Nameless

I suddenly realized, in the space between one breath and the next that I’d been walking for the better part of the afternoon, complacently following the wheel ruts in the great road, without any memory of who I was or where I was going.

This self-awareness arose seemingly out of nowhere . . . happening after a nearly disastrous stumble on a loose stone.

“I could’ve broken my damned leg,” I muttered, and so muttering, heard my own voice for the first time. It was low and pleasant—natural-sounding, if a bit scratchy from disuse. It was not at all familiar to me, and I would never have believed such an unfamiliar voice to be mine, but for the fact that it had said what I had thought, and I was alone on the road for miles in either direction.

The last echoes of my voice fading from my ears, I understood the language I had spoken, but it, too, was unfamiliar. It seemed . . . wrong, somehow. It was lovely and lyrical—had flowed from me as naturally as speech ought. But it wasn’t my native language.

My native language being, of course—

Stopping dead in the center of the road, I tried to finish the statement, but could not. That was more than a little alarming. Panic nibbled at the edges of my still-foggy brain, but I beat it back. This was not a time for panicking.

It was time to take stock of myself, such as I was:

I was decidedly male, a quick pat-down of my person proved. I was fully clothed, thankfully, in a saffron-colored tunic and matching trousers of some thin, slippery fabric. On my feet were black leather sandals that had seen better days. They and my feet were dusty from the road.

My hands were well-shaped, long and fine, if none too clean, themselves. There was no dirt under the nails and no callouses, whatsoever.

“Whoever I am, I am not a laborer of any kind,” I said in the strange language, just to hear the odd, but somewhat comforting sound of my voice again. I clenched my hands into tight, copper-colored fists then released them. “Whoever I am. . . .”

Looking up at the sky—the sun was high, still, though closer to setting than rising—I winced at the light and shaded my face with my hand. I could see the occasional bird soaring across the face of the sky, along with the ragged remains of clouds that’d mostly been burned off by the heat. That heat, though excessive, didn’t particularly bother me. In fact, I’d barely broken a sweat in all my walking, thus far. Whatever else I was, I was clearly built for such climes as I found myself in.

Glancing down the road again in either direction, the way I’d come, much like the way ahead, was lined with tall trees on either side, making the road the only easy option. Even were it not, it hadn’t even occurred to me to venture off the beaten track.

I snorted. “It also hadn’t occurred to you that you don’t know who you are, either,” my voice came, dry and sarcastic. The sarcasm, at least, was somewhat familiar. It seemed to fit more than the complacency I’d been feeling all afternoon. The featureless fog of that was burning off much like the clouds above had. I still didn’t remember who I was, but I was starting to find . . . handholds and crevices. Places where there was personality, if not memory.

I shoved my hands in my trouser pockets in a sudden burst of inspiration then turned them out angrily. Nothing in either one. And another pat-down did not reveal any other pockets, though it did reveal a necklace. One with a clasp I couldn’t figure out how to open. But the chain—some sort of silver metal—was just long enough for me to see the pendant that hung from it, but not long enough for me to get over my head.

The pendant was a symbol of some sort. Nothing but curves that seemed to twist in on each other and lead to other curves and turns. The pendant was heavy and solid, made of some greenish-grey metal I couldn’t name, about the size of my palm, and . . . just trying to follow the workmanship of it made me feel faint and strange . . .vaguely ill.

Sighing, I tucked the pendant away back in my shirt and looked back the way I’d come. It seemed to me that if that was the way I’d come, then answers to who I was might lie there.

“But then, if back the way I came is where I lost my memory, danger might lie there, as well,” I acknowledged aloud, my voice troubled. I felt my head gingerly. No lumps or knots or blood. No sign of injury that I could tell and nothing that might lead to such a loss of memory. Though I did note that my head was shorn . . . spiky stubble, less than a quarter of an inch in length bristled all over my scalp. There was none on my face, however. Not even a tickle of peach-fuzz.

Had I shaven, sometime recently, or was I simply . . . young?

I didn’t feel young. At that moment, I felt, despite the lack of memories, ancient. And in danger. What danger, I couldn’t have said, but there was a faint, fearful sense of being . . . hunted.

Suddenly, I felt very conspicuous and vulnerable. How long had I been just meandering down the road, defenseless and unobservant, without provisions or papers, literally out of my right mind?

Shuddering, I backed toward one edge of the road and into the trees, and glanced around me. It would be tough going, hiking through the woods back in the direction from which I’d come, but it was, I was convinced, necessary. And at least the trees could provide me with some sort of cover. As long as I could still see the road—and what was coming down it—I thought I would be fine.

It seemed like a plan, of sorts. And, with strange, gut-level certainty, I knew that I would know what I was looking for once I saw it.

And it, possibly, might know me
.

#

Toma na-Foy hitched his pack up on his back higher and bore up manfully under the heat of the afternoon.

He’d been on the Great Road since Northaven—a moon ago, now—following it south and south and further south, still, on the run and hoping against hope to find any remnants of his former clan that might remain. To no avail. For all he knew, every member of the Foy Clan but himself really had likely been wiped off the face of the Earth, by edict of the Grey Man.

How he, himself, remained alive to search at all was a mystery.

It’s because I’m Outcast, Toma thought grimly, and not for the first time. My Clan cast me out, therefore, there’s no point to hunting down and killing me. I’m not even of true Foy blood, just some foundling the Foys took in out of pity . . . why spend the gold and resources to find and kill me?

So . . . not so much of a mystery, perhaps. And, with the Grey Man’s edict spread from such far-flung hamlets as tiny Scar’s Down in the northeast, to well-worn cities such as massive Marblehaven in the Midlands, and possibly even the jeweled City-States of the Southern Reaches, the odds of even one Foy escaping the Grey Man’s net were . . . infinitesimally small. Or so it would have seemed.

Outcast that he was, however, Toma had quickly realized he had no choice but to try. Try or die. His back was against a wall. There’d been nothing for it but to run, and hope the mercenaries and whoever else took it into their mind to hunt Foys, noticed that he was no longer Foy, but na-Foy, and thus Clan-less. And thought, by the look of him, both not of the blood and not an easy target—to Hell with the Grey Man and his genocidal edict.

But Toma wasn’t taking any chances. He’d fled south after the first of the murders began forming a pattern. Fled the City that’d sheltered and employed him for fifteen of his thirty-five years, in the hope that there was somewhere far enough away that he wouldn’t be pursued.

Somewhere the Grey Man’s reach falls short. . . .

Toma sighed, one large, calloused hand loosely clutching the hilt of his short sword, the other just clenching futilely. Above him, the sun beat down so intensely, he cursed it. Around him, insects sang reedily in the trees and grasses, and went about their business. Under his feet, the hard-packed dirt of the Great Road sent up emissaries of dust with every step.

Wiping his sweaty face with the sleeve of his leather jerkin—not as protective as his old hauberk, nor are his plain wool trousers as tough as his greaves were, but both are infinitely cooler in these increasingly southern climes—he stopped, meaning to take a swallow from his canteen. His mouth tasted of nothing but his own bitter breath and road dust.

In the midst of his swallow of lukewarm, but nonetheless wonderful water, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he knew, as sure as he knew his own name, that he was being watched.

No . . . followed.

For the feeling continued even after he capped the canteen, stowed it, and resumed his ground-devouring stalk up the Road.

If anything, the feeling intensified the further down the Road he went, as if whatever or whoever wasn’t merely following him, but studying him, as well.

This, Toma knew, was no innocent wildlife.

The Grey Man’s people? Here for him, at last? To pick off the final, lowly na-Foy?

Not likely. Not making so much noise and being so damned clumsy about it. For whoever it was that was following Toma clearly knew next to nothing about stealth. Toma, no woodsmen, himself—a city lad from his earliest days—could have made less noise stumbling about in the trees with a broken leg.

Even as he thought this, the noises of his pursuer grew louder—labored breath, grunts of exertion, the thwap of branches hitting flesh—and more noticeable.

Exasperated, more than wary (though it would not do to be anything less than on-his-guard), Toma stopped in his tracks, facing the ridiculous flailing in the trees and already drawing his short sword. One of the very few things he’d taken with him when he’d left the employ of the Northaven City Guard with neither word nor leave, and in fear for his very life.

The rustling did not, as he expected, stop. It in fact grew louder and closer. Toma could just make out something brightly colored pushing through the greens of the forest in front of him.

“Whoever you are, come out slowly, where I can see you!”

Just then, something as orange as a robin’s arse practically exploded out of the foliage and into the road, tripping as it did so, to go sprawling on its stomach with a winded groan.

It lay there for several moments in its cloud of dust, before attempting to sit up, ignorant of the sword pointed at it.

No, pointed at him, Toma realized, for he found himself looking quite suddenly into the face and wide dark eyes of a man—barely, for he was young enough, from the look of him, to be Toma’s son.

Those wide eyes widened further when they fell on Toma’s sword and the man—the boy—scrambled backwards on his heels and arse, till his back was against the trunk of an ancient oak tree. He opened his mouth to say something, but instead sneezed several times, then moaned miserably. Toma snorted.

“Why are you following me, boy?”

#

I sat there, panting and staring up at the seemingly huge man, who in turn stared down his nose and his sword at me. His words, harsh and incomprehensible as they had been, had most certainly ended on an interrogative.

I was expected to answer.

Swallowing around the fifth sneeze that wanted to come whooshing out of me, I shook my head slowly, then hesitantly spoke in the only language I knew. “I don’t understand you. I’m sorry.”

As I spoke, the fierce look left the man’s slightly sunburned, very freckled face—what little of it I could make out between the red-gold curls of hair coming from under his helm and the thick beard and mustaches hiding the lower half of his face. Eyes the color of a summer storm-cloud—and how should I have known what one of those looked like? I, who did not even know what my own face looked like, or the sound of my own name? Yet I knew—studied me from stem to stern. Then he frowned, glancing up and down the road then back at me. The sword never wavered.

He’s a soldier, though, I thought, noticing his plain clothing, which rather obviously hid a wall of muscle on a large, solid frame, he does not advertise this fact. Doesn’t need to. Then I wondered what that meant for me, and wondering, grew excited. If perhaps he might—assuming I could communicate my intention to him—let me travel with him down the road, as we seemed to be going in the same direction, I was assured a relatively safe journey. Lack of memory aside, it was clear that I had no instinct for traveling stealthily. And I could only presume that when it came to defending myself that the disappointing display I’d just made would only repeat itself.

The fierce man muttered something else in his harsh, glottal language and sheathed his sword. Then he extended the same hand to me, stepping closer. I instinctively tried to scrabble backwards but was halted by the tree at my back.

He frowned again and held out his other hand, open-palmed and said something else.

Shaking my head again, I looked at the hands offered and, swallowing my sudden and unreasoning fear, reached out and took them. I yelped as I was pulled to my feet by a strong, rough grip. I stumbled forward against the fierce man and he snorted again, and righted me without any of my help. This close, he smelled like sweat and iron and leather.

I looked up into his storm-cloud eyes and he looked down into mine, frowning. He seemed to do that a lot.

“Toh-MAH,” he said firmly. Then he let go of one of my hands to pat his chest. “Toh-MAH.”

It took me a few moments to realize he was telling me his name, and that once more, I was expected to reciprocate. Especially when he gently poked me just under the collarbone with two thick fingers and looked expectant again.

This was awkward. It was one thing to not have a common language, but even two people who spoke the most disparate languages could share names. Unless, that is, one of those people had lost his memory.

I sighed and shrugged, shaking my head again. “I don’t have a name. I don’t remember it. I’m nameless. Nameless,” I said again, when his frown took on a confused cast. I let go of his hand and made a severing gesture with both of mine. “I am nameless.”

“Ah,” he said, poking me again and saying: “Iamnameless,” struggling with the—to him—exotic words and running them together.

I nodded, and he bared his teeth—not only present, but surprisingly white—in a brief grimace of a smile, then pointed to himself. “Toh-MAH.” Then pointed to me and said: “Iamnameless.”

It took me another few seconds to realize that he thought that “I am nameless” was actually my name.

I laughed . . . a short, slightly desperate bark of sound that startled us both.

#

Toma watched the boy collect himself after laughing. His face, the color of burnished copper, was one made for merriment, pleasant and comely despite a watchful sharpness about the dark, dark eyes. Those knowing eyes made a lie of the boy’s seeming youth, and Toma found himself upwardly revising his guess of the boy’s age. . . .

Still, he’s rather young for my taste, he thought finally, almost primly. Then on the heels of that: Too bad the same can’t be said for some of the scum that travels this Road. Which leaves me the problem of what to do about this boy, this . . . Nama. I certainly can’t take him with me. I need to move faster than this boy, soft as a courtesan’s pillow, can travel. And eventually live harder than this boy ever could. . . .

Nama cleared his throat and peered up at Toma almost wryly. He said his name again—as pretty as the boy himself, and just as incomprehensible . . . not to mention nearly unpronounceable—something more fit for the throat of a songbird, than the mouth of a teenage boy. (The only part of it Toma could get out without mangling was Nama.)

“Well. You’re Nama, and I’m Toma . . . that’s been established,” Toma said gruffly, hitching his pack again and looking down the Road as if he could somehow see all the way to Marblehaven. Or even to the Southern City-States, where the Grey Man’s reach might be, if not absent, then lessened. . . .

Nama said something else then, and gestured down the Great Road the way Toma had been walking. Then he peered up at Toma again and smiled hopefully. He then poked Toma in the chest, and himself then made walking motions with his fingers.

What Nama wanted was as plain as the upturned nose on his dark face.

Toma steeled himself to say, in no uncertain terms, no. Though there was no way he could stop the boy from following him, he was fairly certain he could just by sheer dint of walking faster and farther than the boy, lose him between here and the next village off the Great Road. Or the one after that.

And the no was on his lips, ready to be deployed like a warship, when Nama smiled up at him—so hopeful and innocent—and put his hand on Toma’s arm. His eyes were unguarded and anxious.

Toma cleared his throat. Hadn’t he just been thinking of all the people that wouldn’t hesitate to sink their teeth into this naïve, lost boy?

And he was lost—Toma sensed at least that much about Nama. Lost from where, Toma couldn’t begin to guess, only that for his coppery skin, the boy might be from one of the southern-most of the City-States.

If so, then he was far, far from home.

Why? And how?

Toma couldn’t guess and the boy obviously couldn’t tell him.

Nama leaned closer to him, close enough that Toma could smell his scent—sweat, grass, and the faintest hint of some expensive, floral soap. He said something in his strange language that Toma could understand perfectly, nonetheless.

Please.

#

“Please?” I asked this soldier, this Toma, looking into his grey eyes and trying to communicate with that gaze all my desperation. I knew without even having to give the matter much thought, that I couldn’t survive on my own on this road. Not without protection . . . or the illusion of it.

I could hardly imagine anyone wanting to take on a mountain of a man like Toma just to get to me.

And anyway, I was sure that I hadn’t, in this one afternoon, walked farther than a few miles beyond the point where I lost my memory. Or had it taken from me.

Please, Toma, I just need to get to that place. I’ll know it when I see it, I just know I will. All I need is someone to get me there, and after that . . . after that, we can part ways, if you wish. Only get me there, first.

Toma, clearly about to say no, sighed and looked away. Down the road in the direction both he and I had been traveling, and . . . he started walking.

My heart dropped from its new resting place, in my throat, and I looked down, sudden tears filling my eyes as I felt every last ounce of hope leave my body. This was it, then. I would be left to my own devices. And so left, was unlikely to reach my destination without being accosted or hurt . . . or possibly even killed.

I could very well have died on this road—or just off it—without ever finding out who I was. . . .

Hastily swiping tears off my cheeks, I squared my shoulders and took a deep, steadying breath. If I was to travel alone, then it wouldn’t do to display such weakness. To make myself so vulnerable. It wouldn’t do to—

A gruff throat cleared itself and I looked up, startled.

Toma stood, not ten feet away, gazing at me with impatient, but otherwise unreadable eyes. He nodded almost imperceptibly in the direction he’d been walking then . . . resumed walking.

Again, it took me a few seconds, but then I was jogging to catch up with him. When he noticed me struggling to keep up, he slowed his pace a little, grudgingly. But it was enough that I could keep up without being winded.

#

By the time the Sun was truly on the wester, setting the sky afire with its last gasp, Toma, stoic as ever, and panting, sweating Nama had finally passed the Great Forest to either side of the Great Road, and emerged into the tended and tamed farmlands of the Southern Midlands.

Toma halted, putting out a hand that Nama—breathing heavily and staring at his sandaled feet—walked into chest first. The boy looked up at Toma questioningly, his eyes still keen and aware despite his obvious exhaustion. Toma felt a small burst of respect for him.

“We’re nearing a village—should be Knightly, according to my map—and we should reach it before sundown if we don’t slitter. Stick by me, do what I do, and you’ll be fine,” Toma said, then realized issuing these instructions was fruitless because of the language barrier.

But the boy nodded thoughtfully, as if he understood. He ran a hand over his spiky, soot-black hair, then made a moue of disgust and resignation when it came away sweaty.

He sighed something or other in that lyrical, songbird language and aimed that wry, old-soul smile up at Toma who, after moment of multi-tiered confusion, cleared his throat and walked on, Nama immediately at his side.

#

As we neared the first signs of human habitation, nothing looked familiar. Nothing whatsoever.

And yet . . . I was certain I must have passed this way in my foggy travels. I hadn’t been scratched or dirty enough to have come through the forest that had bordered the road, nor had I come down any one of the smaller tracks leading into from the road to the farmlands before.

As a village slowly appeared in the distance, I felt a weighty sense of despair.

None of this was familiar to me.

Not only that, but the thought of being around others—others whose memories were not compromised, and who probably did not speak my language—filled me with dread, so that I pressed closer to Toma and walked a little behind him.

Toma glanced at me once, but said nothing.

After that, we seemed to reach the village far too quickly. It was small and neat, with one central avenue, on which the few structures crowded and crouched together like frightened, wary fugitives.

And there were . . . people. . . .

Finishing up the last of their business before the light faded, they hurried about, nonetheless still sparing a glance for Toma and me. They seemed so small to my eyes, though on average they were taller than I was. I supposed it was that they weren’t as tall—no, nor as pale, or as strongly-built—as Toma. They looked strange to my eyes—perhaps as strange as I looked to them with my saffron clothes and dark skin.

Toma ignored the stares and marched implacably toward the largest structure on the street.

I couldn’t read the words of the sign, but the pictures painted beneath those words spoke clearly enough. This was an inn.

Though lacking in memory of who I was, my mind supplied me with almost exhaustive information about inns of all kinds. So much information that I staggered and stumbled under the weight of it, bumping into Toma’s broad back.

Toma didn’t so much as glance back at me, merely continued up the front steps to the inn door.

Resigning myself to close quarters with other people, people who weren’t Toma, I stepped inside.

#

Nama practically cowered behind Toma, who did his best to look as if he walked into inns followed by cowering, oddly-dressed young men every evening.

He strode through the surprisingly thick crowd of travelers between the door and the bar-top, one ear cocked back for any signs of distress from Nama, other than the sudden clutching of nervous fingers at his arm. Though he might have, at any other time, freed his arm impatiently, Toma merely let Nama hold on and peer around him, wide-eyed and nervous.

When they reached the bar-top, Toma signaled the barmaid behind it, and she nodded and finished pouring the last of three flagons of ale. After passing them to the customers who’d requested them, she hustled over to Toma, looking him up and down appreciatively.

“Help ya, then?” she asked all cheer and thick, flat Midlands accent. Toma, whose own northern accent was much pronounced after fifteen years of living and working in Northaven, almost smiled.

“Yes, I’d like—“ he paused, suddenly imagining Nama trying to sleep in one of the large, shared rooms most inns boasted, that slept upward of ten strangers on any given night.

If he were alone, Toma would have taken one of those beds without a second thought, and slept well—as well as he’s ever slept, anyway. But now, there was Nama to consider . . . Nama, who was still clutching Toma’s arm and looking around as if he expected to be attacked at any moment. . . .

“Are there any private rooms left? With two beds, if possible?” he asked the barmaid, whose bright blue eyes flicked to Nama, then back to Toma, assessing him.

“We have,” she said finally, then snorted. “You’ll be getting the last one, as a matter of fact. It’s a busy night, tonight.”

“So I see.”

“REN!” the barmaid raised her voice to call, and next to him, Nama jumped. “Custom wantin’ the two-bed, Ren!”

Shortly thereafter, a tall, portly man emerged from a door behind the bar. He wore a large, faintly stained apron and crossed burly arms over his chest, looking Toma and Nama over.

After nearly a minute, during which Toma presented his most bland face, and met the innkeeper’s gaze without flinching or glancing away, Ren nodded, and stepped out from around the bar.

“This way, you two,” he said tersely, making his way through the crowd, being hailed by some of the patrons. In his wake, Toma and Nama followed, the latter’s relief palpable when they reached the unblocked stairway.

#

The room we were shown to was on the second floor of the inn. It was small, but clean. Two narrow beds, barely a foot apart, dominated the room. In one corner near the door was a small garderobe and a stand with a wash basin and ewer, in another, near the only window, was a small table and two chairs. On the floor, a circular rug of indefinite color and no designs held court.

While I had been looking around, Toma and the innkeeper had negotiated the matter of payment. I felt a twinge of guilt, for I had no money of my own, and no means of making any to pay Toma back.

But pay him back, I will. Someday.

I stepped into the room proper and let them exchange coins. The last of the sunlight coming through the window drew me, and I approached it as one in a dream. Outside, in the last of the day, people hurried about and finished up the last of their business. Some swept the sidewalk in front of their establishments.

It was all very picturesque. From a distance . . . it didn’t frighten me at all. In fact, it almost seemed familiar.

I sighed, and stared until I felt a presence behind me. Toma’s presence. I turned, smiling up at him. He looked awkward and large in this small room, with his grimace-smile and without his sword. Which, when I glanced around him, was on the bed nearest the door.

A soldier, indeed.

My smile widened. “Thank you for this—and for everything,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t understand it, but wanting to say it anyway.

Toma’s brows drew together for a moment then relaxed. He nodded as if he understood, and turned away, going to the bed near the door. He shrugged out of his pack and sat wearily, with a grunt.

Knowing the feeling, I emulated him—at least by sitting. I had no pack out of which to shrug. After a few minutes he looked over at me, and smiled again and nodded at the door and patted his stomach. Then he made eating motions.

He was hungry. As was I, my stomach chose that moment to inform me loudly, and Toma laughed. But I was not so amused. Eating meant going downstairs, did it not? Being immersed in that crowd of strangers . . . I’d have almost rather starved than go through that.

I had no way to communicate that to Toma.

But Toma was standing up and opening the door already. Then he looked back at me, holding out both his hands in a gesture that meant stay.

Then he was gone.

Well.

Forcing down the first beginnings of panic—despite only having known him for less than the space of an afternoon, I was leery of letting Toma out of my sight. What if something happened to him? Or what if he disappeared? Oh, what if a thousand things—I went to the washstand and poured some water in the basin. I did the best at cleaning face and hands as I could with no soap. Then I sat on the edge of the bed near the window and waited for Toma’s return as patiently and calmly as I was able.

The sun had almost completely set by the time he returned, bearing a tray. Heavenly smells of food immediately perked me up—what little of me had remained un-perked with the return of my erstwhile guardian.

Toma smiled his grimace-smile and said something in his language—the common tongue of the lands I found myself in—kicking the door shut behind him. He brought the tray over to the small table and looked over at me expectantly.

I scrambled up from the bed and joined him at the table, sitting quickly in the chair he pulled out and shooting him a grateful smile. He sat across from me—in the chair nearest the door, of course—and began removing covers from plates. He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment before pointing to the loaf of fresh bread. He said a clipped, guttural word and gave me that expectant look again.

I repeated the word after him as best I could. He corrected me and I tried again, and apparently got it right, because he nodded, and tore the loaf in half, giving one half to me. I smiled and took it, placed it on the empty plate in from of me. Then I reached out and touched his hand, the one holding his half of the loaf, and he jumped. I shook my head to show him everything was alright then touched the half-loaf.

“Bread,” I said slowly then said it again. Toma’s impressive red brows drew together for a moment then he nodded once and repeated the word. He got it right on the first try, though his accent was strange and flat-sounding.

I grinned and reached across the table to poke his chest, and I said his name. I touched the bread in his hand and said his word for that, too.

Nodding again, Toma caught my hand and squeezed it gently.

“NAH-muh,” he said firmly, which means I am in the language it seems that only I speak. But he’d been calling me that all afternoon. He thought it a shortening of what he took to be my name.

I suppose I am was as good a name as any.

So dinner passed, slowly, but pleasantly.

#

Toma was woken in the middle of the night by soft, sad cries.

When he realized they were coming from the bed next to him, and that they weren’t borne of imminent threat, he released the hilt of his sword—which, waking or sleeping, he nearly always had at hand—and sat up, blinking in the dim, moonlit atmosphere.

He could make out Nama’s slim, small form, restless in its cocoon of sheets. His head was rolling side to side on his pillow in a universal sign of negation, the cries that had awoken Toma trapped behind the boy’s teeth, emerging now as thin, unhappy moans.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Toma eased quietly out of his bed and onto Nama’s, placing a hand on one fragile-seeming shoulder. Nama’s body tensed and stilled . . . then relaxed as his eyes fluttered open, locking instantly on Toma’s face, alert but confused. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again.

“Toma,” he said softly, and Toma nodded, even though the boy couldn’t see. Then he added: “Yes. Toma.”

Nama nodded once then opened his eyes again, putting his hand on Toma’s, where it still rested on his shoulder.

He said something soft and hesitant in his lyrical, nightingale language that sounded uncertain and vaguely embarrassed, and followed it with a hollow laugh that sounded like it wanted to be a sob.

Toma squeezed Nama’s shoulder. “It was only a nightmare, Nama. It’s nothing that can hurt you.”

Despite the language difference, Nama once more smiled as if he understood, though the smile fell far short of his usual glowing one.

Toma returned it, and made to stand up, but Nama’s grip on his hand tightened and his eyes grew panicked. He shook his head and tugged on Toma’s hand till Toma sat. Then Nama moved from the center of the bed to the left side as if making room.

“Sleep?” he asked hopefully . . . one of the dozens of words that Toma had taught him last night. “Toma . . . sleep . . . Nama . . . bed?”

Toma could barely remember any the words of the boy’s lovely, improbable language that he’d been taught, but Nama, at least, had been clearly been paying very close attention.

“Nama,” Toma began, at a loss for how to explain in the few words the boy knew, that sleeping in the same bed would be inappropriate and unwise—not to mention cramped and uncomfortable. But the haunted, frightened look in Nama’s eyes stayed his useless words, and he nodded in resignation, cursing himself for all kinds of fool. “Alright. Yes. But only until you fall back to sleep.”

Nama frowned, not comprehending all the words nor, it appeared, their import. But he let go of Toma’s hand to pat the bed welcomingly after flipping back the messy sheets.

Sighing, Toma swung his legs up onto the bed and lay down in the narrow space, folding his arms across his chest. Stiff as a board, he lay there for uncomfortable minutes until Nama, too, sighed, and inched closer till he was curled up against Toma’s side. One tentative arm draped across Toma’s waist, and Nama’s warm face pressed lightly against Toma’s shoulder.

Who are you? Toma wondered as Nama’s breathing evened out and his arm grew leaden with sleep. He yawned and wrapped one careful, protective arm around the boy, who didn’t so much as stir. Where do you come from and how did you get here? What put you in my road? And why?

Sometime, between his wondering and the fading of his discomfort, sleep came for Toma like a long lost lover, and wound its dark arms around him.

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