The Map of Moments: A Novel of the Hidden Cities by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon

Author:Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon [Golden, Christopher & Lebbon, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-08-07T17:25:50+00:00

The blood of the Tordu had burned holes in the girl's bel y, chest, and cheek. The man upended the sack and dumped a squirming gray mass of rats onto her.

The doctors and nurses in the grange hal screamed.

Max screamed with them. He rushed at the nearest Tordu, the one he thought had been able to hear him, and tried to grab him. His hands passed through.

Two doctors, crying out in rage, ran to help the girl. One of the Tordu women threw a handful of powder into their eyes, and they fel , crying out in pain.

And al the while the rats tore at the little girl. She stil twitched, stil breathed, stil lived. But she never opened her eyes. Consciousness never returned.

Max screamed epithets at God, ful of venom and hysteria and helplessness. Then, quietly, turning his back, he prayed first for the girl, and then for himself. And as he prayed, the rats began to move away from the girl, who surely must be dead by now. Squeaking, sneaking, leaving tiny paw prints marked with the ink of her blood, they began to race through the hal toward the other patients.

"No!" Max pleaded, turning his gaze heavenward, wishing that God or even crazy Ray would hear him, that the magic of the Map of Moments would be taken from him. "I don't want to see any more. Please."

But the Moment had not ended yet.

The plague-stricken who were conscious screamed as the rats darted about. Some tried to stand and stagger from the place. The vermin seemed to target only the sickest amongst them, though, and those people were in no condition to move. They hardly seemed to notice as the rats began biting their fingers, toes, and faces. They had eaten of the girl and their snouts were daubed with her blood, but now they were not attempting to eat flesh, only to nip.

And then, as quickly as they had swarmed through the grange hal , they darted into corners, through doors, and beneath cots, vanishing in moments.

Instantly, the boils on the faces of the stricken began to shrink. Purple lesions faded, and if they did not vanish entirely, they might as wel have. Those who'd seemed closest to death opened their eyes as fevers broke.

Whispered prayers came from the corners of the room where the remaining doctors and nurses had retreated. Now they rushed to their patients.

Someone laughed, and then others took up the sound. The weeping that began was the sound of joy instead of anguish.

Max looked around, eyes wide. The Tordu had already left, but now those who had not yet been on their deathbeds were beginning to sit up, their symptoms departing, and the rats had not been anywhere near them. Those the rats had bitten were healed first, but their wel ness was contagious.

The fever had been broken.

He heard, amongst the whispers and shouts, the word "miracle" in several languages. But how could anything that required the mutilation and death of a little girl be a miracle?

His mind could not contain any more.

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