The Emerald Scepter

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"Plague! It's the plague!" Those four little words, shouted by someone running along Tower Street, made Mardicon Flintelli's heart skip a beat, made his stomach knot up in momentary terror.

The plague.

The glassblower turned from his furnace just as a woman examining some of his new potion bottles let out a startled gasp and scurried away, knocking a vase to the floor to shatter in her wake. She didn't bother to turn around. Grumbling, Mardicon set his pipe with its half-finished blob of molten glass back into the furnace and, picking his way past the fragments of ruined vase, stepped out from under his awning and into the street. In the fading light of dusk, other merchants on Tower Street were standing in their own shop doorways, peering about uncertainly. Mardicon shook his head as he looked up and down the avenue.

The plague! It couldn't be.

He wondered who would make such a horrific claim, dredging up childhood fears out of some bedtime story. But people were running, most of them away from the center of Reth. Some were alone, while others held children close to them, or baskets of goods, or both. Genuine fear flashed in their eyes. This wasn't just a tasteless jest, the glassblower realized.

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