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the response.
    It was now that I first realized just how
important these men might be. But before my mind could consider
what exactly I had gotten myself into, I saw a familiar light
reflecting off the cavern walls. It was the same glow that I had
seen earlier that day, in a different cave. The memories of my
previous encounter made me shutter.
    Sure enough, as we rounded the tight corner
an orb-like portal hovered above the ground. It was at the back of
a large cavern, the same black-metallic softly glowing orange from
the light.
    “No doubt this isn’t the first one of these
you’ve seen today,” said Thoran as he stared at the rift. Before I
could respond he turned to me and started again. “This is a Meoden
portal. It leads between the Meoden dimension, where we are now,
and the other dimensions, in this case ours. Which is yours as
well.”
    I opened my mouth to speak, but he
interrupted.
    “There is no point in trying to figure out
how it works, just know that it does. Naturally if you jumped into
one of these you could end up anywhere in the conjoining dimension,
but we have altered ours to arrive at a specific point.
    “So all you need to do is walk through.
Understand?”
    Oh yeah, sure, that makes complete
sense, I thought to myself . . . but I did have the basic idea,
and I could tell Thoran wasn't really asking.
    “Yes sir.” I said, so officially that any
fool could tell I was intimidated.
    “Good,” he replied. “Cornelius you go first,
followed by . . . hmm. Did you tell us your name?”
    I bit my lip. “No . . . you never asked.”
    “Well I'd say in this case shy is an
understatement,” he grumbled. “Are you ready to tell us now? ”
    My eyes narrowed at him, squinting slightly.
“Eve, Eve Avest.”
    “Well, that's a beautiful name, such a
curious last name to. You know I know someone that has a hobby of
studying the origin of names, I'm sure he'd love to look that one
up. His name is—”
    Thoran stopped him with a side-ways glance.
Evidently this man didn't want me to know about anything beyond
what was necessary.
    “ Anyways. Eve, you'll go after
Cornelius so he can meet you on the other side. Cornelius, I want
to check on Boron, so I'll meet you back at the lodge in an hour or
so.”
    He turned towards me. “If everything goes as
planned I probably won't see you again, so—” he held out a hand
“—it was a pleasure meeting you.”
    I shook it firmly, inexplicably disappointed
by the thought of never seeing him again.
    And then, as quickly as he had appeared, he
vanished through one of the tunnel passages.
    *
    It wasn't long before I found myself with
Cornelius on the other side of the portal. We came in amidst a
clutter of trees: tall, rich green, much less foreboding than the
last forest I had been in. The sky above was a deep blue, nearing
dusk.
    Has it been that long?
    “Better than the last time I hope?” asked
Cornelius.
    Not much . I opted for courtesy. “Yes
it was, thank you.”
    “Good,” he said. “Now if I can figure out
which portal we came in at, we can start heading for the—”
    “Master Cornelius is that you?” came a shout
from one of the trees above us, it was a boys' voice.
    Cornelius started to look up then froze. “Oh
no. Not good, what is he doing here?” He mumbled nervously as he
started to pace. “Thoran is going to kill me, this is the first
thing he told me not to let happen.” He turned his face upwards
again and yelled. “Ah, no. It's not Cornelius just some, umm, other
person. No need to come down Ikovos, I mean, person I don't
know.”
    Cornelius looked at me and gave a
do-you-think-that-will-work shrug.
    I sure didn't know what was happening, so I
shrugged as well. Obviously Cornelius and I shared an inability to
stay calm under pressure.
    “Master I can tell by your voice,” said the
boy again. “Besides I can see you, hey, who is that with you? I'm
coming down okay.”
    “Oh God, we're dead,” said Cornelius as