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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: Peter Trevick and his friends have only recently returned from a world dominated by pink fog, flaming trees, voracious mud, and hellish cherubs. A land where threats lie hidden in the murk, and danger beckons with a child's visage. Now, they are at home, where everything should be as it seems. Little does Peter suspect that--if it comes to "hellish"--his adventures are far from over. They are, unfortunately, just beginning...

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: 2001
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2002

This eBook is part of the following series:

• N. D. Hansen-Hill's Trees Series

16 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.1 MB], eReader (PDB) [340 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [351 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [310 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [311 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [332 KB], hiebook (KML) [800 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [459 KB], iSilo (PDB) [292 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [362 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [390 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [465 KB]
Words: 102459
Reading time: 292-409 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Microsoft Reader ISBN: 1-59062-442-4

Shades

What bring thee to thy faerie tale, when soil has tasted fleshly hale,
And only pallid aura lasts--
Do you dance to shadows of your pasts?
Have you traded all humanic lusts, for shifting motes and faerie dusts?

What of spittle, sweat, et flaws,
That come of gaping torso maws;
Aches and fevers, sores that fester,
Life's bequeathed to human jester?

And are you left no breath to speak?
Thy spirit hushed, thy presence meek?
Or does thy voice echo former days,
To make a chilt and shriekful haze?

Have thee put aside thy human tastes,
To be laid to rest with earthen wastes--
Or do you seek to sate thy flesh-starved plight,
When we see thy shadow ride the night?

--N. D. Hansen-Hill

Prologue

The Trees had stood for many years, their roots driving deep into the soils of this world, even as their odd structure became rooted in its fictional lore. Humans, although recognising the strangeness of the stark white trunks, could give no rational reason for the uneasy response these plants evoked.

Had they been aware of dimensional travel, these people might, perhaps, have been able to guess at the origins of these trees. Brought as seeds from another world, they reflected the effects of this one, changing under the influence of coarse, mineral-rich soils, and a yellow sun.

Burning the wood from these plants had an odd effect upon Earthly beings. The smoke allowed a portion of that other dimension to become incorporated into human bodies--mutating them so they no longer resembled creatures of the Earth. It had an additional effect, as well. It allowed these mutated humans to both see, and utilise, the portal between worlds: that swirling tunnel of light that connected their dimension with others.

Earthlings were not the only beings to venture through to other worlds. Some of the creatures they encountered in their travels quickly became friends, in a give-and-take that helped all to survive. Many of these beings bore striking resemblances to creatures out of Earthly folklore: fairies, flying horses, gargoyles, gnomes. Human travellers soon realised that theirs was just the latest in a long tradition of dimensional exploration.

But the danger of the unexpected lies in every venture through the trans-dimensional gate. For, not only do the inhabitants vary, but the natural laws of other realms often fail to coincide with those that are accepted in the human world. And transgressions to the natural law--in whatever dimension--can have dire consequences.

Risk creates heroes, and miraculous events can turn enemies into friends. Changelings, because they differ from the standard, are threatening. The four Earth people who have most recently undergone the startling mutation wrought by the Trees' smoke, have had to deal with the reactions of their own species, in addition to the consequences of their adventures. Peter, Katy, Trevor, and Mari have recently returned home, from a journey that was not of their choosing, and that had left all in need of rest and healing. Peter is even now being healed by Mari and her healing crystal. Katy, full of foreboding, but not knowing why, still rests after her own healing. Trevor, who loves Mari, offers her his support as she works her magic over Peter's wounded leg.

They are not alone in their efforts. Some of their trans-dimensional comrades, who've proven that friendship and loyalty are qualities not limited by natural boundaries, wait by their sides. Human friends, and former enemies who would be friends if given the chance, are happy merely to gaze upon the miraculous.

A few enemies yet lurk outside the picture. One of these is human. The other long ago abandoned any sense of humanity, along with his mortal remains, to moulder in the grave.

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