The Girl Who Dreamed of a Different World Niall Teasdale
Copyright 2019 Niall Teasdale
Smashwords Edition
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Contents
Chapter One: The White Castle
Chapter Two: The Great Brassiere Caper Chapter Three: The Right Hero
Chapter Four: Cadorian
Chapter Five: The Road to Adventure
Chapter Six: The City of Dungeons
Chapter Seven: The Town Where Adventure Begins Chapter Eight: Lord Winter Comes
Chapter Nine: The City, the Sea, and the Big-Ass Lizard Chapter Ten: Blighted
Chapter Eleven: The Gift of the Slavers of Sintar Chapter Twelve: The Dragon’s Heart
Chapter Thirteen: Family Drama
Chapter Fourteen: The Chase
Chapter Fifteen: Heart of Darkness
Chapter Sixteen: Home
About the Author
Chapter One: The White Castle
Shinjuku City, Tokyo, Japan, Earth, 21 st August 2020.
Spending her birthday money in Harajuku had been a great idea.
Kana had managed to pick up a few things which were super cute on Cat Street. Also, a lot of the shops had air conditioning which was a major benefit given the heat of a Tokyo summer. At least the humidity was down from the horribly clammy weather they had had in July; the wet season this year had lived up to its name.
Kana blamed global warming.
Fifteen. Kana had turned fifteen this very day. Next year she would be going to high school and the really serious part of her life would be starting. She was going to have to knuckle down, study hard, and decide what she really wanted to do with the rest of her life. In truth, she was being a little hard on herself.
She was a bright girl and studying was not a major issue for her.
She actually liked studying, to some extent. More than most of her friends anyway, just not today. Today was her birthday, and school was out, so today was for relaxation and, if she was lucky, cake.
Stopping off at a vending machine set on the corner near her house, Kana bought herself a tin of something peach flavoured and popped the top. Thoughts of cake on her mind, she headed down the street, drinking as she went. The sky was a blazing blue, and the sun was trying to bake her to a crisp, and the day was–
Everything went black. The world seemed to have vanished into complete darkness, but there was light. Kana looked down, where the light seemed to be coming from, and… She was standing on some sort of magic circle. A magic circle! It had lots of intersecting lines forming some sort of star pattern and smaller circles with more star-like line patterns inside them, and an outer ring of symbols. Runes! Like you see in fantasy games. There was a circle of runes slowly turning on the outer edge. The whole thing was a bluish white but there were particles of purple light rising up from it. As Kana gaped in horror, her skirt began to lift and she was about to grab at it when her feet left the floor. She was floating gently upward.
Then the awful truth hit her: she was dreaming. That cute dress she had bought had been way too cheap. She was lying in bed right now, sound asleep, and soon she would wake up and have to do it all again. Well… bother. She was not sure she wanted to go to Harajuku now. There was no way she was going to get the same outfits when she did it for real. As her slow rise became a rapid climb into the darkness, she thought, ‘And it was such a great dream too…’
The White Castle, Soken, 21 st Sokarte 6019.
Pain. Kana’s head felt like someone had used it as an anvil and her muscles ached. All of her muscles ached. Even her tongue felt as though it had just been engaged in an arm-wrestling match with a bear. The muscles in her face hurt. Opening her eyes hurt.
Light blazed into her skull like a lance and she flinched. Around
her, the magic circle was still glowing, but the runes were no longer turning and the particles of light were gone. And, now she thought about it, there were stones beneath it, beneath her.
Maybe this was not the same circle. It certainly did not seem to be in Shinjuku.
Someone spoke. She was only half aware of the sound, but the words made absolutely no sense to her anyway. That had not been Japanese. It had a sort of European sound to it. German? She had only ever really heard German in movies and… No, it had not been German. She lifted her head to find out who the speaker was and every muscle in her body complained about it. This dream sucked!
Were you even supposed to be able to feel pain like this in dreams?
She found herself trying to focus on an old man in a red robe, like the kind of robe you see in fantasy games. Well, maybe not quite like in games: it was a plain sort of garment, belted at the man’s waist and falling almost to the floor. Dark boots showed under the hem. Simple boots, probably made by hand. The neck of the robe was closed by a leather thong which crisscrossed over the opening. Maybe old was doing the man a disservice; he was not young, but he was probably not that old either. Kana guessed he was in his fifties and he looked European or American.
White skin, narrow blue eyes with a pronounced hood, and black hair and beard. The hair had some strands of grey in it. The beard was greyer. His face was narrow, kind of hard, and weary.
He looked like he had just fought the same bear Kana’s tongue had been wrestling.
He was sitting at a heavy wooden desk which was trying hard to look like it belonged to a wizard. There was a tall staff leaning against it, the branches at the top holding a large blue-green orb which seemed to glow with an inner light. There was another orb, even larger, sitting on a stand on the desk. Its glow was dimmed to the point where it was barely a scintillation in the crystal. There was one big leather-bound book open on the desk and several piles of other books of various thicknesses beside it. Yup, generic fantasy wizard fitted this man nicely. Then he surprised her.
‘Do you speak English by any chance?’ The accent was nothing like her English teacher’s. It sounded… archaic. He should have been saying things like forsooth. Definitely more English than American.
‘A… rittur,’ she managed. She was aware that her pronunciation was way off, but she could at least blame a lot of it on her aching tongue which refused to move properly.
The man frowned briefly. ‘A little? Do you have a name?’
‘Shimizu Kana.’ She shook her head. This was an Englishman. ‘Kana Shimizu. My… first name is Kana.’ Speaking was getting easier.
The aches in her muscles were fading, but her head still felt as though a marching band had taken up residence. ‘I… hurt.’ Why was she bothering telling him? This was just a dream. Then again, it did not seem like it was ending so she pretty much had to play along.
‘It’s a natural consequence of the summoning process.’
‘I do not… understand.’
The man gave an exasperated grunt and lifted his hand toward her.
A circle, a little like the bigger one she was sitting in –
which, she now noticed, was no longer glowing – appeared in front of his hand, the patterns within it turning briefly. Something changed. Inside Kana’s head, something seemed to shift and…
‘You can understand me?’ he asked. She
was aware that he was not speaking English, or Japanese, but she could understand the words perfectly. Magic – he had worked magic on her.
‘Yes.’
‘I summoned you here from wherever it was you originated. It’s not uncommon for the process to be unpleasant. The effects will pass. Unfortunately, I’ve no use for you.’ He frowned. ‘Another failure. At least this one didn’t try to kill me.’
‘I’m dreaming,’ Kana replied. ‘What would be the point in trying to kill you?’
‘Ah. You believe that you’re in a dream.’
‘Well, yes. And some dream wizard guy would say something like that, wouldn’t he?’ The dream magic was good: Kana’s accent in whatever dream language she was speaking was not the same as the wizard’s, but she was still fairly fluent.
The man actually smiled. It was a weary sort of smile and Kana thought there was something else in it. Regret? ‘I’m afraid–’
‘Hey!’ Kana suppressed a wince at the shock of pain through her head, but she went on. ‘What do you mean, you’ve no use for me?
This is my dream. How can I be useless in my own dream?’
The wizard hauled himself to his feet. He really did look tired.
Maybe the effort of ‘summoning’ her had been exhausting. ‘Come with me,’ he said and started for the door.
The room itself impinged upon Kana’s consciousness as she struggled to her feet. Bare stone walls, floor, and ceiling.
There was an unlit fireplace behind her and no windows. The light came from a spot in the ceiling which was just bare stone, but it was also glowing with a soft, white light. More magic. The door was very solid looking. Heavy wood with metal bands to strengthen it, big iron hinges, and a metal ring to open it. Beyond it was a
small landing with stairs curling up and down on either side.
More glowing spots on the walls provided the light. The wizard went up.
They passed two more landings and Kana’s legs were starting to ache again. But the wizard pushed a trap door up at the end of the stairs and they stepped out onto what had to be the top of a tall tower with a crenelated wall around it. The air was fresh and the wind was cool and the view took Kana’s breath away. High mountains surrounded them on two sides with hills cascading away on the other two. Snow capped the mountains, even though the relative warmth suggested summer or maybe late spring. The wind was coming down off those mountains and, along with the coolness, there was a scent of snow on it. This dream was amazingly realistic.
Kana looked down from the tower and found that it sat at one corner of a building something like a castle keep. Surrounding that were various smaller buildings and courtyards, and around it all was a high wall with a gatehouse looking out toward the hills. Everything was built of white stone. Kana could feel the grain of it under her fingers as she rested a hand on the wall.
The detail was incredible. She could not recall ever having had a dream so lacking in abstract imagery.
‘This is the White Castle,’ the wizard said. ‘I am the Master of the White Castle. You may call me Master.’ Like that was happening. ‘To the north and east, you see the White Peaks. To the south you should just be able to make out the Skygge Forest.
Beyond it are the cities of Dvartim and Alabeth. Alabeth sits on the edge of the Heartland Sea and on the other side of that sea is the Great Forest, the nation of the elves.’
Elves. Of course there would be elves. What fantasy world would not have elves? ‘This isn’t doing anything to persuade me that I’m not dreaming.’
‘Perhaps not. I wanted to show you your new world. You may not believe it’s real, but I assure you that it is. Get used to it.
You’re going to be here for the rest of your life.’
22 nd Sokarte.
By morning, Kana was beginning to have serious doubts about her dream theory. She was still clinging to it in rather the same way that a woman hanging off the edge of a cliff hangs on by her fingernails, but she was having doubts.
The previous day, the Master had introduced her to Sharassa Fairbloom who was an elf and apparently functioned as something like his secretary. Passing off some random victim of the Master’s magic to someone who appeared to be quite important so that Sharassa could act as Kana’s babysitter for the rest of the day seemed wrong, but that was what happened. Sharassa escorted
Kana out of the keep and to a room in one of the outer buildings, returned for her in the evening to take her to dinner in a big hall in the keep, and then escorted her back to her room. Kana had eventually climbed into the rather uncomfortable bed and slept because she had nothing else to do.
Kana was awoken by a slight lurch in her brain and she opened her eyes to find Sharassa standing over her. ‘Get up and get dressed,’ the elf said. ‘The Master wishes to speak to you about your future.’ Sharassa had, Kana assumed, just cast the language magic on her.
Sharassa was not exactly what Kana had expected of an elf. Kana had this vision of tall, willowy, incredibly beautiful people with pointed ears. Well, the ears were pointed and Sharassa was certainly very attractive, but she was shorter than Kana’s one hundred and sixty-six centimetres which tended to give a less-than-willowy impression, even if the elf was far from fat.
Sharassa was also blonde, which Kana thought was not quite right, and she had a fairly substantial bust, which Kana envied. Highly intelligent blue eyes seemed to watch Kana’s every move out of a cute sort of face with a pixyish nose and a small mouth with Cupid’s bow lips. Sharassa also had darker skin than the pale colouration Kana was expecting. All in all, not Kana’s idea of what an elf should look like.
Getting dressed meant putting on her skirt, since she had slept in her string-strapped T-shirt and panties. Changing panties might have been nice, but Kana was yet to discover what the bathing facilities were like, never mind obtaining a change of underclothes. She still had her Harajuku purchases with her – she had retained the, now empty, drink can and her cell phone; the phone had been utterly fried when she checked it, so that was one trope that was not happening – but nothing she had with her was going to fit in with the mode of dress the people of the White Castle adopted. That mode of dress was odd. The actual clothing varied wildly, though what might be called ‘medieval peasant garb’ predominated, but it was the fabrics which seemed the strangest. Kana was not sure what some of them were, but they seemed to act more like modern fabrics than she was sure real medieval cloth did. Sharassa, for example, was dressed in a silky, low-cut blouse which hugged her figure like spandex, but there was no way it could be spandex since that was some sort of polymer, if Kana was remembering it right. That would be a question for later. Or never if the Master could be persuaded to send her back. Or she woke up, because this was just a dream.
Really.
The White Castle was a bustling sort of place during the day. Its purpose, Kana had been told by Sharassa, was education.
Specifically, the teaching and research of magic. There were around three hundred people living within the walls. A third of them were students of the Master while the rest supported the school. As far as Kana could tell, Sharassa essentially ran the
day-to-day existence of the little town while the Master taught, did research, and provided direction, so the fact that the elf was having to waste her time with Kana seemed wrong.
Whatever, Kana followed Sharassa through the cobbled streets –
thankful that she had been kidnapped in sneakers, not heels or something – to the keep, which was a pretty impressive structure.
It ran to four storeys without the circular tower in which the Master lived and worked. And a lot of the upper three floors were there to contain lecture theatres and practical magic rooms.
Sharassa had said there were two levels of basement as well. It looked a lot like a blocky, medieval castle in the European mould. There were small, arched windows dotted across the outer walls and there were spiral stairs in smaller towers at the three remaining corners to move between le
vels.
The whole place seemed cleaner than Kana might have expected.
There was dirt between the cobblestones, sure, but there was just not as much grime as you would expect for a medieval setting.
Then again, while it looked sort of medieval, it was not. Maybe magic could explain it, but it was like being in a fantasy game rather than a real world.
A pair of huge wooden doors formed the main entrance to the keep, which Kana doubted could be moved without a dozen men to push on them. Well, the dozen men were not really needed, because no one seemed to use the main doors. Sharassa used one of the more human-scale doors in a side wall to enter the keep and then made a beeline for the Master’s tower, cutting through the big main hall where meals were taken. People were bustling about in there, clearing dishes around the stragglers who had yet to finish breakfast. Kana’s stomach chose that moment to remind her that she had not eaten since last night.
‘I’ll have some food sent to the Master’s study,’ Sharassa said.
‘He’s waiting for you, so there’s no time to eat now.’
‘Doesn’t he have a name?’ Kana asked. ‘Master something?’
Sharassa turned her head to give Kana a flat stare. ‘He is the Master and that’s all you need to know.’
They only went up two levels to reach the study. Kana’s first impression was that this was where the Master met with his subordinates and students when he needed to discuss something with them. It was a cosy sort of room. The fireplace was not lit, but it was big and probably kept the room very warm in winter.
There was another big desk set against a wall and covered with books of various shapes and sizes and even a few scrolls. The Master had a huge chair mounted on some sort of swivel mechanism so that he could turn it around to face the two wing-backed chairs which appeared to be there for guests. Much of the wall space was hidden behind bookcases. You could tell they were
bookcases because they were crammed with books; the desk was likely just overflow space.
‘Sit,’ the Master said as soon as Kana entered the room. Without looking away from the text he was reading, he waved a finger at one of the guest chairs. Kana sat and discovered that the chair was nowhere near as comfortable as its padded seat looked. Like her mattress, the stuffing seemed to be made of straw or something.
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