Sallow leaned against the skeletal dragon, running a finger along the bones of its spine. Beads of red light in its empty eyes followed her hand, but it neither moved nor spoke. Typical. It had little to say unless it was playing with its food. There was evil, and then there was Evil, and this dragon was that. Still, it suffered, like her. Maybe some part of it found comfort in affection: something it had not experienced since its red-scaled mother watched it hatch. “You’re a good dragon, yes you are,” she said, and planted a kiss on its snout. “Thank you for keeping me safe all day.”

“Toy with me as you wish,” said the dragon with its distant, hollow voice, mouth barely moving, “but your kind are still mortal. I will inherit this world and make your bones dance.”

“Aww,” said Sallow. “I can dance for you now.” She performed the delicate steps of an old social dance, arms free in the air. Her black, leather armor constricted her range of motion, but what did a lich dragon know about dance? The hate in its glare was invigorating— but that was her vampirism talking. The old her wouldn’t have delighted in rage. She still cared for the poor thing. It wasn’t mortals, or dragons, that had cursed the world with evil, after all. Her and the lich were caught in the same trap of undeath, together.

She patted its huge scapula. “We will return before sundown. Don’t look for us.”

It dimmed its eyes and went back to feigning sleep, as if the ruin’s poured stone was a pile of gold coins. Good. The master would lose his mind if the lich dragon wasn’t where he’d left it, and she had an archmage to bag. That might be complicated. Might take a while.

Sallow’s brother appeared in the shadows of the ancient theater’s doorway, thin as her despite his recent blood meal, and wearing more knives than armor. He looked murderous.

“We do this quietly,” she said. “Either we take his mind immediately, or he’ll use his magic and we’re dead again. So, calm down with the blades. You probably won’t need them.”

“Even so,” he grumbled.

She nodded, knowing it wasn’t worth getting into. It’d be on her to secure the archmage, no easy task being he was an elf and harder to mind control than a human. She’d catch him while he was distracted, drunk, or sleeping, and let her brother sort out the bystanders. They’d get one chance. Failure could mean death by spell fire or the wrath of the Master. Either way, they’d be dust. Whatever. This could be fun.

She just needed to keep on the lookout for allies: people whose wills were already bent in a favorable direction. The archmage made enemies everywhere. His most hateful probably lived right under his nose. They would turn on him with the smallest nudge.

***

Teatop cursed as arthritic pain shot through his hand, causing him to spill a drop of ink on the star chart. Damn it. He could hardly hold a quill anymore, yet the archmage still used Teatop as a scribe, against his will. At least the magical Compulsion, enslaving him to this role, allowed for tea with his evening snack. The smallest amount of selfcare was critical to the quality of his work, he reasoned, and the Compulsion understood that. He poured a hot cup and stepped onto the balcony of the tower to admire the golden fields. No, they weren’t the grains of his homeland, but he hadn’t been back in an age. If his father’s wheat looked any different, Teatop couldn’t say; it had been too long. The evening sun vanished behind a coming storm, and the wind cut through his old bones.

Teatop took a final sip, and the pain of the Compulsion danced across his skin like fire on dry leaves. Time to get back to work. He brought the charts to mind and began debating how best to organize them. Creating a complete chart of the sky was an endless task, but as long as he continued to work on the problem in his mind, he could enjoy the fresh air. A hundred years was a long time to live with a Compulsion, but he’d done it. He’d mastered it like the archmage had mastered magic. And that was something to be proud of.

If only he could find a way to finish the chart, he’d be released from the Compulsion and go on his merry way. It wasn’t possible. The archmage would finish the chart himself and find Teatop another task. Perhaps he could dig his own grave. The day was coming soon.

“Hey, Old Man,” shouted Gavin, the innkeeper. Teatop walked around the balcony to look down on the secluded inn below. “Wanna hear a tune?”

“No, I’m thinking!” Teatop shouted back. Music made it impossible for him to focus. Dancing was in his blood. Gavin knew as much.

He laughed. “Cheer up.” From a stool in the open doorway, he began to play his lyre. His laugher only grew as Teatop stomped back inside.

Wicked curses gathered on the tip of his tongue. Things he’d heard the wizard say. Words that might have power. His skin burned, punishing him for being off task. Though no actual damage was being done, no real flame, he grimaced at the pain. He hurried to the desk. Soon as he began reading the old chart, the pain vanished. “Humans are orcs,” he spit as he read. Hard not to listen. Gavin was a thorn in the toenail, but damn he could play.

Teatop lit another candle to brighten the evening gloom. His eyes weren’t what they used to be.

The beating of heavy wings made him stiffen. Archmage Shalis had returned as an eagle. Would the Compulsion burn more if Teatop stopped his task to greet his master, or was it the other way around? Shalis brushed opened the door, suddenly in the form of a gentleman with a fine woolen overcoat and long, grey hair. Only small lines around his eyes betrayed the half-elf’s old age, though he’d looked about the same a hundred years ago. Now Teatop was the old man. He decided if Gavin hadn’t kept him from his work, neither would Shalis, so Teatop gave the wizard a courteous nod and returned to the page.

“Is that how you greet me now,” said Shalis, his words full of faux offense and mocking warmth. “I came back early because I have something for you.”

Teatop faced Shalis timidly. Whatever he had, it couldn’t be good.

“Serve me well,” said Shalis, invoking the Compulsion, “by drinking this.” He placed a corked potion in Teatop’s hands. The small blue vial was made of glass so dark it was impossible to guess its contents. But it was small, and for wizards, that often meant potent.

“First let me finish the charts, Archmage, because there may be an unforeseen effect of this magic which would slow my work,” said Teatop, diplomatically. “Not that anything is unforeseen, for you, but perhaps others were involved in its creation.”

“Nonsense,” said Shalis. “Drink it, now.”

Teatop pulled the cork and took the sweet drink like a shot of spirits. Hopefully, it killed him. Warmth flowed through his limbs. The endless pain in his hands and knees vanished, making him feel weightless. His vision became sharp and clear; the beauty of the laboratory stunned him. Small wonders of woodcraft, sculpture, and pottery had been gathered according to an uncommon understanding of design. Paintings by the elven masters hung from every wall. Truly, Shalis had an eye for aesthetics. Teatop hadn’t noticed in some time. And he stood taller! An inch or two certainly, and the lines and spots were half gone from his hands. Why, he hadn’t felt this good since he was seventy or eighty.

“Isn’t that better?” asked Shalis. “You were almost useless in your mortality, but I’ve turned you back nearly forty years! This cost me more than you know, so some gratitude would be appropriate. I couldn’t bear the thought of hunting for another scribe as efficient as you.”

“Forty years.” Teatop slumped to the floor. He was never going to escape this wizard. “I—no…” he stammered. He’d been looking forward to death more than he had realized. “I can’t keep doing this—”

“Serve me well,” said Shalis. “Start this chart over. Your writing was atrocious. I can barely read it. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a drink.”

And the archmage vanished to join the regulars in the bar, and tell them lies, and stroke their egos as if they were the only interesting people in the world.

The Compulsion’s pain was awful, but Teatop remained sitting on that spot until the night grew dark, barely conjuring a thought. It was like the magic burned someone who didn’t exist. How could this happen? Why had the gods abandoned him? Eventually though, pain worked its way into his consciousness and became unbearable. He stood, teary-eyed, and got to work.

There was no chance he’d sleep tonight, between his grief at the loss of his impending death, and the vigor of his relative “youth.” He went back to work on the charts. Teatop lit a few more candles, poured another cup of tea, and consigned himself to a night of toil. Rain pattered on the roof as lightning cut the sky. Why had the wizard enslaved him? He would have chosen to serve the wizard for four or five decades anyway. But never having been able to choose, anything, not once in his life… it made him sad.

“I come with a warning,” said a woman’s voice from the balcony.

“How did you get up there?” asked Teatop. “The Archmage is near, so I suggest you leave, or I will release his guardian.” The rune-covered brazier in the middle of the observatory once held a lighthouse’s lamp when the sea reached this place. Now, it was a prison for a creature neither elemental, nor constructed, but some mix of the two. Stone and amber and fire. “It will kill you.” It felt good to chastise someone with his newfound youth, and defending the tower was always a task the Compulsion allowed.

“Calm yourself, I mean you no harm. I need to warn the archmage of a magical disaster of great importance,” she said. The lightning behind her had grown intense. Her pale complexion glowed moonlike in the storm. She looked the part of an assassin in all that leather. Dark hair whipped violently in the wind. “We need to speak with him now. Where is he?”

“Who else is with you?” asked Teatop. The way the woman let the rain beat against her face made him nervous.

“Just my brother, same as me,” she said. “The tavern and lighthouse are all owned by the wizard, and you are their caretaker?”

“That is true,” he said.

“I swear to you, by the light of the gods, that we must give warning,” she said. “You should have lived a better life. Let me look at you.” Her pitting tone deflated him. Her eyes beckoned.

Teatop stepped closer to the window with trepidation. The woman was remarkable, even regal. Her heart shaped face would have been beautiful if not for the pallor, and the wet hair stuck to her cheeks, and the coldness of her unflinching eyes. “So go then. He’s in the inn. What’s stopping you?”

“Look into my eyes,” she said. “I mean you no harm. I’ve been forced into the service of magic before, the same as you. Don’t you want to fulfill your duty?” No, he didn’t, and that made his skin hurt like a vampire in the sun. Her gaze bored into him. “I didn’t come to make you suffer, but I need your help. It isn’t enough for you to tell me to go to your master. I want you to ask me. For his own good. He is a wizard, and he must know of the phenomenon at work in his domain.”

“Are you a vampire?” he asked through grit teeth. She was something, and spending a lifetime in a wizard’s service meant he knew what those things could be. He knew not to invite anyone inside. Strangers knew their roles, and so did he.

“All I have said is true,” she said. “Please, help me.”

He wanted to help her. So, what if she was a vampire. Humans were as bad as orcs, so what made a vampire any worse? And he didn’t know that’s what she was. He only thought it. Maybe she had a code of honor. Maybe she was a powerful wizard or was some sort of elf that loved the rain. If she had the power to scale the tower in silence, she could have killed him if she wanted to. Nothing added up, but he liked her, suddenly, fiercely, and he wanted to help her. A good story, yes, because the best way to serve Shalis was to make sure he had all the information. Teatop’s job was the charts. This woman, full of altruistic concern for his master, could deliver her message in person. Was he of two minds about these things? Certainly, but he didn’t dwell on it. After all, the master had shown him so little respect. Maybe Teatop wasn’t fit to apply his best reasoning. And that, the Compulsion also understood.

“Yes, I invite you inside,” said Teatop. “Make yourself at home.”

There is plenty to eat.

***

Sallow peered through the window. The slow, intimate, and warm atmosphere of the secluded inn made her long for home. Inside, they were having a splendid time. She’d tell her brother not to kill anyone—she had her target. The archmage sat with a bottle of wine by the fire, trading stories with an old dwarf. Good. He’d drink the wizard under the table. Let him have his fun. This was the last night he would enjoy.

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