Crystal Doors #1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

in a velvet toga. He wore midnight-colored robes flecked with silver. The younger man, dressed in a knee-length tunic, reminded Vic of a bronzed Roman soldier from a gladiator movie.
    Vic and Gwen both leaned against the cool marble wall for support.
Marble?
The men held up their hands and said something in a strange language, yet their meaning was clear: Stay here.
    The younger man picked up a folded blanket from a basket on the floor and began flailing at the smoke, while the white-bearded man unfurled a parchment-colored scroll and began reading in a stentorian voice.
    Gwen called past the two strange men who had apparently rescued them. “Uncle Cap, where are you?” There was no reply. “Taz, what’s going on?” she asked Vic, using his nickname borrowed from the wild cartoon character.
    “I don’t know, but I’ll bet I can figure it out.” Suddenly the answer came to him. He chuckled aloud, which set him coughing again from the smoke. “Relax, it’s just a dream. We’ll wake up soon.”
    She gave him a withering look.
“You
might dream yourself in a place like this, but I certainly wouldn’t.”
    Vic imitated her withering look. “Classic fantasy paradox, nano-brain. I could just be dreaming you.”
    “Well, how do they figure it out — in books and movies, I mean? Pinch each other?” Vic responded by punching her in the shoulder. “Hey!” Gwen rubbed her upper arm. “That’s gonna be a bruise. Twit.”
    “See? That hurt, but it doesn’t really prove anything. Here’s a better test,” Vic continued almost as if he hadn’t heard her. “Tell me something I don’t know and would never have thought of.”
    Gwen nibbled at her lower lip while Moses/Santa dronedon in his strange language. “How about this? ‘Whan that aprill with his shoures soote, The droghte of march hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour…’”
    Vic shook his head. “Whoa! Now you’re speaking strange languages too?”
    “It’s the first few lines from the prologue of
The Canterbury Tales
by Chaucer.”
    “You’re right, I wouldn’t have thought of that. What’s it mean in English?”
    “That
was
English, just an older form. Now you tell me something I would never guess.”
    “Oh, easy. Jordan has a crush on you.”
    Gwen’s mouth opened and shut. A rosy pink flushed her cheeks. “You … you made that up.”
    He gave her an eyebrow shrug.
“You
didn’t think of it, did you?”
    Just then, the old man’s voice fell silent, and the clouds of multicolored smoke dissipated, giving them a clear view at last. Vic’s jaw dropped as he saw the amazing chamber in which they stood. Definitely not the solarium anymore.
    “I couldn’t have dreamed this better myself.” Then he suddenly realized what was missing. “But where’s Dad?”

6
     
    WITH THE EVIDENCE RIGHT before her eyes, Gwen could not deny that their situation, whatever it was, was real. Impossible, illogical, ridiculous even — but definitely real.
    The two strange men stood chattering next to a cluster of charred-looking crystals, very much like the arrangement Dr. Pierce had been building in the solarium before the wild flash of light. On the floor and walls were curved mirrors, angled prisms, and wide distorting lenses like funhouse reflectors.
    The room had a vaguely Greek or Roman feel to it, with marble walls, arched doorways, open windows, and support columns flanking an entryway. At one end of the oval room a spiral staircase corkscrewed up toward the ceiling.
Where are
we? A year ago, Uncle Cap had taken Gwen and Vic on a private tour of the Getty Museum in Malibu, which was laid out like a Roman villa. But she couldn’t recall any rooms quite like this.
    Scanning the broad oval chamber, Gwen saw shelves full of stoppered vials, racks crammed with thick scrolls, and a long table on trestles that was cluttered with parchments, glowing crystals, more mirrors and lenses, chunks of