The Book Gatherer

Chapter Twenty-One

Honi woke to someone shaking her shoulder.

"Honi, Honi," they whispered. "Please, Honi, wake up!"

"Awake," she croaked, eyes still shut, then erupted in a long fit of coughing. Her fingers immediately crept to her bookbag's shoulder strap, but of course it wasn't there. She fought down a wave of panic and coughed more.

"Oh, thank the Sky Serpent. You breathed in far too much smoke."

She recognized that voice. Fury shot through her body like lightning, waking her up fully and flooding her with the strength to sit up. "Firek," she snarled, fighting back the urge to cough again. "What are you doing?"

He glared at her, sitting back on his heels. "I'm saving your life, idiot."

Surprise replaced some of her rage, but suspicion crept in just as quick. She narrowed her eyes at him. "What?"

He held a finger up to his lips. "Shhh. The flock's sleeping, but you're talking louder than it sounds to your ears. All of your senses will be a little off until your body fights off the drug completely."

"You drugged me?"

"Shhh! I'm serious, Honi! If anyone wakes up, we're both dead!"

Another bout of racking coughs stole Honi's snarky response. She doubled over from the force of it, barely holding herself off the ground. Firek touched her shoulder, as if to help, but she batted him away. She was too busy hacking up sooty saliva to notice the hurt in his eyes.

"If you don't believe me," Firek said quietly once she'd recovered, "then look around."

Honi lifted her head, scanning the camp. The bonfire had burned down to its last logs, only a few flames flickering up now and then. The bodies of sleeping warriors lay randomly around it, like a child who'd left their dolls scattered after play. Tents sat slumped over like distant mountains, fog wrapped around their peaks. It was early early morning, the sky still dim. A low haze of smoke blanketed the ground, blurring objects into indistinct shadows and shapes. It was bleak and dull, nothing like the previous night of wild color and crazy fire. Honi shuddered at the memory, the image of Yutinah's grinning, bleeding face a haunt in her mind that refused to leave.

"What happened?" she whispered, staring at the dreary scene. She dragged her gaze to Firek's clear, hard eyes, so much like the sky. "Last night I . . . I saw . . . things. Visions. What happened? Drugs?" What did you do to me, Goggles?

"What did you see?" Firek asked. "In your visions?"

"Nightmares." She ducked her head away to cough into her elbow.

He nodded. "I saw them too, at first. Wonderful, amazing things. But terrifying. The drug can do some pretty crazy things to you."

Honi eyed him suspiciously. "At first, but not anymore? What's going on? What is this drug, and why aren't you out like the others?"

"It's the books," he explained. "The Earth Serpent's sick, his forest's sick, and so are his books. Even books that don't look diseased have been affected. And when you burn them the smoke has fumes that do weird things to you. Hallucinations, adrenaline rushes, volatile emotions oversensitivity to touch, smell, and sound, or the opposite of that, the dampening of senses . . . it's a long list. Eventually it becomes too much and the body shuts down." Firek gestured to the flock. He thought for a moment, then mused, "Could be a valuable asset in battle."

Honi snorted. "How do you know all of this?" She folded her arms across her chest. "I haven't heard anything like this, and this plague began months ago."