Wynn looked hopelessly about but saw no way through. Why had the pack or even the deer come this way, if this old growth barred the path? The way this wall of vegetation climbed and burrowed through itself was not natural.

The pack elder paced before the dense growth, and the other dogs trotted aimlessly about, arching necks and raising ears as they peered into it. The deer rolled its shoulders and shifted nervously beneath Wynn's thighs. It snorted and shook its antlered head.

These animals were as puzzled and disturbed as Wynn was. They had not seen this before.

The elder paced left along the wood's border and then suddenly lunged into it.

Wynn heard the rustle of leaves and bending vines from within the dense woods. The sound grew to a thunder of creaking branches and thrashing leaves. She grabbed the deer's coarse hair tightly as it back-stepped from the raucous sound.

A chokeberry bush ripped apart as the dark elder leaped out. Berries scattered in his wake like small black pellets. He stumbled, favoring one foreleg, and turned to stare back at the barrier. The rest of the pack circled hesitantly.

Lily turned right and darted for a birch of peeling bark, its lowest branches tangled in climbing blackberry vines.

"No!" Wynn cried out.

Chap went after Lily, but not before she tried thrashing her way into the thorny vines. She quickly retreated, never getting deeper than her shoulders.

Wynn shivered anxiously.

Chap remained on the barrier's edge as Lily arced around behind him. He rumbled softly in frustration. They could go back but not forward.

Wynn wondered if these woods were a safeguard, blocking trespassers from reaching Nein'a. But then howcould a prisoner be fed and cared for? Or had Nein'a been left here to die, long ago? Had the elves lied to Leesil just to bring him within reach?

Chap's growl rose to a snarl and startled Wynn as nausea hit her. Soft buzzing grew like a birch leaf skittering about within her skull.

Fay… my kin… now they choose to return.

Wynn slipped from the deer's back. Nausea became vertigo, and she dropped to her knees, struggling under the chorus of leaf-wings.

The last time she had heard this was at the northern gate of Soladran as Chap communed with his kin, the Fay.

Chap quickly brushed heads with Lily and then bolted into the open forest behind them. Wynn tried to get up, hand over her mouth, to stumble after him, but Lily raced around to block her way.

Before Wynn cried out to Chap, his single leaf-winged voice crackled in her mind.

I am here… show yourselves, my kin… I demand it!

Chap ran blindly through the trees, searching.But not with eyes and ears and nose.

His spirit expanded in rage, reaching in all directions, until he felt them as he had upon staring into the dense barrier woods.

That warped growth should not be there. He had seen this in Lily's memory flash. No majay-hi had ever encountered such a tangled mesh and it was coated with the tingle of Chap's kin.

They tried to stop the majay-hi-stop him-from reaching Nein'a.

Show yourselves! Answer me… now!

His coat rippled under a breeze whirling downward from the night sky. It increased to a strong wind, encircling him as it ripped up mulch. He pulled up short amid a hushed chatter of branches and turned a tight circle with a low rumble. The wind settled to a breeze once more.

Chap stood in a small clearing loosely walled by sycamores and beeches grown tall from roots sunk deep into the earth. Their branches interlaced like the limbs of sentinels holding hands, and movement within them made those limbs sway slightly.

He would not cower before them.

Why interfere now, when you have been silent… so useless? Why return after abandoning me for so long?

Branches behind him shook softly, and he wheeled about. Leaves rustling in the low whirling breeze shaped to a chorus of voices in his mind.

Further and further you stray from your path… your purpose… to keep the sister of the dead in ignorance and away from the Enemy.

Chap rumbled at one birch. A bend in its trunk looked too much like a figure seated in judgment. His shoulders tightened as he half-crouched to lunge.

Leesil is necessary to my task… our need. But his suffering serves no purpose. So why bar my way? Why can he not free his mother?

A long vine of red hyacinth rustled.

Return to your task… Return to the sister of the dead… Leave this land and keep her far from her makers reach.

That was no answer. In what other place could Magiere be farther from the Enemy's reach?

The hyacinth rustled more softly.

You have told your mortal charges far too much. So much that they might well turn upon a path that would end this world. Tell them no more, and take them from this place.

Chap's rumble grew. All Leesil wanted was freedom for his last remaining family.To be with his mother once again. Yet Chap's kin became obsessed with inaction.

And why could he not remember… more?

Bits and pieces learned in his mortal life still did not fit together. He did not retain enough awareness from existence among his kin to bind those pieces and fill in the gaps;

The branches shuddered around him.

You have taken flesh and lost our full awareness. Trust the path… trust in us. In flesh, you cannot understand all things.

Chap wavered in silence. He had relinquished eternity to follow the will of his kin. Once he must have known and agreed with their purpose, but now he could not remember why.

There must have been a reason… one that he had forgotten.

Wynn controlled her vertigo and tried to rush around Lily. Each time, the dog shifted or barked in warning and would not let her pass.

A chorus of a thousand shuddering and crackling leaves erupted within Wynn's head.

You have taken flesh and lost our full awareness. Trust the path… trust in us. In flesh, you cannot understand all things.

Wynn collapsed, wracked with dry heaves. She stared into the shifting dark trees on hands and knees, shaking uncontrollably. She heard the Fay communing with Chap.

His snarling howl rolled through the forest.

Wynn turned toward Lily. "Oh please, just get out of my way!"

Lily cocked her ears. Wynn crawled to a nearby cedar and clawed up its rough bark to her feet. The others of the pack ranged around her, but none came near. They only watched her and Lily in puzzlement.

Before Lily could react, Wynn lunged around the cedar's far side toward the sound of Chap's cry.

Chap quivered as his howl faded from his ears. Why did his kin treat him like a servant who owed blind obedience?

He had been one of them-one with them. He saw no possible harm in a son finding the mother who birthed and raised him. Nein'a did not want to see harm come to this world any more than the Fay, even though she had raised a son in her own caste's ways for her own purposes.

Chap's shudders faded, and he paced a slow circle, studying the sentinel trees. No voices came on the low rustling breeze. But they were still there-still waiting for him to acquiesce.

This had nothing to do with keeping Magiere from the enemy.

Why do you fear Leesil reaching his mother?

Chap's question rang in Wynn's head.

She spun around, lost once again with nothing to guide her. She had not taken one step. Yet if her eyes turned away for an instant, a vine, that patch of moss, or even the bare spot of earth to one side appeared to have moved.

Take the sister of the dead and leave. Go back to the human realms and never return to this land.

Wynn shut her eyes and threw her arms around an aspen trunk to keep from falling. The leaf-wing chorus drowned all other sensations. But she heard wind rustling branches not far off.