The Conspiracy

After talking to the captain, Celestina left the camp and walked a fair distance away. Glancing around, making sure no one was following, she touched the crystal.

Cal finished eating and leaned back in his chair with relief. His life was like a crazy swing, but luckily there were friends besides his enemies. After resting for a while, Cal got up to go to work completely satisfied with himself, when Celestina returned.

"Have you eaten yet? Great, let's talk another minute," she turned and looked out into the hallway and locked the door. "There's something I need to check on first.

The man nodded.

"Is your real name Cal?"

"..."

"Your real look, what is it?"

"..."

"Don't worry, I'll keep it a secret."

Cal hesitantly said the words and held his hand out as if he were removing an autumnal cobweb from his face. Celestina took a step back and gazed intently into his face.

"Did the General see the real you?" she asked suddenly.

"Yes..." He blurted out, unsure if he was in any danger of trouble soon.

"And how did he react?"

"I don't remember, I was confused, and Liam covered me with himself."

"I see," Celestina exhaled with relief, "well, you can change your face, but no, wait, stay as you are and wait here."

She went out again, and a few minutes later there was the rumble of wheels in the corridor. Celestina rolled the captain's bed through the door, Cal grimaced and retreated to the back of the room.

"Captain, I asked him to stay in his natural form," she explained to the old man, rolling the bed closer to Cal. The man was completely confused and looked from the Spellcaster to the old man in surprise.

It was the first time the captain had seen his friend's son in years, and his eyes became clouded with moisture.

"You do, you do," he muttered, and Cal took a few steps to hear him, "you look just like him…"

"Like who?" Cal dared to ask.

«Your father..." tears welled up from the Captain's eyes and he closed them.

"What?" said Cal looking at them in amazement. «You mean, my father?"

Celestina nodded with a smile. With a huge opening, Cal threw himself at the old man:

"Did you know my father?"

"Yes…"

"How? How long?"

"St. Catherine's Orphanage, we grew up there together, and yes, I visited your family when you were born."

Celestina left the room and left the two of them to talk, just as her crystal glowed. Finding a secluded spot, she answered. Her interlocutor mumbled something to her at length and in the end, she only nodded in agreement and said: "we'll wait for you."

Then she walked around the patients, making sure that the assistants who were not ill had completed all procedures in time and the hospital was not in danger of disaster. She gave a lot of gold bars to the head of the hospital for his lies to the captain. It was saving that none of the soldiers poked their noses into the infirmary, fearing the infection, the stench, and generally avoiding this perilous place.

After a long conversation, Cal took the captain to his seat and leaned over to take his hand, and thanked him. His aged heart trembled at this and he wept again. Years of loneliness and cruelty had made him callous and unsociable, but the memory of his friend never left him.

The joy of seeing his son in such a hopeless place lifted him to the pinnacle of bliss. He hurried to give Cal everything he had, but it required time and space, and they had neither, so the procedure was postponed indefinitely.

Cal set to work again and was a little distracted. Thoughts of his father did not leave his mind. He didn't care to know who had left him in the orphanage or why. Only his fate as a human being bothered him. Died so young, didn't have time to raise a son...

Cal was delivering food and mechanically serving plates to the sick. Next to some, he would linger and patiently feed them because they had no hands or the person was paralyzed.

When he had finished eating, Cal began his favorite pastime "washing a mountain of dishes alone. While his hands did their own thing, his thoughts were somewhere in the clouds.

He washed the dishes outside, behind the hospital. There was a well with a pump and a large wooden table where he turned the dishes over to let the water run out. Barely halfway through his dishes, he suddenly stopped seeing and nearly suffocated. Unidentified men had thrown a bag over Cal's head and draped it around his neck.

He was suffocating and couldn't call for help. His arms were twisted behind his back and his eyes darkened with pain. He was quickly dragged somewhere to the side and then roughly tossed into the wagon. A blow to the back of his head rendered him completely motionless and unconscious. The body was dragged far outside the camp and thrown off a small cliff.

Cal's hands were tied, he could still see nothing and could only taste the nasty metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He was pierced by a sharp pain in his chest from trying to move; it looked like he had broken a rib falling from a height. This made breathing difficult and painful.

"Don't move, you're dead," he heard a low voice beside him and listened.

Carefully obeying the order, Cal frantically wondered what it meant. Suddenly voices came from somewhere above.

"How did it happen?" The captain shouted through his scolding.

"It was an accident... we didn't mean... we didn't think..." the older cadets excused themselves.

"Are you sure he's dead? Let someone goes down and check."

"I'll go," someone volunteered and Cal heard panting.

Small stones and dirt fell from somewhere above as the man clumsily made his way down the slope, grasping at roots and grass. Finally, he reached the bottom of the ditch and, breathing heavily, came to the body.

Bending over, he felt his pulse on his arm and then on his neck. Finally, he put his ear to his aching chest and listened to his heart. The man got up from his knees and held his head up and shouted:

"He's dead, he won't get up again."

"All right," replied the captain, «throw a shovel down, let him bury him deeper."

There was a commotion from upstairs.

"Send somebody for the shovel," was heard again from above.

"You go," the older cadets were deciding who to send back to camp.

"All right, I'll be quick."

The men upstairs smoked and chatted for a while longer, and when the messenger returned with the shovel, the captain tossed the tool down.

"Come back when you're done," he ordered.

"Aye," said the man beside Cal, and picked up the shovel and began chopping the stony ground beneath his feet.

Cal did not move, for fear of betraying himself and setting up the man who had declared him dead. The man drove the shovel diligently into the ground and tossed the stony soil toward Cal, demonstrating that the body beside him was nothing more than forest carrion.

After standing for a while and observing what was going on below, the captain commanded to return, and the voices gradually fell silent. Continuing to dig, the man didn't stop for a moment until he had dug a hole deep enough. Cal's heart continued to echo painfully in his injured ribs.

The frighteningly oppressive silence made him think, for a moment, that perhaps they wanted to bury him alive. Suddenly, however, someone picked him up and dragged him away. The bag was still on Cal and he couldn't see anything. The quiet voices belonged to unknown people, so he was at a loss to speculate.

He was carefully loaded onto something soft, it must have been hay because he was lavishly covered with it on top. The wagon moved and Cal shuddered in pain. Someone's hand took his pulse. Then the other hand untied the ropes around his neck and eased his breathing.

The journey took a long time, and before the wagon finally stopped, Cal lost consciousness several times. The men carefully dug him out and several hands picked up his wounded body to carry him into the house. Inside, it was cool and smelled of fresh firewood. Someone took off Cal's bag and wiped his sweaty face with a damp sponge.

He was in no hurry to open his eyes. It stung and squeezed inside, and his breathing was labored. Someone deftly cut his shirt and then carefully exposed his wounds. Warm fingers gently groped his chest and ribs, at times lingering or crushing him so that he couldn't hold back a moan.

The man left him and stepped back. Cal opened his eyes and, in the half-light, saw a vague figure in the corner of the room.

"Two broken ribs and a bruised head, but otherwise he was fine," the man said, and Cal recognized the voice of the hospital doctor.

"How long will it take to heal?" The other voice was Celestina's.

"It depends on the care. He needs rest now, but he wouldn't want to be moved just yet," the doctor added.

Cal heard water splashing, it sounded like the man was washing his hands. With a few more hints, he walked out the door, and the bright light outside blinded Cal. Celestina slammed the door and turned around. She approached decisively and stroked Cal's hair, shaking out the debris.

"Do you see why I didn't tell you beforehand?"