Chapter I:
Meeting the Forest Dwellers
"Oh it's so cold!" Her royal highness Princess Isabella of Xiumiqa sighed rubbing her hands together for warmth. "So very very cold indeed."
The charming Princess was quite beloved by her subjects. Just 18 years old, her kindness was as legendary as her stunning slate gray eyes.
A forest green frost hung over the midnight green branches of dormant yuka trees. Isabella thought of those who lived in the frozen forest. Isabella didn't think it right for her to stay warm and sheltered when there were those who might be going hungry on this cold winter day.
The glade where a mere three weeks ago children had been playing was now a sheet of green ice. Isabella moved slowly over the slick glade. Up ahead was a tiny, ramshackle cottage made from the sturdy wood of the brownish-green Fiqual tree. Blue-gray smoke rose from the chimney. In the cabin lived a family of 5. There was a couple and their 3 children. The children really were not children any more. They were men. Isabella knew the family in the cabin to be hard-working but isolated, living on the outskirts of the kingdom. She decided to check on them.
Isabella jumped and stifled a shriek when she heard a deep voice from behind her.
"Princess, what are you doing out on such a day as this?"
Isabella turned to see the youngest brother who lived in the little cabin: 18 year old Rad. He was a kind fellow, but he quite startled her.
"I am sorry to have frightened you, Princess," Rad said. "Please come into our home. It is not a good day for you to be out walking alone."
Some people thought that Rad was ugly, but Isabella found his gentle honest manner a refreshing change from the vain suitors who oft called. Rad was a wispy, rosy-cheeked fellow. He looked as if he might blow away in a strong wind, but Isabella knew him to be surprisingly strong. Rad had red-brown hair and golden eyes. His face was slim and angular and he had a sharp, prominent nose. His teeth were slightly crooked.
Isabella followed Rad into the cabin. His mother stood beside a wood-burning stove, stirring a kettle. She smelled bread baking as well.
"Your majesty, I welcome you," Mother Kaylynn said, bowing to the princess. "Whatever brings you out on such a day as this? A storm comes."
"I wanted to be sure that the people of the forest were well provisioned and adequately sheltered for the coming storm," Isabella said.
"How kind of your Majesty," said Kaylynn. "But I fear it will not be safe for you to go home now. Are your father and brothers close, Rad?"
"Quite close, Mother. We found a Jluva in the thicket. Gudd and Rou are carrying it hence. Father is bringing the wood on the sledge."
"We saw you walking across the glade, your Majesty," Rad continued. "The others sent me ahead to bring you to our home. You must stay now."
"Oh, but I'm sure that if I hurry, I can get home before the storm," Isabella said. Then she looked out the window at the gray-green fog.
"It moved more quickly than I thought," she said, distressed. "Father and mother will be terribly worried. Curse this storm! I can't leave."
"We will get you home as soon as we can, your Majesty," Rad promised.
At that moment his brothers and father hurried into the cabin.
"Mother, we have put the Jluva in the smokehouse and strung the line between the buildings," said Gudd. "We will hie to dress the beast."
At 24, Gudd was the middle brother. The eldest brother, Rou, was 28. All the men in the family were very slender and surprisingly strong. Gudd had dark golden hair and hazel eyes. Rou was different from his brothers. He had charcoal-colored hair and gray eyes.
Kaylynn had charcoal-colored hair and eyes that were gray-green like the fog outside. Like her husband and sons she was very tall and slim.
The father, Ullv, had eyes of brilliant green, blue-black hair, and skin of a slightly greenish cast. He looked like a forest elemental.
Isabella had never really noticed these folk up close before, and she said nothing, but Ullv especially appeared to be other than human. It was only legend, of course, but her nurse had often told her tales of the forest folk. Supposedly, they had disappeared centuries ago. Could it be that the forest folk yet lived? Were Ullv and Kaylynn and their three long-limbed, slender sons in fact elven or perhaps dryads?
Isabella bade the good folk treat her as if she were a member of the family. She asked how the forest dwellers fared lately.
"We are well and happy, your Majesty--I mean, Princess Isabella," said Kaylynn. "The forest provides what we need to live."
"Dear Lady Kaylynn, while I am here, I would like to feel like a friend, not a sovereign. Please, just call me Isabella."
"All right," Kaylynn agreed. "We are very happy here, Isabella. This is a benevolent monarchy. Ullv and I have known worse."
"Is there anything that I can do to make things better?" Isabella asked. "The folk in this area are so remote from us."
"No, my girl. The land is fertile and though there is distance between neighboring houses, we help one another," said Ullv.
"There is plentiful game," said Rou. "And there is plentiful timber. We take what is needed. We have no need for grandeur."
Isabella blushed, suddenly feeling ashamed. The grand palace where she lived must seem terribly ostentatious to these folk.
As if noticing Isabella's embarrassment, Rad spoke up. "How is life in the palace? I always admire it when in the city."
"Oh, it is a grand building! I would like to take you all there sometime. I think that you would admire the stone work."
"Brother Gudd especially appreciates the different stones that the gods and goddesses of Earth have given us," Rad said.
"Yes, but do you suppose that such simple folk as ourselves would truly be welcome in the palace?" Gudd asked.
"Well, I would welcome you!" Isabella said, suddenly feeling saddened that there was such distance between royalty and folk.
"My dear, of course you would," said Kaylynn, sensing Isabella's distress. "As I said, this is a benevolent monarchy."
"But you know, sometimes royalty remains so separate from other folk," Isabella said. "Even when we have good intentions."
"We can see that you wish to remedy this situation," said Ullv. "But you must not let eagerness get the better of sense."
"I fear I did just that today," Isabella said, looking at her feet. "I felt that the forest folk might need provisions. Oh, I so hope that my father did not send soldiers to look for me--or that he did not come himself!"
Kaylynn took a shallow bowl carved of delicate pink stone from her cupboard. She poured in a drop of taupe-colored liquid. She sprinkled shimmery dark-blue dust over the syrupy liquid, poured water into the bowl, and stirred with a wand.
"This is the bowl of Gqa from the Valley of Mxcd," she said. "In it is sap from the Tree of Frup and sand from Tvug."
"The Valley of Mxcd was destroyed 1100 years ago!" Isabella gasped. "And I thought that Frup and Tvug were places of myth."
"Well, the bowl has been in my family for generations," said Kaylynn. "As to the others, they are more magic than myth. Dip your fingers into the bowl and it will allow us to see visions of the things that concern you most greatly."
Isabella did as she was bidden. She gasped as she saw her parents, four brothers, and seven sisters. They were weeping.
"Oh, the foolish, foolish girl!" Isabella could hear her mother's voice echoing in her ears. "Why must she be so impulsive?"
"There, there, Mother," said Isabella's eight-year-old sister Tabea. "Surely she is staying with one of the farm families."
Isabella began to weep as well. "Dear Tabi, wise beyond her years," she sniffled. "I cause nothing but pain to my family."
"Tabi is right, Gyta," Isabella's father said. "Surely she sought shelter at one of the farms. She'll return soon, I know."
"And when she does," he continued, "I will forbid her from going to the wilds again. It is time that she chose a husband."
The images in the bowl clouded. The water within the bowl turned black and began to swirl and heave like a storm at sea.
"Oh my! Oh, what have I done?" Isabella gasped.
"The bowl has sensed the trouble in your heart, dear girl," said Kaylynn.
"I can understand my father being upset with me," said Isabella, "but to be forbidden to return to this land would kill me."
"It is clear that you love this land, and that you love your family," said Ullv. "The steward of this land is a lazy sod."
"There is no reason why our land could not have a stewardess who cares for the people," said Rou. "This could be your duty."
"I would love that more than anything," said Isabella. "But my father is set on me marrying a prince of a neighbor kingdom."
"Do you have sisters old enough and willing enough to wed these princes?" Rad asked. "It seems that you have many siblings."
"I do," said Isabella. "My eldest sister is married. The triplets are not, but they were adopted and thus are not eligible."
"My other sisters, besides the triplets, are also young," Isabella sighed. "Ebba is 12 and Yana just had her first birthday party."
"The triplet sisters are ineligible for being adopted? This is terrible!" said Rou. "In our land, all children are equal."
"Rou, hold your tongue," said Kaylynn. "It is bad manners to insult the ways of our guest's family."
"Apologies," said Rou.
"None required," said Isabella. "I am in agreement with you. The triplets are 29, and all very willing to take a husband."
"Perhaps if we explain to your father what a good stewardess you already are to this land, he will see your way," said Ullv.
"You would do that for me? Oh thank you!" said Isabella. "Perhaps he will hear you. You are a man near to his own age."
"We will return you to your family tonight," said Ullv. "It would not do to have your mother so terribly worried for you."
"But how can we?" Isabella asked. "The storm is so terrible. Surely we would lose our way and end up frozen to death."
"We can with the Lamp of Zacag," said a grinning Rad. He doused the other lamps in the room. The magical lamp glowed gray.
