Nyx [https://i.imgur.com/LIXSSa0.jpeg]

I realized I was in some kind of trouble. Maybe I've fallen through time. Or flown off into unknown lands.

I was not in my world. People have written many books about traveling to other worlds. I’ve read many of them. The sky is alien, the air is not the same, there are no familiar noises. Instead of green grass, there are some dried stalks under my feet. No familiar picture. Even if I had moved to another part of the globe, there would still be signs of human civilization. The air itself was alien.

And yet, despite the obvious facts, I still couldn't believe I had flown "somewhere". Just in case, I took my smartphone out of my pocket. My gadget froze.

There was only one last means of communication left: the shotgun. Before we started the hunt, Jude stuffed a dozen shotgun shells in my pocket.

- You don’t have to shoot quail, but I’m just giving you ammo just in case. That’s the rule. If you get lost, shoot three times in a row. We’ll hear you.

- Why three?

- Our guns, double-barrelled, allow two shots in a row. Your semiautomatic allows five. Arian, don't save your ammo. Fire three times. We'll hear you and know it's your signal for help.

- Are you kidding me?! What’s cell phone service for?

- What will you do if the phone doesn't work? - Jude answered the question with a question. And now I could see that he was right. The only thing to do was to shoot. Maybe he and his friends weren’t far from me, out of sight. Though it was worth recognizing, Jude and his friends couldn’t hide. I was on flat ground, devoid of grass and ubiquitous shrubs. Only a hundred paces away from me, I could see a pile of dry branches.

I didn’t shoot, thinking that no one would hear my signals, anyway. I had little ammunition in my pocket, so I might need it later. I’ll also need a knife, a small flask with water, a coil of not thick but strong enough rep cord, a couple of sandwiches for duty. You can use the phone as a chronometer until the battery runs out.

For some time I could not decide what to do: to explore the heap of brushwood, resembling a hut, or to stay in place until dusk, like a plane crash victim. I didn’t want to spend the night in the open air. It is possible that there are nocturnal predators here, from which it is worth hiding. At least in a pile of dry branches. It’s not much of a shelter, but it’s shelter. Let me be like Nuf-Nuf and build a house out of twigs, and I have a gun.

At the mention of a piglet, my friends smiled.

- You don’t look like a pig, — Basil tugged my ear good-.

- You do, — I took his hand away and continued:

- I approached the future shelter and with each step I saw more and more clearly that I didn't need to build anything, because the pile of brushwood had four walls, a roof, and a door. It looked like someone’s dwelling. But there was no chimney. Either this strange house was heated black, or the owners did not need heat. There were no windows either.

Not more than ten steps were left to the house, when the door opened with a quiet creak. On the threshold of the unusual house stood a strange man dressed in rags.

- A local bum? - Sasha asked. My friends laughed. I could hardly contain the anger bursting out. I did not particularly like such jokes. I continued:

For a few minutes we looked at each other tensely, trying to understand who we were dealing with. The strange man held out his hand toward me, whispering something. It felt like someone was trying to get inside my head. The unusual situation made me dizzy. I pointed the shotgun at the homeless man and shouted:

- Stop it!

The strange man lowered his hand in surprise and said something. His speech was a collection of incoherent sounds. Something like:

- Ta-ta-ra, ma-ma-ta-ta, paka, paka.

- What-what? - Michael tensed up. He was drinking a beer and when he heard the incomprehensible words he almost choked. Coughing, he scooped a handful of salted peanuts from a plastic bag. - Can you say that again?

- Easy, — I grinned. My friends thought that the language of our communication looked more attractive to foreigners than the gibberish of a strange man.

And how to explain to him who I was, if I didn’t understand anything from his greeting speech. His greeting was more like the squeak of unlubricated wheels than human speech. Or maybe he was unkindly sending me away, only I didn’t realize it. The man looked at me with a cold-blooded expression, like a venerable poker player. That is, no joy, no anger, no fear of the stranger. Maybe there were some feelings nesting in his coal-black eyes, but it was almost impossible to see them.

To avoid scaring him, I put my shotgun behind my back and showed my empty hands. The stranger looked at my hands, showed me his. Well, fine, we’re ready to dialog, but where to start? Just in case, I pulled out my smartphone, looked at the display. It had been about ten, fifteen minutes at the most since I’d been wandering around, and I hadn’t gotten a signal to contact my friends. The stranger turned his head like a raven, squinted his eyes at the gadget, said something again. This time, I couldn’t even understand what he said.

- It’s not surprising, - Alex summarized, - the language barrier was a significant obstacle for many people. Just think of the meeting between Columbus and the Indians.

- What is there to remember? - Nikos was indignant. - There are hundreds of such moments in history, if not thousands, and if we discuss them now, we will forget what Arian told us. Can you, - he said to me, “skip this important moment and talk about what you did?

- I can, - I didn’t argue. Perhaps my story is not as intriguing as my friends would like it to be, but it is not in vain that I tell it, for many little things determine the whole narrative. I could tell it in a dozen words: I went to Orkvalia, traveled a bit and came back. If I told it that way, I am more than sure that my listeners would want a more detailed story.

- Then you won’t know why, having found yourself in Orkvalia from the very first days, you not only understood the language of the locals but also spoke it.

- All right, - Nikos waved his hand. - I have patience and will not interfere with the story. If I fall asleep, wake me up.

- So, - I more confidently continued the story. The events of that day were very clear in my memory. I remembered all the nuances and events of that day as if they had happened yesterday. - For another five minutes the man and I jostled at the threshold, him examining me and me examining him. I didn’t like his long greasy hair, his beard covering his chest, his clothes made of rough pieces of dirty cloth. He smelled of something rotten. Cloth was wrapped around his lower body, leaving his dirty legs exposed. The sight was most disgusting. I don’t know what he thought of me, but after a few minutes of inspection, he gestured for me to enter his dwelling. I shook my head, showing that I didn’t want to plunge into the world of stench, and I clamped my fingers over my nose to make sure. The stranger smiled for the first time since we’d been together, showing yellow teeth, and mumbled something again. Then he walked into his hut, rummaging through his things. I heard the noise of bundles falling to the floor, the clinking of glass bottles. Without waiting for the owner of the strange shack to come out for fresh air I headed for the transition point, hoping that the door was still open. That she would return me to my troubled but more civilized world.

Stolen novel; please report.

- Uh, - I heard behind me, - Ta-ta-ra, ma-ma-ta-ta-ta, paka, paka.

I stopped. The aborigine obviously wanted something from me. Maybe he wanted to exchange things. Though looking at him I realized that the strange inhabitant had good intentions, he was holding a ceramic flask, obviously with some local drink.

- I like him, your new friend, - Theodore smirked. He had emptied several cans of beer during the short story, had gone to the bathroom twice for minor necessities, and now sat smiling stupidly.

- Shut up, - Michael hissed at him. - If you don’t want to listen, don’t listen, and if you behave like a brute, you’ll stay home instead of going to Orkvalia.

The threat of excommunication from the next trip had a sobering effect on Theo-Rockman. He stopped smiling and stared at me, his eyes shouting: Tell me, I’m listening.

- For several minutes he offered me a drink from the bottle. I actively resisted. At some point the man waved his hand, and then I felt trapped in an invisible net. I could not move not only my arm or leg, but even my head. The owner of the shack, without much ado, shoved the bottle into my mouth and clamped his fingers over my nose. If I had gills, I wouldn't open my mouth. My throat burned with the bitter drink, and I coughed. The numbness passed, and I was able to wipe my mouth and try to extract the contents of the bottle before they could be absorbed into my bloodstream. Putting a finger in my mouth I pressed on the base of my tongue. I couldn't burp, my head was buzzing like I'd just had a good glass of whiskey.

- What are you doing? - I heard a stranger’s voice...

- Do you mean to say that after drinking the drink, you began to understand him? - Michael asked.

- I’m not the only one, - I smiled, squinting my eyes slyly. - Do you remember, at the entrance to the count’s manor we drank fruit juice made according to my recipe? You loved it then.

- Now I see why we understood what the Children of the Forest, and the rest of Orkvalia, were saying, - Basil said, grinning. - I thought they were our countrymen then.

- You poisoned me! Why?

- It’s not poison. Do you understand what I’m saying?

- Yes, I do," I shook my head in surprise. All the unpleasant sensations were gone.

- I understand you too! - The stranger smiled. - My name is Nix, be my guest.

- Does your house stink as much as yours? I’d rather stay here then.

- It’s dangerous out here in the open, and the house smells like grass.

I looked around. There was an open space around us, a kilometer away, a ridge of low hills, and the sky was clear and clear. What kind of danger are we talking about? What if Nix isn’t lying?

I didn’t argue with myself, stepping after the strange man.

He didn’t deceive me. The house did smell of hay, the odor of dry herbs drowning out the stench of the hospitable host. The house was not as simple as I had first thought. In the middle of a large room, whereof all the utensils, there was an empty table and a small bed covered with hay. In the center of the room was a rectangular trapdoor, opened by Nix’s hand. As I descended the stone stairs, I whistled in surprise. The underground shelter was more spacious than I’d imagined. It had a high ceiling and clean walls draped with some obscure material. There were several underground rooms, and if it hadn’t been for the master opening the doors for me, I wouldn’t have been able to enter any of them. One of them served as Nix’s study, if I may say so. A few well-made armchairs, a table filled with ceramic bottles and bowls, many medallions, and many gold and silver figurines. Looking at the tiny figures of kings and queens, I thought the chessboard was missing to complete the picture.

- Tell me about yourself! - Nix suggested me, sitting down in a grippy chair.

- What can I tell you about myself? Why these questions? - I looked at the man sitting before me in surprise. It wasn’t just the sentence that sounded like an order. His original image was changing right before my eyes, from a scruffy ragamuffin to a respectable man. The rags evaporated, leaving the man in a roomy gray shirt that looked like a bathrobe. The disgusting odor disappeared, and the rotten, yellow teeth whitened.

- Like in the commercials? - Nikos grinned.

- You promised not to talk, - I burned him with a look. - Nikos’s appearance changed. He focused on me and waited for my story.

- Tell me who you are, what you’re doing in these parts.

- What makes you think I am a stranger?

Instead of answering, Nyx transformed back into a boy my age. He wore clothes similar to mine, almost like mine, except that his eyes were the same: coal black. Camouflage-colored pants, a shirt the color of yellowing leaves - clothes like mine. I felt like I was talking to someone my own age.

- Well, will you tell me? - asked the wizard, satisfied with his transformation.

I sighed, where could I go? Having lived only seventeen years, there’s not much to tell. I’m not Moliere, I’m not a genius, I didn’t drive regiments, I didn’t fly into space.There's nothing special about me. I'm not even a sculptor, just learning to sculpt. I have a little brother...

- - The brother you lost, - Sasha muttered. I didn't stop because of his "needle" stuck in my heart.

- I have friends, - I stopped talking and looked around at the people present, the room fell into silence. No one was drinking beer or crunching peanuts. Even the ever-sniffling Theodore held his breath.