The Ruined City (16 page)

They traveled on through the afternoon, and during those hours spied a mail coach, a mule-drawn cart, and a quintet of mounted Taerleezi guardsmen. At the end of the day, when the light was failing and the atmosphere chilling, they came to an inn whose name, the Glass Eye, struck Jianna like a message from another life. For it was at this very inn that she had expected to spend the second night of her ill-fated journey from Vitrisi to the house of her betrothed in Orezzia. She had very much wanted to dine in the common room among the ordinary folk, she recalled. She had expected to find interesting novelty there. It all seemed inexpressibly remote and distant now, yet it had only been this past autumn.

And now, it seemed, that forgotten wish was about to be granted, for Rione suggested that they grant themselves the rare luxury of spending the night under a solid roof. Jianna assented readily, without questioning the expense. Throughout her entire life she had rarely been obliged to handle money
and she had certainly never wasted a moment’s thought on it. She did not think to consider it now.

They did eat in the common room with all the ordinary folk, and the single long table with benches on both sides, the communal pots and bowls in the middle, the elbowing and jockeying were not so novel after all. They reminded her of the servants’ table in the kitchen at Ironheart, only bigger and noisier, with more crowding and worse manners. The food was adequately abundant, filling, and undistinguished. Conversation, however, was lively, for these travelers carried news and stories—all of indeterminate reliability, but absorbing nevertheless.

Jianna ached for news of Vitrisi. She inquired, and much information was forthcoming, little of it encouraging. Several Glass Eye patrons spoke of the plague raging in the city—of the spread of the pestilence, the inefficacy of the quarantine, the mounting fatalities, the ever-blazing pyres, the atmosphere of fear and despondency approaching desperation.

Exaggeration
, thought Jianna.

They spoke of the increase in crime, violence, and generally erratic behavior; the correspondingly draconian controls imposed by the detested Governor Uffrigo; and the resulting popular resentment and unrest.

There’s always popular resentment and unrest
, thought Jianna.

They spoke of astonishing disruptions among the Sishmindris, who had been conclusively identified as carriers of the plague. In response to the reasonable and necessary measures introduced in the interest of disease control, the amphibians had turned vicious. Finally revealing their long-suspected strain of malevolence, they had banded together into predatory gangs occupying quarantined territory, whence they periodically issued to kill and plunder. Or so it was generally believed. In sheer self-defense, the decent human residents of the city had been forced to strike back, and now Sishmindris—even those in proper livery—were being killed in the street on sight.

Can’t be true
, thought Jianna.
Wild rumors
.

They spoke, too, in lowered tones, of the wandering dead—corpses unwilling to lie still, sometimes known to drag themselves from the pyre itself. Now these bodies were lurching around town in increasing numbers, and they were all but impossible to control, for their unseemly animation was proof against conventional weapons. Complete physical destruction offered the only sure means of halting them, but this goal was not easily achieved. Of late the undead had displayed a disturbingly intelligent tendency to seek safety in numbers. And where they congregated, certain sensitive or highly imaginative witnesses reported, the world changed and reality warped.

Lunatic fancies
, Jianna told herself stoutly, but noticed that Rione was listening to these accounts with close, frowning attention.

After dinner there was nothing left but to retire to their respective chambers, at which point Jianna’s appetite for novelty was surfeited, for she discovered then that she did not lodge alone. The room to which she was consigned contained two big beds, each accommodating four women. Had she traveled as Jianna Belandor, daughter of a wealthy magnifico, she would have enjoyed a private chamber with a soft bed for her own use and perhaps a pallet for a maidservant. Now she tasted the experience of the ordinary wayfarer—that is, one so fortunate as to sleep beneath the roof of an inn at all. She greatly preferred privacy. Even among the Ghosts, she had always had a pallet to herself. Still, it would not have been so bad had not one of her three bedmates needed to seek the chamber pot repeatedly throughout the night. The weary traipsing to and fro, the vibration of the lumpy bedding, the sounds and smells, woke her repeatedly. She was wide awake at dawn, and more than ready to abandon the dubious comforts of the Glass Eye.

The journey resumed, and around noon of the day after next, the air darkened. A dense blot loomed upon the atmosphere ahead, and Jianna caught the acridity of smoke on the
breeze. At the inn they had spoken of Vitrisi’s perpetual, smoke-belching pyres, and she had dismissed the accounts as exaggerations. Now she began to suspect that she had been mistaken.

Another hour of travel brought them to the verge of one of the villages clustering in the shadow of Vitrisi’s ancient wall. This one, called Jiocco’s Well, boasted a town square enclosing an exceptionally large public well, above which hung a sign of recent manufacture reading,
GOOD HUMANS ONLY
. A crudely daubed portrait of a Sishmindri marked with trilobed carbuncles of the plague, clasping hands with a human skeleton, underscored the message. An armed guard waited by the well, apparently prepared to enforce the edict.

Jianna recalled Jiocco’s Well as a pleasant, bustling little community. Now the town center was all but empty, and several of the houses edging the square displayed boarded windows.

They rode on and the VitrOrezzi Bond brought them to the gates of Vitrisi, where, for the first time in her life, Jianna saw the way blocked by Taerleezi soldiers. They were not impeding egress, she noted at once. Apparently anyone and everyone could depart the city at will. Admittance was another matter, however. Would-be entrants—pedestrian, mounted, and in vehicles—had formed a line, and the soldiers were interviewing each in turn. Jianna and Falaste placed themselves at the end of the line, which advanced at fairly good speed.

Within minutes they reached the gate, where the bored Taerleezis on guard launched into a mechanical interrogation, clearly repeated countless times.

Names?

Rione answered truthfully.

“Noro Penzia,” Jianna was surprised to hear herself reply, and Rione shot her a quizzical glance. It had slipped out easily, unthinkingly, through pure habit. But no, it was more than habit; her caution was founded in good reason. For one thing, her claim to the noble Belandor name would strike the guards
as preposterous. They would see her as a dreamer or liar, there would be extra questions and delay, and they might just end by turning her away from the gate. Moreover, she had come to understand that the daughter of the Magnifico Aureste was a target in her own right—something she would never have believed in earlier carefree days.

Age?

Twenty-five and eighteen. Two accurate answers.

Condition?

“Physician,” Rione declared. “And the lady is my assistant.”

“Oh aye, and I’ll lay odds she’s got magic hands,” volunteered one of the guards.

Jianna kept her face a blank.

Coming from?

Treating patients in the Alzira Hills. Another truthful answer, so far as it went.

Any cases of the plague among those patients? None.

Any recent contact with plague victims? Shared lodgings with plague victims? Shared bed or board?

No.

State of health? Any recent instances of high fever, delirium or hallucinations, carbuncles, fainting, black bile, bloodspray, or invasive disembodied voices?

No.

Well, then. Neck and wrist check for telltale lumps.

Swallowing her outrage, Jianna bared the requisite anatomy. A quick inspection was completed, and the guards waved them through.

She was back in Vitrisi again. She had longed for this moment for months, but the reality scarcely matched her expectations. The streets, formerly so vital and colorful, were now thinly populated with humans and assorted animals, but no Sishmindris. There was not an amphibian to be seen. The merchants’ booths were closed and shuttered, their pennants
and streamers gone. There were no street singers, acrobats, or entertainers of any description in sight. Even the majority of beggars had apparently gone underground. Refuse bulked in heaps everywhere, and a haze of gritty smoke darkened, smudged, and discolored the world.

Jianna coughed. Her eyes watered and her throat scratched.
What’s happened to my beautiful city?
She did not open her mouth to ask the question aloud, for fear of inhaling additional smoke, but not all voices were similarly stilled. There was one nearby, impossible to ignore, uplifted in some sort of chant or song. It was a pleasant, strong, rather hoarse voice, momentarily unidentifiable as to age or gender, and it seemed to be rhythmically reciting some sort of incantation, or perhaps it was only a list. Jianna listened.

“… Concentrate of chicory, oil of blifilnut, essence of skorry and donkeyweed, star seeds, dried punia, mandragola, powder of shernivus, gingerroot mash with truni, milkweed pods, aromatic distillations
—
all pure, all good. Troxius medals, fine cast. Fegri charms, new made and strong. Draughts Sanguinarius, to fortify the blood. The Circle of Strength, impossible to break. The Secret of the Proportionate Progression, guarded for centuries by the arcanists, now revealed. Protect your health. Protect your families, save your children. Safety for sale!”

The voice approached, its owner finally breaching the dense vapors, and Jianna stiffened at sight of an eerie figure voluminously cloaked in black, hands gauntleted, face shadowed beneath a wide-brimmed hat and guarded by a mask of odd design—black leather, with holes for eyes and mouth, dominated by a huge beak projecting half the length of a forearm.

“What is
that
?” She pointed discreetly. “Man or woman? And what’s that thing on his or her face?”

“Woman, I think, but I can’t swear to it,” Rione returned. “Her clothing is fashioned to ward off contagion. That beak in the mask contains aromatic herbs meant to purify the air before it reaches the wearer’s nostrils.”

“Ingenious, but does it work?”

“I’m inclined to doubt it.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “What about the other things she’s hawking? The powders, draughts, medals, and all the rest?”

“Useless, so far as I know. Toys and trappings of primitive superstition.”

“You don’t speak with such disdain of your own superstitions.”

“I have none.”

“Oh, really? What about the belief that your ritual of washing, scrubbing, or boiling everything in sight before performing surgery somehow helps? If that isn’t superstition—”

“That, my little gadfly, is a reasonable conclusion based upon experience and observation.”

“You started washing, and around the same time observed improved results. Does that necessarily mean that the one
caused
the other?” She teased for two reasons. One, she strongly suspected that Rione enjoyed it; the other, it helped to divert her attention from increasingly distressing sights and sounds of a stricken city.

Before he could answer, the hawker reached them.

“Safety, security, salvation,” she or he offered with enviable assurance, extending a black-gloved palm upon which lay a bright object. “Newcomers to the city, be good to yourselves. Buy a medal of Troxius, beautiful detail, gold wash, scientifically proven power. Walk Vitrisi without fear. One diostre.”

“A whole diostre for that? It’s not even real gold!” Jianna objected.

“It’s better than real gold, missy.” The hawker’s pleasant voice seemed to issue from the heart of a formless dark cloud. “It’s health, it’s hope, it’s life. It’s an anchor to hold you when the world thins out to nothing.”

“When the world—what do you mean?”

“Haven’t seen it yet? Don’t worry, you will. And then you’ll need something to hang on to, and you won’t be thinking about the cost. One diostre, cheap at the price.”

Jianna shook her head, the hawker faded back into the mists, and progress resumed. Another twenty minutes of travel carried them into a better section of town, where her spirits began to revive. Here the signs of disaster were not so prevalent. True, the streets were dim and smoke-strangled. Great red X’s scarred several doorways, and there was still not a Sishmindri to be seen. Yet most of the houses seemed to be occupied, many windows glowed through the murk, and a few Scarlet Gluttons racketed from the rooftops. With but a little effort of will, it was possible to imagine an imminent return to normality.

This illusion expired as they turned a corner and, for the first time, Jianna beheld the undead. There they were: three moldering bodies, grey-fleshed and milky-eyed, but upright and ambulant, exactly as described. A deep shudder rocked her body, before the sight had fully impressed itself upon her understanding. A sense of wrongness filled her to the brim; a blurred recognition of some vast, silent change whose nature eluded yet terrified her. She swayed a little in the saddle, her flesh went clammy, and for a moment she thought that she was going to faint. Ridiculous, she had never fainted in her life. The horse beneath her snorted and quivered as if sharing its rider’s qualm. She took a deep breath, and the dizziness receded.

The three undead seemed peaceable enough. They stood grouped closely together, bony fingers interlocked, hairless heads sweetly inclined toward one another. An occasional tremor shook one tattered limb or another. Apart from that, there was no motion and no suggestion of aggression. Even so, the aura of disruption was all but tangible.

Jianna’s frightened eyes flew to Rione, whose own gaze was fastened on the trio. Without turning, he extended a hand, and she stretched sideways to grasp it tightly for an instant. The quick, warm contact braced her, and she was able to take in the entire scene: the incomprehensibly purposeful corpses, the gathering of scared but fascinated observers, and a lone voice—male, strong, and confident. Not a hawker; something or someone else.