Plague

by Elizabeth McCoy

When sickness comes to the country of Cymelia, alchemists and herb-witches create the healing brews that save lives. But this illness is different; the usual measures have little effect. Master Iathor is his city's best hope to discover a cure – but even with his alchemical skills, the plague is spreading through the city, and amongst his own household . . .

(This 6,000-word fantasy short story is a prequel to Herb-Witch, set some 20 years earlier.)

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories

ebook

First published January 17, 2013

Reviews

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Always interesting characters to visit and provides some reinforcement of family retainer relationships that might have been unclear in the Duology. Be aware. this is a short story!

[heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tidy little short story is a prequel to Herb-Witch. In it, we meet a young Iathor, trying to figure out how to deal with the plague running loose in his city.

There are several moments where we see the man Iathor will become peeking through his inexperience and concern. For instance, the turning point of the story is when he listens to his bondsman and realizes something he hadn't noticed because he was too focused on tradition. There's also a great scene where he works on communicating with the Shadowmaster.
"It is my understanding that my father has maintained lines of communication with the master of the shadows. This recipe I send should help immensely with the plague and may well cure it entirely. Plague is an enemy I think we all must fight, whether in darkness or sunlight. The bottle I send contains three equal doses of the possible cure; you may test it upon another before you trust your own health to it, and there should be enough left after a messenger takes a swig. –Master Iathor"

Sometimes prequels feel like they are out of time and this isn't really a younger version of the character, because the author has grown in their understanding of the character. This story avoids that pitfall and gives you an interesting insight at the same time.

Read if: You have read Herb-Witch, or you want a teaser for the larger books after it.

Skip if: You can't read about contagious coughing sicknesses.

Also read: Herb-Witch, naturally.

[Elizabeth McCoy]

(Loaded on Smashwords and Amazon. It should be at most other vendors by now (at least, the ones Smashwords distributes to), though if the ISBN didn't transfer correctly, you'd have to find it with a search on title and author. If I could ensure the ISBN always transferred correctly, I would do it, but I think it would take a boffer sword and me visiting a few places' programmers and chasing them around for a while...

I think this short story is Not Fluffy.)

[Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent short story! The author weaves narrative around letters to tell an engaging story, with deep insights into the characters involved.

I definitely plan to read more in this series!

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't say this was good fun to read, but it was interesting and shows us a possible unsuspected extension of alchemy.