Having traveled three times the distance, the sylvans yet broke into WoodHeart at almost the same instant as the soldiers. And then all of them stopped, for Bayel was weeping. All around Bayel’s Wood and far out onto the plains, fresh clouds gathered, of a different sort than the questing clouds, and a steady rain fell as the oldest one poured out its grief at the fates of its lost children.

During the waiting and the weeping, the soldier, having spent himself in the telling, sat at Bayel’s base and waited. Left to his own devices at last —duty for the moment fulfilled— drowning in the emptiness within, caught up in the grip of something too large to imagine, he retreated within himself and shut down. The drill sergeant was long gone, leaving nothing to hold him from despair.

In the course of time, the oldest one returned to itself. The rain stopped and something of peace once again descended upon WoodHeart. The awareness gathered and directed itself at the man, although the others present could understand as well.

I grieve for the fate of your world, Lost Child, for it is the first world. From thence came we all. Were you, do you think, successful in your defense?

The man shrugged wearily, returning but slowly, reluctantly, to the outside world. “I think so,” he shrugged. “The blast would have diverted the wave front and destroyed the cannon. I couldn’t say how much damage was done, or how many of the other teams were successful, if any of them were.”

I will send tendrils outward through the gates, Bayel assured. It will take time, but it must surely be so. For too long have I been gone from there.

Dawning awareness washed over the man’s face at this statement, and wonder colored his voice as he put scattered observations together. “Wait a minute,” he murmured, taking in the cathedral with new eyes. “I know you. We learned about you in school. You’re the world tree. They said you were a Norse myth.”

All things, given time, become myth, the tree acknowledged. Even here, many consider me no more than a tale told around fires in the dark.

“Did you really show the runes to Odin?”

An ephemeral chuckle. Odin was no more than a man then, and it was he showed the runes to me.

“Why am I here?” the soldier asked after a bit.

The others, summoned more overtly and as yet unnoticed by the man wondered the same thing.

The awareness didn’t respond at once, as though contemplating. It spoke only after long consideration. The passageways between the worlds are hidden and now blocked by powerful magicks. Magicks which should have been impossible to defeat. But they are magicks of music and sound. This...sonic cannon of which you speak will have ripped loose, if only temporarily, some of the magicks guarding the passageway adjacent to my bed upon your world, for it lay in the land of the Norsemen.

A pause.

As to why you are here, the tree pondered, Coyote will have had something to do with that, I think. I will ask him when my awareness once again travels to the ethereal plane. I would surmise that you alone among your people there at that place were versed in the ways, and that you alone bore the mark of protection. The Trickster will have taken advantage of the rent in the magicks and slipped you through rather than see you destroyed. It would be his way, amusement tinged the awareness.

“Is there a way back?”

Possibly, the awareness replied. First we must determine that there remains a world for you to return to, and that will take time. Then we must decide whether the need for your return outweighs the danger of breaching the barriers, for they were not lightly given to be constructed, nor so easily set, despite Coyote’s cavalier treatment of them. Finally, if we decide it is safe for you to return, we must take down the barriers, and there is some possibility that there no longer exists upon this world the skill to do so. Or to replace them when the task is done.

To the soldier, it seemed as though the watch officer was giving him the ten best reasons why the troops weren’t going to get shore leave again. “So I’m not going back.”

For the time being, no. The awareness shifted. Little birds..., and the sylvans measured themselves.

Come forth, my little ones, the awareness summoned.

They tripped lightly forward, giddy at the honor of being directly addressed and by the familiarity.

“Yes, great Bayel,” Thrush Dancing breathed.

The soldier started at the familiar voice. Blue eyes! But why hadn’t he felt her approach? He tested the air, reached out for her, but could feel only coldness that clamped down on his heart. He turned around so he could see her. The look on her face as she returned his gaze twisted his guts into a knot. Loathing. What had he done to warrant that?

This man, Little Bird, Bayel was telling her, is as much of my blood as are you, Yet he is a stranger in a land known to him only in dreams. You will be his guides, for you have answered the ancient call.

“But...,” Thrush Dancing edged away from the man, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “He is not a man Great Bayel! He is one of the others!”

Leaves danced and the wind picked up abruptly, stirring the hair of the occupants of the cathedral. He is not, little bird, Bayel’s merriment made up for the rain. The others are gone from the face of eternity. Your ancestors and his saw to that. Atlantis is so much debris beneath the floor of the ocean and her people utterly erased in payment of their folly. He is simply someone who listened to a grandfather of the old ones and accepted. I have looked within him and have seen this.

Clearly unconvinced, Thrush edged further away from the sitting figure. “He invaded our minds!”

He called for you, and you answered.

“The people do not call in such fashion! Nor do man children, nor dall, nor mountain children, nor...nor any other race that I have ever heard of.”

Again, the breeze of Bayel’s amusement ruffled her hair. That is certainly true Little Bird, the oldest admitted. Now. No call has gone out upon the second world in long ages. Of what need? As we speak, all of the elder peoples of the world are gathered together in their respective areas. The people in their forests, the mountain children within their stones, the man children upon the plains.... But once it was otherwise.

Once, long ago, before the migrations and the closing of the gates, when the people were few and scattered and the worlds young, things were different. The people weren’t tied to the old forests then. They wandered the faces of both worlds freely, seeking out those things which made them shine.

A band might go years without seeing another, and most bands were comprised of families. What then were the young to do when it came time to begin families of their own?

The call. A young male would leave his band, venturing into the wilderness with his possessions and such wealth as he’d managed to gather. There, he would prepare himself for his new life, looking inward and searching for the missing pieces of his soul. Those bits he needed to become complete. These, he would fashion into a song of magic and longing. A song of summoning. With all of his power, he would send out this call, flinging the essence of himself out into the ether.

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The call, which was the sum total of the male’s life, would span the distances and the planes, and in all of creation, only one would hear — she whose essence was the perfect compliment. She whose strengths spanned his weaknesses — whose weaknesses could be shielded by his strengths. She would hear, be she on the first world and he the second, and she would answer.

This was how the people expanded before the coming of the other races. This was how they grew.

The enormity of the explanation pressed down upon Thrush Dancing and her sister with the weight of the stars. The elders had never told — had never hinted at such a thing. But how did one gainsay Bayel? And then the implications of the explanation struck, and the pressure became unbearable. Four almond eyes swung to rivet the figure upon the grass. He had called, Bayel had said. And in all of creation, only they had heard.

“How can that be?” Thrush demanded, eyes awash. “He is not a person, and we are two! We both felt him! We both heard the song!” For herself, the reserved the thought, we both answered.

One time in a thousand years, a sylvan woman begets twins, Little Bird, Bayel’s awareness soothed. Sometimes, not so often as that. You are beyond special because of it, and many rules do not apply to you. Has there ever been a time when either of you was completely alone? Has there ever been a time when you knew not one another’s thoughts if you but looked? Are you so certain that you are two, and not facets of one?

Thrush crossed her arms as though cold. The truth of the reasoning was harshly bitter to her current thinking, struggle though she might to deny it. “It remains that he is not a person.”

Ah, Little Bird, Bayel wondered. You say this to me who created the people from the air and the sunshine. But as for that, you have but to look. I will open the way. It will be easy, you’ll see. After all, you’ve already been there. Look within. Pretend for silly old Bayel that this man is of the people and search as though seeing a forest brother.

She hadn’t dared an inward looking since her discovery of the incomplete globe — afraid of what she’d find. A fear which had approached terror since the coupling at the waypoint. But now, with Bayel’s nudging, she could not refuse. Almost effortlessly, she sank down and into the man, riding the awareness of the oldest of all.

Her first surprise came at the level of the outer wards — there weren’t any! Raw will kept him from broadcasting his every thought or emotion to the world at large. Nothing at all appeared to be keeping the world out.

Just beneath the chaotic outer layer floated the shattered remains of some sort of powerful geas, and that was the second surprise. Bayel allowed her to slow and examine the shards.

Someone —some monster— far back in the man’s childhood, had caged him within himself. The utter obscenity of closing a child off from the outside world —imprisoning him within the desolation of his five base senses— enraged her.

A tentative touch and her consciousness recoiled. The shards still bled! Psychic energies spiraled out from each slowly spinning piece of the shattered cage. He’d only just broken free. The seizure in the waypoint! She wanted to turn back then. If such horrors lurked so near the surface, what could possibly be awaiting her within his depths?

Bayel nudged, and she sank deeper. Memories caromed around her. Newly released memories struggling to find the known pieces of themselves, false memories fading slowly. Down and into a pure white light. Confused, distraught, she was lost. Where was she?

Imperatives, Little Bird, Bayel supplied softly.

No...

Honor, Little Bird. Duty. Loyalty. They provide a harsh light, but a pure one.

They’re too bright! They shouldn’t be so bright! Where is love? Where is family? Where is the quest for beauty. Where is play? They should be tempering this glare.

They were taken from him, Little Bird. For the most part. But they are here, huddled in the corners, bruised but not beaten, awaiting their chance.

Bayel... Oldest... I cannot go any further.

You must.

Deeper, fighting her way through the harsh masters of the man’s life, passing at last into his core. Here, Bayel’s awareness had to force Thrush’s consciousness deeper, for she couldn’t make herself proceed.

Coruscating golden light permeated all, fading to silver, pulsing to blue. Spinning slowly, but not as slowly as a brother of the people, the core echoed his heartbeat. Thrush struggled to make herself see, but could not. There was no globe. There was no completeness. Her mind rebelled, and only the iron grip of Bayel’s awareness prevented her terror-stricken flight.

He’s a monster! she sobbed

Look, Little Bird, Bayel pressed. See.

I cannot! she cried. How can you be so cruel to me? she writhed to free herself. Can you not see? He is not a person; he has no soul!

See, Little Bird.

This is not right!

Know, Little Bird, Bayel was relentless. Release yourself from your forced disbelief.

Disbelief? What was there to disbelieve? There was the man’s core. Powerful, resolute. Not something that could be disbelieved. But it was wrong, and there was no room for belief or disbelief, but only what was laid out there for her to see.

Even man children were complete within themselves. Even they had complete cores, lumpy and ill-formed though they might be. Even the worst of them. This man had had fully two thirds of his core ripped away! How could there be—?

Know, Little Bird, Bayel’s presence soothed. See.

She was nudged closer. The temptation to reach out for the slowly spinning wedge of golden light was overpowering. Closer, and it filled her perception. Her heart tore at the jagged edges, and the pain they must cause. Jagged edges that reminded her of her own wounds — her own damaged core.

Eep! Swallow was abruptly there, her consciousness spinning wildly.

A tendril of radiant gold surged from the layer of white light, intercepting the tumbling spark that was Swallow Courting — slowing, cradling. Swallow stabilized and the tendril withdrew, disappearing back into the white glare.

He is aware of us? Thrush gasped.

Always, Bayel assured. Although he doesn’t actively realize it.

What’s happening? Swallow demanded. Where—? she became aware of the spinning framework of the man’s core. Is he here?

Everywhere, Bayel told her. He cannot manifest as a spark because his mind has never been trained to do so. That is why his call was incomplete.

How can he exist? Thrush begged. How can he survive with so much of what he is gone?

He cannot do so for much longer, Bayel informed her. Too much of him is beyond his reach.

He perishes? the thought tore at her like a sharp rock.

He perishes. Look, Little Bird. See.

But she wasn’t yet ready. A lifetime of training had made her wards too dense. What can be done?

He must be reunited with the missing essence of his core.

How—?

See, Little Bird.

Thrush was split in two. With a mind wrenching snap, part of her awareness was back in her physical body, the rest still within the core of the man. For a scant instant, she had time to observe his bloodless, tear-streaked face, and then, with another snap, she was two sparks of consciousness; one within herself, the other still within the man.

Confused, terrified, she watched the two scenes simultaneously, the one superimposed upon the other. There was his devastated core, spinning slowly, pivoting around a center point of nothingness. At the same time there was hers, spinning somewhat more slowly. Trapped, drawn, dreading, she watched the two cores as though she could see from all sides at once. Rotating at their different speeds within the same space, she could see them clearly; hers silvery, laced with gold, his golden, fading silver, pulsing blue.

Then, for a split second, there weren’t two rotating objects, but one. Only a flash and then she was watching the two damaged cores revolve within—

Snap! Now she was three, her mind flailing for purchase. She recognized Swallow’s core, golden, laced with silver. The mirror image of her own. It spun just the merest fraction faster than did hers, for Swallow was a creature of impulse and passion. The three superimposed images hurt Thrush’s head, but she could no more turn away from them than she’d been able to force herself from his trail. The sight was memorizing, the colors —

Again! For just an instant, as all three scenes flowed into conjunction, she beheld a single solid sphere, glowing emerald, the color of sunshine through leaves and shot through with blue flickers. Her forced disbelief crumbled. A hundred years of conditioning fell away.

In an instant, she was back within her physical body, Swallow beside her, awareness flooding her eyes. They were one. He was not a person as she knew the term, but he was hers. And she was his. With this realization, the wards crumbled, and he was there, the whole jumbled, harsh, lost mess of him, within her mind and her soul.

Color flooded the soldier’s face as he felt the wards fall. They were there again — both of them! The emptiness was no more than a bitter memory, quickly fading. He wanted to spread his arms and fly. A smile he hadn’t used since the second grade split his face and lit his natural eye. He held out his arms and the sylvans rushed into them, bowling him over and nearly into the mint green pool.