Bridgeworld: Beginnings

2003

by Tartan (beastlord) (TL M)

Chapter 1

I was in one of the wild areas on Bridge when the skies turned black, obscuring the stars. Off in the west, the entire horizon burned a pastel orange glow with an occasional pink tendril questing it's way to the dark skies. Chaos storm I thought. Wind blew around me pushing me into the tree line and I started looking for shelter or another portal to escape from the challenge Bridgeworld was throwing at me. Not even the Masters of the Bridge, strong and secure in their power could affect the weather here. When a storm blew, it blew out of an independence far removed from the influence of Masters, Keepers and Bridgewalkers like me, there was no controlling it. I hoped it wouldn't spin any tornadoes on their merry way before I could find a place to ride it out. Bridge is notorious for its tornadoes. Hurriedly I made my way down the path. There had been an Inn not far away; maybe I could make it before the rain hit. Too late, I thought as the storm descended in fury. Damn.

I found myself forced off the beaten track onto a smaller narrower one, a path which hadn't been used in years. That made me uneasy as I have seen too many trees shattered like toothpicks where lightning had struck them down. I stretched my senses trying to find a portal’s presence in the all-encompassing dark, stretching and finding the barest hint of one. I angled myself towards it brushing the limbs out of my way as I beat down some of the overgrowth. If I was lucky, it would lead me into a paradise. If I was unlucky...

Now many and varied are the forms and appearances of portals. Some are gaping holes torn into the time-space continuum, others appear as anything from old police call boxes to lampposts standing in the middle of a frozen waste. This one was in the form of a tomb. A particularly old and overgrown tomb. A bad omen and it sent a shiver down my back. The portal had obviously not been used in years but with the storm’s impetus steering my actions I didn't really care as I concentrated on opening it, running my senses over its decaying surface seeking the lock which kept it closed. Ahhhh. There it was. Klik! An oval of ultimate darkness, outlined by violet shimmering and humming a sonorous tune appeared before me. Drawing my Vorpal sword I stepped through out of the driving Chaos storm and into a bitter cold which was cold enough to make the breath fall to the ground and shatter. The air seized upon my thoroughly wet form with malicious abandon and shook me with glee. I was in trouble from hypothermia but even as I searched for that little bit of red in my mind’s eye and had started to warm myself, the sight that greeted me after I made the transition was a beautiful one and I will never forget it. Row after row of white clad mountains were stretching out before me reaching their way into the azure distances and straining to the 3 moons that spun above. I sighed and tried to decide what to do. Storms on Bridge lasted hours but where I had stepped through to was all snow and ice. I would have to go back. Damn sure couldn’t stay. I wasn’t prepared for it. I turned around but before I left I felt something else through the violent shivering I had started, there was a throb of power permeating the air and that perked my interest because I could feel that it was the type of power that an enterprising Bridgewalker like myself could tap into. I would come back later when I was prepared. I stepped back through into the driving rain and grumbled, wondering to myself if I could find that Inn PDQ. That was the first time I went to that world.

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The second time I went there was several weeks later. I was sitting in my house off the Street of Dreams on Bridgeworld proper when the wild hair seized me by the hand and led me out the door into Bridgeworld's nighttime. I was in a restless mood, at loose ends and Cabin Fever had set in. I suppose I get that way a lot and if I allow, it leads me into darkness. Those were the times I would go on a walkabout. On Earth, a walkabout was the ceremony used by the aborigines in their quest for self-fulfillment, out in Australia’s beautiful wilderness. I am not sure of the finer points of their religion but to me, a walkabout was my way of maintaining balance when the pressures of life on the Bridge grew large and hard to handle.

Before I found my way to Bridgeworld, when I got in this mood, I would hop in my old, battered Jeep and I would hit the small country roads of North Florida and South Georgia looking for the unbeaten tracks of national forests and not caring where they led just as long as they led me to some spot I had never been before. Perhaps to a hill I had never climbed or a small gem of a lake or pond I had never fished, and I always carried my fishing tackle in the Jeep with me hoping to snag a fish or two. The world I was going back to was one of those gems of a hill or lake and I looked at my trip from several different perspectives and justified my going back in as many ways. If I couldn’t tap the power source I could map it, explore the place, get a feel for it and then enter it into the Hall of Records that the Keepers maintain. I had looked in those records for mention of the portal I had found and couldn’t find it anywhere. That was strange in itself. The Keepers are pretty meticulous. Of course, I had other motivations. That power I had felt humming through the air and which I could almost reach out and seize, bending it to my will, shaping it to my liking. It would, quite likely, put me on a level with the Masters who rule Bridgeworld.

I had known from the moment I had first gone to that world that I would be coming back, and I had prepared for it putting everything for the trip aside until the moment I felt like it. I was dressed in the best of Diborian soft wool and leather and covered by a coat of Rhishis fur. I had on Italian climbing boots of the finest make and design. I also cheated a little and had hidden a small hover disk near the portal. I was going to be there a few days and it held most of my supplies, tools and weapons. I had also hung a few spells on my Vorpal sword. I believe in being prepared.