Gabriel's strength returned, and the patients of the town recovered. It should have been a time of thankfulness and celebration that the plague was passed, but the toll of death had been great. More than half the people of the area were dead.
Captain Napier stalked around inside the medical tent, ready to evict the last of the patients and break camp.
"We need to go," He confided to Gabriel, "and soon."
"Sir?" Gabe responded quietly. The tension rolling off the man was too great to simply be restlessness.
"Our orders since the caravan came through have been to rendezvous with the evacuees as soon as the situation resolved here, and to bring as many of the townspeople as will willingly join us, with all the food we can carry." He summarized. "It's time we do so."
Gabriel stood from his cot. Though he was still thinner than before his illness, he was not nearly as weak as when he first began getting better.
"Should we finish what's left of the harvest here, and bring it along?" He asked respectfully.
"I'm not sure we can delay. The monster has been content to rule Klain for some short time, but we had a scout come through this morning. Those who do not follow the Beast are being systematically hunted down in all directions. It's only a matter of time–"
"Before they come here," Gabriel finished. "Now that the plague is over and won't kill us all for them."
"Exactly. I have left the plague flag over the town flying high despite the last of the symptoms passing, but it won't fool them forever. We need to get moving, as soon as we can." Napier was normally such a calm presence that his agitation bothered Gabriel a great deal.
"Well then," He said, "Let's get everything packed onto the wagons subtly, in case there are spies watching. We can break the tents last, and quickly, so that we can leave as soon as they're done."
Napier nodded thoughtfully at the advice. "I had come to the same conclusion, but I wanted to ask, are you fit for travel?"
"I am," Gabriel assured him. He had to be. He wouldn't endanger the others for an extra day or two of recovery. The risk wasn't worth it.
"You're sure?" The captain pressed, and the doctor nodded.
"How many are willing to come?" He asked.
"Most everyone from the town, it seems. There are too few people left to sustain the lifestyle they had; several of the trades have no one left to perform them. In addition to that, the memories here are too much after the sickness. Some of the houses were never able to be properly searched, and as gruesome as it is… there are simply too many bodies to continue wasting time burying."
"I see," Gabriel hung his head. "Well, I suppose, then, we should get going."
__
Edmar pulled Brenna's hand. They ran. Their world was growing smaller. It was unmistakable now.
He'd thought the portals were simply opening, but it seemed that they were eating away at the grey slate, the grey moss, and the sky. There were large swaths simply missing from their world.
His idea to find a way back to their own world had seemed to perplex and even irritate Brenna at first. The strange little glimmers he had seen were not nearly large enough to allow a person through. But they were growing larger.
And hungrier.
Some, he thought he recognized. One above them boasted hues of pink that he thought might be the world of the giants, but it was unreachable before it closed. Another, hues of darkness and vines entwining. They ran from that one; he never wanted to see a goblin again.
They smelled simply terrible.
Brenna pointed out afterward that the goblins served the Void, and as the Void's servant's, they should be protected.
He wasn't so sure he wanted to serve the Void now. Only Brenna. But if she wanted to continue, so did he.
The next portal they saw was filled with white mist.
"I think I know this place," Edmar murmured to himself. The third world that the Leviathan most often visited, a sea world where the ships seemed to stand still. There was no fishing to speak of, nor food to be found that the Cetoans knew of, nor land.
It was not an improvement over their current location. It was probably worse. He began to pull her away from this one as well.
"Wait," Brenna said, squinting through it, "Is that a tree?"
The vaguest outline of something was visible through the portal.
"We never saw land there," Edmar blinked, but neither had they seen land in Pink Sky World for as long as they traveled, until he found it.
"Trees have roots, even if there is water, it won't be deep. Trees can have food." Brenna looked at him with pleading in her eyes. "We can't stay here and keep running until we find the perfect one. I'm exhausted already, aren't you?"
She had a point, they couldn't keep going forever, and the portals were increasing in frequency so that the two of them could not sleep at the same time anymore. One had to keep watch at all times.
"There are no guarantees that world will be better," He warned her.
"We have to take a chance sometime," She countered. Edmar hesitated, then nodded.
Keeping tight hold of her hand, he moved towards the portal and stepped through before he could lose his nerve. It wouldn't do to show cowardice in front of Brenna.
He braced himself to tumble into water, but he ran into the tree; it must have been mere hand's breadth from the portal opening. Wrapping his free arm around it, he prepared to plunge into water, but instead his feet stood solidly on some kind of ground.
Brenna was also hugging the trunk now.
"I can't see further than this tree," She told him.
"Don't let go of me," He warned, but his voice sounded slightly muted in the fog. "We can't lose each other."
She didn't reply, but he assumed, or hoped, that she nodded. Really, he couldn't lose her. It would break him, utterly. His survival these past years was wholly dependent on hers. If he'd allowed her to die in the slate grey world, he would have dug her a grave and thrown himself in after her. She was everything.
"Do we… explore?" She asked tentatively after a few minutes of nothing happening.
It was a promising start that nothing had immediately tried to eat them.
"I think so," Edmar said, moving his boots tentatively forward.
"Let me," She said. "The Rhone, when we explored the Darkness, developed a pace to make sure we did not run into things unseen."
He didn't like the idea of her leading, as she might run into danger first, but he sighed and squeezed her hand in agreement.
Though he couldn't clearly see her, the way she tugged at him as she moved forward reminded him of the fluidity of a dance. It was as if she were gliding, pulling him with her as she gracefully explored their surroundings.
This went on for some time, and he wondered what kind of land the Mist World held. Was it as barren of life as the seas?
"Oh!"
The single syllable from Brenna made Edmar tense, but she pulled him forward to place his hand on something smooth and vertical. A rock face? No, there was mortar… a wall?
"What is this?" He asked himself more than her.
"Someone built it," Brenna replied.
"Or something," He added, remembering the goblins and the tunnels they had dug and built in their world.
With an unspoken agreement, the pair began to feel along the side of the wall. Quickly, a corner was found, and they continued around the side of what seemed to be a building.
"A door," Brenna whispered. "There's a door here."
Edmar ran his hands over it, finding a mark like an "X" painted onto the wood in red. He found the handle and pulled the door until it opened.
Inside was as white and invisible as outdoors. Slowly, and as silently as they could manage, they explored the perimeter of what turned out to be a house. There was a stove, a small bedroom with one bed and a child-sized cot, and all the things one might expect from such a place.
"Who lives here?" Edmar wondered aloud.
"We do, now," Brenna said with determination.
"What?"
"There's no way I'm going back out there right now when there is a perfectly good bed, and even some food here. Look at the dust on the table! No one's been here in several days, at least. I'm going to take a nap right after I have some of this dried meat. I suggest you do the same." She said to him. "When I wake up, you can make a fire and maybe burn away some of this mist so we can see a little better. Just think, things are finally going our way!"