by Terah Edun
Ciardis looked around the perimeter of the dome in desperation.
For something, anyone that looked sane.
Then for a way out. And that was when she noticed.
The tunnel was gone.
It wasn't just gone—the wall was seamless, as if they had never bored their way through it.
And what was more…it was in the distance.
Ciardis reached out with a flail and grabbed the first person she could.
It was the soldier Samuel.
She pointed a shaky finger at the wall. “Do you see that?”
“Ma'am?”
“The wall!”
“Yes, milady. The tunnel is gone.” The soldier didn't sound too happy about it, but he confirmed her own vision.
But that wasn't all.
Ciardis let him go and took more steps to the back of the bubblelike surface.
She looked down and she looked out.
She stared at it from every angle and then she clenched her fists in rage.
“Ciardis, what is it?” Sebastian said.
“Look,” she said with a dry mouth.
He looked and his gaze darkened.
“Exactly,” she said in a hollow tone.
There was about ten feet of bare earth and screaming, banshee-like creatures beyond the bubble.
Just over that small amount of space stood the wall.
It might as well as have been a forest away.
Because without touching the stone's surface, Sebastian couldn't call up an exit.
They were stuck.
Surrounded by hordes of living undead.
Stuck in a hell of their own making.
They'd made it to Kifar and after all this everything said about the city was worse than they'd ever dreamed.
15
Ciardis let out a frustrated breath.
She didn't blame anyone but herself for the predicament they were in.
And Sebastian.
Just a little.
Okay, maybe a lot, she thought bitterly.
But recriminations weren't going to get them out of the sticky situation they had landed in.
Privately, she wasn't sure anything would. They were stuck in a bubble with a ravenous, inhuman horde all around them. It was hard to imagine a tougher spot to be in, and that included the time she'd been stuck in the middle of a raging battlefield against a demonic horde of harpies and something that didn't even have a name. At the time they'd fought off three representatives of the bluttgott in order to ward off its coming and give them some time to prepare.
She'd thought then that she knew what evil was when facing a god. It might have been a phantasm.
But this, this trumped that. Because the creatures they were up against were plagued with a pestilence.
Even if they could get out of the bubble the same way they'd emerged from the tunnel in the stone wall, the Aerdivus that infected all of them was virulent. Any close contact was bound to be contagious.
No one knew if it was carried by air, or blood, or touch, but it was safe to say that it had wiped out an entire way of life in a quarter of the Algardis lands.
People had died in droves.
Infrastructure had crumbled.
Cities had shut themselves away.
All to stem the tide of a plague that seemed so pervasive that no one escaped its clutches alive. Except those lucky few.
The only solution that had come to an empire where the finest minds quaked at the thought of the virulent plague was to shut away thirty percent of its land and its population. To abandon it with no hope for a cure.
The Aerdivus infection was notorious in the healing community as the only illness that their professional guild couldn't combat in a human. In fact, most healers who had previously tried to heal an Aerdivus infection in a patient had succumbed to the same infection themselves and died very quickly. Those who had lived had only spread the virus further, which was why Kifar was the way it was. Or so she supposed.
Ciardis wasn't a gambling type of woman, and she certainly wouldn't bet her life or the lives of those around her that they would be lucky enough to escape the grasp of the virus that left this city plagued with something worse than death.
Something that she'd never heard of in all the horrifying stories about the plague and the ghost villages it had left behind.
The Aerdivus victims had all had one thing in common in those stories.
Release. Release from pain. Release from internal torture.
But this, this is different, Ciardis realized.
Before her very eyes it was abundantly clear. They didn't know everything about the Aerdivus. Because it had clearly transmuted in the city of Kifar, leaving its denizens gripped in a never-ending death.
She shivered and caught Christian's eye. She wanted to ask him so many questions about the plague and its origination, how it worked, what its symptoms were, and what it meant that these people weren't fully dead.
But this wasn't the time.
Raising her eyes to each person in the group, Ciardis swallowed heavily and said, “Well, any ideas?”
There were discontented mutters, and people looked around at the bubble that protected them from what waited outside.
Shrugs. Half-whispers. Nothing substantial came forward.
“Really?” Terris finally said in disbelief as she stood in the center of the group with her hands on her hips.
“This is the finest group of journeymen and women I've ever come across,” Companion Kithwalker said as she looked around. “You all have survived more scrapes than I can count on my hands. Defeated more villains and straight crazy individuals than I have braids on my head. Yet no one has an idea?”
“Well,” said Sebastian, “we're between in a rock and a hard place. Normally we'd fight our way out.”
Ciardis shook her head quickly, even though she could tell just by looking at Sebastian's face that he didn't think that was a reasonable idea.
“Why?” said Samuel as he saw her shake her head.
“Because,” the shaman said, “we risk not only losing our heads—none of those individuals look like they care a lick about losing their lives—but we also risk infection.”
Sebastian said, “Right.”
“And,” Christian said from off to the side, where he eyed more of the infected with speculation, “we don't know why they're still alive. It's…”
He paused.
“Go on,” said Ciardis.
“Puzzling,” he said with a look at Raisa that Ciardis couldn't read. “They aren't really undead. But they aren't living either.”
“What does that mean?” said Thanar.
“What?” asked Tobias, just as puzzled.
“The living undead inhabit Kifar, my people have known that forever,” said the Muareg patiently.
Christian turned to face their captive fully. “Yes, but what does that mean?”
The Muareg rocked back on his heels. “They have no thoughts. They have no ideas. They do not eat. They do not hunt. They exist but they do not sleep. They are ravenous but they do not hunger for earthly spoils. They are merely there.”
Ciardis wondered for a moment how the Muareg knew so much. Lore could only sustain a rumor so far. But this information was more than just speculation—it was clearly fact.
She stared at him with narrowed eyes. “It's amazing how you know so much about these people.”
The Muareg shrugged a shoulder. “It's what my people know. It's all that we do.”
“But how do you know something when you cannot see the individual?” Christian asked. “This entire city is encased by a wall as tall as the skies. No one goes out. No one comes in except for a blood imperial. Until now, Kifar was sealed.”
“Our history is strong,” the Muareg countered with a raised chin.
“That's not an answer,” Sebastian said with his hand on his sword.
An uneasy silence descended as they waited for the Muareg's answer.
The kith was s
tubbornly silent until Raisa hissed like the dragon she was.
“I can make you talk,” the dragon said. “And this time, none will stop me.”
The Muareg looked around nervously for a benefactor, a protector who would step forward once more against his dragon oppressor, but none did. They all knew that they were up against rock with few choices left.
They needed answers, and the Muareg, at least, they could all tell, was holding back a piece to the puzzle. A piece they desperately needed to escape this encounter.
Ciardis said, “Speak, Muareg, and we will listen. Or don't talk and we will cast you out. You will be the first sacrifice to their ravenous hunger. To their pestilence-riddled claws.”
Privately, Ciardis wondered if she had overdone it a tad. The screaming individuals didn't really have claws and, well…if they were hungry, according to the Muareg, it wasn't for flesh. But apparently that was just enough to kick his butt in gear, because he spoke.
In a wheedling tone, the Muareg said, “For a long time my people were…caretakers.”
“Jailers?” said Sebastian.
“No,” said the Muareg with visible distaste. “Healers.”
Christian pushed his way to stand in front of the captive by jostling shoulders aside.
“What do you mean?” the koreschie said in a frigid voice.
The Muareg raised its chin as it fiddled with a cowl. “We were the caretakers left behind after all the east abandoned the west. When your healers and shamans and even your hedgewitches refused to care for the sick. When the imperial family decreed that the cities would be walled away. When normal folk forgot that the west even existed—we stayed.”
“Why?” said Terris. “Why would you stay when, by your own admission, nothing could be done to stop the plague and even you could not enter the walled cities yourself?”
“We are caretakers,” said the Muareg. “We guard the land and warn travelers away as best as we're able.”
“By waylaying them, you mean,” Tobias said under his breath.
Samuel elbowed him in the side and the soldier was silent.
The Muareg didn't seem to hear him anyway, as he continued, “We may not have had the fabled healing gifts of the koreschie, but we had the strength of a dozen human men, the stamina of creatures born to this climate, and the will to survive.”
“So you stayed,” said Christian in a calm tone. “But you give no motive as to why. You fear these plagued individuals as much as the rest of us do.”
The Muareg stiffened.
“I can tell by the whites of your eyes,” Christian said, “the stench of fear in your sweat. So tell me, Muareg, tell us all. What compels your people to stay here and endure?”
The Muareg said in hushed tones, “Safe domain.”
“What?” murmured Ciardis.
The Muareg turned to her and spoke in a louder tone. “The emperor promised a home. A domain safe from dragon incursions. A refuge and protection from the urges of Sahalia.”
Raisa let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Your human emperor has no such will. He could no more protect you from my people than a wolf could protect a fly from a raging bear.”
This time it was Sebastian who intervened. “Ambassador, if I may, before we say words we regret, let us get back to the core of the story.”
Raisa's eyes were back into their reptilian form, but she did not object in any meaningful way.
Sebastian turned to the Muareg. “My grandfather promised you land?”
“No,” the Muareg said. “He gave us passage through his lands and to these.”
“So he offered you the promise of a home,” the prince heir said.
The Muareg hesitated. Then he said, “In a way, yes. Without his consent we would not have made it to the desert lands where the city of Kifar offered us shelter, homes, food, and a life when no one else would.”
Sebastian nodded. “And in return for this passage, you were to guard Kifar from the outside to keep people from accessing it through the desert directly or indirectly?”
“Yes, your imperial highness.”
“And did he say for how long you would guard these lands?”
The Muareg looked around at them, as if unsure. “Why…forever.”
Thanar let out a harsh bark of laughter. “That sounds like the imperial family we know.”
Terris gave a discontented murmur.
Christian interjected, “Prince heir, if I may?”
Sebastian's jaw was tight in anger, but he waved a hand. “Proceed.”
Christian lowered his voice in a prayer and then raised it to say, “What do you know about this zombie-like pestilence, then?”
“Nothing more than the rumors, I promise you,” the Muareg said in a strident tone. “We cared for the sick as best we were able to when we encountered them, but outside of these walls they were nothing like this.”
“You mean they all eventually died,” said Christian flatly.
The Muareg nodded quickly.
Christian pursed his mouth in displeasure. “Then we need to go about this a new way.”
He turned around and looked at the group. As he did his human form melted away, leaving skin that was transparent with purple veins of power running underneath the surface. He began to take on a glow.
“Koreschie,” said one of the soldiers in a warning voice.
“Relax,” said Christian. “I can…tap into more of my gifts in my normal form, and we need all the help we can get. But more than that, I need you all to aid me with your eyes. Help me see what I am missing.”
Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “You want us to diagnose a pestilence when hundreds of skilled healers and mages failed at the task for so long.”
Christian directed his unsettling gaze on the prince heir. “I want you to look at what no one else has ever seen. Plague-ridden individuals who should be dead and yet live. Who cry rivulets of blood and yet do not expire from exsanguination. Who hunger down to their very bones, but want for no substance. Who scream with the sounds of a tormented soul but have obviously left their own behind long ago. I want to know why these living undead yet live. And even a master healer would not be able to tell me that.”
Sebastian gave Christian a thoughtful look. “Well, it cannot hurt.”
He nodded to his men, and without a word the soldiers, dragging the Muareg with them, began to closely examine the screaming horde.
Christian then looked around the circle of remaining companions on the journey.
“What do you all think?” he said quietly.
“I think you're a fool to want to solve this malady,” Thanar said with a shrug. “But I've got nothing better to do.”
The dragon took a deep breath and then looked at Christian with dark eyes. “If this does not work, healer, you must shed your compassion and be ready to spread death. Because that may be our only way free.”
She too turned to study the group of howling individuals closest to them.
The shaman said slowly, “Among my people, the koreschie are legendary.”
Christian turned to her with a tense face and pain-filled eyes. Ciardis knew he had already heard every hatemongering word that could possibly said about his race.
She started forward to stop the shaman. The koreschie held out a halting hand.
“I do not need your help, Ciardis Weathervane,” he said as he looked the shaman up and down.
“Go on,” Christian said bitterly, “tell me what they say about my people. What's one more insult?”
Surprise showed on the shaman's face. Surprise and understanding that dawned seconds later.
She clucked her tongue and walked forward to the glowing kith.
The shaman reached up and trailed a hand down his translucent skin. From forehead to chin, she made her touch slow and lingering. She made sure the koreschie knew that she wanted to touch him. That she did not fear him.
“The humans of the east have such strange concepts of what is right and what is wron
g. What is ugly and what is beautiful. What is forbidden and what is tantalizing,” Rachael whispered in a seductive tone. “We of the tribes have no such compunctions.”
Christian looked so surprised at Rachael's touch, at her body language, that his mouth was agape, and in any other situation it would have been comical.
“Your people are revered,” the shaman said while tracing her fingers along his face like a child with a favorite toy. “For their skills in healing and in death. For their respect for the dead and for their willingness to fight for the living.”
Christian just watched her silently—his eyes as large as his head.
“What's more, Christian,” Rachael said, “I find the translucent skin…intriguing.”
“Well, that's…I mean…” Christian stammered.
Ciardis had never seen him so at a loss for words before.
Rachael reached up with a gentle hand and closed Christian's hanging jaw with a small click. “Think on it, koreschie. I will not wait long.”
Ciardis watched her saunter away with disbelieving eyes. For a moment she was angry. The shaman's romantic play with Thanar was one thing. He could handle himself. But to play on Christian's emotions was a whole other kettle of fish.
But then Ciardis caught Rachael's eye.
And an understanding passed between them. One woman to another. It wasn't something that Ciardis could voice. But she knew as sure as the day was long that the shaman wasn't playing with the koreschie. Not this time. She was serious.
For Ciardis…that would have to be enough…for now.
The Weathervane watched as Christian followed behind the shaman mutely, like a dumbfounded ox.
He didn't even bother looking to the two remaining members of the group for confirmation of his plan.
Terris looked at Ciardis. Ciardis looked at Terris.
They burst out laughing and walked to an empty segment of the bubble to search for something that even they could not miss.
16
All was well. Ciardis knew with certainty that the unspoken rift between her and her best friend had been mended.
As they worked side by side Ciardis Weathervane and Terris Kithwalker studied creatures before them. These individuals that Ciardis couldn't quite call human—they had lost their humanity long ago, after all. But there was solace in the fact that if they could find a connection, a solution, then they could end their suffering. In the meantime she smiled at their mended relationship.