I was in the time locker maze Fairyland stocking up on sandwiches when I felt Roc approach. I stepped out of the time locker, spotted him, and waved.
Roc came over. “Phil, there is a life you should save.”
I asked, “You did get the Angel’s prophecy from me? Every person I save will end up killing ten more.”
Roc sat in the doorway of the time locker and gestured for me to sit beside him. “You already know and care for him, so it’s allowed. Besides, the message the Angel gave you was intended for me and my brothers. It applies to you, but much worse, it tells us just what is happening.”
I sat beside him. “Why do you think it’s all about you? What does it tell you?”
Roc gave me a look like he was looking over glasses that he was not wearing. “We already have a sample of the virus. We’re close to having a vaccine. How close are you to being able to cure the virus? There was more to what the Angel said that was barely on your register but struck right to the core of what my brothers and I are trying to do.” He looked down, seeming to be sad. “Not that I’m working with them directly right now. I have rebelled against them.”
I gave him the look like I was looking over glasses. “That makes so little sense, you might as well have not said it. I thought you were this precise calculating machine?”
Roc took the sandwich I was holding out to him and started unwrapping it. “A precise calculating machine that steals shrimp poor boys. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re trying to confuse several trails that lead right to you, and you aren’t entirely alone in this. I’m apparently the only prognosticator that still sees the value in vagueness, so I have to take the lead here.”
I got up to get another poor boy. “Why are you so fond of vagueness?”
Roc picked up a shrimp that was about to fall out of his sandwich and gestured with it like it was still swimming in the ocean. “Things like to think they are free. You’re one of the most mature beings I know. It’s a disgusting but useful trait, and I don’t even see how a Daft Fairy could tolerate such a condition. Yet you still contemplate ignoring Swampy and Hubert when they give their best advice. You’d prefer not to obey their high-sounding commands when they give you little reason for obeying them.
“When I give a hint of the future, you want to figure it out, then you feel clever as you follow my unclear advice. So I prefer to give the feeling that you’re getting something than the feeling that you’re being given orders. Saying ‘I told you so,’ as delightful as it is the first hundred times you do it, gets old. Especially when you’re standing over the grave of the person you’re saying it to.
“You know an old man that won’t want to leave his church. Considering that novel coronavirus hit Chicago pretty hard—this plague may be worse. Since then, the rights of infectious insane and ill-informed people have been elevated over those with enough compassion to wear a mask and reduce the spread of disease. So, despite his wanting to stay with his church, he needs to leave church and the real world.
“In order to be vague, I am thinking it’d be nice if someone warned his medical team and caught the virus as a Daemon so it could be sampled and examined as it started to infect one.”
#
It was dark and snowing as Deacon Dan and I walked down a paved trail in a park near Lake Michigan.
Deacon Dan stopped walking. “Phil, it is time for me to retire again before they figure out that I really am staying the same age. I don’t know where I will go next.”
I said, “The reason I asked how you would feel about moving to Fairy for a while is that I was warned that the plague might end up being really bad in Chicago. I made a new chapel in Fairy recently, and they wouldn’t mind having a deacon there.”
Deacon Dan said, “I’m a bit worried about the Persephone Limit. If I stay away from Real too long, I might not be able to return to a flock when the plague is over.”
A man walked past us so we stayed quiet for a short time. A bit after he passed us, he coughed.
I glanced back at the man hurrying away. “Deacon, as soon as I have you squared away, I’m going to expose myself. I’ll have a medical team ready to examine me and take blood samples. A few other groups will get samples, too. As soon as we have a cure, we’ll treat you. Until then, since every warning says this kills old people, you need to stay safe, or the Persephone Limit may not be an issue anymore.”
Deacon Dan asked, “What if I already have it?”
I nodded. “We’re going to my medical Fairyland before we go anywhere else. Until we have some answers, we don’t have a choice.”
Deacon Dan said, “I need to pack and make some calls.”
I said, “You can call from Fairy. We can match time with Real and we have connections. I’ll help you pack.”
Deacon Dan stopped and put his hand on my arm. “You know, there is no greater love than giving your life for your friends. But from my years and time, I have learned that the second greatest love is helping someone move.”
#
Placy, the little girl doctor was looking down at me through a glass window set in the top of the room. Her muffled voice was faint. “We don’t have a good test or an incubation period we trust. Until we know more, we are going to have to keep a watch on you. Were you well exposed?”
I gave her a weak smile. “How can I know? I met people I was advised to meet. I saw people that may die soon but seem fine now. I haven’t done any shadow stepping.”
Placy said, “We will watch over you in shifts. Since you are qualified as a psychic surgeon, but unregistered and untested, you can do the testing, but we will have to instruct you and watch over the tests you make.”
#
After three weeks my time, and less than a day in Real, Placy came into my suite of rooms. “Phil, you weren't infected. You’ll have to try again.”
#
I sat with Swampy on our favorite pier in Anabranch. I kicked the water gently and she watched the ripples. “There it is.”
I looked at the ripples, but as always, I just saw the ripples.
#
In my handsome Daemon form, nurses paid attention to me as I walked down the halls trying to keep from giving away my lack of medical experience. I’d been gifted but my gifting was fifteen years out of date as far as hospital procedure was concerned.
A man sitting across from a nurses’ station coughed. I rushed over, knelt, and offered him a lollipop. “It’s xylitol, so it shouldn’t rot your teeth.”
He took a moment to figure out what I was saying since I was saying it through a mask and a gateway hidden inside the mask. When I breathed in, I was breathing what others breathed out. When I breathed out, I was putting the air in a Fairyland so wouldn’t spread the infection if I got it.
I heard another person cough, so I rushed over to give them a lollipop.
#
I was breathing heavily and felt congested when I isolated and confirmed that I was sick with something and it wasn't just allergies. Now that I had seen it, it was going to be easier to identify. I looked up at the window. The girls were watching me, and I gave them a thumbs-up. “I caught something, for sure. Don’t know if it’s the plague or not. How far do we want me to progress?”
My doctor and nurses looked down, then at each other, and back to me.
Placy said, “Can you observe it for a few more hours? We don’t want you to pass out or go to sleep.”
#
I was flying as a Raven and building roads in Snipsnort when I was summoned. The person on the other end disconnected, so I went to the Time Lockers Maze Fairyland.
Flying over time lockers, I saw Roc walking. I flew down and landed on a container well over him. “Roc, I got infected as a Daemon, and I’m probably going to die if I stay a Daemon without shadow stepping. Since it’s well established maybe that won’t save me. So I’m not supposed to turn into myself or an owl, and I’m dead if I stay a Daemon. I don’t talk well as a rooster or an otter, so you get to talk to a bird.”
Roc looked up at me. “Price you pay for being a hero.”
I extended my wings. “No hero here. Just an idiot that listens to fortune tellers. So, yeah. This thing is crazy deadly to Daemons. Probably. It spreads from cell to cell without having to circulate in the airways or bloodstream. Contact will do. The immune system has a hard time detecting the thing.”
Roc asked, “Do you have tissue samples?”
I flew down, turned into an otter, and took off the backpack I’d made for my otter form. I had to turn back into a Rook to talk. “It’s all in the backpack. So, you’re rebelling yet you are passing things along to the people you are rebelling against? Isn’t that a bit lame?”
Roc shook his head. “No, it’s well established that I’m immature and will run off and overreact. We have a ceasefire going to deal with this virus. Stay here a moment. I’ll be right back.”
He took out the gum he’d been chewing and stuck it to the side of a time locker. Then he put a tack in it, opened the gateway hidden on it, and disappeared.
He came right back out with a bag and offered it to me. “There are vaccines in there for Daemons, humans, and Goblins. The Goblin version will probably work for any elves you might meet. If it doesn’t, oh, well. Most Elves you meet have had nice long lives anyway.
“Your samples helped us make sure we had a good vaccine. So quite a few ungrateful jerks will owe their lives to you. As far as saving you in your Daemon form, it’s a bit late for the vaccine, so you’ll have to wait until we come up with a medical procedure. And yeah, we tested. When this is established, it is weakened, but not eliminated by shadow stepping. A Goblin that shadow steps a lot will probably be immune, but a Daemon shadow stepping will still need to be vaccinated, or he’ll probably go belly up quick. For what it’s worth, the Queen of Shadows is one of the ones who may just owe her life to you.”
I asked, “How about you? Are you immune now?”
Roc said, “My blood is toxic to all but me and my brothers. This plague doesn’t have a chance. But the vaccine doesn’t keep you from catching it. It just keeps you from getting real sick. Mostly. You can still get reinfected, but you probably won’t spread it.”
I asked, “Probably?”
Roc nodded. “This is biology. Nothing is certain. In epidemiology, we have to use probabilities, and there are always outliers. Since an Angel gave you warnings, the odds’re good that you’ll survive this.”
I asked, “Didn’t you say the message the Angel gave you was for you and your brothers?”
Roc looked away. “Like I said, we all have to go by probabilities here, but I have a lot invested in you. Rest assured, I think the odds are good. Since your prognosticators are okay with what you’re doing, you’re probably better than good. I play with probabilities and the weaknesses of mankind. Your prognosticators cheat a lot better when it comes to this sort of thing. For the most part, I have to go with quantity over quality.”
I asked, “Can I treat people I know and care about?”
Roc said, “That’s where it gets complicated. Replicate and save a good inventory of the vaccine. Vaccinate all your forms as soon as your prognosticators say you can be in all your forms.
“You’re in charge of a few kingdoms so treat them. If some get stupid and don’t want treatment, you can be the judge on that. That’s where the wicked comes in. If one sick person can spread a disease to eight more and those eight can spread it to eight more, it will continue like that. If it only spreads eight times, that person’s responsible for the infections of over sixteen million people. If one percent die, that means they killed a hundred and sixty thousand people and the suffering caused is much higher than that. By the way, I’m seriously rounding down on this.
“If you say that, because other people were treated, the unvaccinated only had a one in a hundred chance of catching it, then they only have the random chance of probably killing a thousand six hundred people.
“If you force treatment, you save countless lives, but now you have resentful people telling others the plague wasn’t that bad, and they have plans to avoid cooperating the next time a plague comes through.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“If, as a king, you are responsible for your subjects, then you’re less of a killer if you shoot all your citizens that resist vaccination. Not that history books will end up liking you, but there it is.”
I asked, “What about Fairies? How do we vaccinate them or do we need to?”
Roc shrugged. “Our king has ruled out Fairy testing after a few abuses were witnessed. The Fairies were all volunteers, but he almost froze me in time for a hundred year in Real over that incident. Right now, he’s struggling with the folly of his absolute decrees, so any information you manage to collect will help. If they are mostly made of real stuff and human, give them the human vaccine. It should work. The various vaccines are mostly similar, so if there’s a question about which to use on which patient, then your guess is probably good. The results might not be a perfect, but they’ll be better than nothing.”
I asked, “What if they resist but stay isolated?”
Roc said, “The chuckleheaded are rarely that cooperative. Expect them to blame you when they’re gasping for air and dying while surrounded by folk they infected. I don’t have samples of the mindsets in your Fairyland, but you can expect a few assassination attempts after this, no matter what you do. This all happened on your watch, so it’s all your fault, Phil. Of course, you can abdicate again, but then who knows how many will die without you in charge?”
#
As a rook, I recorded a message for my people. Behind me, Lord Loadstone, Hippy Dippy, That Guy, Lady Anteater, and Duchess Byebye were sitting on stone thrones with noble looking-otters and rooks crafted into the stone work.
“My people, I have an injection I want thee to be brave and take. As thou has surely heard, there is a plague loose on the world, and it is only a matter of time before it comes to Snipsnort. This plague, like the last, is particularly harsh on old folk. And most of thee qualify as ancient.
“I know how horrid this plague is. I caught it on purpose so that a vaccine could be made. Thou might have noticed that I have not been in humanoid form. There is a reason. We have a cure, but we don’t yet have a treatment that will assure my survival now that I am infected in that form.
“Let me make this very, very clear. I have read all the details on this vaccine and the nobles sitting behind me have all taken the vaccine. They all acted like adults, and they all got a lovely xylitol butterscotch lollipop.”
I spread my wings. “Thou may have noticed that I have been spending long hours making roads and towers. I do this for thee and this fair Kingdom. Now I will let Duchess Byebye address those who may decide to not serve the kingdom and avoid taking this injection.”
I flew up, and landed on the arm of Duchess Byebye’s throne and turned into an otter.
Duchess Byebye picked me up and hugged me. “Byebye here. You know the games we nobles love to play. One of our favorites is hide and seek. Anyone who plans to be beneath a chicken who would poo in their fellow chickens’ water, and not take the vaccine, should start running and hiding now.”
Duchess Byebye started giggling and had to tense her muscles to make herself stop. She was squeezing me way too hard as she continued, “I can’t wait for the hunt to begin.”
She looked down and me and relaxed her grip. “Sorry. Did I squeeze too tight, my brother and King?”
I squirmed out of her arms and flew as Lord Loadstone shouted, “Cut!”
#
I was contemplating taking on another form. I could talk as a rook, and I’d made a spider excavator that worked for me in otter form, but as an otter, I was constantly hungry even before I started using magic to build roads. Since I wasn’t spending any time as myself, I stopped taking aging pills until I could transform into me again.
I was letting the Fairyland run slow since the agonizing crawl of the news of plague spreading through the world was unbearable. As I walked along the road I had crafted making statues and gazebos on the pads between the towers, I was again summoned and then the summons was disconnected. I ignored it but then it happened three more times, so I went to the Time Cooler Maze Fairyland.
Roc was standing by the doorway of a time cooler. “Yeah, I know you got a false alarm and flew around here for a few hours. We need a better signal, but the false signal you got may have revealed something so check with your prognosticators.”
I saw some nice pebbles the right size to put in my gizzard to grind food with so I started picking them off the ground.
Roc said, “We have a better vaccine now. It works for most creatures, will last a hundred years, and you won’t need boosters. It should handle all the foreseeable variants that will be coming.”
I said, “That was quick. How did you do it?”
Roc pointed out some pebbles for me. “I can’t take any credit but some brave Fairies got an audience with the Dread Lord and begged him to let them be experimented on and begged him to turn them into things for testing. As a result, we also have a procedure your medical team can use to save your life. How have your efforts to vaccinate your people gone, and how are they going to react to having to take another shot?”
I quickly swallowed the pebbles and said, “Snipsnort was easy, Rougarou wasn’t. I ended up having to have the world banish everyone who wasn’t vaccinated. I’m not winning any popularity contests there. Hopefully, a lot of them will change their mind and come back.”
Roc held out a bag. “Unlikely. After a being has decided to ignore reason and compassion and take on whatever excuse they’re using to avoid treatment, to change their mind would be to admit they had been a mass murderer. But in Fairy and for these folk, unless they can become immune by other means or pass time away in a safe place, the odds are we won’t have to worry about them for long. In Real, most of the asses will survive to bray that it wasn’t that bad and only the weak died.”
I turned into an otter and took the bag before turning back into a rook. “Thanks, I’ll make copies of this.”
Roc looked up at the top of the hill. “Before you travel much, you should stock up with treats from this time cooler. Feel free to share them and give away the nice bowls, cups, and tables. It might help you make some friends. Next time we should meet at the restaurant. They’ve all been vaccinated. Snipsnort has a shore on a body of water that connects with at least six other Fairylands. It would be a kind act to offer the vaccine to them. Don’t worry about it causing more deaths down the line. The Angel said, ‘At least in Real.’ so at the very least you should offer it. Their own denial will be their lesson.
“Not that saying, here memorize this and then killing those who wondered, ‘Who was that and why did they tell me to memorize things?’ is all that good a way to teach.”
I asked, “What should our signal be?”
Roc started walking up the hill. “A while back, some Fairy decided to prank you and gave your name to a group of little girls to use in a séance. I’ll make sure spam email is sent to you at the same time as your blank summons. Just check your crystal ball and see if something related to a little girl séance is in your spam.”
I stopped hopping after him and took to the air. I flew to the top of the hill and waited for him to reach me. “Is this just an excuse to send people creepy spam related to séances?”
Roc grinned. “Everyone needs a hobby. No, this is an attempt to find out who the Fairy was that was pranking you.”
#
I swam as an otter making ripples for Swampy to look at as she sat with her legs dangling over the edge of the pier.
Swampy said something but I was chewing a minnow and couldn’t hear her. I sat up on a rock half-buried in sand and listened.
“–so you might as well turn back into yourself and take the vaccine.”
I turned into a rook and flew to the railing she sat under. “I missed most of what you said.”
She looked up at me. “Turn back into you and start vaccinating yourself. Then you can see about distributing the new vaccine”
I shook my beak from side to side. “Don’t have the vaccines with me.”
She said, “Make them.”
As I sat as myself and moved gateways and then made vaccines, Swampy told me what had happened. “When Archer died, it was not the end of him. His Fairy has been building up its strength and his summoning you was his attempt to find out if you were still around. You didn’t connect, but he still managed to obtain data. Now we know why you had to make the roads and towers. If someone invades Snipsnort, you’ll have a way to get quickly to a place and be able to use fortifications or at least know what fortification they are in.”
I started injecting myself in my various copies of myself. It felt good to be me even if it was variations of me. “So Archer has returned. It never really felt like he was gone.”
Swampy said, “Get yourself healed in your Daemon form. Then contact the other Fairylands around the Great Sea, and see if they want the vaccine. The odds are good that Archer will try to use disease against you. He likes remote weapons and doesn’t care what he destroys.”
I held up a syringe. “Your turn, Swampy.”
#
I was in Daemon form strapped to a teeter-totter. Looking down at me through a glass window were four girls in medical outfits and a girl dressed as a maid. As I coughed and choked on my own phlegm, I wondered what would happen when I died. I would be free and have bronze feathered wings, but when I woke up as me, would I have a dead Daemon form? Or could dream me be unable to change my form so I just stayed dead as Daemon me and I had to make a new body to come back to life and then I could kill myself by turning into a dead Daemon.
My thoughts were not clear but then I was dying or at least having the gross version of waterboarding torture without anyone asking questions.
When I opened my eyes the teeter-totter was going up, and I was getting slightly closer to the four girls looking down at me through the slanted window. They were eating something that looked like rolls with jelly on them. I closed my eyes and went back to feeling miserable as I struggled to breath and wondered why, with all the meds they had given me, none of them had put me to sleep?
#
At Farren the Younger’s place in Realmsedge, Lord Loadstone and I were sitting with the group of volunteers who were making sure everyone got vaccinated.
I made a case of sixty vaccine kits, set it down, and pushed it under the table with my foot.
A man in an old military jacket picked it up, put it in his lap, and wrapped his arms around it.
I said, “Don’t worry.”
He said, “We lost a case and our great king had to come all the way to give us another. I fear that some fool may have thought this cures more ills than just the plague.”
A dark-complected woman said, “Or they just wanted the boxes, booze, and lollipops.”
Everyone nodded.
Lord Loadstone asked, “My lord, why didst thou package the vaccine in such nice boxes?”
I pointed to the fine details on the plate of fried shrimp in front of me. “These lovely lines around the edge of the plate don’t make the shrimp or the sauce any better. But they make one respect the meal. Getting a lollipop and a wooden case with the otter and rook crest on it gives the folk a stronger impression of the value of this shot and may make future enterprises like this go easier. I was advised that a painting should have a nice frame or the value will be lowered by more than half.”
I looked out past the cliffs and out to the sea. “Gentlemen, ladies, let’s hurry with the vaccinations. As soon as we are finished, wish me luck. I will be crossing the sea to find our neighboring Fairylands in hopes I can persuade them to take the vaccine as well.”
From another table, a man said, “When did foreign Fairies ever do anything for us? I say let them die so they can’t think about invading our shores.”
The men at that table with him nodded.
The dark-complected woman said, “Fast Boat, art thou telling the King his business?”
Fast Boat got up and the rest of the men at the table joined him. “No, we’ll be off before the tides change.” The group bowed to me and the man said, “Pardon us, great Lord. Long live King Snipsnort.”
Lord Loadstone gestured to the departing crew. “Is his boat fast?”
The woman started to say something, looked at me, and stopped.
The man in the old military jacket said, “Molly, speak freely, I think our lords might enjoy the gossip.”
Molly, the dark-complected woman said, “His boat can only hold a quarter of the catch a fishing boat can. It’s seaworthy, I’ll grant, and I would love to sail such a thing, but it’s more like a rich man’s toy than a true fishing boat.”
#
In the covered pavilion I had built to provide a work place, meeting place, and area to manage vaccinations, the last of the fishermen who had sailed in just before the storm hit were getting their shots.
Lord Loadstone looked out at the dark cloud-covered sea. “’Tis bad timing, my Liege. The storm brought in the last boat, so we finished early, but now your plan to explore the Great Sea will have to be put off.”
I looked out at the storm and considered trying to fly through it anyway when I saw a huge chain of lightning blaze across the dark clouds for a moment. “Lord Loadstone, I left a gateway in a place I found the last time I explored. I can always go and explore there. How do I approach them?”
Lord Loadstone’s face was lit for a moment by distant lightning. “Not a lot of visitors to our kingdom. There is little profit in it. We do well enough and make what we need. Our nobles do have friend from outside, but most serious nations avoid us. We are legendary but not in a good way.
“Your Majesty would probably be best advised to come up with thy own strategy for dealing with other nations.”
#
As a rook, I peeked out of the hollow tree I’d hidden a gateway in ages ago. At least it seemed like ages. It was morning and there was no music playing. I flew up and heard a conversation.
Two rooks were talking in a language I didn’t understand. I had heard a German song when I was here last, but the rooks weren’t speaking in German. The sky above us was cloudy, and the weather was cold, but there was no great storm raging here.
The rooks landed beside a gateway to the courtyard that music was being played in the last time I was here. They turned into a warmly-dressed couple and continued talking as they walked out to a roadway that was more of a well-beaten trail. It looked like it had been raised ages ago, but barely kept up since then. A raven flew over and the woman held up her arm. The raven landed on her arm and started talking to them. It was in the same language, so I didn’t know what was being said, but at least it told me these folk dealt with talking birds.
The raven gestured with his beak in my direction, and the couple looked right at me.
From my perch inside the tree I prepared myself to return to Snipsnort before addressing them in German. “Does anyone here speak German?”
The lady with the raven on her arm asked in German, “Art thou Phil?”
I looked back out of the hole in the tree. “Amazing guess. Did someone tell you I was coming?”
The man said, “We had a prophecy. What do we need to do?”
I hopped out and dropped to a low limb. “So you are aware of the coming plague?”
The man said, “Yes, what do we need to give thee for thy cure?”
I shook my beak. “No charge, this is a charitable act. I’ll need to know how many doses you’ll need to treat everyone.”
The man said, “Close to five hundred thousand.”
I got down from the limb and turned into my most handsome version of myself. I didn’t want to ruin things by looking like a thug. The logistics of five hundred thousand doses being distributed in a low technology world seemed overwhelming, it was ten times as many as I had already treated. “I can provide the cure, but that’s a lot to manage and distribute. The treatment needs to be used within a month. I can provide more if there are logistic problems, though.”
The man looked at the woman. “Can we treat Prophet right now?”
The woman said, “Let’s go to the old palace first.”
The man gestured to the woman. “Phil, meet Prophet. Thou canst call me Precious, everyone else does.”
I said, “It is a pleasure meeting thee.”
The woman said, “Sorry, all this came as a surprise to us. The sign that you were finally coming didn’t show up until last week.”
The man said, “The prophecy said first thing. Can we treat her here and now?”
I said, “One moment. She will need to bare an arm.”
The raven flew up and landed on the limb where I had just been perched. I got the impression he was ready to attack if I made the wrong move.
I opened a gateway to overlay with Snipsnort so I could make a vaccine. I went ahead and made a case of them like we used in Snipsnort.
I slid the drawer back and then out so a box with a syringe, swab, bandages, cloth, alcohol, and lollipop was ejected. I treated her arm, gave her the shot, and put a bandage on her before handing her the lollipop. I gestured for her to put it in her mouth. “You’re all done. Enjoy the lollipop.”
She tasted it. “This part of treatment almost makes up for the first part.”
The man bared his arm. I treated him and gave him the boxes and his lollipop. “This is just a reward. When you deal with Fairies, this makes things a lot easier.”
He pointed to the small crystal bottle. “What is this?”
I said, “You can drink it if you want. Most do. It’s rather strong. Pure spirits. I use it to clean so we don’t cause another illness while trying to prevent one.”
The man held his lollipop up and looked at it. “Makes sense. Do we treat Fairies as well?”
I said, “Yes, treat everyone. I’ll need to train a few people so they can train others.”
The man said, “When we get to the palace, we’ll have people ready for training. Art thou certain thou hast no desire for payment?”
Prophet put her hand on his arm and took one of the boxes from him. “He just made these from nothing. I don’t think he needs anything.”
The man said, “Less than a hundred of these boxes can fit in that case.”
I said, “Sixty.”
He nodded. “So he has to make over eight thousand of them, and the peers of Fairy are constantly arguing over a single pound of material when they eat a meal or make anything. We at least owe him produce and food. We don’t want to seem ungrateful.”
Prophet opened the gateway to the courtyard and then opened a more magical gateway to another courtyard and stepped through.