“This is easily the worst idea you’ve ever had,” muttered Kessa. The four of them clung to the slanted rooftop, looking down at the chaos that erupted in the center of town. Guardsmen and mages, bearing the blue crest of King Garl, swarmed like ants around something – a shimmering pillar of light. “How can you even be certain that it’s a portal? There hasn’t been a single one since before my grandfather’s days.” Hent, the alchemist’s son, propped himself up on his elbows and squinted. “It’s a portal, all right. I’ve seen them in my father’s books, what precious few weren’t burned during the Purge.” “Shh,” whispered a taller lad with skin like candle wax. “Keep talking like that and the guards will be breathing down our necks before we’ve even had a chance to break the law.” Arhael only snickered. “These are the very same guards that we evade almost daily, Lars. Come, all of you. I want to show you exactly why I want to do this.”

They left town by the usual means, the cobbled road leading to the west gate. In their worn traveling clothes, soot-covered from their climb on the roofs, they looked like any other band of street urchins roaming about town. No one took much note of the four soon-to-be perpetrators of an incident so epic, that it would be remembered by history for decades to come…
A short walk later, they arrived at a tall tree, split in half by lightning ages ago. Ignoring the puzzled looks of his companions, Arhael began to dig between two massive roots, and before long, produced a quaint iron box. The contents made Kessa, Hent, and Lars gasp in unison. It was a picture the likes of which they had never seen before: yellowed with age, but otherwise completely perfect: every shadow in place, each detail without flaw. Within it, impossibly tall buildings reached to the sky, threatening to blot out the sun. Lars held a pale hand out towards the magnificent image, tracing the fraying edge with one finger. “Who could have painted such a thing?” Arhael spoke then, with a strangeness in his tone that none of the others have heard before. “It is not a painting. This is called a photograph. It’s a relic… From before Archbishop Olan ordered the Purge. From before everything which came from the Otherworlds was forbidden to us.” Kessa looked at him, a glimmer in her eyes. “This is where you want to go, Arhael? The portal will take you there?” Arhael stood up, pressing the photograph into her hand with a slight shrug. “There’s no telling where it will take me. However, I know this much. On the other side of that portal is a completely different world, one we haven’t seen or spoken of in almost a hundred years. The first to go will pave the way for every other traveler. Do you understand now?”

They made their plans there, as the sun started to descend in the sky. Each would contribute to a night that would prove to be the turning point in their — indeed, perhaps in everyone’s — lives.

---

Arhael made his way through the merchants’ quarter. In the darkness, with his pack filled with the best gear he could find, he could easily be mistaken for a delivery boy, rushing to finish a late shipment. He passed the tannery, the smithy, a tiny tavern where the last of the lights were just being put out, and turned onto a narrow side street. Everyone else was already in place, waiting. Arhael had chosen his friends well. There was Kessa, her tanned skin and jade eyes looking especially striking in the dim moonlight. She had spent her youth in Carkhan, the Jewel of the East, and picked up a remarkable gift for ventriloquism there. This would prove quite useful in the task ahead. On her left, Hent, dressed in the plain gray garb of the apprentice alchemist. In his hands was an enormous jar filled with something dark and foul-smelling: his own special contribution to the mission. Behind Hent stood Lars, Arhael’s ever-loyal childhood friend. He had somehow managed to secure a wagon, and here it was, piled high with empty barrels. Even more importantly: Lars could lend his considerable talents with magic.In an instant, without more than a few words passing between them, the four went to their tasks. Runes were carved into the sides of the wagon, the empty barrels. Hent poured a generous dose of the foul liquid into each barrel, followed by a handful of small white stones. Arhael produced several rolls of canvas from his pack: these were wrapped around the growing barrel-tower. Lars chanted something in a quiet, even tone, sometimes punctuating the chant with whispered exclamations. When he exclaimed, the canvas rose, billowed, thickened… Before long, it seemed as if a crude tower of flesh and hide stood atop of the wagon, a sort of hideous neck. Kessa tested the incomplete creation by silently parting her lips — and the wagon-monster gave a throaty growl. The preparations were almost complete. Soon, they would charge the portal.

---

The mages were getting irritable. An entire day of grueling work, with few chances to rest, and the portal was nowhere near stable. The younger among them voiced fears that this was an isolated incident – the portal could vanish again at any time, as all portals did during the Year of Chaos. The older mages had different concerns. The portal could do a lot worse than simply vanishing… It could be the first of many, a new influx of unguarded doorways between worlds. It’s true that after the portals disappeared and the Purge was ordered, many amazing things were lost to them. But in truth, these were peaceful times… The royal guards, on the other hand, could not be happier with recent events. They would constantly interrupt the mages’ work with their excited whispering, speculating relentlessly about what the world on the other side of this portal might be like. Were there cruel beasts to slay? New kinds of ale to drink? Perhaps, if they were truly blessed by the gods, exotic women to ogle? The possibilities seemed delightfully overwhelming. It was not the distracted guards who heard the beast approaching. It was one of the young mages who heard the dull, low growl, and sensed the slightest hint of foreign magic in the air. Before he had a chance to alert the others, it was upon them: a fiend with an awkwardly shaped, leathery body, a tremendous neck, and eyes like hot coals. Its roar filled the night sky. Chaos erupted instantly: swords were drawn, incantations were shouted, flaming spheres bounced across the cobblestones and exploded. One guard let forth a rather girlish scream. “Stay your hand!” Shouted the Archmagus over the din of battle. “Put down your swords and let us handle this! The beast you see is nothing more than a clever illusion.” Indeed, at these words, the vicious beast stopped moving, fell silent. “Milord,” said the captain of the guard. “I was certain we had wounded it! Observe the foul liquid draining from that vile thing’s neck.” And what an interesting observation that was.Within the very same minute, there was a crack of splintering wood, and guardsman and mage alike were covered in the dank, slimy substance. Within the next, the courtyard was filled with loud cries of “Gods preserve us! I’ve gone blind!” The king’s men were all too busy clawing at their faces to notice a cloaked figure dash out from a narrow alley, and vault into the shimmering portal.

---

The first sensation Arhael had was one of falling, somehow, in the wrong direction. Everything was bright. Everything was brightness itself, not just the tunnel through which he fell or flew, but his gear and his body as well. It was difficult to tell whether his eyes managed to adjust or whether the light formed itself into coherent shapes, but soon he could see. There were windows of sorts, he thought. Multitudes of windows. He could glimpse worlds similar to his, with horse-drawn wagons and simple houses with shingled roofs, and worlds as alien as could be, apparently made of steel or stone, worlds covered with ice, worlds where giant beasts roared and fought as the continents trembled beneath them. He fell past a window with tall, geometric buildings that reached up into the sky – wasn’t it nearly identical to that yellowed photograph, locked safely within its box and buried beneath an old tree, so very far from here? “I did it,” Arhael said to the brilliant light ahead of him. “The first traveler in almost one hundred years. The four of us will be legendary.”How could he know how right he was, and how many ambitious adventurers would soon follow in his steps? His jump would become stuff of legends within weeks.A new Age of Travelers had finally begun.