Beer was invading Arlet's house like ants. First a few careless crumbs would go unminded, a late-night bit of cake dusting the surface of a side-table by the chair he liked for reading, and by the next morning amber bottles and sweet-smelling corks would be swarming his books.

His kitchen had always been a nightmare, the living room had been a lost cause for weeks and, shamefully, the chaos had driven him to start eating burnt toast and eggs in his washroom, thanking the four winds he couldn't afford a mirror. He left crumbs on the floor, and it was barely another week before Arlet Haywin found himself cradling his favorite nut-brown ale in a hot bath, halfheartedly holding the bottle out of the water. A great lathering of dreadful eucalyptus shampoo had formed his considerable hair into a soapy, comforting helmet. Arlet watched his knees make rings in the bath and sipped his beer. It tasted like eucalyptus.

 A knock sounded at the door, starling Arlet enough that he splashed soapy water all over his washroom floor. He slipped and almost fell on his face climbing out of his small metal tub, letting out a few choice curses under his breath. Fifteen minutes of slow, quiet rinsing, drying, tripping over bottles, robe-sniffing, and procrastinating later, Arlet was disheartened to hear the sharp taps for a tenth time. The sound came in near-perfect ninety second intervals, polite and determined. Whoever wanted to speak with him, they showed no signs of leaving soon. How the hell did they know he was actually there?

He absently kicked a bottle over while crossing his kitchen, and it clinked across his cobblestone floor before musically crashing into his mantle. Arlet sighed, gave his face a couple of gentle slaps, and pulled open his heavy oaken door, rusted hinges screeching their protest as he cringed against the midday light. The woman at Arlet's door was as short as he was tall, as composed as he was disheveled, as sober as he was drunk, and seemed to be cringing right back at him. He studied her face for a long minute, trying to figure out what was wrong. She seemed to wither a little under his scrutiny.

"Oh, hell. There's a smell isn't there?" He let out a bit too much air on the soft "h" sounds and the small woman's nose crinkled deeply, her lips tightening into a thin line. If there wasn't a smell before, there was one now.

As though Arlet hadn't said a thing, the woman fixed a polite smile on her face and straightened her posture. "Are you the wizard Haywin? I was told to find your trail on the road up to the pass, but for the life of me, I must have followed at least five trails off the main road that just hit a dead-end. I wasn’t even sure this was a real trail at all,” she glanced back the way she had come, “but I followed it here and you look like you're supposed to, er... I mean your robes are trimmed like a magician’s, and you're quite tall..."

Now it was Arlet's turn to cringe, and he leaned back from the breathy woman and found that he had extended a hand to his doorway to steady himself. He looked at the blue-and-green trim that decorated his wrist and marked him as, indeed, a representative of Fellen Circle and a wise and noble steward of mystical forces. Merciful gods, was he going to need to be poised today?

"I'm terribly sorry sir, to speak so much without getting to my point, see... It's just that I, you see... I'm sorry." Arlet decided that if this woman could ignore his bad breath, he could ignore her bad first impression, so he put on his most professional face. 

“Yes, I'm the wizard Arlet Haywin, at your service.” He gave a short bow from his waist. “And who are you?” The small woman composed herself again. “I'm Gertrude Adetta, sir, and I'm hopeful that you might help me with a personal matter... a sensitive one.” She cast a furtive gaze around the clearing Arlet's cottage sat in, as though wary of an eavesdropping deer or squirrel. “Of course, miss Adetta, come inside.” Arlet stood to the side, and Gertrude crossed into his disastrous main room. Suddenly even more self-conscious, Arlet compared the prim, blonde-haired, petite woman in a clean and fresh-pressed green dress to his dark, crumb-ridden, bottle-covered, dank hole of a home. He had long since stopped noticing whatever the place smelled like, but he had a sinking feeling about it, and quickly tossed a bundle of sage hanging on his wall into the fire. “So what secret business has you braving a journey to the local magicker?” He asked Gertrude, in a strained, almost-playful tone. She gave a little start, then squared herself to him and looked into his eyes. “Well, you see.. oh how do I ask this... Oh, curses.” She drew a quick breath and made herself as tall as she could. “My husband can't grow stiff anymore, and the physician can't figure why. He thinks it might be, well... cursed. I'm hoping you can tell me what happened and what to do about it.” She was red in the face, and panting a bit.

“Oh. Alright.”

“I just don't see who would do this sort of thing to people like us.” Gertrude began to fidget and tug at her hair, and seemed to consider pacing, before thinking better of navigating the many small objects cluttering Arlet's floor. “We're perfectly ordinary and polite, we hardly even talk to magikers, er, wizards, not that we know any, and I'm perfectly friendly with the apothecary Laren down by Ediene's herb garden...” she gulped a breath through her mouth. “I can't help thinking this is all over some herb traders he ran out of town two weeks back, he does that sort of thing, you know, he’s a guardsman. The guard had heard rumors they were selling witchleaf to the locals. Anyways, it was two weeks ago they left town, could they have done something like that?” Gertrude was, again, out of breath, and some quick panting brought her face from blood-red to pink. “Is there some curse or hex of poison that will... keep a man down like that, but only a week or so after you do it?” Looking almost dizzy, she eyed a chair with a few bits of fuzzy cheese on its armrest. She kept standing. “Can you do anything?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Arlet looked searchingly at Gertrude, slowly scratching the back of his head. “What made the physician suggest magic? There are plenty of mundane reasons for a man to have these difficulties, and they’re all more likely than magic. Most “curses” are just tricks of confidence anyways. Little insecurities  already wedged into a man’s mind can become truly nasty with a bit of mystic flair, so the physician had better have a damned good reason for giving out that kind of diagnosis.” Arlet put on his best serious face, locking eyes with the small woman. She returned a small frown and, for just a moment, almost appeared to pout. It disappeared just as soon as it had arrived. “I’d be very careful jumping to any conclusions. I can’t say I’m speaking from experience, but I’d bet good coin that a man convinced his dick’s been hexed would go to… strange places in his head.” 

There was no noise, save for the crackling of sage and old logs in the fire, as the wizard continued to search the young woman’s face. She swallowed thickly, then pulled her eyes away, to the floor.

“So what did he say?” Gertrude took a deep breath. “He really didn’t offer much… he just said it was all he could think of, to have an otherwise… healthy man have those issues come on so suddenly. It was very sudden, sir! One night he was.. Um… and the next night he wasn’t!” Her face was red again, and she was chewing on her cheek.

“Hm.” Arlet softened his gaze, his stern posture relaxing into something much friendlier. “Well, were there any other physical oddities that the physician couldn’t explain? Perhaps a grey discoloration in the area?” Gertrude’s eyes lit up almost comically. “There was actually! Yes! How did you know?”

Arlet smiled warmly. “Oh, good. Your husband just has greyberry poisoning. Somehow, he was slipped a poultice of fresh greyberries and rosemary, probably in a drink. Normally it’s applied to the skin for its numbing properties, but if it’s ingested it can cause the symptoms you’re describing precisely. ” Arlet knelt next to a trapdoor in the corner of the room, pulled it open, and returned with an opaque, brownish bottle. He pulled the cork out of his beer and took a long drink. Gertrude’s face was blank. “The discoloration will clear up in a few days, and any loss of function with it.” He tossed the cork into the fire.

“Oh, well thank you.” She flashed him a  tight, but relieved-looking smile.

“All’s well that ends well! Have a nice walk back into town.”

—-------—-------—-------—-------—-------—-------—-------—-------—-------—-------

Arlet looked into his fire and watched the pale cork smolder. He watched it crack and glow, and he listened to the little hissing noises it made as air trapped in the porous material was released by narrow cracks in its burning surface. He watched it turn orange, then grey, before crumbling into ash. He put out his fire and followed Gertrude out the door.

The sun was about two-thirds of the way across the sky, and crisp air carried just a hint of the sea to Arlet’s home at the foot of the Giant’s Shrug mountains. Beyond the small clearing his cottage was built on, and a humble dirt path that connected him to the Giant’s Shrug pass, ferns and evergreens overran the landscape completely. If you followed the pass away from the mountains,  they would continue to cover the ground all the way until you reached sea level, where a small port-town called Greynook had been forced into the terrain. Greynook was viciously guarded against encroaching nature by a hardy townsfolk who made a small fortune selling necessities at one of the only points of entry by sea into the kingdom of Fellen too small and shitty for a royal tariff officer to oversee. Its remote location and access to rare and often illegal commodities made it a perfect haven for a small community of unscrupulous or criminal businesspeople, or wizards. 

When Arlet walked onto the dark, uneven, winding path that navigated the forest floor, the smell of salty ocean spray was replaced by the rich, loamy scent of soil teeming with life. The distant crashing of mighty waves against stolid mountains was drowned out by rustling leaves, and the sheer joy of walking drunk through nature made Arlet feel lighter than air. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and tripped on a stout root, barely managing to get his arms in front of him before he fell face-first into the dirt. Arlet released a short groan and a long sigh, before pulling himself up to his hands and knees. He stayed that way for at least a full minute breathing deeply and staring at his hands.

“Having  a weak day, are we?” Rasped a thin, imperious voice. Arlet looked up at a pair of fine black boots inlaid with golden trim, matched with a black-and-gold silk robe. The robe was worn open at the front, and as Arlet sat back on his shins, he was treated to the sight of a set of gleaming, polished-white ribs. His eyes wandered up the gleaming skeleton, taking in several gleaming necklaces hanging from its collarbone, before resting on a pair of cold, empty sockets. The skull glared back at him. 

“Pathetic”.