Nathan stood on a street corner on the Imperial Boulevard in Imperia. Strangers walked up and down the street, going to or coming from parties held in honor of the Festival. None of them noticed Nathan, because he was dressed all in black and blended in perfectly with the darkness of night that surrounded him.

  Nathan looked in one direction. He was looking north. In that direction is the rendezvous point where I am scheduled to meet Rose and the others soon.

  He turned his head, and looked in the other direction, south. If I walk that way, I will soon come to a street where, if I make a left and keep walking, I will reach a place I know well: my childhood home, the Darkchurch Manor House. Uncle Lynnard Darkchurch’s plans to restore the House of Darkchurch to its rightful place of privilege and respect rely upon me walking south, leaving behind the heist, abandoning the team, and joining the fight to bring honor back to House Darkchurch.

  Nathan looked north and south, but he did not yet walk in either direction. He stood motionless, cloaked by black robes and black mask, like a human shadow brought to life.

  The heist is tonight, and Uncle’s plans to attack House Thorne and House Luke, the two Noble Houses responsible for the fall of House Darkchurch, are also for tonight, Nathan thought. I can pick one or the other, but not both. What do I choose?

  Nathan looked north, then south, then back north, and then looked south again. He grabbed his head in both hands, and he just stood there, waiting. I don’t know! My whole life has been focused with the sharpness of a blade and the intensity of a fireball spell on bringing House Darkchurch back from the dead! But can I really abandon the heist after I invested so much into it?

  Nathan felt a tentacle hit him in the face, leaving a smear of purple slime across his black mask. He smiled. It was his pet slime, Lucy, licking him and trying to cheer him up. He looked at his pet purple ball of slime.

  What do you think I should do, Lucy? Nathan thought. He knew that Lucy could not answer, but he sensed her warm desire for her master to be happy. His mind wandered back to his first meeting with Lucy. Then his eyes widened in shock. If not for Glow, I never would have met Lucy, and then I would be missing my best friend, my pet ball of slime! And if I don’t do my job and raise the zombie army to distract the Serve-Swords, then Glow is walking into a trap, and she goes to meet her death at the hands of the Sword! I cannot do that to Glow! She’s entirely too serious and she needs a friend like me to get her to smile! To say nothing of betraying my close friend and sometimes lover Rose, my lover-boy fae Yarid, my fellow wizard Sylis, and that boy Kylus, who seems nice enough and was never unfriendly to me. Yarid is one of the best elves I have ever paid for sex! I can’t let him die: I might want to pay him for sex again at some point in the future! And I promised Sylis that I would tell him a joke when he dies! I can’t be making promises like that and not keep them! Nathan nodded to himself and immediately began to walk north, along Imperium Boulevard, towards the rendezvous point. Lucy rolled along after him, leaving behind a trail of purple slime.

  As soon as he reached the rendezvous point, Glorissa rushed over to him. “I have something I have really been meaning to say to you, Nathan,” Glorissa said as soon as she was near him.

  Nathan sighed. “What is it, Glow? Mr. Dark is listening to you.”

  “I know the Dark Wizard’s plan calls for you to raise a zombie army, attack the city, and bait the Serve-Swords out of their Barracks to go defend the city from your zombies,” Glorissa said. “But the Serve-Swords are humans, and I believe they are good people who have done us no harm. They are doing their duty, to protect Imperia and to guard the Crystal of Light, which they do with honor and with valor. I do not want your zombies to kill any of them!”

  “So let me try to explain to you how a battle works,” Nathan said. “There are usually two sides, and the two opposing sides try to, well, kill each other. So, there, I explained it. It’s pretty simple, really. They are guarding that which we are trying to steal. It is to our advantage for there to be as few of them as possible.”

  Glorissa gave Nathan a stare. “Yes, I know how combat works. And I know that we are thieves, and that I am a thief, at least for now. But, for example, if I am sparring with a friend at the Star Knights Academy, even if I use a sword or a spear, I am skilled enough to know how to strike in a way that I won’t kill them, and likewise they can attack me but with no intent to kill, only to disarm. That is how weapons practice works: you fight, but your goal is not to really murder your sparring partner. Can you not tell your zombies to use only nonlethal attacks? Like, to grab and punch or push or kick, but not to bite the humans or eat the humans or use their swords and axes if they have them? Do you not control your zombies that you summon?”

  “I control them,” Nathan said. “I am a great necromancer. My control over the undead whom I summon is absolute. If I tell them to fight but not to kill, they will fight but they will not kill.”

  Glorissa smiled. “Great! I knew you could do it, Nathan! Thank you for agreeing to do this for me!”

  “Did I agree to that?” Nathan asked. “I told you I am able to do it. I did not say that I will do it.”

  “Yes, you just did say you would do it,” Glorissa said. “Like, literally one minute ago, while you and I were talking, you said: they will fight but they will not kill. Your teammate and partner-in-crime Glow owes you one for it!”

  Nathan shrugged. “Okay, at your suggestion, I will have my zombies put up a fight, but I will tell them not to make deadly or killing blows against their human foes, if they can avoid it. I must tell you, Glow, that, if I do this, I assume the Serve-Swords will overwhelm and hack apart my zombie horde much more quickly than the Dark Wizard had planned. I may die, and, if the plan goes completely out of control, you yourself may also die because of you having me spare the Serve-Swords’ lives.”

  “Great! I’m overjoyed that you agree to do this! The result of you doing this is going to be so good! I knew I could count on you, Nathan!” Glorissa said. Glorissa unexpectedly hugged Nathan. He turned a paler shade of white beneath his black robes and tensed up while Glorissa’s arms were wrapped around him in a big friendly hug. Then she let go, and he relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief.

  I do not believe I ever really did agree to do it, but since Glow wants this so much, I will do this for her, Nathan thought. My role in the plan is only to create a distraction that draws out the Serve-Swords and then delays their return to their Barracks. Whether the zombies slaughter the humans or let them live should make no true difference to the operation of the Dark Wizard’s plans.

  Rose came up to Nathan. “We will wait until we see the Serve-Swords open the gate and storm out before we head inside through the gate,” Rose said. “So the sooner you draw them out, the faster I get in! Get going, Nathan! Raise your zombie army, and then raise some chaos for us!”

  Nathan sighed. This is going to be a night of many sighs for me. I can sense that already. “As you wish, Rose,” he said. “I, your loyal and obedient team-member Nathan, shall faithfully comply. Just make sure you stop by the northern shore in your hot air balloon to pick me up after you escape with the Crystal! You are my escape plan, Rose!”

  Rose nodded, and the look in her eyes was serious and solemn. “We will not forget you, Nathan. I promise you that.” Words such as one might speak to someone who is about to die, but I choose not to concede that, Nathan thought.

  He and Lucy walked away from the others, heading northwest along the dark and lonely streets. Soon the rest of the team was left behind, and it was just Nathan and his slime.

  Nathan soon reached the almost completely deserted and desolate region at the northern edge of the city of Imperia. Even on a Festival night such as tonight, no one else was there besides Nathan. The Temple of Light’s towers could be seen to the southeast, to the northeast there was nothing but the endless waves of the ocean, and to the northwest was the city wall, and, beyond it, the area where an ancient battle had taken place, on ground which was mostly a muddy, dirty, grassy marsh as a result of the waves at high tide soaking the dirt of the ground, which was flat for miles around to the north of the city. I hope there are plenty of bones and corpses left in that salty muddy area for me to reanimate, Nathan thought. That battle was hundreds of years ago, but if even tiny bits and pieces of those dead soldiers remain, I have ways to bring them back to life as creatures of darkness.

  Nathan knew that the city wall ended where the ocean began, and he knew, from having spent his childhood in this city and having been here before, that there was a narrow gap between the wall and the ocean. The side of the wall facing the ocean had a narrow walkway carved into its side; one human could make his way across and get to the other side. Nathan slowly and carefully found his footing and walked along that path. He made it to the other side, and found his footing in the damp, muddy grass saltwater marshland. His black-booted feet were sucked a few inches into the mud, but he forced his legs up and down, and kept walking.

  Soon, Nathan saw what he was looking for: stone grave markers, stuck in the marshland. The stones were so ancient that whatever writing once was on them had faded away from being worn by the tides and the storms that came in off the ocean, but Nathan nonetheless knew that these tombstones marked the site of an ancient battle, won by the Imperium against the Northern Empire.

  Nathan took a position in the middle of the marsh. He mumbled magic words and closed his eyes. With his eyes closed, his second sight showed him a sight, and he smiled. Yes, many people died in that ancient battle, and their remains lie here yet, sunken under the mud. Nathan reached into his black robes and removed a small glass vial, which was filled with a dark red liquid: human blood, enchanted with the magic of Black. He walked around in a circle, dripping drops from the vial of blood, and then, once the glass vial was empty, he threw it away and stood in the center of his circle. He raised his arms up, threw his head back, and, looking up into the lightless night sky above, he spoke the words of a magic spell. He waved his hands in complex, arcane patterns, and mouthed words of an ancient, dead language, asking the dead to rise and to serve him.

  He finished casting the spell and instantly fell to his knees, so weak from the effort of his magic that he could not stand. His entire lower sank into the mud and got coated with watery brown mud. Nathan sighed.

  Then, he saw it: a skeletal, bone-white hand shot up from the watery grassy dirt right before his eyes. It was followed by the rest of itself: a very skeletal, fleshless zombie. Soon, more zombies climbed out from the earth, and then more, and more still. In a few minutes, a zombie army had arisen and crawled up from the darkness of their deathly graves. The zombies made from corpses who had died in combat rose from the dead still wearing the armor and weapons they had worn when they had fallen into death. Half of the zombies had weapons and armor in the style of the ancient Imperium, with longswords, square shields, and knight’s plate armor over their entire body, although some wore only chain-mail shirts accompanied by iron gauntlets and armored boots. The other half of the zombies wore no armor on their bodies but carried round shields, wore dome-like helmets with horns upon their heads, and held humongous war-hammers, very wide and large battle-axes, or giant metal clubs. Those were the dead of the Northern Empire. The zombies’ bodies were so ancient and decayed that many of them were mere faded-white bone skeletons, although many others had random sinews of rotting worm-eaten pink-red flesh and dark-red-black blood hanging off their bones or dripping from their bodies.

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  Nathan stood up and stared at his army. These are not the best zombies I have ever made, but I will have to make do with them. A few of the zombies shambled over to him and bowed their heads in a mark of obedience. One of these zombies was still wearing the armor it had worn when it died in battle, and Nathan recognized the armor: Star Knight armor, although a much more old-fashioned and archaic model than what Glorissa and other modern Star Knights wore. The zombie’s Star Knight armor was carved with fancy, ornate moons-and-stars designs, although the armor, like the zombie itself, was stained with both blood and mud, which dulled the mirror-like shine that all enchanted Star Knight armor should have had by nature. This zombie was probably the general of the Imperium army which fought at that ancient battle on this battleground site, judging by how fancy its armor was, Nathan thought.

  That zombie was the one who opened its mouth and, in slow, hollow, rasping words, as if fighting to force the air within its empty corpse body to fit into sounds, said: “What orders, Master?” Nathan’s gaze had been looking at its armor, but his eyes shifted down, and he saw that the Star Knight sword which went with that Star Knight armor was still there, also: the zombie’s sword looked rusty and decayed, but the blade was large and long, and its sharp, jagged edges looked capable of inflicting deadly harm with every swing and thrust of the zombie’s undead hands wielding it in battle.

  Nathan shook his head. Glow, what are you doing to me? She is making me behave like a good person—it’s horrible!

  “Attack the city of Imperia,” Nathan said. “If you wade through the shallow waters of the ocean, you can get around the north side of the wall, and attack from the north. But do not make any attacks with the intent of killing any human. You may push, shove, and make soft punches. Brandish your weapons to threaten, but do not use the weapons. Do not bite, claw, or stab, and certainly do not eat any of the humans. After you have engaged the humans in battle, retreat north, heading back to where we are now. Make sure you bait the humans into following you, and, if they do not chase you back to the north initially, attack again and again until they chase you back here. Once you are back in this marsh, make your stand, and hold the line, until every last one of you has died your second and final death.”

  “Yes, Master,” the zombie said. It bowed to Nathan. Then it and all the other zombies turned and shambled away, heading into the water of the ocean. Soon the entire zombie army had gone into the water, which was shallow enough that their heads popped up above the surface of the water like floating nightmares. The zombies began to emerge from the water on the other side of the wall and crawled into the city. Nathan smiled. Well, that went well! Now I will wait and see what unfolds.

  For a long time, Nathan heard nothing but the stillness and darkness of night and the slow sloshing of the water within the wetlands. Suddenly, Nathan heard fighting in the distance. He could hear the distinct sounds of men screaming and the hack and slash of swords being swung at opponents. He fixed his gaze on the city and its shoreline. In the distance, he saw his zombie army marching back to him, in retreat.

  Then he saw it: the Servants of the Sword were using boats to sail around the wall, and they were disembarking on the shore of the marsh, with many boats, far more than Nathan was expecting. Hundreds of Serve-Swords soldiers were in hot pursuit of the undead invaders, cutting and chopping zombies apart left and right to protect their precious city from Nathan’s surprise attack. The zombies massed and threw themselves at the Servants of the Sword, intent upon making their stand and holding the line, but they only pushed and shoved them, holding them back by sheer force of numbers. The Serve-Swords cut through zombie after zombie, and soon, the Servants of the Sword made a huge dent in the number of zombies, and the battleline began to creep father north, getting closer to Nathan. They are getting much too close to me, Nathan thought. I need to start thinking about potentially escaping to the north, and hiding out somewhere until my thieving crew comes to pick me up.

  The zombie Star Knights general shambled up to Nathan.

  “Master, we cannot hold them back unless we use our swords and axes and strike to kill,” the zombie said. “In life, I was a great general. I died leading my men into battle, and we won the war as a result. The enemy is too strong. Give the order for the zombies to kill, or this war is lost.”

  Nathan laughed. “I will not give you such an order. Glow would never forgive me! You have my orders, and my commands are absolute and are for you to obey without question. I promised Glow, and I will not break my word to her. You have your orders: fight hard, but do not use lethal force. Just, I don’t know how else to say it, fight harder! Put up your best fight! If the enemy nears my position here, throw every ounce of the life you no longer have into holding the line to protect me long enough for me to make my retreat into the shadows and flee north. The Serve-Swords are mere humans whose eyes will struggle to see a black-robed wizard as he escapes during the very darkest moonlight of the entire year. You may proceed.”

  The zombie general bowed to Nathan. “Yes, Master. We obey.” The zombie lurched and stumbled away, returning to the battle unfolding just to the south, where the marshlands met the sea.

  Nathan watched the battle. It was getting even closer to him; the Serve-Swords were pushing the horde of zombies back. Perhaps I underestimated the enthusiasm with which the Serve-Swords would fight. They have not fought a war in decades, so I expected fresh recruits whom my zombies would scare. Instead, the humans seem hungry for battle, and excited to save their city. I must flee, now, before they reach me.

  Nathan turned, his black robes sweeping about him as he twirled around, and prepared to head north, hoping to be unseen. But a sharp noise caught his attention, and he turned back around. A massive explosion had happened, throwing up a cloud of dirt and mud, and drilling a hole straight through the ranks of his zombies.

  What? They have a gnomish gunpowder cannon? They must have some sort of portable model of small cannon that I have not seen before! My zombies are falling! Before his eyes, the ranks of his zombie army broke apart. Serve-Swords soldiers rushed forward. Even far in the distance, Nathan could see that the humans could see him, and they were running in his direction.

  What do I do? Nathan’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. I have an idea! This might work… or else I am about to die. Perhaps I needed Sylis to tell a joke for me when I died, not the other way around. There is so much mud in this marsh! Now, if I can just remember the spell for how to create mud golems….

  Commander Henry Rhoda walked along the marshlands, his soldiers forming two ranks at either side of him to guard his path forward. He surveyed the carnage around him as the sounds of zombies being chopped apart sang through the night air like music to his ears. My men must be good! I see mangled zombie corpses all over, but I do not see a single dead body belonging to my troops!

  A runner raced up to him; it was a girl, and she had run so fast to reach him that she was doubled over and hyperventilating, her breathing loud and fast.

  “Report, soldier!” Rhoda said.

  “We have… found a person… a wizard of Black…” she said, speaking her words between deep breaths. “He was… fighting some… mud elementals… who were… about to attack… us…,” she said. She gasped for breath again.

  “Mud elementals? I saw only zombies!” Rhoda said.

  “Apparently there were… mud elementals… behind the zombies,” she said. “We have… the human wizard of Black. He is being held by your soldiers, a bit farther… north.”

  “Take me to him,” Rhoda said.

  The runner led him on into the night, and his troops followed behind him. He stepped in a patch of deep water, and soaked himself with splashes of muddy water while he pulled out his boot. Curse this pitch-darkness! A bad night to fight a battle, when you cannot see. I assume that whoever attacked us was counting on that darkness to protect them. It did not work!

  Rhoda saw them: a wizard of Black, his robes and mask so perfectly dark that he blended in seamlessly with the night, was surrounded by Serve-Swords. One of the Serve-Swords approached him.

  “Captain Summer Marsae reporting, Commander Rhoda,” she said. “We came upon him just as he was using his magic to blast apart some mud elementals. He used his Black magic to destroy all the mud elementals. We have found no other humans here in this area, yet. It does appear that all the zombies who survived your onslaught have fled to the north.”

  “Send more soldiers north. Pursue the zombies until every zombie is gone,” Rhoda said. Then Rhoda turned to the wizard. “Explain yourself,” Rhoda said.

  The Black wizard looked at the Servant of Sword. His eyes are rather… creepy, Rhoda thought. Rhoda shivered.

  “There is not much to explain,” the wizard said. “I am a wizard of Black, working as a bodyguard to a wealthy merchant. I live in Imperia, in the northwest section of the Poor District, near the Royal Palace. Tonight, I sensed mighty Black magic being cast. As you know, there is an old saying: the best way to fight Black magic is with more Black magic. Being a loyal subject of the King and a patriot who would die to defend the Imperium from her enemies, I raced up here. When I arrived, I found the necromancer who had raised an army, and she and I fought each other in a magical duel. I won and she fled, but, as she ran away, she cast a Black spell that created golems from the mud of this disgusting, repulsive, godforsaken marsh, by binding elemental spirits into the mud, and she sent them at me to kill me. I was heroically destroying the abominations of Black magic, the mud golems, when your men arrived. Thank God I was here to save them, because my magic destroyed the last of the mud golems just as you heroes came up to save me!”

  Rhoda turned to Marsae. “Does his story check out? We never found the necromancer who raised these undead horrors. It might be him.”

  Marsae shook her head. “My sister is a wizard of Black, Commander, so I know their methods well. No necromancer would be stupid enough to go in himself with his own army of zombies. They tend to like to send their servants into harm’s way, while they hide in the shadows, out of sight, and safe from all reprisals. And with my own eyes I saw this wizard use his spells to blast apart a lot of big scary-looking mud golems. His actions looked authentic and sincere. Also, I have heard that phrase before, from my sister: the best way to defeat Black magic is with more Black magic. I don’t think the culprit is him.”

  “If I might add something, I did take some damage from the mud golems,” the wizard of Black said. “It would be great if you wonderful, valiant, heroic Serve-Swords could escort me back to the city, where I can retire to my home and heal my wounds.”

  Rhoda looked into the wizard’s eyes. He saw beady dark-brown pools of creepy, sinister magic, but he sensed no dishonesty.

  “I believe he is telling the truth, Captain Marsae,” Rhoda said. He pointed to two of his troops. “The priests of the Temple of Light have healing potions, which they sometimes share with us soldiers. Take this wizard back to our Barracks and ask the priests to give him a healing potion. Then release him.” The two soldiers nodded back in acknowledgement.

  “And, if I may add one final thing?” the wizard of Black said.

  “Yes, please speak, wizard,” Rhoda said.

  “My only purpose in life to serve my King and his Kingdom,” the wizard said, “so I must warn you that, by means of using my Black magic, I can sense that the evil necromancer whom I fought and scared off is a great distance away to the north, where she is casting yet another spell to raise more zombies, and to create some even worse undead horror monsters, too. I fear that your victory here might have been intentional: she is trying to lull you into a false sense of security, and, once you let your guard down, then she will attack with her main force. As you will note, none of your men have died: she did this to bolster your fake sense of security, rendering you more vulnerable when she strikes with the intent to kill.”

  “Yes, we do seem to have won without many, or any, casualties,” Rhoda said. “That is strange. And that does explain it! But then our defense of Imperia demands that we gather the Serve-Swords army and march north, to find and destroy this evil necromancer of whom you speak! Come, soldiers, we have more work to do! My thank-you to you is eternal, good sir! Take him back to the Barrack where he can heal. And send runners back to the Barracks to ask for more soldiers! We march tonight to protect the Kingdom!”

  Suddenly Rhoda paused. “Um, what is that?” he asked.

  “That? She is my familiar,” the wizard said. The wizard reached down and tried to pick up the purple ball of slime, but it wrapped its tentacles around the wizard’s leg and would not let him lift it up.

  “I thought a familiar was like a cat or a bird, or maybe a toad or a bat. I’ve never heard of a wizard having a puddle of slime as a familiar,” Rhoda said.

  “You would not have heard of a slime familiar because you are not a wizard of Black, instead you are a mighty Serve-Sword warrior. She is no threat to you. Pay no attention to her,” the wizard said.

  Rhoda wretched at the sight of the slime-creature, but he was able to restrain himself enough not to vomit. “Yuck. Well, please be off with you, wizard friend. My soldiers and I have a job to do.”

  “I leave you with pleasure,” the wizard said, and he was led away by the two Serve-Swords whom Rhoda had assigned to guard him back to the Barracks.