Terra Incognita: The Terra Trilogy, #1

By Karen L. Abrahamson

IN A SHATTERED NORTH AMERICA A YOUNG WOMAN MIGHT HOLD THE KEY TO SAVE THE WORLD—OR DESTROY EVERYTHING IN THE PROCESS.

 

Terra Vargas lives on an Earth shattered by climate change in a city threatened by fierce marauders—the deepee—who destroyed her family. When Ravi Sanghera arrives with a destiny of his own—to rid the earth of the "Destroyer of Worlds", Terra learns she inherited powers she neither understands nor wants—powers that might contain the secret to preserving or destroying the only home she knows.

 

Now Ravi faces a terrible choice, follow his vision and kill Terra... Or abandon the reason he traveled halfway around the shattered planet, and help her stop the deepee.

 

The answer lies in their future, but first they must survive.

 

Karen L. Abrahamson creates a gutsy heroine and a troubled hero in a terrifying world of floods, volcanoes and acid rain. With its colorful characters, unique magic and its gritty depiction of life in the post-apocalyptic city of 'Couver' this book will keep readers turning the pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twisted Root Publishing
• Release date: Mar 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781927753040

Book preview

Get Karen L. Abrahamson’s Fantasy Starter Library for Free.

Sign up for the no-spam newsletter and receive three novels and

lots more content – all free!

Details can be found at the end of Terra: Inognita

TERRA: Incognita

Karen L. Abrahamson

For an excerpt of "Terra Infirma" click HERE.

Chapter 1—Foretold

Ravi: 2073, the Rajasthani Desert, India

How could he undo the future? Could karma be overwritten as easily as his chalk writing tablet—or a map?

The twin rows of fading-to-gold poplar leaned over the dusty road like exhausted Sikh warriors—or like when Ravi’s mother used to lean over his bed before he told her how she was going to die. The memory hunched him further into the hard wooden seat at the front of the camel cart his father drove towards the heap of stone that baked in the sun. A Villa, his father had said, though from this angle through the wavering heat, it did not look like it. Ravi rode the rumbling camel cart out of the last of the trees’ shadows and into the dust and the unforgiving sun towards the villa gate. His mother’s eyes had been unforgiving, too—so hurt that he would say such a thing.

But now her predicted death had come to pass and had forced him to come here. His stomach threatened to rebel as he inhaled the dust the camel raised and it coated his mouth and nose and eyes. His mother, dead, and he had told her how it would happen a full two years before she died. It was unfair. It was unkind that he should have this power.

The cart rumbled forward and the heap of stone grew until finally a grand white villa stood like a fallen jewel on the dusty plateau that had risen like a mirage out of the Rajasthani desert. How had his father even known this was here? He wanted to ask, but his father had told him to ask no questions. Only tell the truth. Climbing the switchback road up to the plateau had only reinforced how alone they were in the midst of desolation. Each tight turn had revealed expanding vistas of brown, heat-laden sand in every direction, when once, according to his father, this had been a golden land of wheat all the way to the horizon. Before the end times.

But it did not explain why someone would build a villa so far from civilization. The building’s heavy wooden gate hung open like a mouth to swallow him and the dread flooded in once more. If only the dreams would stop coming. If only his dreams were wrong. The gate’s shadow ran cool fingers across his skin and then they were inside, in a heated courtyard unlike any he had ever seen. The camel stopped and the quiet almost overwhelmed him.

Wind caught in the corners of the high walls and raised small dust devils. Brown palm fronds rattled, but did nothing to dispel the blaze of blinding white marble. It was as if he had passed from his world to the next. Dust swirled around the camel’s hooves and the cart’s heavy wood wheels, filling the courtyard with a brown haze. The dust did not bode well. In most homes the courtyard would be swept.

The cracks in the white marble suggested no good could come from this place. By the dark arch of the villa door, even the grand mosaic of India had precious stones pried out. This did not look like a prosperous place of a historical and majestic past. It did not even look like anyone lived here.

Look. The Council is waiting. His father lifted his chin at four fine horses tied in the shadow of a palm, roofed lean-to. One had a hooded falcon perched on its saddle, and that straightened Ravi’s shoulders. Such a bird could only be the property of a wealthy man and there were few enough of those in this falling down world. But it was the ancient automobile lined up against the farthest wall that was the marvel. The horses were a fortune in themselves when meat was scarce, but the gleaming, chrome-covered automobile…he had only seen them in books before.

He swallowed and started towards it. To touch it. To see what such smooth metal would feel like.

Ravinder. No. This way, his father said.

The automobile would go untouched, but he craned around as he followed his father, trying to place the vehicle indelibly in his mind. The unreachably wealthy owner of this miraculous thing had come to this desolate place—for him.

They stepped into the darkened arch of a door. No one greeted them. Ravi went to take off his shoes, but his father stopped him. There were no other shoes on the ground and voices and the sound of trickling water echoed down the shadowed corridor. Perhaps the speakers would provide him with water to quell the dust in his throat and coating his tongue. He started to hurry, but his father stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

Ravinder, you remember what we spoke about?His father’s brown eyes were more serious than he remembered ever seeing.

His father was a tall, strong man, a copper smith who made the best copper pots in all Delhi. Ravi nodded.

Good. Now remember that I am to talk. You are not to foretell these men of their deaths or anything like that. Just the dream—you understand? They will have enough challenge listening to that.

Ravi nodded. He understood perfectly what his father told him. He’d learned that after he told his mother her future and she had stopped loving him. She had been too afraid of her strange son and, against all natural custom, had returned to her people. He knew how to guard his tongue.

Ravi had never spoken of his father’s future.

His father batted the worst of the road dust off his clothing and Ravi copied him, then went with him down the empty corridor, following the spectral voices.

The shadowed passage went on too long, but finally ended at a beaded curtain that gave onto a large audience chamber. A single, blinding beam of light came through the center of the ceiling and the curtain broke the light into a million shifting pieces when his father pushed past. Ravi swallowed and followed.

In the chamber the light through the roof caught in a silver basin of burbling water set in the floor. His throat ached at the sound of it. His tongue was thick and unwieldy. The light reflected up to a silver mosaic that covered the ceiling, filling the room with light from more stars than he had ever seen in the night sky. And half-masked by the darkness at the edge of the room were five people seated in heavy black chairs. Four men and a woman, all terrifyingly old.

The man slouched in the center chair might even be ancient by the look of his snowy full beard and the heavy lines on the skeletal face under his golden turban. His twisted gnarled hands looked old enough that he might remember the days before the change—when India and the world prospered and Pangea had not demanded retribution for all the ills wrought by human and Cartos.

The four others looked like ambassadors from all areas of India. The woman on the left wore a ruby-colored sari, and under her snake-coiled gray hair had the round dark features of the south; the man between her and the ancient man still wore rough riding boots and a heavy purple silk brocade coat that would have been a burden to wear in the day’s insufferable heat. He had the almost slanted eyes of the mountain people and his gaze was so deep Ravi stepped back behind his father. To the ancient’s other side sat a man Ravi recognized: the Sultan of Delhi, in a blue Nehru jacket with the huge diamond of his office on his right hand. The final man wore something strange and elegant. Deep blue as a the sky just before all light stole away. A suit and tie were the words, and he wore his long black hair tied back with a simple leather thong like an ancient warrior.

He was the one that looked most admirable, and must be the driver of the automobile from Mumbai, where such things still existed. Ravi smoothed his rough-shorn hair and regretted its length as his father stepped further into the chamber and bowed like a beggar before these great ones.

The most-ancient straightened.

Good, Sanghera. You have brought him, then? At least he was all business.

He is here, his father said.

Ravi scrubbed the sweat from his palms and stepped up beside his father. Around the room, braziers trailed spicy incense that couldn’t quite dispel an under note of bat guano. The room had not been used for a long time and he wanted to sneeze.

He bowed, uncertain what to do with his hands. He fumbled with his pockets. This was worse than facing an exam at school or doing the math for his father in their shop.

Your name, son? asked the ancient.

Ravi—Ravinder, sir. He tried to meet the old man’s gaze and found himself lost in the darkness. Too many years sat behind the man’s eyes. Ravi ripped his gaze away, but caught the man’s hint of smile.

And how old are you, Ravinder?

Fifteen, sir. In the old one’s presence it was the briefest of existence, a mere moment of time in which he had seen barely nothing of the world.

And how did you find your journey to our villa?

Ravi thought a moment, knowing they would judge his answer. Simple was best to get your point across, his father always said. Long. Hot. Thirsty.

That brought out the old one’s smile, and he nodded at his compatriots.

I think the boy lessons us in manners. Would you like a drink, boy?

Ravi nodded and the old one motioned at the woman. She stood and produced a goblet and flask out of the darkness behind them.

My father would like a drink, too, Ravi added, and expected his father’s cuff. It didn’t come. This conversation was his, now.

The old one sat back in his chair, fingering his beard. Would he? Then he shall have one.

The woman nodded and brought them each a goblet filled with a bitter liquid. Wine—at least that was what Ravi thought it was called. He would have preferred water, but thought requesting something different would have pushed his luck. So he nursed the wine.

The old man glanced at the others in their chairs. They inclined their heads at something unspoken.

Your father tells us you have dreams of the future.

Ravi nodded and covered his nervousness with another bitter swallow.

He tells us your dreams come true.

Another nod. He gulped the last of the wine and his thoughts swirled uneasily. He had to be careful.

Tell us of a dream that has come true.

Ravi looked at his father. What was he to do? Ravi wasn’t the one supposed to be doing the talking, but his father only motioned his assent. Ravi licked his lips.

I dreamed of fire destroying Varanasi. It came to pass.

Varanasi burns with amazing regularity, the suited man said. Tell us something not every holy man in the country could have foretold.

Ravi closed his eyes. There were many small dreams—of chickens escaping and being found. Of wells failing. Of children’s deaths. All of these were too common for these men.

He opened his eyes and looked regretfully at his father. When I was very young I dreamed my mother would be killed by a tiger. It so frightened her that she abandoned my father and I, and returned to her family in Calcutta. She thought she would be safe so far from the wilderness where all tigers live. A year ago an earthquake rocked Calcutta and many buildings were destroyed—the Calcutta zoo among them. A tiger got loose and killed his keepers. And my mother. It was shot as it fed on her.

The old man stayed unmoving, but his story had brought other four forward in their chairs.

It was the one from the north who broke the silence. His high leather boots scraped across grit on the floor. Your father sent us word of another dream and that is why you are here. He told us the tale, but we would hear it in your words.

Ravi glanced at his father again. The tale of Ravi’s mother’s death had weighed his father’s shoulders. His face had gone pale as butter. He had so loved Ravi’s mother that he had never taken a new wife in hopes she would someday return. Ravi had always known it would never happen.

He sighed. For all his father’s directions and attempt to control this meeting, for all it had been his father who had informed the Council of Ravi’s dreams, this telling fell to Ravi. He had known it, just as he knew what was going to happen, when all he wanted to do was go back to the copper shop and school.

I have dreamed this dream many times, sir. As long as I can remember. I dream of the end of the world. I see a shadow of a person spread over the land. I cannot tell if it is man or woman, but I feel their power and taste its spice, and know he or she is one of us—Cartos. I see clouds covering everything. I see great mountains falling, and cities ending, and the world coming apart into pieces. This person has done it.

Pangea ending? How can that be? the Sultan of Delhi interrupted the telling. There has not been a Cartos of that power since the first times.

Ravi shook his head, though the question might not have been for him. I do not know, sir. But it is a true dream. I know the difference. My father says that Cartos blood runs truer in some people and that sometimes chance bloodlines come together and produce powerful throwbacks. He says the question is how to stop the destruction from happening.

If it was possible. Great Brahma, please make it possible. Let these great ones find a way. He did not want to live in the end times.

The sultan shook his head and sat back in his chair.

The others looked thoughtful—looked at each other in a way Ravi had seen in dreams. He couldn’t look at his father.

The old one stirred. Your father is a wise man, boy. You should listen to him always.

Ravi nodded.

The old one looked at his Council members and raised his hand in the way Ravi had seen. His legs started to tremble.

We have thought on this since we heard from your father. His words were compelling then; just as they make sense to you, they made sense to us. Someone must stop this from happening. Long have Cartos been content to stay hidden out of fear of another purge by the humans if our power was discovered.

They were the words Ravi had dreamed the ancient man would say and he had to stop it—had to make them different before the horrible future occured.

Sir? he blurted and could not let himself think or stop, because to do that would make the future as he’d foreseen. What of the maps? Could not the Council create a map of power that would preserve the world, just as the ancients drew the boundaries of the world? Would that not stop the shadow I see?

Ravi hoped. But when he looked from face to face of the council members, they would not meet his gaze.

Finally the old one sighed and the sound ran round the room and seemed to multiply until the marble itself wept sympathy.

A fine hope, young man, but not to be, the old one said. We preserve our old maps in the vaults, but the talent to make new maps of power was lost with the plagues. No, there is only one thing we can do. Your father told us you dreamed this destroyer lives far away in what was once North America. Someone must go there and destroy the destroyer.

The burble of the water filled the pause in the old man’s words, but already the water sounded like waves, storms, winds in sails, and screams. The incense disappeared into the stench of death.

The great wheel of creation turned and his knees almost gave. Great Vishnu, preserve him.

The Council has decided the task falls to you, Ravinder Sanghera. And to your father.

Chapter 2—Hanging

Terra: Two Years Later, Near the Independent City of Couver

Some people tell me I do stupid things. I can hear Aunt Kirsten now: Terra, don’t you ever think what you’re doing? You’re old enough to know better.

But, at seventeen, what I knew was she was wrong this time. I’d been thinking about this all day and on the long paddle from Grandfather Island.

Ahead, through the darkness, the bulk of Melani Island lay low on the water of Indian Arm, the coastline ragged, dying spruce and fir illuminated by a weird glow that made my stomach lurch. Not what I wanted to see. Everything should be dark; the frigging light meant my work would be that much harder.

I stopped, resting the carefully muffled paddle across the cockpit of my mud-daubed kayak to prepare for what came. This was the future: night dark and the wind barely breathing, but the scent of the oily stench of diesel, tidal pools, and seaweed on the barely visible shoreline ahead were gone.

Instead, the copper-bright scent of blood joined the fuel stink and turned my blood cold. The beast inside me growled, but the image of a circle of moons kept him chained. You know the beast—we all have them—those angry parts of us we keep under such tight control it feels like it’s caged inside you.

But the Melanis couldn’t have done it yet, surely.

All the hairs on my forearms stood on end as I reached out with my Awareness—a sense other than the usual five, but the damned water blocked me even this close to shore. Still, danger lurked ahead, I knew.

Hell, I was making my own danger doing what I’d planned, but it had to be done. The slaughter of the last porpoise pod in the Georgia Strait couldn’t be allowed.

I inhaled. Exhaled in a growl. Calmed the angry rush of blood in my ears and the litany of too late, too late. I went over my plan one last time.

Get in close, slide into the water, and cut the nets one-eared Melani and his family had put up to hold the porpoises while they killed them for meat. Help the animals find the hole and then vanish into the night with them.

Easy, like falling off a log, even though this was a tad bigger operation than simply destroying people’s traps or sabotaging a deepee attempt to build a new camp that would tear up even more of the landscape. But that was what I did. Protected the animals and the wilderness from the city and the displaced people known as deepee.

If I was caught, old man Melani and his brood weren’t likely to turn me over to the authorities. Like me, they’d take justice into their hands. But someone had to do right by the animals.

Aah, justice. A little rope. A little knife. A lotta blood.

I stopped my brain from following that happy thought to the screaming.

In the darkness I hung suspended between black, glass-still water and sky filled with the heaving, never-ending cloud that was illuminated above the mountains. Probably from another ant-hill deepee camp up in flames in one of their ongoing squabbles over who owned what square meter of land. We’d be better off without the lot of ’em.

Floating here most people would feel lonely—and frightened—but to me this was hope and promise. A place without people. A place before endings and beginnings and all the pain and destruction that went on between. A place where there might be a possibility of something better—instead of what we’d created.

Ahead, the slight white line and the gentle hiss of gravel betrayed where the water ended and the little bit of land that was Melani Island began. The smooth water was like an invitation in.

You’re procrastinating, Terra, I said and then wished I hadn’t. The words seemed to rush out across the water.

I picked up the paddle, but a sound stopped me from the stroke.

Slight gurgle. A muffled, hollow thump and I strained to see into the darkness. Dammit, now was the time I needed my Awareness, because that sound could only spell a boat and any boat traveling as quietly as me could only be up to no good.

Who was out there and what did they want?

No one knew what I had planned tonight. Better not to involve anyone in something that could get you banished from Couver.

So whoever came wouldn’t bode well for me and my plan.

I hunkered low in the cockpit and waited, hoping to be unseen or, better yet, mistaken for a log. I smeared muck from my kayak over my face and arms again in case my pale skin gave away my presence.

A slight splash said they were close.

So what was I going to say? What excuse did I have for being out here so far from home in the middle of the night? Visiting friends? A lover?

Me?

Both were nothing anyone would believe.

Chapter 3—Black Water and Blood

The chill off the water sank into my veins as the clouds seethed overhead. The slight, syncopated plop-plop-plop of dipping paddle-blades came too clearly across the water, and the sweat of my long paddle chilled on my skin and made my leather wrist guards itch. The splashes said two paddlers but I prayed I was wrong.

Then, through the darkness, two darker forms coalesced like shark fins and I knew I was screwed.

If I could see them, they could see me suspended against the white line of the shore and that weird-assed glow. They’d know I didn’t belong anymore than the diesel that slicked the water.

I could make for the glowing island for cover, but whoever it was could sound an alarm and then I was screwed again. Totally screwed, unless I was smarter than them and I had to think I was.

I eased up in the kayak and grabbed the comforting length of the paddle. If worst came to worst, it was a weapon, even with all the seaweed I’d tied on to hide the flash and flick of each stroke.

Behind me the splashing stopped and the world went silent. I took a deep, diesel and blood-tainted breath and eased my shoulders. A few quick strokes I’d be on the shore. Then I’d be up and out and running. Even if I was caught, if I could free the porpoises it would be worth it.

I drove the paddle in.

Terra!

The familiar, harsh whisper hissed across the water and seemed to echo my name louder than it should.

Not good.

I back-bladed with too much splash to stop my forward momentum, and then two more mud-darkened kayaks flanked mine with Serena and Jo Peters at the helms. They were twins, both with an aristocratic, fine-boned look that spoke of their Native heritage and belied their strong muscles. They were the nearest thing to friends I had.

Both had long, silken, black hair I could envy if I had a moment to compare it to my shoulder-length, red-brown, frizz—except Jo—or Jaybird, as I called her—had shaved the sides of her head to create a flowing blue-black Mohawk that hung down her back and crested over her face like a cocky Stellar’s jay.

What the hell are you doing here? You scared me half to death, I whispered.

Jaybird cocked one eyebrow at me. "I think the question is, what’re you doin’ here, girl? She glanced at the island. An’ if it’s what we’re thinkin’, do ya think we’d let ya do it alone?"

I looked from one sister to the other, and even in the darkness I could see the calm resolve that had made me let them into my life when I really didn’t need anyone.

You don’t need any trouble. How’d you know I was here?

The sisters exchanged too-knowing glances and I didn’t like what that inferred: that I was becoming predictable. Predictable could get you killed.

Great. I shook my head and held my resolve. But you’re not doing this, I am. I’m not letting this last bit of joy get sucked outta this world—sometimes joy’s more important than meat.

And who died and made you the savior of the environment? Serena asked.

I’m sitting here covered in mud. Where’s the savior in that?

Joy is good…. Jaybird said, in mock thoughtfulness.

Serena rolled her eyes in disgust.

Well, someone has to do it, don’t they? Someone has to stand for the animals and forest, I said.

The two sisters looked at each other as if they shared a secret. Then Jaybird tossed her forelock of hair.

Friggin’ Robin Hood, that’s what ya are. An’ even he had his merry men to help him. Goin’ in alone is really stupid. But I told Serena you would as soon as porpoise meat started showing up in markets. We’ve been tracking ya the last twenty-four hours.

And I hadn’t noticed. Not good. That meant I wasn’t paying attention enough—just like Granddad and Kirsten always complained.

So you’ll stay out here and watch my back while I do what needs to be done. You can hold my kayak.

Not exactly what I had in mind. Serena studied the island. That almost looks like fire, but it’s too big. The Melanis would never waste the wood.

It did look like fire, when she said it. A flicker and jump across the twisted trees, which were all that still clung to the island after the flooding, the quakes, and the big blows.

Who knows what they’re doing? It just means you guys hang farther offshore.

Serena looked uncomfortable.

What? What is it?

She shrugged. I don’t know. Something about tonight. It feels like the dreamtime. Like the Elders are afoot tonight and things are changing. Maybe we should be careful. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.

There she goes again. Jo rolled her eyes. Always making out like you’ve got some connection to the before times. I tell ya, she does it just for attention. Pretending she’s in touch with the Transformers and such.

Transformers?

Those that made the world as it is, Serena said dreamily.

Well, then they really fucked it up, didn’t they?

I struck out in a careful paddle along the curve of the island and S and