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uch tableware is expensive. I’m sure you understand. My glasses are my business, you see. Perhaps we can come to an agreement? Business is hit or miss these days. I have just the thing here. You’ll be right as rain.”

Reina waited for the multitude of words to subside, much as she might wait for the last glops of sludge to fall from an empty well bucket. Enken’s nose wrinkled as he wondered how anyone could hear the man over the sound of his moustache.

The proprietor held up a short, wide glass as if for auction. “My price for my finest glassware is one copper monarch.”

Unfortunately for the proprietor, naming a price in the presence of Reina of Kulnas was like dangling a canary before a starving alley cat. She approached negotiations like a mongoose. The outcome was never in question. Only the speed and direction of the decisive strike.

The end of the Vicereine’s staff punched the wooden floor of the tavern, making a hollow sound. The very moment those between the door and the proprietor realized she was coming their way, spilled drinks and at least one overturned chair marked their escape.

As Reina slowly walked from the door to the bar, the patrons gave her considerable deference. Her robes scathed the floor. The sound was both unpleasant and ominous. She used her staff as a mountain climber might use a pick.

As hard as he tried, the proprietor still couldn’t see more than Reina’s chin until she reached the bar and raised her head slightly.

“I am not in the habit of paying for simple reagents. Perhaps I can conjure what I need.”

The proprietor’s skin began to crawl.

“Now to the best of my recollection, conjuring a fine drinking glass is a rather complex spell. It requires a living component.”

Reina’s voice lingered over her words, as if she were savoring her advantage. Her eyes met his.

“To complete my work I will require five human teeth.”

The proprietor slammed the base of the glass down on the bar and held on to it as if he were trying to recover from a wave of nausea. A nervous tick was causing his right eye to flutter, and his upper lip curled involuntarily. He pulled his hand away as Reina reached for the glass.

Enken looked over the Vicereine’s shoulder, then moved a chair to make room next to her.

“I will be quick about my business,” she said, taking the glass in her pale hand. His eyes rose, and a fresh wave of sickness overcame him as looked into the face of the jawless skull atop Reina’s staff.

The Vicereine examined the glass carefully, then turned slowly to one side and tossed it lightly into the air. Several people in the room jumped at the shattering sound. The proprietor closed his eyes and muttered to himself.

Reina’s eyes focused on the shards scattered around her feet. She identified the largest piece of glass on the floor, then brought the full measure of her powers to bear, gathering the flickering light from the room and altering it. She reached beyond the physical realm with her mind and one by one, she adjusted each dim beam of light to pass through the broken shards of glass and reveal what was beyond her sight.

The glass shards darkened, and clouds passed through them. Reina was looking down on an ocean at night, with each shard showing a different region of the water. Enken frowned, and then his eyes widened in recognition. A three-masted wooden ship.

“They are underway,” Enken said.

Reina’s mind reached deeper into the darkness, and the ocean faded. When her vision re-focused, she could see six people standing on the deck of the ship. One held a colorful jeweled Lantern. It’s light glowed through the broken glass and brightened the wooden floor of the tavern.

“If we do not reach the Gray Coral Strand in time to greet them, they will not survive,” Reina said quietly.

The Vicereine reached into her coin purse and drew an object from it carefully. She placed a crown-emblazoned silver coin on the bar. A month’s wages for a tavern keeper.

“My apologies for the mess.”

The patrons watched with a combination of dread and curiosity as the dusty-robed woman made her way back to the door and waited for Enken to hold it open. The proprietor finally exhaled as the last of her robes passed the edge of the doorjamb. Enken followed her outside.

Nobody spoke.

Continue to Chapter Seven

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oo dangerous, Excellency,” Enken said. “You know what happened the last time.”

“If I can sense the treasures have been discovered, so can our enemies,” the dark-cowled woman replied. She walked slowly, using her gnarled, tall, skull-capped staff step by step for support. “I must know what is happening aboard that ship.”

Enken stepped deftly through small groups of people, trying his best to clear a path for his benefactress. The Prince Branven Square marketplace was always crowded. The noise and the ever-present pall of cooking fires, perfumes both pleasant and unpleasant, and the damp odors of a dozen species of livestock made early evening in the Gacenar capital an inconvenient series of surprises for both the customers and the merchants.

“Wouldn’t seeing be as good as being there?” he asked, grinning as if he had just solved one of the great mysteries of life.

Reina’s expression was not visible under the shadows of her cowl, but Enken optimistically presumed she was pleased. She wore long, dusty, tattered robes and heavy twin iron chains around her waist. Her cloak and cape were made of the finest taire cloth: shining black with deep purple lining, and embroidered with silverhair. An expensive-looking scabbard holding a finely crafted dagger hung from her waist.

“I need talonwater to scry into another dimension,” Reina replied. “Brewing the reagents would take weeks.”

“But that’s only if you require a portal as well, is it not?” Enken asked.

“I have often wondered why you never embarked on a study of the arcane,” Reina replied. “Your aptitude is considerable.”

“Let’s step inside the Plum Barrel,” Enken said, relieved to have an excuse to veer off from his course straight into the teeth of the slow-motion human stampede.

Enken was Reina’s Chamberlain. His duty was to represent her office when she was not able. He also felt a keen instinct to protect her from the many dangers she and her people faced. Nevertheless, he forced himself to refrain from offering her a hand up the steps. Enken had learned long ago that despite her apparent frailty, the Vicereine of Kulnas did not appreciate being treated as if she were too weak to stand. Movement was difficult and often painful, but it was something she was prepared to face if the destination was worthwhile. After a few slow, climbing steps with the support of her staff, Reina and Enken reached the door of the Plum Barrel.

The sound of conversation and activity in the tavern abruptly ceased as the Vicereine passed the threshold into the main parlor. The lamps inside actually dimmed. The table of patrons nearest the door emptied, and its former occupants wended their way through the crowd to the farthest corners, carrying their flagons and looking back over their shoulders as they scurried away.

“I’ll be a–” the proprietor muttered, just before his face almost literally exploded into a forced smile. “Excellency! How good of you to join us! Have a little of our apple wine. It takes the chill off a dusky winter’s–”

Reina stood in the doorway. Her staff loomed over her. A few grayish-white locks of hair curled from under her cowl. The proprietor’s face seemed to slide down his skull as his eyebrows flattened. Every person in the room stared.

The gold, gemstones and silver of the rings on all four fingers of Reina’s gray-skinned left hand caught the light of the small lamps on each of the Plum Barrel’s tables. On anyone else’s person, such an opulent display of wealth might have been considered rude. On a Scribe Arcanist’s fingers, however, valuable-looking rings and chains were just as often reminders that some of the deadliest weapons needed neither bulk nor edge.

The proprietor swallowed and gritted his teeth behind closed lips. It seemed as if a ball of ice had formed in his throat. He was a portly man: tall and loud. His garish, untamed moustache and beady expression found themselves at home on a man whose sole occupation was pouring liquids from bottles and encouraging cheap iniquities with guffaw and glad-hand.

“What can I offer you?” He managed to exhale the words as if each were casks of sopwater he was pushing over a muddy barricade.

“I require a fine water glass,” Reina replied.

Continue to Chapter Six