“Incorrect?” the elder says, distrust sharpening the word.
Arnem attempts to patch the momentary breach: “I am certain that my comrade meant only to say that there is something amiss, Elder.”
The elder, however, is unappeased: “Of course there is something ‘amiss,’ Sentek Arnem: the entire business is—”
“Of course, certainly, Honored Father,” Visimar says, still lost in thought. “But if the illness were a pox of some horrifying variety, as you claim, what you describe would be its final stages. Yet you have proposed to us that the couple knew each other only a short time, and that the soldier’s interest was but carnal and temporary, whatever his or the girl’s claims to the contrary. The difficulty being that—even assuming their trysts were so base—it would take months for any known pox to manifest such monstrous symptoms.”
The elder’s expression darkens, suddenly and considerably: a moment before he had felt unexpected satisfaction at the appearance of the noted Sentek Arnem and his officers, and at the justice he had begun to feel that they had brought with them; now, his blood begins to heat with familiar yet disappointing resentment: “I might have known …,” he murmurs.
But Arnem has already lifted a conciliatory, if warning, hand. “Hold, now, Father, I beg you. This old man has been my surgeon in the field for more years than I care to count, and I will admit, he has become somewhat addled in his thinking and loose with his speech, due to all that he has seen.” Arnem gives Niksar a quick glance, finding in his aide’s face at least some comprehension of his ruse’s necessity; and then he tries to warn Visimar once more with his eyes that he must keep silent. “And if he has spoken mistakenly today,” Arnem continues, “or simply has put the matter more bluntly than he should have, you must accept my apology—our sole desire is to establish the truth, not to insult either you or your loyal community.”
“Fine words and sentiments, Sentek,” the elder says, his voice more controlled, yet no less suspicious. “And if that is, indeed, your desire, then you must descend with me to the deepest vault beneath our largest granary. There, the temperature is always cool, even uncomfortably cold—and we have kept the bodies of the dead couple there, lest anyone question our demands to the garrison’s commander.”
“You have preserved the bodies?” Visimar says, suddenly shocked. “You have not buried or burned them? But—”
“Anselm.” The harsh way in which Arnem says the name silences Visimar, at which the sentek turns a kinder expression on the elder. “Of course you would have had to preserve them, Honored Father.”
“Indeed,” the elder replies. “For in such cases, as you doubtless know, Sentek, the commander of the town’s garrison, if he attempts to shield the offending soldier, is, by law, as guilty of misconduct as the soldier himself. Yet after the girl died, and we learned of the youth’s illness, the commander would neither yield the boy up until he was dead, nor put himself into our hands for trial.”
By now Visimar is staring at the large stone granary, as if the mere sight of it held answers. “But if this be the entire extent of the matter, Father,” the old man murmurs, “why, I pray you tell, have you experienced more outbreaks of the unidentified pox? For you have, have you not? And why have you not told us of them? Surely you are not suggesting that this one pallin was behind every death in Esleben?”
At these words, everyone present is suddenly seized by differing forms of dread: Arnem recognizes that Visimar is not merely speculating, but is certain of his accusations, whereas Niksar is consumed by a new confusion that causes him to grip the hilt of his sword in preparation for a fight; the elder’s litter bearers, meanwhile, suddenly release their burden, which hits the ground with a sharp slamming of wood against hard Earth as their faces fill with fearful astonishment. Yet Visimar does not move, as the elder fairly leaps from his conveyance and thunders in accusation:
“Who is this man? I demand you tell me, Sentek!”
Matters only worsen when the elder’s bearers begin to murmur the dreaded word: “Sorcery … it must be sorcery …”
The elder silences these men with a wave of one hand, and shouts: “Well, Sentek Arnem? How comes this fellow to know so much of our business? Not only the girl’s death, but our subsequent misfortunes! Is he in secret communication with someone in Esleben?” But both Arnem and Niksar remain, for the moment, too stunned to speak. “I demand to know, I tell you!” the elder rails on. “You call him your surgeon, yet he does not wear the uniform of your legion—who, then, by all that is holy, is he?”
Although inwardly somewhat satisfied that his suspicion concerning Visimar’s usefulness to this campaign has been borne out, Arnem must, because of the cripple’s rash statements, continue to affect only shock: “You don’t mean to say,” the sentek asks the elder, “that he has spoken the truth of this business?”
“Truth enough,” the elder answers, himself astounded at Arnem’s question. “But surely you know it to be, Sentek.”
“I know no such thing, Elder,” Arnem replies, aware that he is engaged in a dangerous ploy. “If you tell me it is so, I shall not contradict you—but do not mistake this fellow. He is still a competent healer, one who inspires faith in my men, and I have kept him on this march for their sake. But his rants are not true ‘vision,’ Elder; they are only the noises created by his broken mind, whatever their seeming conformity to any truth.” The elder becomes suddenly uncertain. “And, even if he has stumbled upon some few details of events here,” Arnem presses, “do not doubt that he yet remains a stranger to reason, the greater part of the time.” Drawing his blade slowly, Arnem faces Visimar, but glances at the elder. “Finally, I promise you this—if there be any truth in what he says, then I shall discover how he knows it …” The sentek steps closer to Visimar. “But that inquiry, as well as my inspection of the bodies in the granary, do not require your presence, Father. For I have seen the dead of all varieties, during my campaigns, and require no guidance—whereas I would not have you witness what may become necessary, during my interrogation of this man. Niksar—” Arnem’s aide salutes his commander. “Escort the elder back to his home. Do not allow anyone to bully or threaten him in any way.” As Niksar salutes once more, Arnem calls to the elder: “And accept my assurance, Father—you may leave this matter in our hands, and my Talons will determine the truth of it for you …”
Faced with Arnem’s hard aspect, Visimar realizes that he has said too much, and ought to have waited until he was alone with the sentek to divulge his accurate apprehension of the lovers’—and indeed the town of Esleben’s—fates. His words have been dangerous, he quickly sees, precisely because of their accuracy: the townspeople are plainly interpreting the mysterious illness as some sort of punishment brought down upon their whole community by the golden god as punishment for both the reckless acts of the malevolent young soldier and the disobedience of the commander of the garrison. They do not know, as Visimar believes he does, that a terrible sickness is at work in Esleben, one that is not only impossible to cure or control, but is also of an entirely different nature than the supposèd “poison” with which the Bane (according to Arnem) are said to have attempted the assassination of the God-King Saylal.
In short, there are in all likelihood two deadly diseases now at work in Broken: one in the city, and one in the provinces. The first might admit of some cure, if treated as an illness and not a poison; but the second, should it spread, will become as voracious as the fire for which it is named.
Visimar requires but an instant, after this realization, to finally comprehend that he must cooperate with Arnem’s deception, and convince the elder and his bearers that his conclusions concerning the lovers’ deaths and the fate of the town indeed arose from a disordered imagination. By doing so, he will gain for Arnem the freedom to seek out the commander of the garrison, and then determine if, in fact, the soldiers of that unit are as doomed as most of the townspeople appear to be.
With this end in mind, Visimar quickly a
ffects a long string of nonsensical declamatory remarks, deliberately made within the retiring elder’s hearing and concerning the “true” (and “magical”) source of his insight. The cripple makes a great show of saying that the birds about Esleben have whispered to him all that they have seen and heard, a ploy—inspired by the work of Visimar’s old master, Caliphestros, who often seemed truly able to draw such information from creatures wild and tame—that is effective; and ere long the elder, still peering out through the back of his litter, orders his men to hasten the return to Esleben, satisfied that Sentek Arnem will honestly determine the extent of the old healer’s madness, and, should it prove in any mischievous way connected to actual events in Esleben, punish Visimar accordingly.
“But remember, Sentek,” the elder calls, as he returns to the assembled crowd, “that the commander of the garrison also awaits the God-King’s justice, although I take no joy in it. For we had hoped, when a new commander was appointed—”
Arnem’s brow arches. “A new commander?” he calls out.
“Certainly,” the elder replies with a nod. “Sent from Daurawah, almost half a year ago. Surely you knew.” Arnem feigns simply having forgotten a fact of which he was, in reality, never informed. “And we had hoped he would be worthy of our trust—but a man who locks both his dishonorable subordinate and then himself away from his accusers inspires something very different.”
“Indeed, Elder,” Arnem replies. “But I tell you again, we are not here to defy our own customs and laws—if what you say is true, you have my word that the garrison commander will hang for it.”
It is the first open mention of an execution that has passed Arnem’s lips; and it seems to heartily encourage the elder. The drapes of the litter finally close, and Niksar nods to Arnem, signaling that he fully understands his task: to buttress all that the sentek has said with words and actions.
Arnem answers with an easy salute, in appreciation of his young aide’s willingness to undertake a less than gallant, but still brave and necessary, service; and when the litter has moved off far enough for plain talk to be safe, the sentek glowers at Visimar, his sword still bared.
“I will tell you but once more, old man. Say what you like to me—but do not endanger the lives of my men or their purpose, or I shall hang you beside this garrison commander!”
“I admit the error, Sixt Arnem—but I spoke the truth, and you must, as quickly as you can, get your men away from Esleben. Deadly sickness is here—indeed, a far more horrifying illness than you have described as being at work in Broken. Its spread in the town can no longer be stopped: and it will begin to kill others with as little warning, or apparent explanation, as it did the unfortunate lovers. And your men cannot be protected from it, save by leaving.”
Arnem studies Visimar, deeply puzzled. “How can you know this, old man, before we have even seen the dead bodies?”
“Viewing the bodies is meaningless—indeed, we had best not even enter the granary, lest we expose ourselves to great danger.”
“Danger—from the dead?”
“From the dead—and from that.” Visimar points to the topmost breaks in the high granary walls, designed to allow for ventilation. Through these openings can be seen grain: a great store of it.
Following Visimar’s indication, as the two men approach the building, Arnem asks, “And what is that, save grain?”
“Proof, Sentek,” Visimar replies. “In the form of winter rye, from the look of it: an off-season crop that should have been sent to Broken long ago. Instead, because these people believe that the merchants in Broken are cheating them by buying foreign grain that is less expensive, the townspeople have kept it here, and allowed it to spoil—to spoil in a most subtle manner …” As they reach the granary walls, Visimar searches the ground. “Keep a tight rein on your mount, Sentek,” he murmurs. “Do not allow him to find and nibble at—ah! there …” The old man points to a spot where some of the grain, having escaped through the ventilation gaps, has fallen to the ground. “Do you see there, Sentek—where the kernels have formed a plum-colored growth?” Arnem eyes the kernels as closely as he can, then begins to dismount, in order to reach down and get a closer look. “No, Sentek!” Visimar says, still quietly, but very urgently. “Do not allow yourself the least contact with it.”
“But why?” Arnem says, settling himself in his saddle once more.
“Because, Sixt Arnem,” Visimar breathes in relief, “should you even touch it, and then bring your fingers into contact with your mouth or eyes, you might well die as horribly as did the young girl and her suitor.”
“Visimar,” Arnem says, “explain yourself plainly.”
“There lies your murderer.” He indicates the ground again. “The pallin from the garrison was a victim, not a killer.”
“And again I ask,” Arnem says impatiently, “how can you say as much, without seeing his body?”
“I do not need to see his body, Sentek—and neither do you. The elder’s reaction has already confirmed my description of both corpses; and we would only be endangering ourselves, if we entered that cellar of death and decay. Any chance contact with the rotting flesh of the pallin and the maid would be as perilous as consuming that rotting grain.”
“But what is it? How can mere grain be so dangerous?”
“By giving you a deadly illness that you know well, Sixt Arnem—that is, under very different circumstances,” Visimar replies. “Come: let us move to the building’s far side, and at least seem to be doing what you said we would do. But in reality, our most urgent task is to get to the garrison, and prevent your men from coming into any contact with this substance.”
“ ‘A sickness I know well, under other circumstances’?” Arnem repeats, following Visimar’s mare, but not his explanation. “And what would that be? Enough wasting time, Visimar, simply tell me—”
“Very well: I called it Ignis Sacer, which means the ‘Holy Fire,’ in the language of the Lumun-jani,” Visimar explains. “You know it as the ‘fire wounds.’ ”
“Fire wounds?” Arnem repeats, his voice very skeptical. “But fire wounds are attained in battle, from wounds that fester!”
“Not always, Sentek,” Visimar says, his thoughts occupied with both a patient explanation of the disease and working out a route to the garrison that will allow the two men to make their way to that place unobserved by anyone in Esleben; but he soon finds the dual objects impossible. “Right now, however, I say again, the most imperative task we face is getting your aide and any others among your men who remain within the town out of it, and away from the inhabitants—for those unsuspecting people are about to undergo a calamity that will claim many if not most of their lives, as well as those of anyone unlucky enough to tarry here.”
“It is not the practice of the soldiers of Broken to abandon the God-King’s subjects in their hour of need, old man,” Arnem says sternly.
“But they are not ‘in need,’ Sixt Arnem,” Visimar replies, in like tone. “I tell you they are, almost to the last man, woman, and child, doomed.”
Arnem would argue the point further; but just then, with disturbing suddenness, a thought—a mere image—appears in his mind: the figure of Lord Baster-kin, standing in the remarkable tunnels beneath the city of Broken, his attention strangely fixed upon the vast stores of grain kept therein. The sentek can recall—quite distinctly, now—that these same small, purple growths upon each kernel had not been visible on the city’s grain: a fact perhaps uninteresting, in itself, save for what Arnem now realizes to have been Baster-kin’s apparent relief on finding that such was the case. That relief, Arnem comprehends as he fixes his mind on the moment, implied an anxiety that his lordship might have found the grain to be in some other, some far more dangerous, condition …
{iv:}
BY THE TIME that Arnem and Visimar have traveled in the sort of long, furtive route toward the Esleben garrison’s stockade that will eliminate any fear of being seen by someone within the town, not only has af
ternoon begun to give way to evening, but the commander of the Talons has learned a great deal about the two illnesses that his guest believes to be at work in the kingdom, and of the respective ways in which they propagate among men and women. First, there is the supposèd poisoning that took place within the city of Broken, which Visimar believes to in fact have been the first acknowledged (but likely not the first true) case of the terrible pestilence that Esleben’s healer rightly dismissed as being at work among his own people: rose fever, a sickness that hides itself in befouled water. The second is a more outwardly chilling rot that savagely attacks by way of any foods or flesh over which it has already taken hold, a malady that the sentek indeed knows as “the fire wounds,” but that is more properly identified by the terms “Holy Fire” (for who save a deity could be responsible for its monstrous symptoms?) and, still more precisely, among truly learnèd healers, as gangraena. This sickness, as Arnem has said, often appears as a result of the festering of soldiers’ wounds; but it can also carve its path using such insidious methods as the commander and the acolyte have just observed. Which of the two is the more dangerous? That is a question to which not even Visimar will hazard an answer; all he can do is continue to urge Arnem on, and to emphasize the importance of getting his Talons out of and away from ill-fated Esleben and its inhabitants. Before he can commit to that withdrawal, however, the ever-dutiful Arnem requires some more exact explanation of just what has taken place between the men of the garrison and the townspeople.
When the sentek and his fool-become-advisor finally do come within sight of the town’s small, formidable stockade, they find that mention of Arnem’s name has apparently been, as hoped, enough to prize open the gates of the place, and that members of the small command have emerged, the deep blue of their regular-army cloaks contrasting with the wine-red of the Talons’ similar garments. But before the two men can reach the stockade, they encounter some ten to fifteen groups of Talons, each consisting of three to five frontline infantrymen, who, in keeping with Broken military practice, have formed a watchful perimeter about the stockade. These are particularly skilled and veteran warriors, for in battle it is the duty of such men to quickly form the face of each side of the Broken quadrates, where they absorb the initial and harshest blows of the enemy, as well as lead the way in unhesitating attack when those quadrates shift into offensive or pursuing formations. It is these two equally valiant yet dangerous roles that have given such soldiers their informal name: Wildfehngen, because their disciplined ferocity in battle is believed to be unmatched, certainly by any warriors that the army of Broken has ever faced.