you,” she advised them. “It will protect you.”
Seeing they did not understand her, the translator took the canteen and used some of the water on himself, passing it to the children with a few hopeful words.
Simon looked back. The boys seemed sceptical, but they splashed the water on their skin and drank deeply all the same.
“There’s not enough water,” Aldric complained.
“It’s something,” she said, sounding annoyed. “The mixture is weakening in the sun, but it’ll help them if they aren’t already sick. Let them have it.”
“There’s not enough,” repeated Aldric in a grim tone, for they had reached the centre of town. He was staring ahead. Amid old, broken-down cars and trucks, there was a group of low, flat buildings. Through the open doors, Simon could see many people lying on beds. He stopped his horse and surveyed his surroundings.
He grimaced. The people were choking and gasping for air. Some men lay in doorways, lifting their arms weakly. And then Simon realised that every single person there had lost all their hair. The man in the doorway, the women gathering water at the well, the sick he could see in the beds – all were completely bald. It was jolting. Simon looked back. The boys who led them in had shaven heads, or so he had thought, but now he could tell that several of the other villagers, many of them children, had lost their hair as well.
“How long has this sickness been here?” Aldric demanded. “Ask this man.”
The translator got out of the car, keeping his distance as he questioned a man in a doorway. “Six days,” the translator reported. “One boy arrived in town and grew ill, and from the second day, it spread to everyone. Weakness overtakes you. You have no desire to live, no strength. There is …”only one mercy. There are five deaths every hour,” the translator choked on the words. “In another day, the entire town will be gone.”
Simon swallowed hard, the reality hitting him. He looked at Aldric, whose eyes burned with anger. Alaythia got out of the Jeep and moved towards the man, bringing him the last canteen.
“Alaythia, please,” Aldric said quietly. “You can still catch this disease. Let Simon help him; his blood is stronger than yours.”
Simon took the canteen from Alaythia, who moved back, looking helpless and angry. The boy gave the man a drink from the canteen.
“It won’t do much good now,” said Alaythia and she looked at the translator. “But tell him it’s strong medicine. He may believe it. It may help.” And indeed, the man’s eyes brightened as he took the drink.
“Now ask him if there has been anything else unusual,” Aldric ordered.
The man told them there had been thousands of vultures gathered on the veldt outside the town before the disease struck.
“Thousands?” asked Aldric.
“And jackals as well,” the translator explained. “Many scores of them.”
“Where did they gather?” asked Simon. He knew, as his father did, that where there were ripples in nature, there were dragons.
“I know the place,” said one of the boys who’d led them. “You bring some of that medicine to my mother and I will show you where the scavengers settled, miles up the road.”
Aldric looked to Simon, who held the canteen.
“No, not him,” said the boy, pointing to Simon. “The woman must bring it. My mother will not be seen by men in her state.”
As the translation came, Aldric nodded, understanding. Alaythia needed no prodding; she took the canteen from Simon and followed the boy past some buildings to the first of several large, plain-canvas tents on the edge of town. The tents were left over from an old UN operation and had been set up as quarantine early on, the boy explained through the translator, who hurried to keep up with Alaythia.
Vultures and jackals stood waiting a few metres away. They had been hidden by the buildings. Their eyes followed her with interest.
Alaythia took one look back at Aldric and Simon, and entered the tent behind the boy. She heard the translator follow her with a rustle of the tent flap.
Inside, decorated blankets lay on the floor. Masks were hanging on the walls, while the sweet smell of incense filled the tent. Two old women lay in cots on either side of the tent and their eyes begged for mercy.
A teenage boy knelt between them and he greeted the first boy with a weary nod. The translator stood back at the entryway, seeming to apologise for disturbing the elderly women and perhaps explaining the necessity.
“I have medicine,” said Alaythia, but she did not move closer to the women.
The translator helped them exchange words:
“What do you ask in return?” asked the second boy, suspicious.
“We’re looking for something,” Alaythia answered. “We need a guide. But you can have the medicine even if you don’t help us.”
“You are looking for the Unseen,” said the boy, fearful.
“The vultures and jackals outside,” Alaythia said. “We want to know where they came from. There was a place they gathered on the first day …”and there would have been fire near there …”Do you know it?”
“What is there if you find it?”
“We are looking for two beasts. They are brothers and they work together. Very unusual. They are serpents but they look like men. They brought the disease to you …”They like to see suffering; they feed on it.”
One of the old women shifted in the bed and propped herself up on one elbow to get a look at Alaythia. But Alaythia’s own eyes were drawn to the flies that had gathered on the floor, rivers of them, hundreds, easing up from between the rugs. She began to tremble.
Outside, Simon had a bad feeling and began moving his horse towards the tent. Aldric followed. As soon as his eyes fell upon the masses of jackals and vultures gathering, Aldric knew. “The brothers. They’re here.”
Simon and Aldric spurred their horses towards the tent.
If they did not move quickly, there would be a new skeleton in the African sun.
Inside the tent, Alaythia stared at the two old women muttering at her in an unfamiliar language and she saw the healing fluid in her canteen bubbling over, boiling. She dropped it as the metal burned her hand. The translator tried to catch it, but burned his own fingers. He yelped and fled from the tent, cradling his hand.
“Uncareful magician,” said one old woman, hissing in English. “We have long awaited you—”
“Moritam kettisem sedosica,” cried Alaythia, spell-chanting. “Do not cast your fire, dragon – I have taken the power of your skin; you will not be armoured against the flame.”
“Lies!”
