"Please, Cley, you must come. Something terrible has happened."
I stood slowly and shuffled to the door. My only solace was that I did not have to change, since I had spent the night fully dressed, supposedly ready for action. I opened the door.
"Cley," she said. "Roan has fallen asleep."
"Most enviable," I said as I reached up to block the sunlight from my eyes.
"No, I mean he won't wake up," she said, and I could now read the distress on her face.
Then through my fatigue the ordeal of the previous day came back to me. "Did he breathe much of the yellow fog yesterday at the market?" I asked.
"He wasn't at the market yesterday," she said. "He never went to the market. But last night, he sat with one of the neighbor's children who had been sent to sleep by the fog. The girl's parents were worn-out and didn't want to leave her unattended, so he volunteered to stay beside her till dawn."
"What have you done to try to wake him?" I asked.
"Everything," she said. "I even drove a needle into the palm of his hand, and he didn't so much as stir."
She begged me to accompany her back to their home so that I might take a look at him. I went along with her, in order to ease her worry.
"Do you think it's bad?" she asked.
It was very bad, but I didn't tell her that. At first I had thought that the fog had somehow affected the nervous systems of those who had been put to sleep by it, but now I realized that what we were dealing with was a disease and a virulent one at that. The incubation period in Roan's case had been a mere matter of hours. My training had not been in germs, but I knew a smattering about them from my basic biology classes at the university. I knew it was not beyond Below's powers to have either discovered or engineered a parasite that would cause these symptoms.
At the Hoods' home, I took one look at Roan, who was now laid out in his bed, and, seeing that smile on his lips, I counted him among the victims.
"What can we do?" asked his wife.
I shook my head. "Keep him comfortable," I said. "Try to force some water into him, but be careful not to drown him in the process."
"Isn't there anything else?" she asked. "I thought you might know of some plant of the forest that could bring him back to me."
"Herbs are useless here, Semla," I told her. "There is something else I've got to try." With that I turned and left the house. The minute I was outside, I started running.
I did not stop until I reached the marketplace, which was utterly abandoned. At its northern entrance is a bell that can be rung to bring the people of Wenau together for a meeting. The only other time we had faced a crisis in our history was three years earlier when the rivers had, after torrential rains, breached their banks and flooded part of the settlement. Now I hoped that there was still someone left awake to hear the call. I pulled its rope and sent out my alarm. Then I paced back and forth for a quarter of an hour, waiting.
Slowly, those who had not succumbed to the disease began to show, and by each of them I was told of at least one person they knew who had caught the sleep through the night and could not be awakened. When a good number of them had gathered, and it seemed there were no more coming, I raised my voice and begged for silence.
"By now," I said, "I think it is evident that Below has sent us more than an explosion. He means for us all to sleep to death. We could take the chance and hope that our loved ones will awaken, but knowing the Master, I would not count on that."
Both men and women began to shed tears, and the children gazed up at their parents with faces filled with confusion. It was these looks that gave me the courage to go on and make my proposal.
"Time is so crucial now. We must leave today for the Well-Built City. Our only hope is to find Below and somehow force him to divulge an antidote for this illness he has sent. All we can do is pray there is some cure for it."
"And how do you expect to get him to cooperate," yelled Miley Mac from the middle of the crowd. "We all remember him. We suffered as much as you did."
"I don't know," I said, "but if we do nothing, I'm afraid that both we and our settlement are finished."
"I'd rather wrestle the Devil, himself," said Jensen.
"Agreed," I said.
"It could pass," said Hester Lon but with so little conviction that the very tone of her words proved my point.
"We haven't time to debate. I'm going. Will anyone else come?" My request was met with silence. The good citizens of Wenau had lost their nerve in the face of tragedy. None of them looked me in the eye.
"I need a horse and a gun," I said, not quite believing the madness I was suggesting.
"I've got a horse you can take," said a voice from the crowd.
Someone else made an offer of weapons and another volunteered his hunting dog.
"Now, who will go with me?" I asked.
Not one of them spoke or stepped forward.
I waited for some time, thinking the silence might draw a few of them out. My spirits lifted as I saw Jensen take a step forward. But as he moved toward me, I noticed his eyes rolling back into his head. His lids closed, he uttered a low grunt and fell to the ground. Some ran from him, knowing he had the disease, while others gathered around to try to help. By the time I got to his side, he was lightly snoring.
From those who had offered provisions for my journey to the ruins, I secured a promise that they would deliver them to my home at dusk. My plan was to travel by cover of night in case Below had spies or assassins watching us. Paranoia, a constant companion from our days in the Weil-Built City, moved freely among us again, draping a friendly arm over the shoulders.
On my walk home, I watched the sky for a glint of metal and constantly scanned the underbrush and tree line for sudden movement. Whereas Below had sent the citizens of Wenau to sleep, he had also infected the place with a disease of opposing symptoms that transformed its usual repose into an atmosphere of nervous, jangling tension. I spoke aloud to myself for a sense of company, saying, "If you think you are scared now, Cley, wait until you are out on the plains and in the forests by yourself at night, riding toward the heart of this evil."
A wild turkey broke through some tall grass to my left just then, and I leaped to the side and gave a short scream. The bird stood there for a moment and looked quizzically at me before retreating. That stare with which the creature sized me up, as if to say, "Cley, you are a ridiculous specimen," made me laugh out loud. Here I was, the self-appointed champion of Wenau, about to start on a quest to slay the dragon. I pushed on toward home, while in my mind I looked forward to the day when I could again sit with Jensen by the side of the river, drinking field beer.
You can imagine my reluctance to sleep that afternoon, but, having had none through the night, I knew I would need to rest. At first, I was overtired and found it difficult to relax. The uncertainty of the future came to me in a variety of morbid and terrifying thoughts, not the least of which was my failure to succeed. Eventually, though, I fell warily into a dream of the green veil. In it, Drachton Below stood in the center of the marketplace, surrounded by the supine forms of all the inhabitants of Wenau. All were fast asleep and their faces were covered by scraps of a green material. A yellow mist curled around him as he beckoned to me.
"Your turn, Cley," he said, and flung a handful of sparkling dust in my direction. The cloud moved like a swarm, and I was amazed to see that it was composed of tiny metallic birds. They swept into my eyes, blinding me. I fought as best I could against the weariness that descended. As I fell to the ground, I heard the Master's voice.
"Come to me," he said, and I could feel the veil lightly landing on my face. I panicked in my sleep within a sleep, thinking, "I have caught the disease," and then suddenly came awake to the sound of a dog barking.
I scrabbled out of bed, dressed quickly, and went to the door. Upon opening it, I was greeted by a most unpromising sight. The oldest, saddest-looking gray horse I had ever seen was tied up to the crank handle of my well. The beast's spine was concave, its tail was a ragged whisk broom, and it kept its head bowed as if in humiliation at the physical state its years had visited upon it. Circling nervously between the well and the tree line was an underfed black dog, whose skeletal anatomy was completely evident through a thin scrim of hide. I had seen likenesses of him in allegorical paintings by the artists of antiquity. He was often depicted with a blind beggar, and was meant to represent Want.