The inn was on the edge of town, not a major surprise.

  No one paid the slightest attention to the gold-and-white centaur in sky blue wandering around. Maybe that was for the same reason that there was such a rge inn—and, from what Terenei had said, there were two others. Even if the school didn’t have dozens of new students in each new css, it was still an active centre for learning and therefore also a pce to go if you had questions. There must be new faces constantly.

  I had questions, but also doubts about the answers to them being readily avaible.

  Even just windowshopping allowed glimpses of fascinating objects on dispy: toys, tools, personal style. A wheel slowly turned, bringing a sequence of four different fancy neckces into pce on a shimmery dress Terenei would probably like, shown on a carved wooden mannequin; the colour of the dress changed dramatically to coordinate with each neckce in turn. A circur pnter divided into quarters had lush green pnts growing in it, under the glow of a lumina stone hanging in a faceted gssy holder suspended on a delicate frame, and I thought the tone of the light was different than I was used to, so maybe it was altered somehow into a growth light.

  A single building had been divided into two businesses. One side had a three-flower alchemist shop, and I paused to read the list by the door. It included water-breathing and air-breathing potions, and customized combinations of medical potions with a doctor’s consultation. Elixir was on the list, I was sure that was the magic booster, which sent me into specution about how that worked with magic being linked to passion and skill. I got distracted by species-change potions, and the one below that about sex-change potions.

  From what I’d learned, those probably had cooldown periods, but I couldn’t even begin to guess whether the effects were meant to be permanent. Terenei would probably know.

  The sign next to the other door had a three-pointed design made of three interced arcs, I thought it was called a triquetra, and under it text said simply ‘Soderin and Deisi, Doctors.’ Maybe they worked together, them and the alchemist.

  I saw matching colrs that would allow you to communicate with an animal, while you each wore one, and notebooks that cimed to search the text for you if asked and open to the correct page, and maps in several scales that always showed where you were on them. Some things looked ordinary, at least in local terms, but I was sure they were all artisan-quality, S-tier or something better, with something special about them.

  The “marsh” part of Ottermarsh came from the kind of ground I’d already seen, but apparently that owed a lot to a broad, slow-moving river that saturated the ground for quite some distance on either side and created many channels and ponds between areas of higher and drier ground—or so an aesthetically-appealing and easily-understood sign in a sort of public park informed me. It also told me that there was a high diversity of water-loving flora and fauna in the region, which presumably accounted for the “otter” part of the name. The town and school, it said, had been constructed on some of that high ground, and was expanding with great care to limit any damage to the local wildlife or their habitat, study of which was one of the key reasons the school had been founded here.

  Environmentally conscious. That was neat.

  The park in question had ponds of clear water with narrow channels between them, spanned by small bridges to allow one to follow winding paths. Between them were raised beds of pnts, and here and there trees of several types. Some of the ponds had fountains circuting the water; some of the paths widened to allow areas with not only stone benches but stone tables with stools around them, reminding me of picnic tables. Bright fish swam in the water, and even brighter birds fluttered around. It looked like a lot of thought and pnning had gone into creating a beautiful, peaceful haven for the people of the town and, presumably, of the school. This would be a gorgeous pce to bring some coffee and do homework—not that they seemed to have coffee, and I wasn’t sure whether they had homework. I did see the odd person reading, or writing, or assembling a collection of metal bits that might have been anything, but there weren’t many. Maybe the new students were more distracting than I expected.

  Deep in the park, I passed an older human man working on what looked like a dollhouse, fussing with details of the interior using the tools and materials in a wooden toolbox. He raised his head and nodded a greeting to me, which I returned, then he went back to work. I paused far enough away that I hoped I wouldn’t bother him, admiring a fountain that was an abstract thing of multiple spirals and arcs in stone of different kinds and colours and textures. I could only call that a work of art, really, given how beautifully the whole thing somehow banced and just looked... pleasing to the eye.

  I wasn’t sure what caught my attention, some sound, some motion, but I looked back towards the dollhouse crafter.

  He hadn’t noticed, but on the path beyond him, I could see three figures. I knew that gait, not a shambling shuffle but too loose and careless to belong to anyone aware of their own surroundings and safety, and the absolute directness. Plus, I recognized the one on the left as the curvy human woman with dark hair who had showed up at the campsite the night before.

  They were in the town.

  On the edge of it, admittedly, but they weren’t supposed to come right into a settlement. Serru had said, more than once, that they stayed outside and were a threat only to those who were alone and careless.

  As much as the zombies disgusted me, this made me angry enough to forget that.

  I bolted over to block their path. “Go away,” I told them. “You don’t belong here. Ottermarsh doesn’t need you disrupting their lives, you self-absorbed little asshole.” The st part of that didn’t transte at all well, but that was fine, it would only make it clear who I was.

  The one in the centre, a man with shedding scales, focused on me, and sucked in a rasping breath, then started to ugh. “A centaur chick? A horse’s ass, and a girl, and a healer, even. That’s what the Quincunx sees inside you. Oh, you’re just terrifying. What’s next, you’ll use the power of friendship at me? Guess you’re not likely to be banging the one who looks like she came from an adult anime. Your other sidekick is probably more your speed, maybe?”

  “Fuck you and your bigoted little soul. I could not care less what you think about me, but you’re not messing with Ottermarsh just because I’m here.”

  “I’m only in this area because I was going to give a newcomer the orientation tour, but since I can’t do that because some complete noob is dead sure that they can skip the tutorial and have it all under control, I’m bored. I haven’t raided a town in forever. School towns are fun to raid, they have cool toys. These people have no idea how to handle a zombie invasion, lots of panic and screaming. I’ll have a dozen new zombies by dark. Unless, y’know, I get distracted with what I was pnning on doing today.”

  There was no way I was standing back and letting that happen. Any of it. But how could I stop it?

  Hadn’t Serru said there were stories of healers unmaking zombies?

  What would happen if I healed a zombie? They were dead, but his power was still animating their bodies.

  I was going to have to make contact. Yuck.

  But if this worked, it would set someone free to be reborn at home and resume their life, along with protecting Ottermarsh from this reprehensible excuse for a human being.

  I brought up my golden dispy, spun the dial to Quickheal, and took a few steps forward to sp my hand into the centre of the chest of the one who was talking.

  Nothing happened.

  The Zombie King just ughed. “What was that supposed to accomplish?” He raised an arm to swing at me; I blocked it with my forearm, and brought my dispy back up as fast as I could with the other.

  Not healing. I couldn’t heal someone already dead. There were no life signs for it to prioritize.

  But maybe I could cleanse them of anything that shouldn’t be there.

  I found Purification, bumped the power on it to a hundred and fifty percent, and smmed my other hand into the zombie’s chest.

  The zombie crumpled.

  I looked down at the tragic heap of bone and muscle and connective tissue that was supposed to have a person inside, and wished them better luck after they got reborn.

  The remaining zombie, androgynous and purple-skinned, took a step back, and I actually saw expression show on that sck face. “What the fuck? What did you do?”

  I grinned at him. “Here, let me demonstrate a couple more times. Get out, stay out.” I repeated it with the dark-haired curvy human woman, although I had to kick sideways with one hind hoof to keep the purple-skinned remaining zombie from interfering and I felt irrationally bad for that. She colpsed, and I spun towards the st, bringing up Purification a third time.

  “Wait! Time out! I was just...”

  “I have absolutely nothing I want to talk to you about. Every word you have said has been more disgusting.” I spped my hand into the third zombie’s chest.

  In the sudden stillness, the songs of the birds sounded loud and bright.

  “Well done,” said a mature male voice near my elbow.

  I didn’t really like equating that sentiment to three bodies lying in careless piles on the ground, the sort of colpse that could only happen if there wasn’t so much as a single neuron anywhere with a lingering sense of self-preservation. No one alive could fall like that. “Yeah. Sure. But we need to do something about... this.”

  “Zombification does complicated damage. Without that sustaining them, they’ll just be normal healthy earth to feed the pnts well before dark. See? It’s already starting.” I followed the line of his pointing finger, and saw what he meant: ever-so-gently, the abdominal cavity of the first one I’d freed was beginning to cave in. That looked far less disturbing to me than three dead bodies walking around. “And it will get faster as it goes. From what I heard, you just saved Ottermarsh from being the first target of a zombie raid in many years. I would prefer to avoid those.”

  “I know less about her but he’s probably not worth keeping around just to keep her in check.”

  “Even pacifists eventually reach the end of their tolerance if someone behaves badly enough. An occasional healer develops an ability that is effective the way yours just was, against one or both, although no one has figured out yet what factors combine to allow that. There are always efforts and attempts at more comprehensive solutions of various kinds, but the underlying situation is more complex than it appears to be and until that is understood and taken into account, success may be problematic.” He turned away and made his way back towards the table with the dollhouse; I followed, slowly, to keep pace. One foot looked normal enough, in a pale leather boot, but the other was a masterwork of metalcraft and leather, probably lightweight but strong and banced.

  “Can I ask a rude question?”

  He chuckled. “Healers always want to ask about that. I got a bit overly ambitious in the Wurmheights when I was young, and had a bit of an accident. Quickheal may work well on a simple wound or a fall on ice, but it can’t repce a limb, only stop all bleeding and close it off and prevent shock. A high-quality Hardcure could have fixed it, although it would have taken time, possibly more than I had. And after it heals, there’s not much of anything for even the best potion or ability to do, since they restore health and that’s already done. I was in too much pain at the time to think that through and too stubborn to let myself die and lose everything I’d gained there. It’s fine. There’s no pain and the world has clever and creative crafters around.”

  Hm. That was something to remember. ‘Completely healthy’ didn’t have an absolute definition.

  “I’m sorry it can’t be fixed. I’d offer to try, I have some pretty strong abilities, but I probably can’t do anything more than anyone who’s already tried.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You just figured out something useful and rare that you didn’t know you could do. But don’t worry about me.” He folded the house closed and fastened two tches; that easily, it just looked like a cube-shaped wooden box with a square footprint that would probably come close to fitting on a regur sheet of paper, the top sloped slightly down towards the sides. There was a flexible handle on top, and two small rings with a long strap attached to them.

  “Here, a gift. Consider it my thanks for protecting Ottermarsh. It’s an improved version of a standard travelling tent. It needs more space to set it up, and it takes it longer to open and close, but it will stay until you tell it to close, no matter how long that is, and it will open up exactly the way you left it complete with anything inside. If you open it, but don’t want it to expand, just reach inside, there’s a sliding switch near the hinge that will tch at the bottom if you press it down, and when you want it to close when you’ve been using it, pull down on the same switch before you go outside. It will refuse to close with anything living inside, for good reason. Make sure any bag you leave inside is empty, and do not put this inside a bag that will compact it. It already does some quite complex folding of space itself, and the consequences could be dire. It’s not really designed for a centaur but I’m sure you can find a use for it.”

  “I can’t... this has to be worth...”

  “Less than the lives of Ottermarsh.” He pushed it into my hands. “If it won’t suit you, I’m sure one of your travelling companions would find it useful. You might consider dropping by a friend’s shop. She specializes in inventing equipment that makes travelling more comfortable, and she has several things on sale at rge discounts that might be of use to you. She’s on the main street through town, about three blocks up from the Dancing Oak, and her name is on the sign: Marion.”

  “Marion, three blocks from the Oak, travelling gear on sale. I’ll tell my friends.” I looked down at the box in my hands. A box that was a building, apparently. A new and improved kind of tent. I hoped it was genuinely as amazing as it sounded: ‘new and improved’ was not a phrase that inspired much confidence in my experience. Carrying it might be a little awkward, but the shoulder strap was long and wide, and it might be worth it. “Thank you.”

  He smiled, packing up his toolbox. “Victories deserve rewards. I’ll have a word with the local authorities about this. There’s nothing for you to worry about, I can’t think why they’d need to bother you, but I’ll send them your way if they insist.” He started off in the direction the zombies had come from.

  I got a few steps along the path, back the way I’d come, when I paused. I hadn’t actually told him who I was or where I was staying, although maybe with only three possibilities they could guess.

  “Enjoy the rest of your day, Nathan.”

  I heard it perfectly clearly, but the man with the metal leg was nowhere to be seen.

  There was no way he could walk fast enough to have gotten out of sight.

  And how did he know my name?