carl@fire

Wagon driving was a difficult job.

Part of the difficulty was the boredom that tended to creep in as one sat for hours, possibly days or even months if the trip ventured outside the Charus Kingdom to one of the adjacent kingdoms, or the Republic, or the Empire, all the while being ferried along by animals and just sitting there. It required constant attentiveness to ensure the animals didn't stray from their path, to recognize the sound and feeling as one of the wooden—or, if the wagon's owner was willing to invest a bit, steel—axles broke from either continuous wear or an accident, and to avoid situations that would make one prey for bandits.

Most importantly, however, it required one to master the fine art of not driving into and over things that might damage the wagon itself or harm the animals pulling it. Experienced wagon-drivers were ones who had mastered the ability to remain vigilant and the knowledge of what things could be driven over and what things must be avoided.

That afternoon, a number of wagon-drivers were forced to make a sudden judgment about a new thing that they had never encountered before and whether it could be driven over or whether it must be avoided.

That thing was a giant of a man ambling recklessly down the center of many of the city's busiest thoroughfares. He wore clothing of the same make and quality as the wealthy, displayed the colors of royalty, and—for those few who encountered him nearer the main gate—carried a massive, glowing spear slung over his shoulder as though it weighed nothing.

The number of wagon-drivers who encountered this man over the course of the afternoon in Charus City numbered sixteen.

The number of wagon-drivers who immediately decided that he was something to be avoided was also sixteen.

Beatrix was a potter.

Was she a good one?

Yes. Or at least, her constant stream of business seemed to tell her as much.

Were her goods cheap?

Absolutely. That's what she used in her own home, and that's what people in her part of the city wanted to buy.

Beatrix prided herself on making quality pots as cheaply and quickly as possible.

Did her pots break?

Sometimes.

She admitted it: the balance was tough to strike. A little too thin on one side and a bowl cracked when brought from hot to cool too quickly or too many times. A little too thick on the handle of a mug and the balance was off, causing it to feel bad when its owner used it. A trivial imperfection, perhaps, but one that customers cared about.

Beatrix came from a long line of potters, however, and she carried on with the same concept of a warranty that her father and her grandmother before him had used. Any pot broken in the same season it was bought would be replaced, free of charge.

Naturally, her father had improved upon the system by thinking to scratch the year in which the item was purchased onto its bottom to reduce dishonest claims.

Beatrix herself had made further improvements, however, changing the designs she used every season in order to cut down even further on the occasional man or woman who thought to cheat the earnest potter out of the handful of coins it might take to purchase a replacement.

Sure, the system wasn't perfect. At the start of every season she was flooded with buyers looking to get the longest-lasting warranty on their goods, and the number of new customers tended to wane towards the end of the season.

That was fine with her, though. Once people had bought one of her wares, they tended to buy more, each time relying less and less on the length of the warranty. Her flow of regular customers was enough to keep her busy, and she spent the last month of each season selling for only one day each week as she stockpiled the wares she'd be flogging nearly as fast as her husband could fetch them from their tiny home.

It was a shame that her children hadn't had any interest in continuing the family business, she'd always thought.

It wasn't the idea of having a legacy; the family's warranty concept had spread to other crafters and professions who intended to deal honestly with their customers, and a fair number of Charus City's citizens recalled the birthplace of it.

It was just that she wished they'd share her love of pottery. They hadn't, however, and she'd never tried to force them. She loved her two sons dearly, and they made her proud even if they didn't care much for the kiln or the wheel.

In a word, Beatrix was content.

Then the giant with the magic spear and royal colors had shown up and frightened both her and her son Ralf's wife, Jocelyn, so badly that the mousy young woman had dropped a decorative vase she'd been considering purchasing as a gift for Tybalt's—her other son's—wife, Oriel, as part of a number of small items she was gathering for when Oriel's second child was born.

Beatrix had frozen up. She was merely a simple potter. How should she deal with such a man? He didn't seem to be the type to want any of her pottery.

Jocelyn had been much the same. The man hadn't done anything particularly intimidating, but there was something about him—a certain presence—that seemed to take over her stall.

And then a strange thing happened.

The man offered, randomly it seemed, to pay for the vase.

Very strange.

Beatrix had never seen anything like it.

Who would pay for a shattered vase?

Accidents happened, and the loss of the three coins it cost to make a vase such as that one wasn't a large matter, especially when it was her daughter-in-law who'd been the one to break it. She'd be a little disappointed at the loss of the two coins she could have made in profit—though she preferred to sell them for six coins when it was a bit earlier in the season, citing the value of the warranty as cause for charging the extra coin—but it wasn't about to ruin her day.

But then it had gotten truly bizarre.

The man wanted to pay fifty coins for a five coin vase?

Ten times its worth?

She'd been shocked. Wealthy as his clothes, bearing, and magic spear seemed to imply that he was, who would pay fifty coins for a cheap vase?

But no, fifty was apparently not enough for him. He'd announced that he would pay twenty times what she would charge for the vase for no reason at all!

And then he'd made the coins rain out of the air itself into his hand, overflowing onto the ground when their combined size grew too big for his large hand to bear.

Beatrix had lost consciousness at the sight.

It was simply too much for an old woman. She wasn't that old, but being offered twenty times the worth of a single, shattered vase and then watching coins fly out of nowhere…

Well, she'd been under a lot of stress lately, she supposed, what with all the worrying over Tybalt's and Oriel's forthcoming child.

A childbirth was never a sure thing unless one had the coin to magically guarantee it.

Such a service, provided by the purified long-ears of the richest nobles, ran from a few hundred to protect only the mother to nearly two thousand coins to also care for the babe.

A hundred coins would cover neither, but it would allow both her sons the freedom to skip work for a couple weeks; one would stay with his wife while the other…

She wasn't quite sure why Ralf needed to skip work, now that she thought of it, sitting in her stall as she waited for her next customer. Jocelyn had taken half the coins when she'd offered, and the young woman had remarked on it, but the old woman couldn't come up with a reason for it now that she considered the idea. Ralf and Jocelyn had no kids, were still young, and seemed very happy together. Her son had a good job that paid well, so there was no need for Jocelyn to work, either. They'd both just be home, doing nothing?

Idle hands were the playgrounds of devils, the priest had said at a recent sermon she'd attended.

Perhaps she'd drop in on them one day next week unannounced, Beatrix mused. Just to make sure everything was okay, of course.

It wasn't that she was a nosy mother.