If you’ve been following along with the weekly serial chapters, first of all—thank you. Seeing your comments, theories, and reactions as The Unexpected Vanguard unfolds has been incredible.

As we continue marching through the serial release of Book 2 - The Siremirian Conundrum (Next chapter tomorrow!), I’ve reached an exciting milestone: the complete, polished version of Book 1 - The Glimmerstone Enigma is locked in and ready for a wide release launch. I’d really appreciate your help to secure a strong send-off!

As an indie author publishing under a pen name, early reviews are the absolute lifeblood of a book’s survival.

How You Can Help (Two Ways!)

1. Already completed or reading The Glimmerstone Enigma? Drop a review!

If you’ve been following along with the weekly chapters and enjoying the ride, you don’t need a new file to help out. Head over to Goodreads (or your favorite non-Amazon retailer!) and drop an honest review based on your impressions of the book. That early social proof is absolute gold for an indie launch!

Goodreads

B&N/Apple/Kobo

2. Want the complete, polished final file right now? Join the ARC team.

If you haven’t started yet or prefer to binge-read the book and want to grab an Advance Review Copy in exchange for a review, I have a tightly capped batch of 50 download links available via BookFunnel.

Because I want to make sure these go to active reviewers, just drop a comment below or shoot me a DM, and I’ll send you a secure download link for the ARC EPUB file.

Thank you all so much for being here from the very beginning and helping bring this adventure to life.

Happy Reading,

Bryn

The Siremirian Conundrum is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and read Book 1 - The Glimmerstone Enigma, first!

[View the Table of Contents for The Siremirian Conundrum]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

Whydah covered a yawn with her palm, gazing off the deck at an overcast morning. The sky threatened more rain, and an occasional rumble of thunder could be heard in the distance, above the dripping trees. Iskvold let out a groan, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose as she joined her friend.

“I think I had too much wine last night. That Gondamn jug never seems to run dry!”

Whydah laughed. “I have a feeling it will find its way into someone’s pack when we hit the road this morning.”

“I have no doubt!” Iskvold agreed. “I think I remember Lunish shifting into an octopus and climbing onto the roof at one point. That happened, right?”

The halfling laughed again. “It certainly did. I’m not sure what was funnier, that, or Tsuta putting on the hat of disguise to do his Sifu Haft impression.”

The drow’s pink eyes narrowed. “Oh yeah! I forgot about that.”

“The way he waddled across the deck, hands behind his back, mustache twitching fiercely!” Whydah mimicked the bad monk’s pantomime from the evening before.

“Stop!” Iskvold begged, her hand cradling her head as she giggled. “My head is splitting, and laughing makes it worse! Anyone else up yet?”

The bard shook her head. “Not that I’ve seen, but I didn’t wander around inside the house; it’s very large and spread out and my hangover isn’t helping. I was just happy to find my way back here this morning.”

As she finished speaking, the door opened slowly, and Glynfir shuffled out of the house, his left wrist pinned tightly to his chest.

“Morning, Glynnie!” Whydah greeted him.

The wizard winced with each step, his face twisted with pain. “Morning. I think I dislocated my shoulder last night, somehow.”

“I don’t think there is any mystery there, Mustache,” Iskvold teased him. “You took a header off the deck. We tried to help you, but you were having none of it, swore you were fine.”

Bewilderment swept his facial features. “I don’t remember that at all. But it would explain why I found bits of white gravel in my ear this morning,” he mused.

Looking around, the wizard’s face brightened. “Lulu isn’t up yet? I can’t wait to rub it in how I was ready to go before she was!”

“Fat chance, Glynnie!” The gnome’s voice called from the garden before its owner strode into view, her eyes bright, and her pace brisk. “I’ve been up for over an hour, just communing a bit more with nature.” She gave Iskvold a wink.

Whydah admired the druid’s composure with incredulity. “Are you not hungover at all?”

Lunish shook her head. “Maybe the wildshape absorbs some of it, I don’t know,” she said idly, already reaching for Glynfir’s shoulder, green energy sparking from her fingertips. “Hold still!” she chided him.

The wizard braced himself on a chair with his good arm before Lunish released the spell. The magic’s euphoria swept through his body, resulting in an involuntary eruption of laughter. Immediately raising his newly socketed arm to his forehead, Glynfir’s mouth fell open. “I think you cured my hangover as well, Lulu—that’s brilliant!”

Iskvold’s eyebrows arched. “Really?” she turned to Lunish. “Can you do me next, please? I don’t want to hurl during the ride to Chagrothlond.”

The druid rolled her eyes and shook her head before stepping wordlessly to the drow and repeating the spell. When her latest patient began to giggle in satisfaction, she turned and cocked one eyebrow questioningly at Whydah.

The halfling held up her hands. “I’m okay, but thanks.”

“So, this is what we’ve been reduced to?” Segwyn’s voice echoed off the towering redwoods as he and Bird came around the corner of the house, leading the horses. “Using our magic to cure hangovers?”

“Don’t judge me!” Iskvold fired back, a smile on her face. “It’s in Lunish’s best interest that I don’t toss my cookies while riding on her back. I was primarily looking out for her!”

“Uh-huh.” Segwyn deadpanned before breaking into a grin. “Don’t worry.” He tipped his head toward Bird. “I took care of ours a few minutes ago in the stables.”

The drow backhanded him playfully on the shoulder.

“Anyone seen our bald friend yet this morning?” Bird asked. “We should get going soon.”

Blank looks and shaking heads preceded Segwyn exhaling a long breath and handing his reins to Bird. “I’ll go find him,” he said over his shoulder as he disappeared into the house. “Plus, I think there should be some breakfast for us.”

A minute later, the ranger reemerged carrying a fistful of linen bundles, with Tsuta in his wake.

“So, where was he?” Whydah asked curiously.

Segwyn shook his head. “Counting the books in the library.”

Tsuta shrugged. “It’s a huge and confusing house. I ended up in the library and decided to sit tight. I knew one of you would come and get me eventually.”

The ranger distributed the linen breakfast bundles, and in short order, gear was packed, steeds were mounted, and the group trotted off through the wet overcast morning for the garrison town of Chagrothlond.

Like many of its contemporaries, Chagrothlond’s civilian population lived outside its walls. All manner of homes, pubs, and shops framed the fort’s open South Gate, bustling with the normal activities of a weekday afternoon as the group reached the outskirts. Horse-drawn livery carts dotted the sides of the main road, their contents in the process of being unpacked at final destinations.

The town was divided into named quarters, based on which wall of the fort provided the neighborhood backdrop. The eastern and western quarters were largely residential, with the town’s more affluent inhabitants preferring the quieter western side. By contrast, the southern and northern quarters held the concentration of the area’s commerce. The main road funneled finished goods north, with many waggoners carrying on through Stonebreach Pass to the Siremirian river city of Irdri. Southbound traffic consisted largely of produce and agricultural goods ultimately bound for Buhlent or Glahaneth.

“How do we find Ferrier in all this?” Iskvold asked aloud, her open hand circling the town’s bustle.

“We did our homework last time we were here,” Lunish offered, “and I know for a fact he’s not registered with the commerce council.”

“That reminds me, Lulu,” Glynfir interjected. “They’re probably still looking for us. We should keep a low profile, particularly around the guards.”

Lunish tossed her head, flicking the twin red braids over her shoulder. “They mistook me for a ‘grubby little boy’ the last time we were here. You’ll forgive me if I’m not shaking in my boots at their stunning powers of observation,” the gnome scoffed with a snort. “But you should change up your look, Glynnie; they may have a better memory for someone who took their money gambling. You couldn’t just lose a bit on purpose, could you?” she scolded.

The wizard shook his head, adding an eye roll. “That totally defeats the purpose of gambling! Don’t worry, I’ve got a disguise spell ready just in case.”

“If he’s lying low, we’ll need to find him the old-fashioned way, beat the bushes and see what shakes out,” Segwyn mused, turning to the group. “Unless one of you has some magic that can help?”

Pensive looks gave way to silent head shakes before he spoke again. “Right, I suggest we split up. We’re one short of working in pairs…”

“Which part of town is the dodgiest?” Bird asked.

Glynfir answered immediately. “Definitely the north, it’s also called the wild quarter by the locals.”

The cat nodded. “I’ve got some personal business with the local guild that I need to see to. I’ll take that quarter on my own if you want to split up and cover the others?”

Quizzical looks didn’t prompt him to say anything more.

“You making a deposit?” Whydah whispered in his direction, drawing a subtle nod from the tabby in response.

“How about we mix it up a little to make ourselves less recognizable, maybe split up the monks and Lunish and Glynfir?” Segwyn suggested, breaking an uncomfortable moment of silence. “I can go with the wizard, Tsuta with Lunish, and Whydah with Iskvold? That way, every pair can also magically message the others.”

“Works for me,” Glynfir said before Tsuta and Lunish locked eyes with a shared nod.

Iskvold made a fist, offering it in Whydah’s direction without looking. “Roper and the Wheelwoman, together again!”

The halfling smiled, completing the fist bump. “I promise I’ll try not to lose you this time!”

Tsuta took the reins of the horses from the others, then turned back to Lunish. “I’ll drop them at the livery, then we can take this quarter, Braids?”

“Sure,” the gnome confirmed.

“East or West?” Segwyn asked Glynfir.

“Let’s go east,” the wizard confirmed.

“Great,” Whydah said. “We’ll take west.”

Segwyn pointed across the street towards a pub, where a wooden sign boasting a graphic image of a crushed orc head hung above the awning. “Meet here at the Smashed Skull, at, say, sundown?”

“Stay in touch, and whoever finds him, we converge on their position,” Bird reminded everyone. “Remember, we want to learn everything we can about the Crimson Dominion, the size of their network, how they operate, how they communicate with the Red Queen, anything that might help us figure out how to place an inside man or woman into the organization.”

Convinced everyone was clear on the objective, the tabby offered a final nod. “All right, I’m off to the wild quarter. Good luck, everyone!” Turning on his heel, Bird stepped across the busy road and disappeared into the crowd.

“What’s he up to?” Iskvold directed the question to Whydah, nodding in the direction of the cat’s disappearance. From the chorus of reactions, it was clear the rest shared her concern.

“What do you mean?” Whydah asked coyly, feigning confusion.

“Come on, Tiny,” Tsuta called the halfling out. “Personal business? Making a deposit? He’s been hyper-focused on getting to the bottom of this since the beginning, and all of a sudden, he’s distracted by a mysterious side quest. What gives?”

Whydah sized up the concerned faces for a long moment before taking a deep breath. “You can never tell him I told you,” she began hesitantly, pausing for reassurance. “He uses the Thieves Guild to send money back to his family.”

Lunish’s forehead wrinkled. “Why?”

“He feels guilty for making them flee Borenvale, give up everything after he pissed off a local lord. He left, thinking that would be the end of it, but instead they persecuted his family until they all fled to Midcalse, in Brieborn.” She shrugged. “So, whenever we’re in a town big enough to support the Guild, he deposits all his coin. They transfer it to their sister organization in Brieborn, where his mother picks it up.”

“That actually sounds really noble. Why wouldn’t he want us to know? Is he ashamed of what he did?” Iskvold wondered.

Whydah snorted. “Not at all. In fact, when we perform, he tells the whole story with pride. At this point, I know all the details by heart.” Her eyes shifted up and to the left, reflecting for a moment. “I think it’s an image thing. He comes across as this ruthless cutthroat burglar, and doesn’t want anyone to think otherwise.” She raised her eyebrows. “I think he’s afraid of looking weak or vulnerable.”

“I never noticed any of this when we were adventuring before,” Tsuta said. “How long has it been going on?”

“As long as I’ve known him,” Whydah admitted, “which is the other thing. They’ve had more than a year to get back on their feet, but they maintain they still need help, and he refuses to cut them loose. I think they’re exploiting his guilt at this point, but that’s another story.”

“Well, everyone’s got their reasons for doing what they do,” Segwyn stated, trying to end the gossip session. “We’re burning daylight standing around here. I suggest we get on with the task at hand—finding Garrett Ferrier and making him tell us everything he knows about the Dominion. Or do I need to remind you all that there’s a lich after us?”

Breaking into their assigned pairs, the group went their separate ways to scour the town for their only lead.

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Unexpected Vanguard Trilogy began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire series free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Siremirian Conundrum is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and read Book 1 - The Glimmerstone Enigma, first!

[View the Table of Contents for The Siremirian Conundrum]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

“This is what you call a summer cabin?” Iskvold slowly shook her head, taking in the landscape. The group stood in awe at the gravel entry to the Eldracum country estate. A crushed white stone walkway cut a path beyond the opening in the high privacy hedges of thick green holly. Beyond the natural barrier, lush, mature gardens lined both sides of the path, welcoming visitors with manicured beds of countless colorful flowers, bushes, and shrubs.

Fifty yards in, the path ended at a covered outdoor seating area. Open to the garden, its raised stone front transitioned immediately to a living space, complete with divans and chairs, all positioned to take advantage of the surrounding natural beauty. A pitched roof held up by exposed pillars offered protection from the elements while preserving a light and airy aesthetic. Beyond the stone flooring, the entire façade and ceiling were finished in a rich, polished rosewood. The silver Eldracum hallmark—EE— gleamed proudly from the gable.

The rest of the home blended seamlessly into the surrounding stand of towering redwoods, making it difficult to tell where the dwelling ended and the forest began. Segwyn led his horse several steps into the gardens before realizing his friends remained at the hedge.

He turned, a frown of confusion on his face. “Well? Are you coming?”

“This is yours? Are you sure it’s okay?” Lunish asked in disbelief.

“Technically, it belongs to my family, but there’s no one here right now, except the staff, so, yes, it’s totally fine.”

“The staff?” Glynfir scoffed in disbelief, his feet still grounded just beyond the hedge. “Why didn’t you tell us you were rich?”

The ranger’s shoulders drooped as he waggled his index finger between himself and the rest of the group. Here we go again. “Because of this, right here.” He let out a long breath before continuing. “Your impression of me, and as a result, your behavior, changed immediately once wealth came into the picture.” Segwyn turned to face the others. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to outrun the shadow of my family’s money. It’s why I left the family business and became a ranger. I want to be seen for who I am, what I’ve done, without financial preconceptions.”

Iskvold scoffed a non-verbal grunt, subtly shaking her head, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

Segwyn’s chin rose in defiance. “What’s so funny?”

The drow held up her hands in surrender. “It’s just so ironic, how different we are.” She raked both hands through her white hair. “The only thing I’ve wanted, desperately for my whole life, was to find my parents—feel that sense of true belonging that comes from real family, unconditional love.” She swept her arm across the vista of the estate. “You have all that and then some, but want nothing more than to be free of it.” She smiled. “I would literally kill for the very thing you’re running from.”

As the others looked on, it was the ranger’s turn to scoff. “I think this is a conversation better had somewhere more comfortable.” He tilted his head toward the covered deck. “Over a glass of wine, perhaps? But what I will say is, you’re working from an ideal concept of family. Sometimes, unfortunately, the real thing falls woefully short of those expectations—your mother somehow being wrapped up in the Crimson Dominion, for example.” He spread his arms wide. “All I ask is that you allow my actions to shape your perception of who I am, not this.” He waved his hand dismissively in the direction of the estate.

“Good enough for me,” Bird said with a nod, the gravel crunching beneath the hooves of his mount as he stepped forward. A chorus of confirmations rose from the group, and the rest followed. Iskvold, lost in thought, brought up the rear.

Seeing her lag behind, Tsuta waited, silently counting the rivets on his horse’s reins. When she drew even, he put his hand on her shoulder. “You know, Pinky, sometimes the family you find is better than the one you inherit, precisely because you get to choose.”

Lunish stood, arms spread wide, fingers touching multiple plants in Segwyn’s garden. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. The sound of a hummingbird, the scent of fresh lavender, the texture of the leaves and stems against her fingertips, each drew her back, closer to her cosmic center with every breath. The frenetic pace and threat of the last twenty-four hours had exacted a heavy toll. Only now, as the knots in her shoulder slowly unwound, and the muscles in her abdomen finally started to relax, did she recognize the level of burden. Iskvold’s advice from the day before echoed in her mind. This is my inspiration, my distraction. It’s been right under my nose all along!

With a long exhale, she fished the sending stone from her pocket, its smooth surface cool against her skin. Eyes still closed, she concentrated on the stone.

Snuggles, RQ is a lich. Target was a meteorite, amplifying spells sixfold—now secured and hidden. Running for our lives. Any help appreciated.

When the familiar tingle at the base of her skull told her the message had been sent, she opened her eyes, a wide grin forming immediately as she refocused on the magnificence of the surrounding plant life. Exotic and rare botanicals flooded her vision, including some she had never seen up close before. The gnome immersed herself in the lush flora, carefully harvesting leaves, stems, flowers, and berries into her satchel. At one point, she lay flat on her back for several minutes, soaking up the rejuvenating connection to nature.

The others had all found comfortable seats on the deck, watching the druid frolic in the garden.

“So, where exactly are we right now?” Whydah asked.

“About two miles from the town center of Eredmire, in an area called The Old Growth,” Segwyn informed her as he gathered eight ceramic mugs from a shelf on the sidewall. “This neighborhood is mostly larger estates and summer homes.” Placing eight mugs on the table, he stepped to the opposite side of the seating area, carefully lifting an odd-looking ceramic jug from the shelf before setting it next to the mugs. A narrow, corked spout on the top was joined by nine more, protruding from the sides in random positions around the jug’s circumference. Small elven letters were scratched into the ceramic surface next to each corked spout.

Segwyn glanced around his audience of visitors. “Anyone care for a drink?”

“Look at you, going into host mode!” Iskvold teased. “What’s in the jug?”

“Many things,” the ranger replied with a mysterious smile. “We have beer, wine, and water.” He touched different spouts as he continued to itemize the list. “It can also produce honey, oil, vinegar, poison, acid, and, oddly, even mayonnaise.”

“Mmm, nothing like a tall, cool mug of mayonnaise on a warm summer morning!” Tsuta deadpanned. Bird and Glynfir both moved to the table for a closer look.

“Ooh! Is this a Jug of Alchemy? I’ve read about these.” The wizard hovered over the jug, his face beaming. Turning back to the group, he added, “It can magically produce any of those liquids even beyond the natural capacity of the jug itself.”

Bird looked quizzically at the ceramic vessel, lightly dragging his claw over the etched symbols. “What are these markings?”

“Labels,” the ranger confirmed. “Each spout provides a different liquid. My father found that out the hard way. He took a big swig of vinegar, expecting water. After that, we labeled the spouts.”

Bird nodded thoughtfully. “How does it work?”

“I give it the command to fill, and then you uncork the spout for whatever you want, and pour it out,” Segwyn replied.

“And it can make acid and poison, that we could put into vials, for later use?” the tabby pressed.

“I suppose,” the ranger said hesitantly. “We’ve never used it that way, but I don’t see why you couldn’t.”

“Interesting,” Bird drew the word out mysteriously before adding, “Have you got any empty vials?”

“Of course,” Segwyn confirmed, adding with a smile, “But, how about a drink before we start making weapons?” Giving the command, the ranger filled the jug and then seven mugs to order.

“Who’s the eighth mug for?” Whydah asked, nodding toward the extra vessel on the table.

“I’ve invited Eredmire’s lore keeper to join us. I thought he might have learned more about the Red Queen since we were last here, and provide a better understanding of phylacteries, assuming we’re serious about trying to disrupt her immortality?” He raised his eyebrows, inviting any objection from the group. The collective grumbled reply told him no one had come up with a better idea since they left the Luminarium.

“Master Lyraen?” Bird inquired, referring to the elder he and Segwyn had visited previously, while the others were scouring the Vault.

“The very same,” Segwyn confirmed.

Iskvold’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, how did you invite him over? You haven’t left our sight for more than a minute since we arrived.”

The ranger glanced sheepishly at his boots. “He has a property nearby, so I asked one of the staff to extend the invitation.”

“The staff. Of course.” Tsuta teased with a smile, raising his nose into the air and drawling an accent of Shan nobility. “You must tell me where you source your help. It’s been so difficult to find reliable staff lately, don’t you find, Tiny?”

Whydah giggled, extending her little finger as she raised her mug to her lips, taking a swallow before responding in a much more polished version of the same accent. “Indeed! It’s been positively dreadful these last few years. No one seems to want to work anymore!”

A shared, group laugh rose from the gazebo as Segwyn rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “That’ll be about enough of that, you two!”

Lunish stepped up onto the raised wooden patio, a wide smile on her face. “What’s so funny?”

Glynfir waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, we were just having some fun at Master Eldracum’s expense.” He shot the ranger a grin.

“Feeling better?” Iskvold asked the gnome.

“Yes, very much, thank you!” Lunish nodded toward the drow before exhaling a deep breath, “I think I’ve found my coping mechanism, thanks to you!”

“I’m glad!” Iskvold smiled as she crossed to the table, handing a mug to Lunish. “We took the liberty of pouring you a glass of wine.”

As the druid accepted the glass with a thankful nod, the crunch of gravel turned all eyes to the walkway. A figure dressed in green silken robes, carrying a curved wooden staff, stepped gingerly into the garden.

“Master Lyraen!” Segwyn called. “Thank you for coming!!”

The venerable wood elf strode slowly along the path toward the gazebo. He moved well for his considerable years. As he got closer, Iskvold noticed his skin—paler than anyone she had ever seen before, almost translucent. Piercing bright blue eyes made his elvish heritage unquestionable, but something was definitely different. Perhaps a sign of his advanced age?

The newcomer waited to respond until he approached the seating area, his voice soft and clear. “Mister Bird, nice to see you again.” He gave a polite nod. “Master Eldracum, your message said it was urgent…”

“Yes,” the ranger confirmed. “We seem to have developed a small lich problem.”

Lyraen’s eyes went wide in surprise, his glance darting among the others. Lingering on each of them only momentarily, Glynfir felt as though the old sage could see into his very soul.

Segwyn raised his palm. “Forgive my manners, I’m getting ahead of myself. Everyone, I’d like you to meet Lyraen Arnor, one of the oldest and certainly wisest elders in all of Eredmire. Lyraen is the community lore keeper, historian, and our head horticulturalist.”

Segwyn went around the room, making introductions. Finishing with Tsuta and Iskvold, Lyraen placed his hand on the ranger’s arm.

“You two are from the Luminarium, its only survivors?”

Iskvold nodded. “Not the only ones. Our abbey master—Sifu Haft—and six acolytes also survived.”

The old elf nodded slowly, holding her gaze. “On behalf of the Eredmire council, I would like to offer our deepest condolences for your loss. We were most concerned to hear of demons walking the prime material plane indiscriminately, randomly attacking our neighbors.” He turned back to Segwyn. “And now you say there is a lich involved?”

Segwyn took a deep breath. “You may want to sit down and have a glass of wine. It’s a bit of a long story…”

Bird helped Lyraen into a comfortable chair, pouring him a mug of wine before Segwyn began. The ranger shared all the salient learnings and developments from the last four days. Lyraen closed his eyes, fingers steepled in front of his chest as he listened intently. When the ranger finished, his eyes snapped open, his gaze once again sweeping the room, lingering on each member of the group, his face expressionless.

After a long moment, he spoke. “Just to make sure I have this right, you managed to steal a meteorite from under the nose of the original Red Queen of Siremiria, who you discovered is, in fact, now a lich. In so doing, you prevented her from attaining a level of power that would put the whole of Venn under threat.” His silver eyebrows arched, his eyes fixed to the floor. “And now you find yourselves, because of the stone, the object of her personal wrath as well as that of her mortal followers, this Crimson Dominion.” His head came up, scanning the audience once more. “You plan to destroy her by first removing the source of her immortality and then defeating her in battle, all the while remaining hidden from them and her.”

“When you say it out loud, it does sound insane,” Segwyn admitted. “But that’s the gist of it, yes.”

Lyraen let out a long breath, his cheeks ballooning. “That’s quite a pickle. You realize that merely by being here, you’re putting all of Eredmire in danger? Does she know who you are?”

“We don’t think so,” Glynfir replied before the ranger jumped back in.

“I know. We’re only staying the night, but we needed some guidance to help determine our next step, and I could think of no one better suited to provide it.” Segwyn flattered him.

The old elf grunted, shooting him a wry smile. “You’ve never changed. A silver-tongued boy grew into a silver-tongued man! How can I help?”

Tsuta picked up the question. “We know the phylactery is the key to a lich’s immortality, but we need to find it and destroy it. Where do we start?”

The elder’s eyes narrowed as he focused on Tsuta’s holy symbol. “You’re clerically trained, right?”

Tsuta nodded, his hand unconsciously sliding over his bald head, front to back. “Things just rapidly got out of my depth.”

Lyraen stood, picked up his mug, and stepped to the backside of the table, facing the entire group. “So, you all understand that a phylactery is the vessel that binds a lich’s soul, yes?” Eyebrows raised, he held up his half-filled mug in illustration, and everyone nodded. “Good,” he continued. “Now, to sustain itself indefinitely, a lich must also constantly consume souls–think of it like food or drink.” With a half-smile, he waggled the mug. “This is achieved by magically taking the souls of others and binding them inside the same phylactery, like the wine in this mug.” He drained the glass. “Once the lich has consumed a soul,” he displayed the empty mug to the room with the flourish of a stage magician, “it needs to steal another to continue sustaining itself.”

With a glance at the symbols etched on the jug, Lyraen pulled a cork and refilled his glass. “If the lich is destroyed, its own essence is returned to the phylactery, where the captured energy from stolen souls restores it. That’s what makes it the key to a lich’s immortality.” He sat back down in his chair and took a sip of wine.

“I understand that much,” Tsuta said patiently. “But what does it look like and where can we find it?”

Lyraen pointed his finger at the monk. “That, my bald friend, is the crux of your problem and what makes a lich such a menacing adversary…” He waved his hand dismissively. “…Aside from the insanity and immense magical potency, of course.” The pale elder leaned forward conspiratorially. “The phylactery will always be something important to the lich in life, but it can be virtually any object— a box, a locket, a ring, an amulet, even a painting, anything that can contain the inscriptions of the ritual.”

“Okayyyy,” Tsuta dragged the word out in frustration. “Where is it usually kept?”

Lyraen pursed his lips. “That’s the second piece of the puzzle, and you aren’t going to like this answer either.” Leaning forward, he pinched his thumb and forefinger together, tapping the air with precision as he continued. “Because it’s critical to their existence, liches tend to be very paranoid about their phylactery, keeping it somewhere extremely well protected—like in their lair, or the tomb where their mortal remains were buried. Regardless of where they choose, it will be very inaccessible, and most certainly guarded by magic, traps, and likely some powerful beasties.”

Tsuta let out a deep breath as he took in the long faces of his friends. “Let’s say we figure out what it is and manage to acquire it, then what? How do we destroy it?”

A sympathetic smile split the old elf’s face as he leaned back in his chair, his piercing blue eyes locked on the monk. “And that’s the third leg holding up the stool of your conundrum…You can’t just smash a phylactery with your staff and come home for tea. The means and method of destroying it are unique to each phylactery and known only to the lich and its creator, unless they tell someone, of course.”

Tsuta threw up his hands. “This is even worse than last time. We have to steal the most prized and heavily guarded possession from an undead being that can crush us like a bug, and even if we somehow survive, we don’t know how to destroy it.”

Lyraen nodded slowly. “I did say it was quite a pickle.”

Whydah spoke for the first time in several minutes. “If you were us, where would you start?”

The silver-haired wood elf looked at her, surprised by the insight of the question. He furrowed his brow in thought, his fingers steepled again in front of his chest. After several long moments, he answered. “Two things about liches are universally true—they all need to harvest mortal souls to feed, and they have to use the phylactery to do so.” His eyes narrowing, one translucent finger poked the air between himself and Whydah. “They also can’t do it alone without raising considerable suspicion, and it almost certainly must be taking place somewhere on this plane, where all the food is. So, if it were me, I’d start with this Crimson Dominion you mentioned; they must be involved in the soul-harvesting somehow. In terms of where she keeps it,” he shrugged, “that’s anyone’s guess, but I’d probably start with her mortal tomb.”

Multiple cups of wine were silently drained over the next several minutes before Lyraen rose from his seat.

“If there’s nothing further, I should get back.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you!” Segwyn rose, gripping the old elf’s hand between two of his own.

“Glad to help, young man. By the way, what shall I tell your father?”

Segwyn froze as the others all turned his way. “You can share the high-level details, but please, I don’t want him to get involved. This is my fight, not his.”

“As you wish, though you know if Fenir Eldracum sets his mind on wading into the fray, I can’t stop him.” Lyraen chuckled.

“I know, just please do your best.”

The elder nodded before bidding goodbye to the group. They all watched him depart with the same unhurried pace before turning the corner behind the hedge.

“I was in a good mood before all of that killed my buzz,” Lunish muttered under her breath.

Tsuta looked at Bird. “So? What now?”

“You heard the man,” the tabby drawled, gesturing in the direction of the departed lore keeper. “We grift our way into the Crimson Dominion. All we need is a pawn to help us.”

Lunish’s eyes lit up. She spoke to the group, but her gaze was squarely on Glynfir. “Like someone we know is associated with the symbol, and therefore the Dominion?”

The conversation paused, everyone turning to the gnome in silent anticipation.

The wizard’s mustache drew back in a wide smile. “We know just the guy—Garrett Ferrier—the solicitor who signed the will in Chagrothlond. The symbol was underneath his name!”

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Unexpected Vanguard Trilogy began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire series free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Siremirian Conundrum is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and read Book 1 - The Glimmerstone Enigma, first!

[View the Table of Contents for The Siremirian Conundrum]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

The fall sunshine cascaded off a sea of high, gold wheat rippling in the breeze. Parwana turned her head, curling her lips into a shy smile, batting her eyelashes at the boy lying next to her. Sa’al was a year older, a big difference at twelve, and her parents would certainly have disapproved. The two were watching white cumulus clouds drift across the Siremirian plains. It was Parwana’s idea. With the harvest coming, I won’t get many more chances.

Friends as far back as she could remember, Sa’al had recently given her the impression he was interested in more. Nothing inappropriate, of course, but the signs were there, saving his afternoon teacake for her, or offering to carry her family’s water bucket from the well. Cute, but nothing more than the bottom rung of a very tall ladder, easily stepped over. His affections did have their uses, however.

Now that she had turned twelve, she was expected to join the adults of the tribe in harvesting the wheat. It was customary, a tradition. The community bundled their crop and sold it to the traveling wagoners heading to market in Irdri every fall. The proceeds were bartered for livestock and root vegetables that would sustain the village through the winter. As long as her portion was cut and bundled, that was all that mattered. I will not be working in the fields.

She lightly dragged her fingertips along his arm, giggling at his last remark, without even having registered what he said. It doesn’t matter. By the end of the day, he will be volunteering to harvest my share of the crop. Something overhead caught his attention, and with an exclamation, he pointed his finger skyward before she turned to look. A fireball, flashing traces of reds and purples, its flickering tail visible even in the daylight, raced across the horizon. A trail of smoke tracked its movement. They both sat up, watching it speed westward. Sky rocks were rare. The elders considered them omens.

“It’s headed for the Glimmerstones,” she observed.

“Look! A piece broke off!” Sa’al pointed again as a smaller smoke trail abandoned the main body, arcing toward the ground nearby.

Both teenagers rose to their feet, tracking the object’s descent.

He turned, crouching to look her in the eyes, hands firmly on her shoulders. “We have to retrieve it if we can, for the village.”

She nodded, and the two took off through the high wheat grass in the direction of the falling stone. Almost a foot taller, Sa’al quickly outpaced her. Unwilling to be bested, Parwana dug deep, lengthening her stride to stay in his wake, unbothered by the light sting of golden husked ears of grain slapping against her bare shoulders. The smoke trail was already beginning to dissipate, and with it, any hope they had of finding the interstellar prize. Her breathing deepened as she matched his pace, racing across the field. The odor of rotten eggs mixed with a metallic tinge of iron began to overshadow the rich, comforting scent of ripe grain as they drew closer.

Sa’al stopped abruptly. Parwana had to throw her weight backward, jolting to a halt on his left, and there it was. Hissing and spitting, the stone had buried itself in the soft soil, igniting the surrounding dried grasses. Immediately recognizing the danger, Sa’al moved quickly to begin clearing the tinder-dry wheat stalks around its location to contain the spread.

Looking up, she watched intently as the streaking tail of the meteorite’s main body hurtled toward the mountains.

“Parwana, help me!” he shouted at her. “We have to stop the fire from spreading, or the whole crop will burn!”

His tone jolted her back into the moment. Sa’al moved counterclockwise around the smoldering impact zone, pulling handfuls of stalks, tossing them to the side, flattening others backward as he stomped repeatedly on meagre flames struggling to life among the dry husks. She mimicked his actions clockwise, pausing occasionally to track the main meteorite’s overhead progress. Before they got halfway around, she saw a sparkling flash against one of the distant peaks before a muted thud pulsed across the plains.

Even Sa’al’s attention was diverted by the sound of the impact.

He turned to her. “Did you see it land?”

Something made her hesitate as she met his gaze, finally shaking her head. “No,” she lied, “I only heard it.” Looking back toward the village’s collection of thatched roofs, there was no sign of movement. Curious, no one else seems to have noticed.

The pair returned to the task at hand, stomping, pulling, and flattening a ring of containment around the stone’s resting place. As they worked, the hiss fell to a whisper and went silent. Out of breath, Sa’al flopped to the ground, hugging his knees, gasping to catch his breath. She tentatively stepped to the impact point, peering at the scorched ground.

“Can you grab it with magic?” he asked.

Although still very young, the elders were enthusiastic about her arcane potential. She had already learned a couple of cantrips. Stepping to his side, she spoke a few words, and a spectral hand appeared. “I think so.”

Floating down towards the wet loam, the translucent fingers delicately plucked the stone from the earth before presenting a wad of dirty black, foul-smelling conglomerate on an open palm in front of them.

“A bit underwhelming,” she said flatly.

“Maybe clean it up in the irrigation ditch?” He nodded off to the right.

With the mage hand floating in front of her, Parwana pushed twenty feet through the grass to the shallow, muddy channel that split the field. The hand closed around the stone before submerging itself into the water, splashing back and forth. Another glance towards the settlement reaffirmed that no one else in the village seemed to be aware of their discovery.

A warm tingling thrill resonated deep in her gut when the mage hand presented the dripping stone a second time. Its irregular shape glistened, black and shiny, polished by the heat of atmospheric entry. Are those crystals? She extended her index finger, tentatively checking the stone’s temperature. Warm, but not hot. Plucking it from the arcane sparkling palm, Parwana held it up to the light. Three yellow crystals winked in response, refracting the sunshine. Gorgeous.

“Well?” his disembodied voice called from her left, muffled by the whispering wheat.

She turned her head back toward Sa’al’s location, lips pursed in thought. She made up her mind. Tossing her head, she flicked her dark curls over her shoulder before crouching down beside the irrigation channel. Fishing around on the bottom, her fingers found a similarly sized stone, before shaking it clean in the shallow water. Close enough. I’m sure no one will be able to tell the difference.

“Still pretty unremarkable, but see for yourself,” she shouted back, dropping the unremarkable ditch stone back into the palm of her spectral hand before slipping the meteorite into the pocket of her tunic and pushing back through the grass towards her friend.

“It does look pretty plain,” Sa’al agreed, extending his fingers toward the stone.

“Don’t touch it! It’s still hot!” she cautioned, realizing immediately that the temperature of the impostor would betray her deception.

He pulled back, opting instead for a close visual inspection.

“What if we kept it ourselves, instead of turning it over to the elders?” she lobbied. “After all, we found it, and I don’t think anyone else saw it land.”

His head snapped up, eyes wide in disbelief. “Are you crazy? Do you know how much this means to the tribe?” He began to circle the spectral hand, gazing intently at their prize. “It’s a blessing to have a space rock grace our land. Some say it’s a gift from the gods themselves and displaying it over our fields will bring prosperity for generations.” He turned back to her, his eyes dancing with excitement. “When word gets out, it will even bring higher prices for our grain. Other villages will want to plant our seeds in hopes of piggybacking their good fortune onto ours.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she conceded, though not yet relenting. “But we could still keep the real stone, give them a different one, and say it was the space rock. The village would still benefit.”

He shook his head emphatically. “No, it doesn’t work like that! The gods didn’t give it to us; they gave it to the land.” He spread his arms wide, turning slowly in place. “Through the prosperity of these fields, we all benefit. To swap it out would be unbelievably selfish and an insult to the gods. They might even choose to punish us for such a betrayal.”

She barely restrained an epic eye roll at his simplistic yet accurate articulation of their people’s religious beliefs. He leveled a finger at her chest, beaming with excitement.

“Plus, we’ll receive a hero’s welcome just for retrieving it. I’ll bet on a large celebration tonight after we bring it home.”

There was clearly no convincing him. She nodded in acquiescence, already mentally changing tracks. “About that, why don’t we say you found it on your own? We’ll pretend I wasn’t even here. Then you’ll be the uncontested golden boy for years.”

He gave her a puzzled look. “Why would you do that for me? You deserve as much of the credit as I do.”

Parwana shyly dipped her chin, presenting her best flirtatious smile. “Because you’re my friend, Sa’al, and you deserve the attention.” She deliberately let her hand fall on his bicep. “It would also save me from having to explain to my parents what I was doing alone with you out in the wheat field.” He considered this silently before she continued. “Maybe you could do something for me in return?”

“Like what?” he asked cautiously.

She shrugged, her voice tentative. “Like my harvest duties this fall?” she raised her eyebrows as her lips twisted into an uncertain grimace.

“Are you kidding? I’d do extra harvest duties for the next three falls for that kind of favor!”

Parwana giggled, knowing she had him. Slapping his arm again playfully, she feigned surprise. “Really? Three harvests? Thank you, Sa’al – you’re such a good friend!”

“It’s me who should be thanking you, Parwana!” He leaned in for a hug, barely able to contain his excitement. She let the hug linger longer than necessary before pushing him out to arm’s length.

“I think it should be cool enough to hold now.” She reached out, gingerly touching the stone’s surface before picking it up. Taking his hand in hers, she pressed it into his palm, her eyes fixed on his.

“Go now! Tell the elders what you found, be the herald of a new generation of prosperity for our village. I’ll see you at the feast they will undoubtedly throw tonight, in your honor.”

With a nod, Sa’al accepted the stone and took off towards the settlement while Parwana, a wry smile on her lips, receded into the high wheat. Idly tracing her finger over the smooth edges of the meteorite in her pocket, she quietly angled her way back to the family cottage, very satisfied with her afternoon’s accomplishments.

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Unexpected Vanguard Trilogy began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire series free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Siremirian Conundrum is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and read Book 1 - The Glimmerstone Enigma, first!

[View the Table of Contents for The Siremirian Conundrum]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

As the shadows of the Glimmerstones pushed east in the fading daylight, the group gathered around the fire, sharing a meal of provisions. The occasional crackle and hiss of the flames served as a backdrop for long stretches of silence until Segwyn spoke up.

“Hey, I forgot to congratulate you!” he said to Lunish. “For defeating the familiar all by yourself – I heard it was an epic aerial battle!”

Lost in thought, her gaze fixed on the fire’s dancing embers, the gnome returned to the moment. “What? Oh, thanks.”

The ranger didn’t let it go. “Hard to believe it was only a few nights ago we sat around this same fire, trying to convince you to think differently about combat, and here you are, the first one of us to take down a demon single-handedly.”

Lunish’s cheeks flushed. “It was only the familiar. The little bastard didn’t even attack me.”

Whydah swiped an errant spark away from her face before cocking her head towards Glynfir at the mention of the tiny servant demon. “Speaking of him, will he remember seeing us and blab about it to the Red Queen when she conjures him up again?”

The wizard shook his head. “Not at all. Because a familiar is a magical conjuring in the form of a creature, it doesn’t have any persistent memory from one summoning to the next.”

Whydah nodded in acknowledgement. “And it can’t voluntarily communicate with its master either, right?”

“Correct,” the wizard confirmed. “The caster can initiate mental communication, and the familiar can respond, but it can’t start the conversation. Also, I can see through the eyes of my familiar if we are close enough.”

“So, if he ever sees us, we have to make sure to take him out, or the lich will know what he knows?” Bird verified.

“Yes, to a degree,” Glynfir replied, one finger tapping his chin in concentration. “The familiar’s intelligence also limits its ability to communicate.” The wizard paused, his eyes widening before turning to Lunish. “That reminds me, did we share the news about the Red Queen’s true nature with Snuggles?”

The druid shook her head. “I can’t, yet. I already messaged her today. But it’s a good question. What do we want to tell the Hub about what we learned and what we’re doing next?”

“Can anyone think of a reason not to tell them that the Red Queen is a lich?” Segwyn asked.

Tsuta shook his head. “I think it only helps. We know they aren’t part of this Crimson Dominion–Snuggles was the one who told us about it. In my opinion, the more people who know a lich is calling the shots, the better.”

“I agree,” Glynfir nodded. The wizard stood, brushing flecks of ash from his robes before extending his hands towards the fire’s warmth. “What I just can’t fathom, as a wizard myself, is what would make someone decide that giving up everything you are as a person, including your sanity, is a good trade for immortality and the pursuit of power, especially when it involves exploiting or hurting others.”

Tsuta grunted a hollow chuckle through closed lips before speaking. “You have to understand, Mustache, that anyone with designs on becoming a lich isn’t like you.” The monk thumbed the points of the medallion around his neck, causing it to glint in the firelight. “My holy training would insist there is a fundamental spiritual corruption at play, as well as a human perspective that is very different from yours.”

The wizard was skeptical. “That sounds more divine than psychological.”

“It’s definitely a bit of both,” Tsuta countered. “No one ever considers themselves the villain in their version of the story,” he said matter-of-factly. “Because if they did, they’d arrive at your very logical conclusion. Narcissism, delusion, call it what you want, but every person choosing ‘lich’…,” he made accompanying air quotes with his fingers, “…inherently believes they’re superior to others and that achieving their desired outcome is more important than the lives of anyone who may be harmed in the process.” He paused, sliding a hand over his bald head. “In their mind, they’re entitled to it. The end is all that matters; the means of getting there…” he waved his hand dismissively, “…immaterial. To them, the villain is anyone standing in the way of realizing their ambition. That’s the psychological dimension.”

“Where does the divine come in, and what about the insanity?” Whydah probed.

The bald monk shrugged. “Their arrogance is so great, I think they honestly believe they can defeat it, that it won’t happen to them because they’re too powerful, but it’s an immutable law of nature. You can’t cheat mortality without corrupting your soul. That’s the divine element, which, in turn, drives insanity. Remember, while it’s obvious to everyone else they’re the villain, in their mind, they’re the hero.”

He raised his arms in a gesture to the heavens. “Only they are capable of ruling effectively, only they can bring peace, and so on and so on. When you start with a big helping of raw power, entitlement, arrogance, and an inherent superiority complex, then add soul corruption and insanity to the potion…” Tsuta pressed his lips in a tight line, raising his palms.

“It sounds like we agree on telling the Hub that a lich is running the Crimson Dominion,” Bird summarized. “The biggest threat to any secret organization is exposure, but we also need a way to recognize them. So far, all we have is the name.”

“No, we have more than that,” the wizard said thoughtfully. “We have the symbol.”

“What symbol?” Whydah asked.

Seeing confusion on the faces around the fire, Glynfir took a deep breath. “On our last mission before coming here, we were tasked with confirming the details of Commander Duvall’s will, over in Chagrothlond.”

“Yes, you told us that already.” Segwyn’s tone urged the wizard’s storytelling forward.

“We were also asked to identify any strange symbols present on the document,” Glynfir continued, “which we did.” He turned to Lunish. “Didn’t she later confirm that symbol was associated with the Crimson Dominion?”

The druid cocked her head, her eyes narrow as she reflected. “I don’t think she ever actually said that, but it’s a reasonable inference under the circumstances.”

“What was the symbol?” Tsuta asked from across the fire.

Glynfir picked up a stick. “It was a line with a circle below it, like this.” He scrawled the symbol into the dirt next to the fire, as the others rose for a look.

Iskvold let out a sharp intake of breath, and her body went stiff.

“What is it?” Whydah placed her palm on her friend’s back, peeking around the drow’s rigid form to see the drawing.

Iskvold’s face contorted as she inhaled deeply, preparing to speak before reluctantly letting it out in silence. The others watched the firelight reflections dance against her obsidian skin until finally, words tumbled from her lips. “Do you remember I told you that I only have flashes,” she cleared her throat, “from my childhood life before the abbey, and my mother?”

“Of course I do,” Whydah reassured her.

The drow took a half step back. “In one of those flashes, I’m in a cave, or some other dark space, but it was natural, definitely not a house.” Her gaze was distant while her hands gestured wildly, trying to keep up with the images in her mind. “It was a gathering of some kind, and that symbol,” she pointed at the ground next to Glynfir, “was on a battle standard, black on red.”

“Do you remember anything else? Was your mother there?” Whydah coaxed as the others looked on in silence.

The drow closed her eyes, bowing her head. “I was very young…she must have been, but the only other thing I recall was the whole group repeating something in response to the main speaker’s words. I remember because I was learning Common and was surprised that I understood what they were saying.”

The bard’s words were soothing. “What was it? What were they saying?”

Iskvold hesitated, eyes still squeezed shut. “I think it was ‘From above, we serve. ’” Her eyes snapped open, and she shook her head. “That’s all I’ve got.”

Bird looked at Whydah. “We’ve seen that symbol before as well. Remember the two gentlemen we separated from their wealth back in Preeble? The tattoos?”

The halfling’s face lit up in recollection. “Green Hat and Red Beard!” She took in the confused looks as a need for further explanation. “Two guys we robbed at a pub had that symbol tattooed on the backs of their necks.” She pointed emphatically toward Glynfir’s illustration. “They weren’t even trying to hide it! They were also carrying swords, which you don’t see much in small towns, and were unusually flush with coin.” Her voice trailed off, and her hand instinctively rose to the pendant tucked under her jerkin. Pulling it out, she held it up into the firelight. The crystal sparkled with flashes of color across the spectrum.

“They had this too!”

Letting the pendant fall back against her chest, Whydah stepped away from the fire, returning with her pack. Plopping herself down, cross-legged, she dropped the necklace onto the ground in front of her before pulling out a pearl and an owl feather.

Recognizing material components when he saw them, Glynfir rose, circling the firepit to stand behind her. “What are you casting?”

“Identify. I’m so dense! I don’t know why I didn’t check right away,” Whydah muttered, pink arcane energy dancing from her fingertips as she started reciting the words of the incantation. She closed her eyes as her voice trailed off. Her left hand, clutching the necklace, pulsed with a bright pink flash, then the shadows of firelight returned.

“Well?” the wizard asked impatiently.

Whydah’s eyes flew open, landing on Bird, accompanied by a wide grin. “Oh, it’s magic, alright! Just give me a minute to make sense of it in my head.” Her brow furrowed, the smile ebbing from her face. “It allows the wearer to cast Suggestion three times per day, but it comes at a cost…”

“What’s Suggestion?” Iskvold asked before Bird spoke over her.

“What’s the cost?”

The halfling held their questions at bay with two raised hands before turning to Iskvold.

“It’s a basic charm spell that allows the caster to suggest something to a target, and they have to do it.” Pivoting to Bird, she added. “There is an inherently evil residue on it. I’m not quite sure how to explain it, but if someone good uses it, it will slightly diminish their ability to do what they do best temporarily.”

“I don’t know what that means…” Bird said flatly.

Whydah pursed her lips in thought. “So, if you used it, you might be a little noisier than usual, or a bit clumsier. For me, my pitch might be just a bit off for a while, my music less inspirational.” She frowned, not quite satisfied with her explanation. “It’s different for each person, and there’s something else. It’s some kind of key.” She paused. “No… not a key, more like a token. It grants the wearer passage, but not through a door, more like into a place or an area.”

The chirp of insects and the constant rush of the Shand filled the silence for several long moments as all eyes fixed on the dancing flames, digesting the recent revelations.

“What she saw,” Segwyn pointed to Iskvold, “sounds like a typical cult—secret gathering, chanting.” He waggled his index finger between Glynfir and Whydah. “But what you two are describing is much more widespread…even mainstream—tattoos, contract notations.”

“What I saw was almost twenty years ago.” Iskvold reminded him.

The ranger nodded in response. “My point is they’ve grown, evolved, somehow appealing to a much larger audience of followers.”

Lunish rose abruptly, stepping to the makeshift woodpile. Palming and launching a small log into the fire harder than necessary sent a shower of sparks into the air, causing everyone to lean back momentarily. “What I don’t understand is why anyone would knowingly support and assist a lich, one of the most evil, self-serving creatures imaginable. Are they stupid?”

Bird snorted. “That’s one of the things I love about you, my gnomish friend, you see the world in such simple terms–good and evil, right and wrong, black and white.” The tabby shot her a wide grin. “As someone who lives their life in the grey areas in-between, I find your outlook very refreshing.” He casually picked up a twig, tossing it toward the recently added log. “In my experience, followers are drawn to a cause that screams evil to most of us, for one of three reasons.” He nodded in her direction. “Ignorance is unquestionably one. They either don’t understand the outcomes they’re pursuing or have been misled into believing them to be nobler than they truly are. I have some sympathy for them. They’re no different than the marks in a grift.”

“What are the others?” Glynfir asked.

“Self-interest and thinly veiled malice,” Bird responded flatly. “Some don’t believe in the ideas at all, but exploit the cause, and its contingent of ignorant followers to further their own goals,” he shrugged, “be it money, power, or influence.”

“What’s the malice group all about?” Lunish prompted.

“They’re driven by a hatred bubbling just below the surface, usually grounded in fear…fear of other races, fear of magic, fear of change. They convince themselves that the cause, however repulsive, is the only way to protect themselves from those fears. They masquerade as good people, but their virtue is only skin deep.”

“At least these are mortal motivations we can relate to, instead of the pure evil of demons,” Segwyn added. “The better we understand the Crimson Dominion, the greater our chances of success.”

“Precisely.” Bird confirmed, jabbing one clawed finger in his direction. “In fact, another of Teffel’s rules might offer just the guidance we need.”

Whydah straightened, a frown on her face. “Which one?”

Bird smiled. “Rule six—‘While a pauper can trust the man guarding his fortunes, a prince mistakenly believes the same.’”

Whydah’s expression didn’t change. “That one’s about the difference between a poor man, whose closed fist is his security, and the rich man believing he can rely on vaults, locks, and bankers, all of which can be indirectly compromised.” She shrugged, spreading her hands wide. “We’re not chasing loot here.”

“No,” Bird agreed, “But the vulnerability is the same. Teffel is saying the prince can be had because he’s forced to put his trust in things outside his direct control.” He paused, his flicking tail rustling back and forth in the grass. “If she rules by fear, likely favoring loyalty over intelligence, and relies on ignorant, self-interested, malicious people…” The tabby wiggled his eyebrows, his smile widening into a grin as he left the sentence unfinished. “Since we can’t go straight at her, we’ll go through the Dominion to discover her secrets.” He fixed his gaze on Whydah. “And this time…I know exactly who we’re stealing from!”

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Unexpected Vanguard Trilogy began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire series free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Siremirian Conundrum is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and read Book 1 - The Glimmerstone Enigma, first!

[View the Table of Contents for The Siremirian Conundrum]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER - Front Matter]

“I’m sorry for unloading on you earlier.” Whydah’s head was bowed, her cheeks flushed. “I was overwhelmed. Everything escalated so quickly, beyond what anyone expected. I realize you had no way of knowing.”

“But you weren’t wrong,” Bird conceded, unconsciously thumbing his breastbone—the epicenter of Whydah’s recent barrage. “I ignored Teffel’s fourth rule and inserted all of us directly between an undead abomination and her desire for global conquest. That’s a pretty monumental screw-up.”

Packs on their shoulders, the pair headed back to the mess hall after hurriedly gathering their belongings. The tabby’s head hung low, claws gently scraping the stone floor with each shuffling step.

“Maybe.” Whydah hesitated. “But, to your point earlier, what if we never got involved? Then she would have the stone without anyone even knowing.”

She stopped, fixing her gaze on his yellow eyes, her grip firm on his forearm. “None of us got up this morning wanting to be heroes, but I don’t think anyone would argue it’s a whole lot better than the alternative.”

Bird nodded before returning his gaze to the stone floor. “Maybe, but now everyone in this abbey is a target. She will come, and their deaths will be on me.”

Whydah released his forearm before shoving the tabby to the side. “Oh, stop!” Her tone was firm. “Give the rest of us some credit. We all chose to go along with the plan. It isn’t all on you, and this pity party doesn’t help anything.” The halfling pulled him into a hug, her ear pressed against his abdomen. “To have any chance, we need you at your bold, scheming best. Only that Bird can help us figure a way out of this.” She pushed him out to arm’s length, locking his gaze once more. “Now, pull your head out of your ass and move on. We can’t change what happened, but we can control what we do next, okay?” Whydah lowered her chin, eyebrows raised, waiting for a reaction.

Bird nodded again. “Thanks, I needed that.”

“Of course,” she chirped. “As I was trying to tell Tsuta the other night, that’s what friends are for!” Her stomach lurched when she spoke the word—friend. How long do I wait for him to figure it out? Hiding her inner conflict, she playfully pushed him backwards before turning on her heel, throwing open the door to the mess. Without looking back, she called over her shoulder, “If we live, we learn!”

The squeak of the door’s metal hinge announced their arrival to the rest of the group, already gathered around the long table. Deflated faces painted with grim expressions turned as they entered.

“So, what’s the plan?” Bird’s voice echoed off the stone walls. Whydah stifled a small smile, hearing some confidence return to his tone. Segwyn glanced at the others before speaking on the group’s behalf.

“Well, as we discussed before breaking to pack our gear, we have to get out of here. The Luminarium and the Abbey of the Crystal Dawn are the first places she’s going to start looking. My family has a summer cabin in Eredmire. We could lie low there for a while.”

“Are you sure you won’t come with us, Sifu?” Iskvold pressed the abbey master.

Haft shook his head, the muscles on his jaw flexing. “No, my place is here, along with the initiates. Reinforcements from the Pact of the Brotherhood will start arriving with supplies today or tomorrow, and the beacons need to be restored.”

“But what if she comes back here looking for the stone?” Glynfir asked.

Haft shook his head again. “If she knows who you are, then she’ll know you’re not here very quickly. And if she doesn’t,” he shrugged, “we’re just a few monks rebuilding the order she already destroyed. Either way, with the stone no longer in our backyard, I don’t think we’ll be of any further interest to her.”

With a slow nod, the wizard turned to the draconian. “What about you, Mister Glamos? I don’t see your pack either.”

The draconian chuffed a puff of frost from his nose, his tail slowly weaving across the floor behind his seat. “As exciting as it was to be a part of an adventure again, I’ve decided to stay behind as well. Haft and I were talking, and I think I’ll stay here for a bit, just in case, before heading home.”

“You’ll be much faster without all of us,” Haft interjected, nodding to Glamos.

The sound of sliding pottery reverberated from the table’s surface as Tsuta dragged his mug, along with those of Lunish and Iskvold, into a straight line before speaking. “What about the stone? Do we carry it around with us?”

“Why not?” Lunish challenged the bald monk. “We have a much better chance of defending ourselves with the stone.”

“I’m afraid we would still lose head-to-head even with it, Lulu,” Glynfir admitted. “Her spells are much stronger than mine to start with, and she has triple amplification.”

“And if she kills us…” Segwyn let the words hang in the air, “…then she has it.”

“I think hiding it again is the only sensible option,” Bird said emphatically.

“I agree.” The ranger nodded. “But where?”

Glynfir snapped his fingers before pointing to Glamos. “Mister Glamos, could you show me the spell you use to hide your chest on the Ethereal plane?”

The draconian’s eyes narrowed as he slowly nodded. “I can do better than that. I have it written on a scroll, like those others I gave you. But you’ll need a chest and a miniature replica to cast it.”

“I’ve got a chest in the vault I’d be willing to donate to the cause.” Haft offered. “But I can’t help you with a replica.”

“Where did you get yours?” Iskvold asked the draconian.

Glamos pushed his shoulders back and raised his chin. “Carved it myself!”

“We haven’t got time for that. We need to be gone from here before she can cast another plane gate spell.” Whydah reminded everyone.

“Tell you what,” Glamos said, rising to his feet. “I’ll give you mine and carve a new miniature to match the old man’s chest.” He pointed a clawed thumb at Haft.

The abbey master’s mustache twitched. “Be careful who you’re calling an old man, Frosty!”

The draconian let out a snort, frigid air billowing from his nostrils.

Glynfir nodded in appreciation, his brow wrinkled in thought. “Hypothetically speaking, what happens to the spell if the caster dies?”

Glamos chuckled. “It will stay intact for a while, but with the caster dead, there’s no way to recall it. Eventually, the chest and all its contents are irretrievably lost on the Ethereal Plane.”

“Okay, so if we do this, and she gets me, the stone stays out of her hands?” Glynfir checked his logic.

Glamos considered the question for a moment. “In theory, she’d have a couple of months right after your death, where the chest still existed, and we know she can travel between planes.” He cocked one icy eyebrow. “So, I suppose she could go and hunt for it on the Ethereal Plane, but it’s an awfully big place as I understand it, and where would she even begin to look?”

The draconian’s eyes narrowed as he reflected for a moment. “That said, for every day the chest is hidden, there is a small chance the spell fails, sending it back to this plane, leaving its contents exposed for anyone to find. It happened to me once in my cottage, so no harm done in that case, but with this level of consequence…”

“I guess that’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Glynfir admitted begrudgingly.

“Maybe not…” Glamos’s eyes twinkled mysteriously as his face broke into a small grin. “Do you remember the Stasis Sphere spell I gave you?”

“Of course!” The wizard nodded. “But, I hadn’t found a use for it yet.”

“That was always my problem as well, particularly as it can only be cast as a ritual.” Glamos conceded. “But maybe this is it. If we lock your stone in a stasis sphere before using the chest to hide it, then it would be basically undetectable, even from scrying.”

Glynfir extended the draconian’s logic. “And if the chest spell fails, the stone isn’t just lying around on the prime material plane for anyone to find. It would still be protected from magic, space, and time within the stasis sphere.”

“Exactly,” Glamos confirmed.

Satisfied with that answer, Glynfir nodded. “That sounds like the best we can do.”

“How is carrying the replica chest around any better than carrying the stone?” Lunish pressed the wizard. “She could just magically compel you to recall it.”

“Because we’re not going to carry the replica around, Lulu.” A self-satisfied smile split Glynfir’s face. “We’re going to stash it with Grym!”

The druid’s eyebrows jumped. “That’s perfect!” She shot him a sidelong glance. “You know, Glynnie, I don’t give you enough credit sometimes. I’ll try to be better at that.”

After a hurried lunch, the group assembled outside the courtyard gate. Glamos and Haft looked on as the initiates helped to load packs and gear onto the mounts.

Tsuta gestured to the horses. “You’re sure about this, Sifu?”

Haft waved him off. “It’s fine. The Pact will send more, and we don’t have a stable anyway.”

Iskvold glanced around. “Aren’t we still one short, even with Lunish’s wildshape?”

“As a warhorse, I can take you and Glynnie,” the druid called over her shoulder, fastening the buckle on her satchel. “As long as you don’t mind riding double. Just give your pack to one of the others.”

“Works for me!” the drow confirmed, passing her pack to Segwyn, who promptly secured it with his own.

In a green flash, the druid’s gnomish form was replaced by the sorrel mare, complete with twin red braids woven into her mane. Iskvold hopped onto her back before offering a hand to Glynfir. “Up you get, Mustache!”

Between Iskvold’s assistance from above and the interlaced hands of the ranger acting as a step, the wizard scrabbled into position.

Returning to his horse at the front of the column, Segwyn mounted up as Haft pushed back his shoulders. His chin rose as he spoke to the group.

“It’s clear that you’re in over your heads. Take care to avoid the sense of invulnerability that often plagues the minds of the young. Your aspirations outstrip your abilities, and the bodies we’ve buried over the last few days demonstrate how quickly things can get very real. Be careful out there.” He turned to the draconian wizard. “Do you have anything you’d like to add?”

Glamos snorted, his tail making a wide, sweeping arc in the dirt, kicking up a small dust cloud in the process. “Yes. Ignore everything he just said! If you’re going to have any chance at defeating a lich and living to tell the tale, there is no place for caution.”

He clasped his clawed hands behind his back, bowing his head in thought momentarily. “It has yet to be determined if your aspirations outstrip your abilities.” He nodded in deference to the abbey master. “By all means, be careful, and trust each other. But, make no mistake, you can’t win by playing it safe. Success will require some crazy, unhinged shit, and a good measure of luck, so be bold – just like you were in getting the stone.”

Haft’s mustache bristled as he turned on the old wizard, shaking his head. “Why do you do that…undermine my advice?”

Glamos chuckled, a wry smile stretching across his reptilian lips. “Because, old man, you speak from a father’s perspective. It’s not a bad thing, and you can’t help it. It’s the part you’ve played for a long time, running this place.” One scaled hand swept across the vista of the abbey. “I, on the other hand, get to be the ‘slightly unhinged uncle’ and under the circumstances, I think they need a bit of both.”

“I have no idea what to take away from that,” Tsuta muttered.

With one final wave, the group headed south under cloudy skies. Three hours later, Segwyn walked his horse into the same camp they had abandoned four days earlier. Sliding to the ground, the ranger looped his reins around a nearby branch. Crouching down, he examined the ground. The others dismounted, Whydah and Glynfir with some assistance, before an arcane flash restored Lunish’s druidic form.

“Anything?” Whydah asked.

Segwyn shook his head and rose to his feet, wiping his hands. “No one’s been here since we left.”

“Great,” Whydah chirped. “I’ll put the tiny hut up there.” She pointed to the magical tent’s prior location. “If you all want to pile your stuff nearby.”

“I think we have a couple of hours of daylight left. Should we visit Grym first and then set up camp for the night?” Lunish asked the group.

A chorus of confirmations came in response while everyone stretched their legs and unburdened the horses. Glynfir retrieved the miniature replica of Glamos’ chest, tucking it into his robes.

“I suggest we let the horse graze while we’re paying our respects,” Segwyn offered as he gathered up all four sets of reins. “There is a nice grassy area not far from the gravesite that should do the trick.”

“As long as they stay out of the ditch,” Bird quipped. “I’ll bet those demon corpses are pretty ripe by now.”

Lunish’s tone was somber as she led the group toward two pink crab apple trees peeking out from the green of the riverside canopy. “It’s hard to believe it’s only been four days since we buried him. So much has happened since then.”

Glynfir quickened his pace to pull alongside her. “I’m sure he’d love to hear all about it, Lulu.”

The summer sun had dried the earth covering the Shan soldier’s final resting place. Still visibly fresh, its color had faded slightly. By contrast, the limestone rocks piled over their fallen dwarven friend seemed to shine brighter white as they dried, thanks to the same morning exposure. Pink petals from the blossoms above dappled both graves, the first signs of nature reclaiming its own. The group gathered at the foot of the cairn in a moment of silence before Lunish finally spoke.

“Hello again, old friend.” She laid her hand across the white stones. “I have so much to tell you, and a favor to ask.”

Over the next several minutes, the gnome recounted the activities of the previous four days in a one-way conversation. Silent tears mixed with the odd laugh as she covered all the highlights.

Lunish drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry to disturb your peace, but we need you to do one last thing for us, Grym, before you rest.” She turned to Glynfir, palm open, sunlight glistening off her wet cheeks. He dropped the miniature carving into her hand. “This little chest is the key to the stone’s location on the Ethereal Plane. In case we don’t make it, we need you to guard it…keep it from her. You’re the only one we trust.”

Pressing her eyelids tightly together to clear her vision, she nodded to the wizard. Energy crackled to life around his fingers as Glynfir slid his palm from right to left. With a dull, rasping grind, the mounded stones above Grym’s torso shifted to the side, exposing his still form below.

Lunish stepped between the two graves before kneeling to gently place the replica chest onto the blade of Grym’s axe. Rising to her feet, the druid retreated to Glynfir’s side as his outstretched hand magically pushed the stones back into place.

“I hope we’ll be back soon with more good news. Goodbye, for now.” The gnome’s voice trailed off as others murmured their farewells before stepping solemnly back out onto the road.

Iskvold waited for the druid, pulling her into a hug at the roadside. Muffled by the drow’s robes, her voice cracked. “How do you do it…cope with the grief? I lost one friend, you lost twenty-one, yet you seem so much more in control. I’m a mess every time I think about it.”

Iskvold let out a short hollow laugh, her hand holding the smaller woman’s head against her body. “I’m not sure ‘in control’ is an accurate description, given my recent tendency toward unbridled rage.” Pushing the druid out to arm’s length, she looked down. “I don’t think there is any one answer on how to get past this kind of loss, unfortunately. For me, meditation helps.”

The drow tilted her head in acknowledgement before offering a wry smile. “Along with violently pummeling every demon I find!” Turning on her heel, Iskvold guided Lunish back toward camp, an arm around her shoulders. “All I can suggest is, you’ve got to find the inspiration or distraction that works for you.”

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Unexpected Vanguard Trilogy began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire series free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Unexpected Vanguard: A Hopepunk Epic Fantasy trilogy for fans of The Lies of Locke Lamora and Six of Crows. A found family of unremarkables uses grift and heist tactics to outwit a superior foe in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse.

The Siremirian Conundrum is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and read Book 1 - The Glimmerstone Enigma, first!

[View the Table of Contents for The Siremirian Conundrum]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER - The Glimmerstone Enigma Chapter 36]

Same Crew, Bigger Problems

“While a pauper can trust the man guarding his fortunes, a prince mistakenly believes the same.” — Teffel’s Sixth Rule of Modern Thievery

After brazenly grifting a mysterious relic from under the nose of a shadowy adversary, a group of unremarkables learns the hard way that if you take the big dog’s bone, you’d best be prepared for the teeth.

Originally seeking vengeance and a payday, they inadvertently acquired an artifact capable of disrupting the very laws of magic—and the global balance of power. Now, an ancient evil is coming to take it back.

There are no gods, armies, or chosen ones to stand against her. Venn’s future lies squarely in the hands of a quirky group of moderately talented misfit adventurers who excel at breaking balls, creating nicknames, and taking care of their own.

To keep the relic from her grasp and survive the fallout, they’ll need to outrun an interplanar killer, outmaneuver a cabal, and outwit a soul-consuming genius—all while trying to unravel the conundrum of her immortality.

Armed with little more than a stubborn belief in each other, a dollop of delusional optimism, and just enough ignorance to think they have a puncher’s chance, the crew is putting their faith in gritty ingenuity and the wisdom of an old rogue.

For their sake, and Venn’s future, Teffel better be right!

For fans of the high-stakes chemistry of Six of Crows, the sharp wit of The Lies of Locke Lamora, and tactical, D&D-inspired party dynamics.

Gravel Rolls Downhill

Don’t look now, but our unremarkable crew of “timely gravel” inadvertently jammed the gears of a powerful enemy machine. Our story continues on Venn’s eastern continent.

Short on time and allies, the group heads west, trading the rugged Glimmerstone peaks for the wheat fields and rolling foothills of eastern Siremiria.

The port city of Irdri, on the banks of the majestic Kyathlinneas River, thrives on maritime mercantilism. The only community of size for hundreds of miles, and a long way from the League’s already meager governance, it’s also the perfect choice for all manner of business better kept out of sight. Local legends and mysteries further complicate the landscape and the group’s ability to get to the bottom of The Siremirian Conundrum.

The Heart of the Vanguard

• Singing Bird - A feline rogue and master grifter, whose creative mind and sharp swords get the group into, and usually out of, trouble.

• Whydah (WI-duh) - Bird’s surprisingly stable halfling bard apprentice, the conscience and peace-keeper of the team, calls it like it is, except when it comes to her own love life.

• Iskvold (EESK-veld) - A former librarian drow monk turned brawler with a growing thirst for vengeance and an ever-shortening fuse, always ready to lead with her fists.

• Tsuta (SOO-ta) - An obsessive-compulsive high-elven monk and cleric. The crew’s deep thinker, long-talker, and master of nicknames.

• Lunish (LOO-nish) - A druidic gnome reluctantly embracing her new job and skills, suffers from imposter syndrome, but doesn’t suffer fools, keeps everyone humble and grounded.

• Glynfir (GLIN-feer) - The half-elven wizard with jaw-dropping skills and decision-making, never met a wager he didn’t like or a plan he didn’t improvise.

• Segwyn (SEG-win) - An entitled elven ranger with daddy issues and the team’s most practical operator that prefers his chaos at arm’s length, along with his family.

Still not heroes, or champions, just hopeful, dysfunctional misfits that don’t take themselves too seriously, since they have nothing left to lose.

[Dive into Chapter 1]

Leave a comment

Writing The Unexpected Vanguard Trilogy began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire series free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Unexpected Vanguard Book 2 - The Siremirian Conundrum

Table of Contents

0. The blurb, the maps, and the characters

1. The Hunters become the Hunted

2. The Crimson Dominion

3. The Seeds of Avarice

4. Scheming in the Old Growth

5. Chagrothlond Revisited

6. Compulsions of Necessity

7. The Roc and Raven

8. Rumble in the Alley

9. The Hounds of Pursuit

10. The Elusive Garrett Ferrier

11. The Ransom of Sanity

12. Sprouts of Contempt

13. The Best Laid Plans

14. Confessions and Confrontations

15. What the Nose Knows

16. Everyone Has a Plan…

17. A Needle in a Haystack

18. Visions of Sugarplum

19. Dining with the Departed

20. The Sweetheart Signal

21. The Shade and the Smother

22. Embracing the Ghosts of History

23. Cat and Mouse

24. Mustache and the Milkmaid

25. The Side Door Pivot

26. Anchors and Aftermaths

27. The Weight of Water

28. One Bite at a Time

29. Blossoms of Brutality

30. Clocks and Sundials

31. Descent into the Zulm

32. The Mark takes the Stage

33. Disposable Utility

34. Acoustic Displacement

35. The Cost of Doing Business

36. Steak over Sizzle

37. Be Careful What You Wish For

38. Hidden in Plain Sight

39. The Siremirian Conundrum

Writing The Glimmerstone Enigma began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire Unexpected Vanguard trilogy free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

Not the length of your piece; the length of the moment inside it. Whatever happens has to begin when the sparkler is lit and end when it burns out.

It has to be night. There has to be a sparkler. The piece ends when the sparkler does. 400 words - shorter might be better.

Include the smell of smoke. Anywhere in the piece.

Daylight teetered in those last moments before the inevitable darkness when she lit the night’s first sparkler. The rich smell of charcoal smoke hung heavily in the humid evening air. Canada Day. One of many public gatherings dotted across the GTA where we, the huddled masses, banded together on the shores of Lake Ontario to take in every community’s fireworks display, from Hamilton to Kingston.

Whether inspired by the four sneaky beers already down my throat, or Gord Downey’s unmistakable croon lofting into the stratosphere from a nearby car - Courage (For Hugh MacLennan), we’ll never know. Either way, I was a moth, powerlessly drawn toward that hissing magnesium beacon.

Abandoning my teenage tribe and well-positioned folding chair, I paused only to hook two Molson Export bottles from the cooler before wordlessly padding off toward the curly mop of brown hair in a burnt orange tank top and cutoff jeans, Teva’s slapping against my heels with purpose.

I can’t even remember exactly what I said when I flopped down beside her, burning sparkler stuck in the grass between us. Still, it must have been A-game material, because my first impression of her face was the shadows of flashing aluminum reflecting from her toothy smile.

I think her name was Jen (a reasonably safe bet in those days, there were at least fifteen in my graduating class). If she told me her last name, that memory has long since surrendered to age and alcohol. The clink of Molson bottles and the acrid smell/taste of burning sulfur dominated the final few seconds of the sparkler’s fuse, creeping lower as we exchanged our most important details at the time—where we went to university, what we were studying, and our idealistic post-graduation plans.

Kingston, being the farthest east along the lake, fired the evening’s opening salvo, a willow burst of white, painting the sky to our left, the familiar distant pops arriving a second later. Neil Young took over the evening’s soundtrack, the opening riff of Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World belted out across the water toward our American neighbors. I recall wondering if the self-crowned park DJ was a genius, acutely aware of the song’s deep irony, or, more likely, mistook it for the superficial patriotic anthem the chorus suggested. Either way, probably Jen’s head landed on my shoulder, just as the sparkler went dark.

Let’s call it like it is: the paid-sub model here on Substack is not geared toward fiction writers.

Monthly subscription charges work well for non-fiction newsletters, offering a steady stream of new, unconnected content. It’s great for those writing about investment, politics, and several other topics.

For the fiction writer, it’s a lose-lose proposition.

The Fiction Writer’s Double Bind

If you keep your fiction free, you get exposure, but no monetization, and if you park it behind a paywall, you lose the exposure and likely still don’t generate any revenue because, let’s face it, why would a reader pay the equivalent cost for a digital book every month, just for a few chapters?

So, how does a fiction writer leverage the platform’s exposure capabilities and hope to see a fair return for their art?

This is the question I‘ve been wrestling with for several weeks, and I think I’ve found a solution that doesn’t compromise my desire for my novels to remain free for everyone as I build an audience.

The lightbulb went on for me when I started to think differently about what I was actually selling.

The Substack paid-sub model is geared to sell the content as the product. If you don’t pay, you don’t get it—simple.

My revelation, as a long fiction writer, was that I could actually sell something else instead, two somethings in fact—Time and Convenience—without limiting the exposure of my work and compromising my ability to attract new readers. The method came via a tool most will be familiar with—BuyMeACoffee, but not in the way you’re thinking.

Like many other authors here, I have a BMAC page where readers can choose to donate to my tip jar, or in my case, “Buy Bryn a Horn of Ale”, and it’s fine. But it suffers from the age-old problem of all non-profit ventures: the buyer isn’t getting anything in return other than the warm feeling of having supported an artist they appreciate. No magic bullet there.

Subscribe now

Selling Time and Convenience (Not Content)

Instead, I would point you to the ‘Shop’ feature on BMAC, which allows you to offer digital ‘products’ for sale. I can already hear your objections:

Great, Bryn, but what can I offer my readers that’s unique or different from the content I’m already posting on my Substack? That just sounds like more creation effort!

This is where all your serialized novel writers should pay attention, and it comes back to those two other sources of value I mentioned above—Time and Convenience.

What I’ve done is set up a digital shop for the complete, ad-free novel files of both books, professionally formatted and typeset in EPUB and PDF formats, ready for any e-reader. No monthly subscriptions, just a competitive, one-time price.

Step inside the Digital Shop

Here is how my digital ‘Shop’ on BMAC looks today:

• The Glimmerstone Enigma (Book 1): $4.99 (Discounted for new readers to dive in)

• The Siremirian Conundrum (Book 2): $5.99 (For immediate, complete early access)

• The Vanguard Bundle (Books 1 & 2): $9.99 (The ultimate value play for binge-readers)

The value proposition is simple: a reader saves the time of waiting 39 weeks for the complete serialization and gains the convenience of taking the whole story with them anywhere with zero “click friction.“

The best part is the pricing. At those levels, the price feels competitive to other platforms’ digital book sales, and my efforts with Reedsy deliver similar quality as well.

I’ve never felt right about asking Substackers to pay a monthly fee to access my work, and I’m not ready for the Bezos machine just yet (for several reasons!). But, as artists, we shouldn’t shy away from seeking appropriate financial compensation for our work, and this solution fits the bill for me.

So, whether you’re gasping to get the whole of The Siremirian Conundrum immediately, or you’re a fellow author looking for a monetization solution of your own, check out what I’ve built!

Bryn's BMAC

Until next time,

Bryn

Subscribe now

Two weeks away from the serial launch of the new book, I’m excited to share the cover, blurb, and map, and an alternative access path for all you bingers!

Now, onto the good stuff! Here’s the cover:

The back cover Blurb:

Surprised by their own success after brazenly stealing a mysterious stone from under the nose of the shadowy Red Queen, a group of unremarkables learns the hard way that if you take the big dog’s bone, you’d best be prepared for the teeth.

Seeking payback and a retirement fund, they grift an otherworldly relic that disrupts the laws of magic, well beyond their ability to handle.

Now, the undead arch-mage with goals of planetary conquest is coming to get it back.

There are no gods, armies, or chosen ones to stand against her. Venn’s future lies squarely in the hands of a quirky crew of moderately talented misfit adventurers who excel at breaking balls, creating nicknames, and taking care of their own.

To keep it from her grasp and survive the fallout, they’ll need to outrun an interplanar killer, outmaneuver a cabal, and outwit an undead genius, all while trying to unravel the conundrum of her immortality.

Armed with little more than a stubborn belief in each other, a dollop of delusional optimism, and just enough ignorance to think they have a puncher’s chance, they’re putting their faith in gritty ingenuity and Teffel’s sixth rule of thievery – While a pauper can trust the man guarding his fortunes, a prince mistakenly believes the same.

For their sake, and Venn’s future, the old rogue better be right!

Finally, here’s the relevant detailed map for The Siremirian Conundrum:

As you can see, the group is forced to push west, into the territories of the Siremirian League. What’s so special about that circled red area—The Zulm? You’ll just have to wait for the weekly chapters, or…will you?

I've spent the last few weeks figuring out how to get this full book into your hands in a way that respects your wallet and my art—completely bypassing the broken monthly subscription model. Tomorrow, I'm going to pull back the curtain on how it works and officially open the doors to the new digital shop, where you can grab the complete text of Book 2 immediately. Keep an eye on your inbox!

My goal is to keep the entire trilogy free to read. If you’d like to support the project, you can send a one-time high-five via [Buy Me a Coffee]. No pressure either way, I’m just glad you’ve come along for the adventure!

Week Two: Setting the Scene

Night has set across the library in [insert your hometown of choice here], which, during the day, intimates the warm allure of the sun; and at night, the distance. Within, across the high call desk, through the wooden stacks, and into the deep middle of the romantasy section, lies on the floor a woman in a long dress, arms laid vaguely about her head as though dancing, the blood seeping from her body making a mess of the worn carpeting. Several details in her vicinity reveal themselves: First, a step ladder fallen nearly on top of her, a toppled book settled perfectly upon her face. Second, a letter opener covered in something… sticky? lodged into her left lung. And third, of course, resting within her open hand: a literal smoking gun.

Each day, you will be given a new clue. Each day, you will be asked to solve the crime. And if you don’t solve it in time… you’ll be next.

Thanks to Ani Beeler and Eliza James for launching this. Am FEVERISH following the alleged rampant success of my first week. Apparently a South African Paramedic is now forever to be whispered in the annals of history.

To get started, let’s build our characters! (Mentally OR on paper OR however your heart desires.)

Our characters as defined by their differences:

~Character One~

Character One is sharp in mind and tongue, which does not endear them to anyone. They are someone who is, and must be, easily hated, and this works perfectly for what they have planned.

~Character Two~

Character Two is reserved, and rightfully so. They have a secret that, when revealed, will ruin everything.

~Character Three~

Character Three is boring & normal.



Day #1



Day One: Our beloved characters are hanging out in the local pub when the town gossip busts down the door. The Hemingway-or-bust high school English teacher reads romantasy???? Oh, and also, she’s dead.

Ok, Ok…I know I missed last week, the victim of an unexpected flurry of home activity. I’m hoping to redeem myself with a strong showing this week!

_________________________________________________________________________

“Another Teacher’s Ernie?” Glenda called over to her only patrons from behind the bar, tugging at the hem of her t-shirt. Did I shrink it? She’d been working at The Snog in the Snug for less than a year, and it fit when she started. But now, no matter how she tried, it insisted on riding up, revealing an unflattering belly bulge. Not even her stretchy jeans came up high enough for ample cover. Maybe it’s time to break up with the chippy.

Ernie, the taller of the two men seated at the bar, raised his nearly empty glass wordlessly in confirmation. With one last futile attempt at wardrobe rearrangement, Glenda palmed the bottle of whiskey from the counter and headed their way. As far as she was concerned, eleven am was a bit early for blended scotch, but the Snog didn’t pay her for her opinions.

The other man, an insufferable ponce called Simon, had been talking Ernie’s ear off for several minutes, which was status quo. Normally, she tuned him out entirely and suspected Ernie of frequently doing the same. Her approach, however, reluctantly dragged her into the so far one-sided conversation.

“I’m telling you, mate, the entire genre is a thinly veiled cover for monster sex fetishes!” Simon’s tone carried all the usual bluster of someone who masked their ignorance through confident delivery. “That bird is definitely into shagging werewolves, or centaurs, or summik.” Simon stretched out both fists before pulling them back toward his body repeatedly, jerking his hips forward in a lewd, piston-like motion, before forcing a fake laugh.

Closer to Glenda, Ernie turned toward her with an epic eyeroll. The corners of her mouth twitched in response, but she kept it contained.

“For god’s sake, man, the woman is dead, show a bit of respect!” Ernie admonished him, sliding his empty glass across the bar.

Catching it between her thumb and forefinger, Glenda inverted the bottle. “Who’s dead?”

“Miss Hemingway, the sixth form English teacher,” Ernie said.

“And monster shagger!” Simon added, hoping that if he repeated the joke enough times, it would get funnier.

Ernie shook his head in exasperation. “They found her in the library last night. Apparently, she enjoyed reading Romantasy, and this one,” he tilted his head toward Simon, “Thinks that means she indulged in certain kinky proclivities.”

Glenda’s face wrinkled in distaste. “That’s horrible!”

“That’s what I’m saying! Thank you!” Simon instantly piled on.

“Horrible that she’s dead, not that she likes her fantasy with a bit of spice, you numpty!” Glenda fired back. “Honestly, Simon, sometimes I’m jealous of everyone who doesn’t know you!”

The pour spout dribbled to a finish before Glenda inverted it a second time, giving her regular a bit more than the standard. The uncomfortable smile on Simon’s face confirmed he was trying to work out if she’d just insulted him. Mission accomplished.

“What happened?” she directed the question deliberately at Ernie.

The taller man shrugged. “Dunno, but they found her in a pool of her own blood, holding a letter opener, so it’s definitely suspicious.”

Having convinced himself that she hadn’t intended to besmirch his character, Simon spread his hands wide, a look of disbelief on his face. Holding the pose until he had her attention, he looked at Ernie’s refilled glass, then back to his empty pint glass, then back to her.

“Same again?” she asked, snatching the glass from the smooth lacquered wooden bar top. “What was it?”

His voice dripped with sarcasm, “If you don’t mind. It’s Stella. It’s always been Stella for as long as I’ve been coming here.”

“Of course it is,” She muttered, turning around to the tap on the rear counter.

“Whoa! Looks like you’ve got some love handles on the grow there, Glendy! You lookin to change it up from those bunches? Give your fella summik else to grab hold of?” Simon forced another laugh. Ernie’s hands instinctively rose to cover his face.

With one hand holding the glass and working the tap, the other reached behind her, giving the shirt another self-conscious tug before turning up her middle finger in his direction. “I’ve told you before, please call me Glenda…Glendy sounds like some chain-smoking slag that draws her brows on with a Sharpie.”

Her back to both men, Glenda pursed her lips, subtly releasing a long drool of saliva into the head of his beer. Forcing a sweet smile onto her face, she turned around, sliding the pint across the bar.

________________________________________________________

Day Two: Character One did it. Carefully choose your viewpoint character to tell us how and why.

Your clue for the day: Your viewpoint character of choice visits the crime scene to check it all out (how do they get past the police? Who knows). When they remove the book from her face, a cavity within its pages becomes visible—but it is empty. What could have been hidden within? Search for the item that has been lost. It is near her body, and it may be a crucial clue.

Day 2 Add

She watched him neck the first third of the pint. The change was subtle, but her smile shifted from a facade to genuine satisfaction. Personal indulgences aside, she needed to steer the conversation back to the murder, a confident title for what she witnessed last night.

The date had ended far earlier than she’d hoped. The modest expectation of a decent meal, and maybe even a shag, was dashed by an obvious mommy complex and a revolting obsession with something called Warhammer. At least she’d managed to scarf down a rocket salad before bolting when he went to the loo. Not her finest moment, but life was too short for that kind of bullshit.

The walk back to her flat, on the other hand, was far too long, especially in this rain. Arms folded across her chest, head bowed, she hurried across the street toward the public library. Normally quiet in the evening, particularly with the local uni already in summer recess, the building spanned three blocks across the south end of the common. Entrances on both sides offered a welcome cut through against the weather, making it an easy choice.

No one at the front desk, that wasn’t unusual anymore—cutbacks. The hollow sound of her heels against the stone floor echoed as she crossed the space. Clack clack. Children’s fiction. Clack clack. Fantasy/Sci-Fi. As she crossed into Modern fiction, the clacks stopped abruptly. Prone on the floor, in the middle of the aisle on her right, a woman lay motionless, the soles of her Clarks pointed at Glenda.

“You alright, Love?” she called, before seeing the blood. Rushing down the aisle, Glenda stopped short, resisting the urge to shout for help, a tingle of warning tickling her brain. The woman was clearly dead, the front of her dress soaked in blood, a larger puddle framing her torso on the floor below. Her eyes darted to the victim’s face, hidden under an open book, curious, then to the letter opener. Tiptoeing around the puddle’s crimson edge, she examined it closely. Handle and blade both bloody, it didn’t take a genius to connect the dots, but there was something else.

After a sweeping glance reassured her she was alone, Glenda carefully got down on her knees, the floor’s surface cold against her bare skin. Stupid miniskirt. bringing her nose close to the dull blade. and the dark purple smear near the tip, she inhaled deeply through her nose. The tang of wet metal, copper more specifically, dominated her senses, but another, more familiar scent tickled her brain. The Aussies…pints during the Ashes last summer…Black Currant! Snakebites, they called them, VB with a dash of black currant bitters. There was black currant jelly on the letter opener. Very odd.

She got to her feet, suddenly very aware of how things might look if someone found her over the body. Still, curiosity got the better of her. Pulling the sleeve of her jacket over her fingers, she lifted the book gently off the poor woman’s face, looking into the vacant eyes staring back. She recoiled, a sharp gasp escaping her lungs. It’s Philippa Hemingway!

Suddenly aware of the accelerating thump of her heart, beating against her chest, she looked down at the book. The pages had been cut out to hide something, something small, no more than three inches long and less than two across. One of the shorter edges was stained crimson, long dry by the look of it. What the actual fuck?

She flipped it over. No label on the base of the spine. Not a real library book. She glanced at the title—A Farewell to Arms. Her eyebrows arched in surprise. Hemingway…a bit on the nose.

Whatever secret the book’s cutout had been hiding wasn’t immediately apparent. It couldn’t have been the letter opener—too big. After placing the book back where she found it, Glenda checked the library’s bookshelves—flush with the floor, so whatever it was didn’t escape that way. What if it’s underneath her body?

She hesitated.

Fuck it! I need to know!

Returning to her knees, she cautiously lifted the victim’s right shoulder, her face retracting in a grimace of disgust. Nothing. Shimmying around the blood puddle, she repeated the maneuver on the left shoulder, her breath coming in short, rapid gasps.

And there it was…a severed human thumb!

Glenda lurched back in surprise, the lifeless shoulder returning to the blood pool with a sickly squelch.

“Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god!” she hissed.

What started as a gesture of compassion was escalating rapidly. The smart thing to do now would be to walk away and pretend she was never here.

Instead, she found herself reaching into her handbag for her pack of wet wipes and returning to the body. After two false starts, she worked up enough courage to lift the shoulder again and snatched the digit.

The wail of distant sirens snapped her head up. Shit. The Filth. Carefully folding the thumb up in a wet wipe, Glenda removed her heels and raced for the exit.

__________________________________________________________

Day Three: No, actually, Character Two did it. Carefully choose your viewpoint character to tell us how and why.

Your clue for the day: The stickiness on the letter opener tastes like honey? Strange. Thankfully, it was something semi-edible and not horrendously disgusting, since someone chose to taste it.

Day 3 Add

“Oy, Glenda!” Marcus’ voice from the kitchen snapped her attention back to the moment.

“Alright, alright!” she shouted back. Wiping her hands on a bar towel, she walked back toward the kitchen, still puzzling out how to subtly bring the conversation with Ernie and Simon back to the murder.

Holding the door open with her hip, she accepted two warm plates from Marcus before returning to her only customers.

“Here we are, gents, two full English.” She slid the plates across the bar and turned on her heel, retreating to the cooler behind the till. “What’s brought you in so early on a Sunday anyway?”

“Weekly market,” Simon replied. Unwilling to wait for cutlery, he plucked a mushroom from his plate and popped it into his mouth. “Ernie has artisinal tastes, and there’s a bird there I fancy.”

Glenda opened the cooler to fetch the bowl of butter pats. Her gaze lingered on the severed thumb, suspended in a pint glass filled with ice, before considering the bowl of jam packets. I wonder. Quickly rearranging the packets, she collected both bowls, along with two sets of napkin-wrapped cutlery. Depositing all of it in front of Simon and Ernie, she gave her troublesome another tug and leaned back against the counter.

Simon directed an upward nod her way, immediately snapping up a pat of butter. “Cheers, Glendy!”

“Cheers!” Ernie echoed, grabbing butter of his own.

She watched intently when Simon went for the jam. Hunting through the options, he finally made a selection. He peeled back the foil cover before levering the contents onto his toast with a smear. Black Currant.

Her lips stretched into a smile.

“Would you mind terribly if I used my own?” Ernie asked. He held up a burlap shopping bag from the floor beside his stool. “Weekly market!”

“‘Course you can,” she replied with a wave of her hand.

Focused on Simon, she only casually registered Ernie removing a jar from the bag. Plunking it on the bar before returning the rest of his shopping to the floor, the color caught her eye—purple.

The seal gave way with a metallic pop.

Glenda craned her neck for a better look at the jar. “What is that?”

“Honey, imported from America, North Carolina specifically,” Ernie replied, “It’s gorgeous!”

“He paid fifteen quid for that. Can you Adam and Eve it?” Simon scoffed. “Purple honey!”

“D’you mind?” Glenda asked, arching her eyebrows, reaching for the jar.

Ernie nodded. “Course! Try some if you like.”

She held the jar up to the light—deep purple. “The color is amazing! What makes it purple?”

Ernie’s eyes glittered mysteriously. “That’s just it, no one knows! Some think it’s down to the plants they source the pollen from, others think it could be the soil.”

Glenda brought the jar to her nose and gave it a long sniff. Hints of grape…and black currant.

__________________________________________________________

Day Four: No, actually!!! Character Three did it. Carefully choose your viewpoint character to tell us how and why.

Your clue for the day: When the gun is pulled away, there rests a piece of paper with something written on it in the woman’s hand. Now your character must find out: What does it say, and how did it get there?

_________________________________________________________________

Day 4 Add

Simon slapped his hand on the bar so hard the nearby cutlery rattled, bits of toast flying from his mouth. “Ha! Come on, Glendy. You expect us to believe that load of codswallop?”

Her dropping jaw pulled her facial features into a stunned pout.

Ernie’s shoulders shook in silent mirth while he swallowed a bite of black pudding.

“Accusing Ernie because of his fancy feckin honey? He didn’t even buy that until this morning. I watched him. There was a few bits and pieces missing from your little porky pie, wasn’t there?”

“I…I…don’t understand,” she stammered

“You just failed to notice a six-foot ladder, lying on top of the corpse, or the literal smoking gun in her hand, but you got close enough to examine the honey on the letter opener? Bollocks.”

“How do you…?” Glenda caught herself before finishing the sentence.

Simon smiled around the rasher of bacon he was shoveling into his mouth. “Because we were there, you absolute lampshade!” He tossed a worn leather billfold onto the bar, the flap falling open to reveal his identification card. “I’m DCI Simon Williams.” He tipped his head toward Ernie. “And this is DS Ernie Rees.”

After wiping his mouth on the napkin, Simon crumpled it and let it fall onto his half-finished breakfast. Pushing the stool back, he got to his feet, strolling casually toward the cut-through at the end of the bar, and her only means of escape. “I’m gonna make this real simple for you. How’s about you tell us why you killed poor Miss Hemingway, and what you took from the book?” In exchange, we’ll have a quiet word with the magistrate.” He shrugged. “Maybe she’ll knock off a couple of years.”

“I have no idea what you’re on about,” Glenda said defiantly, her cheeks blooming pink. “She was already dead by the time I arrived.”

Simon raised his eyebrows. “Oh, is that so?” He turned to Ernie, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “She has no idea, Ernie!”

The taller man smiled, clearly enjoying the breakfast theater while he mopped up a bit of egg yolk onto his toast.

Simon circled back to Glenda, a knowing smile spreading across his face. “Besides the ladder, you also didn’t notice the note she had in her hand, wrapped around the pistol grip. We didn’t see it either, until we pried the gun out of her hand.”

“Not only were you foolish enough to threaten the woman in writing, but you even signed it!”

Reaching into his pocket, Simon withdrew an evidence bag containing a rumpled piece of paper and read from it. “Meet me at 9 pm, south side of the common, and bring the key, or you’re dead - Glenda.”

“I didn’t sign my name—” She froze, realizing her mistake. Her chin sank to her chest. “How did you know?”

“Why do you think we’ve been coming in here every week for the last few months, ever since the museum heist?” Ernie called from his seat. “For the ambience? We’ve had our eye on you.”

Glenda’s gaze fell on Simon. “So have you just been pretending to be a complete arsehole this entire time as well?”

Ernie answered first. “No, that’s entirely genuine.”

_________________________________________________________________

Day Five: The police are floundering, the town is flummoxed, and I mean obviously the woman herself is finito. So. How does this story end? Who murdered Ms. [—]?

_________________________________________________________________

Day 5

Glenda tugged at the hem of her shirt and let out a sigh. “Fine, I wrote the note, but I didn’t kill her, I swear.”

“Make me believe that,” Simon challenged her. “Cuz from where I’m standing…” his head tilted to one side, brows arched.

“She was in on it, the ring leader in fact.” Glenda began.

“April Hemingway, the sixth form English teacher, the mastermind of the museum heist?” Ernie’s tone was doubtful.

“The very same, as God is my witness.” Glenda held up one hand, as if swearing on a bible. “There were four of us from around the country, all specialists. I was the fence.”

“Come on then, who are the others, let’s have the names.” Simon prompted her.

Glenda gave a long shrug. “Never knew them, never even met them, I swear! She kept us all siloed and used codenames. I was called Kerouac. She named everyone after authors.”

Simon paused her with a raised hand. “Kerouac? She named you all after authors?”

“So, what was the key you demanded, and why was it so important?” Ernie asked.

Glenda nodded before turning to Ernie, lifting her chin defiantly. “I did my bleedin’ job, didn’t I? The buyers were lined up and getting more than a bit irate since I hadn’t delivered the artwork, and of course, everyone wanted to get paid. Only our security specialist—codename Steinbeck—had the goods locked up somewhere and went dark, likely holding out for a bigger share. Hemingway said she knew where to find the key, and would bring it to me. When I hadn’t heard from her, I wrote the note.”

Ernie pushed his empty plate aside, his cheek bulging in an attempt to pry a stubborn piece of bacon from between his teeth. “And where’s this key now? We know you haven’t gone anywhere apart from your flat and The Snog since last night.”

“The unis are tossing the flat as we speak; if they find it first, it’s game over,” Simon added.

Glenda’s gaze shifted back and forth between the two men for a long moment. “Well, turns out it wasn’t really a key, was it?” Taking two steps toward the cooler, she reached for the handle.

“Easy!” Simon barked.

Holding up her hands in surrender, she used two fingers to open the cooler door and extract the pint glass, sliding it across the bar’s surface.

Simon recoiled, taking a step back. “Jesus Christ! Is that a finger?”

“A thumb, actually,” Glenda confirmed. “That’s what was hidden in the book.”

Well, whose is it?” Simon’s lips curled in revulsion as he leaned in for a closer look, wiping away a line of the rapidly forming condensation on the glass surface.

Ernie let out a sigh, his head shaking in disbelief as he reached down for the burlap bag at his feet.

Glenda shrugged. “My guess would be Steinbeck’s. He was an expert with locks, alarms and safes. His job was to hack the systems at the museum, to get us in. Maybe it opens a digital lock, wherever he hid the paintings?”

Simon pulled the thumb from its icy tank, holding it up for a closer look. “And you think Hemingway killed him and hacked off his thumb?”

Glenda nodded. “I don’t think she was retrieving it from the book. I think she was hiding it there, for me to pick up!”

“What gave you that idea?” Ernie asked idly, setting his shopping bag on the bar, rummaging through it, obviously looking for something.

Glenda looked from one to the other in disbelief. “Didn’t you notice the book title?”

Ernie raised his head from the bag. exchanging a blank look with Simon.

Glenda transitioned from a headshake to an epic eyeroll. “Tottenham’s finest, you two barnacles! It was A Farewell to Arms…Ernest Hemingway…get it?” She spread her arms in a look of stunned disbelief as they stared back, unfazed. “Her name was Hemingway, she cut off a finger, and chose A Farewell to Arms to hide a severed thumb? What a perfect setup to leave me a cryptic clue on where to find it! Only someone got to her before she could meet me on the common.”

“So, who killed her then?” Simon was growing impatient. “Who was the fourth member of your crew?”

“He was the infiltration specialist, could get in and out of anywhere without being seen, so she said. And apparently, if someone did see him, they didn’t live to squawk about it. Like I said, I never met him.”

Simon pressed for details. “But what was his code name? Tell us that at least.”

“Fleming, Ian Fleming.” It was Ernie who spoke. Extracting a pistol from his market bag, two gasps hissed from the silencer. The first shot struck Simon in the right ear, the second caught Glenda in her left cheek. Both crumpled to the floor.

Sliding the gun back into his burlap tote, Ernie calmly rose from his stool, crossed to Simon’s still form. Stepping around the crimson puddle expanding around his head, he casually snatched up the severed thumb, added it to his shopping bag, and exited The Snog.

As many of you know, I began this journey without the benefit of any literary education or practice as an author. The taxonomy and evolution of literary genres weren’t topics of interest either. I just waded in and started writing. My love of Fantasy and my D&D experience made the high-level navigation clear. Beyond that, I clung to several ideas I wanted to explore and prove I could do it. More importantly, I needed to confirm if there were others like me out there who would be interested in reading it. The Unexpected Vanguard trilogy is the result, and I can finally put a proper label on it.

Fantasy for the Masses

The genre always felt polarized to me. Readers either love it or they don’t. There was no in-between. When I thought about this, I wondered if that came down to the large-scale world-building—hundreds of pages of history, politics, complicated magic systems, and excessive scene-setting required for the underlying story to make sense. Did these elements serve as a gatekeeper to the casual reader? Could a story retain enough of the fantastical elements of the genre and remove the barrier of complex background setup before getting to what many non-fantasy folks see as the ‘good stuff’ - plot, characters, setting? If it could be done, would it open those gates and usher in a new audience that often shied away from the genre? I’ve tried to accomplish this by building on a fairly well-known system—the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons—while avoiding the detailed explanations. My thought was that hardcore fans generally know those rules and don’t require the explanation, while the uninitiated would appreciate getting to their ‘good stuff’ without the complex definitions.

Reprising the Ensemble Cast and Found Family

The second tenet that I wanted to embrace was the return of the ensemble cast and found family. While these dimensions in fantasy haven’t disappeared by any means, the current trends, which I’m less fond of, have been driving toward single main character stories delivered in the first-person perspective, often with the structured stat blocks and power-ups more common in video games. I yearned for those classic fantasy tales of a group coming together, building a relationship, and tackling a shared problem. The stories of Tolkien and Jordan, Weiss and Hickman. Is it a taller order for a first-time author? Absolutely, but it was the story I wanted to write. Seven diverse main characters, multiple points of view, third person.

Hopepunk and Avoiding the Power Trope

This was probably the most important idea I wanted to embrace. Lately, it seems not a single day goes by without the constant erosion of hope for most people, particularly in North America. Layoffs everywhere, rising prices, stagnating wages, the rich getting richer, the elite avoiding accountability, and the promise of a better life for the next generation getting farther out of view. The sense of powerlessness and frustration builds with every morning’s headline.

I didn’t know how to label the work at the time, but I wanted to offer a fantasy escape that could also help restore belief in our collective ability to make a difference. I needed to show that there is still hope for improvement by staying true to who we are as human beings and embracing each other when everything is trying to divide us. We may be unremarkable punks in the world’s current power schema, but refusing to accept seemingly grimdark surroundings and choosing to make the world a better place through kindness and small, courageous choices can have a potentially profound impact.

This is a message I believe many need to hear right now, myself included. When I came across the definition for this fantasy subgenre, I was ecstatic to finally find the definition I had been grasping for since the first words of The Glimmerstone Enigma hit the page.

This is Hopepunk.

Ironically and unintentionally, I try to show the power of humanity with a group of non-humans, but you’ll also notice my characters aren’t very powerful. That one is deliberate, and a big part of the point.

Together, we rise!

Until next time,

Bryn

Writing The Glimmerstone Enigma began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire trilogy free to read. If you’d like to support the project, you can [Pledge a Subscription] for the long haul, or send a one-time high-five via [Buy Me a Coffee]. No pressure either way, I’m just glad you’ve come along for the adventure!

Now that the entirety of The Glimmerstone Enigma has been published, I feel like I can share more about some of the story evolution and specifics that I shied away from earlier. Of course, I’ll continue to avoid spoilers for those who aren’t fully caught up.

For anyone familiar with my journey, you’ll recall that ‘author’ was not a skill set present in my wheelhouse until less than two years ago. For those who may be newer to the Stack, I won’t rehash the Bryn Norel origin story, but you can find it here.

Subscribe now

The Seven Seat Problem

What I want to share today gets at the heart of one of the major creative hurdles any fiction author faces when they first sit down to write—who is the story about?

I think most of us start with the concept of a high-level plot, but it’s no secret that one of the ingredients for memorable fiction is memorable and relatable characters, and this stops many would-be authors in their tracks—How many? Who are they? What makes them interesting?

Obviously, the larger the cast, the greater the challenge, so many writers keep it simple the first time out, sticking to one main character that often takes on a personality very similar to the author themselves (or who they wish they were), and there’s nothing wrong with this approach, particularly when a writer is trying to find their authorial feet.

Expediency over Effort

In the case of The Unexpected Vanguard series, I started with seven main characters and a handful of significant side characters, a fairly tall order. So, am I some literary ingenue with previously undiscovered mad character development skills? Absolutely not. Those who know me in real life would tell you I’m ruthlessly practical, bordering on lazy, always trying to think my way to a lower-friction, lower-effort solution. So, where did I find the collection of weirdos you’ve all come to love in the story?

RPG Meets MC

The answer lies in the common thread that runs through many dimensions of my fantasy writing—Dungeons and Dragons. More specifically, in this case, I ripped my characters straight from my current tabletop game.

I have a group of friends that gets together once every three weeks for gaming sessions that started before COVID. It’s a definite highlight of my social calendar. In fact, we’re playing tonight (Yay!).

When I was first considering trying my hand at fiction writing, I thought it would be cool to immortalize the characters my friends had developed and lived once every three weeks for lo these many years, directly into my story.

With their blessing, I instantly had my ensemble cast, a blend of each of them as people and their game persona that I’ve had the benefit of observing for quite a while—the way they think and speak, the quirks they consciously or unconsciously incorporate into the characters, their motivations and fears.

Sorry J.R.R. (and other necessary edits)

I’ve definitely taken a degree of creative license here and there, and even had to change their names in two cases to fit the narrative. My friend Marc, being very new to D&D when we started all those years ago, decided to name his elven ranger “Segolas”. Now, I couldn’t have good old JRR rolling over in his grave, so I had to rename him to something a bit less obvious and landed on Segwyn.

Share

Similarly, my friend Julie, who happens to be French and also a beginner, named her halfling bard Sabine, which similarly didn’t really fit the world I was building. After seeing a documentary on the pirate ‘Black Sam’ Bellamy and the discovery of his flagship, I knew I had to go with ‘Whydah’ (pronounced wi-DAH), which, of course, must be delivered with a Boston drawl. For those unfamiliar with the story of the wreck and its treasure, you can find it here.

Tics, Hammers, and the Imposter Syndrome

While the world of Venn, and the plot are all mine, the characters in the book are my interpretations of their creations, down to Tsuta’s neurodivergent tics and social awkwardness, and Lunish’s imposter syndrome, the latter originating from the player rather than the character. Another D&D beginner, she always worried she didn’t know enough about the game to play it properly. In fact, the scene in Chapter 16 where our little druid gnome prepares to attack the Sklir with a tiny carpenter’s hammer is a direct callback to one of her first battles on the tabletop, as was the fireside intervention a couple of chapters later, where the rest of us tried to convince her to embrace different tactics in the future.

The Smartphone Substitute

Even the more prominent side characters in the story - Grym and Glamos - were my twin sons’ characters from our attempt to introduce D&D to our children as a substitute for smartphones—a longer tale worthy of its own post.

So, if you’re an author searching for character inspiration for your own story, look around you; they may be closer than you think.

Where’s Bryn?

For those who have been paying attention, you’ll recall that I’m a player, not the DM in this campaign. That means my own character is also in the story. Any guesses?

Until next time,

Bryn

Leave a comment

To dive into the first tale featuring this motley crew, start reading The Glimmerstone Enigma, the first book of The Unexpected Vanguard trilogy here.

The Unexpected Vanguard: A Hopepunk Epic Fantasy trilogy for fans of The Lies of Locke Lamora and Six of Crows. A found family of unremarkables uses grift and heist tactics to outwit a superior foe in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse.

The Glimmerstone Enigma is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and start at the beginning!

[View the Table of Contents for The Glimmerstone Enigma]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

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?”

“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 1

Leave a comment

Writing The Glimmerstone Enigma began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire Unexpected Vanguard trilogy free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Glimmerstone Enigma is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and start at the beginning!

[View the Table of Contents for The Glimmerstone Enigma]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

Nar’zl perched himself in the crook of an oak bough. With a clear view of the perimeter and the box, he shimmied back against the trunk. His pupilless black voids scanned the hillside. Long tail flicking idly against the tree’s rough bark, he awaited Mistress’s arrival. The horde had finally found the stone without further interruption from the orange-skinned fleshers or their pet bear. She had seen to that, sending the Sklir to kill every single one of them and destroy their home following his report of their meddling. Admittedly, he didn’t understand all the fuss. It was just a plain grey rock with a few crystals, likely too brittle to survive a good head bashing. Regardless, she would be pleased, which meant he would receive less punishment.

A howl echoed from across the clearing, drawing his attention. Immediately joined by several others, a gentle tremor twitched through his tree before a wave of canine fleshers burst over the hill. He rose to a crouching stance, hind legs taut, tail thrashing as he poised to spring. He yearned to engage the dogs, his fangs aching for flesh, but the magical command laid upon him by his Mistress was absolute. It was more than an order; it was a woven spell, physically restraining his demonic instincts, holding him from a direct attack. The quasit stomped his front feet on the wooden perch in frustration, gaze riveted to the unfolding chaos.

The lives of the Sklir were expendable, but Mistress instructed him to help them protect the box at all costs. The quasit weighed his options. He could throw himself into the fray, distracting the canines. He was good at that, and the dogs seemed to wield no magic, but a single strike from one of their spears would mean his end. He glanced at the box, still safe and well-guarded, out of the fleshers’ reach. Unfortunately, it was too heavy for him, or he could grab it, turn invisible, and hide until Mistress arrived. No, his best option was to sit tight and hope the demons could repel the horde. If they lost, he could discreetly follow the box so Mistress could retrieve it later.

A flash of green energy to his right, away from the battle, caught his attention. What’s this? Magic? A large flesher bird took flight, hurriedly rising into the canopy, away from the hillside. A twinge of uncertainty prickled in his tiny demon gut. Nar’zl made his choice. He could easily find the loud canines later if, somehow, they got the box. The quasit shape-shifted into a bat, turned himself invisible, and took off after the magical bird.

Lunish flared her wings, pitching upward to get above the trees. The open air buffeted her face, rippling the soft downy feathers. Her eyes narrowed against the breeze, wingbeats shifting to long, powerful strokes, pushing her back toward the abbey. A warm tingle spread through her avian body. Her beak lifted triumphantly. I wonder if owls can smile? The elation evaporated when Tsuta’s voice whispered in her head.

Watch out. We think the familiar is after you. He can fly. Don’t lead him back to the abbey. Good luck!

Lunish rotated her head over her shoulder, scanning the treetops in all directions. Nothing. Maybe they were mistaken. She maintained course and speed, tuning her superior hearing into the sounds around her. The low whistle of the air, streaming through her wings. The sigh of the breeze, the whispering treetops. All normal. Wait. What was that? She redoubled her concentration. Out of place up here and not far away, an occasional high-pitched squeak was almost drowned out in the ambient, white noise.

She looked back again, still nothing. Am I imagining it? No, there it is again. The same faint squeak, almost like…a bat…an invisible bat! Her owl heart began to race. What if it is the familiar? Outrun him? Fight him? First, she needed to be sure.

Spying a dense stand of maple, Lunish banked right and went into a glide, her talons brushing the tops of the crimson leaves. At the center of the thicket, she retracted her neck and pitched down hard, diving through the uppermost branches. This time, there was no mistake. Something else had crashed through the treetops behind her, no more than twenty feet back.

She jinked left, then right, twisting and weaving past the blur of branches and trunks, listening intently for any signs of pursuit. In the quieter shadows of the forest, she could hear it more clearly, smoothly pacing her. The owl turned her head, trying desperately to catch any glimpse of her pursuer, recovering just in time to avoid a rocky outcropping. How do I shake him if I can’t see him?

Nar’zl kept his eyes locked on the flesher bird. It was bigger, but he was nimbler. He scissored back and forth across her trail as the two twisted through the dense hillside in a dangerous aerial dance. It had tricked him into revealing his presence by diving into the trees, but no matter. As long as he kept it in sight, and it didn’t turn into a straight-line race, the quasit knew he had the advantage.

The poison instinctively dripped from his fangs, begging for the bird’s soft flesh. Bat-like lips stretched into a contemptuous snarl. He hated this cursed bond, inhibiting his burning instincts for blood and death. It would have been so delicious, watching it flutter helplessly, feet in the air, talons twitching as his venom coursed through its veins. He imagined the satisfying crunch of his jaws coming together through its feathered throat.

The niggling specter of self-doubt reared once again in the gnome’s mind. They were all counting on her to get the stone to the abbey, and here she was, playing cat and mouse with an invisible demon and failing. She pitched sharply left, skirting around a steep stone face jutting out from the hillside, the sound of the demon’s wingbeats now obvious among the ambient noise of the forest. She needed separation. Spying a crevice in a high rocky outcropping, it struck her, and something snapped. That’s it…cat and mouse! I’m not the mouse! I’m the predator, time to start acting like it!

She took a wide loop away from the hillside, weaving among the deciduous trunks. It stayed with her as she circled, repeating her previous route. This time, she stayed low and tight to the rock face before the sharp turn. As she banked, momentarily out of sight, Lunish shot skyward, climbing desperately towards the nook. Braking hard, she folded her wings, coming silently to rest twenty feet up, between the slabs of grey stone. Swiveling only her head, she sat stark still, listening. The demon burst around the corner and paused, flitting back and forth below her perch, its wingbeats uncertain, searching.

Lunish judged its distance from the rock face by sound. Surrendering herself to the raptor’s animalistic instincts, the druid launched herself backwards, out of the crevice. Gravity accelerated the owl’s sleek bullet form toward the ground below. At the last minute, she twisted into a half-roll, silently extending her wings. Talons out, beak flashing, she tore into her invisible pursuer.

On contact, talons clamped to the invisible prey, raking soft tissue. Her beak stabbed the seemingly empty air again and again as the two avian fighters tumbled to the forest floor in a splash of brown feathers, dead leaves, and demon blood. The creature squirmed and squealed, twisting to get away. Its flesh tasted sour, almost rotten. Black ichor stained her beak. Why doesn’t it fight back? The hesitation was momentary. Powerful raptor claws violently ripped in opposite directions. The squirming stopped. With a muted pop, the corpse in her talons was gone, and the owl, yellow eyes piercing the wooded shadows, stood alone in the leaf litter, chest rising and falling in deep, even swells.

Back on the hillside, the three friends crouched low behind rocky cover, eyes glued to the plains and the mysterious, vertical, shimmering puddle hanging unnaturally just above the swaying summer grasses. Three gnolls, eager for the upper hand, immediately charged the arcane structure, spear tips high. Its surface flexed with slightly more elasticity than water in response to the stabbing weapons, bending inward before the pointed iron tips penetrated its shimmer, disappearing beyond. The attackers pulled back, muttering and gesticulating in uncertainty. Finally, one lifted his spear in a rallying cry, let out a roar, and charged the shimmering surface. Like the spear, an initial resistance caused the surface to buckle inward before the gnoll disappeared, accompanied by the sound of deep mud squelching beneath a boot. His two comrades hesitated, holding their spears defensively aloft, reluctant to follow.

“What in Gond’s name is that?” Bird breathed to the others.

Tsuta’s tone was cautious, “I think we’re looking at a Plane Gate. I believe that’s how the demons were dropped on our outposts.”

“But that gnoll just went through in the opposite direction,’ the tabby objected.

“They do work both ways,” Glynfir confirmed. “It looks exactly as I’ve seen it described in text—like a vertical pool of water.”

“I want a closer look at whoever comes out of that thing. They’re likely the ones behind all of this. We can end this right here. Cut off the head of the snake.”

“Agreed,” Tsuta confirmed.

The cat pointed to a similar erratic stone rising from the forest floor, twenty yards from the edge of the grasslands. “There!”

Bird looked first at the wizard, who nodded in agreement, then to the raging battle on the opposite side of the clearing. Satisfied with the distraction, he turned back to his friends, tipping his head toward their destination. “Follow me, stay close.”

The three skulked downhill, keeping the cliff drop on their left. Flitting from one hiding spot to the next, they slid behind cover, backs to the stone. Bird held his hand up to the others, listening for any sign of recognition or pursuit. Satisfied again, he gave a confirming nod, and all three peeked above the rocky lip.

Across the clearing to their right, the corpses were piling up. Spear shafts bristled skyward across the forest floor, wooden gravestones marking the final resting place of combatants on both sides. The attackers’ gains were modest, claiming less than fifteen feet from the lip of the swamp. Two ambitious gnolls had broken through and made for the box. Their bodies now lay prone at the feet of the demon triumvirate defending that position.

Tsuta, closest to the plains side of their huddle, hissed at the others. “Something’s coming through!”

The surface of the shimmering portal shuddered, undulating, bulging, and retreating, threatening to expel contents from the other side. A skeletal hand clutching a scepter pierced the surface, followed by a second. Despite the sunny sky, a billowing, dense cloud of shadow oozed from the rippling magical barrier, swelling to shroud the area in front of the portal, pushing out in all directions. A chilling fear radiated up the hillside when a desiccated ballerina, ghoulish and regal, emerged from the shimmering curtain, gliding forward with measured magical momentum, inches above the ground, chin held high.

Dressed in a tattered combination of chain mail and robes, the skulls of tiny unidentifiable beasts adorned her breastbone, both shoulders, and the length of a sash-like belt. What little remained of flesh and skin, held in place by the armor, was black and rotted, dangling futilely from the bright white bones beneath. Her lower half was covered in long, torn red robes, billowing hypnotically despite the still morning air. An aura of white mist rose in steamy wisps off her body, curling and vanishing into the surrounding air.

The two nearby gnolls turned to flee, back toward the dwindling horde. They took three steps. With a flick of her bony finger, a clap of thunder echoed through the hills. A wave of force pulsed from her epicenter, flattening the high grass in a twenty-foot radius, leaving the two gnoll corpses in a broken and battered heap in its wake. She turned her attention to the melee on the hillside.

Paralyzed with fear, the three cowered behind their stony cover. Bird felt Glynfir’s grip on his shoulder tighten as they looked on in a combination of awe and horror.

Long, wiry white hair fluttered beneath a delicate platinum crown of spikes, each anchored in a blood red ruby. Her face was skeletally gaunt. High, thick cheekbones framed gaping black voids, the long-abandoned homes of facial flesh. Her eyes, glowing red bulbs of energy floating in empty sockets, scanned the hillside before coming to rest on the box.

Not a single command was uttered, at least not audibly. Silent instruction issued, the three Sklir on protection duty turned back to the box. Handing off his spear, the first picked it up. The remaining pair guarded the flanks as the trio strode calmly toward their mistress. Satisfied they were safely on their way, her malevolent gaze shifted slowly toward the ongoing fracas. For their part, the gnolls fought on, undeterred by the spectacle of her arrival. Still holding an advantage in numbers, they pressed in on the demons, snapping and howling.

The red embers burning inside her skull flared momentarily, and she raised the scepter. In a bright flash, three bolts of lightning shredded the grassland from the rod’s stone tip, racing up the hillside. Cries of anguish replaced the din of battle as the electrical energy leapt from one body to the next. Gnoll and demon alike collapsed in a wave of scorched, smoldering flesh, the lightning ripping through the landscape, leaving the odor of burnt wood and cooked meat, then stillness and silence returned.

Smoke lingered over the battlefield in a haze, rising lazily into the blue sky above. Glynfir cocked his head. Eyes narrowed, he puzzled through what he had just witnessed. Looking at his companions, he noticed the fur on the back of Bird’s neck stood straight up, and Tsuta’s face was bloodless and ashen. The three Sklir had nearly reached the portal as her head turned slowly back toward their concealed position, and her eyes pulsed again.

Her jaw didn’t move, but the words boomed directly in the wizard’s mind, raspy and guttural, the tone commanding.

Don’t think yourselves clever or hidden, little ant. Shall I raise my boot again?

“Run!” Tsuta hissed.

As they scrambled from cover, Bird barked at the wizard, tipping his head toward Tsuta, “Get him out of here, don’t worry about me.”

Grabbing the monk’s shoulder, Glynfir spoke the single command word, igniting a shimmering rectangle at his back. Pulling the monk with him, they tumbled through the dimension door, materializing well up the hillside, twenty feet from the trail. The bald monk got to his knees, peering through the woods, catching glimpses of Bird, on all fours, racing toward them at a dizzying speed. The cat bounded along erratically from tree to tree, disappearing and reappearing in full stride, only to vanish again behind cover. Raising his gaze to the plains, he could just discern the spectral corpse, preceded by the box-carrying demons, retreat into the shimmering surface of the plane gate before it imploded in a flash of purple.

The pair retreated to the trail, quickly joined by Bird, his chest heaving from exertion.

“I think that was the original Red Queen,” he gasped, doubled over, gulping for air. The cat lifted his head when he got no reply. Their faces were grim. Tremors vibrated through Tsuta’s hands as he spoke.

“More than that,” he said flatly. “She’s a Lich. The most powerful and ruthless of all the undead.”

Glynfir let out a long, slow breath, his head shaking from side to side. “She’s going to be really pissed when she opens that box!”

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Glimmerstone Enigma began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire Unexpected Vanguard trilogy free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Glimmerstone Enigma is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and start at the beginning!

[View the Table of Contents for The Glimmerstone Enigma]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

Nestled in a low depression, their backs to a sheer drop, the foursome waited. Shoulder pressed against the stony extrusion serving as their primary cover, Bird’s lithe feline form stretched out behind him. Constantly flexing his rear toes, his haunches rose and fell in anticipation. His tail hovered just above the leaf litter, the tip lazily swaying back and forth. Only two black fuzzy ears and two bright yellow saucers risked exposure above the edge of the protective stone, scanning the higher ground toward the trail to their right for any sign of the descending demon platoon.

Tsuta sat calmly, cross-legged, eyes closed, taking advantage of any opportunity for calm reflection, however fleeting. The druid distracted herself with a sprouting fern, gently coaxing it to flourish, an occasional magical flare sparking between her fingers and the stem.

Glynfir, constantly shifting his weight and changing position, his fingers unconsciously drumming against his robe-covered thigh, could barely contain himself.

“How long could it possibly take?” he whispered into Bird’s back.

Without opening his eyes, Tsuta’s right hand shot out, slapping the wizard’s drumming fingers, pressing them into stillness against his leg. “Patience Mustache, they’ll get here when they get here.”

“Two things I don’t understand,” Lunish whispered. “Why didn’t whoever is behind this come get it right away, as soon as the demons found it, and why do we think this is the right spot?”

“You couldn’t have asked that back at the abbey?” Bird breathed over his shoulder.

“Imperfect communication,” Glynfir said simply. “Even the most powerful casters can’t see everything happening everywhere. The familiar is the primary means of passing information, and they can only respond; they cannot initiate. So, until the caster checks in with that little green demon, they wouldn’t know it had been found.”

“The other part of the answer is the Plane Gate spell, since we think that’s how they’re moving around,” Tsuta added. “You can’t see through to the other side when you cast it. So, if you cast it up there,” he nodded to the peak on their right, “and you’re off by even a couple of feet in the placement, you’d step out of the gate blindly and go tumbling down the mountainside. It’s just good practice to pick a flat space.” He pointed to the grasslands below the base of the hillock. “Those fields are the closest flat spot.”

“Shhhhh,” the tabby hissed over his shoulder. “I told you already, if you spook them, we’re cooked!”

Although an excellent vantage point for observation, the foursome’s current position was defensively precarious. Outnumbered at least five to one, backs to a long sheer drop, this was not a place they wanted to pick a fight.

A grunt of satisfaction from Lunish turned their heads. With a smile on her face, the gnome presented the now bushy, fully grown fern at her feet.

The cat shook his head. “Focus, please! Honestly, I can’t believe you two successfully spied on anyone,” he whispered hotly.

The crack of deadfall to their right turned all heads back to the hillside. A procession of charcoal sauntered into view, accompanied by the scent of sulfur. Three in front, spears at the ready, formed the vanguard of the macabre parade. Their spiny tails swept back and forth in the leaf litter behind them.

“Here we go!” Bird breathed over his shoulder.

A larger cluster of almost twenty followed, relaxed, spears at their sides, tails still. The tabby noticed one Sklir holding two spears, while another, in the center of the pack, carried what had to be the mysterious prize. Another attentive guard patrolled each flank, with three more bringing up the rear. His eyes narrowed on a tiny, bright green, horned creature bounding back and forth through the main procession, oblivious to the occasional kick. “I count twenty-seven in total,” he announced quietly to the others. “And the familiar’s here too.”

This drew the rest of the team into a tight huddle, hunched behind their rocky cover, necks craning for a look.

“I’ve never seen a companion like that,” the wizard whispered, peering over Bird’s right shoulder. “It has to be a demon.”

“But, can you get me past it, Greaseman?” the cat hissed, reminding Glynfir of his job.

“I think so,” the wizard’s tone was hesitant. Bird’s sharp look made him rethink that answer.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine.” Glynfir flicked his fingers dismissively, reassuring himself as much as his companion.

Oblivious to their observers, the marks continued downslope toward the rocky apron separating the wooded foothills from the grassy plains beyond, skirting the thick cedar-choked valley on their right. Their hooked heads barely visible above the sloping terrain, the demons stopped twenty yards from the forest’s edge. After a brief exchange of grunts and clicks, they began establishing a perimeter. Eight demon sentries fanned out around the outcropping, taking positions to watch the plains, the swamp, the cliff, and their backtrail. The rest dropped out of sight, presumably sticking close to their prize, leaving nothing to chance.

“Segwyn was right,” Bird whispered, admiration in his tone. “This was their most defensible position.”

“They’re obviously waiting for something, or someone.” Tsuta agreed.

Bird turned his back to their cover stone, sliding lower, behind its protection, facing his friends.

“Okay, it’s time to pounce!” He glanced at Tsuta and then Glynfir. “Send messages to the others.”

“I’ve got Woodsy, you tell Tiny?” Tsuta checked with Glynfir. The latter nodded as they both produced small pieces of copper wire and began muttering under their breath, fingers twitching.

Bird turned to the gnomish druid. Her chin low, chest visibly swelling with each breath, she held his gaze, unblinking.

The tabby raised a hand to her shoulder. “You’ve got this. Just like we talked about, easy-peasy.”

She returned a tremor of a nod, her arms folded protectively across her torso.

“Woodsy will let fly in a couple of minutes,” the bald monk announced in a whisper.

“Iskvold and Whydah are in position.” Glynfir relayed.

“Excellent,” the cat purred, his whiskers bristling in a grin. “Fifteen minutes, Glynnie, and we’re on the move.”

The moments passed in silence as the group waited, alert for any sight or sound of activity. The Sklir stoically held their positions. Glynfir rolled his shoulders to relieve the knots growing on either side of his neck.

“Okay, Greaseman, time to go!” Bird extended one fuzzy claw in front of the wizard’s face, indicating a spot less than twenty feet from the central cluster of demons. “Let’s take position there, behind that big oak.”

Tsuta clasped Bird’s shoulder. “Good luck!”

“Be careful, Glynnie,” Lunish cautioned, reminding him, “this isn’t a game of dice.”

Ignoring her remark, Glynfir pulled the block of resin from his satchel and began casting. Bird gave Tsuta and Lunish one last, long look.

“Hopefully we’ll be back shortly, but if things go sideways, fall back to the trail and send us a message.”

As the last words tumbled from his lips, Bird lifted the tip of his tail, offering it to the wizard. Accepting the improvised guide rope, Glynfir touched Bird, then himself, and the two disappeared in a purple flash.

Leaving the protection of their hiding spot, they crept across the forest floor toward the cluster of demons with Bird in the lead. With the cat’s tail guiding his path, the wizard’s shoulders tensed further as they threaded the needle, tiptoeing between the sentries on the outer perimeter. He cringed as a twig snapped beneath him. The pair froze, two pairs of red, glowing eyes turning in their direction.

Sorry! He magically messaged his companion. Grateful to Whydah for sharing the cantrip, he disliked the spell’s limitation, restricting all mental messages to twenty-five words.

Stay still, I’ve got it, was the reply, before a rustle in the leaf litter off to the left turned the sentries’ attention elsewhere.

What did you do?

I threw a stone. We’ll give it a couple seconds, and I’ll start moving again.

His head on a swivel between the two sentries, the wizard’s heartbeat pulsed in his ears, the pace quickening with each stretching moment. Finally, he felt the tug from Bird’s tail, and they resumed their delicate journey to the big oak.

Reaching their target, Glynfir pressed himself flat against the trunk’s surface, letting out a long breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. So far, so good. Feeling Bird’s shoulder against his, the wizard peered around the tree toward the legion of demons barely twenty feet away. He counted nineteen hooks, standing silently, protectively, tails sweeping back and forth across the forest floor like a nest of snakes. Facing outward, they had their backs to something on the ground at their feet. The small green familiar was nowhere in sight.

It’s a box, with some inscriptions on it, he magically messaged the tabby.

I see that. Why would whoever is behind this go to the trouble of sending a box to pack it in?

The wizard’s brow furrowed in thought.

I dunno. Are we taking the whole thing?

Nope, just the contents. It’s too obvious if the entire box is gone, Bird answered.

The pair waited and watched for several minutes in silence, and doubt began to set in. He messaged Bird again, his fingers silently drumming against his leg.

What if it didn’t work, or she got caught?

Glynfir’s mind raced, calculating alternate plans on the fly until the tabby’s calm, vibrating tone echoed in his mind in reply, repeating the words he’d heard from Tsuta earlier.

Patience Mustache…How long do we have left on the invisibility?

About thirty minutes.

Lots of time. If it’s almost gone and they still haven’t arrived, we’ll pull back and regroup, okay?

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

The constant, almost hypnotic, sway of undulating tails among the dry leaves provided a conscious distraction, sparking the realization of what he didn’t see. Where is that little green demon hiding? The wizard’s search for the familiar was interrupted by a tingle at the base of his skull, warning him that his spell was near expiry. Preparing to message his companion again, the sound of a distant howl broke the silence, then another. Soon, a full-throated chorus of barks and yips rose from the swamp beyond the demon perimeter.

Hooked heads turned toward the disturbance, curiosity quickly giving way to alarm as the ruckus grew in volume and proximity. The protective circle around the box pivoted to face the swamp following a hurried exchange of clipped grunts and clicks. When the horde of angry gnolls crested the hill, overwhelming the perimeter, spears and teeth flashing, full pandemonium spread across the recently peaceful hillside.

Three Sklir stayed with the box, their backs turned, posture defensive, facing the horde. The rest charged immediately into the fray. The red matrix of demon spell casting mixed with the clang of spears as battle rose like a wave from the edge of the swamp. Even the sentries collapsed from their watch positions, crossing the clearing to meet the angry canine threat. Glynfir felt Bird’s weight leave his shoulder as the cat started to make his move.

Be quick, the spell is about to expire, he magically communicated

Noted…Can you please let go of my tail now?

The wizard felt his cheeks flush, releasing the tail he hadn’t realized he was still holding, and the tabby scrambled toward the box.

Bird closed the distance quickly, his feline paws soft and nimble, crossing the forest floor. With its remaining guards focused on the gnolls, this would be child’s play. Grasping opposing corners, he tried to lift the lid. It didn’t budge. Confused by its resistance, he gave the container a closer inspection. Frosted in ornate off-white floral designs and framed with silver corner bumpers, it was less than a foot long on each side. The faintest of seams, an inch from the top, confirmed there was, in fact, a lid, but it held tight.

A quick upward glance at the three demons reassured him of their distraction, but the gnolls were gaining ground. What they lacked in power, they made up for in numbers and pure ferocity. Whatever Iskvold had done must have been a performance for the ages! He picked up the box, turning it over in his hands. Heavier than expected, he found no hinges, no lock. The tabby tipped it to one side, feeling the soft vibration of something sliding across the interior. No, there’s definitely something inside. He probed the surface for a hidden pressure release. Finding none, the cat quickly withdrew a set of lockpicks, sliding one of the fine metal probes around the lid’s seal. Still no luck.

He stared at it for a moment, at a loss for how to proceed. A dapple of sweat began to bead on his lip when Glynfir’s voice whispered in his head.

We’ve gotta go, they’ll see us any second! What’s taking so long?

I can’t open it. It has no lock, no hinges. I don’t want to take the whole thing, but I may have no choice.

Gondammit. It’s a magic lock. Hang on, I’m coming.

The wizard jumped from behind the tree and bolted for the box, the mental fuse on his waning invisibility spell flashing in the back of his mind. The din of battle covered his urgent footfalls as he pulled up next to the tabby. His fingers danced as he whispered the words of the incantation before tapping the lid of the box, producing a soft, audible pop. Bird lifted the lid off with ease, and the two finally beheld the object of the team’s maddening pursuit.

Inside the box was a single stone. Roughly spherical and slightly larger than a fist, the uneven surface was flat grey despite appearing polished. Yellow crystals randomly studded the exterior, visibly transcending the stone at various angles in multiple places. Caked, drying dirt clung to one side, falling back into the box as Bird picked it up.

The gnolls continued to force the demons back, inching closer to their position.

Glancing around, the tabby grabbed a nearby rock of similar size, placed it into the box, and returned the lid.

“Let’s go!” he hissed, “Grab my tail.”

Glynfir reached out blindly until he felt the tabby’s invisible shoulder. Tracing his partner’s form, he took a firm grip on his feline guide rope. Bird started to move immediately. Not frantic, but with a much quicker pace than their initial incursion, the two retreated toward their friends.

Hurry!

The wizard mentally urged his partner forward and felt Bird respond. Ten yards out, the two broke into a run, gambling the increased sound against their sudden pending appearance. Reaching their base of operations, they dove behind the stone, bowling an unprepared Tsuta over in the process. As they came to rest behind the safety of their cover, breathing heavily, they both flickered into the visible spectrum.

“We got it!” Glynfir whispered, grinning from ear to ear, as Bird held up the strange rock.

Fifty yards away, the battle between demons and gnolls continued to rage as Tsuta took the stone from Bird’s outstretched hand.

“What is that?” he asked, puzzled, hefting the rock in his palm. “It looks like iron and has quite a bit of weight.”

The tabby shook his head. “I have no idea, we’ll have to figure it out later!”

Tsuta held the stone out to Lunish. “Okay, Braids, you’re up!”

The druid’s gaze was determined, though her lips were a thin, tight line across her face when she stepped forward, accepting the stone in both hands. It was too heavy for her to carry very far, but that wouldn’t matter.

In a green flash, she shifted forms into the great horned owl, the stone and all the rest of her belongings disappearing as they always do. With a long, slow blink, Lunish launched herself into the air and took off for the Luminarium.

As her feathered form disappeared into the leafy overhead cover, the sound of another winged creature taking flight, more reptilian than avian, whistled off to their left. The monk’s hands crackled with energy, his neck craning for a glimpse of the target. Just as quickly, it was gone. Tsuta turned back to the others, the magical glow fading from his hands as he offered a tight-lipped head shake.

“I never saw it. It could have been anything.” He shrugged.

“The familiar,” Glynfir hissed. “We didn’t see him among the others on the ground. What if he can shapeshift too, and watched the whole thing from the trees? I’ll bet he’s going for the stone.”

The arcane crackle returned immediately to the monk’s fingers. Concentrating on Lunish, he fired off a mental warning.

Watch out. We think the familiar is after you. He can fly. Don’t lead him back to the abbey. Good luck!

“No reply,” he informed the others.

The wizard began hopping from one leg to the other. “How can she fight that thing as an owl? That was her last shift. She can’t drop her form.”

The monk placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Braids can figure it out. She’s more resilient than you think.”

Nodding slowly, Glynfir turned to Bird. “By the way, I’m sorry for petting you earlier.”

“What? You petted him?” Tsuta hissed, his face a mixture of disbelief and disgust.

“He was invisible,” the wizard pleaded his case. “And I needed to find the tip of his tail so we could sneak back!”

The bald monk narrowed his eyes and grimaced in disappointment, shaking his head.

Bird snorted. “Next time, just buy me a drink first,” he quipped. “Let’s get out of here while everyone is still occupied.”

Rising to their feet, a flash at the edge of the plain caught their attention. A golden circle of spiraling, magical energy, ten feet across, sprang to life, perpendicular to the ground just beyond the foot of the hill. As they looked on, the swirling interior distended into a bubble, let out a loud crack, and snapped back into a mirror-like, shimmering surface, undulating with magical sparks.

Someone, or something else, was arriving.

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Glimmerstone Enigma began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire Unexpected Vanguard trilogy free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Glimmerstone Enigma is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and start at the beginning!

[View the Table of Contents for The Glimmerstone Enigma]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

The slope from the trail to the valley floor was rocky and steep, but still passable, with plenty of sturdy shrubs and saplings to assist their descent. While Iskvold found it challenging enough, it had to be that much harder for Whydah, given their size difference. Being unable to see her companion also complicated things. Maybe we could have waited on the invisibility spell. At least they could still speak, given the current distance from both the marks and the pawns. A fact she was grateful for when a shower of pebbles cascaded down the hillside a few feet in front of her.

“You good?” the drow called into the seemingly empty landscape.

“Yep, all good,” Whydah chirped in reply. “Just some loose rocks.”

The pair carefully picked their way to the valley floor, regrouping at the base of a tall pine.

“It’s thicker than I expected down here,” Whydah remarked, surveying the surrounding foliage.

The mix of black pine, oak, and maple prevalent along the trail and through the foothills had been replaced by a dense canopy of lower conifers. The occasional pine still stood proudly above the fray, but cedar, twisted and dense, dominated at ground level. Bathed in shadow, despite the late morning sunshine, a blanket of green moss and ferns covered the characteristic orange of dead needles. The area was choked with deadfall and bare, leaning trunks, unsuccessful in their pursuit of sunlight. Standing water pooled at low points on the uneven ground.

“How do I find you in all this?”

Though unable to see her, Whydah could hear the doubt and hesitation in the monk’s tone.

“You don’t, remember?” she answered reassuringly. “I’ll find you. As soon as the clock runs out on our invisibility, I’ll cast the same locate spell I used on the demons in that last fight and track your movement.” Whydah reminded the other woman of the plan. “Magic isn’t affected by the terrain. Just keep this slope on your left and wait for my messages. I’ll guide you toward the marks and be there to get us out.”

“Right,” Iskvold confirmed, her tone more confident. “How much time do we have left on the invisibility?”

“I would say about fifty minutes,” Whydah estimated. “You should get into position. Our window will be tight once Woodsy lights up their camp.”

The drow’s face broke into a grin, hearing the halfling adopt Tsuta’s ridiculous nickname for the stoic ranger.

Two hundred feet into the valley, the pair parted ways. Whydah settled down to wait for her friend’s return while Iskvold carried on through the cedar swamp toward the gnoll encampment. Consciously keeping the valley’s rocky slope within view on her right, her boots crunched softly across the soft, needle-covered earth. The cool air beneath the canopy’s shade was ripe with the scent of fresh conifer and loam. As she wound past shallow pools and over deadfalls, the camp’s brush barrier finally materialized through the dense foliage.

Still invisible, Iskvold quietly cased the perimeter of the boma, noting the three guarded ‘gates’. A half-dozen saplings, lashed together in a raft-like frame and interwoven with brambles, lay propped up over gaps in the brush: one in the center of the arc, and one close to either end. On the far side, heavier fortification work, upgrading the brush to vertical timbers, had nearly reached the flimsy gate. At each egress, a single gnoll stood on a stump, spear in hand, facing the forest. Their eyes were glazed with disinterest, lulled by the peaceful shadows beyond the camp. I guess they don’t get many visitors. That suits me just fine!

Avoiding the busier construction zone, she backtracked toward the main entryway, scouring the surface for an inconspicuous point of entry. The drow finally found what she was looking for. Fifteen feet from the central gate and obscured from the camp at large by a stack of logs, undoubtedly headed for the new barrier wall, a small opening in the brambles at ground level was just big enough.

Taking one last look around, and mindful of the dwindling arcane protection, Iskvold got down on her belly and quietly crawled into gnoll territory. A shiver ran up her spine from the surprisingly cool earth against her skin as she inched forward on her forearms, careful to avoid creating a wake of movement within the brush. She bit her lip to stay silent when a pair of thorns gashed her robes, dragging painfully along her ribs as she slipped through the barrier. And just like that, sleepy guard none the wiser, she was in.

Moving swiftly to the cover of the log pile, she scuttled to the corner, squinting into the bright sun for a look at the settlement. Close to forty gnolls, maybe more, converged at two open pit fires for the noon meal. The light fragrance of wood smoke and cooking meat lingered in the air. She estimated another ten were busy with the barrier upgrade, while several more swung axes, preparing the timbers. Free from the shadows of the cedar canopy, the midday sun quickly warmed her dark skin, and she knew a sheen of sweat would soon follow. While her drow heritage offered several benefits, her sensitivity to sunlight was not one of them.

Eyeballing her source of cover, Iskvold realized that not only was it the perfect hiding place, but it also offered a superb platform for her upcoming reveal. Seven timbers across at its base, the pyramid of pine rose two feet above her head. Her plan was rapidly solidifying when Whydah’s voice whispered in her mind.

Segwyn is about to light it up, I’ll drop the spell in a minute. Get ready!

Good to go! I’m getting into costume now, she thought back.

Pulling on the white cotton bonnet and tying the strings under her chin, Iskvold focused her mind on the Sklir in sharp detail: its appearance, its smell, even the jagged rusty tip of its spear. She felt her form shift with a tingle before Whydah dropped the spell, bringing the demon, in all its glory, to life with a flash.

She climbed two logs up the stack to peer over the top. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she scoured the cliff face, unsuccessfully trying to get a glimpse of Segwyn before returning her gaze to the camp. Her watch duty routine quickly took over: construction, dwellings, fire pits, guard, and repeat. Nothing happened for several minutes. She waited. A moment of anxiety prickled her neck when she realized she hadn’t put any thought at all into what she was going to say to enrage these creatures. It was completely irrational. They wouldn’t understand Undercommon, but that wasn’t the point.

Iskvold neither saw nor heard Segwyn’s initial shot. A small tendril of smoke rising from the hut farthest to her right told her he had begun. One after another, every dwelling in the village began to burn. Chaos and loud canine yips and howls broke out across the camp as grey plumes streamed skyward from multiple locations. Fleeing the fire, the gnolls, some running upright, others loping on all fours, retreated towards the brush wall, the woods, and her position.

The monk steeled her nerves and dipped her head low as a congregation gathered beneath her position, all eyes glued to the billowing flames rising from every structure. Even the sleepy guard left his post to watch, mesmerized by the growing inferno. This is perfect! Flakes of ash swirled in the heat, filling the air like grey snow, when a larger gnoll, adorned with a necklace of bones, burst from the cave in the corner. There’s the leader. He raced to the crowd, barking furiously, spittle flying from his jowls. Evident in his body language, blame and threats dominated his soliloquy. This was her moment.

She drew a deep breath, cleared her throat, and quickly scrambled atop her timber pyramid. Dropping her voice a couple of octaves, demonic arms spread overhead, she let out a primal roar. The crowd turned immediately, stunned by the sight of a seven-foot charcoal fiend with red flashing eyes crowning their log pile, claws outstretched, tail flicking wildly, lording over their burning home.

Mimicking the leader’s recent gestures, she began to taunt the crowd in her best Undercommon, adding a baritone hiss to her words.

“You are nothing more than pathetic puppies!” She jabbed her clawed finger at the crowd, craning her neck aggressively. “Your father couldn’t fetch, and your mother slept with tabbies!”

Iskvold swept her arm across the burning landscape. “Maybe this wouldn’t happen if you spent less time sniffing each other’s butts and more time learning how to build!”

The crowd was getting restless, understanding her intent if not her words.

“I have burned your worthless village to the ground, and there is nothing you worthless meat sacks can do about it!”

The pack surged to the base of her pyramid before she realized she may have gotten a little carried away. Time to go!

Turning on her heel as the first spear flew over her head, Iskvold shifted too much weight to her back foot, sending the entire pyramid into motion. Spinning wildly toward the camp’s perimeter, the log’s unexpected movement threw her completely off balance. She instinctively extended her elbows and forearms to absorb the blow as she fell backwards. Pain lanced across her vision. The rolling timber burst through the camp’s perimeter wall like a stampede of cattle escaping into the woods beyond, sweeping Iskvold along for the ride. Hot on her heels, a furious and growing pack of gnolls gave chase, streaming through the gap.

Pain screamed from both her elbows as the pack converged. A familiar white-hot ferocity began to boil inside her. Not now! As tempting as it was to let it consume her and embrace the battle, their entire plan hinged on these pawns, these blind mice, believing she was a demon. If they so much as touched her demon form, the illusion wouldn’t hold, and everything would unravel. Reluctantly swallowing the blossoming rage, she jumped to her feet. Staff in hand, the monk took off into the woods toward the Sklir position with sixty gnolls howling in rabid pursuit.

Whydah smiled at Iskvold’s mention of her costume change. The image of her in a frilly sun bonnet will live rent-free in my head for a long time. Seated on a moss-covered, fallen log, her sudden apparition startled a nearby waterthrush into panicked flight. She couldn’t concentrate on both the invisibility and the tracking spell necessary for the next part of the plan. Regardless, the former was almost out of time anyway, so no great loss.

Fishing through her shoulder bag, Whydah retrieved a single strand of Iskvold’s white hair and her tuft of hound’s fur. Squeezing the two together in one fist, she began humming the required tune, the fingers of her free hand sparkling in the shadows under the cedar canopy. Bringing her hands together, she closed her eyes, ready for the magical blip of her friend’s position to appear in her mind’s eye, but none came.

The back of her neck tingled as she checked her concentration. The spell is active, I can feel it. Why is it not finding her? Her fist began to tremble. Stilling it with her other hand, she struggled to stay calm, mentally reviewing the spell’s limitations. It’s not affected by terrain or weather. I have the right components. Is she too far away? Did we miscalculate the area of the valley? Leaping to her feet, the halfling sprinted toward the center of the shady swamp, scrambling over deadfall and around heavy brush. If I can’t find her, the plan is shot, and she’s in big trouble.

Staying ahead of her canine contingent wasn’t initially difficult for Iskvold. She was faster, having to pause occasionally among the shady conifers, pretending to be winded, to prevent them from giving up the chase. She even had her Ki for an extra burst of speed or a longer jump. Having used it once already to clear a large pool, she had enough juice for three more bursts. In the initial chaos, it took her a moment to get her bearings. However, the ridge was now comfortably in sight off to her right.

But the gnolls’ tactics were changing, they started trading off pursuit leaders. Switching out every minute, three or four different pursuers would race to the front of the pack, barking aggressively to push her forward. They were trying to exhaust her, and it was working. She tapped her Ki a second time, keeping the latest chargers at bay. Why hadn’t she heard from Whydah yet?

Still unable to locate her friend, Whydah gazed skyward, twirling in a small circle, frantically estimating her current position. Hustling through the difficult terrain forced her breath into ragged gasps. I should be able to see her anywhere in the swamp from here, I don’t understand! Open palms instantly rose to her face as the answer struck. The hat!! Her demon disguise is also hiding her from the spell!

Realizing the futility of the location magic, the bard immediately dropped her concentration and switched to her messaging cantrip, firing a desperate thought out into the universe.

Iskvold, can you hear me? Please respond.

The thought reply came almost instantly. It’s about time! I thought you’d left me for dog food!

Whydah’s shoulders sank and she let out a deep sigh of relief. Her mind, however, was already racing, calculating a new solution. Thankfully, she had an unlimited number of messages at her disposal.

Where are you? You should have reached the mountain by now, but I haven’t seen or heard you.

I’m moving along the agreed path, ridge on my right, away from the camp, with about sixty of man’s best friends right up my butt!

Whydah’s pulse quickened, and a tingle raced up her spine; fear rapidly consumed her fleeting relief. The ridge was on her right heading toward the settlement. It should now be on her left.

That’s the other ridge, you’re headed for the plains! Cut hard left. Just don’t leave the swamp. I’ll think of something!

Copy that. You’d better hurry, though; they’re starting to tire me out.

Iskvold had understated her fatigue. She now fully understood the expression ‘like a dog with a bone’. The gnolls were relentless, and their tactics were working. As she veered left, four new pursuers seamlessly took over the lead position, cutting the corner of their pursuit line, gaining ground. Forced to use her Ki a third time, she leapt across another large pool, stretching her lead. Hot pain throbbed behind her eyes, not to mention the elbows, and her thighs burned. Despite her peak conditioning, she couldn’t keep this up much longer.

Whydah, armed with a general idea of Iskvold’s position, took off in the direction of the Sklir on the adjacent hillside. She needed to get eyes on their sentry guards and guide Iskvold toward them. She recalled her father and uncle’s conversations about hunting deer with their beagles when she was young—‘Let the dogs’ music tell you where the deer will run’. Once she could hear gnolls barking, she could use it to determine the other woman’s path across the valley floor and guide her accordingly. They could still salvage this.

Keep them barking and follow my instructions.

Okay. Please hurry!

Even in thought, the reply was clipped and desperate. Her chest burning as she ran, Whydah scrambled through the underbrush until the ground started to rise out of the swamp. Ducking behind a fallen stand of trees, she desperately tried to control the volume of her ragged breathing as she scanned the hillside above. Finding no sign of the demons, she shuffled another fifty yards along the swamp’s edge, staying out of sight. This time she saw it! On a small rocky outcropping, level with the low cedar canopy, a lone Sklir stood watch over the valley floor. Quieting her breathing again, she began to hear the distant cacophony of canines moving from left to right.

Iskvold was beginning to stumble more frequently. With every fourth or fifth step, her toes failed to clear the ground cover. The ferocious chorus of yips and howls was nearly on top of her. Whydah’s voice whispered again in her mind.

I found the marks, and can hear the gnolls. You’re not far! Cut right.

Okay, was all she could muster in reply.

Her heart hammered as she willed her body forward. Tapping her last bit of Ki, the drow turned hard right and surged ahead of her pursuers one final time.

Whydah needed somewhere to intercept her friend where neither the Sklir nor the gnolls would see her fulfill her duties as the wheelwoman. They needed Iskvold’s pursuers to switch targets, unaware of the deception. Since she could hear them coming, the Sklir guard most certainly could as well. The canine music grew closer, still slightly off to her left, while the halfling searched desperately for a spot to intervene. Thankfully, she didn’t need a lot of space, it just had to be hidden.

She settled on a narrow gap between a cluster of fallen cedars and a small mound covered with ferns. The mound should shield the flash of her dimension door from the demon’s eyes, and the fallen trees should do the same for the gnolls. Distant branches began to crack off to her left, signaling the approach. Quietly getting into position, Whydah shot one last message to her friend.

You’re almost there! Cut a little left, then head for the high ground.

There was no reply.

Iskvold staggered, lurching from tree to tree as the gnolls closed in. The pace of their tongue was fast and steady, now less than thirty feet behind and closing fast. She had nothing left. Eyes fixed on the ground in front of her feet, she continued to stumble forward, running on sheer force of will. Even Sifu’s rigorous training regimen couldn’t sustain her any longer. She heard their padded paws crunch the dry cedar carpet, gaining on her. Her mind flashed to the fuzzy memories of the mother she would never get to meet, the abandonment she would never get to understand. Even the rage that she tamped down several times in the last thirty minutes had wilted. Her legs buckled, and the ground raced up at her.

Then, from nowhere, small arms grabbed her waist, pulling her to the side. In a flash of light, the two women collapsed on the soft earth next to the tall pine they had stood at only ninety minutes earlier. Every muscle burned, and it was all she could do to roll off her groaning companion. Only their syncopated, desperate struggle for oxygen broke the immediate solitude. A choir of desperate barks and yelps droned in the distance.

Iskvold allowed her entire body to go limp as she lay, looking up, at the green branches whispering secrets to each other on the breeze. She removed the bonnet and, in a flash, was herself again. Still struggling for breath, she turned her head to find Whydah in a similar posture.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it,” she wheezed. “Thank you for getting me out of there.”

Whydah rolled onto her side to face her friend. “I admit there were at least three different times that I had the same doubt!”

The distinct sounds of battle joined the canine chorus, well off to their left.

“From the sound of things, it worked!” Whydah smiled. “As our good friend Woodsy says, ‘if we live, we learn’!”

Iskvold shook her head slowly. “I’ve learned that next time, someone else can be The Roper!” They broke into infectious, relieved laughter, prone on the forest floor.

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Glimmerstone Enigma began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire Unexpected Vanguard trilogy free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Glimmerstone Enigma is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and start at the beginning!

[View the Table of Contents for The Glimmerstone Enigma]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

Ghorrarr Bloodsnout sat on his roughly hewn wooden throne as two females served his lunch, reflecting on his success in life thus far. His lip twisted into a sneer as he gazed into the sunshine beyond the cave, surveying his domain. A band of over sixty did his bidding, and he had multiple breeders at his disposal. Not bad for a gnoll who nearly didn’t see his second litter day.

He huffed in disgust after sniffing the first offered platter, flecks of mucus and moisture spraying from his canine snout. He watched her recoil as it splattered across her spotted face and mane. How dare she bring something so unfit for the leader of the pack! The ropey muscles in his long, thick neck tensed, his lips curling into a growl, exposing distended lower canines. Terrified by his rebuke, the female retreated from the cave’s shadows, never turning her back.

The second crawled forward with another offering, bowing deeply. He sniffed again. Better. Snatching the food with his right hand, Ghorrarr lifted his left leg. Delivering a powerful kick, the pads of his three-toed, clawed foot caught her right in the chest, sending her sprawling backward. Wounded yips and whines mixed with the hollow clatter from his bone necklace bounced off the cave’s walls as she, too, withdrew.

Left alone with his meal and his majesty, Ghorrarr’s lips pulled back in a menacing grin as he attacked the tray. Holding it up to his maw, he gobbled directly from the wooden surface, unconcerned with the castoff showering the cave floor. Satisfied in mere seconds, he tossed the tray aside, his long canine tongue gathering any reluctant morsels from his hairy face. He calculated his next action. Swift, vicious violence would be a fitting vindication for the culinary abomination. His upper lip began to twitch as he rose, his sinewy muscles coiling, his chest inflating as he strode toward the cave mouth. But something else was already happening.

The distressed barks and yips began to rise before he strode into the daylight. The smell of smoke filled his sensitive nostrils, along with something else, or rather someone else. Not gnoll, not orc, not barbarian, not even elf. It was no species he had smelled in his four wizened years.

The curiosity, however, was fleeting. The entire camp was engulfed in flames. Every building burned. His tribe rushed to and fro among the smoldering huts. Some futilely tried to douse the thatch and wooden structures. Others frantically distanced themselves from the growing inferno, gathering near the forest barrier, watching it burn. Even the guards had abandoned their posts along the brush wall to take in the spectacle.

A sheen of sweat instantly dampened his fur, blinding rage swelling, narrowing his vision. His eyes frantically sought an enemy, finding only familiar faces. Who is responsible for this? Who dares to challenge the mighty Ghorrarr!

A growl escaped his lips as the gnoll leader dropped to all fours and accelerated into the clearing. Moving upright, the longer arms and slightly humped back of his species lent a stilted and lumbering appearance to his gait. On all fours, however, he rapidly covered the distance before rising back onto his hind legs. The blood lust now fully controlling his actions, he barked accusations at his brethren.

And there it was again, that unfamiliar smell.

Minutes before, Segwyn, having observed silently in position for over an hour, winced at the dull ache in his calves. Setting his bow in a rocky cleft nearby, he raised his feet and rolled his ankles several times before kneading first one lower leg, then the other. As he finished, Tsuta’s voice whispered in his mind.

The marks are in position. Fire when ready.

Copy that. Give me three to four minutes and I’ll kick things off, he thought in reply.

The ranger reached behind him, twisting his satchel into his lap. He extracted four objects, setting them gently on the flat rock to his left: a flint and steel, a small block of waxy wood, and a vial Bird had provided for the task. Slinging the satchel back over his shoulder and out of the way, his eyes narrowed, scanning the activity in the camp below, the corners of his mouth flinching up. The noon meal was in full swing down on the valley floor. A quick headcount returned nearly sixty gnolls, all gathered around the central firepits, some cooking, some eating, all thoroughly distracted. This was the moment.

Reaching over his shoulder, he pulled a dozen white fletched arrows from his quiver. Clearing a few loose rocks from the ground beside him, he methodically laid the arrows out on the stone surface, tips pointing forward. There were fifteen structures, but he estimated only enough time for a dozen shots, about thirty-five seconds, before someone below would notice the tinder-like huts going up in flames. He chose his targets carefully, counting on the breeze and the crowded construction to reach his goal. Timing is everything. They can’t have any suspicion that I’m even here, let alone that I started the blaze.

Satisfied with the positioning of his ammunition, he gently lifted the vial. Raising the stoppered bottle to his lips, he pulled the cork out with his teeth. Spitting it to the side, his features stiffened from the taste and smell of its contents. Natha’n Fire, he called it. The fumes burned his nostrils, and the taste was noxious. He spat before wiping his forearm across his mouth. The cat certainly carries some peculiar supplies, but this will do the job. He poured the vial’s contents over the tips of his prepared arrows, letting the liquid pool below the heads and upper shafts before flipping each one for full saturation.

Setting the empty vial between his raised knees, he picked up the small waxy block—fatwood. Cut from the resinous stump of a fallen pine tree, every ranger knew its worth. It would light easily and burn for several minutes, even when wet—more than enough time to get a campfire started, or in this case, ignite a dozen arrows. Picking up the first well-soaked arrow from beside him, the ranger used its length to estimate the optimal position for his fatwood. He needed to enflame each arrow in a single, smooth motion before drawing and loosing the shot. Placing the block, he took one last glance at the landscape below and reached for the flint and steel.

After several long, deep breaths to steady his heart rate, the ranger scraped flint against steel, shaving particles onto the wood’s surface before emphatically striking the two together. The spark immediately caught the shavings in a hissing sparkle, and the surface of the fatwood flared to life with a small tendril of black smoke. A stable three-inch flame sputtered to life, quickly spreading through the volatile terpenes in the wood between his feet.

Dropping the flint and steel next to the vial, he picked up his bow. His brow furrowed in concentration as he visualized the sequence. With one last deep breath, he began. Moving from left to right, the ranger picked up the first arrow, nocking it on the string before dipping the head to the flame. As soon as the Natha’n Fire flared on the arrow’s head, he raised the bow, drew aim on the back wall of the leftmost building, and took the shot. Hitting an inanimate object at this distance wasn’t the challenge. The difficulty lay in getting all twelve shots off quickly, before the crowd below started gawping skyward for the source and spotted him. Iskvold needed to be able to take the credit for their plan to work.

With fluid execution, the ranger methodically worked his way across the camp’s layout. Nock, dip, aim, fire. He didn’t even pause to look back at his earlier targets. Nock, dip, aim, fire. Twelve arrows found their mark in thirty seconds. As the smoke began to thicken, a light breeze pinned it against the cliff’s surface. Segwyn slung the bow and carefully flipped the fatwood over before extinguishing it against the stone with his boot. Gathering up his flint and steel, he heard the yips and squeals of alarm beginning to rise from the valley floor as he silently disappeared above the lip of the cliff and into the woods, his job completed.

Though the timing of his aerial barrage was perfect, the timing of his retreat couldn’t have been worse. When the ranger crested the cliff-face, he nearly collided with two gnolls on patrol. It was impossible to tell who was more surprised. These were the first gnolls he had ever seen up close. Nearly identical in height, their proportions and physique were different from the more civilized races he was familiar with. Bodies covered in brown mottled hair, the coloration on the long, muscular necks was off-white with black spots. Their facial features were canine: round heads, small, pointed ears, and elongated snouts. Their lips pulled back in a low growl, exposing vicious upper and lower canines. Muscles rippled across their broad torsos and hunched shoulders, stretching down their long, sinewy arms that reached to their knees.

As the first gnoll thrust his spear forward, Segwyn twisted right. Several stones cascaded over the cliff edge at his back, reminding him of his precarious positioning. The ranger dropped and rolled forward to gain some ground and avoid being flanked. Drawing his short swords, both gnolls began to bark loudly in alarm toward the encampment. The ranger could only hope their warnings went unheeded, drowned out by the chaos of the fire and the frantic crowd below, or the plan was ruined. When the second spear swept toward his crouched form, he launched himself vertically and forward. Jumping over the arcing spear, he closed on its owner to get inside the weapon’s range. Pressing in tight, he kept the spear out of play and prevented a piercing thrust from the enemy behind. He buried the first blade into the creature’s abdomen, using the forward momentum to enhance the strike.

Shoving the creature back into its ally, his bloodied sword left a gaping hole in the gnoll’s midsection. Segwyn followed up with his off-hand. Connecting with the creature’s ribcage in a hollow thud, he could feel the blade’s vibration, pushing through the bone. His opponent let out a grunt before slumping into the leaf litter.

With a rapid series of barks, the second attacker dropped the spear in favor of a short sword and charged into close combat. The move was unexpected. The first strike caught him in the thigh before the creature’s bullrush forced him onto his back. Stronger than he anticipated, the gnoll leaned into his positional advantage, both hands on the sword. It pushed with all its strength, driving the blade towards the ranger’s throat. Segwyn gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead as he struggled to hold the weapon in check with his own, mere inches from his skin. He could smell its fetid breath billowing from the bared teeth and snapping jaws. His defending arm began to shake uncontrollably, and he saw the creature’s lips twist into a fleeting canine grin.

Then, the tabby’s words were in his head, echoes from a sparring session in the abbey’s courtyard. ‘When the opponent fully commits to one approach, he is equally fully exposed to another.’

So fixated was this creature on bringing blade to flesh, it was completely ignoring his off-hand. The ranger turned his wrist, slowly bringing the point of his second sword, unnoticed, to the side of the gnoll’s torso. With everything he could muster, he drove the point into the soft flesh beneath its ribcage at an upward angle, all the way to the hilt.

The creature shook involuntarily, and the saliva dripping into his face quickly ran red, its jaw falling slack. As the gnoll’s eyes turned vacant, Segwyn shoved the dead weight off his body and lay panting, drenched in sweat, on the forest floor.

After a long minute, the ranger rose to a crouch, grimacing from the gash in his leg. The arcane energy crackled to life around his bloody fingers, and he winced again, pressing the healing magic into the wound. A soft chuckle resonated through the now silent forest as he got to his feet. Finally able to risk a look at his handiwork in the valley below, he was pleased with the pandemonium.

Many buildings were fully engulfed, their construction succumbing quickly to the flames. A heavy haze of smoke pressed up against the cliff face, enshrouding the entire camp. The inhabitants, confused and increasingly irate, had congregated against the camp’s modest barrier of brush, as far from the flames as possible. Perfect. Now it was up to Iskvold. Segwyn dragged his forearm across his brow, his leather bracer smearing the sheen of sweat rather than absorbing it. He didn’t care. The ranger sheathed his swords, checked his satchel, and headed back toward the trail and the meeting point.

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Glimmerstone Enigma began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire Unexpected Vanguard trilogy free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].

The Glimmerstone Enigma is a serialized novel. If you’re new here, go back and start at the beginning!

[View the Table of Contents for The Glimmerstone Enigma]

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER]

When the first rays of morning illuminated the snow-covered peaks, the group was already moving through the Shanderiusha Gap.

“What happens if it takes them three days to find it?” Segwyn called over his shoulder from the front of the column. “Do we just wait?”

“And watch,” Bird’s voice echoed off the bare stone. “We’ll also have to take shifts overnight, right? You said demons don’t sleep or rest.”

“Indeed, they don’t,” the ranger confirmed.

“If it goes more than three days, we’ll need some resupply or risk foraging in the area,” Iskvold pointed out.

“I thought about that,” Tsuta replied, turning to face her as they walked. “Since all three of us can use the new spell Glamos shared, I’m thinking we could send a message to Sifu, and have him dispatch one of the initiates to meet one of us partway.”

Iskvold nodded wordlessly as he completed the pivot.

“I’m more concerned about them finding it before we get eyes on them,” Bird muttered. “If they get it and get out before we arrive, all our effort and planning will have been for nothing more than a pleasant morning hike.”

“Hey, Braids, couldn’t you just ask a squirrel to watch them, and then come and tell us when they find it?” Tsuta asked Lunish, walking at the front of the column.

“One second. I’m just updating Snuggles.”

The druid circled her index finger and thumb around the smooth surface of the stone, struggling to condense their complex plan into the tool’s meager limitations.

‘Snuggles, more demons returned, neighboring abbey destroyed. En route to steal the prize from under their nose. Nothing new on RQ. Wish us luck!’

That would have to do for now. Mentally firing the message off into the universe, she returned to Tsuta’s question.

“You want to put a squirrel on watch duty?” she harumphed without turning her head. “I could ask, but there’s nothing in the magic that compels them to do it, and then our entire plan would hinge on the limited mental capability of a squirrel. In my experience, they’re pretty easily distracted—even worse than Glynnie!”

“What’s that?” the wizard called from his position in the rear.

This time, Lunish did turn her head, grinning as she called over her shoulder, “Nothing!”

“He does bring up a good point, though,” Bird offered. “We’ll need to know their current position to set ourselves up to monitor their activities. What do you think about doing some owl recon? We can meet at the spot where we left the trail last time.”

“I can do that,” Lunish agreed. Stepping to the side of the trail, her form shifted into a great horned owl.

“Keep your eyes open for the familiar, too,” Segwyn suggested.

The owl gave him a long, slow blink in acknowledgement before fluttering skyward over the canopy.

As the druid’s avian form disappeared from view, the group continued their trek, and the conversation shifted to the speculative nature of their quarry.

“Does anyone have any new ideas on what they might be after?” Glynfir floated over the party as they followed the trail west.

“I’m thinking maybe a rare plant of some kind, used for a potion or ritual,” Segwyn suggested.

“Ooh, that’s pretty good,” Whydah agreed. “I was leaning towards maybe a creature, or part of a creature, but for a similar purpose.”

“Ugh, so we might be stealing the eye or horn of something?” Glynfir wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Or even the blood?”

Bird shook his head. “I’m still leaning towards some form of treasure—gold, diamonds, or mithril.”

“Well, if you’re right, we won’t be able to steal it at all,” Iskvold countered. “It would still be in the ground since no one has ever lived here.”

“That would require a change of plans,” Bird admitted.

“I thought some more about that,” Glynfir said. “We can’t really rule out a magical artifact just because we didn’t find any signs of civilization. Someone could have used magic to place or hide an object of great power or threat on this mountain because it’s so remote.”

Tsuta chuckled and shook his head, “So it could be animal, vegetable, mineral, or magical. Congratulations, everyone, we’ve gone backwards in determining the object. We thought we’d eliminated something, but now the wizard has revived it! We are officially clueless.”

As they continued walking, Whydah noticed Iskvold open her mouth to speak before thinking better of it and pursing her lips in thought.

“Out with it, Pinky!” The bard stretched her pronunciation of the other woman’s nickname to diffuse the drow’s hesitation. She was rewarded with a nervous laugh.

“Well, it’s just that I feel a bit silly even asking. I’m the Vault curator, I should know this. But will the gnolls even understand me when I start yelling at them?”

“Nooooo,” Whydah drawled that word as well, this time for effect. “Frankly, we don’t want them to. They only speak Gnoll, but they might recognize Common. That would be a red flag when you’re trying to impersonate a demon. Do you speak any other languages, something a bit more obscure?”

The drow’s face brightened. “I can speak Undercommon!”

“Perfect,” Whydah purred. “Let them have it in your best Undercommon. The important thing is to make sure you get the attention of as many as possible, and sound threatening.”

Iskvold came to a stop, pointing to the road ahead. Looking up, Whydah was the last to notice the great horned owl, flapping violently towards them.

Lunish pulled up, landing gracefully on the trail in front of Segwyn, her form shifting back in a green flash.

The little gnome gasped between labored breaths, “We have a problem!”

Kneeling, the ranger pulled his waterskin from his hip. “Easy! Have a drink and catch your breath.”

Lunish accepted the water, drinking greedily as the group surrounded her position. “They found it! Whatever it is, they’ve found it and are starting back down the mountain, all in a pack.” The gnome gasped, then choked slightly as some of the water went down the wrong way. “What are we gonna do now?” she sputtered between coughs.

“Relax, it’s okay.” Bird’s tone was even. “As Broken Fang used to say, ‘Everyone has a plan until they get a knife in the ribs.’ We can adjust. How far up the mountain were they?”

“Almost to the snow line,” she spat out, her breathing beginning to calm.

The tabby looked up at the mountain, his eyes narrowed as he calculated.

“Alright, we’ve still got time to get into position, but we’ve got to pick up the pace! Did you happen to see what it was?”

Lunish shook her head. “No, they’re all moving together in a group, guarding it, so I couldn’t get a look, but it’s small enough for one person to carry easily.”

“What about the familiar?” Glynfir asked.

“Him I did see! A weird-looking little creature, bright green with a white belly and horns. Some kind of demon, I guess…about the size of a cat,” she added, her tone uncertain. “He was hopping along beside them.”

Heads turned to Glynfir. The wizard spread his hands in a shrug. “Don’t look at me! I don’t know what she’s describing. It’s very unusual. Most familiars are rats, snakes, or birds. You know, normal animals.”

The tabby cut the conversation short. “Okay, at least we know what it looks like. That will have to do for now. Let’s hustle up to the split and confirm what we think we know.” Without further discussion, the group moved quickly down the trail.

Within ten minutes, Segwyn raised his fist in the air, signaling a halt very close to where they found the demons’ tracks crossing the trail two days before. With the peak rising on their right, Bird and Segwyn stepped off the trail to the left, examining the terrain. Returning a minute later, a grin on his face, the cat motioned the group into a huddle. Cocking one ear towards the mountain above them, and satisfied with the silence, he spoke in a hushed tone.

“Woodsy was right.”

The ranger shook his head with an eye roll, hearing the nickname. Bird flashed a teasing grin before continuing. “This side is a steep drop below the trail.” He raised his left arm, fingers spread, palm facing behind him. “They’ll cut through here,” he rotated his palm and pulled his arm slightly forward. “On their way to the flat ground. This is where we part ways, so one last time, is everyone clear on where to go and what to do?” His glance around the group was met with a series of confirming nods. He held Segwyn’s gaze momentarily. “And remember, don’t kick things off until we send word. I want to make sure the marks are in a fixed position.” The ranger nodded again in confirmation.

A quiet purr vibrated from the tabby’s chest as his eyes sparkled. “Alright, everyone, it’s showtime. Let’s steal this mysterious prize!”

The distant crack of a tree branch above them on the mountainside and the faint smell of sulfur reinforced the moment’s urgency as the group broke huddle. Whydah, Iskvold, and Segwyn carried on down the trail while Lunish retrieved the sprig of spruce and a pinch of ash from her satchel. The druid’s hands crackled with arcane energy. Her fingers interlaced, a dull pop preceded the familiar green effervescence that settled around the remaining foursome, and they stepped silently off the trail to the left. Finding a suitable location a hundred yards downhill with their backs to the sheer rocky drop, they settled in to wait for the marks’ arrival.

The others quickly put some distance between themselves and the travelling demons. They followed the trail for an additional quarter-mile, Segwyn constantly checking the geography on their left. The ranger called another halt, motioning the others to a gap in the foliage. Across the valley, a rocky ridge jutted out from the base of an adjacent peak, almost parallel to their position, pointing toward the Siremirian plains like a stony finger. The valley was narrow and lush with vegetation, but only fifty feet deep. Segwyn immediately recognized its tactical value to the gnolls.

Framed by the mountain on two sides and the ridge on a third, it was very defensible. The only way in or out ran through the open end, right past the foot of the slope where they had left their friends minutes earlier. To the right, tucked into the protected corner of the valley, against the rock face, small tendrils of smoke curled skyward, the only visible sign of the gnoll settlement.

“I think you two want to go in here,” he said to the others. “I’ll continue down to the corner and find a spot to set up above the camp.”

Whydah’s eyes widened as she considered the stony cliff at the end of the valley. “That looks pretty intimidating.”

The ranger smirked in reply. “Maybe for you… For me, it’s not much different from walking along that trail.” He nodded towards the path they had just left. His eyes settled on Iskvold. “Have you got your bonnet?”

The drow delivered an epic pink eye roll before wordlessly producing the white cloth hat from beneath her robes, forcing a chuckle from her companions.

“Okay then, good luck to you both!” Segwyn extended his hand, embracing first Iskvold, then Whydah in the traditional forearm grip of the Verdant Blades. “Meet back here at this rock when we’re done?” He tipped his head over his shoulder towards a large bare boulder just off the path.

“Sounds like a plan!” Whydah confirmed, glancing at Iskvold. “You ready?”

The drow nodded while Whydah extracted a block of resin containing an eyelash and began to hum softly. Completing the melody, a white sparkle began to orbit her fingertip. Touching first Iskvold, then herself, the pair disappeared with a pop. Segwyn watched the shrubbery part in front of their invisible forms as they descended into the forest below.

Continuing toward the valley’s closed end, the ranger left the path when it veered from his destination. Skirting the cliff face, he picked his way through the low pine trees and brambles until he had a clear view of the settlement below. Fifteen huts of different sizes made of mud, thatch, and some wood framing straddled a small, fast-moving stream that emerged from a cleft in the rock face. On the far side of the clearing, closest to the forest, several male gnolls shaped harvested tree trunks, woodchips flying from their axes. Their construction goal was immediately evident. A bramble boma had been erected between the rocky cliffs on either side of the camp, offering modest protection from the forest. At the barrier’s far end, the first ten feet of brush had been replaced with sharpened tree trunks lashed together, improving the fortification.

Two central firepits, deep with coals, were attracting a crowd looking for a spot to cook their noon meal. Directly below his position, a natural rock outcropping jutted out in an overhang, likely protecting a cave where the band’s leader would call home and the group could shelter in extreme weather. Scanning the cliff edge, Segwyn found what he was looking for, a crook in the stone with decent cover. Confident of an easy shot anywhere within the camp’s footprint, the ranger disguised his position and waited for the signal.

[NEXT CHAPTER]

Leave a comment

Writing The Glimmerstone Enigma began as an experiment while I was between jobs, and has turned into a labor of love and many late nights. My goal is to keep the entire Unexpected Vanguard trilogy free to read in serial format.

However, if you would rather not wait for the weekly serial releases, prefer a complete EPUB or PDF version of my novels for your e-reader, or want to show your support with a donation, [Purchase full files of The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum at Buy Me a Coffee].