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[columns][center][item=ragepuff down][/center][nextcol][color=transparent]..[/color][nextcol][color=#FA912B][font=garamond][size=7][size=4][b]kyuchan: a history[/b][/size][/size][/font][/color]
[size=2]written by [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/art/2908529]Barrdwing[/url]
[color=#9494A9]6,947 words[/color][/size][/columns]
[color=#652127]“There, now.” Telchor sat back on his haunches. “Put your back into it, that’s the way.”
Kyuchan gripped the pestle in both arms, wings wide and tail braced. The heavy stone bowl—more like a cauldron to him—threw back echoes of cracking and crunching that reminded him of his little cousins tucking into a heap of clams. A fine yellow dust began to rise, making him glad of the rag tied over his face.
“Flowers of sulphur,” Telchor intoned over his head, “are useful in many ailments of hide, feather, and scale. They also combat certain diseases of plants, and can be used against parasites of dragon, animal, and plant. The production process is laborious, but well worth the trouble.”
Kyuchan nodded and schooled himself against waving his wings. There’d be dust enough for him to clean up later, without him fanning more out of the mortar. At least Telchor’s laboratory equipment was not impossibly outsized. If the apothecary had been an Imperial—or worse yet, a Fae!—Kyuchan doubted he’d be able to handle his tools of the trade.
The apothecary shop held a peculiar status in town. Some dragons disdained it for the medicines it produced—“Not proper for Plague!”—but visited regularly all the same to purchase chemicals useful to their own trades. Some claimed its proprietor used foreign magic—Light magic—which couldn’t be wielded by Plague dragons.
Whether true or not, the rumor gave the shop a semi-mystical reputation. Years ago, Kyuchan had been among the hatchlings daring one another to slip up and place a hand firmly on the doorpost. About the only thing everyone seemed to agree on was that having a local apothecary was convenient. It provided many useful items for the community and brought in trade.
The fact that Telchor was a rather large Guardian might also have played a role. Plague dragons respected strength, after all.
Kyuchan’s childhood fascination with the apothecary shop remained with him. Despite his parents’ efforts to interest him in the family shellfishery, one day he had humbly stepped through the shop’s gaping doorway to ask Telchor if he might consider an assistant. After an unnerving period of yellow-eyed silence, the apothecary had set him to sweeping. Afterwards, there had been shelves that needed dusting. He had trotted down to the community oven and brought back Telchor’s lunch, which the Guardian ate while directing a re-organization of the creaking bookcase in the work area. After that, there were large baskets of rocks to sort, metal tools to polish, and a staggering variety of glassware to tidy up. Telchor had seemed mildly surprised when Kyuchan turned up again the next day, and promptly set him to work cleaning out the chimney.
Cleaning and organizing was hardly what Kyuchan had hoped for, but an assistant could hardly demand an education. So he made the most of the opportunity to watch and learn, whatever and whenever he could, while trying not to get in the big dragon’s way.
Today, though, today was odd. Kyuchan wasn’t sure why he’d been given a task in actual preparation of a product, when Telchor normally handled these things himself.
At last Telchor took pity on him and waved him back. Kyuchan settled to the floor, panting as discreetly as possible behind his mask, and watched his master rock the pestle about, testing the evenness of the grind.
“Nicely done,” the Guardian said at last. “Now, I will have you show me the spells for sublimation and deposition, and then we will proceed.”
Kyuchan’s feathers slicked flat in shock. “But … but I don’t know any spells,” he stuttered.
“Don’t you?” Telchor blinked at him mildly. “Well, show me where they are found, then.”
[i]That [/i]he could do, having helped Telchor index his entire collection of written materials just yesterday; a dusty, ticklish process of handing battered books and fragile scrolls to his increasingly grumpy master. When Telchor wanted an item, he wanted it now, and in self-defense Kyuchan had paid close attention to the subject material of each reference so that he could produce it faster the next time. Trembling a little with nerves, he went and fetched [i]Darkwild’s Compendium [/i]and began paging through the index.
That evening, aching but content, Kyuchan shook out his wings and grimaced at the waft of yellowish dust. A flick of the tongue confirmed that no, he would not be welcome at the public baths just now.
Snorting a little, he bounded into the air, beating swiftly downwind. The Sea wasn’t that far away. And he knew of a little cove, shallow and warm at one end, with a shelf of broken rock at the other absolutely thick with mussels. Supper and a bath in one, with little chance of offending anybody else’s nose.
And since Telchor had casually addressed him as “apprentice” after the day’s work, he supposed he might as well get used to smelling funny. Kyuchan turned an exuberant loop in the air and burst into humming song. Humble assistant no more; apprentice to the respected Telchor![/color]
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[color=#652127]In the months that followed, an entire world opened up before Kyuchan and wrapped him in wonder. Unlike some masters, Telchor seemed delighted to share his knowledge. So many things had their uses! Plants, minerals, sea creatures, insects, the venom of certain animals native to Plague, even seashells and certain types of mud revealed secrets Kyuchan had never dreamed of. He found himself eyeing the world around him with new respect.
The world of botany alone nearly overwhelmed him, and indeed this field took up the majority of his early instruction. Telchor sent him far and wide collecting raw materials and on more than one occasion Kyuchan found himself grubbing up plants he would once have considered weeds, or nosing along rock faces in search of one particular lichen. Telchor proved an exacting fellow when it came to what he wanted; Kyuchan soon learned that his sense of smell was his greatest ally in discerning the desired item from a dozen lookalikes.
At the beginning of his forays, Telchor made a point of accompanying him on every trip into the wilds around the town. The wily old Guardian would first show Kyuchan what he wanted, and guide him in his initial selections. Then, with the deadpan expression easily achieved by a dragon with so little facial movement, he would quietly begin driving Kyuchan insane.
“Oh, look,” Telchor would say, pointing to a stand of thistle. “Harvest me some of that fogflower.” And when Kyuchan presented him with a slingful of the nasty, spiky, stinging stalks: “Humph. That’s not fogflower.”
At first, Kyuchan assumed he had made a mistake. Telchor never challenged him on the same thing twice, which Kyuchan took as a subtle reprimand. In his evenings he would pore over the texts, paying particular attention to how to tell similar plants apart. The more he studied, the more confident he became in his ability to identify, and the Coatl began to wonder, a little wildly, if his mentor was losing his grip. Finally, one day, when Telchor referred to a patch of nodding stalks as quinoa, Kyuchan stopped and faced him squarely.
“Master Telchor, that’s not quinoa.”
Telchor went very still, golden eyes narrowing. “Are you telling me I’m wrong, apprentice?”
Kyuchan felt his ear-tufts flatten and raised them with an effort. “No, master. I believe you are testing me.”
“Indeed.” Telchor rolled the word on his tongue, cheek frills flaring irritably. “In that case, tell me why you are so sure.”
Kyuchan knew his wings were trembling, but he turned to the plant. “Quinoa’s leaves are hairy, lobed, and broad, often with a powdery appearance. This plant is not flowering, but there are buds developing both at the top of the stalks and at the leaf axils, also consistent with quinoa. However ….”
Oh, his tail was twitching and he couldn’t stop it. Kyuchan rushed on. “Master, these leaves are smooth. There is no powder. While lobed, they are narrower than quinoa. This is grassland grain.”
Telchor loomed over him for a full dozen of Kyuchan’s thundering heartbeats. Then the angle of his cheek frills shifted into a smile. “Very good!”
Kyuchan’s knees wobbled.
“I would, however, like some for my supper,” Telchor went on. “Kindly harvest a bundle, but no more than a quarter of the patch, mind. We want this [i]grassland grain [/i]to reseed successfully.”
After that, Telchor’s lessons began expanding into new areas. Kyuchan found geology far easier to handle, in part because pure deposits of any given mineral were rare and there were only so many types of stone within a ranging distance of town. Anything that wasn’t available locally was ordered from mining clans.
“And while the miners won’t try to pull anything on me, lad, someone might someday try to fool you.” Telchor shook his head. “It took me a while to teach them, you know. Always check the entire shipment.” With a snort, Telchor resumed his lesson on identifying the various ores used in his trade, and judging good quality from poor. Kyuchan scribbled notes frantically with a vivid blue quill from his last molting. He wore down quills so quickly these days that he’d begun saving every feather of remotely appropriate size.
With minerals, some purification was usually necessary as a matter of course. Kyuchan had a quick mind for the spells involved in these processes, a trait that clearly pleased Telchor. In the echoing coziness of the lab, while early winter storms pounded futilely against the walls, the Guardian instructed and drilled him in techniques of processing and separating the useful from the dross. Kyuchan learned that Telchor kept several different mortars of varying sizes and materials, each assigned to a certain texture and in some cases a specific type of stone. (“We must be wary of chemical interactions, lad.”)
He learned methods of fractionation, precipitation, and recrystallization. Sublimation and deposition, it transpired, were actually rather advanced techniques. Kyuchan deduced that his early lesson in the production of flowers of sulphur had been in the nature of a test, to see how he responded to being tossed in over his head. Well, he’d already decided that it was no wonder that the stories about town never mentioned Telchor ever having had an apprentice before.
When Telchor was satisfied with his understanding of minerals, he moved swiftly on to plants and other organic materials. Naturally there was an entirely different set of mortars for these; Kyuchan estimated that he spent more time in washing out mortars than anything else.
Through distillation, decoction, shredding, boiling, freezing, drying, washing, brining, and in some cases mixing organic with inorganic, he learned how to convert the fruits of his collecting forays into their useful components. He was less pleased to discover that when a product called for a venom, he himself would have to go and capture the nasty creature, gently milk its venom, and return the infuriated animal to its home unharmed. He became very good at spells of brief immobilization, and also at hasty getaways. Some of his victims held grudges for a considerable distance, and were surprisingly quick.
Finally came compounding, and the manufacture of the many products Telchor provided the town and its neighbors. Kyuchan memorized recipes until he woke up murmuring lists of ingredients and instructions. He learned how to make salves, tinctures, concoctions, draughts, powders, and steams. He also spent some time studying the art of flavoring. As Telchor dryly pointed out, a draught made from plants might be received very differently by an herbivore, a carnivore, or a fussy hatchling. While the old Guardian scoffed at the notion of making everything taste [i]pleasant[/i]—“A foul taste makes them think it’s strong, lad!”—his decades of experience had helped him find that narrow line between acceptable and unacceptable.
Of course, flavoring wasn’t an issue for the products used in industry. Rather, Telchor had instituted a very firm practice of making sure these would not end up being mistaken for medicines. He had an elaborate labeling system and an entirely different series of containers. For particularly hazardous products, opening the container required a spell keyed only to the buyer. “Drives the lazier craftmasters crazy,” he grunted to Kyuchan, “having to come down here their own selves, or send their best workers. But I will not have dangerous materials accessible to anyone who comes along, and neither will you.”
Telchor looked so fierce at that moment that Kyuchan sat down abruptly and only just stopped himself from going entirely flat.[/color]
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[color=#652127]“Yes, yes, I understand all that. I told you, it’ll be ready in two days.”
Kyuchan didn’t take his eyes off the simmering pot in front of him, but he cocked a set of cochleae. That volume of voice didn’t bode well.
“No, I don’t keep that chemical in stock. Hazardous items are mix on demand only.” Telchor’s tone was approaching irascible. Kyuchan couldn’t make out who his master was speaking to, but he winced to hear the other’s voice rise in a hectoring manner. Telchor cut him off mid-word, much louder and out of patience.
“You can’t hurry chemical reactions, you fool! Come back in two days and I will have your order ready. Now. Shoo.” A loud thump, which Kyuchan recognized as Telchor starting to lash his tail. He shook his head, hoping that the offending dragon left quickly.
There! The solution was just beginning to bubble and change color. Kyuchan whisked the pot off of the flame and under the funnel. He was sifting the powder mixture in, stirring quickly and evenly, when the crisp clatter of abalone shells above the doorframe warned him that Telchor had entered the workroom. So he [i]didn’t [/i]jump at the Guardian’s heavy footfall just behind him. His master said nothing, stomping back into the storeroom. After a moment came the grumble of heavy crates against the wooden floor, accompanied by aggravated muttering too indistinct to make out. Kyuchan didn’t bother trying. Better to let Telchor cool down.
He was grateful that Telchor had remembered to knock his horns against the string of shells. They were an accommodation his master had made, grumbling, after a string of intermittent but usually spectacular incidents involving Telchor storming through the door when Kyuchan was absorbed in some delicate process. Incidents involving fire or magic had tended to be the most hazardous, but being startled while handling a rare or expensive ingredient was nearly as bad. Since the installation of the warning system, the shop almost never stank of scorched feathers anymore, holes had stopped appearing in the roof, and Kyuchan had nearly finished sanding the acid pitting off of the table and floorboards.
They never had found all of the scorpions.
The pot of finished mixture was cooling in its water bath by the time Telchor emerged from the storeroom with a laden yoke over his shoulders. Snorting softly, he shrugged it to the floor and began unloading gurgling jugs.
“Razorfang wants six gallons of etching solution and an equal amount of solvent,” he announced.
Kyuchan sat back on his haunches. “That’s rather a lot,” he said diffidently.
A louder snort and a snap of cheek frills told him he’d identified the point of contention. “That idiot,” Telchor grumbled, but without his earlier heat. “I’ve told him a hundred times not to wait until the dregs of the last jar, but he never listens. Well, lad, we are not rushing this process. We will follow all the protocols. That’s what keeps us safe.”
“Yes, Master.” Kyuchan couldn’t think of a single instance where Telchor had allowed himself to be rushed, but that was beside the point. The etching solution Razorfang used was a rather nasty acid with a complicated production process. The solvent itself was just tedious, involving mostly a lot of distillation time, but with a fire needing constant monitoring and tending. As he helped Telchor begin constructing the apparatus for the first stage of the acid, Kyuchan wondered if his master could have finished such a large order by himself in only two days.[/color]
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[color=#652127]Two days later, during which he and Telchor had done little else, the etching solution order was complete. Telchor sighed as he wired the stopper down onto the last bottle and cast the sealing spell keyed to Razorfang.
“Good work, lad,” he said, and held out a hand. Kyuchan inked the last line on the warning label and waved it in the air briefly before handing it over. He was so tired that he didn’t notice Telchor had paused.
“Lad.” Censure. Kyuchan looked up, startled, to see Telchor frowning down at him. “Looks like you were careless at some point.” A great clawed finger reached out and lightly brushed the fine feathering on his forearm. Kyuchan stared at the little patch of bleached feathers.
“I—I’m sorry, Master Telchor,” he stammered. How had that happened? He’d been wearing the gauntlets throughout, he was sure of it.
Telchor hesitated, then lifted his chin slightly in dismissal. “Go and wash your arms in the soda salts. Then to the baths with you. I don’t smell anything on you, but we can’t be too careful.”
Even after a good night’s sleep, Kyuchan still could not recall a time when his hands and arms hadn’t been covered during the manufacture of the acid. He inspected himself all over, even visiting the tailor on the pretext of copying one of his old tunics. While she grumbled to herself in the fabric room, he made use of her mirrors to check his head and a few other hard-to-view spots.
But there were no other marks. The bleached spot didn’t itch. He did note that unlike the other times he’d splashed himself with something noxious, the feathers didn’t fall out or fray into stubs over the next few days. When nothing more happened at the site, Kyuchan finally ascribed it to an accidental exposure to something in the workroom, and schooled himself to greater caution. He sewed himself a pair of protective sleeves, snugly fitted over his forearms and extending over the backs and palms of his hands. Telchor nodded approvingly when he saw them.
“Good thought, lad. I’ve taught you to use the gauntlets for the really dangerous stuff, but I hadn’t considered that your feathers might be more sensitive than my scales.” He clenched a massive fist, rotating it so that the armor’s curves gleamed. “If you’ll lend me those, I’ll run them down to Adara and have a couple sets made up for you in elkhide for everyday use. I’ll cover the cost.” He frowned. “I should have thought of such a thing sooner.”
Kyuchan didn’t think Telchor should blame himself, but the generous gesture touched him. The new sleeves were very well-made, with panels of rough suede on the palms to aid him in gripping and wide cuffs that rested comfortably under his ruff. They more resembled fingerless gloves than the crude things he had made, and the soft elkhide was kind to his feathers. Kyuchan wore them constantly. They came quite welcome during winter. As spring wore on towards summer, they got a little warm, but Kyuchan was firm with himself: safety first.
Which made the discovery of a second bleached spot utterly baffling. It was a little larger, about coin-sized, and on the back of his forearm. Kyuchan noticed it by accident while preening his ear tufts.
“I don’t understand it, Master,” he said the next day. “Have we been working with anything that has a cumulative effect like this?”
Telchor stared down at the little white splotch. “We use a lot of hazardous materials, but I can’t think of any chronic exposures that would cause bleaching in just one or two areas. And I think we can rule out physical contact, since you’re wearing your gear faithfully.” The big Guardian lowered his head to sniff deeply at the spot. “No,” he said, eyes half-closed, “no smell of blood, and no taint either. Very odd. When’s your next molt, lad?”
“Autumn, Master. Next month, most likely.”
Telchor raised his head and blinked, cheek frills pinching back a bit in a frown. “Well, unless things get worse between now and then, let us see what your new feathers look like. Perhaps they’ll molt in nice and dark again, and we can put the matter behind us.”[/color]
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[color=#652127]The moons turned through their cycles, stately and deaf to Kyuchan’s inner turmoil. Three more pale patches appeared on his other forearm, but he kept them covered. He found reasons to visit Adara the tailor, and chatted with her while watching her work. At home, he took needle and thread to the clumsy sleeves he had made and reworked them, improving the fit and adding a diagonal stripe of bright blue to match his wings. They covered his arms whenever he was outside Telchor’s shop, earning a few odd looks but little else other than a sniffy remark (from Razorclaw, naturally) about grown dragons acting their age.
At last the molt arrived, with its usual explosion of dropping feathers and general feeling of exhaustion. As usual, Telchor ordered him out of the shop at once—“Can’t have those feathers getting into everything, lad!”—but also declared Kyuchan to have earned himself a paid vacation, which put the lie to his master’s complaint.
Kyuchan spent the next few weeks appropriately cloistered in his home, as would any respectable dragon undergoing molt, with groceries delivered and the energetic young Mirror who lived next door dropping by daily to ask if there were any errands he might want run for a coin. Despite the prickly, panging misery of pinfeathers, Kyuchan prepared himself good meals and got plenty of sleep. Molting was unpleasant, but there was no cause to be uncivilized about it.
It was hard, though, not to stare at the pale tips of his pinfeathers and worry. He even resorted to using a molting calendar, something he hadn’t done since childhood, marking off the days during which the young feathers must be left entirely alone to prevent damage.
As the days crept past and the waxy sheaths on the pinfeathers began to dry, the impulse to preen rose from a vague restlessness to a tickling, tingling sensation and Kyuchan strove to lose himself in whatever distraction he could find. He meditated. He took carefully-metered sunning sessions and cool baths. He sent the young Mirror around to borrow disused scrolls and texts from Telchor’s hoard—his master collected every fragment of scientific writing he could find--and pored over the variously awful handwriting for hours.
When the molting calendar was nearly complete, the sheath-ends splintered away from the tips of his flight feathers, revealing the rich blues and darker barring he had known all his life. Kyuchan preened them gratefully. The next day he was able to begin preening his largest body feathers and found them their proper glossy charcoal gray. But the short feathers on his limbs always matured last. Kyuchan swept up pinfeather chaff several times a day, storing it beside his molted feathers to be traded to the gardening clans later, and tried not to stare at his arms.
At last the sheaths of the small body feathers splintered, all at once as usual; Kyuchan woke up before dawn with chaff tickling his nose and a powerful urge to preen. Curled up in the dark he did so, carefully brushing the chaff to the floor. Sunrise found him in an almost meditative state, claws teasing the last bits of chaff from the tiny feathers on the backs of his hands. When he became aware of the light glowing against his eyelids, he drew a deep breath, released it, and opened his eyes.
White splotches covered most of his forearms. As he turned them over, he discovered more white, tongues of it creeping hungrily past his elbows. They writhed, reaching up towards his thudding heart even as the room flickered and went dark.[/color]
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[color=#652127]“Good morning!”
Kyuchan jolted awake, wings already half-spread. Full daylight streamed into his sleeping room; a large moving shadow jerked his attention to the window. Sunlight glowed through a set of wide-pricked crests above four bright red eyes, while wings fanned awkwardly behind. It took Kyuchan a few thundering heartbeats to recognize the young Mirror from next door, who gripped the windowsill with both hands and grinned bashfully at him.
“Sorry for waking you up!” Eschar’s shoulders dropped as his grip slipped; a foot thudded against the wall and he hitched himself determinedly back up, speaking rapidly. “Mother’s sister’s son’s kids are coming over and my mom says I gotta help hunt, so I can’t get stuff for you today. That be okay?”
“Oh … yes, yes, that’s fine.” Kyuchan struggled upright.
“Great! Thanks for not being mad. Hey, your new accent is super! Totally [i]purulent[/i]! Wow!” With a loud scratching and scrambling of claws Eschar flailed himself sidewise, catching the windowsill with a set of hind claws. “Gotta go, bye!” he yelled, kicking off into a clumsy flapping climb.
Kyuchan glanced at his arms again. Contrary to terrifying memory, the white blotches remained perfectly still. It must have been a combination of the early light and … fainting. Kyuchan winced. Of all the ridiculous responses! A Plague dragon fought illness, he didn’t keel over in front of it ….
Suddenly restless, Kyuchan went and fetched the broom and dustpan. When every last fragment of feather chaff had been ruthlessly hunted down and imprisoned in the chaff-can, he moved on to dusting and airing of first the sleeping chamber, and then his entire dwelling. So much dust and clutter tended to build up during a molt; a body never felt like dealing with it at the time, and even when he tried to be conscientious there was still much to do ….
The setting sun lazed low in the sky, sending bars of orange light through the large windows in the main room. Kyuchan sat listlessly in the middle of his meditation rug, tracing one of the geometric patterns with a knuckle. He’d run out of cleaning and tidying, and now faced the thoughts that had patiently waited in the back of his mind all day.
Every Coatl knew that paling plumage meant illness. It had been nice to think that he’d just been careless somehow, and gotten chemicals on his feathers. He still didn’t feel sick. But the evidence was all over his arms now: he was unwell.
He supposed he was fortunate to have been born in Plague, where disease was openly acknowledged as a part of life and discussed in detail. But he’d never heard of this one, and apparently neither had Telchor for all his greater years and experience. Which meant—Kyuchan shifted unhappily—they had no map.
Certainly he might be experiencing some bizarre new parasite, a nutrient malabsorption, or a sensitivity to something in his environment. Certainly his line of work exposed him to all sorts of unusual things. But without knowing whether he harbored something that could infect others, how should he conduct his affairs? Just because Plague dragons viewed contagion as a new and interesting challenge, it did not follow that [i]all [/i]diseases were a desirable experience.
Two days later, his arms hidden, he approached Telchor with his thoughts. The big Guardian all but dragged him into in the privacy of the workroom and peeled his sleeves off. He inspected the lesions closely for some time, and finally sat back with a thoughtful look.
“It’s interesting, I’ll give you that. I take it nothing like this runs in your family?”
“No,” Kyuchan answered a little more sharply than he’d intended. He flicked his crests lower in apology. “They’re very proud of rarely showing illness after childhood. If they heard I’d caught something that was turning me [i]white[/i]!” He grimaced.
Telchor eyed him. “So, no mysteriously disowned cousins, or uncles no one will speak of? —All right, perhaps it isn’t hereditary.”
“I just can’t think where I picked it up!” Kyuchan realized he was scratching at one of the white patches, and took his hand away. “Most of my waking time is spent here, and you’re not turning white. And there’s been no outbreak in the community, or it’d be all over the gossip.”
“I’ve learned a thing or two about medicine in my time, lad, and I’ve never heard of a contagious skin disease with no skin changes. Don’t worry about me. There aren’t many diseases that affect more than one race of dragonkind, and I doubt we’re dealing with the next blisterscale rot or fireblight fever.”
Kyuchan paused in pulling his sleeves back on. “But if it’s something new ….”
Telchor gave a rolling snort. “Yes, of course; Plaguebringer is remarkably innovative. We cannot know what to expect, not yet. Therefore, I’ll reach out to some dragons I know and see if anyone else has heard of white spots on a Coatl. In the meantime I suggest you keep to the workroom and avoid the customers.”
Kyuchan blinked. “I—I’m to continue working for you?” he stammered. He’d been certain Telchor would dismiss him.
“Lightweaver’s whiskers!” Telchor reared back a little. “Of course you’ll continue working! And you’ll tell me the instant you feel the least little pain or ill, and you’ll inspect your spots twice daily and report to me any changes. But so long as you’re not feeling sick—and I surely think you’d be feeling it by now!—then I see no reason to send you home again with nothing to do but worry.”
His tone gentled. “You’re a fine apprentice and a good lad. It’s probably wise to keep you away from the feather-bearing community, considering the symptoms. But cast you off? No, no; we’ve far too much work to be done.”[/color]
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[color=#652127]Telchor was as good as his word. Over the ensuing frenetic stretch of days Kyuchan wondered—just a bit—if the enormous amount of work represented a backlog due to his recent absence, an unfortunate twist of simultaneity, or Telchor’s determination that his apprentice would have no time to mope. Possibly a combination of all three, he decided during a rare breather.
But the situation was not without its unexpected benefits. For one, the long hot hours spent stirring pots over a fire and tending the drying oven seemed to soothe that nagging itch that came and went on his arms. For another, his labors left him too tired to lie awake at night worrying.
He took a quiet pride in knowing that Telchor was now entrusting him with some of the most difficult and complicated processes. He’d done them before, of course, but always under his master’s supervision. Now, however, Telchor only poked his nose into the work area once in a while.
For his own part, Telchor was writing letters, many of them. Since the Guardian tended to carry out all of his business in written form, pooh-poohing the magic mirrors that had become popular two full generations ago (“Ridiculous frippery!”), it was hardly unusual for him to produce prodigious amounts of mail from time to time. Only Kyuchan knew of the long list Telchor was working his way through, or overheard the big Guardian stamping and grumbling as he struggled to track down the whereabouts of certain old acquaintances.
But it was the eternal grinding of the rumor mill which brought to their ears the beginnings of an answer. Kyuchan was wrapping and boxing an order for the village dyer, a frequent customer. Elapsi lounged at his ease, his bulk taking up most of the front of the shop. As usual, he was in possession of gossip he wished to share and Kyuchan, in the interests of good customer service, was obliged to listen to. After various lesser topics had been disposed of, Elapsi shifted his weight, the spikes on his neck clashing, and leaned a little closer, lowering his voice.
“Did you hear the news about Milltown?”
“Milltown?” Kyuchan repeated, surprised to hear Elapsi talking about anything outside their own village.
Elapsi huffled through his long nose in a satisfied manner. “They’d been ordering more of my brights than usual, so I knew something was up. There’s a new disease there. Turns dragons white!”
Kyuchan’s claws froze in the middle of tying the last knot. He forced calm into his voice. “Really? What else?”
“Oh, the usual.” Elapsi waved a hand, keeping his sweeping thumb-claw tucked safely against his forearm. “Aches, pains, inappetence, cough, fever, feather loss, fatigue … about what you’d expect for a new disease still trying out its wings. The town’s self-quarantined while they wait this phase out. I take it you don’t have family there, then?”
“No, not in Milltown.” Although it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption, Kyuchan thought. Milltown was one of the largest Coatl communities in the area.
“Just as well.” Elapsi shrugged and got to his feet in a clatter of spikes. Kyuchan held up the carrying loop of the box for the Ridgeback to slip his nasal horn through. “It doesn’t sound like they’ll be allowing visitors for a while to come.”
Kyuchan waited long enough for the percussion of Elapsi’s progress to fade. Then he whisked the cover off the attention bell and scurried for Telchor’s office.[/color]
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[color=#652127]With Elapsi’s tale providing a lead, additional information at last began to trickle into the net of correspondence Telchor had woven. Putting the pieces together took time, with Telchor mewed up in his office cursing fluently over speculation and observer bias. But the morning came when Kyuchan arrived at the shop to discover a sign outside stating closure for inventory purposes, and Telchor gesturing impatiently at him from a gap in the sliding panels of the door. The door nearly nipped the tip of his tail as he hurried inside, so quickly did Telchor shut and lock it.
“My office, lad.”
Kyuchan followed his master, heart thudding. That sanctum offered the most privacy, where they would not be overheard. It warned him that whatever news Telchor bore, it wasn’t good.
Telchor waved him to his usual seat and settled next to his desk, which had been cleared of the clutter that had occupied it for the past month. In its place stood a small neat stack of paper. Telchor handed him the top sheet and leaned back with a tired sigh. A little puzzled, Kyuchan dropped his eyes to the paper and found, lettered in his master’s neat handwriting, a single lengthy paragraph.
“[i]New virus: Nosos. Species affected: Coatl only. Incubation period: Unknown. Transmission method: Not confirmed. Horizontal transmission suspected to occur through a variety of exposure means. Vertical transmission confirmed; hatchlings affected from birth. Incubation period for horizontal transmission: Unknown. Symptoms: Progressive pigmentation loss is the initial and definitive sign. Successive symptoms highly variable ….[/i]”
The listed symptoms took up the remainder of the page. Or at least, Kyuchan thought this was so. His hands were shaking too hard for him to read the last few sentences.
“M-master,” he quavered. “What do I do?”
Telchor jerked up off his elbow, startling him into looking up. The big Guardian held out a drinking bowl from which a curl of steam waved lazily. Kyuchan took the bowl in both hands, tested its contents automatically with his tongue, recognized the reviving brew Telchor used after hard physical labor.
“Drink that down, now,” his master ordered. And waited, implacable, until Kyuchan raised the bowl to his mouth and began gulping the contents. As the warmth of the brew rolled down his throat and spread out in his stomach, he felt his hands steady. When he lowered the bowl again, Telchor was perusing the sheet himself, frowning.
“This—” he waved the page, “—represents what facts are known at this point. That chatterbox Elapsi was right about one thing: it’s a very new disease. And it’s damned annoying that it just happens to hit your people in a culturally sensitive spot!” He waved the page again. “Even normally sensible Plague dragons have been trying to conceal their color loss and pretending nothing was wrong. So it’s spread rather quickly.”
Unconsciously, Kyuchan’s hands went to his sleeves. Telchor, digging through the stack of papers, appeared not to notice.
“But despite that foolishness, the phytocat is well and truly out of the bag now. I’ve a letter here from a colleague back home who’s been studying this virus. His research shows that Coatls are the only vulnerable species, and,” keen yellow eyes flashed, “genetics appear to play a major role. Which means that none of this is your fault, lad.”
Kyuchan swallowed. “But it is contagious between Coatls.”
Telchor nodded slowly. “Within Plague, yes.”
“[i]Within [/i]Plague?”
“That’s the oddest thing about it. Within Plague, this virus can spread between individuals. But the only cases [i]outside [/i]Plague are the hatchlings born with it. It’s as if Plaguebringer put a limitation on it to prevent a pandemic from occurring.”
Kyuchan shrugged, thinking hard. His family had never been fiercely religious, but he’d studied his catechism with the rest of his agemates. “’She abides by the Covenant of the Eleven, that the tasks she sets her children not lap over onto the children of the other gods,’” he recited. “’She tests us each according to our flaws, but seeks not to expunge Her Own.’” He looked up at Telchor’s bright interested gaze, and coughed in embarrassment.
“Tests you according to your flaws, hmm?” The Guardian tapped two claws meditatively on his desk. “Vanity as a flaw, perhaps?”
“It’s not vanity!” Kyuchan protested. “Fear of paling is … I don’t know … think how you would feel if you suddenly wore a sign proclaiming your unfitness!”
Telchor snorted. “If I woke up one morning like that, the first thing I’d do is to find the dastard responsible. And then I’d set out to prove my fitness, every day for the rest of my life.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Lad, I don’t understand why Plague dragons would try to hide their illness when they damn well know better. But that’s neither here nor there. You asked what I thought you should do. Well, the answer is obvious. You must leave Plague.”
“I—what?”
“Leave Plague! The virus isn’t contagious outside Plaguebringer’s domain. If you stay here, you’ll constantly be worrying about whether you might transmit it to somebody else—your family, perhaps? If you leave, you’re protecting them.”
“But ….” Kyuchan felt his crests collapse flat against his neck. He lowered his head, struggling not to weep.
“Lad.” Telchor’s tone turned gentle. “You’ve learned everything I can teach you. I’d been considering keeping you on anyway out of pure selfishness, but truth is, you’re ready to leave this nest.”
“I don’t want to go,” Kyuchan quavered, staring at the floor.
Telchor coughed uncomfortably. “I don’t want that either,” he admitted. “But we must be sensible about it.”
The cruelty of his situation cut deeply, and not even Telchor’s profound compliment could blunt it. It almost made it worse, Kyuchan thought drearily. He [i]liked [/i]Telchor. Over the past years he’d come to consider his sometimes-irascible master as the finest dragon he knew. He would have welcomed remaining at the shop.
But Telchor was right. He couldn’t stay in Plague. Just the thought of accidentally spreading this to others, even strangers, made his hackles tingle. It would be utterly irresponsible.
“All right,” he managed.
A week later, his spirits only slightly less in turmoil, he stopped by the shop to say goodbye.
“A caravan, eh?” Telchor looked interested. “Anyone I know?”
Kyuchan smiled slightly. Of course Telchor would know; he had connections with every trader that came and went. “Master Fellmoon.”
“Excellent choice! Nobody will bother one of his.” Telchor looked satisfied, then curious. “Where after that?” he asked casually.
“Nowhere. I’ve decided to settle in Light.” Kyuchan touched his sleeves, which he’d attached to a light jacket to hide the pale flecks now appearing on his chest. “If anyone is going to find a cure for this, it will be there.”
A broad smile spread across Telchor’s face and he thumped him—very carefully—on the shoulder. “Oh, you clever lad! Where’d you learn such flattery? Coatls and their silver tongues!” He reached underneath the counter and held out a small, well-wrapped parcel. “I suppose you’d better take this with you.”
Kyuchan took it. “What is it?”
Telchor harrumphed. “A scrying mirror. We’re both going to be too busy for letters. At least with this I might hear from you once a month.”
A single humming sob escaped as Kyuchan hastily engaged in settling the carrying strap of the parcel around his neck. When he had himself under control again he looked up. “Thank you, Master.”
“Huh. You’ll need this, too.” Telchor handed him a fat little book, which Kyuchan took in mild confusion. It looked much like—he riffled the pages—no, exactly like one of the notebooks he’d used at the beginning of his apprenticeship. This one was blank. He gave Telchor a quizzical look.
“On your travels,” Telchor said in that flat tone he remembered so well from those days, “I expect a daily entry regarding something you encounter. It can be plant, mineral, or animal, but you will note where it was found, its general health or quality, and list me its uses and the methods for obtaining its end products. Start to finish, including any safety measures. You’re getting away from me before I’ve had a chance to give you your Master’s testing, lad! This will just have to do, and I’m not happy about it.”
Kyuchan quietly tucked the book into his jacket’s pocket. “I understand, Master. I’ll send you my reports each night by mirror.”
Telchor grunted. “See that you do.”
Kyuchan smiled as he turned away.[/color]
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kyuchan: a history
written by Barrdwing
6,947 words
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“There, now.” Telchor sat back on his haunches. “Put your back into it, that’s the way.”
Kyuchan gripped the pestle in both arms, wings wide and tail braced. The heavy stone bowl—more like a cauldron to him—threw back echoes of cracking and crunching that reminded him of his little cousins tucking into a heap of clams. A fine yellow dust began to rise, making him glad of the rag tied over his face.
“Flowers of sulphur,” Telchor intoned over his head, “are useful in many ailments of hide, feather, and scale. They also combat certain diseases of plants, and can be used against parasites of dragon, animal, and plant. The production process is laborious, but well worth the trouble.”
Kyuchan nodded and schooled himself against waving his wings. There’d be dust enough for him to clean up later, without him fanning more out of the mortar. At least Telchor’s laboratory equipment was not impossibly outsized. If the apothecary had been an Imperial—or worse yet, a Fae!—Kyuchan doubted he’d be able to handle his tools of the trade.
The apothecary shop held a peculiar status in town. Some dragons disdained it for the medicines it produced—“Not proper for Plague!”—but visited regularly all the same to purchase chemicals useful to their own trades. Some claimed its proprietor used foreign magic—Light magic—which couldn’t be wielded by Plague dragons.
Whether true or not, the rumor gave the shop a semi-mystical reputation. Years ago, Kyuchan had been among the hatchlings daring one another to slip up and place a hand firmly on the doorpost. About the only thing everyone seemed to agree on was that having a local apothecary was convenient. It provided many useful items for the community and brought in trade.
The fact that Telchor was a rather large Guardian might also have played a role. Plague dragons respected strength, after all.
Kyuchan’s childhood fascination with the apothecary shop remained with him. Despite his parents’ efforts to interest him in the family shellfishery, one day he had humbly stepped through the shop’s gaping doorway to ask Telchor if he might consider an assistant. After an unnerving period of yellow-eyed silence, the apothecary had set him to sweeping. Afterwards, there had been shelves that needed dusting. He had trotted down to the community oven and brought back Telchor’s lunch, which the Guardian ate while directing a re-organization of the creaking bookcase in the work area. After that, there were large baskets of rocks to sort, metal tools to polish, and a staggering variety of glassware to tidy up. Telchor had seemed mildly surprised when Kyuchan turned up again the next day, and promptly set him to work cleaning out the chimney.
Cleaning and organizing was hardly what Kyuchan had hoped for, but an assistant could hardly demand an education. So he made the most of the opportunity to watch and learn, whatever and whenever he could, while trying not to get in the big dragon’s way.
Today, though, today was odd. Kyuchan wasn’t sure why he’d been given a task in actual preparation of a product, when Telchor normally handled these things himself.
At last Telchor took pity on him and waved him back. Kyuchan settled to the floor, panting as discreetly as possible behind his mask, and watched his master rock the pestle about, testing the evenness of the grind.
“Nicely done,” the Guardian said at last. “Now, I will have you show me the spells for sublimation and deposition, and then we will proceed.”
Kyuchan’s feathers slicked flat in shock. “But … but I don’t know any spells,” he stuttered.
“Don’t you?” Telchor blinked at him mildly. “Well, show me where they are found, then.”
That he could do, having helped Telchor index his entire collection of written materials just yesterday; a dusty, ticklish process of handing battered books and fragile scrolls to his increasingly grumpy master. When Telchor wanted an item, he wanted it now, and in self-defense Kyuchan had paid close attention to the subject material of each reference so that he could produce it faster the next time. Trembling a little with nerves, he went and fetched Darkwild’s Compendium and began paging through the index.
That evening, aching but content, Kyuchan shook out his wings and grimaced at the waft of yellowish dust. A flick of the tongue confirmed that no, he would not be welcome at the public baths just now.
Snorting a little, he bounded into the air, beating swiftly downwind. The Sea wasn’t that far away. And he knew of a little cove, shallow and warm at one end, with a shelf of broken rock at the other absolutely thick with mussels. Supper and a bath in one, with little chance of offending anybody else’s nose.
And since Telchor had casually addressed him as “apprentice” after the day’s work, he supposed he might as well get used to smelling funny. Kyuchan turned an exuberant loop in the air and burst into humming song. Humble assistant no more; apprentice to the respected Telchor!
In the months that followed, an entire world opened up before Kyuchan and wrapped him in wonder. Unlike some masters, Telchor seemed delighted to share his knowledge. So many things had their uses! Plants, minerals, sea creatures, insects, the venom of certain animals native to Plague, even seashells and certain types of mud revealed secrets Kyuchan had never dreamed of. He found himself eyeing the world around him with new respect.
The world of botany alone nearly overwhelmed him, and indeed this field took up the majority of his early instruction. Telchor sent him far and wide collecting raw materials and on more than one occasion Kyuchan found himself grubbing up plants he would once have considered weeds, or nosing along rock faces in search of one particular lichen. Telchor proved an exacting fellow when it came to what he wanted; Kyuchan soon learned that his sense of smell was his greatest ally in discerning the desired item from a dozen lookalikes.
At the beginning of his forays, Telchor made a point of accompanying him on every trip into the wilds around the town. The wily old Guardian would first show Kyuchan what he wanted, and guide him in his initial selections. Then, with the deadpan expression easily achieved by a dragon with so little facial movement, he would quietly begin driving Kyuchan insane.
“Oh, look,” Telchor would say, pointing to a stand of thistle. “Harvest me some of that fogflower.” And when Kyuchan presented him with a slingful of the nasty, spiky, stinging stalks: “Humph. That’s not fogflower.”
At first, Kyuchan assumed he had made a mistake. Telchor never challenged him on the same thing twice, which Kyuchan took as a subtle reprimand. In his evenings he would pore over the texts, paying particular attention to how to tell similar plants apart. The more he studied, the more confident he became in his ability to identify, and the Coatl began to wonder, a little wildly, if his mentor was losing his grip. Finally, one day, when Telchor referred to a patch of nodding stalks as quinoa, Kyuchan stopped and faced him squarely.
“Master Telchor, that’s not quinoa.”
Telchor went very still, golden eyes narrowing. “Are you telling me I’m wrong, apprentice?”
Kyuchan felt his ear-tufts flatten and raised them with an effort. “No, master. I believe you are testing me.”
“Indeed.” Telchor rolled the word on his tongue, cheek frills flaring irritably. “In that case, tell me why you are so sure.”
Kyuchan knew his wings were trembling, but he turned to the plant. “Quinoa’s leaves are hairy, lobed, and broad, often with a powdery appearance. This plant is not flowering, but there are buds developing both at the top of the stalks and at the leaf axils, also consistent with quinoa. However ….”
Oh, his tail was twitching and he couldn’t stop it. Kyuchan rushed on. “Master, these leaves are smooth. There is no powder. While lobed, they are narrower than quinoa. This is grassland grain.”
Telchor loomed over him for a full dozen of Kyuchan’s thundering heartbeats. Then the angle of his cheek frills shifted into a smile. “Very good!”
Kyuchan’s knees wobbled.
“I would, however, like some for my supper,” Telchor went on. “Kindly harvest a bundle, but no more than a quarter of the patch, mind. We want this grassland grain to reseed successfully.”
After that, Telchor’s lessons began expanding into new areas. Kyuchan found geology far easier to handle, in part because pure deposits of any given mineral were rare and there were only so many types of stone within a ranging distance of town. Anything that wasn’t available locally was ordered from mining clans.
“And while the miners won’t try to pull anything on me, lad, someone might someday try to fool you.” Telchor shook his head. “It took me a while to teach them, you know. Always check the entire shipment.” With a snort, Telchor resumed his lesson on identifying the various ores used in his trade, and judging good quality from poor. Kyuchan scribbled notes frantically with a vivid blue quill from his last molting. He wore down quills so quickly these days that he’d begun saving every feather of remotely appropriate size.
With minerals, some purification was usually necessary as a matter of course. Kyuchan had a quick mind for the spells involved in these processes, a trait that clearly pleased Telchor. In the echoing coziness of the lab, while early winter storms pounded futilely against the walls, the Guardian instructed and drilled him in techniques of processing and separating the useful from the dross. Kyuchan learned that Telchor kept several different mortars of varying sizes and materials, each assigned to a certain texture and in some cases a specific type of stone. (“We must be wary of chemical interactions, lad.”)
He learned methods of fractionation, precipitation, and recrystallization. Sublimation and deposition, it transpired, were actually rather advanced techniques. Kyuchan deduced that his early lesson in the production of flowers of sulphur had been in the nature of a test, to see how he responded to being tossed in over his head. Well, he’d already decided that it was no wonder that the stories about town never mentioned Telchor ever having had an apprentice before.
When Telchor was satisfied with his understanding of minerals, he moved swiftly on to plants and other organic materials. Naturally there was an entirely different set of mortars for these; Kyuchan estimated that he spent more time in washing out mortars than anything else.
Through distillation, decoction, shredding, boiling, freezing, drying, washing, brining, and in some cases mixing organic with inorganic, he learned how to convert the fruits of his collecting forays into their useful components. He was less pleased to discover that when a product called for a venom, he himself would have to go and capture the nasty creature, gently milk its venom, and return the infuriated animal to its home unharmed. He became very good at spells of brief immobilization, and also at hasty getaways. Some of his victims held grudges for a considerable distance, and were surprisingly quick.
Finally came compounding, and the manufacture of the many products Telchor provided the town and its neighbors. Kyuchan memorized recipes until he woke up murmuring lists of ingredients and instructions. He learned how to make salves, tinctures, concoctions, draughts, powders, and steams. He also spent some time studying the art of flavoring. As Telchor dryly pointed out, a draught made from plants might be received very differently by an herbivore, a carnivore, or a fussy hatchling. While the old Guardian scoffed at the notion of making everything taste pleasant—“A foul taste makes them think it’s strong, lad!”—his decades of experience had helped him find that narrow line between acceptable and unacceptable.
Of course, flavoring wasn’t an issue for the products used in industry. Rather, Telchor had instituted a very firm practice of making sure these would not end up being mistaken for medicines. He had an elaborate labeling system and an entirely different series of containers. For particularly hazardous products, opening the container required a spell keyed only to the buyer. “Drives the lazier craftmasters crazy,” he grunted to Kyuchan, “having to come down here their own selves, or send their best workers. But I will not have dangerous materials accessible to anyone who comes along, and neither will you.”
Telchor looked so fierce at that moment that Kyuchan sat down abruptly and only just stopped himself from going entirely flat.
“Yes, yes, I understand all that. I told you, it’ll be ready in two days.”
Kyuchan didn’t take his eyes off the simmering pot in front of him, but he cocked a set of cochleae. That volume of voice didn’t bode well.
“No, I don’t keep that chemical in stock. Hazardous items are mix on demand only.” Telchor’s tone was approaching irascible. Kyuchan couldn’t make out who his master was speaking to, but he winced to hear the other’s voice rise in a hectoring manner. Telchor cut him off mid-word, much louder and out of patience.
“You can’t hurry chemical reactions, you fool! Come back in two days and I will have your order ready. Now. Shoo.” A loud thump, which Kyuchan recognized as Telchor starting to lash his tail. He shook his head, hoping that the offending dragon left quickly.
There! The solution was just beginning to bubble and change color. Kyuchan whisked the pot off of the flame and under the funnel. He was sifting the powder mixture in, stirring quickly and evenly, when the crisp clatter of abalone shells above the doorframe warned him that Telchor had entered the workroom. So he didn’t jump at the Guardian’s heavy footfall just behind him. His master said nothing, stomping back into the storeroom. After a moment came the grumble of heavy crates against the wooden floor, accompanied by aggravated muttering too indistinct to make out. Kyuchan didn’t bother trying. Better to let Telchor cool down.
He was grateful that Telchor had remembered to knock his horns against the string of shells. They were an accommodation his master had made, grumbling, after a string of intermittent but usually spectacular incidents involving Telchor storming through the door when Kyuchan was absorbed in some delicate process. Incidents involving fire or magic had tended to be the most hazardous, but being startled while handling a rare or expensive ingredient was nearly as bad. Since the installation of the warning system, the shop almost never stank of scorched feathers anymore, holes had stopped appearing in the roof, and Kyuchan had nearly finished sanding the acid pitting off of the table and floorboards.
They never had found all of the scorpions.
The pot of finished mixture was cooling in its water bath by the time Telchor emerged from the storeroom with a laden yoke over his shoulders. Snorting softly, he shrugged it to the floor and began unloading gurgling jugs.
“Razorfang wants six gallons of etching solution and an equal amount of solvent,” he announced.
Kyuchan sat back on his haunches. “That’s rather a lot,” he said diffidently.
A louder snort and a snap of cheek frills told him he’d identified the point of contention. “That idiot,” Telchor grumbled, but without his earlier heat. “I’ve told him a hundred times not to wait until the dregs of the last jar, but he never listens. Well, lad, we are not rushing this process. We will follow all the protocols. That’s what keeps us safe.”
“Yes, Master.” Kyuchan couldn’t think of a single instance where Telchor had allowed himself to be rushed, but that was beside the point. The etching solution Razorfang used was a rather nasty acid with a complicated production process. The solvent itself was just tedious, involving mostly a lot of distillation time, but with a fire needing constant monitoring and tending. As he helped Telchor begin constructing the apparatus for the first stage of the acid, Kyuchan wondered if his master could have finished such a large order by himself in only two days.
Two days later, during which he and Telchor had done little else, the etching solution order was complete. Telchor sighed as he wired the stopper down onto the last bottle and cast the sealing spell keyed to Razorfang.
“Good work, lad,” he said, and held out a hand. Kyuchan inked the last line on the warning label and waved it in the air briefly before handing it over. He was so tired that he didn’t notice Telchor had paused.
“Lad.” Censure. Kyuchan looked up, startled, to see Telchor frowning down at him. “Looks like you were careless at some point.” A great clawed finger reached out and lightly brushed the fine feathering on his forearm. Kyuchan stared at the little patch of bleached feathers.
“I—I’m sorry, Master Telchor,” he stammered. How had that happened? He’d been wearing the gauntlets throughout, he was sure of it.
Telchor hesitated, then lifted his chin slightly in dismissal. “Go and wash your arms in the soda salts. Then to the baths with you. I don’t smell anything on you, but we can’t be too careful.”
Even after a good night’s sleep, Kyuchan still could not recall a time when his hands and arms hadn’t been covered during the manufacture of the acid. He inspected himself all over, even visiting the tailor on the pretext of copying one of his old tunics. While she grumbled to herself in the fabric room, he made use of her mirrors to check his head and a few other hard-to-view spots.
But there were no other marks. The bleached spot didn’t itch. He did note that unlike the other times he’d splashed himself with something noxious, the feathers didn’t fall out or fray into stubs over the next few days. When nothing more happened at the site, Kyuchan finally ascribed it to an accidental exposure to something in the workroom, and schooled himself to greater caution. He sewed himself a pair of protective sleeves, snugly fitted over his forearms and extending over the backs and palms of his hands. Telchor nodded approvingly when he saw them.
“Good thought, lad. I’ve taught you to use the gauntlets for the really dangerous stuff, but I hadn’t considered that your feathers might be more sensitive than my scales.” He clenched a massive fist, rotating it so that the armor’s curves gleamed. “If you’ll lend me those, I’ll run them down to Adara and have a couple sets made up for you in elkhide for everyday use. I’ll cover the cost.” He frowned. “I should have thought of such a thing sooner.”
Kyuchan didn’t think Telchor should blame himself, but the generous gesture touched him. The new sleeves were very well-made, with panels of rough suede on the palms to aid him in gripping and wide cuffs that rested comfortably under his ruff. They more resembled fingerless gloves than the crude things he had made, and the soft elkhide was kind to his feathers. Kyuchan wore them constantly. They came quite welcome during winter. As spring wore on towards summer, they got a little warm, but Kyuchan was firm with himself: safety first.
Which made the discovery of a second bleached spot utterly baffling. It was a little larger, about coin-sized, and on the back of his forearm. Kyuchan noticed it by accident while preening his ear tufts.
“I don’t understand it, Master,” he said the next day. “Have we been working with anything that has a cumulative effect like this?”
Telchor stared down at the little white splotch. “We use a lot of hazardous materials, but I can’t think of any chronic exposures that would cause bleaching in just one or two areas. And I think we can rule out physical contact, since you’re wearing your gear faithfully.” The big Guardian lowered his head to sniff deeply at the spot. “No,” he said, eyes half-closed, “no smell of blood, and no taint either. Very odd. When’s your next molt, lad?”
“Autumn, Master. Next month, most likely.”
Telchor raised his head and blinked, cheek frills pinching back a bit in a frown. “Well, unless things get worse between now and then, let us see what your new feathers look like. Perhaps they’ll molt in nice and dark again, and we can put the matter behind us.”
The moons turned through their cycles, stately and deaf to Kyuchan’s inner turmoil. Three more pale patches appeared on his other forearm, but he kept them covered. He found reasons to visit Adara the tailor, and chatted with her while watching her work. At home, he took needle and thread to the clumsy sleeves he had made and reworked them, improving the fit and adding a diagonal stripe of bright blue to match his wings. They covered his arms whenever he was outside Telchor’s shop, earning a few odd looks but little else other than a sniffy remark (from Razorclaw, naturally) about grown dragons acting their age.
At last the molt arrived, with its usual explosion of dropping feathers and general feeling of exhaustion. As usual, Telchor ordered him out of the shop at once—“Can’t have those feathers getting into everything, lad!”—but also declared Kyuchan to have earned himself a paid vacation, which put the lie to his master’s complaint.
Kyuchan spent the next few weeks appropriately cloistered in his home, as would any respectable dragon undergoing molt, with groceries delivered and the energetic young Mirror who lived next door dropping by daily to ask if there were any errands he might want run for a coin. Despite the prickly, panging misery of pinfeathers, Kyuchan prepared himself good meals and got plenty of sleep. Molting was unpleasant, but there was no cause to be uncivilized about it.
It was hard, though, not to stare at the pale tips of his pinfeathers and worry. He even resorted to using a molting calendar, something he hadn’t done since childhood, marking off the days during which the young feathers must be left entirely alone to prevent damage.
As the days crept past and the waxy sheaths on the pinfeathers began to dry, the impulse to preen rose from a vague restlessness to a tickling, tingling sensation and Kyuchan strove to lose himself in whatever distraction he could find. He meditated. He took carefully-metered sunning sessions and cool baths. He sent the young Mirror around to borrow disused scrolls and texts from Telchor’s hoard—his master collected every fragment of scientific writing he could find--and pored over the variously awful handwriting for hours.
When the molting calendar was nearly complete, the sheath-ends splintered away from the tips of his flight feathers, revealing the rich blues and darker barring he had known all his life. Kyuchan preened them gratefully. The next day he was able to begin preening his largest body feathers and found them their proper glossy charcoal gray. But the short feathers on his limbs always matured last. Kyuchan swept up pinfeather chaff several times a day, storing it beside his molted feathers to be traded to the gardening clans later, and tried not to stare at his arms.
At last the sheaths of the small body feathers splintered, all at once as usual; Kyuchan woke up before dawn with chaff tickling his nose and a powerful urge to preen. Curled up in the dark he did so, carefully brushing the chaff to the floor. Sunrise found him in an almost meditative state, claws teasing the last bits of chaff from the tiny feathers on the backs of his hands. When he became aware of the light glowing against his eyelids, he drew a deep breath, released it, and opened his eyes.
White splotches covered most of his forearms. As he turned them over, he discovered more white, tongues of it creeping hungrily past his elbows. They writhed, reaching up towards his thudding heart even as the room flickered and went dark.
“Good morning!”
Kyuchan jolted awake, wings already half-spread. Full daylight streamed into his sleeping room; a large moving shadow jerked his attention to the window. Sunlight glowed through a set of wide-pricked crests above four bright red eyes, while wings fanned awkwardly behind. It took Kyuchan a few thundering heartbeats to recognize the young Mirror from next door, who gripped the windowsill with both hands and grinned bashfully at him.
“Sorry for waking you up!” Eschar’s shoulders dropped as his grip slipped; a foot thudded against the wall and he hitched himself determinedly back up, speaking rapidly. “Mother’s sister’s son’s kids are coming over and my mom says I gotta help hunt, so I can’t get stuff for you today. That be okay?”
“Oh … yes, yes, that’s fine.” Kyuchan struggled upright.
“Great! Thanks for not being mad. Hey, your new accent is super! Totally purulent! Wow!” With a loud scratching and scrambling of claws Eschar flailed himself sidewise, catching the windowsill with a set of hind claws. “Gotta go, bye!” he yelled, kicking off into a clumsy flapping climb.
Kyuchan glanced at his arms again. Contrary to terrifying memory, the white blotches remained perfectly still. It must have been a combination of the early light and … fainting. Kyuchan winced. Of all the ridiculous responses! A Plague dragon fought illness, he didn’t keel over in front of it ….
Suddenly restless, Kyuchan went and fetched the broom and dustpan. When every last fragment of feather chaff had been ruthlessly hunted down and imprisoned in the chaff-can, he moved on to dusting and airing of first the sleeping chamber, and then his entire dwelling. So much dust and clutter tended to build up during a molt; a body never felt like dealing with it at the time, and even when he tried to be conscientious there was still much to do ….
The setting sun lazed low in the sky, sending bars of orange light through the large windows in the main room. Kyuchan sat listlessly in the middle of his meditation rug, tracing one of the geometric patterns with a knuckle. He’d run out of cleaning and tidying, and now faced the thoughts that had patiently waited in the back of his mind all day.
Every Coatl knew that paling plumage meant illness. It had been nice to think that he’d just been careless somehow, and gotten chemicals on his feathers. He still didn’t feel sick. But the evidence was all over his arms now: he was unwell.
He supposed he was fortunate to have been born in Plague, where disease was openly acknowledged as a part of life and discussed in detail. But he’d never heard of this one, and apparently neither had Telchor for all his greater years and experience. Which meant—Kyuchan shifted unhappily—they had no map.
Certainly he might be experiencing some bizarre new parasite, a nutrient malabsorption, or a sensitivity to something in his environment. Certainly his line of work exposed him to all sorts of unusual things. But without knowing whether he harbored something that could infect others, how should he conduct his affairs? Just because Plague dragons viewed contagion as a new and interesting challenge, it did not follow that all diseases were a desirable experience.
Two days later, his arms hidden, he approached Telchor with his thoughts. The big Guardian all but dragged him into in the privacy of the workroom and peeled his sleeves off. He inspected the lesions closely for some time, and finally sat back with a thoughtful look.
“It’s interesting, I’ll give you that. I take it nothing like this runs in your family?”
“No,” Kyuchan answered a little more sharply than he’d intended. He flicked his crests lower in apology. “They’re very proud of rarely showing illness after childhood. If they heard I’d caught something that was turning me white!” He grimaced.
Telchor eyed him. “So, no mysteriously disowned cousins, or uncles no one will speak of? —All right, perhaps it isn’t hereditary.”
“I just can’t think where I picked it up!” Kyuchan realized he was scratching at one of the white patches, and took his hand away. “Most of my waking time is spent here, and you’re not turning white. And there’s been no outbreak in the community, or it’d be all over the gossip.”
“I’ve learned a thing or two about medicine in my time, lad, and I’ve never heard of a contagious skin disease with no skin changes. Don’t worry about me. There aren’t many diseases that affect more than one race of dragonkind, and I doubt we’re dealing with the next blisterscale rot or fireblight fever.”
Kyuchan paused in pulling his sleeves back on. “But if it’s something new ….”
Telchor gave a rolling snort. “Yes, of course; Plaguebringer is remarkably innovative. We cannot know what to expect, not yet. Therefore, I’ll reach out to some dragons I know and see if anyone else has heard of white spots on a Coatl. In the meantime I suggest you keep to the workroom and avoid the customers.”
Kyuchan blinked. “I—I’m to continue working for you?” he stammered. He’d been certain Telchor would dismiss him.
“Lightweaver’s whiskers!” Telchor reared back a little. “Of course you’ll continue working! And you’ll tell me the instant you feel the least little pain or ill, and you’ll inspect your spots twice daily and report to me any changes. But so long as you’re not feeling sick—and I surely think you’d be feeling it by now!—then I see no reason to send you home again with nothing to do but worry.”
His tone gentled. “You’re a fine apprentice and a good lad. It’s probably wise to keep you away from the feather-bearing community, considering the symptoms. But cast you off? No, no; we’ve far too much work to be done.”
Telchor was as good as his word. Over the ensuing frenetic stretch of days Kyuchan wondered—just a bit—if the enormous amount of work represented a backlog due to his recent absence, an unfortunate twist of simultaneity, or Telchor’s determination that his apprentice would have no time to mope. Possibly a combination of all three, he decided during a rare breather.
But the situation was not without its unexpected benefits. For one, the long hot hours spent stirring pots over a fire and tending the drying oven seemed to soothe that nagging itch that came and went on his arms. For another, his labors left him too tired to lie awake at night worrying.
He took a quiet pride in knowing that Telchor was now entrusting him with some of the most difficult and complicated processes. He’d done them before, of course, but always under his master’s supervision. Now, however, Telchor only poked his nose into the work area once in a while.
For his own part, Telchor was writing letters, many of them. Since the Guardian tended to carry out all of his business in written form, pooh-poohing the magic mirrors that had become popular two full generations ago (“Ridiculous frippery!”), it was hardly unusual for him to produce prodigious amounts of mail from time to time. Only Kyuchan knew of the long list Telchor was working his way through, or overheard the big Guardian stamping and grumbling as he struggled to track down the whereabouts of certain old acquaintances.
But it was the eternal grinding of the rumor mill which brought to their ears the beginnings of an answer. Kyuchan was wrapping and boxing an order for the village dyer, a frequent customer. Elapsi lounged at his ease, his bulk taking up most of the front of the shop. As usual, he was in possession of gossip he wished to share and Kyuchan, in the interests of good customer service, was obliged to listen to. After various lesser topics had been disposed of, Elapsi shifted his weight, the spikes on his neck clashing, and leaned a little closer, lowering his voice.
“Did you hear the news about Milltown?”
“Milltown?” Kyuchan repeated, surprised to hear Elapsi talking about anything outside their own village.
Elapsi huffled through his long nose in a satisfied manner. “They’d been ordering more of my brights than usual, so I knew something was up. There’s a new disease there. Turns dragons white!”
Kyuchan’s claws froze in the middle of tying the last knot. He forced calm into his voice. “Really? What else?”
“Oh, the usual.” Elapsi waved a hand, keeping his sweeping thumb-claw tucked safely against his forearm. “Aches, pains, inappetence, cough, fever, feather loss, fatigue … about what you’d expect for a new disease still trying out its wings. The town’s self-quarantined while they wait this phase out. I take it you don’t have family there, then?”
“No, not in Milltown.” Although it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption, Kyuchan thought. Milltown was one of the largest Coatl communities in the area.
“Just as well.” Elapsi shrugged and got to his feet in a clatter of spikes. Kyuchan held up the carrying loop of the box for the Ridgeback to slip his nasal horn through. “It doesn’t sound like they’ll be allowing visitors for a while to come.”
Kyuchan waited long enough for the percussion of Elapsi’s progress to fade. Then he whisked the cover off the attention bell and scurried for Telchor’s office.
With Elapsi’s tale providing a lead, additional information at last began to trickle into the net of correspondence Telchor had woven. Putting the pieces together took time, with Telchor mewed up in his office cursing fluently over speculation and observer bias. But the morning came when Kyuchan arrived at the shop to discover a sign outside stating closure for inventory purposes, and Telchor gesturing impatiently at him from a gap in the sliding panels of the door. The door nearly nipped the tip of his tail as he hurried inside, so quickly did Telchor shut and lock it.
“My office, lad.”
Kyuchan followed his master, heart thudding. That sanctum offered the most privacy, where they would not be overheard. It warned him that whatever news Telchor bore, it wasn’t good.
Telchor waved him to his usual seat and settled next to his desk, which had been cleared of the clutter that had occupied it for the past month. In its place stood a small neat stack of paper. Telchor handed him the top sheet and leaned back with a tired sigh. A little puzzled, Kyuchan dropped his eyes to the paper and found, lettered in his master’s neat handwriting, a single lengthy paragraph.
“New virus: Nosos. Species affected: Coatl only. Incubation period: Unknown. Transmission method: Not confirmed. Horizontal transmission suspected to occur through a variety of exposure means. Vertical transmission confirmed; hatchlings affected from birth. Incubation period for horizontal transmission: Unknown. Symptoms: Progressive pigmentation loss is the initial and definitive sign. Successive symptoms highly variable ….”
The listed symptoms took up the remainder of the page. Or at least, Kyuchan thought this was so. His hands were shaking too hard for him to read the last few sentences.
“M-master,” he quavered. “What do I do?”
Telchor jerked up off his elbow, startling him into looking up. The big Guardian held out a drinking bowl from which a curl of steam waved lazily. Kyuchan took the bowl in both hands, tested its contents automatically with his tongue, recognized the reviving brew Telchor used after hard physical labor.
“Drink that down, now,” his master ordered. And waited, implacable, until Kyuchan raised the bowl to his mouth and began gulping the contents. As the warmth of the brew rolled down his throat and spread out in his stomach, he felt his hands steady. When he lowered the bowl again, Telchor was perusing the sheet himself, frowning.
“This—” he waved the page, “—represents what facts are known at this point. That chatterbox Elapsi was right about one thing: it’s a very new disease. And it’s damned annoying that it just happens to hit your people in a culturally sensitive spot!” He waved the page again. “Even normally sensible Plague dragons have been trying to conceal their color loss and pretending nothing was wrong. So it’s spread rather quickly.”
Unconsciously, Kyuchan’s hands went to his sleeves. Telchor, digging through the stack of papers, appeared not to notice.
“But despite that foolishness, the phytocat is well and truly out of the bag now. I’ve a letter here from a colleague back home who’s been studying this virus. His research shows that Coatls are the only vulnerable species, and,” keen yellow eyes flashed, “genetics appear to play a major role. Which means that none of this is your fault, lad.”
Kyuchan swallowed. “But it is contagious between Coatls.”
Telchor nodded slowly. “Within Plague, yes.”
“Within Plague?”
“That’s the oddest thing about it. Within Plague, this virus can spread between individuals. But the only cases outside Plague are the hatchlings born with it. It’s as if Plaguebringer put a limitation on it to prevent a pandemic from occurring.”
Kyuchan shrugged, thinking hard. His family had never been fiercely religious, but he’d studied his catechism with the rest of his agemates. “’She abides by the Covenant of the Eleven, that the tasks she sets her children not lap over onto the children of the other gods,’” he recited. “’She tests us each according to our flaws, but seeks not to expunge Her Own.’” He looked up at Telchor’s bright interested gaze, and coughed in embarrassment.
“Tests you according to your flaws, hmm?” The Guardian tapped two claws meditatively on his desk. “Vanity as a flaw, perhaps?”
“It’s not vanity!” Kyuchan protested. “Fear of paling is … I don’t know … think how you would feel if you suddenly wore a sign proclaiming your unfitness!”
Telchor snorted. “If I woke up one morning like that, the first thing I’d do is to find the dastard responsible. And then I’d set out to prove my fitness, every day for the rest of my life.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Lad, I don’t understand why Plague dragons would try to hide their illness when they damn well know better. But that’s neither here nor there. You asked what I thought you should do. Well, the answer is obvious. You must leave Plague.”
“I—what?”
“Leave Plague! The virus isn’t contagious outside Plaguebringer’s domain. If you stay here, you’ll constantly be worrying about whether you might transmit it to somebody else—your family, perhaps? If you leave, you’re protecting them.”
“But ….” Kyuchan felt his crests collapse flat against his neck. He lowered his head, struggling not to weep.
“Lad.” Telchor’s tone turned gentle. “You’ve learned everything I can teach you. I’d been considering keeping you on anyway out of pure selfishness, but truth is, you’re ready to leave this nest.”
“I don’t want to go,” Kyuchan quavered, staring at the floor.
Telchor coughed uncomfortably. “I don’t want that either,” he admitted. “But we must be sensible about it.”
The cruelty of his situation cut deeply, and not even Telchor’s profound compliment could blunt it. It almost made it worse, Kyuchan thought drearily. He liked Telchor. Over the past years he’d come to consider his sometimes-irascible master as the finest dragon he knew. He would have welcomed remaining at the shop.
But Telchor was right. He couldn’t stay in Plague. Just the thought of accidentally spreading this to others, even strangers, made his hackles tingle. It would be utterly irresponsible.
“All right,” he managed.
A week later, his spirits only slightly less in turmoil, he stopped by the shop to say goodbye.
“A caravan, eh?” Telchor looked interested. “Anyone I know?”
Kyuchan smiled slightly. Of course Telchor would know; he had connections with every trader that came and went. “Master Fellmoon.”
“Excellent choice! Nobody will bother one of his.” Telchor looked satisfied, then curious. “Where after that?” he asked casually.
“Nowhere. I’ve decided to settle in Light.” Kyuchan touched his sleeves, which he’d attached to a light jacket to hide the pale flecks now appearing on his chest. “If anyone is going to find a cure for this, it will be there.”
A broad smile spread across Telchor’s face and he thumped him—very carefully—on the shoulder. “Oh, you clever lad! Where’d you learn such flattery? Coatls and their silver tongues!” He reached underneath the counter and held out a small, well-wrapped parcel. “I suppose you’d better take this with you.”
Kyuchan took it. “What is it?”
Telchor harrumphed. “A scrying mirror. We’re both going to be too busy for letters. At least with this I might hear from you once a month.”
A single humming sob escaped as Kyuchan hastily engaged in settling the carrying strap of the parcel around his neck. When he had himself under control again he looked up. “Thank you, Master.”
“Huh. You’ll need this, too.” Telchor handed him a fat little book, which Kyuchan took in mild confusion. It looked much like—he riffled the pages—no, exactly like one of the notebooks he’d used at the beginning of his apprenticeship. This one was blank. He gave Telchor a quizzical look.
“On your travels,” Telchor said in that flat tone he remembered so well from those days, “I expect a daily entry regarding something you encounter. It can be plant, mineral, or animal, but you will note where it was found, its general health or quality, and list me its uses and the methods for obtaining its end products. Start to finish, including any safety measures. You’re getting away from me before I’ve had a chance to give you your Master’s testing, lad! This will just have to do, and I’m not happy about it.”
Kyuchan quietly tucked the book into his jacket’s pocket. “I understand, Master. I’ll send you my reports each night by mirror.”
Telchor grunted. “See that you do.”
Kyuchan smiled as he turned away.
