Out of the Nest
by Cassandra Beals
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
The disease had reached all six of the mountains in their community now, infecting so many that The Constitutional had become overwhelmed. Xia and Juha, its long-time custodians, had decided that the sick should stay in their homes and those who remained healthy should tend to them there.
Mjal and Xia had removed themselves to the relatively isolated level Xia lived on in Temperate Mountain since the moment he had agreed to work with his mother. They’d both begun bathing after any possible exposure. They slept in her home and worked in the spare apartment normally kept open for visitors. Since the crisis had started, the pair had even avoided Juha, the second immortal living in Temperate Mountain.
The only exceptions were Xia’s administrative duties, which she handled out in the open, and Mjal’s visits to his family. Both his wife and daughter had taken ill, so Xia had not stopped him from going to see them once a week. Mjal wore a loose-fitting toga during his visits which he burned before returning to work.
Mjal recognized his daughter’s cough as he approached. He noticed sour body odors several paces from the entrance. Mjal looked in from the hallway, hoping against hope to see Nual bouncing around. He found instead only pottery and cleaning supplies. He heard light wheezing. Mjal held his breath as he passed through the common room and pointed himself toward his wife.
“How are you, my love?” Mjal bent over Cioke, surprised to find no sickly odor but grateful to whoever was tending her. Mjal considered that the scent he’d noted on the way in might have somehow clung to the walls, but all organic objects had been stripped from his home weeks ago.
Cioke looked up at him, snow white skin clinging unnaturally to her face, pale lips curling with effort into a smile from their short wooden bed. Cioke’s frame, never large, had become so light and frail she might have floated over their woolen cushions if not for the several layers of linen sheets she was forced to stay under in order to keep warm. “I feel better now. Qhar-jah has been an excellent caretaker.”
He found himself grateful to his old friend at The Constitutional. “Nual?”
“She sleeps when she can.”
“Is she still losing weight?”
“Check in on her and see for yourself,” Cioke wheezed. Her breathing threatened to develop into a bloody cough before she managed to quell it.
“I can’t.” Mjal noticed Cioke’s hair had thinned. It was wet and clinging to her head.
“You must.”
“I am supposed to protect her, to make her life better.”
“You need to love her unconditionally,” Cioke said.
“I do, but that’s not enough.”
“It might have to be.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You’ve tried what so far? Every cure you know of? Every herb, in every combination? How many applications have you attempted? What else is there?”
“The cure!”
Cioke puttered a cough, “I was raised the same as you, my darling. All things are born, live, and die. Enjoy the moments before they pass. See your daughter. She needs to know you love her. You’ll need to know you told her if she dies.”
“I do love her. I’ve been working so hard because I love her.”
“In her eyes you abandoned her the moment she got sick.”
“I can’t bear to see her like this.”
“Your needs and what you can handle aren’t important right now. She needs your comfort.”
Mjal dropped his head. “I never did deserve you.”
“I always thought you were perfect for me. I’m grateful I’ve had you in my life.”
“I will find a way to save you. I won’t rest until I do.”
“I have faith in you, my love.”
Mjal nodded, bending down to let Cioke kiss him on the nose.
* * *
Cioke’s warm black eyes, full red lips, and healthy dark skin filled Mjal’s vision. Her long black hair cascaded down to tickle his face. They were in the Tropical Terrarium; he could smell the plants now. They’d spent their first couple weeks of marriage there enjoying the smells and sounds, exploring each other as much as the world around him. Cioke reached down to kiss the tip of his nose as she had the last time he’d seen her, but something felt different now. The angle she approached him? Her face? She faded away as he struggled to understand. Mjal’s eyes were open before he realized he’d woken up.
Mjal’s wife had died a week ago, Nual was losing her own fight. Mjal and Xia were no closer to a cure. He was sobbing before he had his bearings.
He found himself leaning over a work counter in the spare residence/laboratory. A carefully labeled array of herbs and animal extracts was in front of him. The unusual collection of medical samples, all left open for some time, made for an unpleasant smell. Mjal took a deep breath to regain his composure, but his mother was already padding toward him with furrowed brows.
“When was the last time you slept?” Mjal had passed out after Xia had left to take care of the town’s administration. He had no idea how long ago that had been. Mjal had no idea what he’d been doing when he’d fallen asleep, either.
“Just now.”
“I mean slept in a bed. A place where your body could recuperate.”
“I don’t remember.”
“The day before Cioke started coughing up blood?”
Mjal grimaced to hold back more tears. He hadn’t wanted that memory brought up.
Xia let her hand rest softly on his shoulder. “Go find a bed far away from here and get some sleep.”
“How can I?”
“I’m sorry this happened. I know how helpless you must feel.”
“You don’t understand. I see Cioke over and over again when I sleep, then I have to wake up without her.”
“I am truly sorry for your loss, but you will have to deal with that whether or not you sleep, son.”
“The dreams.”
“Your memories are something to treasure.”
“How can you be so cold?” He glared daggers at her. “That’s right, you’ve lived for many great cycles and had countless husbands. You know there’ll always be another one down the road somewhere.”
“Mjal—”
“Do you have any idea what I did to my wife and children these past few years? What I put them through to learn about medicine fast enough for you? I’ll never have the chance to make up for that now because I’ve failed them these last few weeks.”
“Go get some sleep.”
“You know what really bothers me? I was in the laboratory trying to save lives while you had ‘more important things to do.’”
“Do you feel better, Mjal?”
Mjal’s eyes bulged. “I’m sorry, I—”
“You were too tired to bite your tongue,” Xia offered.
Mjal was silent.
Xia offered him a comforting smile. “Come back when you’re refreshed. I still need you here.”
“I can’t leave.”
“That wasn’t a request, Mjal.”
“How many more?”
“Since yesterday?”
Mjal nodded.
“Another three sick. One death. Nearly the entire settlement has gotten this, the only healthy people are a handful who haven’t contracted it and the few who’ve fully recovered.”
“We need to find a cure now.”
“That won’t happen while you’re not in control of yourself.”
“It was just a momentary—”
“Go! I’ll keep working on our projects while you’re gone.”
Mjal grumbled something even he didn’t understand before leaving the room, but he did leave. He took an elevator down to the sky-tram level and then the car to Mediterranean Mountain.
It took him a moment to realize he’d arrived at the residential area below the terrarium. Mediterranean was the central hub of the community, normally filled with clacking against the walls and floors, talking, and the cries of triumph and anger. The stone corridor today was nearly deserted apart from a couple people with towels and buckets that smelled of alkali and oil. He heard little more than hacking from about half the rooms and the slopping of water against stone.
The halls were dimmer despite the cloudless sky. Mjal was only vaguely aware that the glass had a film over it because it hadn’t been cleaned; one of many basic functions that had been sacrificed while the focus was on caring for the sick and keeping the village sanitized.
Mjal didn’t notice the animal-powered elevator up to the sky-tram for Desert Mountain. He was next aware of himself in the air midway to Desert mountain. He found himself hating the indirect route he had to take from one side of the settlement to the other. Xia had explained once that the sky-tram system had been designed so no one from outside could see any of the cars unless they were between the mountains and happened to look at just the right place at just the right time.
Mjal had grown up marveling at his mother’s designing ingenuity. Today, the system’s awkwardness irritated him; how could she have been subtle enough to keep the village hidden but not elegant enough to make it more streamlined? If Xia was as intelligent and wise as she was supposed to be, she shouldn’t need him to find a cure, either.
Xia had not been making use of her vast knowledge or medical intuition at all. She had left the work with him while she’d administered. Her greatest contribution to stopping the disease had been spreading the word that Shambhala was in crisis and needed its allies to send all possible curative agents.
Mjal had to admit that the influx of herbs and other items had been amazing, but nothing he’d seen had made any more than negligible changes in the mortality rate. Half of the people who got the disease still died. Thirty percent of those who survived would never breathe with the same comfort as before, and most of them would walk with difficulty.
Mjal’s mind wandered as he considered other options. He could look into trying the water itself from throughout the world. Maybe the soil. Rocks?
The disease stole Cioke from me and it’s taking my daughter. All I can do is throw darts in the dark and hope one of them hits something.
Mjal arrived at Desert Mountain and passed along the inside corridor until he came across his home. It was deserted now, a kindly couple who had survived the disease had taken Nual so that she wouldn’t be alone in her final days. A cleaner had followed. They’d taken away all the family’s personal items and put them into storage before scrubbing the walls and burning the beddings to make sure there were no vestiges of the disease. The home’s sickly scent was gone, replaced with alkali and oil.
Mjal did recognize their old bed, though. He slipped onto it and pulled the freshly cleaned linen sheets over his shoulders. The fabric’s weight gave him a sensation of companionship. He tried to connect the feeling with a moment in his life with Cioke but failed. He found himself crying instead.
He dreamed of spending time with his wife in the Mediterranean; Mjal had always wanted to explore his father’s homeland. The two enjoyed the pleasant heat as they looked over an aquamarine sea and ate the local delicacies. Mjal kissed his wife as the background changed. He, his wife, and his now-adult daughter were among strange mountains enjoying a campfire as they laughed. Nual said something that made him tear up in happiness just as the scene changed again. He and Cioke were somewhere warm and isolated, very young, and reveling in a moment of intimacy.
Mjal awoke with bloodshot eyes. He ached, more so when he realized there was no way ever to relieve that pain. Shambhala had given him so much and, when his time to give back had come, he had failed his community.
He moved to the window and saw the shadows lengthening with dusk.
Perfect.
Mjal put on fresh clothes he’d brought along and left those he’d worn for the last quarter moon or so lying on the floor. He used the sky-tram system to get to Mediterranean Mountain and the sole entrance into Shambhala located there. It took him a few minutes to open up the lodestone-sealed burlap barrier, then the double flap on the other side of the buffer.
His efforts left him outside an innocuous-looking cave, where a barely visible trail to the right eventually led around and down the mountain to the outside world. Mjal’s mother had once said it stood some ten thousand feet above sea level. All the sky-trams, many of the solar windows, even the plateaus that served as the crafts area and food market were visible from that point if one looked carefully. He looked down into the village, but everything was vacant.
Mjal choked on the thought that he had been responsible for that. Mom might be wrong, maybe there are many gods. It’s possible that if I make a sacrifice to one of them, they will have pity on these people.
Mjal walked out onto the ledge, feeling the wind gust so hard it made him stumble. He reasoned that if he stood at the edge, a blow would eventually push him over. He closed his eyes and waited.
Copyright © 2024 by Cassandra Beals
