Death After Death

The war that followed was both brutal and short, at least if the reports were to be believed. Simon attended court every day during that period, listening to the infrequent updates from messengers that relayed the status of the war, one engagement and naval battle at a time. Simon would have much rather joined the fleet, but Elthena forbade him from doing that, not that he blamed her. He still wasn’t in good enough shape to play swashbuckler, but his magic could have come in really handy in some subtle ways if it was necessary.

It turned out that it almost was when it was revealed the enemy had warlocks of their own. Their fire spells sank a dozen ships of the Queen's fleet before they were taken down if the reports were to be believed. For someone raised on 24-hour news networks, the whole ordeal was painful to him. He couldn’t see it; he had no idea how it was going, and then one random afternoon, there was a report that they’d either won or lost a battle and a list of casualties.

Sometimes, the messengers got lost or sent off course by storms, and the reports came in out of order, which somehow made the whole thing even worse. Simon spent some time trying to surmount this problem by weaving together the words distant minor light transfer in the hopes of making a scrying spell that might let him at least peek in on events, but other than temporarily blinding himself, those experiments accomplished nothing except for burning a few more weeks of his life.

When the enemy mages were sighted, Elthena spoke to him again about his magic after getting less than satisfactory answers from her vizier about the situation. Simon explained how it worked, broadly speaking, but didn’t teach her any of the words and made it very clear that the words of power were dangerous.

“So every time you use magic, you sacrifice a bit of your life?” she asked. “How ghastly.”

Simon didn’t dispute that and pointed out that it was that much more dangerous than their enemies had such powers because it spoke to desperation or zealotry. Still, before they could worry more about that, the report came that the Alfonsic’s island fortress had been captured thanks to the bravery of Ionian warriors. The place was apparently quite well fortified, but because most of the defenders had been sacrificed to fuel evil magics, there weren’t enough guards to hold the walls when the time came.

Simon thought that was more than a little anticlimactic, but from hundreds of miles away, there was little he could do about it. Still, it was a complete victory, and even now, captives, including the merchant prince, along with other men of importance, as well as ships full of spoils, were on their way back to Ionar. That was excellent news, and a week of celebrations was ordered to commemorate the event, and a fine new temple would be raised to celebrate Elthena’s wisdom.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t all the ships brought back. Even as the seized wealth was shown off in the form of gold, jewels, and expensive bolts of cloth, and the most important prisoners were paraded through the streets to be pelted with rotting produce, the same black plague he’d cured once so long ago had found its way into some of the ships too. Unfortunately, no one suspected a thing until it had swept across the waterfront in a wave of fevers and blackened sores.

“We have to restrict all traffic from the lower city,” Simon explained, the evening that the Queen’s physician had given a report and explained that with the proper oils, there was nothing to worry about.

“You don’t trust Doctor Nolanth’s judgment?” she asked. “Need I remind you that he saved your life?”

“You don’t,” he agreed, unwilling to explain just how little the doctor had to do with his survival, given how difficult she could be when the topic of magic came up. “But I have treated this plague before, during an outbreak in the north, when I was in Brin.”

Simon was fairly sure that the outbreak he'd experienced before hadn’t actually happened yet, but it didn’t matter. Saving Ionar would have changed history in a million little ways, and he wasn’t about to figure out how all of those fit together.

“It is not spread by bad air, or the death curse of your enemy, or evil warlock magic,” Simon explained. “It is spread by fleas on rats and other animals, and the more the populations of the city mix, the faster it will spread.”

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“I’m not sure there’s much we can do for the poor,” she said sadly, much as my heart goes out to them.

“You can’t,” Simon said, “But I can. I’ll head down there tomorrow, open up a clinic, and see what can be done for the worst cases.”

“You will do no such thing!” she answered, suddenly imperious again. “I could never forgive myself if my Simon got sick and died during such an errand.”

“You know, before I met you, and before I fought the monster in your volcano, I was a doctor for many years,” Simon said with a shake of his head, “But even before that, I was a hero, and this is something I have to do.”

“But what if you catch the plague?” she asked, more sad than angry at his defiance.

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“I’ve caught it before,” he lied, “So now I have an immunity or at least a resistance. I’ll be fine. It's you I’m worried about.”

When she saw that he couldn’t be dissuaded, she finally came around and helped him plan what he needed to do the most good. Medicines were in short supply, but cots, blankets, and everything else he needed to make the sick comfortable would be given to him from the army barracks.

The next day, roads were blocked, proclamations were read, and the city was sealed off into three sections: low, middle, and high. Simon was under no illusions that this would be enough to spare the palace. Only a complete quarantine could have done that. This would be enough to slow the spread, though, and keep those who were trying to heal the sick from being completely overwhelmed.

At first, things went okay. This was Simon’s fourth time playing plague doctor, and after a word of lesser curing on himself and those men and women who were brave enough to help him at the onset of the first symptoms, they did their best. Every morning, new patients were brought to the lower market square that had become his base of operations, and slowly but surely, the cots beneath the awnings filled up until they were overflowing.

Every day, a dozen people got sick, while very few got better. In the meantime, deaths mounted daily. After a week, a handful were dying every day, but after three weeks, nearly two dozen were dying. There were survivors, of course. They even outnumbered the dead, but this was a nasty plague, and it took almost a third of the young and healthy, along with most of the old and infirm.

Simon did not visit the palace or even the upper city at all once he left it. He did not want to be the one to cause cross-contamination. Still, eventually, he received word that the plague had been found in the upper city. At first, it was restricted to a single noble house that had obviously broken quarantine, but soon enough, it spread to other nearby families as well.

After that, Simon was forced to split his time between the upper and lower cities, doing what he could for rich and poor alike. The wealthy complained and offered him riches to stay by their side, but he refused. Truthfully, he could have healed them with a word for that price, but a month of his life was a dear thing now. Simon had been here for the better part of a decade and had gray hairs to contend with. So, instead of trying to save everyone with magic, he simply did his best with medicine and let fate decide who lived and died.

At least, that was what he did until he received word from the Queen's own doctor that Elthena was sick. “I didn’t see a need to worry you when her fever grew, but… well, she’s in a bad way now and clearly beyond my powers, so I thought that—”

Simon didn’t wait for the portly man to finish. He simply sucker-punched the man with a right hook. The move surprised both of them, but Simon wasn’t about to apologize. Instead, he walked over the man’s prostrate form and started toward the palace. Some lives were worth leaving to chance, and some were not.

No one attempted to bar his way, and he quickly made his way to her dark room and sick bed, where he found the frail form of his lover. “Don’t,” she whispered as he sat down on the bed beside her and took her hand, “Don’t squander your life… for mine…”

“You want me to let you die?” he asked incredulously as he looked at her sallow cheeks and sweating forehead.

“If need be…” she gasped. “There are… others for you to save.”

“Then I will heal you with medicine instead of magic,” he lied, “But I will heal you just the same.”

He whispered a word of lesser curing even as he stood up to begin looking through the herbs. He could have cured her on the spot with a full word or perhaps even a greater one, but she was smart enough to put two and two together and would have been very angry at him for that sort of obvious magic. So, instead, he gave her immune system just enough help to get through the worst of it. Then he spent the next few days feeding her different powders and watching her vital signs for any change.

The Queen’s physician didn’t come close to him after that, though the Vizeie did, to check on her and assure himself that Simon had not used dark magic on her. It was the first chance that Simon had to study the man, but he saw nothing to fear in those eyes. The man was an alchemist who was closer to being a witch doctor than a true mage.

Slowly but surely, the Queen made progress. And when her fever broke, her boils finally started to heal. There would be some scarring, but he didn’t think it would be particularly bad. According to his assistants, who were now running both the upper and the lower clinic, the worst was over, and new cases were coming in slower than ever. In less than half a year, they’d managed to win two wars: one with ships against an assassin and one with medicine and magic against disease.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad performance. Simon was proud, even though he had no one he could brag to about it. He didn’t bring it up to Elthena when she became lucid enough to start talking again. He just focused on her, even when she got dangerously philosophical about the whole thing.

“I shouldn’t have gone to war so quickly,” she confessed finally when they were lying there together. “This is a punishment from the gods for my hubris.”

“I don’t know; from what I’ve seen, the Gods enjoy a bit of hubris,” Simon answered with a patient smile. “Wars only hasten the spread of disease, though. They don’t cause it. It would have happened eventually, no matter what you did.”

“Would it?” she asked. “How can you know that? Would the plague have come… would so many people have died if the war had never been fought or if you hadn’t stopped the eruption? You say these things with such certainty but to me… I just have so many questions.”

“Shhhh,” he soothed, stroking her hair. The Queen wasn’t wrong, of course. She was absolutely right, but trying to explain anything further to her fervid imagination was a mistake. Right now, he didn’t have to worry about how saving the city or spreading the plague had changed the world. He just had to help her calm down and heal.

“Who knows what will happen,” Simon answered. “All we can do is all we can do.”

It didn’t mean anything, but it didn’t have to. She was going to make it, and that was all that mattered.