The man soldiers remained where they’d broken into the open, awed to silence, the lot of them. Here they were with the childhood granny tales laid out before them as the unvarnished truth, and not a manjack of them but wasn’t afraid for his lights. They’d listened to the oldest one speaking to the man and the man speaking back, and quailed to think that they’d been hunting one who conversed with gods.
Now they watched as something happened between the forest people and the man, and another wall crashed within their minds. Knowing not what it was they were watching, they yet knew that, somehow, against everything the soldiers had been taught their whole lives, the three were being joined. And that the joining was by virtue of the oldest one, which had to make it proper, didn’t it?
The awareness shifted again. Belius?
The old mage cringed, remembering an old Iskan curse; ‘may the gods know you by name’. “Yes, Oldest?”
Come forward, Belius, for you also are my child. Made from the same root as the sylvans and all of the others. Come forward that I may beg you a boon.
* * *
The corporal made the signs of six or seven of the lesser Turaleean gods as he watched his friend edge toward the great tree, thinking he was seeing the last of him.
Suddenly his attention was diverted by the snick of weapons being drawn behind him. Spinning, he glared the troopers down without a word, turning only when they’d re-sheathed to discover the approach of the giant ants. Heart pounding near through his breastplate, he stood rigid, facing them, waiting for whatever the hells would come next.
The ants approached only near enough to lower their burdens and withdraw, leaving barken trays of food and drink behind. The corporal breathed a shuddering sigh and collapsed, waving for his lads to help themselves.
At the base of the great tree, Belius beheld his erstwhile quarry for the first time in the flesh. Seeing that one, he could understand how the soldiers had mistaken him for a golem.
“Took the edge of a particle beam flash a couple of years ago,” the man answered the mage’s raised eyebrow. “We were in a forward area and the medtechs couldn’t grow the cultures. So instead of a true regrowth, I got a duraloy facelift and piezo-electric microcamera eyeball. Command never did authorize a true replacement, cheap bastards.”
Belius smiled vaguely back at him. He could see by the movement of the man’s lips that what was being said wasn’t the same as that being heard, and he felt some sort of magic at work. But the spell must have been faulty, for he could simultaneously understand every word said and nothing at all of what the man was saying.
Seeing the problem, the man tried again. “I got burned,” he laughed, “and the wizards back home built me this to replace the missing bits.”
“Ah,” Belius nodded. This he understood.
The laughing was good. It was the first since the news of the K’trin’al breakout and subsequent chain of events. The man tried again, and it felt so good that he gave it full throat, taking in everything around him — the ants and the medieval soldiers, the wolf and horse, the tree and the — his sylvans. His little birds. Who’d have thought? Still laughing, he held them tighter as he reveled in their scents and their touch. Life had changed into something he’d never recognize, and so fast it seemed to defy time, but even his battle-scarred soldier’s heart couldn’t find room to complain.
Bayel allowed the lost child his moment of release, contemplating the tendrils and shoots he’d sent forth while those below accustomed themselves to their new relationships.
One of the troopers brought the still numb corporal something to eat, placing it in half-dead fingers. Peasant stock, the soldiers were fairly quick to adjust to new situations, as only those with never a say in their own lives could be. They had, it would appear, a new master. So be it. It wouldn’t be the first time shifting fortunes had found them standing beside erstwhile foes. They’d fight and follow orders as best they could, and die if need be, for that was what soldiers did. No sense getting all lathered up about it. At least this time there’d be no wondering if the gods were on their side.
Of basically the same stock, the corporal was nonetheless an officer, and as such, had learned enough of the world to be more concerned with his place in it. To him, the Oldest One was a god among gods, and simply to see it in person was not to be believed. To see it conversing with one he’d been trying to kill was a serious blow. Never mind it hadn’t ever been his idea, and never mind that he hadn’t done it. The idea alone was too much to grasp. He sat in the short grass, forgotten food in unresponsive hands and retreated into himself.
Luka, the voice was gentle. Luka, within is not the world for you.
The corporal resurfaced slowly, the voice within his head gently prodding. But when he opened his eyes, his rescuer was gone. All was as it had been, his lads eating quietly and casting sidelong glances at the ants which constantly groomed the oldest one and at the group clustered around the pool. That group was ignoring anything but itself, and the ants were simply going about their business. He was alone.
The voice spoke again, seemingly from the air before him. Luka, I hold you not to blame.
The corporal started violently, realizing what it must be, but the voice soothed. Luka, you are my child even as are the others, and I know you to be a good man. Retreat you not into that place without a place. You are needed in this world for reasons which you cannot yet comprehend. Watch and learn. Listen to what surrounds you.
Become what you will and know that, whatever that may be, I approve.
One of the lads heard the sigh and glanced over at the corporal. The officer was smiling stupidly and munching on the fruit he’d been given. Shrugging, the trooper went back to filling his own belly.
You were not summoned by my will, Lost Child, Bayel’s awareness at last addressed the group clustered around the pool. And yet still is there something you might do for me while you are here.
The man looked up, for it seemed to him that the seat of Bayel’s intellect should be up high somewhere. “I don’t know what I’d be able to accomplish...uhm... Oldest One.” he replied. “I know nothing of this world save what I’ve encountered getting here. I don’t even speak any of the languages, save the one that so frightens my elves.”
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You know more than you comprehend, Lost Child, the oldest of all assured him. Although here the forest people call themselves sylvans, and I urge you to use that name. Your childhood companion was named for their kind, and shared many of their traits by what I see in your memories.
You are of the last-born, Bayel told him, and have certain powers the others lack. And looking within you, I see that you have also traits which even your own kind but seldom know. If you doubt, you have but to look within. Close your eyes, Lost Child. Close them and tell me what is there.
With only the barest glance around the circle of faces, the soldier closed his eyes. And there they were — blue eyes and green— barely perceptible in the background of his awareness. The feather touch of the sylvans told him that they were with him, quietly sharing. Surprisingly, at least to him, it didn’t feel intrusive. They were just there. Experimentally, he reached out. With the speed of thought, they were fully there, bubbling happiness at the caress, swirling about him like playful otters. Only the summoning of the oldest kept him from losing himself in the inner frolic. His eyes opened.
Is this a thing that your kind knows? the oldest queried.
“Not hardly,” he admitted.
And yet you seem to have adjusted. Will you now run screaming from that which you have not before known?
“All right,” the soldier nodded, chagrined, as he gazed happily into laughing orbs of blue and of green. “Point taken.”
Easy enough, then, will it be for you to learn the other ways you’ll need, especially with these I’ve summoned to assist you.
Tearing his gaze from those of his sylvans and looking around, Storm saw assent in the faces of the others, although the mage’s was a troubled and somewhat confused assent.
“Alright,” he grudged. “If I’m the asset, I’m the asset. What are your orders?”
Orders they are not, Lost Child. Bayel somehow managed to convey the image of a gently shaking head. Merely a request from a parent to a child.
There is a darkness growing to the east and south. A darkness that I cannot see into — not in this world nor in the other. Long have I spent trying to penetrate this darkness, but to no avail. In the other world where I may move about, the darkness shows no sign of presence. And here, where I might only act within the wood or through agents, I have had none I dared send forth.
“Until now,” the soldier supplied dryly. Leave it to good ol’ Captain Storm, he thought to himself, to catch shit detail wherever and in whatever universe he roamed.
Until now, Bayel confirmed. And yet, even now, have I not the agent I so desperately need. As you say, you know nothing of this world, where you must know everything to succeed. Further will you need tools that you do not possess, and skills foreign to your nature and experience. For all that you are unique upon the world, you are but an unfinished sculpture.
“And I’m supposed to...?”
You are supposed to learn, Lost Child, Bayel urged. To arm yourself with the tools you deem necessary. To ally yourself with those who might do what you cannot. Only you can do these things, for among all of my children only the last born were ever able to see beyond the differences that clothe the body. Where all others would look upon their siblings and see only enemies or rivals, or chattel, you can see opportunity. That is a rare trait indeed for any but your kind. It is my hope that you might teach these others that skill.
“I still think you’ve got a whole lot of faith in an unknown.”
And yet you make love with sylvans and fight alongside wolves. You sit at my roots and converse with three who would be at each others throats were you not here.
Surprised, the man looked around the clearing, doubting.
“It’s right, you know,” Belius admitted gruffly. “We generally shoot both sylvans and wolf weres on sight, and if I’m any judge of arrow fletching, your sylvans did for two of the troopers the other day when they might as easily have passed us by without our ever knowing they were about.”
Storm swung his head to regard Thrush Dancing, who nodded self-consciously, projecting contriteness into his mind. They were trespassing where they had no right to be, she thought at him. We did not know that they had been summoned here.
“Alright,” he gave in. “Who am I to argue with the oldest of all?
“But will the men stand for it?” he turned the wizard, face serious. “Expecting them to ally with those who’ve killed their friends? That’s a lot to ask. Hell, I killed three of them myself. One, I think, was an officer.”
“It is,” Belius conceded. “Quite a lot. Keep you in mind, however,” he waved a hand. “The Oldest has decreed that we join together. Such a request from such a source will cover a multitude of ills.”
“I suppose.”
“Oh,” Belius shrugged. “I don’t suppose they’ll rush forward with offers of undying friendship. But they’ll follow orders as they’ve been taught, and any animus they feel, they’ll keep to themselves. Perhaps one day, should any of us live....”
“Right,” Storm nodded slowly.
“Also, Beltran was a complete ass, and won’t be missed, even by his family.”
“Beltran?”
“The so-called officer you killed. The idiot who, with twenty men at his back, sent only two to kill what he had to have known was an extremely dangerous creature, if even only per the orders I myself conveyed to him.” He shook his head dismissively. “There’s good reason to say that Beltran killed those two men through his incompetence.”
“Perhaps,” Storm was doubtful. “But it was by my hand they went down.”
“Nevertheless.”
Fine. Nothing to be done at this point in any case. So, leaving aside for the moment the worry of his command murdering one another, he regarded the roof of the cathedral again. “Do you have any suggestions as to a start?”
Rest, the awareness soothed him. Rest and heal. Learn one another. Speak and listen, here, where your thoughts might freely travel one to the other, so that later, when you are away from me, your minds will know the sounds of each other’s words. When the morning comes, I will start you on your way.
* * *
The ants had laid out a feast, and those around the tree joined the troopers already eating. The blood of Bayel flowed freely, turning out, in the event, to be a mead-like liquor of concentrated sap, honey grown in the world tree’s limbs, and various and sundry other components the ants were unwilling or unable to convey to their guests.
Some time during the night, and long after the food had been taken away, Keeli’s father appeared in the cathedral, materializing out of the darkness without comment to listen and share tales.
And tales there were, for under the boughs of the oldest, even the most xenophobic of them shared kinship with all. The stories of the soldiers tended to be ribald and tall, while those of the wolves trended toward the dark and bloody. The sylvans spoke of the serenity and beauty of the wood. The horse, when anybody bothered to listen, spoke mainly of food and mares and running without a saddle.
Late, late into the night and well into his cups, Belius sidled up to the soldier —Braedonnal Storm— and owl-eyed him unsteadily. Both Storm and the sylvans had changed visibly since first the mage had laid eyes on them.
All three seemed out of nowhere to have grown floral capes of intricate design, nearly three-dimensional in their precision. Stranger yet, as he watched, the designs seemed to be growing in complexity, as though the images weren’t so much being laid upon their flesh as growing from it, twining along upper arms and back, dipping to collarbones. He shivered in spite of himself.
This would be the doing of the Oldest, he surmised. Of what significance it might be, he did not know and was slightly too drunk to care.
“The oldest said you were of the last born. Z’at true?” he blurted the moment the strange creature noticed him.
Storm shrugged, the warmth of both the liquor and the sylvans he lay with comforting him. “He... it...? Bayel would know that better than I,” he shrugged. “I’m only a soldier.”
“But,” Belius pressed. “Are you a man? I’d always thought we men were the last born, but now... Now, according to the oldest, we’re not. So if we’re not and you are, what, then, are you exactly?”
“I’d always thought of myself as a man,” Storm allowed. “‘course, I’d always thought of my world as earth. But that’s only our common word for it, not its name. It’s name is Terra, from the old Latin. And since I’m from that world and not this one... I’d guess you’d have to call me a Terran.”
“A Tairn, eh? Knew you couldn’t be no man!”
“No, not Tairn...Terr-an. And I am a man so far as I know....” Then Swallow Courting began to press herself harder against him as she nuzzled insistently behind his ear, and correcting the mage’s pronunciation suddenly seemed less important. “Uh, say, could we finish this conversation later? Thanks.”
Belius turned his back with a shiver of disgust. Cavorting with sylvans of all things!