In Neihon, the Yokai are leaving. Slowly, one by one, they cross the waves toward the rising sun, walking, flying, and swimming toward a new land that only they can see. Yet some remain. They remain out of love, or out of obligation. The Minamoto clan has defeated the Taira clan, driving its warriors into the sea. The Hojo clan, mighty through its use of a captive Kinko kitsune, craves ever more power and will do anything to get it. Their kitsune only wants to be free.

The Dreamer awakes, the shadow goes by; the tale I have told you, that tale is a lie... Portals to magical worlds, corvids that speak the meaning of life, and more await one who sits and listens to this sharing of tales between two anachronistic raconteurs, one of whom may or may not be Geoffrey Chaucer. Reader, remember this: the tales are pure fictions. Fantasies. Except when they are not.

What happens when the healer of an oppressive, tiny village helps her younger brother learn magic, giving him a chance at living a decent life? Nothing good.

Here is a tale of two dimensional gates. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair... Through "The Gilden Door," a young girl grows up rapidly as she discovers she must save a land from ruin. Through the door into "Arkesh," two teens stumble and fall into a kingdom's civil war. Enter the portals to two magical worlds in this back-to-back collection.