I remember one very good book about boy on island (I think it was pretty big - there were like towns or villages). The island was connected to "real world" through some kind of portals. There was one more world which was like bad or something (you could use portal to get there as well). I remember there was one scene where the main character (boy) needed to get through one of the portals so he froze guards in time using spell. This boy was one of several Wizards who use runes to do magic. I think one of runes is called ehwaz or something like that.
Do you have some idea what is this book called. It is trilogy. I've read it about 3 years ago. I'd say it's from 2005.