During the course of that day, a dozen more men in that part of the city, all regular patrons of the Red Dog Tavern, also died.
The next day, three dozen more succumbed. The authorities began to take note of the matter.
But by then it was too late. The curious intermingling of classes characteristic of a great city made the confining of the infection to any one district impossible. Servants who lived in that shabby part of town carried the disease into the houses of the rich and powerful. Workmen carried it to construction sites, and their fellow workmen carried it home to other parts of the city. Customers gave it to merchants, who in turn gave it to other customers. The most casual contact was usually sufficient to cause infection.
The dead had at first been numbered in the dozens, but by the end of the week hundreds had fallen ill. The houses of the sick were boarded up despite the weak cries of the inhabitants from within. Grim carts rumbled through the streets, and workmen with camphor-soaked cloths about their lower faces picked up the dead with long hooks.
The bodies were stacked in the carts like logs of wood, conveyed to cemeteries, and buried without rites in vast common graves. The streets of Mal Zeth became deserted as the frightened citizens barricaded themselves inside their houses.
There was some concern inside the palace, naturally, but the palace, walled as it was, was remote from the rest of the city. As a further precaution, however, the Emperor ordered that no one be allowed in or out of the compound. Among those locked inside were several hundred workmen who had been hired by Baron Vasca, the Chief of the Bureau of Commerce, to begin the renovations of the bureau offices.
It was about noon on the day after the locking of the palace gates that Garion, Polgara, and Belgarath were summoned to an audience with ’Zakath. They entered his study to find him gaunt and hollow-eyed, poring over a map of the imperial city. “Come in. Come in,” he said when they arrived. They entered and sat down in the chairs he indicated with an absent wave of his hand.
“You look tired,” Polgara noted.
“I haven’t slept for the past four days,” ’Zakath admitted. He looked wearily at Belgarath. “You say that you’re seven thousand years old?”
“Approximately, yes.”
“You’ve lived through pestilence before?”
“Several times.”
“How long does it usually last?”
“It depends on which disease it is. Some of them run their course in a few months. Others persist until everybody in the region is dead. Pol would know more about that than I would. She’s the one with all the medical experience.”
“Lady Polgara?” the Emperor appealed to her.
“I’ll need to know the symptoms before I can identify the disease,” she replied.
’Zakath burrowed through the litter of documents on the table in front of him. “Here it is.” He picked up a scrap of parchment and read from it. “High fever, nausea, vomiting. Chills, profuse sweating, sore throat, and headache. Finally delirium, followed shortly by death.”
She looked at him gravely. “That doesn’t sound too good,” she said. “Is there anything peculiar about the bodies after they’ve died?”
“They all have an awful grin on their faces,” he told her, consulting his parchment.
She shook her head. “I was afraid of that.”
“What is it?”
“A form of plague.”
“Plague?” His face had gone suddenly pale. “I thought there were swellings on the body with that. This doesn’t mention that.” He held up the scrap of parchment.
“There are several different varieties of the disease, ’Zakath. The most common involves the swellings you mentioned. Another attacks the lungs. The one you have here is quite rare, and dreadfully virulent.”
“Can it be cured?”
“Not cured, no. Some people manage to survive it, but that’s probably the result of mild cases of their body’s natural resistance to disease. Some people seem to be immune. They don’t catch it no matter how many times they’ve been exposed.”
“What can I do?”
She gave him a steady look. “You won’t like this,” she told him.
“I like the plague even less.”
“Seal up Mal Zeth. Seal the city in the same way that you’ve sealed the palace.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“Deadly serious. You have to keep the infection confined to Mal Zeth, and the only way to do that is to prevent people from carrying the disease out of the city to other places.” Her face was bleak. “And when I say to seal the city, ’Zakath, I mean totally. Nobody leaves.”
“I’ve got an empire to run, Polgara. I can’t seal myself up here and just let it run itself. I have to get messengers in and send orders out.”
“Then, inevitably, you will rule an empire of the dead. The symptoms of the disease don’t begin to show up until a week or two after the initial infection, but during the last several days of that period, the carrier is already dreadfully contagious. You can catch it from somebody who looks and feels perfectly healthy. If you send out messengers, sooner or later one of them will be infected, and the disease will spread throughout all of Mallorea.”
His shoulders slumped in defeat as the full horror of what she was describing struck him. “How many?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t quite understand the question.”
“How many will die here in Mal Zeth, Polgara?”
She considered it. “Half,” she replied, “if you’re lucky.”
“Half?” he gasped. “Polgara, this is the largest city in the world. You’re talking about the greatest disaster in the history of mankind.”
“I know—and that’s only if you’re lucky. The death rate could go as high as four-fifths of the population.”
He sank his face into his trembling hands. “Is there anything at all that can be done?” he asked in a muted voice.
“You must burn the dead,” she told him. “The best way is just to burn their houses without removing them. That reduces the spread of the disease.”
“You’d better have the streets patrolled, too,” Belgarath added grimly. “There’s bound to be looting, and the looters are going to catch the disease. Send out archers with orders to shoot looters on sight. Then their bodies should be pushed back into the infected houses with long poles and burned along with the bodies already in the houses.”
“You’re talking about the destruction of Mal Zeth!” ’Zakath protested violently, starting to his feet.
“No,” Polgara disagreed. “We’re talking about saving as many of your citizens as possible. You have to steel your heart about this, ’Zakath. You may eventually have to drive all the healthy citizens out into the fields, surround them with guards to keep them from getting away, and then burn Mal Zeth to the ground.”
“That’s unthinkable!”
“Perhaps you ought to start thinking about it,” she told him. “The alternative could be much, much worse.”
12
“Silk,” Garion said urgently, “you’ve got to stop it.”
“I’m sorry, Garion,” the little man replied, looking cautiously around the moonlit atrium for hidden spies, “but it’s already in motion. Sadi’s bandits are inside the palace grounds and they’re taking their orders from Vasca. Vasca’s so brave now that he’s almost ready to confront ’Zakath himself. General Bregar of the Bureau of Military Procurement knows that something’s afoot, so he’s surrounded himself with troops. The King of Pallia, the Prince Regent of Delchin, and the old King of Voresebo have armed every one of their retainers. The palace is sealed, and nobody can bring in any outside help—not even ’Zakath himself. The way things stand right now, one word could set it off.”
Garion started to swear, walking around the shadowy atrium and kicking at the short-cropped turf.
“You did tell us to go ahead,” Silk reminded him.