Marcus descended the uneven stone stairs with practised ease, his prisoner just a step behind him.

Twenty steps down, first landing.

Wave hello to whoever's on duty.

It's Gus.

Gus doesn't wave back.

Call Gus a prick.

Gus sneers.

Move on.

Twenty-two more steps.

Nearly at the cells.

Marcus had done this a thousand times. This place was as home to him as its many prisoners. But, this time ... this time felt different.

He clutched a flickering orange torch in one hand to shoo away the darkness, his other hand clamped firmly over the cold pommel of his sheathed gladius. In this narrow little staircase descending down into the musty bowels of the city palace, he wasn't sure he'd actually be able to draw his short blade quick enough if he had to. Not without some seriously grazed elbows. But it made him feel better to touch the thing as he guided it down to its new accommodation.

Yes - it. He wasn't entirely sure what it was, just that it was currently going to prison. Marcus did not need to know more. He didn't ask questions. He just did his job. But sweet mercy did he have a lot of questions.

Twenty-six more steps down and he was at Flav's Facing (a corner so named for when Flavius got drunk, missed the top step, and broke his face on the sharp bend), then it was thirty-two more to the prison cells - Marcus always skipped the eighteenth step, on account of a wobbly stone that broke Sergeant Leo's ankle. The Prisoner's Trial, they called that one. He failed to mention its existence, but the small creature seemed not to slip even though he clearly heard the stone scrape. This annoyed a little voice at the back of Marcus' mind, which hoped the creature would tumble and give him something to laugh about later. He suspected he might be a bad person.

Marcus knew this prison like the back of his hand, and he'd stared at that plenty over his many years sitting on the same wooden stool at the same wooden table eating the same stale bread in this dark place, playing dice games or cards with Flav and the gang. But not Gus. Never Gus. Prick.

He could name everyone rotting away down here; he'd even built a number of pseudo friendships with many of the long-termers. The skinny little street urchins, the hulking tattooed Northermen, the silver-tongued rogues, illiterate brutes, men, a couple of elves, one dwarf, a few belligerent fairies. Once they even had one of the finfolk in here, but he died of dehydration before anyone could translate his croaky clicky noises as a cry for water. But he'd never - never - had anything in here like the thing that walked behind him. Never even seen anything like it.

It was a frog. Sort of. It stood on two legs and came up to barely his knees, with bright red skin and oddly human eyes that seemed to marvel and wonder like a child seeing its first public execution. It called itself a wizard, an oddly anachronistic term for what everyone else called the magi, and wore a floppy pointed hat, a heavy dark-blue sweater covered in speckled yellow stars, and a purple cloak tied around its neck. Maybe this attire shouldn't be anything to wonder at, as all magi Marcus had ever met tended to also wear clothes. OK, sure. No problems there. But ... this creature, for some reason, wore no pants. No pants! Nor shoes. It just padded around on webbed feet with its bright red froggy legs out for all to see. Thank goodness it didn't have any balls that Marcus could see, because boy would they be on display.

As Flav upstairs had been taking the frog's equipment and spellbooks, he asked about that. He said, "So how come you ain't got no pants on then, eh? It's bloody weird, that is."

And you know what it said? Because yes of course it could talk, too, showing a sort of child-like understanding of the Valenian language. It looked Flav dead-ass in the eye and simply said: "wizard uniform!"

Wizard uniform!

And that's not the weirdest part. Oh no. No no no no. How could it be? Grung - that's what it called itself - didn't seem to grasp the situation it was in. No comprehension at all. Here it was being led down to a prison cell for trying to buy illegal spells at the city market, thinking for some reason that Marcus was actually leading it to a 'waiting room' to wait for someone to talk to about the spells it wanted. Sergeant Leo had told Marcus to keep up that pretence. He'd given up trying to reason with the frog.

"Just go with it," he grumbled in that monotone drone of his. "It'll be easier."

So here Marcus was, marching along the first row of cells to find an empty room next to all the rapists, murderers, thieves, spies, northern raiders, and just about anybody else that pissed off the Dominus, where he could dump a little red frog in a floppy wizard hat, and then tell it to wait for a while so someone could come and talk to it about spells.

Seriously, though. What the actual fu-

"Err, 'ere you go ... sir," said Marcus as he arrived at an empty cell, dutifully keeping up the act, unlocking the cell with a heavy iron key on a ring of many more heavy iron keys. This was one of the smaller rooms, reserved for the short-termers, and it stank quite obviously of stale vomit. Whisky, ale, and sausages, if Marcus was to be a judge of the odour. From the Upsidedown Shark if he had to guess which establishment. After five years of doing this job he was becoming quite the barf connoisseur. Marcus could pick out a man's whole day's worth of meals from one whiff alone. Neat party trick.

"thank you," replied Grung cheerfully, padding past Marcus into the dank room without hesitation. It took a few steps in, glanced around as though inspecting a simple hotel room, then turned back to face him.

"You just make yoursel' comfortable and, err, someone'll be along to talk to ya soon."

"about spells."

"Thass right."

"from grung's list."

"Err, thass right."

"okay! thank you."

Marcus blinked. Like, how could it not know? The room was unlit, below ground, damp, covered in old straw, and literally smelled like vomit. The door was built from inch-thick iron bars. Marcus was an armed sodding guard for goodness' sake! How could it not realise?! It had to be a trick. This was some kind of ploy to get him to drop his caution and leave an opening for it to escape. It just had to be. The innocent frog disguise was all a careful magical ruse. Or perhaps the work of a demon. Yep, definitely some spirity magicky nonsense. But it wouldn't get the better of ol' Marcus. That kind of trick was old news here, and exactly why Marcus hadn't taken off the creature's cuffs ye-

"oh, oh! wait," it said.

Marcus turned back into the room.

N- no, it couldn't have...

Grung held its manacles in two hands high above its head (that is to say, not very high at all), offering them up to Marcus. Unlocked. Not on its wrists. How?!

"these were sore. you can have them back now."

Marcus blinked again.

"S- sure," he stammered, taking the cuffs on a sort of blank autopilot. He was stunned. Shocked. Positively sodding stupified. He just leaned into the cell and took 'em. And Grung didn't acknowledge what it had done. When had it even picked the lock?

"Well, err, y- you just wait here then," he said, voice starting to shake from the confusion. The anxiety. Seriously, was he in danger right now?

"thank you!" it said.

And then it sat down.

To wait for a list of illegal spells.

In a prison cell.

That stank of booze and sausages.

Not even good booze.

Or good sausages.

Marcus collapsed into his wooden stool.

And that's how the Valenian Empire was introduced to...