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“Ughhh,” Elena groaned, reaching around behind herself to rub at her shoulder blades. The Little Snail wound its way up the mountain path at agonizing speed, for once living up to its gastropod namesake. Every bump sent all three of its passengers (and likely its driver too) jostling around. “Tell me we’re almost there.”
Nicky pushed open one of the shutters and craned his head out the window. “Close,” he said firmly, but maybe he was just trying to make her feel better.
“We’ll have a nice hot soak in the springs once we get there,” Veile said, reaching over and digging her thumbs into Elena’s back, a jolt of electricity shooting up Elena’s spine. Veile always had a way of reminding Elena of her vulnerability to lightning, despite that not being an element Veile could wield.
Then the Little Snail ground to a halt, and Veile jolted forwards, smashing her nose into the back of Elena’s neck. Elena scrambled to her feet. “Are we there?” she asked Nicky.
Nicky pushed the door open. “Come see for yourself.”
The view was, in short, breathtaking. The pale peaks of the mountains ahead scraped the cloudless sky, and all along the cliffside nestled humble brown and white buildings, all clustered together like freckles on the mountainside’s wan face. Despite still needing to acclimate to the elevation, even the air itself smelled fresh and clean. “Vannaya Gora,” Jonathan said, climbing out of the cab. “Been awhile since I've been here, but it sure is just as beautiful as I remember.”
Vannaya Gora was a resort town, famous for its mineral hot springs that bubbled up from deep beneath the mountains. It wasn’t too far out of the way as they journeyed through the mountain pass, so Jonathan had suggested a stop.
“Have you ever been to a hot spring before, Veile?” Elena asked.
Veile shook her head. “Never! Oh, I’m so excited!”
Elena herself had never been to a proper hot spring, but a few businesses had sprung up around Rillspur that simulated hot springs using fire magic and the water from within the megadungeon. Of course, that hadn’t been too different from just taking a hot bath, and the waters of Rillspur, although as clean as they came, contained none of the minerals associated with hot springs, and thus provided none of the purported health benefits of Vannaya Gora’s baths.
It was still another thirty minutes before the Little Snail reached the town’s outskirts and Jonathan let everyone hop out again. The wide streets were paved with cobblestones, and flowers grew in baskets hanging in every window. Despite all this, Elena’s brow furrowed.
Nicky voiced her thoughts. “Hey, uh, does this place seem kinda…”
“Empty?” Jonathan finished, looking around.
Indeed, there was no one to be seen on the main road, despite it being the perfect day for an afternoon stroll. Elena crept over to one of the houses and looked in the window. Everything seemed normal within, except that there was no one to be seen inside. Beyond that, the fresh mountain air had taken on a sour edge, making Elena’s nose wrinkle, though none of the others seemed to notice.
“Uh, there’s a hotel up this way,” Jonathan said, gesturing down the road. “Let’s see if we can find someone.”
The Heartsease Hotel was a two-story building downtown, and all along the way there, Elena saw no one. Despite this, the doors to the hotel stood wide open, welcoming them inside its warm yet desolate lobby. No one sat at the check-in counter, but Nicky approached the desk and rang the bell there anyway.
To Elena’s surprise and relief, a voice came from the back, saying, “Be with you in a moment!”
A minute or so later, a young woman emerged from a curtained doorway behind the desk. Her nut-brown hair was plaited over one shoulder, she carried a long wooden cane extended out in front of her, and though she looked towards the party of newcomers, she didn’t make eye contact with any of them. It was easy to deduce that she was blind.
She sat down in the chair behind the desk. “Can I help you with something? Do you plan to stay?”
“Maybe?” Jonathan looked around. “I take it you’re open?”
She laughed. “Yes, in spite of everything, we are, though I can’t recommend you stay long.”
“Mind tellin’ us what’s goin’ on around here? Last time I came through this was a lively little town.”
The woman’s expression darkened, though she tried to maintain her upbeat demeanor. “I’m afraid an epidemic has struck our fair city. It’s not terribly deadly, thank goodness, but it’s left a number of our citizens bedridden or housebound, and more still have gone to the Sanitarium to recover, though none have been cured yet.”
Elena blinked. “The Sanitarium?”
The woman nodded. “Oh yes. Due to the fresh mountain air and the hot springs, someone thought Vannaya Gora a good spot to build a place for the chronically ill, a Sanitarium where they can rest and recover. It’s been in operation for a little over twenty years now.”
“And how long’s this plague been happenin’?” Jonathan asked, rubbing his chin.
“People started falling ill about a month ago.”
“Are we at risk of getting sick ourselves?” Elena asked.
“Well, I’m not sick myself,” the woman said, “and most of those who are have quarantined themselves, either in the Sanitarium or in their own homes. So you’re not at great risk, as long as you stay away from those infected.”
“Got it,” Nicky said. “Two rooms please. I take it you have plenty available?”
The woman laughed. “You can have your pick. Just put your names in the guest book. Two beds or one?”
“Two please,” Nicky said. “And do you have a place where we can park our vehicle?”
“Well damn,” Jonathan said as he climbed out of the Little Snail’s cab. “Sorry I dragged y’all three all the way up here for nothin’. Maybe next time.”
“It’s not like anyone could’ve predicted some random plague striking outta nowhere,” Nicky said. “Want me to whip us something up? I get the sense there aren’t many restaurants open around here right now.”
Elena, Veile, and Jonathan sat at one of the tiny metal tables they set up when they stopped to serve people while Nicky made bacon and eggs. Finally, Veile, who had been quiet all afternoon, banged her fist on the table and said, “We have to help them.”
“Help them?” Nicky’s bushy eyebrows jumped towards his hairline. “You mean the sick people?”
“Of course!” Veile exclaimed.
“We’re not doctors, Veile,” Jonathan said gently.
“Well, no,” Veile said. “But I’m a priestess of the Ennead. I know healing spells. We have potions. We can do something.”
“You think they haven’t tried healing spells already?” Jonathan asked.
It was upsetting, sometimes, how good Veile was. Sickening, almost, her sticky-sweet demeanor and passion for compassion and righteousness. Or it would’ve been sickening, were it at all false, but it wasn’t false. That was what made Elena’s head spin. It made her head spin, and it made her want to be good, too. “We don’t have to cure them, but I’m sure the doctors at the Sanitarium are swamped,” Elena said. “They probably don’t have enough food, or enough clean sheets, or enough people to clean the sheets. Even if we can’t cure anyone, we can help in other ways, can’t we?”
Nicky sighed. “All right. We’ll swing by tomorrow morning and see if there’s anything we can do for them. But we still shouldn’t stay too long—we have places to be.”
Elena nodded. “Right. Agreed.”
The Vannaya Gora Sanitarium stood a ways out of town and farther up the mountainside, and it was tough to miss. It was one of only a handful of buildings that stood more than a single story tall, and it was blanched all white, with no decoration, like the color somehow meant it was cleaner.
It didn’t take Elena very long to begin to regret helping Veile to cajole the men into staying and helping. First of all, that strange, organic, slightly rancid hint of something in the air became a hell of a lot stronger as she approached the Sanitarium. She wondered how the others didn’t notice it. She took the handkerchief off of her head and wrapped it around her nose and mouth.
“What are you doing?” Veile asked.
“Um, well, we’re going into a hospital with a lot of sick people, aren’t we?” Elena said. “I don’t want to inhale anything.”
Veile nodded. “Good point.” Then she unwound her sash from around her waist and tied it around her nose and mouth.
“I’ll see if there are any masks inside,” Jonathan said. “Besides, we don’t know if this disease even affects non-humans—or how.”
The Sanitarium lobby was wide and brightly lit, with big windows to let the morning sunlight stream in. It was also empty, with no one at the check-in desk. “Hello?” Nicky called out, but unlike at the hotel, no one responded.
“Let’s look around,” Jonathan said. “If this place is as packed as the woman at the hotel said, then we’re sure to run into someone.”
Nicky found a medical mask behind the check-in desk and put it on, but there wasn’t one that could fit a terrapin.
Veile, ever moving forward, charged out of the lobby and down the hall, Elena close behind her. Behind the first open door was a room with two twin beds, an elderly woman in one and a young girl in the other. Both were asleep, their breaths rattling in the quiet air. “At least they’re alive,” Veile murmured.
At that moment, someone behind them said, “Can I help you two young ladies?”
Elena and Veile whirled around in tandem, and Elena, for her part, disliked what she saw almost instantly. It was a man, younger than Jonathan or Nicky. He was very tall and broad, with short cut blond hair and tiny blue eyes that were pinched at the corners. That was all she could see of his face, because he, too, was wearing a medical mask.
Elena’s first instinct was to make a hasty retreat, but Veile was not to be deterred. “Do you work here sir?” she asked, striding forward to meet him. “My name is Veile, and this is my friend Elena Millefiori. We were passing through town on our travels when we heard of this blight. We want to help.”
Elena regretted talking Jonathan and Nicky into staying. What could she and Veile possibly hope to accomplish here anyway? Still, unwilling to admit to her previous error, she nodded. Beneath the mask, it was impossible to tell what expression the man was making, but by his tone of voice, it seemed he was likely smiling. Elena’s heart sank.
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “My name is Antimony, and I’m an apothecary here—rather, I’m in charge of the Sanitarium, these days. Oh goodness, I’m so glad you’re here. So many of my colleagues have been falling ill, and many more of the townsfolk have come here to get well. I’m positively swamped. Are you doctors?”
Veile made a face. “Not exactly, but I have some experience with the healing arts, and Elena and our other companions come from the hospitality industry. We may not be able to treat the disease, but we can certainly help make everyone comfortable. Can I ask what the symptoms are? How deadly is it?”
“Not deadly at all, thank goodness,” Antimony said, “but very disabling, and still very localized to this area. They’re calling it Mountain Pox, and no one who’s infected has tried to leave yet, fortunately. I don’t have the power to quarantine the entire town, but people are often too sick to leave their beds, much less travel all the way down the mountain. The main symptom is skin lesions, which can be very painful and must be kept clean lest they become infected. Other symptoms include dizziness, nausea, coughing, and fatigue.”
And then Veile was off to the races. “What have you done in terms of treatment so far?”
“We’re so lucky,” Antimony said, “so lucky that we have access to these mineral springs and so much fresh clean water and air. I can’t imagine what kind of havoc this disease would wreak had it struck a denser, dirtier place. I’ve made sure to keep everything clean and their lesions disinfected. I also encourage everyone to visit the hot springs whenever they’re able.”
Elena frowned. “But what about actually finding a cure or trying to prevent the disease? Do you know how it’s spread?”
Antimony’s smiling eyes wavered. “No, I’ve had no time to actually investigate the disease’s cause. I’m much too busy taking care of the ill. I’m sure you understand.”
“Has anyone recovered on their own?” Veile asked.
Antimony’s shoulders drooped. “No, not yet. The best I can say for myself is that no one’s died.”
Veile reached over and patted him on the arm. “That’s all right. I’m sure you’ve been doing your best.”
He laughed and rubbed the back of his close-cropped blond hair sheepishly. “Thank you for saying that. Your words are very kind. I haven’t actually been in charge around here for that long, and now all this has happened. My goodness. What rotten luck.”
“Our companions are in the lobby,” Veile said. “Let’s go meet up with them and then we can figure out what to do.”
Much to Elena’s chagrin, Antimony’s jovial attitude and smiling eyes won over Jonathan instantly and Nicky almost as fast. Elena didn’t know why she didn’t like him so much. Maybe it was how tall he was—Elena herself had never been blessed with much height, and the tallest of their group, Veile, was only about five inches taller than Elena herself. She felt small in his presence, and his easy, cheerful demeanor was something Elena felt she’d never been able to capture, not even during her days as a songstress at the inn.
“Why don’t I help with the laundry,” Veile suggested, “and the others can go back to the Little Snail and prepare food for everyone?”
Antimony’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “The…Little Snail?”
“Our restaurant!” Veile said.
“I thought you said you were travelers?” Antimony said.
“It’s a traveling restaurant,” Nicky said.
Antimony’s face lit up. “Oh, how delightful! Yes, I’m sure fresh food would do everyone here a world of good.”
Elena was still caught up on what Veile had called the Little Snail—our restaurant. Did she really consider it as such? Did it really belong to Veile as much as the rest of them? Elena’s stomach turned over like a pancake on the griddle. She didn’t know whether the feeling was good or bad.
Back at the Little Snail, Elena failed at frying eggs three times in a row.
“You got a bee in your bonnet, Elena?” Jonathan asked, leaning over her shoulder as she salvaged the fried eggs by turning them into scrambled. “I know you ain’t the designated chef around here, but you’re normally good for fryin’ up a few eggs.”
Elena grunted. “‘S nothing. I think I’m still adjusting to the altitude.” Which was true. She was definitely more fatigued than she was used to, but that was true of all four of them.
Jonathan placed his hands on his hips. “C’mon now, Elena, it’s clear somethin’s buggin’ you.”
“Doesn’t it feel odd here to you?” Elena asked.
“Well sure,” Nicky said from down the counter where he was chopping onions. “There’s an epidemic. Everyone’s sick as a dog. This isn’t exactly the spa vacation we were hoping for.”
“No, that’s not it, I just—well, that is it, but it’s not all of it, you know? I just can’t believe healing potions and the like don’t work on this illness,” she said. This was still only a fraction of what upset her about this whole situation, but unable to put the rest into words, she settled for the healing potions thing.
Jonathan rubbed his chin. “Healing potions weren’t really made to treat diseases. They’re mostly for wounds and the like. We don’t really have an effective way to cure disease the way we do with injuries, since every disease is different—and this one’s brand new. ‘Sides, diseases are caused by living creatures, so any medicine that attacks them has to be some kinda poison, and healing potions aren’t that.”
Poison. Elena didn’t have a lot of experience with poison. It wasn’t one of her chosen elements, nor could anyone else in the part effectively wield it. Still, there was a nagging feeling, a thought inside her head that wouldn’t go away. She wanted to cure the disease. She wanted to prove that it could be cured.
“C’mon,” Jonathan said. “We oughta get this food up to the Sanitarium.”
The Sanitarium, despite being, for all intents and purposes, a hospital, and presumably meant to aid those who had difficulty moving, among other ailments, seemed really weirdly inaccessible. They couldn’t get the Little Snail up to any of the doors, given that there were several dozen stairs that led up to the Sanitarium from the main road. Elena’s chest was heaving by the time they got all the food inside. This altitude was killing her. Sure, the air might be clean and the hot springs soothing, but was this really the best place for the sick to get well?
The longer she spent in the Sanitarium, the more Elena began to suspect that Antimony was the only one willing and able to actually take care of people. Well, Antimony and now Veile, whom Elena watched dab rubbing alcohol against the lesions on a patient’s face, the woman hissing at the sting of it. Elena winced in sympathy. She knew how much wound cleaning could hurt. Veile, for her part, betrayed no emotion on her masked face, not until she stood up and saw Elena in the doorway of the room, a tray of fresh vegetables in her arms.
“Elena!” Veile said. “You’re back!” Her dark eyes were lit up with delight.
The patient, for her part, sat up on the bed and coughed into a handkerchief in her hand. “Good day to you, young lady,” she said. Her eyes, despite their bright color, were crusted along the pink-stained lids, pus leaking out of one of the tear ducts. “Are you friends with Miss Veile?” The woman was middle aged, perhaps a few years older than Nicky, her dark hair streaked through with gray.
“I suppose,” Elena said, setting the tray of vegetables down on a table in the corner of the room.
“You suppose?” Veile said. “Yes,” she said to the woman. “We’re best friends.”
“I—“ Elena cut herself off. She didn’t know Veile felt that way, but she didn’t dare express that out loud. “Yes,” she said instead. “We’re friends. I’m Elena Millefiori and I’m here with the vegetables. What’s your name?” she asked the woman, out of politeness.
“My name is Mathilde, and I was a nurse here,” Mathilde said, her eyes fluttering closed. “I will be, again, once this illness clears up. It must at some point, certainly, right?”
“It will,” Veile said firmly. “We’re here to help.”
“Is everyone sick except for Antimony?” Elena asked.
“I haven’t seen any of my colleagues since I fell ill,” Mathilde said. “I imagine he must be struggling so much. And at so young an age! He only took on the management of this place last year.”
“Wow, he is new,” Veile said. “He must be running himself completely ragged.”
Mathilde nodded. “Such is his way, as was his father’s, the prior director of the Sanitarium.”
Moving on from Antimony, Veile asked, “How mobile are you, Mathilde? We were planning on hosting a dinner downstairs, but if a majority of patients can’t make it, we’ll have to bring food to everyone’s rooms.”
Mathilde sighed. “I think that would be best. I might be able to make it downstairs, but I wouldn’t want others who can’t to feel left out. Besides, I think everyone being together, seeing how sick we all are…it would only demoralize us.”
Veile nodded sadly. “I understand.”
Elena didn’t. She’d been sick before—not for this long, and never with a disease previously unknown to the world, but still—and it was always nice to be around other people, even and maybe especially when those other people were also sick. She remembered when her whole family got the flu all at once, and she and her sister laid in their shared room and whined and complained for hours to one another, sharing symptoms until they felt better. And a meal! Even with her whole family sick and miserable, it had been nice to all sit around the table together, eating whatever food their stomach would allow. Then her brow furrowed. “Then what about the hot springs?” she asked.
Mathilde blinked twice. “What about them, dearie?”
“You said there are people who are too sick to even get out of bed,” Elena said. “How do they get to the hot springs?”
“Antimony is so dedicated,” Mathilde gushed. “He brings the hot springs to us.” She then went on to explain how, once a week, on a person’s assigned day, Antimony would bring a tub of hot water fresh from the hot springs, up to each patient.
Despite the praise for Antimony’s dedication, Elena found the task of bringing meals to every patient in the Sanitarium—of which there were several dozen—to be a back-breaking task, little more than drudgery as Veile and Antimony put their heads together on the logistics. Who needed which food? Who didn’t eat meat, and who was allergic to dairy? Who wouldn’t eat raw vegetables, and who wanted only fruit? By the time everyone had eaten, it was well past sundown, and Elena’s stomach was growling like a ravenous tiger. She scarfed down the leftovers, as Veile slumped down in a chair next to her.
“I don’t know about you, Elena, but I’m beat,” she said.
“Me too,” Elena said, grateful to find out that Veile was a normal person after all.
Unfortunately, this admission made Antimony perk up. “You know, now that everyone has eaten and most of the patients are sleeping, why don’t you four enjoy our hot springs? That is why you arrived in town in the first place, is it not?”
What he said made a lot of sense. The four travelers on the Little Snail—and Antimony too, no doubt—were all exhausted. It seemed like the perfect end to a long night of hard work, to have a nice soak in the hot spring. It wasn’t even the way he said it that bothered Elena—she couldn’t put her finger on what it was she didn’t like at all. “Are you going to bring tubs of water to us as well?” she asked.
Antimony laughed. “Oh heavens no. You four are perfectly capable of going outside on your own, aren’t you? You can just come to the hot springs with me. There’s a locker room in the back where you can put your clothes.”
In spite of her misgivings, Elena decided to join Veile in the locker room, stripping out of her robes and pointedly not looking behind her as Veile changed. When the two were finished, they stood shoulder to shoulder wrapped in fluffy white towels from the chest down. “Everything is so clean and nice here,” Veile sighed, rubbing her hand over her towel. “I don’t know how Antimony does it all all by himself.”
Elena nodded, swallowed thickly, and stepped out into the chilly evening air beside the hot spring.
She immediately recoiled. The overpowering stench of…something harsh and nasty was far more intense here than it was anywhere else, even inside the Sanitarium itself. Elena covered her nose in mouth. “Oh shit!” she swore.
Veile, seeming unaffected, came up behind Elena, placing her hand gently on Elena’s shoulder. “What? What is it?”
“You really don’t smell it?” Elena asked, incredulous.
Veile shook her head.
In the hot spring, Jonathan and Nicky were already submerged in the water. “Is something wrong, Elena?” Jonathan asked.
“I’m just…really tired,” Elena lied. “I think I’d actually rather go back to the hotel.”
“But you already got changed,” Veile said, her soft hands clasped together and her amber eyes shining. She ground her toe into the smooth flagstones surrounding the spring. “I was looking forward to having a soak with you. I’ve barely seen you all day.”
And whose fault is that? Elena wanted to say, but she instead only flashed Veile a tight smile and said, “I’ll see you back at the hotel.” Then she went back into the locker room and changed back into her sweaty dress—which still smelled better than the hot spring outside. Maybe hot springs were supposed to smell like that, and she was the only one who couldn’t tolerate it.
The hotel was quiet, but the blind attendant—Elena found out yesterday that her name was Melanie—sat placidly at the desk regardless. She looked up when Elena walked in, “Hello?”
“It’s just me,” Elena said. “I’m going up to bed. The others are up at the hot springs.”
Melanie’s eyebrows jumped upwards. “The hot springs?”
“Yes?” Elena said. “They are still functional, as far as I’m aware.”
“Really?” Melanie said. “I was told that…never mind.”
Now Elena was curious. “What were you told?”
“Antimony told me they were off-limits right now. He didn’t say why, but I assumed he wanted to reserve their use for the patients. Or he was worried about me getting sick?” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully.
“Huh,” Elena said. “Apparently he thinks it’s fine now. Is it just the Sanitarium hot springs that are off limits?”
Melanie nodded. “But those are the ones most of the permanent residents use, since they’re free for everyone who lives in town, as long as they’re not being used by patients.”
“Huh,” Elena said again.
“Odd,” Melanie said.
“Odd,” Elena agreed. Then, her mind racing, she went upstairs. Had Antimony, at one point, believed the hospital hot springs to be unsafe for use? Did he think the disease was being spread that way? Was it the disease itself she was smelling? Elena didn’t know much about many things, but she knew water. She knew water better than anyone else aboard the Little Snail, and she maybe even knew it better than Antimony.
She tucked herself into bed, but in spite of her abject exhaustion, she couldn’t find sleep. Her thoughts kept returning to the Sanitarium and the hot springs and Antimony, and also, tangentially, Veile. She hadn’t realized it before now, but she’d been looking forward to sharing a room with Veile, just the two of them. Would Veile even come back tonight? Or would she stay over at the Sanitarium to help Antimony and the patients some more? Veile was good. Too good. Her goodness was weighing her down, and, more pressingly, keeping her away from Elena.
Elena wished they’d never come here. Even the hot springs smelled bad.
Then Veile came into the room, the light spilling in from the hallway behind her, and to Elena’s immense relief she didn’t smell anything like the hot spring water. She only smelled like Veile, which was a smell all its own, incomparable to anything else. “Elena?” Veile whispered. “Are you awake?”
Elena sat up and pushed an unruly strand of hair out of her face. She nodded. “Mm-hmm. How was the hot spring?”
“Good,” Veile said, sinking down onto the bed across from Elena. “Really soothing.”
“Um, I have a bad feeling,” Elena said, fidgeting with the duvet.
“About what?” Veile asked.
“The hot springs,” Elena said. “Antimony told Melanie at the front desk to stay away from them.”
“Why would he do that?” Veile asked.
“I’m not sure. But I want to look into it tomorrow. I—the water smells bad. To me.”
“Okay,” Veile said. “I’ll come with you.”
Relief washed over Elena’s shoulders. She’d been expecting doubt, maybe even suspicion. “Really?” she asked.
“Of course,” Veile said. “Antimony’s just doing what the Church is doing right now, you know. He’s helping people who are sick, but he’s not doing anything to try to make them well. I want to make people well.”
Elena never should’ve been worried.
Only, maybe she should’ve been, since the next morning Elena woke up before Veile, which was unusual. When Elena shook Veile to wake her, Veile turned over and blinked her crusty eyes open, her sclera bloodshot. Her lips were dry and cracked.
“Veile?” Elena said. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t feel good,” Veile said. She looked awful. Veile was so bright and shining so much of the time, but now she was dulled, like a pearl dropped into mud. She sat up, slowly, agonizingly, the duvet crumpling into her lap. Pink patches of scabbed skin had formed on her chest and arms.
“Oh no,” Elena said. “You caught it.”
“How are you feeling?” Veile asked, her voice raspy.
“Don’t worry about me!” Elena exclaimed, kneeling next to Veile’s bed. “I’m fine! You stay here, and I’ll...” She trailed off, not knowing where she should go or what she should do.
“Shouldn’t I go to the Sanitarium?” Veile asked.
“No way! It’s—I don’t like it up there,” Elena confessed. “Besides, it’s crowded, and you’ll probably get better care by staying here, where Jonathan, Nicky, and I can tend to you.”
Veile’s eyebrows knitted together. “But won’t I get you sick as well?”
Elena thought for a moment. If this disease really was as contagious as it seemed, then the longer she and Veile spent together, the more likely it was for Elena to catch it. “Why hasn’t Antimony gotten sick?” she asked.
“Huh.” Veile looked puzzled, as if she hadn’t considered this question before. “Maybe he’s immune. Sometimes certain people resist certain diseases more effectively than others.”
“Maybe I’m immune too,” Elena said. “I don’t feel sick at all, and I was around all the patients yesterday, same as you. And I’m going back today. I want to figure out what’s causing all this.”
Veile looked upset. “I wanted to help you,” she said.
“Help me by resting up and feeling better.” She placed the back of her hand on Veile’s forehead, like Elena’s mother used to do for her when she was little. “You’re not running a temperature,” Elena said. “Is that odd?”
“A little,” Veile said. “Not all diseases are associated with fevers, but the diseases themselves don’t cause the fevers. They’re the body’s response to infection—it heats up so that the germs die, the same reason you cook meat before eating it.”
Elena nodded. “That makes sense. Then why don’t you have a fever? Is your body not reacting to the illness?”
“I don’t know,” Veile said, “but it seems like almost no one has a fever up at the Sanitarium either.”
“I’m going to talk to Nicky and Jonathan,” Elena said. “Then I’m going to the Sanitarium. I’ll see you when I get back.”
Veile nodded. “Be safe. Wear a mask.”
Elena gave her a thumbs up. “Of course.”
Then she left and marched next door to the room Nicky and Jonathan were sharing. She knocked on their door and waited. And waited. Just as she was about to knock again, the door opened, and there was Nicky, still in his pajamas. He didn’t look as bad as Veile, but there were still heavy dark circles under his eyes. “G’morning Elena,” he said. “We’ve got some bad news.”
“Are you sick too?” Elena exclaimed. “So is Veile!”
Nicky sighed. “Well that’s no good. If three of us are sick, then we’re in no shape to get on the road.”
Elena huffed. The longer she was here, the more she wanted to leave. “I’m going up to the Sanitarium,” she said. “If you’re healthy enough to be up and about, then take care of Veile. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
“Are you sure?” Nicky asked. “You don’t want us to come with you?”
“No,” Elena said firmly. “I get the feeling that going to the Sanitarium will just make you sicker.”
“But won’t you get sick if you go back?”
“I don’t think so,” Elena said. “I’ll be back soon. I just need to confirm a theory. Hospitals have libraries, don’t they?”
“Usually, yes,” Nicky said.
“Then that’s where I’ll go,” Elena said. Then she marched down the stairs and out of the hotel.
The first climb up to the Sanitarium had been wretched, and so had every other climb up there after that, but now her legs no longer seemed to burn as she hiked up the stone steps towards the looming building, a look of grim resolution writ large across her brow.
When she reached the Sanitarium, she didn’t go in the front door, but rather, wrapped around the back, looking for another way in that would draw less attention from Antimony. At the back of the building she came across the fence that guarded the hot springs. It was too high to see over, but just short enough that she could wrap her hands around the top and yank herself up and over.
The stench, which had been building all the way up the mountainside, hit her like a tidal wave. She removed her scarf from around her head and tied it in front of her nose and mouth once more—not out of any fear of illness this time, just to ward away the smell. Cautiously, she approached the hot springs and crouched down next to the steamy water. Her eyes began to tear up—it was just as she suspected. The smell was coming from the hot springs. She didn’t have any control group to test her theory against, since she’d never been to a hot spring before now, but she had a feeling that this wasn’t normal.
She knelt down next to the spring, and cast a small ice spell across its surface. The water froze, but unevenly, the innate heat from underground fighting against her magic. Still, she was able to crack off a small chunk of the ice and examine it. She squinted at it, held it up to the morning sunlight. The water wasn’t—well, it wasn’t perfectly clear, but that was to be expected, wasn’t it? The flecks of silver in the ice were either an aspect of how the ice itself caught the light, or mineral particulate from within the rocks.
She cast the ice aside, letting it melt in a patch of sun. The rest of the frozen spring would soon follow. She then slipped through the locker room door, which was thankfully unlocked. The Sanitarium sat eerily still and silent. Last night, it was abuzz with activity, but now, it seemed as though nothing and no one was able or willing to move. She didn’t know why, but she started digging through the lockers. She didn’t know what she expected to find. To her unsurprise, almost every locker was unlocked and empty. She’d figured as much—hardly anyone was using this locker room right now.
But there was one exception: a locker in the back corner on the wall nearest the inside door. Elena rattled the handle. It was locked.
It could be a coincidence, of course. Maybe someone left their things here before Antimony quarantined the Sanitarium. Maybe those things belonged to a patient whose stuff didn’t fit in their room. Maybe they were a spare change of clothes for Antimony, given that he was here night and day. But then, why lock the locker? If it was really only someone’s personal effects, and hardly anyone was coming into the locker room anyway, then why would these things need protection against thievery?
Maybe it was just to keep nosy snoops like Elena out, but nosy snoops like Elena couldn’t be deterred by a simple padlock. Another quick ice spell, and the padlock was coated in a thick rime of frost. Then all Elena had to do was grab a rock from outside next to the hot springs and bash the thing open. The locker wasn’t magically sealed in any way—a mistake on the part of the person who locked it, she thought. The bashing in of the padlock made more noise than she would’ve liked, the clanging of stone against metal echoing through the silent locker room, but after waiting a moment, she heard no alarm bells going off, and no footsteps rushing towards the door. The padlock lay shattered on the tile floor.
Inside of the locker, Elena couldn’t quite make sense of what she saw. Little glass jars and vials of water, little colorful strips of paper, and a jar of silvery powder labeled stibium. Elena took the jar and examined it, holding it up to the light. Then she opened it and inhaled. Instantly she reeled back—it didn’t smell strong, it had just a slight chemical tang to it, but it burned the insides of her sinuses and she broke out in a fit of coughing. She closed the jar and stowed it in her apron pocket, then slipped out of the locker room and onto the Sanitarium proper.
What she needed now was a map. The Sanitarium’s layout wasn’t exactly complex—it was mostly just three floors of straight hallways—and she’d gotten a pretty good sense of the structure yesterday, but if she wanted to really get to the bottom of this, she needed to know where she wasn’t allowed to go.
She crept upstairs, keeping her eyes peeled for Antimony. She wouldn’t get in trouble with him just for being here—if worse came to worst she could just make something up about being back to volunteer—but she’d rather avoid having to explain herself to him, and she especially didn’t want to tell him that the other three were sick. She feared he might insist she try to bring them up here. That was the last thing she wanted.
When she reached the second floor, she changed her affect. She couldn’t try to be sneaky around the patients; it was almost inevitable someone would see her, so when they did, she needed to look like she wasn’t doing anything suspicious. She wanted to talk to Mathilde first and foremost, since Mathilde would know the layout of the Sanitarium. Elena strode down the hall with a pace that exuded a confidence she didn’t feel, and luckily, Mathilde was awake, her door ajar.
“Good morning Elena, dear,” Mathilde said, propping herself up in bed a little. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
“I’m looking for Antimony,” Elena lied.
“Oh,” Mathilde said. “Have you not seen him? He usually notices when someone comes in. He should be downstairs.”
Elena shook her head. “I didn’t see him. I’ve looked all over the place. Is there somewhere he can usually be found when he’s not doing his rounds?”
“Oh, yes,” Mathilde said. “There’s a laboratory on the third floor. Sometimes he takes his breaks in there—goodness knows he needs them.”
“Thanks Mathilde,” Elena said, and with a hop, skip, and a jump she was upstairs, poking her head around every door until she found the lab.
It was a poor excuse for a laboratory, if she was being honest. It was only sparsely equipped with actual tools for use in research and medical treatment, which Elena supposed could be explained away by it being a Sanitarium rather than a true hospital. The people who typically stayed here didn’t have diseases that could be treated normally—what they needed was fresh air and long baths and people who could take care of them.
But did that mean there was no point in researching a cure for what ailed them?
The only elements of the room that stuck out were the books, and one lay flat on top of the rest. She reached up and pulled the book down. The title read, Treatments for Common Poisonings. One page was dogeared, so she turned to it.
As soon as she saw the heading, her eyes widened. Stibium. The same as the jar she found downstairs, the jar in her pocket. It was poison, and a pretty nasty one at that. She pored over the page. Its symptoms all lined up—nausea, fatigue, coughing, and sores. The page even noted that, while stibium had no taste, it occasionally developed a very faint, barely noticeable sulfur-like smell when dissolved in water. No wonder the disease wasn’t responding to typical treatments—it wasn’t a disease at all. It was poison.
And this book, it was in here, wasn’t it? The page for stibium was even dogeared. Antimony knew. He knew about the poisonings and was doing nothing—no, worse. He was poisoning the whole town, including Veile.
But why? It didn’t make sense. Antimony was a doctor, his job was to make people well again. And besides, what was the point of poisoning people if you weren’t going to kill them? Nobody had even died.
“Oh, Miss Elena,” Antimony said behind her. “I didn’t realize you were here. Were you looking for me?”
Elena, naturally, panicked. With neither the time nor brain space to come up with the best option in this situation, she landed on her first idea. Unfortunately, her first idea was almost never her best one. She whirled around, brandishing Treatments for Common Poisonings like a weapon, and blurted, “I know what you’re doing here, Antimony! The jig is up!”
Antimony barely reacted—or maybe it was just that he was still wearing his mask. “Oh?” he said, raising his eyebrows just slightly. “And what is it that I’m doing here?”
“You’re poisoning the whole town! You’re giving them—“ She whipped the jar out of her apron pocket for added effect. “—stibium! You’re putting it in the hot springs and making everyone sick!”
“Not everyone,” Antimony said evenly.
“I—huh?” Elena hadn’t been expecting him to admit to it, especially not so quickly.
“Those who are already sick, the disabled, I’ve kept them from using the Sanitarium hot springs,” Antimony said. “They are free to proceed with their lives as usual.”
“But why?” Elena demanded. “Don’t you know this is wrong?”
“Why is it wrong?” Antimony asked, sounding frighteningly genuine. “They aren’t dead, and I’m taking good care of them, aren’t I? The one suffering the most from this is me, and it’s a sacrifice I’m more than willing to make.”
“It’s wrong because—because—“ Elena stammered. She’d never been the type for debate, never been terribly good at it. She knew it was wrong, felt it in her gut, but a gut feeling wasn’t enough in the face of Antimony’s steely tranquility. “But why are you doing it?” she asked again. “What is your ‘sacrifice’ in the name of?”
“Utopia,” Antimony said simply. “If everyone is too sick to act on their own, then they can’t do anyone else any harm. This way, everyone is cared for. This way, everyone is safe. So tell me, Miss Elena, why is it wrong?”
“It’s wrong because being sick sucks,” Veile snarled, standing in the doorway behind Antimony. “Haven’t you been sick before?” she asked Antimony. “Even if you don’t die, you wish you would, sometimes. You want to carve out your organs with a knife so that they’ll stop bothering you so much. All you want to do is sleep, but you’re so tired of just sleeping all the time. It sucks! It’s the worst! And you’re making people sick on purpose? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Veile!” Elena gasped. “But weren’t you—?” Veile had been practically bedridden when she left, and now she was—well, she didn’t look amazing, but she looked mostly healthy, at least.
“What you said got me thinking,” Veile said. “I was wondering if this wasn’t a disease after all, so I used a ritual to cure me, Nicky, and Jonathan of poison, and when it worked, I came straight here.”
Elena beamed at her, unable to contain her joy.
“I only wanted what was best—“ Antimony started to say, but he didn’t get to finish, because Elena snapped her fingers and he was frozen in a block of ice.
“We should let the townspeople decide what to do with him,” Veile said.
Elena nodded. “At the very least, he shouldn't be in charge of this hospital any longer.”
It took some time, and quite a bit of MP, but Elena and Veile were able to slowly make their way through the Sanitarium, curing everyone’s cases of chronic stibium poisoning. “He was poisoning the water from the hot springs,” Elena explained to Mathilde. “That way he could control who had access to them and when, so he could poison you enough that you’d get sick but not die.”
Mathilde, cured of her ailment but still weak from being bedbound for so long, shook her head, her fingers tangled in her sheets. “I can’t believe he’d do something like this. He was so diligent.”
“Too diligent,” Elena sniffed.
“He seemed to believe that sick people were somehow better than everyone else, just for being sick,” Veile said, rubbing her chin. “That they couldn’t do anything wrong. That somehow he’d made a utopia here.”
“This place was already a utopia,” Mathilde said. “It was already beautiful. I wonder why he wasn’t able to see that.”
The Little Snail departed from Vannaya Gora shortly after that. “Maybe the next hot spring town won’t be so bad,” Jonathan said. “There are lots all over the mountains.”
“I think I’ve had my fill of hot springs for now,” Veile said, looking downcast.
Elena reached over and brushed a strand of curly verdant hair out of Veile’s face. “Thank you for helping me,” she said.
“Me?” Veile said, looking up and pointing at herself. “I barely did anything. You did all that detective work, Elena.”
“But you were the one who knew why Antimony was wrong.”
“I just know that you have to make things better for people, not worse,” Veile said firmly. “That’s the one thing the Church got right.”