The Portal:Science Fiction Meets Fantasy in this Action Adventure Novel (Book One)

By Malachi Mata

“...intriguing...” “...well written...” “...moves at a good pace...”

Deelo Con, a disgraced war commander in the Daylon Empire, is the first to discover the Portal at the Battle of Wieese, but when he is sucked up into it, he emerges ten years later with his identity forgotten, odd and extraordinary magical powers, and no sense of loyalty. As his memories slowly come back, Deelo is pressed for the location of the Portal, because whoever encounters it gains the abilities to hurl stones from staffs, raise lava from the ground, and see beyond one's own eyes.

With the balance of Power in the Daylon Empire hanging precariously in the hands of Deelo's brother, the self-crowned emperor of the New Daylon Empire, Deelo must decide to whom he should lead to the Portal and grant these destructive powers, and whom he should leave to die.

But Deelo must act quickly and decisively, because the Portal goes both ways. The real invaders are coming, and they’re not just coming for the Daylon's territories: they're coming for their souls.

“The Portal is an intriguing action adventure with fully flushed out social and political systems, and a main character that struggles with moral decisions while forced into precarious positions. All the while, there are people being tortured and battles a plenty in search of The Portal, but is this religious icon a saving grace... or the "E"-day for everyone, an end to humanity as they know it.”

“For the sake of a good author's future please do download the book and email the author a few edits.”

-Heaven’s Fiction Review
https://heavensfiction.blogspot.com/2018/06/editors-feedback-book-review-portal-by.html

• Language: English
• Publisher: Malachi Mata
• Release date: Mar 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370514755

Malachi Mata

ABOUT THE AUTHOR As a child, Malachi was too shy to speak to anyone except his sister. In order to communicate with others, he would whisper in his sister's ear and she would answer for him. "What do you want to drink, honey?" his mother asked. "He'll take milk now, Mommy," answered his sister. Malachi didn't begin to break out of his shell until he entered his first year of college where he accidentally performed onstage for one of the most prestigious drama departments in the country, the drama department of Southern Oregon State University (then Southern Oregon State College) in the southern Oregon town of Ashland, Oregon, famous for its Shakespearean festival. Malachi was visiting a friend at the time, a drama student, when he decided to look around the prestigious theater. He wandered out onto the main stage. The two men sitting in the middle of the empty theater stopped talking, looked up from their clipboards, and stared in disbelief. Was Malachi trespassing or something? After several tense moments of silence, Malachi blocked the stage light that was blinding him to get a better look at the men and spoke. "Hello?" “Do you believe in serendipity?” the director said in a half-whisper. “What does serendipity mean?” Malachi was 18 years old and had a lot to learn about life, and a lot to learn about the English language. It wouldn't be until he became an ESL teacher that he would gain an appreciation for the English language. “It’s the belief that things happen for a reason,” the kind, older-gentleman explained. It turns out that at the moment Malachi wandered out onto the dust-filled stage, the two directors were in the middle of discussing what to do about an actor who had just quit. The part was for an Australian aboriginal watching the boats come in and the European new comers disembarked and set up their town in Australia in the stage play, "Our Country’s Good." Enter Malachi stage right, the closest thing that school had to an aboriginal. The director and co-director exchanged looks, like they were talking to each other telepathically. “Should we do this? Yes, let’s do this.” Still crushingly shy, and despite the great couching of the director, Malachi did not have a stage voice. His lines we dubbed by a real actor and played over speakers while Malachi stood there on stage, like they were his thoughts, like they were his sister speaking for him at dinner. "He'll have milk now, Mommy." Malachi transferred to Oberlin College in Ohio and changed his major from art to politics. After graduation in 1999, he returned back to his home town of Portland Oregon, but ever the middle child, Malachi ran away again, this time to a place much farther away. He moved to South Korea to become an English teacher. There he met a woman and got married and after more than 15 years of teaching English, Malachi returned with his wife and son to settle down in Portland Oregon. Although Malachi has always loved to read, his favorite author being Steven King, he never imagined in his wildest dreams that he would write his own story. When he first started studying books on story making, he had only intended to use the knowledge to improve his YouTube channel videos - a series of webisodes that followed the hardships of raising his son, and in the tradition of magic realism, his son's strange and mystifying powers. But as he studied in preparation for season two, a sinister thought wormed its way into his head. A novelist, unlike a video maker, doesn’t have to be in front of a camera or try to coerce others into performing for him. Nor is a novelist constrained to limit his ideas to things physically possible in the real world. Perhaps he could finally release the imaginings he had kept caged inside his head and find his artistic expression. Maybe, through writing, Malachi could find his voice. So Malachi wrote a novel. He is now working on the sequel to this novel, and he hopes to have it out soon.

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Copyright © 2018 by Malachi Mata

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THE PORTAL: SCIENCE FICTION MEETS FANTASY IN THIS ACTION ADVENTURE NOVEL

BOOK ONE OF THE BIRDMEN OF BETA EARTH SERIES

MALACHI MATA

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A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Dear Reader,

Writing a good book that’s worth reading and finding a good book that’s worth your time are both incredibly difficult. I have read many books myself, the majority of which I have never finished. I’ve lost interests in stories from the first chapter, from the first paragraph, and even the first sentence. I’ve even given up on books halfway through the story or right before getting to the end. I think the problem is that I'm spoiled. I've tasted the sweet nectar of a good book and can't read anything that just doesn't draw me in and keep me there.

So I know from experience that any little thing can throw you out of an otherwise good story. If my book falls to your wayside, I understand. Like I said, as a reader myself, I do it all the time. But there’s one thing that, if it were to cause you to stop reading my book, would hurt more than anything else.

THE PROOF READER’S CHALLENGE

It costs about $1,600 to proof read (not edit) a 50,000 word manuscript. Considering my book is around 75,000 words it would cost me about $2,400 dollars just to have someone proofread it once. As a self-published author, I don't have that kind of cash.

If you find a mistake, first of all, please forgive me. And second, please don't let it throw you out of the story. Instead, let me know about it.

Go to my website and fill out the form at the bottom of the page in the section called, Take the Editor's Challenge.

I will be so eternally grateful that I will put you in the acknowledgements to the book that you helped edit.

Nothing is as beautiful as when a story touches you, entertains you, and takes you to a far-away place, but nothing is as annoying as when you are booted out of a story because of a spelling or grammatical error.

Please read, and please give the characters, the setting, and the events of the story a chance to win you over on their own terms, (or lose you because of their own shortcomings) no matter how flawed or idiotic their creator may have been in describing them.

Sincerely,

Malachi Mata

To my wife and son,

who created for me a better world

than I could have ever dreamed up.

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Stevie McCoy of Heaven's Fiction Reviews for her helpful edits and advice

and

Cheyenne Walker for helpful edits

CHAPTER ONE

The Battle of Wieese

Get up! Keen says, lifting me up by the breastplate. We’ve got to get out of here. They’re coming!

The answer, I had the answer but I can't remember. I don’t even remember what the question was.

I pull at Keen’s fingers, trying to pry them off of my armor, but his grip is too strong and my arms are too weak. It feels like I'm waking from a deep sleep and I can't work my hands

We are in the middle of a stone avenue lined by tile-roofed houses, a straight shot to the inner keep. The gate we came through, the Western Gate to the city of Wieese, lies in rubble, crushed stone and broken boards crashed upon my battalion, half my men buried alive or dead. And the rest of my men, the survivors, lie dazed, dying, screaming, and bleeding among the debris. Fourth Battalion's assault on this city is over.

I predicted this. I saw it in fact, in a vision. But now that it's actually happened, now that my men lie dead beneath the rubble of what used to be the Western gate, the certainty of their demise twists in my gut, pounds in my heart, and steals my breath.

Give the order, Keen pleads. We have to retreat. After a pause, he pushes me away in disgust.

The white smoke that has been building up at our feet, the one kicked up by the dust from the fallen gate and wall, quickly rises and swallows Keen, my first declonate and only friend, into the ghostly sea as the rest of our battalion climbs up and over the mountain of rubble of the fallen gate behind us, loose rock and dust loosening their footholds. When they reach the bottom, they too are quickly swallowed into the fog.

This city is madness, and it's consuming us all.

Where is Keen?

The men I find are looking around like injured animals surrounded by wolves, turning their heads from side to side in the white smoke, screaming on the ground for help. Many of them have boulders half their size still crushing their chests and legs.

You are responsible for this, a soldier screams at me as I pass.

And then time stops and I see Keen. I shouldn't be able to, because he's too far down the road, but I do. I see everyone, in fact. I wipe the sweat from my eyes and blink harder, but I can't shake the vision. The dirt between their teeth, the wrinkle in their pained faces, the siege equipment stranded on the outside of the city walls, even the anguish and confusion in the hearts of every survivor of the nearly two thousand regulars, supporters, commanders, and motivators we came here with, are clear to me. I'm surely hallucinating.

Time held still, my men frozen, my mind is drawn to an aberration on the highest hill in the city: a light blinking on and off through the shutters of a religious building on Church's Hill. But this is no ordinary light, it's a blue and erratic rhythm, blinking on and off, like that of lighting streaking through the clouds.

I've surely fallen prey to madness, or worse, villagery. For centuries, the superstitions surrounding Wieese have protected this city from invaders too fearful to attack, and now it seems I am its latest victim.

The fog has grown as thick as mud, but still my vision continues. I see the enemy. They are hidden in alleys, hidden inside the surrounding houses, every bit the nightmares the legends have made them out to be, down to their large leather hoods casting ominous shadows over their fiery eyes. They creep through holes in the ground burrowed up through the floorboards of kitchens and bedrooms, straight from the underworld.

And unlike my men, they are not frozen. They move. One of these demons opens a shutter onto the alley where we stand and releases a bird from his hand. It takes flight, breathing fire from its beak and shooting ice from its eyes. It is joined by several more of these feathered devils.

When the birds reach their apexes, they begin their descent. The first one has already clanged to the stones by my feet. Made of steel, fired from catapults in bundles, these heavily tipped arrows are capable of breaking through the thickest of shields of the strongest of shielders.

More hell birds hit the ground and one of them pierces someone nearby.

I run for cover and stumble into a soldier, still frozen by the spell. Move you fool. His eyes are blank, his skin is lifeless, and his spirit is gone. He's not a man but a statue. I shake him by the shoulder plates as a steal arrow barely misses us both. But he does not wake from his trance. His abdomen burst forth onto my feet, splattering his blood all over my boots. I let go of his stiff corpse and he falls to the cobbled stones of the main avenue with a thud.

Keen! I bend down and take his shield and angle it up in the air. Keen, no. His lifeless eyes stare straight out, his spirit gone. He's been recruited by Ceros for the heavenly war.

You're battle is just begun, I whisper to him as I close his eyes.

A ripping sound, like that of a bull being ripped in half, echoes down the alley. More rips and tears. I brace myself as a panicked rush of soldiers bursts through the clouds in full retreat and I’m thrown upon a wall like a wave crashing upon the shore. Shields, shoulder plates, and upright spears push me down the alley and into a gutter. My breath is ejected from my lungs. Men fall and scream in my face and pile on top of me. The hazy light of the white fog is fading fast as the bodies pile on, replaced by a growing darkness. A flurry of fleshy hands and fingers grasp desperately onto my face. I breathe out my last breathe. I’m buried alive.

Deelo Con.

My feet are bouncing across the hard, dusty floor of a darkened house. Someone is dragging me. He plops me down in front of another man’s armored boots and returns to the open door, closes it, and bars the door with a block of wood.

Are you okay? the man standing above me asks. He's covered in bright red blood, as if someone had poured it over him from a bucket. His ghostly eyes poke through the horrific mask, but even in this condition I still recognize my own adopted brother.

My men broke, I say.

Of course they did, Novak says. But how the hell did you survive it? That’s what I want to know.

The cool stillness of the air chills me. It's late evening. There are only the faint screams of two, maybe three men screaming. They sound as if they are being chased down alleys too far away for us to get to in time. But the main avenue is quiet. My entire battalion is dead.

I pull my weight back onto my feet and test my footing. I’m uninjured. I take a step towards the door but the other soldier, Novak’s man servant turned guardsman, Dirwin, puts his hand to my chest.

You don’t want to go back out there, Novak says.

We have to regroup, I say. Whatever attacked us has not yet gotten to the other battalions. We must regroup and send word.

Regroup whom? Novak asks. There’s no one left.

We are left, I say.

My brother smirks at me. He does not care about this mission nor does he care about those men out there. They were not his charges. They were mine. But, since the day his father adopted me, and since the day Novak rescued me from the hangman’s noose, I am his. And I forever will be.

We wait until the smoke clears and then retreat to the rest of the reserve division outside the city, he says. There's nothing more we can do here. For today at least, Wieese is lost.

We have to warn Seventh and Eighth, I insist. Whatever has done this to us is on its way to do it to them.

There’s nothing we can do, Novak says, firmly."

What happened to you? I ask, looking down at his bloodied armor.

He follows my eyes and says, My guardsmen exploded.

Exploded?

Something scrapes against the outside of the door and Dirwin presses his hands against it.

I go to speak but Novak holds a finger to his lips.

What was that? my eyes scream at them.

After a moment, Novak and Dirwin stand up straight, signaling to me that the danger is gone.

Why do you want to go out there anyway? he asks.

We have to know what we are dealing with. We’re no good to anyone just hiding out here while Seventh and Eighth take the inner keep blind to what we know. And what did you say about exploded?

Is that the false commander rendering his false judgement again?

It’s basic procedure, I say.

Fine, Novak whispers. Go out and scout around. Get yourself killed if that is what you want to do. But you can’t go out that way.

Novak nods to Dirwin and we follow him through the house to the kitchen in the back and stand before another barred door.

You never answered my question, I say.

I know about as much as you do about what attacked us out there, he says.

Why are you here, Novak?

Glory, he replies, just like you.

Commander? Dirwin says, lifting his head up from the door. It's clear.

Where are you going, little brother? Novak asks.

I'm going up that hill and getting a better look at what we are dealing with. Why don’t you two make yourselves useful and come with me? I could use the extra set of eyes.

Novak reaches across me and swings open the door, the dim light from outside shining on his ghastly image. We’ll wait here for your report, Captain, if that’s what you’re really going out there to do.

He doesn't understand. He never has. Battles are won or lost on information. As Regional Commander of the Western Frontier, as my men made formation, drank, chanted, screamed, and danced themselves into a fighting frenzy, my duty was to coldly and soberly assess the enemy, watch them form their lines, watch for any signs of weakness or hidden intentions. And that is what I did. That is what I do, even in moments like this because rarely is there a moment in life much different than those moments on the battlefield about to do battle.

But he's right. Why am I going to the highest point of the city? I got a good look on the way in. Far from mancers, demons, and flesh-eaters luring brave soldiers to their deaths, as the stories had led me and my young men to believe, what I saw was an ancient and majestic city crisscrossed with stone streets, tiled roofs, and courtyards adorned in festival lanterns and banners. So my brother is right. To get a look of the city is not really why I’m going up there. So why am I going?

I need to find out what I saw, what I really saw, down on that avenue. I need to find out what really happened to us. That gate erupted like nothing I've ever seen. And something glowed inside that building on the hill. I know it wasn’t sorcery, because there is no such thing, but it was something. And perhaps it can explain what caused that fog, or what killed our battalion. And Keen. He was frozen as solid as a statue. I saw it with my own eyes.

I stick my hand in the door before he can close it all the way. What happened out there in the avenue? I ask.

What do you mean?

What did you see? I ask my brother. That gate flew apart. And then the fog rolled in so quickly.

An ox pulling out a support beam or something, he replies. I don't know. It's devious, but they're womps. What do you expect?

The gate and surrounding towers flew apart like a greatwood being struck by lightning. The Earth shook as if Ceros himself had pounded the butt of his axe on the ground and raised the land around us into the sky. The gate did not simply fall, or tumble to the ground like Novak says it did: it exploded in a ball of fire, forced apart by something, flying every direction in the air.

But he already knows this. I can see it in his eyes. I grew up alongside this man. I know everything he's thinking before he says it. But since I was taken from the bottom -- a lowlife from a followers camp, not a true-blooded Daylon like him -- and managed to surpass him in military stature, his resentment for me will not let him admit that I am right. So I ask him something he might be more likely to respond to favorably. How did you find me in that pile of bodies?

Luck? Novak shrugs, and he closes the door in my face, and the sound of the wooden bar sliding back into place tells me it’s time to go.

I turn up the alley and step lightly, keeping tight to the walls under the awnings, and play in my head what I really wanted to say to my brother.

It's the church.

The Church of the Redeemers in Wieese? he would have probably asked.

If anyone would be harboring weapons unknown, would it not be them?

You believe in every rumor your men tell you? The church and sorcery, how juvenile. I thought you were a member of the Order of Reasoners or some other order like that. And I thought you fancied yourself a Daylon.

Dirwin would have probably joined in the conversation by saying, The Order of the what? The man doesn't look too smart.

And then Novak would have dismissed me with something he always seemed to say, as if it were funny every time he said it, We never could get the villager out of you, could we?

I clench my fists. It’s not superstitious villagery to investigate what one saw.

I get to the top of the hill. To the East the sky is a dark purple and the stars are coming out, but to the West, outside the walls of the city, the sky is a burnt amber. Camp fires flicker in the forests surrounding the city where our reserve battalions wait, and try their best to block any escaping distress messages.

I enter the courtyard and move towards the church. When I step onto the porch, I take in the view. It’s just what I thought. The attack is gone, and so is the entirety of my battalion. Seventh and Eighth continue to fight on the other side, siege bolts firing onto the keep and a rain of fiery arrows pouring down in return.

Our other battalions have not yet been ambushed, but their turn will come soon.

I move towards the double doors and before I know it my hands are on the rough wood and pushing open the door. It's pitch black. Swirling dust dancing in the cone of moonlight blinds me to the rest of the worship hall. I close the door and wait for my eyes to adjust. When they do, a faint glow beckons me forward. Where is that light coming from?

I move down the center aisle between the pews and get to the pulpit. I cross the wooden boards of the stage and find myself standing in a doorway at the back. I'm at the top of a staircase. Someone left their lantern in the cellar, or they're hiding down there.

I take in a deep breath. Houses of worship are left unlocked during war as proof that they are not harboring soldiers, and in return we leave them alone, so my being here might be misconstrued even though I'm no threat. I don’t even have a sword, just my two daggers strapped to the front of my breast armor. When they pulled me out of that pile of bodies they unbuckled my belt and left my sword with my fallen men.

I pull out my daggers and descend the narrow stairwell, each creak different than the one preceding it.

The cellar is wide, cold, and stale, the same width and distance as the church is from the outside, and it's empty. A lantern hangs from a low ceiling beam. There are tables along the walls, some with wine barrels and others with hammers and chisels. One table is stacked with several wicker baskets full of flowers and weeds, with a grinding stone resting in a bowl. And on the far end is a bookshelf stacked full of books.

Books, in this cold and dampness? The entire collection that the Order of Reasoners possesses, my chapter and all the other chapters in the empire combined, does not constitute even a tenth of what appears to be there.

I cross the room and take the lantern from its hook. I walk up to the bookshelf and run the light across the titles. ‘The Divine Right of Kings’, ‘A History of the Religions of the Frontier Lands’, ‘The First Daylons of