it in her, but she found this place truly creepy.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if all the incurable diseases that existed on earth were just the remnants of the contagion that had come down to us.”
Rhianon saw the lights of a village in the distance.
“What is there? Is it a place where ghosts dwell?”
“It is worse,” he drew her to him, as if to shield her from the decay around her. “Come, I’ll show you.”
He led her to the little village faster than she’d expected. It seemed that even now, as he stepped on the contaminated ground, he was not walking, but flying. The golden sandals on his feet didn’t have earth or lumps of dirt clinging to them. He clutched his companion to him as if he wanted to carry her with him through space. Rhianon marveled. She was sure that if she had walked alone, it would have taken her most of the night to reach the mud huts. She’d seen the village so far from the heath that the low, one-story houses seemed like dots against the horizon. Now she stood beside them and could even peer through the windows. It took only a few minutes to get all the way here. Yes, with a companion like hers she didn’t need speed boots. Rhianon walked through the narrow, dirty streets, leaning here and there to one window or the other. Sometimes the light inside was on. People were awake, but they looked so haggard they probably couldn’t get out of bed. The narrow bunks, soaked with the stench of disease, were not even beds.
“What a miserable place this is!”
“They’re all sick,” Madael said. His voice echoed through the dull silence with an unusual golden echo, bringing a kind of magic to the darkened alleyways. Even the pestilence and epidemic vibes that danced there seemed to stop for a second.
“Death was already dancing on these logs, walls, thatched roofs, but people didn’t die for long. And anyone who wanders in here is also infected. After a while, no one will be alive here, and anyway, if, centuries later, anyone who wanders in here accidentally or on purpose and seeks adventure, the same thing that happened to them will happen to them. You can’t clean a place like this.”
“But your tower is untouched by the pestilence, built at the very heart of the pestilence,” she blinked when she realized what she had said was foolish. Of course his tower could not be affected by the disease, and neither could he.
“Why did this village seem so close to your land?” She asked instead.
“You see that mountain range there in the distance,” he pointed ahead. “They call it the Dark Spit, and you don’t want to go near it. There’s a lot of strange and dangerous stuff up there, except for the Ifrit up there, who’d throw stones at anyone, but there’s a lot of gold up there, too. Precious ores, stones, gems, everything valued by mortals, are found in such abundance in that black hole as nowhere else. One day a stranger in a black robe came to the village and showed the people a handful of gold nuggets. He succeeded in awakening their greed and luring them closer to the Dark Spit. He said that he had mined it all there himself and would now live like a rich man, and that there was more treasure left for them in the mountain womb. Enough to make several countries rich, let alone a single village. In a ring of mountains, closing in the shape of a sickle, he suggested that they build a mine. So the peasants abandoned their ploughs, cattle and homes and decided to settle close to the mountain range. No warnings from spirits or ghosts had any effect on them. They even built a village here. The houses turned out so miserable because before they could set them up, the epidemic had already done its work.”
“Dark Spit. Is that the name of those mountains?” Rhianon squinted, staring at the massifs drowning in darkness. She couldn’t see much in the dense darkness until gold sparkles flickered before her pupils.
“They curved in the shape of a braid, you see?”
Now she could really see. A slight glow began to illuminate the darkness in front of her. In spite of the sparks, everything around her remained gloomy, but at the same time it was clearly visible. Was this really how Madael saw the night, dark but full of clear outlines and stars?
It is very much like the scythe of death,” he grinned. “If you like, I can take you above them and let you see for yourself.”
“Better not,” she thought of the altitude they’d have to fly to get around the mountain tops and felt sick with fear. Or rather, it was not the murderous fear of heights that she had felt before, but only a slight tremor. Even that, however, was rather unpleasant.
“I’d rather walk on the ground.”
Even if it’s contaminated, she added to herself. As Madael had put it, death was dancing in every nook and cranny, but Rhianon didn’t see it, and she wasn’t afraid of it. She peered through the windows, noticed the sick, and then moved on to the next house. Everywhere the same thing, only once she dared to go inside. The door was ajar, and the candle’s light attracted her. It smoldered faintly, like a life already departing.
Madael followed her in, wings almost touching the doorjamb. It looked as if it should have left a fiery imprint, but there was none. Rhianon saw another angel-like creature sitting by the dying girl’s bedside. She suddenly wanted to hold a mirror up to it, as she had done the first time, and see how it was reflected in it, but there was no need. The tattered wings and bruised face were still beautiful. The bright white wasn’t black even on the feathers, but it wasn’t ghostly either. More like the color of chalk or paper than a ghostly sheen. Rhianon stopped. The bruises under her eyelids gave the impression that the angel was crying blood. Or maybe he really was crying. The sores-covered girl in the narrow bunk did not wake up. She could not see that a strange guest was sitting by the barely lit candle, as if to catch her last breath.
“Sethius!” Madael froze on the threshold and looked sternly at the man sitting by the candle.
Rhianon was about to ask him why this angel still kept an attractive appearance, but then the head with ruffled curls lifted and the bruises on his face suddenly became sharper, along with them came the burns and bruises. A moment more and he lost much of his attractiveness. The light arcs of his eyebrows turned black, something disgusting that resembled bugs crawled across his skin. Sethius could have been mistaken for a work of marble, so white he was, were it not for these glaring imperfections.
“I don’t…” He could barely move his split tongue, a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth. “I don’t do anything you can’t do.”
“Then keep doing it,” Madael gestured to Rhianon toward the door. He was going to leave and leave the creature here. At the threshold, Rhianon turned around. She saw Sethius lean over the dying woman. He was not frightened by the sores or the supernatural contagion. He almost pressed his lips to her throat, as if he were really going to catch her last breath and the life that was flying away.
“He thinks he’ll regain his former appearance, at the expense of the others’ beauty,” Madael whispered as they left.
The candle, meanwhile, was almost out. There was only a tiny spark in the wick, but it too was about to go out. Rhianon could hear the faint whisper of an angel behind her, and she heard the rustle of wings. This time it seemed ominous to her. The black wings of death must have rustled just the same: wild and dreary. Not even the sound of a requiem would have upset her so.
Walking out of the house, she still felt like she was at a funeral.
“Sethius dreams of having his own crypt, and so do his friends,” Madael grinned for some reason. “It would be hard enough for them to have one, with all their pretensions.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You can’t. People survive on their own terms, and the damned have their own ways. Six of my best warlords have chosen to live on their own. Let them. I don’t need them anymore. Let them survive as they please. Now they have a burden on their shoulders.”
“What do you mean?”
“They