The High Tower of the Citadel was drafty and smelled of musty wet limestone. But Mari, Sorceress and Grand Vizier of Riverbend, spent most of her time there for two important reasons. First, most people were lazy, and the curling spiral of a hundred stone steps kept most folks from coming up to annoy her. And second, it had bar-none the best view in the city. 

From the arched stone window, she could almost see the little cottage in the nearby hamlet of Blackberry Vale where she’d once been a simple yarn witch. She’d just settled in the village after earning her besom, skilled in wards and not much else. Then Cedric had shown up at her door, only a novice knight himself. He’d pleaded with her to help save Riverbend from the Dread Wizard Kalifax and his army of undead. 

She sometimes wondered what would have happened had she said no, and like most of the sensible folk around Blackberry Vale, simply left the area. 

But she hadn’t. She’d grabbed her wand and spindle, and followed the lone remaining member of the City Guard up the hill. The rest had left with Lord Elric and Lady Anya, who insisted they needed the full guard to protect them (along with all the treasure they could pack up quickly) on their hasty sojourn to their nearest noble relations. 

The peaceful city of Riverbend had been left with one inexperienced knight and a hedge witch as defense against a powerful necromancer and a legion of skeletons and ghouls. 

Somehow, they’d done it. With the help of a drunkard monk who blessed every bucket and rain barrel into holy water, an exceedingly large set of silver utensils left behind by Elric and Anya (they’d taken the gold set), and the courage of the ordinary people of the city, they’d defeated Kalifax and his monsters. Cedric had landed the killing blow while the wizard was blasting away at Mari, huddling beneath a double-knit, warded wool cloak. 

It would have been an ideal ending, if not for the Law of Conservation of Magic. When the wizard Kalifax fell, his power sought out the nearest magician. The crackling energy slid off Cedric like water off a duck’s back, and ricocheted straight into Mari. Which pretty much ended her tenure as a hedge witch, but opened up an entirely new array of career possibilities as a sorceress. She supposed she could have gone the evil necromancer route. But dead things smelled awful, and she couldn't bear the idea of traipsing around cemeteries at all hours, trying to find sufficiently solid cadavers to serve as foot soldiers. 

Frankly the reason Kalifax was trying to take over Riverbend in the first place was because his own holding of Gorfangul Abbey was a pretty miserable place to live. Or be undead, as the case may be. Evil seemed like a lot of work, with not a lot of reward. Of course, as things played out, she still ended up doing a lot of work for not much reward, but at least she wasn't living in a putrid swamp fort with only decomposing thralls for company. 

At any rate, when Lord Elric and Lady Anya attempted to return, the good people of Riverbend told them they could go back to their noble relations or get tossed in the Thistledown River. (Except Brother Clarens, a skilled brewer but less-than-exemplary holy man, who loudly told them to “go feck themselves.”)

They accepted their new status as landless nobles pretty amicably. Mari thought it was very sensible of them. Having a lot of money and no responsibilities does not have a lot of drawbacks compared to having a lot of money and also a lot of responsibilities. Especially if those responsibilities could at some point involve getting gnawed on by ghouls. Just because the city had managed to turn back one evil necromancer didn't mean another one might not show up someday. 

The people of Riverbend had elevated Cedric to Knight Commander by unanimous vote. He was excellent at rousing, inspirational speeches. His administrative skills left much to be desired. Which was why Mari had been Sorceress and Grand Vizier for nearly twenty years. 

At first, it had been lovely. Mari enjoyed being useful and having a sense of purpose. That was why she'd gone into service as a village witch in the first place. Running things in Riverbend was the same thing, just on a larger scale. She had spent a very long time simply sorting out the city’s messy accounts, figuring out what to do with the treasure the nobles had left behind, and warding nearly every square foot of the city within an inch of its life. Like the city's former noble family, she didn't trust that defeating one crazed mage was inoculation against future invasion attempts. 

But over time, things had changed. 

Because the city was safe and thriving, many new people had moved to Riverbend. They didn’t remember the War of the Spoons, or her role in saving the city, or that she’d once been Marigold, village witch and wardsmith. Instead, they saw a powerful, aloof sorceress who lived in the high tower. A woman appallingly in charge of nearly everything. They saw Cedric, a cheerful figurehead, and whispered that he must be Under Some Dark Enchantment. 

She waited for the people who knew her to defend her. 

She waited for Cedric to defend her. 

And they did. Occasionally. Quietly. Gently. 

But the new people were loud and certain. And even when older residents tried to explain the history and the facts, the new people simply muttered that alas, another poor soul must have fallen under the spell of the dark Sorceress. 

So what if maybe she did wear black a lot. It was slimming! And it didn't show stains as much as Cedric's shining white tunics, that was for certain. Also, maybe she did tend to stand at the tower window literally looking down on people, but that didn't mean she metaphorically looked down on people! 

Okay, if she were being totally honest, she probably did also metaphorically look down at a lot of people. A lot of people were ignorant fools. But still! Enjoying a nice vantage spot, which was one of the only perks to being an unpaid public servant for two decades, did not make her a bad person. 

So she went out into the city less and less these days. She stayed in the tower. She let Cedric do what he was good at, and kept doing what she was good at. 

But more and more often, she kept looking out the tower window, longingly, at where the witch’s cottage in Blackberry Vale sat. And she wondered what would happen if she left the tower, and the city, and let them deal with their own damn problems for a change. 

This idea began to take on new merit when Alistair, her raven familiar, swooped in the window to announce her impending death.