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humble servant of the gods. Nothing more.”
    “But I saw what you did in there, with that woman—”
    Once again the old man cut him off, this time laying a hand on the young doctor’s shoulder. “I did nothing.”
    The doctor’s eyelids fluttered drowsily and his flesh took on a jaundiced hue. When he focused on the old man again, his eyes were glazed with a white film, a sticky veneer that would dissipate in moments. As he spoke, he began to smile, as though he had just learned a wonderful secret.
    “Of course,” the doctor said. “And we are grateful for your aid.”
    The old man nodded gravely. “Tell me what you can of this plague, Doctor, this strange sickness.”
    It took the doctor a moment to register what the old man was saying, then he smiled again. “I was a doctor in India. Here I am nothing but a friend to these unfortunates. My brother was a sailor for the East India Company, but they said he was difficult, that he did not follow orders, and so they hired more crewmen here, and left him behind. He wrote our family to tell us of the squalor so many of our people are living in, some by choice and others because they have no alternative. I came to do what I could to help.
    “I have never seen the like of this hideous plague before,” he continued. “The women become bloated. There are boils and sores, odd chafing to the skin. And when the sickness subsides they are filled inside with foul creatures that burst forth and escape into the night. It’s nothing natural, I am certain of that. This is not so much plague as curse. Many men are stricken, too, but their illness does not subside. They are either killed by it or they become . . .”
    The old man frowned at this last part.
    “Become?” he said.
    “Let me show you,” the doctor whispered as he led the old man past a curtained partition and into a tent.
    Within the tent were many young men, all of them suffering. The old man laid a hand here and there as he walked, and gradually the din of agonized murmurings subsided. The doctor stopped at a random cot and drew back the sheet that was covering the body that rested there.
    The young patient had hard features, the hands of a worker, and the scars of a fighter. These were human qualities, and yet his basic humanity was surrendering to something else. Calluses had given way to an almost reptilian skin. Sleek scales ran down the sides of his face in diamond cascade patterns that continued onto his throat and chest. His dark hair had begun to fall away, revealing a smooth, gleaming head. And all of his flesh was tinged with a dark, sickly green.
    “They become. I cannot explain it any further than that,” the doctor said sadly. “I saw the first of them two weeks past. Two more last week. Yesterday there were four. Today, seven more.”
    The old man looked at the patient, who began to shake.
    His eyes—strange, yellow, reptile eyes—went wide, and he opened his mouth in a cry that began as a low hiss and grew in volume as he shook his head from side to side. The cry became a scream and the patient arched his back, straining at his bonds, madness in his eyes.
    Then he went still, breathing raggedly. His flesh seemed darker, and the rough area of scales had spread farther across his chest and abdomen. For a moment the old man thought that he had fallen asleep, but then the patient lolled his head to one side and gazed at him. His eyes were no longer mad. Instead his gaze was full of fear, and it seemed as though he looked out from within some cage of horrid flesh.
    The afflicted man wept silently.
    “This is powerful tantrika. Your medicine is no match,” said the old man.
    The doctor shivered, then tore his gaze away from his patient. He scowled. “We have no medicine here. There is no money. We can only give comfort to the suffering. We have asked the Crown for help, but to no avail. We are just the poor bastard children of England’s empire.”
    “The governor general, Eden, he is not a