After returning to Xandra’s inn, Jörg changed from the middle-aged merchant back to his regular appearance and went in search of the Count, but he couldn’t find him in the lounge or in his room. Jörg checked the dining room and the courtyard but didn’t see him there, either. As he was pondering what to do—since he couldn’t just keep wandering around opening doors to other rooms willy-nilly—he ran into Lila in a hallway.
She screamed when she saw him. “Mr. Huber, why are you covered in blood?!”
“Oh, I was shot a bit.”
“A bit…?”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“You should get some medicine from Xandra.”
“I’m fine.”
“No. That’s the worst way to think about this. Do you know why?” Lila asked, looking as if she was on the verge of tears. “If you start thinking that anything can happen to you because you won’t die, then even your soul will turn into that of a monster… I don’t want you to become like that.”
Lila grabbed Jörg’s hand and started walking toward Xandra’s medical office. She led him straight to a room on the first floor of the west wing, knocked on the door, announced that she was coming in, and promptly turned the handle.
The door opened to a dispensary. There were no patients in the room, just rows of labeled brown bottles on a large oak table.
Xandra, in a white lab coat, was measuring powder onto the top of a balancing scale. The Count stood beside her, helping her work. He wasn’t wearing his cloak and had the sleeves of his buttoned shirt rolled up to the elbows as he poured liquid from one bottle to another. After filling the bottle, he corked it and gave it a quick shake to mix the liquid, then placed it in a wooden crate. Several crates had already been filled with clear bottles containing powder wrapped in paper. The Count seemed to be enjoying himself. He looked for all the world like a perfumer mixing essential oils.
“What are you making, Xandra?” Lila asked curiously.
“Medicine for the battlefield. Milos is coming to buy some.”
“Why is the Count helping?”
“Because he needs a lot.”
“This isn’t enough?”
“No. The Serbian Army has moved from Corfu to mainland Greece, maneuvering to eventually try to take back their capital. It’s not just the French and British armies that are on the Macedonian front anymore; a Russian brigade and the Italian troops who were stationed in Albania have also joined them. They helped protect the Serbian Army while they recaptured Monastir, and now the Serbians have their sights set on the capital, Belgrade. It’s going to turn into a big battle. But why are you here?”
“Could you give Mr. Huber some medicine?”
The Count stopped pouring and glanced up at Jörg. “You look as if you’ve been put through the wringer again.”
“I let them shoot me so I could shoot back, is all. I absorbed some of their sustenance, so my wounds healed.”
“I can see that. You don’t need medicine for something like this.”
“Stop talking like it’s nothing and help him!” Lila shouted. “I can’t stand seeing Mr. Huber like this.”
“But he’s fine.”
“Still, do something!”
The Count sighed and took a bottle from the shelf. “I guess you could drink some medicinal alcohol, then. It’ll help make you feel better.”
Jörg drained the bottle he was given, then reported his encounter with Fabrice to the Count.
“Everything is in place for the delivery. All we need to do now is transport the food to the storehouse,” Jörg explained. “To do that, I was thinking of finding out where Fabrice’s carrier pigeons were going. Following a bird would give us an understanding of the French informant network.”
“I see. That’s a good idea.”
“I can’t follow every bird, though, and I don’t know how to fly yet, so do you have any ideas that might work?”
“Let me send my familiars. That would be fastest.”
“How much for each one?”
“Instead of you paying me for that, could you take my place helping Xandra fill these medicine bottles? Do that, and we’ll call it even.”
“Thanks, that helps a lot.”
“It’s not easy work, so stay focused. Lila, you should leave now. I don’t want you to be exposed to these noxious fumes.”
After the Count and Lila left the room, Xandra gave Jörg detailed instructions and taught him how to fill the bottles with medicine. Only Xandra could measure out each dose, so Jörg’s job was to line up the bottles and put the paper seals on them once they’d been corked.
“It’s a good thing you became a monster,” Xandra said. “You don’t want to let humans touch this stuff.”
“It’s that dangerous?”
“Yeah.”
Once the bottles had been filled, Xandra led Jörg to another room. Apparently, she was going to examine the patients that had just arrived at the inn. In a corner of the room sat a cart jam-packed with bottles of medicine, which Xandra told Jörg to push.
“The patients’ appearances might shock you at first, but try not to let it worry you,” Xandra said as she opened the door to the adjoining room.
Jörg stopped cold the moment he set foot inside.
The scene in front of his eyes reminded Jörg of the wards in the field hospital. Curtains partitioned off a startling number of patient beds, with the room seeming to stretch on endlessly. Jörg couldn’t even see the opposite wall. An acrid smell and the scent of herbs wafted through the air.
Xandra pulled back one of the curtains and beckoned Jörg over. She pointed to the patient sitting on the bed, and Jörg swallowed back the saliva that had coated his mouth. Sitting cross-legged on top of the blanket, reading a newspaper held in handlike protrusions, was something that looked like a mound of mud or a lump cut from an old oak tree. Waves rippled slowly across the surface of its body. It was alive.
Xandra took one of the bottles from the cart and uncorked it. She tilted it carefully, sprinkling a little bit of the powdered medicine over the body of the strange creature, which let out a high-pitched noise. It seemed to be happy.
“What is that?” Jörg asked.
“A human who’s turning into a monster,” replied Xandra.
“That’s a person?!”
“These people grew disgusted with the world and fled here. Once they start living at this inn, they gradually turn into monsters. However, it’s quite tough for a human to make the transition, so I help with medicine, removing or reducing their pain and helping them change into whatever form they want to become. I also help those who become monsters and later decide that they want to look human again.”
“You can do that?”
“Yes. The appearance of a living being is transient.”
“Monsters can take all sorts of different forms, but why is that?”
“Because people’s reasons for becoming a monster differ. They might do it to protect themselves from bad people, to punish evildoers, to become the most beautiful thing they can imagine, to make it easier for them to get food, or to become something that can fly, run through the fields, or swim through water. There are more reasons in this world than we can imagine.”
“I see.”
“We also have people who just want to stay here for a little while, then use the inn to run away to a foreign country. In other words, people who are seeking asylum. We sell medicine to them, too: things to relieve their fatigue or heal their injuries.”
“Times sure are tough for everyone…”
“These days, it’s the people on the outside who are more like monsters. Each war meeting, politicians and generals make decisions that send hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths. The people who come here refuse to live in that world. Don’t you find that honorable in a way?”
“Becoming a monster even it means abandoning what you believe in?”
“They abandon their old human form so they don’t lose their humanity. You did exactly the same thing.”
“I can’t argue with that, but it’s crazy to think that this many people are willing to live their lives as monsters…”
“Becoming a monster doesn’t mean giving up on the world—just that you believe in a new world. That idea in and of itself isn’t rare.”
The monster sitting on the bed showed Jörg the newspaper and tapped the paper with its finger. The sounds it made didn’t form words, but it seemed it was trying to tell him something.
Xandra interpreted for him. “He’s telling you this article is interesting and that you should read it.”
“What’s it about?”
“A certain poet wrote an article criticizing the war. Since the fighting started, he’s contributed close to twenty articles.”
The newspaper wasn’t German, but a German-language newspaper published in Zurich called the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
“He declared his opposition to the war as soon as it broke out, so naturally, he faced some fierce criticism from his fellow Germans. All the newspapers and magazines stopped publishing his articles, and everyone accused him of being a traitor. By now, the only place that will publish his work is this paper from neutral Switzerland.”
The monster continued to speak passionately.
Although its words sounded like gibberish to Jörg, Xandra told him what they meant.
I saw fire and death burn across the earth,
Thousands of innocents suffer, die, and decay.
It was then that I swore off war in my heart.
Swore off a blind god who forces people to suffer senselessly.
“He wrote that in September 1914, just after the war started. The poem isn’t particularly outspoken against the Great War, but he phrased it in a way that was so natural his fellow countrymen labeled him a traitor.”
“Did he fight on the front lines?”
“No, never. He worked at the German Prisoners of War Relief Agency in Bern. But he continued submitting articles to newspapers, even after working so hard it seemed he would collapse.”