One canoe comes from the north. One man rows it. He alone is untouched by death. He glides in silence up to the wharf at Rivergrass, ties the canoe off to a piling, and just sits there, not touching the shore or even the wharf.
Zahn's ship still rides at the end, and two of Zahn’s men stand watch. One of the guards, Chan-Su, walks down the ramp and approaches the lone man in his canoe.
The man waves him away, pointing at the longhouse.
"Kiapelaneh, and Zahn." is all he says.
Chan-Su looks back at the ship, then runs to the plank and shouts to the other guard, "I must go to the longhouse!"
His partner waves, and Chan-Su runs to get his captain. Inside the lodge he goes straight to Zahn, and whispers what he's seen, and heard.
Zahn stands, turns to Wei, who is closest, "A man in a Haida canoe has just arrived. He wears a hood over his face, and he won't get out of his canoe. He speaks the language of the Empire and asks for Kiapelaneh and myself."
Wei nods, goes first to Hawk and Midnight. Fisheagle swivels around to listen as Wei quietly explains the situation. His Halq’uemehlem is quite good now.
The hall is silent. Everyone is watching, sensing that something significant is happening. Fisheagle stands, waving urgently to Kiapelaneh, who rises and joins them. They speak for a moment, then stride urgently out the doors toward the wharf, Wei, Zahn and others following. A buzz rises in the hall.
The Rivergrass chief gets there first. He approaches the man in the canoe, but the man waves him back. He sees the others coming and waits until they are closer. Then he tells them what has happened at the Haida village. He describes the illness starting as a mild affliction, like the stomach sickness that comes around every year. Then he tells how it progresses. He speaks of hundreds of bodies, and the scarring and crippling after effects on the survivors. He begs for help but tells them again to keep their distance.
Zahn listens to the story with growing horror. He grabs Kiapelaneh by the arm, and waves Wei over.
"I know what this is."
Wei translates for all to hear, and all eyes are on Zahn.
"We call it the small pocks, because it leaves small round scars in the skin of the survivors. Do you not have this here?"
All of the natives shake their heads.
Zahn groans. This whole place has never been exposed to the disease. It kills untold numbers every year, especially in remote parts of the Empire. He collapses into a sitting position on the wharf. He doesn't know how but knows that he brought it. The timing is too perfect. The disease takes about twelve days to show. Within a moon, many are dead, more scarred and crippled.
Zahn motions to Wei. "We are immune. Get this man food and drink, but do not touch him. He may still have the disease about him.”
Wei runs to the longhouse.
Zahn waits, as does everyone else, for Wei to get back. Wei returns with several others bearing blankets and preserved food, placing the supplies on the edge of the wharf within the man’s easy reach, then speaks to the crowd. Then Zahn speaks to the crowd again, “You need to know that we have this disease where we come from. It is in all the lands that we usually trade with. It kills many and cripples more. Somehow, it must have travelled with us. None of my people were sick, so I have no idea how it travelled..." Understanding bursts in his mind with a sudden memory: The vendor that approached him just before he departed from the main island of the Heian people, just northeast of Shanghai, on the way. The vendor seemed almost desperate to sell a few bolts of silk very cheap. Zahn naturally pounced on the deal, thinking the seller was in financial difficulty, perhaps they were even stolen. Provenance is no matter to him. He explains what he is thinking. "The disease shows within twelve days of exposure, so none of my people could have carried it. It had to have been in the silk, dormant. When they unrolled the cloth..." He can't go on as horror overwhelms him.
Wei translates, then explains to the natives that the disease can't be on any of the other trade goods, and that the Haida had taken all of the cloth that they picked up on the island.
Zahn looks up, finally. "The survivors must be isolated, or the disease will spread like fire in a summer dry forest. There is no cure, but…our healers know how to make people immune. It is a simple thing.” His face has a haunted look, his eyes shadowed, reflecting the darkness in his soul.
Fisheagle speaks. "Can you bring one or more of these medicine men here, to teach us how to protect ourselves from this?"
Zahn nods. "With what you have brought here, I can bring several. They can teach you how to make the medicine. If it has never been in this land, then it will be a huge project to stop it. Every person has to be treated, and every child that is born, or it will be loose to kill. Sooner or later you will begin to have more contact with the outside world when I take this load of goods back to my markets. More ships, more chance that the disease is carried here." He stands and looks around at all the people there. "I am responsible for this. I will do everything that I can think of to help."
