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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The second time that Druadaen watched this world’s slightly whiter sun touch the horizon, he was far beyond the watchhouse near the Shimmer.

He had not slept much after his foray into the ruins, but instead, watched the night sky to see if any moons would present themselves. Instead of the three, stately large ones he knew from home, two small, bright ones fairly raced across the sky. When he finally did sleep, it was with his bracered wrist to one side, and the sai’niin sword on the other. It wasn’t as if they were companions, but with them on either flank, he didn’t feel quite so alone, either.

He woke shortly after dawn, hoping to reach the first town he had seen from the tower by day’s end. But, as on his ascent to the ruins, he considered travel on the road itself imprudent. Besides, there were long stretches where its surface was little better than the land through which it ran, which was often as rough and difficult to traverse as wilderness.

As the day neared its end, the terrain ahead became more even, which meant swifter travel but also less concealment. He decided it was better to stop where he was, move further away from the road, and find shelter among the copses and brush that still predominated in the rough ground to either side.

Druadaen’s search did not last very long. Between two sizable stands of trees, he discovered a large, solitary rock surrounded by brushes and fronds which hid its windward overhang. Taking care to step on stones wherever possible, he tucked his goods into the crevice at the rear of the low, natural alcove before clambering up above it to eat his meal. He began with the radishes and carrots he’d found in the overgrown fields of one of the abandoned farms he’d passed: more happy, if puzzling, examples of crops that seemed as common here as they were on Arrdanc.

Those desolate tracts predominated during his first few hours following the road, but had eventually given way to occasional houses. They were all set back from the road and surrounded by rude palisades that were also nighttime paddocks. On the one occasion when he was forced to remain on the road as he passed, several people came out to watch him. Wary, they moved their goats and sheep further away, their staffs held defensively despite being separated by almost a hundred yards of meadow that had once been cropland.

Druadaen finished with a tamaril and hurled it, along with the other remains of his dinner, in the direction opposite the one from which he’d approached the rock. He would need to vary his diet soon, but the closest of the towns he’d seen was only a day or two further along. With any luck, he would trade some of his heavier salvage for meat, bread, and a sleeping roll, and in so doing, start learning the local language. Towns meant trade, trade meant merchants, and merchants meant visitors from distant places, so most shopkeepers learned to build bridges of communication across mutually unfamiliar tongues.

Crawling down from his perch atop the rock, his stomach growled loudly. By the time he slipped beneath the overhang, the sound had become a shrill gurgling. Experience had taught him that a body could survive for weeks on raw fruits and vegetables, but it was not a pleasant experience. He lay back, his kit an unfortunate excuse for a pillow, but better than the stony ground.

Between the rock overhead and the top of the bushes, he saw only a narrow band of sky, the first of the unfamiliar stars beginning to glimmer faintly through the gloaming. Whether the two small moons would traverse the visible slice of the heavens was as unknowable as whether they appeared every night or not. But once he reached civilization, he could find answers to all these questions and many, many more.

Druadaen had slept in more precarious circumstances, but never in a land where he had no idea what species might be nearby, let alone any idea of their habits. He unsheathed the shortsword—if something got under the overhang, he’d need a compact weapon—and laid it on the side opposite the sai’niin blade. Beyond those precautions, all he could do was get some sleep.

And hope that he lived to see the sun again.


Druadaen started awake at the sound of rustling so casual and so close that it meant one of two things: either the creature passing had no better sense of smell than a human, or it had no interest in him.

The rustling stopped… but not all at once.

Very well: more than one creature. He shifted so that he was clear of the overhang and reached a hand toward his sword.

A few yards back in the bushes, a low growl arose. Druadaen stopped moving his hand but did not withdraw it… and was surprised by a sudden dim glow.

From the sword.

More growls.

The sword’s glow became a surly blue violet—and in a blink, the velene was off Druadaen’s wrist. It soared overhead into the night and vanished.

All but one of the growls ceased, the last becoming more akin to the stony grumble of a disciplined dog—because, that’s what it was, more or less. Wolves, Druadaen realized, several of them. And they don’t mean to attack—at least, not yet. But why—?

A woman’s voice called from the dark beyond the bushes, using words that were meaningless to him.

Druadaen put out his hands and, folding his legs under him, pushed straight up into a standing position, the sword still within a leaping reach. But the words from the dark, a surly sword, and a—presumably—watchful velene led him to believe that so far, he had little to fear. But without any words, he could not communicate. Unless…

He began to sing, just as he and his companions had done to announce their peaceable intents to the giantess Heela, a whole year and a whole world ago.

Rustling resumed in the bushes, but did not approach or withdraw. It was the sound of creatures repositioning themselves. Probably to get a better look at the human who is so pitiably insane that when accosted by wolves, he chooses to sing instead of fight or flee.

After a few seconds of the simple lullaby he’d chosen, the woman called out a longer string of words, but the tone had changed from “Who goes there?” to “That will be enough, thank you.”

Druadaen stopped singing, and an instant later the velene returned—but to his shoulder, not his wrist. Its face was aimed in the general direction of the woman’s voice. A moment later, the bushes began parting at that point, but more expansively than any woman or man would logically require. Or could achieve.

An accurate assessment, Druadaen silently affirmed as a very large brown bear shouldered casually through growth that would have tested the strength and resolve of ten strong warriors. The last thing he wanted to do was stand his ground, but fighting or fleeing was pointless, and at least he could demonstrate that he was not easily frightened.

It was unclear if that mattered to the woman who walked out of the brush behind the bear, which promptly sat to one side of the gap and began scratching itself. Behind them, at least six pairs of eyes reflected the sword’s glow. Knowing the tactics instinctual to wolves, there would be at least half as many again where Druadaen could not see them, but from which they could either cut off a retreat or attack his flanks.

The other thing that arrived was a strong, but not overpowering, animal scent. It was musky and mostly doglike: not unpleasant, if one liked the scents of animals. Which Druadaen largely did. Except goats. And chickens. Especially their coops.

But the young woman who approached to within arm’s length did not smell like that. Her scent was more a mix of woods and wet hair. Her garments, which were scant, were fashioned from tightly corded vines that possessed a satiny finish and unusual flexibility. She looked him up and down, the corner of her mouth quirking as she did. That mild amusement departed as her eyes drifted past the now dim sword on the ground, and was replaced by wonder when they settled on the velene.

Which returned her regard with its featureless statue eyes before flowing down Druadaen’s arm to arrive at his wrist in the form of a bracer.

Her eyes widened slightly. Then, as if annoyed at showing her surprise, she crossed her arms and nodded at Druadaen, uttering three words, very slowly.

Now that his demise did not seem imminent, Druadaen noticed several phonemes clustered in familiar groups. It was as if, in listening to wholly alien music, one discovered a few scattered notes that resembled phrases in a traditional ballad. And now that she had signaled her desire to converse, he fell back upon his Courier training.

He tapped his chest twice. “Druadaen,” he said, and nothing else. At this point, it was imperative to utter one sound and indicate one object. Anything else was a pathway to confusion. He reversed the order: he uttered his name before tapping his chest twice.

Frowning, the young woman tapped her chest and said, “Aleasha,” paused a moment, then repeated the process in reverse, just as he had: first the name, then the taps. In the silence that followed, the bear looked from one to the other, then uttered a groan that sounded very like a human realizing that an interval of profound boredom was about to commence.

Looking back from the bear, their eyes met again and, unexpectedly, they shared a smile.

Perhaps, Druadaen speculated as she gestured for them to sit beneath the overhang, he might survive the night after all.


Druadaen’s experience as both a Courier and an Outrider proved very valuable over the hours that followed.

They began by trading the most basic of words: nouns with which to identify objects that they could hold up and tap. The progress was comparatively rapid; in addition to finding almost thirty shared words in as many minutes, Aleasha proved not only extremely clever but also relatively familiar with the process of building up a shared language.

Once each had a sense of how the other thought and learned, they added the touchstone for all inquiries and discussions: “yes” and “no.” That prepared them for determining what Druadaen had been taught was the foundation of exchanging ideas: fifty terms which all known human languages needed to function. Fortunately, a Senior Outrider had taught him how to accelerate the process: sharing the relevant term in every tongue they knew.

However, since this was an entirely different world, Druadaen almost disregarded that shortcut; there was no reason to assume it would reveal any linguistic overlap. But a whiff of ripening tamarils from his food pouch made him reconsider; given the many species of plants and animals that existed on both sides of the Shimmer, perhaps people—and their languages—had also propagated from one world to the other.

Aleasha not only understood the shortcut but had obviously used it before. During their seventh attempt to find a shared word—“woman”—she cocked her head when he uttered it in Commerce. Frowning, she echoed with a word that was similar but not a match.

Druadaen wondered if the difference, which was mostly at the end of the word, might be a qualifier of some kind—possibly a diminutive? If so, then maybe she was using a word for… “Girl?” he said in Commerce.

She appeared frustrated, simultaneously encouraging further attempts but still not understanding.

Druadaen stood, invited her to do the same. Once she had, he held his hands out, level with the top of her head. “Woman,” he said in Commerce. She shook her head. Then he lowered it to a point just above her midriff. “Girl,” he repeated in the same language.

Aleasha nodded, smiled brightly: at some point, two different languages had grabbed hold of the same basic word and went different ways with it. After that, their shared vocabulary began expanding rapidly. Commerce was the source of almost all their words in common. It was also a language for which she had a visible measure of contempt. He was not surprised: Commerce had been accumulated from over a dozen languages and was simple and brutishly literal. Writing poetry in it would have been comparable to crafting delicate earrings with a sledgehammer.

However, one other surprising source of shared words emerged. Druadaen had been including equivalent terms from several ancient languages and was surprised when she knew several words in archaic Tualaran, but did not know what the language itself was called. Still, it was an interesting piece of information. Many of Corum Torshaenyx’s people were not only long-lived but renowned as adventurous travelers. Perhaps, Druadaen wondered, that included other worlds?

Turning words into phrases came much more slowly. But like Druadaen, Aleasha’s prior experience had disabused her of any great expectations. They both anticipated and accepted that the many mangled meanings and mistaken contexts were part of the process, and that the aim was not to attain eloquence, merely understanding.

They kept at it until, shortly after sunrise, Aleasha’s eyes began to droop. She shook her head sharply, reached into a belt pouch and produced what looked like a handful of thin, dried roots. Biting into one, she held a second out toward him. “Eat. No sleep,” she explained, widening her eyes almost comically to make her point.

Druadaen almost paused—accepting local foods at a first meeting was rarely wise—but in this case, if she had meant him harm, her various furred companions would have decisively completed that grim work before he could have emerged from the overhang. Besides, from the moment Aleasha had appeared, there had been nothing in her demeanor suggesting deception or malign intent. She was reserved and cautious, but he found that reassuring. A Courier learned quickly enough that easy amiability in an initial encounter was often a harbinger of deceit and a prelude to ambush or betrayal. So after a moment’s thoughtful hesitation, Druadaen accepted one of the roots—and in so doing, they discovered common words for “thank you” and “you are welcome.”

When the sun had climbed halfway to its zenith, she stood, passed the back of her hand over her glistening brow, and gestured that he should follow her to the larger of the two copses flanking the rock. “You come with. Yes?” she asked, head tilting slightly.

He rose, nodding. “Yes. I do happy.”

There was a cold spring that bubbled up near the center of the trees which grew close around it, their shade and the cool spray a welcome respite from the growing heat of the day. Before settling in, Aleasha made the rounds of the animals that followed her, touching noses, rubbing ears, making noises that sounded quite like the ones with which they greeted her. They became increasingly relaxed, after that. Different ones would rise at various intervals, always touching noses with her before they trotted off. The impetus for their departure was never obvious. They might have left to patrol, hunt, relieve themselves, or simply rid their ears of the incessant, arrhythmic chatter of humans cobbling together a common language.

But those who were nearby had changed their postures. They were still moderately vigilant, but their attention was now directed outward, not at Druadaen. So, I’m not a member of the pack, but considered a friend. Or harmless, was the other, chastening possibility. Either way, it was a welcome change.

After half an hour of further language-building, his stomach growled so suddenly and loudly that several of the wolves looked over. Aleasha simply smiled and raised a hand. “We stop. Now food. Then words more.” Druadaen nodded gratefully.

She rustled around in the only hide item she carried—a heavy, shaggy haversack—and produced two flat-pressed cakes. They were a mix of nuts and berries held together by a hard, odorless cheese. “You eat,” she said, passing one over. They rehearsed their respective courtesies once again, and savored the food in companionable silence. When they resumed their labors, the shadows had begun to shorten, and Druadaen realized that what had started out as a task crucial to his survival had begun to feel like play.

The shadows had almost disappeared in the noonday glare and Druadaen was just beginning to feel hungry again, when Aleasha leaned back with a long sigh. “Sleep short then more talk, yes?”

Druadaen nodded, closed his eyes, but unlike his body, his mind would not relax. First he had to review the sizable vocabulary they had amassed. Then consider the implications of all the common words they’d discovered. Then assess what phrases they should work through next.

He sighed. He probably wouldn’t get any rest at all. There was still so much to do.

If only I was tired enough to fall aslee—


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