Gregor The Cripple

Briar the Bandit rushed between the trees as he could manage, fleeing for his life. Everything had gone horribly wrong.

Him and the boys had gone after a small merchant convoy that their man in the city scouted for them. Four guards, that bastard said. Easy enough, they thought. Their gang had nine money-hungry bandits.

“Bullshit.” He muttered to himself between ragged breaths. There were four guards and a fucking wizard!

Briar didn’t even have time to make his demands before two of his guys exploded into fire, which was a bit much, he thought.

Honestly, they didn’t even plan to kill anybody! They were peace-loving in the way that only men who trade in violence tend to be.

It was actually their intention to build a reputation for extorting travelers instead of killing and looting them. Which was a pretty good business model, they thought.

When planning routes, if travelers and merchants had the choice between bandits who might kill them and bandits who’ll probably only take some of their money, obviously they’d choose the safer option. Really, if you thought about it that way, it was more like a toll for using safe roads. It was a respectable and legitimate business! If anything, it was the wizard who was in the wrong, not them.

Suddenly, a terror-filled, desperate scream sounded to the west. Very close. The man – one of his – kept screaming horribly at intervals, drawing closer.

Turning to continue his panicked flight in the opposite direction, Briar saw a small nook underneath an enormous dead evergreen. Feeling very much like a spooked squirrel, Briar the Bandit dove into that dirty, snowy hole and tugged at the surrounding underbrush so that the entrance was as concealed as he could possibly make it.

Daring not to move even slightly, he watched as the screaming man hobbled into view.

His left arm hung flaccid, almost severed at the shoulder by an ugly gash. Ear entirely missing, blood was splashed in streaks across his face. Every jerking limp forward was punctuated by a whimper as he forced his mangled foot to bear weight.

This was crazy. Why did such a shitty little merchant need a wizard for protection? Every single one of those motherfuckers was certifiably insane and decently expensive. You don’t hire one unless you really need one.

They might be more than they seemed, traveling low-key, trying not to draw attention. Were they big-ticket smugglers? Spies? Neither would be unusual. They were heading toward that piss-head Corle’s Sine City, after all. Such an economic powerhouse would definitely have a decent amount of shady business coming and going.

Briar’s thoughts were interrupted when a sword, which he recognized as belonging to the man in front of him, came whizzing through the air, rotating horizontally at a speed his eyes couldn’t track. It messily bisected that same man at the hips, emptying him of viscera and blood as he toppled down onto dead leaves and woodland detritus. He quickly found himself without the wherewithal to continue screaming, and shortly thereafter ceased to live.

A wizard – the wizard – casually stepped into view, frosted breath billowing from between the low brim of his hat and the high collar of his cloak. His sunken and dark-circled eyes gleamed from within their shadowed recess.

Very quickly, Briar came to the realization that staying still and hiding from danger was far, far more terrifying than running from it.

“I’ve lost count. Randolph, how many does that make?”

What? Randolph?! The bandit’s already pale face lightened a shade further, Is there another?!

If the wizard was working with an ally, this might truly be the end of Briar’s short but colorful career as a ruffian.

Gregor hmmed to himself, magicking up his little golden vessel, “Come to think of it, how many were there in the first place?”

Randolph the Rat squeaked twice, which could have been an answer to either question, or completely unrelated. Gregor legitimately could not tell if the rat possessed some kind of preternatural intelligence or was simply just a regular rat who squeaked when spoken to.

Regardless, he was in a good mood, and needed to get the convoy underway soon, else they’d be late.

Sipping and dismissing the laudanum flask, he cleared his throat and, speaking under the effects of magical amplification, announced: “Bandits, if there are any of you who I haven’t killed yet, you should congratulate yourselves for a successful escape!” He began clapping very sincerely, thinking that they deserved some recognition. Escaping his pursuit was a significant feat, after all. “Change your names, cover your faces, and run very far away. If I see you again, you will probably die.”

With that, Gregor turned and left in the direction of the road. In his current opium-happy sate, as he termed it, he was fairly lucky to remember the way.

In the months since meeting Randolph, the pain in his stump had steadily continued its insidious growth, such that he could no longer bear to be without blessed opium. When his dosage was low, he became terse, irate, distracted, manic.

In his least medicated states, when the pain was still faintly present, he often pondered the future. Would the discomfort grow beyond his means to banish it? Would doses of opium little enough for him to remain lucid no longer be enough to contain it? He had investigated many possible solutions, both mundane and magical, but to no significant result. He had even entertained the idea of becoming undead.

Litches suffer from no corporeal ailments and are alien to the fetters of physical discomfort, however, undeath is by far the most ametureish and disparageable path to immortality. Even if it was his only choice, Gregor probably wouldn’t take it.

If the pain truly did continue to grow, his only option would be to seek a healer.

Magical healing, it must be known, was beyond rare. Druids could coax the body to mend itself faster than usual, and alchemy could produce many medicines and elixirs to fight off disease and infection, but to actually repair a living thing with magic was a power which even gods would covet.

There were few healers known to the world, and only one or two others known to the higher circles of magical society. Healers were so rare and valuable that, if their locations became exposed somehow, they would quickly cease to be their own property.

The only two with definite locations were the elf brothers Jindalak and Tiglath, who resided in the Golden Empire under the protection of their Queen.

If he were anyone else, traveling to the Golden Empire and engaging the services of either brother would involve a grueling, long, and incredibly expensive journey to the other side of the continent and a perilous voyage over the Wild Sea, but it would be possible.

However, Gregor was an extraordinary person with extraordinary problems. In this instance, Kaius was at fault.

By and large, sorcerers possessed of any significant kind of ability are raised in only two places, the University at Harsdorf, and The Golden Empire. The majority of whom, it must be said, fell into the category of ‘mage’.

Wizards prefer to acquire and train apprentices out in the world, rather than at an institution. However, although wizards look down on mages and mages likewise ridicule wizards, there is a grudging mutual academic respect between them, so wizards aren’t significantly opposed to learning and teaching at such mage-dominated places. In fact, in deference to his supreme skill and knowledge, Kaius was awarded an honorary professorship at Harsdorf, though he never acknowledged it.

This is because the foolish continental sorcerers produced at Harsdorf are incomparable to the those across the sea in the Empire. Which is to be expected, given that Harsdorf is an independent institution supported only by the generosity of its alumni, whilst all the various magical institutions in the Empire are supported by the state. The Golden Empire is The Golden Empire. They won contests of budget by default.

Naturally, someone as powerful as Kaius the Elderly could only come from the Empire, and in his younger years, Kaius was one of the brightest stars shining in the Golden sky, even occasionally consulting with the Queen herself on magical matters. A true prodigy. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a very good person.

His magical experiments ranged from ‘cruel and unusual with unwilling participants’, to ‘injurious to the fabric of reality’. In the course of one of these experiments, Kaius had made an excursions to the continent for a number of unsavory purposes. There are many deeds one does not dare commit within the Golden Empire.

Whilst out on his prolonged excursion, a hateful peer of his – he had many such peers – intruded upon his laboratory and discovered several shambling homunculi in various states of still-living bodily deterioration; by-products of his long and fruitless efforts to engineer himself a more desirable body.

The creation and poor treatment of these things earned him criminal status and a promise of execution from the Queen, whose ire was provoked greatly.

Through methods known to nobody but himself, not even Gregor, he caught word of these happenings before the Queen could make good her promise and fled as far east of the empire as possible, reaching the opposite coast of the continent, where he remained until his death at the hands of his apprentice.

Unsurprisingly, he did not halt his unethical work. Rather, once away from the benevolent tyranny of the Queen and her inquisitors, he found himself free to brazenly pursue whatever research he desired, unburdened by foolish moralistic oversight.

Needless to say, the identity of his master would be a considerable hindrance to Gregor if he wished to enter the empire – so he must obfuscate it.

But how? He could not simply take off his hat and pretend to be a mundane boor, nor could he lie and claim a different mentor when asked for his pedigree. The inquisitors had mysterious, almost prescient means by which they could identify – and hunt – both liars and sorcerers alike.

It occurred to him that there might not even be a problem with his identity. He had killed Kaius, after all. They might even reward him.

Either way, it didn’t matter. This hypothetical trip to the other side of the world was unfeasible for a far more damning reason: the quantity of opium that would be required to sustain him on such a journey was so great as to be unobtainable.

Already, he was having trouble getting what he needed from the ugly dwarf woman, and she was giving him everything she had.

***

Trudging merrily through the snow-dusted woodland, Gregor reached into one of his cloak’s many interior pockets to manually retrieve his golden flask. He held the thing up to his ear and shook it diagnostically, interpreting its weight and the sound of internal sloshing with the skill of a seasoned addict. He frowned.

His supply was getting low. Before the apothecary’s stock was replenished, the Duke sent him out on a truly infuriating errand which could not be refused.

Parting the branches before him with a telekinetic wedge, he stepped back onto the road. The blissful harmony of emotion and mood that he was granted by opium was severely diminished by the young woman that rushed to meet him.

“Greg! Oh my gods, that was soooo scary! You’re not hurt, are you? Are you safe?” The young lady gasped, “Are we safe? Can we leave yet!?”

This was Barbara, Duke Corle’s unbearable daughter, and Gregor’s current responsibility. She was fully an adult woman, yet she acted, spoke, and seemingly thought in the manner of a stunted child. It seemed to Gregor that the circumstances of her upbringing must have necessarily been almost the opposite of his own for her to grow into such a loathsome creature.

Behind her were two wagons with a fairly boring cargo, mostly turnips and few other things, and an outwardly modest carriage – the kind a minimally successful merchant might own.

Gregor waved the encirclement of four guards back to the wagons from their positions of alertness. “Back inside Barbara, we’re leaving.”

The annoying girl squeaked out something inane as she was helped up the carriage steps by her attendant, but Gregor was not in the mood to listen, the impending opium shortage having completely shattered his medically-induced state of emotional harmony and given rise to the first spike of panic he had felt in some months.

“Driver,” he addressed the nervous man atop the vehicle who was constantly glancing about the roadside foliage, expecting more bandits to emerge. “Can we still make it to Sine before nightfall?”

“Not unless you can magic me up some more horses, but we’re already three days late, I don’t think the Duke will mind waiting another hour or so.” The little man looked much relieved to be setting out soon.

“He won’t, but I will. Be as quick as you can.” With that, Gregor entered the carriage himself, contemplating his predicament. The apothecary closed her shop at nightfall; what was he to do? He couldn’t sleep without opium, and he knew for a fact that there was none to be found elsewhere in the city. Owing to the dwarf’s hideousness, he had searched for an alternate supply tirelessly but jovially on his many opium-happy rambles through the streets.

***

As a wizard, Gregor was naturally not a good person. Thus, he was not against to taking the only viable path he could discern – helping himself to the dwarf’s opium stock at the earliest possible opportunity.

Most of it’ll end up in my hands either way, he reasoned, Why wait?

This was not a justification of intentional wrongdoing, nor some attempt to mitigate guilt. Gregor was not in the habit of equivocation, for he considered acts committed in the process of pursuing his interests to always be just, and he knew rightly that guilt only arises when one acts contrary to their inclinations. Thus, guilt was foreign to him.

This was merely a thoughtful consideration of his decided course of action.

“Greggy, what do you think?” Came a squeaking voice from the cushioned bench across the cabin, rudely shaking him from his contemplative scheming.

He blinked, not quite recalling any conversation with Barbara that he had particular thoughts about. “I think a lot of things. Be more specific.”

She tittered gaily, “We were talking about my gift for Pa-pa, what do you think?”

We were?

“Oh. I’m sure he’ll love it.” Was his disingenuous and entirely uninformed reply. Gregor found interpersonal niceties to be utterly below him, so distinctly separate and far removed in nature from his very pressing concerns that he couldn’t even be bothered to engage in diplomatic bullshit, as would a polite person in his situation.

This struck him as odd, and he noticed not for the first time that he presently and recently possessed far less patience for other people than he thought he should. He was taken by a noticeable shortness of temper and a distant attitude, which often led him to forsake social relations entirely.

Kaius, he realized, was like that. Completely and disdainfully asocial. Pragmatic conversation was the most he could stand. The thought of becoming like Kaius, that loathed old man, induced in Gregor a deep and primal revulsion. Was this the plan? Was his carefully curated upbringing a psychological manufactory designed to create a more perfect version of his master?

If his entire self was the middle stage of a process set in motion years ago, and Kaius was the end result, how could he possibly let these machinations reach their endpoint unimpeded?

He ought to become the anti-kaius, a supreme act of spite that he hoped would mark the ultimate failure of his master’s life’s work.

Waving his cloth-bound half-limb, Gregor produced an unkaiuslike apology, “Sorry, the pain distracts me.” Which was almost a legitimate excuse when one thought about it very generously. Then, after a few minutes of idly scratching Randolph, silence stretching between the three occupants of the cabin – not quite awkwardly, but not quite pleasantly – he ventured to continue the conversation, which was quite a shock to everyone.

“So, Barbara, how was your month away from home?”