Post by Gillermo Stregazza on Jun 9, 2011 23:35:00 GMT -5
A year.
It had been a year since the Plague had hit the City of Elua, three years since the terrible illness, the fever, the rash, the infernal pain which I still recalled when I thought on it. How I left the City of Elua, I could never recall, but I was told, later, much later, that To-Biko had carried me to a carriage, feverish as my old friend was himself, in a last heroic gesture of loyalty.
From there, how the quarantine lines were crossed, I can only imagine – the Duchy never lacked in monies to pay off willing guardsmen and the mayhem, I suspect, did the rest.
And on to the coast of Azzalle, which I still cannot think of without my mind drifting to a woman's eyes who were as deep and changing as the ocean. Privilege is a brilliant thing, and the long sail home was made longer by the rumors of the D'Angeline plague. I was healed before I set foot on solid ground, and as I observed the desert coastline of unchartered country, I brooded.
So many beloveds left in Terre d'Ange, and no information on their survival. At the foremost of my thoughts, Cascata, my little sister, whom I'd brought to this doomed land in the hopes of preparing her for the Marquisat, dead, perhaps, in horrible suffering. She would have been safer home. I thought of Riva, too, so sweet and so gentle, and shuddered to think what fate had befallen her in those ill times. Mirielle, I did not allow myself to think about.
Yet returning was an imperative. I gave the order, heedless of the danger. By then, we were well off the coast of Catharge, a quarantine blockade prevented my plans, and we set out to open sea once more, for too long, perhaps.
I counted myself blessed by Asherat of the Sea herself, when her wrath destroyed our ship, leaving me and a few other men stranded on an unknown coast. Every day, I thought of To-Biko, and more so when men tall, proud, with skin dark as ebony approached us, wary at first, but soon confident as my friend ever had been. I could never not wonder if he would have survived, had he not spent the last of his strength on seeing me out of the house.
His language served me enough to communicate with them – between broken words, agreements were made, trades were agreed upon, and with a guide, the long trek back to Carthage began, along a flourishing coast of green, ripe with fruit and game. Slowly, the landscape changed, over months which stretched into years of river crossings, negotiations and skirmishes with rival tribes. Slowly, the humid air became dryer, until the unforgiving sun's rays dried the ground and made it crack like dried bread under our soles. Water became scarce, and we only owed our survival to the kindness of those we'd met on greener shores and who had given use waterskins.
From brittle bread, the ground became the color of blood, dry and sterile, and from there again, it turned to sand, into an endless beach that seemed intent on swallowing every one of us. The heat was so great that we travelled only a few hours a day, men dying one by one on the way up north, to Carthage. I fell, still, straggled and beaten, my face an unrecognizable mess of facial hair and dried skin, swollen lips begging for water.
Darkness fell upon me once more.
It had been a year since the Plague had hit the City of Elua, three years since the terrible illness, the fever, the rash, the infernal pain which I still recalled when I thought on it. How I left the City of Elua, I could never recall, but I was told, later, much later, that To-Biko had carried me to a carriage, feverish as my old friend was himself, in a last heroic gesture of loyalty.
From there, how the quarantine lines were crossed, I can only imagine – the Duchy never lacked in monies to pay off willing guardsmen and the mayhem, I suspect, did the rest.
And on to the coast of Azzalle, which I still cannot think of without my mind drifting to a woman's eyes who were as deep and changing as the ocean. Privilege is a brilliant thing, and the long sail home was made longer by the rumors of the D'Angeline plague. I was healed before I set foot on solid ground, and as I observed the desert coastline of unchartered country, I brooded.
So many beloveds left in Terre d'Ange, and no information on their survival. At the foremost of my thoughts, Cascata, my little sister, whom I'd brought to this doomed land in the hopes of preparing her for the Marquisat, dead, perhaps, in horrible suffering. She would have been safer home. I thought of Riva, too, so sweet and so gentle, and shuddered to think what fate had befallen her in those ill times. Mirielle, I did not allow myself to think about.
Yet returning was an imperative. I gave the order, heedless of the danger. By then, we were well off the coast of Catharge, a quarantine blockade prevented my plans, and we set out to open sea once more, for too long, perhaps.
I counted myself blessed by Asherat of the Sea herself, when her wrath destroyed our ship, leaving me and a few other men stranded on an unknown coast. Every day, I thought of To-Biko, and more so when men tall, proud, with skin dark as ebony approached us, wary at first, but soon confident as my friend ever had been. I could never not wonder if he would have survived, had he not spent the last of his strength on seeing me out of the house.
His language served me enough to communicate with them – between broken words, agreements were made, trades were agreed upon, and with a guide, the long trek back to Carthage began, along a flourishing coast of green, ripe with fruit and game. Slowly, the landscape changed, over months which stretched into years of river crossings, negotiations and skirmishes with rival tribes. Slowly, the humid air became dryer, until the unforgiving sun's rays dried the ground and made it crack like dried bread under our soles. Water became scarce, and we only owed our survival to the kindness of those we'd met on greener shores and who had given use waterskins.
From brittle bread, the ground became the color of blood, dry and sterile, and from there again, it turned to sand, into an endless beach that seemed intent on swallowing every one of us. The heat was so great that we travelled only a few hours a day, men dying one by one on the way up north, to Carthage. I fell, still, straggled and beaten, my face an unrecognizable mess of facial hair and dried skin, swollen lips begging for water.
Darkness fell upon me once more.