Darlac stood at ease, looking everything but. From the ever so slight trembling of her lips and the tears of frustration welling up in her golden eyes, a keen observer like Cephal could tell she was an inch away from blowing up into the baron's face.

  "You knew I needed those troops, right?" she said softly, her voice breaking with suppressed anger. "I submitted the exact plan, the numbers, the timeline, everything. If you disagreed, you should have said so and given me a chance to convince you."

  The baron bit his lips. He had to offer an explanation, and the truth (which Cephal suspected was that he'd simply signed the contracts the Treasurer had pushed under his nose without checking them against the General's plans) was too embarrassing to admit.

  "General, we cannot pass up on such opportunities. As you're well aware, our main export goods are mercenaries, and if we want this land to thrive, we need gold to invest."

  "You practically emptied the land. I have barely enough men left for border control and road patrols."

  "I hired out the number of soldiers allowed by the law. Two-thirds of our troops."

  "The law applies to times of peace!" snapped Darlac.

  "Which we have now."

  "A tenuous one, until the gates to the Valley of the Dead open."

  "You built an outpost close to that valley, right? I suppose the soldiers there can make sure that nobody opens those gates. That should be enough."

  Darlac bit back a spirited retort.

  "How long will the contracted troops be away?" she asked instead.

  "I'd say two months in case of Brevoy. Galt and Gralton might take longer."

  Not waiting until dismissed, Darlac made a sharp about-face and left the throne room with carefully measured steps, not too fast, not too slow. On her way out, she ripped a note off the bulletin board, marked with the colour code of a military or public safety assignment. Not even bothering to read the note, she crumpled it, stuffed it into her pocket, then slammed the heavy oak door behind her, causing a little dust and debris to fall from the ceiling.

  Cephal rubbed his chin and whistled in admiration.

  "I never thought there was anyone physically able to slam that door," he remarked. "You'd better get used to her mood swings, Maegar. When her body starts to change, it will be a whole entire lot worse."

  The baron let out an exhausted sigh. His fist tightened around the jade bracelet he was now using as a paperweight, after Darlac had missed her opportunity to hand it over to Baroness Guelder for examination.

  "Cephal, would you mind not poking your nose into my fiancée's reproductive system?"

  "Excuse me? Poking my what where?"

  Maegar blushed to dark red in embarrassment, and Cephal had a hard time suppressing a chuckle.

  "Gah! I mean, stay out of our bedroom, will you?"

  "Your Grace, I assure you, I know better than to ever set foot anywhere near your bedroom."

  "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? Anyway. What I'm trying to say is that I appreciate your invaluable advice in state matters, but this time you're crossing boundaries. Stop behaving like a nosy aunt, or else I will start to treat you accordingly."

  "Noted," said the wizard. If he had anything more to say, it was stifled by a coughing and wheezing fit. He downed half a canteen of water, but it didn't help. Neither did Maegar by repeatedly hitting him on the back.

  "Man, I can see you're getting ill," he said, abandoning his attempts (thank the Archfiend). "You smoke way too much."

  "Would you mind...*cough*... not poking your nose...*cough-cough*... into my lungs?"

  "It's hard not to, now that you're spitting them out on me! Go home, old friend, and take a few days off until you recover. Once I can be certain that Felicia doesn't want to strangle me anymore, I'll send her over to check on you."

  "No need for that," groaned Cephal, struggling for breath. "A little rest will help. Just make sure no one disturbs me, will you?"

  Cephal coughed and hacked some more on the way home. His mouth tasted a horrible mixture of bitter and sickly sweet. Perhaps sucking on horehound leaves was not the best way to extort a few days of peace and quiet for himself. Now he had to wait until the effect of the herb would wear off, or else the godsdamned wheezing would blow his stealth.

  Anyway, until it did, he prepared what he needed for the journey, besides the usual rations, water and basic equipment. Scrolls of Disguise Self, Greater Hide from Undead, Deeper Darkness – those were all key to his plan, so it was best to have at least two spare of each. A few Potions of Cat's Grace couldn't hurt, either. And most importantly, the staff he'd looted from the Old Stump cult leader.

  Rifling through his collection of potions, his glance fell on a vial containing a dark red liquid. He took it in his hand, briefly considering what to do with it. The vial had arrived with the government mail a few days ago, addressed to Darlac personally, accompanied by a letter from Baroness Guelder. Obviously, it qualified as an anomalous instance of interstate communication, and as such, it warranted an examination by Cephal. Darlac was still blissfully unaware of its existence, and Cephal intended for this to remain so.

  The label said the potion granted permanent immunity to poisons while on the territory of Nightvale. Of course, Cephal had suspected something more sinister, and his analysis of the strange liquid had confirmed his suspicion. No poison immunity was worth getting bonded to Baroness Guelder by blood magic. The wizard toyed with the idea that this had not been the first potion sent to Darlac from Nightvale. What a devious way to plant an unwitting agent into another country's government. Once this was over, Cephal would have to look into countermeasures to wean the General off the unwanted foreign influence, or if that was not possible, remove her from power. The baby project had been a lovely idea, but it wasn't playing out as quickly as he wanted it to. He needed something more decisive.

  But that was a problem for another day.

  Cephal unstoppered the vial, sniffed the potion (it smelled like kameberries), and administered it to the lonesome houseplant wilting on his desk, lest someone would find and drink it in his absence. Let the baroness forge a bond with a useless weed, like the half-mad druid she was. Then, once the cough ceased, he downed a Potion of Invisibility, slipped out of his home, and struck out on a journey to the Tors of Levenies.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Even though he did his best to undermine the baron's trust in Darlac's mental reliability, Cephal was an avid reader of the General's reports, especially of those written since her return from the First World. Her accounts of the fey realm were a bit dry and uneventful compared to his own limited experience, but the encounter with the Horned Hunter had piqued Cephal's interest – just like her reckless foray into the closed-off area in the Tors of Levenies known as the Valley of the Dead, accompanied by Velainah, whose help would be indispensable in what was to come.

  Also, he'd been doing his own research. Aside from the account Darlac had squeezed out of Willas Gunderson, Cephal had ordered in a few books from Restov about the cyclopean empires of ages long gone by, and milked the apostates of Old Stump Village for more information about their previous religion. Alas, the Varnlings had not looted their sacred books while they'd had the opportunity, and by the time Cephal needed them, Father Dalton, their overzealous new priest, had burnt them all on the market square for all his flock to behold, to Pharasma's greater glory.

  Despite the circumstances, he'd managed to piece together a few tidbits. A cyclopean empire, fallen ten thousand years ago, reaching from the east across Dunsward and the Tors into the Stolen Lands. Rulers with strong ties to necromancy and the daemonic powers of Abaddon, specifically Charon himself. A powerful artifact granted by Charon, able to reveal all that was hidden. Cephal could even identify the exact point in history when the Horned Hunter had intervened and redirected the centaurs guarding the Valley of the Dead to a new target. It must have happened after a Taldan military invasion 2,700 years ago and its eventual failure, which had left behind Lostlarn Keep for the fey to have fun in and, ultimately, for the centaurs to guard instead of the tomb harbouring the ancient, dormant evil (probably one of the cyclopean necromancer-rulers). Cephal was peeking into a frighteningly deep well of time, at the bottom of which an invaluable piece of treasure glittered: the Oculus of Abaddon, beckoning to him. If only he could get his hands on that artifact, Varnhold would suddenly have another export article, more valuable than mercenaries and much more delicious than cabbages: information. True, the Oculus required a free eye socket to settle into, but that was a small price to pay for the immense power it conveyed. And if Willas Gunderson, who habitually tripped over his own feet, had managed to steal a ring from the heart of the Valley, it should be no issue for a seasoned old fox like Cephal Lorentus to swipe the artifact. After all, no perception could pierce through a Hide from Undead spell, unless it was backed by sufficient willpower. And if you didn't know there was something to look out for, why search in the first place?

  Once the artifact was in Cephal's eye socket, safely hidden under an eyepatch, the Ancient Evil would lose its fang for good. He could either take care of it with his own squad, or even leave it to Darlac to play soldier to her heart's content and reap all the glory she felt she needed before her wedding (which, in turn, would hopefully lead to her retirement). The trickiest part would be to modify the memories of his squad and delete any trace of this mission from their brains. Tricky, but not impossible.

  After two days of travel in disguise, Cephal checked in at Darlac's outpost near the entrance of the Valley. As he was the second most important person in the barony, one step above Darlac in seniority, the soldiers knew better than to ask questions or try to stop him. He picked up Velainah and the rest of the squad there (a fighter, a cleric and two rogues), and after a dinner of lizard stew, they headed out to the gates.

  Cephal wrapped himself up tightly in his cloak, looking up to the tops of the tors that seemed to disappear into the sky.

  "So you climbed up here, right?" he muttered.

  "Yes," said the girl, twirling her thick braid around her hand. "Although it felt like I was hauled up rather than climbed."

  "That's a shame. I was counting on you hauling me up. Do you think your enhanced abilities are up to the task?" For a while, Cephal enjoyed the effect of his words on his apprentice, then he relented. "Just kidding. Obviously, we won't climb like some barefoot urchins getting into a forbidden orchard. We'll use the gates, like the decent folks we are. If anyone else wants to use them, the garrison is there to stop them right away. Are you ready?"

  "Almost," said the girl. "There is just one thing that bothers me."

  Cephal turned towards her, granting her his undivided attention. In fact, deep inside he felt thankful for the possibility to dilly-dally a little. Darlac hadn't lied about the evil aura radiating from the place. The rest of the squad stood at ease. Their posture was faultlessly disciplined, but their eyes reflected an unease clearly visible even in the dark.

  "Ask away."

  "We are preparing to steal a powerful artifact from a lich. What if it's his phylactery? The lich can't be destroyed while the phylactery is intact. Which means you won't be able to use it for your own purposes for too long. Either you'll need to destroy it, and then kill the lich, or he will come for you and take it back."

  Cephal sighed. The girl was smart, but she still had a long way to go.

  "Good thinking, Velainah. Now tell me, if you were a powerful wizard in possession of a rare and highly coveted artifact, and decided to become a lich, would you choose to store a portion of your soul in said artifact?"

  "I would," said the girl without much thinking. "If I have to guard an artifact plus a phylactery with my life, that's twice the effort. Two items to keep an eye on. Being a cyclops, that must be super hard. I would prefer to guard only one object, and use the extra energy to subjugate the world or something."

  "So you would put all your eggs in one basket, just to save some energy. Well, I wouldn't. If my phylactery were to lure dozens of adventurers into my lair, that would be much more wasteful of energy than guarding two objects. My phylactery would be something unpleasant and unwanted, something nobody in their right mind would want to steal and own. An unskilled painter's portrait of my ugly grandmother, for instance. In this way, if a lucky adventurer makes off with the artifact, or even destroys it, I only lose face, but not the token of my survival. So rest assured, we will not steal a phylactery. If we find one, we destroy it without further ado. I promise."

  Velainah seemed to be convinced. She drew herself up to her full height, which was still a good span shorter than Cephal himself.

  "All right, then. Let's do it!"

  Cephal gathered the squad around himself, produced his first scroll from its case, and handed it over to the cleric, a freckled young gnome named Lysander. As he recited the incantation, Cephal and the others were enveloped by a reassuring sense of protection. In this hellhole of giant zombies, no one would be able to spot them.

  And now, the staff.

  The Old Stump cult leader's weapon had helped Cephal get into Lostlarn Keep, even though that was not a cyclopean tomb, and the synergy opening up the entrance had probably been part of the elaborate system of deception created by the fey. It was worth a try to see if the same staff could grant him passage into the Valley.

  Cephal touched the skull on top of the staff to the invisible line where the two halves of the gate met. Nothing happened. The gate didn't budge. Not even a circle of glyphs flared to life in some fancy colour.

  "Master Lorentus, shouldn't you make darkness first?" wondered Velainah. "If it worked for Gunderson..."

  Cephal silenced her with a glare. He had only so much patience for unnecessary questions. Of course he would make darkness, or more exactly, have Lysander make it. It was anyone's guess why clerics could create deeper darkness than wizards, using the very same spell components, but only this advanced version of the spell could make the night darker than it already was and force the gate open. He handed another scroll to the cleric.

  The gnome chose a random piece of rock as an anchor for the spell and placed it in front of the gate. Down on his knees, holding a hand on the rock, he read out the spell from the scroll, while Cephal congratulated himself for choosing a version written in fluorescent ink that reacted to starlight.

  The world became pitch-dark. Cephal hardly had time to back away from the gate before its two halves parted from each other and slowly slid open, without a single sound. Velainah stepped up beside him, and he leant on her briefly, until he regained his balance. One last glance at the cloud of blackness between the gates now thrown wide open, and they took the first steps into adventure, hand in hand, with their four companions in tow.

  A shadow swooped down from the starlit sky, and a strange, inhuman voice spoke.

  "The gates are open. It is time for the guests to come."

  A sudden, splitting headache pierced Cephal's brain, as if sharp nails were being hammered into both of his eyes. He faintly heard Velainah's squeal of agony by his side. How could this happen? Greater Hide from Undead should have kept them hidden even if they had pounced on a zombie cyclops and jumped up and down on its fat belly, let alone while casting a harmless spell.

  This was the last question he could form in his mind. The rest was nothing but one single command, brooking no resistance.

  Come.