Gas lamps hissed to life. Light struck the slab, mak­ing stark the shroud­ed fig­ure of a life­less man.

Cig­a­rette smoke and fluffy dox­bells fil­tered through the beam, drift­ing from the stag­gered stands of onlook­ers. Dozens peered onto the oper­at­ing stage, young doc­tors in white med­ical frocks, mut­ter­ing and smok­ing, lean­ing on the nar­row rail­ings. 

A woman in a black rub­ber smock stepped into the beam. Her round glass­es flashed in the lamps. “Good evening,” she said, lac­ing up her gloves. 

“Good evening Doc­tor Krolë” cho­rused the stands. A stu­dent in a diener’s apron fol­lowed, bear­ing a tray of imple­ments. Knives, saws, a beaker marked ton­ic.

The diener set down her tray, and, with a motion from Krolë, drew away the shroud. Cloth flut­tered, bright under the lamps, and a tit­ter of inter­est spilled from above. The revealed fig­ure was nude. Nude, and shack­led to the stone.

A young body, grey in the face, and not ful­ly intact: His ster­num was split and stayed open by steel clamps, reveal­ing the tho­racic anato­my. And where one foot should be, there pro­trud­ed a splin­tered wreck of bone. High in the smoke, faces turned and learn­ers ges­tured with pens and glow­ing cig­a­rettes. Some­one whis­pered. “A sol­dier?”

“Before you become too excit­ed,” said Doc­tor Krolë, frown­ing. “The leg wound was by an indus­tri­al shear.” The audi­ence stilled, set­tled.

“He did not exsan­guinate, though. The cause of death was some­thing else. How would you say he died?”

A pale hand rose from the stands. “Yes, Tove?” said Krolë.

“Sep­sis, Doc­tor,” said a mil­que­toast blonde.

“Good. And how can you tell?”

“The livid­i­ty in the extrem­i­ties.”

“Quite. What else can we glean from this cause of death?”

The stands thought for only a moment. A palm went up. “Gre­gore?”

A fel­low towards the back spoke up, uneasy. “He was like­ly unmed­icat­ed.”

“True again,” said Krolë. She ges­tured for her diener to take up a scalpel. “Now, while Catrine works, some­one tell me why you all look so right­ful­ly con­cerned.”

There was a soft, wet tear­ing as the diener begen to cut. Peo­ple watched the scalpel glit­ter in her hands and shift­ed uneasi­ly. A hand raised.

“Tove?”

“If he was unmed­icat­ed, that means patho­gen­e­sis may be in effect.”

“You’re right, again. How could we tell if that was the case?”

Tove watched the diener peel back fat­ted flesh. She swal­lowed. “We’d find evi­dence in the lungs.”

The doc­tor nod­ded. “Yes, very good.” She turned to the diener. “Catrine, remove the supe­ri­or lobe, please.”

Catrine pulled a blade over pur­ple tis­sue, sep­a­rat­ing a dark lump. She hand­ed it over.

In the bright light, Krolë split through the lobe with a lancet. “We can detect latent plague by the pres­ence of buboes in the lungs,” she con­tin­ued, peel­ing the organ open, then lift­ing it high for the learn­ers to see: Black, wet nod­ules shone in the flesh. “These are fruit­ing bod­ies. A mas­sive dis­po­si­tion such as this indi­cates weeks of infec­tion. This sub­ject had not been exposed to griso­date in some time.”

She set the lobe down. “Plague will have ful­ly matured with­in the bones. As such, there is life with­in this cadav­er, though not human. Dis­in­fec­tion is nec­es­sary to pre­vent immi­nent rean­i­ma­tion,” she said, tak­ing up the beaker of grey ton­ic. “Heed well what you are about to see. Let it be a warn­ing...”

She upend­ed the beaker, drench­ing the corpse, fill­ing its gap­ing chest cav­i­ty. Instant­ly, it jerked off the slab and seized, jaw clack­ing, body arch­ing, strain­ing at its shack­les. A plume of rot­ten smoke erupt­ed from it, bil­low­ing up to turn the beam of gaslight into an opaque pil­lar of blue-grey. In the stands, the learn­ers cov­ered their faces and gagged.

 With­in the smoke, Krolë spoke, watch­ing the thrash­ing grue.

“A warn­ing against what lies with­in us all.”

“Don’t like this very much, Scot­loff,” mut­tered Karl. He snif­fled in bit­ter air, wip­ing his nose. “Not many pos­si­bil­i­ties for what could’ve hap­pened to her. I don’t like any of them.”

“Aye,” agreed Scot­loff. She squint­ed, lift­ing a hand against the white glare of snow. A cab­in stood in the dis­tance. Squat, found­ed in stone, and built against a hill­side, its thatched roof sag­ging with snow. The win­dows were dark. No smoke crawled from the chim­ney.

They crunched over the snow, near­ing the cab­in. Karl held a wood­cut­ter’s axe at his side. He shuf­fled his boots as they went. “Poor old thing. Liv­ing on her own,” he remarked. “Shame­ful no grand­kids took her in.”

“No good fret­ting,” said Scot­loff. “What will be will be.” She stopped by the hill. Frown­ing, she point­ed to the ground. “Take a look.”

Karl scrunched his mous­tache. “Bloody chick­en­s’re frozen to the ground.”

They skirt­ed around the roost­er and dozen white hens, advanc­ing to the oak­en door. Karl thumped on the wood with a woolen mitt, shak­ing snow free of the planks. “Oi, Ol’ Nan. It’s Karl and Scot­tie out here. Checkin’ in.”

“Karl, don’t kid your­self,” Scot­loff grum­bled. She grabbed the door’s latch and jig­gled it rough­ly. It did­n’t budge.

“Frozen.” She looked at Karl, expec­tant. “You want to use that axe, or shall I?” she said. Karl looked mis­er­able. “Oi, nah, I’ll do it,” Karl mum­bled, even­tu­al­ly. He hoist­ed the axe.

Scot­loff stepped back. She tread on a chick­en, frowned, then kicked some snow over it.

Karl let into the door with the axe. There was a crack of ice, and boards splin­tered. After a few whacks, the door swung open, crooked in its frame. Karl stepped back, axe held with uncer­tain­ty. Scot­loff stepped up and pat­ted him on the back. “I’ll take it from here.”

She stepped into the dim. Pale sun­light illu­mi­nat­ed a cob­ble-brick fire­place opposed the door, its mouth dark and cold. Fac­ing it was a wick­er rock­ing chair. A thin fig­ure lay slumped there.

Scot­loff crept to the fig­ure, track­ing snow over the creak­ing floor. She crept around the chair, looked down. A white-haired fig­ure slumped there, chin tucked to a bony chest. It stirred slight­ly.

“Mam?”

It stirred again, head jerk­ing upright. Scot­loff star­tled, cried out, then scrab­bled back­wards to the door.

The wick­er chair tum­bled. A thump. A tat­too of thin heels struck the floor. A wet tear­ing of flesh. Slushy, par­tial­ly-coag­u­lat­ed liq­uid spat­tered against the floor.

Scot­loff stum­bled out the door and into the snow. Karl looked on with con­cern. “What’s the mat-”

“Plague!” Scot­loff screamed. Point­ing to the cab­in.

Through the door­way scut­tled Ol’ Nan, pro­pelled by all four limbs. Frozen sheets of flesh drooped from the twist­ed frame. Slushy grave water gushed over the snap­ping mandible.

Karl raised his axe as the thing bore down upon him.

Plague

Sto­ries lurk in the cul­tur­al mem­o­ry of the Coast. Sto­ries, told by nurse­maids to chil­dren who won’t take their med­i­cine. Sto­ries, whis­pered by those old enough to remem­ber streets over­run by scut­tling dead.

Plague is feared above all oth­er ail­ments. Unlike oth­er dis­eases, it is seem­ing­ly invis­i­ble, inex­orable. ^* Count­less humans are infect­ed. They live with it all their lives. Chil­dren are infect­ed before they are mere­ly a red speck in the womb. 

Folk do not fear it with­in them­selves, though. They fear it in oth­ers, for plague emerges only after death.

In the bones of corpses, plague instills new life. The hon­ored dead are reviv­i­fied in short order, trans­formed into skele­tal grues. ^**

Grues

When a car­ri­er of plague dies, patho­gen­e­sis begins its work. Dor­mant sick­ness awak­ens, spreads, and flour­ish­es in the nutri­ent slur­ry of tis­sues begin­ning to rot.

While skin and vis­cera spoil and bloat, plague takes hold of mus­cle, gris­tle, and mar­row. Black buboes in the lungs and bones pro­lif­er­ate, wind­ing ten­drils into the porous meat of bones to acquire own­er­ship of nerves and fibrous tis­sues. All the while, the affect­ed corpse appears per­fect­ly, innocu­ous­ly dead.

A grue acquires life with­out warn­ing, sud­den­ly ener­vat­ed by the speed of the dead. ^† Its mode of loco­mo­tion is uncouth. Devoid of human grace, it lunges and scrab­bles, falling into a scut­tling gait like that of a bee­tle or a hunched, crow­like shuf­fle.

A grue will want for some­one to bite. The clos­est human being. It will leap, slash­ing and bit­ing at the face and neck. It knows the weak places of the body.

Those who sur­vive an attack, who are mere­ly bit­ten, do not die by their wounds, but by the tox­ic nature of the grue-bite. Fresh grues, still clad in their suit of swing­ing, bloat­ed car­cass, are most infec­tious, spew­ing grave water. But old grues, naught but black skele­tons, are strongest. Both spread plague. Griso­date is essen­tial in the treat­ment of such wounds, in either case.

If it can­not find some­one to bite, a grue will find a place to hide. A swamp. A pud­dle. The larder. The gap under your doorstep. Some place where it might leap out and nab some­one by the ankle. Grues are apt to hide togeth­er, despite pos­sess­ing no out­ward means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

A fresh grue is a liv­ing skele­ton sleeved in rot. What­ev­er flesh it still pos­sess­es is spoiled and spare. The putre­fac­tion bur­bling with­in it erupts as grave water, adding a sep­tic ele­ment to its bite.

An old grue is anoth­er mat­ter. It is plague dis­tilled, devoid of excess flesh. Its resem­ble a cord­ed, black skele­ton wound in wiry sinews, burst­ing with nod­ules and buboes. 

today

Plague, as it exists today, is frag­ile­ly con­tained.

After cen­turies of pub­lic health efforts, the avail­abil­i­ty of griso­date ton­ic in met­ro­pol­i­tan areas has made grues a rel­a­tive­ly uncom­mon hor­ror. †† The last epi­dem­ic occurred in Fir­lund in 3.388. Few wish to relive a time where death by dis­ease was so ram­pant that grues ran unhin­dered in the streets.

Cre­ma­tion is the sec­ond­most-impor­tant pub­lic health effort in com­bat­ing plague. Coastal folk (Firls espe­cial­ly) burn their dead. A North­ern funer­al is a cau­tious, solemn affair, car­ried out with enough hur­ry to ensure safe­ly while main­tain­ing a mod­icum of respect for the deceased. Only Avethans, claim­ing some need to main­tain the human form in prepa­ra­tion for Par­adise, are pos­sessed of the hubris to bury their dead.

Regard­less of bur­ial prac­tice, regard­less of their name for grue, all folk know plague. In every Coastal tongue, the word for grue is the same. It is this awful noun which gives the tongue of the Firls a par­tic­u­lar adjec­tive: Grue­some.

other plague facts

• It is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that grues eat peo­ple. While grues often appear to “eat” humans, this behav­ior can­not be described as feed­ing. It’s a behav­ior meant to strip flesh from infect­ed bones, aimed to free new grues from extra­ne­ous flesh. Gnaw­ing, strip­ping, and chew­ing is mere­ly inci­den­tal. Plague pos­sess­es no capac­i­ty to digest and no desire for nour­ish­ment.
• Mice are unaf­fect­ed by plague. They have their own ill­ness­es to con­tend with. Humans are, from the knowl­edge of cur­rent schol­ars, the only affect­ed species. This has raised a mild hys­te­ria in the South, where­in many sup­pose that human­i­ty, weak­ened by plague, will die and leave mice to inher­it the world.
• Plague is a fun­gal dis­ease. Its lung buboes are fruit­ing bod­ies that spread spores on every breath, fill­ing the world with infec­tious dust.
• Grey salt, the panacea sub­stance that kills plague, affects only fun­gal and viral life.
• Most humans are born with plague. Humans can­not con­ceive while med­icat­ed with grey salt, so their young are born already infest­ed, con­ceived in a fer­tile inter­im spent inten­tion­al­ly free of griso­date.

Notes

There is a skele­ton inside you wait­ing to get out.

There’s this dis­ease in the air, and it’s in every­one. You could see it, but only if you had eyes in your lungs. Thus, all you are left with is anx­ious dread and the desire to drink a lot of ton­ic.

Plague began as a notion designed to ensure the bur­ial of dead adven­tur­ers. It has­n’t real­ly done that. Rather, it has spawned some new the­mat­ic lev­el of body hor­ror. 

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