A Flight of Marewings

by Kristen S. Walker

  He put the rest of the mail to one side and opened the seal with his knife. There was a single page inside. He unfolded it, read the contents—and then crumpled it up and threw it across the room.

  The Temple was abandoning them. If Kyratia City wanted to secede from the Temple’s guidance, then they were on their own and out of their protection. The priests would not say anything against another city of they chose to attack Kyratia, which meant they were a target just sitting out in the open.

  He knew then what the stack of reports from his spies would tell him. The neighboring cities knew that Kyratia was vulnerable, and they were preparing to attack.

  However, the initial reports were more mixed than he had expected. Somehow the Council had persuaded Karditsa, Mota, and Irakleio to actually increase their trade agreements with surprising speed, making him believe that they had been arranged even before the change in government. Only Petropouli had actually canceled some of their deals. Sympaia had demanded new negotiations, while Riasa and Miphace appeared to be on the fence. These cities were farther away, so communications took more time to go back and forth even by ship.

  Of course, the nations that were not independent territories under the guidance of Mount Deyos did not care if Kyratia called itself a Republic or worshipped a different god. Trade to Keldrinos and the other island nations, the Kingdom of Vouli, and the Holy Empire of Damia went on uninterrupted.

  Most of Kyratia’s terrain was rocky mountains. The fertile land that could be farmed was rare, mostly concentrated around the lands on the banks of the Maenna River. Duke Basileos’s expansion into Mezzarion had given them more grazing land for flocks of sheep, but not many fields for grain. The city had outgrown the amount of food it could produce and relied on trading its metals with other cities in order to feed the populace. The Temple of Varula promised farmers that they could expand their lands into previously wyld areas. But even if such magic were possible, cutting down the forests and leveling the land for planting would be costly.

  Costly expansion meant loans. The Moneylenders Guild, represented by Councilor Eutychon, was suddenly offering lower rates on new loans for farmers. It seemed almost too good to be true.

  All of these confusing developments, taken together, painted a picture that concerned Galenos. There must be more going on in the Council than he could see, something that was enabling them to solve all of their problems easily. How long could their good fortune hold? And what would be the cost for Kyratia?

  Galenos barreled down Agura Street, not caring if he bumped into anything along his path. People saw him coming and scrambled to get out of the way, dragging carts of goods and small children along with them. He dimly saw their movements through the fog of his anger and knew the minor chaos he was causing, but that did not stop him.

  Curse the Council! The old money-grubbing fools were working to thwart him. When Basileos had been duke, Galenos had arranged the defense of the city as he saw fit, maintaining a number of forts and outposts along the borders and moving troops as needed. But now the Council was demanding an itemized budget from him and a justification for every placement of personnel—and they fought every choice that he made.

  He had a fort full of recruits who were almost ready to graduate and he wanted to post them to the borders as soon as their training was completed. But today, the Council had asked him to start downsizing and closing some of the forts along the borders. When Galenos claimed that he needed extra men due to the mounting threat from Sympaia to the south and Petropouli in the east, the Council demanded proof—copies of all communications from his people and their identities, including the spies.

  He clenched his fists again at the memory. As if he would willingly hand over the names of every covert agent who worked with him! Only the head of his intelligence division knew every name—Galenos did not want even himself to have the power to compromise their safety. Most of the ones who reported to him only worked locally. And he would not reveal the spies he used in the city to keep an eye on the Council.

  Galenos would have to go back to the military complex, dig up all of the reports he had received, and then redact them to remove all references to his sources. He would take those before the Council, to show them the kind of danger that Kyratia was in, and hope that was enough to convince them without giving up his people. Somehow they would have to see that they could not make these kinds of demands from any mercenary company—if they tried to replace him, they would only be met with the same resistance from every other captain and warlord they approached.

  But the nerve of them to even ask in the first place—!

  In his fury, Galenos did not see the young girl dancing in the street until it was too late. He walked right into her, knocking her down. He caught himself too late and held out his hand to help her up. “My apologies. Are you okay?”

  Without looking at him, the girl, who looked about ten or eleven years old, got to her feet by herself and began dancing again.

  He thought that she might be afraid of him. He reached into his pocket and dug out a copper coin. “I’m sorry for my roughness.” He held the coin out to her.

  The girl danced on, oblivious to him and the rest of the bustling crowd. He saw her sway so far to one side that a peddler swerved out of the way to avoid hitting her and nearly crashed into the wall.

  A middle-aged woman carrying a toddler lurched out of the nearby crowd and grabbed his arm. “Please, help my daughter. A madness has taken her. I can’t get her to stop dancing and come home.”

  Galenos looked from the girl to her mother and back. Both of them were dressed in dirty rags and looked like they hadn’t seen a decent meal—or a good bath—in a long time. He handed the coin to the mother and fished in his pocket for more change. “How long has your daughter been like this?”

  The mother snatched the coin and tucked it into some hidden place in her clothing. “A month and more. It weren’t so bad at first. I thought it was just a child’s game, but now she don’t come home, she don’t eat, she just sleeps where she falls down when she gets too tired.”

  Galenos frowned. He thought that Ameyron had tracked down all of the former servants who had been affected by the curse. “Tell me, has your daughter ever been in the employ of a household in the Merchants’ District?”

  The mother shook her head. “My older children work, but Aristia’s never had no job.”

  That was more than a little strange. Up until now, he’d only heard about people being struck by the curse who had been directly exposed to it, never their family members. He pulled a handful of coppers and two silvers out of his pocket and handed them to the woman. “Listen, I know a—a physician who has dealt with this problem before. May I take your daughter to be examined by him? I promise that he will do everything in his power to save her.”

  The mother looked at the money and back up at him. “I’ve never sold one of my children before.”

  Galenos shook his head. “I’m not buying the girl, I just want to help her. This is to get some food for yourself and your other children.”

  She took the money and clutched it to her breast. When she looked back up at him, there were tears in her eyes. “Allfather bless you, sir, and the Allmother too. May all the gods bless you. My name is Egina and she’s Aristia. I am in your debt, sir.”

  “Pray to the gods that They’ll let me save your child.” Galenos turned and snatched up Aristia. She weighed nothing in his arms, and after a moment she ceased her weak dancing movements. She lay there without struggling and stared off into the distance.

  “You can visit her at the military complex,” Galenos told her frightened mother. “Ask for Ameyron, and the guards will take you to her.”

  He turned and carried the girl away.

  15

  Ameyron I

  Ameyron scowled at the newest addition to the building full of patients he maintained in the military complex. The beggar girl had not progressed to the stage that required restraining her on a bed yet.
Most of the others were already tied to their beds. With the aid of his assistants, he had developed a new method of force-feeding them, which enabled him to keep them alive, but he was no closer to finding a cure than he had been four months ago. He had been reduced to a caretaker for chronic invalids.

  He sent the girl off with a servant for a bath and fresh clothing and led Galenos into his new office. He had to move a stack of books onto the floor to clear a chair for the warlord to sit in. Even with a whole building to work in, Ameyron’s research had spread to cover every available surface; soon he would be sleeping on the floor with a pile of books on his bed.

  Galenos frowned with clear displeasure at the mess, but he did not comment on it. “How does your investigation progress?”

  Ameyron spread his hands wide. “Just as you see it: not at all. I have twenty patients not counting the one you brought me today, all of them former servants in the duke’s household. I can keep them alive but I cannot cure them, and I do not know why they are sick. I’m stuck. The only good news I had was that it did not seem to be spreading, until you brought me this girl.”

  Did he see Galenos’s dark skin pale a little? “You can’t cure them?” The Warlord’s voice was flat.

  “Without some kind of new information to go on, I have nothing. Everything I’ve tried, every line of research that I have pursued, has ended in failure.”

  Galenos looked at the floor and sighed. “What about the girl?”

  Ameyron frowned. “She is the first new case that I have had in weeks, and if what her mother told you is right, then she is the only one who was not directly exposed to the house. That makes her an anomaly, but I do not know what that tells me, except that there might be a second source somewhere in the city.” He pulled out a map of Kyratia. “Did you find out where her family lives?”

  Galenos shook his head. “I didn’t think to ask.”

  “Another dead end.” Ameyron shoved the map away again. “There is one last chance.”

  Galenos looked up. “What is that?”

  “It is a long shot.” Ameyron shrugged. “The girl we sent away—Lord Seivon’s niece. She was not that sick when she left, so she should have survived the journey back to Petropouli. There is an Academy there, so perhaps one of the mages was able to cure her. I have written them a letter hoping for information.”

  “Have you heard back from them?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. It is about a month’s journey each way for the post to get through the mountains. I sent the letter with the girl less than a month ago.”

  Galenos nodded. “What about the mages’ school near here, the one in Sacrimas? Have you tried consulting them?”

  Ameyron scowled. “I have visited Jirou Kolisa in Sacrimas, and it’s barely even worth calling an Academy. From what I saw, their research was all esoteric and highly theoretical, tracing the movements of the stars and things of that nature. I doubt that any of their knowledge would have a practical application like curing disease.”

  The Warlord stared at him. “Why would Duke Votsis have wasted his money on such a worthless institution?”

  “As far as I could tell, he did not. The school had money in the past, but now it is falling apart. The mages tend their own farms for food.”

  Galenos chuckled with a shake of his head. “Farming mages! I’ll have to go and see that for myself someday.”

  Ameyron didn’t smile. “You will find anywhere that mages charge their exorbitant prices because their knowledge and powers do not come easily. Those who research instead of serving the whims of their wealthy patrons provide the most valuable service, since they increase the understanding of magic itself.”

  Galenos’s face became stern and he looked around the cluttered office with a look of realization. “You’d rather be doing research in a school than chasing after a dead duke’s paranoid delusions.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Ameyron nodded. “If I could afford it, or found a school that could support me. But I want to do research with practical applications. Right now, curing this disease is crucial, even if it does not spread beyond the duke’s household. I am happy with where my work has taken me for now.”

  Galenos stood up. “If you can cure this disease, I will remember your research skills in the future. I can’t fund an entire Academy with a mercenary company, but—” He spread his hands. “There are still areas of understanding that we would like to expand.”

  Ameyron bowed his head. “Thank you, sir. I hope that I have better news for you soon.”

  Ameyron took a deep breath as he entered the main library of Kyratia and smiled. All around him, he smelled the aroma of books: old books, well-thumbed and skimmed for years, most of them painstakingly copied by scribes in small, cramped handwriting to make the most of each page sewn into the leather binding. The printing press had been in popular use for a few decades, and the vast libraries of Seirenia were slowly being converted into the crisp new printed books, each one the same without any character whatsoever. But in Kyratia City, where academics and knowledge were neglected by the local politicians, most of the books were still made in the old mode.

  He had gone over his personal collection of manuscripts many times looking for any mention of a dancing sickness, but come up empty-handed. With the money Galenos had given him, he had ordered more books from the main Academy of Medicine in Petropouli, but it could take months for the delivery to reach him. He needed answers now.

  And so the daunting task stretched out before him: to look through the tomes of references that Kyratia’s library had to offer. The books were organized by subject and cared for by a librarian who made sure that all were in good condition, but otherwise there were no real leads about where the information might be. Rows and rows of books, manuscripts, and scrolls, on three different floors of a single building, and he barely even knew where to start.

  Ameyron went to the first shelf containing medical texts and began taking down books. When his arms grew too full, he stacked them on a nearby table and went back for more. He soon began to miss the rolling carts he’d grown accustomed in his university days, which would allow him to wheel a whole load at a time.

  He had insisted on doing this research himself, but as he worked, he began to regret the decision not to bring one of his assistants to help him. The two lads he’d hired were younger and stronger, and would not grow so tired with carrying books back and forth across the room. But Galenos had warned him that one or both of them were likely working as spies for members of the city Council, or any number of other enemies of the late duke, and instructed him to restrict the information that his assistants had access to. So he had set the lads to the task of observing and documenting the symptoms of the newest patients, and come to the library on his own.

  Hours later, Ameyron had still gotten nowhere. The medical texts were out-of-date and only covered general topics.

  Next he turned to historical logs, skimming them for any reference to sickness or unusual behavior. He saw the same trend he had noted before in other cities: about once every ten years, a pestilence swept the land, killing a small percentage of the populace. The last one had happened five years ago, and he noted that the timing would account for the deaths of not only Duke Basileos’s second wife and infant son, but also the mistress he had kept at the country estate with his illegitimate daughter. So much for the duke’s theory of a curse on his family—the same illness had killed rich and poor, city dweller and country farmer.

  Ameyron made a note of the dates of the pestilence, called the Wasting Plague in this text, and placed the note in his robes for later. He would show Galenos as proof that he could solve more than just the current mystery. But the Wasting Plague, when next it came around, would have to be cured by another researcher. Medical problems and illnesses were not his area of expertise.

  Hours turned into days as Ameyron returned to his studies. Perhaps a monster, some trick of the wyld, had caused the disease. In his own collection, he had man
y books on monsters, and he cross-referenced these with the ones in the library. The trouble with these books was that they were nowhere near comprehensive, each one written by a different author with a different methodology. Kyriakos’s thin volumes on Marewings and Dragons relied more on folk legends than on actual observations. Several different authors all wrote about the same dissection of a sea serpent—each one reaching their own conclusions. Occasionally, one author would attempt to describe and compare several different types of monsters, as in Darvinos’s Bestiary of Miraculous Creatures, but this tome was controversial for his attempts to categorize them according to his theory of elemental affinity. Some of these made no sense: why would a chimaera be aligned with Water if it could breathe fire?

  The mage had long wished for someone to come up with a systematic approach to studying monsters and describe them consistently. Such a work would be a massive undertaking, however, and would probably take a whole group of mage scholars studying together. He knew of no school that would fund such a study, either. And his own time was taken up with his clients’ demands. Reluctantly, Ameyron put away the books on monsters and dragged his thoughts back to the task at hand.

  He thought about something that his patients had complained of—hearing bells play music that made no sense, like a funeral dirge where every musician played notes out of sequence. Funeral dirges led him into the religious section. Skimming through Limny the Elder’s Treatise on the Funereal Rites of Seirenia’s Northern Cities, he found the following reference: “Bells are commonly used in all types of religious rituals, and are often thought to ward off evil spirits. But in the cavern city of Petropouli, bells are specifically banned from being played during funeral processions. The locals believe that dissonant bells will actually attract evil spirits and other creatures.”