Stars of Pale Fire

III. Dreams of the Plague.

  "How do I make it stop?"

  Silver's voice is hoarse. Gwynestri glances at him, wringing a cloth out, and sets it on his forehead. Silver gazes at her, and she gazes back. She looks shockingly young for a woman of her reputation—barely a day over twenty, if Silver had to hazard a guess. She sighs.

  "The fever will go down," she says, getting to her feet. "You have to let it break."

  "That isn't what I meant," Silver says. She knew that. Gwynestri knows everything. "The voices, the visions. How do I make them stop?"

  Gwynestri regards him in silence for too long of a moment. Silver gazes back. He can't move, after all, so he has nothing to do but gaze. This plague is a horrible one, robbing the body of movement but not brain power. He can't even bury his parents. No one can, not without catching this wretched illness. Not even Gwynestri.

  "It gets worse the fewer of you there are," Gwynestri says. "You're experiencing more now because your parents are dead." She says it with a certain clinical detachment. "Don't think too hard," she tells him with a serious sort of look. "You'll end up with a migraine."

  "All I can do is think." Silver stares at her. She's unnatural, more of a statue than she is a woman. Golden hair, golden eyes, skin like the sun's rays. Magic teems in her skin like blood does in everyone else's, and her awareness seems to extend beyond her body, a shimmering nimbus around her. "You're supposed to be able to do anything."

  "Who made that rule?" Gwynestri asks dryly. She pulls the blanket covering the cave entrance aside, allowing Elyon in. In his arms is a motley bundle of herbs. "You're late."

  "I had to dodge those wretched things," Elyon replies flatly, dumping his bundle into the corner. His hair falls in his eyes, which shimmer with the retained light of the moon. Elyon, too, looks other-than. Like some sort of monster, or an art piece that learned to breathe.

  Sensing Silver's eyes on him, Elyon looks up. "What's up, kid?"
 
  "I'm not a kid," Silver says flatly. "My name is—"

  He breaks into a coughing fit, the kind that takes hold of his nerves and pulls, the kind that wraps a steely hand around his throat and slams him into the ground. Blood splatters across his blanket and tunic, bluish blood that reeks of herbs. Silver can't even sit up properly, his muscles refusing to obey his mind's commands.

  Gwynestri sets a hand on his chest, and Silver stills, the coughing ceasing. It lingers in his throat, clawing like a rat, and then it disappears. Silver gasps for breath, feeling dizzy. Gwynestri pulls the cloth off his forehead. It's warm already, steaming in the cold air. Silver shudders.

  "My name," he repeats, "is Azul."

  "Well, Azul, you should shut your mouth and go to sleep." Elyon unclasps his cloak, tossing it straight into the air. The cloak disappears midway through like something's eaten it. Elyon crosses his arms.

  "I can't. Sleep is where dreams are, and dreams are where the ghosts are."

  "Ghosts aren't real."

  Silver glares at Elyon. He hates Elyon. Elyon hates him, too. "Fine, that's where the souls of the freaks like me are."

  "What do these freaks want?" Elyon asks.

  "Everything."

  "That's vague."

  Silver inhales deeply, mustering a reply, and Gwynestri sighs, glaring at Elyon. "Leave him be," she says. "He's ill."
 
  "That's not my fault."

  "El."

  Elyon rolls his eyes skyward. Gwynestri looks at Silver. "I can't make the visions go away," she says. "They're not an illness of the mind, or any kind of magic I can fight. They're part of you, as much as your own brain is."

  Silver would cut his head off with a rusty butter knife to get rid of them. He says, "What are they from?"

  "It's a sort of generational curse," Gwynestri explains as she bends down and begins to crush the herbs into some sort of foul-tasting concoction. It's useless. There's no cure for this plague, that much Silver knows. "I'm not sure where it began. You retain all the memories of everyone in your bloodline. Sometimes, they manifest. When there's more of you, the memories become... scattered."

  "Scattered."

  Gwynestri nods. "But there aren't many of you these days."

  "And what am I, exactly?"

  Elyon turns a gaze on him, the moon burning in his eyes. "I think you know the answer to that," he says shortly.

  Silver awakes with a start, and snaps to sit up, a pounding headache at his temples. He blinks twice before he remembers where he is: the inn, crammed in with all the other boys. Elyon, in his infinite penny-pinching wisdom, had gotten two rooms. For the eight of them.

  Annoyance spikes up Silver's spine, angry and deliberate, and he gets to his feet, horrifically disoriented. His brain swirls, several voices vying for attention at once. He can feel a cough rising in his chest, and gags on the taste of his own blood, a disturbingly floral taste. He stands for a moment on the cold wood floor of the inn, head in hands, tamping down an unnatural rage.

  After a moment or so, there's some shifting, and Elyon looks at Silver. His eyes seem to glow in the darkness. "Silver?" He asks, voice hoarse from sleep, and Silver has the irrational urge to strangle him. His fingers twitch as if he's going to do it. "What's the matter?" Elyon asks, shifting so he's upright.

  "A dream," Silver says. It's fading already, leaving only the vaguest details. Elyon was in it. He knows that much. He can feel himself trembling all over, as he always is, but this tremor seems to hurt, seems to dig into his bones and grate. He blinks sharply, staring at nothing.

  Elyon looks at him for a moment, and sighs, lying back down. "Go to sleep. There is a long day ahead of us. With the morrow comes trouble."

  "...right," Silver murmurs. He inhales deeply, holds it for a count of eight, and lets it go, the pain subsiding. "Good night, Elyon."

  Elyon is already asleep.