The mist of Dark Etheria was nothing compared to the mist Edgar suddenly found himself in. The cold, sandy beach he was standing on was visible for only a few feet before the cottony white haze swallowed it up.

A familiar heavy weight and a soft squeak between his shoulders reassured him that Scrimshaw had been teleported safely. He had no idea how the pendant would transport living things, but apparently it transported them just as readily and soundly as it transported nonliving objects.

From what he could see of his surroundings, Edgar could determine only that he was standing on the shores of a body of land. A few boulders littered the shore or lay partially submerged in the quiet sea. To the north were several thin, gnarled trees and some thin, short grasses dappling the otherwise barren, pale soil.

Edgar cautiously made his way inland, wondering who would inhabit such a place like this. He wasn't sure exactly where in the Land of the Green Isles he was until he recalled Cassima's words:

"Towards the southwest is an island shrouded in mists that appears only to the eyes of those fated to set foot upon it."

This had to be that Isle. Knowing where he was didn't make him any less unsure of himself, though. As he walked on into a large clearing, he could eventually make out the forms of several large trees looming in the mist, and closer to him was a tall, oddly formed, surprisingly pointed rock…

"Who the devil is that?"

…or not.

It wasn't a rock that Edgar had seen – he had seen a man wearing a thick, earth-colored robe sitting on a rock. Before the stranger could rise to his feet, Edgar swiftly turned and ran back to the beach, almost tumbling headlong into the surf in his hurry. He hid behind one of the larger boulders, panting heavily, hoping that the robed man wouldn't follow him. Fortunately, he didn't.

It looked as if this Isle wasn't the sort that welcomed visitors with open arms. Edgar had been told that all the islands had been hostile to each other for some time, so it was possible that he had stumbled into that era. If he wanted to search and find out all he could from this Isle, he would have to disguise himself somehow. He couldn't turn invisible, and the world would have to be on the verge of destruction before he desired and was able to change himself into another being…but perhaps he wouldn't have to resort to options as drastic as those. In his perusal of these complicated solutions, it suddenly came to him that a much simpler one was right behind him.

"Scrimshaw?" he whispered. "I need you to get out of your…nest."

Scrimshaw hissed disagreeably.

"Come on. I promise you'll get it back."

After a few more pleas, Scrimshaw huffily left the hood of Edgar's cloak and fluttered to one of the nearby rocks. Edgar stood up, unfastened his cloak, held it before him and gave it a good zap. The fabric flexed, quivered, and then two large sleeves emerged from the sides of the cloak like sprouting seeds as the circumference of the cloak increased and thickened slightly. In a few seconds the transformation was complete – Edgar's cloak had now become a robe. He slipped it on and found it surprisingly comfortable.

"What do you think?" he asked Scrimshaw, turning to face the griffin, who was still looking quite irritated at being forced to leave the hood. "Think it'll work?"

Scrimshaw merely glared at him.

"Hey, I promised you you'd get your nest back, didn't I?" Edgar said. "You'll just have to wait. Stay here if you want, but I don't want to leave you behind when I leave this place."

Scrimshaw snorted. Edgar shrugged and began shuffling north, praying his impromptu disguise wouldn't fail.

The man was still sitting on his rock as Edgar entered the clearing. He looked up at Edgar, who tried to act as calmly as his pounding heart would permit him.

"Good day, brother," the man said politely. "You didn't see a stranger on your way from the beach, did you?"

"Um…no," Edgar replied.

"I suppose I must have imagined him, then," the man replied. "That's the trouble with being a beginning druid: once you become open to visions, they start popping up when you least expect them. It takes a while to screen out the superfluous ones."

So this man was a druid. Didn't Rosella say that Alexander had encountered several of these characters on this island? They were certainly an odd bunch, although Edgar considered himself lucky that they hadn't tried to roast him like Alexander. His robe did seem to be working.

"Excuse me, sir – do you mind if I ask you an odd question?" Edgar asked cautiously.

"Not at all. Just don't expect me to have an answer for you right away, boy," the druid replied.

"Have you heard of a dark sorcerer named Shadrack?"

The druid stared at him from beneath his hood quizzically.

"I can't say that I have, my son," the druid replied. "That sounds like the sort of question our leader would be able to answer."

"Your leader?" Edgar asked. "Where does he live?"

"I can't tell you that," the druid said with a shake of his head.

"You can't? Why not?"

"I have already answered one question for you – two if you count your question as to whether you could ask me a question. You will have to find the answer to your new question on your own."

"Why?" Edgar asked, feeling a little put out.

"It is the way things are here," the druid explained. "One must seek out his own answers rather than constantly plead for them."

Seeing that he wasn't going to get anywhere by speaking with the druid, Edgar merely nodded and turned to examine his surroundings. Aside from the druid and himself, the clearing was empty, unless one counted the sparse shrubs and trees that populated it. Just to the right of the rock the druid was seated on was a scattering of small white stones, or so Edgar thought at first. When he knelt down to examine them, he realized that they weren't mere stones – they were hailstones. Edgar had heard of these huge chunks of ice that fell from the sky in times of extreme weather, but he had never actually seen them. He picked one up and shivered at how cold it felt in his hand. The Green Isles were situated far to the north, so it made sense that they would be subjected to meteorological phenomena like this.

As he put the stone down, he noticed that some of the stones had been arranged into a simple shape:

Although the shape resembled both the letters "N" and "H," it definitely wasn't either. Edgar couldn't make any sense out of it, but he took a mental note of the odd symbol.

Rising to his feet and turning around, Edgar saw that Scrimshaw had followed him and found a place to perch in the lower branches of a nearby oak tree – but what an oak tree it was. Its trunk was enormous in girth, and it had been converted into a living house – steps led up to a small doorway set into the tree.

A small paddock was at the side of the house. In it was a young cow, which gazed at Edgar out of large, dark eyes. There was nothing particularly unusual about the cow or its enclosure, but the small plaque affixed to the wooden fence seemed slightly odd. Edgar had expected it to have the name of the cow inscribed on it, but instead, it merely had a single, angular symbol:

If this was the cow's name, it was written in a language Edgar had never seen before. Still, the symbol had to mean something, so Edgar attempted to remember it.

As he was backing away from the paddock, however, he was startled to see a wagon wheel with yet another symbol engraved in its center:

It was similar in form to the previous two symbols he had seen, and just as confusing. Was it merely a decorative sign that had no meaning at all? It seemed so deliberate and precise that Edgar felt that it had to mean something…but what?

He shrugged his shoulders and turned his attention to the house in the oak tree. Hopefully, whoever lived inside could enlighten him regarding the whereabouts of the druids' leader. He walked up the steps to the door and tentatively knocked on it, and a muffled voice from within replied, "You may enter," which he did.

The inside of the tree was surprisingly well furnished and pleasing to the eye. It was only one room, which was crammed with various objects, some mundane, some quite unusual. A single window had been carved into its side, and several pieces of colored glass had been propped up against it, casting a lovely array of colors about the room. A variety of crystals also sat on the window's sill. Several canvasses with stunningly rendered landscapes were propped against the walls of the tree (or hanging on its wall in one case).

There was a low desk against the wall, with a cup full of charcoals and quills beside it in addition to a tray filled with several bright pigments that were undoubtedly used for painting. Two cloaks hung on a hook near the rear of the tree, a lantern cast a faint light over some of the tree and a colossal statue of a griffin that would have undoubtedly made Scrimshaw jealous sat near the doorway.

Another druid in a gray robe was sitting cross-legged in the center of the floor with his head down. As he lifted his head as Edgar walked in, however, the prince could see a pair of large blue eyes and full, pink lips that made him see that this wasn't a he after all.

"Hello," the druid said in a soft, feathery voice. "I've never seen you before, brother."

"I've only recently been initiated," Edgar lied. "I'm still getting to know the others."

"I see," the druid said, nodding.

"And you…you're a woman druid?" Edgar asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

The druid put one hand beneath her hood and pulled a lock of dark gold hair from beneath it.

"We're not all men here," she smiled. "My name, since you seem too afraid to ask it, is Orla."

"Sorry – but surely you're not the only woman here, are you, Orla?"

"At the moment, I am," Orla replied. "We have ways of extending our lives for surprisingly long periods, and every few decades, someone new will find his or her way here."

"Really? How?"

"It's difficult to say," Orla shrugged. "This Isle works in mysterious ways. Some say that it draws those who would be best suited to our way of living to it, others say that only people well-versed in magic can find their way here. Whatever the explanation is, our number has remained quite stable over the centuries."

"I see."

Edgar began taking a closer look at Orla's home. Since there were two cloaks, she probably shared her tree with another druid who might or might not be her husband – Edgar could never be too sure of the customs of these people. The subjects of the paintings that decorated the place were quite unusual. One depicted a desert landscape with several enormous, pointed stone structures dominating the scene ("They're pyramids," Orla explained when she saw him looking at the painting. "An ancient culture almost as old as our own in another land built them."). Another painting displayed what appeared to be a city at night, but the buildings had an unearthly, frightening quality to them – they were huge, angular, metal things with hundreds of thousands of windows that shone like a multitude of fireflies, while behind the myriad of buildings, thin beams of light split the night sky ("That is a depiction of a vision I had," Orla explained. "I feel that it may have come from the Other World.").

Edgar then found his attention drawn to Orla's lantern – or, to be more specific, the plain metal medallion on Orla's lantern. He stepped closer to it and saw that engraved on the shiny, reflective medallion was a fourth symbol:

"Orla," he said, "What does this symbol mean?"

"What does it mean?" Orla asked. "You mean…you don't know?"

Edgar realized that he was going to have to be a bit more careful if he was going to successfully pass himself off as a druid.

"It's just been a while since my…my teachings," he replied unsteadily.

"You should think of starting them over again if you've forgotten one of the basic signs," Orla smiled good-humouredly.

"I've been considering that," Edgar said, spying an opportunity to segue into the topic he should have brought up much earlier, "In fact, I was just about to speak to our leader about it…"

Orla's face had suddenly become grave.

"If you've truly been schooled here, you must have learned that you do not seek out the Arch Druid. He seeks you out."

"I'm sorry," Edgar faltered. "I was just getting a little anxious to speak with him."

"If the time for you to do so is right, you will get the chance," Orla replied. "In the meantime, you must be patient."

Edgar sighed. His patience had been wearing thin over the course of this journey as he discovered more and more about Shadrack and became increasingly anxious to find a way to put a stop to his plans. Still, if what Orla said was true, there was nothing he could do but hope the Arch Druid – the only person on this island who might have information on Shadrack's whereabouts – would decide to meet with him.

Edgar bid farewell to Orla and left her house. The druid that had been sitting on the rock in the clearing was gone, but Scrimshaw was still waiting for Edgar in the lower branches of the oak tree that formed Orla's house. When Edgar began to head north, Scrimshaw left his leafy perch and followed him at a discreet distance.

The mist obscured everything that was more than twenty paces away. As Edgar continued walking, new shapes began to appear out of the thick whiteness. A small tree appeared to the left, while another oak tree that had been converted into a druid's house was on the right. When Edgar stopped walking, Scrimshaw flew to the smaller tree and landed somewhat unsteadily on it. Since Scrimshaw had found that tree more appealing than the oak, Edgar decided to scrutinize it more closely.

It appeared to be a yew tree, a tree that could live to be hundreds or even thousands of years old. This one seemed fairly young as far as trees go, but there was something odd about its trunk – something was carved into it, and as Edgar suspected, it was yet another symbol:

The act of vandalism didn't appear to have harmed the tree, yet Edgar was puzzled as to why someone would carve such a symbol into a tree. Did it have religious significance? Was it part of a druid ritual, perhaps?

Unable to do anything more with the symbol aside from memorizing it, Edgar turned and made his way towards the second "treehouse."

As he was about to enter it, however, he noticed a bucket of water sitting beside the front steps. It seemed normal at first glance, but Edgar was quickly learning that "normal" was a very capricious term on this island when applied to anything on it.

The bucket was made out of wood and sealed with pitch, which was normal. The liquid inside it turned out to be water after all, which was normal. There were several twigs floating in the water, which was normal as well. The twigs just happened to be forming a very distinct character:

Another symbol. What did it mean? Of what significance was it?

Unable to come up with an answer to either question, Edgar groaned exasperatedly to himself as he entered the nearby house.

This new house was home to a single druid who didn't help Edgar any more than the first two druids, providing him with answers that were just as enigmatic and nebulous. Like Orla's home, this home was also filled with a variety of odd objects, like a large, red, wooden, circular plaque hanging on the wall decorated with the signs of the zodiac, a pair of long ash sticks and a lantern very similar to Orla's. There was also a bundle of hay near the door, and Edgar wasn't at all surprised to see a symbol on the band that tied it together:

Recalling the incident with Orla, Edgar decided not to ask the druid about this symbol. Instead, he asked him about the Arch Druid one last time, received yet another useless answer and shuffled out of the house, defeated.

Standing outside the house was the kindly druid that had greeted Edgar upon his arrival – his second arrival, to be exact. The druid had a very official look about him now, and he was standing as if he had been waiting for Edgar. Edgar could see his eyes following him, and when the druid didn't say anything to him, the prince decided to address the druid himself.

"Is there something you wanted of me?" Edgar asked.

"The Arch Druid wishes to speak with you," the druid replied simply.

Edgar's eyes widened. It looked as if his patience was going to pay off after all.

"And the Arch Druid lives…" Edgar began.

The druid pointed north, through the obscuring mist.

"Straight ahead?"

The druid nodded. Apparently he was not one to waste words when he was speaking of the Arch Druid. Edgar trudged ahead into the mist with Scrimshaw flapping behind him. He soon came to a third oak that had to be the grandest of all the oaks on the island. Its numerous branches spread out over an area as large as a house, and its trunk was equally impressive. Edgar was surprised that the dwelling of such an important individual wasn't guarded. Of course, druids tended to do things quite differently, he reminded himself.

With trepidation, he approached the door to the Arch Druid's home. Just as he was raising his fist to knock, an ancient, creaking voice from within the mighty tree intoned:

"Enter, wanderer."

Taken aback, but at the same time expecting just such a thing from the leader of a people who engaged in heavy magic on a regular basis, Edgar slowly opened the huge door. Scrimshaw, apparently sensing that something important was going to take place, zipped onto Edgar's shoulder and refused to budge, despite Edgar's protestations. Finally, hoping that the Arch Druid wouldn't find a pygmy griffin offensive, Edgar cautiously entered the dark, gloomy interior of the tree.

There was nothing but blackness inside the tree except for the glow of two candles sitting on the floor, about ten feet apart. Between them sat a thin, hunched, yet powerful figure clad in robes that seemed quite elaborate, even in the dim light. His face, which was thrown into sharp contrast by the light and the shadows, was long and angular, with a pair of eyes that gleamed in the darkness like a pair of hot embers.

"Welcome to the Isle of the Mists," the Arch Druid said in a voice that creaked like an old tree branch in a strong wind. "Please come closer."

Edgar obeyed him, but stopped when he was about five feet away from the candles. Scrimshaw trilled nervously.

"You can take off that robe of yours, by the way," the Arch Druid added. "I know you aren't one of us."

Edgar was frightened for a moment, but judging by the man's unthreatening voice, he didn't mean to punish him for dropping in on his island uninvited. Edgar touched the clasp of his now somewhat stifling robe with one hand and sent a good pulse of magic through it, which made it shrivel and shrink back into its original form of a cloak. Scrimshaw had leapt into the air in surprise when the robe began changing, but brightened immediately when Edgar pulled back his hood, revealing the little griffin's "nest" once more. With a squeak of delight, Scrimshaw leapt back into his private nook.

"May I please speak, Arch Druid?" Edgar asked, not knowing how formal he was expected to be in this man's presence.

"Speak all you want," said the Arch Druid, making a weak gesture with one hand.

"Then tell me," Edgar said, "How long have you known that I was an impostor?"

"We all knew that you weren't a druid and you weren't from this Isle from the moment you appeared to us in your little costume."

"You all knew?" Edgar asked, quite surprised. "You mean Orla and the two other druids…they all knew that I…"

"Yes," the Arch Druid said with a slow nod. "They did."

"Then why didn't you do something about me?" Edgar demanded. "I thought your people didn't take kindly to foreigners."

"We did nothing because we could sense that you were on a mission of great importance – importance not only to yourself, but to many others…perhaps even to us. You come here not seeking adventure or conquest or wealth, but knowledge – something we value above all other elements of life. We could also see what measures you went to to disguise yourself in order to obtain this wisdom, and we decided to humor you while we determined what sort of person you were – if your intentions seemed evil, we would send you away, but if they were good..."

"You would summon me here?"

"Precisely, young one," the Arch Druid smiled. "Now that you have earned an audience with me, you may ask whatever questions you wish of me, and I will do all that is in my power to answer them."

"Thank you, Arch Druid," Edgar said. He breathed deeply and assumed the most serious posture he could come up with before addressing the Arch Druid again:

"I want to know where I can find a dark wizard named Shadrack. It is imperative that I find him as soon as possible."

The Arch Druid was silent for a moment, then he sighed a low, rattling sigh.

"This is wisdom much darker than I would have expected one such as you to ask about," he said gravely.

"What are you saying?" Edgar asked.

"The knowledge regarding your question that I can pass on to you is too great to simply be given away. It must be earned, my boy."

"Very well – how do I earn this knowledge?"

"You must solve a series of riddles to prove that you are attuned to the secrets this island reveals to those who are willing to receive them."

Riddles again. Edgar had hoped he had seen the last of them in the Bountiful Woods, but now it seemed that he was destined to solve even more of them.

"Fine. I'm ready, Arch Druid."

"Then come here and sit down in front of me, young one," the Arch Druid creaked.

Edgar quietly approached the ancient sage and sat down before him. The Arch Druid produced a small bag, out of which he pulled seven small clay tokens. He arranged these in front of Edgar.

Edgar stared at the tokens. Each one had a symbol etched into it, and they were very familiar symbols indeed.

"I will tell you a riddle," the Arch Druid explained, "And you are to pick the rune whose meaning embodies the answer. I know that you have acquired the knowledge necessary to solve these riddles, but you will require a very sharp wit to unravel my riddles before you can choose the appropriate answer."

It sounded challenging, but Edgar had gone too far to back out now.

Do you wish to solve the riddles on your own? If so, click on the image below.

If not, just continue reading.

As Edgar slowly solved the riddles, the meaning of the symbols suddenly began to grow clear before him. The symbol he had originally seen carved into the yew tree meant "yew," the symbol he had seen on the cow's paddock meant "cattle," the one he had seen in the bucket meant "water," and so on. The symbols were apparently held in high regard by the people of the Isle of the Mists – they were probably used in their magic, Edgar surmised.

Though the riddles were difficult, he soon managed to get the hang of them and figure out what their answers were merely by eliminating the symbols until the most fitting one remained.

Though solving the riddles took a long time, Edgar finally picked the correct answer for the seventh riddle, and the Arch Druid gathered up the tokens with a satisfied look in his bright eyes. By this time, Edgar had grown acclimated to the darkness in the tree, and he could just make out the vague forms of objects scattered about the druid's home.

"Well done," the Arch Druid said. "You have answered all of the riddles correctly and proven yourself worthy of my wisdom."

"Great," Edgar replied brightly. "So can you tell me where Shadrack is, then?"

"Alas, my son, the path to one's destination is rarely straight and short. The one you are currently traversing is one that is quite long and crooked, and even if I had knowledge of this person's current whereabouts, it is quite unlikely that my words would make your path any less lengthy."

"So you don't know anything about Shadrack, is that what you're saying?" Edgar asked, trying to hide the disappointment in his voice.

"All that I do know is that he is not on our side, and he hides much within him. However, the knowledge of others is directly proportional to the knowledge of one's own self. If you wish to know all there is to know about this Shadrack, you must first dare to look within yourself."

"Okay," said Edgar, beginning to grow impatient and feeling as if he'd been had once again, "But if it's all right with you, Arch Druid, I'd be much more interested in knowing which way I should go now instead of examining my personality."

"As you wish," the druid replied stoically. "Although I cannot tell you your final destination, I can send you to another spot on the road to it."

"Great. What's that?"

"The Green Isles are reputed to have islands that appear and disappear into the sea. This island is one such place, but there is another island to the northwest that has nearly been forgotten over the ages. To those on the main islands, it is fast becoming an obscure myth, but to us, it is as real as the Isle we live upon."

"What is it called? What's there?"

"You will soon find out. Wisdom acquired on one's own is far better than wisdom handed to one, is it not?"

"I suppose."

"But," the Arch Druid said, rising to his feet and making his way towards a heavy wooden chest sitting against the wall of his home, "Before you leave, I wish to give you something. I feel that it will be of use to you in your travels, and for such an intelligent boy such as yourself, I have no qualms whatsoever about giving it away."

"Thanks," Edgar said. "What is it?"

The Arch Druid lifted a bundle out of the chest and returned to where Edgar was seated. He held the thing out so that Edgar could see it clearly. It was tan, limp, wrinkled and leathery, and somehow eerily familiar.

"This is the skin of our former leader," the Arch Druid said.

Edgar nearly jumped out of his own and gaped with mute shock at the innocuous folded item.

"Don't look so alarmed," the Arch Druid said reassuringly. "It is merely one of our customs, and it has been practiced for hundreds of years. The skin of a magic worker is said to possess great power even after its owner is no more, and keeping such a skin in one's abode imbues the inhabitant with power and wisdom as well. It is a sacred object, my boy, and only those such as yourself are worthy of receiving such a thing."

He held the skin out towards Edgar.

"So here. It is yours."

"I…I can't," Edgar stammered. He had accepted the fact that druids' customs were different from his own, but he hadn't expected them to be this different.

"Please," the Arch Druid said calmly. "It won't harm you, I can assure you of that."

Edgar was struggling to maintain his composure as well as work out the best course of action. Why was he afraid of a wrapped-up skin? He had worn leather boots before, and those were made from skins…

But this was a human skin!

But he wasn't human.

Still, he was in love with one, and she…

Edgar remembered Rosella's stories about her adventures in Tamir and Eldritch. On both occasions, she had been forced to deal with human remains, either directly or indirectly…she had toted a severed foot around with her, for Levanter's sake! A complete human skin that had been tanned like a cow's might have been a bit more than what she'd been used to carrying, but it certainly wouldn't be something she would run away screaming from. Besides, Edgar thought, it probably wouldn't be the best idea to get on this druid's bad side by refusing such a generous gift.

With more reluctance than he had felt in a very long time, Edgar took the skin from the Arch Druid. It was lighter than he had imagined, and it did indeed seem to be radiating a small amount of magic. He gingerly tucked it away in his pocket and swallowed, only then realizing how dry and tight his throat had become.

"Now," the Arch Druid intoned, "If you are ready, I will give to you the knowledge of the seldom mentioned and even more seldom seen sixth Isle."

"I'm ready," Edgar said as steadily as he could.

"I wish you luck on your quest, my child. Just remember what I said about learning the truth about Shadrack: before you do that, you must face the truth about yourself."

"I will, Arch Druid."

The Arch Druid beckoned Edgar closer and placed a withered palm on the prince's forehead. Edgar instinctively shut his eyes, and as if in a dream, he could see the image of a tiny, nondescript island with four peninsulas fanning out in all four directions, like a squat, rounded star. He could sense his pendant starting to work, and through the mist of his vision, he could somehow see the Arch Druid withdrawing his hand and bowing solemnly. Apparently, bowing was the druid's way of saying good-bye as well. They did do things differently here.

---

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