I don’t know what other people see when they look at portals.

This is one of the pieces of having my talent that is hard to explain. I hear the singing. I hear the frequencies of their opening, the way they’re tuned.  I can see them, but it’s more  an audible thing, a place where my visual senses are secondary.  I almost feel like I could reach out and play the portals like an instrument of power.  If I were a musician.  I can barely keep a tune (although I’m a great shower singer.  And yeah, I know that joke.)  I can play a mean keyboard.  As long as it has a shift key.  I think they gave me the triangle in the school play.

Seriously, though, they sing.  I have heard ones that are like choirs of wet fibres running across dull knives, and others that were like thin rains of sweet nectars against teflon.  I have heard ones that are the humming of healthy bee hives, and others that are like glass with a fatal flaw just as it cracks.  They’re not just sound but tactile.

They are not visual. They feel like things. They taste and smell.  But I do not see where they lead.   That’s why I don’t use them, because I go in blind.  I, of all people, am vulnerable to them, in a way no one would have predicted.  I’d like to keep it a secret, which is why I didn’t say anything when she offered me a chance to go first.

I dove in.  What would be on the other end?  Fire? Rain? Sunny days one might think would never end?

It was like pushing through gelatin for a moment, a viscous moment of breathlessness.  I stumbled into darkness, nearly knocking into a shelf in a poorly lit store.  A ceramic cat wobbled back and forth on the shelf.  I reached up to steady it, and nearly jumped back into Doloise.  It moved under my hand, a warm bundle of soft fur.   And it was a statue.

“His keeper saves souls.”

“Is it trapped in there?” I knew better than to take the bait.  “Soul” is a loaded word for a lot of folks, but it’s pretty much an idiosyncratic concept between practitioners, sometimes meaning personality, sometimes personal energy, sometimes it was merely the essence of will.  Still, the idea that it was saved like some kind of collection made me uncomfortable.  Too much baggage from my culture, I’m sure.

“It is collected.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”  I know it came out surly.

“I disagree,” she said.  She directed me to a small office in the back.  “We come for the Questor, not his keeper.  She would not be inclined to assist.”

I took it as a warning, although my curiosity was startled into awakening.

She pushed through the door, and I saw a slight young man behind a desk.  He didn’t look like some kind of burly adventurer, or anything I had thought of with the title.  He had perhaps a bit of an elfin cast to him, but mostly he looked tired.   A white kitten with grey socks lay in his lap, and he stroked it idly, all the world like an evil mastermind.

An evil mastermind that wore glasses, and slacks.

I waited for a riddle.  Or some kind of oracular proclamation.  He watched me and Doloise.

We watched him.

“Can I help you?” he finally asked.  I began to feel like I had won a point, and then felt silly for it.

Doloise began to open her mouth to speak when the young man raised a hand.  “The passageway you look for is through a darkened realm. Bring no light to it, and do not linger.  You will pass the outstretched hands, and duck beneath their fingers.  You will see the portal from the distance, but any closer and you will bring his attention to you.  Is this the place you seek?”

Doloise simply nodded.  The last words had the finality of ritual to them.

“How did you know?” I had to ask.

He cracked a grin.  “I don’t.  I’ve never been there.”

“Dealt with a lot of fey, have you?”

“They’re most of my customers.  You’d think they wouldn’t get so lost, but how many compasses have iron needles?  But I’m just an instrument of this power.”

“They call you the Questor.”

“And you?”

“I’m the Portal Doctor.”

We chuckled.  Maybe it wasn’t funny to anyone else, but it was nice to speak to someone who wasn’t crazy for a minute.

Of course, it’s all a matter of perspective.