The October Diaries XXVII | Grekkel’s Song Pt. 2

“In the name of Commander Raymor, let me through!” Lock shouted and shoved at the back of the crowd constipating the narrow bridge that ran over the Parmollis River, the only connecting point which dissected Symillia’s north and south districts. Lush duskwood trees still boasting their peak blooms were just then letting their first leaves shed, lining the Parmollis with bronze made to glimmer from the sunset’s light through the droplets coating their backs.

The causation of the impenetrable wall of citizens was a troupe of acrobats taking turns swinging from one side of the bridge to the next, their daring flights above the foaming waters assisted by the spidersilk ropes harnessed to their back and sides. As it took more than a bare leg or stomach to get northerners to smile and spare a coin for any performance, these Addorian street performers were, incidentally, nearly naked in the autumn sun which burned on their skin like summer.

Drawn by the impeachment on their more deprived culture, enthralled, aghast, the Qalmorian crowd of mostly elves were watching this spectacle with an almost shocking disregard for all other matters.

“Oh for mercy’s sake. IN THE NAME OF COMMANDER RAYMOR, LET US THROUGH!” Lock bellowed.

With the crowd sufficiently silenced and drawn to the attention of his bright uniform, Lock huffed petulantly, admittedly at a loss for what to do next.

“What’s the squabble, then?” one of the performers panted after landing gracefully atop the bridge. A layer of sweat covered every perceivable surface of her. Next to the braziers were their collecting cauldrons, currently having a difficult time keeping in all of the coin that had been garnered. Lock understood why. He was having difficulty not devouring her body with his eyes.

“I have been commanded to retrieve a healer of Calan. As this bridge is the only passage to their chapel, there was no other foreseeable way to cross other than interrupting your performance. I apologize, but it is urgent business.”

“In the name of Commander Raymor, sure, but who’s it coming from? Some sorry whelp! Can’t be much important, then. Another round for the boys using our taxes!” A stranger punctuated this with long, slow claps.

People often misinterpret Qalmoria’s reputation for breeding well-mannered folk as an absolutist depiction, as Lock was reminded by the sight of this heavily overweight elf approaching him in a vest stained by a number of unidentifiable fluids. The misconception wafted over to him in the form of unbearable breath.

“Lieutenant Tammen of Her Majesty’s Oathswords,” Lock lied with only a flickering tell that was lost to even the more skeptical listeners. The crowd forgot some of its temptation to defy the impeccable cuts of his uniform, now embellished with imaginary importance and reputation. At the sound of the word ‘lieutenant’, the performers lined themselves up neatly on either sides of the bridge’s guardrails with nervous expressions on their faces.

It was unlikely that their acts had been sanctioned by the city to begin with.

“Why do you need a priest?” somebody asked.

“There is a problem in the southern streets of the city.”

“What, has your commander forgotten to send a runner for his afternoon tea?” the same bloated elf cackled, though he’d seem to have lost the support of the crowd at this point.

Lock flashed the belly of his rapier from its sheath and was about to complement the gesture, before somebody who couldn’t see his movement interrupted him.

“What is the problem exactly?”

“It is some kind of illness. A … a pestilence, if you would.”

At this word, both the crowd and the acrobats assaulted him with questions.

“Are the Marrows safe?”

“What about the Silver Cast?”

“Did your commander receive word from Crowcrest?”

“I … I do not have all of the answers!” Lock stammered and raised his voice. “That is why I was sent for.”

“What are we to do?”

The realization stunted Lock’s overbearing demeanor, making him feel once more as the boy grinding his teeth beneath the world’s expectations, the questions he never had answers for. Of course, the desperation in their eyes was begging him for more than just answers; they wanted reassurance. It was well past the challenge of rendering a commanding presence. He’d now earned the responsibility behind its weight, and they expected him to do something with it.

“Why, this … this matter will be sorted out shortly, there is no need to panic or do anything. So long as we can secure a priestess of Calan, there is no need to fret. You may, ah, return to your performance as soon as we’ve crossed. I apologize for the interruption.”

“Why’s that girl with you? Does she have the sick?”

“Yes!” Lock decided. “You’d all do well to keep a wide berth.”

With the citizens squeezing themselves tight across the bridges sides, Meige and her brother did their best to make her appear ill, executing this by slinging one of her arms over his shoulder and feigning a limp. When the going became too slow, he crouched down and hefted her weight up before rushing past the crowd and into the open air of the bridge’s northern end.

“If you had any reservations about abandoning your oaths, forget them. The Crimson Corps will relieve you of your duties forcefully once they heard of this,” Meige said after they were out of earshot. But by then, it didn’t matter if they had been whispering or shouting. Screams were coming forth from the bridge, now, joining together with accusative shouts and the sound of stomping heels as some began to flee.

Meige turned just in time to see somebody fallen at the heart of the crowd, while a group of strangers made quick work of the chaos to grab a fistful of silver from one of the collecting cauldrons.

“By the five highest,” she muttered.

They hastened their pace into Symillia’s northern districts while guards whom had heard the screams rushed passed them.

Lock prepared himself to answer any questions they had concerning their involvement, but found that they were both ignored entirely.

“That hardly matters anymore, does it? The girl at the well, did you see how fast she succumbed? Happy one moment, dancing the next. Gods save us. ”

“We don’t know if she died, we didn’t stay long enough to see,” Meige said, though there was no confidence in her words.

“Do you think it’s him, then?”

“Who?”


“Grekkel.”


“Oh, Lock,” Meige groaned. “I know that story’s always terrified you, but that couldn’t have been anything but coincidence.”


“You think so?”

They quieted as they approached the long, short steps cascading down from Calan’s Chapel, its innermost rings interrupted by gardens still in blossom. Lock approached the heavy duskwood doors and banged on the iron knocker fashioned in the likeness of a balled fist, (which he found rather redundant). The three towers which the chapel rose into each hung bells of differing size and metal, and when rung in complex sequences taught to the clergy within, they could issue out various melodies for whichever festival or event was being celebrated.

On Hallow’s Eve, they commonly performed Grekkel’s Song, much to the mixed horror and delight of the children still young enough to believe in such things, or to young men like Lock, whose fearful imagination never seemed to outgrow childhood nightmares.

A woman’s voice issued through the door, just barely discernible, quivering with old age. “Many blessings of good health on you, strangers, but our order’s services are closed for the evening.”

“But it is scarcely the evening yet!” Lock protested

“Lieutenant, why don’t you let me talk to them?” Meige muttered. “Good priestess, this is not personal business. Somebody has fallen ill in the inner city, gravely ill. We require your assistance, and would be willing to pay for any services rendered. Handsomely payed.”

“Calan bless you and the ill, child, but our goddess simply cannot help you at this hour.”

The abruptness disturbed both Meige and Lock, who’d grown up around priests and priestesses of Calan all their lives. Of all the Five Highest, Calan’s followers were ever the embodiments of generosity, gentleness, and compassion. Their forthrightness came out only in the face of scolding habits or lifestyles which caused poor health in the first place. In the face of payment, as they often worked for charity alone, rejection in this situation was unheard of. It would be a captivating detail you told at a gambling house to spark up a conversation with quiet dice rollers.

“Please, priestess! This is important!”

“Why were the symptoms of the ailment?” the old woman asked.

“She … she bore none. Then, suddenly, she fell over,” Meige replied.

“Perhaps she fainted, nothing more.”

“No, priestess. She bled. She bled … though there were no wounds. Before long, her skin ran white.”

“So it’s reached you too, then?”

Lock stepped away from the door, now keenly aware that the square they were in was deserted, far too deserted for the time of day. “Meige,” he said, “we have to go home, now, to find mother and father and leave the city as quickly as possible.”

“It’s no use, child,” the priestess said, having heard his whisper, for she had cracked open a cut in the chapel entrance.

The small, individual-sized wicket door that was apart of the grand doorway opened wider. Like breath from a yawning mouth, the air inside the chapel twisted the siblings’ insides, partly from revulsion, but mostly from fear. The woman stepped aside to allow them to peer into the wide halls of the chapel. With hands over their mouths, they looked in.

Every spare bed typically used to house the ill or impoverished was taken up. Dirtied linens, buckets, discarded clothes, dried spots of blood covered all. Somewhere in the back, they discerned an ambiguous shape like a small hill of linen. Peering long enough, Meige recognized smaller details making up the mound. Bodies. And not just dozens of bodies. But multiple mounds. Coughs and low groans could be heard, choirs of the dead in differentiating stages of departure.

And the priestess, she was not old at all. In fact, she was scarcely a few years older than them. Only, whatever pestilence had gripped the city had taken hold of her as well, turning her skin a grey pallor tinged with a dark hue like algae that gripped her throat and the corners of her lips, turning some parts black at their darkest points.

Having seen enough, Lock cursed and tripped over his own feet in an attempt to stride backwards.

“We tried …” the woman began, one hand clinging to herself and another reaching out, as if she was torn between begging for help and dying alone, “we tried,” she said again. Now sobbing, she shut the door partially, leaving just a crack to speak out of. “It started not five days ago. The pestilence, the disease, this curse, whatever the gods have given us … it has different forms. Some it kills without warnings. Others, like myself, more time than we are certain of. But soon, soon enough … all of us.”

“Not all, priestess. There is hope, yet,” Meige said. “You mustn’t think this way!”

“No tincture, spell, blessing, or enchantment has worked. We have been trying, testing, tirelessly. Siflos, Morros, Afimer and Bafimer, all of their orders have barred their doors as soon as word spread.”


“Why did nobody say anything? Why was the city silent? Has Duchess Esmerelda not gotten wind of it?”

“Duchess Esmerelda,” the priestess laughed, a despairing sound which ended in a fit of wet coughs. The hand she rose to cover her mouth did not successfully block all of the blood that consequently splattered the floor at her feet. “Duchess Esmerelda is dead. Brought this back … from her travels. A gift from the royals, you could say. That is why we were ordered not to speak of it. They were … afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” Lock shouted before he realized his anger had risen his voice.

“Vulnerable to attack. Without a ruler, Symillia is weak.”

“You mean to say Symillia is halfway in its grave at the hands of their damned discretion?! The lot of us won’t have the grace to know why before it’s taken us!”

“It isn’t her fault, Lock!” Meige clenched her arm.

“But it is, child. He is right to be angry. If we had known what this was, we would have never followed their orders. I am sorry. Blessings of Calan upon you, children. Blessings of the Five, of all the gods, lesser and greater. We need them all, now, more than ever.”

The wicket door closed.

Lock, who was still on the ground after having fallen, stared at the space where the priestess had been silently, his eyes falling on the blood she left in the few moments she spoke with them.

His sister turned to look behind him, at the northern districts of the city.

How quiet and empty their streets were.