As they slowly wound between hills and trees, a solid stone path fifteen feet wide pushed up out of the ground or condensed from the dirt. By the time they had swung around the village and were curving back toward the original road, the horse slowed to a plodding pace, streaked with sweat.
“Can you do anything to keep him going?” Saul asked Toby.
“If healing could deal with the fatigue of power use, there would be a lot more healers,” he replied. “I could numb his ability to feel the exhaustion, but that’s risky. Without the feeling of your body warning you, it’s much easier to accidentally overdo it and cause mental issues, heart problems, and death.”
They stopped to take a break, Dinah feeding and wiping Geronimo Tanny down.
“That’s a powerful horse,” Natalie observed, looking back the way they’d come. “What else can he do?”
“His attunement is earth, obviously,” Saul replied. “His other three abilities are related to death, metal, and strength. There are traces of iron in the stone, the road will turn reddish over time.”
“You said before that the mother had the same abilities?”
“That’s how attuned breeds work, yes. My family gave her the icon and fragments ourselves.”
“It’s interesting to hear about such a different approach,” she said. “Do you ever breed attuned animals of different species?”
“To my knowledge, that’s not a common practice. Do elves?”
“No. I brushed up on the subject, and all of the attuned animals we have were domesticated as they are. If they are descended from more than one unattuned species, they’re usually called attuned creatures instead of animals.”
“It would be expensive, but I’m curious what I would get if I tried cross species breeding,” Saul mused. “Do you know what animal combinations seem to work? Do they need to have the same attunement?”
“I think the attunement does matter, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be exactly the same. Within the same icon group, elements for example, there are cases where creatures breed successfully. I know that goats and sheep can mix. Some dragons might have come from a cross between lizards and birds.”
Soon, they finished the road and went a short way further before stopping for the day. The moment Dinah signaled to the horse that they were stopping for the day, he backed up a step to loosen the harness and flopped over sideways into the dirt while she ran around chocking the wheels. Natalie immediately wanted to go with the ranger to get more details about the disease in the village. Saul and Toby each wanted to go as well, but there was debate about whether Saul should since Bart was supposed to follow him closely. Natalie couldn’t make any prediction about Bart’s future health.
“Let’s just get his opinion,” she finally insisted.
“I think that any of us going is the same as all of us going anyway,” Bart said, to their surprise. “I was out on a sea fishing trip that got within a day of the edge once when someone came down with a stomach disease. We all tried to stay away, but everyone ended up sick. We’re traveling in a carriage together that’s several times smaller. I’ll do my job, and if we get sick, we get sick.”
The three of them followed the ranger that had led them around the village to a camp in the wild grassland outside the village where the rangers were staying. As Natalie talked to the rangers, Saul’s functional inability to communicate started really getting under his skin. He had to make an effort not to interrupt every other sentence to ask Natalie what they were saying. Eventually, they went to a separate small clearing where they saw the two sick rangers.
The elves sat slumped in cushioned chairs wearing only thin wool underclothes, covered in a sheen of sweat. Visible in dozens of places across their bodies were inky black patches of skin that seemed perfectly smooth the way some of them caught the late afternoon sun. One had a dark patch on their scalp, the hair that grew from it having become a strange translucent white.
“And these are some of the least affected?” Saul confirmed, pulling out his schedule and a pen. “Can you ask them to tell us more about what they’re feeling?”
“In a minute,” Natalie agreed, taking a step closer to talk to the pair.
Saul’s artifact caught something about cold and itching from the sick elves after Natalie told them who she was and expressed sympathy in some form.
“Those are the main two symptoms,” she told him, “along with some of their abilities not working.”
“I understand why they would strip down part way, but why don’t they have some shade?” Saul asked, “they’re right in the sun.”
“Apparently they feel cooler in the sun. They also said that the itching builds up over time. The only thing that seems to help is getting wet, but they’re both trying not to since water seems to be how it spreads.”
“Reasonable. What abilities stopped working?”
“Do you think it matters?” Natalie said, “severe illness is known to cause some power performance issues.”
“This seems fungal, but it’s better to rule out other options before focusing on one.”
“Fungal? That could be it I suppose. Why did you jump to that though? Do you see a lot of fungal infections where you live?”
“The ambient death of human cities indirectly encourages fungal growth,” Saul explained. “In addition, Enchre is right on a river and has a relatively wet climate. If things aren’t dried properly, body fungus is an unpleasant possibility.”
“Eugh, I actually hope that isn’t it.”
“Fungus would be one of the better possibilities. It’s easier to treat than most other diseases, and can produce drugs that cause odd sensations and compulsions.”
“Let me get an answer from them before we go further down this line of thinking,” Natalie turned away again.
Saul waited, comparing the two elves to some anatomical drawings of advanced fungal infections he’d seen. It had been years since he’d had that passing interest in healer’s training, but he could still remember most of what he’d read. Cherith was squeamish about that kind of thing, and enthusiastically striking up a conversation about the symptoms of disease had been an excellent way to get her to leave when he was twelve. Michah had even learned some from him to take advantage herself. He wished she were here, Michah would have been much more fun to travel with than Toby.
“I don’t know about a pattern, but this is unusual,” Natalie interrupted Saul’s thoughts. “It isn’t just active abilities, a couple of their passive abilities stopped working as well.”
He refocused, frowning, “that is unusual. What icons do they have?”
“Bird, light, wind and hunger, light, wolf.”
“What abilities did they lose? Is it limited to only one or two of the icons or was it random?”
“They don’t know.” Natalie raised a finger, forestalling his response, “they don’t know which of their abilities come from which icon. This village doesn’t practice any methods of steering ability development.”
“What? Why?”
“There is a belief that viewing one’s abilities and soul as a single whole is better for cohesive development. I disagree personally, but I am aware of the philosophy.”
“Are you certain that the abilities they lost were truly passive?” Saul checked. “They could have been simple toggled—”
“Yes.” Natalie cut him off. “I am perfectly aware of the other possibilities and already asked. They lost a passive weight reduction and agility enhancement ability and enhanced olfactory ability respectively.”
“Sounds like a wind power and wolf power. If they truly no longer have them, then the disease has to be affecting the soul or its connection to the body. There are other explanations, but…”
“They don’t meet any of the obvious conditions with those icon combinations.”
“Exactly,” Saul agreed. “I did read part of a book about soul maladies somewhat recently, but what we’ve heard so far doesn’t sound like what I know. Do you think the rangers could give us demographic information about what icons people in the village have and how they’ve responded to the disease?”
“Probably. Worst case, we could just ask people. Even for the people who died, someone close to them should know what they had.”
The rangers told them that the town didn’t keep such records, so Saul went back to the carriage to get sheets of vellum.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“It’s getting late,” Toby pointed out as Saul rummaged through the cabinet in his room. “Are you planning to train today?”
“I want to figure out what’s going on,” Saul replied.
“The rangers said the sick people get agitated once the sunlight fades,” Natalie pointed out. “It would probably be more productive to wait until morning anyway.”
“I’d like to give all three of you a look over as well,” Toby said. “You said you were around at least two sick people that you know of. I’m in charge of keeping everyone healthy. I’ll do some cleansing to be safe.”
“Ooh, can I try using that ability again, but on a person this time?” Natalie asked.
“Don’t!” Toby shuddered. “If you just sweep it through one of us, it’ll mess our stomachs up for weeks. There are impurities in the digestive system that we need for proper ‘functioning.’”
“Can you use that in a fight?” Saul asked, closing the cabinet.
“No, it doesn’t really cause problems until you try to eat.”
“Interesting. Anyway, I can live with waiting until tomorrow, let’s get warmed up.”
The next day, Saul and Natalie talked to the beleaguered residents of the town. Saul tabulated information about each person as they got it.
Villager
Age
Icons
Symptoms
1
115
Light, Bird, Wind
Small black patches
2
83
Light, Hunger, Wolf
Small black patches
14
27
None
None
15
45
Light, Simple
Largely blackened, left arm and right leg sludgelike and lumpy
16
36
Light, Water
None
19
89
Light, Simple, Sound
Large black patches
20
71
Light, Simple, Tree
Large black patches
32
39
Light, Turtle
Largely blackened, hips and lower back immobile
33
30
Light
None
34
63
Light, Simple, Deer
Dissolved, only bones, teeth, cartilage, hair, and nails left
35
65
Light, Simple, Flesh
Large black patches
39
38
Light, Cold
None
40
34
Light, Bat
Largely blackened, body parts stuck together by membrane
44
41
Light, Simple
Dead, largely blackened, head and shoulder sludgelike
45
130
Light, Simple, Earth
Large black patches, death likely related to advanced age
46
55
Light Simple, Calm
Large black patches
50
122
Light, Simple, Scale
Large black patches
58
34
Light
None
63
95
Light, Earth, Tree
None (Note: Priest)
64
53
Light, Simple, Fox
Dissolved, only bones, teeth, cartilage, hair, and nails left, skull deformed
…
Natalie and Saul stood alone in the middle of the village, staring down into the well. They had sent Bart back to the carriage when an initial pattern in the deaths became clear. Saul was scrutinizing the shimmering spots of light visible in the depths of the water, while Natalie leaned on a walking stick, bloodshot eyes staring down blankly.
“I’m done.” She said finally. “I’m not talking to any more grieving families. You were right, a fungus would have been better. I’ll try to contact my mother, then we can leave. Do you have anything to add that I should tell her?”
“I don’t know what it is, but I know why it is,” Saul offered, looking over to his second table that had been rearranged by symptom presentation.
“A soul disease, yeah.”
“No, I think I have a guess how it happened. There was a cautionary story about this in Maladies of the Soul.”
“Oh?” She asked reluctantly.
“Someone tried to make their soul form from more than three icons. It should have just killed them, but they weren’t that lucky. I only know about one other case where that happened, it’s where vampirism comes from.”
“I’ve seen some human stories about them. I thought it was fanciful nonsense.”
“Partially, but it’s not important right now,” Saul said. “What matters is that this soul curse has enough similarities to vampirism that I’m pretty confident making the comparison. This is a lot more virulent, but who it can spread to follows the same pattern.”
“People with a simple icon or an animal icon.”
“Right. And if they have both, there’s no chance of survival. The curse itself will be a blend of multiple icons acting as a malignant new false icon. I don’t know if it has to be two like vampirism, it could be more. The beast icon itself seems obvious, but the other or others could be fungus, death, dark, maybe even star.”
“I know it’s not dark or death,” Natalie sighed. “Now that I know more, I can fully divine that the curse can’t affect me, you, or Toby at all. Anyway, this all should be plenty to give my mother who can get the right people moving to learn more and contain it. This probably isn’t where the curse originated, so we’ll need to look for other signs of its presence as we go.”
They returned to the carriage. Geronimo Tanny was still resting, so they spent the rest of the day having Toby cleanse everything in the carriage, the water they got upstream from the village, and Bart. Saul pulled out the portable hole, partially concealing it by opening it under the carriage, and rotated all of the books he had in his room as well as some of his clothes. He spent the rest of the day writing a detailed account of the soul curse to give to the Scholar’s Library back in Enchre.