Zakath burrowed through the litter of documents on the table in front of him. "Here it is." He picked up a scrap of parchment and read from it. "High fever, nausea, vomiting. Chills, profuse sweating, sore throat, and headache. Finally delirium, followed shortly by death."
She looked at him gravely. "That doesn't sound too good," she said. "Is there anything peculiar about the bodies after they've died?"
"They all have an awful grin on their faces," he told her, consulting his parchment.
She shook her head. "I was afraid of that."
"What is it?"
"A form of plague."
"Plague?" His face had gone suddenly pale. "I thought there were swellings on the body with that. This doesn't mention that." He held up the scrap of parchment.
"There are several different varieties of the disease, Zakath. The most common involves the swellings you mentioned. Another attacks the lungs. The one you have here is quite rare, and dreadfully virulent."
"Can it be cured?"
"Not cured, no. Some people manage to survive it, but that's probably the result of mild cases of their body's natural resistance to disease. Some people seem to be immune. They don't catch it no matter how many times they've been exposed."
"What can I do?"
She gave him a steady look. "You won't like this," she told him.
"I like the plague even less."
"Seal up Mal Zeth. Seal the city in the same way that you've sealed the palace."
"You can't be serious!"
"Deadly serious. You have to keep the infection confined to Mal Zeth, and the only way to do that is to prevent people from carrying the disease out of the city to other places." Her face was bleak. "And when I say to seal the city, Zakath, I mean totally. Nobody leaves."
"I've got an empire to run, Polgara. I can't seal myself up here and just let it run itself. I have to get messengers in and send orders out."
"Then, inevitably, you will rule an empire of the dead. The symptoms of the disease don't begin to show up until a week or two after the initial infection, but during the last several days of that period, the carrier is already dreadfully contagious. You can catch it from somebody who looks and feels perfectly healthy. If you send out messengers, sooner or later one of them will be infected, and the disease will spread throughout all of Mallorea."
His shoulders slumped in defeat as the full horror of what she was describing struck him. "How many?" he asked quietly.
"I don't quite understand the question."
"How many will die here in Mal Zeth, Polgara?"
She considered it. "Half," she replied, "if you're lucky."
"HaIf?" he gasped. "Polgara, this is the largest city in the world. You're talking about the greatest disaster in the history of mankind."
"I know -and that's only if you're lucky. The death rate could go as high as four-fifths of the population."
He sank his face into his trembling hands. "Is there anything at all that can be done?" he asked in a muted voice.
"You must burn the dead," she told him. "The best way is just to burn their houses without removing them. That reduces the spread of the disease."
"You'd better have the streets patrolled, too," Belgarath added grimly. "There's bound to be looting, and the looters are going to catch the disease. Send out archers with orders to shoot looters on sight. Then their bodies should be pushed back into the infected houses with long poles and burned along with the bodies already in the houses."
"You're talking about the destruction of Mal Zeth!" Zakath protested violently, starting to his feet.
"No," Polgara disagreed. "We're talking about saving as many of your citizens as possible. You have to steel your heart about this, Zakath. You may eventually have to drive all the healthy citizens out into the fields, surround them with guards to keep them from getting away, and then burn Mal Zeth to the ground."
"That's unthinkable!"
"Perhaps you ought to start thinking about it," she told him. "The alternative could be much, much worse."
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Silk," Garion said urgently, 'you've got to stop it.""I'm sorry, Garion," the little man replied, looking cautiously around the moonlit atrium for hidden spies, "but it's already in motion. Sadi's bandits are inside the palace grounds and they're taking their orders from Vasca. Vasca's so brave now that he's almost ready to confront Zakath himself. General Bregar of the Bureau of Military Procurement knows that something's afoot, so he's surrounded himself with troops. The King of Pallia, the Prince Regent of Delchin, and the old King of Voresebo have armed every one of their retainers. The palace is sealed, and nobody can bring in any outside help -not even Zakath himself. The way things stand right now, one word could set it off."
Garion started to swear, walking around the shadowy atrium and kicking at the short-cropped turf.
"You did tell us to go ahead," Silk reminded him.
"Silk, we can't even get out of the palace right now -much less the city. We've stirred up a fight, and now we're going to be caught right in the middle of it."
Silk nodded glumly. "I know," he said.
"I'll have to go to Zakath," Garion said. "Tell him the whole story. He can have his imperial guards disarm everybody."
"If you thought it was hard to come up with a way to get out of the palace, start thinking about how we're going to get out of the imperial dungeon. Zakath's been polite so far, but I don't think his patience -or his hospitality- would extend to this." Garion grunted.
"I'm afraid that we've outsmarted ourselves," Silk said. He scratched at his head. "I do that sometimes," he added.
"Can you think of any way to head it off?"
"I'm afraid not. The whole situation is just too inflammable. Maybe we' d better tell Belgarath."
Garion winced. "He won't be happy."
"He'll be a lot less happy if we don't tell him."
Garion sighed. "I suppose you're right All right, let's go get it over with."
It took quite some time to locate Belgarath. They finally found him standing at a window in a room high up in the east wing. The window looked out over the palace wall. Beyond that wall fires ranged unchecked in the stricken city. Sheets of sooty flame belched from whole blocks of houses, and a pall of thick smoke blotted out the starry sky. "It's getting out of hand," the old man said. "They should be pulling down houses to make firebreaks, but I think the soldiers are afraid to leave their barracks." He swore. "I hate fires," he said.