Wizardry in the Woods

Spells fly as wizards clash in a forest where even trees possess magic.

A wandering witch, rudely interrupted in her efforts to turn a decaying shack into a home for herself, joins the fray.

So does a wood nymph, determined to defend her threatened friends: the trees.

In the middle of it all, a shapeshifter lurks. Its motives are unclear but it leaves destruction in its trail.

It all begins at a country inn where bad things have happened and where the witch encounters a wizard who isn't pleased to see her. The wood nymph appears there, too, in a most unusual way.

Their efforts to restore order are complicated by uncomfortable encounters in such places as a magic library that might not have any doors and a mine where a magician is trying to find a way to transmute base metals into gold and diamonds..

Larry Pearson started his professional career as a journalist, working at newspapers as far apart as Rome, Italy, and Anchorage, Alaska. After years of practicing it, he began teaching it at universities not quite so far apart, ranging from Wisconsin to, again, Alaska. He has been writing fiction since he was in the third grade.