Terraless

by Thorby Rudbek

  Terraless

  The Fantasy World

  Thorby Rudbek

  Copyright © 2014 Thorby Rudbek

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-9780987767431

  DEDICATION

  This time I have to admit that my inspiration was two-fold.

  First, someone very special to me was the inspiration for the heroine of Terraless, and…

  Second, the depth, width, colours and moods of Terraless, the things that bring this world to life, have come from a far higher source.

  As always, I accept any errors or omissions as belonging to me, and all the best of this creation as belonging to Him.

  The name: ‘Terraless’ is just one instance of this – so many meanings within, just as the land itself is many-faceted.

  …Hoping you find yourself as you get lost in Terraless…

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  7

  Chapter Two

  22

  Chapter Three

  38

  Chapter Four

  51

  Chapter Five

  65

  Chapter Six

  81

  Chapter Seven

  94

  Chapter Eight

  106

  Chapter Nine

  120

  Chapter Ten

  139

  Chapter Eleven

  155

  Chapter Twelve

  169

  Chapter Thirteen

  179

  Chapter Fourteen

  189

  Chapter Fifteen

  206

  Chapter One

  Everything is missing – except…

  “Get off my face!” The girl’s hands found fur and form, recognised the creature and pushed the sleeping cat off her neck. It slid down onto the bed, eyes barely and very briefly flickering open in the process, toes stretching briefly before going limp once more.

  She sat up. The room was strangely empty – except for the bed and the cat, that is. She looked around hesitantly, wondering what was wrong – for as sure as she knew she was now awake, she was also sure that the room was not as she recalled it. But… I can’t recall it – I can’t recall… anything! She stared at the blankness that was echoed in her own mind. The wall ahead of her was a dull brown, about the shade of freshly-turned, fertile, moist soil. To her right, the better lit wall – directly opposite an area of brighter illumination – was covered with long curtains of a similar shade of brown, almost totally blocking off any light from what she thought must be the ‘outside’ – just a hint, a sliver of light, could be seen where they met in the middle. The room was still quite bright, however, because the door was open. She turned to the left to examine that aspect of her location. No, let me restate that: there is no door!

  She looked through the doorway but could only see two things: an ornate, wave-like bannister, beautifully carved of the darkest material, supported by brassy-looking metal poles, and a further wall, painted similarly to the ones in her room, some distance beyond it. She shook her head, puzzled at something further, though she was not sure quite what, and found that her movement caused a ripple in a thick ‘rope’ falling over her shoulder and down onto the bed. This was, she realised immediately, a long and tightly woven braid of her own hair, dark as she knew it should be, but fully long enough to reach her waist!

  It can’t be! I don’t let it grow that long! She moved her legs, found the weight of the bedclothes to be so substantial that the movement required great effort, and started to panic. The room… so bare! Where are all my things? Something made her glance up. There was nothing in the centre of the ceiling, where she expected to see a device or ornament hanging down. Something that could… could provide… but what? Around the perimeter of the ceiling and extending a little way down the walls – where she expected simple smoothness, plainness – contrarily she found ornately patterned plaster, interspersed with a faded series of palm-sized paintings of woodland scenes. There was nothing else to see, except the bed, with the presence of the still-sleeping cat beside her. This relaxed creature calmed her racing heart slightly, for she knew that if a cat were content and secure, this must mean that she could not be in any immediate danger. She stroked the little beast’s head, fondling the darker ears and rubbing around the pale, fawn-coloured face. He seems to know me; why else would he be relaxed across my neck with his paw balanced on my nose? She smiled at the thought and then his eyes opened wide. Oooooh, such a pale green! Again, the sense that something had changed… but what?

  The purring cat stood up, stretched back legs and then front, and jumped down onto the floorboards. Floorboards! She looked down to where he was standing, observing the highly polished surface – again, of dark wood. She slid her legs out the side of the bed and cautiously touched the smooth surface with her toes. It seemed warm, so she stood up, pushing the bedclothes aside as she did so. Running her hands down her front, she found she was wearing a long gown of soft, warm fabric – something unfamiliar, but very comfortable and comforting. It hung almost to her feet.

  The cat was now at the doorway; he turned his head and looked at her as if to ask: ‘Are you coming?’ He then walked silently through and out of sight. The girl followed instinctively, not wanting to lose contact with the only thing that seemed at all familiar – for she knew that, if nothing else, she had always loved such creatures. It was then, as she stepped into the hall and found an empty, silent corridor running alongside the bannister above an opening to a lower level, that she intuitively grasped that the entire building was empty. She saw further doorways – openings really, around the outer, upper perimeter, as there were no doors – into two, no, three other rooms. The whole place, just as empty as my mind. Who am I? Where?... Why?

  She had no idea who she was or who she might have been, where she was… she did know that she was human, and she had some confidence that she was full grown, but she could recall nothing before the moment of awakening with the cat draped across her neck. How can this be? Somehow, she knew that this state was unusual, that there had to have been something before, but, search her mind as she tried, there was nothing there. She moved along the smooth floorboards and stepped into the next room she came to. The entrance was wider than the one she had just left, and the room correspondingly larger, but except for the fact that the long curtains – like the ones in the first room – were open, allowing the brightness from outside to provide much more illumination within, there was no difference. No, that’s not true! She looked around, finding that there was no bed in this room, no furniture at all, and nothing on the dull brown walls, not even near the entrance, where she felt quite sure there should be some kind of rectangular protrusion that she would have touched if it had been dark, though she had no idea if it were purely decorative, if she would have been showing respect by this action, or if – if it had been there – it would have had a more practical purpose. She was sure that a lived-in home was never empty of furniture and that there should be others present, too. Others… like me? Others… that I knew?

  She looked down as the cat rubbed around her ankles, and realised that she needed… What is it called? She stepped through another archway – off the larger room, this time – and found an ornate white bathtub on carved legs, full of slightly opaque water. Reaching down she touched the surface cautiously. It was lukewarm – probably room temperature – as she realised in contrast that the nightgown she was wearing was thick and cosy. There, to the side of the tub, mounted at a convenient height for sitting, was a carved ring a little more than a foot in diameter, with a flattened upper surface about three inches wide. What is that? It was made of the same dark wood as the bannisters – carved with skill which she could appreciate. She leaned
down closer to it, noting a darkness within the ring, and found she could see nothing below. She could, however, smell something! She backed away, then the memory of the meaning of the smell came to her, and she smiled slightly. But before that…

  “I must see what is outside.” She spoke, finding her voice familiar – how could it not be? And thinking at the same time: If there is anything out there at all! She shivered at this, though she was not physically cold. Cautiously approaching the open drapes, she found a vast expanse of full-grown – incredibly tall – yellowed grass outside, stretching as far as she could see, the level of the ears atop each stalk gently undulating into the far distance. Immediately below the window the grass looked shorter, perhaps a little finer, but would, she estimated, still come up to her waist. Here too, the grass was untouched by any tool, being loaded with smaller tufted ears, but otherwise much like the vast expanse beyond. There was no gap, no break, no sign of paths, other buildings or objects, or any variety in the vegetation. The sky above was semi-filled with little white clouds, and the occasional slightly bigger one, with a hint of darkness within. Between the clouds, she could see small portions of blue sky. This looked completely normal to her. At least, that’s something!

  She realised she would need to use the strange hole with the ring mounted above it, and walked back into that area, finding a neat stack of what looked like torn-up nightgowns in a pile on a raised surface – a shelf! – beside it. A couple of minutes later she moved to the tub and found a carved block of soap – about the size of the cat! – in a recess on the tub-edge, which she had failed to notice previously. Soon her hands were clean and after using one of the rags still left over to dry them, she walked back out into the area with the wave-like bannisters. The cat was sitting at the top of the stairs which marked the approximate centre of the walkway past her room and the larger one, from the two on the far side, but rather than go down immediately, she made herself walk around to check out the other rooms first, confirming her earlier conclusion that they were as empty as the big one, and that there was no other tub, or hole with a ring in either of them, though somehow she thought there should be.

  The view out the front side of the house – for there were only windows at the back and the front – funny how I know which end is which! – was much like the view at the back: Endless grass, no trees, no bushes. Something about this vast expanse made her think that it was very uniform, and that this must mean something. But what…

  She walked back until she was close to the big room again and stepped onto the stairs, realising that there was a padded portion on each step, made of some kind of thick fabric. Feels comfortable. There was no sound, she noted, from the structure, no creaking as she made her way down, though she had somehow expected there to be. The cat was waiting at the bottom of the stairway and he looked at her with his wide, pale eyes, and blinked them, together, as cats invariably do.

  “Hey, Kitty! Where is this place? Where are the other people? Aren’t there any?” She reached down as she stepped off the last stair and the cat bounced up on his hind feet to meet her hand and rub along the side of it.

  She stopped and looked behind him, for there, at last, was a door. It was a massive construction of huge wooden beams and bronzy metal bars, hinged on the left with oversized brass-like pivots and inlaid with strips of patterned wood, like some medieval relic. In the middle, at the right height for her to look through, was a small, round window. The glass was thick and the image was slightly distorted, but the girl knew it was as she expected – a ground-level view of distant neck-high grass behind waist-high foreground grasses, blowing gently from side to side in the breeze.

  She stepped to the right of the door and found the long wall was equipped with a number of round windows in a row, also at the right height for easy viewing. These were of thinner panes of glass, but were criss-crossed by inch-thick bars of the bronzy metal and were clearly not meant for opening. The large room she was now in was as empty as the other rooms upstairs, and the most notable feature was the even more ornate carvings on the high ceiling, interspersed again with paintings – this time, of battle scenes, including some of reptilian creatures with flames coming out of their mouths, and metal-clad men with broad swords and face-obscuring helmets.

  “What to do?” She dropped her gaze from the images and walked the considerable distance to the other end of the room, where a huge fireplace occupied the left-hand corner, surrounded on both sides by alcoves stacked high with bundles of string-like material, each a full two feet long and six inches in diameter. In the hearth, a few fragments of unburned remnants showed that this was indeed the fuel that was used here. But today it is not cool enough to need such a fire! To the right of the fireplace, on what was the back wall of the structure, there were two rows of round windows, otherwise quite like those at the front of the house. Through the upper ones the view of the grasslands stretched into the distance – to the horizon, in fact – despite the effect of the slight distortions due to the imperfections in the glass, and through the lower ones she could see the finer and shorter grass close to the fortress. Yes, fortress! This was clearly what the structure was.

  In the centre of this rear wall was a small door, quite as solid as the front one, but only half its width and height. This door was hinged at the top edge, which was a little lower than her shoulders. Strange! The girl noticed, this time, that there were bolts on the door – there were three of them – and all were secure in the sockets located to the left and right in the door frame. This made her think, and she turned around, walking back into the middle of the great room and saw that the front door was equipped with five such bolts, and each of them was also slotted into their respective bronzed-metal-holes. Both doors, locked from the inside, but by whom, if I am the only one here?

  The girl turned back and walked past the ascending staircase to the right-hand corner of the rear of the fortress. There were some strangely carved features on the wall below the expected round, port-hole-like windows – only a single row over here – and she ran her fingers over them thoughtfully. Wait a minute! She pulled on one of the curved, carved portions and it moved slightly. Adding the other hand to the neighbouring protrusion, she pulled again and this time a large drawer, mounted on some lighter-colour wood which seemed to allow it to slide easily once it was started, came rapidly towards her until it stopped abruptly against a hidden retainer. Mmm! Inside was a huge block of pinkish meat, loaded with, encrusted with salt. A faint hint of a delicious odour wafted up to her. She realised that she was, indeed, very hungry, but remembered a half-thought, half-remembered prompting from earlier that she had not looked to the left of the front door – for there must surely be something there.

  I’ll just check it out, confirm that I really am alone – apart from the cat! This was thought as the afore-mentioned furry friend jumped up on the edge of the drawer and stepped down onto the meat slab. “Oh no! We’ll eat in a minute. I have to check out my ‘castle’ a little more first.” She picked him up, shoved the drawer closed with her leg and carried him as she went on her final mission of exploration. There, to the left of the huge front door, on the other side of the lower end of the stairs, was a small and ornate hatch, completely coated with bronzy metal panels and overlaid with further bronzy metal disks and hemi-spherical bulges. The hatch handle appeared to be a dragon head – that’s the name of that creature! She let the cat jump down, and the flame-throwing head nodded down as the catch disengaged at her touch. Swinging the hatch open on its super-thick hinges, she looked into the large room beyond. There were no windows in the walls of this room, so she waited patiently for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. She ducked her head down and looked in. There, inside, between the many pillars that curved to reach the lower ceiling, she could see stacks of metal panels, breastplates, helmets and swords. There were even more bronzy pieces – this time small, disk-shaped, about an inch diameter each – showing as heaped piles at the top of wooden casks. Each cask looked almost tal
l enough for her to crouch inside – if they had been empty. There were five of these casks in view. Perhaps I’m rich? Or maybe those disks are just spares for some drawbridge mechanism!

  Satisfied that she had performed a thorough enough search for now, her hunger gnawing at her, she returned to the ‘kitchen’ and pulled open the drawer again. The scent of the pink block drifted up to her nose again. This time she noticed a long knife, made entirely of the indigenous bronzy metal, in a recess on the right side of the interior of the drawer. Reaching unthinkingly to the neighbouring carved protrusion – this one looked like a turtle – she pulled and found a flat panel of the dark wood sliding out, which swung up and formed a cutting board, as the grooves across its upper surface attested. It locked into place, resting on a series of bronzy metal rods with spherical tips, which had swung up from within the compartment in sync with the board.

  Soon the girl and the cat were sitting side-by-side on the wonderfully smooth floorboards, eating pieces of meat. She thought it must be meat, as she seemed to know that such an edible substance existed by that name. It tastes like… but what is meat? Where does it come from? Where am I? What does it all mean?

  At this, she got up from her resting place and looked out the window just above it. The light level in the endless field looked exactly as it had earlier, and she recalled that somehow, in her experiences which she somehow knew she had been through prior to this strange day – experiences which she could not recollect, but which somehow still informed her mind – this was not how things should be. The light grows brighter, then darker, until… But the fragment retreated, and she remained ‘in the dark’. Putting this disturbing concept aside, she checked out the heavily ornamented wall, as – her hunger appeased – she was now feeling very thirsty and felt sure that there would be an answer to this problem in another cleverly disguised compartment. Sure enough, a protrusion with a head shaped like a pointed creature with slots on each side of the long head – or was that the body, too? – pulled down and released access to another drawer, which contained a small barrel, somewhat akin to the casks containing the weapons and loot – or perhaps they were machine parts – in the armoury, or store room, or bullion vault. Whatever.