Beyond The Shining Portals
(By Charles N. Palmer)
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| Author | Charles N. Palmer |
Worse still, his sister has just sent a message. A drunken nobleman has stolen an amulet, a blood-red spider encased in amber, from the Maiden temple in which she serves. She insists he and his brother get it back.
By contrast, his older brother Billy is full of confidence about their new-found freedom. He introduces Jack to a young theatre make-up artist and the two of them quickly become adept at disguises. Billy promises his sister they will retrieve the amulet.
The brothers devise a plan to carry this out one evening in the busy Mercers’ Tavern. Little do they know that one of the men playing cards with the nobleman is a time traveller who intends to kill them both.
Also, unbeknown to them, is they have been set up and the tavern is swarming with bounty hunters. The brothers retrieve the amulet and Jack escapes with it but Billy is captured. The next day, he is put on trial and sentenced to death.
Jack has seventy-two hours to save him. The public hangings will take place on Tower Hill on New Year’s Day. If Jack cannot rescue him in time, Billy will die…
At first, 'Beyond The Shining Portals' appears to be a historical novel set in 18th century London. It's an alternate London, to be sure. There are underwater factories and canals instead of roads. There are temples to the Maiden Goddess as well as churches. But it is recognisably 18th century London. Even Captain Van Buren, the owner of the Temple Tavern, seems to fit into this world as does the mysterious Greek shipping magnate, Michael Basilicus.
But as the book progresses towards its mid-point crisis, it becomes clear that these two are on opposite sides of a titanic struggle that spans the universe. The forever war between Imperium and the Maiden Orders. But now the portals have opened.
There is something unusual about Jack. Unusual enough for the Maiden Orders to hide him in a past world and close its shining portals.
Van Buren and Michael Basilicus have travelled through time to London in late December 1793, one to protect him, and the other to kill him.
With danger pressing on every side, Jack climbs through a shining portal in the Temple Tavern. into an extraordinary world beyond. A world in which a band of magical misfits gathers around him.
All are on journeys to consult the Oracle in the Librarium on the highest peak of the Vault of Heaven. Jack is on a mission to discover whether he can save his brother's life.
'Beyond The Shining Portals’ is an Alternate History/SFF/Time Travel novel of 105,000 words. The story continues in 'The Half-Life Girl’ and concludes with ‘The Angels Fall’.”
