Prompt: A plague
Wordcount: 1250
written today--
Day 14 of the Month of Julium, Year 1109
Everything was empty when we first walked into the village. The streets were unswept and silent, market stalls closed, windows shuttered up or else hanging open loosely, a curtain half visible here and there, listlessly fluttering in the breeze. It was unnerving to be sure, and gave a man more than a bit of pause. I’d wanted to turn back then, to guide the horses back onto the road: our supplies were not nearly so badly depleted as to necessitate a stop in such a place. Even if they had been, well, few men have died of a day or two of riding on an empty stomach but quite a few, by the look of things, had died from staying in this place. Once we got a few more yards in, the place began to positively stink or rot and disease.
Again I found myself wondering what I was doing amongst these people, for I knew as soon as I opened my mouth in protest that she would disagree, would push forward into the bloody deathtrap. There was no chance of Harman disagreeing with her either – even after four weeks, I wasn’t quite sure what the tie between the two of them was, why such a big man, a warrior clearly trained by one of the Seven Orders, was traveling with a Black Mage as if he was a common mercenary or bodyguard. Of course, one might ask why one such as myself – a journeyman Arcane Mage trained under the auspices of the Royal Academy, was traveling with her as well. That of course is a story described elsewhere in these journals. Suffice it to say that Ayelet was not what you would expect of Black Mage, and on the whole, certainly worthy of our loyalty.
In any case, we soon made out way to the center of the village, which was as empty as the outskirts, though a certain flash of movements here and there in some of the windows let us know that a few of the inhabitants of this place, at least, had not yet perished. Whether we would actually seen any of them, however, was at this point very much in question: the villagers in these parts were never particularly amenable to outsiders – when one of them happened to come wearing the black robes, in the midst of such devastation…well, one could hardly blame them if they came to certain conclusions, and thought it best to make themselves scarce.
Wary of entering any of the buildings, which might be full of disease or hostile survivors, we decided to rest in the village square. I cast a few sigils of light and protection around us, both for our own comfort and in the vague hope that some of the inhabitants still living might recognize these as the marks of the Academy and come forward despite Ayelet’s presence. Such luck was not forthcoming, however.
Ayelet prepared a thin gruel for us out of the remainder of our provisions, which we shared in a muted silence, influenced as we were by the mood of our surroundings. Afterwards, I looked through my apothecary case for any useful supplies, while Harman sharpened one of his blades and Ayelet sat in meditation: loathe as she would be to admit it, this place, the death here, was strengthening her significantly. Of course there were other, much more noxious methods by which a black mage like herself could gain strength at plague site, but she was, as I previously stated, quite different from most of the black mages one is wont to encounter in this world.
After some time, she stood up suddenly, and made her directly towards one of the houses, her posture showing a certain immovable determination. Harman glanced up from his work, his eyes flashing warily. He was up in a flash, grunting in annoyance and hurrying after her. With a sigh and not a bit of dread in my soul, I stood up as well, not wanting to be caught alone when they started whatever it was that they were liable to start. Ayelet pushed open the door to that abode without effort and strode into it, the two of us following close behind her. Inside, we found two children, neither possibly older than his tenth year and both within the final stage of the illness. I noted that the plague they suffered was the blackening illness, which darkened a man’s skin to the color of ash and before breaking out in pustules. In the final stages of that disease, a man vomited blood and sometimes bled from the other orifices as well. It was a terrifying illness, and simply sharing a room with these two blighted wretches sickened me; it was all I could do not to go running out again. Instead I stood in the doorway, tense, and watched her.
Ayelet knelt down by the children, unafraid of their disease (she had that right: as a black magician, she had a certain immunity from illnesses, even the most severe varieties) and laid her hands on them. At that point, she did a certain magic, one I have never observed or read in any volume, an ability that seems to be unique to black magicians and among whom it would seem she was the only one ever to have the inclination to discover and use: she absorbed their illness. We watch their skin clear up, a healthy glow return to their previously ravaged bodies while hers, for a few moments at least, took on the look of a plague-ridden woman moments away from her end. Then of course, her natural abilities manifested, and she healed, grew healthy again, if exhausted. I had seen this enough times not to be shocked, of course, but nonetheless I couldn’t help but be awed just a bit, still, by this most orthodox method of healing.
At that moment of course, the surviving villagers, so scarce until now, appeared not far from the doorway in which I stood, looking none too happy with our presumed interference with two of their dying children. Things might have turned out badly for us of course, if not for the presence of Harman, who took that moment to step forward and explain. Coming from such a big man, clearly a skilled warrior, the villagers, many of whom were still clearly weakened from their trials, relented somewhat in their angry assertions, particularly upon discovering the two children alive and in good health. Of course, that did not stop them from running us out of the village, in spite of the lateness of the hour, but Harman did, through a certain menacing swinging of his axe, convince them to sell us a few measures of grain upon our departure.
Not an entirely unexpected end to a day, I must admit, nor particularly undesirable, from my perspective at least. I was more than happy to spent the night sleeping on a patch of cold, hard earth again, rather than in that accursed place. Once, I’m sure, I would have been mortified to be run out of a place in such a way, but traveling with a black magician, you get used to that kind of thing. We moved onwards the next morning, and even had a rather eventful encounter at a certain bridge, though that is, I must say, a story for another entry.
Until then,
Sub Arcane Mage Timothey das Ostraa
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