Red Madrassa: Algardis #1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

the damaged portals would exacerbate the burden on the already sorely tasked portal network. One more push might trigger a domino effect, closing and opening gates at random across the land.
    She really didn’t care.
    Just as her energy gathered to weave the two portals together‌—‌the blue of the water folding into the purple of the broken pathway in a seamless meld‌—‌she felt a tingle and then a sharp pain in her head. A crack of yellow, almost like lightning, sped toward her. She screamed in horror, and then knew nothing for quite some time.
    When she woke her clothes were charred, her stomach burned, her memory was cloudy, and she lay on a gritty mountain ledge strewn with pebbles and rocks. Unsteadily, she got to her feet, putting one her hand to her waist, and stumbled to the edge. It was a long way down.
    Well, she couldn’t stay up here. She didn’t know where she was, but she did know that she needed help, and fast. Just then, the earth at the lip of the ledge crumbled, and she tumbled headfirst onto a hidden path, landing in a slump in front of three travelers.
    This time, she did not rise.
    Sidimo:
    As they stumbled through the gate, they looked up and around in surprise. The portalway trip had taken longer than expected. They had left Sandrin in darkest night; but here, wherever they were, the late morning sun shone high above.
    “Hey!” Maride shouted. “I thought there were trees? The Genur portalway is supposed to be in a forest surrounded by tall redwoods!”
    Sidimo suppressed a sigh. Yes, O Master of the Obvious, hethought. This, wherever they were, was surely not the Genur portalway. For one thing, this gateway was embedded in stone. Outer portalways were usually open to the air on all sides‌—‌freestanding steel ovals the width of three Humans and the height of a gryffn.
    Secondly, they stood on rock and gravel with, yes, no trees in sight. A mountain was to their backs, with the gateway embedded in it. As Sidimo moved closer to the mountainside and trailed the raised edge of the portalway with his fingers, he thought, It’s almost as if it were carved from the mountain itself. Perhaps it had been.
    The cliff they stood on, more of a goat path, wasn’t very wide. “So where are we?” Allorna demanded, as she walked forward to look over the cliff’s edge.
    “ Abbas, ” muttered Sidimo as he traced the glyphs on the gate.
    “ Abbas! ” exclaimed Maride. “I didn’t sign up for this!”
    Allorna turned away from the mountain’s edge with obvious reluctance. The vista of sweeping valleys, distant blue peaks, and clean air was gorgeous, particularly after so long in the city of Sandrin. She said to Maride, “Clearly, something went wrong with your portalway.”
    With a glance over his shoulder, Sidimo muttered, “I’ve heard rumors of recent fluctuations in their stability.”
    “You know, that would have been good to know before I risked our lives!”
    Sidimo ignored Maride’s latest bit of drama; his attention had already returned to the etched glyphs. He was fascinated by the question of how this portalway had come to be embedded in the mountainside, so far away from any kind of town or city with officials who could maintain an active gate.
    “All right,” sighed Maride. “Let’s go back through…‌this time to Genur, yes?”
    “No,” Sidimo replied.
    “No?!”
    He had the attention of both his companions now. “We can’t,” he said simply.
    “Why not?” Allorna and Maride asked simultaneously, glancing sidelong at each other. Sidimo thought Allorna might have blushed.
    “The glyphs…‌they’re in Ceralic,” he replied. “This means the portalway was built to be one-way only, and although the glyphs are faded, they appear to say Death to those who go back between. ”
    Maride, of course, began to mutter some choice words about idiots and portalways. Allorna grimaced as she recited the old nursery rhyme:
    Check the portal before you go.
    You never