Suppose universes exist like bubbles in a vast cosmos. Suppose there is a way to travel between these bubbles from one world to another.

I can’t “science the shit out of this” like Mark Watney in Andy Weir’s book, The Martian. So, in the spirit of fantasy readers and writers, suspend disbelief and accept the premise.

Magic is real. It exists everywhere. Very few can see it and use it, especially inhabitants of Earth. They have forgotten how.

Millennia ago, someone who could wield Magic opened a gateway from their world to Earth and many other worlds. People traveled through these portals and visited and traded with each other. Suppose one of those gateways was constructed in the mountains along the coast of Maine.

From dream to Gatekeeper

A friend once told me about a dream she had.

A woman appeared in a rainstorm in a flash of light on horseback. She was dressed in old fashioned clothing and a leather cloak. The horse bolted with the woman clinging to it and galloped down a hill in a driving rain, eventually arriving at a tavern in the middle of nowhere.

My friend wondered if there was a story in this dream image, but she had no idea what any of it meant.

“There is a story,” I said. “I know who the woman is and why she appeared where and when she did.”

“Well,” she said, “if you want the idea, you can have it.”

Here’s what sprang full-blown into my mind:

A woman appears from another world in just the way my friend described. The woman’s name is Lyriel. She has come from her world to ours because of something tremendously important. The reason will have repercussions in both worlds and result in life or death dilemmas.

Once Lyriel’s mission here is complete, she opens the portal to go back to her world, but something goes wrong. There is a villain involved. (I didn’t have that part of the story at the time. I just knew that Lyriel brought something to this world of paramount importance, and she loses something here.)

On her return journey Lyriel is attacked by an evil presence and loses her way. Desperate to survive, she does the unthinkable. She embraces evil magic.

Why did Lyriel come to Earth? Who is the villain? How did this all come to be? How does Magic work?

Thus was born my novel, Gatekeeper. I am in the process of updating it. It will soon be free. The sequel, Chaos, is about to be born.

Again, do not read Gatekeeper or Chaos or anything about them if you’re afraid of spiders. It will scare the socks off you.

Stay tuned for a timeline explaining some of the backstory. No scary spiders yet.