The Scourge

by Henley, A. G.

  Kora slips in next to us, holding my hand as usual. I introduce her to Peree as we follow the path from the village to the water hole. I wonder if I was wrong that this has to do with the Scourge. At home we would never bring children near the flesh-eaters. But nothing in Koolkuna is as I would expect.

  We turn toward the water hole, and the roar of the waterfall grows. It’s hard to hear the sounds of the forest now. The anuna are gathered, and more come. Arika greets us quietly, then speaks to Kora. I hear Kadee and Nerang. People stand in small groups, passing around cups of water from the water hole. We drink, too.

  “What’s going on?” Peree mutters. “Nerang didn’t say this was going to be a public apology.”

  “It’s the offering,” Kora says.

  “What offering?” I ask.

  “To the runa.”

  Peree whispers in my ear. “I don’t like this.”

  I don’t either. Huddling closer to Peree, I pull Kora into me. I can’t hear the creatures between the waterfall and the wind. I feel horribly exposed.

  The trees quiver and shudder, thrashed by the wind. No rain yet. Wirrim’s voice suddenly rises above the elements. I didn’t think he sounded strong enough to walk all the way here.

  “When the anuna came to Koolkuna many years ago, we knew it to be our ancestral home. We did not know it would also provide the sanctuary we required, away from the sick ones. We hid in the trees, sending only the quick and the brave to the water hole to gather our life-sustaining water—”

  A vicious crack of lightning interrupts him. I shield Kora as well as I can. Then I smell them.

  The Scourge is near.

  Peree drops his crutch and draws his bow tight. I clutch Kora. Wirrim speaks more urgently.

  “When we came to Koolkuna, we were afraid of the runa. But quickly we realized they were changing. They were different.”

  The flesh-eaters are close, in the trees around us. I hear them . . . but instead of moans and shrieks, I hear voices. Human voices. Pleading for food, for water. For someone to help them die.

  “What’s happening?” I ask Peree.

  He sounds haunted. “I don’t know.”

  “You do know,” Nerang says. “See them. See them as they really are."

  “But these creatures limp instead of sprint, their skin is cut and bleeding and bruised. Their hair is dirty and twisted. They look . . . ill. What happened to them?”

  Nerang answers. “They are the same. You are different.”

  “They can’t be the same. I’ve watched the Scourge tear people limb from limb,” Peree says. “I’ve seen them surge in packs over their prey. These things aren’t capable of that.”

  “What you saw was an illusion. An illusion caused by a strong poison, poison in the water you drink and the meat you eat,” Wirrim explains.

  “Poison? What are you talking about?” Peree says.

  Wirrim’s voice is gentle, like he knows this is difficult. “When I was a child, a lorinya came to Koolkuna from the City, searching for lost loved ones. Before she moved on she told us many stories, and among them, how the runa came to be. In the days before the sick ones, the people of the world were at war. When neither words nor weapons satisfied their hate, they used poison.”

  Thunder bursts. The creatures almost echo Wirrim, murmuring “war” and “hate.”

  “She said the poison was created many years before the Fall. It was so dangerous it was locked away, but later it was found by others who thought they could control it. They destroyed their enemies, and our world, in the same damning blow. The poison spread, uncontrolled, through the air and water, settling in the ground and the crops. It killed many people and animals. And it had another devastating effect: It caused people to lose their minds, their understanding—they went mad. No longer able to care for themselves, they became like senseless wild animals, desperate in their hunger and fear. These people joined growing groups of the similarly afflicted, and they became the runa. The woman who told us these stories called it a ‘madness of many.’ They have roamed the earth since that time.

  “Pockets of survivors like your people, those who do not die or go mad, are still vulnerable. Instead of seeing the runa as ill, you see grotesque, flesh-eating monsters—what you call the Scourge. You kill them, and you separate yourselves from them, in trees or caves, and so you avoid succumbing to the madness yourselves. But you live immersed in your fear, and the poisoned water feeds your illusions—sip by deadly sip.”

  He’s saying we’re all poisoned? Eland accidentally hit me in the head once with a rock. This sensation is similar, like whatever force keeps me upright and centered just wandered away. I speak for the first time, struggling to be heard over the wind, and the pleas of the creatures.

  “Why do they look and sound different to Peree and me now? What protects Koolkuna?”

  “When the anuna arrived here,” Wirrim says, “we drank from the Myuna and we no longer suffered from the madness. We could see the runa for what they were—people in great need of help. The Myuna comes from the Dark Place deep beneath the earth. It is pure; the poison did not contaminate it. Now you have drunk from it for many days, and eaten only the meat of animals who drink from it. The poison no longer controls your minds.”

  The sounds of the Scourge have changed. It’s as if I should have understood them all along, if I’d only been listening properly. Mesmerized, I take a step toward the creatures.

  “Fennel,” Peree growls. “Don’t.”

  “It’s okay,” Kora says, stepping with me.

  I stop. Walking into the Scourge myself is one thing, but allowing a child to get any closer is another. I’m about to tell her she can’t go, when Wirrim speaks again.

  “Bring the offering.”

  Kora moves forward. I try to pull her back, but Arika touches my arm.

  “Please don’t worry. She’s given the offering before.”

  “What is the offering?” Peree hisses.

  “Food for the runa.”

  “Food? You feed them?” he asks.

  “I’m going with Kora,” I say.

  The sickening smell grows with each step. That hasn’t changed. The instinctive terror from being close to the creatures crashes through me, but Kora and the others don’t hesitate. They walk to the edge of the clearing and stop in front of them. Dishes rattle as they’re laid on the ground.

  One of the runa speaks, its voice weak and feeble. “Thank you.”

  I reach out to it, pity overcoming fear. My trembling hand meets cold flesh for only a moment. It feels human, yet lifeless at the same time. The flesh of a corpse.

  “They don’t like to be touched,” Kora whispers, pulling me back.

  The sick ones take up the food. And as they melt back into the trees, every truth my life was built on vanishes with them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  People begin to leave the clearing as I make my way back to Peree’s side. Many touch me as they go, or speak to me with soft words of encouragement. I’m too stunned to respond. The trees sound like they’re being torn to pieces by the whipping wind, and we’re being doused with spray from the waterfall, but I barely notice. I don’t even hear Kadee move over to us, until she speaks.

  “Come to my home if you’d like. I’ll make you breakfast, and answer your questions.”

  I wait for Peree to respond, but he doesn’t, and after a moment, she walks away. I touch his arm, and realize his bow is still aimed at the line of trees, as if he thinks the runa will turn and charge us at any moment. He releases the arrow. A moment later it strikes a tree.

  “I can’t believe it. I wouldn’t have believed it, if I didn’t see them with my own eyes,” he whispers.

  I can’t believe it either. I didn’t see them, but I heard, and felt them. And that was enough.

  Kora waits on the path, joining us as we walk toward the village in silence. I’m surprised to hear people talking and laughing in normal voices, discussing their day—until I consider that wh
at was earth-shattering to Peree and me is accepted from a very young age by everyone else here. Kora is proof of that.

  “Do you want to go to your mother’s?” I ask him. I don’t know where else to go. Nothing feels real to me, like I’m waking from a nightmare, but only just.

  “Don’t call her that,” he murmurs, sounding as dazed as I feel. “She doesn’t deserve it.”

  “But that is her name,” Kora says.

  “What do you mean?” he asks sharply.

  “Mother is what Kadee means in our language.”

  “Why would she be called that?”

  “Mama said it was because her son was all Kadee talked about for so long, when she came to Koolkuna. Mama said she cried for weeks and weeks.”

  Arika calls to Kora, and she runs off. Peree doesn’t speak again, but as we wander through the village, I realize he’s leading us to Kadee’s home. She welcomes us in right away. The gentle warmth of the fire is a relief after the penetrating chill of the wind, and the shock of what we learned.

  “You have questions,” Kadee says, as she puts a pot of water on the fire to boil. I wait for Peree to say something, but he stays silent.

  “The water hole,” I say, “at home. It’s been poisoned for years? So when we drink from it, it plays tricks with our minds? Is the Scourge even dangerous at all?”

  “They can be. They aren’t the horrific creatures the poison creates in your imagination, but they are still hungry and desperate, like Wirrim said. They must feed themselves, as we all must. They eat animals—usually raw, which only makes them sicker—and they’ve been known to attack people, too, if they’re starving. It’s probably what led to the first reports that they consume human flesh.”

  That explains the bite, the night I fell asleep in the forest. The creature must have been hungry enough to take a bite and see if I fought back, like a scavenger animal. Rose’s plea echoes through my head. Was she still human at that moment, not yet consumed completely by the madness?

  “What happens to their minds?” I ask.

  “Our knowledge isn’t complete, but they seem to retain their awareness only for a short time. They forget who they were or how to care for themselves. And as far as we can tell, they don’t live long. They become ill, weak from exposure to the elements, and they die. They seem to travel in groups to give them an advantage in hunting, and perhaps as some vestige of how they lived before they became runa. Their name is derived from two words—boolkuruna, which means ‘homesick,’ and birruna, ‘dangerous.’ The sick ones are both.”

  She pours us each a cup of tea, and offers fresh bread and berries. I nibble a little, to settle my uneasy stomach. Peree remains mute.

  I ask, “What really happens when someone is being consumed, then?”

  “It’s difficult to understand, but the closer a vulnerable person—someone under the influence of the poisoned water—comes to one of the sick ones, the more likely they will slip into the madness and join the runa. It’s as if the sight, sound, and smell of the sick ones overwhelms their senses, and completes the illusion.”

  An unexpected rage floods through me. “This is unbelievable! All these years, all these generations of people, all the fear and pain and devastation—because of some poison that makes us believe things that aren’t true? Nothing since the Fall has been real?”

  “What is reality, Fennel?” Kadee asks gently. “It’s what we, as a group, believe to be true. If a group, aided by the powerful effect of a poison, believes it’s threatened by a mindless pack of monsters, then that is what’s real.

  “Ever since I was a little girl,” she continues, “I only saw the sick ones, never the Scourge. The creatures have always looked and sounded to me as they did to you today. I was more frightened by the violent reactions they caused in others than I was of them. When I tried to tell my parents what I saw, they seemed wary, fearful. They told me not to speak of it. So I never did. But it didn’t change what I experienced. It didn’t change my reality.”

  Peree grew still beside me as Kadee spoke.

  “Why are you different?” I ask.

  “Nerang says some people, very few, are unaffected by the poison. He doesn’t know why or how. I only know I never saw them as monsters, and the divide between what I saw, and what others believed to be true, only grew with the years. Peree, when you were young, the Council sentenced me to a night on the ground. Do you remember?”

  “It’s hard to forget your mother disappearing,” he says coldly. I touch his arm. When she speaks again, Kadee sounds like she's pleading. Pleading for Peree to understand.

  “I wandered for days, frightened and lost, until I found Koolkuna. These people took me in, and showed me for the first time that what I knew in my heart, but never revealed for fear of what others would think, was true. It was very hard to return home, but I couldn’t be away from you any longer. I missed you terribly.”

  Peree doesn’t respond.

  “I was eager to share my good news with our people, but my hopes were shattered when I told your father. He thought the time I spent on the ground had driven me mad. He said if I told anyone else, he would take you from me. So I tried to forget what I knew, and to carry on with my life, even if it meant living a lie. Eventually, I couldn’t do it any longer. I was miserable . . . ready to harm myself. The night I left, I told Shrike I was returning to Koolkuna, and I wanted to bring you with me. He flew into a rage, and threatened to kill us both. So I came back alone.”

  Peree scoffs. “Unbelievable. You blame Father, when you’re the one who abandoned us?”

  “No, of course not. Your father is a strong-willed, brave man, fiercely loyal to his family and his people–” I can only imagine the look Peree gave Kadee when she spoke of loyalty. “But he’s human. I didn’t expect him to believe me right away, but I did hope he might trust me enough to come see Koolkuna for himself.”

  “He wouldn’t go?” I ask.

  “Like Groundlings, there’s little Lofties fear more than exposure to the Scourge. Walking through the forest only on blind faith is a journey not many would be willing to make. Shrike was afraid I would spirit Peree away, take him where he didn’t dare follow—here to Koolkuna. No, he wasn't willing to go.”

  Peree was willing. It was through the caves, not the forest, but he came with me. I didn’t consider how daunting it must have been for him to leave the trees.

  “Son, to see the man you’ve become is a joy I didn’t think I’d ever have, the answer to my prayers over the last ten years,” Kadee continues. “I’ve been content here, but I wasn’t happy until the day the men carried you into the village from the Myuna—the day I saw you again. And to know you have a caring, faithful friend is an added blessing.” She squeezes my hand, and I smile at her.

  “Did you tell anyone else about Koolkuna, before you left?” I ask.

  “No, stars forgive me, I didn’t have the courage after Shrike’s reaction.”

  “But he knows you’re here now, or at least he knows Koolkuna exists,” Peree says slowly. “He may have told someone.”

  I almost choke on my tea. “Do you think he told Aloe? She was more supportive of the idea of me searching for the Hidden Waters than I thought she’d be.”

  “Shrike and Aloe have always been close,” Kadee says, a hint of something unexpected in her voice. Envy? Regret? “Or at least as close as a Groundling and Lofty could be. What did the Council say about you accompanying Fennel?”

  Peree snorts. “What Council? We don’t have one anymore.”

  “What? Why not?” She sounds genuinely shocked.

  “Not enough of us left to need one.”

  Haltingly, his voice pitched low, he tells her the story of the fever and its aftermath. As Kadee begins to cry, I excuse myself and slip out, giving them privacy. I need air, and time alone to think. My mind is overloaded with information and my body brims with pent-up emotion.

  A steady rain finally falls as I wander toward the clearing where I heard the sic
k one. Was that only yesterday? I’m just now starting to consider the implications of what we learned. Almost everything about my community, where we live, how we live, is based on the belief that the Scourge is monstrous, existing only to consume us. And the framework of my life as well—the combined gift and curse of my Sightlessness, my responsibilities of stocking the caves and collecting the water—was defined by the flesh-eaters. It collapsed in one morning.

  I reach the clearing. I can hear the stream bubbling over the soft thrum of rain on leaves. And I hear something else. Voices singing in the first language of the anuna. I stand under the canopy of a tree and listen, strangely soothed by the unfamiliar, discordant tune.

  Footsteps approach, followed by the sweet scent of clove blending with the fertile smell of moist earth. I wonder how Nerang keeps his pipe lit in the middle of a rainstorm.

  “Come in from the rain, young one.”

  I don’t move. “Why are they singing?”

  “It’s a song of celebration. The Myuna has not been as plentiful of late. Where is your friend?”

  “Talking with Kadee.”

  “Good, they have much to discuss.”

  I turn on him. “How long? How long have you known who we were?”

  “I suspected where you were from the moment I saw you. You were dressed so similarly to Kadee when she first appeared in Koolkuna. But I didn’t know who your friend was until Kadee told me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me what you knew?” And I don’t just mean why didn’t he tell me he knew where I was from, or that Peree was Kadee’s son, but all of it—all the secrets he’d been keeping. I don’t have to say it. He understands exactly what I mean.

  “First, because you were close to physical and mental exhaustion when you arrived. You needed time to rest and regain your strength. Second, Kadee needed to be the one to tell you both. How your friend may be related to my friend is not any of our business, despite what Kora’s doll might have to say on the matter.” I crack a small smile at that. “And third, you weren’t ready to hear it. You needed your strength, and you needed your friend to mend first. Those needs coincided with the amount of time required for you to drink from the Myuna before we showed you the nature of Koolkuna’s protection.”