Someone knocked on the gss doors.
I seriously considered ignoring it, but under the circumstances, it was probably important.
I untangled regretfully from Serru, who murmured something incoherent, and went downstairs to draw back the central part of the curtains.
An aquian with bronzy skin and purple-blue hair, skin painted with patches of paler scales but also a warden’s triangles on their upper left chest, waited patiently.
“We have a general idea of what happened,” en said. “There are only a handful of us here so far, but more are coming. Is there any immediate help you need? You’re here and alive. Anything else is a lower priority.”
I shook my head. “We can look after ourselves, and I’m pretty sure so can he.” I gestured at the other house. “Mostly we’re just exhausted and probably in shock. We didn’t want to just leave everything, but...” I tried not to see in my mind the twisted mecha, the colpsed tent, the blood in the water on the street. I failed.
En nodded. “Even from what we know, that’s absolutely understandable. Don’t worry, we’ve got it from here. One of the best organizers I’ve ever met is on the way to coordinate everything, and she’s coming with a central council-member and a central clerk who’s also qualified to handle the post office. We’ll make sure everyone is... as okay as we can manage, although it’s going to take some time.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
En blinked. “You’re... sorry? For what? You didn’t just give us the desperately-needed potion every expert alchemist has dreamed of finding, you’ve mostly removed both of our worst dangers for the time being.”
“Both?”
“The message we got from the Zombie King, of all people, said that he’d made a bargain with you to work together against a common enemy, and you made it a condition that if the Moss Queen was unable to infect mosslings, he had to not create zombies. He said he intended to abide by that even though it was going to create some difficulties for him.” En gnced over ens shoulder. “I’m supposed to also tell him that we’d rather help him find other solutions than give him any motivation to go back to making zombies, but I have to admit, I’m a bit nervous about that. Is that not what happened?”
Don’t try to make me a hero, Logan had said.
Possibly, being in full view after... well, whatever complicated stuff he’d been through for years... would be uncomfortable. And just maybe, that excuse was a way to save face, at least in his own mind. I didn’t much want to take credit I didn’t deserve, but in this case, probably the best thing I could do for him was let him stay in the shadows.
“Close enough that the details don’t matter. Sorry, I’m not at my best. Don’t be nervous about him. He’s probably going to be rude and abrupt, but he keeps his word and he’s not going to attack you. He doesn’t want me to tell anyone this, I think he’d rather keep people at a distance, but he’s a lot more complicated than just someone who turns innocent living people into zombies. Those difficulties probably include being able to get food and other supplies.”
En absorbed that, forehead furrowed thoughtfully, and finally en nodded slowly. “I think we can work out something. Thank you.”
“C’mon, I’ll go with you.” With a yawn, I crossed the distance between the houses and thumped on Logan’s door with the outer side of my fist.
I’d kind of gotten used to his felid form. His jotun form, looming over me, forced me to adjust quickly. He could have extended an arm straight out to the side and I could have walked under it without contact. In heels.
“What?” he grumbled.
“This is... sorry, what was your name? I should have asked.”
“Venais,” the aquian warden said.
“This is Venais. Anything you need right away?”
“No,” Logan said. “That was fast.”
Venais shrugged. “I live upstream and I know the river. A few others are here. So far, they’re dealing with wagoners and travellers who have no reason to expect anything except a normal day. But we’re just the first. The living are our first priority. If you need absolutely anything, let the nearest warden know and we’ll see what we can do. In a crisis, we have access to all shops and businesses and a lot of authority so we can probably arrange just about anything.”
Interestingly, I saw some hints of Logan softening. “Yeah, I know. I’ll be out of here as soon as I think I can. Wagons are a problem, animals won’t like my one remaining zombie, and I have a long way to go to do something.”
“A message could get there faster than you,” I said, and looked at Venais. “Think wardens over in the Forest would do a rescue trip right into the Moss Queen’s ir?”
“Well, yes, of course,” Venais said. “If... if she isn’t there, then it’s not just a pointless reckless gesture with consequences. Although we don’t actually know where it is, only a very general area.”
Logan gnced back. “Hey! Come here!” He stepped outside and to one side.
The zombified florian Moss Queen obediently came forward and stopped on command in the doorway.
Venais stared at her, and swallowed. “That is... um, anyone being a zombie is disturbing, um, sorry...”
“Yes, it is,” I said. Logan just shrugged.
“But that... that’s the Moss Queen? Really?”
“Yes,” I said. “It definitely absolutely is. My currently dead friends can verify that. And between us, we can keep her this way a really long time.”
“I was wondering whether you’d figure that out,” Logan muttered. “Not the prettiest process in the world...”
“I’m good with not-pretty as long as it’s volunteer-only,” I said.
“Fine. Anyway. She’s not doing anyone any active harm, but there are still moss infections out there and all surviving mosslings are going to be disoriented and possibly scared. Including a trio of felids she’s been holding for over seven years and I made a promise to get them back to their family.”
Venais shuddered, finally tearing ens gaze away from the zombied queen. “Give me their names. I’ll pass them on. Someone with search skills can track them wherever they are, and we can arrange for Purification potions. More than three, since they might find anything.”
“I tried once,” Logan said quietly, “I’ll draw you a map of what I remember of it. I followed a river south from Stormoak Bridge and then turned west close enough to rapids and a small waterfall that I could hear it ahead of me. Which isn’t much help by itself, but she took over an old shelter next to a pond, back before we were told to stay out of those, and she made the track to it disappear. That might be on a map if you can find one old enough. Everything else was living pnts in a maze around the shelter to keep anyone from reaching it, with mossling animals prowling around in it.”
“All the potions we can find, then.”
“Including lots of garden-clearing potions. You can’t trust any pnts there to be natural. She’s changed them. Don’t take risks with them, just destroy everything.”
“Understood. I’m sure she’ll be angry someday, but it’s worth it.”
“Someday is, as long as Nathan and I can cooperate, potentially a long time in the future. As long as I keep her away from Purification potions and Rains and things, she won’t be getting angry and taking it out on anyone.”
“Since you promised not to do other zombies,” I said, “I think some people are going to be happy to help compensate for your inconvenience. Anyway. You work it out, it’s not my business. I want to get back inside to Serru. I don’t know how long we’re staying here or which direction we’re going. I have a decision or two that I have to make first. We’ll try to tell someone when we leave but if you look and the house isn’t here, that’s all it is.”
Venais nodded. “Thank you. You’re going to hear that a lot, and a lot of people are going to be trying to figure out how to express that even though nothing’s ever going to feel big enough.”
“I don’t want to live in a world she controls either. I like this world exactly the way it is. Just being able to live and see wonderful pces with my friends and make new friends is a pretty enormous reward already. For however long we’re still camped here, if anyone needs a healer, just let me know.”
Venais nodded. “I hope we won’t, and we have paramedics on the way, but I’ll pass that on. Rest well.”
Back inside, I found Serru awake, sitting halfway down the steps. She looked tired, but alert.
“Well?”
“Wardens are starting to show up. You were right about aquians using the river. There’s a team coming in that are a central council-member and a central clerk and an experienced warden with organization skills to coordinate everything.”
“Oh, good.”
“They’re already dealing with travellers and wagoners and all that are showing up in town and getting a nasty shock.”
“Oh dear. I forgot about that.”
“We may be better now after that nap, but we’re still not exactly in ideal shape. If we need anything they’ll try to arrange it, and our messenger there is talking to Logan about wardens going after his felid friends immediately.”
She nodded. “It doesn’t matter who frees them, only that they’re freed.” She got up and came down the stairs to wrap both arms around me. “The whole world just changed. It will take time for it to settle into something new. But I think it will be better.”
“Yeah.” I let go gently and urged her to the couch. “But it might not stay that way. Trust me. Compcency goes in bad directions.”
She nodded again. “You’re still going to the Axis.”
“I don’t know. It’s still on the table. I need to think.”
A third nod, and she leaned down to fish around in her bag. “Zanshe will be coming from the Highnds, Heket probably from the mid Shallows and Terenei from Coppersands where Forest and Shallows meet, and Ary from Honeyfell which is near where the Grassnds and Midnds and Forest all meet. The simplest pce for us all to gather, and we will, is in the central Midnds. I suggest that we go in that direction, which is also the direction of the Axis, and you can think as we travel. You have grief and readjusting your expectations and a lot of other complicated emotions to work through but those will take time, possibly a lot of it. Nothing suggests that you must decide immediately, but I suspect that if you put it off, you are effectively making a decision regardless and you will keep putting it off without ever resolving it.”
“You’re probably right.”
She pulled out her pyer. “Right now, it’s too te in the day to leave even if we were in any fit condition. Today is for resting and recovering and reorganizing. By morning, it is entirely possible that the wardens will have brought in one or more people qualified to run the post office. We will not need this house in the Midnds, it might be safest and less awkward in your bank storage for the moment. Through most of the Midnds, we won’t need tents or food, either. There are inns and taverns along roads.”
“I’ve learned never to argue with you when you’re pnning travel logistics. You make a lot of sense.”
She started music, not at a party kind of volume but loud enough we could hear it easily, and looked at me questioningly. I nodded, and leaned back.
I’d been thinking of this house as a useful tool that I’d pass on when I went home.
As a permanent residence, it became something different. I’d spent my life since leaving my parents’ house, which hadn’t been rge or luxurious but had been home, in a series of apartments, cheap studio apartments where the bedroom and living room were the same thing and then, as rents had increased, in two-bedroom apartments with different roommates. I hadn’t bothered looking ahead, taking for granted that I was unlikely to be able to afford more in the foreseeable future.
This was mine, something that couldn’t be taken away. I could simply close it up and take it with me wherever I wanted to be. It wasn’t much rger in overall square footage than the apartments I was used to, but it was bright and cozy and efficient. And I could have it to myself, if I wanted to, or I could share it, and that was my own choice, not a necessity. I had my workshop upstairs where I could try to get better at alchemy, and a bed big enough for two jotuns or three of anyone else who could do stairs, and comfortable living space. What else did I need?
Maybe someday I’d take Logan up on the offer of a Shallows house. I probably didn’t need it as a refuge now, but it still might be nice to have something like that to come back to. Eventually. After I’d seen more. Despite the odd storm, an isnd sounded more pleasant to me than the open Grassnds or the stark Highnds, and I wasn’t sure about the Forest.
It was probably inevitable that my tired mind kept wandering, but the music helped. I could just listen to that and be here with Serru and try to leave the future to take care of itself.