“They learned both!” Heket said excitedly. “A felid who grew up in the Forest learned to deal with toxins, then moved to the Highnds or Grassnds and learned skills for illness! Or a centaur who learned to deal with illness moved to the Forest and learned about toxins! The ones who can stop them are the ones who have all three of the parts we know Nathan’s Purification does!”

  “Hold up!” I said. “Where does Cleanse come in? Do all healers get that one?”

  “Actually, it’s an alchemist skill primarily,” Terenei said. “They created Cleanse potions to prevent contamination during early experiments, and used it on surfaces and tools and hands. Someone eventually got the idea of using it on open wounds to flush out absolutely all foreign matter before adding a Bandage. So usually if anyone gets it in any version, it’lll be an alchemist. Some healers do learn some form of it, though, even just making water into a weak short-lived Cleanse potion.”

  “So some healers from anywhere get Cleanse. Some from the Grassnds and the Highnds get Panacea. Some from the Forest and the Shallows get Antidote. No one actively goes looking for both? No, why bother? Just look after your community and learn what they most need and use a potion from the local alchemist for the rare moments that something else happens, right?”

  “Exactly!” Terenei said. “But if someone has a reason to move, to live with someone or teach at a school or because they want a change, they might go to a province that needs the opposite skills. And might stay long enough to learn that on top of the original ones, which will still be there because skills don’t go away unless the underlying passion does. And if they’re one of the ones who already had Cleanse, or gains it, they’ll then have all three. Just maybe, under stress in a situation that involves direct contact with a zombie or mossling, they might try the right skill and discover by accident that it works—because just maybe, without realizing it, they’ve incorporated all three of the essentials!”

  “We know,” Zanshe said softly, in the stunned silence that fell, “what allows healers to stand against those two. The answer that has eluded everyone for over two centuries.”

  “That is...” Aryennos began, and trailed off. “We can... it’s so simple!”

  “It’s simple with the right information,” Terenei said. “There are going to be doctors and paramedics all over the world trading pces and studying with alchemists for as long as it takes to gain all three abilities.” He handed the reins to Heket, and went up and over the back of the driver’s seat, nding on one knee in the bed of the wagon. I reached automatically to steady him, only for him to throw both arms around me in a ferocious hug.

  Myu, beside Zanshe, barely opened her eyes at the motion near her, and paid no attention.

  “Sit down before you fall!” I told him, holding him as much to protect him as to respond to the enthusiasm. “You could have waited!”

  “I’ve got him,” Zanshe said cheerfully. “He’s not falling out with my hand hooked into the back of his waistband. I believe that sentiment is universal. I’m not sure we can even really predict the full extent of the consequences of that single revetion, but it can only be immense.”

  “Of course it will be immense,” Terenei said. “And it’s thanks to you.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I pointed out. “I didn’t even put the pieces together.”

  “We have the puzzle pieces we cked,” Heket said, “because you are who you are and that is what the Quincunx found natural to give you, and you chose to use it on a zombie instead of running away for your own safety. We have this because of you.”

  “You don’t even know if all this is correct!”

  “Until we test it,” Aryennos said, “it’s a theory and a hope, but there will be a lot of people willing to throw everything into testing it to prove it, because if we’re right, it changes absolutely everything all by itself, even if we don’t have a Purification potion.”

  “Yet,” Terenei said, dropping onto the seat beside me, and Zanshe let go.

  “Yet,” Aryennos conceded. “And there’s no post office for cycles?”

  “Not unless we take a detour,” Zanshe said. “For a ptarmigan or a pigeon, the distance wouldn’t be all that far, but the road has to do some twisting because of the ndscape.”

  “Not worth it,” Terenei said. “It means that much longer for Nathan to get home, and it’ll be harder for Serru to find us. We know. If we can’t spread it around the whole world until we get to the shelter, well, a few cycles won’t really make a difference. Sorry, Heket, stop the wagon and I’ll come back up.”

  “Oh, I understand the impulse,” she chuckled. “And they’re too smart to go off the road whether I can see the edge or not, so it’s just reminding them not to run. But probably best to have someone in charge who can see properly. I think we’re near the top of this slope, I’ll stop them there.”

  “Fair enough.”

  At the top, Heket persuaded the ornithians to pause, and Terenei hopped out to circle around. He paused with a hand on Cheer’s shoulder.

  “Uh oh. Um, Zanshe? We might have a problem.”

  Zanshe immediately joined him; Aryennos and I traded gnces, and followed.

  The road dipped down again. The angle and distance were moderate, but it immediately began to climb on the far side, although not as far. This ndscape felt like being in a demented roller coaster sometimes.

  In the lowest part, there were rocks of several sizes. Even from here, I was fairly sure I couldn’t shift the rgest ones; the next ones down I might be able to push a short distance if everything else was in my favour, but there was no way I could possibly lift them.

  “I can move at least most of those,” Zanshe said. “Heket? We have fallen rocks blocking the road. I know you have a farming mecha, not a builder, but can it handle weight?”

  “I help rebuild bridges,” Heket said. “I can’t do really big rocks, especially if they’re the dense ones, but I can do medium and medium-rge ones. How bad is it? I’m assuming it’s at the bottom and that’s too far for me to see even with my goggles.”

  “I think we can handle it, and it won’t be bad, but it will take time. We won’t find ft ground with water any closer than the pce I intended for us to camp, so I hope it won’t take much time. I’d rather not be on the road after dark.”

  I climbed back into the wagon to retrieve Heket’s mecha and pass it to her; she thanked me with a smile.

  “Look after Myu while I’m busy? She likes riding along but she looks comfortable.”

  “Of course.”

  Heket and Zanshe went down the slope to investigate more closely.

  “Well, we’ve been warned about the Highnds,” Terenei said philosophically, as Aryennos moved around so he could pet Peace, giving each ornithian one person’s entire attention. “I suppose it could be worse. They didn’t come down during the moment we were passing that point.”

  Heket set her mecha on the ground and told it to expand, still talking to Zanshe though we couldn’t make it out from here.

  Jotuns were big, even if Zanshe seemed small for a jotun, and I’d been told they were strong, but I really wasn’t expecting how strong.

  The rgest rocks, of which there were very few, the two of them moved together, simply pushing them off to the side to join others; one fell off the edge downwards and I heard it bouncing around on its way. The next size down, they could lift outright together, or shove around alone; anything below that, either could relocate.

  There were a lot of rocks, though.

  The ornithians shifted restlessly in pce, stamping at the ground; a handful of red berries each, fed to them slowly, was enough to distract them. Myu woke up, yawned, stretched, and shoved her head into my hand, but otherwise showed no signs of caring whether we were moving or not.

  Heket made her mecha kneel, and after a brief pause, she climbed out; it folded itself to standby mode, then colpsed down to its portable mode. Zanshe picked it up for her and beckoned to the rest of us.

  “Looks like our cue,” Terenei said. “Time to go, boys.” He clucked to Cheer, a hand on his bridle, and urged them into motion down the slope. “Keep an eye out for any other rocks that might not have made it all the way down. Nathan? If you stay in the wagon, you’ll have a higher perspective.”

  “Got it.” I stood up and braced myself with both hands on the back of the front bench.

  There was an occasional rock, but Terenei or Aryennos kicked them aside before they were any risk to the wagon or ornithians. At the bottom, Zanshe boosted Heket into the wagon with her mecha, but stayed on foot herself, slowly scanning the opposite slope.

  At the top, the road more or less levelled out. We climbed back in, and Terenei let the twitchy ornithians accelerate to a trot, with Zanshe beside him watching alertly for any reason to slow them.

  As the sun dropped towards the horizon, the temperature began to take a perceptible turn towards chilly. It wasn’t more than my new long-sleeved shirt and my chocote-cherry-chip sweater and my grey leather jacket could handle, and I saw other sweaters and coats coming out, but Myu jumped down and went into her den, and Heket draped a bnket over it.

  “When we do get to the campsite,” Zanshe said, “I think the first priority needs to be setting up the tent for the ornithians and getting them inside. We’ll have to bring water to them in the buckets, if they’re as uncomfortable with cold as you’ve said.”

  “While we’re moving they’re all right,” Terenei said, “but once we stop, they’ll definitely need some help.”

  “How are we doing tents? I doubt there’s room for six of them.”

  “If I switch to centaur and set one up with someone else,” I said, “it’ll be big enough for three as long as I switch to felid for overnight. And I frequently do anyway.”

  “Do you suppose you can bear sharing a tent with two felids?” Heket teased Aryennos. “And one Myu, of course.”

  “About as well as Terenei can endure having someone to snuggle with,” Aryennos said.

  “I assume there’s room for three rge tents?” Terenei asked Zanshe.

  “I think we can make them fit,” she said. “Although they might be close together.”

  As the sun approached the hilly ground behind us, it cast long dark shadows. Anezke preferred to stop around that time every day, because it interfered with visibility on a road where one misstep could be a big problem, but we couldn’t.

  Terenei urged the ornithians to ease from a trot into a fast walk, as Heket climbed up on one of the wagon seats, a hand on the back of the front seat, using the other to flip through settings on her goggles.

  “I can see edges,” she said. “On that setting I can’t see anything else, just outlines, and not all that far away, but it has nothing to do with natural light or shadow, so no illusions.”

  “Useful,” Zanshe said. “It shouldn’t be much farther. Don’t slip.”

  “I won’t.”

  The shadows grew worse, and it was actually a relief despite the chilly air when the sun vanished, the stark contrast melting into a gentle gloom.

  Not long after, Heket said, “Is that it? Off to the left, a ft area next to the road? Well, sort of ft.”

  “That’s it,” Zanshe said.

  ‘Ft’ was indeed retive: it had several levels. We parked the wagon on the road-level one and hastened to free the ornithians; Aryennos set up their tent on the next level up, and they went inside without hesitation, although we didn’t close it up yet. They needed water and a good meal.

  While Terenei and Aryennos focused on that, I helped Zanshe get a fire started on the next level up and fetched the bag of camping supplies from the wagon.

  Hot tea tasted wonderful; conversation while we waited for food was mostly grumbling about the cold and the fact that Myu ignored it to emerge and sit near the fire waiting for her dinner, bck tail coiled neatly around her opera-gloved front paws. We completely devoured two pots of stew made from travel bars, fish, and a few fresh ingredients. Each had enough for a proper meal for four people of most species, but there were five of us, Zanshe needed substantially more, Myu pped delicately at a bowlful, and we slipped the ornithians a little as a warm treat.

  Zanshe and Terenei set up their tent; I tried not to feel self-conscious while I switched to my centaur form—which was not dressed adequately for this temperature, so self-consciousness lost out to quickly setting up the tent with Aryennos so it would be big.

  These tents took longer than the standard ones did, and right now, shivering, that felt like forever.

  Terenei checked on the ornithians one st time while storing the bag of camping supplies in the wagon, then wished us a good night and vanished into the other tent behind Zanshe.

  My felid form wasn’t really dressed for this either, although my fur made up for that to an unexpected degree. We tucked Myu’s basket in one corner and scooped her up to bring her inside with us.

  With the door-fp sealed, it quickly began to warm up. I could see why more heavy-duty tents had been invented for the Highnds—the standard kind used elsewhere were pusibly going to struggle to keep someone comfortable here. Safe, maybe. In an emergency, I’d try one and hope for the best, and at least it would probably be better than nothing. I was grateful for these ones, though.

  Technically, we had pillows and bnkets for two, but it was possible for three friendly and slightly-chilled people to share those and body-heat. Myu climbed up on top of Aryennos, who was in the middle, and arranged herself comfortably there, tail over her Phantom-mask nose.

  Warm and safe and comfortable for the moment, we fell asleep.