Gloam: noun. Twilight.

“What’d you say?” a quiet voice demanded.

Vaelmir the Eternal, sole survivor of the First Dawn, the power behind the Council of ArchMagi, Personal Enemy of Astaroth, and general downer, looked perplexed. The human rubbed at his bearded chin while his pale eyes searched for the source of the noise.

“I’m right here, you old coot!” The quiet shout and explosion of white-pink fairy dust drew the almost colorless eyes of the ancient human to the miniature fey who stood on the arm of his rocking chair. The diminutive fairy seemed to be the prime candidate for who yelled at him, unless the chair itself was re-animating again—the forces of the Upper Planes help them all if that were the case!

“Say it again! I dare you!” the uppity voice of the tiny fairy screamed at Vaelmir again. The miniature woman shook with visible rage and made no effort to control her emotions.

Vaelmir frowned at the creature, then coughed at his rude intruder when she didn’t get the hint. It would only take a mere trifle of his immense power to send the fairy fleeing, yet the cold logical part of his brain recognized an opportunity when he saw one. Young fairies, like most Fey, were ruled by their emotions. Vaelmir could use that. For weeks he had stared at the forest with its impossibly tall trees, and no Fey had deigned to welcome him to their realm. One finally showed up to greet him, and it was a rude fairy.

Truly, his luck knew no limits.

“It is a shame that the Fey make terrible necromancers?” Vaelmir repeated the words he had said to himself moments ago. This time he swiveled his gaze to study the miniature woman to read her reaction. The crow’s feet around his eyes compressed into even denser lines as he focused on his diminutive visitor.

It did not make the fairy happy. At all. Instead, she shook her comedically small fist threateningly at him. For the briefest moment, Vaelmir almost felt like the fairy stood taller than him, looking down at him with a tight jaw, a raised eyebrow, and her chest all puffed out. He felt like a boy caught before a storm of vast, dark power. A blink of his eyes and the sensation faded, as if it had only been a figment of his imagination. The Sight, one of his gifts, came and went of its own volition.

“I could be the best necromancer!” The little creature insisted with great vehemence.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Vaelmir asked the fairy to repeat herself. He’d been so caught off guard by the sensations of nearly god-like power radiating from the fairy he’d completely missed what she said.

“Clean out your ears, mortal. I said I could be the best necromancer! The greatest! I’d have all the best undead.” The fairy stuck her tongue out at him and floated a few inches into the air. Her wings fluttered, but not in any meaningful way that could possibly have provided the lift necessary.

“Fey are as connected to necromancy as fireflies are connected to the darkest layers of the abyss. Your essence is too light and ephemeral, your nature too chaotic. To be a master of necromancy is to have an intimate relationship with death, decay, and the drama of the final, last breath. For you fairies, flirting with death is like dancing in leaden boots—doomed to fail and fall on your own face.” Vaelmir watched the reactions of the tiny fairy like a hawk. If he set out a little bit of bait, she’d willingly walk into his trap, and he’d gain entrance to the Soulweald proper if his luck held out.

Vaelmir gestured, and illusions of fairies tripping over themselves in ridiculously large metal boots filled the air. The old man even made the fairies look like the one on his chair for extra insult.

The tiny fairy, with her purple hair briefly clutched at her stomach, and a flare of red suffused her face. The fey briefly looked at the floor, but humiliation gave way to anger in a flash.

“Hey! Don’t you tell me what I can’t do! You’re the schmuck here to study the Soulweald, while I already know all about it. Here you are lecturing me about necromancy and lead boots! It looks to me like you’re the one who doesn’t know anything about the soul, which is weird, because yours is so old.” The tiny fairy really emphasized his age by dragging ‘so’ out to extreme lengths.

The old mage’s nostrils flared for a few deep breaths and his eyes narrowed. He was Vaelmir the Eternal, and he could split continents in twain, yet in this cursed fey realm the feats of his homeland were nothing more than foot notes to a world the alien denizens of the Soulweald cared nothing about. He reminded himself that fairies were barely sapient in their youth, and this one seemed young-ish, and therefore possibly easy to trick. If she underestimated him, well, all the better for Vaelmir. He only had to control his own emotions and not be taken by annoyance of being mocked by the equivalent of a magical insect.

“Oh really? Why don’t you tell me what you know about the Soulweald then?” Vaelmir asked in his best attempt at guilelessness. He had to appeal to the fairy’s sense of superiority, but being subtle wasn’t necessary.

“Haha, no. You want to know what’s in there? Then go in there! Maybe the Mistress will welcome you.” The fairy cajoled Vaelmir. “Yeah, she’ll totally welcome you. Go on, go on! Go tell the Mistress that no fairy can be a necromancer and see what she says!”

“The Mistress? I didn’t know the Soulweald had a mistress.” Vaelmir baited the fairy with a coy smile on his old face. He was close. He could sense it. His heartbeat sped up, and his stomach fluttered uncomfortably. Vaelmir’s nearly colorless eyes focused on the fairy as if it were the only being in the whole forest.

“That’s because you’re so dumb you didn’t even think faeries could be great necromancers! Have you ever heard of Lyrindris, The Soulshaper? No? See, you are dumb for someone so old. Like Mistress Nyxaria would waste her breath on you, when all the Soulweald hangs on her every word. You could never be as great as Mistress Nyxaria!” The little fairy scoffed at Vaelmir.

“Mistress Nyxaria, you say? No, not her true name, even you wouldn’t be that careless…” Vaelmir, caught up in his own trap now, failed to notice the fairy had very intentionally spoke a name of power twice already. Vaelmir looked up when a surge of magic pulsed before his cabin. A tall woman floated before the porch of his summoned manor. She had the tapered ears of the fey, and incandescent eyes of the truly terrible noble fey. The tiny fairy still sat on his chair, a smug expression on her face.

Vaelmir had been outsmarted by a magical insect. He swallowed down bile repeatedly, even as the woman who had appeared stole his breath. Beauty and power radiated from the newcomer in nearly visible waves. In the back of his mind, Vaelmir heard primal screams of fear in his own voice. Every instinct he had suggested he flee from this woman. Instincts and emotions were for Fey, though, for was Vaelmir not powerful enough to be the nemesis of Astaroth? Had he not defeated Oraxis Bloodflame?

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The human mage bowed his head respectfully, then gazed upon the newcomer.

Nyxaria was a human sized fey who levitated effortlessly in the air. Two black horns rose from her temples, but they looked almost like butterfly antennae. Her skin was pale, her hair the yellow a new dawn, and she was clad in a barely opaque outfit that glittered like the inside of a seashell. Vaelmir had witnessed countless tragedies, committed many crimes himself, and even fought gods a time or two. It had been centuries since anyone or anything had taken his breath away, but the adult fey stole his breath with a worrisome ease.

“Why must you keep calling for me, child? Oh, a human.” The fey, undoubtedly Nyxaria, looked down on the tiny fairy. “It is time to return home now,” she said kindly, almost motherly, to the little creature.

“Nyxaria, Mistress of the Soulweald? I am called Vaelmir the Eternal, last witness of the First Dawn, Head of the Council of ArchMagi, Defender of—” Vaelmir fell silent as his lips sealed closed. To his horror his mouth no longer opened, for there was no hole between his lips.

“While we may be at the edges of my realm, this is still my realm, mortal,” Nyxaria spoke down to the mage imperiously. Vaelmir, confronted by the power of an Archfey, realized the folly of assuming that being the most powerful wizard in the world of Nantes might make him a match for a creature like Nyxaria. Hubris landed him in a frying pan. His mind raced with ideas to escape.

“Yeah! Get him! He said I couldn’t be the best necromancer! Make him pay!” The fairy jumped up and down on the rocking chair. Her lively leaps failed to produce enough power to make the chair rock at all. She was only eight inches tall and weighed less than three ounces.

“Oh, did you? You should know that young Dahlia is descended from Lyrindris, the greatest Soulshaper to ever weave spirits. And who are you, mortal? Why do you stare at my realm with such longing and hope?” Nyxaria asked the human, who mumbled behind his sealed lips. Nyxaria laughed and restored Vaelmir’s mouth with a gesture.

Vaelmir coughed and sputtered out his introduction yet again.

“You may call me Vaelmir the Eternal, last witness of the First Dawn, Head of the Council of ArchMagi, Defender of Nantes, High Scholar of—” Vaelmir recited the list of titles, until Nyxaria lifted her finger. He stopped talking before his lips vanished again.

Nyxaria’s lips twisted with amusement when the mortal silenced himself. Vaelmir felt like he had gained a small amount of respect in her eyes. He’d gone from a dog who barked too much and got mud on her carpet to a dog who sat quietly until she was ready to pet it. Worst of all, he felt proud that he’d gone up that little bit in her eyes.

“Make a wager with me, Vaelmir the Broken. If this little fairy can become the greatest necromancer of your home world, you will give me your true name. If she fails, I’ll invite you into the Soulweald and allow you to take over a tower in Shade’s Grove.” Nyxaria offered.

“I came seeking the Shroud of Gloam to—” Vaelmir found himself cut off again, but not by his lips disappearing. Nyxaria laughed and, strangely, it made him feel oddly whole. No mere laughter had ever been able to suffice as a balm to his fractured soul before. Perhaps the Shroud of Gloam was the cloak Nyxaria wore?

“I will mend the Broken when our wager is complete, regardless of who loses. What do you say? Shall Nantes be the world to bear witness to my disciples coming of age?” Nyxaria offered a cure to his condition so casually, when gods and centuries had failed to cure him. She’d thrown words, offers, hope, and a wager at him so quickly the world seemed to spin around him.

“What are the terms for qualifying as the greatest necromancer of Nantes?” Vaelmir asked somewhat rhetorically. He immediately could think of at least three qualifiers.

“Conquest of the Tower of Alukard, of course,” answered Nyxaria lazily. Her casual demonstration of knowledge of the world of Nantes wasn’t lost on Vaelmir, but he had mentioned his world of origin. It never occurred to the wizard to ask if she’d been there before, for Vaelmir was nearly as famous as the bald, hawk-faced permanently frowning asshole who once convinced people to worship his toenails.

“Total control of the Fortress of the Death Court,” Vaelmir declaimed with a ridiculous laugh. No one had survived the Dungeon of Unexpected Death to even reach the Fortress of the Death Court in two hundred years.

“Awakening of the Bone Colossus,” Nyxaria added to the list of trials an entry even more obscenely difficult than the Fortress of the Death Court. Vaelmir felt a thorn of envy that she had snapped such a good trial from him. What could possibly compare to the difficulty of awakening an Undead Primordial?

“Destroy the Phylactery of Eldryn, and usurp the title from the Lich himself.” Vaelmir said after a long silence. He giggled at the mere idea of a fairy ever standing up to the likes of Eldryn, self-proclaimed Emperor of the Undead, and almost peed himself from laughing.

The fairy looked back and forth between the two huge, laughing figures. If one of them weren’t Mistress Nyxaria she might have mooned the two of them and flew away. You couldn’t hide from Nyxaria though, not in the Soulweald. It made games of hide and seek a real downer.

“Hey, I didn’t agree with that! That sounds like a whole lot of work, necromancy is super-duper messy, and I just got this outfit. You understand, right Mistress Nyxaria? I know, let’s send Deborah, instead!” The fairy desperately sought any line of escape that might remain to her, even throwing her least favorite sister to be trampled under the stampede if it saved her own hide.

The elegant fey reached down and grasped the tiny fairy between two fingers, holding her up like one would a cat by the scruff of their neck. It wasn’t like Nyxaria leaned down and grabbed Dahlia, though. Magical forces beyond those Vaelmir had ever seen were bent to the task and did the grabbing for Nyxaria. Vaelmir’s throat dried up in jealousy of the perfect ease with which Nyxaria sculpted raw magical power to do her bidding.

“You can be the best necromancer, little Dahlia. You want to be don’t you? For me? For the legacy of Lyrindris?” The urge to make Nyxaria happy warred with Dahlia’s urge to not be voluntold to take on hard tasks like becoming the best at something. Couldn’t Nyxaria want something simple, like some berries? There were lots of berries in the Soulweald, and Dahlia could see jars of multiple types of berries inside the human’s house just waiting to be gifted to Nyxaria. No one ever wanted berries, or a berrymancer.

“She doesn’t have the wherewithal to be the greatest anything, especially not a necromancer. She’s not even a wizard. You may as well concede defeat to me already, Nyxaria.” Vaelmir bragged smugly to the fey and fairy. Dahlia immediately raged at the wizard and missed his conspiratorial wink at Nyxaria.

“Hey, fuck you! I am too smart enough to be a wizard!” Dahlia screamed at the man.

“It’s alright, Dahlia. I never agreed that you had to be a wizard. Go forth and become the greatest Gloamcaller his pathetic back world has ever seen,” Lady Nyxaria, ArchFey of the Soulweald demanded of Dahlia the fairy. This declaration was echoed by a peel of thunder over the Soulweald and a surge of power within the young fey.

“I don’t wanna!” Dahlia pouted.

“Then I shall send Deborah too, and whichever of you two wins the bet shall be allowed to return to the Soulweald,” Lady Nyxaria declared only one fairy would be allowed to return to the Soulweald with a cruel, frosty twist of her lips and a vicious gaze. Dahlia flailed internally, but the Archfey didn’t give her time to come to terms with the new situation.

“Open the way, Vaelmir,” Nyxaria requested of the mortal.

Vaelmir didn’t think about it. He had committed to this course, and if there were repercussions, well, he’d have to live with them—as he always had. He uttered a few strange syllables, bound magic to his will, and created a planar doorway to Nantes. Not civilized lands, but the far north where the appearance of a Fey might go unnoticed for a time.

Nyxaria released Dahlia from her undignified hold and blew. Cool winds picked up the tiny fairy and dragged her, screaming, out of the Soulweald and through Vaelmir’s portal. A second fairy followed not long after.

Tiny far away voices cursed Nyxaria and Vaelmir, but they both pretended not to hear it.