Who is Meri Greenwood?


Meri Greenwood (Dyn Gwyrdd in Old Niarg Standard) was the oldest of all Fairies. He became the husband of Celeste after aeons of courting her, and though he may not actually be Talking Father himself, he was unquestionably tramping about a good ten thousand years before Spitemorta’s time, paying visits to images (2)Calon Fforydd, the Heart of the Forests in the Great Stone Tree, which the First Wizard chiseled out and took away from the world of trees for his own as the Heart of the Staff.

In Good Sister, Bad Sister he gives a magic stick to Ocker the raven and brings tidings to the wizard Razzmorten that the evil sorcerer Razorbauch has changed the entire Forest Primeval into the Chokewoods. In The Burgeoning, he leads King Neron and his Elves through his ring of mushrooms to safety in his underground village, Gerddi Teg. He marries Celeste in The Reaper Witch,  and readies Ariel and Daniel to fulfill the Elven Prophesy in Doom.

 

 

Meri returns in WHAM! and THEN… as Kellen Greenwood’s father and grandfather to his two children, Tess and Nia, when first Tess, and then Tess, her father and friends enter the Fairy Ring and travel the Fairy Paths to the past.

 

 

 

 

 

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Who are the Fairies?

 

 

 

Fairies, Homo sapiens viridihirsutensis R., who appear in Good Sister, Bad Sister, The Burgeoning, The Reaper WitchDoom and Wham! are a race of humans indigenous to the primeval oak forests of Fairy Valley and to the lands which become the Chokewoods under Razzorbauch’s enchantment. They are characterized by alabaster-white skin, eyes with emerald green irises, pointed ears and brilliant green hair that has metallic iridescence in sunlight and which develops bright yellow streaks with advancing age, much as the hair of other races turns grey or white. They are, like their Elven cousins, highly intuitive and predisposed to magical abilities. However, their attunement with their surroundings far exceeds that of the Elves and has become a specialized involvement with the green world, particularly with oak trees. Barring accidents, they are immortal.

 

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Who is Minuet?

Minuet is born to the good wizard Razzmorten and his first wife Blodeuwedd who dies giving birth to her. Blodeuwedd, who was the most beautiful woman Razzmorten had ever seen in all his 329 years before he married her, was known to all as the maiden of flowers.

Millais_John_Everett_A_Souvenir_of_VelasquezRazzmorten is most taken with his new wee Minuet and quickly sees that she could well exceed his own powers someday. He hires a magically endowed woman called Demonica to be her nanny. Demonica is also beautiful and is an engaging companion, so he marries her. Soon she is pregnant. When she bears the child Ugleeuh, she vanishes with the crystal Heart of the Staff from Niarg’s royal treasury, leaving him to care for Minuet and Ugleeuh.

Minuet spends her childhood being a nurturing and precociously responsible older sister. For years she is Ugleuh’s staunch defender and champion, but after a time Ugleeuh’s play becomes a string of increasingly reprehensible pranks, forcing Minuet to endlessly undo her mischief. In Good Sister, Bad Sister, Ugleeuh plots to have Hebraun, the prince of Niarg for herself.

The plague comes to Niarg and Razzmorten finds the cure. When Minuet goes to tend plague victims at Fates’ Hospital for the Sick, she is nearly beaten to death by a superstitious crowd. Whilst recuperating, she finds out that Hebraun wants to marry her. Ugleeuh vanishes from sight.

Minuet does indeed marry Hebraun in time for him to become king of Niarg. When their firstborn Rose is three, Ugleeuh appears and tries to murder Minuet and Hebraun.

In The Collector Witch, Rose hears a damning rumor at her sixteenth birthday party that has her running away to far off lands with her younger brother Lukus to find answers. When word reaches Niarg that Ugleeuh is holding them captive, Minuet prepares to deal with Ugleeuh accordingly.

In Stone Heart, word comes to Niarg that Demonica and Queen Spitemorta of Goll are now in possession of the Great Staff and the much more potent Crystal Heart and plan to use them to conquer the entire world. Demonica declares that their first step should be to destroy all Elfkind. Minuet knits, waiting for the Elf Soraya, Lukus’s wife, to give birth. She comforts Hebraun who feels old and tired after finding Niarg’s grain ruined by a curse. Fuzz asks for Rose’s hand in marriage. Minuet fits her old wedding gown to Rose and helps her prepare for her wedding. She sees Hebraun off to fight the Golls when they burn Ash Fork to the ground.

In The Burgeoning, she rides forth leading her army, determined to cut out Spitemorta’s black heart and feed it to the hogs. And her tale continues in The Reaper WitchDoom.

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Marrs Phipps & Tom Phipps

Meri Greenwood gives Ocker a Powerful Stick

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As the shadows were growing long, Ocker buried his marble before flying to the whispering branches of a tall spruce to study a green haired man picking up sticks on the ground below. Titmice and chickadees called nearby, hidden by the boughs. Ocker shook himself and sorted through the feathers of each wing while he kept an eye on the man. “That’s Greenwood, all right,” he thought.

Without warning, Meri Greenwood stood up and looked straight at him. “Hoy, Ocker!” he hollered. “Ain’t eighteen rod a pretty far piece for to visit?”

Ocker was so startled by this that he had to flap his way into the air to hide his having lost his grip on his perch. “Damn him!” he rattled as he swooped down to a tree much closer.

“Do you not trust me?” said Meri.

“Not much,” said Ocker. “Do you trust me?”

“I trust you to be the shrewdest thing I know of with feathers, but if you want to do business, you are going to have to come down here with me,” said Meri as he squatted at once and patted the ground.

“Business hit is,” said Ocker, landing on the carpet of needles before him, “but your flattery won’t lessen my price. I have information dear to you.”

“Celeste!” cried Meri. “Where is she? She my whole life do be.”

“Then she’s worth my price…”

“Well what is hit?”

“I’ve had some especially valuable tidings to sell, lately,” said Ocker as he ran his beak down a flight feather with a silky zip. “And one of my customers came to consider my services so indispensable that she gave me the powers of a hedge wizard and taught me a traveling spell to get me quickly to her castle to keep her up on matters of keen interest to her…”

“Demonica?”

Ocker stopped short, quite wide eyed at this. “How could you possibly figure that out?”

“Two and two make Demonica. But now, I interrupted your tale.”

Ocker felt very exposed. “Well, the traveling spell only takes me to her keep and back,” he said, bristling up like a pine cone and sleeking down. “And hit took me all day to fly here…”

“I can not never her spell for to change, nor can I change the magic of any Elf or Human,” said Meri, falling silent to eye him with his keen emerald eyes for so long that Ocker nearly sprang into the air in a panic. Suddenly Greenwood rose and went to his knapsack, pulling out a small polished stick. “But I this here do have…”

“A stick?” cried Ocker. “You must not think me as shrewd as you were saying.”

“Some of my trees the magic fire from any one can to store,” said Meri, holding out the stick. “This be one of Longbark’s twigs. She be the eldest being in the Forest Ancient and has magic and she very wise do be. This here twig a good deal of fire does store. Maybe you can yourself a way to change Demonica’s spell to divine, if you first a quantity of your magic fire in the twig to store. So will you take the twig?”

This was not nearly certain enough to suit Ocker, but there was an unmistakable desperation in Meri’s tone that made him snatch away the twig at once and stand on it.
“Celeste and her sisters and that swyving rat brother of theirs are seeking sanctuary with the Elves in the Jutwoods,” he said with a snap of first one wing and then the other. “They were camped about ten league south-east of my nest two days ago.”

“Rat brother? They a brother do have, but he’s not no rat.”zack__s_face_on_a_rat__s_body_by_gginstereo-d3gu6tu_edited-1

“Yea? Well he is now. Somebody got him good. He’s all rat except for his face, and he’s counting on the Elves undoing his curse, though the three quientes… I mean three ladies, hope they don’t manage.”

“How could you possibly know something like unto that?”

“I listen from the treetops,” said Ocker as he took a couple of careful pecks at his new stick. “I heard them say hit, that’s how. Say. How about the hindquarters off one of those squirrels you have draped across that log?”

igp1965_1“They are both yours,” said Meri, grabbing up his bag. He set off at once into the timber and ran through the deepening shadows until he reached a mossy glade. Across the glade he came to a large ring of mushrooms. As a whip-poor-will gave its first call of the evening, he stepped into the ring and disappeared up to his knees in the moss before
jogging down out of sight, vanishing altogether.

Country Diary archive : A large fairy ring of toadstools in the woodland floor

 

Ch. 9, Good Sister, Bad Sister

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Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Spark the Dragon Loses His Feathers

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A shadow passed over them. Ugleeuh looked up with a start to see a deep green dragon with a turquoise crest, the size of a cow, gliding majestically for a row of openings into lava tubes running up the nearby dome. “It’s a bird with teeth!” she cried, springing to her feet to shade her eyes. “And I swear I saw claws in its wings…”

“You did, dear,” said Demonica. “And I trust you realize that this is one of the very dragons that we came for…”

“I knew what it was.”

Demonica was not listening. “Here comes another,” she said, touching Razzorbauch’s arm.

“Good,” he said, “I knew that this was the place, but until the first one swooped in, I hadn’t quite spotted their caves. I was a bit further down, the time before. I spent all day,
and I allowed that there was above two hundred dragon a-coming and going. That ought
to suit my needs…”

“Yes,” said Demonica. “They should suit us quite nicely.”

“What if it saw us?” said Ugleeuh.

“I doubt if it did,” said Demonica. “Had it seen us, it would be trying to set us alight, this minute. The pines hid us. That’s why I changed into this terrible green kirtle before we left Head.”

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“I’ve not seen a one, yet,” said Demonica to Razzorbauch as she gave an impatient head to toe glance at Ugleeuh.

“You will,” he said.

At that very moment, an echoing bellow from the caves got their attention in time for them to see a dozen dragons charging out abreast into the open air, blinded by the stinging fiery nightshade fumes, snorting and gasping, flapping their wings and stumbling
about.

“Keep them blind!” shouted Razzorbauch as he ran toward the dragons with his staff leveled. “Don’t let them spit flames! Freeze any that try to fly!”

Demonica set to work at once, hurling crackling lavender bolts from her staff into the faces of beast after beast as they thundered from the caves, while Razzorbauch sent out a pounding hail of flashes from his, causing the plumage to fall free from the dragons’ wings and bodies in cascading bundles and wads, as the terrified animals flapped
themselves to nakedness, and the air filled with the stench of singeing feathers. More and
more came in a frantic rush for fresh air only to be undressed in their bewildered frenzy,
until at last the wash in front of the caves was filled with a milling herd of better than two
hundred naked dragons, fenced in by a corralling spell cast by Demonica.

Razzorbauch climbed a large red rock to stand above their heads. “Peoc’h!” he roared, addressing them in Headlandish. “Silence!”

At once, the only sounds to be heard were the rattling of cottonwood leaves and the nearby calls of laughing quail. As he stood there counting them, a young male who happened to be outside of Demonica’s spell, was carefully inching away. Suddenly he
broke into a run for the caves. Razzorbauch jerked his staff aloft at the sight of him,
shooting him with a brilliant beam of ruby light from the Heart in its end, blowing him
apart with a thundering concussion which left a hole in the ground big enough to bury
several dragons, as a peppering of dirt and flecks of flesh rained down through the leaves
of the cottonwoods.

“N’eus ket tu da,” said Razzorbauch, speaking out over the hushed herd. “There’s no way to. There’s no way anyone else could possibly break away and run. But you see what would happen if he could. From this moment on, for as long as you live, you are each my chattel. Now. I’m going to walk to the sea and you’re going to follow me. It will be a few days to get there and a few more to wait for ships which will take you to my plantation.” He paused to look over their numbers for a moment before clambering down from his rock. “Poent eo mont kuit!” he cried with a wave of his staff. “It’s time to leave!” And with that, he began walking.

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The dragon multitude formed a lumbering queue as they followed, utterly beaten, as Demonica set out in their wake with her staff. Ugleeuh picked up one of the great green feathers littering the ground, every bit as long as she was tall and was astonished at how very light it was. “My!” she said. “These are light as a feather.”

“One does expect that with feathers, dear,” said Demonica.

Ugleeuh thought it would make quite a souvenir, but tossed it aside at the thought of the long walk ahead. “So,” she said, catching up. “‘Mammvro.’ Wouldn’t that be Headlandish for ‘Motherland?'”

“It is. It’s the dragon word for it, really. I call it that because of the dragons. The rest of the continent calls these the Red Lands or the Red Desert…”

“Dragon word? They can talk?”Good_Sister,_Bad_Sis_Cover_for_Kindle

Good Sister, Bad Sister, Ch. 11

 

 

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Wizard Razzmorten Visits Demonica

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Razzmorten appeared in the moonlight amongst the tall basaltic rocks of Demonica’s keep on Head (or Pennvro). He clambered about with his staff, listening to the pounding surf far below as he paused here and there to feel for the presence of magical wards and protections set by Demonica. “Well, Razzorbauch’s not here,” he said. He removed his hat, and for a time stood with his face fixed into the breeze, feeling the air. At last he found a place amongst a tumbled colonnade of stones and went to sleep until morning. Just before the sun, he awoke to find himself in the midst a colony of very agitated puffins. He was on his feet at once, clambering up the rocks.

The towers of her castle rose behind the crown of the great barren prominence as he climbed. There was no drawbridge. Her portcullis was up, in fact it was unlikely to have been closed that night. He could definitely detect magical wards, but none laid for someone afoot. He walked right in. He found her reading a letter as she sat in her great
scarlet and white chair on the dais, legs crossed, having egg in a hole and tea. She looked up with a gasp.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good thing you explained that,” she said. “I’d never have considered any morning ‘good’ which had you standing in the middle of it. Now how would you like for me to arrange your death?”

“Oh go on, Dee! We both know better. I’m not here to arrest you. You made that more difficult than it would ever be worth years ago. And besides, I stepped in here fully prepared to turn your head into a cinder at the first sign of trouble. I’m only here for a
brief chat.”

“You went to a good deal of trouble.”

“Well, yes. Years ago, you told me that you knew of a tribe of heathens (as I believe you called them) who were supposed to have gotten through the plague which killed the First Wizard without any deaths at all. Do you remember anything about that?”

“Well no, dear. It’s very difficult indeed to recall anything at all for the likes of you or Niarg. Does anyone there have the plague?”

“I have,” said Razzmorten as though he were merely speaking of tickets in his pocketbook, and now you have it as well. So if you wish me to come back and cure you, it might be best if your memory returned.”

With a yowl, the snow white cat sitting in Demonica’s lap shot across the throne room and white-female-persianvanished. Demonica stared off into the distance for a moment. “Ngop,” she said, heaving out a sigh. “The Ngop, ‘way down the west coast, here. The plague simply decimated everyone throughout the continent, everyone except the Ngop. It’s said that
they came out of it completely untouched. Down the coast. Talk to their shaman. I think
he goes by Ngerrk-ga. And talk to their chief, Dort-da.”

“Ngerrk-ga!” cried Razzmorten. “I know him. He and Dort-da were the Aboriginals I once met at the Hanter Koadou. They mightn’t have worn clothes, but they were well respected.”

“Well, you’ve managed to disarm me, Razzmorten. You always did have your skilled moments. Do me a favor. If you were indeed telling the truth, would you be so kind as to return with the cure? My cat needs someone to feed her.”Good_Sister,_Bad_Sis_Cover_for_Kindle

Ch. 1, Good Sister, Bad Sister

 

 

 

 

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Razzmorten Finds Ngerrk-ga

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Razzmorten appeared on a lonely beach amongst the cries of terns, just as a wave soaked his feet, sending small snails vanishing into the sand as it rushed back to sea. A beached jellyfish glistened in the mid-morning sun. He stepped away from the water and scooped up a double handful of shells to admire for a moment before squinting under his hand at the arid hills of white limestone dotted with grey shrubs which lay inland. He pulled out his scrying ball from his shoulder bag and squatted in the sand to stare into it, shaded by the brim of his pointed hat. At once he was underway through the marram grass, making straight for the hills.

By the time the sun was overhead, he had crossed over three great ridges of hills. A savannah sparrow called nearby. He paused to mop his brow and look about as he felt of the ball in his bag. “Maybe I need another peek,” he said. Suddenly he held his breath.
“Could that be children?” A pebble skittered across the rocks at his feet, just as he spied a
curly haired head slipping behind some rocks. He heard hushed giggling. “Hello?’ he
hollered.

There was dead silence.

“Hello? Is someone there?”

“Mamin!” cried a brave naked boy, prancing into view.

“Mamin! Mamin!” shouted another, “Dirdawung, mamin lamang gahan!”

“Menuny mamin mawu ga-yu-ma wutjjurrh-ma!” cried a girl, taller than the others, leaping to her feet.

Soon there were eight naked children dancing around him, just out of reach, chanting sing-song: “Ma-min…ma-min…ma-min…” After a bit of this, they took turns crying: “Mamin!” as they leaped forth to tug at his clothes and jump back as if he would bite.

“I say,” cried Razzmorten, looking ’round about, “would you all be Ngop?”

The children broke out in such laughter that they could scarcely stay on their feet.

“If you all are Ngop, could you take me to Dort-da?” he said, nodding with wide eyes of encouragement. At this, a middle-sized girl with the merriest eyes of all dashed up and began yanking and pulling on his arm. He followed her at once.

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Up through the next ridge of hills they led him, pattering through the dust and rocks, until they came to a wide dusty valley. The merry eyed girl kept a relentlessly tight grip on his hand, pulling him along through the dust and shrubs as they came to scattered acacia trees with ruminating cows bedded down everywhere in the shade. He could see low domed mud huts in the thickest of the trees. At the far end of them against the rocks of a limestone bluff was a whitewashed hut, larger than all the others. They hurried with
him, straight up to it. “Dort-da! Dort-da!” they shouted. And the next thing he knew, he
was standing in front of the hut’s triangular door without a child in sight. As he was
glancing here and there at the paintings of animals chasing each other across the breadth
of the whitewash, trying to gather his thoughts, Dort-da stepped into the light, adjusting
his long gourd cod piece. For a moment he looked as though he had been asleep.
Suddenly he smiled. “Razzmorten!” he cried. “It’s been ages since Hanter Koadou. Come
inside.”

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Razzmorten removed his hat and followed Dort-da inside, finding that ducking was scarcely enough to navigate a triangular doorway. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. “Why, it’s as cool as a cellar in here,” he said.

“Sit here,” said Dort-da, giving a slap to one of several fat rolls of blankets on the floor in front of a great chair made of cow bones. He sat in the chair and crossed his legs. He clapped his hands and a girl clad only in a skirt appeared with a jug of water and two large cow horns. He took the first drink and nodded at Razzmorten. “What brings you
here?”

“It wasn’t too many years before our meeting at Hanter Koadou that there was a great plague which swept through the Dark Continent…”

“Douar-Noz might be better,” said Dort-da. “The house of Dark hadn’t taken over yet.”

“Certainly,” said Razzmorten carefully. “So, when the plague swept through Douar-Noz, of course, it killed thousands upon untold thousands of people, including my progenitor, the First Wizard, who was visiting here at the time. It killed half the people living here as well as half the people on the Northern Continent. Well, I’ve just heard that when the plague came, not a single Ngop died from it. Is that true?”

“Has the plague returned after all this time to Norz-Meurzouar?”

“Yes. One and by now, maybe two have died at Castle Niarg.”

“Who brought it?” said Dort-da as he studied the backs of his hands. “Do you know where it came from?”

“Far,” said Razzmorten, keenly aware that Dort-da was being careful. “The one who died just before I left was a retainer of Princess Branwen of the House of Far. I have no idea how many have died there.”

“I’ve only heard of them a time or two. Do you know if they trade with the Gwaels of Gwaremm?”

“The last I knew, the Gwaels made them uneasy…”

“We have a lot to lose Razzmorten, but you convinced me years ago at Hanter Koadou that you have a true heart. You need to see Ngerrk-ga. His dreams are strong. If he doesn’t want to help you, you are not to return here until seven years after this new plague has run its course.” Dort-da studied Razzmorten carefully for a moment, then clapped once more. The young woman appeared with more water. “Nu-jabing-nga,” he said. “Razzmorten-ga-ndi lahan Ngerrk-ga.”

“Nu-jabing-nga quickly set down her jug. “Di-nya,” she said, motioning to Razzmorten with a nod. “Di-nya.” Waving him on, she disappeared out the door.

Razzmorten bowed to Dort-da, thanked him and hurried out into the heat and blinding light to find Nu-jabing-nga. He saw her at once, but found her even more difficult to keep up with than the children. He had to jog to catch her before she disappeared beyond the huts along the meandering path in the thorny wait-a-bit bushes that the Ngop used for fences which ran along the limestone bluff from acacia tree to acacia tree for a very long way, sticking up in the roasting heat like great parasols which gave shade to the resting cattle who languidly chewed their cuds and swished at flies, watching them pass.

At last the path rose into a break in the bluff which led to an isolated mud hut, whitewashed and covered with red ochre hand prints in the shade of a pair of especiallyboiling-cauldron
large acacias. Ngerrk-ga was out front with his back to them on his knees feeding the fire under a large kettle that he was stirring. Nu-jabing-nga held her finger to her lips and motioned for Razzmorten to sit on the ground at Ngerrk-ga’s back before grabbing her nose and dashing away, back down the path. Ngerrk-ga went right on stirring as if no one had arrived at all, chanting quietly: “Nja-min-ah… nja-min-ah… nja-min-ah… nja-min-ah…”

“Fates forbid!” thought Razzmorten. “I hope he notices me before I pass out from the

Good_Sister,_Bad_Sis_Cover_for_Kindlesmell!”

Ch. 2, Good Sister, Bad Sister

 

 

 

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Razzorbauch Shows Ugleeuh his New Plantation in the Chokewoods

 

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Ugleeuh looked down at her ash blackened shoes and at the greyed skirts of her black silk kirtle. Ash and the smell of fire were everywhere, particularly with it having not rained since Razzorbauch set fire to the forest on his plantation land. “I should have worn a wimple,” she thought as she held her hair away from her face in the breeze. “I hate wimples. The Dead_deer,_Glenarm_forest_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1546832only one I have goes with that awful dress back at Peach Knob.” She gazed
out at the burnt off land, rolling away in gentle swags and swells, practically as far as the
eye could see in all directions. There were no insects, frogs nor birds to be heard at all
except for some ravens in the air, a good distance off, croaking before circling down to a
charred and bloated deer.

“So Leeuh,” said Razzorbauch as he took in a grand breath of air. “What do you think of our little venture, so far?”

“It’s so vast,” she said, turning to him with a bounce. “Thousands upon thousands of acres, hidden entirely in these forbidding woods.”

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“Yes. I’ve put out quite a bit of effort on the forbidding part. I want this plantation to be protected. The most common tree here now has an irresistibly attractive fruit that should cause certain death. And I’ve transformed the great indigo lyoth of the jungles of the Dark Continent into a tribe of beings who hunt people. In time, no one will ever blunder onto our land. But my dear, what do you make of the project?”

“Well…if there’s really a market, how would we not make a fortune?”

“You have doubts about a market?”

“Arguments rage in Niarg, Uncle Razzorbauch. Some amongst the young and well to do think it’s marvelous, but there are a lot who call it the sweet of the very Pitmaster himself. I’m not sure that merchants there will even consider buying it.”

220px-John_Dee_Ashmolean“Fools. Honey trader lies. They call sukere a swindle in place of honey because it threatens their trade. They tell everyone that those eating it become obsessed with the
Pitmaster’s wiles because they fear for their purses.”

“It causes no obsessions, then? Those who eat it don’t become thralls?”

“There’s not a shred of proof that it’s harmful in any way, dear. In fact, sukere gives one a sense of well-being. The more you use, the better you feel. Why, you’ve only to stop eating it to be reminded of how unhealthy you must have been before you first used it.”

“More of Father’s being an old fool. I’ve never tasted it.”

“Oh, but you have. Remember the cherry tarts at supper?”

“They were wonderful, Uncle Razzorbauch. It sounds like people need to give sukere a fair trial before making up their minds.”

“Absolutely, dear.”

“Well why couldn’t you, or we, just give them some to try? Just at first, don’t you know.”Ugleeuh_rub_880683_c_medieval_scarlett_red_hooded_dress_costume_adult_a

Razzorbauch went wide eyed. “My dear, you’re a thundering prodigy. I believe you’ve just launched our little business venture. I knew having you along was going to work well.”

“Thank you, Uncle Razzorbauch,” she said with another bounce.

It’s wonderful having someone who actually likes my ideas for once.”

“I know what you mean, dear. I’ve always been the bane of the family, just as you seem to be, don’t you know.”

“We do have that in common, don’t we?”

“Without a doubt, dear,” said Razzorbauch, suddenly looking about. “But just now, if you don’t mind, we need to return to my keep so that I can be off for a spell to attend to a thing or two.”imagese

“I don’t mind,” she said. “In fact, I usually don’t get up so early in the mornings and I’d like to catch a nap.”

Razzorbauch already had out his scrying ball.
Ch. 8, Good Sister, Bad Sister

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Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

What is the Chokewoods?

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The Chokewood Forest is an important part of the setting in each of the books of The Heart of the Staff, Good Sister, Bad Sister, The Collector Witch, Stone Heart

SORBUSJOSEPHROCKv211684990965_4bd7dfdd98_bThe Burgeoning, The Reaper Witch and Doom. It lies south of Goll and Cyclopsia on the Northern Continent. It was created from the vast Forest Primeval by the 3994775_origwizard Razzorbauch when he used the Crystal Heart and the Great Staff to permanently change all of the forest’s black and red oaks images(Quercus velutina L. and Quercus coccinea M.) to the deadly, twisted and gnarled choke oaks (Pseudoquercus horridus R.) to discourage trespass onto his great sukere plantation.6a00e554d7b8278833013485e6499b970c-500wi

Later, the witch Ugleeuh was banished to a small portion of the Chokewoods which she

Scan10021 turned into the Peppermint Forest by magically altering the choke oaks to become peppermint trees (Mentha lignumpiperita R.).

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Meri Greenwood Catches Wizard Razzmorten

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It sounded as though the leaves had crunched just a heartbeat after his final footfall, but Razzmorten shook his head and went on.

“Good wizard…!” said a man with green hair, alabaster skin and pointed ears as he stepped directly into his path with a knapsack covered with leaves.

“Hoy!” cried Razzmorten, freezing in his tracks at once. “Meri Greenwood?” He steadied himself against a tree.

“By your aura I have you finally caught,” said Greenwood with a flicker of fury in his emerald eyes. “You know that you can not hide that from me. Now tell me at last, wizard, where have you my lover Celeste done hid? Where did you put the Guardians of the Woods?”

????????????????“You’ve given me a terrible start, but aren’t you indeed Meri Greenwood, Dyn Gwyrdd, as we once knew you?”

“As if you did not know…”

“Well I should of course, but I’d expect you to know me every bit as well…”

“And what deceit would you be now a-trying?”

“Well if you once knew me, I doubt that you’d think I had put the Guardians any place at all. I daresay that like most mortals, I’ve never so much as had the chance to meet them. Would this have something to do with my twin, Razzorbauch?”

Meri took a step forward in the leaves and looked closely at Razzmorten’s eyes. He took a step back and chewed for a moment. “Now, you are Razzmorten, ain’t ye?” he said, turning aside for a spit.

“Yes…”

“And you can certainly mark ye my word to be Meri Greenwood. And so you are here for to covet your brother’s handiwork?”

“Do you actually mean this woods? This was the Forest Primeval? Razzorbauch didn’t have nearly enough power to make such a change, the last I knew.”

“Then as hit thinks me, sitting over here you will need to be before to you the rest of hit I can for to tell,” said Meri as he sat on a nearby fallen tree and gave the trunk beside him a pat.

“Well these blue and yellow creatures,” said Razzmorten, taking his seat, “they shot me with a dart and brought me in here unconscious, or I wouldn’t be here at all…”

“Dorchadas, my good man, one of your dear brother’s enchantments they be, along with smallies and other such things.”

“Dorchadas? Are they indeed what they look like? Could they possibly be the giant lyoths from the Dark Continent?

“All but the great daggers for fangs they did have as cats.”

“Razzorbauch never had this kind of power. Are you sure Demonica had nothing to do with this?”

“Oh, but the power he now does have,” said Meri, “particularly since he not only to get his hands on the First Wizard’s Great Staff was able, but indeed on the very crystalimages (1)x Heart of the Great Stone Tree, which the First Wizard with the Staff did use.”

“So that’s where the Heart came from,” said Razzmorten as he stroked his beard. “And in the process, he’s kidnapped the Guardians?”

“Nacea, Alvita and Celeste, who was my very lover,” said Meri, looking very haunted.

“So you think he’s brought them here into the part of the woods which he’s changed?”

“I am sorry, but you do not quite see. Hit not just be this part of the woods. He has the whole Forest a-changed. And I must my lover for to find.”

“Oh my!” said Razzmorten. A breeze chased through the leaves up in the canopy, though not a breath stirred down where they were sitting. A great grey owl wailed, far, far away through the trees, though this time, he was not entirely convinced that it was an owl at all. “I swear I’d help you if I could,” but I’m in a desperate struggle to come up with a cure for the plague which is loose in Niarg and Far.”

“Alack!” said Meri.

oregano“I was cutting Elven hyssop by the southernmost part of the Gulf of Orrin when I was taken by the Dorchadas. Do you know where that would be from here?”

“I do,” said Meri, springing to his feet, “and I would delighted to see ye there be, if you do not mind me for to have along.”

“Why, I’d be honored,” said Razzmorten as he rose and followed him at a brisk pace through the musty leaves. “Now, you’ve mentioned Celeste, Alvita and Nacea. Wasn’t there also supposed to be a Rodon amongst the Guardians?”

“Their brother…”

“Wasn’t he one of the Guardians?”

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“Yep, save there be a good chance the smallies got him…”

“Smallies?”

“Oh yea. Of them I did mention. More of your brother’s work. Bright red nightmares that in the woods in swarms do run…”

Ch 4, Good Sister, Bad Sister

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Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps