Memoranda (2 page)

I could hear the others screaming and choking. In their attempts to escape, they knocked into each other, trampling the unfortunates who had been felled by the blast. My eyes burned so badly from whatever chemical had composed the cloying mist that all became a watery blur before me. Luckily, I had the veil in my hand, and at the first sign that the yellow fog was more than just the smoke of the explosion, I covered my mouth and nose with it.

Staggering blindly, I made my way to the river, which was just beyond the marketplace. I cleared my eyes well enough to make out the edge of the bank, and when I surmised I was right above the water, I dropped my sack and let myself fall forward. Like a dead man, I sank toward the bottom, and the slow-moving current swept around me, washing the acrid yellow fog from my eyes and clothing. I stayed under as long as I could and then worked my way back to the surface, where I drew in a huge draught of fresh air. When I felt as though I had cleansed myself of the Master's evil, I swam to the bank and crawled out.

I could hear the groans of the wounded back at the marketplace, and I knew I had to return to help them, but my head was reeling. “Rest for a moment,” I told myself, and collapsed onto my back. Staring up into the empty sky, I breathed deeply in an attempt to calm my nerves. All I could think of was Below and how foolish we had been to believe that he could ever let us live free of his interference. As I worked to compose myself, my memory took me back to the Well-Built City, where I had held the title of Physiognomist, First Class. I had done Below's bidding, deciphering the faces of the populace, bringing my calipers to bear on foreheads, cheekbones, chins in order to determine the moral character of that city's inhabitants. The Master, with his self-assurance, his powerful magic and technological genius, had made me believe that his physiognomical standard would allow me to correctly read all of those
books
by their covers. In the process, I had sent men, women, and children to their doom for no more than the shape of an earlobe, condemned the innocent to prison for the prominence of a brow.

Surface was everything, and at the height of my arrogance, I had even believed I could increase a young woman's virtue by changing her outer appearance with my scalpels. In the end, I had butchered her, the woman I loved, to the point where it was necessary for her to go about with a green veil covering her face. When I realized the ugliness I had created, I finally understood the essence of Below. I then helped to subvert his power and topple his regime. The last I saw of him, he stood amidst the wreckage of the Well-Built City, restraining, by a leash, the pitiful wolf-girl, Greta Sykes, while circling high above him was the demon he had brought back from the Beyond. “There is so much work to do,” he had said. “Last night, I had another dream, a magnificent vision.” That vision had just become reality in the marketplace at Wenau.

The yellow mist cleared by the time I made my way, dripping wet, back to the marketplace. Others who had fled were also just returning to help the wounded. Bodies lay everywhere. The sounds of anguish had ceased only to be replaced by an eerie quiet. I found a small child, dead, with the bird's silver beak embedded, like a dagger, in his forehead. A woman's face had been ripped completely off by the blast. Five had actually been killed by the explosion. The others who lay about, eighteen in all, were still alive but had succumbed to the yellow mist. These victims exhibited no obvious signs of distress, but appeared just to have dozed off in a midafternoon nap. The peace with which they slept was almost enviable.

I tended to the minor wounds of those who lay in the fog-induced coma while others cleared away the dead. It was a grim business amidst the groans and curses that came from the relatives of the victims. Although everyone was dazed and scared, we worked together to try to bring the situation under control. Even the outsiders pitched in and did what they could. Jensen, who I was happy to see survived the blast, led his drunken Latrobian patrons to the river, where they fetched water to be used to try to revive those under the spell of the chemical.

I made good use of the herbs and roots in my sack to create poultices that would stave off infection in minor wounds. To the mother of the dead child, I administered a dose of owl's beard, a stringy moss that grows only at the tops of old yew trees. This calmed her for the time being, but I knew, as did her trembling husband, that there was nothing in nature that could quell the loss forever. We tried everything to revive those trapped in that strange slumber. I broke sticks of ice mint under their noses. Cold water was applied, light slapping followed, and when we grew frustrated, we shouted their names into their ears. They remained wrapped in a deep sleep, each of them wearing the most damnably subtle grin as if they were all dreaming of paradise.

I did not head for home until well after dark, when all of the dead had been buried and the sleeping had been carried safely to their beds. Before taking leave, I borrowed a change of clothes from Jensen and sat with him and some of the others down by the river, where we drowned our anguish with field beer. The conversation was subdued, focusing mainly on the lives of those who had died that day. No one had any answers, but each of us asked at least once what the fog could have been. At the time, it was a better question than, “Will they ever awaken from it?” This was not the only thought unvoiced that night. We all knew that we would have to deal with Below, which would mean returning to the ruins of the Well-Built City. It was clear that we would probably have to kill him.

On my way home through the meadow, I stopped in the same spot I had the previous night and again looked up at the sky. Reaching into my pocket, I retrieved the green veil and held it out to look at it. Even if I had gotten someone to take it off my hands, I realized that I could never really be rid of it. Besides, it might very well have saved my life.

I spent a sleepless night, the candles burning brightly, unable to face the demons, werewolves, and mechanical exploding birds I might find in my dreams. The stone knife I held in my right hand was for Below, should he appear from out of the darkness; and the veil, which I held in the left, was for me.

2

When the sun finally rose to show me that Below wasn't lurking in the shadows, I lifted my stiffened body from the chair in which I had kept my vigil and crept over to the bed. I fell into it much the way I had fallen into the river the day before. No sooner did I close my eyes, though, than a knock sounded at the door.

“Cley, are you in there?” said a familiar female voice. It was Semla Hood, a young woman whose child I had delivered and whose husband, Roan, was a fishing companion of mine.

“No,” I called out with a heavy sigh, and rolled myself to a sitting position.

“Please, Cley, you must come. Something terrible has happened.”

I stood slowly and shuffled to the door. My only solace was that I did not have to change, since I had spent the night fully dressed, supposedly ready for action. I opened the door.

“Cley,” she said. “Roan has fallen asleep.”

“Most enviable,” I said as I reached up to block the sunlight from my eyes.

“No, I mean he won't wake up,” she said, and I could now read the distress on her face.

Then through my fatigue the ordeal of the previous day came back to me. “Did he breathe much of the yellow fog yesterday at the market?” I asked.

“He wasn't at the market yesterday,” she said. “He never went to the market. But last night, he sat with one of the neighbor's children who had been sent to sleep by the fog. The girl's parents were worn-out and didn't want to leave her unattended, so he volunteered to stay beside her till dawn.”

“What have you done to try to wake him?” I asked.

“Everything,” she said. “I even drove a needle into the palm of his hand, and he didn't so much as stir.”

She begged me to accompany her back to their home so that I might take a look at him. I went along with her, in order to ease her worry.

“Do you think it's bad?” she asked.

It was very bad, but I didn't tell her that. At first I had thought that the fog had somehow affected the nervous systems of those who had been put to sleep by it, but now I realized that what we were dealing with was a disease and a virulent one at that. The incubation period in Roan's case had been a mere matter of hours. My training had not been in germs, but I knew a smattering about them from my basic biology classes at the university. I knew it was not beyond Below's powers to have either discovered or engineered a parasite that would cause these symptoms.

At the Hoods' home, I took one look at Roan, who was now laid out in his bed, and, seeing that smile on his lips, I counted him among the victims.

“What can we do?” asked his wife.

I shook my head. “Keep him comfortable,” I said. “Try to force some water into him, but be careful not to drown him in the process.”

“Isn't there anything else?” she asked. “I thought you might know of some plant of the forest that could bring him back to me.”

“Herbs are useless here, Semla,” I told her. “There is something else I've got to try.” With that I turned and left the house. The minute I was outside, I started running.

I did not stop until I reached the marketplace, which was utterly abandoned. At its northern entrance is a bell that can be rung to bring the people of Wenau together for a meeting. The only other time we had faced a crisis in our history was three years earlier when the rivers had, after torrential rains, breached their banks and flooded part of the settlement. Now I hoped that there was still someone left awake to hear the call. I pulled its rope and sent out my alarm. Then I paced back and forth for a quarter of an hour, waiting.

Slowly, those who had not succumbed to the disease began to show, and by each of them I was told of at least one person they knew who had caught the sleep through the night and could not be awakened. When a good number of them had gathered, and it seemed there were no more coming, I raised my voice and begged for silence.

“By now,” I said, “I think it is evident that Below has sent us more than an explosion. He means for us all to sleep to death. We could take the chance and hope that our loved ones will awaken, but knowing the Master, I would not count on that.”

Both men and women began to shed tears, and the children gazed up at their parents with faces filled with confusion. It was these looks that gave me the courage to go on and make my proposal.

“Time is so crucial now. We must leave today for the Well-Built City. Our only hope is to find Below and somehow force him to divulge an antidote for this illness he has sent. All we can do is pray there is some cure for it.”

“And how do you expect to get him to cooperate,” yelled Miley Mac from the middle of the crowd. “We all remember him. We suffered as much as you did.”

“I don't know,” I said, “but if we do nothing, I'm afraid that both we and our settlement are finished.”

“I'd rather wrestle the Devil himself,” said Jensen.

“Agreed,” I said.

“It could pass,” said Hester Lon but with so little conviction that the very tone of her words proved my point.

“We haven't time to debate. I'm going. Will anyone else come?” My request was met with silence. The good citizens of Wenau had lost their nerve in the face of tragedy. None of them looked me in the eye.

“I need a horse and a gun,” I said, not quite believing the madness I was suggesting.

“I've got a horse you can take,” said a voice from the crowd.

Someone else made an offer of weapons and another volunteered his hunting dog.

“Now, who will go with me?” I asked.

Not one of them spoke or stepped forward.

I waited for some time, thinking the silence might draw a few of them out. My spirits lifted as I saw Jensen take a step forward. But as he moved toward me, I noticed his eyes rolling back into his head. His lids closed, he uttered a low grunt and fell to the ground. Some ran from him, knowing he had the disease, while others gathered around to try to help. By the time I got to his side, he was lightly snoring.

From those who had offered provisions for my journey to the ruins, I secured a promise that they would deliver them to my home at dusk. My plan was to travel by cover of night in case Below had spies or assassins watching us. Paranoia, a constant companion from our days in the Well-Built City, moved freely among us again, draping a friendly arm over our shoulders.

On my walk home, I watched the sky for a glint of metal and constantly scanned the underbrush and tree line for sudden movement. Whereas Below had sent the citizens of Wenau to sleep, he had also infected the place with a disease of opposing symptoms that transformed its usual repose into an atmosphere of nervous, jangling tension. I spoke aloud to myself for a sense of company, saying, “If you think you are scared now, Cley, wait until you are out on the plains and in the forests by yourself at night, riding toward the heart of this evil.”

A wild turkey broke through some tall grass to my left just then, and I leaped to the side and gave a short scream. The bird stood there for a moment and looked quizzically at me before retreating. That stare with which the creature sized me up, as if to say, “Cley, you are a ridiculous specimen,” made me laugh out loud. Here I was, the self-appointed champion of Wenau, about to start on a quest to slay the
dragon
. I pushed on toward home, while in my mind I looked forward to the day when I could again sit with Jensen by the side of the river, drinking field beer.

You can imagine my reluctance to sleep that afternoon, but, having had none through the night, I knew I would need to rest. At first, I was overtired and found it difficult to relax. The uncertainty of the future came to me in a variety of morbid and terrifying thoughts, not the least of which was my failure to succeed. Eventually, though, I fell warily into a dream of the green veil. In it, Drachton Below stood in the center of the marketplace, surrounded by the supine forms of all the inhabitants of Wenau. All were fast asleep and their faces were covered by scraps of a green material. A yellow mist curled around him as he beckoned to me.