The Key Masters of Telemma

By J.S. Frankel

Bill Newell and Carla Meadows, both seventeen and both dying, live out their final days in a palliative care center in Portland, Oregon. Bill has no hope of recovering, but the appearance of a strange key on his bed one day intrigues him. Carla receives the same key, and soon they find themselves in a pocket universe ruled by one being, a being-not-a-being named Malgorath who wields immense power.

Malgorath makes them a deal. Find four keys, ones of silver, gold, glass, and paper, and return them to him. Upon their retrieval, he will cure them of their illness and send them back to Earth. For Malgorath, the keys are the key to finding Falnarth, a mythical world that holds many secrets.

Bill and Carla have no secrets to discover, save life. With no choice in the matter, they agree to the terms and soon find themselves journeying to worlds of silver, gold—ruled by robots—glass, ruled by a power-mad queen, and one of wood. Each key’s retrieval is more dangerous than the last but Bill and Carla are determined to succeed in their quest.

However, they soon realize that Malgorath has his own agenda, and they must do everything in their power before the demon can fuse the keys together and destroy—and recreate—the universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Apr 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781487426668

Book preview

One of silver, one of gold, one so fragile, one to fold. There are keys to knowledge, keys to understanding, and keys to life. Sometimes, there is a key for all of those—and more.

Bill Newell and Carla Meadows, both seventeen and both dying, live out their final days in a palliative care center in Portland, Oregon. Bill has no hope of recovering, but the appearance of a strange key on his bed one day intrigues him. Carla receives the same key, and soon they find themselves in a pocket universe ruled by one being, a being-not-a-being named Malgorath who wields immense power.

Malgorath makes them a deal. Find four keys, ones of silver, gold, glass, and paper, and return them to him. Upon their retrieval, he will cure them of their illness and send them back to Earth. For Malgorath, the keys are the key to finding Falnarth, a mythical world that holds many secrets.

Bill and Carla have no secrets to discover, save life. With no choice in the matter, they agree to the terms and soon find themselves journeying to worlds of silver, gold—ruled by robots—glass, ruled by a power-mad queen, and one of wood. Each key’s retrieval is more dangerous than the last but Bill and Carla are determined to succeed in their quest.

However, they soon realize that Malgorath has his own agenda, and they must do everything in their power before the demon can fuse the keys together and destroy—and recreate—the universe.

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The Key Masters of Telemma

Copyright © 2020 J.S. Frankel

ISBN: 978-1-4874-2666-8

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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Smashwords Edition

The Key Masters of Telemma

By

J.S. Frankel

Dedication

To my wife, Akiko, and to my children, Kai and Ray, who have always stood behind me and forgiven me for using the computer at all hours. To my sister, Nancy D. Frankel, for her unswerving support. And, in no particular order, to Eva Pasco, Sara Beth Linnertz, Julia Blake, Toni Kief, Elizabeth Zervos, Aryl Shanti, Mirren Hogan, Helen Dunn, Joanne Van Leerdam, and too many more people to list.

Thank you all.

Chapter One: Last Legs

June seventeenth, Portland Palliative Children’s Care Center. Noon.

Bill Newell, seventeen, lay in bed, waiting for death to claim him. The overhead lights, harsh and unyielding in their intensity, made him narrow his eyes to shut out the glare, and women in white uniforms and men in long white coats came and went. Tubes stuck out of his arms, delivering medicine and nutrients. He cared for neither of them.

Sleep took up the other half of his day, that is, when he could sleep. It was a fitful kind of unconsciousness at best, as his insides were slowly being eaten away by an illness no one had ever been able to control with any degree of efficacy.

Health, he realized, was simply an illusion, as it never prepared a person for the rude reality of it going away. The death sentence he’d been handed brought home the reality of never achieving adulthood. He tried not to dwell on things too much, but with all this free time at his disposal, the thought of the eternal nagged at him like an open, festering wound.

Pain was a constant stabbing throughout his body. That made thinking clearly almost impossible without medication. If he had to attach a color to it, then it would be red. The agony got so bad that at times he thought his brain was on a permanent bleed. So this is what it’s like to die. It totally sucks.

Drugs had become his buddies. In a symbiotic way, he relied on them to dull the pain, yet the side effects were almost as bad. Prime painkillers made it possible to function, yet they stopped him up, and taking a dump was an ordeal in itself.

Bottom line—cancer didn’t care. The tumor, metastatic, had already invaded his liver and had fed into his bones. It was the most painful of deaths. Estimates by the doctors gave him around four months at most. Just four months? he’d asked when the final word came in.

That’s about the size of it, the doctor had answered, not unkindly. I’m sorry.

Bill had nodded and turned his head away. The doctor was sorry. The nurses were sorry. Who else? He wished for the umpteenth time the specialists had been wrong. It had to be a mistake—someone messed up. They’d gotten his name mixed up with another Bill. Common name, many people had it. Yeah, that was it. It had to be.

Reality—he hated that word—crashed down around him when he saw the intravenous tube feeding the cancer-killing serum into his left arm, the other intravenous tube pumping the painkillers into his right arm, and he couldn’t take his eyes away from the bruised and blackened skin. Every night when he went to sleep, he wondered if he would wake up. There were times when the pain got so bad that he wished that he wouldn’t.

Story of his life. Age ten—diagnosis of a particular kind of bone cancer, hard to treat. No donor, as his father wasn’t around. The elder Newell had died from the same kind of cancer when Bill was three years old. His mother wasn’t compatible.

The first round of treatment with chemotherapy had been deemed successful. As a child, he was told by his mother, when she was sober, You have to trust the doctors.

Trust—a five-letter word meaning sickness and tubes and barfing and more. Living at first in an oxygen tent to prevent anyone from infecting him, forbidden from going outside and being around others. It’s not worth risking it, the doctors had told him.

Not worth risking it. So when can I go out? he’d asked. Playing, just like the other kids, was all he’d wanted. Now, merely walking fifty feet took his breath away.

When you’re ready.

Those in the medical profession were professional liars. He’d get sick, get better, then get more medicine, get sicker, and then rebound once again. Finally, at the age of eleven, his disease had gone into remission.

You’re well now, the doctors had pronounced with satisfaction. Their job was over, and on to the next patient.

Well—a four-letter word meaning playtime. Running was something he enjoyed, so come junior high school, he went out for track and excelled. In high school, he made the track team again and started winning. Winning was where it was at.

Two months ago, he’d been at a track meet, ready to win once again. However, fate was a cruel mistress. The riddle of DNA being perverted by causes unknown manifested itself in something known as a mutation of his cells. It had happened again, although he wasn’t aware of the seriousness of it at first.

Denial was not just a river in Egypt, as the saying went. He’d gotten tired earlier than usual. Dropped off to sleep during class, didn’t eat much for dinner. No interest and little energy. Too much practice, his coach had said. Take a few days off.

Not happening, not now. Somewhere else, someone was practicing harder, or working out in the weight room, or running more. He’d forced himself to gut it out.

Reality crashed down around him when he passed out on the sidewalk halfway home. He didn’t remember his face hitting the concrete. He did remember waking up in the ambulance, though.

You had some kind of seizure, one of the paramedics had told him. Portland General Hospital was the closest care center around. Once there, he’d had the requisite blood tests, an MRI, and the results had come back positive.

His mother sat quietly in her chair, head down. It wasn’t from fatigue or stress. It was from a hangover. The odor of cheap gin emanated from her and threw a cloud of dissipation as well as despair over the room.

Bill, I’m sorry, Doctor Morton, the chief oncologist, said. It’s the same kind of cancer you had when you were younger, originating in the marrow.

Yeah, call that déjà vu all over again. Forget finding a donor—no one was available. How much, uh, what’s the prognosis? his mother had asked after rousing herself from her drunken stupor.

Not good.

Honest reply or not, with that pronunciation, it had all gone downhill from there. His mother had checked him into the hospital that same day and had gone home to get smashed. Bill got used to the sight of the parents of the other kids visiting, bringing their children books and presents, and telling their children they loved them.

All he’d gotten was a vision of an empty door. And it was still empty. The last time he’d seen his mother was six weeks ago. During that time, he’d been moved to the palliative care center, and now here he lay, waiting for death...

How are you feeling, Bill?

The voice startled him, and he looked up. Doctor Silverman stood off to his right. In his fifties, on the short side of five-seven with a balding crown and concerned brown eyes, Silverman had been his primary caregiver. Give him an answer. He’s waiting. I feel okay.

Sure, lie, and maybe he’d believe it. That’s how Bill justified his impending demise. In his idler moments, when he wasn’t puking or rocking back and forth from the pain before the painkillers took effect, he wondered if it was all worth it.

However, no one wanted a crybaby on their hands, and he’d deal. He’d dealt with his father dying. That had happened over thirteen years ago. He didn’t remember his father very well, only knew that he was tall, wide, and had a kind voice.

A dim memory of a skinny wraith lying in a hospital bed came back. Along with that memory was his mother smelling faintly of some alcoholic beverage as she sat quietly by the bed.

Alcohol had also been a factor in his wonderful family, at least in his mother’s case, and even thinking about it brought back bad memories. Memories of her not showing up. Memories of her being drunk when she did come, which was rare. The last time she’d showed, she weaved her way in.

I checked you in here, I did for you, and what did you do for me?

Those had been her exact words. No hello or how are you. No hug. I got sick, Bill had answered, acutely ashamed of being related to this person. Was that my fault?

Right then and there, she’d shut up, dropped the bag of laundry, and staggered out of the room. Her voice echoed up and down the hallway as she bellowed about her ungrateful kid not showing more respect for his mother, yelled about the cost, and screamed her impotent rage at the world.

The other parents had looked away, or worse, looked upon Bill with pity. He’d caught their stares and turned his gaze to the rumpled white sheets, trying not to cry. Right now, he didn’t care if he ever saw her again.

We’ll see about the dosage of painkillers you’re on, Doctor Silverman said, breaking into Bill’s reverie and pulling back to the present. The doctor scribbled something down on a chart he carried. We’re doing all that we can.

Those words were meant to be comforting. Comfort was a term reserved for other people, and Bill had gone through all of this before. He’d put his faith in the medical profession, and they’d struck out each time. At the very least, the hospital had offered to cover the costs of his treatment. No other hospital would.

It was all a pile of steaming crap, anyway. Bill had no siblings. The hospital came up with no bone marrow matches. It was the bottom of the ninth, his team was down by ten runs, and the worst hitter was coming up to bat. In short, game over, man, game over.

When the doctor left to check on another patient, Bill decided to scope out who was awake and who would talk to him. Over near the door was Mary Minton, twelve, sitting in bed, IV’s attached, and playing some kind of video game. She had leukemia.

Paul Anders lay in the bed next to hers. He’d already gone blind from his brain tumor. At the age of eight and not likely to see nine, he slept most of the time. The other kids ranged in age from six to thirteen. Youth had its advantages, but getting sick wasn’t one of them.

On the other hand, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bitter. At least their parents came. Ten kids in the sicko ward and he was the only one going solo...

Bill.

He looked up. Nurse Watkins stood in front of his bed with a severe expression on her face—and he’d been spacing out again. Sheesh.

Short, rotund, and professional, she went about her duties with ice-cold impartiality. She checked his IV tube, noted the amount left, and wrote something on the chart that hung at the foot of his bed. After she finished, she asked, Are you feeling better today?

Her voice sounded like a saw cutting wood. What did she expect him to say? I’m fine, ma’am.

Good to know. We’re here to do what we can.

Screw this we’re-here-to-do-what-we-can BS. Are you here to cheer me up or bring me down?

The sour expression on her face deepened, and then it shifted into an impersonal mask. Neither of those. I’m just doing my job.

He didn’t believe it. Once the date and time had been recorded, off she went to nurse someone else. Being realistic, he understood Nurse Watkins’ impersonal nature, even if he didn’t like it. Doctors and nurses couldn’t get involved. If they did, they probably couldn’t do their jobs and not go crazy from it.

Sighing, he turned his gaze to the person whose bed was next to the window. A girl sat cross-legged in the bed, a towel wrapped around her head, and she was reading a book. Perhaps she felt his gaze or not, for she glanced over at him, offered a blank stare, and then went back to reading.

She looked at me. He’d thought her totally hot when she’d come in about a month ago. Barely five-one, she had the no-BS stride of a taller person and used it to rule the floor as she made her way over to her bed. With cool blue eyes, she’d gazed around the ward as if she owned it, and she deigned not to recognize the existence of anyone save her parents.

Once he’d spoken to her—once—about two weeks after his initial treatments had started. Uh, I’m Bill, he’d said, trying to tear himself away from the sight of her face.

He realized that she was one of the supporting cast members of The Sharly Coltrane Hour, a hit cable television show in the greater Portland area. You’re Carla Meadows, aren’t you?

Yeah, she’d responded in a voice flatter than a desert floor. With a faint hmmph, she turned her head away.

Some attitude and thanks for the warmth. He wasn’t asking her for a date, so he tried again. It didn’t hurt to be nice. Uh, I used to watch you on—

That was a long time ago, she’d interrupted, not looking at him. And I wish people would get off the topic of me being on television. Done deal. It’s over.

This time her voice had gone totally frosty, somewhere between Arctic cold and the below zero of outer space. Taken aback by her defensive tone, he tried to make peace. Hey, I was only trying to be friendly. Do you always treat your fans like that?

Now, she swiveled her head around to scan him as an entomologist would examine a particularly ugly insect. Acid dripped from every word. Your friendliness is duly noted. I’ve gotten that crap from everyone who wanted something. Either they wanted an autograph or a selfie or...

She abruptly cut off her line of speech. You have a bed, right?

Yeah, he’d answered, totally turned off by her attitude. I do.

So lie in it, she said in her stone-cold voice. What I did, what I had, it’s all over. Do me a favor and don’t bring it up again.

Talk about cold, but hey, she was sick, too. Brain tumor. He’d overheard the doctor give her parents the bad news. Carla had begun to cry, saying it wasn’t fair, and her mother had held her tightly.

Her father had also teared up, and then they’d gone and she’d had her operation. Now, she wore that turban so no one could see the pale shaven skin on her head or the total lack of hair or eyebrows.

After the operation, once she’d woken up and spoken to her parents, she had resumed her quiet ways. Even when her friends or fans or whoever they were visited, she hadn’t said much. Oddly enough, or maybe not so odd after all, those friends and fans had never made a second trip. He’d had no visitors, and while he hated the solitude, he’d gotten used to it.

For her part, Carla hadn’t uttered a word, good or bad, about the staff. She’d spoken to no one save her parents and the medical staff, hadn’t eaten more than a few mouthfuls of food, and had kept to herself.

Can’t say I blame her about the food, he thought. If the medicine didn’t kill him, the mystery meals would...

Hey.

Bill started out of his daydreams of the future almost passed. Swiveling his head around in the direction of the voice, Carla was eyeing him and wore a tentative smile. Hi, she said. Your name’s Bill, right?

Uh, yeah, it is.

She got off the bed, adjusted her bandages, and straightened her clothes. I guess I should re-introduce myself. I, um—she cast her eyes down, and then up again—I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you very nicely before.

That was a long time ago. He couldn’t help but toss the words she’d spoken at their initial meeting back at her.

Her face reddened. Yeah, that was me. I remember, unsociable, bitchy me. I was wrong. I’m sorry.

Fine, apology accepted. It wasn’t worth getting angry over. Nothing was, really, and before he could say anything else, she continued with, I guess I couldn’t help thinking about my old life.

We all do.

Carla nodded. Yeah, you’re right. I, uh, I had a brain tumor. They cut it out, and I’m bald and don’t think I look too good, so I did the be-unsociable thing.

It was a reasonable answer. Although her face was thin, she had large eyes and a wide, generous mouth. With a long nose and high cheekbones, in terms of features taken individually, she might not have been considered pretty. However, having said features combined made an attractive package.

I used to go to Milton High School in Beaverton, she said. But I dropped out to do the home-schooling thing when I was on the show. You?

Monarch High. He pointed at her book. What are you reading?

A fantasy book, something about cat-people and mad scientists.

In a quick move that belied her condition, she went over to her bed, picked up the book, and brought it back. On the cover was a pretty cat-girl. This guy’s a decent writer, she said. I’ve got all his books.

Bill noted the writer’s name, filed it away for future reference, and then just as quickly dismissed it. What friggin’ future? Still, he said nothing, and he consoled himself with the idea that at least she’d made the first move.

And speaking of moving, that old I-gotta-pee feeling had come around. He swung his skinny legs over and onto the