In the Company of Night

by Mitch H


On Distinguishing Philosopher's Stone From A Poisonous Joke

SBMS030

Rye Daughter and I passed one of Mad Jack's work details in the weak afternoon light of late autumn. They had finally finished corduroying the roadways inside the complex, and now were extending access roads along the still-muddy tracks through the rapidly-disappearing scrub and brush to the neighboring roads. Those roads themselves were by and large still impassible, but our time of obscurity and hiding in plain sight would soon be coming to an end. The Marklaird had agreed to get the ball rolling on an early-winter mobilization of the militias of the province directly to the east. Verdebaie's organized militia had largely escaped damage in last year's catastrophic campaign, unlike the militias of the provinces to the south and south-east, who were still bitter and disinclined to cooperate. Including my friends in Pythia's Fell, sadly enough.

The fall rains had ended, and even the sleet and freezing rain had thawed and sublimated away in the brief pulse of summer-weather before the winter moved in with its usual fury. I knew this was the time a certain herb bloomed, out of sync, out of time, out of season. It was a narrow window, and I was determined to restock my supplies while the weather was right for it.

"We're looking for a blue flower, odd shape. With red berries! If you see any blue odd-shaped flowers with blue berries, check to make sure there isn't any behind you or to either side, and back away slowly. Jiwe busara and sumu utami are damn near identical aside from the berries, but you don't want anything - anything! - to do with sumu utami. Just breathing on it can break loose pollen, and even its pollen can mutate, derange, or kill. Although mostly it just does really odd magical-physical effects. Depends on the environment and the mind-set of the affected pony. Sumu utami is also known as Discordweed and, in some places, poison joke. Luckily sumu utami is pretty dang rare, far more rare than jiwe busara. And jiwe busara can grow anywhere. It's shy, and likes to bloom in the very late autumn, when ponies are either busy looking up at foliage or inside bitching about the weather. "

We walked carefully through the brush, checking where we stepped, until we came to a clearing half under water, and the other half grown over with low green flowering plants, with the tell-tale blue flowers and little green and red berries here and there, dangling off of their small stalks.

"Ah! There we go. See how it's a low growth? And the berries are just barely starting to ripen. Perfect, here."

We passed between the water and the flowers, and I hoofed Rye Daughter the sickle. I showed her how to clip off the berries while not touching the flowers or the plant itself. Jiwe busara wasn't sumu utami, but you didn't want to touch it directly, either. We dropped them directly into a pair of jars I scooped out of my saddlebags.

"Jiwe busara doesn't do much on its own, but it is damn near a universal catalyst. It brings out the character of many otherwise-useless herbs and substances. Zebra alchemy's foundations are built on jiwe busara. We're going to want all of this, green and red berries alike. The green ‘uns will cure with storage."

It took several hours to harvest the clearing. Evening was descending upon us when we broke out of the brush back onto the now-corduroyed access road. Mad Jack worked fast. I suspect if we let him loose, he'd plank every road in the district by spring. Although I imagined that the insanity of the expense would restrain him from that sort of excess. Rye Daughter and I clopped down the fresh new log-road and through the main gates. We put away our vegetative booty in my herb-cabinet for later processing, and I sent Rye Daughter off to wash up and get her dinner. I went looking for Gibblets.

I found him, his apprentice, and the Captain fire-proofing some newly-built flues and space-heating portable hearths in some of the second-cohort barracks. In better conditions, we'd be using these clever little metal stoves with tin flues, but in our current problematic logistical situation, they'd made due with mud-hardened wooden flues and brickwork firetraps. This was about as safe as it sounds, and only the intervention of witchcraft kept the troops from burning down their own barracks on a regular basis. We also needed to disguise the telltale smoke and steam, but the pegasi largely took care of that problem - smoke wasn't quite a type of cloud, but it was close enough for pegasus magic to bite.

"Gibblets, have you eaten yet?"

"What? Oh, Sawbones. Is it that late? Bad Apple, go get yourself some grub. Take Captain Catbird here with you, see if they have some fish for him." She grinned through the soot all over her muzzle, and started pushing the befuddled old griffin ahead of her towards the mess hall. Hopefully she'd meet up with Rye Daughter when they got there.

"Don't forget to wash up before you sit down!" the goblin yelled at their backs.

"So, any improvements in his condition yet? Or ideas?" Even if I hadn't run out of patience, the Marklaird had none to speak of on the subject of his missing-in-action subcontractor.

"Well, he seems happy enough. Still not making a lick of sense. Also not showing any signs of repossession. It's looking increasingly like whatever process got interrupted, it isn't re-starting. But I'm afraid the damage is done. I've had Bad Apple sleeping next to him, and she's been keeping tabs on his condition. And she says that he's been snoring an awful lot. Like, stop-breathing type snoring. Wetting the bed. Gets tired quickly. He's been losing weight, too."

I hoofed my eyes, sighing. "He's not really young enough to weather this sort of thing well. We're going to have to keep an eye out for him, but the prognosis for somepony in his condition isn't great. Apnea and nighttime incontinence - he's developing more symptoms of a stroke as we get further from the event, as if it's, I don't know, ongoing?"

"Degenerative?"

"That's what I'm worried about. Was this going to happen all along, or did we do this to him by summoning the Spirit?"

"Honestly, I can't be sure. I've never seen it interrupted like this before. But the other times - they became less and less like themselves, and more eccentric. Cruel, sometimes. Unpredictable. Eventually, either they did something unforgivable and their fellows put them down, or they went berserker, or found a fight they didn't seem to want to win. Either way, once they started talking like the Captain had been talking, they were on a clock."

"Bah. Food?"

"Yeah, I could eat."