Our Mortal Coil

[Faure]

(Solo. Takes place one month after the events in The Good Samaritan (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25053-The-Good-Samaritan).)



A man's life is saved and another life is taken as a murderer walks free.

THE STREETS OF RADASANTH smelled dank and fetid as heavy rain washed the streets anew and threatened to flood the sewers. As galling winds continued to howl and shutters crashed in a cacophony against the walls of towering dilapidated apartments, the city grew empty as both man and beast sought haven in whatever cover they could find. It had been days of storms such as this acting as a harbinger of a hurricane that now crashed into the isle of Corone, hammering its denizens and threatening to sweep away any that dared visit their shores. The capital was not spared in this regard, as word began to spread that parts of the city were vanishing under the deluge of accursed water, as if some dark, primeval god sought to turn the tides and have the roaring, tumultuous sea reclaim Radasanth for itself. Nobody had left their homes save to check on neighbors or to grab that which necessitates life from the market. The city guard rendered powerless in the face of such almighty wrath of God that any efforts to placate the crisis remain muted.

News that shocked the city to its core of a murderer that roamed the streets, claiming his or her victims under the cover of darkness and moments of sinister opportunity covered the front page of the Radasanthian Reader for weeks. But, it is quickly forgotten as a force of nature threatened any and all who ventured out from the safety of their homes to perish if the Gods deemed it so. Those who look and curse the skies for their misfortune do so in vain and at their own peril, for at present nobody is safe.

Amidst the chaos that threatened to swallow the city, the physician, Gerard Faure, remained in his apartment and home atop the hills overlooking the Bazaar. Prior to the storm, the Ganville apartments that sat on 153rd Pauper Row were sought after not because of the comfort and luxuries it provided, but the affluence and stature it offered for its community of residents as they looked down upon the city below. As luck would have it, its location provided the brick and mortar building with the most protection against flooding, but the wuthering heights thrashed and savaged the building, making any and all who traveled to it at hazard for tumbling down the steep, rolling hill and to their doom below. Still, the doctor had been in town for weeks since his ship, the Painted Lady, moored itself to the harbor after its month long journey from the isle of Fallien. Word had begun to spread and any and all who ailed sought the affable physician's candid advice and healing hand.

Gerard treated any and all who beckoned his door, refusing nobody for lack of payment or reputations of ill repute. He is a doctor in the truest sense that all he has ever wanted to do was help his fellow man. Sure, sometimes ne'er-do-wells and hooligans took advantage of his better nature, but still he worked tirelessly to provide aid to any and all who sought it. And yes, his naivete for the darker side of human nature sometimes blinded him to the intentions of others, but still Gerard persevered and still his patients came.

In the last week he had delivered a baby girl to two impoverished parents who worked as sharecroppers, paying him in food and promises he would never go hungry.

He had treated a group of boys for trench foot and fever after they had escaped narrowly drowning in the sewers where they wanted mischief and instead had been trapped underneath the city with the same socks and shoes, drenched like rats, for days.

The doctor treated an elderly couple for respiratory infections with herbs and sound advice on how to stave off deadly pneumonia. They paid him in eroded coins that were green with age from sunken ships the old man had recovered decades ago when he explored the perilous deep as a young man.

Gerard had saw to it that a number of men were treated for gonorrhea and patient zero, the prostitute they had all visited, was politely informed to close up shop and seek treatment.

He bandaged wounds and he staunched bleeding.

The physician set broken bones and relieved those who ailed from dislocated shoulders.

Gerard tended to bruises and comforted the sick and dying. Since his return, the doctor continued his work to heal any and all who came to him.

It was only until that fateful day when he heard loud raps across his door, booming over the thunder and howling winds of the hurricane that ravaged the city, that the kind doctor looked up from a book he was reading for pleasure and stood. Taking his suspenders drooping from his sides and placing them back upon his shoulders, Gerard walked across his living room as the thick oak door continued to thud against the heavy hand outside. Turning the knob and pulling the door open he saw an older, middle-aged man he knew to be his neighbor, Howard, and his teenage son, Ralph, carrying a dying man whose clothes were haggard and bloody. Both exasperated, they had claimed they had found the man on the streets and that he had been stabbed and shot. Inviting them in, Gerard steeled himself and prepared once more to return to work and save another life.

[Faure]

The spacious apartment Gerard lived in was paid for each month for a kingly sum, and inside, it's opulence is awe-striking. The doctor owned this apartment and the one next door and merged them both as his home and office. The apartment itself was made up of five rooms, the first his guests entered being his living and dining room. Bookshelves decorated with all matter of tomes and books pouring with knowledge buttressed the walls as tall, exotic plants that are tended to and watered by a blind boy, Sam, who he paid handsomely for the task sat in wide, fat adobe vases dark with fertile soil.

All matter of arcane artifacts and trinkets from his travels decorated the shelves and whatever naked space the walls, painted a soft orange, provided. Ships in bottles, painted shields from jungle tribes and a human skull ornated in ink indicating all matter of phrenology sat in their respective places.

Large, ornate paintings of scenes of tropical paradises and ships harrowed by waves adorned his walls throughout his apartment. Incense burned and the apartment smelled pleasantly of coriander and cloves to drown out the coppery smell and taste of blood in his office and the nauseating stench of chemicals that cleaned the tools of his trade. Everything, even from the living room had its place and as all men stood on the cherrywood floor, they noticed a large dining table black with varnished maple off to the side and crowded with chairs. And underneath it, the couches and recliners are Irrakam rugs.

All of it told of the doctor's status, and still more could be seen. Off to the right lay the kitchen and an adjoining room that Gerard knew to be his private library. In the other direction to the left and down the hall was the bathroom followed by the doctor's office and towards the end of the hall lay an immense master's bedroom. And whatever space the doctor had on his balcony he used as a private garden to tend to vegetables and herbs he used in practice and cooking.

To any who entered here, the atmosphere was warm and welcoming. And as the host to any and all who beckoned his door, Gerard felt it necessary to make them feel welcome. Both Howard and Ralph had been here before and had dined with the doctor many times. As they knew where his office is, they hurried as they sought to tell the doctor what had happened at a fever pitch.

Howard Giuseppe, the older father with a drooping moustache and wild, salt and pepper hair was a rotund, stout man who worked as a merchant that specialized in metals and dealt primarily with the forges and smithies around the city. He was still strong for his age and his deep, booming voice and barrel chest often intimidated any who did not know of him. He is well spoken and cunning, having remained a close confidant to the doctor for many years.

Howard and his family lived in the apartment across from his and were from an old line of Coronians steeped in maritime tradition from neighboring isles. His son, Ralph Giuseppe was short and stout like his father, but his dark hair, bushy eyebrows and quiet nature belied his father's presence. He worked as a hand for his father in his mercantile trade, but sought to go to school and learn metallurgy, seeking to compound his family's fortune with new discoveries and methods to create metals from ore.

As the merchant and his boy clamored down the hall, Howard boomed, "We found this poor soul outside mewling in the streets like a drenched kitten. He was curled against the wall of our building when I found him, a streak of blood smeared across the streets and walls. I think he crawled his way up Pauper's Hill seeking your help. If I had not been out with my son dumping our garbage, he would have perished in the streets. I think he is gut shot."

The doctor tended to the lamps that adorned his apartment and brought them to life in the shadowy hallway as the Giuseppes angled the dying man into his office, "It is good you came then, once I assess the extent of the man's injuries I'll be able to tell how much aid I'll be able to provide him."

As they stepped into his office, the doctor flicked a switch and electric lights on incandescent coils hummed angrily to life and blanketed the office with nauseating light. The floor was pale, white marble smattered with mud and oily, scarlet blood from the doctor's new charge. A roll-top desk made of maple and gifted to the doctor by the captain of a merchant ship whose life he had saved from a near fatal heart attack rested immediately to the door.

A large bed with starched, white linens rested in the far corner for recuperating patients and an operating table sat ominously in the center of the room. The office was large and self contained, and aside from the lighting provided above, there was an array of windows on the far wall of the room and slits for sunlight in the ceiling. The office was decorated with paintings and comforting nic-nacs that had been sanitized and used to comfort his patients.

As Howard and his son brought the injured man to the operating table, who until this moment Gerard had begun to notice had been whimpering in pain from his wounds and whispering to his maker over and over again for somebody to kill him. As the Giuseppes laid the man out whose drenched, wretched form had been concealed by a long, buckskin coat, both men took it off of him at the doctor's beckoning.

The patient was older, possibly in his early fifties and with a stooped back, long arms and spindly legs, he was both tall and lanky for his age. His face was gaunt with high cheekbones, and his sunken eyes and black circles that surrounded him told a story of a life riddled with stress and anxiety. He was balding with gray hair and a thick, white goatee covered his lower face. His skin was pallid and the pin-striped trousers that were held up by suspenders and once-white-but-now-pink-and-brown shirt was smeared with blood and whatever the man had picked up when he dragged himself up the cobblestone road on Pauper Hill.

For his patient's age and physique, the doctor surmised if the man hadn't been injured, he would be fit and able. With angry, horned leather shoes now scuffed and marred by his odyssey, the doctor took them off and grabbed his shears from a nearby table where his tools sat. Grabbing the patient's shirt by the fistful, the doctor cut the shirt open from stomach to neck and peeled it open, and to everyone's horror they saw the extent of his injuries.

"By the Gods.." Howard whispered to his son, "Who would do this to a man?"

Gerard shrugged visibly and continued to work as he assessed the damage, "Leave it to the city guard, what matters now is that this man is able to live another day."