A triumphant cheer went up when the group’s final contingent swung open the mess hall door. Everyone had gathered around the dining table, eager to begin the celebration on their return.

  “What took you so long?” Whydah chirped. “We thought maybe you got lost on the way back. The rest of us have been here for almost an hour!”

  Iskvold sprang from her seat, setting down her cup before picking up two of the three others that stood as sentries guarding a half-filled bottle of wine. Two empty bottles stood nearby. In the center of the table, on proud display, sat the grey stone studded in glittering yellow crystals. The drow forced the mugs into Tsuta and Glynfir’s hands before returning silently for the third, passing it to the tabby before raising her own into the air.

  “Our compliments to Halisk for sneaking a few bottles of Segwyn’s fine wine into the supply caravan.” She tipped her glass in the ranger’s direction, receiving an acknowledging nod in response, and pivoted back to the room. “And a toast to our first successful grift! I’ll admit, I had my doubts, despite our triumphant half-assery in battle. But, it just proves what we’re capable of when we put our full asses behind a well-designed plan,” she lifted her mug in Bird’s direction, “and trust in each other,” she swung the glass toward Whydah.

  Egged on by hoots and table slapping, completely oblivious to the stone-faced expressions and slumped shoulders of her returning colleagues, the drow continued.

  “Finally, I think we need a shoutout for the gnomish demon killer—the only one of us to take out a demon single-handedly—Lunish! Cheers!”

  She swept her arm in an arc across all assembled before finally noticing her friends at the door weren’t joining in the jubilation.

  Her brow furrowed. “Tsuta, what’s wrong?”

  Triggered by her words, the others turned their full attention to the subdued trio. Tsuta shot a cautious glance at Glynfir, then Bird, who raised his eyebrows before tipping a silent down nod toward the assembled group. Letting out a long breath, eyes on the floor, the bald monk crossed the room, setting his mug on the table before slumping into an open spot on the bench. Noticing the three wine bottles, he reached out hesitantly before hurriedly tapping his index finger against the rim of each bottle from left to right, then again in reverse.

  “Uh oh,” Whydah whispered to the ranger, seated next to her. “It must be bad. I haven’t seen him do that in a very long time.” Segwyn cocked an eyebrow questioningly, and she quietly explained. “He calls it a compulsion; tapping and silently counting identical objects, he only does it when he’s really freaked out.”

  The room waited with bated breath while Tsuta considered his words. Bird and Glynfir moved behind him in support but remained standing. Locking eyes with Lunish, he finally spoke.

  “After you took off with the stone, a plane gate opened in the grasslands, and the Red Queen arrived to take possession of her prize.”

  Iskvold leaned in. “So, you know who she is?”

  “We do…” Bird confirmed before draining his mug.

  “Well, surely that’s good news!” Haft interjected, hands spread. “Now we know who’s behind all this.”

  “And who’s next on our list of names for a thorough ass-kicking!” Iskvold added smugly.

  The bald monk’s face twisted into a disapproving grimace.

  “She’s a lich!” The words tumbled from his lips, dropping a pall of silence over the room.

  Glynfir broke the stunned silence. “I’d bet she’s the original Red Queen, the one we read about in the Vault.”

  “From five hundred years ago?” Lunish asked incredulously. “Wait, what’s a lich?”

  Tsuta opened his mouth to explain, but struggled to find the words, leading Glamos to interject, his tail flicking widely across the floor behind him.

  “A very nasty piece of business,” he croaked, taking a deep breath. “A powerful wizard can trade their soul for immortality through a pact with one of the gods of the underworld, usually Orcus.” The draconian wizard raised his eyes from the table, scanning the room.

  “It rarely actually works, but when it does, the wizard becomes an immortal, undead monstrosity, physically resembling a decaying version of their former self. Mentally, they’re driven completely mad.”

  “How powerful are we talking here?” Segwyn asked.

  “We watched her incinerate about fifty gnolls and Sklir with a single lightning spell.” Tsuta quantified.

  The ranger pressed the issue. “Okay, but how about, let’s say, compared to a dragon?”

  Glamos gave him a long look. “If I were a betting man, my money would be on the lich every time. The dragon might win once, but being undead and immortal, the lich would rise again and have another go, for as long as it takes.”

  Iskvold’s tone was incredulous. “So, you’re saying we just stole from a warrior witch, way above our pay grade, and capable of conquering half of Siremiria when she was alive. Since then, just for good measure, she’s added immortality and insanity to her skillset?”

  “So it would seem.” Glamos nodded glumly, his reptilian lips tight, paler than usual.

  Lunish raised her hand in the air. “Um…it may actually be a bit worse than that.”

  “How could it possibly get any worse?” Segwyn challenged the gnome.

  Head lowered, she looked up at the table, eyes wide, cheeks slightly flushed. “Snuggles responded to me on my flight back to the abbey. It had completely slipped my mind until just now.” She drew a deep breath, letting out a long exhale before continuing. “You remember the Crimson Dominion, that cabal she asked about before? Well, she confirmed that they serve the Red Queen.”

  “Excellent, we’ve added a shadowy network of power-hungry assholes to our enemies' list.” Segwyn panned. “You’re right, that is worse.”

  The celebratory mugs of wine instantly became a coping mechanism as silence returned to the room.

  “We are so screwed,” Iskvold muttered under her breath just before Whydah spun in her chair, her angry gaze leveled on Bird.

  Sensing her fury, the tabby turned, raising one hand, palm spread, attempting to hold her at bay. Red-faced, she leaped from her chair, quickly closing the short distance between them. Her fists pummeled his chest in frustration. “Teffel’s fourth rule! This is your fault! You should have known better!”

  For his part, Bird allowed her to vent, absorbing the blows with an occasional wince. He bowed his head. “I know, I know…”

  “What’s Teffel’s fourth rule?” Glynfir asked the cat, having taken a step back to avoid the halfling’s barrage.

  His tone was resigned as he answered between strikes.

  “Always know who you’re stealing from.”

  “Great thought… a bit late now!” Lunish chirped, shaking her head, “If we somehow make it out of this alive, remind me to get a complete list of those rules before we attempt any more of your bright ideas!”

  Seeing the group’s ire turn on the tabby, Glynfir jumped in. “It might not be as bad as all that. They may not know who we are.”

  The gnome’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean ‘may not’? Tell me she didn’t see you, Glynnie?”

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  “Well…” The wizard stretched the word in hesitation, his features contorted in a wince. “We were a long way away and well hidden…”

  Lunish read her friend like a book. “But…?”

  “But she did speak telepathically to all three of us.”

  “What did she say?” Haft asked from across the table.

  Tsuta met his master’s gaze, flatly repeating the Red Queen’s warning. “Don’t think yourselves clever or hidden, little ant. Shall I raise my boot again?”

  Glamos raised one icy eyebrow, tilting his head in a thoughtful frown. “Okay, that’s a fairly generic threat. She may have sensed you all were there and bluffed, to hold you at bay without knowing exactly what, or who, you were.”

  Glynfir nodded. “That’s what we figured as well, talking about it on the way back.”

  Pushing away from Bird, Whydah turned to the group, reaching across the table to grab the stone. “You’re all missing the bigger picture. Even if she didn’t know then, it’s going to be right at the top of her ‘to-do’ list when she realizes we have this stupid stone.”

  The ranger jumped to his feet, snapping his fingers and pointing at Whydah. “She’s right.”

  “That’s hardly a revelation at this point,” Iskvold said flippantly.

  “No, no, not that we have it,” Segwyn waved her off dismissively, “the fact that it’s the key to the situation, and maybe our best chance of staying alive.” He began to pace, eyes flicking back and forth. “Before the three of you returned, we cast magic detection and identification spells on that stone and came up empty, but we didn’t know then that the Red Queen was a lich.” He raised a single finger into the air. “So, the critical question is—why would an already powerful and immortal creature be so fixated on acquiring something as basic as that rock?”

  Letting the question hang, the ranger glanced around the room, seeking any opinion.

  Tsuta, head lowered in thought, was the first to speak. “Well, it wouldn’t be for its monetary value. The undead generally don’t have much interest in wealth, except for vampires, of course. Plus, the stone shows no sign of precious metal or diamonds.”

  “I agree,” Glamos chimed in. “What liches care about more than anything is protecting their immortality and gaining magical power or influence. You have to be incredibly driven and arrogant to contemplate becoming a lich in the first place.” He shrugged, “Their motivations are usually grounded in ambition, revenge, domination, or something similar. So, they’re drawn to magical research, or artifacts of great power that directly serve their twisted ends.”

  “But there’s nothing magical about it, we checked. It’s just an ordinary stone.” Lunish reminded him.

  Seated with the other acolytes at the end of the table, Usha spoke hesitantly, her voice timid. “It’s not exactly an ordinary stone.” All eyes turned toward the dwarven initiate.

  “What do you mean, Raven?” Tsuta asked on behalf of the group.

  Usha fidgeted in her seat, a slight flush creeping over her face. Her eyes darted among the stern faces around the table, all leveled intently on her. She reached out her open hand toward Whydah. “May I?” The bard strode around the table, passing over the leaden grey sphere.

  The dwarf held it aloft, rotating her hand as she scrutinized its surface. “This stone isn’t natural to Venn. It’s not from here.”

  Glynfir’s brows furrowed. “How do you know?”

  “First off, there are no yellow crystals that form in an iron base like this. You can find pyrite, or fool’s gold, but that appears more metallic. There’s also lots of limonite around, but that looks more like an orange dust on the surface of the rock.”

  “Are you sure?” Bird pressed, unconvinced.

  Lunish quickly shut the tabby down. “Never argue with a dwarf about stone!”

  “You said, ‘first off’,” Segwyn prompted her. “Do you have a second point?”

  Usha nodded, her voice strengthening. “Do you see how shiny and smooth the surface is? That means it has been exposed to intense heat, natural or magical. You wouldn’t find a stone like that in the ground anywhere, except maybe near a volcano. Given where you got it, I would say this is almost certainly a meteorite.”

  She set the stone back on the table while everyone silently digested this new information.

  “So, maybe it’s a material component the Red Queen needs for some spell she has developed?” Glamos offered.

  “But how did she even know it was there or what properties it had?” Tsuta challenged.

  “Maybe she saw it land back when she was alive,” Iskvold suggested. “We found no mention of a meteor in that area during our research, but the Siremerian tribes weren’t exactly reliable scholars five hundred years ago.”

  Glamos built on the idea. “If it broke apart on the way down, as meteors often do, and she acquired a fragment at the time, she could have learned its properties.”

  Glynfir’s face was creased in deep thought. Palms pressed together, thumbs tucked under his chin, the wizard’s lips bulged around the sides of his index fingers. He lowered his hands to speak, drawing an audible breath, then hesitating, mouth agape.

  “What is it, Mustache?” Tsuta prompted him.

  The wizard turned to face him. “There’s something that’s been bothering me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Do you remember when she unleashed her lightning into the crowd, back on the hillside?”

  “That visual is permanently burned into my memory, unfortunately,” the bald monk quipped in response.

  “When she cast the spell, I saw three distinct bolts of energy racing across the grass.”

  “Three?” Glamos parroted. “That’s not possible. The spell delivers a single bolt. Even if you throw more casting energy into it, it just becomes stronger, it doesn’t multiply.”

  Glynfir pointed at the draconian, nodding. “That’s exactly what I thought, yet I saw it with my own eyes. We also read an account, during our research, about her magic being ‘amplified’, somehow more powerful than a regular caster.”

  “What does any of that have to do with the stone?” Iskvold’s words were clipped and sharp.

  Glynfir smiled at the drow before turning to Usha. “Pass it here for a minute, please?”

  The dwarf handed it over. After hefting its weight in his hand, Glynfir held it up, gazing through the crystals.

  “What if she uses her piece as a spell focus, not for its raw materials? I know she casts through her scepter, because I watched her, and there is a stone on its tip, but we were too far away to get a good look.”

  “Only one way to find out.” Glamos prompted him. “But if you’re right, we aren’t the only ones with a big problem.”

  “I’ll try it with a basic invisibility spell that should only allow me to affect one person.”

  The wizard began muttering the words of the incantation, the fingers of his left hand dancing with a purple glow. Everyone watched with anticipation as he released the spell through the stone. His eyes went wide in mental recognition, mustache stretching into a grin as he stepped behind Bird. Touching the tabby’s shoulder, the cat expectedly disappeared. The wizard then continued working his way around the table, tapping Whydah, Tsuta, Haft, Iskvold, and Glamos. All five also vanished.

  When Glynfir released the spell with a slow blink, his six friends reappeared. Glamos let out a low, slow whistling sound.

  The faces of all the casters around the table were ashen.

  “I don’t get it.” Bird blurted in confusion. “What’s the issue?”

  “The issue is,” Glamos spoke slowly, considering his words, “what the World’s Okayest Wizard just did, completely broke the rules of magic as we know it.”

  “In Common, please, for the non-casters in the room…” Haft urged.

  Tsuta, repaying the draconian’s earlier favor, took over the explanation. “The laws of magic are very consistent. If you use the same spell, you get largely the same results. Anyone casting invisibility, like Mustache just did, should use the same amount of magical energy and get the same return—the ability to turn one person invisible.” Tsuta pointed to the stone. “Using that as a focus, and because of the properties of those alien crystals, he got six times the return for the same single casting event, using the same amount of magical energy.”

  Recognizing Bird’s confused look, the bald monk spoke directly to him. “Imagine you had a sword that struck six times with each swing, and you were the only person on the planet with that ability.”

  The cat nodded in recognition. “I’d be almost unstoppable.”

  “Now, let’s give that advantage to a lich—evil, powerful, immortal, and crazy.” The bald monk continued, his eyebrows raised in emphasis. “The strongest spells take such a toll that they can only be cast once per day. The fragment she’s using now gives her three results for that single spell, which is how she attacked the beacons simultaneously.” He pointed to the stone a second time. “That piece would give her six.”

  “So, possessing that stone would make her twice as powerful as she is now?” Haft asked.

  “Yes.” Glynfir chimed in. “And the one she already has makes her three times stronger than a standard run-of-the-mill lich, or any other arcane caster for that matter.”

  “So, if we hadn’t stolen it…” Bird mused, letting the words hang.

  “She’d be a serious threat to the entire continent, maybe all of Venn,” Glamos finished the sentence.

  “I feel like we need to update the previously articulated definition of how screwed we are.” Iskvold panned, counting out the points on her fingers. “We just grifted an evil, undead, immortal lich, three times stronger than the garden variety, who also happens to command a shadowy network of malevolent operatives.” She paused, looking to the others for confirmation before continuing.

  “You forgot insane,” Lunish muttered sheepishly.

  The drow’s volume rose as she swept a hand toward the gnome in acknowledgement. “And insane! Thank you, Lunish!” She shook her head in frustration. “And, if she somehow manages to take back this stone from little old us, she would then double again in power, immediately becoming a global-level threat. Does that effectively sum it up?”

  The long faces and nods around the table confirmed her assessment.

  “Great!” Iskvold declared sarcastically. “So, what do we do now?”

  “Well, we’re obviously not going to give it back with an apology note,” Segwyn quipped. Turning to Glamos, Tsuta, and Glynfir, he asked, “Do you think we could beat her with that thing? I mean, our stone is bigger than her stone…”

  The two wizards exchanged a questioning glance. Glynfir deferred to the wizened draconian to offer an answer.

  “Maybe once, with some help, or if we got lucky, but as with your dragon question earlier, she would just come back, angrier.”

  “Unless we find and destroy the source of her immortality first,” Tsuta speculated.

  “We’re not seriously considering taking on a lich, are we? Why not just give the stone to someone stronger?” Lunish pleaded. “Let them deal with it and walk away from this whole business?”

  “That could work too,” Glamos admitted. “As long as they aren’t part of her Crimson Dominion, or we don’t inadvertently replace one tyrant with another through our magical king-making. But that won’t stop her from coming for us. Make no mistake, she will seek vengeance; it’s the very nature of a lich. They never forgive or move on.”

  The ranger frowned, shaking the empty third bottle. “Whatever we do, we’re definitely going to need more wine.”

  End of Book One

  The Glimmerstone Enigma?

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