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..
