This anthology of short stories follows the adventures of the knight-artillerist Sir Hereward and the sorcerous, animated puppet Mister Fitz. Both are agents of the secretive Witches of Har, a coven whose members are centuries old. New witches are born infrequently and are always female… with Sir Hereward being the sole exception. Rather than dispose of the unsuitable male infant, the witches raise him to be as useful as possible given his unfortunate gender, and send him out to support Mister Fitz in the ongoing quest to eliminate the supernatural forces named on the list of proscribed entities drawn up by the Council for the Treaty of the Safety of the World.
The list itself was compiled over a thousand years ago, and both the Council and the political powers that formed it have long since passed into the annals of history. But the quest remains, and the danger is real. Extradimensional entities pushing through the borders between worlds manifest sorcerous powers that range from the mildly unusual (like the Xarwashian god of bookkeeping and warehouses) to the epically potent (e.g., the parasitic Pralqornrah-Tanish-Kvaxixob of Shûme). Many are benevolent (or at least benign), but not all. It is these malicious forces that Mister Fitz and Sir Hereward are sworn to expel.
The adventures of Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz are a bit like the stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser… if Fafhrd were more like Don Quixote, and the Grey Mouser more like Yoda. The narrative tone is perfectly matched to the setting – never breathless or sensational, maintaining the same detached, slightly stilted, almost academic delivery whether the duo is researching tax records in search of a dragon’s hoard or battling a frenzied, spectral marsh hag inside the barrel of an enormous brass cannon. It’s also chock-full of period-specific terms: you can’t go more than a few pages without running into a revetment, gallichon, misericorde, or linstock, all of which deepens the sense of immersion even further.
This collection gathers together nine tales in all, each a self-contained adventure or diversion. There are thrilling battles – like the time Hereward and Fitz enlist a pirate navy to assault the remote stone fortress of a seven-foot-tall murderous starfish – but also relatively more mundane moments, including Sir Hereward’s endeavor to procure a suitable birthday gift for his sorcerous puppet companion. I loved everything about these stories: the setting, the narration, the characters, the treatment of magic – all of it adds up to a wonderfully novel slice of pike-and-shot fantasy. Each one was delightful, and I would have happily read at least nine more.
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