by Logan Jacobs
“All right,” I said. “We’ll let them know that from now on, anyone caught killing cats gets an arrow between the eyes. If they don’t want more kittens, they’ll just have to keep their she-cats shut inside when they’re in heat. But. Lizzy? If any of the cats we come across smells wrong to you-- sick, I mean-- let me know immediately, got it?”
“I will, Vander,” the she-wolf promised. “These ones here smells fine though.”
“Good,” I replied. “Now. I’m going to go check on those bodies that you slimed last night, Willobee, and see whether it’ll still be necessary to burn them. But my… twin… will catch me up on everything that the rest of you discuss.”
“You won’t find much of them left,” Willobee said proudly.
“Want me to come?” Ed offered. “I, ah, I have a bit of experience knowing which ones are properly broken down far enough to dust that they won’t come back, and which ones can still possibly reassemble themselves given enough time.”
“Yeah, that would be great,” I agreed, and the villager and I headed off.
“So, Maire,” the one of me that remained at the duck pond continued, “what can you tell us about the plague situation right now that we don’t already know? And Florenia, did you manage to find any writing materials yesterday so we can start recording important information?”
The duke’s daughter looked downcast. “I… I did, but… I dropped them all in the woods when Lizzy told us that you were in trouble, and we needed to help her search for you. I’m sorry, it was careless of me.”
“Well, I never told her to drop any of that stuff,” Lizzy said defensively.
“Don’t worry about it, Florenia,” I said, and she raised her hazel eyes to mine hopefully. “Just try your best to remember everything Maire says for now, and you can find more writing materials after this meeting is over, all right?”
Florenia nodded her head. “Of course. I have an impeccable memory. My tutors were always astonished. Really the only thing I ever seemed to forget was my suitors’ names… there were really just too many of them.”
“That ain’t exactly a wonder, to look at you,” Maire remarked. The village woman watched both the impossibly beautiful aristocrat and the two centaurs with great admiration, but nonetheless, it was obvious that the she-wolf was her favorite of her newfound friends. Willobee of course hadn’t exactly endeared himself to the village couple, but Maire didn’t seem to resent him quite so much as Ed still did.
“How kind of you to say so,” Florenia cooed. “Your hair is a most glorious shade, like a fiery sunset. I have sometimes wished to be a redhead.”
I interrupted their compliment session to ask, “Maire, how many people were living here in Ferndale before the plague struck? Do you know the exact number?”
“Yes,” she answered, “because Father Norrell always kept track. He always wanted to know who owed him tithes, you see. The last count before the plague was one hundred and ninety-six. The first victim was a lass named Jess, about three months ago. The second was… Ed’s wife. Ed caught it at the same time she and all their children did. But you see, the plague wasn’t the same back then. Firstly, it only claimed one victim, or a pair or family of victims living in close contact, every few weeks. The symptoms were just as horrifying as now but the plague didn’t seem to catch on that easily. Now, it’s… well, you saw last night. Thirty dead in one day. That was by far the worst it has ever been. Before you came, I didn’t think Ferndale would last more than a few more days, no matter what Ed and I did.”
“You’ve been fighting ghasts for three months?” I exclaimed. “And people still choose to stay here?”
“No, no,” Maire said. “The dead coming back as flesh-eating ghasts… that was the other thing that changed. It happened for the first time about a week ago. As if the plague hadn’t already been bad enough. Father Norrell said that it was because of Hakmut’s wrath, and that we were being punished for something, but I can’t imagine what we could have done awful enough to deserve this kind of hell… but I don’t really know what else I am supposed to believe either. I guess if it really was because of our sins, then I know what mine was. Loving Ed long before my husband and his wife died. But I swear I never wished for any of this to happen.”
“Of course not,” Florenia said soothingly. “Love isn’t something to feel guilty about, Maire. Love and marriage are two separate things entirely. Most marriages are just for political and material reasons anyway. You probably had no choice in the matter. Your parents probably just used you as a bargaining chip for an esta… I mean, a turnip patch, or something.”
Maire looked confused. “Er, that’s not really how it works around here…”
Lizzy, who clearly had no interest in Maire’s marital woes, jumped in to change the subject with her usual lack of tact, “Well, I am just surprised no one has come and attacked and just torched the whole damn place and everyone in it. Because that’s what I’d do if my dead neighbors kept trying to eat me.”
Maire replied, “No one else outside of Lord Kiernan’s barony, which includes Ferndale and another village to the west, knows anything about the ghasts. When the baron found out he sent men to destroy the nearest bridges both north and south of here to stop the plague from spreading to the rest of the world. And his other village is larger than this one and has a wall, and his castle has all kinds of fortifications of course, so it is easier for them than it is for us to keep out any ghasts that make it over there. But… I can understand your perspective, Lizzy. Not that I'd ever actually do it, but it makes the most sense.”
“Hold on there,” I said quickly. “Before we start talking about wiping out a whole village, I think we have a lot of options left to explore. A lot of lives that can still be saved. Maire-- do you know how many of those original hundred and ninety-six have died already, and how many are still left?”
“I think there are only a little over a hundred still here,” the redhead replied, “but there were a few dozen that didn’t die, they just fled. Not that they’re likely to make it far in this weather or that they’ll have anywhere to go. And some that are dead didn’t die of the plague, they just killed themselves after they lost people they loved… or maybe after those same people came back from the grave and tried to eat them alive… or maybe just after they noticed those black lumps under their own armpits and thought they were doomed anyway. I know I thought I was. Maybe I still am. But whatever happens at least I’ve had Ed for a little while, which I never thought I would.”
“Oh, bravo, Willobee,” I exclaimed, which caused everyone to look at me in surprise and confusion. I explained, “The slime worked like a charm. Ed says it’s better than the fire was.”
“Of course it is, Master,” the gnome said smugly. His chubby little face brightened up now that I guessed he saw a potential opportunity to increase his popularity in Ferndale.
Now only Maire still looked bewildered. I realized she wouldn’t understand where I was getting my information from. There wasn’t any real reason that I couldn’t let her know about how my selves worked, except that I didn’t want to waste a ton of time explaining to her and Ed all the countless weird things they didn’t know about me or my beguiling companions for that matter. I just wanted everyone to focus on the problem at hand. Problems, that is, if you counted the plague and the ghasts as sort of separate, although one had of course caused the other.
“It’s a god thing,” Florenia whispered to the village woman, who nodded her acceptance.
“So, Elodette and Ilandere, did you two find any useful herbs yesterday?” I asked them. “Anything that you would use in your herd to help lessen the effects of illnesses?”
“Yes, there are some useful plants growing nearby,” Elodette said. “But we also, um, left behind all the herbs we’d already harvested when Lizzy… summoned us.”
It was a little inconvenient that the women would have to spend time this morning essentially redoing the tasks they’d already carried out, but I
reminded myself that the important thing was that last night’s crisis had been resolved without anyone getting bitten or anyone dying who wasn’t already dead.
“All right, well, go ahead and harvest some more and start brewing them or… however it is you usually prepare them,” I instructed them. “And the bone broth you mentioned, please make some of that too when you get a chance. If the plants are in the same area where you were working yesterday when Lizzy found you, she can just find you there again. Lizzy, your job today will be to distribute the centaurs’ medicines to the sick in their huts.”
“Sounds boring, but I can do that,” the she-wolf agreed.
“Your other job will be to keep everyone who’s sick too terrified to leave their huts,” I added. “If they don’t pass your sniff test, then they don’t step foot outside.”
“I can definitely do that,” Lizzy said. Her long ears pricked up with enthusiasm.
“Willobee, you’ll help Lizzy tend to the sick by bringing them food and water so they won’t have to leave their huts,” I told him. “If they need anything else, bring it for them or ask me about it.”
“Where will I get the food and water, Master?” Willobee asked. “We haven’t had anything but the venison since we got here, and we’ve been drinking from our waterskins.”
“When I was exploring food sources yesterday, I found two ovens,” I said. “Florenia, once you have your writing materials, you will be in charge of baking bread. While you collect those, I will find some grain and a mortar and pestle, and ale barm, and water for mixing the dough. Are there any other ingredients you’d need that I’m forgetting?”
“Salt,” the ex-vestal reminded me.
“Right, I’ll find some,” I said.
“And honey,” she continued as she started to nod to herself with a faraway look in her hazel eyes. “And cinnamon. And vanilla extract. A bit of orange peel wouldn’t be amiss--”
“What is an orange?” Lizzy asked curiously.
“Florenia, we’re just trying to keep people alive here, not impress Nillibetian vestals with the ingredients from a duke’s larder,” I reminded her.
“Oh, all right,” she sighed.
“And Willobee, as for water, I found two wells in this village, one on the north end and one on the south end,” I said. “I’ll show you where they are. Lizzy, while the centaurs start their medicine preparations, I want you to come around with me and sniff everything related to food and drink to make sure we’re not accidentally poisoning anyone with plague germs. By that time, Florenia, you should have your writing materials and you can come back and start baking with the ingredients that Lizzy has approved. Willobee, you’ll help Lizzy distribute medicine and bone broth until Florenia’s bread is ready, and then you can help pass that out. You’ll do water runs too. I can help with that part, since the buckets will probably be pretty heavy. I’ll also keep making my way around the village and meet everyone and see how they’re doing. I’ll report back to you with numbers and observations, Florenia, so that you can store the information in your memory until you get a chance to write it down.”
“That sounds like an awful lot of tasks for you to handle at once, Qaar’endoth,” Maire remarked.
“Well, my… twin will help,” I said. I was almost back from the pit with Ed by now. “So, does the plan make sense to everyone? Any questions about your tasks, or any ideas that you want to add?”
“Perhaps even if it isn’t practical to make bread that way for the whole village, we could use Florenia’s preferred recipe for our bread?” Willobee suggested hopefully. “It sounds much more delicious.”
I glared at him and looked around the group. “Any other questions?”
“Your plan makes sense, mostly,” Elodette said. “But it’s silly to waste centaur medicines intended for coughs on humans suffering from the plague. They’ll just die with soothed throats and clearer sinuses.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “And if all we can give them is a little more comfort, then that’s what we’ll do. But look at Maire here. Look at Ed. They survived. So we know it’s at least possible for some small percentage, and we should do everything we can to increase their odds.”
“As long as they stop killing kittens,” Ilandere qualified.
“Princess, are you going to put that cat down so we can start making ourselves useful?” Elodette asked rhetorically. I had noticed that the handmaiden always tried to avoid issuing commands to her princess, but found other ways to try to influence Ilandere, and even though she might have the final say in their relationship, Ilandere was so sweet and eager to please that it usually worked.
Like now. “All right, but only because Vander needs us to,” Ilandere said reluctantly as she gently placed the orange furball she’d been cuddling the whole time on the ground. “Be safe, little kitty.”
Florenia took that as her cue to release her little orange companion too. Most of the other kittens had already scattered by then. I didn’t know much about cats, and these ones looked very young, but I hoped they were big and strong enough to survive or at least find their way to another owner who would care for them.
Elodette knelt and invited Florenia to climb on her back. “Come with us and get your writing tools, then you can walk back and start baking,” the black centaur told her.
Florenia blew me a kiss. Then she mounted up and rode off with the two centaurs.
That left me, Lizzy, Willobee, and Maire.
“What would you like me to do, Qaar’endoth?” Maire asked me.
“Well, I’m not in charge of you and Ed,” I said. “But I was hoping that you’d be willing to keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing, which is checking huts for bodies and making sure that there aren’t any left in the village to become ghasts at night. I was thinking we could keep bringing them over to the same pit to keep the burial site as contained as possible, and Willobee could deal with them before dark.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “The process will be much easier now that we don’t have to burn them.”
“Another thing,” I said. “You two know the people of Ferndale, and they know you. The more reasonable ones must have respect for both of you.”
She sighed. “Maybe, but if that’s your definition, then there aren’t very many who are reasonable. Most of them are Hakmut’s creatures, which is really to say that they were brainwashed by Father Norrell. And they just associate the two of us with the plague because of our scars and think we’re cursed somehow, or think we’re not as cursed as everyone else since we survived and hate us for that too.”
“I’m really sorry about that, Maire,” I said sincerely. “It’s not fair for them to think that way. But I’m hoping now that Father Norrell’s gone, and once the plague situation starts improving, that they’ll understand how much you two have done to help them and be grateful for everything. For now, don’t talk to anyone you don’t want to talk to any more than necessary to just check their huts for corpses. But if you think someone might be more receptive to listening, then talk to them. They don’t know me and my friends. We’re strangers and freaks to them, like Polly said, so they won’t like doing as we tell them just because they’re scared of me or Lizzy. But if you explain our plan to stop the ghasts and stop the plague from spreading, then maybe they’ll be more willing to cooperate with it.”
“Of course,” Maire nodded. “I don’t really have friends here anymore… but acquaintances at least who know I’m not the sort to lie to them. I’ll explain as much as I can to everyone who will listen so they’ll feel better about being trapped in their huts all day.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“The slime worked!” Ed shouted excitedly as he and I approached us.
“I know, dear,” Maire said sweetly.
“But how would you… ” Ed started to ask, then evidently decided not to give her the satisfaction. “Well, great! What’s next, Vander?”
“He’s already explained our task to me,” Maire answered. “
The usual, with a side of diplomacy. Come on, I’ll tell you.”
The couple headed back to the huts arm-in-arm, while one of me accompanied Lizzy, and the other accompanied Willobee. It was time to set my plan into motion. I loved seeing what we could accomplish when my highly unlikely alliance of the faithless all worked together as a team. Of course I didn’t want innocent people to suffer and die of the plague, or get eaten by their dead relatives... but a slightly fucked-up part of me kind of enjoyed how ugly Ferndale’s problems had turned out to be, since that meant I would get more satisfaction out of solving them. Maybe the oracle had in fact sent just the right people to the right place at the right time.
Chapter Sixteen
I brought Lizzy to both wells along with Willobee and me because I wanted her to use her wolfish sense of smell that even her pretty little human nose retained to ensure that we weren’t providing the villagers with contaminated water. As it turned out, her presence hadn’t been necessary.
The north well was fine, and we all refilled our own waterskins there. But when we reached the south well and cranked the bucket up, there was a dead rat floating in it.
Lizzy plucked it out by the long pink tail and all four of us stared at it. The rat was half bald, and the skin that was visible through its dark mangy fur was of a purplish gray hue and covered in black pustules, a few of which oozed puss.
“… Er. It doesn’t look like drowning was the primary cause of death here, does it?” I asked glumly. “We’ll make all our water runs from the north well, and we’ll warn all the villagers about the corruption of this well in case any of the healthy ones try to draw their own water.”