The Story begins long before the Forest of Drul, but the Forest of Drul is where everyone enters the dream and explores the wooded four hills, the elusive Black Road, the great golden plains shimmering in summer heat, the giant river flowing down to the hot desert by the sea from its nest in the northern mountains, where the peaks reach so high they have never been climbed...this is a Story of landscapes, wide and wild and untamed, in which the sons of men cling to precarious existences along the peripheries of lost civilizations. In the beginning, there was just a forest spread over four small hills, with many springs bursting from below, in which a girl lived and loved, and one day had reason to ask a favor of a unicorn, who asked her for something in return...unicorns grant wishes. It is the most dangerous thing about them.