I have had to piece together the events that had been taking place beyond my sight on the edge of Rosemary’s Green that day. What follows is my best interpretation of Charlie’s account of his experience, with his modesty and brevity removed.
Charlie had maintained his position as promised, safeguarding our veil-gate atop the grassy mound. The first creature to approach him was a jackrabbit with a little pair of antlers affixed atop its head. Charlie shooed the timid creature back into the forest with little difficulty, but there were more to come. A silvery owl as tall as a man coasted down out of the leaves to investigate the portal with suspicious eyes before flapping away. Three stocky fairies with wings like moths chose that moment to make a break for it, but Charlie batted them away. Next came a sort of scaly chicken, which startled easily and hurried off, and then a tawny stag with antlers of polished gold. Charlie had stomped, snarled, and swatted back a dozen strange species by the time the forest shook and a flurry of leaves spun to the ground.
The oreborn, Autoch, was twenty feet tall if he was an inch, his skin made of living, dusty brown rock. The boulders that made up his knee joints ground together with a rough, grating scrape as he stalked toward Charlie.
Charlie took a deep breath. “We don’t have to do this,” he said evenly.
“GRRAAAAAUGH!” countered Autoch with all the eloquence of an avalanche.
“Or perhaps we do.” Charlie slipped his suspenders down from his shoulders and kicked off his shoes as the oreborn pounded closer. The window into the Annwyn filled with megalithic muscles and the forest shuddered with each heavy footfall, but by the time the behemoth was upon him, Charlie had changed. He met the rock monster in his canine form, muscles rippling beneath a coat of chocolate brown and black.
A heavy fist slammed down where Charlie had been standing, flattening nothing but empty clothes as the hound whipped aside. Charlie’s instincts, although always keen, were sharpest when he was on all fours. He wasted no time vaulting atop the craggy arm, his eyes hunting for a weakness of any kind. He bounded to Autoch’s shoulder in one leap and went straight for the brute’s eyes, which glistened like jet marbles in the shadow of his heavy brow. Autoch did not even flinch as Charlie’s claws glanced off of the polished obsidian orbs. The attack left not so much as a scratch on the great elemental.
Charlie hit the ground again and bounded back to place in the portal. Whatever came, he could not allow that gap to close. The veil-gate only extended as high as Autoch’s broad slab of a chest, and the giant had to stoop down to see Charlie. It made a sudden grab for him with fingers as thick as a grown man’s waist. Charlie dodged again, and the creature gave him a meaningful nod, those glistening eyes sparkling like gems.
Charlie wasn’t sure if he had seen it correctly, but Autoch repeated the motion. It was as if the creature were trying to communicate. The hound followed the elemental’s gaze to a sturdy steel cuff affixed to Autoch’s wrist. The band was fastened by a single seam along the inside of his wrist, a long hinge with a fine silver pin holding the two sides together.
“Now why would anyone with skin like yours need to wear something like that?” Charlie wondered. The stony creature swung again, and Charlie barely managed to duck under the quick strike. Autoch’s expression was annoyed, although his anger seemed to be directed not at Charlie but at his own hands—almost as though they were acting against the elemental’s will. “I really hope I’m right about this,” Charlie thought to himself. The hound fixed his eyes on the silver pin and pounced just as Autoch reached for him.
Autoch moved faster. He caught Charlie in one rocky fist and pulled him off of the mound and into the Annwyn, dangling him upside down. The elemental squeezed and the air rushed out of Charlie’s lungs in a wheeze. He felt his ribs screaming in protest. As Autoch lifted him high into the air, Charlie caught a glimpse of the portal behind them. Either his vision was going dark or the window into the human world was closing. With the last of his breath leaving his body, Charlie changed.
His muscles shuddered and his bones rearranged themselves. For a moment he wore neither one form nor the other. In that fleeting instant he slid through the creature’s stony fingers and onto its wrist. His human lungs expanded. The moment his fingers had fully formed, they began to pull at the pin, working it loose from the fixture.
Autoch shook his heavy arm widely, and Charlie sailed through the air to land on his back in the dirt and leaves. The hulking figure plodded forward to loom over him.
As the figure stalked up, filling Charlie’s field of vision, Charlie held up his hand. Clutched in his trembling fist was a long, thin silver rod. Autoch stopped. He held up his own hand and regarded his wrist. The bracer clinked open, loosely. The giant reached up with his other hand and ripped the metal off of his arm. He flexed his fingers experimentally and tossed the cuff away into the forest.
Charlie stood, nervously. “Feel better?” he asked.
Autoch turned his obsidian gaze toward the policeman for a few seconds, and then lunged forward without warning. Charlie fell backward, but the giant’s hand sailed high above his head. When Charlie looked up, it took him a few seconds to understand what he was seeing. Autoch’s outstretched arm hung perfectly still, and one stony finger seemed to end abruptly at the knuckle. A halo of light shone around the stump.
The portal! During the scuffle Charlie had been thrown away from his post, and the veil-gate had all but sealed behind him. Autoch’s finger was all that held it open now. With his other hand, Autoch gestured Charlie forward.
Charlie stepped cautiously up to the oreborn’s hand, which less than a minute earlier had been doing its best to crush the life out of him. Autoch removed his huge finger gently and Charlie took his place, using both hands to hold open the impossible hole in midair. The window into Rosemary’s Green was barely larger than Charlie’s head.
He looked back over his shoulder. “Thank you,” he said to the elemental giant.
Autoch pounded a fist against his chest with a sharp clack, and, without further explanation, plodded off into the blue-green forest.
Concentrating hard, Charlie managed to coax the entrance to grow larger and larger until it was once more wide enough for a body to pass through. Shaken though he was, he slipped back into his clothes and resumed his place as a sentry. His heart thudded in his chest as he caught his breath.
He was not alone. A snow-white hunting hound with ears of bright crimson stood watching him silently from the underbrush. How long it had been there by the time Charlie noticed it, he did not know. It was lean and angular like a greyhound, far smaller than his own canine stature—but something about the beast made Charlie feel as though he ought to kneel or bow or roll over and show his underbelly. He straightened up instead.
“Hello, friend,” Charlie said.