Page 25 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy
“No,” said Fairhrim, when Osric pulled one out.
Osric opened the bottle. The chemical whiff was as un-Scotch-likeas possible. “It’s not Scotch. It’s the same stuff we found in Wellesley Keep.”
Fairhrim tripped away from him, shaking her head, as one in a nightmare. “I don’t believe it.”
Osric broke the lid of a perfume bottle and smelled its contents. “Not perfume.” He smashed a tin of soup. Clear liquid seeped into the earth. “Not soup.”
“The Druidscan’tbe responsible for the Pox. Please, no, they can’t be—” Fairhrim looked ready to cry again. “The Druids would never. Never. Andhowcould they? It makes absolutely no sense.”
Osric was keener on escaping the Færwundor than dealing with Fairhrim’s outraged confusion. He held her against him and shadow-walked out of the cellar amid her disbelieving sputters.
They emerged from a low door into an underground maze of hallways. The underside of the Tor had nothing of the natural rusticity of the Færwundor above; it was corridor after corridor of white tile and glass windows giving onto laboratories with gleaming steel worktops. Osric could only describe the place as a production facility.
Pale electric lights quivered off and on as they walked, leaving them alternately blinking in light or stumbling in the dark.
Fairhrim asked, “Since when have Druids got facilities for endotoxin testing? And aseptic filling? Since when have they gotelectricity?”
They passed a clean room air lock plastered with instructions regarding gowning, hairnets, and shoe covers.
“So much for your mortar and pestles,” said Osric.
“This is a sho-sophisticated pharmaceutical complex. We don’t have half this stuff at Swanstone. We’re the cutting edge. Not Druids.”
“Wherearethe Druids?”
They made their way through the subterranean maze. The lights flickered off, then turned back on to reveal a large sort of foyer, one or two stories high. It was somewhere below the tree in the Færwundor; thetree’s roots circled the ceiling. Spiral stairs twisted down around a tumbling waterfall in the centre of the room.
The answer to Osric’s question came, morbidly, as they entered the foyer—lines of dead Druids upon white tiles, killed, based on the stench, around the same time as the sentinels above.
Fairhrim muffled a groan in the crook of Osric’s arm. “Mordaunt—this was a—this was a mass execution—”
An old Druid lay on the floor like a gory Vitruvian Man. He had been bashed upon the head; dried blood trickled down his white beard and crusted upon his green robes. He wheezed as they neared.
“He’s alive,” gasped Fairhrim.
“Well done,” said the Druid in a feeble mutter. “P-prize is in the post.”
“Quick—we’ve got to help him,” said Fairhrim, wriggling out of Osric’s arms.
“His lot are responsible for the Pox,” said Osric.
“I don’t believe it,” said Fairhrim.
“I’m s-sorry to tell you that we are,” said the Druid.
Fairhrim, stricken, asked, “But—why?”
“The Dreor have taken over the Færwundor,” said the Druid. “They’ve forced us to produce the Pox by the bucketful. I sabotaged every batch I could. I’m sorry—I’m sorry—”
Fairhrim pressed her tacn to his whiskery cheek. “I don’t even know how you’re still alive. What’s your name?”
“Grön.”
“Is anyone else alive?”
Grön’s breathing was laboured. “Don’t think so. Rumour is—the Haelan developed a vaccine. Dreor don’t need us anymore. The Pox is useless now.”
“I can’t believe it,” breathed Fairhrim. “The Dreor forcing Druids into producing the Pox? And the Druids having the facilities to do so?I thought you lot only grew medicinal plants—I thought Swanstone synthesized the drugs for you—”
