Frank Tuttle - The Broken Bell

I’m told we’re recovering portions of the barge fleet at the rate of two barges a day. The Corpsemaster is using some of the captured cannon on the walls and is melting the rest down. I gather she found their design rather crude and has far better uses for the raw metal.

The trio of wizards fell upon each other the moment they saw the blockage in the Brown. I’m told that clash reduced the size of their army considerably, and that those who survived took to the woods and fled north on foot.

Word is that only a few dozen survived the hike.

I don’t care to speculate on the fate of the rest, though I’m sure the Corpsemaster is pleased with her new soldiers.

Mama Hog returned yesterday. Her shop made it through the Sorcerer’s Storm with not a plank out of place. She was careful to spread the word among the neighbors that she had special protections against storms and the like, although she confided to me that she had no such thing and was amazed she still had a tin roof to sleep under.

She hasn’t quite forgiven me for marrying Darla in her absence. I doubt she ever will, as my doing so robbed her forever of a told you so moment she will never see again.

Buttercup and Gertriss are fine. Hell, even Three-leg Cat weathered the storm with no apparent injury. When I did pick my way through the rubble back to my office, he was sitting in the open doorway, glaring at me with his nearly perfected tomcat contempt.

Buttercup ruined his moment by hop skipping to appear directly behind him before scooping him up in a big tight hug.

Poor damned cat was so shocked he completely forgot to claw her eyes out.

So we’re back together, my little family and I. Even Evis, that brandy-loving devil, popped around last night with a proper wedding gift.

It’s a magical dingus that must have cost him a fortune, in the form of a head-sized glass globe that lights up if you shake it gently. Lights up, and shows a tiny Regency churning its way down a tiny Brown River, while fireworks and flashes light up a tiny sky.

Darla loves it. She claims she can see Evis on the Regency’s deck, waving to us.

I cannot. But I just smile and put my arm around her and we watch the thing together, while Buttercup plays with Three-leg Cat and Mama stomps and Gertriss makes up another excuse to go see Evis at Avalante.

There’s magic in Evis’s glass ball, all right.

And it’s not the only, or the most potent, magic in the room these days.