Sherm
Sherm is a Fellow-Inquirer attached to Higher Orders, the senior command echelon of the army, where he performs administrative duties and chairs the disciplinary tribunals that constitute the military's mechanism for handling misdemeanours. Jurisdictionally senior to Prassel in any matter not directly involving corpses, and considered her peer in Correct Speech, he occupies a niche of procedural authority: he convenes, he listens, he processes, and he defers. His tribunals generate a caseload overwhelmingly reducible to the charge "Do What You're Told," and he is cheerful even when sentencing mutineers to death. He is, in the architecture of the Inquisitorial apparatus, the man who keeps the paperwork moving so that others-the real power-do not have to.
Across his appearances in House of Open Wounds, Sherm functions as a fixed administrative node against which other characters test their authority. He presides over Jack's tribunal on a trivial charge brought by Goughry, only to see the substantive judgement pronounced by Sage-Monitor 'Uncle' Runkel entering as an "unofficial observer." He pressures Prassel to absorb unwanted labour during the Magnelei standoff, framing compliance as a favour to Runkel rather than a legitimate order. He arranges prisoner exchanges, relays sanitized reports, and is kept deliberately at arm's length from operational failures by those who regard him as competent but peripheral. His arc, such as it is, is the arc of a functionary who is always present, always cheerful, and never the one who decides.
Character
Appearance
Sherm is balding. - ch 39
Personality
Sherm is genial in surface manner-offering tea to a colleague on arrival, making light of a smuggled-spirit trade over its legality-yet cheerful about duties that end in a condemned man's execution. - ch 18 He is mocking in social exchange, taunting Prassel over the lemon-yellow warding garment she commissioned, and his humour has an edge of bureaucratic condescension. - ch 37 He is direct to the point of bluntness, bursting into logistics tents unannounced to delegate work he would rather not do himself. - ch 37 He carries no visible burden of the decisions he processes; the tribunals, the exchanges, the death sentences pass through him without apparent friction. - ch 18, ch 39
Beliefs & Motivations
Sherm's governing principle is deference dressed as collegiality. He frames every request for compliance as a matter of accruing "points with Uncle," invoking Sage-Monitor 'Uncle' Runkel's favour rather than asserting his own jurisdictional seniority. - ch 37, ch 39 He runs his tribunals from dawn to dusk because Uncle's alcohol ban has left soldiers with nothing to do but misbehave, and he treats the resulting caseload-ninety per cent of it the offence "Do What You're Told"-as straightforward housekeeping. - ch 18 He does not, in any recorded instance, generate a judgement of his own; the tribunal over Jack's alleged curse of Klimmel reaches its verdict through Runkel's intervention, with Sherm confined to procedure. - ch 18 He is kept at arm's length from the messy details of operational failure, receiving only the administrative summary Prassel dictates to him through an intermediary. - ch 38
History
House of Open Wounds
The Gallete Island
Sherm is a Fellow-Inquirer attached to Higher Orders, performing administrative duties for the senior command echelon and chairing the disciplinary tribunals that constitute the army's mechanism for handling misdemeanours - ch 18. He is jurisdictionally senior to Prassel in any matter not directly involving corpses, though she considers him a peer in Correct Speech - ch 18. His tribunals run "dawn til dusk" owing to Uncle's alcohol ban, generating a caseload "ninety per cent of which boiled down to Do What You're Told." - ch 18. He is cheerful about his work even when sentencing mutineers to death - ch 18.
When Prassel arrives at the donated house serving as administrative headquarters on the Gallete island, Sherm meets her outside, offers tea, and the two discuss the "licit or Illicit" tea dodge involving Vhon grain spirit - ch 18. He then presides over the tribunal convened to try Jack on a charge brought by Goughry that Jack "cursed" Klimmel - ch 18. Sage-Monitor 'Uncle' Runkel enters as an "unofficial observer," and it is Runkel rather than Sherm who pronounces the final judgement: Jack receives twelve lashes, the matter is to be kept quiet, and the hospital department is warned against causing soldiers to fear combat - ch 18. Sherm's role in the proceeding is procedural; the substantive authority rests with Runkel, and the tribunal's outcome reflects the Higher Orders' concern for morale above strict justice - ch 18.
The Magnelei Standoff
Following the Palleseen defeat near Magnelei, Sherm bursts into Prassel's logistics tent and pressures her to take on Admonitory Debrief work and to handle a prisoner exchange with the Loruthi - ch 37. Prassel refuses, citing her workload. Sherm mocks the lemon-yellow warding garment she has commissioned from Semprellaime, then leaves, dangling "bonus points with Uncle" as an incentive - ch 37. His approach is to delegate unwanted administrative labour onto Prassel while leveraging her deference to Runkel for compliance - ch 37.
When Cosserby can no longer operate the torture chair and the prisoner interrogation collapses, Prassel orders Cosserby to carry a message to Sherm reporting that the man knew nothing, alongside instructions to say "not a word about any of this to anyone" - ch 38. Sherm is thus kept at arm's length from the details of the failure, receiving only the sanitized administrative version Prassel dictates - ch 38.
That evening, at the fire outside the hospital tents, a balding Sherm arrives and Prassel, drunk and belligerent, demands to be placed on the prisoner exchange scheduled for the next morning with one of her people. Sherm arranges it, deferring to Runkel's exchange policy with the observation "it's all points with Uncle," and offers Prassel "the delights of" Magnelei - a presumably detention-adjacent site she has visited before - ch 39. Prassel storms off. Sherm's function across the Magnelei chapters is purely administrative: he processes exchanges, relays orders, and attempts to offload the department's undesirable duties onto Prassel, consistently framing compliance as a matter of favour with Runkel rather than genuine authority - ch 37, ch 39.
Relationships
- Prassel - Both are Fellow-Inquirers, but Sherm is jurisdictionally senior to her in all matters not directly involving corpses, while she considers him a peer in Correct Speech. - ch 18 He repeatedly attempts to delegate unwanted administrative labour onto her-Admonitory Debrief work, prisoner-exchange logistics-leveraging her deference to Sage-Monitor 'Uncle' Runkel for compliance. - ch 37 She resents this and, when the prisoner interrogation collapses, sends a sanitized message through Cosserby specifically to keep Sherm from learning the details, knowing "all the eavesdropping ears were at least beholden to her." - ch 38 She nonetheless must approach him to arrange her own placement on a prisoner exchange, doing so drunk and belligerent; he accommodates her, framing the concession as a favour owed to Runkel rather than an exercise of his own authority. - ch 39
- Sage-Monitor 'Uncle' Runkel - Sherm defers to Runkel consistently and without apparent resentment, treating Runkel's favour as the currency that makes administrative compliance worthwhile ("it's all points with Uncle"). - ch 37, ch 39 In the one tribunal where Sherm presides, Runkel enters as an "unofficial observer" and pronounces the final judgement, reducing Sherm to a procedural facilitator. - ch 18
Notable Quotes
- "it's all points with Uncle" - Sherm, House of Open Wounds, ch 39
- "the delights of" Magnelei - Sherm, House of Open Wounds, ch 39
Tags
- fellow-inquirer · #disciplinary-officer · #correct-speech