Robert Salvatore - Mortalis

It was Dainsey, Pony knew, and she could guess easily enough why the woman was so postured.

"She's got the plague," Belster remarked, obviously deducing the same thing. "Why'd the fool bring her here, then? "

That uncharacteristically bitter statement brought a scowl to Pony's face, and she showed it to Belster directly.

He shook his head, showing embarrassment for the callous remark but also holding fast to his anger. Pony could understand that well enough;

Dundalis had remained relatively free of the dreaded disease thus far, but one victim could change all that, could send the rosy plague rushing through the town like a fire. Those who knew the oral histories of the plague had claimed that entire villages, even fair-sized towns had simply disappeared under the deadly sweep of the disease.

But, without even talking to Roger, Pony also understood why he had come. She could see the look on his face as the wagon approached, an expression sad and panicked, a desperate and hopeless plea.

Some people went out to Roger, calling greetings, but he waved them back from the wagon. "A safe distance!" he cried, and every one of those villagers wore at first a perplexed expression but one that inevitably fast turned to horror.

They knew; everyone in the kingdom knew.

Then Roger spotted his dear friend, the last hope of his beloved Dainsey. "Pony," he called weakly. She rushed up to the wagon and grabbed the bridle of the draft horse, stopping the beast.

"Stay back," Roger warned. "Oh, Pony, it is Dainsey, sick with the rosy plague!"

She nodded grimly and continued past the horse and onto the wagon's bench. She gently lifted the edge of Dainsey's hood, reaching in to feel her forehead.

Dainsey's teeth were chattering, but she was hot to the touch.

Pony sighed. "You've tried your best, but you are tending her in the wrong manner," she explained, pushing back the hood, untying the cloak, and pulling it off Dainsey's frail-looking shoulders.

"I tried…" Roger started to reply. "I went to Palmaris, to Braumin, but he…"

"He turned you away," Pony finished grimly.

Roger just nodded his head.

"Well, you will not be turned away here," Pony promised, and she gently lifted Dainsey into her arms-and how light she was! "Follow me to Fellowship Way," she instructed.

"You can cure her?" Roger asked.

Pony couldn't ignore the flicker of hope that came into his voice, the light that suddenly brightened his face. She wanted to say that she couldhow she wanted to tell Roger that! — but she knew that false hope could be a more devastating thing than no hope at all, and she could not lie to Roger.

"I will try," she promised, turning to slip down the side of the wagon.

Roger grabbed her by the arm, and she turned to see his desperately pleading face.

"This is the rosy plague, Roger," she said softly. "I have had no luck at all in battling it thus far. None. Everyone I have attempted to heal is dead. But I will try."

Roger sucked in his breath and stood, wavering, for a long moment. Then he collected himself and nodded.

True to her promise, Pony brought Dainsey into her private room above Fellowship Way, gathered her hematite, and went at the disease with all her strength and determination. As soon as her disembodied spirit entered Dainsey's battered body, though, she knew that she had no chance. The plague was thick in the woman, thicker than Pony had ever seen it before, a great green morass of disease.

She tried and she tried, but inevitably wound up fighting the wretched stuff away from herself and gaining no ground at all in actually helping Dainsey.

She came out of the gemstone trance a long while later and slipped off the side of the bed. Her legs wouldn't hold her, so exhausted had the battle made her, and she slumped heavily against the wall, then slid down with a thump to the floor. She heard Roger call out to her, and then he was there, beside her.

"What happened? " he asked repeatedly. "Did you defeat it? "

Pony's expression spoke volumes. Roger slumped to the floor, fighting hard against the sobs.

Pony gathered her own strength-she had to, for Roger-and went to him, dropping her hand on his heaving shoulder.

"We do not surrender," she assured him. "We will use the herbal poultices and syrups on her, as many as we can make. And I will go back to her with the gemstone. I promise I will."

Roger looked at her squarely. "You will not save her," he said.

Pony could not rightfully disagree.

They huddled on the field before St. Belfour as they huddled before all the other abbeys in Honce-the-Bear, the pitiful plague victims praying for help that would not come. For the rosy plague, in all its fury, in all its indifference to the screams of the suffering, had come to Vanguard.

Inside St. Belfour, the scene was no less one of distress. The plague hadn't crept into the halls of the abbey yet, but for the brothers of St. Belfour-gentle Brother Dellman and all those trained under the compassionate guidance of Abbot Agronguerre-witnessing such horrendous suffering in their fellow Vanguardsmen was profoundly upsetting. After the initial reports of the plague in Vanguard had filtered into St. Belfour, Abbot Haney and Brother Dellman had huddled in Haney's office, arguing their course of action. The two had never truly disagreed, yet neither had they been in a state of agreement, both of them wavering back and forth, to help or not to help. They knew Church doctrine concerning the rosy plague-it was written prominently in the guiding books of every Abellican abbeybut these were not men who willingly turned their backs on people in need. And so they argued and they shouted, they banged their hands in frustration on Haney's great desk and thumped their heads against the walls.

But in the end, they did as the Church instructed; they locked their gates. They tried to be generous to the gathered victims, tried to persuade them to return to their homes; and when that failed, they offered them as many supplies as they could spare. And the crowd, understanding the generosity and much closer to the brethren of the region than were the folk of many southern cities to their abbeys, had complied with Abbot Haney's requests. The gathered victims had formed two groups, with a distinctive space in between them so that the monks could go out on their daily tasks, mostly collecting food-much of which would be turned over to the plague victims.

Still, for all the cooperation and all the understanding on both sides of St. Belfour's imposing wall, Haney and Dellman remained miserable prisoners, sealed in by the sounds of suffering, by their own helplessness. Every day and every night, they heard them.

"I cannot suffer this," Dellman advised his abbot one morning. He had just come from the wall, from viewing the bodies of those who had died the previous night, including two children.

Abbot Haney held up his hands. He had no answers, obviously; there was no darker and more secluded place to hide.

"I will go out to them," Brother Dellman announced.

"To what end?"

Now it was Dellman's turn to shrug. "I pray that you will afford me a single soul stone, that I might try, at least, to alleviate some of the suffering."

"Ye're knowin' the old songs, I trust," Abbot Haney replied, but he was not scolding. "And ye know where the Church stands concernin' this."

"Of course," Dellman replied. "The chances are greater that I will become afflicted than that I will actually cure anybody. I, we, are supposed to lock the gates and block our ears, sit within our abbeys-as long as we do not contract the plague-and speak of the higher aspects of life and of faith." He gave a chuckle, a helpless and sarcastic sound. "We are to discuss how many angels might kneel upon our thumbnails in ceremonies of mutual prayer, or other such vital issues."