Chapter 104: Plague Doctor

Toren Daen

My hands flickered with embers and distorted buzzing as Mardeth casually floated out of the temple. Even as I felt the mana signatures of the vicars in the surrounding area converge and the tempest of Mardeth's heartbeat slowly receded into the distance, I kept myself grounded and focused on that door.

When I was certain we were out of danger, I turned around. Renea Shorn gave me an arched eyebrow, as if to say, Are you done?

Where before I'd felt a strange sort of awe at her nonchalance in the face of Mardeth's power, now I felt irritation simmering. If that attack had hit her, I doubted she'd be as reserved. She'd nearly been turned into a puddle on the floor, and she still looked unphased.

There was a line between confident and arrogant that this woman walked. I didn't know which side she truly belonged to.

"It seems we have work to do, Lord Daen," she said, brushing past me without a word. "Will you lead me to the warehouse where the people are kept?"

I let out a breath. A little "Thank you for stopping my face from melting off!" would've been nice, but it was pointless in the end.

"Follow me," I said, still feeling a lingering tingle in my palms.

—

As we walked, Lady Shorn split up the platoon. Groups of three and four were sent to scour the layout of East Fiachra, ensuring the Doctrination had truly vacated the premises. I couldn't see Naereni on the rooftops anymore.

But a nagging thought was bouncing around in my skull. Mardeth had wielded the name of High Vicar Varadoth as a shield, clearly trusting in it to protect him from Scythe Seris' retribution. But I knew little about the High Vicar personally, despite the fact he was the head of the state church. Furthermore, he wasn't a character I knew of from the canon of The Beginning After the End. I didn't know what to expect.

"Lady Shorn," I said as we walked, our numbers significantly smaller. "Is the High Vicar such a force that he could match a Scythe in their own Dominion?" I looked to my side, where the demure woman strode with unnatural grace. "He seemed to be the center of Mardeth's reluctance to leave."

Renea Shorn was quiet for a moment. "Do you know the details surrounding the Victoriad a year ago, where Scythe Melzri's Retainer position was up for the taking?"

I furrowed my brow. I hadn't been very aware of the political landscape of Alacrya as I trained with Norgan, so my personal knowledge of the continent–outside of what The Beginning After the End wrote of–was irritatingly sparse. But I had heard of the upset that had happened.

"I know a little. Mardeth was in the runnings to actually become the next Retainer for Etril," I replied. "But at the final bout between him and who would become Retainer Mawar, he publicly withdrew, saying he'd found something better to do."

Which was absolutely foolish, in my opinion.

Lady Shorn nodded. "Retainer Mawar bears a significant grudge due to that. It was a slap in the face to the validity of her power and position. Whispers will always circulate about what might've been if Mardeth had fought her face to face." She shook her head slightly. "But that is beside the point. The Vicar of Plague's open dismissal of the Retainership as being worth his effort was beyond disrespectful. In fact, it bordered on treasonous. To so openly insult Scythe Melzri, and by extension, the Sovereigns who upheld the tournament?"

"So how did he make it out alive?" I asked, finding the unasked question. "If he so openly spat in the faces of those immensely more powerful, what allowed him to walk away?"

Lady Shorn's eyes flashed. "That is the question, isn't it? You've found the crux of the matter remarkably quickly, Lord Daen. The truth is that Mardeth does have a protector: High Vicar Varadoth himself."

I tilted my head. "He's powerful enough to intimidate a Scythe?" I asked, feeling a bit incredulous.

"In personal power?" Renea said. "Maybe so. Maybe not. But Varadoth's strength isn't solely from his magic. He is called the Reformer, you know. Under his decades of administration, the Doctrination–which had been on the decline for some time before his rise–was bolstered to greater heights than it ever experienced. His changes and restructuring of power put them back on the board as a political player that was to be feared."

I tapped my fingers against the hilt of Oath, thinking about this. Truthfully, my breadth of knowledge was far smaller than I believed. When the lifespans of the powerful could be measured in the hundreds instead of under a century, there were far more implications for each and every move.

I hadn't even known that the Doctrination had been on the decline decades ago. Toren had only been a teenager when he died and didn't have nearly as much information and experience as he had previously believed.

"So the potential political retaliation of this High Vicar was enough to protect him from such a slight," I said. "With no repercussions at all?"

"He was exiled from his own home Dominion under threat of death," Lady Shorn said nonchalantly. "But he left with life and limb intact."

"And became my problem instead," I said with a sigh. The politics surrounding all of this was almost overwhelming. We continued our walk in silence for a few minutes more. "If Scythe Seris were to be alerted of what's happening here," I started, feeling a bit morose, "Do you think she would truly act? Follow through on her principles to help this place?"

I looked at one of the empty canals. No water ran through it. East Fiachra was an organ starved of blood, each of its veins carefully severed. This unneeded appendage was cut off from nutrients and allowed to wither on its own. And I could do a lot of rationalizing, but deep down I knew how little the people of East Fiachra could contribute to the economy. Magic was a wonderful, beautiful thing. Each pulse of fire in my hands and shimmer of sound I used was something awe-inspiring.

But there was a darkness to that beauty. On a continent such as Alacrya, it became a smothering pillow that slowly starved those who didn't have the ability. It wasn't just Alacryan culture that denied East Fiachra life and love. It was magic itself.

If High Vicar Varadoth was so powerful, would Scythe Seris actually risk her own operations for a measly sub-district? She had greater things in plan. A grand game in play to eventually topple her Sovereign gods. Would she risk that future for these few? I'd thought so initially. But as I thought about it, doubts grew.

Renea Shorn was silent for a moment. She seemed to be considering my question deeply; thinking on it more than I'd seen her contemplate anything else. She observed the ragged streets; the dirty alleyways. The terrified eyes of children peered out of windows around us.

"I cannot speak for those so far above me," Lady Shorn said at last, "But I would like to think that Scythe Seris would bring justice to this place, even if it were dangerous to her own self."

I let her words sink in as we reached the warehouse. I felt phantom pains from the beating I'd received inside. This place pulled bad memories to the fore of my consciousness. Of weakness and struggle. Of overwhelming fury and failure.

"We're here," I said, looking up at the warehouse. It didn't look special. "The people are locked up inside in the basements." I began to take another step forward, ready to enter and finally rescue those who had been locked up for a month too long.

A pale hand on my shoulder–one that was surprisingly firm–stopped me in place. I turned, raising a questioning brow to Lady Shorn as she retracted her hand. "You want me to wait?"

"Mardeth is sly," Lady Shorn said, waving her hands to some of the remaining platoon members. "He may have left some surprises in store for us. Better to be careful than rush in."

I exhaled. She was right about that. I was acting partially on instinct and impulse, the closeness of my goal washing away other concerns.

Lady Shorn ordered some of her guards to do a covet sweep of the premises, searching for anything that might be a trap. I watched them go with trepidation.

They were gone for a surprising amount of time. The minutes ticked by in silence, but nothing happened in the mana that told me something was amiss. I began to tap my foot in anxiety as time ground my patience to dust.

I opened my mouth, just about ready to suggest I should go in anyway when two of the guards Renea had sent in staggered out, their faces deathly pale. One of them stumbled to the side, arching over the grass and vomiting. The other simply leaned against the wall, sliding down so he sat with a blank, empty stare.

I felt my instincts flare as I rushed toward the men, disregarding my earlier reservations. If there was some sort of poison gas trap inside, my healing arts might be the only thing to save these men.

When I reached the one who was vomiting, I immediately prepared to diagnose him. Depending on the type of poison, he might be safe simply from vomiting out what he'd eaten. The body was good at trying to evacuate harmful substances like that.

"What kind of poison did you encounter?" I said, kneeling next to the man and preparing my lifeforce. I needed to diagnose before I tried any healing. I turned to the man who had his back to the wall. "Did you inhale it? Or did it enter the stomach?" The delivery method was important to discerning treatment. I didn't yet know the ins and outs of my healing power, but I could very well make things worse if I didn't ascertain the truth of my situation.

"No poison," the one leaning against the wall said with a far-off stare. His face was slack as he spoke. "No poison. Just… just what he left behind."

The man vomiting finally voided what was left in his stomach, beginning to dry heave.

"It was horrid," he said with a shiver. "I– how could you do that to someone? They didn't look like people anymore."

A numbness spread through my muscles as the words registered with me. These men hadn't been poisoned. They'd seen something horrid enough to cause these symptoms. They were shell-shocked.

Renea Shorn moved beside me, giving me a searching look. "How do you wish to proceed, Lord Daen?" she asked.

I didn't respond, shoving my way into the warehouse. Where before dozens upon dozens of blithe crates had stacked themselves high, now the floor was barren. I ignored the fact that Mardeth had managed to smuggle away the rest of his product and made a beeline for the far eastern wall, spotting an open door.

A set of dark steps awaited me when I peered through. Low light made the walk down appear to be a portal to the abyss.

But the smell was what hit me first. With my heightened senses from my assimilated body and partial asuran physique, the stench hit me as hard as one of Mardeth's spells. It scrambled for attention in my nostrils, ripping and tearing its way up through my sinuses.

It was a horrid mixture of excrement, death, and the stench of sickness rolled into a horrid fermentation. I'd experienced horrid sensations in the Fiachran sewers. I'd fought through utmost rot and decay in the Relictombs, the stench of death my companion at every corner. I'd grown accustomed to it.

I remembered that time in the depths of the lake in the last Relictombs zone where the massive serpentine undead had crushed me into its bulk. The flesh had nearly absorbed me, the refuse and rot entering my lungs and sinuses.

Yet what assaulted my nose was worse than even that. I gagged, tears gathering at the edges of my vision. What the hell is even down there?

I bolstered my body with a layer of mana, engaging my telekinetic shroud. The reinforcement around my nose made it easier to take the stench.

I went down the steps, each clack of my boots on stone seeming to echo.

When I made it to the bottom of the walkway, however, I finally understood. I felt nausea rise in my chest. My stomach churned at what I saw; my knees shaking as I took in the sight.

A slippery voice half-remembered seeped through my skull like sewage. "Pain is what drives us to our greatest heights," Mardeth had said. "Pain can only do so much before it breaks a thing rather than builds it stronger."

That voice cackled maddeningly as I fought to keep my stomach in check.

Medieval torture racks and devices were strewn across the large room. Bloodied implements and decaying remains of their victims were left out to dry. Wheels and barrels and devices I didn't want to think about seared themselves into my skull. All around me, the aftereffects of Mardeth's torturing work made my eyes water.

And the bodies I could see were twisted. Grotesque, yellow-green mutations bulged on the arms and limbs of the corpses. Some of those growths had clearly burst, spraying acidic pus across the room and melting into the walls and floors. Their eyes were all open in expressions of broken pain, even in death.

I stood there for a long, long time, my mind drifting away as I witnessed the peak of cruelty. So many dead. So many tortured.

I should've come here sooner, I thought emptily, staring into the lifeless eyes of a young girl. She couldn't have been more than three years old. A hole melted through where her stomach should have been.

Had I failed before I'd even known? I asked myself mutely, my emotions fuzzy and distant. Is everyone already dead?

But then a heartbeat reached my ears. I'd missed it in the emptiness of my mind; glossed over it in the wake of the horrors I was witnessing. But now that I had latched on, I felt a spurring hope. There were at least a dozen heartfires that I could hear now. They were weak and waning, but they were alive!

I forced my limbs to move, refusing to stare for too long at the mutilated bodies of men and women that were in my way. If I stared for too long, I might recognize a face. I might recall what I'd done with them last; where they'd helped me. So I kept my attention away.

I reached another door before long. Inside were a dozen men and women laid out on cots, each groaning and convulsing. My steps became hurried as I knelt by one of the women, looking her over and trying to identify her symptoms. I pulled the mindset of the surgeon over my emotions, for once seeing why Trelza did what he did.

Each and every person here was covered from head to toe in blithe staining. They were clearly suffering from withdrawal symptoms, but there was something different about this than I remembered. Realizing I needed to act fast if I wanted to treat these people, I called my lifeforce to the fore, ready to try and heal.

Before I had been hesitant to try and use my healing abilities on the guards for fear of making things worse. Yet for these wretched souls, there wasn't much worse that could happen at all.

I could immediately tell the woman was dying. Her lifeforce sputtered weakly in tune with her labored heart. Thinking of what had happened when I let my healing become too overwhelming when I'd tried to bring back Dima, I kept a measured distance, trying to stoke the unadorned woman's heartfire higher with my own. My hands glowed with the light of waxing dawn.

With the experience I'd gained from healing Dima, I was able to help, if only partially. The woman's breathing evened out and her lifeforce became more stable, but it was a temporary effect. I'd pulled her from the worst of her symptoms for the barest of moments.

Robotically, I pulled myself to my feet, trudging a few feet and numbly kneeling by the next cot. This one was another young girl. Her brown hair was falling out in patches, and she seemed to be the only one awake. She looked at me with wide, terrified eyes as I stood over her, but she made no sound.

She seemed unable to even speak.

"I'm here for you," I said, my voice coming out hoarse and watery. "I'm going to heal you, okay?" I said, trying to convince myself as much as the girl. "You'll be fine. I'll take the pain away. This will all be over soon."

I rested my hands over the girl's sternum. Her breathing began to quicken, terror suffusing her tiny body. But she still didn't move. I felt my heart twinge with pain.

Something was wrong with her mana core–even unadorned were born with them preformed–but I couldn't tell what without deeper inspection. I exhaled, calling my lifeforce to the fore. The girl cried silent tears as the warm light of my hands seeped over her chest.

The warm, peaceful light of my power slowly pulled the girl into slumber, her quickened breathing–like that of a mouse in a trap–gradually evening out.

When I was done, I moved on to the next person in a regular flow. Each time I performed my soothing healing, I got a bit better at it. Yet the wounds and pain of each tortured soul were deeper than I could fix at my current skill.

When I was done with the last person, I stood up, feeling as exhausted as I'd been in the wake of the leviathan fight. My knees shook as I tried to stand, the weight of what I'd been witnessing threatening to overwhelm me.

"I'm going to kill him," I vowed. I felt angry tears blurring my vision. My voice cracked as I said the words, my limbs trembling. With rage? Or with guilt? "I don't care that this High Vicar Varadoth protects him. I don't care that the church backs him."

I turned, feeling my mana roil even as my body threatened to collapse. Renea Shorn stood in the doorway, looking for all the world like the reaper come to take those who were close to the brink. Her own eyes had a haunted cast to them.

"I'm going to break him for this," I said again. "He rants and rants and rants about pain, but he's clearly never felt it. Never experienced it. Or else he would never do this to anyone, " I said, venting my frustration. I felt the ambient mana warp and twist as I struggled to keep my power contained. "I was wrong to wait so long."

Renea Shorn bowed her head, her shoulders slumping slightly. For all her seeming power and nonchalance, even she couldn't dismiss the horrors that had occurred down here.

The chain on my arm flashed with red light as I forced back my emotions, walking out of the room holding the last dozen survivors out of over a hundred.