Part One
The Dossier of Dr. Brink, Chapters One through Five, presented here in full and unedited, exactly as written.
The manuscript continues past Chapter Five within Part One itself: Chapters Six and Seven exist in complete draft form but have not yet reached the same finished, publishable state as the five chapters below, so they are not hosted here. In brief, they cover the successful purification of the village’s river, using stone hauled down from a line of cliffs called Spa’ka; a skeleton found along the way, carrying raw ore, a cut sapphire Brink gives to Scur, and an old iron key marked with a rearing bear, its purpose still unknown; and Brink’s eventual, reluctant departure south down an old coastal road, alone, with a promise to return.