Thomas M. Reid
The Emerald Scepter
PROLOGUE
"Plague! It's the plague!" Those four little words, shouted by someone running along Tower Street, made Mardicon Flintelli's heart skip a beat, made his stomach knot up in momentary terror.
The plague.
The glassblower turned from his furnace just as a woman examining some of his new potion bottles let out a startled gasp and scurried away, knocking a vase to the floor to shatter in her wake. She didn't bother to turn around. Grumbling, Mardicon set his pipe with its half-finished blob of molten glass back into the furnace and, picking his way past the fragments of ruined vase, stepped out from under his awning and into the street. In the fading light of dusk, other merchants on Tower Street were standing in their own shop doorways, peering about uncertainly. Mardicon shook his head as he looked up and down the avenue.
The plague! It couldn't be.
He wondered who would make such a horrific claim, dredging up childhood fears out of some bedtime story. But people were running, most of them away from the center of Reth. Some were alone, while others held children close to them, or baskets of goods, or both. Genuine fear flashed in their eyes. This wasn't just a tasteless jest, the glassblower realized.
A pair of soldiers, watchmen of Reth, scurried the opposite direction, toward the source of the commotion. From the way they moved, Mardicon could see that they were loath to fulfill their duties in the face of such a terrifying threat.
Controlling his own panic, the glassblower ducked his head inside his shop, calling for his son. "Luti, go find your mother," Mardicon told the boy, who had been busy removing some new goblets from their molds. "She's at the market buying tinctures. Both of you hurry back here. Go!" After the boy nodded and ran out the door, Mardicon gave a quick glance at the mess the startled woman had made, and at the other glassware on display under the awning.
No time, he decided, grabbing a burning switch from his furnace and scurrying inside, leaving his goods unwatched.
First the man lit a pair of lanterns hanging on hooks in the walls. Once he could see better, he took two of his wife's woven baskets and dumped the dirty clothing from them into a corner. He tossed some belongings inside, starting with a sack of silver coins, two loaves of bread, a spare tunic, and a bundle of salted fish. He peered about his shop, wondering what else to include.
Ought to be prepared to get out of the city, the man thought. Plague or no plague, something's spooking those people.
Another shout erupted from the street, and when Mardicon turned to look, the two soldiers he had spotted before were running past his doorway again, in the opposite direction. One of them stumbled against one of the posts of his awning, dislodging it. The base of the post kicked out, striking a rack of delicate cups and sending the whole thing crashing to the cobblestones. The fabric of the awning fluttered down, blocking the glassblower's view.
"By Gond!" Mardicon swore, angry at the guard's clumsiness and frightened that something would scare a trained soldier so. He stalked over to the doorway and yanked the ruined awning aside.
Several more folk scrambled past. In their haste and panic, some pushed and shoved those slower than themselves out of the way. A child, a girl of only three or four, was knocked to the ground, teary-eyed. The offender was a tall, lanky merchant from the south, most likely Halruaa, dressed in fine lavender silk, with several rings glittering on his fingers.
"You wretch!" The child's mother yelled at the man as she paused to scoop the little girl up, spilling a bundle of grapes to the street as she did so. She didn't bother to stop and gather the fruit, instead she rushed onward, trying to hold both the girl and their belongings.
The man never broke stride to respond.
Mardicon turned his gaze back in the direction the people had come from. More were fleeing, though a handful, mostly youthful boys who liked to make trouble in the neighborhood, had begun throwing rocks and other objects at something just out of sight around the bend. Beyond them, along the turn, the walls of the dwellings and storefronts reflected the flickering orange glow of firelight.
There was a fire at the end of Tower Street.
Shadows bounced off those same walls, cast by figures standing in the lane, the targets of the boys' impromptu missiles. As the glassblower watched, the shadows shrank little by little but grew sharper, more distinct. Whatever was casting them was coming closer, moving slowly but steadily.
In the distance, an alarm began to sound, the city-wide signal that Reth was under attack.
"Damn it, Luti," Mardicon muttered under his breath, "quicken your pace, fool boy."
Across the street, a rural laborer and his dog came running out of the building, looking bewildered. As another man tried to run past, Mardicon saw the laborer reach out and grab the fellow by the arm.
"What is it?" the laborer asked as he jerked the fleeing man to a stop. "What's wrong?"
The man yanked his arm free, and even in the growing darkness, Mardicon could see that he was wide-eyed with terror. He shook his head and turned to run again, shouting back over his shoulder, "The plague! The Rotting Plague has returned!"
The glassblower nearly choked when he heard those words. It was the nightmare made real. Must get out of the city! he thought. Got to find Luti and Lyzara and go now!
In his panic, Mardicon didn't know what to do first. Then his attention was drawn to the far side of the avenue. The dog suddenly changed, shifting in form from hound to… something else. The glass-blower had never seen a creature like it before, and for a moment, he could only stare. It was upright like a man, and thick-limbed. Though it was covered in fur from head to toe, it seemed somewhat civilized, dressed in crude clothing and carrying weapons. Still, there was a ferocious, bestial quality to it, something that unnerved Mardicon.
The laborer and the man-beast conversed for a moment, their voices too low for the glassblower to make out, then they dashed off toward the trouble.
At the end of the street, the young toughs had stopped throwing things and were scattering, vanishing into alleys. One lad of about fourteen summers went sprinting past, giving only a cursory glance at the strange creature walking with the laborer as he passed. In his haste to get away, the boy nearly collided with a soldier coming the other direction. The guard, part of a squadron marching in formation, nudged him none too gently to the side with his shield. The sergeant of the unit yelled out, "Make way! Stand to the side, you fools, and let us through!"
Mardicon watched in frozen fear as the soldiers stopped before the building across the street. Several fanned out, positioning themselves so as to protect the entrance, while several more, led by the sergeant, went inside. Two of the guardsmen remaining on the street were the pair Mardicon had seen twice before. Their eyes were wide with terror, and they clutched at their short swords with white knuckles, hunched down behind their shields. The sight made the glassblower shudder.
Lyzara, damn you, come on, the glassblower thought, cursing his wife's name for her slowness.
He started to run back inside one last time, to grab up the two baskets he had packed, when the watchmen who had gone inside reappeared, hauling some large pieces of furniture. They had a bench and several chairs and they began to stack them in the middle of the street. Another guard emerged, rolling a barrel, which he positioned next to the other goods. They were building a barricade.
"You there," the sergeant called, looking at Mardicon. "Come help us. We need wood, things that will burn." Mardicon shook his head, too frightened to think straight. "Now, citizen!" the sergeant ordered. "We have to stop them from spreading!"