Ralph and the Pixie

‘What does Waik mean,’ Deborah asked her.

‘It means,’ replied the Elven woman, in an unsettling tone, ‘“uncharted wilderness” in an archaic tongue of the Men who once attempted to populate these lands.’

‘Where did the Men go?’ Deborah asked her.

‘That particular race of Men is no more,’ Theuli replied, making the two younger women feel uneasy. ‘Twas they who made this irrigation channel and planted this hedge, in many ages long past.’

This knowledge only added to the unease of Deborah and Malina, who cast furtive looks at these vestigial relics of antiquity which bespoke of doomed hope. They seemed to hear, as if from a great distance, the bleat of sheep and the lowing of cattle. It seemed to them that they could feel in their very bones the wildness that had ultimately thwarted the hands and the civilizing will that wished to tame it, that Man’s inbred products of domesticity were left to wander forever, abandoned as dispossessed ghosts upon the empty grasslands.

After perhaps two hours into their journey, the dike and hedge came to a sudden end, and the three women found themselves in a transitional area; grasslands and meadows were giving way to marshes where tall rushes grew, interspersed with slightly raised areas covered by stiff, low scrub, that stood out like bald patches; and the tall deciduous forest was becoming replaced by a dense and endless copse-wood of some nondescript tree-like bush, some fifteen to twenty feet high, its canopy well above their heads. Many trails wound their way through this bush, mostly created by wild animals. At last they came to an intersection of several paths. Theuli paused before selecting one of these, turning to Malina for some sign. Without hesitation, the young Pixie woman nodded towards a wide side-trail. Looking down one of the side trails as they stood at this intersection, and which led diagonally to the left, they could clearly see the road, where it wended its way beneath the eaves of the forest.