by Ian Whates
The corridors were all but deserted at this hour, so he slipped unnoticed from the passageway's concealed exit and hurried to the designated address, along a route he was coming to know well. The only person likely to discover him was a patrolling Kite Guard, and he'd deal with that contingency if and when it arose.
He arrived without incident and let himself in without knocking, the door opening to his touch. A stunted corridor lay before him, with five doors leading off, two to either side and one directly in front. The format and indeed the uniform functionality of the doors themselves cried 'workplace' rather than 'home'. He strode immediately to the furthest door and pushed it open, stepping into what was clearly a laboratory.
Clean surfaces, white or smoothed wood, surrounded him, while mysterious glass cabinets and domes festooned walls and worktops, many of them containing objects of even more dubious purpose. Off to one side a small metal burner produced a constant blue-tinged flame. For an irreverent moment, the prime master wondered whether the burner served any practical purpose but was instead there merely to declare to a casual visitor that this was a place of serious research, in case they were in any doubt.
The room had a single occupant; white coat turning her form almost androgynous, while her auburn hair was tied back in a simple band. She was titrating something yellow into a glass beaker, her back to him as he entered.
"Come on in, PM," she said, without pausing or looking round.
He refrained from pointing out that he already had.
"Be with you in a minute."
He shuffled closer, though not so close as to be a distraction, and tried to peer around her to see the beaker and fluid more clearly.
"Does that have anything to do with why you called me?"
"No, this is just routine," she replied. "But I thought that, since I was here anyway, I might as well finish this off while waiting for you."
Apparently satisfied, she turned off the flow from the fragile-seeming burette, carefully pushed the metal stand holding the slender glass wand back against the wall and sealed the beaker with a stopper. Only then did she turn around to smile at him, the crows-feet at the corner of her eyes merely emphasising the bright warmth of the expression.
"Thaiss, you look awful," she said, the smile transforming into a concerned frown.
"Thank you; and there was me about to comment on how lovely you look."
"Go right ahead. Don't let my candidness stop you."
And she was lovely. The flashes of grey in her hair and the laughter lines around her eyes did nothing to diminish that; rather they were indications that the prettiness of the young woman he could still picture so clearly had matured into a deeper, more profound beauty.
Her frown was still there, though. "You're working too hard as usual, aren't you? You've got to ease up."
"I would love to; in fact, I determined only today to have an early night of uninterrupted sleep and recuperation, but then…"
She held up an apologetic hand. "I know, I know… I'm sorry."
"Jeanette," he said softly, "when have I ever complained if you're the one summoning me, whatever the hour?"
For a moment their eyes locked, memories of what they'd almost shared passing between them in a glance. Then she looked away.
"Right," he said, trying not to sound in any way awkward or embarrassed, "so what's the latest?"
Her expression darkened. "Not good news, I'm afraid."
He'd guessed as much, or she wouldn't have troubled him at such an hour. Before Jeanette could continue, however, there was a discreet knock at the door. She looked startled, clearly not expecting anyone.
"Sorry," the prime master said quickly, "I forgot to mention, I gave one of my colleagues the address and told him to meet me here." He then raised his voice and called out, "Come through, Thomas."
The door opened and the young master stepped in.
"Thomas, I'd like you meet Jeanette, one of my dearest friends, Jeanette, this is…"
"…our newest master. Delighted to meet you, Thomas."
Her smile took in first the younger man and then the older. The prime master could well imagine just how delighted she would be. Jeanette was always going on at him to share the burden of office and to not take on so much responsibility himself, so this development would please her no end.
"Jeanette, would you mind bringing Thomas up to speed before sharing your latest news?"
"Certainly." She then slipped into a toned-down version of the lecture mode which the prime master had seen her adopt so often when addressing a roomful of attentive students or arkademics in training. "It began in the Artists' Row," she explained. "Several people succumbing to a mysterious malady which local healers seemed unable to treat. As more fell victim, we were called in to try and identify the cause and provide an antidote. Meanwhile, the number of victims began to rise alarmingly and we were forced to impose a quarantine to prevent this from becoming an epidemic."
Thomas looked shocked. "I haven't heard anything at all about this."
"Good," the prime master said. "We've attempted to keep a lid on it but you never know how successful you've been, especially given the way word of mouth travels around here."
"Why keep quiet about it at all?" Thomas asked.
"Because of the nature of the disease." The Prime Minister looked towards Jeanette, who gave a shallow nod and picked up the story again.
"What we're dealing with here is not simply a fever; it's worse than that, much worse. The disease physically attacks people, transforming them, killing them in the process."
"Attacks them how?"
The woman looked at the prime master, who nodded. She moved to the back of room, where a large shuttered window dominated the far wall. At a touch of her hand, the shutters started to lift. The prime master took a deep breath; he knew what was to come.
A single table occupied the centre of the small room. On it lay a body, which, despite being the shape and size of a human, could never actually have been human, surely. So the brain insisted. The supine figure appeared to have been crudely chiselled from some form of rock or perhaps bone. Where there should have been skin and hair, there was instead a seamless film of an off-white substance that looked to have been dug from the ground rather than being anything that once breathed. Nor was this coating smooth and skin-like; instead it was lumpy and covered with bumps, like some interrupted statue which the sculptor had yet to return to and complete.
"Gods," Thomas murmured. "Was that ever human?"
"Oh yes," Jeanette assured him. "A few days ago this was a living, breathing man."
"It's hideous." Thomas seemed to be searching for a more dramatic description without being able to find it.
The prime master knew exactly how the other felt. He'd seen this several times before and still found it disturbing in the extreme; words, any words, were inadequate.
"For reasons that should be obvious, we call this disease bone flu." Jeanette continued. "The hands are the first to go, and then the arms. Sufferers complain of a tingling sensation, then an itching to the skin. This is swiftly followed by a loss of feeling to the affected limb which is accompanied by a process we've dubbed calcification. Calcium starts to permeate the skin, apparently drawn from the bones. Soon the skin is transformed into the brittle and inflexible sheath you see before you. The depositing of the calcium isn't entirely regular, hence the gnarly bumps and protrusions you see here. From the transformed limb the infection spreads, rapidly. As the process progresses across the body, it starts to attack the vital organs as well. Once that happens the end isn't far away, though sufferers would doubtless wish it to be even nearer. Left to face the consequences unaided, they die in excruciating agony."
Thomas was staring at the body on the other side of the glass and shaking his head, as if to deny such a thing could happen. "I never imagined…" His voice trailed off.
"Now do you see why we're keeping this quiet until we've found a way to combat this abomination?" The
prime master said quietly.
Thomas nodded, and then surprised his older colleague by saying, "I wouldn't have thought there was enough calcium in the entire body to do this."
Not for the first time, the prime master found himself impressed by this latest colleague's perception. Even in the face of such horror, the man's brain continued to function with remarkable clarity. "There isn't, and that provides our disease with a final wicked twist. As far as we can tell, bone flu attacks only those with a smattering of talent, and it's somehow able to draw on that talent, using it to manufacture additional calcium within the body in order to complete the transformation process. Bone flu turns a person's own talent against them."
"What?"
"This is something new Thomas, a threat the like of which the city has never faced before, if our damaged records are to be believed. We don't know where this bone flu originated, nor how. All we do know is that it's here, it's spreading, and to date the disease has proved 100% fatal. Everyone who contracts bone flu has died."
"And I'm afraid I have some more bad news to add," Jeanette said.
"Go on," the prime master said, bracing himself.
"There's been a new outbreak, in the Residences. Bone flu has started attacking the arkedemics."
He nodded, absorbing this. It was the sort of development they'd been dreading. Not unexpected news, but still a bitter blow.
"Has this new outbreak been contained?"
"For now, but I don't hold out any great hopes that we'll be able to do so in the long run." Jeanette sounded as weary and frustrated as he felt. "How can we hope to contain it when we don't even know for sure how the infection's spread, for Thaiss' sake?"
"But you will work it out," he assured her, "you will."
He had to believe that. More importantly, she had to believe it.
As the two masters slipped out into the gloom of Thaiburley's night-time corridors once more, Thomas turned to him and said, "You have to tell the rest of the council."
The prime master nodded. "I know."
Now that the infection had spread, there was little choice. "But can you not see the implications here, Thomas?"
The other looked at him expectantly.
"A multitude of people have settled in Thaiburley over the centuries, Thomas. The blood of the founders, those who built the city, still flows through the veins of many, but so diluted as to be all but insignificant. Only in a very few does it flow pure enough for the core to recognise that individual as founder stock and so allow them access to its potential, manifesting the various forms of talent. Yet talent is what enables this city to function. We masters and arkademics use talent every day to fulfil our duties; without it, Thaiburley would very swiftly devolve into anarchy.
"And yet we're about to tell the most frequent manipulators of the city's core, the most important dozen people in all of Thaiburley, that the very talent that makes them special might leave them vulnerable to a horrifying death. Could you blame them if they stopped exercising their abilities? And what would happen if all the things those individuals do for the city were no longer done?"
"It would be the end," Thomas whispered. "Of Thaiburley… of everything."
"Indeed." This was a bleak assessment, but hardly one the prime master could fault. "Now you understand the nature of my dilemma."
EIGHT
The attackers didn't use bows, though whether that was because they were intent on taking their quarry alive or merely a reflection of the darkness and the likelihood of shooting their own men, Dewar couldn't be certain.
As he listened to their stealthy approach he cursed, fluently and silently. There were more of them than he would have expected – ten at least – in addition to which this was not really his kind of a fight. He was a skulker rather than a head-on brawler and preferred conflict to arrive at a time and place of his choosing, not to have it thrust upon him like this. Still, he'd little choice but to play the hand that was dealt him. The assassin had moved to one side of the clearing, back pressed against a tree, braced and ready.
He was just grateful that they'd been granted some warning of the attack; Kohn had somehow sensed the enemy's approach, though it wasn't the giant that shook him awake but the Thaistess, whom Kohn had evidently woken first. Even so, they didn't have much time, but at least they weren't destined to die in their sleep and could meet their attackers with weapons drawn. Mind you, judging by the way Tom was holding his sword, Dewar doubted whether the lad had ever handled one before. He looked more like a knife fighter whose blade had outgrown him. Discounting the Thaistess, who appeared to be unarmed, there were only three of them as it was, so he just hoped the former street-nick proved to be more accomplished than he looked
No further time to worry about that – the first attackers were already advancing into the clearing. Dewar raised his kairuken, took careful aim and fired. The weapon, a deceptively simple spring operated catapult with a handgrip and trigger, was designed to be quickly reloaded, giving it the edge over a crossbow in Dewar's opinion. Even as one razor-edged metallic disc flew towards a shadowy assailant, a second was being slipped into place. He fired again, catching another attacker a split second after the first target hit the ground.
That was to be his last opportunity to get a shot away though, as two grim-faced men turned and hurried towards him. He was forced to abandon the kairuken and draw his sword.
Dewar was a good swordsman when he needed to be, verging on expert. But he avoided such intimate exchanges whenever possible, especially in forests, where twisting your foot on an exposed tree route or tripping over other woodland detritus offered such golden opportunities for cruel chance to kick a man in the balls.
He pushed himself away from the tree, ever conscious of his footing, angling the move so that one of the attackers was slightly behind and so hampered by the other. Peripherally he was aware of a great roar that could only be Kohn, and of men's curses and movement to his right, but he shut that out, narrowing his focus onto these two men before him.
There didn't seem to be any plan here – no attempt to make the most of the fact that there were two of them to his one. They simply came on. Their mistake.
He danced back to avoid a crude cut from the first attacker, using the foot that had gone backward to spring forward again immediately, so that he was upon the man even as the blade sailed past, thrusting with his own sword. His lunge only scored what amounted to a deep scratch, as the fellow twisted in the wake of his strike; either a very clumsy move or a quite brilliant one, since it saved his life. Dewar wasn't taking any chances, kneeing this first opponent – who doubled up with a dramatic whoomf of expelled breath – and slamming the pommel of his sword into the side of the man's head. That way, the blade was still facing in the right direction to parry a blow from the second attacker. Hampered by his colleague, this was never going to be more than a hopeful thrust, but the man quickly moved around to engage the assassin properly. Dewar had planned to finish the first man off before facing the second, but he wasn't given the chance.
What was more, this opponent actually seemed to know what he was doing, taking the assassin's measure with a well rehearsed combination of strikes, the first high and the second low, while keeping his own guard high enough to leave no obvious openings. Dewar feinted and then jabbed in earnest, once twice, was parried each time and then had to jump back smartly to avoid the other's riposte. They were closely matched, and he had neither the time for this nor the desire to see which of them would eventually better the other. Then he remembered the tree roots.
Stepping back hurriedly in the face of another attack, Dewar seemed to trip and fall backwards, twisting around desperately as he did so. Seizing the opportunity, his opponent closed in, and the assassin barely blocked an otherwise lethal strike. Yet even as the two blades met Dewar's other hand was in motion, swinging up to sink into the man's groin the dagger he had surreptitiously drawn under cover of the apparent fall and roll. The brigand let out a scream of
pain and surprise as Dewar twisted the knife, feeling the warmth of fresh blood coat his hand.
He was on his feet again in an instant, ignoring the stricken swordsman for the moment as he faced the first attacker again, now recovered but still not in the same class as his colleague. Dewar easily blocked a wildly aimed blow before driving the edge of his own blade through the man's collar bone and on.
The other swordsman was desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood from his groin and didn't seem to offer much of a threat, but there was no point in taking any chances. Dewar ran him through and then turned his attention back to see what else was going on around him.
The first thing he saw was Kohn. The Kayjele fought like a man possessed. As far as Dewar knew, the giant was usually as bereft of weapons as the Thaistess, but the tree bough he'd picked up instead of a blade made the point pretty much irrelevant.