The Reluctant Time Travelers Guide to Other Worlds and Other Dimensions

By Brian Taylor

It had been going on for more than five hundred years now. From the girl kidnapped on the way to her wedding during the 1500s and never seen again, to the boy and girl recently gone missing, who police couldn’t find any connection between. And there had been spates of similar disappearances down through the centuries. Most of the people who disappeared being reported at the time as either being accompanied by, or followed by, a white cat.

Aurora Bradley, known as Rory to her friends, was a twenty-first century girl looking for a twenty-first century explanation when she started to look into the strange occurrences whilst staying with her aunt at her cottage in the Welsh Marches during the school holidays. One which included things she was familiar with in her everyday life. Computers, mobile phones and social media for instance. Time travel and talking cats definitely didn’t figure in the explanation she was expecting to find.

How was it then, that she found herself travelling through time and space to another dimension, far beyond the range of her mobile phone, having managed to get herself kidnapped by a band of gypsies able to crash through the barriers of time, the other people they’d kidnapped on the way with the intention of selling them when they reached their destination, and a talking cat?

And how, if ever, was she going to find her way back to the relative sanity of the world she had known before her unintended adventure began?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Taylor
• Release date: Jul 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005754242

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 Reluctant Time Traveller’s 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, Setura could never 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 and fresh ones were crowned in their place and the land knew prosperity such as never before until a succession of unconnected events no one can have foreseen occurred. Beginning with the reluctant involvement of Aurora Bradley.

CHAPTER ONE

Properly speaking, I suppose that it was really all the fault of Aunt Alice, who had warned Rory to keep away from the lane on the very day when she had made a pact with herself to do the exact opposite of anything anyone wanted her to do.

This was a resolution she’d been promising herself she’d make for a long time now, without ever summoning up the courage required to put it into effect.

Especially during term time – teachers being so notoriously difficult about gestures of that kind. Aunt Alice though. Not really an aunt at all. Not Rory’s anyway. Just an elderly lady living alone in a cottage in the backwoods somewhere. What possible harm could ever come from an act of defiance directed against her?

It mightn’t have been so bad if there had only been some explanation offered for the ban, beyond the vague mention of ghosts and hauntings, but elderly aunts are all too often like that. Issuing orders they expect to be obeyed without question by nieces who are, after all, people too. People with an equal right to be given explanations.

Rory wasn’t altogether certain in her own mind whether or not she believed that ghosts, if they even existed, were best avoided, but to order her to do so in such a peremptory manner had appeared to her to be little more than a challenge. And just lately there had been rather too much of that sort of thing.

The decision of her parents to go off to France without her for instance. To join a community in the Loire Valley if you please. Nobody wants a mother and father who are too conventional in their attitudes admittedly, but there was such a thing as going too far.

We’d like to take you with us Aurora, her mother, who had given her the name after being rushed off to hospital to give birth halfway through a television programme about the northern lights, now only used the unabridged version when hoping (always unsuccessfully since her daughter was fully aware of the ruse) to distract Rory from noticing that she was in the wrong, really we would. It’s simply that the community is an entirely self supporting venture. Everyone has to have a job of some sort to do don’t you see? And what could you do? It isn’t even as if you were able to speak the language at all. Mme. Du Pont was extremely disappointed in your lack of progress when we spoke to her at the last parent’s evening.

Madame always confuses me with Sarah Golding, Rory began to object half heartedly. She...."

Then say something in French, her mother interrupted pointedly. Anything. Anything at all.

Tu ne dis rien, said her father, coming into the room at that moment. Pourquoi? Then, catching the expression of disgust on the face of his daughter, added soothingly, Cheer up Rory. You and Aunt Alice will probably get on like a house on fire.

Aunt Alice? Rory’s deliberately impassive face had betrayed no clue to the way in which her mind had been racing since the sbject of her parent’s imminent departure had been tentatively broached. She had, nonetheless, passed swiftly from being hurt by what she saw as their betrayal of her, through anger, to excitement, whilst one part of her brain registered what her mother was saying to her and another began to plan around the possibilities thrown up by a life completely free from parental restrictions of any sort. No cleaning or tidying her room. She’d be able to go to bed when she wanted and get up as she chose. Eat junk food at every meal if she wanted. Stay on the computer as long as she liked. Only her sister, Sylvie, around to exercise any sort of control and she would be spending most of her time with her boyfriend, Ken, in any case. What’s Aunt Alice got to do with anything? Reality returned with a sharp jolt.

I hadn’t told Aurora about Aunt Alice yet dear. From the iciness of her mother’s tone, Rory deduced that what had been said so far had been no more than the opening gambit. The coup de grace was yet to fall.

She’d met Aunt Alice, or Alice Greenway, to give her her full name, twice before, so far as she remembered. That was how she knew that she wasn’t a real aunt of hers, or even her mother’s come to that. Her grandmother’s aunt! If something as unlikely as