Jevin stood with one of the mages at the port rail, gazing out at Ysundeneth on a perfect sunlit morning with the mist dispersing and the first clouds rolling across the mountains far to the south. From where he stood, the city was a tiny interloper in the mass of lush verdancy that was the rainforest. But his keen eyes could penetrate the quiet streets and see the catastrophe that had overcome it.
‘How many do you think have it now?’ he asked the mage.
Vituul was a young elf of average height, his dark blue eyes set in a classically angular face. His long black ponytail fell down the back of his light brown leather cloak. He had no family in the plague city and to be offered - with his equally poor friend, Eilaan - a good wage and a way out was a prayer answered. People were increasingly demanding that elven mages produce a miracle cure. The miracle wasn’t going to happen.
‘It’s almost impossible to say,’ he said. ‘The total is probably in the region of a third of the population, but as people start to die in large numbers so the actual number of live cases, if you’ll excuse the term, will decrease also.’
‘But there are a hundred thousand people there,’ breathed Jevin.
‘Not any more,’ said Vituul. ‘Thirty thousand are already dying.’
‘And no word on a cure,’ said Jevin.
It hit him then like it hadn’t before. He’d managed to ignore the ramifications of what was going on in front of his eyes but Vituul’s numbers scared him to the bone. If those numbers were right, in fifty days there’d be less than twelve thousand people left alive in Ysundeneth, and four thousand of them would be dying. And with that level of mortality possibly affecting the whole continent, Jevin wasn’t just witnessing a devastating plague, he was witnessing the death of the elven race. He shivered.
‘How can there be a cure?’ Vituul looked at him matter of factly.
‘No one is going to be alive long enough to do the research. And there’s no spell that can even slow its course. We don’t even have a lead yet.’
‘What can we do then?’ Jevin felt helpless. ‘There must be something. ’
Vituul smiled but there was no humour in his face. ‘Wait for it to pass.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’
‘Pray that Yniss forgives whatever sin we’ve committed, because the way it looks now, we’re all going to die, sooner rather than later.’
Jevin leant on the rail. He should be doing something. Every elf should. To his knowledge no one had survived having the plague so far, but then not many were in the final stages yet. Just one survivor could give them some hope. But what could he do? This wasn’t a question of tending the sick or supplying the herbologists with raw materials. There was no battle to be won. Not yet. Elf catches plague; elf dies.
Jevin’s own family lived deep in the rainforest and he preferred not to think about them. It kept his hopes alive.
‘So why have none of the crews gone down yet?’ asked Jevin. ‘Odd, don’t you think? Surely that’s a lead?’
‘It’s a point, I suppose. No stranger catches it. No travelling elf catches it. Yet.’
‘Surely it means something?’
‘We are still Tual’s creatures. Perhaps the curse of being away from the forest also carries a blessing. Perhaps your sin isn’t as great as ours.’
Jevin had been looking for something less theological. But this mage, at least, had no answers.
‘You see what I’m getting at?’
‘There is no biological reason why any particular elf catches the plague,’ said Vituul with a shrug. ‘It must be something else. I don’t believe you, I or any of the crew have greater immunity than the poor souls on shore.’
Jevin was considering his reply when his eye was caught by movement on the dockside. There was activity on the approach roads to the east and the odd shout echoed out across the water. The tone was of surprise, even astonishment, but not fear. People were congregating on the dock. Not a mob. Not the hundreds, even thousands, they’d seen a couple of days ago, but a slowly growing crowd.
It continued to grow over the course of most of the morning. Jevin thought at first that it was city folk gathering for a demonstration, but every time he looked up from his duties there were more of them. Just standing there like they were waiting for a ship to