Infinitely far away, where there was neither time nor place, light nor dark, up nor down; Balfors Belzar floated.
Floated where all silence was heard, all sound was silent. No smell, no taste, no feeling, but all were there to be sensed nonetheless. Without age nor rank; totally and utterly alone, but tied to all planes of existence at once; he paused here before moving on.
The nexus, where all things began, and all things touched at their tangents. The one point in common but owned by none.
Belzar reflected, as he always did. He had opened a portal with youth and strength hundreds of years ago, some-where time had meaning. As he had been taught, before he excelled all summoning masters known before him. The portal had brought him here, where "here" meant nothing, nowhen, nowhere.
He experienced the doors, rather than saw them. Untold thousands, millions, greater by far than the stars on a clear night. They floated near and far, above, beside, and beneath, in the creamy distance. Familiar doors. Fantastic doors. Unimaginable doors. Of all sizes and shapes. Where they had come from and where they went was unknown to anyone. Only the most ancient tomes had spoken of this place, and that only in vague, dreamy rhymes. The verses floating on the scrolls.
But Balfors Belzar had found it. The nexus. It was the source of his power, for it made possible the summoning. Anything he could mark he could bring through here to where he was, with proper preparation. Ripping ANYTHING through more than time and space to hand, to use.
Sometimes he saw things at the nexus. Things that may be living or not. Moving far away; sometimes near by. Tiny and near? Sometimes. Huge and far? Sometimes. He could only judge them by the doors they entered and exited. Some doors were so large that when he neared them, they seemed large enough to swallow a planet. Or more. Sometimes much more, beyond any scale, beyond all reason. It was enough to drive you mad.
But Balfors Belzar was not mad. He sometimes willed himself near one or more, but did not enter any that were not familiar. The danger was beyond belief. Somehow he knew which were of his home world, and that was enough for him. Those he used, he marked with his mind. There were other marks on some doors as well. He recognized only a few of those marks, a tiny mental picture of the most powerful summoners and demons he had met, and sometimes defeated.
A malicious presence was growing. The keepers. Formless, but deadly; seeking life. They noticed those who tarried in the nexus. He had seen them once absorb an unbelievably powerful entity of sun-like energy. Balfors Belzar had no wish to contest such beings. Time (?) to go.
He willed himself to a nondescript door that floated nowhere. Here. He put forth his will and it opened. And shut behind him.
Lord Belzar stepped out from the symbols on the floor, into the secret cavern where he would be safe to rest, and to plan his next move.
