The City of Cities
Noonday sun beat down upon the polished marble columned buildings of the agora; upon its limestone pavements; upon the roofs of houses and temples here and there, burnished terracotta tiles and those of gilt gleaming bronze. Brilliantly dyed linens hung over the carved wood of market stalls where traders plied their wares collected from across the known world: gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, coral, ivories, amber, incenses, spices, everything for which merchants risked life and limb in hope of profit—all changed hands here in unparalleled number. Fountains bubbled with water brought from distant mountain springs by great aqueducts that stretched for miles and miles across rough and rocky terrain. The weather was clear, the skies a bright azure dotted with a few wispy clouds as pure white as the marble of the temples in the heart of the City. Patterned awnings swayed in gentle breezes. Yet all was silent save the blowing wind and flowing water. There were no merchants; there were no traders; no patrons; neither buyers nor sellers; no servants seeking those goods their masters desired nor something for themselves; neither man, nor woman, nor child anywhere in sight, not a voice heard, across the marketplace. In the whole of the agora was not a soul to be found.
An overpowering smell wafted across the cityscape from the stone-block streets and alleyways between the bright whitewashed walls of its residences and neighborhoods. The smell of death and of the dead. Of corpses—of men and women, from elderly to newborn—left to the ravages of nature; left to rot in the streets; to fester in the midday sun. There was no mistaking that scent—is no mistaking that scent—the fetid stench of putrefaction, of decaying remains; once human beings, proud inhabitants of this greatest of cities, this City of Cities, now nothing more than rotting flesh hanging loosely from bone. An animal carcass lying where it had died, or where it had been hastily disposed of in terror by kin desperate to avoid a fate they feared too rightly would soon be theirs.
In the earliest days of the plague, valiant attempts were made in every corner to care for victims, but all were quickly overtaken; for first those so tasked were assured to be sacrificed to the Great Death; so that then none in turn dared make an attempt lest they too should find themselves destroyed; and so deadly was the disease that little time passed before, even if any had the heart, or foolhardiness, too few were left to keep pace with the ravenous unending appetite of the god of pestilence.
In a grove on the outskirts of the City, a band of survivors met in council, an assembly of the people, such as were left, to decide a course for those citizens who had not succumbed to the plague. To discuss a future for their nation—if there was to be any future. Scouts had been sent to scour the countryside to assess the extent of the Great Death, and to search for further survivors, that they might gather all together to rebuild. Such hopes soon came to naught as the inescapable truth made itself apparent that disease had not spared the rural populace. If the City had become a ghost town, it had become a ghost town in the heart of a wasteland. There were few left in any corner of the realm to rebuild.
Assembled, those that remained began laying out their needs, charting the paths to be undertaken in desperate hope of restoring the civilization they had lost, resurrecting the world they once had known. What might be done to restore the City to its glory? What might be done to return to that normalcy? To assuage the hollowness its absence affected? I have vast lands, said one. Someone must farm the fields and tend to the livestock, for surely food is our greatest concern. I have ships and boats, said another. Someone must take to the rivers, lakes, and seas, must become fishermen, for surely that, too, would provide us food we so badly need. Someone must mine for iron so that we can make new tools; someone must work the forests to provide us with wood; someone must work the quarries to provide us with stone; and so on in turn various speakers continued. A few surviving merchants began to grumble about how it would be impossible to ply their trade, that there were too few left, there would be no market, nothing to offer those in distant lands, should they have been spared, and no one to sell their wares to at home.
Soon the mood of the whole assembly soured and took a downward cast. Aristocrats began to speak of what could no longer be found, what they would all be forced to go without. There were to be no precious jewels, no pearls from Eastern lands, no gold and silver, no silken finery. The brass automatons which delighted with their tricks would be a luxury too far, if any even had the knowledge left to make them. Worse, at least to those not accustomed to so many riches, would be the disruptions in everyday goods, the destruction of the machinery to produce those items without which civilized people cannot live. How could the aqueducts be maintained with so few? Who would build the waterwheels and mills? Who would make the pots and vessels, the cutlery and silverware? And if they were all to do this vital work, who would there be to enjoy it? In short, they began to lament that, though they might eke out an existence as a people, there could be no returning to the grand past they held so dearly. Though they had survived the plague; though they had lived and might go on living; though the Great Death had not taken them—they had nonetheless suffered a great death indeed. Life they had been given, but civilization was to be denied them. The people remained; the City was lost. The great City, the City of Cities, without which, what were its people? What could remain for them but ceaseless hardship? A dread conclusion began to creep across.
Could they return to a savage age? Could they cherish so barbarous an existence? No, they cried out almost in unison. What value was there in life without those things which make life worth living? What reason could they have to go on if they could not go on as citizens? Why should they resign themselves to toil and misery for mere survival? A hopeless toil and misery whose successes could bring only the opportunity for more and greater toil. No, no, none dared bear even the thought of such a future, for it could not be called a future they thought. An end had been reached. They knew now what was to be done, all of them; they had reached the decision united as one. There was no captain, but none questioned the course of the ship. It was decided.
In the midst of the camp was a fire and a great cauldron hung over the fire, filled with water. Those chosen by lot for the task began gathering the wild hemlock that grew in the sparse woodland not far from their chosen meeting place; it was not long before they returned with bundles of the plant in such great number that there could be no doubt it would be enough for all. Too much was the order of the day—it would not matter one whit if it were more than needed—but too little would be unthinkable, a cruelty beyond cruelty. No, it was imperative that there be enough to be certain. When the gatherers returned, the water had been boiling, ready to be mixed with the herb; ready to prepare the infusion to be drunk; cups had been gathered to be passed around the assembly, to everyone, to drink their portion. Hemlock was to be their savior. It had been decided.
And at last, in its own way, the Great Death took the final inhabitants of the City of Cities.