the young master, and left the village.
14 The agent asked what the strange sickness was. ''He seemed to grow
old," the villagers told him. "In three seasons he aged fifty or more."
The agent asked what village the woman had come from and journeyed
there. To his surprise he found the same story. The man in that village
had died the same way as the previous one.
15 He traced the woman to the next village and found the same story
again.
16 His wonderment was now becoming horror as he traced the woman from
village to village, man after man, death after death. Everyone
described the same widow, the same age, the same circumstances.
17 The trail became more difficult but fortunately every Healer in
every village kept records, and a disease this strange was sure to be
written down!
18 Finally the agent came to the end of the trail- an abandoned,
desolate village, with only one family still working the fields around
its rims. They did not know what happened to the village, they told the
agent. It had been abandoned eighty seasons ago, and no one would live
in it since.
19 They planted crops inside the walls, but even their cattle wouldn't
stay in there at night. They believed The District Warlock still had
the village records. The agent found him and The Warlock showed him the
diary of the last Village Speaker.
20 After the agent had read it, he hurried home and told the keeper of
records all he had learned. By now the young master had fallen ill, and
seemed to get older every day. He had always been a faithful
Temple-goer, but now avoided it. His keeper of records however, got him
there on the story that he had to settle some business with The Speaker.
21 When he was inside the sacred walls The Speaker