Affliction in a Pane of Glass

In parts of the desert there is no wind, but the sun beams are strong enough to wear rocks down to sand through the force of their shine. This happened to a mountain, long ago, and turned it into White Dune, a tower of pearly grains that Saleh scrambled down this evening as he did every evening, once the air was cool. With a lamp in one hand and a parcel in the other, he confidently skidded from the Dune’s crest to its base, only stumbling a handful of times when he tripped on a sidewinder’s trail, or swerved around an outcropping boulder. He was hidden from view of the city on this side of White Dune. An ocean of black desert stretched out before him to meet the indigo sky. There were no landmarks but the Dune, so he craned his neck to the heavens and consulted stars to guide him. He set a course south.

The journey was not long, thankfully, and the stars remained unclouded. He barely needed the lamp to light his path, but he always took it with him anyway, to scare off wild creatures. The parcel thumped against his side as always, but this time, unlike all the other trips, a secret burned within.

He soon reached the colony. Ruined buildings and traces of streets festooned with scrub brush, an ancient stele at the center of a wheel that used to be a city. Saleh doused his lamp. It would not do to draw attention to himself. He approached quietly, and low to the ground. He crept towards a dune and used the bushes on its side to obscure his approach. Settled among the sage, he surveyed the colony. One or two fires burned. Linen tarps covered holes in the homes that were now occupied. There was one building which used to be slave quarters for a wealthy farmer. It sat at the edge of town, an ugly boil on the holy symmetry of the city blocks.

Saleh retreated from his vantage point, staying low until the colony was fully out of sight. Then, using the stars, he inscribed a quarter-circle around the ruins until he was nearest to the slave hovel. Then he approached again, still keeping low. Although it was dark, he knew his silhouette would be visible against the starry sky. The new angle of approach allowed him to crawl directly toward the city, minimizing the back-and-forth motion of his shadow against the horizon. Creeping in this manner, he reached the hovel undetected by the colony’s inhabitants.

Living in the desert where there is so little life gives inhabitants a heightened sense for the presence of other animals. Saleh could tell there was someone inside the hovel long before he got there. For whatever reason the ravages of time had seen fit to leave this building almost entirely untouched, and there were no holes in it anywhere, but the door hung open. Saleh crawled towards it, and cautiously threw a pebble at the doorframe. Then another.

“Saleh? Is that you?” a stifled voice came from within the structure.

Saleh jumped to his feet and ran inside. He pulled the door shut behind him, and began fumbling with his flint to relight the lamp. Soon he had it burning, and held it aloft to behold the face of his confidant on the other side of the building.

One of the reasons this building was ideal for their meetings was because of its length. Bunks used to line both walls, long since looted for firewood. On the other end of the room, huddled on the floor, was a gaunt figure wrapped in robes. A pale face, as mottled as the moon, peered out from between dirty sheets. Stringy black hair framed thin lips and big eyes, the delicate nose of a woman who might have been beautiful, were it not for this — she was a member of the leper colony, a permanent outcast.

“Hello, Aludra. Catch,” Saleh said, tossing her the parcel. It bounced on the floor in front of her, and she grinned at him.

“Hello, Saleh. It is good to see you again.” Aludra picked up the parcel, unconsciously measuring its weight. “Any trouble coming in?”

“No, none at all.” Saleh had to hold the lamp aloft to keep the shadows off both their faces. “Nobody saw me, as usual.” Saleh’s bond with Aludra was special. Other members of the leper colony would not be so friendly to an untainted young man carrying provisions. “Only, I wish the stars were not so exceptionally beautiful tonight. Hard to carry out errands of darkness and secrecy under such a bright canopy.”

Aludra opened the parcel, eyes glistening at the soft bread within. “Oh, Saleh, really. I don’t know what I did to deserve kindness like yours.”

“Seeing as you’re likely to pass before me,” Saleh said, “why don’t you put in a good word for me after death, and we’ll call it even.”

“You can be sure I’ll sing your praises to whoever will listen in the afterlife,” said Aludra, delicately tearing a loaf into pieces small enough to eat. “You have no idea how terrible things are for us lepers. The things I’ve seen noble humans reduced to… anyway, you do a good deed saving me from the desperation of the colony.” She paused, to eat a small crust. “And I’ll try and make sure as many people as possible get this bread. Thank you, Saleh, oh, thank you so much.”

Saleh stretched out his back, trying to work out the soreness he’d acquired scrambling towards the colony on his belly. “And the gangs? How fares our friend, Basaam?” he asked.

“Not well, and yet not poorly enough,” Aludra spat. “His condition worsens, so he doesn’t spend so much time beating people up anymore. Now he just has his goons beat people and drag them before him. Then, after they’re too weak to fight back, he stomps on them until he wears himself out. He still fancies himself a leper warlord. He’s attacked five people this month. One died from his wounds.” Another piece of bread.

Saleh frowned. “I’m worried for you, Aludra. If he finds out you’re smuggling in bread, it could be big trouble for you.”

“Ah, well,” she said, “he’ll just have to not find out, then.” She picked through the loaved, verifying the quality of each one. “After all, it’s not like he cares… Saleh? What is this?”

Saleh’s pulse quickened. The secret. She held aloft in her hand a scrap of parchment, a terrible opportunity written on its surface. “Listen now, Aludra. You remember two years ago, when I told you how it burned me to see one I care about suffer the injustices of a leper. I swore to you I would upend heaven and earth to see you respected by society once again.”

Aludra giggled. “I remember quite clearly. I laughed at you and said you sounded foolish. You still do, when you say it. You adopt a pose as if you believe yourself to be a general, and not a city boy.”

“Hush, and let me speak. From then-” Saleh gulped. “From that day on, I searched for some way to help you regain what was lost. I knew it was a foolish quest, the helpless wishing of a child that things could go back to the way they were. But still, I didn’t lose hope. And a fortnight ago I found it. A merchant passing through town mentioned a well. He was vague about it, but I plied him with liquor that night and got him to tell me more. There is a well in an ancient city far east of here, a city even older than the one whose ruins we sit in now. In that city, in the Forgotten Quarter, there is a well. The merchant said that the waters of that well, in the correct ritual, may cure leprosy. The ritual is lost, but there are some there who may remember enough for us to at least gather the important ingredients. It may only be a legend, except the man told me he’d had leprosy himself. He showed me great patterned scars on his back and chest in the shape of diseased marks. They were healed, and only faint scars remained. He said he’d done the ritual at the well, and was cleansed by it. It was his secret. You see, Aludra? It’s not much, but there’s a chance we may be able to find you a cure. The name of the well is written on that scrap of parchment. We can gather supplies, I will journey with you, if all goes well we may even figure out a way to bring the cure back to the colony here. What say you?”

Throughout this speech, Aludra’s face had gone through several expressions. She began bemused, then concerned, and now annoyance twisted her features. “What say I? Saleh, what is this nonsense? I beg for bread, you bring me a fairy tale? The man was a liar, and you a bigger fool than I thought.”

He was hurt by this, but not undeterred. He knew she could be stubborn. “Please, Aludra, it’s not just this merchant’s word. I saw the marks on his body, and besides that I have heard…whispers. Rumors of a thing like this. I have uncovered many fakes and charlatans in my search, I am not a conman’s mark in all this. This legend has the smell of truth about it.”

“Why have you wasted your time with such nonsense?” Aludra demanded. She tossed away the scrap of paper, and folded up the parcel of bread again. “You should know better by now. I am doomed. You said yourself, this is the helpless wishing of a child that things could be different. Be a man, Saleh, and accept my fate.”

Saleh blinked back tears. “I wasted my time with nonsense for your sake! In the hopes that one day I might find a diamond in the rough to bring you, as I did now. I did it for you.”

“Don’t cry, Saleh, it would insult me.” Aludra’s lower lip trembled. “For me? You don’t love me,” she said, “you won’t even approach me. You compliment me with your mouth and bribe me with cheap offerings, but your actions betray your feelings. You avoid my presence, just as everyone else in the city does. You hate me.”

“No,” cried Saleh, “I hate your leprosy.”

“I am my leprosy!”

Saleh bowed his head, and said nothing.

“I wish that instead of pursuing fairy tales, pretending to be a great hero, trying to cure me, that you would just let me die. A leper is who I am, and dying is what a leper does. You would change who I am to suit yourself. That isn’t love, it’s greed.”

Saleh still said nothing.

“You look at me with pity every time we meet. You find my weakness pathetic. You think I am cursed by God? The curse I suffer is your refusal to understand me. You see me as sick, unclean — well, to me, I am clean. To me, I am normal. My curse is not leprosy,” she said, raising her voice, “it is that my Saleh is so disgusted by me, he must always sit on the opposite side of the room!”

Saleh raised his head. His eyes were dry. He stood, and deliberately walked towards Aludra. Step by step, closer and closer, until they were close enough to touch, and the light flickered on both their faces. He bent down, and picked up the scrap of parchment. He stood.

“I am sorry, Aludra,” he said. He turned, and walked toward the door. Reaching it, he turned back to look at her. “I will not try to save you anymore,” he said. With that, he blew out the lamp, opened the door, and stepped outside.