Speaker 1: Hollo, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. The summer was deep and heavy,
sticky and miserable. The whirr of cicadeas so constant that
when they finally quieted at sundown, the doctor's ears would
ring for IROs. They could smell the village of Black
Hollow for miles before they actually arrived, though that wasn't strange.
With no river running through the village to carry away waste,
the residents of the small apusts could only bury or
burn their refuse, and the humid air of summer would
suck in the scentse holding on to them like something precious.
So the doctors expected some of the scents, the rightness
of unwashed bodies, the rereak of waste, both animal and
human alike, and the acrid burn of many fires. Even
a note of rock wouldn't be odd. People die, lives
stuck are butritard. That smell of death was simply a
side effect of living. But the doctors didn't smell a
note of death. They smelled a choking wave of it,
rolling over and nearly suffocating them before they could even
see a hint of human civilization. It was the scent
of the unbalanced, the scent of plague. Aldrich had smelled
it many times before. It was the same scent that
clung to him in the months after a battle, where
the ground ranslick with blood and the moans of dying
men drowned out even the squawk of ravens. The scent
would fill his nose, coating his tongue with its bitterness,
and he would have to fight the urge to gag
as he tended to his patience, most of whom would
be daid by the next day. He knew it would
cling to his clothes. When he returned home. He would
peel off his stained robe, let it fall to the floor,
and leave it there to be burned. But this scent
was different. This time, the death clung not just to him,
but to everything. It seemed to soak the land, permeating
the air. Aldre glanced at his apprentice, who rode beside him,
her face hidden by the hood of her robe. She
was silent, as she tended to be, failed in many
layers to hide the shape of her frain, no doubts,
wadding out every ance of water he'd forced on her.
Throughout the journey, his apprentice tended to get lost in
her own mind. Her body and its needs are an
inconvenience that kept her from the haven of her thoughts.
They rode two enormous pack horses, cheap but sturdy, each
carrying supplies they might need, and a small fortune of
coins and gems into their saddles, for they had no
idea what they would find. Black Hollow, according to the rumors,
was a small village, remote and isolated by its position,
the mountains on one side, the forest on another, and
a river a day's journey from its main entrance. It
was perhaps no wonder that it had been afflicted, cut
off from the world, and thus from news of the
strange malady spreading through the country. He had heard of
a town on the other side of the country where
within the space of a fortnight, over half the population
had perished. They had suffered from a coughing sickness, the
air filling with their body spittle, and yet no one
who caught the sickness was immune to it. They all died.
It was the way of these things. People caught diseases,
and they died. But the reports Aldrich had heard from
Bacallo was strange. Indeed, for one, the sickness didn't spread
from person to person. Aldrich had spent time in his
youth the military hospital, tending to the men injured in
the wars. There he'd witnessed how quickly a fever could
sweep through the ranks, and he'd seen men cough and bleed,
vomiting until their stomachs were emptied. They alleged, cracked and bleeding.
No one was safe, the young, thol, the weak, and
the strong. It didn't matter. Influenza didn't care. This sickness
was not like influenza, at least if the scant information
they were given was any indication. He'd been summoned by
a desperate letter from the tam barber, who wrote to
him of a disease that both death enjoy an equal measures.
Those who fell or died in the most horrific of ways,
while the survivors were specially sunny and optimistic, despite their
neighbors and loved ones perishing one after the other. He
had expected, at worst fever, a wasting disease, perhaps something
that might spread from person to person, that might be
stopped by quarantiningly afflicted the barber had insisted that the
method of transmission between the sick made no sense. Proximity
didn't matter, nor did touch. The spread was random, or
so the barber said. Aldridge wasn't so sure that was nonsensical,
but he had arrived and would soon get to the
bottom of the mystery. Just as the letter had said,
the village was still alive and bustling. As they rode
into town, aldridg frown. There were no signs of panic
or fear, no NTI market stalls. In fact, he was
surprised to see people out and about. Had the barber
misinformed him. There were calls of greeting, but Aldrich didn't
dare stop. A flame of annoyance was starting to burn
in his belly. If he had come all this way
for nothing, he'd ring the barber's neck himself. They found
the man's shop marked with the typical pole of intertwined
red and white, and Aldrich was surprised to see the
shutters open and a light shining with him. He dismounted
and tied his horse to the post, glancing at his apprentice,
who remained seating in the saddle. Her posture was stiff
and widget, but her eyes were on him. Come then,
he sighed, waving her down. Let's see what mess we're
in for His apprentice s lived from the saddle, her
robe pulling around her. Her hood was still up, hiding
her face in shadow, but he thought her too paranoid.
He conceded that it would do them no good to
have it revealed that Master aldre Fane noted Lone Wolf
had taken a woman as an apprentice after refusing to
take any students for decades. But Aldrich also knew that
when faced with death, the identity of the savior was
of little note to Eel. His apprentice could be an
enormous frog in robes, and if said frog offered a cure,
most would accept it if their need was great enough.
The man's side the shop was short and bolding, wearing
an apron over his clothes and clutching a cloth in
one hand as he hurried around his shop wiping off
the dust. A half dozen lantons hung from the ceiling,
filling the room with one light, and the walls were
lined with shelves holding bottles and jaws and other tools
of the barber's trade. The barber looked up at them
and froze, his eyes widening. Then he seemed to force
himself to relax, smoothing out his expression into one appolike concern.
Master Fane, he said, with a brief bough. Oh, I'm
believed you have come. He looked around the shop and
then glanced towards the door. When he had ascertained that
they were alone, his cheery expression fell, and he implored
Oldrich close the shutters and locked the door, if you will,
we have much heaviness to discuss. Aldrich hesitated. He had
no great desire to be shut up inside this dark
place with this nervous little man. But the barber was
clearly spooked, and if Oolgerge wanted to understand what was
going on, he needed information. He stepped to the door
and through the lock while his apprentice closed the shutters.
Then they made their way to the back of the shop,
where a cattle had just begun to iron Master barber Juels,
this is my apprentice, Blackward, who wi assist me? Older said,
as the Prinici pulled up three cups and placed them
on the table. He's quite skilled in the art of medicine,
so you can speak really with him. Jewels poured the
meat a cup of tea, then settled cross from them.
With a sigh. He wrapped his hands around the cup
of it to warm them, though the room was stuffy
on its own. I apologize for the horrid nature of
my letter, the barber said, but I thought it best
to escape with the formalities. Indeed, I would like to
know why you summon me here, Aldrich said, For surely
your skills are sufficient for most maladies. Jewele shook his head.
I feel the sickness is beyond my ability. If I
had known what was happening sooner, I could have done more.
He took a deep breath, his fingers tightening around his cup.
But as it is, I fear the town will be
wiped out if no one intervenes. Aldrich leaned forward, intrigued
despite himself. Are you certain? Yes, I'm sure the villagers
are falling ill with no discernible pattern. But only some
of them. The others, no matter how close they get,
no matter how much involvement they are with the sick,
never fall. In fact, they almost shine with vitality. And
yet they have a look in their eyes something not
quite right. They laughed too much. It's unnatural Aldridg glanced
at his apprentice, who had said nothing so far. She
gave a subzle nod. It wasn't anything they didn't know
from the latter. Needed to see the disease. If there
was to be any hope, though, there are any currently
suffering from the illness, we need to observe it, Jill swallowed.
Not many, yes, but the closest is someone at the tavern.
I doubt he'll survive the night, but will have better
luck seeing him than being allowed entrants into a private home.
Aldridg stood and his apprentice followed suit. Then let's go,
he said. They walked to the tavern, Jewels leading the
way through the bright streets. It was just midday, but
the air was already damp, the sun hazy behind the clouds.
People bustled through their business, the town as alive as ever,
but Aldridge noticed something off about them. Their eyes were
a little too bright, their laughter a little too loud.
He'd seen him before, of course, in times of crisis,
people sometimes retreated into false joy, pretending everything was well
until reality crashed down upon them. But this felt different. Somehow,
they seemed manic in their positivity. The tavern wasn't empty
when they arrived, but only two men haunted its corners.
It was the largest building in town, a three story
wood and stone structure with a thatched roof and many windows.
The first floor was dominated by bar and tables, while
the second and third floors housed rooms for travelers to rent.
He's upstairs, Jewels explained, I still try to keep them
separated when I can, even if it isn't needed. All
habits and all that. He led them to the second floor,
and Aldrich could immediately hear the deluted ramblings of a
madman before they even made it to the door. The
voice was slow, but oddly jubilant, currying of feverish, unnatural mirth.
Aldrich glanced at a Liz and with a small nod,
both doctors reached for the point of masks hanging on
their hips. Made of well old leather. The mask resembled
the skull of a raven, the lawns looaving beak filled
with romatic herbs. Aldriches was older, well worn, but O
Lizzes was still stiff, and new Jewels looked uneasy as
they placed the masks on their faces, but didn't argue.
Both doctors knew how uneasy they made patience, but uneasiness
was better than death. Once their faces were covered, they
pushed open the door to face whatever terror was on
the other side. The moon. The man gasped, followed by
a fit of wet coughing. The moon has silver hands,
and she is reaching for me. Do you see her?
Do you see Aldrich exchange a glance with the layers.
The stench of rot was thick in the small room.
A single flickering candle illuminated the patient, if he could
still be called that. Aldrich stepped closer, tilting his head
down to view the man. He had seen bodies in
various states of decay, men rotting a lie from gangerous wounds.
But something about this, this was wrong. The man was dying,
that much was certain, but he did not seem to
know it. Alaise, ever silent, knelt beside the bed, cold
fingers pressing to the man's throat. The patient moaned at
the touch, gickling in that fever mad way. Your colds,
the man murmured, cold cold, Not like the others. They
burn you now, they burn, But I am in the water.
I think it is pulling me under his eyes, foot
between them. You should come men, crow men. The water
is fine. The Liaise withdrew her hand and stood. His
pulse is erratic, she said softly. But he shouldn't be
lucid enough to speak, let alone laugh. Aldrick nodded. The
blackened fingers fever, but no sweats. The talk of burning
he broke off, his mind whirring. And the others, the
ones who don't fall. Jeule swallowed hard, his eyes darting
nervously toward the door, as if afraid some one might
be listening. Well, they they change, he admitted. It's as
if the sickness kills some but transforms others into what
the Liaise asked. Jeules hesitated, his voice dropped into a whisper.
I wish I could say, good doctor, but I cannot.
It is unlike anything I've ever seen. The candle sputtered,
casting eery shadows across the walls, and Oldrick felt the
cold creeper dread settle into his bones. They had come
to Black Hollow to frite a plague, but he couldn't
shake the feeling that something deeper, something far stranger, had
taken root in this village. What's his name? Aldrich asked Luca.
Aldric's apprentice hovered nearby, silent watching the old doctor's sied
and opened his back, pulling out the tools of his trade.
If this was truly a plague, then they would begin
with what had always been done. He set a ball
aside and took out his lancet. We will bleed him,
he announced. Shules flinched. Master, Ay, would you rather he
convulse until his heart fails? Aldrick snapped, the body must
be rebalanced. Shules paled and nodded. Aldrich turned back to Luca,
grouping the man's arm and pressing his blade to the skin.
The cut, with shallow, precise meant only to release the
excess humors that, if left and checked, confessed her. Within
duck blood welled up, and for a moment all was normal.
Then the apprentice moved first, pinning Luca down with surprising strength.
Aldrich helped, struggling against the spasms that racked the young
man's body. Then, just as suddenly as it had started,
the fit ended. Lucas lumped chest, heaving, swept pouring from
his skin. His blood still trickled from the wound, but
it was wrong. Aldridge fran taking a closer look. It
should have clawded quickly, but it didn't. It just used sluggishly,
as if reluctant to leave the body. The apprentice met
his gaze. Even in the dim candlelight through the eye
holes of the mask, aldridg could see the unease and
no shadowed eyes. Still they continued. They tried tinctures of
wormwood and fennel, horrible compressive of crushed mint and sage,
even fevigating the room with smold ring juniper. None of
it made a difference. The sickness did not yield. It
was not a fever, it was not a wasting illness.
It was not anything Aldrich had seen before, and Luca
was just one of many. He felt no guilt for
using the young man as a test subject of sorts,
but it did weigh on him that they had tried
so many things only for it to make no difference.
By this time, the sun was beginning to set, and
they packed up their things. The room reeked of illness,
herbs and smoke. Luca's breathing had gone agonal, rattling in
his chest, and Aldrich knew the end was near. There
was no saving the man, and he felt they had
learned very little about what they were facing. It was
all things considered a waste of the day, for he
supposed they had to start somewhere. Silently, they followed Joe's
back up to the shop, slipping their masks off as
they exited it into the cooler evening. Ere They had
been given the room above the shop as their quarters,
and he was relieved they wouldn't have to stay at
the same tavern in Azuka. Peace and quiet would be
needed if they were to discover the cause of the plaque.
Jewels bid them farewell, letting them know that his housekeeper
would leave two basins of water and a meal outside
the door within the iro for the two of them.
It was all he could do to stay a week
long enough to eat, and the Liz was the same,
washing before eating with her fingers and falling into a
heavy sleep. The air would shake low and ominous as
they slept, but they were none the wiser. The next morning,
Aldrich and his apprentice took to the streets, determined to
find some pattern to the disease. The people of Black
Hollow greeted them warmly, smiling too wide, their hands lingering
too long when they coughed is in welcome. There was
something about the feeling of the skin, something papery, that
hat Aldridge pulling his leather gloves on. They left the
masks off unless they were at a sufferer's bedside. They
asked questions. No one had answers. Sickness struck without rhyme
or reason. The butcher's eldest son had fallen ill, while
his wife, who shared his bed, remained and touched. The
innkeeper's sister had died within days, but her children played
outside as if nothing had happened. It made no sense.
Aldrich looked for familiar patterns and found none. And the
ones who were in touch, those with the unnatural brightness
in their eyes, they were worse when asked about the ill.
It was as if they could not understand what he
was saying. When they did speak, it was simply to
bless the beauty of the sunny day with the simple
pleasures of their lives. What simple pleasures, I Liz muttered
at one point, for a scratcher from disuse. Half of
the town is dying. Aldrich didn't respond, but he didn't
disagree either. It was just past noon when they reached
the center of town, where the distinction between the immune
and those who simply hadn't fallen ill was clearer than ever.
Those like Jewels, who were trying to live their lives
as normally as possible as their village fell to pieces,
went through the motions with hollow eyes. Those who were
immune warped the line of rapture, their faces flushed and
their eyes nearly glowing. At the butcher's shop, Aldrich was
wach does the man scold? His daily cut list on
a stone board with a piece of white chalk, his
gripped blocky and clear Martin venison pork. The butcher's hand
paws chalk, hestating midstroke. Then, in sharp, erratic letters, he wrote,
help the woe. It was stark, standing out against the neatless,
like a wound, splitting the stone board. It shook Aldrich,
the words almost tangibly, violent in their unexpected presence, and
he fell frozen to the spot as he read them
over and over again. Oldritch's apprentice stepped closer, Master Butcher,
What does this mean? The butcher blinked a stair ring
at the word, as if seeing it for the first time.
His coarse features fell, and while the corners of his
mouth tried to pull up in a grin. There were
scared confusion in his voice. When he spoke I, his
brow furrowed. I didn't write that. His hand trembled. Shark
slipped from his fingers, shattering as it hit the cobblestone ground.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see
Iliz slipping her mask into place, and mirrored the gesture.
For a moment, he was sure the butcher was going
to ask for their help, but before the words could form,
a shiver seemed to run through him, and his face
Bega came bright and cheery. The butcher eraised the plea,
picking up his broken chalk and continued writing the list
as if nothing had happened. Aldridg should not press further.
He only nodded in left. Later that day, a woman's
scream shattered the relative stillness of the village. They rushed
into the street, joining a small cluster of villagers outside
a modest home. The woman stood in the doorway, her
face pale, her breath coming fast. It was the weaver
assured of her were clutched to her chest with shaking hands.
Her pulse was so fast and hard that he could
see the flutter of under her skin, at her throat.
Madame Aldridge stepped forward. What happened? She stared at him,
blank faced. What do you mean the scream? His apprentice said,
frustration creeping into her voice. The woman's brosinated together. There
was no scream. The Oldridge stopped himself. He could see
the lack of confusion on her face, the blank certainty
in her eyes. There was no point in arguing. He
turned to leave, but not before noticing something, something small,
something easy to miss in the dim light. The woman's
knuckles were black, odded and ragged. He wanted to press,
but he felt the li's gloved fingers on his cloak,
and he let himself be pulled away. There were many
moral to see, even if he was sure those bright
ones were the true threat. The room above the barber
shop was comped, the low ceilings slanting just enough to
make a Liz feel like the walls were closing in.
The lantern between them flickered weakly, throwing restless shadows against
the timber beans outside. The miscoiled thick over the village,
swallowing the street below. Aldridge sat across from her, his
hands clasped his shoulders, sat in that tied unshakable way
of his. He had not spoken in some time, never
had she. There was too much to say, too little
that would matter. From outside, low and distant came a sound,
a rumbling, deepest thunder, but rolling slowly beneath the earth.
The lace stiffened, hering stained fingers tidening around the parchment
before her. Aldrich did not react. He did not even
look up. The barber warm me about that. His voice
was as level as ever, some oddity of the land.
The people here have grown us to it. The Lays
had lived too long among the sick to believe in
harmless things, And there was something so off about this
village that she wasn't able to let anything go. It
sounds it is nothing, he said too easily. She quickly
put it from your mind. Eliz did not. Instead, she
exhaled sharply and turned back to the notes called before her.
None of it makes sense, she muttered. I've seen sickness
spread like fire through dry fields, But this this moves differently,
not through air, not through blood. No pattern. Aldrich nodded,
slow and heavy. No swellings like the great death, no
rast like the sweating sickness. No vomiting, no wasting, And
yet Aldric said, his fingers pressing into the warm wood
of the table, They die all the same. Elleure swallowed.
The lantern burned low between them, casting hollows beneath Aldrich's eyes.
She looked away, not liking how old it made him look.
Running a hand through her short, dark hair, she spoke,
without thinking, I wish I could ask my father. Aldredch
glanced up at her expression. Unreadable. Elie shook her head,
bitter laugh catching in her throat. Not that it would matter.
He would tell me I was wasting my time here
in a village that will soon be nothing but shallow graves.
It was always about the science, not the people. Aldrich
did not speak at first. Then evenly he would be
proud of you, Aleira Liz, she huffed. Then a disgraced
physician would be proud of me, a man who lost
everything chasing ghosts of disease. Aldrich met her gaze, steady
as ever, a man who did not stop searching, just
as you have not stopped. Eliz said nothing. The lantern
burned lower, the room seemed smaller. She tapped her fingers
against the parchment, forcing her mind back to the work.
It's not the pox, no pustles. Aldrich's voice is quiet,
like he was reluctant to return to the task at hand.
Not consumption, no blooded cough, not plague. Liliz's throat felt tight,
No beebos. Aldrich exhaled. For a long moment. The only
sound was the scraping of her cull against the paper.
Then from outside, the rumbling came again, lo distant beneath
the earth. This time, Elise saw it the way Aldrich's
hands tense, how his gaze flickered, just for a moment,
toward the door, and how he forced himself not to react.
The Liz let out a slow breath, setting her quill aside.
The ink was nearly dry in its well, and her
hand ached from gripping the feather too tightly. The cross
from her older crubbed his temples. Fatigue written deep in
the lines of his face. We should sleep, he said,
at last. Elise wanted to argue, but what was the point.
The notes before them held no answers, only more questions,
more dead ends. She pushed aside her things, capping the
vial of inknrolling up the parchment. You're right, Aldrich, stood,
moving to turn down the lantern. The wick flickered as
the flame receedd. The darkness pressed in, thick and heavy,
smothering the edges of the room. Then from outside, a scream.
It was the same sound they had heard from the
weaver before, raw panick, twisting through the night like a
thing alive. Liliz jolted upright, her heart beat hammering against
her ribs. She turned toward the window, toward the street below,
where only mist and shadow walked. Aldridge's hand was firm
on her shoulder before she could rise. No, his voice
was iron else swallowed. Some one is already lost. You
pulled me away this afternoon, but now I am doing
the same sleep. The finality of his words sent a
shiver down her spine. He did not let go of
her shoulder. She did not try to move again. The
scream faded, swallowed by the dock. Thelais forced herself to
turn back to the table, though her hands were trembling.
Aldrich released her only when she did not move to
rise a second time. Then, in silence, he lowered the
lanterns flint to a dying ember. The dartess settled in
full as they found their cots, searching for sleep in
the dying village, the end of the world creeping in
for so many others in their own beds. The next
three days passed in a slow, suffocating haze. The sick
lay in their homes, Their bodies fevered and rack were tremors,
their breathing wet and thick, as if something unseen press
against their lungs. When they could draw enough breath, they raved,
But when they couldn't, the silence of their suffering was
louder than anything else she'd ever heard. Las and Aldrich
moved from bed to bed, their mouths stamped with the
scent of herbs. Their glove slick was sweat. Nothing helped.
They bled the sick. They burned herbs in their rooms.
They rubbed them down with vinegar and crushed roots. Some
villages clung to their remedies like lifelines, whispering desperate prayers
with every swallow tonic. Others had already resigned themselves to
their graves. And then there were the others, the bright ones,
the ones who should have fallen ill but hadn't, the
ones who stood too still in doorways, watching their smiles
too cheery, their eyes too sharp, the butcher who had
written help in the middle of his list of cuts
and then refused to acknowledge it. The weaver who moved
through the square with feverish joy, though her hands trembled
at her sides. Belise and Oldrick avoided them when they could.
The grave pit at the edge of town swallowed more
bodies each day. The bodies lay in heaps, some twisted
mid spasm, and a still curled as if in sleep.
The barber stood beside them. One evening, is as hollow
as they bore, witnessed to the ever growing mountain of
the dead. Villagers had been bringing loved ones to the
edge and rolling them when they had to strength, but
the others remained in their beds, no one left to
bring them to their final rest. The diggers didn't tell
anyone they were sick. The barber, moment as he joined them,
more to himself than anyone else, kept working until they dropped. Tiggered.
If they admitted it, they'd lose their pay. A less
swallowed back bile. The pit stretched wide before them, yawning
and unfinished. It would never be finished, she thought. The
number of people in the village had tipped. They were
more ill than well, and it was only going to
get worse if they couldn't find a cure. The dead
would continue to grow, the living too overwhelmed to bury them,
and through it all the children were left behind. It
took some time to notice, and at first Delays had
considered it a blessing. The fever took men and women first,
the elderly, the weak, the ones with the deepest coughs,
in the hollowest ties, but never the children. But she
soon came to understand that the children being spared was
no blessing but a curse. It would have been a
kind of fate for the youngest among them to die
alongside their families. Instead, the towns, often young, roamed and tethered,
small wild shapes, darting between houses, huddled in corners of
homes where their parents still lay stiff in their beds.
After a few days. They did not weep, They did
not ask for help. They watched empty, bellard and wide eyed.
They gathered in packs, clinging to one another with a
sharp edged desperation of creatures that did not know how
to survive, only that they must. It broke something in her,
the echo of some maternal feeling that she had burned
out of herself years ago, and at night, when the
screams rose again, it was impossible to tell if they
belonged to the dying or to the ones they left behind.
They couldn't help the children, but they could help the earl.
Though the decision did not come easily, it was Oldrich
who resisted the longest, though Olise had known from the
moment they first whispered of it that there was no
other way. They could not cure the sick. They could
not ease their suffering, but they could make the dying gentle.
The first dose had been the hardest. The Las had
done it herself, pressing the laudanum laced wine to the
lips of a man whose breath rattled in its chest
like stones in a jar. His hands trembled, but he drank.
He trusted her, and when she and Aldrick returned an
hour later, he was gone, his face slack. They covered
him with his blanket and moved on to the next,
and the next, and the next. By the following day,
there was no need for coaxing. The villagers understood. Some
reached for the cup with their own hands, Others only
nodded glassy eyed lids, parting to accept the bitter gift.
Aldred carried the weight of it in his shoulders, in
the way he hesitated before handing over each cup. He
had never been a man who surrendered easily, but this,
this was the worst sort of surrender. Eliz found him
by the open grave pit that evening, staring into his
steps through the eye holes of his one mask. He
did not flinch when she stepped beside him. We had
no other choice, she murmured. His sigh was heavy and
so so tired, I know, child. Eliz didn't rebuke the term.
It's half stubborn. Aldrich had earned himself an endearment or
two after everything he'd done for her. It was why
she has stated before speaking again, because she knew her
thoughts were any that he wished to hear. At best,
he would brush her off. At worst, he would think
less of her as a physician. But all she could
do was hope to plant the questions inside of his
brilliant old mind. What if it isn't sickness? What if
it's something beyond our comprehension? Master, he cannot deny that
has defied all logic that we hold Aldrich turned his head,
eyes sharp under the mask. Don't start. You've seen them,
she kept her voice. Even the ones who should be
ill but aren't, the children who don't cry, the butcher,
the weaver, The way they watch us, the way she swallowed,
the way their eyes are so bright. No sickness can
do something like that. It's fever, he snapped, survivor's guilt,
madness from grief. Do not tell me you believe in
ghosts and curses and parries, I Liz. She did, and
not exactly, but her mind was open to the possibility.
Something ignoble was almost easier to accept than a sickness
so cruel and odd that not even Master Aldrich could
immvel it. I shouldn't have brought it up, she sighed.
I am just lost for understanding Oldrich. It may make
me a bad physician, but I deeply wish that we
had never come here. Oldrich turned away from the pit,
rubbing a hand down his face before he set his shoulders.
Fear not wrong about that. At least I've come to
a decision. We leave at dawn weaker for help. The
Lilaise led out a slow breath, the smell of herbs
in her mass blowing back to her. Yes. As they
reached the barber shop for their final night in the village,
they spotted the barber waiting for them. She didn't notice
it at first, but when she looked closer, it seemed
as if his skin was just a touched two pale,
his eyes naturally white in the dim evening. Do you
sleep well, doctors? They waited until he stepped aside, and
half way up the stairs to the second floor, she
heard older to speak, yes, I saw it to if
the rumble came once more, deep in the night. It
started as it had before, a low obrigant through the floorboards,
a pulse in the earth itself, but now it was stronger,
more insistent. Olais wok at once, the sound cowling into
her chest like a warning. Aldrich was already sitting up listening.
His face was lined in flickering lampire, his expression cove
from stone. Then another sound, a high, keening wheel risey
above the rumble. Olais swung her legs over the side
of the cot, pulse hammering. She reached the window just
in time to see the movement below. Their horses, dark
frantic shapes in the moonlight, lashing against their stalls, the
screen's terror, and through the stillness, one after the other,
their hooves connected with the stable dogs again and again.
Finally they broke free, fleeing into the night. At a
desperate attempt to escape, the rumble of the stable doors
burst open Who's pandit against the earth, and the beasts fled,
galloping wildly into the fog, into the trees, furnishing into
the night like Phantom's chase by something unseen. A Liz
pressed a hand to her mouth. Drid settled into a stomach,
alongward a feeling of inevitability. Aldrich moved beside her, staring
after them. He exhaled, slowly, evenly. We were trapped for
a long moment. Neither of them spoke, the sounds still
thrown beneath them, deep and slow, like breath drawn from
the lungs of the earth itself. Then list turned away
from the window, gripping the edge of the table. Her
throw felt tight while washing up into the back of
her mouth. They couldn't stay there, they simply couldn't. We
can still go on. Aldred shook his head. It's half
a day's right to the next tent. That's three, maybe
even four times as long walking, we'd never make it
before nightfall. I'm an old man, Liz. Then we'll go,
so staying is not an option. We must leave at
first light. The Liz's voice was from steadying. If we stay,
we die. We both know it, and with no help
to the survivors of Radad aldrichsjaw clench. He looked toward
the lantern as glow, soft and wavering, casting long, thin
shadows against the walls. For a long time, he didn't answer,
then fire. Finally he gave a slow nod. First light.
A lays its tail shakily, but the relief was bitter
and then satisfying. First light, Let's try to get some rest.
They turned to their cots in silence, waiting, listening. The
sound beneath them did not fade until sunlight began to
kiss the horizon, but the doctors wouldn't know it. The
clouds had already crept in by then. The rain began
as a whisper, a soft patter against the roof, barely
allowed enough to stir or A lays from where she sat,
curled against the cat wooden frame. She had not slept,
not truly, Nita had Aldrich. They had only drifted an
end out of restlessness, half conscious states the breath madgiced,
the bodies poised a rund. She paid little mind to
the rain at first, except tilamented how much harder it
would make their journey to the next town. Maybe they'd
find their horses along the way, some kind travelers that
might take pity on them. She dreaded the thought of
trudging through the muddy forest pass, but anything was better
than the many in the village. But then came the lightning,
followed by the thunder, and the gentle drizzle became a delage.
Water last the streets in violent slunting sheets. The wind
held against the buildings, ratland shadows, pulling at the low
shingles of the barber shop and forcing its way through
the cracks in the windows. For the London between them
flickered wildly. Aldrich, still peering through the walk glass, that
it weren't let up. Soon a lays moved beside him. Below,
the streets pulled with water, streams of it gushing through
the muddy rots of the the road, carrying away Debrison
full for the storm churned with a fury, a natural
for the season, its force almost punishing, hammering the village
like a relentless tide. We should wait a day, he suggested,
and Lais felt her teeth grind together. She wanted to argue,
but also understood that she had reached the end of
her arguing allotment with her master, so instead she suggested,
let's hurry next door and get some breakfast. We'll talk
it over. Then was at the sun to mar at
the time. They couldn't be sure exactly how early it was,
but the rain kept the streets empty anyway. At first,
the villagers did what was expected in a rainstorm. They
stayed inside. The immune ones, the ones who had been watching,
smiling too brightly, the skin fever flush, but not fever.
It seemed uncertain. There, Lais glimpsed them through open doorways,
peering from windows, hovering at the edges of shutter, as
if testing some invisible boundary. Then slowly they began to move.
One by one, they stepped from doorways into the street.
Some hesitated, shaking, fingers twitching at their sides. Others went
all at once, striding into the deluge, like prisoners marching
to the scaffold, their heads stepped upward, their mouths opened it,
as if in silent rapture, the rain struck their skin
and melted it. At first, she thought it was an illusion,
the way the water ran from them in thick, dark streaks,
whirling down into the guttows. But the streaks did not fade.
They widened, They deepened. Skin sloth from bun like wax
before an open flame. A man collapsed, his body hollow,
not a man at all, but a thin papery husk.
A woman fell next, and another, and then another. The
liars reached blundly for Aldric, her nails digging into his arm.
He did not pull away, He did not move at all.
What is this? Her voice was barely a breath. Aldrich
did not answer, mas sir, She cried, uncaring if the
timber of her voice gave her identity away. What is this?
You know? I have no answer, he sapped, but he
did not sound angry. Instead, his voice was full of desolation.
What would you have me say that? It's a devil,
that's the end of all things, A sign of our sins?
A lyar. Slowly she let go of his robe, prying
her face years off of him, as if they were
frozen solid. I just may be part of me, hoped
that he'd seen it before. I haven't, he breathed, closing
his eyes. I don't think that anyone be the in heaven,
hell or on earth. I've seen this before? Are we leaving?
Master Fane? No child? His words were final, the words
of a dead man determined to see his last mission
through her. I thought not Elyra unclipped her mask from
her belt with surprisingly steady hands and slid it over
her face. I will follow. The rain had ceased by
the time the doctors found the courage to step outside.
The air was stick, with the scent of wet earth,
of decay, of something deeper, richer that curled, and the
lungs like the clawing, horrible sweetest of a wound left
to fest. The village was silent, not merely emptied, not
merely abandoned, but gutted. The hump stood still and lifeless,
their doors yawning open, the streets strewn with the collapsed
tusks of those who had once walked there. Aldrich did
not speak. He did not need to. The Lyra was
the only one left to listen, and she knew his
silences just as well as his words. There could have
been somevers left in their homes, but it was no
wonder that once they saw what had become of their peers,
they refused to leave. The rain had melted away so
much flesh and sinew on the bodies of the bright
Ones that they were nearly unrecognizable as humans. They were deflated,
their scalps of hair and the stark whiteness of the skeletons,
the only signifiers of person had left. Aldrich pulled up
his hot heading into the forest, following the tracks of
the monstrous parasites. The lays followed close behind him, their
boots sinking into the sodden ground, their breath the only
sound between them. He knew they should have fled, They
should have run far away the second they could. There
was no sense in what they were doing. He was
a seasoned professional, and he was supposed to be intelligent,
careful in the choices he made. But Aldrich found himself
leading his apprentice into the unknown danger. Something deep and
insidious had taken root inside them, a compulsion, an unspoken pull,
the same perhaps that had dragged the villagers into the storm.
Into the rain. The creatures had left a path in
the undergrowth or writhing, churning scar of crushed leaves and
torn roots, a tunnel of movement leading into the dense,
waiting darkness of the trees. The deeper they went, the
worse the air became. It thickened, caught it in their throats,
pressed against their temples with a weight that was neither
heat nor humidity, but something else entirely. The lantern's glow
barely reached past its glass, swallowed by the oppressive black
between the trees. Finally they reached the end of the path,
where the earth fell away before them. A crater, vast
and yawning, had caved in the ground in front of them.
Trees tilted inwards, brutes unable to keep their hold in
the rain sliped mud. It was a wind in the world,
and when Alder stepped as close as he dared, holding
the lantern up to banish the darkness, he could see
the beating heart in the center. Aldrich's breath hitched as
a list stepped closer, had breathing fast and frightened like
a cornered rabbit. They could both see what was there,
but the mines refused to grasp on to it. A
thing filled the crater. It pulls slow and measured its
fore glistening wrong and impossibly large. At first, it seemed
only a mass of morphus, shifting endless. But then it stirred,
and the light caught the sheen of its limbs. It
wasn't the gray of fire ash, but the gray of
deer drowned flesh. They were not quite tentacles, not quite roots,
but something between. They slithered through the earth, thick and undulating,
plunging deep into the soil beneath the village. All the
pieces in his mind claked together. The rumbling in the
night hadn't been the wind through the trees, or the
settling of the earth, but instead it had been this.
Eliz clutched Oldridge's arm, her fingers trembling against his sleeve.
It's underneath us, she whispered, It's everywhere. She was right.
The last staggering parasites gurried toward it in a frantic swarm,
disappearing into the mass, burrowing into its oily surface. Once
they made contact, they gave themselves to it without testation,
feeding themselves to something greater. Aldridg couldn't see a change,
but he knew in his bones that it was growing
It isn't a disease, he rasped. It was never a disease.
They both had the minds of scientists, but the wills
of warrors. It's what sets heel is apart from the rest.
But no matter how much will they had, older kennel
is were not viders, And even if they had been,
how could they possibly do battle with the thing below them?
The bodies in the streets, the hollowed out husks. They
had not wasted away or succumbed fever or flux of
some unseen pistilence. They had been emptied. They had been incubators,
and it was still feeding. But what of the disease.
Maybe the parasites had failed to take Aldrich couldn't be sure,
but he was both infinitely glad and furious with himself
that he hadn't attempted a dissection. Maybe he could have
found the answer sooner, or maybe he would have become
infected himself. Olaie's grip on his arm tightened. We have
to go. The living mass roiled in its earthen cocun
somehow shifting, and then it was staring. One enormous, gelatinous
I rolled to gaze at them. Aldrich felt something he
had never experienced before, a primordal fear, the promise of
a death to complete that even his memory would be consumed.
Alaise didn't need to ask again. He didn't even remember
the decision. But before he could breathe in another of breath,
the two of them were running. They stumbled back through
the trees, sucking in panicked, blungfuls of air. The rain
had slowed to a misty drizzle, leaving the ground slick
and treacherous beneath their feet. Thelaise nearly fell boots gidding
in mud, dockned by things they did not dare look
too closely at Alda, caught her by the arm yanking
her upright. Neither of them spoke, neither of them could.
The only sound was the whispering scutch of parasites rippling
through the underbrush, their bodies glistening with the remnants of
the human husks they once inhabited. They moved with unsettling purpose,
a swarm of writhing filaments, slithering away from the village.
The town emerged from the thinning trees, like skeletal fingers
rising from shallow water. The lanterns in the windows flickered
weakly at the warm welcome of just a handful of
days ago, a distant memory. They passed the butcher's shop,
the sign board with its blocky letters. The apothecased or
yawned idly in the wind. Shelves of herbs and vials
had been overturned, their contents crushed on to foot. The
scent of lavender and camphor were strong, but beneath it
was something spoiled. We'll steal someone else's horses. Alise panted,
looking wildly about the town square for a sign of
his stable. No one is left anyway, They stumbled as
the ground shook, not an earthquake, but something far closer.
It was the movement of the earth right below their feet.
As something vast awakened. A low grown rolled through the air,
a sound so all encompassing it seemed to come from everywhere.
At once. Aldrich stopped dead in his tracks, his heart clenched,
his lungs ceased. The sound was familiar. It is the
same rumbling they heard before, the same low moment that
had terrified the horses into fleeing. But now it was louder.
Now it was closer. The streets trembled. The gobblestone shifted,
tilted unevenly. A crack splinted down the mi in road,
and from its eat something thick, black and pulsing. The
barber's shop collapsed inward with a sudden, violent snap. Wood
and stone sucked into the earth like water down a drain.
The tremor deepened, growing into a deafening roar. Olase was
gripping Aldrich's arm again, and while he couldn't hear her,
he felt a terrible guilt, knowing that she trusted him. Implicitly,
she trusted him, and he had led her here to
her doom. Her lips moved, forming words, but he could
not hear her. Over the noise, he could not hear
anything but the sound of the world breaking open. It
reminded him fittingly of the snapping of bones, specifically the
femur at, the longest, strongest bone in the body, that,
when broken, came apart with a deep, resounding snap. The
chasm reripped through the center of the village, split in
the land apart like flesh potty under a blade. It
was not empty darkness that lay beneath, It was movement.
The crater they saw in the forest was only the beginning. This.
This was as true form a vast, writhing mass heaved
itself up from the depths, its limbs slithering free from
the tunnels that had cradled them during its spread. The
tendrils were massive, thick as tree trunks, glistening with viske
machine then coiled slowly, deliberately, as if tasting the air.
Most horrifying of all, maybe because it could have been him,
had his choices been different, were the movements of the
parasite ridden husks. The villagers, who had once been so bright,
so feverishly eager, dragged themselves to the age of the abyss.
Their faces, or what was left of them, lifted in silent,
rapturous devotion. They did not scream as the tendrils wrapped
around them. They did not resist as they were lifted
one by one into the rolling mass. He knew they
were returning home. Aldrich couldn't move, couldn't breathe, but could
only watch the liz Wrench's sleeve, screaming, now pulling at
him with frantic desperation. But he was rooted to the spot,
transfixed by the thing that has slumbered beneath them all
this time. The thing that has hollowed up the bodies,
the mines, the very souls of those they had come
to heal. He had failed them, failed all of them.
Eleier screamed his name an then the world was swallowed
hull shoe, stifferjesty five hundred one. And that is the end.
Thank you for listening, and I will see you in
the next one.