. She hadn’t thought anything of it the first time that she saw them, but now she realized that those stones were not in the segment of the wall in the museum.

  “We need to go back to the temple,” she told him. “You have to engrave the true wall for it to change the others.”

  Vyker nodded and stepped back from the wall, then looked over his shoulder at Angela and Jacob.

  “Gather anything that you want to bring with you. You won’t be able to come back here once we leave.”

  “Where are we going?” Angela asked.

  “Into my stream,” Vyker said. “We’ll seal this stream and then go from there.”

  “What if we don’t go with you?” Jacob asked.

  “Jacob,” Angela scolded.

  “What?” he snapped. “We know nothing about these people. How do you know that what they’re saying is true?”

  “She comes from our home, Jacob. She is the first link to home that we’ve found since we’ve been here. What else should we do but trust her?”

  “You are welcome to stay here,” Vyker said, his voice stern and impatient. “But once the wall is destroyed, we will leave here, and I will seal the portal. After that, the StarKillers will take over, and the stream will die. It’s your choice. You have until we come back to decide.”

  “Can we rest here tonight and go back to the portal in the morning?” Galadriel asked.

  Vyker seemed resistant, but he nodded.

  “We’ll sleep for a few hours and then go back as soon as we can. The light is dying, and the faster it dies, the less time we have. Once the light is gone, the stream will begin to shut down.”

  Galadriel could see the discomfort in Jacob’s expression, but he walked further into the temple with the rest of them and started building a fire in the small pit near the back wall. They fell into silence as they built their camp for the night. Galadriel crafted a pallet for her and Vyker close to the wall. They slid beneath the blankets together, and she curled against him. The warmth of his body was soothing, and she let the sound of his heartbeat draw her thoughts away from what was happening around her to the private, protected space that they created between them.

  “What happens tomorrow?” she whispered.

  Vyker’s arm tightened around her and he kissed her head.

  “We go back to the temple, and I add the engraving. Then we come back here and destroy the wall. I don’t know from there, but we’ll figure it out. As long as you’re beside me, we’ll figure it out.”

  ****

  The next day, they traveled from the temple back to the cavern, and Angela packed a small bag that Galadriel recognized as the satchel that she would have carried during the excavation. She watched as Angela stared at Jacob as if willing him to cooperate. Instead, Jacob turned his back on her, crafting arrows rather than packing his own bag. Galadriel could feel the pull between them. For a year now, these two had had nothing but each other. Now she was walking away from him, making the choice to trust the unknown rather than staying in place.

  The two parted without words, and Galadriel felt the sadness radiating off of Angela as they made their way back toward the cavern where the portal had left them. Though they had spent the entire day walking, Galadriel was energized as they approached the cavern, feeling as though they were finally making progress. When they stepped into the cavern, she turned to Vyker.

  “You said that the portals only go in one direction,” she said, “that you can’t go back the same way that you came.”

  “That’s right,” Vyker said. “But my father was able to travel back and forth from this stream to ours just like I traveled from my stream to the one where I found you. We just need to find the portal that brought him back.”

  “Do each of the portals only go one place?” Angela asked.

  “What do you mean?” Vyker asked.

  “You said that the portals do not go back to the place that they came, but is it possible for them to go somewhere else?”

  “It could be.”

  “This is the cavern where we first arrived,” she said. “It’s just like the one in the desert where we disappeared.”

  “What
were you doing when you went through the portal?” Galadriel asked.

  “We were in the very back of the cavern. It felt like it was just a solid wall, but there was actually a giant rock in the way, blocking another corridor. I reached out to Jacob to show him, intending for him to help me move it out of the way so that we could see what was further in the cavern, but the next thing we knew, we were here.”

  “This,” she said, touching the wall beside her, “is where I was standing when I went through the portal that brought me to the desert. Maybe this is where we came through from Vyker’s stream.”

  “Which means that the portal I came through may be the one to bring you back,” Angela said.

  “It’s the only chance that we have,” Vyker said.

  Angela led them further into the cavern and showed them where they had been standing when they were in the desert at the excavation site.

  “This is where the stone was,” she said. “It’s not here.”

  “Was it when you first arrived?”

  “No. The corridor doesn’t go all the way back, though. It only goes a few feet.”

  They walked through the entrance and quickly found themselves against another wall. Galadriel examined the wall carefully and finally found the engravings close to the ground. She met Vyker’s eyes, and he nodded.

  “We have to touch them together,” she said to Angela. “Are you ready?”

  Angela looked fearful, but she nodded. Galadriel nodded back and linked arms with Angela. They reached forward and touched their fingers to the engravings. Vyker wrapped his arm around Galadriel’s waist and touched his fingers to the engravings above the girls’. They followed them slowly, being sure to match each curve and dip of the carvings to ensure that they would transition together. Just as she had done before, Galadriel closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see the darkness coming for her. The drag was less intense than it had been before, but harder than when they had traveled here. The constantly changing experiences made her feel unbalanced, like she was never going to become accustomed to traveling through the portals.