The party walked down a hall. Up ahead, there was an intersection where the hall opened in two directions: forward, and to the left. Someone was standing before them, where the hall forked.

  It was Sylis.

  “Did you miss me?” Sylis said.

  Kylus ran up to Sylis and hugged him. “Yes, I did!” Kylus said. The two young men had beaming smiles on their faces.

  “Um, what is that?” Rose said. She pointed at something Sylis was holding.

  “This? Well, let me tell you,” Sylis said. He held up the long silver rod topped with a glowing blue sapphire crystal. “When I got split up from you all, I ended up in the Hall of Kings in the West Tower. Turns out, I have royal blood, so I could go in—unlike those ghosts. I used this scepter to scare the ghosts away; it controls an army of magical enchanted suits of armor that belong to the King.”

  “So I’m dating a prince?” Kylus asked. “I know the King has two daughters, but I never heard he had a son. Are you serious?”

  Sylis laughed, although there were notes of both humor and concern in his laughter. “I mean, I guess? I don’t know who my father is, so I don’t know if it’s the King or some other royalty. I’m just a farm boy from a rural village, I don’t have a who’s who of the royal family memorized.” Sylis sighed. “In any case, I had to find my way into and through the Tomb of Kings, which is a very scary crypt, to get out of the West Tower and get back here. This looked like the East Tower, so once I found this spot, I’ve been waiting, hoping and praying you would find me. You found me!”

  Kylus hugged Sylis again, so tightly Sylis could barely breathe. “I am so happy you’re alive!” Kylus said.

  “You too!” Sylis said. “But your leg! Is your leg okay?”

  “Yeah. Nathan zombified it. It’s totally numb, but I can walk, run, move on it fine.”

  “Oh. You’re a zombie now?”

  “Only in Nathan’s dreams. It’s just my leg, and Nathan says it can be healed back to being alive—when we get out of here.”

  “Great!” Sylis said. He was so giddy to be back with Kylus that he was practically jumping with joy. “Well, I don’t want to hold everyone up just for having a reunion party. Let’s get going!”

  “I missed Sylis, but now that he’s back, I am reminded that he is such a nice person that he makes me sick,” Rose whispered to Nathan while the group advanced down the hall; the Black and Red wizards were bringing up the rear of the party, while Sylis and Kylus took the lead. “Some people are too nice.”

  “I very much disagree,” Nathan whispered back. “He’s not that nice. I have met people far nicer.”

  As they walked, the hall narrowed and the magical light illuminating it became dimmer, so that the white walls were cast in shades of gray. The hall became so narrow that the party arranged itself in single file, because there was not enough space to comfortably walk forward as a group. Then, suddenly, Yarid held up a hand, signaling for everyone to stop. The party ground to a halt.

  “What is it, Yarid?” Rose asked, notes of impatience in her voice.

  “I have seen something,” Yarid said. “Your human eyes are weak compared to the keen eyesight of the fae; our heightened senses are one of the magical abilities of our Yellow magic. A great distance ahead of us, the hall ends, but something is there: there is a white door cut into the left wall of the hall, and then, a few spans past it, the hall ends at a simple iron door. Both doors are closed.”

  Rose gasped. “Oh God! I have been looking forward to this and dreading this at the same time. I suspect the iron door is the door to the Crystal of Light: our final goal, after all this time and work, is finally there for us. But the door to the left… that probably is the door that leads to the living quarters of… the White Wizard.”

  A somber silence fell upon the group at the mention of the name of the realm’s most powerful magic user.

  “This is where you come in, Yarid, right?” Kylus asked. “You’re going to cast some sort of elf spell that will save us from the White Wizard, right? Right?”

  Yarid sighed. “That is my role in the Dark Wizard’s plan, but to be honest, I have always been skeptical about my ability to do this. True, human wizards are often vulnerable to fae magic. But so many things could go wrong.”

  “Well, this was certainly the right time to tell us you can’t do it,” Rose said sarcastically. Yarid gave her a look.

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  “I have doubts, but it can work,” Yarid said. “The Dark Wizard’s plan was for me to cast a teleportation spell on the White Wizard to send him somewhere very far away against his will, and hope that we are long gone before his return. I have the spell.”

  “Then prepare yourself to cast it, Yarid, because we are going down that hall, and it’s your turn to do your job for the heist,” Rose said.

  “Give me a few moments. The spell is simple and easy; all Yellow magic comes naturally and easily to the fae. But I require a few moments to meditate and focus my magical powers into myself.”

  “Take your time. Just know that each passing moment gives the White Wizard the opportunity to sense our presence and prepare defenses,” Rose said.

  “Thanks, that stress is going to help me relax for meditation,” Yarid replied sarcastically. Yarid closed his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, and stood up perfectly straight. He slowly exhaled, and his face had a look of extreme relaxation. He opened his eyes.

  “I am ready,” Yarid said. “Or, at least, as ready as I will ever be. Let us proceed.”

  The party walked down the hall single file with Yarid now at the head of the procession. The humans finally saw it: two doors, one door white and on the left, and the other door made of iron and forming the end of the hall in front of them. As they approached, the door on the left opened, and a wizard walked out of it.

  The wizard was a frail, skinny old man. He wore wizard robes that appeared to be made of a cloth made of silver, which shined and shimmered as he moved. His robe was tight and slender about his thin torso and narrow arms and legs, but it was oversized at his feet and at the cuffs of his robes: the robe seemed to pool in draped wrinkles of silver at his feet, and, although the sleeves of his robes were thin, at the cuffs they flared so long that they dropped down the floor, and draped next to the robe on the floor. He wore a long, pointy wizard-hat with a very broad brim, made of the same reflective silver-metal fabric as his robe. A wide sash of pure snow-white fabric was slung from his right shoulder to his left hip, as if to make sure that anyone who saw him would know that his color was White, in case the pale silver robe and hat failed to inform them of this. His mask, which was made of ceramic porcelain, not of cloth, was this same pure white as the sash across his chest. The mask had been shaped to have the facial features of a smiling old man, but with the features so exaggerated as to be comical: a large nose, plump cheeks, a big smile on the lips. White hair leaked out from behind the mask, and a long white beard fell from below the chin of the mask and fell in a vertical line down over the white sash. The wizard was holding a lit smoking-pipe in his left hand, and he smelled strongly of pipe-smoke and burnt incense; they appeared to have surprised him in the act of having a smoke.

  “Intruders, stop! Surrender!” the wizard said.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Yarid gestured forward with both arms, his hands wide open. A bolt of yellow light shot out from Yarid’s hands and hit the wizard. The wizard began to glow with yellow light. The wizard raised his arms up and began to speak, as if starting to cast a magic spell, but, before he could get a spell off, there was a huge flash of yellow light, so bright that everyone was blinded, and, when the glare had faded and everyone could see again, the wizard of White was gone.

  “It worked!” Rose said, and she smiled. But then, suddenly, her smile faded, and she frowned deeply. “Oh no! Oh God! Yarid! What happened?”

  Yarid had collapsed to the floor and lay sprawled on the floor. The others knelt at his side. Yarid tried to sit up, but he winced and whimpered in pain, and slowly lowered his back down to be fully horizontal against the white stone floor. His shirtless upper body had skin that was now ash gray instead of alabaster white, and his skin was dotted all over by black-and-blue bruises. When he opened his mouth to speak, blood collected at his lips and dripped down his chin as he spoke.

  “Don’t… know…. The spell… worked… but… felt like… moving a mountain… or… an elephant… Used all my… magic…. I’m… dying….”

  “A faerie’s Yellow-magical energy is stored in his blood,” Nathan said. “I am familiar with the fae. I have studied them—out of mere idle curiosity, not as the result of an obsessive sexual fetish, obviously. I have read cases of fae who died because of using up literally all of their magical energy; it saps them of their life, and they expire as a result. But usually, it happens when an elf is cornered into a battle with his back against the wall and is forced to put everything he has into his fight to survive. I would not have expected it to happen to Yarid from merely a single instance of a teleportation casting. Perhaps the White Wizard did have some form of anti-Yellow protection ward or charm after all.”

  “That’s a great lesson, professor, but can you heal him?” Rose asked, her voice thick with sarcasm and frustration.

  Nathan shook his head. “No. To heal an elf of this is something I cannot do. I could bring him back to life in many undead forms after he dies, but I cannot cure a fae who loses his Yellow magic, not in such a way that his life endures.”

  Rose looked at Glorissa. “Do you want to try another White magic healing spell?”

  Glorissa tugged at her hair in a gesture of extreme anxiety. “I’m not feeling it. I don’t have that special feeling that God will answer that prayer,” she said. Then her eyes went wide. “But I know what would help! I think that if I pray to God while standing before the Crystal of Light, God will answer. I have that feeling.”

  “Oh, you have a feeling. That’s exactly what I want one of my friend’s stakes of whether they live or die to rely upon,” Rose said, her voice still sarcastic and snarky. She pulled her red hood tight around her head and looked away from Glorissa. “But I guess it’s better than nothing. Can someone drag Yarid along while we go find the Crystal? I’m just a young female Red wizard; carrying heavy elves is not in my job description.”

  Glorissa pointed at Kylus. “Yarid is a big man, but I think you and I can lift him,” Glorissa said.

  “Okay! Ready for the assignment, Sir!” Kylus said.

  Glorissa and Kylus each grabbed Yarid, taking him by putting one arm under Yarid’s arm and the other over his shoulder across his back, and Glorissa and Kylus half-lifted, half-dragged the prone elf along while the others walked forward.

  They reached the iron door.

  “This is it,” Sylis said. He moved the scepter from his right hand to his left hand, reached out with his right hand, took firm hold of the door handle, and pulled. The door opened. They walked in.