After the gloom of the morgue, the daylight seemed impossibly bright. After having been in the silent halls of the dead, the noise in the streets was doubly loud. After the perfumed aroma of the vaults, the stench of the streets was almost overwhelming. Elysia's nose was running and she felt a slight pain in her joints. "It's not the plague." she told herself at the same time that she touched the poma full of aromatic herbs. "It's just a summer cold." The question that she had previously left unanswered returned to her mind.
"Why don't the priests of the god of death catch all the plagues and diseases that kill their… clients? Does your god bless you with any special protection?"
"I have some hypotheses." Home Niccolev "His mausoleum is clean and well washed, that helps to stop the spread of diseases. They are priests, and therefore they eat and rest well, conditions that also help."
"Really?"
"I think so. Grief, stress, poor living conditions, dirt, poor diet…these all combine to spread disease, and are sometimes a contributing factor in deciding who will survive."
"Why is that happening?"
"The full explanation would be extremely long. I can only say that I have observed that it is so."
"So you think those things help make priests immune to disease?"
"I have not said that they are immune. Every once in a while, one of them should fall ill."
"And so?"
"If they don't have the level 3 spell [Remove Diseases] at their disposal, they leave with his god; no doubt with a special dispensation in the afterlife due to the strength of his faith."
"That's not very reassuring." said the cat girl.
"If you want to be reassured, Miss Elysia, talk to a priest. I am a Doctor and… I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help."
Elysia curtsied to him.
"You have already been a great help to us, Dr. Niccolev. Thank you for spending your time with us."
Niccolev returned his bow and turned to leave, but, at the last moment, he turned to face her.
"If you make any progress, please let me know." She asked. "Look for a pattern."
"I will," Elysia replied.
"I'm going to get a beer." Frey said.
"I think this is a good idea." Elysia agreed, suddenly feeling a desperate desire to wipe the aftertaste of the mortuary from her mouth.
♦ ♦ ♦
Elysia stared into her third beer and considered what they had seen. Her head ached a little because she constantly had to tell herself that her discomfort was due to a summer cold, but the beer helped ease the pain.
Frey was hunched over by the fire and watched the flames.
Heinz was near the bar, setting up for the bustle of the evening. The other guards were playing knife-hand at the next table over their drinks.
The cat girl was scared. She felt puzzled and stupid because she knew there had to be a pattern to all of this, but she couldn't see it. She gave the impression that something inevitable and lethal was killing the people of Bergheim, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was frustrating. She almost wished for another raid by the night stalkers or another attack by the ratfolk warriors. She could fight what she saw, or, to be absolutely precise, the dark hero could fight what he saw, and most likely defeat him. "Think," Elysia realized. "It's not the strong point of either of us."
She knew that this was beyond her. She wasn't a keen investigator of the sort you see in plays, and to be honest, she didn't believe that things happened in real life the way they did on the stage, with clues arranged in neat logical chains pointing to the right direction. unavoidable solution. Life was more tangled; things were seldom simple, and if there really were any clues, surely it could be given much more than a perfectly logical interpretation.
She thought of Niccolev. Until then, the doctor had done nothing but help them, though it was easy to give her work and her motivations a sinister interpretation. She possessed too much knowledge of the kind that in human nations was frowned upon, and that in itself was suspect. In the more superstitious parts of the human realm, mere possession of Niccolev's books would have been reason enough to burn at the stake. Reading those works would have caused an Inquisitor of the empire or a prosecutor of the Kingdom to execute her without bringing him to trial.
And yet Elysia herself had read one of those books, and she was no friend of the dark gods at all. Couldn't Niccolev be in the same boat as her? Could she be just what she seemed, a girl dedicated to acquiring whatever knowledge would aid her in her vocation of healing people, regardless of what source it came from?
"It's all too complicated." Elysia thought. The beer was beginning to make his head spin.
She knew that deep down there had to be something that linked the deaths of all the people together. In fact, she was sure she'd already seen proof of it, though she was too stupid to know what it was. So far, all she could think of was that they had all ended up in the temple's halls of the dead, and that wasn't a relationship at all. Sooner or later, every man and woman would end up there on the way to their grave in the cemetery.
All of Bergheim's citizens would one day end up in the huge cemetery.
She wanted to laugh bitterly at that occurrence, but then another thought formed in her mind.
"One moment!"
There was a connection between most of the people she knew who had died of the plague.
The man she had seen on the street two days before was wearing a black rose. Another victim she had seen in the mortuary was also wearing a black rose, the traditional symbol of mourning. The woman and the girl were widow and orphan. Only the last victim she'd seen had nothing to do with it, but maybe if she dug deeper she'd discover one.
What could it mean? Was the temple itself involved in the spread of the plague? Had the corruption reached such depths? For some reason, she doubted it herself.
The first man she had seen had just attended a funeral. Would the same happen with the others? Probably in the case of the one he wore the black rose. And the mother with her daughter? She didn't know, though she knew the means to find out. She got up from the chair and touched Frey's shoulder.
"We need to return to the temple of Mortis."
"Are you developing any morbid attachment to that place?"
"Nope. I think that there could be the key to this plague."
It was already dark when they reached the temple, but it didn't matter because the gates were open and the lanterns were burning. As the priests never tired of pointing out, the gates of the realm of death were always open, and a man could never know when he would pass through.
Elysia asked for the priest she had spoken to the previous time, and she was in luck because the man was still on duty. The offer of a few pieces of silver gave her the information that he was always up for a conversation, and they led Elysia and the dark hero into a humble little antechamber.
The walls were covered with books. They contained the names and descriptions of the deceased. Elysia had no doubt that they also contained a record of donations made for funeral services and prayers to be offered at the temple.
"So you are Dr. Niccolev's assistant?" asked the priest.
"Yes; In a sense, yes."
"In some way?"
"We are helping her in her research on the plague; we tried to find a way to end it."
A slow, sad smile appeared on the priest's face.
"In that case, I don't know if she should help."
"Why?"
"Because she's good for business."
Seeing Elysia's shocked expression, the priest coughed politely.
"It was just a joke." he said she then.
"He seems tired." commented the catgirl to break the silence, and the priest coughed again. It was a dry cough. "And sick."
"The truth is that I don't feel very well, and today has been a very long day. The brother who was supposed to replace me has fallen ill and is confined in his bedroom. He has not been well since he presided over the burials yesterday."
Elysia and Frey exchanged glances. Afterwards, the cat girl nodded politely and Frey grunted.
"Your, uh..., associate doesn't look like a doctor, Miss Elysia," the priest commented.
"Help with the heavy lifting."
"Of course. Well, how can I help you?"
"I need to know more about the people Doctor Niccolev saw this morning."
"There is no problem." He tapped the leather-bound book before him. "All relevant data will be included in the current book. What exactly do you need to know?"
"Have any of the deceased recently attended a funeral?"
"Mrs. Koch and her daughter, yes. I myself officiated at the burial of Mr. Koch last week."
"And the other gentleman?"
"No, I think not. He was not a man we would have allowed to attend any of our services; except, of course, that of his own burial."
"What does he mean? He thought that anyone could enter the domain of the god of death."
"Not just anyone. Mr. Gruenwald belonged to that hideous class of criminals who make their living desecrating family graves and stealing corpses in order to sell them for the practice of necromancy. He was injunction. He would never have been allowed through the entrance to the cemetery, under pain of the ultimate punishment."
"He means death."
"Exactly."
"And the man with the black rose?"
"I'll look at the records. I suspect that given the nature of the decoration, we will discover that he, too, had recently attended a burial. You're not from Bergheim, are you, Miss Elysia? I know from his accent. And the other qualities of him also reveal to me that you are not very human to say."
"You're right. I come from the Kaleth Empire and I am a Feral." Although Elysia knew that the detail of being a Feral was a lie, it was better to lie than to say that she was a half-human, half-beast half-breed.
"In that case, given your less than human nature, you may not be aware that it is customary in the cult of the god of death to take a black rose from the cemetery when one attends a ceremony held there."
"I thought people bought them from florists."
"Nope. Black roses grow only in the cemetery gardens and it is forbidden to sell them for profit."
Silence reigned for several minutes as the priest consulted the records.
"Oh yeah! Her sister passed away last week, and she was buried in the cemetery. Is there anything else I can do for you?" he asked, encouraged.
"No, I think he has told us enough."
"Can you tell me the point of all this?"
"Not for the moment. I'm sure Dr. Niccolev will let you know when she's finished formulating her theory."
"Please tell him to do it."
As they were leaving, the priest nearly doubled over with a coughing fit.