An evening and a morning passed. I ordered basins and pitchers of cold water brought up to the room. The maid who brought the first set was stunned to find that I had requested it for Rowan and Farrow and not myself. “Another two, if you would.” I requested as she stuttered at the door frame while I set the first pitcher and bowl on the table. I had managed to get blankets wrapped up on the two for the moment she was there.

“Why would a Yujin-?” she began.

“Because they are mine, and I will.” I snapped, the two men’s groans playing hell in the muscles of my neck.

Three basins and pitchers of cold water later, I wiped them down. I added scented oil from one of the bottles to help ease the smell of sweat and seed. They squirmed, and lost themselves to my ministrations again and again. I took their capes downstairs when they were finally asleep once more. There I had the innkeep give me directions to the local washing stream. Her look of confusion and wonder made me angry all over again. Not necessarily at her, but just at how a bit of care was seen as extraordinary. Or how badly the Yujin had tainted everything, made the world hate them.

Coming back up from the wash slabs at the creek, I found a woman selling bundles of clean rags. I dropped a copper clink in her shriveled hand and took off with two bundles. It would be easier than cleaning Rowan and Farrow’s cloaks again. I stopped by the apothecary to update him on what was happening and to see if I needed to be doing anything more. He gave me an hour of his time to explain Karamide and Rugoshi biology to me in exchange for helping him hang fresh herbs in healing potions.

Upon returning to the inn and entering their room, I set each bundle on their beds and hung their cloaks on pegs in the fireplace wall to continue drying. I had rung them out, but there were still puddles growing on the stone hearth, the drip echoing in the room. The afternoon and even splintered into nightfall without the two breaking for more than a couple of hours here and there for naps.

Farrow got hold of my wrist at some point in the second morning when I had bullied him into drinking some water. His eyes were just a touch less glossy. It wasn’t the first time though that either he or Rowan had tried to drag me into their bed. “I’m sorry, Tan. And thank you. When we come out of this, if I don’t remember it, thank you.” He let go and let me wash him down again with another round of cold water that just made him beg and moan all over again.

When both had calmed into their delirious version of sleep once more, I went again into the village. I had about three hours before they would wake again. There I sought out the apothecary once more.

“You’re back for a third day, little noble?” The apothecary asked as he prepared a slurry of his pink question juice.

“Thank you for the lessons yesterday in healing potion preparation.”

“Is there something you would like to learn about today?” He dusted a powder into his slurry and mixed.

“My companions and I want to get to Kawl,” I led.

“Ah, your Rugoshi wants to go home?”

“Yes. And he didn’t want to go through Tay.”

“Reasonable.” The apothecary nodded and set his bowl to the side. He loosely laid a towel across it to allow it to ferment while he pulled out dried herbs and a pair of mortar and pestles. He divided some into each and pushed one across the table to me.

“How much force, or how fine?” I asked as I took up the pestle.

“Dust powder.” He started in on his and I followed his lead. “You would make a good apprentice, if you stayed.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I want to get my friend to Kawl. And he said he’d prefer going through Findou?”

The apothecary stared at his mortar. “I mean, that’s a decision.”

“Not just me thinking it was a dangerous idea then?” I tilted the mortar bowl toward him.

He frowned at it, and indicated to rotate the pestle in the other direction. “I wouldn’t do it.”

“You live so close to the boarder; does that not scare you?”

“Some days more than others.”

“But you won’t leave this village?” I ground into the mortar with more vigor.

“I don’t have a partner, so the idea of traveling and ending up with a season scares me more than a Findou raid. I’ve lived here near on twenty years now and it’s never happened. So, it does scare me, but not like the idea of actually going into Findou.”

“How do I keep my traveling companions safe? They both know their way around weapons.”

The apothecary waved me off of my vigor and checked the mortar. Nodding, he took it and dumped it onto a scale alongside his own pile of powder. “This is just me. Say that I was to travel with you through Findou. As a Rugoshi, I would be a prime target for the slaving guild. Rugoshi are somewhat rare on this side of Naaia, and Herenhuis uses them for less savory military exploits. If I didn’t want to be sent off to a military training camp, I’d go in as a slave already.”

“What?” I snapped my attention to his face, hoping he was joking. My gut twisted.

“If I was traveling with a Yujin noble, I’d put a collar on and say I was your slave. It’s neat, tidy, and safer than hoping.”

My skin prickled and my fingertips went numb with that idea. Firedrops crawled under my fingernails. “Sorry. I have a hard time controlling it when I get uncomfortable with an idea. I don’t like it. But, I’m listening.” I shoved my hands under my cloak.

The apothecary raised an eyebrow at that. “There are very few in Findou of the Nine People who can get away with walking around free. Yujin are protected from it because of Findou’s relationship with Herenhuis. Fan are off limits. Findou will not sell their own. And though they are rare, Findou will not sell Alber.”

“Why Alber?” I still didn’t have a firm understanding about the differences of the Nine People, and the Alber were one I hadn’t heard mentioned much at all.

“Alber, before their clans started dying off, provided shelter and medicine to Fan during the Great Miasma at a countrywide level. So, for near on a millenia now, Findou still regards Alber as saviors.”

“But they’re dying out?”

The apothecary nodded. “They suffer a disease that has been killing them for the last two hundered years, and it has only been intensifying with each generation. Now they are split up and spread everywhere. Their hope was that by dissolving their communities, that they would slow their deaths. But the news I get here seems to indicate otherwise.”

To me it sounded like the Alber were suffering from a bottleneck. I dragged in a deep breath and sighed. That was not something I could do anything about other than be disappointed in losing a culture to time. “What do I need to do for the collar?”

“I would go ask the blacksmith next door. He used to work in the next village up the mountain. His daughter married into our village, so he moved down here to be closer to her.”

“Her daughter married into nobility?” I asked.

“The one and only mayor. I’m not so sure if his daughter married up with that woman. Anyway, go talk to him. He can outfit your companions to get you through Findou.”

“And once we’re on the other side of Findou? What then? Does the slaving guild work just inside Findou borders?” I pressed.

“No. They have auxilary units in Naaia, Morse, and the Holy Lands, but they obey the rules of those lands when operating there, so it may be wise to continue the charade until you find your way to Kawl.”

“Kawl protects Rugoshi freedoms then?”

“Rugoshi, yes. Karamide, no. Are you taking your Karamide companion to Morse?”

“He hasn’t mentioned going there?” I sat forward to watch him knock his measured out mound of powder into a brown glass bottle. “What is that for?”

“Its laplace deterrent. It looks like trap powder to them, and kills them when they eat it.” The apothecary corked the bottle.

“Useful.”

“We find it so in our village. I would suggest taking your Karamide to Morse, if your idea is to take your Rugoshi home. Kawl is no good to Karamide in the same way Findou isn’t good to either.”

I dragged my hands from beneath my cloak and pressed against my throbbing head. “And there’s no way to just ‘buy’ freedom for them from all of this…milarky?” I asked.

“I don’t know this ‘milarky’, but no, you can’t buy it as far as I know.”

“Am I safe?”

“As Yujin, and a noble, yes, for the most part, and for now. Because of the military actions of Herenhuis, most countries have gotten rid of their Yujin slaves in an attempt to appease Herenhuis, rather than make an enemy and end up as a vassal state.”

“Becoming a vassal state isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?” I ventured.

He shook his head. “No. It’s not. Taxes are higher. Indentured servitude is hard to work your way out of. Findou’s guild becomes more of a problem for the common people.”

“Why does Findou have so much sway?” I found myself soothing my agitation by pulling my hair off my neck and up into a pony tail. I dropped my hands, trying to keep the fidget at bay.

“Paralytic venom.” The apothecary told me what I already knew.

“But even at that, why do they do it? Don’t they have industry or agriculture or something else to supply them with money? Are they resource deprived?”

“I think so. They export embroidery and woven textiles, but they get their fibers from outside. A lot of their slave labor is actually for those textiles. All of Herenhuis’s textiles come from Findou.”

“But people don’t travel?”The apothecary raised an eyebrow at that.

“Merchant trains are long trade caravans that do travel. Most people don’t travel, but that doesn’t apply to certain types – mainly military and traders. And they have their work around for the seasons. It’s just not something the rest of us regular People do.” The apothecary peaked under his cloth to check on the bowl of pinkish purple sludge. Nodding at whatever he saw, he laid the cloth back down. He looked around the shop, shrugged, and slid down to the seat across from me.

“You said, when I first met you, that this was the last free village before the mountains. What did you mean by that, if Herenhuis uses slaves?”

“We’re too poor here to have any financial need for slaves, and the Findou guild ignores us because they probably already know who lives here. I’m one of three other People who aren’t Yujin. There’s no good use for the guild to come take us. We can’t just disappear without raising suspicion. Your traveling companions, though? They are easy targets. I wouldn’t let them leave that inn without some kind of protection before you go up those mountains.”

I sighed at the suggestion. “I hate it. I don’t like it. I don’t want to do it. But seems I need to go talk to a blacksmith.”

“If I was you, I would.”

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