Lucrezia the Rat Doctor

Lucrezia breathed in deeply and pushed the heavy door of the lazaret. She developed this habit when plague ravished the countryside of Valor. All of the hospitals, lazarets, hospices, any place where they put the endless crowds of the sick and dying was saturated with the thick, smearing scent of death and decay, which corroded the mucous membranes and the soul in equal measure.

The lazaret, which the League of Plague Doctors established in the captured Ragosse citadel, was clean. Only one patient and doctor were behind the door. The magister of the league, who was silently sitting by the bedhead and examining the ceiling, painted at his own instruction to show a dusky sky, turned to the newcomer.
– Have you come to wake her?

– Yes, magister. – Lucrezia went over to Kelly, who was still sleeping, and looked at her with pity.

The curse of lethargy which gripped this girl was stronger than others. And it changed, tried to drag others into the endless depths of mad dreams. An entire wing of the lazaret had to be emptied for her alone, as some of the sick were driven mad, fearing to fall asleep next to her, while others couldn’t wake up for days. Lucrezia drew a syringe filled with a shimmering dark lilac colored potion. Brews of waking herbs and ancient ophidian spells mixed into something terrifying, but there was no other way.

Lucrezia touched the sleeping one to make an injection and the world started to melt before her eyes.

In a second she was far away from the lazaret, amongst the narrow streets of Vallor’s slums. She could hear voices from the tavern nearby, somewhere a horse’s hooves clip-clopped on the ground, two homeless children laughed as they poked with their sticks at fat black rats tied to each other with their tails. Lucrezia came closer and called the children, but her voice sounded like a distant echo.

– Hey! Don’t touch them! An echo of a voice breaking through the thick fog of age.

– Hey! Don’t touch them! The voice grew closer. It was that of a child. Lucrezia took a step back, refusing to believe her eyes. It was her, only she was a child staring angrily at the children across the alley.

– Let’s go! – One of the homeless children pushed the other. Let her play with her critters! Rat queen!

The children all ran off in different directions, laughing and hurling out slurs. One of the children threw a stick at little Lucrezia, but the girl didn’t pay any attention – very carefully, all while whispering something calming, she untied the tails of the little animals.

The world darkened again. Another scene unravelled before Lucrezia.

She, now a student of the Guild of Alchemists and Healers, was feeding lab rats. But this peaceful memory quickly turned into a nightmare – familiar Vallorian streets now filled with screams and smoke. Houses burned. The bird-masked quarantine guards were shooting down a poor sick man, trying to flee from the quarter.

Lucrezia staggered back. Someone’s strong, firm hand grabbed her shoulder and turned her.

The worried eyes of magister Agnello looked at her from behind the red lenses of the mask. The painted dusky sky was yet again above her. The visions of the past dispersed. The girl realized that she was still in the lazaret of Ragosse citadel.

– Are you alright?

– I think so. – Lucrezia’s heart pounded madly in her chest. The syringe which she brought with her to try and awaken Kelly now lay empty on the floor. – Her curse… it’s growing stronger, and can now affect not just the sleeping.