Tsuta examined the red, waxy sphere, turning it over in his hands.

  “They’re made of dung? Really?”

  “That’s what the book said,” his watch partner, Iskvold, answered. He called her “Pinky,”—a nickname earned from her eye color. While typical for a drow, the rarity of dark elves among Venn’s surface dwellers made the feature, together with her obsidian skin and bright white hair, unique.

  They were in the final stretch of their three-day tour guarding the northern outpost. The monks of the Luminarium operated three identical fortifications, monitoring the mountain passes on the western edge of the civilized kingdoms of elves and men.

  In exchange for providing early warning against orcs, gnolls, and other threats from the Siremirian wildlands, the abbey received supplies from the king of Shan and the Elven Commonwealth of Glahaneth. The Luminarium Abbey, planted firmly in the nearby foothills of the Glimmerstone mountains, was their home.

  Each location featured a cabin and an eight-foot stone fireplace called the Beacon, on a plateau overlooking the pass. To prevent enemy overruns, the outposts were accessible only from the east. The Beacons resembled inverted beehives topped with a tapered chimney. Their duty was to monitor the pass, signaling any threats from the west, and their conversation centered on the method of that communication.

  All three outposts were equipped with white, red, and blue spherical flares, added to the fire when danger was spotted. White signified civilian migration, red indicated enemy forces, and blue warned of anything else. The arcane flares produced colored smoke, visible for miles, thanks to the Beacon’s design.

  “What kind of dung?” he asked, still focused on the red sphere.

  “Does it matter?” Her voice, muffled by the cabin, drifted from the overlook. One of them always kept eyes on the pass. “And shouldn’t you know that, being our Fortifications Master?”

  “My responsibility stops at the abbey’s perimeter. The Beacons belong to the Shan, and they provide the flares. I’m just curious how they get the different colors.” He scratched the orb’s surface with his fingernail, closely inspecting the residue. “Different dung, a different spell, some kind of dye?”

  Iskvold’s head appeared to the side of the cabin, her gaze alternating between him and the pass. Her shoulder-length white hair tucked behind her ear, she cocked her head, pink eyes narrowed, assessing him.

  “Are you messing with me right now?”

  “I swear to Gond I’m not!” He cracked a smile. “Given all your Vault experience, I thought you might know.”

  The Vault was the abbey’s library, named for its discreet, secure location beneath the main building. Sifu Haft, the abbey master, was fiercely protective of it. Over the years, the monks had quietly amassed an extensive and eclectic collection of texts ranging from the benign to the dangerously arcane.

  Every commissioned translation or transcription included an unmentioned “house copy,” resulting in a secret volume of works rivalled by few cities in Venn. Iskvold, the Vault’s curator and more at home among the stacks than with other people, knew its contents better than anyone.

  She gave him a long look before responding, “The white is wolf dung, red is Centaur, and blue is Bulette. The other ingredients—sulfur and saltpeter—are the same, and so is the incantation.”

  “Bulette? The land sharks that gobble up livestock, out in the farmlands?”

  Her response was flat, her attention already returning to the geography below. “Those are the ones.”

  Tsuta started to giggle. “I was half kidding. I didn’t think you’d really take the time to learn how to construct Beacon flares out of dung!”

  “Laugh all you want, my bald friend,” she shot back with a sly smirk, “You’re the one playing with Centaur shit!” With that, the drow disappeared back around the corner to resume her duties.

  Tsuta’s smile faded as he reconsidered the red sphere, promptly returning it to the wood rack next to the beacon, before wiping his hands thoroughly on his robes. Ugh. I can still feel it under my fingernail! Recalling his original purpose, he habitually counted the logs in the woodpile, then palmed two into the fire when a sparkle tickled his peripheral vision. Magic? Up here?

  Spinning instinctively toward the threat, his divine energy crackled to life between raised hands. But there was nothing. Morning sunlight flickered calmly among the leaves that swayed lazily in the breeze, and the birds twittered uninterrupted. Odd. Satisfied he’d overreacted, the holy monk dropped his magical tether and trudged back toward the cabin.

  Stifling a yawn, he held a long blink to relieve the tiredness in his eyes. It was his turn to rest. The monotony of watch duty exaggerated his fatigue. I can’t wait to get back! He didn’t regret the decision to join the Luminarium over a year ago. There was no choice at the time—he had to disappear. Overseeing the constant improvement of the abbey’s defenses was fine, but he missed the excitement of adventuring, especially while toiling on watch duty. He reflected on the mental and physical pressure of the pendant around his neck, sliding his finger across its surface. The injustice of carrying the weight of an entire nation’s freedom blossomed in his chest before being quelled by an overriding sense of duty and honor.

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  He pushed open the cabin’s back door, allowing a shaft of sunlight to race in ahead of him, casting a warm glow on the modest interior. A table with an oil lamp, a small fireplace, and a well-worn meditation mat occupied half the space. A hand pump and basin atop a primitive wooden counter, supplies tucked underneath, consumed most of the rest.

  Closing the door returned the room to deep shadow. He minutely adjusted the mat, the incense holder, and its fuel before lighting one stick against the glowing embers and settling, cross-legged, onto the mat. The rich smell of sandalwood and cedar quickly filled the small space. After placing the smoldering incense in its holder, Tsuta unconsciously slid one hand over his bald head before beginning the meditation ritual, drifting quickly into the deep meditative state that served as elvenkind’s version of sleep.

  Iskvold heard the cabin door close but didn’t break from her observation routine. Scan the skies, scan the pass, scan the mountainsides—repeat. Gondammit, I hate this final shift! She considered her partner, oblivious to the passage of time during meditation. Unlike him, she was acutely aware of the glacier-like movement of every grinding second. So close to being relieved, each moment seemed to stretch interminably before yielding to the next. Even her usual distractions—the nest of baby sparrows in a nearby tree or the local mountain lion patrolling the hillside below—weren’t doing it. Work the routine and stop thinking about it; you’re making it worse.

  She turned north, scanning the Glimmerstone range, from the horizon to the Shanderiusha Gap directly below, and south to the Aether Peaks. Nothing. Back to the gap. Named after the nearby river, the well-worn footpath rose from the Siremirian plains before threading through the wooded foothills into Shan territory behind her. All quiet.

  Iskvold traced its route along cliff sides and through switchbacks until it disappeared several miles to the west. Dead empty. In her decade at the abbey, she had rarely seen any activity near the pass. She smirked at the naivety of her younger self, imagining the vast western wildlands teeming with fantastic creatures, all scheming and plotting just across the border, eager to test its boundaries.

  First-hand experience, however, had dispelled that myth. She’d only witnessed three noteworthy events: two separate tribes of orcs migrating along the road, and a pair of wyverns—an adult and a juvenile—riding the air currents among the lower foothills. That was it. The drow began to calculate the job’s futility to pass the time. Ten years, one three-day watch per month. One hundred and twenty tours. Over four thousand hours of watch duty for two tribes of orcs and a couple of wyverns.

  If only Sifu allowed her to bring books. I could have learned so much! Of course, he had flatly refused her request.

  “It completely defeats the purpose of being on watch duty if one is reading rather than watching.” Those were his exact words. Understandable. He also strictly confined all written materials to the Vault’s interior, no removals—for protection, apparently. I don’t get that one. Admittedly, some manuscripts should never see the light of day outside the Vault. Countless others, however, would benefit from being considered in the field with context—the catalogs of flora and fauna, for example.

  She continued her progression to the mountainsides. From her perch, Iskvold could see the eastern and southern slopes of the six peaks that framed the gap, and she dutifully scrutinized each one from base to summit. Still nothing.

  For several hours, robotically repeating the process, she began knocking out a beat with the butt of her staff against the outlook’s stone patio to combat boredom. Tap, tap. Scan the sky. Tap, tap. Back to the gap. Tap, tap. Peak to the east. Tap, tap. Peak to the west. She added shoulder and hip movements, amusing herself with a stilted and awkward dance routine, just to kill the boredom.

  The Drow’s evolution, spanning countless generations underground, made them hypersensitive to sunlight. When the dipping afternoon sun began pressing its beams annoyingly into her eyes, it clicked. They should have been here by now. Normally, watch relief arrived in mid-afternoon, along with two acolytes hauling food and firewood to replenish the supplies consumed by the outgoing monks on duty. She gave it another thirty minutes before rousing Tsuta from his meditation.

  At first, he resisted the alarm.

  “How late is it?” His tone was breathy, eyes still closed.

  “The shadows of the foothills are already into the Gap.”

  That was enough to get his attention. The elf’s eyes snapped open.

  “You’re right, that’s pretty late.” He exhaled audibly as he stood, stretching. “Do you want to head down to the abbey and see what’s what, while I keep an eye on the pass?”

  “That works. I could do with a change of scenery. I’m sure it’s nothing, but you never know.”

  Tsuta nodded and reached for his staff. Rarely useful on watch, he took comfort in having it in hand.

  “I’ll grab my stuff, save a trip,” Iskvold muttered, almost to herself, slipping past him into the cabin. Tsuta yawned and stepped out onto the promontory.

  “Did you see a flare from any positions to the south?” His eyes narrowed against the sunlight as he scanned the horizon.

  “Now don’t you think I would have led with that?” she chided over her shoulder.

  Tsuta chuckled. “Fair enough. Sifu probably ran long in one of his lessons again. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Isn’t that the truth!” Her voice mingled with the sound of rummaging inside the cabin.

  Iskvold grabbed her cloak and shouldered her pack. Returning to the overlook, she placed a hand on Tsuta’s shoulder. “I’ll see you back at the abbey.”

  Their eyes met, and they exchanged a nod. She strode to the northern edge of the outpost before disappearing down the stairs carved into the plateau.

  “Tell them to get their butts moving, will you please?” He called in her direction.

  “Will do.”

  The drow took the stairs down two at a time. Her muscle memory took over, sparking a shudder of recollection. How many times have I run this flight? Five hundred? More. These stairs were the sole access point for the beacon and a core element of Sifu’s grueling training regimen. Weight to the inside, her right hand instinctively brushed along the sheer stone face, her left kept the staff parallel to the ground for balance. Gond, those first climbs were brutal! Rounding the eastern side of the plateau, she stopped dead when the abbey came into view. Reminiscence vanished, instantly replaced with anxiety.

  A faint trail of black smoke against blue sky initially drew her attention. Tracking its path downward, the column grew thicker and darker until her gaze locked on the abbey, her home. Despite a lack of visible flames, the stone structure was heavily smoldering. Every tower and every window coughed, dark and dense. The tendrils curled and converged into a single, ominous black cylinder before fleeing into the atmosphere. The drow’s stomach lurched, and the muscles in her shoulder blades knotted. Still too far away to make out any detail, she’d seen enough.

  Without hesitation, Iskvold tore down the remaining stairs, breaking into a dead run through the high grass field. Her mind reeled as she raced toward the bedrock that brought order to the chaos of her childhood, the now smoldering Luminarium. My home! Where are we going to live? Accident? The Vault. Had it burned as well? All those books, all that knowledge. Why had no one come to get us? Is everyone ok? What if it wasn’t an accident? What if we were attacked? How did they get past the Beacons?

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