The Wyrms of &alon

Finding nice things to say about Dr. Heggy Marteneiss was a cinch. You could sing her praises to the Moon, like the Transcendental Choir down at the Melted Palace. The door to Dr. Marteneiss’ office was slightly ajar, and—most importantly—vigorous marching band music could be heard saucily wriggling its way out through the crack. Heggy was the only person I knew who believed that loud brass plus soft volume equaled relaxing listening, but that was Heggy Marteneiss for you.

I stepped in.

Dr. Marteneiss was co-chair of Internal Medicine for the Old Wing, the Suture, and environs; the hospital was large enough that leadership roles got divided by geography in addition to specialty. The staff lovingly referred to her office as the Toy Room, and it was hard to disagree with them.

Some people are more in tune with their inner child than others. I, for example—somewhat to my wife’s befuddlement—had framed limited edition prints of famous manga panels up on the wall of my study back at the house, and had gotten into arguments about who had been in line first while waiting for the release of Time Sea III at the GameShop down at the galleria. Like me, Heggy was well-acquainted with her inner child, however, that inner child was a middle-aged collector of war memorabilia, and probably had been since her childhood.

Dr. Marteneiss’ office was festooned with mounted scale-miniatures of the war machines of old, older, and oldest. No branch of the Trentonian armed forces was too old or too obscure for Heggy to fawn over, and fawn over she did. A hobby shop probably didn’t have half as many shelves as Heggy’s office did, and all of them—seemingly every available surface—was laden with memorabilia. And family portraits.

To stand in Heggy’s office was to wrap yourself in quilted history, stitched together by the patchwork of different eras. She had fighter planes from the Costranak Campaign mounted on the walls, hovering in frozen flight over musket-bearing regulars and the gleaming, polished brass and chrome chassis of steam-submersibles from the privateer years. She had tanks and chariots and galleons and aerostats. And she’d assembled them all by hand. Alongside them, portraits of her decorated ancestors adorned the walls, adding to her space’s magic timelessness. Most were photographs, half of which were in color. The oldest was an aged oil painting about the size of my hand. Heggy could spend literally hours talking about them, and I’d known her long enough to experience her loving lectures many times. Her prized possession was the antique Koenig CC1701 model rocket-launcher she kept in the glass case by the window, complete with its warhead. I had yet to muster the courage to ask her if it still worked, mostly because I was pretty sure that, if I did, she’d insist on showing me how.

Heggy locked eyes with me as soon as I entered the room. “Happy to see you Dr. Howle.” Heggy raised her hands and clapped twice, and the martial music faded to silence. She gestured at the chairs in front of her varnished cherry-wood desk. “Take a seat. What can I do for you?”

I sat down.

If I ever had occasion to give a speech at Heggy’s funeral, God forbid, I’d start by reading off the specifications of one of the battleships her grandfathers had captained, because that would be as accurate and illustrative of a portrayal of her as anything that I could say, and Heggy had heartily approved of it as soon as I’d told her. Though threescore old, Dr. Marteneiss was still firing on all cylinders and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. She was a fortress of a woman: broad, burly armed, and crowned in wiry curtains of golden springs that spilled down to either side of her head like a weave on a loom. It had been my good luck to have both met her and fallen into her good graces in my days as a medical student—praise the lucky bow-tie! Apparently, the audacity of a “wiry young thing” like myself taking on a dual medical-psychiatric program had earned me her respect. A Marteneiss’ respect was a precious resource, and only a fool would take it lightly.

Hopefully, I wasn’t being a fool.

On the drop of a hat, as soon as Heggy caught sight of my arm trembling on the chair’s armrest, the mood in the room changed. I could almost hear the jack wrenching as her eyebrow went up a notch. The portraits on the walls seemed to stare.

“Genneth… what’s going on?”

As usual, I multitasked, clearing my throat, scratching the side of my head with one hand, and fidgeting with my bow-tie with the other, all while a chill rippled down my spine at the thought of what I was about to say.

“Heggy… have you ever heard of Nalfar’s Syndrome?”

Dr. Marteneiss leaned back into her chair, interweaving her fingers. “No, can’t say that I have.”

I shook my head. “That’s not surprising. It’s an extremely rare psychosomatic delusion. Those affected believe that they are dead. Walking corpse ‘my blood is pus and my skin is fire’ dead. They also tend to think that they are damned—in the theological sense—and that the whole world is coming to an end.”

Heggy chuckled dryly. Very dryly. But when she saw that the frown hadn’t left my face, her jocundity went right out the window. Her lips fell along with her jaw, and her posture, normally rigid, went slack.

“Seriously…?”

I nodded.

“Well then, hit me with it. Lemme have it.” Heggy lightly grasped her chin.

I had her full attention.

“Not much is known about the etiology of Nalfar’s, other than that it’s usually correlated with brain trauma of one sort or the other. What little literature we do have implicates temporal lobe damage, especially damage to the fusiform gyrus. Nalfar’s is a particularly frightening member of a family of delusions known as Delusions of Negation. Another example of a delusion of that type is the Replacement Delusion, where you think your friends and family have been replaced by identical imposters.”

“Well, now,” Heggy said, craning her head back, “that’s… definitely gonna keep me up at night.”

“It gets worse,” I said, splurging my research onto her. Brand did that sort of thing when he was stressed, and it worked great for him. “There’s also Alien Hand Syndrome, where the patient experiences one or more of their limbs acting seemingly with a will of their own. Although, that likely involves the premotor cortex, which makes for a completely different pathology than Nalfar’s.”

Heggy sighed. “So what’s going on, Genneth? Just give it to me straight.”

“Nalfar’s is so rare that there isn’t enough data on it to even establish the percentage of the population that suffers from it.”

“And…?” She leaned in, elbows on the desk.

“And,” I said, “I’ve seen three cases of Nalfar’s in the past two days alone; two of them just this morning. And I’m willing to bet more will be on the way.”

“That’s bad…” Dr. Marteneiss blanched.

I nodded in agreement. “Very bad,” I muttered.

Heggy clenched her hands into fists. “Okay, do you got any useful reconnaissance for me? How would you evaluate the current situation? Are there any obvious links between the patients’ cases?”

“Unfortunately, no, there don’t seem to be any connections between the three patients. The first is a housewife who I’ve known for a long time. Outside of friendly visits or nights at the theater, she doesn’t get out much. The second patient is a construction worker. I haven’t met with the third yet; it was a referral from Dr. Rathpalla. I came over here the instant I learned about it. That being said, I’m not inclined to think an environmental factor is to blame.”

“It could be quicksilver poisoning,” Heggy said.

“Yeah, I thought so too, but… this condition is fulminant. The onset is rapid. Going by my patients’ testimonies, the prodromal phase lasts a couple hours at most. Neurotoxins capable of inflicting this level of damage either gradually build up to it over a longer period of time—like quicksilver poisoning—or they’re on the level of nerve gas, in which case merely thinking you are dead is the least of your worries.”

Dr. Marteneiss shook her head. “Please tell me this isn’t goin’ where I think it’s goin’.”

“I wish I could, Heggy, but…” I squeezed the armrest in my hands, “I think we have to face the possibility that we’re dealing with some kind of contagion. These past few days… I think there’s something going around. Everywhere I go, there’s someone coughing. It might just be my anxiety acting up”—I glanced away—“the family’s still going through a rough patch—but…” I shook my head, “I have a bad feeling about this.” I raised my brow. “I’ve been having a bad feeling all week, and now I finally have something to pin it on.”

Heggy breathed out long. She sat up and straightened out her coat. “A germ that makes ya think you’re dead sounds pretty far-fetched to me, but… you didn’t become a cross-department neuropsychiatric consultant for no good reason. And I know I can trust your findings. Three cases of this rare of a condition in such a small span of time… you don’t need to be an epidemiologist to see that there’s a bad harvest brewin’.”

Dr. Marteneiss stood up from her seat and stretched her arms. “I’ll get an expedited memo sent out to the DAISHU A-SAP, and then you and I can—”

“—Actually,” I rose from my seat, “Heggy, before you do that, I was wondering if you’d accompany me for a bit. One of my Nalfar’s patients has an MRI that’s soon to get underway, and I’d like to have you with me, both before and after the fact.”

“Aren’t you the expert, though?”

Smiling, I took a gracious bow. “Even experts benefit from second opinions, especially from someone with a different point of view.” My smile faded into a sigh. “Besides, that’s not the only trouble afoot. Letty’s woken up.”

Dr. Marteneiss pursed her lips. “What?”

“Letty Kathaldri.”

Heggy chortled. “Well I’ll be! And they say there ain’t no such thing as a miracle!” She put her heavy fingered hand on my shoulder. “You’ve really had quite the day, haven’t you?”

“That’s just it…” my shoulders went tight, “Rayph’s school play is tonight, and, at the rate things are going, I’m worried I’m not going to wrap my day up early enough to make it there on time. Heggy,” I looked her in the eyes, “this is my big chance to show to Pel and the kids that I can be there for them when they need me. Pel would impale me if I missed it. I asked Tira to see if she could rearrange my schedule, but, knowing the heft you have for this sort of thing, I thought I might as well try and ask you to see what you could do.”

“So, you want to pass off the end of your day to me?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

She smiled. “Well, for my birthday, I’d like one of the Blueshirt Ironside Ships.”

I tilted my head slightly. “Don’t you already have that one?”

“No. Same war, different faction.” She walked to the door. “Now, come on, let’s git ‘er done.”