The Sickness

The young woman squatted at the well’s edge, dipping her flask beneath the surface of the dust-filmed water. With her other hand she splashed her face and upper arms, breathing a sharp sigh of relief.

Thirty more miles until the gates of Five Cities would be within her reach; thirty more miles in the blistering desert sun. But she would not allow herself to rest–the events of the last year dictated she trek tirelessly, perhaps blunting the memories with time and drudgery.

“Hello?”

The woman stood and spun in one fluid movement, snapping her hunting knife from its leathern sheath. Standing before her, reeking of sweat and the road, was a middle-aged man with darting, uncertain eyes. He flinched at the flash of metal in her hand–more so at the sight of her powerfully stocky build–but did not back away.

“Please, I mean you no harm,” he bleated in a reedy voice. “I have been wandering for days, and have no idea where I am–would you be so gracious as to inform me of my location?”

The woman recoiled slowly; face tight with suspicion, she scanned the intruder up and down. “You certainly talk fancy for an ol’ gutter rat,” she scoffed.

With a snort, the man drew himself up–and in the act of doing so, standing in the dust with his too-short trousers and jacket and his ratty, tangled matt of hair, he acquired an odd, aggrieved sort of dignity.

“I can assure you, young miss, that I am not a–what was the term?–‘gutter rat’.”

For an answer, he was merely presented with the woman’s back as she set off down the road.

“No, wait!” he yelled in panicky tones, trying and failing to keep up. “What...what is your name?”

No response.

“I need a traveling companion, you see,” he panted, still twenty paces behind the woman. “I have no inkling of who or where I am. I desperately require assistance!”

“Stop talking like that!” she snarled, rounding on him. “You’re givin’ me a headache! You’ll not be recievin’ help from me, you worthless drunk. Get away before you infect me!”

The man looked puzzled. “What could I possibly infect you with, my lady? And I can assure you that I am certainly not a dr--”

“The Sickness, for Zyka’s sake. Have you never heard of it?”

His simple answer nearly bowled her over.

“No.”

She stared.

“Should...should I have?”

“Come with me,” Marion snapped, spinning on her heel.

The man acquiesced, falling into step beside her as she slowed down. Neither spoke as Marion formulated her thoughts into something passable as speech.

Not knowing what The Sickness was? Unspeakable...unheard of!

“I know what you are thinking,” the man said softly, interrupting her thoughts.

Marion’s dark eyes met his clouded blue ones.

“You believe me to be a lunatic, don’t you? I’ve inquired as to what ‘The Sickness’ is several times, and no one’s answered–they all believed I am a drunk, I imagine. Like you did. I can’t remember anything beyond the last two tendays, you know. Nothing.”

He fell into a disconsolate silence and Marion let him stew, absorbing this new information.

“Not even my name!” the man burst out, drawing to a halt. “I don’t even know my own name! Am I doomed to traverse this land without knowing what land I’m in? Without a history? Without a name?”

Marion watched dispassionately as his frantic reverie degenerated into high-pitched gibberish. With a businesslike flick of her hair, she uncorked her flask and dashed a glittering spray of water in the man’s face. Spluttering, he stood dumbstruck.

“The heat’s gettin’ to you,” Marion stated firmly. “Now, you listen and listen good. You’re gonna get in a whole mess of trouble, runnin’ around like a chicken with his head cut off. You’re gonna come with me until we can get you sorted out–I’m not happy about it, but I’m not about to let you roam around willy-nilly. From now on, your name is Guy, and I’ll have no more of these sissy hysterics. Be a man. Got it?”

The newly-christened Guy nodded and squeaked, thoroughly cowed–but there was a strange light in his eyes, something almost like respect. With a snort, Marion pivoted on her heel and continued down the heat-scarred road, leaving him to follow or fall behind.

- - - - -

Miraculously, Guy was able to keep pace until they had stopped for the night, and even drummed up the nerve to engage her in conversation. Marion learned he had awoken in the desert with nothing but the clothes on his back and a throbbing migraine. Again, he asked what The Sickness was, and even though the memories were still fresh and bleeding, Marion told him.

“It kills all who succumb to it,” she had explained. “You cough violently, then get aches and cramps, then your face begins to swell. Eventually you suffocate, your face so bloated that not even your own children would recognize you. It spreads like wildfire–whole villages have been wiped off the map.”

Guy had shivered with delicate disgust, and said no more on the subject. Again, that streak of noble-bred civility, as though he had been a courtier or aristocrat. Marion could see it in him even now, as he sat across from her over a smokeless kindling fire–the way he held his shoulders properly back, chin high, as though dancing a waltz; the way his nose had wrinkled ever so slightly with affected distaste as he had sat down in the dirt; the way he shifted uncomfortably in his clothing, as though the feel of coarse linen was a foreign one.

Guy glanced up at her. “We will arrive at Five Cities tomorrow, then?” he asked in his queerly clipped accent.

“Yes. Get sleep; you’ll need it.”

But as the fire died away and Guy began to daintily snore, Marion knew that tonight would be no better than the others.

It’s the dreams, she thought wearily, feeling the specters of sleep pounding away her defenses. If only it weren’t for the dreams...

The rest dissolved into a grey haze of heat and dust and a nameless man’s delirium, until the specters finally won the battle.

- - - - -

The day was oppressively hot, the sun beat down without mercy or compassion. She knows it is a dream, but cannot wrest herself from its confines–like some horrific play, the curtain has risen, and nothing will halt its progress.

The town’s name had been Har-Kaya, and it had been fertile and blooming, but now it was diseased and rotten, the trees spreading their leafless branches to the sky like twisted lace, and that day had been like any other, the girl named Marion was returning from the well, worried for her family–for they had all seemed so sick lately!–but she stopped and dropped the bucket, face twisting with disgust.

Later, she would know what the smell had been–heat and corpses rarely mix–but at that moment she had started running, knowing the worst, tamping down the evil thoughts.

The little hut where she had grown up–so familiar and warm, there’s the tree she would climb with her brothers–was now a grave, for when she burst through the door there were only bodies strewn about, her family dead, and in the dream they sat up and grinned and reached for her, clawing with bloated hands at her skirts, and she screamed and ran, and pounded at her neighbors’ doors, but they had all succumbed at once it seemed, can you see some black humor there? Later the survivors would emerge, find the girl named Marion huddled and crying in an alley, and she would reach out to them for support–

But they were insane, minds broken by The Sickness. Soon these survivors were killed by the soldiers who had arrived to take away the bodies, can’t have diseased lunatics running around, after all, and she watched as her family was piled onto a cart with so many other bodies, nameless and faceless, but still they grinned at her, and when the soldiers saw her she had screeched and ran, ignoring the shouts, knowing she would be killed. She flung herself into the river and swam to the mainland, and since then, for tenday upon tenday, she had walked and walked until her feet bled, trying to escape the memories–and now the government too, they called for her capture, no doubt thinking her infected, and she was alone, all alone, and the grinning corpses just stared and laughed–

“My lady, wake up!”

Marion jolted awake and heard an unearthly shriek, taking a few moments to realize it was hers. Guy crouched over her, face furrowed with worry, but she shoved him away and mopped the cold sweat off her forehead with her skirts.

God, she hated those dreams.

“Are you quite all right?”

She turned to Guy. “Yes, fine,” she snapped. “Just a dream, is all.”

“It seemed like more than that.”

“Well, it wasn’t.” Seeing him frown, she added: “But...thank you for waking me. I...just, thank you. Really.”

Guy shrugged. “No need to waste gratitude on me, my lady. I saw you struggling and endeavored to assist.”

She nodded and he returned to his sleeping area, gently laying himself down.

“And...Guy?” she asked quietly, almost shyly.

“Yes, my lady?”

“My name is Marion. I know you were wondering.”

A pause. “Thank you, my lady,” Guy murmured.

He soon dropped off again, striking up his snoring tune, but Marion didn’t follow suit. The sun was rising from its own slumber, splashing pink and red across the faintly glimmering stars.

The dreams would not cease, Marion knew.

But perhaps she was no longer alone.