The morning sun popped up over the eastern edge of the clearing and touched the face of the sleeping man. He felt the heat and opened his eyes, glancing back and forth. He was alone in the grass, his gear beside him, naked as a newborn, and utterly contented for the first time in his life.

Neither girl had split open, though, it may have been a near thing once or twice if their cries were a gauge. They’d given as well as they’d gotten, too, though he still wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole sharing arrangement. It was all well and good in the holovids and the barracks tales, but the reality of it was something else again. He was exhausted! Once or three times during the night they’d nearly broken him.

Nor was he certain how this turn of events would change his predicament. They were still there, at the edge of his awareness, radiating contentment of their own. Would they travel with him or he with them? No thought of separating could be entertained.

And how did he convey his predicament to them at all? There was no way he could form the sounds they used for speech without an advanced synthesizer, the nearest of which was probably millions of klicks distant if it was that close.

That he was more than wildly lost was a given, but even accepting that he’d phased, surely someone must know how he could get back. If the tech existed, it existed, right? All he had to do was find it. And find it he must.

Even given that he had absolutely no idea where he was or how to get back to his unit, he nevertheless had to try, and he had to, somehow, convey that need to the... what were they exactly? Elves, his mind told him, and despite the silliness of the concept, he found the thought hard to refute.

A sudden prickling in the back of his neck spun him around. Blue Eyes. Standing, still naked, at the edge of the wood, and holding out some sort of fruit or tuber invitingly, eyes sparkling welcome. Climbing stiffly to his feet, he ambled over to meet his mystical lover and see what she was offering.

It seemed to be a root of some sort. Potato-like, dark red, the sound of snuffling in tall grass was apparently its name. He took the thing, his hand lingering on hers, leaning forward to share a nuzzle and a kiss before attempting to eat.

He tried a bite. Starchy, as he’d expected. Kind of potatoey in an exotic sort of way. But not too bad. Better than bugs, anyway.

“What am I going to do with you?” he wondered aloud as they shared the snuffle root, noting the look of total incomprehension that was her response. “I can’t understand a single thing you tell me, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to manage the sounds you consider words.”

Her eyes were very big, her face tightened up in a cute frown. A small rockslide issued from deep in her throat.

He had a working knowledge of the five major languages of the world —or at least his world— and knew smatterings of a dozen more. He could get by with the camp town rudiments of over a hundred alien tongues. He tried them in turn, gathering only a deeper frown for his troubles.

“Surely you must have seen men before.” he muttered more to himself than to her. Searching for something he could latch onto, at least a starting point, he mimicked talking, holding a hand in front of him, opening and closing the fingers. Then he pointed at her.

* * *

The male’s speech was more than odd. Thrush Dancing could understand most of the tongues of man, but she couldn’t gather in a thing the male was saying. It made her nervous on a whole new level. Then he started doing something with his hands... oh! Smiling, she spoke as a man woman might speak, using the tongue of Turalee, which was the nearest man kingdom. Nothing. She tried that of Medaloss, and then Iskaria, followed by the rest of the Iskan Republics, of which she knew only a tiny bit. Still he shook his head.

* * *

Damn, but didn’t her voice send tingles racing along his veins. Too bad he didn’t understand a single word. He was at a loss. He couldn’t even pick out the root languages. Then a thought struck; the grandfather had known the ways — at least the girls seemed to understand the rituals he’d been taught. Perhaps... It had been nearly seven years since he’d last spoken it— not since Sylvan had been killed in the battle of the Adair quarries— but he’d been fluent in it once.

And so, since none of the major languages had worked, he asked her where he was in Hopi.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

There was a sudden smashing noise from behind him, and the sound of a lightning-struck tree cracking in half. He whirled to see Green Eyes standing stock still a short distance away, several melon-like fruits broken at her feet, their pulp oozing down her bare legs. On her face was a look of such terror that he twisted back to see where the enemy was. There were only the three of them and the horse, but Blue Eyes’ terror was every bit as pronounced.

* * *

“The old tongue!” Swallow Courting cried. “He uses the old tongue! Oh what have we done sister?”

Thrush Dancing didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t think. A man who was not a man. One who walked the Ghost Road and observed the rituals that no man observed, and cavorted with sylvan women where other men shot arrows at them. One whose sand patterns bore no sensical form. How could he not speak the old tongue? How could she not have seen it?

“You are in Bayel’s Wood,” she told the male softly. The old tongue —the holy tongue— coming with difficulty to her mouth, its taste totally different than in the prayers.

Her voice trembled, tears were coursing down her cheeks, and her lower lip wouldn’t hold still. “It lies within the man kingdom of Turalee,” she sobbed.

And then she was running, clothing and weapons gathered in her arms. Swallow Courting beside her, she ran for the trees as though all the devils of all the hells were in hot pursuit, knowing herself already lost for she could feel him pulsing within her still.

* * *

He watched them go, dumbfounded. What did—? He looked back and forth around the clearing, but he was alone. No dangers that he could see, no strange apparitions. All he saw was the horse and the broken fruit. Alone again. But why?

* * *

“He is an old one?” Swallow Courting sobbed as she ran. “Oh, how could we have mistaken him for a mortal?”

“The old ones were mortals,” Thrush Dancing’s voice was ragged, tears still flowing. “But he was no old one!”

“How could he not have been?”

“Remember his skin, foolish sister!” Thrush’s voice was bitter. “His skin is far too pale, and his hair too fair. Think about the stories.... The old ones were dark as tree trunks, their hair thick and black as the bottom of a cave.”

“But what else could he—?” Swallow stumbled, falling to her knees, all blood draining from her pale features. “Thrush....!” her voice broke.

Thrush Dancing stopped as well, leaning heavily on a tree for support and strength, face still awash in tears. When she turned to her sobbing sister, her voice was broken. “Aye, little bird, it would explain the strange sand patterns, would it not? The miracles and mysteries from the very beginning? We coupled with one of the others.”

“No!” Swallow cried. “They’re all dead! The elders and the old ones killed them all and forced their very land to the bottom of the ocean before the people left the first world!”

“And they closed the gateways forever, locking us away from the first world unto eternity,” Thrush finished the tale. “And yet here is a man who is not man and not an old one and who is not of this place, walking the ghost road as though he owned it, and taking sylvan women to his bed.”

“But the gateways are closed! They’ve been closed for more than twelve thousand years! How could he have gotten here?”

Thrush Dancing pushed herself away from the tree bole, gathering her wits about her, shrugging into her rudimentary clothing, strapping her weapons to her and her broken dignity about her. “How indeed?” she snuffled. “I’m sure the elders would like the answer to that no less than you.” She took a deep breath, forcing her heart to cease its pounding, her mind to echo her will. “Don’t you think?”

Swallow had more trouble getting herself together, but she was a woodrover too, and so she struggled to her feet, belting her own weapons about her. “What about — what about the other? Shouldn’t one of us stay behind to keep track of him?”

“And how would we do that?” Thrush asked dryly. “Is your grasp upon your soul so strong? Mine is not. He’s far too dangerous. In any case, where could he go that either of us couldn’t track him or the runner do we really see the need? No, we must follow his backtrail as we should have done at the first. We must find where he’s come from, and how he’s managed it. Then we must tell the elders and trust to them to deal with him.”

* * *

He waited for most of an hour, puttering around, eating some of the broken melons, pitching the rest into the trees, forcing swollen feet into stolen boots, examining the shrine, examining his weapons, hoping they might return, knowing they wouldn’t.

By midmorning, without even the feel of them in the distance, he’d convinced himself that they were gone for good, although he still couldn’t fathom the why of it.

He gathered up the saddle blanket and tack and saddled the horse, all by rote. There was no conscious will to it. He didn’t seem to have any of that left of a sudden. Stomach full, thirst gone, contentment utterly vanished, he felt emptied, like a used ration bag. Hollow. The emptiness he’d felt back down the trail after he’d first touched them seemed like a fond memory compared to the desolation spreading through him now. Tears ran unheeded down his cheek and it was an effort merely to draw breath.

He came to himself when the horse thumped its nose against the back of his head, nibbling at a lock of hair. He realized he was slumped over nearly into a ball. And had been for quite a while, judging from the numbness of his legs. He should be curious, the thought occurred, that he’d be able to drift off like that, but the curiosity wouldn’t come. The world was too colorless to support curiosity just now. But duty remained, didn’t it? Duty always remained. Time to be going... wherever.

He paused at the edge of the clearing. Funny how things changed. He’d always liked forests for their peaceful, shaded halls. Even this strange one... what had she called it...? Bayel’s Wood. Eight days now, and no trace of an end. The immensity of it was overpowering. But he’d been at peace of a sort within its gloom. No longer. They were gone and it took everything he had to force himself back into the darkness.