by Eric Vall
“Hatra, I am in Hatra?” Alyona frowned as she unsteadily met my gaze. “When did I leave Mihireti?”
The barrier flickered again, and the miasma dove against it once more. Lightning rose up again from where the barrier and miasma had connected, and I realized the magic shield was weaker than before. The air hissed around the contact points, and I could smell acid.
“Mihireti?” I echoed as I glanced back down at the priestess. I had no idea where Mihireti was or if Alyona was even speaking to me and not a phantom in her mind.
All I knew was that I needed to heal her and stop the blood. I had to focus on what I could do. From behind me, I could hear Laika run up the steps two at a time.
“I brought them all.” The wolf set a basket of crisp, white bandages on the stone floor next to us and looked at the priestess with obvious concern. “How is she?”
“Not good,” I grunted as I freed one hand and grabbed one of the cloths. “I need you to hold her steady.”
The wolf moved immediately to Alyona’s side and gently held her in place. Her ears laid flat on her head, and I could see the timid way her tail quivered.
Laika’s strong voice was clear when she spoke, and she showed no sign of the timidity that her tail betrayed. “Will she recover from this? I know how dangerous head wounds can be.”
I nodded. “If we work quickly, she will.” I pressed firmly on the gash with the clean bandage, and my fingers brushed against Alyona’s scalp.
The priestess barely noticed my touch. Her eyes were wide and focused on the barrier above us. She was a stubborn one, I’d give her that, and I couldn’t help but be impressed at the fact that she was still able to keep the barrier up.
Suddenly, she lifted the hand she had held onto the wall with and let it fall into her lap. The jade hairpin she wore swayed with her as she moved, and for a moment, I thought the jade flower had glowed.
Then Alyona began to chant again.
“Supremely radiant, the stars above look down upon me and one hundred thousand saints come near. Justice and retribution falls upon those who threaten your faithful.” Alyona shimmered before us, and instead of raven black, her hair had become the color of starlight. “Your discernment and hand clears away the darkness, please bestow the light upon me and those whose hands hold mine.”
As her spell or whatever it was echoed out into the night, something flashed in front of my eyes.
Classification: Divi--
Then the words vanished abruptly, and for the merest of moments, I saw a grand scene of stars and galaxies that surrounded Alyona’s body.
I blinked, and the scene disappeared from my mind. I wondered if I had really seen it or had only imagined it.
I shook the thought away, though. This wasn’t the time to think about it. There would be time later when everything had been settled from the attack.
Laika’s fur stood on end when I looked up again, and the scent of lightning filled my nose as the scent of Alyona’s blood faded away. The barrier glowed more powerfully than before, and for a moment, I thought I felt the same energy that had filled my aunt’s storage room. It was bright and clean and felt of a home I had never known.
Then those flash of words came again.
Classification: Unknown.
Condition: Concussion.
Priority: Proceed with caution.
Status: Fatigued due to continued overuse of power and head injury.
I looked at the priestess in front of me in shock. How had her condition changed from a severe head trauma and a possible spinal injury to a concussion in mere moments?
“Alyona, what happened?” I asked as I set my clawed hand on her arm. “What did you do?”
The priestess smiled tiredly at me and winked. “Keep it a secret between the three of us, Sir Evan, Dame Laika. I did something I ought not to have. But now I have the strength to keep the barrier up, all because of your help.”
I eyed her suspiciously even as I pulled the cloth away from her head that once again had raven black hair. “You almost died.”
She shook her head at my words and winced at the pain that the action brought her. Her eyes flashed strangely for a moment, and I thought I saw the pupils shift and the amethyst hue lighten.
“But I didn’t,” the priestess lightly replied even as she leaned against me for support. “Now, what to do with this.”
Her amethyst eyes had turned back to the miasma that screeched above us as it moved away from the barrier’s light. Then they narrowed, and an intelligent glint shone in them. I could tell she’d already pieced together what had happened, that the miasma had orchestrated an attack, and that alone was a dangerous piece of information. With whatever else that she knew about the miasma, this would certainly be filed away in her mind for later.
“I might have an idea.” A bloodthirsty smirk settled on my face, and I was more than ready to cut out the proverbial pound of flesh from the miasma. “We can study the miasma instead.”
Laika furrowed her brow in thought even as Alyona’s lips formed a small smile.
“You want to study it?” Alyona’s fingers twitched, and the barrier shined even brighter. “Why? It’s just a corruption.”
“If we can study it,” I said as I looked up at the mass of hatred and decay that was the miasma, “we might be able to figure out a way to stop it. There was always a cure somewhere, and sometimes cures involved a little of the poison itself.”
“Those are wise words, Evan. What do you need?” Alyona tilted her head as she stared up at the cloud of miasma.
“The smoke itself.” I glared up at the miasma and stepped closer to the barrier. “But we can’t breathe it in, and it can’t enter through the barrier.”
“The barrier might be the key.” Blue sparkled on Alyona’s fingers as she glanced at me. “It needs to be separate from us, but in here, a barrier within a barrier.”
“Exactly.” I placed my hand on the dome of magic that protected us and felt it thrum with power.
Alyona slipped off the veil she wore on her face and pressed a kiss to it. “Come warriors, fight as one and form a great wall, line and bring back victory to me.” Then she lifted the veil, and it gently floated into the night sky where the miasma lurked.
“How did you do that?” I asked in curiosity and watched as the veil rose to the barrier and floated through it.
Alyona’s small and secret smile returned. “A priestess may enchant anything upon this earth through the use of her voice, her blood, and her power.”
The miasma flinched away from the thin fabric, but the veil had grown in size and wrapped itself around a good portion of the miasma. It quickly formed a ball and solidified into a clear crystal, and I could see how the miasma threw itself against the crystal in a wild bid to break free of it.
A horrible screech filled the air, like the sound of metal upon metal. I covered my ears, and beside me, Laika did the same. The sound only increased in strength, and I knew that the other Demi-Humans suffered as we did.
“Fucking hell!” I gritted out from between my clenched teeth.
I was sure that my ears had begun to bleed, that my eardrums had burst and I’d lost all ability to hear. The sheer intensity of the sound was a pure nightmare, and I’d hate to hear it ever again. It curdled the blood in my veins, and while the miasma had smelled of death, the sound it had made when Alyona trapped it? That was the sound of death. I’d never heard anything so terrible, and I’d seen death plenty of times in my work as an EMT.
Just as suddenly as it had started, the sound stopped. Instead, it was replaced by a whistle of air, and I looked up. The crystal that used to be a veil abruptly fell from the air and through the barrier until it came to a gentle stop in Alyona’s open arms. There was no miasma to be seen anywhere but in the crystal in her arms.
“I didn’t think that would work.” The crystal ball was held tightly in Alyona’s hands as she lifted it closer to her face, and the miasma swirled inside of it.
“Can you do that again?” I took a step closer and leaned down to look at the trapped smoke. “The next time that the miasma comes.”
“I can’t.” Alyona looked away with tears in her eyes. “There’s only so much I can enchant, and that took almost all of my power. As promised, here is the specimen.”
“I understand.” I eyed the black mist inside of the crystal ball suspiciously. “There’s no way that it can get out of there, is there?”
Laika’s ears had been lowered again, but her tail bristled once more as she sniffed at the crystal ball. “I trust you, my Lady, but I do not trust that miasma.”
“We don’t need to trust it to get the answers that we need from it,” I mused. Then I tapped the crystal with one claw, and I was half surprised to see the crystal hold up under the strength of my sharp claw.
“The enchantment will last even far past my own death if I will it,” Alyona replied, and her eyes hardened. “And I do will it. This miasma will never leave this crystal unless it has been purified.”
Alyona handed me the crystal, and I lifted it up to my eye level. The miasma seemed much less of a threat at this size. It was hard to believe that some colored smoke had caused as much chaos as it had.
But, then again, after living twenty-five years on Earth, I’d learned that even the smallest of things could destroy entire cities. A single vial stolen from any of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would send the local government into chaos.
Not to mention, there were easier ways of destroying a city. A well-placed bullet, just as small as a vial, in the hands of a trained sniper could take out just about anyone. Explosives as well. Anyone with a smartphone and a credit card could build a bomb that would fit in their pocket. After thinking it through, the fact that the smoke had caused all this death and despair wasn’t a surprise. The real surprise was that Earth hadn’t developed this smoke weapon first.
It didn’t matter anyway. The miasma wouldn’t hold its secrets for long.
Chapter 5
Anton had staggered into the infirmary with his tail between his legs and a gash across his head just as I set Alyona into her bed. I left the priestess under Laika’s watchful eye and walked outside to shift into my dragon form again. It was harder this time, given how exhausted I was, and I could barely cough out a lungful of glitter to heal the wolf of his gash. It seemed to be enough, though, because it had stopped bleeding, and I thought the wound had even sealed itself, but I couldn’t be sure with both his hair and the fur of his ears in the way.
The Demi-Human nodded his gratitude as he gingerly lifted a hand to feel at his scalp. I bowed my neck in return before I began to visualize my human body again. It took a few seconds, but I finally felt the familiar feeling wash over me, and a moment later I was swaying on two legs.
This had been a hell of a first day as a dragon.
When I walked back into the infirmary, I all but collapsed on the chair in front of the long table.
The villagers went back to sleep with an ease that I envied, though I guessed it was a testament to how much they had suffered from the miasma.
This was all just routine now for them.
Hours later, the miasma spun around lazily inside the crystal ball on the long table pushed against the back wall of the infirmary. Every so often, the black smoke would prod the crystal, and the purity of the orb would burn the miasma. It hissed angrily every time before it shrank back and continued to twist and squirm.
It was unsettling to watch, so I tore my eyes away and inspected the infirmary around me.
Enchanted lanterns hung off the wall and provided a soft warm light that washed over the room. It cast a golden hue to the parchment and leather-bound books that Alyona had neatly stacked on the desk, and next to the parchment was a collection of inkwells and ink brushes.
One of the brushes caught my eye, and my fingers twitched at the sight of it.
It was a delicate thing with a handle of white jade, and a strange feeling that I couldn’t define buzzed in my chest. Maybe it was my dragon instincts acting up, and I was going to start my own hoard of treasure now.
Sounded pretty badass, if I did say so myself, and I pictured myself sitting on top of a golden throne atop a pile of more gold with scantily clad women holding on every part of my human body as they begged me for affection.
But before all that happened, I probably needed to rest.
I tapped my fingers on the table, yawned, and pushed the fantasy out of my mind. I hadn’t gone back to sleep because I just couldn’t rest with the presence of the miasma in the back of my mind. It felt like needles along the nape of my neck, and I couldn’t shake off the feeling or ignore it.
I rubbed my face and hoped that the main body of miasma wouldn’t come back anytime soon.
The only two who remained awake with me were Laika and Alyona. I shifted in my seat and looked over my shoulder at the two women. Laika sat behind Alyona on the bed and had a wide-toothed comb in her hand. The wolf gently ran the comb through Alyona’s dark hair, and I wondered if Laika’s pack instincts were soothed with that action. My own instincts begged me to join the two women as they groomed each other, but I made myself settle for clenching my fingers together on the table.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from them, though.
Alyona’s face had been washed clean of all the blood that had dripped down from the cut on her head, and she’d yet to put on a face veil again. I took this opportunity to drink in the delicate and beautiful features of her face. There was a pale flush to her cheeks, and her tongue darted out to lick her soft lips.
“How is your head, my Lady?” Laika murmured softly as she worked to untangle a knot.
My gaze darted to the Demi-Human. The embroidered gorget that she always seemed to wear had been set on the end of the bed, and her usual leather armor had also been set aside. She wore wide legged trousers and a baggy shirt made out of a dove gray fabric that clung to her toned body. Blue trees were embroidered all along the hems of her clothing, and her tail wagged gently in time with each pass of the comb through Alyona’s hair.
“It is not so bad.” Alyona fiddled with the hairpin in her hands.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to heal you?” I spoke softly so the sound wouldn’t hurt the priestess’s sore head. “I can just shift back, there’s a puff of glitter, and that pretty head of yours will be as good as new.”
Alyona shook her head and winced in regret. “No, you should rest as well. I’ll be fine.”
I had put on a strong front, but I was tired to the bone. Healing all the villagers had left me more exhausted than I had expected it would. I almost couldn’t believe that everything had happened in one day. From fighting stone giants, healing dozens of people, and then getting attacked by murderous smoke.
“If you say so…” I leaned back in my chair, and my eyes drifted again to the black smoke that swirled inside its crystal prison. “So, tell me everything you know about the miasma.”
Laika tilted her head and stopped combing Alyona’s hair for a moment. “It is corruptive, it destroys the body, and it kills the victim.”
“I can see that,” I mused dryly. “But how does it spread?” I picked up the jade ink brush on the table and twirled it in my hand. “Do people breathe it in and then they go crazy, or what?”
“Some have a higher tolerance, so they breathe it in but are weakened instead of corrupted,” Alyona replied as she tapped the gilded jade hairpin against her soft lips. “Others are corrupted the moment the miasma touches their flesh. But usually, from infection to death, it can take anywhere from twelve hours to a few weeks.”
“It can also be spread by saliva or by blood,” Laika added. “And the miasma grows stronger with every person it corrupts and kills.”
I hummed contemplatively and continued to twirl the brush in my hands. What they described sounded like a viral disease. One of my professors had described viral diseases as hijackers since they both invaded and took contr
ol of a subject. In this case, the subject was living cells that were used to multiply and then spread. The way viral diseases and the miasma spread was also similar since they were both airborne pathogens that could also infect through bodily fluids. So, they sounded the same… except there was one thing that didn’t make sense.
The miasma didn’t just affect the body, it managed to control whoever it infected, and in turn they went psychotic. It was like the corrupted had become zombies, just like in a video game.
I thought about all the different games I had played that had zombies in them. Some of the zombies were mindless creatures that shuffled along in search of brains, while others could actually be controlled.
The villager who had attacked Alyona hadn’t been a mindless zombie. In his eyes there had been a cruel intelligence and an understanding of the situation. There was something controlling him, but I didn’t know if it was the miasma or something else.
“What about them attacking other people when they’ve been infected?” My eyes narrowed as I played the thought of zombies over in my mind. “Has that always happened or is it only recently?”
“According to the Blue Tree Guild records, this is only a recent development.” Laika’s ears twitched back as a shadow passed over her face.
“How far back do the records go?” I set the jade ink brush back on the table and leaned forward. “To when the miasma appeared?”
“Four, maybe five thousand years.” Laika tilted her head to the left and closed her eyes in thought. “We’ve gotten our hands on some records that are far older, reaching seven thousand years, and they’ve all described it the same way.”
“The records in my temple are extensive.” Alyona’s pupils were still a bit dilated from the concussion as she glanced over at me. “Our scholars noticed that the miasma has strengthened over the thousands of years that have passed.”
