‘The prophecy could just as easily be meaningless, or mean something completely different than this interpretation. You know how ambiguous Zichu’s messages are.’ Mejias argued casually over breakfast, her spoon clinking on the ceramic of her bowl as she ate. When they had first come to the city they had purchased a set of ceramic plates and bowls from a local potter, and this lone bowl was the only one that had survived Mejias and Hija’s childhood. Orikka poured them all out measures of coffee, cream and sugar in excess in their own cup, painted with the local pest, a gold furred monkey with the head and wings of a rooster, tiny, grabby monkey paws at the leading edge of its wingspan. They woke everyone obnoxiously whenever the sun rose, no matter what time skip had occurred the previous night. Orikka, uninterested in the discussion, wandered off, taking their cup of coffee out to the rooftop deck to watch the sunrise, as was their custom. Iseult wondered if their watching the sky so frequently was a wistfulness for when they inhabited it, rather than now when they were ground-bound.
Zichu’s acolytes had just the past night released a message they claimed to be a prophecy given by the god of visions, an obscure message claiming the end of death would begin with the ascension of a new god, who would crack the veil and release the plague’s hold on Sonsoliel, who the very sky would move to annoint. The phrasing was cryptic, defying interpretation, causing a flurry discussion among the citizens. Some however claimed that the timing was too coincidental and meant to distract from the gods’ previous inaction. That it was awfully convenient for the end of the plague to begin with yet another god.
Iseult wondered if the god of visions had foreseen Mejias’ presence in the city, if Zichu knew that she was destined to lead the gods to absolution. Would she see her own death on the horizon? ‘Do you think she’s talking about you, when she says a new god?’ Iseult suggested, hesitant to put the idea forward. ‘What, if I killed Nobi I would suddenly bring about the end of the plague?’ she said through a mouthful. She gulped down a swallow, ‘I, wait, are you serious? Do you really think that?’ ‘I, I don’t know, I mean, I just, it’s kind of a weird coincidence, right?’ Though Iseult and Orikka had told her about her demigodhood, they hadn’t explicitly told her that she was destined to become a fully fledged god herself. ‘You mean you would want me to corrupt my soul? I would become exactly what we’ve been trying to destroy.’ ‘But if it would end the plague,’ Iseult trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished. ‘You would have Nobi die.’ Mejias replied in disbelief. ‘Nobi wouldn’t really die, this body isn’t their true body, just a minute part of them in a vessel.’ Iseult hurried to clarify. ‘Did you, did you and Nobi plan this? You did, didn’t you? You planned on having me corrupt my soul. On me killing Nobi. That’s so, so messed up,’ Mejias peeked outside the sliding glass door towards where Orikka had gone, before looking at her with disgust. Iseult was cowed, but may as well reveal the rest, ‘Nobi would resurrect. You would be purified afterwards. You’d be powerful enough to open a gate to the soul world, to purify the other gods and abolish the corruption for good.’ Mejias scoffed, ‘You overlooked the part where murder is alright as long as the being comes back after,’ she shook her head, appalled. ‘I can’t emphasize this enough, I will never ever do something that will benefit the gods. I abhor them.’ She said with conviction, finishing her breakfast quickly and washing her dishes without looking at Iseult again.
Though Mejias claimed she would never take the next step and accept her heritage, Iseult did catch her eyeing Orikka speculatively. Was she considering what Iseult brought up, despite the resistance she had expressed before? The limitless power of godhood was a heady thing to resist, particularly with the promise of absolution. Especially with the turn Hija’s health had taken. He was back to bed rest, his breath thin and weak. Iseult could see the void increasing as the plague god overtook his health. Perhaps if Orikka refused to do anything she could reason with the god itself. Though she had no idea about where to find them. Perhaps at the heart of the sickness, where the void would be most condensed? It seemed as good a lead as any, and at least it was someplace to start.
Iseult walked through the hospital’s epidemic unit, where those affected by the plague were placed. Besides calling it the plague of Sonsoliel, or the great plague, people had begun referring to it as the white death, and the fade, as by the end of a patient’s life they were completely pale, drained of their breath and life force both. Amongst those fighting for their breath were doctors, nurses, and the occasional family member, all clothed in protective garb. Most families were limited from coming to reduce infection vectors, but allowances were made for those on the cusp of death. No one wanted to die alone. ‘Don’t worry,’ a woman whispered to a loved one, her hands wrapped around the older woman’s, ‘priestess Zichu has said salvation is coming, you just have to hold on a little longer,’ a tear trailed down the dying woman’s face, her mouth unable to respond through the intubation, her only communication the weakened tightening of her frail fingers. A ghost, invisible to the pair, looked down on them sadly. ‘It won’t be long now, and then we’ll be together,’ the dead woman soothed, her voice breaking as she stroked her wife’s white hair with pearly ghost-white fingers. ‘I can’t wait to hold you again, even if it means you’ve left our family behind. You are my heart and I am empty without you. Please don’t live and leave me to dissipate alone.’ Her ghost-tears fell transparent onto her lover's paling cheek. ‘I can’t bear for life to keep us apart.’ It was too personal a moment to be in a hospital ward, but there was no privacy here, among the doomed.
Iseult continued onward. The void intensified the further she stepped. A dark cloud lingered over in one corner, unaware people walking past the ominous being. The being was death incarnate, a personification of decay. A humanoid skeleton, more bones than any human could contain, all of them scrimshawed, carved with intricate whirls and patterns containing smiles with too many teeth and single staring eyes. The being’s fingers were long spindly things, needle sharp with too many knuckles. A single long curved horn emerged from the bony plate that was its skull. Rough stained black lace fringed a dark cloak made of some sort of loosely woven cloth, tattered like old burial cloth, a pulsing, living cloth, necrose, more alive than the being it enclosed. Who else could this be but the plague god. And if its appearance wasn’t enough, the void leaving the dying pooled at its feet, giving shape to its legs, as if a spool of yarn stitching together a body on the corpse’s frame. White glass eyes made contact with Iseult’s, her anxious visage visible to her in their reflective surface. ‘Plague god,’ she hailed.
