Chapter 6

 

 

All the way home Ben’s mind tossed between the letter in his pocket and his conversation with Alex Runcin. He suspected the man hadn’t believed what he had told him and he was a little scared he had to admit. If he could set fire to someone’s house to get what he wanted, he wouldn’t be bothered by a fourteen year old boy.

 

But it was the letter in his pocket that demanded attention. His heart was beating hard at the thought of what it might say and whether it would shed any light on the globe.

 

As soon as he was home, he went straight into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He sat down at his desk and took out the envelope from his jacket. His name was written neatly on it in Mr Wallace’s handwriting. He slit it open carefully and removed a folded letter from inside.

 

He opened it up and saw that it was dated the day after Alex Runcin came to Mr Wallace’s house. And as he began to read, the first paragraph chilled him to the bone.

 

“Dear Ben, if you are reading this than I am now departed from this life and I can only hope that I have somehow been able to give you the metal globe that I call the Silvyn. I will explain about this wondrous machine shortly, but firstly don’t be too sad about my death. I have led a very full and exciting life, a good deal more so than the average person can expect.

 

“You have known me as John Wallace for the short time we have been neighbours, yet that is not my true name. I have used several over my lifetime to avoid certain attention, but my real name is William Kettle and the year of my birth was 1810.”

 

Ben gave a start. Eighteen hundred and ten! He did a quick calculation, his mind spinning at the answer. That would have made him almost two hundred years old!

 

“No doubt that will come as a shock to you, but when I tell you about the Silvyn you will understand why I have been blessed with such a long life. There is not much to my early life that concerns how I came by the Silvyn so I will begin in the year 1860 when I was working as an archaeologist in Egypt. I was supervising a dig in an ancient tomb and as chance would have it, stumbled across the Silvyn on my own.

 

“I knew straight away that it was not of Egyptian origin. They had no metal work as fine and of course the symbols on it were nothing like their hieroglyphics. I kept it hidden from my fellow archaeologists, feeling that it deserved a closer inspection before I revealed it.

 

“At first, I could make nothing of it and it remained a perplexing mystery. It was not until I returned home from Egypt that the Silvyn came to life one evening, its rows of symbols suddenly glowing brightly. It was then that it revealed its true nature, opening a strange silvery doorway, a portal to another world.”

 

So that was it, Ben thought excitedly! Mr Wallace had not just been a traveller, he had travelled to other worlds. He suddenly remembered the silvery shape that had appeared on the veranda of his house during the fire. Mr Wallace had seemed to walk out of it, but Ben had forgotten about it till now. He must have used a portal to escape the blaze he thought in wonder.

 

He read on.

 

“I had no idea what it was of course and ignored it at first. The portal disappeared after a short while, but kept reappearing at intervals during that fateful day. I eventually decided to investigate it, throwing some objects into it where they of course vanished. I then decided to walk into it myself and so visited the first of many amazing worlds I have been to, meeting astonishing folk and creatures, some quite similar to us, others so different as to be from our dreams.

 

“And it was in one of the first worlds that I met a people far advanced to our own. They genetically enhanced my body, slowing my ageing and giving me a lifespan as long as it has been.”

 

Ben was astonished. That he had lived a long time was amazing enough, but that he’d met a race of creatures that had the power to do so was mind boggling!

 

“But what of the Silvyn itself? What is it, you are probably asking? How does it work? Where did it come from?”

 

Ben nodded to each of these questions, engrossed in the tale being told, almost hearing the elderly man as if he was standing next him.

 

“In one of the worlds I visited I discovered that it was made by an ancient race of beings long since departed from knowledge. It is also the only one of its kind. It is a perfect machine, never needing fuel and never breaking down. It can heal injuries like wounds and broken bones within seconds. And it will do so not only for its owner, but for others if you just will it to. It can open any kind of lock, be it a door, a chest or padlock. And there are other things it can do to, but I’ll let you discover them for yourself. It will always open a portal to allow you to escape terrible danger, but won’t save you from a scratch or scare.

 

“I have discovered over the past hundred years or more that it works in three distinct ways. Its main function is that it randomly opens a portal to other worlds where you can often assist the creatures you meet there in some way, some of them turning into adventures both exciting and at times dangerous. The second way is when you wish to return to your own world. You only have to will the Silvyn to open a portal back to where you departed from and it will do so. And the third way is by opening a portal to any place you have already opened one to in the past.

 

“And what was it doing buried in an Egyptian tomb? I have no real answer to this. I can only guess that he or she was in fact a visitor from another world or they got it from one who was. However they came by it, it was buried in the tomb.’

 

“And why did it work for me when I discovered it? I can only reason that after a certain period of time, a year or a hundred, that it passes to the next person who touches it. I do remember that when I first picked it up, I felt a tingling chill in my hand and I think now that it had imprinted itself on me.”

 

At that Ben remembered the tingling sensation he had felt in his hand and arm when Mr Wallace had given him the Silvyn. Had that been the same kind of imprinting on him, marking him as its new owner? He figured that it must be so.

 

“And now we come to why Alex Runcin is part of this story and why his appearance you witnessed so unnerved me. I have been running and hiding from the Runcin family for nearly a hundred and fifty years and it was Alex Runcin’s great grandfather, Albert who I first encountered. As you have seen, I have brought back many artefacts from some of the worlds I have visited. I had some in one of my past homes and it was broken into one night and an artefact stolen.

 

“It fell into Albert Runcin’s hands and he of course was very interested as to where I had got it. The Runcin family was just as powerful then as it is now and I have been eluding them ever since. I escaped him by staying in other worlds for some years before returning to Earth and assuming a new identity.

 

“But the Runcin’s have always found me again eventually, causing me to disappear on numerous occasions. Alex Runcin’s appearance yesterday put me in a desperate situation. I have known for some time that the genetic enhancements made to my body were beginning to fail. My heart was now very weak, feeling its quite considerable age and I knew my time was drawing to a close. I was faced with what I was to do with the Silvyn. If I died suddenly it might very well fall into Alex Runcin’s hands and he would no doubt use it for his own greedy purposes.

 

“I decided on the day that he arrived at my doorstep that I would give it you. I write this letter in case I cannot properly explain the Silvyn to you and hope still that it is now in your possession.

 

“And lastly there are two things you should know, Ben, before I say a final goodbye. Alex Runcin does not know about the Silvyn specifically, only that I possess something that has given me a very long life. It is this secret he wants more than anything else. And remember that the Silvyn can never be taken or stolen from you permanently. If it is, it will return to you.

 

“I know I have placed a great responsibility on you Ben, but I hope you will make a worthy owner of the Silvyn. Use it wisely and enjoy the many worlds it takes you to.

 

“Your friend, William Kettle.”

 

Ben put the letter down, some tears in his eyes at its final words. He had taken the Silvyn out as he had read and as he turned it over in his fingers, he was filled with a sense of awe and wonder. He had been given a machine that could take him to other worlds! His next thought was when it would work for him?

 

* * *

 

He reread the letter several times to make sure he understood everything that was in it. By the time he was finished it was dark outside and his gran had called him for dinner. He folded the letter up and hid it between some comics in his desk. But as he went to head out of his room, the door bell suddenly rang.

 

A chill went up his spine, almost like a warning. He opened the door slightly, looking down the hallway to the front door. His gran appeared from the lounge room and he watched her switch on the porch light, then open the door.

 

Ben’s heart lurched as he saw the dark suited figure of Alex Runcin standing in the light on the other side of the security door… with Mr Jones behind him.

 

‘Why, hello Mr Runcin, what can I do for you?’ his gran asked.

 

‘Hello, Mrs Williams. I’m sorry to bother you, but I have a gift here for Ben for his heroics the other night,’ he said and held up a smart looking shopping bag.

 

‘Why that’s awfully kind of you,’ she said. ‘Please, won’t you come in.’

 

No! Ben thought in dread. Don’t let him in! But there was nothing he could do but watch his gran unlock the security door and open it.

 

Then Mr Jones suddenly moved, slipping in front of his boss so quickly that it made Ben gasp. He grabbed his gran and stuffed a white rag against her face. She struggled for a few moments, then went quite limp. He lowered her to the floor just inside the door and then stood aside for Alex Runcin.

 

‘Find the boy!’ Alex Runcin said curtly to the big man. ‘We’ll take both of them with us to get what I want.’

 

Ben closed the door, shaking in fright as he stepped back into his room. He knew he was only seconds away from being captured. What was he to do?

 

Then he started as the Silvyn, still in his hand, suddenly grew warm. It then spun out of his hand, its silver symbols glowing and spinning around it. In the next moment it vanished and in its place was door-sized oval shape that shimmered like molten silver.

 

Ben stared at it in wonder. The Silvyn had opened a portal for him, offering him a chance of escaping by going into another world. But what about his gran, he wondered. What would happen to her if he just vanished?

 

But he knew he had no choice. If he was remained, they would both be prisoners of the man. His only hope was to escape and then find some way of rescuing her. He heard the sound of movement by his door and without hesitating, he stepped through the portal.

 

* * *

 

His bedroom door opened a moment later and Mr Jones stepped inside. He frowned at finding no-one in the room and quickly searched it, checking inside the wardrobe and under the bed. He turned back to the door as Alex Runcin appeared.

 

‘He’s not in here, boss,’ he grunted.

 

Alex Runcin frowned.

 

‘Search the rest of the house,’ he said. ‘We know he was at home. If he has gone, it just raises new and interesting questions. Eventually young Ben will return from wherever he has gone and if he wants to see his gran again, he will have to deal with me.’