Cycles of death - Short fantasy story

I walked into my study, slamming the door so hard that the little mortar left on the wall had fallen from the impact. I was angry, sad and upset at the same time with everything that was happening around me. And unfortunately it happens despite everything I've said in recent years. I knew that this disease would come back, that it would put our people to the test again. I, too, and all the otters in my council preached the same story throughout the Kingdom. Nobody listened to us. I lost my voice, and all the money to convince the powerful that this would come back again. And now that they are on our doorstep again, they will come with all their gold to pray for help we cannot provide.

A monster that, surprisingly, only reached the southern regions of the continent, has returned. I remember, not too long ago, just two decades ago, it took away more than half of our population. And then we became weak, after that we suffered attacks by the enemy armies every year. They knew we were powerless to deal with so many losses, and our morale was at zero. But our King and his shithole of advisors only listened to us while the danger lasted. When the plague finally passed, and the enemy's attacks subsided, they stopped listening.

I remember as a student at the Academy learning about this and every other plague. They have been reported cyclically and in the records from earlier, occurrences are reported every 50 years of new diseases. This present one, in how it spread and looked, is the same as it was twenty years ago. People would simply fall in the middle of the street without any symptoms and signs, recover after two days if their body was healthy enough to survive the disease, or they would die in agony in next few days.

Our guild was practically powerless. Every existing religion and its preachers were powerless. Fear is the only sentiment that has reigned and reigns.

I was sitting like that, away from the rooms where we housed the sick. I heard their cries now, and my every effort to ease them was in vain. So I stared at the bare walls of that study, lost in thoughts. I tried to come up with an idea so that I could help, as I had thought all those years ago, but I made no progress. None of us are.

The only valid idea was to turn to wizards and alchemists, but they are not the sort of people who interact with those lower than themselves. Surprisingly, none of them ever died from any of the illnesses recorded. It was our hope at first, but they lived in isolation anyway, only in certain parts of the continent, and it was virtually impossible to find them. Once we made it, we found their housing, but the protective spells kept us away from them. Not even the King, nor his army, could approach them. But it has always been that way, they never got involved in wars and politics, only sometimes to share their knowledge with the ordinary world, and only in situations when they think it should.

And so, I sat, and waited for a miracle.

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