I blinked, finally processing that. The names and what they were saying... “You’re newcomers!”

  “Guilty,” Reese said, handing me a bowl of stew and a spoon. “Here, eat, since you’re no longer looking like you’re going to drop it immediately. I’ve been here a long time—thirty years or so? Maybe a little more. I went to two sites and then settled down. I have a wonderful partner and we share a tavern in Starry Hill and two wonderful kids, my daughter’s an alchemist and my son’s an architect. I haven’t had to wrangle for a long time with being misgendered as an unfortunately petite woman or the fact that the restaurant I tried to start was slowly failing out from under me.”

  “And he’s a great cook,” Lakshmi added. “Seriously, try that stew.” She accepted a bowl.

  I tried the stew. It was delicious, rich and savoury and thick.

  “I’ve been here about a third that long,” Lakshmi added. “My marriage was in its death throes, past any hope of survival, my own family bmed the failure of my marriage on me, and I was expecting yoffs at work any day. The only thing I had that gave me any joy was a few pots of pnts on my balcony. Now I have a garden that keeps expanding and I do a few hours in the local mill and I might be in a serious retionship with someone really wonderful, we’re still working out what we both want.”

  “I’m a die-hard theatre kid,” Nadya said. “All that matters is acting and I can sing and dance, too. But I kept getting told I had skills but didn’t have ‘the right look.’ It’s pretty brutal, trying to make a living at that. There’s a school here that tends to do performing arts, it’s just into the Midnds from here, and I’m going to go there when they start the next semester in a couple of months, but what I’m learning about any of the arts here is... oh, this is so much better. I wouldn’t go home if you paid me a billion dolrs. How long have I been here? A year or something? Trying to get oriented and looking around and stuff.”

  “There are only a few newcomers around,” Reese said, sitting next to Lakshmi with his own bowl. “We try to look out for each other. When Logan does his orientation talk, he makes sure everyone get onto the message list so we can keep in touch.”

  “Logan,” I said, distracted from the amazing stew. “Logan... that’s the Zombie King. And he’s with my friends!”

  “Your friends are fine. Logan is, no question, frequently an obnoxious prick with no sense of tact and and he can hit a whole host of triggers.”

  “And he has a temper,” Lakshmi said. “He isn’t great at anger management.”

  “That too. But he tells the truth and keeps his word and he actually tries hard to look out for new newcomers, all of which is more than you can say for... someone else. And he’s less abrasive now than he was thirty years ago, so maybe he’s starting to drift in the right direction. He’s the one who asked me to come watch for you. Your friends are safe from him and he’ll do his best to protect them.”

  “He found me,” Nadya said. “I was panicking and sure that it was some kind of bad trip or something that just wasn’t ending. He got me sorted out and even showed me to the Shallows Quincunx site and told me how to get to a town and who to talk to there. Okay, it was with a zombie and that was gross, and he has all the sensitivity of a bomb going off, but still.”

  “The zombies are chronically a problem,” Lakshmi sighed. “They freak people out, understandably. But it’s hard to bme him for that, when she has it in for him and he’s always watching his back, every minute he’s out of his own house. It’s creepy and rather disgusting, but if it means staying out of her reach... eh, tough call, really.”

  “He’s not what I thought,” I said, frowning as I searched for the memories. “I think so, anyway. He did something bad to me... I think? But also helped me, I think?”

  “Logan is trying to do a job that he is very bad at and he knows it,” Reese said. “The thing is, there used to be someone else who did the orientation talk for newcomers but he retired. Or something. Not quite clear what happened there. Logan stepped in. Well, technically it’s up to both of them, but if you aren’t a woman she might make one low-effort attempt and then that’s it, she doesn’t care unless you irritate her. Second-hand from a couple of women, she does a bad job of expining anything except her own divinity. Less orientation and more recruitment. Logan is at least reasonably aware that waking up here is disorienting, possibly frightening, and it might take multiple tries to get someone to listen. That doesn’t mean he knows how to handle that in an effective way and sometimes he completely botches it and that usually triggers his temper. There was one just before Lakshmi got here that was... oh, what a mess. A long-time newcomer who was in the area, Dido, she makes clothes over in the Shallows, stepped in to try to clear things up. He can be taught, though. I finally told him that the next time he referred to me in any feminine way, I was going to speedrun the rest of the Quincunx and take my chances. He slips now and then but he apologizes and I’ll give him credit for trying. So it is possible to get through to him and y down boundaries, just not easy.”

  “But he’s a really good person to have on your team when you need help,” Lakshmi said. “And right now, you do, on a level I’m not sure any newcomer has managed in... I don’t know, a long time, maybe ever.”

  “I... made something?” I said uncertainly. “No, I don’t think I made it. I found it? Was given it?”

  “Something like that,” Lakshmi said.

  “And it’s something that... the Moss Queen! She’s angry!”

  “She usually is.”

  “From what I’ve heard,” Reese said gently, “you got here and very quickly met a local who decided to help you. Understandably, you got your initial view of the world from her, and the locals tend to lump Logan and her together because superficially, they’re doing something simir. So, understandably, you rejected both when they tried to make contact. All of which means that you have been here for weeks, have visited all four outer sites and intend to visit the fifth, and have not had any expnations about what is going on. Skills that you had at home transte here into healer and alchemy abilities, and that has led to developments that are extremely successful at unmaking mosslings and zombies. And she is in an absolute rage. To her, she is the goddess protector of this nd, and you are the ultimate force for evil, working directly against her. From her perspective, she tries tirelessly to keep everyone free of corruption and discord, via her chosen representatives who act on her behalf. She has had too much power for too long and that means of fighting back is badly needed, but she is not going to take it lying down.”

  I absorbed all that. “Logan did. Accept it. Why isn’t he trying to stop me?”

  “Because breaking her power means he needs zombies less. Every now and then he sneaks past her in person and joins a community—he’s always doing the same story, his family is living somewhere he doesn’t care for and he wanted to explore, he really likes it here and maybe he’ll stay, if he’s being felid then he’s a warden and if he’s jotun he’s a crafter. But she always tracks him down and he runs for home. I think st time she might have done something worse, he’s been acting oddly about it. Every now and then he sneaks out and drops shelters he mostly pre-builds in pces that they’d be useful. A lot of shelters were made by him, and from what I’ve heard, they’re all unique and all beautiful. Those are fast runs before she notices. Mostly he stays in the Highnds close to his house because it’s harder for her to reach him, and he uses zombies to act in the rest of the world.”

  “There are only ever a fraction as many zombies as mosslings,” Lakshmi said. “And he almost never keeps anyone a second year, often less.”

  “And there’s no trauma,” I said slowly. “Just a dey in coming back. None of the... there’s bad effects from a moss infection, and... Serru! I can’t let the Moss Queen get near her again! Or get near the others... Terenei and Aryennos and Myu and Heket and Zanshe!”

  “Good sign, if you’re remembering names,” Reese said. “Listen to Logan if you want them safe. I’m not giving you the orientation talk right now. You’re in no shape for that, there are a couple of things in it that tend to be hard to accept. But he knows her and he hates her, and his knowledge plus your abilities is a combination with potential.”

  “My abilities. Right.” I had those. All I had to do was gesture like... that... and there was my dispy.

  And my dragon form, the one with the red ornithian icon, I needed that one.

  I turned the knob to that one.

  “Holy shit,” Nadya said, eyes wide. “That is... oh wow.”

  “Search-and-rescue form,” I said, and gulped the st of my tea. “And I have a way to find a person. Thank you for the meal, that might be the best stew I’ve had here which is saying something, and the tea and the support and especially for the information. I promise to try to listen to Logan better and understand him. I’ll try to look you up ter and thank you properly if I can. I have to go find my friends.” I got to my feet and strode towards the nearest entrance.

  “Nathan, wait,” Reese cried, behind me. “You’re still...”

  I didn’t hear the rest. I was busy using Find Person to tell me where Serru was.

  There was no height to speak of here. I wasn’t going to be able to get in the air.

  Fine. I’d stop at crossroads to switch to dragon and pick a direction. That would get me there. I made a note of the direction I could see the red dot in, which was not properly in either direction the Quincunx ring road would take me in, and switched back to centaur. I could run faster that way. Probably. I thought so, anyway. Initial evidence seemed to support that.

  My memories were still fragmented, but the important part was clear. I had to get back to my friends.

  They might not be in danger from the Zombie King, but he was absolutely not the worst threat.