The Unintentional Time Travelers Guide To Other Worlds And Other Dimensions

By Brian Taylor

Aurora Bradley refused to believe she was surrounded by fairies, elves, sorcerers, and a boy turned into a talking cat as a result of a curse which went wrong, the first time she found herself in an alternative world called the Five Kingdoms after she accidently passed through a hidden time portal at the end of her aunt’s garden. When she eventually escaped from it, she had no memory of ever having been there at all.

Now, after encountering the same boy turned into a talking cat she didn’t believe in before at her aunt’s house, and fleeing from him through the same time portal, she finds herself back in the Five Kingdoms, with no memory of ever having been there before.

So why do people she’s sure she’s never met before seem to know her name and believe she’s there to honour a promise to one of them she doesn’t remember ever making? And how, if ever, is she going to find her way back to her own world a second time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Taylor
• Release date: Jul 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005062705

Brian Taylor

Brian Taylor is an artist and illustrator who lives and draws in Scotland. Brian does not wear hats.

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The Unintentional Time Travellers Guide

To Other Worlds And Other Dimensions

By Brian W. Taylor

Copyright 2020 Brian W. Taylor

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PROLOGUE

Long, long ago, back in the days before time, the land of Madragora, which later became known as Wales, comprised of the Five Kingdoms of Cyonil, Myrrhia, Mihas, Cretaur and Celador, separated from their Outlands by the burning desert of Myrrhia; by the icy wastes of Cyonil; and by a River, so vast and all encompassing, that it was almost a sea. Fed by the melting snows of Cyonil, the river flowed to the Great Sea far to the south. At the heart of Madragora lay the Land of Demons, ruled by a queen whose name was Setura, Queen of Darkness, a sorceress of great power, who had taken the realm for herself by magical means.

Here, where the burning heat of the days was matched only by the icy cold of the nights, there was no one who could say where she had come from, or even when it was that she first began to gather her army about her, for no one dared to venture into that dread land once she was there and those who had been there at her coming were never free afterwards to tell the rest of the world about it.

Neither the Fire King of Myrrhia nor the Snow King of Cyonil, to whom the land really belonged, dared to challenge her right to it for her powers as a sorceress were proven and folk feared for their lives if they entered into conflict with her. So they left her alone to live unhindered, and gradually gather around her the dregs of the peoples of the Five Kingdoms which surrounded her land.

Deep in the depths of the Ice Mountains, in a castle built on pillars of fire, she lived protected by two armies. The Hogesi, fierce little warrior women with teeth especially sharpened for biting up at male enemies from below, and the Death Warriors, considered by most of her enemies to be more terrible by far.

Shades of long-dead soldiers conjured out of the very pits of Hades by the blackest magic the world had ever seen, the Death Warriors were terrible to behold. Cloaked skeletons with blazing eyes, they rode black horses which breathed the fires of hell from their nostrils and were capable of making themselves invisible at will, so that only their smouldering eyes could still be seen like fire flies on a summer's night.

And Setura needed two armies to protect her and her interests because, though she styled herself Queen, she had no right at all to the lands she had seized in the heart of the Ice Mountains, being drawn there solely by the lure of the vast quantities of Fire Ice jewels hidden in their depths.

Beautiful stones which seemed to burn with a thousand fires and yet were like ice to the touch, the people of the mountains had long known of the power that such stones had. To touch one of them could send an evil person mad with longing, but would leave a good one unaffected.

At first Setura set the people of her new land to mine the stones, but as their numbers gradually dwindled, due to the terrible working conditions they were forced to endure, she had to send the Death Warriors out to seek fresh labour.

Unwary travelers in her land were easy prey for Setura’s soldiers at first, but as the news of her evil spread, those became fewer and fewer, until no one would venture into her land at all for fear of their lives, and the Queen was forced to start sending her soldiers into the countryside closest to her castle to take prisoners from those untapped sources.

The people of Cyonil and Myrrhia soon demanded that their kings did something about this state of affairs, so an army was hurriedly raised and sent against her stronghold. Too hurriedly, perhaps, because the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the army of Setura, those who did not die on the battlefield finding their way into the Fire Ice mines. Except for the Snow Prince of Cyonil that was. Setura took him as her unwilling consort until she grew tired of him, then sent him back to his father headless. She had kept the head as a reminder of her victory.

After this the Queen was left alone until something happened which chilled the blood of everyone who heard the news – one of Setura’s miners had discovered a perfect fire ice stone. A stone from which a jewel could be made against which no one stood a chance. Ordinary jewels would affect the evil, but not the good. This one would rule the minds and baser desires of good and bad alike.

The power of the stones was in the dancing fires within them. They could hypnotize anyone, man or woman, boy or girl, who looked at them, or whisper into the very mind of anyone who strived to keep their eyes from the fires. Once under the influence of the stones the victim’s mind was gradually destroyed until they were a slave of the dancing lights and at the mercy of anyone who chose to manipulate them. Until now this power had been limited to those who were already evil, but the new stones blazed like the fire of a giant beacon and the whispers of the lesser stones had been replaced by a hymn of temptation which no mind was capable of ignoring.

Myrrhia and Cyonil were scoured, but there was no one free enough of evil to escape the influence of the stone. Setura was powerful enough to withstand it herself, and her magic protected her followers. The people looked and saw the end of their world.

In desperation, and despite the outcome of the previous war fought against her, an army was sent against the Queen, but it was defeated after a long and bloody battle, so emissaries were sent to the other lands which made up the Five Kingdoms, Cretaur Mihas and Celador, with the news of the dreadful event which would threaten them in time and a request for people there to join in the war. Another, bigger, army was raised against the Queen and this one was defeated even more decisively than the first had been.

The army was regrouped and fresh plans were drawn up. Someone suggested sending for help from across the border in England, but it was decided that people there would not believe the danger which threatened them, so the chance of help from that quarter was turned down. The army attacked the Queen's land again and as desperation lent them strength they won the third battle of the war.

The combined army gave their foes no time to recover from the blow but pressed their advantage. The Hogesi reeled before the onslaught. In spite of the attentions of the Ice Demons and the Fire Sprites, the army of the kingdoms poured into the Land of Demons until Setura's castle was in sight and victory seemed assured. It was then that the Death Warriors, who the Queen had held back for just that moment, attacked. Unable to fight an enemy they couldn’t see, the invaders were cut down en masse by the invisible army of phantoms. No one escaped to tell of the defeat. The fourth battle was lost – and with it the war.

The Kings of the Five Kingdoms and their advisors met to discuss their next move. No mention of surrender was made, because it was felt that death was preferable to a life of slavery in Setura’s mines. It was clear that if they were to ever defeat the queen they needed to find someone in the land so free of evil they could resist the power of the perfect stone. But that had been tried before without success.

Their thoughts had taken them along the line of finding someone untainted by evil of any sort, who might be able to combat the new stones in some way, but then they had stalled until Monal, King of the Fairies, suggested they if they wanted someone free from evil, what they needed was a child, because only those with no knowledge of evil could be free from its influence in every way.

Every child in Cretaur knows of the evil, said their king. And it seemed it was the same in Myrrhia, in Cyonil, and in Mihas, where fear of the evil queen was drummed into the children at such an early age, they would be of no use in any struggle. And Fairy children would be no use either, because they had full knowledge too.

A child from outside the Five Kingdoms though, Monal pursued his theme, an Outlander, wouldn’t be aware of the threat posed by Setura and her Fire Ice Stones, so couldn’t be tainted with the evil. And born helpless, wouldn’t attain knowledge of anything beyond playing for several years.

‘If these Outlanders are not with us, someone said, referring to people from England, they might refuse to give us a child for whatever reason," but Monal replied that they wouldn’t ask them, saying that fairies had long been skilled in the taking of other people’s children for their magic.

If the child is to be so young, how will it fight the Queen?

The child will not fight. We will use it to create a magic aura which the fire-ice stone will be unable to penetrate. Behind this aura we will be safe.

You can create such an aura? One against which even Setura will be powerless?

Not I, but in a land beyond the borders of my kingdom there is a sorcerer greater even than Setura. I have helped him in the past. I have no doubt that he will help me now.

What if the child becomes tainted by the evil as it grows older?

Monal shrugged his shoulders with a smile, Then we will do what we always do and steal another child.

So it was agreed. It was clear to every council member that this must be the only way to save themselves from the impending doom. Fairies were dispatched with great haste to steal a child, whilst Monal made representations to the sorcerer who was to create the magic aura.

The preparations were only just made in time, for the child the fairies had kidnapped, was barely in the land when an army of Death warriors came, bearing the Perfect Jewel, to take prisoner everyone they found. But the power of the Fire Ice Stones was dead. Hidden bands of guerrillas ambushed them all along the road. Fired on by foes as invisible as they themselves could become, the phantoms returned empty handed to report their failure to a baffled Setura.

Strive as she would at first, Setura was unable to find the reason for the resistance to the Perfect Jewel, for it was a secret which meant life itself to those who held it. The magic aura worked perfectly and if ever a child should become tainted in any way the fairies simply stole another to take its place.

So the years passed and peace reigned throughout the land. The kings of the Five Kingdoms were content to let Setura be and she could find no way to get to them. Kings died, fresh ones were crowned in their place and the land knew peace and prosperity such as never before, until a succession of unconnected events occurred. Firstly, one of Setura’s spies discovered the secret of the people of the Five Kingdom’s immunity to her magic, secondly, the mother of the last child stolen to be their protection from that magic followed the kidnappers from the Outlands to rescue her son, thirdly, Aurora Bradley returned to the Five Kingdoms for a visit as unintentional as the first.

CHAPTER ONE

Breakfast at the Bradley household in Chiswick. In a house down by the river. Built on ground high enough not to be in danger if the river flooded. Not that it ever did. Not in that direction anyway. It did have a first class view across to the other side of the river from the breakfast room, though. For anyone with the time, or interest, to look.

Emma Bradley, having read the letter the postman had just dropped through the letter box and then read it a second time to make sure she hadn’t been mistaken the first time, looked across her breakfast croissant at her husband in surprise. Aunt Alice wants Rory to go to stay with her.

Mrs Bradley, fair haired and petite, like the other members of the Greenway family she had been part of until she married, was a successful garden designer who worked mostly from home, drawing up her plans, except when she was visiting clients putting those plans into operation.

Does she? Ben Bradley asked in equal surprise, his cup of coffee paused halfway to his lips as he dragged his reluctant eyes away from his study of the sports channel he’d been watching. Why?

Mr Bradley, taller and darker than his wife, was something big in IT. A role which meant he too worked mostly from home, except when he occasionally had to drive somewhere to meet a client. He kept himself in trim, despite his desk bound occupation, by attending a local gym he was a lifetime member of, as often as he could.

I don’t know. It’s what she says in her letter here. His wife having read the missive a third time to assure herself that she had read it correctly the other two times, shook her head in disbelief.

Letter! Who writes letters anymore? Her husband allowed the current misfortunes of Tottenham Hotspur to take second place in his attention as he continued to study his wife questioningly.

Aunt Alice obviously. Emma answered sharply, well aware that, as was only too often the case, she only had half the other’s attention.

Why didn’t she just send an email? Or text you to ask? Ben risked a glance back at the tv screen to see if his worst fears had been confirmed before admitting defeat by turning the tv off.

I don’t know. His wife admitted tetchily. Perhaps she doesn’t.

Doesn’t what? Ben asked uneasily, wishing he had been paying more attention to what his wife had been saying before. The vast bulk of which he had the feeling had been going in one ear and out the other, without pausing on the way to be assimilated.

Send emails or texts. Emma repeated even more tetchily, only too well aware of how little of what she said to her husband was ever taken on board.

"Everyone sends emails or texts." Ben contradicted with certainty, knowing he was on stronger ground there, because everyone did send emails.

Not Aunt Alice. His wife contradicted in her turn with equal certainty, knowing her aunt didn’t.

Who’s Aunt Alice? Aurora Bradley, named after the celestial phenomenon which had been occurring when her mother had been rushed off to hospital to give birth to her, but called Rory by everyone who knew her, sitting at the other side of the table from her parents, texting a friend, looked up with interest, picking up on the sharpening tone of their voices. She tended to favour her mother in looks, but her father in intellect.

Your mother’s aunt. Her father explained, thinking he was on