There was a man named Bertram who was both tall and stocky, and while he wasn’t particularly dim, he wasn’t bright enough to realize that he wasn’t particularly bright either. But even he had to admit, he’d made a mistake.
Bertram was becoming very familiar with the wooden floor below his bed: Every knot, every crack, the remnants of varnish stripped away by age and use. He’d even started counting the rings in one board, though the pain always made him lose count.
He was in a small room in a men’s boarding house, which until recently, he only visited when he needed to sleep between jobs.
He had spent the last week there, face down in bed, so that the burns that ran all the way from his sphincter up his back to his ears wouldn’t hurt so much. His head was stuck out over the side, propped up on a chair so he could breathe.
The only breaks he got during the doldrums of recovery were when the nurse he had to pay his landlord to hire for him came by to change the bandages.
Otherwise, with the burnt remnants of a priest’s robe folded over a chair as a reminder of recent mistakes, he spent most of his time fantasizing about strangling large cats and snotty-arse thieves.
That and thinking about what would happen when the money ran out.
There had been no footsteps, no knock, no sound of entry, but nonetheless, a voice spoke from behind, “That looks painful. How are you holding up?” It was unfamiliar, male, and well enunciated.
“Do I know you?” Bertram groaned, twisting up to face the stranger.
“No no, don’t do that. I’ll come around,” said the man, and a moment later, a skinny man in a black suit slid onto the floor beneath him.
Bertram looked at the man like he was mad. “What the Bast—?”
“—This is much more reasonable than you getting up, given your current condition, is it not?” the man interrupted. He wore a concerned smile like a fake mustache. “My name is Drake. Yes, I am a ‘wizard’ and I understand you might not be feeling too friendly toward us right now.”
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Bertram found himself at a loss for words. Normally he would have told this man, Drake, to piss off, or just punched him in the face. At this particular moment, neither option seemed very safe, but old habits die hard. “Piss off, before I punch you in the face,” he said and spat.
Drake slipped away, and the spit hit the floor.
“I won’t take that personally. I’d be in a bad mood too,” Drake’s voice said, rising behind him. “So, let’s try this…”
Something pricked Bertram’s bum. He moved to swat it, but the effort pulled at his burns, sending a wave of pain up his back.
“Give it a minute…” said Drake.
And as Bertram lay there reeling in agony, the burnt ends of his nerves began to tingle, and then the pain washed away, like his stink after a rain.
“Don’t get up,” Drake warned. “You’re not really healed; you’ll just hurt yourself. But…”
The wizard’s hand came into view, wiped the spit away with a handkerchief, and then the rest of him slid back into position on the floor. “…if there’s one thing I cannot stand, it’s to see an employee suffer.”
“You want to hire me?” Bertram did not trust this man any further than he could throw him, which was nowhere at the moment, but still… the pain was gone.
“Yes. Well, that is the most pleasant option. Now tell me, why is Josephine so interested in Oliver Grey?”
“I don’t know about—”
“—I think you know his brother, Rafe,” Drake interrupted, “He had you jumping into the river on fire…” He brought out a red stone, bound in iron, along with a handful of singed notes. “Chasing after these?”
Bertram clenched up. The last time he heard someone talk like that was a prosecutor, right before he did a three-year stint in ‘Old Motte.’
“If there’s one thing I know about Josephine, it’s that she doesn’t like messes, or loose ends.” Drake paused, and Bertram let that sink in. “I, however, look after my employees. These, I think, would be enough to get you back in her good graces. But I will need a solid commitment. Do you… work for me?” As the faux pleasantry dropped from the wizard’s face, his eyes became piercing.
Spitting again seemed like a good way to get himself killed, and this was the first time in a week he hadn’t been in agony, in fact, he felt... good, maybe even better than before the burns. Bertram nodded, and Drake’s smile returned.
“And?”
“Josephine is a bit touched in the umm… ‘ead where Scaggs is concerned. She's going to off her next, wants to be slow about it, wants her to suffer.”
“How?”
“Don’t know. Says she’s going to make Scaggs off herself. The inquisitor's offed other wizards.”
“Tiamore?” Drake asked.
Bertram nodded.
“Are you sure?”
He tensed up. “Poisoned ‘im meself.”
“Ah… honesty, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Right, then I’ll be taking care of all your expenses, and I’ll make sure you get all the ‘medicine’ you could ever want. But, not a word of this to anyone. And, I’ll just leave these with you then.” Drake placed the stone and the notes on the floor. “But for your own sake, don’t get the inquisitor’s hopes up. The stone won’t work, not yet, and the notes will explain why. Just don’t tell her that, best to let her figure it out for herself.”
“You gonna warn Scaggs?”
Drake winked and left, leaving a bag of coins in his stead.
When he was gone, Bertram spent a very long time staring at that stone. Something was off about it. He didn’t remember seeing carvings in the iron that bound it. They were an inscription, words written in Shivari. That, and the notes were on different paper than before.
Then we take a week-long break before starting part two: "The Fire Witch of Greatwen"
The break gives the illustrator a bit of time to get ahead of the publish, and allows me to sync up the various places where this is being published. (RR is the focus)
But I would like to post something during that time so... vote for what you would like in the poll.
https://discord.gg/fQtFt2sYdf]
What would you like me to post in the week before we start part two?
