Brandy and Pucks, The Sixth

Brandy and Pucks by Kadmus Grenigen

"Sherm is disappeared," my editor told me over the telephone. When the call came, I was deep in a biography of the Borschic hero Grundel "The Swan" Mittelmascht. I couldn't sleep, and I had continued reading past dawn, as I often do.

Grundel was a man who battled the Loflins in a raft in the lowlands of the Borschland River. As we all learn in school, these swamps are the largest and most trackless of the entire continent, and they have always resisted large scale draining. For a hundred years, the Loflins hid in the swamps and raided the towns of Atterische and Domatische and peat-cutting villages, until Grundel and his followers rooted them out and had them relocated permanently into Loflinland, where they have since become civilized.

Grundel glided down the waterways with his musket, crossbow, and rafting pole, and the Loflins attempted to kill him for many years. They even caught him and kept him as a prisoner for three days. But he always managed to escape whatever pickle in which he found himself. Maybe this is a good omen for the fate of Sherman Reinhardt, who disappeared overnight after Te Staff's 2-1 win over Rijward. He lives by himself in a flat in the neighborhood of Rirlver, overlooking the water. In the morning, when his housekeeper came in to give him breakfast, he was gone. The bedclothes were thrown back, and some of his clothes were taken along with a valise. Also his wallet was taken, but no other possessions.

The police have no leads. They think that he left-- or was taken-- somewhere between the hours of midnight and dawn, but no one saw or heard any movement.

The police do know, however, that the poetess Rachael Martijns is also missing. She was to go on a winter vacation to a rustic cabin in the country of Dann, and did not arrive there on Thursday as expected. She had taken an express to the Celtlands' city of Chead Mille Failte, and then a Dann National Railway train to Deinde, the capitol of Dann. DNR trains are notorious for their delays, but this one pulled into Deinde only four and a half hours late.

The notorious Matexipar Nationalist Group, the United Borschland Movement, has denied involvement in the affair. But they are not the only ones who were concerned that Reinhardt had tipped the balance of the league in the favor of Te Staff.

Sherman Reinhardt's place in the team will be taken by Bernt Gruhn, and Christoph Anselm will again become the number one center.

May the spirit of The Swan be with Sherman Reinhardt.