The trio continued their journey through the misty island. Craggy trees and sticky bushes were all that greeted them until they had traveled a quarter mile from the crossing. A huge shadow loomed up in front of them and the mist cleared enough to reveal a two-floor home built of wood slats. The wooden boards were as dark as night and filled with knots that stared at them like eyes as they approached. The single gable had such a steep incline that it seemed to pierce the dark sky, or what little they could see of it through the fog. A huge stone chimney stuck out the left side of the steep slope and smoke billowed out, mingling with the fog to create an even darker atmosphere that blotted out the sky with deep shadows.

“Such taste. . .” Pampir muttered as the companions came up to the wooden door.

Yushir rapped the back of his knuckle against the entrance. “Lady Wuhel? We would like to speak with you.”

A hoarse but slightly feminine voice snapped back through the door. “Go away!”

The prince pursed his lips and rocked back and forth on his feet. “It is a most pressing matter, Lady Wuhel.”

“I have more pressing matters than your pressing matters!” the sharp voice snapped back.

Yushir caught Eastwei’s attention and lifted his eyebrows before he jerked his head at the door. Eastwei sighed and cleared his throat. “Lady-”

The door flung open and dim lantern light revealed the shriveled figure of an ancient hag. The woman had streaks of black, brown, green, and yellow through her long, disheveled hair, the strands of which framed her wrinkled face. She wore a black robe that dragged across the grimy floorboards and her gnarled hands sported longer fingernails that ended in cracked points. A pair of brilliant green eyes stared at her company but most especially at Eastwei.

“You!” she snapped as she grabbed the front of his robes and yanked him inside.

“Mother!” a younger and more feminine voice scolded the old woman. “That is no way to treat Lord Eastwei!”

“This is exactly the way to treat him!” the hag shot back as the sounds of scuffling could be heard.

Pampir leaped forward and grabbed the door handle with both hands. He yanked on it but the entrance hardly rattled.

“Calm yourself, Lord Pampir,” Yushir advised him.

The lord whipped his head up. “But we must rescue him!”

Yushir clapped a hand on the frantic man’s shoulder. “We are no longer in the land realms, my dear Lord Pampir. She will do nothing more than turn him into a songbird.”

The color drained from Pampir’s face and his eyes rolled back in his head. He slumped to the ground in a faint.

Yushir sighed and clucked his tongue at his fallen comrade. “Why ever did I allow you to come?” He turned his attention to the door and rapped hard. “Fuhel, open the door. It is I, Prince Yushir.”

“Do not open it!” the old hag snapped.

“But we must obey the prince,” the younger person countered. The door opened and revealed the form of a beautiful girl of seventeen. She wore a simple but clean dress and her golden locks hung past her pert butt-cheeks. She stepped aside and swept her arm toward the interior. “My sincerest apologies, Prince Yushir. Please do come in.”

“A good morning to you, Lady Fuhel,” Yushir greeted her as he stepped inside.

He paused and looked about the room. The front of the house was occupied by a large foyer of dark paneled walls and roughly hewn floors. A chandelier of blackened metal with a dozen candles and hundreds of cobwebs hung above them, the lights casting dancing shadows about the room. The space was occupied by tables and chairs little and big, and all crowded with vials, beakers, burners, and opened dusty notebooks filled with scribbles and smudges. Stairs at the back of the room led to the upper floor and a couple of doors on either side of the steps led to adjacent storage rooms.

The door of one was ajar and revealed a library of sorts but with no discernable structure other than chaos. The walls were covered in bookcases and the dusty shelves groaned under the weight of countless books, scrolls, notebooks, and tomes, all of them of various ages and in various states of decomposition.

The prince discovered his lost companion seated in a chair in front of the hearth. A stack of dusty and thick books lay in Eastwei’s lap and he stared ahead with a slightly irritated glint in his eyes.

“Your Highness?”

Yushir’s attention was drawn to Fuhel who still stood at the door. She bit her lower lip and nodded at the fallen Pampir. “What should be done with Lord Pampir?”

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“Keep him outside. He needs the fresh air,” Yushir instructed her, and she reluctantly closed the door.

“Do not interfere in this matter, Your Highness!” the old woman snapped as she bustled about the room snatching up the random notebook and tome. She tossed an armful atop Eastwei who took the added weight without a groan but with a slight twitch in his right eye.

“I would never dream of interfering with your work, Lady Wuhel, but we have come on a very important matter,” Yushir told her as he strolled up to Eastwei. He draped his arm over the back of the chair and smiled down at his friend. “Is that not right?”

Wuhel swept up in front of Eastwei and waved a hand at him. “What could be more important than finishing this vagabond finishing his studies after a hundred thousand years of putting it off?”

Eastwei’s calm voice broke the tension. “The barrier cracked.”

Wuhel froze for a moment before she slightly leaned toward him. She cupped a hand over her wrinkled ear. The hand noticeably shook. “Say that again.”

Eastwei stood and the pile on his lap tumbled to the floor. “We need to know why.”

The ancient lady pursed her lips and eyed him with a sharp look. “If this is a joke, it is rather cruel.”

Her daughter came up to her side and grasped her shoulders. “His Highness and His Lordship would never play such a cruel joke on you, Mother.”

“Then it is destiny that is playing the cruel joke,” Wuhel commented as she rubbed her wizened old hands together. “Tell me everything that happened and do not spare the details.”

Eastwei recounted his experience at the mountain, and by the time his tale was done a dark cloud had settled on Wuhel’s brow. She turned her face to one side and pursed her lips. “That cannot be possible.”

“My friend witnessed the cracks himself, as did Lord Leiren,” Yushir pointed out.

Her eyes flickered between the prince and Eastwei. “And you saw nothing more than the hound? No signs of anyone having been there casting spells?”

“Nothing but the disturbed earth of the mountainside,” Eastwei replied.

“What does it mean, Mother?” Fuhel spoke up.

Wuhel crossed her arms tightly over her chest and hunched forward a little. “I would wager it means nothing but trouble.”

“Can you guess how close was the barrier to collapse?” Yushir asked her.

The old woman’s sharp eyes studied the fire lord. “Nothing without a peek at his mind cloud.”

Eastwei pressed two fingers against his temple and closed his eyes. A faint reddish hue enveloped his hand and flowed onto his temple where it extracted a white light.

Wuhel lifted an eyebrow. “You must be desperate to open your mind to me so willingly.”

“The urgency of our inquiry is no light matter, Lady Wuhel,” Yushir assured him as he watched his friend’s magic grow brighter. “We must discover what is the matter for the sake of all the realms.”

The group fell silent as the white light from Eastwei’s temple grew brighter. He drew his fingers away and the glow stretched out with his digits, casting itself as a soft translucent cloud that floated up to settle itself above the hearth. Eastwei stretched out his hand and twisted his two joined fingers. The faint red glow around his hand grew brighter and an image appeared tucked into the center of the cloud.

The image was a view from Eastwei’s first-person perspective and showed the great mountain protected by the barrier. Eastwei flicked his fingers and the image changed into a moving picture. The others stood in awe and worry as the memories of the discovery and battle at the mountain played out in front of them.

Fuhel let out a gasp when they beheld the extent of the cracks. “My goodness!”

“Goodness has nothing to do with those,” Wuhel commented as she stepped up to Eastwei’s side and watched the memories roll. “Something evil tampered with the spell.”

The hellhound leaped out of the cracks and its terrible howl reverberated against the walls of the house. A dour expression played across Yushir’s face as he toyed with his ring. “A fearful beast. Some terrible magic crafted that thing.” The beast was vanquished and the cracks in the barrier were fixed.

Yushir paused in playing with his ring and narrowed his eyes at Eastwei’s hands. They are shaking he commented to himself. Dadan must have exerted a great deal of energy to fix the cracks.

Wuhel lifted an eyebrow and pointed a sharp finger at a small feline form in the corner of the memory. “What is that thing? Is that a cat?”