The Doorway God

by Tom Early

  I headed back to my room and got dressed before taking the key in my hand, walking to the door, and saying “Didas” before sliding it into the lock and turning. I turned the knob and for a moment the door wouldn’t open. Then a ray of light traced its way around the door’s edges, and I found myself in Didas’s office, the man sitting in his chair behind the desk, same as last time.

  “We have a problem,” I stated flatly, walking over to the desk before rolling the sleeves of my hoodie up, presenting the silvery lines for his perusal.

  Didas’s eyes flickered down to my scars and then back up to me. “I see,” he said, the barest crease of a frown settling in on his brow. “When did this happen?”

  “Just now,” I said, starting to pace. “It’s like that all over. I had this weird dream, and then when I woke up, my scars were like this. I think Winter’s coming back.” I glared at him. “You said he couldn’t do that until the seasons changed.”

  “I did,” Didas murmured, already pulling up several illusory screens in front of him, writing furiously. “It would seem I was wrong about that. If your scars are already that faded, you have perhaps a week, two at most, before we’ll have no choice but to start the merging ritual.”

  “Are you even sure that’s going to help? I sure as hell haven’t gotten any more self-reflective since the last time we talked. What if the ritual just makes Winter come even faster?”

  Didas’s gaze bore into my skull. “Because the ritual is intended to merge you two at a pace set by ancient magic. Once the ritual starts, all Seven Horns are needed to merge you completely, and each of them must be used separately from each other. Winter will not be able to possess you during the ritual, and with my influence, I should be able to stretch the ritual out until spring arrives.”

  “And what if you can’t?” I said, grabbing at my hair. “What if you’re wrong about that too?”

  “Then Winter possesses you and I am forced to kill you!” Didas roared, standing up and slamming his hands on the desk. “Dammit, boy, I am doing all I can to tip the scales in your favor. Do not antagonize me when I am trying to help you. I may see you as an investment, but that still means that I am on your side in this. I am not the person to attack here.”

  I took a steadying breath. “Fine,” I gritted out. “So what do I do now?”

  Didas sighed, already sinking back into his chair. “Take your classes.”

  “What? How is that supposed to help?”

  Didas gave me a look that promised pain, before he shrugged it away and spoke in a short, clipped voice. “Because it will help strengthen you. Every time you drew on Winter’s powers, you strengthened him. The more you use and understand your own, the better your chances are of resisting him.”

  I paused. “That actually makes sense, in a weird way. Why couldn’t you have told me that last time, instead of telling me I had to be myself or whatever?”

  “Because an intelligent person would have seen the correlation,” Didas said coldly. “It is hardly my fault that you did not.”

  I flushed red and barely held back a retort. I’d antagonized him first, even if he was a manipulative asshole. Rising to the bait wasn’t going to help me. “Fine. Is that all?”

  “It is,” Didas said, already turning his full attention back to the shimmering lines of text in front of him. “I will contact you soon about the ritual. Don’t do anything rash.”

  Like there was anything I could do anyway. He had all the power here, and we both knew it. I walked out of his office and was immediately back in my room. Four in the morning, and I sure as hell wasn’t getting any more sleep.

  It was about then that I noticed the frantic banging on my door. I opened it and Tyler stumbled in, white-faced and trembling. He ran straight for me and wrapped me in a hug.

  “Oh, thank God you’re okay,” he whispered, his breath warm against my neck. “Jesus, Fay, I’ve been trying to reach you for like an hour! What the hell happened?”

  “Did you get them too?” I asked, holding him tight. “The dreams?”

  “No, no dreams. Just your panic, everywhere. What dreams?”

  I told him and Tyler’s face, if it were possible, grew even paler. “Shit,” he muttered. “Sorry. Shouldn’t swear right now. So that thing is coming back?”

  I nodded. “Didas says he’s moving the ritual up to this week. So I don’t get possessed and lose everything before it has a chance to start.”

  “Okay. Okay,” Tyler said, falling onto my bed with a thump. “So it can still work, right? I’m not gonna lose you?”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it.” I did my best to muster up a smile. Judging by the expression on Tyler’s face, I wasn’t very successful. “Look, it’ll be okay. The dream itself wasn’t that awful, just weird. It was seeing the scars healing after that was the scary part.” I rolled up my sleeves and showed him the silvery marks left behind. “See?”

  Tyler ran a gentle finger up my arm, tracing one of the lines. “I guess that doesn’t look so bad.”

  “It’ll be okay, Tyler,” I said, sitting down next to him. “I’ll be okay.”

  Tyler looked up at me, his expression serious and loving and altogether too much for me to handle. “Can I stay here? Just for the night? I think it might do both of us good to not be alone.”

  I nodded, thankful that I didn’t even have to ask. “Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

  Tyler pulled me into his arms again, not bothering to take off either of our shirts, and held me as tightly as he could.

  “SO, IS there any particular reason you look like death warmed over?” Sam asked as she poked at her eggs.

  “Nothing much,” I replied, on my third cup of coffee. “Just another freaky Winter dream. Oh, and my scars are fading, and I think I managed to make Didas panic. Also, the dream might have been real, and that’s making me really curious about whatever the two-headed giant was supposed to be.”

  Sam took a moment to stare at me before taking a long sip from her own cup. “You could have led with that before we came to breakfast, you know.”

  “And wait even longer for caffeine?” I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, no. So, want the details?”

  “You know I do. Tell me everything.”

  Once I’d finished, Sam rubbed her eyes and stretched her back like a cat before bearing down on what I’d told her with laser-like focus. “Okay. So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the whole dream forest thing has to do with the seasons. I mean, happy green growing forest, sunlit forest, and windy fall forest? That’s not exactly a stretch.” She frowned. “Do you think the people you saw were like you? I mean, like… actual seasons?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “Maybe? It would make sense for Winter to not be the only season that’s more than just a concept. But their forests felt right, like everything was as it should be. Mine didn’t.”

  Sam tilted her head. “Well,” she said slowly, “I guess that falls into the category of ‘vaguely ominous shit we can’t do anything about.’ Let’s talk about the weird underground thing you saw.”

  “I didn’t say it was underground,” I reminded her.

  “Dark, no airflow. ‘Look below.’ What else could it be?” Sam bit her lip. “It’s pretty obvious that it has to do with Janus University. I’m just not sure how much I’m supposed to interpret it.”

  “It felt pretty real to me.”

  “Right. So the two-faced giant is pretty obviously representing Janus, I’m thinking.” Sam made a sort of weighing motion with her two hands. “You know, Greek god of doorways and decisions, has two faces, all that. And if he’s making homunculi and more magic doors and shit, it makes sense. At least kinda. Not too sure how the homunculus thing works, but whatever.”

  I nodded. “I figured as much. But what does it mean? And what about the writing I saw on the wall?”

  Sam shrugged. “I have no idea how to interpret the wall writing stuff. It could be a school motto, or it could be a spell, or it
could just be something else even weirder. But if you think that giant guy was real, then that’s something we can do.” She gave me a happy grin. “How do you feel about a rescue plan?”

  I blinked. “Uh. No?”

  Sam pouted. “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t know if any of what I dreamed was real,” I said slowly. “And if it is real, we don’t know if we should help a two-faced giant who’s currently in chains, and people in chains are usually like that for a reason. And also we have no idea where he might be other than ‘below,’” I finished, waving my hands for extra flair. “Also I’m busy dealing with possibly being possessed soon.”

  “Fine.” Sam sighed, going back to poking at her eggs. “But I’m just saying, if you need to be distracted from your potential doom, investigating the underground mysteries of Janus University sounds like a fun way to do it.”

  “Tell you what—let’s see how busy we actually are with classes, and then decide if we have the time to go chasing dreams.”

  Sam grinned. “Deal. Now finish up your boring cereal. We need to be in the library in fifteen minutes.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with cereal, Sam.”

  “There sure as hell isn’t anything good about it either. C’mon.”

  HALF AN hour into History of Gaia, I had learned two things. First, Gaia was really huge and really old and there was a huge amount of history and infighting to cover. Second, Gaia was, except for the cities, largely not a safe place to live in at all.

  “One of the constantly in-demand jobs for Janus graduates is working as an expedition escort,” Professor Hynes had said during his whirlwind pace that involved three chalkboard-size illusions. My hand was aching from all the notes I had already taken, and Sam wasn’t even doodling in the margins anymore. “Even in today’s era, a good 60 percent of Gaia’s surface has not been properly surveyed. Much of this is due to the areas marked as off-limits by groups that don’t interact with humans and refuse to cooperate with the Chironian Council. These groups are also powerful enough to do so. Only a fool crosses the Fae, and Hell’s Colonies are little better. But there are also places that are considered up for grabs, and hold mysteries as yet undiscovered solely because of the dangerous beasts that live there.” The professor ran a hand through his flyaway white hair. “This includes the mysterious Dawn Civilization, so named because they were the first to inhabit Gaia, before humans or Chironians ever even arrived.”

  There were only around twenty people in the class, and almost everyone’s hands went up.

  The professor sighed. “If your questions are about the current tumultuous events involving the rapid expansion of the Colonies, please put your hands down. Janus University offers plenty of courses that keep abreast of current situations, but this is not one of them. We are here to learn about history.”

  A few hands went down, but most stayed up.

  Professor Hynes smiled. “I’m guessing the burning question on everyone else’s mind is exactly when humans arrived. The answer, while less than satisfactory, is that we came over sometime near the end of the last Ice Age on Earth, back when we were little more than monkeys living in caves, societally speaking. Were we led here? Did we find our own way? Considering that we weren’t capable of keeping records any more comprehensive than cave paintings,” he said, throwing up an image of strange black figures moving through what might, theoretically, have been a tunnel, “we don’t know. But once here we spread out across Gaia, much in the same way that mankind did back on Earth. As those lucky few found places that could be safely inhabited, cities and kingdoms began to be formed that resemble the groups currently in power today. The exception to this is the Chironians, of course, who were able to scatter and live independently more effectively because they didn’t need magic to survive due to their more, ah, dangerous physiology.” The professor clapped. “That’s it for today, everyone. Have a list of questions ready to ask on Wednesday. That’s the format—lectures on Monday, questions and reactions on Wednesday. Have a nice week.”

  As the professor filed out along with most of the other students, I glanced over at Sam. “Well,” I said, “that was insane. I had no idea about any of that. When do you think people started to get magic over here? Why do you think there are so few people on Gaia compared to the billions on Earth? I mean, seriously, I have so many questions.”

  Sam looked down at her own notes, which from what I could tell were more like a bulleted list of basic facts than actual notes. “Do you think we’re going to get tested on this stuff?”

  I frowned. “Does this not interest you at all? It’s the history of an entire world!”

  Sam scowled at me. “I know that. I just don’t see how that’s relevant to any of my interests. It’s not like I need to know history to be a good fighter or cop.”

  “No, but it might help keep you from putting your foot in your mouth,” I said, shrugging. “But whatever. Do you have any other classes today?”

  “Evocation in the Arena,” Sam said, grinning. “That top spot is going to be mine.”

  I snorted. “Of that, I have no doubt. Just try not to make it the only priority this semester, okay?”

  “Bah.” Sam waved me off, and I walked away snickering. I was going to go to the library—now that I had a vague idea of what to look for, I was going to find all the books about Gaia’s history that I possibly could. Who knows? If I dug deep enough, maybe I’d even find something about Winter in there. After all, if Didas had known about it, the information had to exist somewhere.

  Unlike the first time I’d visited, the library was actually pretty busy today. There was a fairly steady stream of students going in and out, backpacks full of books and tomes that weren’t available digitally yet. The Librarian was in full force behind his circular desk, and he… well, there currently appeared to be three of him holding discussions with students about whatever books they were currently looking for. As I watched, two of the students finished checking their books out, and with an abrupt blur there was only one Librarian. When I approached the desk, the Librarian glanced at me, and another one of him stepped back out.

  “What can I do for you?” The Librarian’s voice was as toneless as always, and at a second glance, I could see similarities in the face he was wearing now to the one the other homunculus had worn during my ranking assessment. It was creepy as all hell.

  “I’m looking for books on the early history of Gaia?” I said, curling my voice up at the end into a question. “Um. And anything about how Janus University was formed, also.” Appeasing Sam’s curiosity couldn’t hurt, after all. And I did wonder about my dream a little too.

  The Librarian’s expression didn’t change. “Certainly. The history section is the second floor down. The stairs can be found in the middle of the section behind me. Certain tomes are available by request only, with written permission from a professor. Ask me for those personally.”

  “Thanks.” I stepped away from the desk and did my best to ignore the strange sucking noise that came with the Librarian having only one body again. I headed back to that weird giant circle in the center of the floor, and this time actually went down the spiral staircase of wrought iron.

  I had to admit, just going down the old stairs was enough to get me excited. The upstairs part of the library was great and all, but old and ancient-looking buildings would always grab my attention more. The university looked so modern, and I was excited to finally see a part of it that, well, didn’t.

  The twisting black railing was cold beneath my hands, and when I stopped at the second floor down, I took a moment to look down even farther. I counted another four floors before the stairwell seemed to end in stone. After the third floor, there didn’t seem to be any lights on the floors, just torches, if the flickering was anything to go on. I made a note to go exploring down there at some point and then ventured into the history section proper. It was time to see how much I could learn about Gaia.

  After staring at what appeared to be
a row full of nothing but compendiums of differing origin stories about how people got into Gaia and what happened from there, I came to the conclusion that there was probably more here than I could read in one visit. I grabbed one dusty book off the shelf—The Early Days, by R. Alexis—and sat myself down in one of the cozy-looking armchairs on this floor.

  Three hours later, and I was left with more questions than answers. Apparently Gaia was something like a reflection of Earth—both its size and geography seemed to mirror Earth’s, at a scale of about 60 percent of the size. The difference apparently came in the impact people and magic had had on Gaia as opposed to Earth. Since both the flora and the fauna of Gaia were more than capable of defending themselves against people—apparently there was something called a Gorgon Tree that had vines that ate people and leaves that turned people to stone, dear Lord—rapid population growth and expansion in Gaia was heavily curtailed. The result was several places of incredibly dense population on Gaia, and mostly untamed wilderness everywhere else. The Dawn Civilization had apparently been able to populate the entire planet, but their cities had long since been reclaimed by the trees and beasts. If there was one thing I got from reading the book, it was that there was a lot more exploring to be done. The history of Gaia was far less complete than the history of people on Gaia, and that was absolutely fascinating. I ended up checking out The Early Days and two other general history texts to bring back to my room—I’d leave the more specific works for later.

  PROFESSOR KLYNE was a short, no-nonsense woman who taught Infusion Basics with the firm hand of someone who’d clearly been teaching for a long, long time. Her face had all the hard lines of age and experience on it, but she moved around the room with the sprightliness of a dancer.

  When I first came into the room, I had about five seconds to adjust before I was told to step in line with the other eight students in class.

  “Good,” Professor Klyne said, looking closely at all of us, “you’re all here. Now, give me your strongest Ward, please.”