"What do you mean,"

Vernier asked.  "Ash can't enter the forest?"

"Ash Marten is under a powerful geas," I explained.  "Which prevents him from getting within a certain distance of a Gate to Faerie.  He can wander other forests but not this one, because this Gate is here."

"That really is a Gate to Faerie?" she asked, staring at the dolmen.  "I always thought it was an old pagan burial mound.  There's nothing but a tiny dirt-lined room inside."

"That's because you're lowfolk," I pointed out.  "We can't have strangers wandering in all the time, so for you it leads nowhere.  For me it leads into a - uh, it goes somewhere else.  In Faerie."

"I see," Vernier mused.  "It makes sense, I suppose.  I didn't really think you lived in that cramped little barrow.  You'd be even dirtier if you did."

As I inspected my clothes, she continued:  "If you can scry to the edge of the forest, and Ash can approach up to the edge of the forest, it seems to me you should be able to reach him that way."

"Perhaps, but doing it that way he can't see me.  Besides, my scry equipment is in there - through the Gate.  It's not portable.  I have to be in there to use it.  And there's a time slippage between our worlds which I still haven't figured out how to navigate properly, so every time I go through the Gate I wind up being gone from here far longer than I wanted to.  I don't think I can risk losing a couple of weeks or months right now."

"You could use Tumbler to talk to Ash!" Rebecca interrupted.  "It's something we used to do when I was little.  You take two pewter tumblers, or beer mugs or whatever, but it has to be metal with a flat bottom, and pretty thin.  You poke a hole in the bottom with a nail, and you tie a piece of string between the two tumblers, and if the string is pulled tight you can talk and the person at the other end can hear you!  It was soooo cool!  Dad would spank us for practicing witchcraft and ruining his drinking mugs, but it was totally worth it!"

"String?" I asked incredulously.

"Surely you mean a pipe or a hose of some kind," Vernier added.  "Sound couldn't go through a string."

"It can if the string is pulled tight!" Rebecca insisted.  "I bet my Lord could magic up some super elfy string that would work even better!"

"The edge of the forest is almost a mile away," I pointed out.  "And there are a lot of trees in between.  I don't think a string that long would be feasible.  A speaking tube might work, but it would take a long time to make.  Your tumbler idea though, makes me think of scry-orbs.  I read about these recently.  They are two crystals that are magickally linked so elves can use them to communicate with each other instantaneously across great distances.  If I had the materials, I'm sure I could do the enchantment to make a pair of scry-orbs!"

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