by Kevin Hearne
“And some healers use powdered mouse ears or dried wood lice or special mushrooms or maggots. But the healers of Erotonia are taught to use the healing powers of the sextopus.” Belladonna reached into one of the many buckets on the floor and pulled out an aubergine octopus—or sextopus, really, as it had only six legs—and squashed it against her cheek, stroking it. For its part, the creature stared with intelligent, almost bedroomy black eyes and wrapped a tentacle around the woman’s neck in a friendly sort of way.
“The sextopus secretes a healing slime. As their suckers pull out any toxins or infection, their slime reinvigorates the skin and organs. And, in your case, regrows acid-burned flesh and fur. Don’t you feel better?”
Argabella held up her arm, and it was true. She wasn’t Bleedful or even Scabful, and her fur was silky and seemed to have new highlights. “I…I guess. Yeah.”
As she looked around the room, she saw all of her friends in various stages of undress, covered with an indeterminate number of sextopuses. There was Fia, swirled in purple cartwheels of tentacles. Toby was flat on his belly, showing a lower back tattoo written in elvish script. Poltro was curled into a fetal position and sucking her thumb. Grinda was still frozen in place, although the sextopuses seemed to be trying to stretch her limbs into movement by using the bedposts. Even Gustave, flat on his side, had not escaped the cephalopod treatment. One sextopus straddled the goat’s face, its tentacles curling about Gustave’s horns and its eyes blinking black where Gustave’s creepy, yellow, sort of judgmental eyes usually were.
“See?” Belladonna said. “You’ve spent three days lying there butt naked and covered in sextopuses. So you have Fabio here to thank for the fact that you won’t live the rest of your life with tongue-shaped chunks taken out of your soft bits.”
Belladonna held the sextopus—Fabio—out toward Argabella.
After a strange silence in which Belladonna’s sensual smile grew bigger and her eyelashes batted fiercely and forcefully, Argabella stuttered, “Th-thank you, Fabio?” uncertain whether sextopuses expected verbal gratitude but at least half sure that Belladonna did.
“Excellent!” Belladonna cried, dropping Fabio back in the bucket with a plop. “Now, you’ll be hungry. My assistant, Bigolo, is fetching lunch as we speak. Just try to relax. You can’t truly heal if you’re anxious or twitchy.”
“But I’m always anxious and twitchy. It’s kind of my thing.”
Belladonna rummaged about in a rusty tackle box and withdrew a crusty brown bottle. She sat on the edge of Argabella’s small bed, just a little too close, her plush hip nudging Argabella’s arm. Dipping her long-nailed finger into the bottle, she withdrew a substance that looked like old bacon grease mixed with curdled cheese.
“This should do the trick.”
Argabella reared her head back. “That doesn’t look, er, sanitary.”
Throwing back her head to laugh, Belladonna cried, “Sanitary? What has sanitation to do with healing?”
When Argabella opened her mouth to explain that the answer to that question was basically EVERYTHING, Belladonna slipped her finger in, depositing the paste on Argabella’s tongue. The taste of, yes, old bacon grease and curdled cheese exploded in Argabella’s mouth.
“Grck! What? Why? Oh. Ohhhh.”
Argabella licked her lips and slid down a little, nestling into the lovely pillows. Everything suddenly felt very soft and squishy and pleasant, very blurry around the edges.
“Whazzis?” she asked. “Z’nice.”
Belladonna patted her on the head. “It’s opium, mixed up with old bacon grease and curdled cheese. That should help you relax. And hey, if you go back to sleep, all the better. Just don’t act weird if you feel someone tenderly stroking you while you’re unconscious.”
A tremor of anxiousness fought for control of Argabella’s body but was only able to exert any force over her left eye, which bulged a bit. “Who’s gonner stroke me?!”
“The sextopuses. You’re not healed all the way yet. And we must get you well.”
“Yezwemust.”
“Good bunny.”
“I’m a goooood bunny.”
With that, Argabella closed her eyes and dreamed of writing hit love songs and then doing her own taxes.
* * *
When next she woke, Argabella was prepared for the stench and strangeness but not for all the shouting.
“Who are you? What is that smell? Where’s Argabella? Why is there an octopus on me? And why, in the name of all that’s holy, am I naked?”
It was Fia, and she was past annoyed and moving firmly into murderous.
“It’s okay!” Argabella shouted. “It’s all pretty weird, honestly, but it’s fine. We’re at the healer’s hut.”
Argabella rubbed her eyes until the crust gluing them shut crumbled out, then sat up to find Fia. The warrior was at maximum pump as she fought a sextuple of sextopuses, all of which were using their sticky tentacles to hold her down on the bed. Fia’s face was flushed with fury, but her skin was almost completely healed and even glowing a little. On seeing Argabella, she went limp and smiled back.
“Oh. Hi. This is really awkward.”
“Belladonna?” Argabella called. “Bigolo? Anybody?”
They appeared to be the only conscious people in the hut, and the smell was definitely less apparent than it had been the previous day. It was dawn, and the glow of orange lanterns lit the hut’s interior, turning the mounds of dishes and junk into a mysterious nightmare topography for those not currently in the know and still recovering from the relaxing effects of yesterday’s opium. Poor Fia, waking up like this, in the dark, alone, and covered in tentacles and slime!
Argabella figured out where her feet were, remembered how to stand, stepped over Gustave, and wobbled over to Fia, all while ignoring the fact that she was wearing a hideous gown covered in faded ducklings that was open all down the back, showing her fuzzy little tail to anyone with eyes. Sitting on the edge of Fia’s bed, she was careful not to touch the sextopuses, which were cautiously spreading back out across Fia’s curves to complete their work. But she did put an experimental hand on Fia’s arm in a comforting sort of way.
“Everything is fine,” Argabella repeated, her voice low. “I’ve never heard of this healing order before, and it definitely has its quirks, but from what I can tell, we’re all going to be okay. I woke up yesterday and met the healer, and she’s…”
“Trustworthy?”
“I was going to go with ‘a bit of a hippie lunatic with a raging libido,’ but sure.” Argabella held out her arm, showing the lustrous new fur. “Remember what this looked like in the caves? Raw, abraded with acid, bleeding, and missing a few chunks?”
Fia stroked a finger down Argabella’s arm, raising goose bumps that made the rabbit girl shiver. “Wow. Yeah. I guess that’s good work. You look amazing. When you passed out, I wasn’t sure you were going to make it. I was terrified.”
Argabella looked down, blushing under her fur and feeling warmth bloom in her chest. She remembered a little of that time—what it felt like to be cradled in strong arms and carried out of danger. Her whole life, she’d longed to feel safe and cherished, and she’d felt that with Fia even as the hooktongues tore them to pieces. But the Catacombs of Yore hadn’t claimed them, had they? It was a new dawn, and Argabella felt somehow more whole than she ever had. When she looked into Fia’s eyes, her heart just about exploded with joy. The warrior made her feel strong and capable, too, which was saying quite a lot.
“You saved my life, Fia. I don’t know how you did it or where you found the strength, but you got me out of there. So thank you. For that. My hero.”
Returning the smile, Fia reached for Argabella’s hand, twining their fingers together. “Well, it’s kind of crazy what a girl can do when she’s in—”
“Loaves! Fresh loaves! Gnomeric flour with anc
ient grains! Hot sticky buns! Robust eggs, ready to pop!”
The shrill voice from a vendor outside the grimy windows caused them to break away shyly, which was just as well, since Belladonna burst in the door seconds later in a cloud of funk. She had a basket over one arm and mud all over her bare feet. A handsome youth wearing nothing but a flimsy linen kilt came in behind her, slamming the door in a way that would’ve gotten him kicked out of most healing huts and nicer restaurants.
“Ah, my little bun, you’re awake again!” Belladonna crossed to where Argabella sat, took her face in both hands, and air kissed her cheeks. “And our fine fighter, you’re conscious just in time for breakfast. How do you feel?”
“Whah?” was all Fia could manage.
Belladonna was, even for those accustomed to strangeness, a lot to take in. She seemed to take up the entire healing hut as she bustled around, singing to herself and shimmying her hips as she danced and muttering “Chickaboom” to herself. Soon she brought a platter to place on the bed beside Argabella. The piping hot loaf, probably from the noisy vendor outside, had the sort of artisanal feeling that Lord Toby couldn’t quite conjure even on his best days. There were also chocolate-covered strawberries, figs, grapes, bananas, and oysters that smelled like they might be a day too late.
“Eat, eat!” Belladonna urged. “These are healing foods!”
Argabella ripped off a hunk of bread and nibbled on a strawberry just so the healer would stop staring at her so keenly. As she and Fia ate, Belladonna gave Fia another hideous robe, this one covered in capering bears, and removed the sextopuses one by one, remarking on their fine job and thanking them personally as she dropped them back into their dank, smelly buckets.
“Do I smell bread?”
Lord Toby popped awake one bed over, a tiny sextopus perched on his chin with tentacles curling up either side of his jaw in a rather fetching sort of violet beard. Argabella handed him a chunk of the loaf, hoping that they could skip the Shoutful terror and outrage bit this time.
“Where—”
“This is the hut of Belladonna the healer. She does weird stuff, but it works. The octopuses are harmless and helpful.”
Toby considered the sextopus attached to his chin, chewed his bread, and nodded conspiratorially, making the cephalopod waggle about like a purple tumor. He winked at Argabella to indicate that he totally knew what was going on. “Gotcha. Animal code phrases.” He changed his voice to an absurdly loud stage whisper. “The eagles are fond of moose milk,” he rasped. “And, uh…oh! The otters are giddy regarding tomorrow’s gopher races.”
“I think Bigolo overdid his opium allotment,” Belladonna said, moving closer to pluck the tiny sextopus off Toby’s chin, revealing an entirely bald patch of skin that they were obviously going to hear a lot about later. Lord Toby’s eyes darted down to the healer’s cleavage and stayed there, enraptured and almost entirely without pupils.
“Hello, nurse,” the hedge wizard said. “What’s a filthy hut like you doing in a bosom like this? No, wait. What’s a filthy girl like this hut doing in a…No, that’s not it, either. Hello. I’m the Dark Lord.”
Belladonna smiled at him like he was five. “Well, hello, Dark Lord. I’m the healer, and I’m going to fix all your nasty boo-boos.”
“Yeah,” Toby muttered. “Fix ’em good.”
“Bigolo? A little help? Maybe bring the Dark Lord some coffee to help him focus?”
The attractive youth, who was mostly muscles and cleft chin, stumbled over a sextopus bucket and hurried to the pile of dishes.
“Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am. Coffee it is. Right away. Yes, indeedy. Coffee.”
“Bigolo?”
“Ma’am?”
“Remember how we talked about how you were better seen and not heard?”
Bigolo gave a despicably sexy smile and winked a sparkling blue eye while tipping an invisible hat with one hand and pointing at his boss with the other. Argabella was fascinated to find that this gesture was both utterly ridiculous and pretty appealing in a weird sort of way. Soon the boy had bumbled over with a brown clay jug on a tray, which he placed carefully by Toby’s side.
“Why, we could be twins,” Toby noted, which made everyone laugh uproariously.
“Bigolo will be admitted to the Sacred Order of Erotonia next year,” Belladonna said. “He’s been training under me for three years, and I work him hard. Night and day, I pound him with fresh challenges, and he always rises to the occasion.”
“I have a very spacious tower,” Toby told her. “Surrounded with well-trimmed hedges.”
Belladonna smiled at him. “I bet you have a lovely tower.”
“I do. And hedgehogs. But that lady? You know the sandy magic lady? She has crabs.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I can make crackers out of nothing.”
“Bigolo,” Belladonna urged. “The coffee?”
Nodding energetically, Bigolo put the jug to Toby’s lips and whispered, “Down the hatch, sir!”
Toby being Toby, even when deeply drugged, he obligingly gulped the coffee down as rivulets trickled over his hairless chin. But Argabella was surprised to note that the coffee wasn’t the dark brown of good, dark coffee or the light brown of coffee mixed with cream and sugar. It was, apparently, a bright sort of green.
A very poisonous-looking green.
A green that she didn’t feel so confident about.
“Belladonna?” she asked, beginning to stand. “Is your coffee a different sort of coffee?”
“Is it what?”
“Ah! Piquant,” Toby commented as he smacked his lips, “with an unusual fungal bouquet you don’t find in many coffees, yet it possesses rare viscosity. Ah—urp!—this is. Ugh. Ew. Unpleasant aftertaste. And burning?”
Argabella pointed. “Is your coffee supposed to be…green and bubbly?”
“No! Bigolo, you fool!”
Belladonna leapt to her feet and swept across the room in a swirl of fabric and black hair. Reaching for the jug, she wrenched it out of Toby’s hands and threw it against the dingy wall, where it smashed to paint a swath of bright, violent green across the stained tan. As it dripped, the green liquid briefly formed a skull and crossbones shape just in case anyone was unsure of its level of unsafeness.
Argabella ran to the Dark Lord’s side but didn’t get too close, as he was starting to foam a bit. “Toby?”
“Tastes…like…frogs and dire shrooms in a sherry reduction…” Toby sputtered.
“That’s because it is frogs and dire shrooms! Toxic bog frogs from the Figgish Fen in the Skyr! I was whipping up a mortal smoothie to kill a troll hereabouts and clearly marked the jug with a sign that said NOT COFFEE!” Belladonna practically shouted that last at Bigolo, who cringed.
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry, mistress. I must have misunderstood the part where it said ‘not,’ but I can fix that right away and fetch the real coffee.”
“I don’t think that’s going to fix anything,” Argabella said, pointing a trembling claw at their patient, whose unblinking eyes and stillness indicated that he was quite beyond all refreshment. “I’m pretty sure the Dark Lord Toby is dead.”
Poltro had woken up in some pretty strange situations. There was that time Cutter had taken her hunting in the Pruneshute Forest, for example, and they’d woken up surrounded by blitzed boars that had broken open their cask of Puissant Porter while they slept and gotten bombed out of their piggy minds. But she’d never woken up with sextopuses all over her bits and Lord Toby being dead. That was a page in her life’s book she’d never read before.
She remembered her parents like faded vignettes, except for the super clear memory of that time they died screaming. All her more pleasant memories centered on Lord Toby. He’d been a bit peculiar and forgetful, but he’d never beaten her or allowed himself to get eaten by anything with a llam
a’s face. She remembered the pride in his eyes the day she’d headed off to Cutter’s academy riding the wrong way on Snowflake—well, maybe that wasn’t pride so much as concern, but she’d soon learned to ride a horse facing the head instead of the rump. Lord Toby had always brought her a nice wheel of cheese on her birthday and forgave her for fighting his chickens. And now he was gone, just like that? Her brain wasn’t always a mighty thing, and it had quite a bit of trouble wrapping around a definitive lack of Lord Toby. She felt quite empty inside, but not the sort of empty that could be soon filled by food.
“She’s in mourning,” Belladonna kept reminding everyone, but Poltro didn’t care enough to explain that it was clearly the afternoon.
All things considered, though, Poltro supposed she should be grateful that she’d woken up at all. She’d dropped down into unconsciousness outside the healer’s hut after helping drag Fia and Argabella there and thought that was it: she’d been licked for good. But despite her being fully restored to health by Belladonna’s purple squids, people kept asking if she was okay after she learned Lord Toby had died from chugging a bog frog smoothie. Fia sympathized and said she understood that frogs were just the worst, far more perilous than chickens, even when they were dead and blended into a nice foamy beverage. She hated frogs, and Poltro managed to nod along and grunt as Fia talked about their many amphibious dangers. But even the talking goat looked worried. He nudged her with his horns and looked up at her with those goggly yellow eyes.
“Hey, uh. You still want to eat me someday, right? A nice curry? Very roguish of you?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. That’d be…hmm? What were you saying?”
“Nope,” the goat said to Fia. “She’s lost it.”
“I did? What did I lose? Not the potions he gave me? My stuff—where’s my cloak? I need my cloak!”
Belladonna fetched it—yanked it, really, out from underneath a pile of bloodstained clothing—and gave it to her. Those potions had suddenly become the most important thing the rogue could think of, and she didn’t know what she’d do if they, too, were gone. Poltro twisted the black cloak around frantically, looking for that inside pocket where she’d put the potions for safekeeping, realizing as she did so that she hadn’t checked on their safety until now. They could have been smashed when she fell into the pit of acid leeches or shattered when she tussled with the llamataur in Yör’s cavern. They might have been tongued into shardy oblivion. She hadn’t even thought to use them when she was bleeding to death. She should have paid more attention, because if they were smashed—but no. Her fingers closed around them, and they were intact.
