They reached Kiikiilonia, three days later.

It was early morning, but Kiikiilonia’s wide mud-brick streets were already bustling with people, pack animals and carts. Sounds and smells of every variety filled the air.

Miiya handed Cillo some coins. “I don’t want to subsist on bitter leaves and sour fruits again, not if I can help it. Will you buy whatever you think we’ll need, and can carry without turning into pack-animals? I must make some purchases, and maybe visit one of the libraries. We will meet here, in two hours.”

Jubi and Cillo headed towards the market, a triangular building with mud-brick half walls, its sloping roof covered with woven limepalm fronds. Miiya went in search of a herbalist and found a shop run by an elderly man in a blue robe and a pink turban. She bought three bunches of herbs. As the shopkeeper wrapped her purchases in a piece of thin cloth, she asked him whether the town had a library.

“Several,” the man said, his green eyes narrowed. “Just walk down the street, take the second turn to the left, to Barnyard Street, and you’ll find one of them, lady. Wouldn’t miss it even if you tried, as you shall see.”

She did.

Barnyard Street was a wide road flanked by two and three story buildings. The library squatted right at the end, a red and green striped egg baking in the hot sun. As she drew closer she saw that the stripes consisted of painted mud bricks.

A wide entrance hall led to a cavernous reading room. It was cool and airy, a welcome change from the heat outside. The library-keeper, a middle aged woman in a turban made of swathes of bright yellow and orange silks and a robe of the same hues, pointed Miiya to a section at the back of the vast structure. Miiya found a volume on the Thalassian Archipelago sat down at one of the reading desks.

Every king of Draca had been named Iretsa. When the book was written, some sixty years ago, Iretsa 114 ruled Draca. That would have been the current king’s father, or maybe grandfather.

The plague Jubi mentioned hadn’t killed living people. But a man or a woman sickened with it couldn’t beget living children. The entire archipelago and even some of the coastal towns of mainland were affected by it.

The kings of Draca…

A scream exploded in her head.

She replaced the books and hurried out, with a quick word of apology to the library keeper. Guided by the echoes in her head, she strode down unfamiliar streets and lanes, turning left here, right there, resisting the urge to run, until she reached a lonely back alley, and Jubi.

Jubi was standing over a still figure of a man, middle-aged and well-built. A dark stain almost covered his velvet-clad chest. His mouth was half-open in a snarl, but the eyes stared at nothing. Miiya didn’t bother to check for a pulse. There was no need. She stepped over the body and clasped Jubi’s free hand, winter-cold despite the heat swirling around them in waves.

Jubi shuddered. Her face was deathly place, her hair in disarray. One hand still clutched a long knife, its blade dotted with rust-collared stains. Her pack lay on the ground, half open, some of its contents spilled out, a comb, a cake of soap, a bead necklace. Miiya resisted the impulse to cradle Jubi until the wild haunted look left her face, until the shivering stopped.

No time for that. Not now. She caught Jubi’s eyes in hers. “Tell me what happened.”

Jubi’s trembling stopped. “He was someone...someone I encountered on the way to find you,” her voice wavered a little. “The market was crowded and Cillo and I were separated. I was looking at some figurines made from fire rocks, and then he was there. He recognized me. I lost my head. I ran. There were others with him. They pursued me. I thought I managed to give them the slip, but when I turned into this lane, he was there, waiting for me. There was no way for me to escape. He caught me…”

A slaver then. And his companions might get here anytime.

Miiya took the knife from Jubi’s unresisting hand, wiped it on the dead man’s mantle and shoved it into her own pocket. She gathered Jubi’s scattered possessions, closed the pack and gave it to Jubi. From her own pack she took out a hooded short-cloak and wrapped it around Jubi. The cloak fell almost to Jubi’s ankles; she looked lost in it, more a little girl than a young woman.

“If anyone makes inquiries, I’m your mother. Understand?”

Jubi nodded. Her eyes were still that of a hunted animal.

They began the walk to the city gate, Miiya holding Jubi by hand, talking to her in an ordinary voice about ordinary things. They were within sight of the gate when Jubi stopped, as if turned into stone, shivering stone.

Miiya looked in the direction of Jubi’s stricken gaze. Two men. Wearing clothes similar to the dead slaver.

She placed her arm around Jubi’s shoulders and forced her into a half-embrace so that her blue-skinned face was not visible to the men. She bent her head, until her mouth was on level with Jubi’s ear. “We are going to walk back, walk slowly. Do you understand me?”

Jubi nodded.

Miiya took the first turn they came across, a narrow pitted lane, and walked down it, her arm still round Jubi, her mind in a whirl. They had escaped the two men, but others might be roaming Kiikiilonia, looking for their leader, and for a blue-skinned woman. She had to get Jubi out of the town. And she had to find Cillo.

The owner of the herbal shop had mentioned several libraries. She found the directions to the nearest one from an elderly woman selling potted milk.

This library was neither large nor ornate. Just two rooms full of books. It was deserted apart from an old man dozing over a stack of manuscripts. Miiya guided Jubi to the end of the room, made her sit down and handed her a book picked at random from the nearest shelf.

“I’ll come back with Cillo. Keep your head down and your hands tucked into your sleeve. Pretend to be engrossed in your reading. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Miiya.”

Miiya got out and retraced her steps, using her Farsight. Cillo was still at the market, doubtless looking for Jubi. She reached it at the same time he was rushing out, looking slightly demented. When he saw Miiya he gave a cry and ran to her, the dragonfly-buzzard on his shoulder.

“Miiya, I’ve lost…” he stopped, as he noticed her warning glance. She turned around and walked away, dogged by his terror and his worry. She stopped in a quiet corner behind a warehouse and turned to face him.

“A slaver tried to abduct Jubi. She killed him. Now his underlings are looking for her.”

“Jubi?”

“She’s safe, for now. Come.”

Jubi was where Miiya had left her, her head bent over a book. More books were stacked on the table by her. She looked up when they entered the room. Her face was set but there was a feverish gleam in her eyes. She pushed the open book towards Miiya, a steady finger indicating a picture, a human covered from head to toe in a shapeless garment, rather like a shroud, with two slits for the eyes. The obligatory attire of anyone stricken with vasuriya, an illness believed to be highly contagious. Vasuriya condemned the afflicted to a tortuous life. Death was a mercy but it came only after the body had become a single stinking and oozing sore.

Miiya pushed the book at Cillo. He glanced at the picture, and at Miiya, his eyes twinkling.

She grinned. “Wait here for me.”

Miiya headed for the backstreets, with their dark dingy shops, places where you could find what wasn’t available in reputable establishments. She expected questions, had a story ready, but there were none. Not at the foul-smelling shop from where she bought the yards of used material or at the herbalist who sold her the herbs she asked for.

Beyond the backstreets were several abandoned lots, the final resting place for Kiikiilonia’s detritus. A good place for a healthy young woman to become clothed in the most feared illness in Pegala.

She returned to the library and guided Cillo and Jubi back to that abandoned lot. Soon Jubi was clad from head to toe in what looked like a soiled brown sack, only her eyes visible through the slits. Miiya tied a bunch of herbs round Jubi’s waist with a thin rope. “Can you breathe?”

Jubi nodded.

Cillo fingered the garment. “It’s not new.”

“It can’t be new to be convincing.”

“But the contagion?”

“Vasuriya is not contagious.”

“But everyone knows…”

“Everyone knowing something doesn’t make it correct,” Miiya snapped. She turned to Jubi. “I’ll go in front. You follow about twenty paces behind. Cillo can bring up the rear. When you come to the gates, just leave. No one will ask you anything. Don’t panic even if those men are watching. Walk out, turn to right and keep on walking. Cillo, can you can get your bird to keep an eye on her?”

“Yes. Seedevii will do that. Do you think you can manage, Jubi-girl?”

Jubi nodded again.

Miiya set off at a steady pace, restraining the urge to turn around and check on Jubi. If the faces of the people they came across were anything to go by, Jubi was doing well.

The two men were still watching the gate and the main street. Miiya entered a nearby shop. Jubi walked past the two men. People drew back, as far away as possible, some praying loudly to their various gods for protection. The guards shrank away, leaving the gates wide open.

Jubi paid no heed to the faces distorted with fear, the gasps and the cries, the muttered prayers. She walked through the gate and continued walking.

Cillo joined the people milling by the gate. The bird was not with him.

After some time, a party of about ten people accompanied by two zhorses went through the gate.

Cillo followed a couple of minutes later.

Miiya kept the two men under observation. They were back to watching the gate, looking closely at everyone who exited, especially anyone female and young.

A couple left next, leading a laden donkey. Miiya left after them, leaning heavily on her staff, dragging one foot behind her. One of the men looked at her, but it was a cursory glance.

Miiya walked at the same slow pace until she was out of sight of any watcher. Then she strode ahead. Soon she saw Cillo.

“What do we do now, Miiya?” he asked when she drew level.

“There is a…” she stopped, her witch-ear catching a sound. Horses, four horses.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“It must be those men. Just keep walking.”

Miiya whisked herself out of the road, into the forest. She crouched behind a bush.

The horses raced past Cillo. Miiya heaved a sigh of relief.

One man reined in his horse, turned around and trotted up to Cillo. He leaned down and asked, in Common Speech

Miiya strained her witch-ear.

The man leaned down and said in Common Speech. “Did you see a young woman? A short woman with a blue skin and brown hair?”

Cillo bowed and answered in a faltering voice. “I-I did, your honour.”

“Where? Ahead?”

“No, earlier in the market. She was with another man, your honour?”

“Not on the road?”

“No, your honour, there were other people.” He glanced about fearfully and dropped his voice. “And the afflicted one.”

“What afflicted one?”

Cillo’s voice was now a whisper. “Vasuriya.”

The man muttered a prayer. “Where?”

Cillo shook his head. “Ahead. It left before I did.”

The man rode back to his companions. Miiya strained her witch-ear to listen to the argument. Some men wanted to ride ahead, but the news of ‘afflicted one’ settled the matter. Soon they turned their horses around and headed back the way they came.

Cillo staggered to a rock and sat down. Miiya waited till the sound of the horses had gone beyond her witch-ear and rushed to him. He looked pale.

She smiled at him. “An excellent piece of acting, Cillo. They are not going to take this direction for another hour or two at least.”

“I was so terrified of making a mistake, saying the wrong thing-“

She touched his hand briefly. “It was a perfect act. I’ll go ahead and catch up with Jubi. I’ve Farsighted a safe place. I’ll take Jubi there. Keep to the road until you come across a tree struck by lightning on your right hand side. You won’t miss it; the branches are gone and only the trunk remains. There’s an overgrown footpath next to it. Go down that until you reach a clearing next to an abandoned mine. You will find us there.”

Cillo said, “How can you be certain?”

“My great grandmother had been this way. You know we hand down our memories.”

Miiya strode ahead and soon caught sight of the group of people with Zhorses. As she drew near, one of the men cried, in Common Speech, “Be careful, woman. There is one of those things ahead.” He lowered his voice. “The Stricken.”

Miiya stopped and waved her hand, vaguely in the direction of the forest. “Thank you. I live that way. I’ll avoid the creature.”

“You be careful, still. That is worse than death.”

“Indeed it is.” She bowed her head. “May your journey be safe and successful!”

“Yours too.”

She saw the dragonfly-buzzard before she saw Jubi. The bird was flying over the road, in slow circles. Soon Jubi was within sight, still in her soiled garment. Miiya made certain that no one could see them before she caught up with Jubi. “Ahead there’s a tree struck by lightning. Take the footpath next to it. I’ll wait for you there.”

“Cillo?”

“He is behind.”

Jubi nodded, once.

Miiya walked until she reached the tree stump. She turned to the overgrown footpath, hurried down it. Jubi was with her within minutes. She took the young woman to the clearing by an abandoned mine. “Wait for me there. I’ll bring Cillo.” The bird landed on the branch of a nearby tree. “He’ll keep you company. Get rid of that clothing. You should be safe now.”

Jubi nodded again.

Miiya retraced her steps and found Cillo heading down the path.

His face cleared when he saw her. “How is she?”

Miiya shrugged and turned around.

They found Jubi seated cross legged under a tree, eyes closed, hands clasped on her lap, as still as a figurine of blue-ivory. Then a shudder ran through her body; she bent, like a sapling caught in a strong wind.

Cillo asked no questions, but followed Miiya’s orders. He gathered dead wood and lit a fire while Miiya mixed a spoonful of grounded yellow string-beans and a generous pinch of nidra into a thick paste and made Jubi swallow it. Soon she was fast asleep, curled up close to the little fire.

Cillo said, “I don’t know how she had a knife with her. But I’m glad she did.”

Miiya’s smile was grim. “Unfortunately, a knife seems to be the only argument some people understand.”

The evening passed in silence. Once night fell, Miiya persuaded Cillo to eat a piece of flatbread and forced herself to swallow a piece as well. Later, she told him to get some rest, even though she knew no sleep would come to him. She said nothing when, after a couple of hours of pretended slumber, he got up and joined her in her silent vigil.

Jubi woke up at dawn, emerging from oblivion to awareness with the suddenness of a flash-flood. Her eyes moved from Miiya to Cillo. Then the tears began to flow.

Miiya waited for Cillo to rush to Jubi’s side, to hold and comfort her. When he didn’t, she glanced at him. Cillo sat, his head bowed almost to the ground.

Jubi rocked to and fro, cradled in her own arms.

Miiya gathered Jubi into her arms. Jubi went rigid, as if she didn’t know who was holding her. Then she sagged against Miiya, clutching at her as if she had found an unexpected lifeline and never wanted to let go.

After a long while, she murmured, “I’m sorry.”

Miiya sat back. “Don’t apologize. Humans are fortunate they can shed tears.”

Jubi’s eyes widened. “Witches can’t cry?”

“No.”

Jubi spoke in a halting voice, as if she was having trouble finding the right words. “I’ve never killed anyone before. I was taken captive and sold as a slave. I escaped. He was the head of the slaver’s gang.”

Miiya felt as if slugs were crawling all over her body. She forced herself to talk in her usual brisk tones. “In which case, you rid the world of a man who had caused much harm in it.”

Jubi sat still. Only her fingers moved, at a frenzied pace, as if they were playing an imaginary instrument.

Miiya waited until she felt that the silence had lasted long enough and said, “Look at me, Jubi.”

Jubi looked up.

“I don’t know much about your city or its attitudes, what nonsense or quirks it venerates as tradition. I want you to remember this. It is right and proper that you should feel anger, horror and grief at what happened to you. But it should never cause you shame, never make you feel worthless. Never. Those who should feel shame are the humans who subjected you to those horrors. Those who should feel worthless are the humans who knew about those horrors and looked away. Not you, Jubi, not you.”

Jubi said, in a voice so tiny that a human ear would not have caught it, “You don’t know.”

Miiya took a deep breath. “I do.”

“No, you don’t.” Jubi’s voice was still low, but grown vehement. “You cannot know. It’s...”

“I know, Jubi. I know because I reached into your nightmares, many times, to make them go away. I had to. It was either that or let you relive the horrors in your sleep, night after night. I couldn’t do that. What I did was an intrusion, a breaking of the code of healing. I should have asked you for your consent before doing it. That is the right way. But it was the early days, and I was scared you will not consent. I’m sorry about what I did. But...”

“You had no choice, Miiya.” Neither of them had heard Cillo’s approach. He walked up to them and sat down facing Jubi. He looked as if a giant leech had sucked out all his blood. “You cried in your sleep, Jubi. Miiya wanted to help. It was hard for her but she did it, for you.”

Jubi’s face was a battlefield of emotions. Shame darkened it; grief paled it; there was anger too, making her facial muscles go rigid. Ultimately, curiosity gained the edge. “How? How were you able to do it?”

Miiya told her.

Jubi stared at the weed-encrusted mouth of the abandoned mine. Her face wore the old vacant expression, as if her mind was a blank, as if she was nothing but a body. After a long while she looked at Miiya and Cillo, a fleeting glance which avoided their eyes. “After...after what happened, I couldn’t sleep properly. I was scared of closing my eyes. I used to relive events, see people, hear voices. Things got a bit better after Sabha found me. I knew I was safe, with him there. But I’d wake up several times in the night and find that I had been crying in my sleep. I knew it must be nightmares, but I retained no memory of them.” A smile livened her eyes briefly. “I think Sabha knew about the nightmares. He would start playing as soon as I woke up, run around like a puppy and jump at me. He did those things even after he got bigger. He would still mock-attack me, but do it carefully, so that I wouldn’t have even a scratch.” She stopped again, face darkening. “Then I had to leave him behind, and the fears returned. But when we began the journey, things got better again, so much better. I fell asleep easily, didn’t wake up at night and felt refreshed in the morning. I thought perhaps it was because I had accomplished the most difficult part of my task.”

Cillo said, “You’ve been brave, so brave...”

Jubi interrupted him. “No, don’t say anything comforting, Cillo. Not now. I want to tell you everything that happened to me. I want to tell you both. Will you listen?”

Cillo bowed his head. Miiya said, “Yes we will listen.”

Jubi sat cross legged on the ground, her back to a tree and spoke. She spoke in fits and starts, strings of words interspersed with long silences. The day was still in its infancy when she began her story. By the time she ended it, night was advancing.

Jubi talked about the night the slavers caught her. “I think it was my sixth day on the road. I had just left a village and was walking down a forested path. They must have been watching me. Once or twice I thought I heard footsteps, but when I turned around there was no one. I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t know enough to be afraid. I feared wild animals, but not people. They caught me that night. There were three of them. I was sleeping under a tree. I struggled...” She shrugged. “I was bound and gagged and tossed into a horse-driven wagon. There were two women there. They stopped along the way several times to catch more people. There was a young boy, a middle aged man and a mother with two children.”

She had no idea how many days they spent in that juddering wagon packed tightly together. All she remembered of that journey was the suffocating heat, the darkness, the hunger and the thirst. And fear, always fear, because the whip was never far away and the whip was an omen of times to come.

The slave estate was a large camp housing hundreds of other men, women and children. They were categorized, men and women separately.

Every week, an auction was held, with buyers walking about, checking the wares and making their bids.

“There were pens. We were herded into them. We had to stand for hours. The buyers walked up and down, looking and prodding us with canes or touching us. We had to stand still, keep our eyes on the ground, never show our distaste, our horror. The slavers watched and if anyone disobeyed even slightly, that one was taken away to one of the punishment cells. You see, they knew how to hurt us and not leave marks.”

The strong and the beautiful were sold fast. Were they the luckier ones or unluckier ones? No one knew.

Jubi was young, but was too scrawny to attract a bid.

“I remember the first time, standing there by the railing of the pen, my hands at my side, my eyes on the ground, watching the feet of the buyers walking by, trying to create a picture of a person from the footwear. Whenever a pair of feet stalled by the pen, my heart lurched. I didn’t know whether I wanted to be chosen or not. The first time a buyer prodded me with a walking stick, I wanted to scream at him. I didn’t. You see, by that time I knew how to be a slave. I wouldn’t have minded dying. Some days I wanted to die. But I couldn’t. I had to live, for Papa.”

Time lost all meaning. The thought of finding her father kept her alive, that and the not-so-occasional acts of kindness she gave and received. Nothing more than a hand to hold onto or a shoulder to cry on, but that meant the difference between going on and losing her mind.

“I never stopped thinking about escaping, I thought about it all the time. I was determined to escape. I knew I had to or Papa would be lost evermore. The place was surrounded by this very tall and thick wall. And there were armed guards everywhere. I suppose I wouldn’t have succeeded had it not been for the earth-heaving. It happened late one evening. I was saved because I was outside, working in the fields. At first I thought it was me being sick, losing balance, and falling. It happened often, because we were not given much food. When slaves fell, they’d be whipped until they got back to their feet.” She paused and said, softly, “Some didn’t.”

Miiya wondered whether they were considered the fortunate ones.

“I waited for the whip. The earth was moving under me, but I still thought it was just me, even when the heaving became like what it was in that ship the day it was caught in a storm. I started screaming, and then there was just sound, nothing but sound.” She fell silent for a while. “I’ve no memory of what happened. I must have lost consciousness. When I came to, I couldn’t imagine where I was. Everything had collapsed, trees, buildings, everything. I sat up and the first thing I saw was the slaver who was in charge of us. A tree had fallen on him. I didn’t wait to see if he was alive or dead. I didn’t even look for my friends. All I could see was that the wall was gone, it had become just a pile of rubble. All I could think of was escape.” For the first time since she began her story, she looked at Miiya and Cillo, meeting their eyes, her own dark with emotions. “I feel so much shame whenever I remember. I should have looked for my friends. I should have helped them to escape. But I was not really thinking like a human then. I had been treated like a thing for so long, I suppose by that time I had forgotten that I was human.”

Miiya said, “You did what you had to do. If you tarried to help, you might have been caught again.”

Jubi shook her head. “I don’t think so. The earth-heaving was so devastating, I think it would have taken the slavers a long time to get things together. Perhaps they were all dead or injured. I could have helped my friends. I didn’t. I just ran. And ran. Everywhere was chaos; collapsed houses, fallen trees, the dead and the injured. I stopped just once, to strip a dead woman of her clothes.”

“It was a sensible thing to do,” Cillo said. “You would have been identified…”

Jubi cut in, her voice sharp. “I had no idea where I was going, and I didn’t care. All I wanted was to put as much distance as possible between me and that place. I stayed away from where humans dwelled. I kept to the forests. I became more and more like an animal. When I had to cross a village, I skulked in some dark corner until nightfall. I ate what I could find. I stole whenever I could. I didn’t dare to light a fire for attracting attention, so I ate raw. I was nothing more than an animal, a scavenger picking somebody’s kill clean. I ate raw flesh. I crunched uncooked bones. I just wanted to stay alive and save Papa. That was the only human thought I had.”

Her life changed when she met Sabha, the wolf cub she saved from a trap. Her voice became light and a smile came into her eyes.

“At first I was scared. He was a wolf. And wolves killed humans. I tried to chase him away. But he wouldn’t go. If I threw stones at him, he’d move out of my sight, but I knew he was there, following me.”

She woke up one night, with her face bathed in tears, and found him curled up at her side. After that, she accepted his companionship. He helped her to find waterholes in dry weather and protected her from men who would have harmed her. He listened to her when she talked, and guarded her when she slept.

“After I had him to protect me, fear became less. And I stopped being an animal and became a human. I washed myself whenever I could. He loved water, you see. He used to jump into anything with water, river, stream pond. He’d turn his head and utter short barks, as if he was inviting me in. After a while I started enjoying being in the water. I began to wash my clothes. I stopped eating raw meat. When I met humans, I stopped running and hiding. I talked to them, asking them directions to Sammalore.

“When I reached the pass leading down to Sammalore, I talked to him. I explained he shouldn’t follow me. I told him to go back to the forest and find his own kind. I embraced him one last time. Then I got up and walked away. I didn’t look back. I didn’t dare to.”

He didn’t follow her. But his howls did.