Sylis looked up at his mother. She was floating in midair, her fists at her hips, looking down at him from behind her mask, her face masked as a Blue wizard even in death. Sylis was lying in his bed in his room at an inn in Leree. Mom is not happy with me, Sylis thought.

  “Do something!” Sylis’s Mom said. “Make something happen! Cause something to change! I have told you that I can tell you nothing. The assassins keep coming, combing through Leree among many other nearby towns and villages I assume. You hide, they pass, they do not find you. And you survive. But you are doing nothing to discover or fix the root cause of your problem! You just hang around, in this inn in Leree, spending what few coins you have left, and waiting, waiting, waiting. Well, what are you waiting for, Sylis? If you don’t do something to stop the assassins, at some point, and it saddens me to even say this, your luck might run out! You will die if you don’t do something!”

  Sylis was lying face up on his bed, fully dressed except that he was not wearing his mask. He was on the mattress with one pillow beneath his head. The mattress was covered by one pale blue under-sheet whose color matched that of his pillow; his other sheets and blankets were bunched up into one big messy pile next to him. His mother floated near the ceiling, a good distance away from the foot of the bed. That’s easy for you to say, since if you were to tell me what was going on I could do something, maybe. “But I don’t know what to do!” Sylis said. “What should I do? I went around Leree and asked around to see if anyone knows who these assassins are or why they hunt whomever it is that they hunt. No one knows anything about them. I can’t do anything more. Where should I go to stem the flow of men who keep coming after me to try to kill me? You know who these assassins are; your conversation with Renard Shass proved that you know. Who are they?”

  “I’ve told you that I can’t tell you that,” Sylis’s Mom said. “And no one in Leree would know anything about them. I would not expect anyone in Leree to have any information to give you. The assassins are not coming from Leree or from any nearby region. If you were paying attention to what I said to Renard, you would have figured that out.”

  Sylis snorted in derision. His gaze left his mother, and he looked up at the ceiling. His Mom stared at him.

  “Perhaps I have taken the wrong approach,” the ghost of Sylis’s mother said. “If you continue to do nothing you are going to die. I may need to take a more active approach. Right now, I can’t believe that you are the son who I raised, but if I must kick you in the ass a little to save my own dearest and most cherished son’s life, I will, Sylis.” He dropped his eyes staring at the ceiling and looked back at his mom. “I can tell you things that are publicly known or widely available, because then I am disclosing nothing to you that you do not already know, at least in theory. It is well known that there is an inn and tavern in Leree called the Grateful Drunkard.”

  “Yes, I’ve been there to hear their bards sing in the evenings, when they serve dinner to their patrons,” Sylis said. “Their bards are nice, although the crowd is a bit rowdy and, well, drunk as hell. The Grateful Drunkard also sells pipe-leaf and crazy-leaf to its customers as well as pitchers of ale and mugs of beer, and they try to push those things onto anyone who walks in their front door. When I didn’t buy, they made it clear they were, well, unhappy with me. I didn’t really enjoy it, other than the songs.”

  “I’m not finished,” his mom said. “You interrupted me. I’m glad you know which tavern I’m talking about. There is a back room in the back of the tavern at the Grateful Drunkard. You probably didn’t notice it while you were there. It is not well marked. No signs announce its existence. And no one will tell you about it if you ask, or, at least, they are not supposed to. I assume someone probably might, if they were high or drunk, but then they may not wake up the next morning without a knife in their back. You must find your way through a maze of several halls at the rear of the building to reach it.”

  “What is in it?” Sylis asked. “The answer to all my problems?”

  “It is a place where people with money go looking for people to hire, and people who are looking for jobs go there to seek employment, with both employers and job-seekers understanding that these are the types of jobs which pay good coin but where they will ask no questions about what the job or why the job is to be done, ever, under any circumstances, and total secrecy is to be maintained. The doors to this room are opened after the tavern serves its dinner, and the doors do not close until dawn the next morning. The tavern’s owners ask no questions and see nothing, and gold finds its way into their pockets to enable this service.

  “Noble Houses, merchants, even kings and princes, have been known to offer jobs to those who go into that room looking for work. The people who look for jobs there are a nice mix of wizards, knights, warriors, former soldiers of a military order, assassins, rogues, and just regular people who happen to have some weird skill or unique talent that they think they can cash in for money through someone who needs it or can use it. Rich people often have needs which they would prefer that the world never learn about, and they know that they can send one of their servants out to this rural remote town in the middle of nowhere, Leree, and find help to solve their problems in a way that preserves their secrecy but draws from a highly talented pool of servants-for-hire. That room is where much of the local economy in Leree comes from, although the Leree townspeople and villagers have no idea of it.”

  “Sounds like a fun place,” Sylis said sarcastically. “Tons of excitement, I’m sure. Exactly the type of place I enjoy.”

  His mother ignored him. “The commoners are in almost total ignorance of it, and few local rumors about it exist, other than the well-known understanding that nice people should never walk into that room at night and should never ask why they must not do so,” she said. “But those who have money and power know to look there to hire, and those with abilities and talents know to go there for work. I heard about the back room of the Grateful Drunkard during one of the times when I passed through Leree on my way to… well, I can’t tell you that. But the person who told me was the type of person who would know.”

  “Most people don’t know about this room, but you are able to tell me about it, when you can tell me almost nothing, because it is public knowledge,” Sylis said. “That makes sense.” A hint of a snickering smile edged up the corners of his mouth. Don’t be mean to her. She’s your mother, Sylis thought to himself. He forced his mouth back down to a somber line.

  Through the thin veil-like material of her mask, his mother’s lips peeled back, revealing her teeth, which were tightly clenched. She also clenched her fists at her hips. “Never resent it when someone gives you a gift, because, if you do, that means you don’t want to be happy, and if you don’t want to be happy then you don’t want to live. This knowledge is widely known among the Noble Houses and to those who walk within the halls of power in the Imperium and all neighboring regions. To powerful people, it is public knowledge. The fae are not the only ones who can play games with magic about what is the truth and what constitutes a lie. I can do that also.”

  “I want to live,” Sylis said, and the look on his face had changed instantly from one of sarcastic humor to serious conviction.

  “If you go there and take a job, you might make a good bit of coin. I have explained that gold coin can only help you to open doors and to pay people for information or to hire people who can find the knowledge that might help you. You are a talented and powerful Blue wizard, Sylis. You dispatched those assassins back during the fight at the fae sacred stones like an expert. The training and education in magic that I gave you when you were growing up was comparable to the best magic schools in the Imperium, although on a little farm in the country with no one to compare yourself to you wouldn’t have known that. Someone might have a job for you. And you will be able to do it.”

  “So I, hunted by assassins and with some sort of mark on my life, am to walk willingly into a room where assassins go to look for jobs,” Sylis said.

  “Yes!” his mom said. “Do you have a better idea? Are you afraid of them? Are you a coward?”

  “No,” Sylis said.

  “Will you do it?”

  “I will,” Sylis said. “In fact, I shall go there tonight. I will look for a job, and I’ll really mean it and want it, too, and if someone offers me a job, I will take it. We shall see whether your plan is as intelligent as you think it is, Mom.”

  His mother laughed. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Sylis. Get some rest. You’ll need it for tonight.”

  Sylis said nothing in reply. He rolled over onto his side. He could no longer see his mother. I don’t like this plan, but I do not have a better one, he thought. Surely nothing bad can result from it that would be any worse than if I don’t go at all. He closed his eyes and tried to rest, but he already knew that the tightness of anxiety in his body would make resting impossible. Still, it was the afternoon, he had nothing better to do than lie awake in bed, and he had plenty of time to kill until this evening. I am a Blue wizard so I know a ton of spells that can stab time, behead time and rip time apart. I should be great at killing time! He grinned at this little joke he had made to himself, and then decided to make a serious effort to rest.

  The first thing Sylis realized when he went to the Grateful Drunkard and looked for the back room was that he couldn’t find it. He navigated crowds of drunk-and-smoke-high people stumbling about and laughing and talking loudly and held his breath while plowing his way through thick clouds of pipe-smoke also tinged with the stench of crazy-leaf smoke and spilled alcohol. He found the area which he believed was at the back of the tavern, and bravely made his way down the various thin, narrow halls, stained with traces of patrons who had previously gotten drunk and puked in them. But he found no hidden, secret back room.

  Frustrated, he went back to the rear of the tavern and took a seat at the bar.

  “What are you having?” the bartender asked.

  “Water,” Sylis said.

  “You should drink beer,” the bartender said. “We don’t make the same profit on water as we do on beer. We sell water for one copper coin, but I should charge you a silver coin for it just to add a tax for your insult to decline my fine selection of beers.” The bartender took another look at Sylis as if just noticing him. “But seeing as you are a wizard, I’ll give you water for free. No need for you to make any trouble, right?”

  “Nope. I won’t make any trouble. I just want water,” Sylis said.

  The bartender poured Sylis a glass of water. Sylis sat at his barstool, stared into the ice cubes floating in his glass of water, and pretended not to see, hear, or smell everything that was happening around him.

  “Hello!” someone said, and Sylis felt someone tap him on the shoulder. Sylis turned and looked. A Black wizard was standing before him. The Black wizard took the seat next to him.

  “A fellow wizard!” the Black wizard said. “A Blue, granted, but I can forgive you for that. Pleased to meet you. Nathan Darkchurch, Necromancer-for-Hire, at your service. I have heard some rumors that some people here might be looking to hire someone for a job. Do you have any needs that I might be able to assist you with?”

  “I have no money. I’m here looking for a job too,” Sylis said.

  “Ugh,” Nathan said, and the friendly joy in his voice was instantly replaced by an icy mean rudeness. “Curses on you for getting my hopes up for nothing. Trust a Blue to be a pretentious sack of garbage. I was told someone here might hire me, but all I see are a bunch of high and drunken idiots. These people don’t have two copper coins to rub together, let alone afford my rates. I saw you and I thought… but, no, you’re an idiot too, so what difference does it make.”

  Sylis turned back to his cup of water. Your mother taught you to always be polite. “Well, if you do find someone looking to hire, Nathan, please let me know. I’m also looking for work. I have enjoyed the pleasure of meeting you.”

  Nathan ordered a beer, and, having nothing better to do, continued to sit in his stool with his face towards Sylis. “Say, by the way, what’s your name, Blue wizard?”

  Sylis did not turn away from his ice cubes. “Sylis Karth. Of the town of Tamm. If Tamm still exists.”

  “Why are you haunted by the ghost of some old woman?” Nathan asked.

  Sylis turned swiftly to face Nathan. “You know that?”

  “I don’t like to brag, but I am one of the world’s premier necromancers. We are specialists in the undead. The non-magical humans, and even wizards of any other color, cannot see her. I can see her, and so could any talented wizard of Black. The connection between the two of you shines like a rope made of glowing white light that ties her to you. Who is she?”

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but… she’s my mother.”

  “Oh. People are often haunted by the ghosts of those they’ve killed. Did you murder her?” Nathan asked.

  Just as Sylis was standing up to walk away and find another seat a very great distance away from Nathan, another wizard, a Red lady, came rushing over to them. Sylis heard the commotion as she raced and pushed her way through the throngs of patrons in her haste to get where she was going even before he saw her.

  “Excellent!” she said, and she laid one hand on Sylis’s shoulder and the other on Nathan’s shoulder and took hold of both of them firmly in her hands by grasping their wizard’s robes.

  “Do you want something, Miss?” Sylis asked. She seemed excited.

  “I don’t recall giving you permission to touch me,” Nathan said.

  The female Red wizard laughed. She was in a simple velvet red dress of a deep rich wine-red burgundy color with a low-cut bodice that was laced together and a wide skirt that had many folds in it and went so low to the floor that one could barely see her shoes. She also wore a red wizard robe with a cape and hood made from the same velvet as her dress, which she kept open in the front so that her dress was visible, and her hood was pulled up over her head and around her mask. Her mask was made of two different pieces of differently-colored fabric which had been sewn together: one half was a bright apple-red, the other a bright red-pink magenta. The two halves had been stitched together to form the mask with the seam running directly down her face from her forehead down her nose to the bottom of her chin. A large rose cut from the apple-red cloth had been sewn into the mask’s cheek on the pink side, and a second rose identical to the first but cut from the pink-magenta fabric had been sewn into the other cheek on the apple-red side. That’s a nice-looking mask, Sylis thought. It’s almost as nice as mine.

  “My name’s Rose, and I need your help,” the Red wizard said.

  “How can I help you?” Sylis asked.

  “For the right price,” Nathan said.

  “I came here because I heard about the back room where people hire and pay big money for magical services,” Rose said. “So I came here, and I immediately found the back room. And someone is in there who seems very rich and powerful. He says he’s hiring, and he offered me a job. He said he can pay me more gold than I have ever seen before in my life, and I want to put his claim to the test. But he wants to put together a team to pull off this job, and he wants a Blue, a Black, a Green, a White and a Yellow to go with me as his Red. He seems to have something very specific in mind; he wouldn’t say what it was, but I don’t care, I like gold coins. So I need a Blue and a Black, and I just saw you two here, and you’re a Blue and you’re of Black, so now you’re both coming with me.”

  “Okay,” Sylis said. “I’ll go with you.” So there is a back room somewhere around here. At least if I go with her, she can show it to me.

  Nathan reached around and pushed Rose’s hand off his shoulder. She pointedly resisted for one moment before letting him push her hand away.

  “I am willing to entertain an offer for employment from this employer of which you speak,” Nathan said. “Please lead me to this person in the back room.”

  “I need a Green, a White and a Yellow first!” Rose said. “He was very clear that the job is all or nothing! I think I’ll put you two to work for me before I even get us this job: help me look through the crowd and find whichever idiots are the right other colors to get me my money!”

  “Hey, Red, are you going to buy something?” the bartender said to Rose as the three wizards began to walk away from the bar.

  “Yes, I’ll have a glass of your obnoxious attitude,” Rose said. “No, wait, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want any.”

  The Grateful Drunkard was a long, low-slung building of wood and brick, located at the northern edge of Leree. To its north and coming up right against the northern sides of the tavern, was the Leree forest. A young man emerged out of the woods, saw the tavern, and began to make his way there. The young man was muddy and bloody, the sword strapped to his belt was dripping with blood, and with both arms he carried an armful of dead, fat, small furry animals, which looked sort of like a cross between a rat and a pig. They were the corpses of an animal called a meat-rat, a local delicacy in Leree which were very tasty, and which also put up one hell of a fight when you tried to hunt and kill them in the forest. These should be worth enough copper coins to the tavern chefs to pay for my room and food at the inn for another week, Kylus thought. And this time the meat-rats didn’t even manage to bite me deep enough to make me scream. I’m improving! He kicked the door to the Grateful Drunkard open with his foot and marched in, his green-colored boots leaving behind a trail of mud on the wooden floor.

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  Kylus saw the tavern servant who brought plates of food in for the customers from the kitchens and later brought the empty plates back inside. The servant saw Kylus, immediately identified what Kylus was selling, and waved him to come over. Rose also saw Kylus at this time from across the room, although Kylus did not see her.

  “More meat-rats!” the servant said, his eyes lighting up with glee. “The patrons love these! They always give me an extra coin as a tip when this is on the menu. We’ll take all of them. And I’ll pay two copper coins per rat.”

  Kylus smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. I had been expecting only one coin for each of these miserable little things. Kylus dropped the dead animals from his arms onto a nearby table. Nearby patrons smelled the dead meat-rats but were too drunk to care.

  Suddenly Kylus felt a hand grab him from behind.

  Kylus spun around and, in one smooth motion, he grabbed and twisted the hand that had touched him and pulled the person forward and pinned their arm in a hold. Rose winced but smiled. Kylus was behind her, pinning her arm tightly behind her back, his strong left hand gripping her wrist tight enough to cause pain.

  “You’re strong and you’re a fighter, and most importantly you’re a Green,” Rose said. “How would you like to make some money? If you let go of my arm before I cast a Red magic spell and incinerate you.”

  Kylus let go of Rose’s arm. She flexed her wrist, testing it out. It still worked. Kylus walked out from behind Rose so that he and she could look at each other. “A lot,” Kylus said. “I would like to make some money a lot.”

  “I’ve got a job with someone who’s hiring,” Rose said. “Come with me if you want some gold coins.”

  “Put the credit for what I sold to you onto my tab,” Kylus said to the tavern-servant. The servant nodded absentmindedly without lifting his gaze from the pile of dead animals on the table.

  Kylus docilely fell into step behind Rose as she continued to prowl the room. He saw that two wizards, a Blue and a Black, were also walking alongside them.

  “Who is she? What is the job?” Kylus asked the Blue wizard.

  “Don’t ask me. I barely know,” Sylis replied.

  “I’m Kylus, by the way. Nice to meet you,” Kylus said. Kylus flashed Sylis a big wide toothy grin.

  Sylis smiled with a warmth he had not felt up to that point while at the Grateful Drunkard. Maybe Green is a nice person! Black and Red don’t seem to be. “Hi, Kylus! I’m Sylis! Pleasure to meet you!” Sylis took hold of Kylus’s hand and shook it—and then saw mud and meat-rat blood all over his blue wizard’s glove after he had given the handshake and pulled his hand back. Sylis looked at his glove and shook his head but said nothing. Kylus didn’t even notice.

  “Nice to meet you as well, Sir,” Kylus said to Nathan.

  “Nathan Darkchurch, Necromancer-for-Hire. I assume we’re going to work together. You look like you would make an excellent zombie if the occasion arises for me to raise you from the dead.”

  “Um… thanks?” Kylus said. Is that a compliment?

  “You’re very welcome,” Nathan said. I guess it was, Kylus thought.

  Rose noticed something and took a sharp turn to her right, and Sylis, Kylus and Nathan followed her path. Sylis noticed them at the same time that Kylus did: two people were playing darts at a dartboard in the corner of the tavern, near a red-and-orange wood-burning fire raging in a fireplace set into the wall. One was a tall, muscular, shirtless male elf, wearing nothing other than very tight-fitting orange-yellow leather pants and boots, with his long braid of golden-blonde hair flowing down his muscled back and shoulders like a tail next to the massive, gigantic longsword strapped to his back by thick chains. He had the fae signature alabaster-white skin and blonde hair that shimmered as if made of lustrous gold, and he looked very fit and athletic, with muscles that were big and bulgy, not thin and lean like most fae.

  He was so tall that he towered over the small, lithe, slender human girl playing darts with him. She had long dark brown hair and light-brown skin, and she wore a snow-white cape draped down across her back from the shoulder-plates of her silver armor. The gleaming plates of her suit of Star Knight armor were polished so well that they seemed to reflect every light and image in the room like mirrors. In thin white lines that were visible only as texture against their background of the same color, the moons-and-stars emblem of the Star Knights had been embroidered in white thread across the back of her pure white cape.

  “I’m very sorry about your sister,” the fae man said to the girl as Sylis and the others approached them. “I can relate. You lost your sister. I lost my kingdom. Losing something that you love is the worst thing ever.” The elf stared at the target, prepared himself, and threw a dart. It just missed the bullseye. The elf sighed. The heat from the nearby fireplace was hot enough that sweat ran down his naked chest and back and dripped from his hairless armpits.

  “I know!” the girl said. She was playing darts using her right hand, while with her left hand she was twirling a strand of her long, rich, dark-brown hair between her fingers. “I feel really sad for you, King Yarid. But at least you know how to get back what you lost, even if you can’t do it right now. I literally don’t know where my sister is. I heard a rumor from some person who seemed very shady and sleazy and suspicious and not trustworthy at all that my sister was seen near this town a few months ago, so I came all the way out here, to the middle of nowhere. But nope, she’s not here. I found no trace of her. Not even a clue or a lead about where to look next. Turns out that maybe trusting someone who’s very untrustworthy isn’t the best idea.” Glorissa let go of her hair with her left hand, felt the weight and balance of the dart she held in her right hand, threw her dart at the dartboard, and watched it fly. The fingers of her right hand extended out gracefully as they expelled the tiny missile. It missed the target at the center of the bullseye. She immediately reached back up and took another lock of her hair into her fingers.

  “You have my prayers that you will find her,” Yarid said.

  “And I will pray for you too, King Yarid,” Glorissa said. She smiled at him, a radiant grin full of teeth as perfectly white as her cape, gloves and boots. “God has answered my prayers seven times! I only prayed for small miracles, never for grand ones, but still, that’s more times than even most White wizards my age. I will pray that God listens to me when I pray for you and for all the fae in exile.”

  Yarid threw a dart at the dartboard. It hit the precise center of the bullseye. “That’s game,” Yarid said. “I have won. I’m glad that you agreed to play me just for fun, Glorissa, and not for money at stake. Most of the other people in this place would not have, I think. I’ve enjoyed meeting you. I hope our paths cross again, although they probably will not.”

  “Agreed,” Glorissa said. “Nice to meet you, Yarid King of the elves! Goodbye!” They nodded at each other.

  Glorissa and Yarid turned away from the dartboard, their game finished, ready to walk their separate ways—and then they noticed Sylis, Kylus, Rose and Nathan standing nearby and staring at them. Glorissa’s hand dropped instinctively to the dagger at her belt, and Yarid’s naked muscles of his arms, shoulders and chest tensed and flexed, ready to reach up behind his back and pull out his giant longsword and defend himself if need be.

  “Can I help you?” Yarid asked sharply.

  “Why, yes, you can help me!” Rose said. “You’re of White and of Yellow, exactly the help I need. It’s my lucky day, I found a Yellow in this place, too. We Reds do know how to manifest good luck! I know someone who is looking to hire, and I think they will pay you good money if you agree to take the job, as in, gold coins, not mere silver or copper. Interested?”

  “I desperately need gold coins, and many of them,” Yarid said. “I need enough gold to raise an army. That is why I came here to this place, because I heard that people here might have use for my services. I am happy at this news you bring.”

  “Um, I’m sort of on a quest,” Glorissa said. “I’m looking for my missing sister.” I know the type of White that this girl is, Rose thought. She wants to be the hero, but they never know how to really do that. I believe I can win her over.

  “How long do you expect your quest to last?” Rose asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “And how much money do you have?”

  “Um, some. Not that much.”

  “And do you think you own enough coin to finance you going off on your quest to find your sister, which might take months or even years, without holding any sort of real job at the same time to pay for it?”

  “I never thought about it like that….”

  “Exactly. White is not known for being practical, but you are dreamers and idealists. Take this job, and I promise you, you’ll have enough gold to search for your sister for the rest of your life, and to hire a team of investigators to help you search, too.”

  “Um, okay. I won’t commit to take this job yet. But I’ll go with you and at least hear what the job is.”

  “Come on,” Rose said. “I’ll take you all to meet our new employer.” She led the party out of the barroom and down a narrow hall at the back of the tavern. Sylis had not noticed this passage earlier when he went looking for the back room. How did I not see this hallway? It was right here the whole time! Sylis thought to himself. What is wrong with me? Well, a lot, I guess, but that’s a different question. Rose led them to a place where the hall split into two different halls, and hurried down one of them, then came to a place where that hall split into three passages, and again led the others into one without hesitating. Sylis’s head spun left and right, trying to see where they were and where they were going, but he quickly lost track, especially because Rose was walking very fast, and Sylis did not want to be left behind. The place felt like a maze to Sylis, although he was confident that he would find his way out when he needed to.

  At last, Rose stopped in front of a simple, unadorned wooden door. She reached up to knock at it, but, as her hand was about to knock on the door, the door swung open, seemingly unassisted.

  “Please, my friends, enter,” a voice said. Sylis shivered for some reason at the first sound of this voice; it was a male voice, high, oily and educated, and it felt almost like a snake slithering its way into Sylis’s ears. Sylis quickly cast a detect magic spell: yes, there was magic in the air, but the voice itself was natural. The voice had made Sylis feel cold, just by itself, without magic.

  Sylis and the others walked into the room. It was a rectangular room, with wooden walls and roof, and three small windows that looked out onto trees from the woods outside. A long table filled the room; the table was cut in the shape of a rectangle that mimicked the room’s dimensions, and the table was made from some sort of expensive-looking reddish-brown lumber that almost seemed to glow with inner red light as it shined from the light of the several oil lamps hanging directly above the table from the rafters of the ceiling.

  Seven chairs were at the table. A black-robed and black-masked wizard sat in the chair at the head of the table at the end across from the door. The six other chairs were empty, with three chairs on each side of the table, in sets of two chairs facing each other, evenly spaced apart. Six small brown leather pouches with sealed drawstrings of red string were sitting on the table, with one pouch in front of each of the six empty chairs.

  The other five seemed to be curious about what was in the leather pouches, but Sylis found himself far more curious about the man seated at the head of the table. “Please, take a seat,” that Black wizard said, in that same oily voice. Sylis took the nearest seat and then strained his neck to get a good look at the wizard; the head of the table where he was sitting was farthest from Sylis’s chair than all others. This wizard of Black had a unique mask that Sylis had never seen before: it was a solid black cloth, with no holes for eyes or mouth, no designs or patterns, no markings, nothing. The mask was solid black. This Black wizard’s robes did not have a hood, but the mask went around his entire head, and his night-dark robes were tucked into the mask at his neck. Looking at the man’s mask was like staring up into the night sky when it was completely dark without moonlight or starlight.

  This wizard also wore black leather gloves that went up to his robe-sleeves, so no skin of his body was visible, although his black gloves were shiny, unlike his robes and mask, which were matte black. I wonder what he looks like under that mask, Sylis thought. The man seemed neither thin nor fat, neither tall nor short, but his figure was distinctly human: he was not an elf. He couldn’t have been a dwarf, goblin or gnome, obviously, because those were the three sentient races who were much shorter than humans, and he seemed to be the normal height for a human. Sylis could sense the raw magical power of this wizard’s magic, he could feel it crackling and burning in the air, even without the black wizard-mask and black wizard-robes screaming that fact out to him visually.

  Sylis was curious about how any wizard could wear such a mask. How does he even see? Or eat? Is this the mask he normally wears? At some level, Sylis thought the full-head mask looked cool, and he might want to try a blue one, if he could figure out how it worked. Sylis stared deeply into the too-perfectly-black mask, trying to see if he could even make out where this person’s eyes were or the shape and contours of his nose and face. He had no way of knowing if this wizard of Black was returning his gaze or not, because he could not see his eyes. Suddenly, Sylis felt that same sharp chill as when he heard the voice. He shivered, and pulled the sleeves of his wizard robes as far down over his hands as they would go. He decided that he would not look at that person anymore. His eyes settled upon the bare reddish-brown wood at the center of the table and remained there.

  “Ah, this is excellent!” the Black wizard said. “Exactly what I wanted. A Red wizard, a Blue wizard, a Black wizard, a White with some training in how to pray to God, a Green who is a former member of the Serve-Swords, and a Yellow whose Yellow magic surges in his blood like the frothing lava within a volcano. Each of these things—each of you—forms a crucial element in my plan. And, trust me, you will be well compensated for each of your unique talents.” How does he know anything about me? Kylus thought. Did he read my mind? Does he know my secret?

  “What’s the job?” Nathan asked. Unlike the others, Nathan seemed to show no fear at all. To him, this wizard was just another necromancer, like any other. “And what’s the pay?”

  “The job is a heist,” the Black wizard said. “You will be breaking into a heavily fortified and defended castle, where you will steal a very valuable magical artifact and then bring it back to me. The fortress contains many layers of defense, and each one of you has a special skill that I will use to penetrate that particular layer which is vulnerable to your talents. Once all defenses have been bypassed, you will have access to the target. You will steal it for me.”

  “What’s the target?” Nathan asked. “And you still have not mentioned what salary you are offering.”

  “Pick up the bag in front of you. Look inside,” the Black wizard said.

  Sylis grabbed the small leather pouch, pulled open the drawstring, and looked inside. The bag was full of coins. He reached his fingers in, pulled out a coin, and looked at it.

  “Why is there a gold ring around the edge of a silver coin?” Sylis asked. “A silver coin is supposed to be all silver; a gold coin all gold. I’ve never seen this currency before.”

  Nathan gasped. “I have seen it before,” he said. “My master, the Smiling One, has these. The edges have been gilded, but that is no silver in the center. These are platinum coins.”

  Sylis gasped. “Platinum coins? I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen one before.”

  “They are exceptionally rare,” Rose said, her voice a hushed whisper of awe. “The only coin in the realm worth more than gold. Worth far, far more than gold.”

  “The bags contain ten platinum coins each,” the Black wizard seated at the head of the table said. “And they are yours to keep, regardless of whether you accept this job from me or not. A token of my appreciation for you to hear me out—and an indication of the money that awaits you if you pull off this heist for me.”

  “That’s a great story, but you still have not said how many of these I get if I do the job,” Nathan said.

  “Persistent! I like it,” the Black wizard said. “You will each receive one thousand platinum coins if you succeed in this heist.”

  “That’s impossible,” Sylis said. As a Blue, I do have to be the voice of reason here. “There can’t possibly be ten thousand platinum coins in circulation. The kingdoms have not minted that many.”

  The Black wizard laughed. “A skeptic? Do not doubt that great things await those who serve me. I control trade routes between the Imperium and the Northern Empire. I have access to capital that you could not possibly imagine.”

  “Who are you? I’ve never heard of someone who had cornered the market on those trade routes, although I might not have heard of you because the Northern Empire is secretive as hell,” Rose said.

  “Indeed,” the Black wizard said. “I suspect you might have heard of me, but I do not choose to tell you my name while we are here.”

  While we are here? Sylis thought. “Where will you tell us who you are?” Sylis asked.

  “I have a grand master plan for how you are to steal this thing for me,” the wizard said, “but I will not tell it to you here. The back room of the Grateful Drunkard is useful for recruiting talent, but even I cannot guess what spells and wards might be placed on this room by others who have used it and might be listening in. When I leave, a map will appear before you, on the table. The map will indicate the location where you are to meet with me in a place which is, shall we say, more fully under my control. I will explain the plan, and the target of the heist, away from all prying eyes, once you follow the map and meet me at the destination.”

  “This all seems very suspicious,” Glorissa said.

  “Seems suspicious? I’d say it most definitely is suspicious!” Kylus said.

  “Yes, why should we trust you?” Yarid asked. “Why should we meet you at some strange and secret place? And why will you not tell us more now, rather than later? You might well have an ambush prepared for us. This might all be a ruse.”

  “Indeed, it might be,” the wizard of Black said. “But it also might not. Can you afford to take that risk? You all need money, for your own particular reasons. I will say no more: I shall let the coins in those pouches do my talking for me.”

  The Black wizard raised one black-gloved hand and snapped his fingers. He disappeared. In that same instant, a rolled-up parchment scroll appeared on the table.

  Sylis’s head leaned forward, staring at where the Black wizard had been. “Wow, that was cool!” he said.

  “Bah, any wizard—any competent wizard—can make stuff appear and disappear at will,” Nathan said. “I’m sure he had prepared a tunnel spell to connect his chair to some locus outside, and he was keeping that scroll in a pocket dimension on the table from which he pulled it out. Both of those are colorless cantrip spells that every wizard of any color knows. Much like the spell to transform someone into a newt or a toad. Do you know those spells?”

  “I mean, I’m aware of those spells,” Sylis said. “But making yourself disappear is really difficult to cast. It was impressive!”

  “Are the coins for real?” Nathan asked, turning to look at Rose. “You Red wizards have your special ways with money and being able to tell the counterfeit from the authentic, as everyone knows.”

  Rose took hold of a coin, held it close in front of her eyes, and stared into it. Her eyes squinted and her cheeks and eyebrows wrinkled around her eyes as she tried to get a clear look at the small metal disk using her magical sight.

  “To be honest I have never held a platinum coin before,” Rose said, “but my magic is telling me that this is real.”

  “That settles it,” Nathan said. “Let’s go.”

  “I, for one, have not made up my mind about whether to take this job,” Yarid asked. “We know so little. But I shall go along for now and see where this journey leads. Will you join me?”

  Sylis looked from one head to the next, as each one of the others nodded. Sylis did not. They all looked at him, as he was the only one who had not nodded agreement to the group.

  “Won’t you please come with us, Sylis?” Kylus asked. “I think he needs all of us. He said he needs one of every color. I mean, let’s all go, so that we’re all still eligible to get the job, and then make your final decision after you learn more. I mean, I, well, we could all lose this job if you don’t come!”

  Sylis looked at Kylus. Kylus seems really eager; I can see it in his eyes. I would hate to dash his hopes just for my fears, especially when I really need this job too. This could lead me on a path to get back to my farm and rebuild my life—or it could lead to my death and the deaths of everyone else seated at this table.

  Sylis shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, I’m in, for now,” Sylis said. “I’m willing to go along until we learn more. And, if the job looks reasonable, I’m willing to take it.” Kylus grinned at Sylis, and Kylus’s face relaxed into a look of sheer relief. Wow, I think I made him happy! Sylis thought.

  “Where is it a map to?” Yarid said.

  “I assume this is the map,” Rose said, gesturing at the parchment scroll on the table. “Well, let’s have a look at it, and see where it leads.”

  Kylus and Yarid took hold of the scroll at either end. Together they unrolled it. Thin lines written in black ink emerged as the scroll unfurled. The six of them leaned over it, their heads so close together their ears brushed against one another’s, and together they stared down at the map.