The Medusa Plague

by Mary Kirchoff

  Wilor managed a half-shrug. “It was the grief.” He closed his eyes. “I know now what it can do to a man.”

  It was obvious to Guerrand that the tincture had loosened Wilor’s tongue, as well as his hold on his emotions. The smith seemed to need to talk, as if he realized his time to do so was fast passing. Guerrand leaned back on his stool and listened patiently, arms crossed, letting the man speak his fill.

  “It was Zena who noticed the oddness in Bram, you know,” Wilor said faintly. Guerrand sat forward to question the statement, but the smith wasn’t finished.

  “Well I remember the night Rejik met me at the Red Goose, all sweaty-faced and edgy,” Wilor continued, his voice picking up speed and volume. “ ‘Zena’s certain Cormac’s son Bram is a changeling,’ ” Wilor said in an imitation of Rejik’s voice. “Your father confessed it after he’d drank more tankards of ale than I’d ever seen downed before.”

  Guerrand jumped to his feet. “What are you talking about?”

  “I never spoke of it to anyone, nor did I seek you out now, dear boy,” said Wilor, his eyes clear yet sad. “But when you arrived here today, it seemed like providence, like you were put in my path one last time for a reason. I can’t let the truth die with me.”

  Wilor’s head shook as he recalled a painful memory. “It almost killed your father, too, knowing that about his own grandson, knowing that Zena was never wrong about such things, knowing that nothing could be done about it without risking the wrath of the tuatha who’d pulled off the switch.” Wilor coughed violently and spat, then asked for a drink. “The way things have been in Thonvil since then, I’ve had my suspicions about their meddling. … I’ve never spoken them aloud before, but what can faeries do to me that the rising of the moons won’t do in mere minutes anyway?”

  “Why have I never heard this before?” demanded Guerrand. “Has anyone ever told Bram they thought he might have faerie blood?” Legends were common of such baby exchanges, but Guerrand had never seen evidence of such an occurrence.

  Wilor rolled his head on the straw. “Not that I’ve been able to see. Your father never said so, but I think Rejik shared his suspicions with Cormac, or Cormac guessed himself, because I hear tell he’s always kept a distance and deferred judgment about the boy to his mother.”

  Guerrand couldn’t deny the truth of that. His head was a tangle of questions that forced their way to the front of his tongue at the same time. All that came out was, “What am I supposed to do with this confession now? Whether it’s true or not, how can I ever look at Bram the same way again, knowing my mother and father believed it?”

  “Believe it or not, that is your choice. Take it to your deathbed, as I did. But remember, it makes Bram no less a man than you thought him before.” Wilor’s eyes traveled to the window, where the long yellow streaks of twilight stretched into the room. “I’m afraid the sun is setting.” He didn’t looked the least bit afraid.

  “That can’t be! Not now, not yet!” Scowling, Guerrand raced to the windowsill. “If only I could hold the sun in place!” he cried in frustration, but no mage was powerful enough for that. The window looked to the west. Guerrand could already see that Solinari and Lunitari had risen before sunset, faint white and red outlines in the purple sky above the Strait of Ergoth. Wilor was right—there wasn’t much time.

  “I fear I’ve left you with more questions than answers, dear boy,” the silversmith said ruefully. “Life, and especially death, aren’t at all neat.”

  Guerrand turned away from the window and back to the weakened man on the bed of straw, stopping short when the snakes rose up, hissing. “I’m the one who needs to apologize, Wilor. You’ve been a true friend.”

  Wilor’s breath whistled two notes at once in response.

  He stared blankly, and his lips moved in a word that Guerrand could not hear. Heart in his throat, the mage scorned the snakes and moved closer. They didn’t writhe, but slowly settled upon the straw as softly as feathers.

  “Please, not yet!” the mage gasped again as the light in the eyes of his father’s oldest friend winked to black. Without thinking, Guerrand leaped to the window again, as if to question that the time had come. Though he could not see it, there scuttled across the purple-darkened sky a distant, round shadow he understood too well. The third moon, Nuitari, had risen like the gleaming onyx in Wilor’s eye sockets.

  Guerrand cursed the wretched soul of Lyim Rhistadt, who had made all this happen when he began following the black moonlit path of the evil god of magic.

  It happened every night on Krynn. Moonrise. Tonight, white Solinari rose first, a blindingly bright light that was quickly tinged a vague pink by the rising of red Lunitari. Moments afterward, the pinkish moonlight was muted further by the rising of the third moon, black Nuitari. People not of an evil disposition were never quite sure if Nuitari had risen, or if the sudden muting was caused by clouds scuttling in the nighttime sky.

  Guerrand tilted his face and stood silent in the doorway for a moment, reading some pattern in the heavens. Though the night sky was partly cloudy, there were no clouds near white Solinari and red Lunitari to dim their light now. The mage recalled that Solinari and Lunitari’s combined pink light had shone for many minutes while Wilor still lived. But the silversmith had turned to stone at the precise moment when Nuitari’s black light had dimmed the glow of the other two moons. Guerrand knew he had found his clue, knew it with the certainty of a seasoned mage whose experiments had met with both failure and success. Nuitari’s rising was a component in the spread of the plague. Only the evil black moon no decent person could see would cause such sickness.

  Why hadn’t he realized before what was so obvious now? Guerrand had needed to witness the final transformation to see the answer. Everyone thought that the end came at sunset on the third day. But, not being mages, they had looked at a symptom—the setting of the sun—rather than the cause—the rising of the moons on three successive days. The villagers couldn’t know the magical influence of the heavenly bodies that were the symbols of the gods of magic.

  What was still unclear to Guerrand, though, was what he could do about it. It was not the sun he needed to stop, as he’d cried to Wilor, but the rising of the moons, specifically Nuitari. Guerrand sighed and ran a hand through his long, graying hair. He might as well try to split Krynn in half as keep Nuitari from rising. He doubted even the Council of Three had the power to accomplish such a feat. The mage dropped his chin upon his palm and stared out the window.

  “Guerrand?”

  The mage nearly jumped from his skin. He spun about, turning eyes like saucers upon the form in the straw. Wilor was still stone, still dead. The door to the silversmith’s street-front shop swung open and Bram stepped through it. His brows were furrowed with anxiety, but they eased up at the sight of his uncle.

  “Thank goodness,” he puffed, out of breath. Bram bent over and grabbed his knees, lungs heaving. “I’ve practically sprinted over every inch of Thonvil in search of you.”

  Alarmed, Guerrand grabbed the door frame for support. “Is it Kirah?”

  “The disease is … running its course. She’s still alive, resting now.” Bram broke in before Guerrand could say another word. Pausing, he tilted his head and seemed only then to sense the odd stillness in the room. Bram’s gaze shifted left with a jerky motion, to the man of stone, then back to Guerrand’s careworn face. He had witnessed the final transformation too many times to afford the sight of the dead silversmith more emotion than sad acceptance.

  “I-I’m sorry,” Bram said haltingly. “Wilor once told me that you two had been friends. That’s how I thought to look here for you—after I’d covered the rest of the village, that is.”

  Guerrand approached the man on the bed of straw. “Wilor was alone. The rest of his family died in the last couple of days. I can scarcely spare the time, but I promised to bury him in the field out back.”

  “I’ll help you,” Bram offered. He bounded in and removed the blanket from Wilor�
��s body.

  Nodding, Guerrand hefted the smith’s snake legs while Bram supported the lion’s share of Wilor’s stone-stiff body. Together they took him through the supply door and out into the scrubby field, where potatoes had last grown. Guerrand steered them toward three freshly dug rocky mounds of dirt, and they set Wilor down.

  Bram looked around, palms up. “No shovel. Wilor must have had one to dig these other graves. I’ll go look.” Bram swept by Guerrand on his way back to the shop.

  There was a sound of thunder above their heads. As so often happened on the windswept coast, the good weather was at an abrupt end. The mage caught his nephew’s arm. “There’s no need,” he said, squinting skyward as the first cold drops of rain fell. Murky gray clouds covered the moons. “We haven’t the time to spend on digging, anyway.”

  Bram whirled around and stared, slack-jawed, at his uncle. “Are you saying we should just leave Wilor in the field?”

  “Of course not,” Guerrand snapped, distracted from searching his memory for a helpful spell. “Just stand clear.” Bram watched him curiously and stepped back as Guerrand dug around in the deep pockets of his robe until his fingers settled upon the items he sought.

  The mage’s hand emerged holding some miniature items. The words of the spell were simple enough, inscribed on the handle of the tiny shovel he held up in his palm, next to an equally small bucket. Guerrand lowered his head in concentration, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Bram was about to question him, then thought better of it.

  “Blay tongris.” Instantly, the top layer of mud, then drier dirt began to fly from the ground in a steady stream as if under the paws of some invisible, burrowing creature. Although the hole was wide enough, Guerrand mentally directed the crater to lengthen to accommodate Wilor’s height. When he determined it to be of sufficient size, the mage simply stopped the spell by breaking his concentration. The bucket and shovel remained, the mage knew, because the duration of the spell had not yet expired.

  Bram looked impressed. Guerrand’s face was flushed with success, his lower lip red because he’d been biting down on it as a focus. Together, as the rain turned from drizzle to torrent, the two men lowered the smith into the ground. Turning his attention to the newest mound of earth, Guerrand reactivated the spell and commanded a hole be dug there. The loose earth flew again and landed atop the stone body of the silversmith.

  When all the dirt had been replaced in the grave, Guerrand cut his concentration again and the digging stopped. None too early, either, because this time the tiny bucket and shovel disappeared from Guerrand’s soft, white palm.

  Guerrand regarded his nephew, blinking against the drops of rain that splashed his face. “I’ve discovered the plague’s final component that causes victims to turn to stone.”

  Bram pushed wet ropes of hair back from his face. “You know how to stop it then?”

  Guerrand shook his head. “I didn’t say that. Come inside where it’s warm and I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.” The mage gave Wilor’s grave a final, farewell pat, then trudged back toward the smith’s shop, Bram clumping along eagerly beside him. Mud gathered upon their boots until their feet felt as heavy as blocks of wood.

  Guerrand seized the handle of a bucket full of rainwater sitting by the door, then removed his muddy boots before stepping inside. Next he stoked a fire in the hearth of the storeroom, and made two double-strength cups of Wilor’s tea from the rainwater. He felt a jitteriness inside that crawled up into his throat, telling him to run all ways at once, seeking an instant solution. But he had too much to consider and no time to get the answer wrong. Kirah had less than twenty-four hours left before she, too, would turn to stone, before she, too, would be placed in the ground. Guerrand forced himself to sip the tea.

  Bram took the steaming mug his uncle offered, then sat back on his haunches before the fire. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and over his head, watching the mage with thready patience. If Bram had learned nothing else about this stranger of an uncle in the last days, it was that Guerrand would not be rushed.

  Guerrand pulled up a child’s chair by the warmth of the flames. He wasted no time, revealing to his nephew his theory of Nuitari’s damaging light.

  Bram’s lips were pursed in thought above his mug. “I don’t understand why this black light is so important. It’s not the cause, but just a trigger, isn’t it?”

  “I believe it’s a trigger for the initial infection and all three stages and days of the plague,” said Guerrand. “Exposure to Nuitari’s light triggers the fever, and so on, until the final exposure turns the victims to stone.”

  Bram was still shaking his head. “Then why can’t we just shield everyone from the black moon’s light—lower the shutters, put them underground, cover their eyes, that sort of thing?”

  “I doubt seriously whether that would have any effect,” said Guerrand, with a long, slow, sorry shake of his head. “Magic just doesn’t function that way Moonlight, especially, is insidious. Where magic depends on its effect, you rarely need to actually see it in order for it to work. You can even bottle it, if you know what you’re doing.” He shrugged, adding, “Moonlight shines on our world whether we see it or not.”

  Guerrand felt the need to pace while he pondered, thumbs hooked in his waist. “I’m going to have to think of a way to actually prevent the black moon from shining here.”

  “Can’t you ask the Council of Three for help?”

  Guerrand grimaced. “I’ve considered it. But you told them about the plague and they didn’t offer to come.”

  “How can they turn their backs on the decimation of an entire village?”

  “They’re too powerful and important to concern themselves directly with anything but the welfare of the whole world.” Guerrand saw Bram’s continued confusion. “In their own way, they have helped Thonvil more than I would have expected, first by letting you speak with me in Bastion, and second by allowing me to return here to do what I could to save the village.”

  Bram nodded his understanding at last.

  “It’s funny,” said Guerrand, struck with a new thought. “This wouldn’t even be happening at Bastion. No moons shine there.” The mage’s expression shifted from vague musing to recognition. He snapped his fingers. “Bastion is on a two-dimensional plane and not part of Krynn, or subject to its moons.”

  Bram could see his uncle’s face light up as his mind went to work. “So? You’re not contemplating some really strange idea, like transporting everyone to Bastion, are you?”

  Guerrand obviously was, because his face fell when he admitted, “I couldn’t manage that magically, even if it weren’t a violation of my vow to keep intruders from entering Bastion.” He squinted at his nephew. “You still haven’t told me what you said to persuade Par-Salian and Justarius to send you there.”

  “I know it may sound strange, but some magical creatures called ‘tuatha dundarael’ have apparently been helping me restore the gardens at the castle for some time. They gave me a coin and set me off on a path they called a faerie road.” He looked far away. “It feels so long ago I can scarcely believe it myself, but it apparently impressed your Justarius and Par-Salian enough to bend the rules for me.”

  For a brief moment, Wilor’s dying words came into Guerrand’s mind, and he found himself scrutinizing Bram’s face to assign hereditary features.

  “What are you staring at?” Bram asked, coloring to the roots of his hair. “Did I say something wrong?”

  Guerrand jerked his eyes away awkwardly. There were no answers to be found in his young nephew’s face. It wouldn’t do for Bram to further question the scrutiny. “I—No, you didn’t say anything wrong, Bram,” he hastily assured his nephew. “As a matter of fact, your thoughts are helping me a great deal.”

  Bram beamed. “What about sending victims someplace else on Krynn to avoid the moonlight?”

  Guerrand shook his head. “Aside from being impractical to accomplish, Nuitari’s light would find th
em eventually. No, I’ve got to figure out a way to prevent Nuitari from rising.”

  He scratched the pink scalp beneath his brown hair. “The only mages I know who’ve even come close to disrupting the course of the moons are the Council of Three. I believe I told you that after the conclave of twenty-one mages completed Bastion here on Krynn, Par-Salian, Justarius, and LaDonna combined magical energies to send the behemoth from the Prime Material Plane and compress its three dimensions to two while not altering its function.…”

  Guerrand’s voice trailed off as an idea began to blossom behind his eyes. When Bastion was completed, the Council had to prepare it for transit to the two-dimensional demiplane where it now resided. In effect, they had to strip away one dimension. That alteration was unnoticeable, because it seemed normal in the fortress’s new location.

  The exterior of Bastion was covered by mystic runes, scribed by Par-Salian, LaDonna, and Justarius as the final step in the building’s construction. Though he had not witnessed their inscribing, Guerrand had studied the runes often in the long months of solitude as high defender. He found their intricacies fascinating. As far as he could determine, the runes themselves provided most of the impetus for the change from three dimensions to two. It had taken the combined power of all three council members to move the structure from one plane to another, but almost any mage could have triggered the dimensional collapse, with the runes to back him up.

  Guerrand was pacing in Wilor’s small back room, his demeanor growing more and more excited with each new realization. Finally, Bram had to interrupt his uncle. “What is it, Rand? You’re on to something, aren’t you?”

  Guerrand paused for a moment with his head down, collecting the rush of thoughts before they disappeared. “Bram, you probably won’t understand this, but we can make Nuitari two-dimensional—actually turn it on it’s side—by transcribing the runes from Bastion to the moon. The runes are the key. We have a lot of work to do before the next moonrise, but by the grace of Lunitari we’ll get it done.”