Previously...

“Oh yes, so you told us,” said Rowan. The three walked deeper into the Forest. It was getting quite dark now, but they knew their way. “And you told Mystress as well, the following afternoon. What did she say to you, I wonder?”

Yorres ignored her. If Rowan wanted to know what Mystress thought about his vision, then she could have very well asked her. Certainly she had a year to do so. But he knew Rowan was just goading him, trying to elicit some reaction. She was mad at him for leaving and this was just her little way of letting him know he wasn’t off the hook yet.

Then suddenly they were outside of Yorres’ secret den. They had almost tumbled into it accidentally. It was well hidden from the rest of the forest on the thin line where the forest ended and began again. It also lay along the subtle border of the old forest and the birch forest. This was all by design of course, for the mage had learned in-between places had subtle powers and magic of their own. It was a quaint little hole in the ground, hidden in tall grass surrounding the massive stump of a pine tree that had been struck by lightning sometime in antiquity.

“Stay here for a minute,” he whispered, and then slowly walked toward the hidden entrance. He looked carefully at the grass, which had not been trodden on in a very long time, weeks perhaps, so a least he had no ambush to be worried of. He stepped within the opening, sniffing the air. Earth, mold, wax, wormwood, moonwort, the slowly drying petals and leaves of teavine, poppy, orchid, violet, and hyacinth. A bit musty, but otherwise all smells of the herbal ingredients his cures and medicines required.

“Lux,” he said quietly, his spell echoing off the huge interior chamber as apparently dozens of ancient beeswax candles, yellow as honeysuckle, caught flame and lit the cavernous walls of Yorres’ secret den. It was far larger than it seemed from without, and much too large to have been dug without magical assistance.

Yorres took a quick survey of the floor, counting 6 different sets of hoof prints on the dust. The most recent seemed only to have been days ago, and were not quickly recognizable. Here were the many tracks of his diligent assistant and adopted childe Kaoori, overlapping one another as she came time and again to maintain his stock of plants and fungi. His heart was warmed by her devotion even after his unexplained disappearance, but it seemed she had not been here of late. This worried him more than he might have liked, and he made a personal vow to find his daughter before the night was done.

The other tracks belonged to an unknown fawn (possibly who had found the den accidentally, as these tracks scarcely entered the cave), Rowan, Fleder, and Mystress. These last three had been scattered over time, and took various routes of exploration, his old friends no doubt checking here as the weeks turned into months without a word or sigil from the magician. A wave of guilt washed over him. He would make his amends soon enough.

“Mundusventus.” He breathed, and a hard blowing wind swept up and out of the cave, temporarily blowing out a few of the candles (which promptly relit themselves) and belching a high, huge pillar of stale dust and old leaves into the Forest. His lair now clean, Yorres briefly stuck his head outside and whistled the call of the whippoorwills, which among his closest friends was signal that all was clear and that it was safe to come out.

“Gods, what was all that about?” Fleder queried.

“Just tidying up,” Yorres replied. The three of the walked idly around the room to the farmost corner where makeshift beds of moss and dry grass had been carefully prepared by Kaoori for his guests. The three of them took their ease on these mattresses, regarding one another coolly in the candlelight. “There is no food or water for some reason. Kaoori has not been attending to her duty of late, though I can scarcely blame her.”

Rowan and Fledermaus exchanged a knowing look.

“I don’t blame her either,” said Fleder, smiling hugely. Rowan snickered and pretended to groom her feathers.

“What? Has something happened that I should know about?” Yorres sat up suddenly and flared his nostrils defensively. “Is she alright?”

“Yes and yes,” said Rowan. Fleder was far too busy trying not to erupt into a fit of the giggles. “Kaoori is quite fine, though lately a little too… preoccupied to attend to your mushroom larder.” Yorres tilted his head and opened his mouth to ask another question, but Rowan interrupted him – “Enough on that for now. He’ll find out soon enough about that, wouldn’t you say, Fleder?”

“Oh yes,” Fleder snicker. “I suppose it will be a Grand surprise indeed.”

“Quite,” agreed Rowan, blinking amiably. “However, Yorres, you were quite in the middle of telling us about your absence.”

High-minded Yorres did not particularly care for the fact that a bit of fun was clearly being had at his expense. On the other hand, as he had already told them, there was much to this story and little time to tell it.

“Very well,” he began. “ I shall continue my tale:

“I did indeed seek out Mystress the very following afternoon. While curious about the nature and meaning of my vision, she seemed certain that it was a dark omen that would lead to my injury and possibly my death.” He paused there. More had passed between him and Mystress on that afternoon than mere words, but he would not share this part of his tale. In fact, he would never speak to anyone of that afternoon again in his mortal lifetime.

“I chose to ignore her advice, seizing instead on something she had revealed to me in our conversation; the veil from my dream was a symbol of the barrier that separates this world from the next world, the world we will pass into when we no longer live in this one.

“She spoke of the Phantom Zone, a realm of ghosts and spirits, where only the immortal or already dead are to exist. Ironically, it was I who was there when Mystress herself first came from that world and into this world, before she knew anything of this Forest. She had already lived one life in another world, passing into Limbo as a pure spirit, but the gods or guardians of that crossroads granted her a second life, this life. She assumed the form of the influential and powerful old doe Jyuniper, and began her work by forming the Lightbringers, to which we all hold allegiance.

“I asked her if any had ever crossed the veil from this side, but she did not know the answer to that, or would not say.” He paused, staring into the candlelight. “I was determined to know the answer to this, and I then sought the aid of the master sorcerer of Forest magic. I began to wander the wood in search of Sluggs.”

Continue to Chapter Four