The old woman's scowl would have soured milk.

  I whispered to Betty, "'Hoary' means gray or old."

  She snickered even louder.

  Whereas I fought against cliché, the crone clearly embraced it, hooded in an oversized robe, its color as dull gray as her hair and cloudy eyes.

  A more practical matter concerned me. "Well met . . . um, hoary one. Where we go, there will be many steps to navigate." It being a tower and all.

  "You doubt the strength of my legs?"

  "No, no. Well, yes. A little. Also, your eyesight. There might be many things to bump into." Like hair-trigger traps. Or monsters with personal boundary issues.

  "Worry not about my cataracts! The Second Sight will guide my way," she said, to the empty space at my right.

  An excessive amount of clanking drew my attention as the knight dismounted.

  "I am Sir Silverwall, and I shall say this but once. I have no use for wizards and witches with your sorceries and diabolic pacts. I have come only to confirm the demise of D'reer. Be warned—I do not trust you, and you may well find my vigilance unsettling." With a clang of metal, he folded his arms.

  Silence congealed, into which Sister Betty snickered some more.

  Plip's little hands clapped. "Wonderful! Now that we're acquainted, let's work together to get inside this tower."

  "Follow me, children," the Crone cried, "and tread only where I tread!" She turned and walked into a tree.

  "This tree is cursed!" she proclaimed, from where she'd fallen on her butt. Her voice sounded strange, like hearing echoes before their source.

  "Clearly," Plip said, helping her up. "But can you tell us how to get into the tower?"

  "Break it open!"

  "She sure likes to yell," I said to Betty.

  The exorcist nodded. "And I thought I was loud."

  Sir Silverwall hitched his charger's reins to a sapling. "While the lot of you dawdle, I shall indeed break open the front doors. Through strength, not magic." He strode off imperiously toward the tower.

  My mage-sight showed me darkling glyphs upon the large wooden doors, symbols whose hanging serifs were bared like fangs. "Wait!"

  But Sir Silverwall was already attacking, armored shoulder leading his charge. A huge explosion of red sparks flung him back to land smoking at our feet. His silver armor crystallized, then crumbled into salt. Following suit were his clothes, all his body hair, and a good amount of skin. Fortunately for him, he was dead by that last part.

  "This is not auspicious," the Crone said.

  "I would say it's medium rare," Betty added.

  Plip made placating gestures. "We knew there would be danger. This but reminds us to keep up our guard. Sister Betty, could you offer a prayer for our fallen comrade?"

  She shook her head. "I never give last rites unless I liked the person. What about the cute necromancer? I'm sure he's put souls to rest."

  "Well, impromptu prayers aren't my forte, but I'll try." I stood over the body. "May he walk now in peace beneath the light of whatever gods he followed. May he travel in Eternity's embrace and—"

  Inspiration struck and I grinned. "Hey! Would anyone object if I made him a zombie?"

  Once I'd neutralized the warding glyphs, Zombie-Sir-Silverwall effortlessly battered down the front doors with his meaty fists.

  We found ourselves in a large dim alcove. Apparently, D'reer didn't care for windows. Plip lit a torch, and Sister Betty called in sunshine as if it were a pet, shaping the light into a dove, which cooed and nested in her hair. In my mind, I could picture Duke Underfoot playfully pouncing on it.

  Despite the sun-dove's glow, a dark weight pressed down on us. The odor of upturned graves pervaded the room. A stagnancy that hated the living haunted this place, promising, at any second, that we would die, drowning in icy, putrefying blood.

  Personally, I found it annoying.

  I mean, I understood that many necromancers opted for such hackneyed ambience; I just didn't understand why. Necromancy wasn't just about undeath; it was also the magic of the afterlife, of staying connected to those who had moved on.

  I noticed a clump of shadows before us that refused to budge.

  The Hoary Crone would have walked right into it, but Plip grabbed her leg.

  "Fresh!" she cried, and swung her cane at him. Luckily, the blow sailed over his head.

  I threw a Spell of Revealing, and the shadows slithered into a roiling humanoid shape. A Weeping Phantasm! They were nasty fiends, able to yank out your deepest unresolved regrets and make you obsess about them until you shriveled into a fetal position and died.

  Sister Betty shouldered me aside. "I got this."

  Hands on her hips, she met the phantasm's gaze. It charged.

  She introduced its face to her truncheon with a loud crunch. "Excuse me? I know you did not just lunge at me. See this?" She patted one palm with the business end of her weapon. "This was forged by dwarven monks, heated in Dynala's angelic fires, and cooled in the milk of a unicorn queen." She twirled it once, and the phantasm cringed back.

  "Now then," she continued, her hand making circular motions to take in the phantasm's body, "what's with all these squirming shadows? You think that's scary? I've sneezed out scarier things. And is that supposed to be a drop in temperature I'm feeling?" She yawned. "You better crawl back home, now, or this truncheon is going where the sun don't shine. Which, in your case, is everywhere."

  The phantasm's shoulders slumped as it slinked away, moaning apologetically.

  "Well done," cried Plip.

  I made noises of agreement, confused but impressed.

  "I see regret arrayed in shadows!" the Crone warned Betty.

  "Yes, I made it go bye-bye already. Seriously, sweetie, you're supposed to tell us these things before we meet them, okay?"

  "The Second Sight heeds no schedule but its own!"

  I pulled Plip aside. "Earlier, when you said you had a good source and authority—"

  "Yes?"

  "Please don't tell me it was the Crone."

  "As you wish." He pressed his lips shut.

  I scowled loudly at him.

  "Fine, fine," he said. "I assure you her foresight is perfect, if a bit cryptic. The price was a steal."

  "You bought her?"

  "Rented, actually. Her children needed a break from her portents. And to be fair, she seemed quite happy to get out of the house as well."

  As we climbed the tower, assorted ghouls and ghasts welcomed us with fanged smiles and rending claws. Happily, I managed to "almost die" only twice. Zombie-Sir-Silverwall proved invaluable in vanquishing our foes.

  "Must he be au naturel?" Plip asked. "The appendages swinging at my eye-level are most distracting."

  I grabbed a dusty tablecloth and improvised a toga, to Plip's relief.

  As we ventured on, my understanding of the others grew. Plip enjoyed playing morale officer. The Hoary Crone, despite her gruffness, just wanted to be useful. Sister Betty's "exorcisms" weren't based so much on prayer as on verbal abuse.

  I took the lead alongside Plip, our eyes wary for traps both eldritch and ordinary. Narrow, winding stairs led ever upward, and I realized my breath was caged, my steps hyper-cautious. The anticipation of lethal threats was invigorating, in a way.

  At the next floor, we entered a room of dark gray marble. Two exits beckoned from the far end and between them stood two ivory plinths. On one was the glass figurine of an elven maiden riding a unicorn. On the other, a unicorn riding a maiden, "riding," in this case, being a euphemism.

  "That's not right," Sister Betty noted.

  As we approached, the eyes of the maiden riding the unicorn lit up. "Hark, intruders! Know that one of the doorways beyond leads to the top of the tower!"

  The eyes of the unicorn riding the maiden blazed mischievously. "The other doorway leads to certain demise!"

  Our attention swung back to the maiden as she continued. "A single question you may ask, but know that one of us always tells the truth."

  "And the other always lies . . . except when explaining the rules."

  I smiled. "A classic! Easy enough to solve."

  "Why are those toys talking?" the Hoary Crone asked.

  "Furthermore," said the maiden, "the one who tells the truth does so except when their sentence has an odd number of words. With the further exception that the sentence is not divisible by three."

  "The one who speaks only lies," said the unicorn, "does so except when their sentence has an even amount of words and is not equal to the square of a number in the Fibonacci sequence."

  At these words, a deep dread filled us.

  "Math!" lamented Betty.

  Plip tugged at his beard. "Could you repeat—?"

  "Plip, no!" I clamped a hand over his mouth. "We're allowed only one question, remember?"

  I started doing some calculations, hoping to discern liar from truthteller by what they'd said so far. After several brain-wracking moments, I realized that wasn't possible.

  Plip snapped his fingers. "Aha! Let's just send the zombie through a doorway and see what happens."

  This sounded reasonable, so I directed Zombie-Sir-Silverwall toward the doorway on the right. When his foot crossed the threshold, a blinding flash filled the room. A terrible stink fogged the air and a pile of bones lay where the zombie had been.

  "The left one!" the Hoary Crone said with reverberant confidence.

  "Observant," I said. "Now, if everyone could give me a moment . . ."

  I cast a second animation spell, and Skeleton-Sir-Silverwall rose, ready to serve.

  A white sizzle flashed from both doorways, and we were again momentarily blinded. The unicorn announced: "Know that the trap resets if you procrastinate! No longer is the left doorway necessarily the safe route!"

  Plip and Betty glared at me, and the Crone at the space to my right.

  "I wasn't procrastinating!" I made Skeleton-Sir-Silverwall nod.

  Betty asked the Crone, "Can't you use your double vision?"

  "Second Sight!" the Crone corrected. Her wrinkles crumpled tight in concentration. "Heed me: one doorway leads to the top of the tower! The other—"

  "Yes, to certain demise," I groaned.

  Betty's sun-dove brightened. "Oooh, I've got a brilliant idea." She repositioned the figurines to face each other, then looked from one to the other with deep scrutiny.

  "You," she said, addressing the unicorn.

  "Is your question ready?"

  "Just look at the maiden for a moment."

  "Why do—by the seven hells!"

  Betty's truncheon crashed down on the maiden figurine.

  She shook it in front of the unicorn's face, the weapon glittering with flakes of shattered maiden. "Now you listen here, you skanky tchotchke! You're going to tell us which doorway is safe! And none of this 'one question only,' algebra nonsense. You're going to say 'the left one is safe, Sister Betty,' or 'the right one is safe, Sister Betty.' Got it?"

  A bead of obsidian fell out of the figurine's posterior.

  "The . . . the left one."

  "Excuse me?"

  "The left one is safe . . . Sister Betty. Please spare me."

  "That's better. Okay, people, you heard the horse."

  Just to be sure, Plip picked up the unicorn and threw it at the left doorway. We smiled to see it sail through unharmed and break on the floor beyond.

  A gargantuan hall greeted us next, its dimensions impossibly fitting within D'reer's tower.

  A stench punched my nose like a spiked gauntlet. Pale-skinned, rotting corpses lined the walls, six to each side. They stood silent, their eyes tracking us.

  "Why aren't they attacking?" Plip whispered.

  "They must be waiting for some trigger. Nobody move."

  I scanned the room. Tapestries hung, one above each corpse. Whatever the weavings depicted was obscured, for they were ragged and filthy beyond belief. They also exuded an aura of necromantic energy.

  "We need to get out of here," Betty said, pinching her nose shut.

  No sooner had she done so than the tapestries fell, unraveling as they buried each corpse in a rustling heap. The filthy strips wound around them like snakes giving free hugs.

  "Grunge-mummies!" I cried. "They're the disease-laden muck of the undead swamp. If they touch you, your skin will blister off!"

  "Run!" shouted the Hoary Crone as she hobbled forward at twice her normal pace . . . approximately half an average person's walking speed. A grunge-mummy shambled toward her.

  At my command, Skeleton-Sir-Silverwall intercepted it. He grabbed the mummy, and yanked and tore with horrifying violence, not dissimilar to a child unwrapping a yuletide present. Three mummies joined the fray against Skeleton-Sir-Silverwall, and he was quickly overwhelmed.

  "Burn, burn, burn!" cried the Crone.

  Hearing this, Plip jabbed at the nearest mummy's leg with his torch. Flames licked up in a fiery nimbus, but the mummy seemed surprisingly unbothered.

  "Great," Plip said. "Now it's a flaming grunge-mummy. Sister Betty, some assistance?"

  Betty berated them with sarcasm so furious, teenage girls would have bowed in homage. Alas, the mummies slowed . . . but did not stop.

  They would fall upon us within seconds, I knew—I would only have time to cast one spell.

  Words of eldritch power slipped from my tongue and energy hissed from my fingertips. The grunge-mummies wailed their final wail, their filthy rags turning white as the undead stiffened, midstride, into gleaming statues.

  "You did it!" Plip cheered. "What necromantic hex did you cast?"

  "Actually that was my laundry spell. Cleans, bleaches, and starches. You see, other necromancers wear dark colors which are more forgiving to grave dirt and viscera stains. My saffron-colored clothes get dirtier quicker, so—"

  "You did it!" Plip repeated. "And that counts more than lengthy explanations!"

  Unfortunately, we were not without casualties. The splintered bones that had been Skeleton-Sir-Silverwall lay in a heap.

  "Oh well," Betty said. "We can honestly say he didn't outlive his usefulness."

  I smirked. "Actually . . ."

  Green and glowing, Spectre-Sir-Silverwall scouted ahead as we continued our ascent.

  Plip tugged my robe. "Thank you again for coming to help me save my love."

  "It's fortunate I did. If you'd asked Kowtosh the Corpsewaker, he never would've gotten past the figurines. He's terrible at math and morally opposed to gambling, even at fifty-fifty odds. And S'nistra the Shroudfitter would have fled from the grunge-mummies. Severe phobia, believe it or—"

  I stopped. A sinking feeling churned my gut.

  "What's wrong?" asked Plip.

  "D'reer knew there were three other necromancers in the kingdom powerful enough to steal his treasures. What if he laid traps specifically targeting us?"

  "But that would mean—"

  We stared at the door directly ahead. Whatever hell-trap lay beyond was customized for me.

  Plip tried to pat my back in reassurance, but could only reach my butt. "D'reer certainly couldn't predict who'd be accompanying you. We'll protect you."

  "How comforting."

  "Your tone, just now, lacked a certain sincerity."

  "Please stop patting my butt."

  I sent Spectre-Sir-Silverwall to slip through the keyhole, his ectoplasmic form stretching thin as a noodle.

  Betty asked, "If he's a ghost, why can't he just walk through the door?"

  "Good question. One's stodginess in life determines one's ectoplasmic viscosity as a spirit. He's not intangible, but he can stretch super thin, as you just observed."

  Skepticism contorted her face, making me wonder why I even bothered explaining necromancy to anyone.

  Spectre-Sir-Silverwall noodled back through the keyhole and gave a series of moans, which I translated. "There's a huge circular chamber with the Umber Urn at the center!"

  Plip looked concerned. "If this room was designed for you, maybe you should stay here."

  "If the Urn is there, that's where I need to go. Besides, D'reer and I hardly knew each other. What could he possibly think would frighten me off?"

  We entered cautiously. My breath caught as I spied the Urn.

  A skeletal tree was painted on the artifact, bone instead of bark, ribs for branches, with clawing zombie hands mimicking leaves. Dark energies steamed in the rippling air. The Urn rested on a ruby pedestal, which jutted out of a long crescent hole in the floor. The floor was a mosaic of a demon's head, and the hole was its ravenous, fanged mouth. The pedestal, I guessed, was meant to be a stuck-out tongue.

  Plip groaned. "Something's going to jump out of that mouth, isn't it?"

  "You think?" Betty asked sarcastically.

  Skittering sounds from the mouth made us jump. Betty lifted her truncheon and stepped closer.

  The mouth spat out a kitten.

  Betty's truncheon was already moving when I grabbed her arm.

  "Wait! It's just a kitty-cat!"

  The kitten floated up until it was eye-level with Betty. With a resounding smack, it head butted her, so hard her sun-dove became cross-eyed.

  "Sonuva—!" she cried, wrenching her arm from my grasp. She swung, but the kitten's fur ballooned out, puffer fish-like, a cushion the weapon sunk into harmlessly. It mewed, then more kittens popped out from the hole like kernels bursting out a kettle.

  They advanced, about fifty strong, wide eyes intent and cute faces mercilessly curious. Anything within striking distance was immediately head butted.

  "The kittens are visiting violence upon us!" cried Plip. He waved his torch frantically to scare them away.

  The Crone let out a stream of muttered curses. "Heel!" she cried, in her hollow voice. "Heel!"

  "They're not dogs!" Betty shouted.

  One of the kittens knocked noggins with the Crone from behind, and the old woman crumpled.

  Betty cursed. "Our weapons can't get through their fur. Zap them with some magic!"

  "I—I can't." How could she even ask that?

  "They're surrounding us and I'm allergic to concussions! Do something!"

  I summoned a cage of bones around our party.

  "Great, now we're trapped."