Thesil was sitting on her bedroll when I darted into the tent, my heart pounding from more than the run. I could nearly taste the sweetness of the ore still hanging in my mouth. I shuddered and closed my eyes. Taste. All I'd ever done was smell the ore. How much more powerful would the visions be if I tasted it? If I did as Holy Efra had done and let it melt on my tongue into my blood and body. I'd always known people ate it, once the thrill of scent had grown too weak to move them. Not my parents, who could never afford to indulge outside the religious rites every year. But some people. Those rich enough to have it often. I wondered what my life would have been like if I'd been born to such parents. Probably no different. No one would expose children to such a thing.
No. Without my parents, I would have no signs, no culture. No hope. It would have been very different.
I banished my longing – for my family, and the ore – and opened my eyes. From Thesil's annoyed expression, I thought she must have been trying to get my attention for some time. Then I noticed her eyes were swollen and red, like she'd been crying. I moved to her side quickly, sliding down to sit next to her. "What's wrong?" I asked her. "Why are you sad?"
Perhaps that was a stupid question. She'd been exiled from home, like me. Perhaps a better question was why wasn't I sadder?
She looked up at me, or tried. Her lips read, "I can't see."
I blinked.
She grimaced at me. "I wasn't sad until you came in and stood there like an automa until my eyes swelled up. Did you bring some of it in here?"
"What?" I felt stupid, slow.
"The ore. Are you trying to kill me?"
The poisonous magical ores that powered the automa. The ores that had nearly killed her before. I was an idiot. "No. But I was nearby when they opened the core, earlier. I had no idea–"
Her breathing was growing labored, and she had stopped trying to speak. I reached towards the little silver tube that sat like an amulet over her voice box, and felt air puff against my fingers.
She was getting sick again. Because of me.
I fled the tent.
#
"You have to help her," I said. The vibration in my throat felt wrong, but I couldn't seem to fix it.
Abursa shoved my tablet under my nose. It read, "I've already got someone on the way. That's what the shouting was for."
I hadn't seen her shout. I'd been staring towards our tent, where Thesil lay, maybe dying. My ears heated. "Thank you," I said to regain my dignity.
Abursa shook her head and wrote, "Tell me what happened."
I swallowed. The strange vibration came back when I recounted Thesil's symptoms and my earlier exposure to the cracked automa.
The troupe-leader's frown didn't falter. "Damn. She must be sensitive as anything." Then she sighed. "Never mind. Now we know. We'll haul water from the well. Sluice you down. Keep anyone else away from her who's been working with the machines. The healer left some medicine to treat her, in case of something like this."
"Thank you." A bath of well water would be cold. But I could only pray it would be enough. I stepped back, intending to head for the well.
Abursa's raised hand stopped me. "Who was it? The one sniffing my automa."
I felt like I was snitching. "I don't know his name."
Her stare pinned me.
I gave up. "But I remember what he looked like."
#
The first scout came back a day before Abursa's prediction. He came from the south, and before he even reined to a halt in the middle of camp, I knew the news was bad. His face was pinched and sour, and he sported a black eye so large it extended onto his cheekbone.
Abursa looked ready to declare war at the sight of his face. I was simply astonished. The Plenary Cities were proud of their peace, and I'd never seen anyone harmed by violence before. I swallowed my discomfort. It was one more sign I didn't live in them anymore.
Thesil, whose face had returned to its usual pale proportions, looked less enraged and far more disgusted.
"What is it?" I signed to her.
"Abursa," she signaled. Well, she pointed at the troupe leader. I knew what she meant. The next signs were real ones I'd taught her. "Not surprised."
I pondered this at the same time I felt a swell of pride in Thesil's growing abilities. Her vocabulary was small, but she was taking to sign readily. "No, she's not."
Thesil scowled. She signed, "She knew. Knew–" Frustrated, she mimed punching her own hand. "Shouldn't have sent."
I didn't have a chance to respond. Abursa was making an announcement. Thesil repeated it for me when I asked.
Abursa had said, "Pack up. We have news from the south. Bad news. Unfortunately, Kifel's troupe beat us there. I know – next time, we'll do the punching. But the Crowned City is out of the running today. We'll have to give the Starred City a try. We'll meet Damin on the way."
Damin was the other scout. The one who had gone north. What would we do if he showed up with his face beaten in, too?
#
He didn't.
We met him three evenings later, as we set up camp. He rode south, standing in the stirrups like someone riding a trotting beast. Except the ass was plodding along so slowly its gait must be smooth as molasses.
He had the reins in one hand and the other waving above his head. His mouth was moving in huge wide sweeps, so exaggerated I couldn't have read his lips even if I'd been close enough to do it.
"What is he doing?" I asked Thesil.
Thesil shot me a strange look. "Singing."
Abursa intercepted him before he could ride past the camp, all oblivious. His donkey pricked its ears forward. Hers, half its size, bit it on the leg.
I winced, expecting a donkey battle that would tip both Abursa's cart and the scout head over tail. But the big donkey stopped walking and looked chastened.
The scout didn't look half as repentant as Abursa tore into him. I was tempted to walk over and try to follow the conversation, because I wanted to know what was making our troupe-leader turn that particular shade of purple. But I was helping with dinner. I put my head down and went back to chopping roots.
#
Abursa came to the cookfire soon after. She stopped farther away than normal. "Keep your friend away from Damin for the next few days, Zisha."
"What?" I asked. "Why?"
She grimaced. "He was jacked up on oracle ore. His rich relatives probably gave him a pure cut, but he could've been sniffing cores."
Suddenly, her distance made sense. She had been near someone who could be contaminated by poison ore. No need to risk me carrying it to Thesil. "Can you ask him?"
"We won't get answers out of him tonight. I sent him to sleep off the visions. Maybe he'll make more sense in the morning."
#
The morning dawned warmer than normal, warm enough I woke just after daybreak with my blankets wet with sweat. I took a glance at Thesil to make sure she hadn't been stricken with poison in the night. She was still asleep, all the harsh lines of her face smoothed out by unconsciousness.
I walked to the breakfast fire. Abursa was already there, downing a bowl of porridge with the same martial seriousness she approached everything.
I tried to enjoy my meal more than she had, but it was hard. The porridge was full of little bits of rock, flaked off from the grinding stone. At least the goat milk that sloshed warm and foamy in the communal drinking jug took some of the edge off. I drank as much as I politely could before I let it move on.
The scout who had gone south took the jug from me and lifted it to his mouth. His bruised eye was starting to heal, turning to the greenish shade of dying plants. The other scout, who had rejoined us yesterday, was nowhere to be seen.
I wasn't the only one to notice. As I finished my meal, Abursa waved me over. "Zisha, go and fetch Damin. I want to hear what's waiting for us at the Starred City."
I set my bowl down and rose. I, too, wanted to know.
I wouldn't have known which tent to go to, except the troupe-leader had pointed to it. It was a small, sun-faded tent on the edge of the camp, and nothing moved near it. If Damin was awake, he was still wrapped in his blankets.
I reached the tent and knocked on the wooden beam that was all I could see of the frame.
No one came out.
I knocked again, and then raised my voice in a call I hoped was loud enough to be heard inside.
The wind ruffled my hair. Nothing else moved.
I sighed and pushed the flap to the tent open. I left it thrown back, hung over one of the guylines, to bring a little light to the dark interior. Tripping on blankets and landing on a sleeping man would win me no friends.
I never took that step inside. I stared, instead, as all the blood rushed to my muscles, urging me to run.
The scout – Damin – lay across his bedroll, still dressed in the same clothes he'd arrived in. He hadn't even bothered to take off his shoes. But huge tears ran up and down his sleeves and pant-legs, as if someone had tried to rip them off. One foot tangled in a hole above his opposite knee, like he'd tried to kick through his own leg.
His hands twisted into claws and bent backwards so far they looked broken. His whole back arched like a bridge meant to offer passage to some creature so obscene I couldn't imagine it.
Above it all, Damin's eyes were red. Not just the irises– all of them. His capillaries had burst. Blood had dried under his nose and chin, but it couldn't obscure his rictus grin.
I stood like a statue, the air raw in my lungs. The tent should smell. Should stink of offal and death and rotting meat. It didn't – I caught only a hint of coppery-sweet blood and sour stomach acid as I forced my breath in and out. Not even the smell of oracle ore remained. Only blood and acid.
I couldn't tell how much of the acid was my own.
Hands grabbed my shoulders. I spun and nearly fell. Thesil's arms kept me up. Behind her, Abursa skidded to a halt, and the rest of the troupe approached at a run. I swayed and let Thesil steady me.
Abursa must have said something, because Thesil looked at her and then grabbed my chin to point my face at the troupe-leader.
"What happened?" Abursa demanded. My eyes were so teary I could barely read her lips.
Thesil said, "You screamed."
I had? It was news to me. I shook my head, unable to form the words. Unable to admit what lay in that tent. Because I knew. Anyone who grew up when and where I did would know.
And they would know it was impossible.
Abursa waved us aside, pushing her cart up the tent flap. She rocked back on her seat as though she'd been punched.
Thesil pulled us around the side of the cart, her face intent, until we could both peer in. I didn't want to look again. I did anyway.
He still lay there, his limbs stiff in more than the rigidness of death. I shuddered.
Thesil's face was ashy. She looked down at me and mouthed, "Death-palsy."
I nodded, then shook my head. It couldn't be. Death-palsy was gone. Holy Efra had banished everyone carrying it, and outside the Plenary Cities, it had withered and faded like fruit cut from the vine.
She had banished the people like me. If death-palsy was back, what had been the point of it?
Abursa's cart backed up so fast it nearly crushed our toes. Abursa's face looked like a death mask – emotionless and yet full of dread. Her lips were moving, slightly. I looked closer, caught, "Poor Damin. Poor bastard."
Poor Damin? Damin was dead. We weren't. Not yet. Poor us.
I was trembling. I didn't want to die of death-palsy, or lose use of a limb or my eyes surviving. If I lost my hands–
Abursa looked over my head towards the rest of the troupe, her chin jutting forwards. I focused on her mouth because it was better than looking at the body, or dwelling on the panicked thoughts that drummed inside my head.
She said, "Did Damin share the communal drink with anyone here?"
If anyone responded, I couldn't see them.
Her head twitched in a tiny nod. "Did anyone touch lips with him, or lay with him, or share his food?"
"He was too tired to drink with us," one of the troupe-members said. He rested his hand on Abursa's withered foot as though he sought comfort. "He went right to his tent."
"And stayed there?"
The man nodded. My eyes darted towards the tent and back. Oh, how he had stayed. He would never again leave it, not under his own power.
Abursa's chest deflated. "Good," she said. "That's how it spreads. From the mouth. The spit. The sneeze and cough and spit."
People jostled against Thesil's back, and jostled me, too, since I was still in her arms. My knees were weak. If Thesil hadn't been holding me, the bump from the crowd would have knocked me down.
Abursa's eyes scanned the crowd around us, jumping about as though she was trying to read a dozen pairs of lips at once. I was glad I couldn't hear. I didn't want to hear. It would all be fear and anger and questions, and I had enough of those myself.
Abursa lifted a hand to the crowd. The bodies moving around us stilled. She said, "Yes. It can't be anything else."
I clenched my fists, and found Thesil's fingers had twined between mine. Her hands were smooth and cool, dirt caught under the nails. New calluses forming on the pads. They felt like a lifeline, and I cradled them against my chest.
Abursa cocked her head, listening to someone. It was a familiar expression. The angry disdain that followed wasn't. "Denying it won't help anything. It'll just lead to more dead."
I flinched. I wasn't the only one.
The angry lines in her face smoothed. "We take precautions. With death-palsy back, communal drinking is forbidden. One cup to everyone. I'll throw out anyone caught sharing." A hand lifted to cut someone off. "I don't care if that's anti-social. It's how we outcasts survived last time. We'll survive again."
At my back, Thesil's body relaxed. She must believe Abursa. I know I did.
The troupe-leader urged her ass forward, away from the corpse. "Pack up! We're leaving."
The troupe scattered. Thesil stepped out from behind me, leaving me standing on my own. I'd recovered enough to totter sideways so I could see Thesil and Abursa's mouths at once. They had locked eyes, and I didn't know what it meant.
"What are you going to do with the body?" Thesil said.
Abursa squinted at her. "I can't hear you, girl. Tell your friend, and she can pass a note to me. We have much to do."
Thesil set her jaw and lifted her chin. She sprang like a gazelle and landed on the side of Abursa's cart.
The donkey flattened its ears and lifted a back foot. Abursa bore much the same expression.
Thesil leaned in close to the troupe-leader. Her lips moved. "What are you doing with his body?"
"Nothing," the troupe-leader said, scowling. "We're heading out. He can keep the tent. It's not worth risking the infection."
"We can't just leave him here," Thesil said.
Abursa's brow beetled. "Get off of my cart."
Thesil didn't budge. "Someone might stumble across him and get sick. Not knowing, they could spread it everywhere. We're right on the road."
I stood straighter. Thesil was right. Something eased in my core. We'd been banished to end this plague, and maybe it was back, but it was out here with us. As long as it stayed out of the cities, it might still die out.
Abursa gripped her reins in tight fingers. "We could spread it–"
"We could quarantine ourselves," Thesil said. "We know."
They stared at each other. Thesil's eyes were flashing green, like moss after a rain.
She was beautiful.
Where had that thought come from?
"Abursa," I said. "We can't let death-palsy come back."
"She's right," Thesil said. "We have to put the good of society before ourselves."
Abursa scowled. "The good of society? The cities that threw us out?"
Thesil said, "The imperfectas will be infected first. The cities will lock their gates. They'll stop trading with us. Even if we don't all get it, we'll starve."
Abursa sat trembling on her cart. Then she shook her head. "No. We imperfectas, those of us old enough to remember, know how to handle death-palsy. Some of us would live. But I take your point." Her mouth twisted. "I hope you know what you've volunteered yourselves for."
"Us?" I blurted.
Abursa smiled unhappily. "Do you see anyone else staying? No one that touches that body will stay with my troupe. I won't risk spreading the infection."
Thesil and I exchanged glances. I walked to stand on the other side of the cart. "You're throwing us out?"
"Not if you do as I say. Leave Damin untouched. Pack your things, and we'll flee north to the Starred City."
"Someone might find the body," Thesil insisted, and I nodded.
Abursa's hands were shaking. "I lost my legs to death-palsy. I won't risk it again, not in my troupe. And I won't quarantine my people out here and wait for them to die."
Thesil's knuckles whitened on the cart edge. "They might already be infected."
"Would you wish death on a baby?" Abursa said.
Thesil's eyes narrowed. "For the good of the people–"
"So. You volunteer." Abursa nodded. Her gaze dropped to the reins in her hands. "None of mine will help you. But if you insist on sacrificing yourselves, I'll tell you the best way. What I remember."
"Thank you," I said, because Thesil wouldn't.
"Burn the body," Abursa advised.
I frowned. "Burn it? That's disrespectful–"
"Hot as possible. Use naphtha, if you have it. It's the only safe way to destroy the disease." She wasn't staring at the reins anymore, but at her dead feet. "There are ways to reduce the chance of catching it, while you handle the corpse."
"What are they?" Thesil said.
"Cover your mouth and nose with cloth. Don't touch the victim's face or head, or your own. Don't let them breathe or spit on you – though that doesn't matter now. And afterwards, you ought to bathe in whiskey. Sponge-bath will have to do."
Thesil let go of the cart and dropped to stand across from me.
"But we don't have any whiskey," I said. "Or naphtha."
"We'll leave you some. Along with the tent and some other supplies. A gift."
"Thank you," I said again.
Abursa's eyes were terrible and kind. "You girls are fools. May the Unknowns bless you."
\And she turned her cart away and went to organize the retreat.
#
They left us alone in the desert: two girls, a goose, and the infected body of a dead man.
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