Terraless

by Thorby Rudbek

  Gefforen’s mouth fell open as she saw the shackles start to shrink slowly away. Rauffaely bounced onto Eshezy’s shoulder and dug his claws in.

  “Follow me!” Eshezy took a running leap and came down with a crash some thirty feet up the slope.

  Gefforen could see her head for a moment, then she saw Eshezy jump again and this time she was gone. She looked and saw that Carranavak was almost free, then she jumped, trying to follow the path of her mentor and get away from her nightmarish fellow-traveller. In a moment Athanashal had jumped too, and Carranavak, fully unrestrained, stood up to find himself alone.

  He looked around, savouring his freedom, figuring out how to descend without becoming a projectile. He heard a deep-throated snarl down the path he was about to use. A pale form could be seen bounding up towards him – he realised it was the cougar that had almost finished him some days before. I should have guessed there was no real chance, the way she looked at me, like I was dirt. Perhaps I can get to them first! In a moment, he too had jumped upwards. The small space at the end of the path was empty again, as it had been for time uncounted.

  ***

  Eshezy watched as the next patch of stunted trees came up to meet her feet. Somehow, she landed on two flattened forks and was able to bounce up again. She next came down in a tiny clearing, or perhaps it was a bulging rock, and took off again without a pause. Rauffaely hung on, his claws penetrating the tough shoulders of her tunic, raising small beads of blood beneath its concealing brown surface.

  Gefforen came down in between the branches of two trees, scratched and winded. She gasped as she tried to find something to stand on, finally managing to scramble onto a thick twisted branch that stretched somewhat horizontally. She jumped again, this time landing in a bush. More scratches. She climbed onto a patch of exposed rock and leaped again.

  Athanashal landed on a tree that broke as if made of glass as thin and fine as is used for holding sparkling drinks for a toast to the bride. He fell through and had to wriggle out of the wreckage before he could take another blind leap. This time he landed on a stronger tree, though he tumbled off and fell to the ground below.

  Carranavak found smashed vegetation as he came down at the end of his first leap – the damage left by one of his ‘forgiving guards’. Scrambling out of the broken branches, he leapt again. Behind him, the cougar found good purchase in each effortless bound. He slowed, making sure that he did not catch up with the clumsy humans, more concerned with the approaching of the very skilled one that his incredible hearing could still detect, running up the path.

  Eshezy crashed into a tangled mess of interlocked branches, her left hand tight on the bow and her right hand reaching for a grip, but finding only pain. She refused to look at the damage, took another lopsided leap and found as she rose that there were no more trees in front of her, just bare rock and wind-blasted, bedraggled bushes. Landing was easier. Thank Janeesise! She leapt again and again, going faster and faster, higher and higher with each ‘step’. As she came down, preparing to leap again as soon as she landed, the mountain seemed to disappear. She saw the glint of the twilight on a curved metal surface, but nothing else. She tumbled down beside it. There was a snapping sound as she hit the dark, rocky surface. My bow!

  It was now just two pieces of carved wood. She reached reflexively for her waist and found the scabbard was gone, ripped from her tunic in one of the countless crashes through part-dead foliage and brittle branches. Rauffaely was somehow sitting in front of her, looking at her with his big, pale green eyes, though the darkness meant that little of this pale colour was visible in those great orbs. She extended her right hand but winced when his furry face brushed lightly against it.

  Eshezy stumbled and stood up unsteadily; she was pleased and relieved that she could still do so and that the surface she was on was essentially flat, for she felt unsure that she could have maintained her balance on the sheer, uneven rock characteristic from one leap lower. She looked at the metal object. It was familiar to her – somewhat shorter than she and cylindrical in shape. She touched the shiny surface, finding it warm. There was a steel-grey padlock – one of the heavy-duty kind used for high security purposes, though nothing of its like had been seen by her in Terraless before this moment. The top of the barrel-thing was flat, but also gleamed with an unnatural brightness across its yard-wide diameter. It’s big enough to fit my body inside, if you broke a few more bones! She received an impression, though the presence of the lock – which was also familiar, though she could not name it – had already made her think of the same rather obvious point. There’s something inside. Something so important that my injuries don’t matter. She turned to look down the mountain. The slope was not even visible from the small level patch she was standing within; it looked as if there were nothing beyond that area, so she walked or hobbled to the edge. The distance was about fifty feet. The view down was like that on the steepest ski slopes, except that there was no snow. I thought coming up was bad… How could you go down this? Small dark objects, like flies, intermittently appeared below. One grew to a recognisable size and shape – she saw it was Gefforen. A few more moments, two more leaps, and her closest friend fell onto the flat surface near the edge, close beside her. Eshezy bent down and wept. Gefforen was covered in scratches, her tunic torn and ripped in multiple locations. Some of her scratches had long rivulets of blood trailing away from them.

  Gefforen responded to her touch and sat up, breathing heavily. “Oh, Eshezy!”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “But you are hurt!” Gefforen exclaimed in horror. She looked helplessly at her heroine’s right hand and saw that her fourth and fifth fingers were bent back at impossible angles.

  “No broken bones.” Eshezy, forced to look, shuddered. “Just dislocated, I think. Let me see how you fared.” Eshezy checked Gefforen’s injuries with her good hand. “Looks like you are in one piece.”

  A loud thump announced the arrival of Athanashal. Eshezy and Gefforen carefully moved over to him, finding him to be as battered as they were. Eshezy noticed his bow was missing. Now all we have is a few arrows. I hope we won’t need to deliver them!

  After a few moments, Athanashal stopped gasping and his wonderful eyes came back into focus. “Please, tell me we have arrived.” He grinned, but his right cheek was bleeding from a gouge that looked almost deep enough to have torn right through to his mouth, so his smile looked lopsided. “Where’s Carranavak?”

  They looked down over the edge but could see no other movement below.

  “Perhaps he decided not to come. Maybe we didn’t invite him nicely enough. But to answer your first comment: yes, we have arrived. And there is only one thing here. Come and see.” Eshezy gestured with her right hand, the fingers pointing in several directions as she did so.

  “Wait.” Athanashal reached out and grabbed her right wrist. “Just a moment.” His left hand did something very fast and Eshezy yelped. He let go and her fingers could be seen – now back in the right positions. “They will swell up, but eventually they should recover.”

  “Another reason why I needed you on this trip!” Eshezy managed this brief semi-sentence with a strangled-sounding voice. She led her two companions back, away from the edge. She showed them the barrel-like object. There were some dark splotches on the surface. “Funny, these weren’t here when I arrived.”

  Gefforen reached to touch the surface.

  “Don’t touch it.” Athanashal whispered, with intensity. “Look.” He showed them how the darker patches were slightly recessed. “Whatever you touched, it’s gone away, or something.”

  Eshezy leaned in close. “Yes, there is something there, or there was…”

  Gefforen looked. “I can’t see anything on there. The air seems to be brighter above the top surface, though.”

  Eshezy backed up a step and checked from Gefforen’s perspective. “You’re right.”

  “What does it mean?” Athanashal wondered out loud.

  “I don�
��t know.” Eshezy admitted. “I know that we need a specially-shaped piece of metal to put inside the little hole on this thing, to open it.” She pointed towards the padlock with her left hand.

  “It would have to be small…” Gefforen observed. “And… we don’t have anything like that, do we?”

  No one wanted to answer this.

  ***

  It had been some time since the three companions and Rauffaely had arrived at their destination – of course, no one knew exactly how long, but it was enough for the sky to darken almost to complete black and the view across Terraless to disappear into the desperate gloom. Eshezy was still looking at the strange container, carefully refraining from touching it, as Athanashal had found several dried-up leaf-like fragments around the base, though to her they looked more like snowflakes. The terminology for snow still eluded her, but she could see it quite clearly in her imagination and the geometric shape of flakes danced across her eyes whenever she looked away from the faint glow of the container and into the dark.

  Gefforen was sitting with Rauffaely, finding comfort from his warmth, though he seemed to be anxious, his head turning from side to side, his attention going from Eshezy to the silvery barrel. He looked at Gefforen suddenly, then got up and walked slightly further away from the edge and the vessel. She got up and followed him, moving so silently that Eshezy, in her battered and tender state, did not notice the movement.

  Athanashal walked down to the edge and looked down the precipitous slope, trying to see if Carranavak was still down there.

  “I think I can see something moving down there!” He called back to Eshezy. “I’ll wait and tell you if it is Carranavak, coming up.”

  Eshezy looked at the faint outline of the young man, silhouetted against the paltry purple tint still present in the sky. Would he help us? Could it be that he has something that would fit that tiny hole? Maybe that is what Janeesise wants, for us to be reconciled! She stood patiently, willing to believe anything that could present a solution, no matter how far-fetched.

  “There’s a cat, I think! Our larger guardian.” Athanashal spotted the pale form of the cougar as it bounced lithely a little to one side of the other shadowy form. “And there’s two others coming, not one!” He walked back, looking for Rauffaely, suddenly sure that he should be close to Eshezy and Gefforen.

  Carranavak crashed down near the edge, one arm – the left one, this time – hanging limply at his side. His silhouette glimmered for a moment and then the flickering light increased to show his catalogue of injuries more clearly. In addition to the broken arm, his tough clothes were ripped and his face, arms and legs were bloodied. One eye was closed, a scratch from nose to hairline passing across the swollen eyelid.

  Gefforen turned from the stack of wood she had been led to by Rauffaely, glad to have reduced the gloom, at least for the immediate vicinity, by starting this small fire. She saw the mess that the once-prisoner was in and almost felt sorry for him. Almost. She walked back to her companions, realising how lucky she was to be only scratched. I’ll heal… assuming there is anywhere left for me to heal in.

  Eshezy leaned on Athanashal, finding her energy level to be sinking suddenly. She looked at the one-time governor, startled as another figure dropped down a few feet between him and her location. This figure was dressed in a combat fatigue-coloured tee-shirt and matching knee-length shorts, though she noticed only that the fabric was both brown and green, with patches of each interspersed across the surface. There were no rips or tears in this very un-Terralessian outfit and a scratch on the pale, bare forehead was the only visible injury, though the lower parts of his legs were decorated with dime-sized dark discs which mystified her. The most bizarre thing was the decoration on the top of the man’s hairless head. A gleam came from the front of this, together with a deep red glowing dot further down on the blackish box.

  This figure immediately started to walk towards the three. In his right hand there was a curved blade, much longer than Eshezy’s lost sword. In his left was a length of heavy-duty grey-metal chain which hung almost to the ground. Several other weapons were attached to his bandoleers, but it was the expression on his face that was most impressive.

  Gefforen jammed her jaws together to prevent the scream from issuing forth. She saw the pleasure in his countenance as he counted up the potential victims and was pleased with what he saw. A growl behind her made her smile and she put her hand down to try to stop Rauffaely from going closer. Instead, her hand rested briefly on a much larger head and she looked down to find the cougar standing beside her. Before she had a chance to react, he moved silently ahead, his lip raising as he snarled.

  The assassin put the scimitar into its sheath and pulled a crossbow from a ‘quick-release’ holster behind his back, cocking it with one hand and swinging it towards the big cat. Suddenly he stepped sideways, the arrow flying awry, ‘pinging’ as it hit the metal container instead of the soft upper throat of the beast. Carranavak staggered as he was hit by the chain, but he grabbed it as he moved in closer and the two fell, grappling wildly as each tried to overpower the other. The big cat snarled as he paced around the rolling mass of writhing foes.

  Gefforen gasped. “Eshezy! He’s the one that tried to kill Survivor! Look at the holes in his legs! You must act now, before he gets finished with Carranavak.”

  Eshezy nodded, knowing she had no way to interfere, grateful for the brief space of time granted by this unlikely battle. How ironic… Both are from Seirchaal! But how can I solve this mystery? I have nothing that could break this lock.

  Athanashal pulled out an arrow, stepping forward to use it as a make-shift dagger, planning to come to the aid of his long-time prisoner, but the Zilmard-marked warrior broke free from Carranavak for a moment and swung around, using the chain to slice through the air, ripping through the fabric on Carranavak and almost simultaneously snapping the arrow, pulling the remnant from Athanashal’s hand.

  Gefforen smothered another scream and looked at her heroine, realising with horror that her bow and sword were gone, wishing they could be safe inside Fortress, where the bolts would keep all danger outside. She doesn’t even need to touch them, they will move as she wills them to! Suddenly a light came to her eyes. “Eshezy. Don’t think it is impossible. Remember how you could bolt the door of your room without touching it?”

  Eshezy looked at the padlock. “Yes!” Like bolts, tiny bolts, inside. She stretched out her purplish, swelling hand and the padlock hasp fell open. “Get it off!” She and Gefforen unhooked the open lock and pulled the hinged cover open. They looked inside. An immensely brilliant silvery light glowed within. Something made Eshezy stagger and she pulled Gefforen back with her. A moment later and the glow burst forth, filling the stone stage-like space with a glow like that of a hundred full moons. The entire mountainside glowed.

  The still-fighting contestants gripped each other one-handed by the neck, though the assassin was unmarked and Carranavak was bleeding. Athanashal, in the process of selecting another arrow stepped forwards, tripping over the crossbow and falling towards the battlers. The chain swung towards him, but Carranavak staggered, pulling his foe briefly downwards.

  “For Seirchaal!” The cry was rough, barely audible, but the assassin was surprised to hear this word. Carranavak jumped, the low gravity enabling him to lift both of them several yards into the air, though not entirely vertically. They came down on the edge and Carranavak leapt again as the assassin moved his chain hand, showing the glint of a short blade, which repeatedly punctured the leather jacket of his victim and the torso behind it. Together they fell from the edge… without a further sound.

  The glow spread out above the two beasts and the three human companions until it broke into thousands of parts, each a glowing flake that fluttered and soared. The light on the watchers dimmed as the heavenly creatures moved higher. Eshezy and Athanashal watched intently as these silver sparkles diminished as they moved further away. Gefforen looked at the arena where moments before
she had thought their lives would be ended. She walked to the edge and looked down the mountain, hoping that somehow Carranavak would have survived. We could shackle him again. He did save us, even though he didn’t mean to! Down below, in the pale light of the glinting, retreating aerial beings, she could see the rocky slope, incredibly steep. Nothing there! Strangely relieved and simultaneously disappointed she turned back and looked at her two companions. She saw them, but smiled as she saw the cougar and Rauffaely, sitting in the same pose – front paws outstretched, haunches high, heads held low, uncertain and watching the lights above.

  She looked at the barrel. That’s funny! The box-thing isn’t shiny anymore…

  Chapter Fifteen

  After the last day

  It was getting darker again.

  Eshezy and her companions were sitting down near the small fire. There was little of the ‘airborne driftwood’ – the supply of small twigs and branches – left to be consumed and the warm glow from the coals was deepening to a rosy red. Almost everyone was watching the sky, noting that the silvery, spark-like points of light were moving ever higher up, becoming more and more difficult to see as the distance increased. More worryingly, Eshezy and Athanashal could tell that they were mysteriously flicking out, one by one.

  “Look!” Gefforen had been watching the edge as she could no longer discern the too-distant faux fire-flies. She was still conjecturing if their newest, doubly deadly enemy could somehow have survived the fall and would climb over the rim again. Instead she saw the sun creature, though it was almost as faint as the silvery sparkles had been and seemed almost transparent. The creature was flying a little higher than their sky-high location but seemed to be having difficulty staying still in the manner that Gefforen was so used to seeing for days at a time. There was absolutely no warmth from the nearness, though it could only have been a few thousand yards away, at most.