It's been a while, hasn't it? :B Hehehe.

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Soyeon and Seungho followed Fei  through Gyuri’s house. There were reminders everywhere that they were inside a tree; everything- floors, walls and ceilings – was wooden, and in places, little buds and shoots of green leaves dappled the walls, as if the wood was still growing.

With her hand resting lightly on her brother’s shoulder, Soyeon looked around. The house seemed to be composed of a series of circular rooms that flowed, almost imperceptibly, into one another. She caught glimpses as she and Seungho passed them. Almost all the rooms were bare, and most of them had tall red-barked trees growing through the center of the floor.

One room, off to the side and much larger than the rest, had a large oval-shaped pool in the middle of the floor. Startlingly large white-flowered water lilies clustered in the center of the pool, giving it the appearance of a huge unblinking eye.

Another room was filled entirely with wooden wind chimes dangling from the branches of its red tree. Each set of chimes was a different size and shape, some etched and carved with symbols , others unadorned. They hung still and quiet until Soyeon looked into the room, and then they slowly, melodically began to rattle together. It sounded like distant whispers. Soyeon squeezed Seungho’s shoulder, trying to attract his attention, but he was staring straight ahead, forehead creased in concentration.

“Where is everyone?” Seungho finally asked.

“There is only Gyuri,” Fei said. “Those of the Elder Race are solitary creatures.”

“Are there many still alive?” Soyeon wondered aloud.

Fei paused by an open door and turned to look back over her shoulder.

“More than you might think. The majority of them want nothing to do with the humans and rarely venture from their individual Shadowrealms. Others, like the Dark Elders, want a return to the old ways, and work through agents like Junhyung to make it happen.”

“And what about you?” Seungho demanded. “Do you want to return to these old ways?”

“I never thought they were that great,” she said, then added, “especially for the humans.”

They found Jihoon sitting outside on a raised wooden deck set into a branch of the tree. Growing horizontally from the tree trunk, the branch was at least ten feet across, and sloped down to plunge into the earth close to a crescent-shaped pool.

Walking across the branch, Soyeon glanced down and was startled to see that beneath the green weeds that curled and twisted in the pool, tiny almost-human faces peered upward, mouths and eyes open wide. On the deck, five high-backed chairs were arranged around a circular table, which was set with beautifully hand-carved wooden bowls and elegant wooden cups and goblets. Warm, rough-cut bread and thick slices of hard cheese were arranged on platters, and there were two huge bowls of fruit- apples, oranges and enormous cherries—in  the center of the table.

The alchemist was carefully slicing the skin off an emeral green apple with a triangular silver of black stone that looked like an arrowhead. Soyeon noticed that he had arranged the green skin into shapes that resembled letters.

Fei slid into the seat beside the Alchemist. “Is Gyuri not joining us?” she asked, picking up a piece of cut skin and chewing on it.

“I believe she is changing for dinner,” Jihoon said, slicing off another curl of skin to replace the piece Fei was chewing.

He looked over at Soyeon and Seungho. “Sit, please. Our hostess will join us shortly and then we’ll eat. You must be exhausted,” he added.

“I am tired,” Soyeon admitted. She’d become aware of the exhaustion a little earlier, and now she could barely keep her eyes open. She was also a little frightened, realizing the tiredness was caused by the magic of the place feeding off her energy.

“When can we go home?” Seungho demanded, unwilling to admit that he too was worn out. Even his bones ached. He felt as if he was coming down with a cold.

Jihoon cut a neat slice from the apple and popped it in his mouth. “I’m afraid you will not be able to return for a little while.”

“Why not?” Seungho snapped.

Jihoon sighed. He put down the stone arrowhead and the apple and placed his hands flat on the table.

“Right now, neither Junghyung nor the Davichi knows who you are. It’s only because of that, that you and your family are safe.”

“Our family?” Soyeon asked. The sudden thought that her mother or father might be in danger made her feel queasy. Seungho reacted with the same shock, his lips drawing into a thin white line.

“Junhyung will be thorough,” Jihoon said. “He is protecting a millennia-old secret, and he will not stop with killing you. Everyone you know or have come in contact with will have an accident. I’d hazard a guess that even Suzy’s Coffee Cup will burn to the ground ... simply because you once worked in it. Suzy might even perish in the fire.”

“But she has nothing to do with anything,” Soyeon protested, horrified.

“Yes, but Junhyung doesn’t know that. Nor does he care. He has worked with the Dark Elders for a long time, and now he has come to regard humans as they do. As little more than beasts.”

“But we won’t tell anyone what we’ve seen ...,” Seungho began, “and no one would believe us anyway ...” His sentence trailed away.

“And if we don’t tell anyone, then no one will ever know,” Soyeon said. “We’ll never speak of this again. Junhyung will never find us.” But even as the words were leaving , she was beginning to realize that it was hopeless. She and Seungho were as trapped by their knowledge of the Codex’s existence as Jihoon and Hyori had been.

“He would find you,” Jihoon said reasonably. He glanced at the Warrior. “How long do you think it would take for Junhyung of one of the Davichi’s spies to find them?”

“Not long,” she said, munching on the apple skin. “A couple of hours maybe. The rats or birds would track you, then Junhyung would hunt you down.”

“Once you have been touched by magic, you are forever changed.” Jihoon moved his right hand in front of him, leaving the faintest hint of pale green smoke dangling in the air. “You leave a trail.” He huffed a breath at the green smoke and it curled away and disappeared.

“Are you saying we smell?” Seungho demanded.

Jihoon nodded. “You smell of wild magic. You caught a whiff of it earlier today when Gyuri touched you both. What did you smell then?”

“Oranges,” Seungho said.

“Vanilla ice cream,” Soyeon replied.

“And earlier still, when Junhyung and I fought, what did you smell then?”

“Mint and rotten eggs,” Seungho said immediately,

“Every magician has his or her own distinctive odor, rather like a magical fingerprint. You must learn to heed your senses. Humans use but a tiny percentage of theirs. They barely look, they rarely listen, they never smell, and they think that they can only experience feelings through their skin. But they talk, oh, do they talk. That makes up for the lack of use of their other senses. When you return to your own world, you will be able to recognize people who have some taint of magical energy.”

He cut out a neat cube of apple and popped it into his mouth. “You may notice a peculiar scent, you might even taste it or see it as a shimmer around their bodies.”

“How long will the feeling last?” Soyeon asked, curious. She reached out and took a cherry. It was the size of a small tomato. “Will it fade?”

Jihoon shook his head. “It will never face. On the contrary, it will get stronger. You have to realize that nothing will ever be the same for either of you from this day forth.”

Seungho bit into an apple with a satisfying crunch. Juice ran onto his chin. “You make that sound like a bad thing,” he said with a grin, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

Jihoon was about to respond, but glanced up and suddenly came to his feet. Fei also rose smoothly, silently. Soyeon immediately stood, but Seungho remained sitting until Soyeon caught his shoulder and pulled him up. Then she turned to look at the Goddess with Three Faces.

But this wasn’t Gyuri.

The woman she had seen earlier had been tall and elegant, middle-aged maybe, her hair cut in a tight white helmet close to her head, her black skin smooth and unwrinkled.

This woman was older, much, much older. The resemblance to Gyuri was there, and Soyeon guessed that this was her mother or grandmother. Although she was still tall, she stooped forward, picking her way around the branch, leaving into an ornately carved black stick that was at least as tall as Soyeon. Her face was a mass of fine wrinkles, her eyes deeply sunken in her head, glittering with a peculiar yellow cast. She was completely bald, and Soyeon could see where her skull was tattooed in an intricate curling pattern.

Although she was wearing a dress similar to the one Gyuri had worn earlier, the metallic-looking fabric ran black and red with her every movement.

Soyeon blinked, squeezed her eyes shut and then blinked again. She could see the merest hint of an aura around the woman, almost as if she were exuding a fine white mist. When she moved, she left tendrils of this mist behind her.

Without acknowledging anyone’s presence, the old woman settled into the seat directly facing Jihoon. Only when she was seated did Jihoon and Fei sit. Soyeon and Seungho sat down also, glancing from Jihoon to the old woman, wondering who she was and what was going on.

The woman raised a wooden goblet from the table, but didn’t drink. There was movement in the truck of the tree behind her, and four tall, muscular young men appeared, carrying trays piled high with good, which they set down in the center of the table before backing away silently. The men looked so alike that they had to be related, but it was their faces that drew the twins’ attention. There was something wrong with the planes and angles of their skulls. Foreheads sloped down to a ridge over their eyes, their noses were short and splayed, their cheekbones pronounced, and their chins receeded sharply. The hint of yellow teeth was visible behind thin lips. The men were bare-chested and barefoot, wearing only leather kilts, onto which rectangular plates of metal had been sewn. And their chests, legs and heads were covered with coarse red hair.

Soyeon suddenly realized that she was staring, and deliberately turned away. The men looked like some breed of primitive hominid, but she knew  the differences between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, and her father had plaster skulls of Australopithecus, Peking man and the great apes in his study. These men were none of those. And then she noticed that their eyes were blue, bright blue, and incredibly intelligent-looking.

“They’re Torc Allta,” she said, and then froze in surprise when everyone turned to look at her. She hadn’t realized she had spoken aloud.

Seungho, who’d been staring suspiciously at what might have been a chunk of fish he’d forked out of a big bowl of stew, glanced at the backs of the four young men. “I knew that,” he said casually.

Soyeon kicked him under the table. “You did not,” she muttered. “You were too busy checking out the food.”

“I’m hungry,” he said, then leaned across to his twin. “it was the red hair and piggy noses that gave it away,” he muttered. “I thought you’d realized that.”

“It would be a mistake to let them hear you say that,” Jihoon interrupted quietly. “it would also be a mistake to judge by appearances of to comment on what you see. In this time, in this place, different standards, different criteria apply. Here words can kill –literally.”

“Or get you killed,” Fei added. She had piled her plate high with an assortment of vegetables, only some which were familiar to the twins. She nodded in the direction of the tree. “But you are right. They are Torc Allta in their human form. Probably the finest warriors of any time,” she said.

“They will accompany you when you leave here,” the old woman said suddenly, her voice surprisingly strong coming from such a frail-looking body.

Jihoon bowed. “We will be honored by their presence.”

“Don’t be,” the old woman snapped. “They’ll not accompany you solely for your protection. They’re to ensure that you really do leave my realm.” She spread her long- hands on the table, and Soyeon noticed that her fingernails were each painted a different color. Strangely, the nails pattern was identical to the one she’d noticed on Gyuri’s nails earlier.

“You cannot stay here,” the woman announced abruptly. “You must go.”

The twins glanced at each other. Why was she being so rude?

Fei opened to speak, but Jihoon reached over and squeezed her arm. “That was always our intention,” he said smoothly. The late-afternoon sunlight slanting through the trees dappled his face, turning his pale eyes into mirrors. “When Junhyung attacked my shop and snatched the Codex, I realized that I had nowhere else to go.”

“You should have gone south,” the old woman said, her dress almost completrly black now, the red threads looking like veins. “You would have been more welcome there. I want you to leave.”

“When i began to suspect that the prophecy was beginning to come about, I knew I had to come to you,” Jihoon continued, ignoring her. The twins, who were following the exchange closely, noticed how his eyes flickered briefly in their direction.

The old woman turned her head and looked at the twins with her butter-colored eyes. Her wizened face cracked in humorless smile that showed her tiny yellow teeth. “I have thought about this. I am convinced that the prophecy does not refer to humans, and especially not children,” she added with a hiss.

The contempt in the woman’s voice made Soyeon speak out. “I wish you  wouldn’t talk about us as if we weren’t here,” she said.

“Besides,” Seungho said,”your daughter was going to help us. Why don’t we wait and see what she has to say.”

The elderly woman blinked at him, and her almost invisible eyebrows raised in a silent question. “My daughter?”

Soyeon saw Fei’s eyes widen in surprise or warning, but Seungho pressed on.

“Yes, the woman we met this afternoon. The younger woman—your daughter? Or maybe she’s your granddaughter?  She was going to help us.”

“I have neither a daughter nor a granddaughter!” The old woman’s dress flared black and red in long sheets of color. Her lips drew back from her teeth and she snarled some comprehensible words. Her hands curled into claws, and the air was suddenly filled with the citrus scent of lime. Dozens of tiny spinning balls of green light gathered in the palms of her hand.

And then Fei slammed a double-edged dagger into the center of the table. The wood split in two with a thunderous snap that spewed splinters into the air, and the bowls of food shattered on the ground. The old woman reared back, the green light dribbling from her fingers like liquid. It ran hissing and spitting down the branch before sinking into the wood.

The four Torc Allta were immediately behind the old woman, curved, scythelike swords in their hands, and three more of the creatures in their boar shape burst through the undergrowth and raced up the branch to assume positions behind Jihoon and Fei.

The twins froze, terrified, unsure what had just happened. Jihoon hadn’t moved, he merely continued to cut and eat the apple. Fei calmly sheathed her dagger and folded her arms. She spoke quickly to the old woman. Soyeon and Seungho could see Fei’s lips moving, but all they could hear was a tinny, mosquito-like buzz.

The old woman didn’t respond. Her face was an expressionless mask as she stood and swept away from the table, surrounded by the Torc Allta guards. This time neither Jihoon nor Fei stood.

In the long silence that followed, Fei stooped down to gather some of the fallen fruits and vegetables from the ground, dusted them off and popped them into the only remaining unbroken wooden bowl. She started to eat.

Seungho was opening his mouth to ask the same question Soyeon wanted an answer to, but she reached under the table and squeezed his arm, silencing him. She was aware that something terribly dangerous had just occurred, and that somehow Seungho was involved.

“I think that went well, don’t you?” Fei asked eventually.

Jihoon finished the apple and cleaned the edge of the black arrowhead on a leaf. “It depends on how you define the word well,” he said.

Fei munched on a raw carrot. “We’re still alive and we’re still in the Shadowrealm,” she said. “Could be worse. The sun is going down. Our hostess will need to sleep, and in the morning, she’ll be a different person. Probably won’t even remember what happened tonight.”

“What did you say to her?” Jihoon asked. “I’ve never mastered the Elder Tongue.”

“I simply reminded her of the ancient duty of hospitality and assured her that the slight to her was unintentional and made through ignorance and was, therefore, no crime under the Elder Laws.”

“She is fearful ...,” Jihoon muttered, glancing toward the huge tree trunk. The Torc Allta guards could be seen moving inside, while the largest of the boars had remainded outside, blocking the doorway.

“She is always fearful when the evening draws in. It is when she is at her most vulnarable,” Fei said.

“It would be nice,” Soyeon interrupted, “if someone told us exactly what just happened.” She hated it when adults talked among themselves and ignored any children present. And that was exactly what was happening now.

Fei smiled, and suddenly, her vampire teeth looked very long in . “Your twin managed to insult one of the Elder Race and was very nearly turned into green slime for his crime.”

Seungho shook his head. “But i didn’t say anything ...,” he protested. He looked at his twin for support as he quickly thought over his conversation with the old woman. “All i said was that her daughter or granddaughter had promised to help us.”

Fei laughed softly. “There is no daughter or granddaughter. The mature woman you saw this afternoon was Gyuri. The old woman you saw this evening is also Gyuri, and in the morning, you will meet a young girl who is Gyuri as well.”

“The Goddess with Three Faces,” Jihoon reminded them.

“Gyuri is cursed to age with the day. Maiden in the morningg, matron in the afternoon, crone in the evening. She is incredibly sensitive about her age.”

Seungho swallowed hard. “I didn’t know ...”

“No reason why should have – except that your ignorance could have gotten you killed ... or worse.”

“But what did you do to the table?” Soyeon asked. She looked at the ruin of the circular table. It was split down the middle where Fei had cut it with her knife. The wood on the either side of the split looked dry and dusty.

“Iron,” Fei said simply.

“One of the surprising side effects of the artificial metal,” Jihoon said, “is its ability to nullify even the most powerful magics. The discovery of iron really signaled the end of the Elder Race’s power in this world.” He held up the black stone arrowhead. “That’s why I was using this. The Elders get nervous in the presence of iron.”

“But you’re carrying iron,” Soyeon said to Fei.

“I’m Next Generation – not pure Elder like Gyuri. I can bear to be around iron.”

Seungho his dry lips. He was still remembering the green light buzzing in Gyuri’s palms. “When you said ‘turned into greem slime,’ you didn’t mean ...”

Fei nodded. “Sticky green slime. Quite disgusting. And I understand the victim retains some measure of consciousness for a while.” She glanced at Jihoon. “I cannot remember the last person to cross one of the Elders and live, can you?”

Jihoon stood. “Let’s hope she doesn’t remember in the morning. Get some rest,” he said to the twins. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

“Why?” Soyeon and Seungho asked simultaneously.

“Because tomorrow, I’m hoping I can convince Gyuri to Awaken your magical potential. If you are going to have any chance of surviving the days to come, I will have to train you to become magicians.”

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I certainly enjoyed writing Seungho's character in this chapter. The lip-, the always-eating ... sigh <3

Comments? :D