Glorissa gasped.

  “The Crystal of Light? The physical embodiment of the covenant between humans and God?” she asked. She was visibly trembling. “Why would you want to steal it?” What creature of horror could want to do that? Glorissa thought.

  “I want to steal the Crystal of Light because I want to sell it,” the wizard said. “I have buyers on the market for stolen goods in the Northern Empire who are eager to buy it. The Crystal is believed to have certain magical properties. I, too, need money, although the magnitude of coin that concerns me exists in amounts that trivialize any comprehension of money which low-level beings such as yourselves might possess.”

  “Why would you need money,” Yarid asked. “You throw platinum coins around as if they were nothing. What need for such vast sums of coin do you have?”

  “The same, or similar, to your own, Yarid King of the elves,” the wizard said. “I seek to raise an army. Much as you desire to fight a war to reclaim your homeland from the goblin invaders who occupy it, I also have something unclaimed which belongs to me: the Imperium. Once I obtain the Crystal and complete the sale, I shall reconstitute my old army and march on the Imperium, to finish my unfinished business from many years ago: to take the crown. When I attack the Imperium the ranks of my army will swell with every mercenary in the realm. To employ every mercenary, I must hire every mercenary. For which I must pay every mercenary.”

  “Who are you?” Glorissa asked.

  “Why, haven’t you figured it out by now?” the wizard said. “I’m the Dark Wizard.”

  Draw your sword now and kill him. He won’t be expecting it. Do it now while you still have the element of surprise, Glorissa thought to herself. She looked from the Dark Wizard to her fellow travelers in the room. Nathan and Rose would put up a fight; she was unsure of Yarid, Sylis and Kylus. But she had no confidence that she would win in a surprise attack. Perhaps the best thing that I can do now is to just play along with it and see where this path leads, Glorissa thought. Maybe God put me here in this place for that very reason.

  “The Crystal of Light is the covenant between God and humans!” Glorissa said. “It was given to King Gargarez by God as a symbol of the sacred agreement made between them, whereby God promised to banish the dragons, and the humans agreed to protect the sacred Crystal. God gave a similar crystal, the Crystal of the Elements, to King Zebyx to stand for the contract between faerie and God. If those Crystals were to be destroyed, the dragons would return to the world!”

  “And, due in large part to my own shame and guilt, the Crystal of the Elements has already been shattered,” Yarid said. “I have already failed to uphold my forefather Zebyx’s promise to God. Only the Crystal of Light protects the realm from the dragons and their annihilation of all life in our realm.”

  “As I said, I don’t intend to destroy the Crystal. I intend to sell it,” the Dark Wizard said. He waved a black-gloved hand dismissively. “Put your fears and your guilty conscience at rest, little child of White. I don’t desire the dragons to return any more than you do: if dragons destroy the world, then no realm exists for me to conquer. I will not allow the Crystal to be destroyed.”

  “How do we know that we can trust you when you say that?” Yarid asked.

  “How does anyone ever know they can trust anyone?” the Dark Wizard asked. Glorissa could not see his face, so she could not tell if he was serious or if his mask was hiding a sarcastic smile. “You can never know. No reasoned argument can prove what is in the mind of someone else. You trust on faith alone or not at all. You need this job. You have no other choices.”

  “Are you asking us to have faith in you?” Glorissa asked. How dare he? That’s outrageous!

  “Yes, in a sense. That is an excellent way to put it! When employees do work for an employer, they do so according to the employer’s plan for how the business is to be run. The workers do not know beforehand whether the plan will succeed. They trust the employer—and if the plan succeeds then they are repaid for their faith.”

  “You won’t be able to do it,” Glorissa said. “I mean, we won’t be able to do it. We can’t pull off this heist! Your plan won’t succeed. The Star Knights Academy, where I trained for three years, is in Imperia, near the Temple of Light. The Star Knights are allies of the Temple. Last year the Academy gave us a school field trip to the Temple. The priests of the Temple of Light gave us a guided walking-tour through the Temple, although they did not take us into the tower where they keep the Crystal of Light. The Temple of Light is a fortress. Their defenses are impenetrable. I can remember several different defensive procedures that the priests mentioned. Each of those defensive measures are impossible to get past; when you combine all the defenses together, you’re asking us to go on a suicide mission.”

  “The priests of the Temple of Light believe that it is impossible for anyone to intrude upon their delightful little delusions of safety,” the Dark Wizard said. “I expect they told such things to you gullible little schoolchildren. It can be done, and we are the ones who can do it. I have a plan. My plan will work.” He’s insane. I don’t want to die for this evil wizard, Glorissa thought.

  “That is the reason why I have called you here today, why I needed you six and no others. I require a team comprised of a priest or wizard of White, a Blue wizard, a Green soldier, preferably one with ties to the Green military order named the Servants of the Sword, a Yellow fae who is highly talented at Yellow magic, a wizard of Black, and a Red wizard.”

  “What is the plan? And what are the defenses?” Nathan asked. “You and Glorissa know, but I have no idea how the Temple of Light is defended.”

  “I am about to explain my plan,” the Dark Wizard said. “My spies have told me how the Temple is defended. My spies are mere spies whom I paid for information. They themselves cannot infiltrate the Temple. But you can.”

  “Do I want to?” Glorissa asked. Oh God. Did I just say that out loud?

  “My friend, what did you just say to me?” the Dark Wizard asked.

  “I don’t think I want to do this job,” Glorissa said. “It would be evil to betray God, and oh by the way if the dragons return they’ll destroy the world. I may have to bow out. In fact, I may have to stop you—or report you to the appropriate authorities for them to stop you.” I cannot believe I’m doing this. About to find out if there’s a Heaven!

  “You stupid girl!” Rose said. “I knew I should never have brought you!”

  “Well, to be honest, I feel the same way,” Sylis said. “I need the money, but I’m a nice simple farm boy. I don’t want to get caught up in some sort of massive criminal web of evil.”

  “I agree with Sylis,” Kylus said.

  “And I too will not betray God,” Yarid said. “I have already broken the sacred vow between faerie and God. I will not corrupt the vow between humanity and God as well. To sin once is an abomination, to sin twice is unforgiveable.”

  “What a bunch of losers,” Nathan said. “When the Dark Wizard kills them all, shall we join in, or play neutral?” Nathan asked Rose.

  “That’s an interesting question. I’ve not made up my mind,” Rose said.

  “If it’s a fight you want, you’ll get one!” Glorissa said, as she and the other rebels moved to get up from their seats and draw their weapons.

  “Bring it,” Rose said.

  The Dark Wizard held up a hand to silence Rose and Nathan. He motioned for the rebel members of the group to sit back down. Glorissa looked at the others and saw her own look of confusion mirrored in their eyes. But she sat back down, and so did they. The Dark Wizard’s not going to attack us? What is he planning?

  “My friends, I cannot say that I was not expecting a bit of resistance. You are good people, and I too am a good person, so I can relate! I have developed a bad reputation in the history books, but remember: history is written by the victors. I feel sympathy for your moral dilemma. I have my own guilty conscience with which I contend daily. I anticipated this, and I had been prepared to address these issues later during our meeting. But instead, we shall discuss them now.”

  “How do you intend to… address them?” Glorissa asked.

  “By explaining to you the stakes involved, so that you can make a fully informed decision,” the Dark Wizard said. “When I do something, I do my due diligence. I asked my spies to learn about the Temple of Light, but I also requested that they give me information about each of you. As you are the chess pieces that I am set to play on the board, I needed to know what you are. So I know.”

  “You just met us last week,” Glorissa said. “You know nothing about me.”

  “My spies work quickly, although your being concerned about my ignorance is adorable. So let us begin with you, Glorissa,” the Dark Wizard said. “I know that you and your sister Leigh both enrolled in the Star Knights Academy at age eighteen, three years ago. I know that one year ago your sister Leigh vanished from the Star Knights Academy. I know that you are on a quest to find her and rescue her, if she needs rescuing.”

  “Anyone back in Imperia could have told you that,” Glorissa said.

  “Not precisely correct, but I’ll let that pass,” the Dark Wizard said. “You underestimate the network of spies at my command and the level of resources at my disposal. My spies have learned information about where Leigh is and what happened to her.”

  Glorissa gasped so loudly that the others at the table jumped back in shock. “Oh my God! Did you really? Where is she? Can you tell me?”

  The Dark Wizard did not say anything.

  “Well, please tell me!” Glorissa said. “I’ve been searching and found nothing! I need to know!”

  “I know that you need to know, my friend,” the Dark Wizard said. “And I will tell you… after you complete the heist for the Crystal of Light.”

  I am such a fool. How did I not see that coming? Tears began to well up in Glorissa’s eyes. “You’re lying! You’re saying this just to get me to agree!”

  “One year ago, around the same time when your sister went missing, a very valuable magical artifact was stolen from the Star Knights Estate,” the Dark Wizard said. “I believe it is named the Ancient Crown. Your instructors at the Star Knights Academy told you that the timing of the two events was mere coincidence. And you believed them. My spies have learned that the two things are connected. Somewhere in your heart you always knew this to be true, although you doubted your own feelings and intuition with respect to your sister. If you do the heist for me, I will tell you the truth about the connection. No one besides you and a small group of others within the Star Knights would know about the Crown, much less that it vanished when your sister did—unless they obtained this information directly from the source of the mystery, which is where my spies obtained it.”

  Glorissa bowed her head and held her face in her hands. She made no reply.

  “And now we turn our gaze upon you, Sylis Karth,” the Dark Wizard said. The Dark Wizard had not moved, and his eyes were fully masked, so no one knew if he was in fact looking at Sylis. However, Sylis turned himself in his chair to face more towards the Dark Wizard and he looked at him, keeping his eyes fixed on the Dark Wizard’s full-head black mask. Sylis’s entire body was tense, as if readying itself to react to being punched.

  “My spies collected information about you, my friend, and they learned some interesting things,” the Dark Wizard said. “Someone is hunting you. Someone has put a mark on your life, and assassins are roaming the realm, looking to collect on that mark. Do you know why?”

  “No,” Sylis said.

  “But I know who is hunting you, and why,” the Dark Wizard said. “For such a lowly farm boy, you have enemies in surprisingly high places. Do this job for me, and I will provide that information, my friend—and I will give you the resources with which to fight back. Do I have your agreement?”

  “Like Glorissa, I question whether you’re just making the whole thing up to trick me into working for you,” Sylis said.

  The Dark Wizard folded his two hands on the table in front of him, first slowly placing down one, then carefully wrapping the fingers of the other around it.

  “I know who your enemies are, my friend. Your enemies number not one, but two. They are twins. Their vendetta against you dates back not to anything that you have ever done, but to their desire for revenge against your mother. Do you still doubt me?”

  Sylis did not answer.

  “Your mother left you a mess of trouble for you to inherit. It is a shame that she left you such terrible ignorance—but I will replace it with knowledge. With my help, you will clean up the mess. No one else is offering to help you. Do you agree to work for me?”

  Again, Sylis was silent. He pointedly looked away from the Dark Wizard and stared at the table instead.

  “I will take that as a yes,” the Dark Wizard said. “Yarid, you are a simpler nut to crack. You are already honor-bound to serve faerie as its king. Your fae covenant with your people obligates you to fight to reclaim the fae realm from the goblin invaders.”

  “I know it,” Yarid said. “But that does not obligate me to obey you.”

  “Does it not?” the Dark Wizard asked. “My platinum coins can pay for an army that will defeat the goblins and reclaim the fae homeland. What other realistic prospects for retaking the elf lands do you have?”

  “None,” Yarid said.

  “So you are honor-bound to do something, and doing this heist for me is the only way that you can do it,” the Dark Wizard said. “Then do you really have a choice?”

  “There is always a choice,” Yarid said. “I am honor-bound to my people, but I am also honor-bound to God.”

  “Yes, and you obeyed your covenant with God so well,” the Dark Wizard said, and he paused for emphasis, “by allowing the Crystal of the Elements to be destroyed.”

  Yarid snarled and reached for his sword. The Dark Wizard held up his black-gloved hand.

  “You do not understand me, Yarid,” the Dark Wizard said. “Doing this job for me will enable you to atone for your sins. By retaking the faerie lands, you can restore the covenant between elves and God, while at the same time honoring your oath to your people by giving them back their land. This comes at no damage to your relationship with God: as I said, I intend not to destroy the Crystal of Light, but to sell it, and I will make sure that the buyers do it no harm. I do not desire to destroy the world.”

  “Your logic is cold but irrefutable,” Yarid said. “Pursuing this heist is the path that my fae pacts demand. But only because of my loyalty to my people and my loyalty to God. Should this path ever come into conflict with those two values, I will show no loyalty to you, Dark Wizard. And you know that when I say this, I speak the truth.”

  “I do know that, my friend,” the Dark Wizard said. “This leaves only you, Kylus.” Kylus squirmed in his chair. “I know what you desire, Kylus,” the Dark Wizard said. “I know what secret you keep buried in your darkest heart, wrapped and shrouded in clothes that hide it from others. Your skin crawls with the fear that you will never be rid of it. I have spies close to the Sword, and my spies heard rumors related to your expulsion, rumors that swirled and rippled across the community of Serve-Swords like a puddle splashing when a rock is thrown into it. I will not name it, since I do not know whether you have shared it with them, although I doubt that you have.”

  Kylus’s young blue eyes widened in horror. “And I know that you desire to find a magic spell that can grant your wish, that can achieve the hidden desires of your dark secret. You know what magic spell can do it, and you know that this spell exists. You have been told that powerful Green wizards have this spell and have used it to help others such as yourself. You tried to pay wizards to cast the spell, but you didn’t have enough money. It is such a shame that the more powerful a Green wizard becomes, the higher is the fee that they demand for their services! I wager that you even considered learning magic yourself and becoming a wizard for the sole purpose of being able to afford to cast the spell on yourself for free.”

  Kylus jumped into a standing position so abruptly that his chair toppled over behind him as he stood. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Kylus said. He turned to the others and waved his arms, imploring them to believe him. “He’s lying! It’s not true!”

  “Of course it is not true,” the Dark Wizard said. “Nothing that I have said is true. Everything that I say is a lie. You have no dark secret. But, my friend, if you did, my money could hire the wizards who can cast such a spell. Magic does exist which can grant your wish. But the magic that can make your dreams come true is expensive. You learned this truth when you asked the wizards who work for the Servants of the Sword about it, and then word of your behavior spread among the Serve-Sword cadets, which is how the Sword caught wind of it. Work for me and I will make your desire come true. You have been held down by this problem your entire life; it is the reason your dreams of becoming a Serve-Sword crashed and burned. My money can pay for your magic. Once the spell is cast, the future will be a clear bright blue sky for you to soar in.”

  “He’s making the whole thing up,” Kylus said. His eyes kept blinking and his lip was beginning to twitch. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. He’s insane. I have no dark secret. I have no desire for magic.”

  “Do you and I agree about the solution that I will give you for the problem you do not have?” the Dark Wizard asked.

  “Yes,” Kylus said. He bent down and picked up the chair and positioned it back upright. He sat down.

  “My friends, I believe that I now command your full attention,” the Dark Wizard said.

  “Hey, what about me?” Nathan said. “Aren’t you going to try to tempt me into serving you? And what about Rose? You’ve forgotten the two best people here: me and Rose!” Nathan was trying hard to suppress a laugh as he said this. He failed to do so and began to make a soft snorting laughter under his breath.

  “Rose and Nathan, you want only money, you need it desperately, and you harbor no illusions with respect to it. You are both pursued by predators who will hunt you and kill you if you do not pay off your debts with respect to them. So I will not bother to explain to the two of you why you must work for me. You already want to.” Nathan sighed; he was no longer laughing. Rose said nothing. She was tapping her finger on the wooden surface of the table in a gesture of impatience.

  “Now I shall explain to you my plan for how you are to infiltrate the Temple of Light and steal the Crystal of Light,” the Dark Wizard said.

  “It really is impossible for us to steal it,” Glorissa said. “Even if you have us on your leash now and you can drag us around like a dog, we can’t do what you want. The Temple is very well defended. No one can get in. Even if we got into the Temple, we couldn’t get the Crystal. And if we got the Crystal, we would never get out alive to bring it back to you.”

  “Except that you will,” the Dark Wizard said. “My spies have identified twelve layers of defenses that protect the Crystal. I have devised a plan for how to bypass each of those twelve defenses.”

  Oh my God, twelve? Glorissa thought. I was only aware of four.

  “The first step is the Shield Wall, a magic spell that protects the entire Imperium,” the Dark Wizard said. “It is a Green enchantment cast on the border wall that stretches across the entire outward border of the Imperium, a wall that is hundreds of miles long. To get in, the soldiers who guard the gates must let you in through one of the gates in the Shield Wall. You will pose as a traveling caravan of merchants, entering Imperia to do business with the guilds. I will give you a letter of credit which you can redeem at the Imperia Gnome Bank for one thousand gold coins, but after you cross the Wall and enter the Imperium, I will be able to send you no other help until you exit. Indeed, I will be quite unable to communicate with you while you are in Imperia.”

  That’s a relief, Glorissa thought. I can’t stand the Dark Wizard.

  “Once in Imperia, you will need time to acquire and set up the various steps of the plan I have designed for how to invade the Temple. To buy yourselves that time, you will rent a house using the gold coins from the letter of credit. That house will be your criminal hideout; guard its location well. You will also need additional funding to finance the acquisition of certain key elements for my plan. You will have to find some way to get that money.”

  “How?” Nathan asked.

  “I don’t know. Get a job,” the Dark Wizard said. “Or steal it. I don’t care how you get it. Just get it. I am unable to get additional funding to you: most of my servants cannot cross the Shield Wall, and the Imperium monitors the gnomish banking transactions to look for suspicious activity. One letter of credit is the most I can risk. I had spies in Imperia, but I called them back to me to deliver their report on the Temple’s defenses. You will be on your own bankrolling your mission, but you will find a way. I have faith that you will.”

  “We will,” Nathan said. “I was just wondering if you have some specific plan in mind.”

  “I do have a specific plan—for how to break into the Temple. The first layer of defense is the City Guard run by Kyra the Red. They patrol the perimeter of the Temple. My spies have seen that their coverage is lazy during the dark time between midnight and the next sunrise. Approach the Temple at that time and choose a night when the moons are dim in the sky. You are unlikely to encounter the city guard, but if you see them, hide. They will probably not see you under cover of darkness.”

  I’m hating this plan more with each detail I hear, Glorissa thought.

  “Were these guards to spot us, I can hide the group,” Yarid said. “Most humans do not know this, but the elven Yellow-magical invisibility spell can be extended to cover a few other nearby people in addition to the elf who casts it. The spell does not enable me to walk or move and be invisible at the same time, but if someone comes upon us, I can hide the group until they pass.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Excellent thinking, my friend!” the Dark Wizard said. “That’s the kind of helpful attitude I enjoy. You want this mission to succeed, and so do I. Now heed my words closely, because this information will be crucial later. The Temple of Light is an ancient fortress with four towers: the South Tower, also called the Command Tower, which is connected to the Serve-Sword Barracks by a passage between the southwest corner of the Temple and the northeast corner of the Barracks; the East Tower, where the Crystal of Light is held; the West Tower, which houses the Hall of Kings and the Tomb of Kings; and the North Tower, otherwise known as Castle Tower.

  “No one uses the West Tower because it has a magical enchantment such that only the royal family of the Imperium may enter, other than when a funeral service is held to entomb a king there. If anyone other than a member of the royal family enters the West Tower the enchantment kills them instantly. The Castle Tower is a gigantic tower that once housed the standing army that defended the Temple, but that was thousands of years ago. Today the Castle Tower is uninhabited and empty, because the Servants of the Sword serve as the standing army that protects the Crystal from their Serve-Swords Barracks, and the priests who protect the Crystal dwell in their living quarters in the Command Tower. You will need to be aware of this when you break in.

  “A high outer wall surrounds the entire Temple including all four Towers, and the wall extends to wrap around the Serve-Swords Barracks connected to the Temple. The door to the wall is impossible to break into or break down. The wall has no gaps for you to sneak through. Serve-Swords soldiers patrol the wall’s entry door nonstop, and you cannot sneak past without them seeing you. Because a powerful magical enchantment protects the wall, you will not be able to scale it and go over the top of it and the faerie cannot teleport through it.”

  “Then how the hell are we going to get in?” Rose asked.

  The Dark Wizard paused for emphasis. “They will open the door for you.”

  “Why?” Rose asked.

  “Because,” the Dark Wizard said, “the Temple of Light is built in the northern side of Imperia, near the ocean. Two thousand years ago, a battle took place, when the Northern Empire invaded and sought to conquer Imperia. The site of that battle is near the Temple of Light, along the far northern shore, past the northern city limits. After the battle, the Imperium turned the field where the battle took place into a cemetery to honor the dead who fell there.”

  “That’s great,” Rose said. “Why does this matter?”

  “Because our friend Nathan will raise the dead,” the Dark Wizard said. “The night of your theft, Nathan will cast his raise undead spell at the site of this cemetery and lead the zombies into battle to attack Imperia. The Order of the Servants of the Sword, seeing an attack upon their beloved city, will open the gates, and their army will flow out, and head north to counter the attack. While the Serve-Sword army pours out, you will go in.

  “You will be unnoticed because, before the night in question, our young friend here Kylus will have snuck into the Serve-Swords Barracks where he was a student training to become a soldier. Kylus and Yarid will go to the Barracks, and Yarid will hide, invisible, while Kylus approaches the gate. Kylus will tell them that he left behind some personal belongings that he forgot to take with him when they expelled him. They will let him in to retrieve his things. Greens tend to trust other Greens, as the old saying goes, so I had hoped that any random Green could talk their way into the Serve-Swords Barracks. But the fact that our young friend Kylus the Green is a former Serve-Sword himself is a stroke of extreme luck for us! The Servants of the Sword will surely trust him. Providence truly favors my plans.”

  “It’s true. Greens really do trust Greens,” Kylus said. “But whether they will open the gate to let me in after they just recently kicked me out is a different issue.”

  “Greens trust Greens,” the Dark Wizard said. “When they open the gate to the Barracks for Kylus to enter, Yarid will have a narrow window in which to teleport inside through the gate while it is open. Once inside, Yarid will use his invisibility and other faerie abilities to sneak around, and Kylus will ditch the Serve-Swords and join him. During their mission, they will steal Serve-Swords armor for you all to wear and add fake names to the registry of soldiers who are on the list of those allowed to enter the Temple. The door into the Temple is guarded by Serve-Swords who will not leave that post even when their army empties out to go to war against Nathan’s zombies. But they keep a list of the names of those allowed to enter, and Kylus will add fake names for you to use to that list.

  “Serve-Swords rank-and-file knights wear armor whose helmets have visors that can be shut to hide the face. Sylis, Rose, Yarid, Kylus and Glorissa, you will all dress in disguises as Serve-Swords on the night of the heist. Once the wall doors open for the army to go face the zombies, you will waltz right in, walk through the Barracks, tell the guards at the Temple doors that you are the people whose names are on their list, and enter the Command Tower.”

  “So I won’t be with the others during the theft?” Nathan asked.

  “You will keep the army that defends the Crystal occupied and distracted during the theft,” the Dark Wizard said. “Your role is pivotal to my plans. You will rejoin the others when they make their escape. Do not worry: I will pay you the same cut as the rest.”

  “And you expect me to contend with the entire Serve-Swords army, for what, hours? For however long it takes the others to complete the heist?”

  “The cemetery is on the site of an ancient battle which had many casualties. You will not run out of corpses to reanimate to throw at the Imperium soldiers. I know that you have experience as a general of undead armies. I trust that experience will serve you well.”

  Nathan frowned, but he did not argue.

  “What do we do once we’re in the Command Tower?” Rose asked.

  “That is where you come in, Rose,” the Dark Wizard said. “Your role will be to knock out all the priests in one single swift and decisive play.”

  “How?” Rose asked.

  “I am about to tell you how, my friend,” the Dark wizard said. “The Order of the Priests of the Temple of Light pride themselves on being quite sophisticated and modern when it comes to magic. Their pride shall be their undoing. To bolster their strength, they have installed a system in the Command Tower, which takes health potion, also known as potion of healing, boils it into mist, pipes it through pipes, and expels it into vents throughout the Command Tower. They feel that this gives them a boost of energy. The apparatus that makes it happen is housed in the upper level of the Command Tower. Gnomes designed it after the priests placed a custom order for it to be built. The mechanism, and the kegs of health potion, are stored in the attic of the Tower. That attic is not guarded or watched. None of the priests are aware that their system which they are so proud of is their weakest point of extreme vulnerability.”

  Rose’s eyes widened. “I know the Red spell for how to make sleeping potion,” she said. “And, if I use a liquid that already contains magic as a base for my potion-making, it becomes very fast and easy to produce. A base potion such as healing potion would make it possible for me to transform every drop of liquid in those kegs into sleep potion in a matter of minutes.”

  “Precisely,” the Dark Wizard said. His voice sounded particularly oily when he said this. At least his plan doesn’t call for us to kill the priests, Glorissa thought. Only to put them to sleep. I can’t say the same for the Serve-Swords who will fight Nathan’s zombie horde. But it’s not like I’m the one who’ll raise the zombies. If it were me, I don’t think I would.

  “Won’t that put us to sleep too?” Sylis asked.

  “I have a spell that can protect me and my men from my own sleep potions,” Rose said. “So no, it won’t.”

  “Neutralizing the priests is necessary but by no means is it sufficient, my friends,” the Dark Wizard said. “The passageway between the Command Tower and the East Tower is a maze, literally. The hallway that connects the two towers empties out into a maze, a labyrinth designed to ensnare any unwanted guests, trapping them by getting them lost with no way out once they enter the maze. My spies were not able to obtain a map of the maze. If you enter the maze without a map or some knowledge of which right and left turns to make within it, you will wander there lost forever, until death liberates you from that prison.”

  “Sounds fun,” Rose said. “What’s your plan for that?”

  “The maze was constructed ten thousand years ago, by a famous architect, a member of the Order of the Star Knights,” the Dark Wizard said. “His name was Kamryn Karcorrin. He is entombed within the Tomb of Heroes in the Star Knights Estate.”

  “So?” Rose asked.

  “I think I see,” Nathan said. “I have a spell that can pinpoint the location of the spirits of the dead within the spirit realm and place them under my control. That enables me to rummage through their minds and the memories they had in life and obtain the contents of those memories—including any map that they would have known while they were alive. But I need to have the person’s dead body literally in my hands for me to cast that spell. How do we get at the architect?”

  Everyone turned and looked at Glorissa.

  “No,” Glorissa said. “No! You expect me to break into the Star Knights Estate? The place I love, my second home, where all my friends still live?”

  “You and Nathan will go in, at night, and enter the Tomb of Heroes,” the Dark Wizard said. “You know that place well. You should place more trust in yourself than you already do, my young friend: I know that you can figure out how to smuggle Nathan in undetected so that he can cast his spell, and then get the both of you out without sounding any alarm.”

  “Darn!” Glorissa said. I guess I could figure out a way. But I don’t want to! My friends are still back at the Academy—what if I run into them? I will not fight them!

  “With a map safely in hand, you can analyze the maze and identify the tricks that will tell you how to walk through it from start to finish. It ends at the entrance to the East Tower. As soon as you enter the East Tower you will come to a door. The door is locked. An enchantment protects this door, and no magic spell can blast through it. But this is a door that is opened by no key. Instead, a puzzle is set into the handle of the door. Another gnomish invention, like the potion mist sprayer. This gnome-made device has six disks, each set with the numbers zero through nine. If you place the correct six numbers into the device, then the mechanism unlocks the door. I do not know the correct combination of numbers to unlock the door and my spies were unable to obtain it.”

  “Then our journey ends when we reach that locked door,” Sylis said. “I know time well, and I know math, too. It would take years for anyone to try every possible combination of numbers. Nathan’s zombie army can’t possibly buy us that time.”

  “Nathan cannot. But you can,” the Dark Wizard said.

  “I can slow time for someone relative to the time around them,” Sylis said. “I can give someone a bubble within which several years will pass that will look like only a few minutes to the outside world. I suppose someone could crack the combination lock using my time magic very quickly. But that would require someone who can go for years without food or sleep while spending every waking second working to solve the gnome puzzle. No human can do that.”

  “And you shall ask no human to do so,” the Dark Wizard said. “Prior to the heist, our friend Nathan will summon an imp-spirit, and bind it to your service. An imp will be perfect for this task. Imp-spirits do not eat or sleep and are bound to serve their master by the Black magic that summons them.”

  “Getting an imp is easy,” Nathan said. “Time and work mean nothing to them. They will happily do anything you ask to get you to release them so that they can return to the realm of spirit where they live. They can’t handle complicated tasks and you must tell them exactly what to do, but spinning the wheels of a number dial until a door opens should be within their grasp.”

  “I suppose it could work,” Sylis said.

  “Once you open the door locked by the gnomish mechanism, you will come to a hall. After you walk down this hall, eventually you will arrive at a wall. This wall has no door. The wall was created by a White magic spell. God created the wall, and only God can grant access to pass beyond it. To get past this wall, it is necessary for one of you to pray to God, and for God to grant you the prayer that you will be able to walk through this wall and come out the other side.”

  “Oh my God,” Glorissa said. “Is that why you need me? To say a prayer to God? To steal the Crystal of Light?”

  “Yes,” the Dark Wizard said. “You seem young, humble and innocent. Precisely the type of person to whom God frequently grants prayers.”

  “For a prayer to work, you must really mean it! Like, your entire heart and soul must be poured into it, and you must beg God for it, and implore God with every fiber of your spirit! I already have doubts about this heist, and God does not grant prayers to those who doubt their prayers to God. And on top of that, walking through a wall is no small miracle. It’s not exactly a grand miracle, but it’s got to be a medium-sized miracle at least. It might even count as a grand miracle. I doubt that God will do that for me. And if you have doubts, White magic does not work.”

  “If you ask God for help, I believe that you will be pleasantly surprised by the results,” the Dark Wizard said. “All you can do is ask. It never hurts to ask. And, when you pray to God, you will mean it, because you will know this: if your prayers are not answered then you may never see your sister ever again.”

  “I can try,” Glorissa said. “I will say the prayer. I do not know if God will grant it.”

  “With White magic, no one ever knows. This is why I prefer Black magic,” the Dark Wizard said. “With our spells, we know. But, alas, only White magic can get you past the wall. After you walk through the wall, you will only have one hallway to traverse before you reach the chamber of the Crystal.”

  “Oh, just one hallway, sounds easy,” Nathan said.

  “Unfortunately, that hallway has one room that is adjacent to it,” the Dark Wizard said, “and that room is the living quarters and office where the White Wizard dwells.”

  “Argh! That’s not easy!” Nathan said.

  “We will never defeat the White Wizard, and I won’t even try,” Glorissa said. “The White Wizard is the most powerful magic-user in the entire realm. No wizard can best him in a duel. No sword can get close enough to take a swing at him. Entire armies cannot stand before him. Not even you could defeat him.”

  “I do not intend for you to defeat the White Wizard,” the oily voice said. “I intend for you to remove him.”

  “Remove him?” Glorissa asked. “What does that mean?”

  “This is where our friend King Yarid of the Yellow magic comes into play,” the Dark Wizard said. “The magic of humans has one glaring weakness: the magic of the elves. Even the White Wizard can be bested by it, although not in any way he will expect.”

  “Do I, as you so insultingly put it, come into play?” Yarid asked. “I suppose I am just a pawn on your chessboard, and you view yourself as the dark king. How do you intend to use me?”

  “By the time you reach the White Wizard, I predict that he will be aware of your invasion into his fortress. He will be waiting to engage you in battle, in that hallway I just mentioned. But he will not expect an elf to number among you—indeed, he won’t have expected any of you to even get that far, because all the defenses of the Temple are premised upon the idea that thieves’ guilds typically conform to one color and could never run a multi-color thieving crew. Elves have many magical abilities. Once such ability is the teleportation spell. Like their invisibility spell, they can cast it on other people who are physically nearby to them.”

  “I have that spell, although it is not an easy spell to cast,” Yarid said.

  “As I said, human magic has a particular vulnerability to faerie magic,” the Dark Wizard said. “I do not expect the White Wizard’s magical shield enchantments to be able to protect him from your spells. He will have charms to protect him from death, poison, blindness, and other things, but I don’t expect him to have a charm against fae teleportation; he would not think that he needed one. You will cast a teleportation spell onto the White Wizard and teleport him some distance away. I personally recommend one hundred miles, because he will need quite some time to return to Imperia by horse from that distance. None of the colorless cantrips or White Magic spells for disappearing in one place and reappearing in another place will work over such a long distance. And by the time the White Wizard rides back to the city, you will be long gone, heist completed.”

  “But you said that I would not be able to use a teleport spell to get through the gated wall that surrounds the Temple of Light!” Yarid said.

  “You cannot. But the White Wizard can. My spies have learned that the White Wizard possesses charms and enchantments that render all of the defenses of the Temple a nullity with respect to him. The Kingdom places its ultimate faith in him to protect them; that faith will prove to be their undoing. I predict that when you hit him with your teleport ability, it will work.”

  “You predict, but you do not know,” Yarid said. “What if it does not?”

  “Then I suggest you run away very quickly,” the Dark Wizard said. At least if the White Wizard incinerates me, I’ll die fast and then I won’t feel any pain before I die, Glorissa thought. That’s how dying works, right?

  “It is no easy thing to move someone one hundred miles,” Yarid said. “The longer the distance, the more physically draining it is for a fae to cast the spell. I’ll be little more than a trembling shaking wreck after using up that much of my magical energy.”

  “You will have played your role in my plans by that point. The others will see to it that you make it out alive with them,” the Dark Wizard said. “Past the White Wizard, you will come to an iron door. The door is unmarked: the priests say that God is humble and so they deemed it in keeping with the idea of God to protect God’s most sacred treasure with a simple, humble door, devoid of any sacred emblems or fancy designs. The door has a lock, but the priests choose to leave this door unlocked: this act symbolizes their faith in God, and no one expects any thief to make it past the White Wizard anyway. That door opens into the chamber where the Crystal of Light is held.

  “You will recognize it immediately: it is a large white crystal similar in appearance to a diamond and it glows with a magical inner radiance that commands the attention of all who gaze upon it. History books are full of songs and poems by bards which speak of the Crystal’s beauty; I cannot say if the songs are true, for I have never seen it. But accounts agree that it floats suspended in midair, levitating within a column of white light made of many beams of light that shine at it from magical orbs spaced all around the chamber. The Crystal of Light is the only object kept in that chamber. You will know when you have found it.

  “However, two final obstacles must be overcome by your team at this point: taking physical possession of the Crystal and making good your escape out of Imperia and past the Imperium’s Shield Wall on the way out. A magic spell that is ten thousand years old holds the Crystal in place so that it cannot be physically removed. The beams of light I mentioned that shine onto the floating gemstone are the physical manifestation of that magic spell. No one remembers how the spell was cast or how it works, and the history books do not say, so no wizard can know how to counter or negate that spell.”

  “I’m guessing you have figured out a way to defuse the spell,” Glorissa said.

  “Yes, I have, my friend,” the Dark Wizard said. “It is a custom spell of my own creation. Use this, and my spell will be cast.”

  The Dark Wizard snapped his fingers. A small wooden box appeared on the table from out of nowhere. Kylus jumped in his chair from being startled, but the others did not react to the box. The box was similar in size and construction to a small case such as might be used by a person to keep makeup or jewelry in or to store a valuable diary book or a pouch of pipe-leaf inside. It was finished with a black lacquer finish so shiny that it glistened like a river reflecting pale moonlight shining down from above it. The box had a hinged lid with iron hinges and a small iron lock at its front. A tiny iron key lay on top of the box. The handle of the key was knobbed by a small iron skull shaped the same as the skulls atop the Dark Wizard’s castle towers.

  “The box is locked. When you open it with that key, the spell will be cast. My spell will enable you to remove the Crystal from its chamber. Do not open the box or look inside before you reach the Crystal of Light. My spell can only be used once and will automatically activate the first time that you open the box.”

  “Um, sir, Mr. Dark Wizard, how does it, well, work?” Sylis asked. “I mean, I know how to put a spell in a box, that’s a common trick, but I’m curious how you were able to make a spell to counter a spell whose mechanism and operation you don’t understand. That should be, well, impossible or, I guess, difficult? Like I’m a wizard and you’re not supposed to be able to do that.”

  “You are two decades plus a few years old,” the Dark Wizard said. “I have lived for hundreds of years and lived as the undead for hundreds more. When you get to be my age, you will learn that, with magic, the impossible is often possible.”

  “That’s a clever answer, but the boy is right,” Rose said. “As much as I want your money, I am a wizard, and it is notoriously hard to counter a magic spell you don’t understand. What is this spell of yours? How does it work? How did you learn a way to nullify the Crystal’s enchantment? How do I know that it won’t just kill us all? How do I know you won’t come popping out of that box and kill us and just walk over our dead corpses and take the Crystal of Light for yourself without paying me?”

  The Dark Wizard shrugged. “I will not tell you. Further questions are pointless. You will have to trust me.”

  “Right, because you seem so trustworthy,” Rose said sarcastically.

  “Precisely,” the Dark Wizard said, as if she had not been joking. “The final point is how you are to escape with the Crystal. Strange though it may be, escaping might be the hardest part of the entire heist. By this point, the priests will be waking up from their sleeping potions, the White Wizard will be riding back on horseback, and I assume that the Servants of the Sword will have stabilized the combat zone and will pull back to the city and into their Barracks. Even as you ride out of the city, the Imperium can, and most certainly will, put out orders to keep every gate at every gatehouse in the kingdom’s border wall closed, preventing you from making a physical escape past the wall. The wall is enchanted by an enchantment spell called the Shield Wall, which is so powerful that even I, the great Dark Wizard, lack the ability to bypass it, for myself or my servants. You lot certainly do not have the magic to defeat it.”

  “So how do we escape?” Rose asked.

  “I have a plan, my friend!” the Dark Wizard said. “The gnomes have invented a contraption they call a hot air balloon. It is a device that can be used to fly through the sky by humans, like a flying airship such as gnomes and the kingdoms out southwest near the gnome country use, but much smaller than an airship. In the Imperia marketplace, for the right price, you can buy a hot air balloon. You will use that to escape. To begin, fly north, dip low to the ground to pick up Nathan who will have retreated from the battlefield site, and then head due west, towards me. Because you will travel by air, not by land, you can fly right over the kingdom’s outer wall. You will fly over both the physical barrier of the wall itself and the magical barrier of the Shield Wall which enchants the physical wall.”

  “I have been to the Gnome Country,” Nathan said. His fists suddenly clenched, and he began to shake; the others stared at him. “I have a… history with the gnomes and their inventions. I once fought a battle against a bottle of gnomish fizzy water and lost.” Nathan took a deep breath and exhaled, and then he stopped trembling. “I have been in a gnome hot air balloon, once, when I visited Gnome Country. I think I remember how to set it up and steer it. I can explain that to the others.”

  Kylus leaned over and whispered to Sylis. “Can gnomish fizzy-water attack people?” he asked.

  “Um, I don’t think so?” Sylis whispered back.

  “Good,” the Dark Wizard said, in answer to Nathan. “That only leaves the question of what exit point you will use to get out of the East Tower so that you can inflate and board the hot air balloon. Unfortunately, by external observation, my spies report that the East Tower has no windows or balconies. Indeed, no outer-facing walls of the Temple have any external ports other than the front door of the Command Tower. The architect who designed the Temple did so intentionally to make it more difficult to enter or exit.”

  “Then where?” Nathan said.

  “You will have to create an opening,” the Dark Wizard said. “My spies have reported to me a rumor that is floating around Imperia, which is that there is a structural weakness or vulnerability in the foundation of the North Tower. With a magic bomb planted in the right place, an explosion will cause part of it to collapse. The rumors say that this weakness was the great regret and guilt of the architect Kamryn Karcorrin, who always feared that it would be used against his creation. But, in the nearly ten-thousand-year history of the Temple, no foes have ever been able to successfully exploit it, largely because the Kingdom’s armies have never allowed an enemy army to reach that far—the battle at the north shore where Nathan will raise his undead army is the closest anyone ever got.

  “The North Tower is connected to the East Tower by a series of above-ground halls and passages. When the North Tower falls, those passageways will break apart. You should be able to get outside of the East Tower by going through one of those halls and exiting where they have broken. From there, you can launch your hot air balloon. The balloon runs on hot air, but Red and Black magic have ways of conjuring fire and heat. You will depart quickly, fly away, and return here, to this very room. You give me the Crystal of Light. You get paid, and you get whatever else it is that I promised you.”

  “I can buy a magic bomb on the market for stolen goods, and Red wizards have methods for detonating magic bombs,” Rose said. “I can twin a fire spell on the fuse to a fire spell in a magical playing card, so that when I play the card the fuse will ignite, and the bomb will explode. For the right price, I’m sure that I can bribe whatever laborer’s guild controls the gardeners and landscapers and maintenance workers who tend to the grounds of the Temple. The laborers’ guilds of Imperia have a reputation for being corrupt and in league with the criminal underworld of Imperia. The rogues do business with the labor guilds often, because they both share a common enemy: the merchants’ guilds.

  “I know the rogues in Imperia. I will hand a bag of gold coins and an unmarked bag to someone in a dark alley at night. Someone will take the unmarked bag and bury it in a particular spot on the grounds of the Temple’s North Tower. For the right price in gold coins, no one will ask any questions. And if someone does ask questions, if some gardener with morals and a holier-than-thou attitude starts asking questions about why some other gardeners are burying a strange bag in the soil of a garden at night, some gold or silver coins change hands, and then no one asks any questions.”

  “I like the way you think,” the Dark Wizard said. Rose smiled.

  “But how will we know where this so-called vulnerability or weakness in the North Tower is?” Nathan said.

  “Nathan, my friend, you yourself will solve that problem,” the Dark Wizard said. “When you raise from the dead the architect who built the Temple of Light to take a map for the maze out of his brain, you will ask him.”

  “How do we bring a gnome invention into a theft with us?” Kylus asked. The others turned and peered at him. “It will be big. A burden for someone to carry. We need to be fast and light on our feet.”

  “You will bring it in a magic bag with a pocket dimension stitched into its pouch,” the Dark Wizard said. “The spell to create one is a simple colorless cantrip. You can fit the hot air balloon and the box with my special spell inside of it, to be removed at the right time.”

  “Is that it?” Rose asked.

  “No, one other thing,” the Dark Wizard said. He reached into his black robes and pulled out a small white parchment envelope. It was sealed with a wax seal of dark purple-black wax bearing the mark of a skull.

  “The letter of credit. You will need it. Some seed money to get you up and running. Hand this to the gnome bank in Imperia and they will give you a sum of coins from a fake bank account that my spies created for me. And that, my friends, is the plan,” the Dark Wizard said. “I am so excited, my friends! Please find and retrieve that which I desire and bring it to me. I have nothing further to say other than: good luck, and always remember your purpose, to obtain the rewards that I have promised each of you.”

  The party left, with Yarid carrying the Dark Wizard’s mysterious wooden box under his arm and Rose taking the letter of credit. As the party walked back down the spiral staircase to descend out of the Dark Wizard’s tower, Rose whispered to Nathan: “Were those twelve obstacles and defenses around the Crystal? I think he mentioned twelve, but I couldn’t keep count.”

  “No, I think it’s one big obstacle,” Nathan said, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “The fact that we’re walking into certain death, and we have to be crazy to have agreed to do it.”

  “Um, that would be two obstacles,” Sylis said.

  Nathan laughed. “I would say something mean to you, Sylis, but I think that you and I are soon going to die together. I need to start saving up my snark and sarcasm to have something perfectly mean and nasty and funny to say to you right before we die.”

  “I’m not looking forward to that.”

  “To your death, or to me making a sarcastic joke right before you die?”

  “Only to you making the joke. At least my death will get me out of this nightmare. I fear your jokes far more.”

  “Well played,” Nathan said. “After you die, I’ll be sure to raise you as undead so that you can listen to my jokes for all eternity.”

  “Change of plans: I’m going to find some way to make it out of this alive,” Sylis said. “Very, very alive.”

  “Ugh,” Glorissa groaned. “Looks like you all couldn’t make it four minutes into the heist without getting distracted by telling stupid jokes to each other. Like it was literally four minutes ago that we were sitting there in that room and now we’re already falling apart. Can we please focus on what we’re doing? We have a Crystal of Light to steal!”