The Good Samaritan

[Faure]

(Solo. Takes place two months after the conclusion of Salvar's Civil War. This is being used as primary source material. However, this isn't meant to create canon, but rather to play upon events that were never looked at during the FQ. Thanks.)

The marketplace was busy as trade reached the chaos of midday. Merchants bellowed from their makeshift stands that crowded the narrow streets, brandishing all manner of wares at unsuspecting patrons while telling incredible lies about their properties in an attempt to entice them to buy. The cacophony of traders attempting to be heard over one another was drowned out by the sheer number of people that walked about the market, the dirt roads paved with footprints and refuse. It was hard to imagine seeing that many people all in one place at once without causing some sort of panic from the culture shock. But it was real, vibrant and smelled awful. Men, women, children and everything in-between pushed at one another to keep the human traffic going, people moving in all manner of directions all at once that it was mind-boggling to try and find your way around any part of the Assan marketplace and not be whisked away to another part of it. It was common in fact to lay eyes upon a person for a second, to take in their features, and for them to vanish into the crowd the very next second, never to be seen or heard from again. The havoc the people were causing upon the market was truly awful for anyone really looking to conduct business, but the chaos of Assan was a haven for thieves, cutpurses and murderers alike. One would never miss their coin in a place like this, and there were stories about this place that kept the rich wary from traveling to these parts of the city for it was far more likely that that unlucky fellow would be struck and bled out while his assailants were busy sorting out his valuables in a nearby alley then he was ever to strike a deal here.

Still, the marketplace had its purpose and it served it well. As a commonwealth on the southern shores of Fallien, Assan served as the beating heart of commerce in a country that was reputed for being both exotic and desolate.

Gerard had his fill of cultural propriety about five minutes after entering the market and had been trying to find his way out for the last two hours only to be shoved, pulled and pushed around the streets against his will. Even a benevolent fellow like himself, the good doctor had gone from annoyed, to frustrated to even angry as he shoved people aside in an attempt to escape the current of the streets. He had lost his guide, Lami, to the tides around the time he entered the market and while he had been trying to find him, somehow Gerard knew that the Fallinari had betrayed him. Obviously four pieces of silver is not enough to buy loyalty, he deduced, but that line of thought quickly vanished when an old woman balancing a pot of water upon her head shoved him violently into a nearby stand. The merchant there had been selling rich, luxurious carpets of all manner of colours and fabrics, but at that moment all Faure could see was red. Using the momentary reprieve from the torment of the market, the doctor stood by the stand and placed his medical bag in front of him, never taking his eyes off of it.

"Why am I here again?" Gerard asked himself as he put his hand in his pocket to retrieve the note he had, but found himself fingering the bottom of his trousers where a jagged hole had been slashed by a cutpurse. "Damn it!" He snarled as he fumbled for his wallet in his breast pocket and found that to be absconded with as well.

The merchant who had been peddling his carpets at to the streets took notice to him and began to yell at him in thick Falliari, asking him if he wished to buy this carpet in a deal of a lifetime. "I hate this place!" Faure replied to him coolly in common and when the merchant smiled and made it known he didn't understand him, Gerard reached into his pocket and stuck his finger through the hole to display he had been robbed, cursing in the merchant's native tongue. The carpet merchant bellowed with laughter and regarded him another moment before turning back to the streets to peddle his wares.

He doesn't care, nobody does, the doctor realized. Looking from the stand and above the heads of the crowd, Faure saw a nearby alley that was wide enough for him to fit through, but he would have never make it through the streets to the other side without being whisked off to another part of the market. Gerard knew that much. Putting his hand upon his medical bag, he took out a blue spotted kerchief from his jacket and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was hot, he was angry and he couldn't hear himself think in this abominable place. He took a few precious seconds to collect himself and focus on to why he was here, even risking to close his eyes to try and pull a phrase from that note he had been given that had drawn him to this infernal market in the first place. It had been written brusquely in the common tongue, was plaintive and very much cut to the point;

Man dying. In need of your assistance. Will meet you in Assan's market at noon tomorrow. Come alone. Will pay three hundred crowns for your time.

"Crowns in Fallien," Gerard snorted. The entire note had made him suspicious, and the ones who had been behind it were definitely up to no good, but he came anyway if only out of some air of civic responsibility. And at that moment it was that motivation that brought him here that he was in dire short supply of. "Forget it." The doctor said finally, "I tried to be the Samaritan today and I've lost a good deal more than three hundred crowns. Far more."

Instead, Gerard opened his eyes and began to look for the nearest exit, when he finally found a path of purchase that would get him out of this horrible place, he moved away from the stand pulling a heavy bag off the counter when he fell sideways at the risk of being trampled upon at the very same moment he realized he wasn't holding a bag, but a very large rock wrapped in cloth instead.

"No!" Gerard roared as something in him finally snapped. He had wanted those in the crowd to notice his anger, but only the few nearest him paid him queer looks as he fumed at the loss of his most precious item. As fickle luck schemed to rob him of his medical bag, it must have been fate that caused him to look upon the crowd and watch his bag hover over the crowd, in the hands of two young boys that ran with the current of the crowd and were making for a bend in the road. And then they and his bag vanished.

Gerard didn't think and events ran together very quickly as he rushed into the street and brutally kicked the man nearest him in his arse to clear the way. Once lost in the crowd again, the doctor rushed forward knocking anyone and everyone aside to retrieve his stolen valuables.

[Faure]

Gerard bowled into a tight group of men who had been dressed in plain garb and each owning scimitars that were far too valuable for men in that manner of dress to ever own. Even at a glance, the doctor was unable to realize they had been sellswords and the old man they had been protecting at the center was worth his life several times over in gold. They shouted and cursed in thick Falliari at his stupidity and called him a 'White Elephant', but any attempts they made to grab him were futile as he already disappeared into the crowd. Unashamed and after being manhandled by people twice her size and at least thirty years older then her, the doctor grabbed a middle-aged seamstress who was in his way and shoved her into a fruit stand. He shouted his apologies, but they never met her ears as they were drowned out by the groans, shouts and violence that followed.

Gerard sidestepped the elderly, pushed people out of his way and kicked young children who were clearly up to no good away from his body. The last thing he needed was anything else stolen from him. But in this instance, a man of violence and out of time, he found himself doing things he would otherwise never do in order to reclaim his bag. It contained the tools of his trade and without it anyone he sought to help in this commonwealth was worse off, for a physician without his implements was scarcely a physician at all.

However, the doctor found that moving forward in his desperate chase to be harder then he thought. For every one person he moved out of his way, shouted at and otherwise touched, another person was shoved in their place. It was like being forced to solve a puzzle he could not possibly solve when new pieces were being thrown in his face at each passing second. The more Gerard moved forward, the worse it became to the point he felt he wasn't moving at all. He would catch glimpses here and then of his bag floating above the crowd, but they would disappear all the same. It was agonizing to watch his tools move away from him and knowing full well that there was absolutely nothing he could to physically stop the two thieves who robbed him.

But that was not even the worst of it.

Much like religion where one's sins come back to haunt them, Gerard found his violent trip into the crowd to catch up to him as the people he molested immediately noticed him and the crowd itself began to turn on him. He was white, he looked like he was an aristocrat and he acted like he was better than all of them in the middle of a market populated by the downtrodden, vagrants and criminals. It did not bode well for him to say the least, and it was only when a fist caught him savagely to his right that the doctor realized his fatal error.

The fist belonged to one of the sellswords who had followed him into the crowd and as he looked up in agony, holding his right cheek, Gerard was scarcely able to run his tongue along the molar the man had dislodged before his hands were on him again. The sellsword kicked people out of his way until they began to walk around him as he grabbed the doctor by his coat and picked him off his feet, shoving him into the wall. Gripped with terror as the sellsword shouted at him in thick, visceral Falliari he looked upon his black face and into this dark, savage green eyes and knew he was about to die. Sensing the doctor was gripped in shock, the sellsword repeated himself and cursed at him as he punched him in the stomach and grabbed him by the ear, dragging him back the way he came in the direction of his cohorts.

"No! Please! You don't understand!" Gerard screamed in broken Falliari as the sellsword dragged him in agony. His pleas fell upon deaf ears and eventually his bag was forgotten when the sellsword kicked a nearby vagrant out of the way and drew his scimitar, the sound of his steel leaving his scabbard singing in the air. He turned his attention to the doctor and raised his sword. The crowd parted ways and formed a circle around the pair, taking in the scene with their eyes greedily. The sellsword shouted something above the crowd, but Gerard was so afraid that he couldn't understand what he was saying. The sellsword realized that and repeated himself, grabbing the doctor by the wrist and snarling at him. He sought a debt for an injury upon his honor and his person, something in Gerard realized and knew he was about to be maimed for it.

With nothing in Gerard's defense and the sellsword unable to speak the common tongue, he raised his scimitar again until it gleamed in the sunlight. It sang as it came down, looking to cut the flesh upon his bare wrist and drink its blood, however all caught was the steel of another's longsword. The longsword's owner, a broad-shouldered man dressed in mail and plain clothes that did not announce his allegiance, turned the sellsword's blade away and shouted at him in Falliari. He was white. Sunburnt. And had all the features of an Urodan, a native of Salvar. The sellsword shouted back at his savior, demanding something that Gerard vaguely made out to be to; 'Leave me to my work or find your blood upon the dirt as well.'

The old Urodan did not smirk or reply, but instead rushed forward before the sellsword could knock the doctor aside and kicked Gerard's assailant in the knee with a heavy boot with enough force that the entire crowd could hear it crunch. The Urodan must have resided in Assan for awhile, because he knew better then to leave an enemy injured upon the streets that might come to stab him in the back later on. Such was the way the Falliari solved such crises. Instead, the man shoved a foot of steel into the sellsword's abdomen and knocked him over. The crowd broke in terror and began to run in all directions, drowning out the noise of the other sellswords that sought to avenge their fallen brother. Without wasting another moment the gruff old man ran over to the doctor who for a moment thought he was about to kill him too when the Urodan dragged him to his feet and shouted in common tongue into his ear, "Come now!"

[Faure]

Gerard's face drained of color and he didn't din to reply as he was still reacting to the public slaying of the sellsword in the streets. He wanted to vomit, but he didn't have time as his savior grabbed him and pulled him forward. He shouted for him to keep up with him and dashed through the crowd and into a nearby alley. His bag gone, his life at stake and a man he didn't know was trying to do everything in his power to save him. As they dashed through the shadows, the pair came to the other side where the Urodan sheathed his sword before they came out the other side. The old man raised a patched green hood that put a shadow over his face as he looked in either direction, the coast clear. "This is not how we wanted to do this." The Urodan snapped, as if looking at Gerard to blame.

"W-What do y-," Before he finished, Gerard realized who he meant by 'we' and finished, ".. You gave me the note?"

"Yes. And we were suppose to meet you here with little trouble in that incident we.. caused. We were growing impatient and thought you might have been lost among the crowd. Instead of coming right to us like you were supposed to, you knocked over that old man." He spat at the ground and regarded him coldly, "You remember?"

"Y-Yes." Gerard replied, recalling an old man in white robes and a turban, but it had all been a blur.

"Come, walk with me." The Urodan said, looking around in the streets that had dispersed from the commotion in the market. They weaved their way through lesser traffic as the crowd migrated to the other side on the rumor someone had been killed in the streets. "Not to alarm you, but I ask that you remain calm with what I'm about to tell you. It is important and will keep us both alive. Do you agree?"

"I-I do."

"Good. Whatever I say from this moment on you're to do without question. I've been charged to protect you until we reach our destination, and I don't want to be harried by questions about our purpose or what we have to do now that you did what you did." The Salvarian explained as he stopped at a nearby stand where an old woman regarded them coolly. Grabbing a plain brown cloak from a rack and a matching hood, he turned to the doctor and said, "Now take off your jacket."

"W-What?"

"Take off your jacket." The Urodan said again and before the doctor could reply he snarled, "I am not accustomed to repeating myself to lowborn. Remember what I told you. We are both white men and while I may hide my face from the law, you cannot.. dressed so.. flamboyantly. Understand?"

"Yes." Was all Gerard heard himself say as he found himself taking off his black jacket and offering to hand it to the man who saved his life. The Salvarian draped the heavy, woolen cloak around the doctor and immediately Gerard could feel the oppressing heat threaten to choke him. The knight took the hood and covered his face, telling him to look at the ground and stay close to him.

"It is hot, I realize. But it better to be uncomfortable then dead, trust me." The Salvarian said, taking notice to the doctor's discomfort. "We.. I.. need you alive."

The doctor did as he was bid as the Urodan turned to pay the ugly old woman several coppers who continued to pay them little mind. Handing him back his jacket, he told him to keep it inside his cloak along with his hands. "You are old, decrepit and my charge now. Act the part."

Faure tried his best to pretend as they made their way through the streets, but the scorching heat caused sweat to fall into his eyes, continually blinding him. The occasional fly was trapped in the festering blanket one dared to call a cloak and irritated him without end. They turned here, waited there and walked for several minutes before they cut into another alley. The Urodan was quiet along the way, but when he was certain they were not being followed he pressed upon him the gravity of the situation, "Earlier, when I mentioned that old man. . ."

"Yeah?"

"The man you knocked over into a basket of plums is a Sheikh. A holy man. Those were not sellswords, but his personal guard and right now those that remain will be scouring the streets along with the guards to kill us for what you did and who I killed." The Urodan explained. "With the anger we stirred, any white man on the streets now will do to settle the blood debt. Its best if its not you."

"I understand." Faure said, his bowels turning to water as he slowly realized how perilous he was. They turned again and just then the doctor remembered his valuables. "Wait! We have to go back!"

"What?" The Urodan said as he continued forward, turning and looking at Gerard as if he were a fool. "Are you mad? Did you not hear what I just told you?"

"My bag!" Gerard exclaimed before the Urodan snarled at him to keep his voice down. "My medical bag. It has all my tools. Your friend, you know, the one that is dying? I need my tools if I am to save his life!"

The Urodan said nothing and looked at him quietly for a moment as he watched the doctor bordering upon panic. For a long moment neither said anything before the Urodan nodded in the direction they were going, "Your tools are in our care. We will explain once we arrive. Do not worry about it now."

Gerard looked at him oddly and was about to protest before he saw a look upon the Urodan's face that caused him to wrinkle with fear. But as quickly as it appeared it was gone. The doctor chose instead to press on and not question the Urodan and his favor any longer. There was something about him that was unsettling, and everything he was trying not to tell him led Gerard to believe he was not going to like what he'd eventually hear. But he was trapped and wanted. What could he do?

He put one foot forward, and then another until they were out of the shadows and into another part of Assan. For the remainder of their time together while at large Gerard stopped asking questions and did as he was told.

[Faure]

The pair, a man accustomed to taking lives and another bent on saving them, moved about the streets of Assan carefully. True to his word, the Urodan was right in that they were being pursued, if indirectly. Guards were now patrolling the streets heavily, and occasionally Gerard saw a man posing as a sellsword bearing the same scimitar as the man who had attempted to take his hand. But that was not all. Once word had gotten around the streets of the city that a holy man had been molested while one of his protectorate was slain, the public was outraged. The feeling of growing tension was what kept the doctor moving as the Salvarian briefly mentioned that people would riot soon for what happened, killing any white man seen in public as a way to reclaim the Sheikh's honor. It was what young men did in Falliari tradition. To bleed the streets in the name of their God and flaunt themselves in front of their women. It was their way, he said to end it there and avoid any unnecessary questions.

Still, even knowing what was going on hadn't made it easier. They stuck to the shadows, side streets and in crowds they kept their faces and hands hidden. Gerard had saw a fat, white male who might have been Coronian scream in terror as a group of young men dragged him off the streets and to his doom. It wasn't safe and the perversion he felt in both guilt and being unable to change the color of his skin made him feel sick. The Urodan did not linger when other men of their color were being taken off the streets to be slain, instead saying that he wouldn't be surprised if a week from now there were rows of corpses decorating the walls of Assan, beheaded and hanging by their feet.

It took most of the day to reach one part of the city where the market and docks lie to the western side where the foreign quarter lies. Even in the protection of their own kind, the Urodan told them they weren't safe. The Falliari killed over any insult or injury, and eventually it would spread here after the riots boiled over. They were coming to reunite with others and leave this city, at least that much Gerard worked out. The two reached a tavern by the name of the Red Pony and went inside. The Urodan who still hadn't named himself told him to take off his cloak as he took off his hood and revealed himself. Examining his face, even briefly, Gerard saw that he was brutally scarred with one starting at the end of his face, through what was left of the middle of his nose and to the other side where it tapered off on his square, strong jaw. His eyes were a pale blue and his brown hair thick and graying. His sunburnt face not enough to betray his profession, his hands were scarred as well. He was strong, broad-shouldered and of stocky build. He was taller than Gerard, but most Urodans were.

What Gerard began to catch onto that the Urodan didn't bother to tell him were the little details. The mail. His sword. How plain of dress he was otherwise. How he spoke. Even his speech and how he regarded the doctor as 'lowborn' betrayed him as somebody of considerable importance. Could he be a knight? Gerard thought with piqued curiosity.

If he is, why the Hell is he in Assan or Fallien for that matter? Salvarians often regarded this place as desolate, and save spices and silk, there was little of value here. They didn't even find value of the slaves in Fallien, a prominent trade in the country. It was unusual and suspicious.

As if watching his mind at work the Urodan snorted with laughter, "Try not to work so hard to piece the puzzle together, Herr Doktor. You might have a stroke."

"What's your name?" Gerard asked inquisitively as the Urodan began to turn away.

Slowly the Urodan turned back and looked around as other patrons gave them little notice and the bartender was busy with other customers to heed them. "You'll know when your ready. Come with me, we're going downstairs. You can leave that flea-ridden cloak here; you're not going to need it."

As the pair walked across the shadows of the bar and around a corner, Gerard paused briefly to look outside and towards the dying light. For some reason he thought to savor the moment, but for whatever that may be, he couldn't say why. Eventually when he got to the bottom of the stairs and the Urodan was turning the heavy lock with a brass key, he realized that this might be the last time he ever laid eyes upon daylight again. If the Urodan wasn't true to his word.

He was, but in more ways then one, Gerard had been right.

[Faure]

As Gerard descended into the dark, mouldering basement, he immediately noticed the sounds of hushed voices arguing in the glowering torchlight, their long shadows dancing eerily around the walls as they moved. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but they were speaking in a guttural tongue he could only describe as Salvic. He stepped past the Urodan who paused to close and lock the heavy oak door behind them, his every step causing the wooden boards that made up the staircase to creak in protest. The voices grew quiet at the sound of his approach at someone's urging, and Gerard could make out sounds of people reaching for their steel. In their silence, the only sound heard was the groaning protests of a man below, but eventually someone noticed and that too was muffled.

The doctor reached the basement floor and was immediately taken aback by what he saw. Three men stood around the basement, each clad in mail and draped in cloth in the same manner as the Urodan who had accompanied him. They bore no signs of their allegiance, but each had their hands upon the hilts of their swords and regarded him dubiously. The one nearest him said something to the others in Salvic and nodded to him, "Boy, did you step into the wrong storeroom."

The man who spoke to him was of tall and lanky build with red, wild hair and a shaggy beard to match, although his mail made him seem a lot bigger in size. His eyes were a fierce green and his flesh was decorated in scars of battle like that of the other Urodan. He didn't identify himself, but neither did the others. The Urodan called from the steps as he made his way down, "Stay your tongue, Rolf. This is the physician that was sent for, Herr Doktor Faure."

Clapping the doctor on the back, the Urodan said something else, but Gerard wasn't listening. He hadn't even paid attention to the others as they took their hands off their blades and approached him. Sprawled out on the table at the far corner of the room was a man whose entire head was wrapped in cloth save his nostrils and mouth. He was tall enough that his legs and arms dangled over the table and he groaned in pain, though he seemed to be stirring from slumber. What must have been his mail had been stripped from him and piled on the floor, covered in blood. In fact, much of the floor leading to the table was stained in scarlet as if he had been dragged from the stairs. He wore only trousers and boots, his naked, white chest hairy and clad with sweat. A man with a graying beard and hair leaned over him, sitting at the table as he clutched bloodied swaths of cloth against his side where the wound must have laid.

"How long has he been like this?" Gerard asked the man who saved him.

"Going on a day now. We managed to stop much of the bleeding and gave him wine to dull the pain, but it is beginning to give him fits." He replied.

"So he is in no danger of perishing within the next few minutes, I take it?" He said as he approached the table, one of the Salvarians reaching for his steel when Gerard's protector grabbed at his hand and told him he was of no danger. The man who held the injured one looked at him for a moment before muttering something in Salvic, from what Gerard understood it was a curse and a remark at how small and frail he was.

"No. He will not cross the dark river easily." His protector said before offering names, "Introductions should make this easier for you. My name is Waldar. The man who spoke to you is Rolf, the fellow with the eye patch over there is Josef, and the man next to him fingering that dagger is Berengar. And of course, the one holding that man's insides together is Sigmund."

"And the injured man?" Gerard asked with an air of apprehension in his voice.

"You do not need to know." The man called Josef interjected, "Do your duty and heal him."

Waldar silenced Josef with a glare and moved abreast with Gerard, "His most grevious injury is at his side. But it went clean through. We were attacked yesterday, and although we managed to kill our assailants, one of them plunged their blade into this man's side. His head has been wrapped and any means of identification have been removed to preserve his.. how do you say it in the common tongue..Ano..Anonomem?"

"Anonymity." Gerard corrected as he stared at the man who lie before him, "But why?"

Sigmund looked up and began glaring at him in the same way Waldar had when he questioned him. In a thick, gruff voice, the old man said in the common tongue, "To protect you from yourself and those who might ask who it is you might be treating."

"We cannot blindfold you or allow you to treat a man in darkness, so this is the only way to permit you down here. Not even the owner of the tavern, one who sympathizes with us knows who this man is." Waldar explained before adding, "Will that be a problem?"

Taking several moments longer than any of the Salvarians might have liked, Gerard shook his head, "No. It won't be a problem."

"Good." Waldar said before looking behind him and telling Berengar to fetch the doctor his tools.

"Let go of his side, Sigmund," Gerard said as he began to roll up either of his sleeves and pushing his spectacles higher up on the bridge of his nose, "Somebody get me a chair."

And so it was that the good doctor began his work.

[Faure]

Though Gerard found his job of saving this man's life to be a trying task, he had certainly found himself working in worse places. He recalled when he was younger he had treated the remains of a family at a farm in Corone that had been ravaged by yellow fever. The sow, cows and chicken were lying dead and rotting in their pens, the fields around the homestead. The house itself had been a home of eight; a mother, father, five children and a field hand Gerard had come to know as Willis. Four of the children had been taken by fever, their corpses littering the house as those that remained alive were too feeble and sick to rise out of their beds. Willis had been the first person Gerard had found, collapsed at the front door, clothed and tasked with making the twenty mile journey to the nearest town to seek help. Gerard had carried the frail, shadow of a man he had once been back to his bed and began to care for him, but there was little he could do with water, food and salt for whatever the fever come for, it had done its damage and was going take him too. The doctor had checked upon the farmer and his wife and found them to be in similar states, though the farmer and one of his sons looked fit enough to survive under his care. Still, Gerard had tried to treat all under his care and made them as comfortable as they could in their passing. When he was through, only the father and his remaining son managed to survive the fever. Every time Gerard remembered that tragedy it filled him with sorrow and he could recall the pervasive, wretched stench of rot and decay that had festered in that house. Chamber pots were overflowing, pools of sick were found around the house, often near the corpses of the dead who had flies on their eyes and maggots feasting upon their flesh. Death had passed over that house, and the smell of it was unmistakable and one that could never be forgotten. It took many years for Gerard to stop from vomiting whenever that memory revisited him. Instead, now he used it as a reminder of the importance of expedient treatment and sanitary conditions.

Fortunately for the man with no name, the doctor had gotten to him in time for he could not smell the stench of rot upon his wounds and could only see the vague signs of inflammation along the wound of an approaching infection. The wound itself had been cleaned, the Urodans had understood that much, and they had also taken care not to spill wine upon his wound as Gerard had been afraid they might have done out of the belief his nerves could be dulled by it, instead they fed it to him. Which was worse, because it allowed him to bleed more, but it had served its purpose. He continued to bleed, much to Waldar's dismay, but it was beginning to slow and silently the doctor feared it was because the man was running out of blood. On inspection of the man's white, clammy skin and hearing his haggard breath, Gerard knew time was of the essence.

The Salvarians were amiable enough to accommodate the doctor in his every need in his care of that patient, but they took his orders grudgingly, not used to being commanded by a foreigner, regardless if he was a physician or not. Gerard knew what he would be asking for was beyond their understanding and sounded overly simple and troublesome, but even in preparation they would be the very things that saved this man's life. He told Berengar to fetch him clean, washed sheets which he did and came back more than minutes later carrying linens which he promised the owners of would not be missing any time soon. Rolf had been given the task of fetching clean, potable water to Waldar, who seemed to understand the most of their language out of the group and how much the doctor stressed the water be both clean and potable. Josef fetched an old, iron pot he fetched from the kitchen of the tavern where he watched a dishwasher scour the pan pot clean under boiling water and soap.

Once everything had been gathered, the clean water had been brought to boil upstairs and used to sterilize the doctor’s tools. Everything from the shears he'd be using to cut the stitches to the needle he'd be piercing the flesh with. Gerard washed his hands in water that had been cooled from a simmering boil, thoroughly washing any and all parts of himself that he would be touching the patient with. The gaping wound that hung open at the man's right side was then thoroughly cleaned with a small brush, much to the man's dismay who had to be held and muffled as he screamed at the feeling of soap entering wound, despite the doctor's careful hand. The doctor gave the man milk of opium to quiet him before he started; all the while the Urodans looked on with curiosity. As Waldar continually gave the man clean water to drink every so often at Gerard's bidding. In the meantime, as Gerard's hands worked deftly upon white, clammy flesh that was soon smeared with blood, he was asking questions and prying information from the Salvarians that might have been of use to him.

"How much of the blade had been run through the man?" Gerard asked as he fingered the slit of the wound to open it, resulting in a dull groan from the man with no name.

"A quarter of its length." Someone replied, Gerard thought it was Rolf.

"What type of weapon was it?" He asked.

"A long knife." Someone else said.

Do you still have it?" Gerard said as he signaled for the men to hold his patient down.

"No." Waldar said, staring at him. "We weren't in a position to take it with us."

"Right." Gerard replied before he paused, leveling his gaze at him, "Before I close this wound, I need to know and you have to be certain in your answer with what I'm about to ask, because it could mean the difference between this man living and dying. Okay?"

"Okay." Waldar said, without any sound of annoyance in voice. In fact, all of the Salvarians had eventually grasped the gravity of what was going on.

"Did any part of the blade that struck him break off?" Gerard asked, stressing the importance of the question with every syllable.

"No." Berengar said, who knew the least of the common tongue of them all, "But.. the steel was clean."

"Good."

Still, even at their word, Gerard had taken the time before closing the wound to check it for fragments and chips of steel. There were none. And when the doctor had confirmed that the men who had attacked them had not poisoned their blades, for some of the Salvarians had incurred wounds from the fight, Gerard knew it to be a clean wound. Also the circumstances itself had given him much of the information he had needed to treat the man, the stuff only learned men tend to think about in precarious situations such as these. Gerard saw that the blood was a dark, viscous red which was normal. It wasn't bright and arterial which meant the blade had not hit an organ nor had it nicked an artery, though judging from its position the doctor was certain that the man's attacker had just missed one of his kidneys by mere inches. There was internal bleeding which was normal for a wound such as this, but it was being slowed by the body and even if it had been uncontrolled Gerard knew the man would have been dead long before he would have ever gotten to him. Though, that last part he chose to keep to himself.

"Your friend is lucky that his assailant wasn't more accurate." Gerard said as he drove the tip of a needle into both parts of the slit, threading both pieces of flesh stubbornly together with silk. He did so again and again and again, each time the man flinched, but he no longer cried out in pain. "However, he is not completely spared from the injury. He has lost a lot of blood, and he must be continually fed and watered to recover his strength. I recommend giving him potatoes and spinach to eat, they will help him produce new blood. Haunches of meat when he's strong enough might also be a good thing to aid his body in rebuilding the tissue."

"How long until the wound is fully healed?" Waldar asked as he watched Gerard snip the last of the thread from the stitching, his hands now bloody.

"Well.. that depends." The doctor said, dropping the shears into the pot of water as he took some of the linen and began to wipe his hands with it. He paused for thought before he stood and said, "His stitches need to stay in place. I will bandage him and it will cause him discomfort and some shortness of breath, but he cannot remove them, although they will need to be changed daily. He cannot run, move fast or do anything trying that might tear his stitches. If he does so, his stitches will tear, he will bleed and his wound could rupture again, undoing any healing that might be done."

"Okay." Waldar said, using the new word liberally as stared at the doctor, "And with all that, how long will it take?"

"With all that, plus some rest, food and fluids.. about four weeks." Gerard said as he crouched to pick up the bandages from his bag. When he stood, all of the Salvarians were looking at one another and a strange silence prevailed in the room. "What's the matter?"

"Herr Doktor.. perhaps it is time we talked." Waldar said.

[Faure]

The man with no name was clothed and given all the comforts deprived of him in that cold, derelict basement by the Salvarians whom Gerard suspected were his bodyguards. His identity and his purpose remained a mystery as the doctor had been ushered off as soon as he had finished with him and back upstairs. Waldar assured him that the man would be transported upstairs once the tavern had closed for the night, but because of the obvious dilemma of bringing him upstairs with patrons around who would ask far too many questions, he was left in the basement and under watch. However, one thing was revealed about the man. As Gerard had been guided to the stairs and told of their appreciation of his service, the man with no name awoke and grabbed at Sigmund, who was nearest to him, causing everyone to pause as he bent Sigmund's ear and rasped a guttural series of words in a language like Salvarian, but something Gerard understood to be High Salvarian by the use of certain phrases and the dialect. It was a language spoken by prominent members of Urodan society, namely nobles. Waldar sensed the doctor had been listening and pushed him up the stairs, telling him the exchange was none of his business.

Returning to the tavern, Gerard had avoided the interest of some, but not all of the patrons who whispered at the sight of him. Surely they spoke of his strange manner of dress and his accompanying a Salvarian to the secluded basement, but the cursory stares and gossip were fleeting as Waldar directed him to the stairs, to the second floor where the rooms were being kept. They crossed a narrow hall, some perplexed patrons coming into and out of their own rooms until they found themselves at the second room from the far side of the floor. Waldar took an iron key from his pocket and dutifully opened the door, bidding the doctor to enter. As the doctor entered, the Urodan closed the door and locked it behind them.

Unlike many of the taverns Gerard had been in where the rooms kept for paying customers were of a simple affair with a chair, a wash basin, and a mattress if he were lucky, the room he was in was immaculate. Soft, afternoon light filled the room from a window on the other end, which overlooked the rear of the Red Pony and the streets below. A cot lay on the far side of the room while an oak desk and chair stood opposite of it. A chest with iron clasps and filigree shaped in that of wolves stood at the foot of the bed. Looking down, he saw that he was standing on a brown fur rug made from the pelt that once belonged to a great beast, perhaps a bear. Though Waldar seemed to want to keep his presence in this city unannounced, he did not do it without some of the comforts of home.

Unbuckling his swordbelt and hanging it on a peg near his desk, Waldar took off the tunic covering his mail and undid his mail shirt, revealing a padded shirt that was slick with sweat. Folding the mail shirt neatly, he laid it on his dresser and stripped himself of his padded shirt, exchanging it for a plain, black doublet. As he did, he beckoned Gerard to sit at a chair near his desk. "Come, come. Sit, Herr Doktor, we have much to talk about and I would not wish to do it while also giving you the opportunity of accusing me of being a bad host."

Gerard walked around the man as he dressed, sparing a glance outside the window where he saw all manner of people and animals walking about in the cool, late afternoon. He set down his bag and took off his jacket, placing it about the chair, "So, is this about the manner of payment? Because if you're unable to afford three hundred gold crowns, you can rest easy. I don't do this for the money."

"No, no. That's not it." Waldar said as he joined the doctor as his desk, in which Gerard observed he looked even larger a man without his mail. Grabbing two iron cups and a sweating bottle of beer that frothed once it hit the cups, the Urodan passed a cup to the doctor and sat down. "Here. Come now, drink! Please!"

"I shouldn't.." Gerard began before Waldar slapped him on the shoulder and urged him on.

"It's a summer beer from Uroda, I'm sure you will enjoy it." Waldar said with a crack of a smile, something he had never expected to see from the man who earlier in the day had murdered a man in the streets of the open market and narrowly saved his life. Taking a sip of his own, Waldar wiped the froth from his lips and nodded appreciatively, "Ahh.. Good."

Gerard looked at the frothing beer in the iron cup that was still cold to his touch and shrugged his shoulders, taking a sip. And then another. And the next moment more than half the cup was gone. He swirled some in his mouth before wiping the froth from his moustache, savoring the warm, lasting flavor. It was strong, but didn't overpower his senses. "This is incredible!"

"Yes, it is. Its called SommerStoudt and quite the delicacy in Uroda. I keep a store of it at my home for most occasions." Waldar explained and as he drank he observed, "The flavor always reminds me of home."

"And where is home?" The doctor asked as he sipped at his beer.

"Gone." Waldar replied, "I owned my own lands before they were lost in the war. They had been sacked and burnt by the peasants who fought against the Crown, or so I hear."

"So.. you didn't stay?"

"No. I haven't been to my home in years. I had left the country more than year into the war." Waldar said as he finished his beer, "But enough about that. As much as I like to reminess about my homeland, that is not why we're here."

"I suppose not."

Sitting back in his chair, Waldar looked upon the doctor, his gaze pensive as he thought about what he was going to tell him, the moment occupied by a long silence. When he decided, he nodded to him, "You did a great service today and I would like to congratulate you."

"Thanks." Gerard said, beginning to grow frustrated with the games the Urodan was playing.

"I suppose this might not come easy to you, but it hasn't for any of us since that man was wounded." Waldar said, when Gerard looked like he was about to ask a question, the Urodan quieted him with a finger, "You need to understand that matters such as these are dealt with the utmost secrecy. What you did today will never be discussed by anyone again. What happened in the market where I killed that man and saved you? Never again. Our faces, our presence, what we're doing here in Fallien will never be mentioned. Not in public. Not in private. And certainly never to be made available in a newspaper. Do you understand?"

Gerard nodded.

"Good." Waldar said as he ran his finger along the rim of his cup, "I gave you that beer to help make that bitter pill easier to swallow. Though I'm sure you're probably wondering what it is you are involved in and who that man is, I ask you to leave it be for now. What you did, no matter how small of a task you might think it to be, is remarkable and of tremendous help. And the fact you did it under the duress of what went on today and the conditons you worked in, is commendable. Normally, should the man live, you would probably be presented with some sort of an award or recognition. But. . . in these circumstances it is different. You will be commended, which is what I am doing now, paid in full, which comes next, and you will be asked to walk away," Waldar paused to motion the action with his fingers, "And asked never to speak of these events again. Which is what we just did."

Silence followed as Waldar trailed off, studying the man who continually tried to put all the pieces together. For some reason Gerard thought he must have decided something, perhaps against his better judgment, for Waldar shook his head and leaned forward in his chair, "That might have worked if we were back in Uroda with a stable government and a ruling king whose word is law. But alas, that is not the case. As you have probably already guessed, I am talking of matters of State, and in such a manner I'm sure you have probably figured out that my friends and I probably work for the State. If so, you guess correctly. However, there is far more to it then you know.

I am revealing this to you because your life will now be in peril just as that man down stairs is. Yesterday, a group of men dressed in black, possessing sharp, long knives came upon us in the night as we were coming to this tavern. There were six," He paused for a moment before correcting himself, "No, eight. There were eight men with long knives, dressed in black who were sent to kill us, and namely that man you just treated. My friends and I killed them all in the dark alleyway they found us in. But not before they cut the throat of our commanding officer, our lord commander, and injured the man we are charged with protecting. Because of that, I am now acting as the commander of our group."

Gerard nodded, urging him on, "So what does that have to do with me?"

"I am glad you asked," said Waldar as he tapped his cup against the desk, "I am acting as the leader of our outfit before we reach our destination, at which time I will be relieved of my duties. That will not occur until we get on a ship, cross the sea on a very long and taxing journey and reach where it is we're going. The journey will take weeks at best, and we are pressed for time. For, as I'm sure you know now, there are people in this city and this country that are now aware that my compatriots and I are here with this man and we must leave immediately instead of departing within the next couple weeks which is what we had planned for."

"I see. So you are worried that these men might know I am associated with you all now because of what happened?" Gerard asked.

"Yes!" Waldar said, tapping his cup against the table again, "Outstanding! You're very bright, Herr Doktor! Unfortunately, yes. We have no way of knowing how much they know, but I can safely presume that after what happened in the market, you have been put in league with us. I have to ask, although we know of you and that you are staying in the company of aristocrats in this city.. why are you in Assan?"

Gerard sighed, wondering how much of it was worth talking about. In truth, he had traveled to the country for reasons that were not very exciting or terribly interesting, and his stay was meant to be a vacation from the wartorn Corone that was now beginning to rebuild itself after the conclusion of its own war. However, since the Urodan had been up front with him, Gerard would not be dishonest with him. "I am here to meet with a colleague who is going to be accompanying me to a lecture for medical scholars. A physician here has recently discovered how to transfuse blood into the human body and I was looking to learn more about it while I spent my time here."

"Interesting." Waldar said, but Gerard was certain the Urodan had absolutely no idea what the word transfuse meant. Though he probably got the giste he was here on business. "Well, now that I have that, I am going to ask you some things before we part ways. All right?"

"Okay."

"Presuming we never met, how much longer will you be staying in Assan?" Waldar asked as he took out a piece of parchment and a featherless quill to write with.

"About seven days." He answered.

"And when you travel home, what sort of vessel will you be traveling on?"

"A merchant's ship, the Painted Lady if I remember. I've already paid and booked passage on it, and they are to arrive within the next four days." Gerard said.

"I see. In my profession I've had to become familiar with the comings and goings of ships from this city, for security, mind you, and I recall the merchants of this vessel. They are spice traders from Corone, are they not?" Waldar asked, noting Gerard's surprise at his revelation, "That's what I thought. Well, what I can tell you is that the ship you have would give you safe passage to anywhere in the world and the crew has absolutely no affiliation with what we are contending. However, that was before we met."

"What's changed?" Gerard asked, becoming confused.

"We've met." Waldar said as he dropped his quill, scratching his scalp, "On any other day, of any other year, nine times out of ten, you would be safe to resume your stay here and then enjoy a rather uneventful trip back to your home. However, you are now considered in league with us and I can tell you that the people who are interested in harming the man I am charged with protecting will certainly take an interest in you, if they haven't already."

".. Why does that matter with the boat I am going on and how long I am going to be here?" Gerard said with frustration, "You're not making sense. Just say it already."

"What I am saying, Herr Doktor, is that the party after us was thwarted yesterday after we killed eight people they paid good coin to kill us. I doubt that they are the only people who wish us ill on this island, and it will take less than seven days for it to get around that their cohorts have been murdered before a decision is made on whether to pursue us, which they most certainly would because of the value of my charge, or leave us be. However, that won't be the case, because in less than a day, perhaps two, we will be off this island and bound for our destination. Which leaves You. Alone. Unprotected, and unsecure."

"Unsecure?" Gerard exclaimed, "When did I become an object that needed to be secured by the likes of you?"

"The moment we met, Herr Doktor." Waldar said. "Once we are gone, the focus of the people who would like to murder my compatriots and I will then be on you. And I can say without a doubt that it will be hours before you are found and taken. They will take you away from your friend's high rise flat in the aristocrat's quarter. They will take you away from Assan and by all intents and purposes they will take you to a place that is very cold and very dark, and without sunlight. They will torture you as best they can to try and get information from you they are very certain you have. Our whereabouts, our identities, and our destination."

"But I don't know anything!" Gerard erupted, his body beginning to quake with rage.

"Exactly." Walder said gently, as he bid the doctor to calm down, "But they don't know you don't know anything, and even if they did, I'm sure they'll try anyway. And when they are confident you don't know anything like I'm sure you will say you will, even as they are pulling your finger nails out and crushing your bones, then they will present you with a paper to sign which will act as a confession that you aided enemies of the sovereign State and Kingdom of Salvar. And once they have coerced you to sign that and they are sure they have no other use for you, then and only then will they kill you."

Stunned silence followed as the two men stared at each other. Gerard felt lead in his belly as Waldar studied him, the look on his face a certainty that he has earned the doctor's loyalty. After awhile, Waldar picked up the conversation again, ". . . Which is what puts us in this situation that we are in now. My compatriots would sooner be done with you and leave you as collateral damage for when we depart. They are hard men who have watched their country and everything they know to be fall to ruin. We have all renounced our lands and titles, abandoned our Noble Houses, and swore oaths to serve a higher cause to protect the man in that basement. I very much doubt if you were to be attacked in front of any of those men that they would lift a finger to save you. You are an outsider, you know too much, even if it is little at all, and the importance of our charge outweighs your safety."

"So what?" Gerard said with a scowl, "Are you explaining all this to me before you tell me that you are leaving me to die?"

"No, Herr Doktor." Waldar said with confidence, "I am explaining all of this because after everything I've said and what you now know, you are coming with us when we leave this wretched isle and I am sure you would agree now that we will all be the better for it."

[Faure]

Waldar asked Gerard a few more questions before he told him that their passage off this isle would be within the next couple of days. It would be sooner, he had said, but they had to be certain that their arrangements were secure and that their passage out of Assan was with men they could trust. Or at the very least, men whose loyalty could be bought. At that time, Waldar apologized truly for what was transpiring and that it was out of his control, but the best either of them could do was stay together and hope that they were off this isle in time before the shock wore off their enemy and they brought forces sufficient enough to kill everybody in league with the man with no name. Gerard still didn't know his name, and when he and Waldar were getting up to part ways, he didn't ask. He no longer cared. His life was in danger and now the only course was to let these men who he had just met use him as they saw fit while also protecting him from the nameless enemy that declared them an 'Enemies of the State.'

That was more than two hours ago and Gerard was still gripped by the same shock that he felt when he had heard the news that he would be deprived of his freedom in exchange for his safety. There had been talk of plans to have him taken back to Corone in due time, but Gerard wasn't sure when that would ever be.

Waldar asked him if he was having his lecture any time soon. Gerard replied that it was to be tonight. The Urodan urged him to go, saying that appearances mattered and after what happened today if he didn't show up, he would be missed and somebody somewhere would know that something was up. It made him sick, but Gerard agreed. Waldar told him that Rolf would be watching after him, though he would not be able to accompany him to the lecture. Instead, Rolf would be waiting outside of the building in an alley in the middle of a waning moon and would serve as his protection.

Great.

Night had fallen upon the city and Gerard walked beside Rolf, though neither of them said much. Rolf had asked a couple questions, but other then that he had been studying those that went by them with the calm, cool demeanour of a man who was accustomed to violence and had a healthy case of paranoia. The doctor had accompanied the Urodan along the back streets and the shadows where the pair were not identified as white men. Gerard now wore a hood and gloves to hide his skin and flesh from view, which made him look ridiculous, but in Waldar's words, at least he was still alive. Rolf escorted him as far as the gate to the aristocrat quarter and told him this was the mouth of the 'lion's den', where ironically, a few of the key players in their game of state would be present.

"Won't they want to capture me?" Gerard asked.

"Probably not." Rolf said, "They are still a day behind in information and the race riot that you started has muddied things up. Nice job by the way," He said as he slapped him on the shoulder, "It will take awhile to sort things out before they connect you to us, and that's if they haven't had the Red Pony placed under watch. If that's the case, maybe you'll get lucky and they'll stab you in the back by the time you meet that friend of yours."

"Right." Gerard said. He was beginning to dislike the pleasure of Rolf's company.

Rolf slapped on the back one last time and urged him forward, "Good luck!"

Still in his attire and carrying his medical bag over his shoulder, the good doctor crossed the pristine arch that separated the rest of the city from the aristocrat quarter. It wasn't guarded at this point because most of the guard had been called to attend to the riots that had been occurring all over the city of which he was to blame. Word had passed that white men were being slain on the streets by devout Falliari and there was little the guards could or would do to stop it. It was foolish to think that men would murder others on the suspicion they were killing the man responsible for molesting a holy man. Innocent men. What kind of faith is that? Gerard wondered before he realized this was a different part of the world, and in this part of Althanas men killed over everything from honor to how much more bread you had than they did.

The aristocrat quarter was well kept and an example of luxury. The walls of tall buildings that spiraled into the sky served as the seats of wealth and opulence for Assan's elite had been carved from quartz itself and the local guilds that had acted as their carpenters had given them every luxury that could be afforded. Awe-striking fountains and waterfalls littered the area while quasi-geometric shapes were painted on the faces of buildings while the entire floor of the quarter had been tiled in white shale that had flakes of gold. A palace with big, bulbous purple spheres on top of its towers loomed in the horizon, home of the sultan and ruler of Assan. There was little need for guards here at that moment, but people still walked the streets in all manner of dress. Most of them were dressed in the silks and attire of Falliari nobility. They gave him queer looks, but they didn't trouble him. Eventually, Gerard dropped the illusion that if he took one more step into the quarter someone would rush out to stab him, and instead walked in the direction to his friend's high rise where his apartment lay. His colleague was a wealthy scholar and philosopher who had invented a wide array of devices and contraptions that had advanced the medical field in Althanas somewhat to the level Gerard was accustomed to practicing in. He and Gerard had known each other for years and they had arranged trips like these to either country whenever they could.

Gerard entered the building, greeted some of the staff and went to a gilded cage that served as an elevator. He entered and pressed for the top floor. A passing thought made Gerard flinch at what trouble he might cause by visiting Silas Cain after everything that had transpired, but he was a very powerful man and the doctor was sure he could forgive him for this transgression as long as it didn't cost either of them their lives.

Maybe.

[Faure]

If the Aristocrat's Quarter was the example of opulence, then Silas Cain's apartment had managed to one-up it in both wealth and splendor. He owned the entire top floor of the high rise and had put the guilds to work to construct a penthouse of luxury and serve as his home away from home when he departed from Corone. The walls were all painted a soft violet and the floor tiled in blue stone that had been inlaid with silver along its edges. Plants and exotic flora made up much of the apartment, and Silas, a renowned botanist, even boasted his own private garden within the high rise made up of rare wild flowers and orchids that he had personally cultivated. A small canal ran through the length of his apartment and there was rumored to even be exotic fish that swam underneath the floor where Silas promised eventually parts of the floor would be replaced with thick, expensive glass. Clearly, to the inventor, money was no object.

When Gerard entered his apartment, he walked the winding hall equipped with expensive paintings and statues that Cain must have purchased in galleries that he attended to in various parts of the world. At any other time, Gerard paused to admire the exquisite paintings and the care that had been taken to create them in their painstaking detail. But now, Gerard had little time and mind for it, instead he wished to hurry this up and let this business be over with.

Gerard found his friend in his private library where thick, fat and dusty tomes lined the walls. Silas himself was sitting at a table with his back to a window that overlooked the dark city below. He had a magnifying glass in one hand and a pair of tweezers in the other that he used to pick up a yellowed page of a crumbling tome he had been trying to decipher since the doctor had last left him. Silas was a short man with a head that was perhaps a size too large for his body. He had wavy, rust-coloured hair with a widow's peak that overlooked a high forehead. The inventor had a squat nose on a pear-shaped face with a large handlebar moustache that covered his mouth. He had brown coloured eyes flecked with green. He was dressed in trousers and a cream-coloured shirt that had suspenders. Though Silas had the appearance of a quiet, bookish sort to those had never met him, those accustomed to his often manic personality and thirst for attention was something that was undeniably Cain. Hearing him enter, the diminutive inventor looked up from his text and saw the doctor through bottle-thick spectacles, "Gerard! Why hello there!"

"Silas!" Gerard exclaimed with a smile, "A pleasure! Forgive me for my lateness, but I've been having trouble in the city lately."

"Oh I'm sure. What with the riots going on. I swear, those beady-eyed, black primitives will kill over anything." He said as he stood to greet the doctor, "If I wanted to start a war here all I would need to do is drop a penny in the marketplace of Assan and watch those savages tear each other apart over it."

"Quite." Gerard said with an almost mechanical tone, he was quite accustomed to his friend's prejudice of the very people he sought to reside with in times of trouble.

Walking over to the doctor he beckoned him forward, "Come! Come! Accompany me to the solar, I think we should have a drink before we go to this lecture. God knows we'll be there for hours, and Demetri does love the limelight."

"That he does. Say, how long of a walk do think it'll be to the Libraria from here anyway?" Gerard asked as his host escorted him around the apartment.

"Hm. About ten minutes, I suppose, why?"

"Just wondered. My knee has been bothering me as of late." He said, but in reality Gerard wondered how many seconds he'd be out in the open and exposed to the phantom that was supposed to drive a knife in his back, or so his paranoia had been leading him to believe.

"Oh come now, Gerard," Silas chastised, "I joke, but I know you've been waiting for this lecture for months. I am sure you can put better use to this transfusion business then I can. To think, transferring the blood from one person to another? Think of the possibilities!"

Gerard gave it a momentary reflection as he accepted a glass of red wine from his friend before Silas poured himself another glass. The process did have merit to it, and he could have used it today to give blood to the nameless man who was under his care, but it required a matching blood types and the science on that was still speculative. Once they figured it out, though, the ability to treat the wounded in war would become far more efficient. "Yes, I agree. I could definitely make use of it. Have you heard much about Demetri's presentation?"

Silas shrugged as he sipped at his glass, "I'm amazed he's convinced two people to participate in it since the last fiasco. He gave word that both a man and a woman would be participating, and he had bought their consent with gold and a promise."

"I heard he had hired beggars or some other unfortunate soul to take part in it." Gerard confessed.

"Perhaps. I'm sure anyone in Assan without two pennies to rub together will come running at the chance to bleed themselves for golden crowns." Silas said before he looked at Gerard and frowned, "You going to drink, Gerard? It'll do wonders for your nerves."

"Right, right." Gerard said as he swallowed his glass in one swig, much to Silas's amusement. "Shall we go?"

"In a hurry are we? Well, all right. Let’s get there and find some good seats, I have money riding that one of these poor fools is going to fall over halfway through the demonstration if Demetri has them standing again." Silas said with mischief in his eyes.

The two drained their glasses and took one last breathtaking look out the window and into the darkness below. While Silas saw a night full of opportunities, Gerard saw all the shadows cast by the buildings and wondered which one hid the man that would end him.

[Faure]

The Libraria of Assan was a building that rivaled the palace in size, allowing the city to boast one of the largest, most comprehensive collections of knowledge on the island. It had been a project started by a group of young, wealthy men who sought to benefit the city through foreign philanthropy. Every brick and every pillar raised had been done with Coronian gold, therefore it was only natural that the building be designed to be pleasant to the eyes of those who funded its' construction rather than the natives. The building was built to be over four stories tall, with the building's walls constructed by limestone bricks and cement. A hanging roof oversaw the front of the building along with auspicious stairs that made up several yards of the building's entrance in white, powdery stone. The somber overhang had been inlaid with stark, white stone arches and the sheer weight of such an overhang had been offset by not only the building itself, but by sixteen columns that had been deftly placed around the overhang. Engineers and carpenters marveled at its construction because it was said that such an overhang weighed thousands of tons of stone and was incapable of being held up by so few columns and was not physically possible with the stress and weight of such a load. But, in its defiance, the overhang of Assan's Libraria remained where it was and stood a testament of Coronian ingenuity and innovation in engineering.

The building remains standing after more than two long, harrowing centuries and although championed by foreign benefactors, it still serves as an eye sore for Falliari natives. Time and again, year after year, the Falliari have stood in direct opposition of the Coronian's attempts to create statues and architecture around the building of beasts, heroes and gods that are meant to boast the city's creativity. Fallien's religion did not allow for the presentation of images of people or animals, or even their Gods, in its art so it was often the case that these statues would be built, unveiled and promptly destroyed by vandals who sought to deface these terrible icons in defense of their faith. Falliari iconoclasm never made much sense to the foreigners who financed the place and continued to pump money into the city that allowed it to be as rich and powerful a city-state in Fallien as it often boasted.

The doctor had traveled to the Libraria often in his youth, and the reasons were always different. But he was always taken aback not by the building's appearance on the outside, but its inspiring construction on the inside.

For four floors, hundreds of thousands of books, tomes, grimoires, texts and scrolls had been housed in the library upon shelves. The shelves themselves aided in the building's construction as thousands of them lined the buildings walls in the inside of a building that had been designed in a rotunda-like shape. The tall, thick oak shelves started at the floor and ended at the ceiling were the stress and weight of such heavy building material would be met by thousands of bookshelves on every floor. Scholars, priests, tutors, physicians, scientists, philosophers, engineers, barristers, and learned men and women traveled from all over the world to gather here and enjoy the fruits of knowledge that had been brought together and housed in one of Althanas' most remarkable libraries.

As Gerard walked the long halls to the auditorium, he noticed how all the floors had been painstakingly laid with rich, red carpet often offset with the occasional marble statue, fountain or exotic plant. This was a place of knowledge that was open to all, and as he and Silas made their way through the library the doctor found the brief distraction to be pleasant. The doctor greeted colleagues, commented on paintings and discussed topics in medicine, philosophy, history and challenges that he had been presented with over the years. It was here that the doctor was in his element and found that even if today's events had been forgotten, he could have lost himself here.

Silas and the doctor took their seats along with hundreds of others in the staggering rows of seats that descended to the bottom of the amphitheater. It was quite the lecture hall, and as Gerard sipped at his wine, he looked up to the well lit stage that had been prepared for the night's lecture. All along the amphitheater, men who dressed in suits and ties and served as the library’s curators moved in pairs as they used a sixteen foot gilded poles with an upturned bell on its end to extinguish torches that had been placed all along the lecture hall's ceiling. Several minutes passed and eventually the room began to darken. The crowd of learned men and academics grew quiet and looked on as a man walked onto the stage, accompanied by two of his assistants and began his lecture.