Guerrand watched the old gull lumber into the air and flap stiffly toward the sea. He turned in a circle, peering around with eyes that could not fathom distance or endure the sun after so long at Bastion. Before Rand could get more than a whiff of decay and an impression of Thonvil's general squalor, Bram took his hand and dragged him up the open flight of stairs next to the door embellished with a sign carved in the likeness of a steaming loaf.
"Kirah!" Bram cried, banging his fist on the door to his aunt's room. "Come on, Kirah, it's Bram. I'm back with Guerrand as I promised."
"Maybe she's not home," Guerrand suggested.
"Maybe," Bram muttered. To his surprise, the door creaked open a crack. Bram pressed his eye to it, then gave that up and gave the door a hard shove with his booted toe.
The door swung back on rusty hinges. The choking stench of sweat and vomit and rotting flesh rolled out in a cloud. Bram tore into the room ahead of Guerrand. "We're too late!" he cried.
Blood pounded at Guerrand's temples as he followed Bram into the cold, fireless room. He found his nephew on his knees at the side of a small rope bed. Unceremoniously dumped upon the dirty feather tick was someone he barely recognized.
"Bram?" she whispered, blinking in disbelief. Kirah's eyes had always looked like the sort created to house mysteries, but now they seemed no more than the soft, unseeing eyes of a cow at graze. Her once-blond hair was ash-colored and damp about her emaciated face. It looked to have been braided, but fuzzy hanks had been rubbed out of the plait in back. Her clothing was worse than a beggar woman's and beginning to rip at the sleeves.
"Yes, it's me, Kirah," Bram said, choking back a sob. "When did you get sick?"
"I… don't know," she said haltingly. "The last thing I remember I was at the Red Goose Inn, asking for some water. I was so cold." She shivered, remembering. "I must have had the flu because I feel much better now."
Bram looked over his shoulder. The two men exchanged worried looks.
Guerrand stepped forward into his sister's view. "Hello, Kirah." Guerrand hoped his expression held the right shade of sympathy touched by the diffidence due an estranged member of one's family.
She started, then weakly pushed herself up onto her elbows. "It is you. Well, well," she said caustically. "Frankly, I'm surprised you found the time for us, but I guess history does repeat itself. Once again, you've made it back too late to help most of Thonvil. And, once again, your old friend, Lyim, squeezed us into his schedule."
"Did you swallow the concoction he gave you?" Guerrand asked anxiously.
"Of course," she said. 'Two days ago."
A cry escaped Bram's lips, a curse Guerrand's.
"Does that disappoint you, Guerrand?" asked Kirah, giving him a canny look. "That he gave me the cure to this disease you've caused?"
In the middle of her question, Guerrand had begun to shake his head in disbelief, gaining both speed and power, until his whole body shook. "Is that what Lyim told you? That I caused this plague?"
"I saw his hand," she said. "I've heard the snakes hiss your name."
A muscle twitched in Guerrand's jaw. "What would make you think I'd want to cause anyone to suffer such hideous deaths, let alone my family and the villagers with whom I was raised?" he demanded.
Kirah scoffed. "That question implies that I know anything about you anymore. Lyim said you were an important mage and were trying to destroy all evidence of your humble beginnings."
Guerrand was struck dumb, and he turned away. His hands curled into fists at his side as he paced. For the first time, he was glad he'd killed Lyim. The man had poisoned his sister's body and mind, just to punish him. Lyim had been a master of lies.
Bram touched him on the arm, and Guerrand jumped. "From the looks of her," Bram whispered, "she had the fever yesterday." They both gave worried glances over their shoulders. Kirah was sitting up, scratching her right arm, her expression a practiced mask of carelessness.
"Are you sure she has it?" Guerrand whispered back.
Bram nodded his head reluctantly. "She's on day two, which means she's going to start shedding skin any time now. I've learned there's no point trying to stop it by tying a patient down, but it's easier on them if you can keep them on the bed." He looked at his uncle closely, then dropped his voice even more. "Do you think you'll be able to help me? It's horrifying to watch, but it's nothing compared to what will happen later."
"Of course I'll help you," Guerrand said. "That is, if she'll let me near her."
As they turned back toward Kirah, both men noticed that her casual scratching had turned to determined scraping. Her arm was covered with thick, red welts where her nails had dug into the flesh.
"Now I have this awful itch," Kirah moaned. "I really need a bath, after that fever from the flu." Her hand continued scraping back and forth on her right forearm all the while she spoke. But the scratching did nothing to relieve the itch, which only made Kirah attack the arm more ferociously.
Within moments, she was nearly frantic. "This arm, it's driving me crazy. I've never itched like this before!"
Guerrand glanced questioningly at Bram. Kirah surely must have heard the symptoms of the plague. Did she really have such faith in Lyim that she still didn't suspect his "cure"? Lyim had not been above using a magical charm on her. Or was she simply fooling herself out of fear?
"Just lie back, Kirah," Bram soothed. "We'll get a rag and some warm water. It will make you feel better."
Tears welled in Kirah's eyes and left light-colored streaks down her dirty cheeks. "Hurry, please," she pleaded, gouging ever more frantically at the raw arm.
"What's happening?" she wailed, looking down the length of her arms. Kirah's head went from side to side in shocked, old-womanish gestures.
"You have the plague, Kirah. You'll shed a layer or two of skin today," Bram explained as calmly as he was able.
"I can't have the plague!" she howled, rubbing her arms at a furious rate against the roughness of the sheets. "Lyim gave me the cure!"
"Lyim gave you the plague," Guerrand said harshly.
"I don't believe you-I can't!" Kirah rubbed her limbs and thrashed against the bed, both men holding her to keep her on it.
"It's true," said Bram. "I heard him boast of it, Kirah."
Bram motioned Guerrand toward the wash basin for the wet rag. The older man had taken only a few steps when a piercing shriek spun him around in his tracks. Kirah was arching violently on the bed. Bram struggled to push her shoulders to the mattress. "Help me, Rand!" Bram cried. Kirah's right arm twitched horribly as she banged it over and over against the bed frame.
Guerrand dashed back to the bed and tried to grab his sister's flailing limb. "Just hold her down so she can't hurt herself worse."
Guerrand did as Bram asked and was surprised by the strength in Kirah's thin, fevered frame. Her arm struck him in the back several times, but Guerrand ignored it. A cry of anguish rent the air as the skin split along the entire length of Kirah's right forearm and hand, then slipped away in a hideous curl. She looked at the red, raw flesh beneath it with large, teary eyes. Her glance traveled to Guerrand, unable to deny the truth any longer. Kirah fell back against the soiled pillow, the need to scratch silenced for the moment.
Why?" she asked in a hollow voice. "Why would he do this? I thought he cared about me."
"He did care about you, Kirah," whispered Guerrand. "Just not as much as he hated me."