Somewhere on Issria river, twelfth day of second moon of winter, 789 Imperial calendar.
Followed by a pair of beastly eyes, Farrow fetched two crystal cups and a decanter filled with a watered down, red wine. Well, aside for its color it was water rather than wine. An error on his part as he diluted the same batch twice. His thoughts too preoccupied with his guest to spare any time for what his hands did.
Varea sat in silence, leaning back on her bench. Her hand sliding up and down her swollen belly. She ate her portion then against her own judgment, she cleaned up the man’s share. He hadn’t even gone through half of it when she finished hers and stared at him over an empty plate. He just pushed his plate over to her without a word.
Back home that would allude to a certain need and her gorging herself on his prey would mean her acceptance but… her eyelids fell halfway as she watched Farrow’s back.
If she would have a tail right now its tip would twitch betraying her emotions. Cursed be that appanage with a mind of its own. It often spoke more to others than her words did. No. Not today. She forced herself a bit more into her furless self. It would be a disaster if he would hear her purr with just this measly meal and all the false signals he sent her way. Humans were not like her people, she kept reminding herself.
Although, she pondered as she watched his muscles move under his robe on his back. He had a warrior’s back.
“Well,”
Farrow put to his lips one of the cups he filled and took a sip. A frown spread over his forehead as the ruby liquid went down his throat.
“As a healer in charge of your wellbeing, I find this concoction acceptable. The worst you’ll suffer from it is the taste.”
The woman watched him take another mouthful and as before wince at the aftertaste. How peculiar. If the thing tasted half as good as it smelled…
“Who has committed such a heinous crime against this wine?”
She pushed away her cup. Long gone were her concerns of him trying to poison her. Some anger still lingered but what left slowly turned into hope and curiosity. Still, she refrained from drinking that slop.
“That would be me?”
“And you claim to be the best alchemist of the human empire? Preposterous.”
“I have my moments.”
He took one more sip. The taste did not improve with repeated exposure. Resigned, he dunked the contest of their cups out through the porthole and refiled them with, this time, undiluted wine. A curious murmur coming from his guest told him she approved the change.
“However, why would you my dear guest need an alchemist?”
She scoffed at that.
“I don’t need and alchemist! I want Farrow!”
Her claws raked over the table. Long, curved claws bit deep into the wood. Awestruck, Farrow stared at her hand, taking in every precious moment as he witnessed the beastly paws recede and give way to feminine fingers. Such a marvelous change. All done without an ounce of magic.
“And, since you now have him, why would that be?”
The alchemist moved his eyes from her palm to her chest’s center where a mage’s core should be. Try as he might he got no reaction. Whatever facilitated her change had nothing to do with mana or at least not in a way known to him.
“It starts with a lack of strength and sometimes a mild cough that lasts for a day or two. A week sometimes two later, dizziness, shivers and hallucinations make the victim unresponsive. Their body begins to burn inside until it is consumed. Within a moon after initial symptoms appear the victim dies.”
Varea spoke observing the man. When she finished, his jaws visibly tightened and unbeknownst to himself, he clenched his fists.
“Tell me, those victims, their gums, do they turn white?”
“Yes.”
“Sogu fever…”
Sogu was a small town where it first appeared over four hundred winters ago. It killed every one in three people of the empire.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“How?! It’s been dealt with no less than a hundred years ago.”
Anger? Disbelief? Fear? She was unsure but the human reeked of it. Not a reaction she expected to see. Was this indeed not their doing?
“We call it the wailing as it makes its victims wail while it wrings their life from them. It came to us last winter.”
“Impossible. The cure, the process of its making as well as the needed herbs are all publicly available. Anyone can make it. The one boiled at home will not have the properties of one made in a proper distillery but it should be potent enough to prevent death until better help is available. Not to mention most towns should hold a surplus just in case the disease would resurface.”
“Human towns. It was… all too late when we learned of that potion. Worse still, your cure kills my people. So many innocents lost their lives to that misunderstanding.”
Pain, her words brought him visible pain. Pain and fear.
“Last winter, there were some disturbances near the border. Several villages were lost, presumably to monsters…”
Farrow looked her straight in the eyes. They remained cold and unmoved.
“Mistakes were made. On both sides.”
She spoke after a while.
“Mistakes?”
Hate. Hate burned in the human eyes.”
“I once served a master that used similar speech. Nothing good came of it.”
Varea’s fur along her spine stood up. It felt as if air became heavier, more difficult to breath. Clam, calm. Do not unsheathe your claws. She repeated like a mantra in her mind. Such hostility emanated from his odd inhuman eyes.
For the first time in so many years her own gaze skirted away in fear. A natural reaction of her people. Breaking eye contact to avoid confrontation.
How?! This man! How did he… It took her all will power to stop herself from shivering and shying away. All her senses screamed at her of her impending doom. This man will kill her. Run.
But run she did not. Clenching her fists, she challenged herself to stare into his eyes and speak.
“You made the cure for humans. Make one that would work for my people. That is why I came to this cursed land to seek you out.”
Farrow on the other hand, sat without a word. His stillness even more terrifying than an outburst of rage.
“Difficult are your words for my ears.”
He spoke after a long while of silent staring contest.
“The more I hear the more I regret I pulled you out of those waters.”
His hand reached into his robe to a special, padded pocket in which he held several potions for extraordinary occasions.
“Before we continue any further, I’ll need a guarantee I can trust your words. Drink.”
He ordered, placing a solitary vial with a golden liquid before his guest.
“Why should I? What is this?!”
“A truth serum of my making. It will ensure that I’ll hear what I need to hear. That I can trust your words. Drink or go back into the waves.”
She growled in response. Her claws fully extended.
“That much is a small price for my trust. It is based on magic not herbs. It cannot harm your body. And you will remember everything when its power fades. Drink or go back into the waves. “
Whatever insult she barked out at him it changed nothing. Farrow sat and waited. Waited until she took the vial, dried it out in one gulp and flicked the empty glass at him. The alchemist ignored this blatant display of defiance and waited. He sat watching her, waiting for her pupils to dilate.
“What is your name?”
“Varea an Searlis, first before my people, daughter of Accardia an Searlis and Ferrigo an Hefroth.”
“What are you?”
“I am […]”
She made a sound he has not heard before. One that came from an entire alien language.
“What does that mean?”
“[…], […] […], a person.”
More odd sounds escaped her mouth. While interesting, that brought him nowhere.
“Do you know what humans call you kin?”
“Beasts. Kin of the forest. Others.”
He had never heard of such names.
“How old are you?”
“This shall be my twentieth winter. “
Young. How odd. From her face he would say late twenties, early thirties. Was that too a trick of her people?
“Why did you come here?”
“No other choice. Our scholars were useless in combating the wailing. We had lost many. I heard of your name and came. My gifts let me blend among humans.”
“Gifts?”
“I am […], […] of […]. For that reason, I learned the words of humans.”
“How did you learn?”
“Humans taught me. Our lands border each other.”
“Where are your lands?”
“North of a river humans call Andaana. Along its upper stream there are places where it can be crossed.”
Andaana. The second longest river of the empire and its northern border. Farrow knew that name from the maps he had. It was a sister river to Issria. One that run parallel to it on the other side of the known continent. Once more he studied his guest. She had come from afar. On foot, it takes months to get here from one end to the other.
“How did you learn of me and the cure I made?”
“Sometimes we trade. Sometimes humans come to our lands. A human trader that often visited one of our villages got sick on one of his visits. He came back with boxes of potions. A cure he said, devised by the best alchemist in the world. It saved him, he said. Many knew him. Many trusted him. Many drank the potions. Many died in horrible, horrible pain. Your cure kills […]. Makes us vomit blood. Before we learned that, we thought the trader brought us poison on purpose. We sent our own people to another human town to bring the true supplies held there. Same thing happened. People died vomiting blood. The cure banishes the disease but kills the one that took it. We tried to dilute it, slower but same result. We tried four villages that all claimed the potion to be genuine. It is harmless to humans but kills […].”
“Those villages, what happened to them? I have not heard of an outbreak anywhere within the empire.”
“We killed them and burned their villages to the ground as a retaliation for their lies.”
“Lies? A herb helpful to a human can kill a beast of burden. Many such deaths happen every year. They had no way of knowing it will not work on your kin.”
“Neither did we. When your towns fall one by one to an illness more brutal than war itself, it is much easier to believe a ploy for your life awaits behind each corner. Many mistakes were made.”