42nd Trial, Ymiden, 719a
Westguard
8th break
Westguard
8th break
The wouldn't wait much longer. The shivering mass of humans and animals all seemed to glance fearfully towards the setting sun. Every few bits, it was a few degrees lower in the sky, and he could see their mood fray. In every face there was a fear so deep and real it didn't need words. Mules and men, horses and children, they seemed to huddle against each other for protection. Families clutched each other and what few things they had left. Anyone that coughed, or sneezed, or looked a little red was instantly singled out.
He'd seen one family ostracized. Which was a nice way of saying the mother and son had been throw from their place in the caravan, and the father got his head broke while trying to protect them. Arms up, eyes wide, begging them that it was just a cold, they weren't carrying plague, they lived in Westguard, they knew them-
Kasoria watched him now, slumped next to an abandoned house. Cradled by his wife as she sobbed into his bloody head. Whispering things to her as he stared past her, back into the gaggle of frightened people. One arm around his son. The man from Etzos Prime watched his lips move... and frowned when clarity dawned.
"I can't see... I'm sorry, love... I can't see..."
"You should come with us, Kas."
Last time he'd been to Westguard, he hadn't much cared for how fast it was growing. The whole point of bringing the boy and his mother so far from the Big Smoke was so he wouldn't have to grow up like he did. History would not repeat, and Martyn would be... something better. Different, at least. Not another kid doomed to the gutters. But Westguard was growing, thriving, booming. The growth seemed unstoppable, almost inevitable. Like a sprig of the mother city had been sliced carefully off and transplanted into fertile soil. Now the new planting was rushing towards the sky, sprouting new limbs and leaves with every season. New houses, new stores, new farms, new businesses, roads, stores of food and all the supplies a town needed to bloom into a city.
"Kas? Kas, listen to me."
He looked around now and saw nothing but... no... not death. He'd been surrounded by that before, often by his own hand. But he knew plague. He knew how it could just empty a place, lodging house or entire town. The infection killed some, and panic killed the place itself. Then it would explode outwards, carried by terrified escapees. One gutted, ghostly house would become a street, a neighborhood, a perimeter. Kasoria had seen that before. He'd lived it. He'd seen the... the madness, that came with it.
That's what happened here, he thought, looking away from the doomed family, whose son was still coughing. Too many people, too quickly. Not enough time to check them all. Someone gets sicks. Then the three around him. The ten around them. And before you know it-
"Kas, I said you should-"
"I know what y'said, Alsome. I know."
Alsome's jaw worked anxiously for a moment or two. He knew that tone. His cousin was far away, inside his own head. It didn't mean he wasn't listening, but he'd already made his mind up. However that brain of his worked, Alsome couldn't guess. But for the last trial or so, he'd been watching Kasoria watching the town around him. Observing the masses of frightened, paranoid people pushed too far. At times he'd felt like a ghastly tour guide, showing his cousin just how far their town had fallen. Abandoned buildings with red crosses on the doors. Blood in alleyways. Prosperous business now hulks, forgotten or looted and, in some cases, burnt out to black bricks.
He'd come to terms with it, when his wife had died. When he'd kissed her goodbye one last time, with tears rolling down his face, before brushing them away so the girls wouldn't see. Telling them Mummy would be fine in a few trials, they'd just have to stay at their Gran's until she was feeling better. Shed done her part. She'd waved goodbye with a brave smile, and Alsome wanted for all the world to rush back and never leave.
Then he'd come back, and saw what the plague had done to her. Then he wished he had the same stone and ice in him his cousin did. No more so than when he'd set a torch to the cottage they built together, raised their family in, and walked away.
"There's nothing here, Kas."
Kasoria turned to look at his cousin. There was no flinch to him, now. No fear of his scary city relative from the Big Smoke, with his sinister reputation. Every time he'd visited, there'd been that tension between them. Like a little dog minding itself around a rottweiler. Careful not to offend, not to push too hard. Not to speak what they both knew but Alsome would never dare admit to. Who knew what Kasoria might do, if he breathed the words into the world? What the consequences might be...
What does it matter now? After what he's seen.
"No. There ain't." He looked over the heads of the caravan, back at Westguard. Slumbering in twilight already, save for a few scattered torches. Not street lamps; there wasn't enough civil order left for regular lighting of those. These were roaming faggots, blazing as they were brandished by... who knew? Looters? Soldiers? Runners, like them? "But there might be, inna' future."
Alsome frowned and cocked his head, not understanding. Kasoria turned to face the man, pinning him with the strangest look. Then he reached into his pocket, and handed Alsome two things. One was a purse, fat and clanking with coin so much he immediately shoved it deep into his pockets. The second was a letter. Folded and sealed with a hob of wax, without a sigil, of course. He could make out the words written on it, slow and neat and precise, as befitted a man who'd come to cherish literature.
"I need youse t'give them this."
"Why? Why not give it to them yerself?"
Kasoria managed a smile. A fragile, unexpected thing. Sad, in a way Alsome didn't know the man could still feel. Regretful, in a way only that boy could draw out from him.
"This tells 'em why."