Berren
Berren is a charming young man working as a savant in the employ of Lookshy. He is a thaumaturge of the adept level in enchantment. He is currently working in a factory cathedral manufacturing common warstriders at a sluggish pace. He enjoys his work, thinks highly of his duty to the city, and is soon to be married to a young girl that is an unexalted scion of a dragon-blooded family. His fortunes are rising. He was a friend of Nathan while he was living in Lookshy, but he has finished grieving over him.
Berren has a brown ponytail and a narrow, birdlike nose with clear gray eyes. He is tall and lean, and tends to dress in purples when he can afford them.
Berren was recently dismissed from his position when he was recruited on an assignment for Rivers Between Us. He reported the activity to his superiors, who requested that he bring the object and act as their spy. Now that he is working for his old friend, he is torn between his duty to his city and loyalty to his friend. He hopes that this has not interfered with his plans to marry.
“My name is Sha Goria. I am from Five Branches, but Five Branches is no more. I have with me my two sisters and our seven children...”
“I am Iron Fu Lao. We were living near an outpost until the ghosts started getting to our daughter, and we had to move. This is my wife and my father and my father's father. Is there a way we could get one house for all...”
“I'm Seven Leagues... but my father calls me Chester. I live alone, usually... say, are there a lot of single women in town? And my horse won't live in a stable with other horses; it just drives him nuts. Really a big, open, pasture is best...”
The line wrapped around the town hall, and Berren could see through the window that more were still coming. It looked like they would be there past midnight again. Fifteen tables were lined in a row, and each of them was manned by a bureaucrat. He recorded their names, ages, professions, and place of origin (nine times out of ten, it was somewhere south of Celeren), and then he gave them a key and a lamp for each member of the household. Nine times out of ten the conversation ended in this fashion:
“You'll need to read these instructions for the care of your lamps and the usage of our water system...”
“I... we don't know how to read, sir. We're just (farmers, smiths, horsebreeders, orphans...)”
“You will know how to read by the end of the week. Until then, ask your block captain to read this for you. They will be meeting you tomorrow morning to bring you breakfast and explain the laws of our city. You will be attending classes every day from noon to sundown with your family, especially the children. The block captain will fill you in on this as well.”
“Thank you so much. You don't know how much it means to us to find a safe place to stay. We would never accept charity, except that our family had to move too, and last winter was so hard on the...”
“Yes, yes. If you get lost, show your papers to any resident and they'll point the way. Please make way. Next!”
A pair of sniveling little boys, the elder possibly nine years old, made their way up to his table. He looked at them for a moment, shook his head, threw his fists up in the air and shouted, “This isn't my job!”
Two nights later, at the monthly festival of the Celestines, he worked all night preparing the firedust spectacular and setting up benches in the square. He and thirty underlings prepared the hanging lamps decorated with the sun, the moon, and the maidens, placing them on the walls and hanging them in the trees. He delivered the music to the members of the chorus and sat through the dress rehearsal of the month's play, commissioned to honor the newest Solar glory to join the Marukan cause. When dawn rose and his foreman broke his leg trying to arrange the stage lighting, he turned to the heavens again and shouted, “This isn't my job!”
Three days later, he was practically bricked into his office by a mountain of paperwork. There were petitions for larger houses, petitions for smaller houses, requests for the construction of an immaculate temple, requests that the requests for the immaculate temple be deferred indefinitely, requests for work, requests for workers, all files that had been misdirected to him because of a clerical error he had made the previous morning. While he painstakingly went through the files and set them in stacks according to departments, he silently cursed the day he had even been made a minister of public works for the city of God Crossing. Towards midnight, he finally finished his labor and proceeded to bang his head against a wall... which caused three of the piles to collapse and mingle together. He tore his robes and screamed out the window, “This isn't my job!”
“Then what exactly is your job, Berren? We've been wondering that ourselves for some time now.”
Berren turned around to find that he was not alone. Two men in hooded black cloaks had joined him. One was seated at his desk, with his boots on the table, and the other was picking his teeth and sitting on a stack of papers. One had deep green skin, the other's was almost black.
“Oh damn...”
“Don't say that, Berren. We're not here for another of your ridiculously fabricated reports on the activities of your superiors... it's quite plain that you've made a niche for yourself rather distant from them.” The wood aspected ranger behind his desk opened a drawer and began rifling through it idly.
“What do you want to know? He's got a girlfriend... she's...”
“Please. You're embarrassing yourself. We don't care about your pathetic intelligence anymore. We have a different task for you... something that a man in your present position should find quite easy. Of course, when you are finished, you'll probably need to find work elsewhere. How would you like to resume your old position... perhaps with a promotion? No more fixing boot straps on Ashigaru armor, eh?”
“It's quite tempting, but you don't undestand... I'd never make it back to Lookshy alive. They have spies like you wouldn't believe... creatures mutated into sorcerous monsters...”
“Oh, it would have its dangers, I admit. We aren't that used to convincing people through... persuasion... but there is someone here that might make the offer a little more tempting.”
A third cloaked figure entered the room. A look of pure terror passed over the minister's face as the hood was pulled back; he froze where he stood, then began to arrange his torn robe in a more respectable fashion.
“Aha... hello Ana. How is your mother?”
