Roony stepped into his room and began to undress for bed. It had been a long day leading his company, the Company of Silence. They were a very successful company, too successful some suspected. But there weren’t many to suspect left now, Roony had bought them all. In the chaos of the war he had only risen from strength to strength, lapping up deserters and vagabonds and turning them into militants who worked for the highest bidder. Right now that was the king and his Oaken Court but Roony suspected that they wouldn’t be paying well for very long.

He shrugged off his jacket and sat down in front of his brazier which was still burning. He didn’t know how long it would burn, possibly forever, especially with the fuel he had for it. He began to remove the rings that adorned his fingers and place them on the desk beside him. With his newfound wealth he had been able to buy all manner of rings and jewelry, all the fine things he so enjoyed.

He took off the last ring, a small black ring that twisted around a small topaz. He set that facing the fire. Then he reached into his pocket and took out the few strands of hair from the horse they had in their stables. No one could ride the horse, no one but Duren, and Duren was dead. Roony didn’t miss him much, he’d never been a very interesting person, Duren. But he missed his skill in battle. He’d only been beaten twice, once by a man in an impenetrable suit of armor and once by a trick set up by the collected forces of Castle Elkring. But Roony had his horse, the unicorn with its horn burned away. And as long as he cared for it, kept it happy and warm, especially warm, it didn’t mind if he took a few hairs from its mane now and then.

He sprinkled them into the fire and sat back to watch it burn. The topaz in the ring began to blaze almost with its own light and slowly, ever so slowly, another presence began to settle into the room. The fire didn’t blaze this time, instead it flickered and glimmered and seemed to almost want to go out. Roony almost panicked but he held himself back, the fire wouldn’t go out, it couldn’t go out. Could it?

“Castle Elkring is weak,” he said to the fire. “I would so like to march in there and take it from that pitiful king.”

The fire flickered fitfully in response. Roony fought the rising panic and remained seated, calm, in control. The Lord of Fire answered in his strange way, a way without words or meanings but with terrible terrible intent.

“You want resistance to the plagues that ravage Elkring?” Raqos asked. That was unusual, he never asked, he usually knew all he needed to know.

“Yes,” Roony replied eagerly. “Resistance for me and my men.” He stared into the fire and it flickered before him. It took a long time, far longer than he’d been expecting, but slowly warmth began to spread over him. Slowly the fire before him began to burn far far back behind his eyes. Burning away all the organs and flesh that could possibly grow sick.

Far far away in the Forest of Topaz, safe in his own realm, Raqos shuddered in fear.

Gushkabel sat at the foot of Magda’s bed, listening to the other patients coughing and crying softly in the night. There were many different diseases now, and Gushkabel had seen none of them before. She looked down at Magda, huddled up in blankets slick with sweat. Gushkabel wanted to curse, to scream. She was a witch, she had treated every disease under the sun for the people of Karasar and beyond. Yet now, she was powerless to help her friend.

It wasn’t just that though, she could deal with even that. The truth was that all her rage and fear was to mask the sadness that threatened to envelop her. The sadness that even after she’d come to Magda begging for help she had still treated her like a lesser witch, a lesser person. Not a colleague, a rival, an inferior rival at that. But they’d both known that without her knucklebones, the Bones of Hahkenata that could predict the future, she was barely a witch at all. What could she do against all this sickness and disease now that Magda was gone, and the Witch Queen too? She’d tried locking up the sorceress but that hadn’t helped. Maybe she was angry at them now and was making the plagues worse. What did she want? Why was she here? Was she really here only to help? Gushkabel had seen the sorceress do many seemingly heroic things but she still had a hard time believing it.

She sat by Magda’s bed and watched her sleep for a long time. Then eventually she got up and made her way slowly out of the great barrack that had been filled with beds and turned into a hospital. All through the room, little things crawled.

The sorceress sat in her cell and looked around at the many roots of the great oak tree that made up the prisons of the castle. Around her other criminals whispered and hissed at each other in hushed tones. They were talking about her of course, what else was there to talk about?

Some of them were sick too, somehow the plagues had made their way all the way down here. She wasn’t sick of course, she was a sorceress, she couldn’t get sick. She could make diseases though. That was one of the most powerful weapons of a sorcerer and one that she had never ever used. Sorcerers had many powers and over their long lives they could work with a certain one, making that one more and more powerful.

Famous sorcerers from history had done things like that. There was Ghizeth the Hasteful, a sorcerer who had focused on the magic that flowed through his muscles and organs keeping him alive. Growing it stronger and stronger until he could outrun the swiftest of birds. There was the Culler, a sorceress who had mastered her control over people to such an extent that she could simply command them to die. Then there was Monmoria, the plague sorceress. She was the one Gushkabel had talked about earlier, the one who could not only start devastating plagues, but end them as well. She had been ancient though, and the sorceress didn’t doubt she’d done a lot of experimenting to get to that level. Was she supposed to do that? Was it the only way to save Elkring?

She listened to the whispers of the criminals around her. They were criminals right? Was she supposed to set plagues on them just to see if she could call them off? That didn’t seem right. What if she couldn’t call them off and it just made the problem worse? She put her head in her hands and stifled a long sigh. What was she to do?

She felt an itch on her arm and scratched it. That was strange, what could have caused something like that? She looked at the arm, it was hard to see in the half light of the dungeons but it looked like it had a rash.

Panic shot through her, she was a sorceress, she didn’t get sick, she couldn’t get sick?. But her arm itched all the same.

Marson was sick of all the magic and monsters and wars. He wished that things would get back to normal and he could guard the walls of the castle in peace. But now there was a plague, perhaps several plagues. He never got a moment's break.

He looked up at the great oak tree that grew through the castle. All his life and all of living memory it had been there, strong and resolute in the face of whatever changes shook the world. He was in charge of guarding the highest wall and he looked up at the great leaves above him. They were green of course, they had always been green. They had to always be green because the tree didn’t change. But it was changing. Across the green leaves there were little spots of black, and they were growing slowly bigger.

He turned around and looked back down at the land beyond. The land full of deserters and vagabonds he had to guard against.

He watched as his least favourite group of deserters and vagabonds rode up to the gate. The Company of Silence flying their banners of a knife through a tongue. No one could miss the blatant mockery of the king’s own son that was inherent in those banners. The king let it slide though, he was in need of every sword arm he could get.

Marson didn’t like them. He didn’t like anyone who would openly mock his king and he especially didn’t like anyone who worked only for money. The enemy had money, they had a lot of money, and they were out there somewhere, no matter how thoroughly they’d disappeared.

Gushkabel trudged down the stairs of the castle, deep into the lower levels where the roots of the great oak tree twisted around through the walls. She had done all she could for the patients at the hospital yesterday and most of it hadn’t helped. She had only one feeble hope left, and she dreaded it.

She walked into the prison and through all the cells made of metal bars woven with stone woven with oak tree. It would have been impressive if her mind hadn’t been so lost thinking about other things.

Around her the prisoners coughed and muttered. She could see some of them were sick too, somehow the plagues had even managed to reach their way down here. Well the prisoners would have to wait, they didn’t have enough people to treat the innocent, never mind those locked up here. She looked at them as she walked, it was difficult to believe they’d ever get to treating those locked up here.

She reached the sorceress who was examining one of the roots that wove through her cell. She didn’t seem to notice Gushkabel.

“What are you doing?” Gushkabel asked and the sorceress almost jumped. That was strange, Gushkabel knew the sorceress hated her but she didn’t fear her, and even if she did she wasn’t the type to jump like that? What had gotten her so afraid?

The sorceress turned around and walked up to the bars. “The tree is sick,” she whispered. “The roots are rotting away from within. I don’t know what-”

“The tree can’t be sick,” Gushkabel interrupted. “It’s the Oak Tree, it doesn’t change, it can’t change.”

“Well it is changing. I’ve been locked up in this prison with nothing else to do so I’ve been looking at it and its sick.”

“Well can you-”

“Do anything about it? Tell me, when was the last time you heard of a sorcerer making plants sick? Is that something we can do? Because I’ve never heard of it.”

Gushkabel narrowed her eyes. “Just because it’s never happened before doesn’t mean it can’t happen now. I’ve never heard of this many plagues in one place for instance.”

“Do you think you would have heard of a sorceress who could do something like this? Our powers require practise! If I had enough power over plagues to cover a city in them many times over I would be infamous for doing it! How many sorceresses can you name who could do anything like this?”

“Well...” Gushkabel began. “One.”

“Yes, one! Monmoria. Remind me again what happened to her?”

Gushkabel sighed in frustration. Everyone knew the story of Monmoria and Prane. The story that showed how, technically, there were two ways to kill a sorcerer. They were two sorcerers who had decided to try and reproduce, to create a sorcerous child. They had both died along with everything for miles around from a hideous blight. No sorcerers had ever tried that again.

“And,” the sorceress continued. “It gets worse. The oak tree may be magic but it is still a tree, and we all know trees can get sick. But,” she slammed her arm into the bars right in Gushkabel’s face. It was red and bumpy, a horrible rash stretching almost to her fingers. “Sorcerers,” she said intently. “Do, not, get, sick.”

Gushkabel staggered backward in horror. It couldn’t be. She had studied sorcerers her whole life, looking for ways to kill them. You couldn’t kill a sorcerer with disease, they were sustained by magic, they didn’t have bodily functions to fail. She didn’t think, she just ran. Out of the dungeons, back up the stairs, back into the ground levels of the castle. Behind her the sorceress screamed to be let out, screamed that there was no way it could possibly be her fault. Gushkabel barely heard her, she just wanted to get away, to get away from a disease so deadly it could infect a sorceress.

She staggered to a halt at one of the castle’s windows and looked out to see the Company of Silence marching into the courtyard. She barely registered who they were for a moment but eventually her panicked brain caught up. She appreciated that they kept the immediate vicinity clear of all the rabble left over after the war but she still didn’t like them. And she especially didn’t like their leader, Roony.

What were they all doing here? Why bring so many armed mercenaries into a city they were supposed to be guarding? She went through the castle to the throne room, the place of what was left of the Oaken Court. No Sireth, no Eyr, no Vered, no Peppers, no Nath, no Magda, and not even the sorceress. What was left of them now?

As she walked she heard voices, she really thought the Oaken Court should be better protected against eavesdropping, they often discussed important things in there.

It seemed as though Roony was talking to the king about something. With their luck there was probably some enemy force they’d have to fight off. But why had the whole company come to tell them that? Was the force bearing down on them already?

Lost in her thoughts and stress Gushkabel barely heard the sounds of a battle in the throne room. But she quickly shook off her idle thoughts and started to run. The battle didn’t last very long. How could it? The Company of Silence greatly outnumbered whatever guards would be in the throne room.

She burst into the hall leading to the great doors of the Oaken Court. They were flung open and beyond them she saw Roony take king Ramon Elkring by the hair and shove him to the ground. The king cried out in alarm but before he could stand Roony ran him through with his sword.

Then he looked up and saw her and she swore there was fire far far behind his eyes.

“Get her!” he shouted and she turned and ran. There was only one place to run. Only one person who could save her now. She ran to the sorceress.

But she was an old woman and the Company of Silence were all young and fit men. They caught her long before she reached the dungeons and cast her to the ground. They didn’t kill her though, they might have use for a witch.

She grimaced as they dragged her away. They wouldn’t have much of a use for her though. She wasn’t much of a witch.

In the barracks converted into a hospital Mother Magda slept fitfully. In the tiny gaps of consciousness she managed to snatch she tried to tell someone, anyone, what was going on and what they had to do. But there was rarely anyone around and they could never understand what it was she meant by her ramblings. It didn’t help that she filled them with names that meant nothing. Venesstrifect, a name too long for anyone to remember even if they heard the whole thing before she slipped away, and Maeggy, a common name that could’ve been anyone. There were multiple Maeggy’s in the hospital already, most weren’t doing much better than Magda. But she kept clinging on and she kept rambling, desperate to tell someone what to do. Desperate to tell someone about Maeggy.

A woman with a floppy hat walked toward Castle Elkring. In one hand she held a long two pronged staff and in the other she held a bag containing the Stone of Falling Stars which whispered words of hatred into her head to try and get her to use it. The gates were still guarded, even in times of plague but they weren’t guarded against women like her. So Maegara the Thief, daughter of Maegritte, daughter of Madga, walked into the infested city of Castle Elkring.