The Good Samaritan

(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.

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

Even for those who had been enthralled by the process of transfusing blood into the human body, the dry lecture had lasted for hours and passed by uneventfully. It bored Silas Cain to tears and more than once Gerard had dozed off, unable to fight off the urge to fall asleep forever. By the time it ended, Gerard had forgotten much of what had been said by Demetri as the monotone lecturer had drolled on and on and on. Silas had woken him as the rest of the audience got up from their seats and were shuffling noisily towards the exits.

"Hah, I see you were dreaming of new ways to make good use of this farce," Silas chided as Gerard got to his feet. The pair began to move sideways along the row and towards the aisle where a line of bored, yawning scholars stood waiting.

"Of course I am, Silas, I loved it." Gerard replied, rolling his eyes.

"You know, I could swear I've seen that black, skinny Falliari he had dressed up in that gown." Silas observed before smacking his forehead, "Right! She's one of the beggars who panhandles near the livery at the West End!"

The woman had been middle-aged, incredibly malnourished and looked unaccustomed to being washed from what Gerard remembered of her. She looked wide-eyed and frightened upon the stage as Demetri sat her down, spoke soothing words in Falliari and proceeded to bleed her in front of everyone. "I wonder how much he paid her, and that other fellow."

"The butcher?"

"Yeah, that's him. How'd you know?" Gerard asked as they moved along the aisle.

"Big arms. Had a look about him too like he was used to the sight of blood. Did you see him when Demetri was putting that needle in his arm? The big lout stared right at it like it was nothing." said Silas.

"Strange."

"Well, anyhow, there's a reception upstairs and there should be some food. We should go."

"Right, and how long do you plan to stay this time?" Gerard asked, eyeing his friend. There was something to be said about the diminutive man and his taste for wine, but he also was a womanizer, and a poor one at that.

"Pah! I know what you are referring to and that was only one time, I had her on the hook! Besides, it was only two hours!"

"Two hours?" Gerard repeated before laughing, "And do you remember who she was?"

"Married." Silas said with a snort.

"And how'd you find that out again?"

"When her husband, that banker, walked over from his friends and jammed his finger in my chest looking to pick a fight." Silas confessed, nursing the invisible injury. He shuddered at the memory. "He spilled my drink too."

"Yes. All over her!" Gerard said before erupting in a fit of laughter that caused those nearby to begin giving him looks.

After a long moment Silas sighed, "You're right, perhaps we shouldn't stay."

"Oh we're going now," Gerard said as the two got to the top of the aisle and moved towards the doors, "You having another opportunity to make a fool of yourself, my friend? I wouldn't miss that for the world."

"Big of you." Silas replied wryly as Gerard clapped his hand on the inventor's back and the two strolled back into the main hall.

The reception was a somber affair, which was in line with what most of these lectures amounted to whenever Gerard and his colleagues got together. However, it had been rather pleasant. There had been a mulled wine that had gone around the room that had become a favorite of the doctor's. He had drank much, nibbled on cheese and plucked grapes from the stem on his plate while he exchanged jokes with a group of academics. The reception had been held on the second floor of the library where the food, drink and programs had been beautifully laid on tables that made up the room. The room itself that the reception was held in overlooked the empty space that made up the center of the Libraria at every level. Now and again, Gerard would walk around to stretch his legs among the throngs of those who had stayed for the reception. There was a Falliari physician, Dr. Peri Tumalu that Gerard remembered conferring with when he had traveled around Fallien years ago along with a monastic mission seeking to vaccinate natives against the growing epidemic of polio. It was a disease that had nested itself in many parts of Althanas and was highly contagious. It had gotten so bad on the island, that a particularly virulent strain of the disease had been infecting the entire youth of villages up and down the southern coast, destroying whatever hope they had for the future of a next generation. The two exchanged words and pleasantries, but nothing much came of it.

The doctor ran into a Coronian dentist he had consulted with before a scandal arose that caused him to lose his licensure. If Gerard remembered correctly, the short, fat tooth puller had been accused by a young, comely woman that he had fondled her while she had been incapacitated in her chair. It had been scandalous, but when three other women came out and shared similar stories, there was little Dr. Gendlow could do to quiet the public outrage and demand for a trial. He was now an expatriate and dwelling in Fallien for a prolonged stay while Coronian magistrates figured out a way to extradite him. He and Gerard shared a joke about a parrot and some wine, but the doctor didn't much like the dentist's company.

As many academics and practicing physicians as there were gathered here, Gerard could not deny the sheer number of benefactors who had attended the lecture. Foreign businessmen and men of riches who sought to court Dr. Demetri Fibonacci in an effort to get him to accept bids for his patent on the transfusion process. Many had tried by offering him gifts, trinkets, and grand promises of the untold riches they could make if they went into business together. But all the same, Demetri turned them all away. He was a physician like Gerard, but he no longer practiced and spent much of his now pursuing applied medical research that could one day be of use for people like Gerard. But the one thing the physicians shared was moral fiber, and Gerard knew from conversations past that the old, bent-back researcher absolutely detested the enterprise many of these businessmen and rich moguls were attempting to turn the medical practice into. In fact, whenever Gerard watched another businessman attempt in vain to gain Demetri's favor, he remembered something the researcher had once shared with him;

"Much like priests who provide hope to the sick and impoverished and comfort the dying under the pretext they've been sent by their Gods to do so, we physicians are here to actually heal the sick and prevent those on the brink of death from having an early meeting with their creator. Medicine should be free to all, no matter what these tyrants in their counting houses say otherwise!"

Noble words and a feeling shared by much of the medical community, but it was a fight they were eventually going to lose. Physicians needed money to practice and make their care as widely available as possible, and researchers like Demetri needed funding to keep moving forward with new innovations and discoveries. The relationship between the two worlds of business and medicine would eventually find them inextricably locked into an enterprise that was morally bankrupt, but Gerard was convinced it would not be in his lifetime.

However, as Demetri had shared much of the limelight this evening, there was one individual who had a growing crowd surrounding him this evening. He was a rich, young Urodan noble who had shown considerable interest in transfusion, and many wondered if he was looking to make a bid like many of the others had tried and failed this evening. His name was Baron Petyr Zurich, a tall Salvarian who had been lavishly dressed for the affair. He had curled black hair that had been scented with oils, pale green eyes and an adrogenous, fox-like face. He was dressed in the apparel of Falliari nobility, rumored to be a quip to cause ire among the locals. Robes that had been made of magestic purple silk and he wore red pantaloons. He even wore black sandals that had been in the design of a sultan's that were usually made, by tradition, with silk powdered with salt to show their humility and that they were still men, not Gods, who governed their cities. He was pompous and abrasive to those he did not wish to speak to, but women flocked to him, begging for his favor. They found his soft, highborn accent to be particularly exotic, but after getting an earful from Urodans all day, Gerard did not find him particularly interesting or friendly.

At one point, the Baron had approached the doctor and smiled, "Why hello, Herr Doktor."

"Good evening, my lord." Gerard said with a bow of his head, "What do I owe the pleasure?"

"Oh, well I am curious. As I leave my war-torn country where men die and bleed over control of Uroda's corn and wheat, I see many able-bodied men like yourself who are able to fix my men-at-arms so that they might continue to quell the uprising of peasants. I ask myself why you might be here instead of on the next ship to Salvar to aid us and I look upon many of the faces here and found my answer." The young baron explained, his insult dripping in venom and courtesy.

"And what answer have you found to satisfy your curiosity, my lord?" Gerard said, his phrasing beginning to have a bit of bite to it.

"I think, and many my fellow barons might agree with me, that you surround yourself in this squalor and these primitives to act like you might be doing something. Splinting a broken limb, pulling a tooth like our good fellow, Herr Doktor Gendlow, over there, or perhaps looking for the cure for polio." Baron Zurich answered before he touched Gerard by the arm and mused, "But let us be honest.. you Coronian physicians have lost your stomach for war after you own little skirmish and you seek to find comfort in the loins of some black, feeble-minded wench from across the sea. Am I correct?"

Gerard grit his teeth and refrained himself from the outrage he felt at being accosted by this Baron. It was an uphill battle to quell his anger, and it was one he quickly lost. "I am sorry, my lord. I distinctly remember coming to this lecture to learn about transfusions to see if it would be of my own interest to add it to my practice. My travels here have been both academic and for pleasure after serving as the head of my own clinic within the hotbed of fighting in Corone. My colleagues and I treated any and all who sought our care. Soldiers from the empire who came in throngs after the battle, or the few Rangers who traveled in the cover of darkness and sought care for their wounded. You speak to me of seeing the horrors of war, baron, but I know young, upstart nobles like yourself obey to your masters at their every whim. The Vagarand, am I right? What of the order that had been put out along the western front for Barons to consent to killing their men-at-arms for desertion?"

It was the Baron's turn to conceal his anger as he sucked on his teeth and glared at the doctor, "They were cowards, one and all, Herr Doktor. We did what we had to do."

"I'm sure you did what was in your best interest and what would allow you to curry favor with your masters, Baron Zurich. Tell me, how did a man such as yourself gain such an impressive title again? For serving?"

At that moment as the baron traced the rim of his glass and scowled at him darkly, he nodded towards right where Gerard's eyes followed and met Silas' weak attempts to coo a Falliari servant girl. "Perhaps you should go rescue your friend before he makes a grave mistake and chooses to breed with that animal. You liberal, amoral pigs who dwell within the free cities of Corone are all alike in that you forget yourselves and your place. In my country, we would. . ."

"We are not in your country." A hard voice interrupted, belonging to Dr. Demetri Fibonacci as he walked his way through a parting a crowd and stared the baron down. "We speak freely here and do not cow ourselves to the threats of having our tongues pulled out by savages employed by incompetent nobles drunk on greed and power. This island may be neutral ground, but the laws of hospitality are chiefly observed here. You have insulted one of my guests and our country under the guise of seeking my favor and I bid you to leave before I call for the authorities. Now."

Everyone in the reception remained silent as the baron looked upon the old, wizened researcher with stunned surprise and contempt. With a bow the young noble walked away, "As it pleases my Coronian lords, I will seek more pleasant company elsewhere. I bid you good night."

With that, the baron stormed off and a collection of his armed guard that had accompanied him that night followed him from the room and to the stairs where he retreated into the night.

"What a rude, impetuous man," Demetri observed, leaning upon his cane as he watched the Urodan lord depart. "You did right to call him out here, Gerard, but I fear the public humiliation he suffered will mean it is not the last time you or I see of this Baron Zurich," Turning to the growing crowd he smiled and raised a hand, "Please, forgive the interruption, the good Salvarian lord lost interest in sharing our company, as I am sure he had lost his manners on his way here tonight. Please continue to enjoy each other's company and the fine dining, I would not suffer to know tomorrow that one crumb of those delicious scones has been left untouched tonight!"

There was laughter and clapping that followed the researcher's announcement, and much merriment followed. The festivities continued with glee in the knowledge of the argument between the Coronians and the Urodan lord. Gerard was offered drinks and clapped on the back by many of his colleagues who sought to congratulate him. He laughed, he joked, he drank much until he could not do so politely any longer. He eventually recovered and walked with much grace around the reception that was beginning to disperse for the evening. It was late, and the party was over. Gerard was looking for Silas for a time, after keeping up with him during the reception for more than thirty minutes before music began to play. He last saw him on the edge of the crowd towards a bookshelf attempting to coo a delightful, albeit dubiously young, Coronian academic to share his cups with. By the looks of it when the doctor found the inventor next, he hadn't been making much progress.

Patting him on the shoulder as he came near, Silas nodded to Gerard as he spoke to the academic and said, "This is my friend, Dr. Gerard Faure. He was the one who stood up to that brash noble over earlier."

The young woman smiled and shook his hand, "Well done, doctor, my name is Emily. Congratulations and thanks for defending our country's honor."

Gerard smiled, drunk, and put his arm around Silas' shoulder. The room was beginning to spin. "You're welcome, miss. But perhaps you had should run along home. This is not a night a young woman should venture out alone in the darkness."

Glaring at the doctor, Silas smiled at the young woman, "Perhaps not. But maybe you would like to be escorted back to your dwelling. Emily is it? You mentioned you were staying in the high rise." Silas smiled dumbly, also drunk and said, "I own the top floor."

Emily laughed and shook her head, "You're perhaps twenty years my senior, Mister Cain. Perhaps you two would rather enjoy the company of each other?"

With that, the young academic turned and walked away, leaving the doctor and inventor alone.

"We.. w-well thanks a lot!" Silas said, beginning to slur his words.

"Any time." Gerard replied, "What do you say we get out of here, Silas? A nice warm bed sounds great right about now."

"Sometimes Gerard I'm beginning to think I could do better without your company." Silas said as they leaned on each other and departed from the reception.

"Perhaps, but whose going to be the one to nurse your psychic wounds when you're rejected again. That girl was barely old enough to drink, let alone let you crawl on top of her."

"Fuck you, Gerard." Silas said with a scowl. The doctor began to laugh and eventually the inventor cheered up and the two began to sing drunken songs as they helped each other down the stairs.

When Silas and Gerard had finished with the stairs, they both stumbled this way and that with vain attempts to hold onto each other and try not to fall off the world. But it became too much of a struggle to keep from tripping one another, so both the inventor and doctor gave each other a wide berth as they sought their way out of the Libraria. Gerard found it incredibly hard to stay upright as his feet weaved in and out beneath him, his body making confused, awkward attempts to remain balanced. As the hall around him continued to spin, Gerard ignored the maelstrom and glanced meaningfully at his companion to check his progress. Silas was having the same trouble staying upright, but rather than take unsure, awkward steps like the doctor which made him look like a newborn colt taking its first steps, the inventor had a different approach. Making fists and pumping them forward, Silas placed one hurried step in front of the other in a direction he was sure was the exit. He moved quickly and was in no danger of falling, but aside from how ridiculous he must have looked by everyone who saw them passing by, he was unable to right himself and soon the pair began to drift apart.

Gerard began to mouth something about the peril of getting lost while drunk in the library, but he was suddenly gripped by a fit of laughter of the thought of it. Eventually Silas moved out of view as they both pressed on in different directions and soon they were separated. Gerard wasn't sure of where he was going, but he pressed on. Those who had stuck around for a few words and were taking their time getting out of the Libraria had seen Gerard in all his glory as he crossed into the common area that led into the city night. Their faces were blobs, and the laughter that could be heard was garbled. The echo of it flooded Gerard's ears so that it was deafening, drowning out anything they might have been saying about him. The drunk physician gripped either ear and made his way across the common area and into another part of the Libraria, completely missing the exit. The doctor was unable to speak, his words slurring to the point that what came from his mouth amounted to nonsense. His thoughts began coherently or started in the middle somewhere, but eventually they tapered off into nothing as the doctor's brain was unable to bridge the connection. However drunk the doctor was, deep down he knew he must've drank too much, but it didn't seem right. He had eaten before hand, and that much wine hadn't quite had that much of an effect on him before.

. . ave. . I . . pois. . ? His mind voiced stupidly.

Eventually Gerard grew tired of moving as if he were on stilts and found a nearby wall to lean on as he staggered down the hall. His stomach quaked and now and again the doctor belched and found the smell of the same delicious cheese and wine to fill his nostrils again. It had been enticing when he was sober, but the thought of cheese and more wine to wash it down with made him retch. As he struggled to find a place to vomit quietly, Gerard tripped over a nearby plant and took a nasty spell, tumbling head over heels onto the ground. He stared up at the cruel red ceiling as it continued to spin and spin and spin. He struggled to turn over and get up, laughing all the while to himself, but something forced him back down. Thinking he was caught on something, the doctor struggled and chirped drunkenly until the gleam of polished steel came swimming into view. It was a long knife and the person holding it looked vaguely familiar, but his face was a blur and the only thing the doctor could focus on were the owner's queer, black sandals.

There was laughter when the sandals kicked him in the stomach and then somebody said something for awhile that Gerard couldn't understand. That same voice said something else and Gerard was promptly lifted onto his feet and turned around. His vision swam as he saw the faces of several men come into view, but their hazy forms doubled in his vision. Were their five? No, certainly there were ten. No! It had to be sixteen of them.

Whatever the case may be, he was turned to the man who was holding the steel and being dragged past him into another dark part of the Libraria. As Gerard found himself floating over the floor, the man beside him continued to say things he didn't understand until the doctor looked at the black sandals, the steel, and the queer colored robes. "A-aRK.. Ark.. Arrreeee Y-Yowwwwaaaa Wfffff... Wfffisssh... Wfisha-zahard?"

The men who carried him, each taking a quarter of him all began to laugh, as did the man in black sandals. It was a throaty, merry laugh and as he turned his long knife in his hands, he rapped the doctor loudly against the skull with the pommel of his blade. That made the doctor grow quiet as he watched a reflection of himself glide over the floor and into the darkened recesses of the Libraria.

As he was being carried through the dark, vacant recesses of the Libraria, Gerard faded in and out of consciousness. Whatever substance had its hold on him, and he was sure even in his drunken state that there had been foul play, had still not run its course. As he was being carried, the men about him were silent as they followed Baron Zurich obediently, continuing to provide the illusion that Gerard was floating in the darkness. He could not move his limbs and had not thought of struggling against his captors, instead he was left in thought. Thoughts bubbled into his head and dissolved into nothing. It caused him to mutter nonsensical phrases and carry on one-sided conversations that had no substance. But eventually, in the eternity it took to journey across the building, Gerard had begun to dream. In it, he moved about in darkness against his will. The world about him pulsed and churned as if looking to exorcise him like a splinter from a healing wound. He knew that he was submerged in something. Covered in it. It was wet, and warm and it smelled familiar. He could breathe in it. The comfort that it provided him was like that of a man who fell into slumber or a child who was being swaddled in his mother's arms. It felt right and good with the world. The world around him narrowed into that of a wide tunnel with arches and beyond there was a narrow gash in the darkness that led to a blinding light.

The world around him, all that Gerard ever knew, pushed him and pulled him forward. It did so stubbornly, and insisted inch by excruciating inch that Gerard did not belong there. He was an outsider. An invader. And despite the comforts and the feeling of home, he must leave. But, even as he breathed and tasted the intoxicating nectar that enveloped him, Gerard wanted to remain there forever. But still he was compelled forward and against his will. He eventually began to grow annoyed and frustrated like a man being woken amid a wonderful dream, or a couple interrupted in the middle of their pleasure. Something about being expelled from this paradise was wrong at its most primal level. But even if he tried, he was unable to resist. He was compelled forward and eventually when the blinding light threatened to take him. He screamed and what he believed to be air in his lungs passed his lips and emitted an arc of bubbly froth in the queer, pink liquid that consumed him. Eventually he crossed the brink beyond the fleshy arches of the tunnel and through the large gash and the light took him.

And then he woke up.

Baron Zurich held open the door as they carried Gerard through the threshold who began to squirm against their grasp. Zurich rapped him on the nose once more with the pommel of his dagger and told him to quiet. The doctor whimpered, but eventually obeyed. All of his kind were like that, the baron had concluded. Coronians. The Free People, they always boasted, were meant to do nothing more than serve their betters. Or so the Baron thought as he took in the cool, night air and bathed in the soft, glowering light of the torch that hanged in its sconce by the doorway. They were outside of the Libraria now and in the streets behind the building that served as a polite getaway for highborn and those who wished to avoid the thoroughfare of the aristocrat quarter during the daylight.

The Baron pranced down the stone steps onto the cobbled streets, beckoning his confederates after him. "They will be here any minute now with my litter," the noble boasted with confidence, "And we will take this. . creature back with us to my apartment where I might enjoy his displeasure even further."

Petyr Zurich was exuberant and his thoughts turned to relishing his victory over the doctor who had publicly insulted him. The doctor's friend was of no consequence, and he was sure that waking up on the morrow drunk alone and in the middle of a library would be fitting enough. But for the doctor here who he had learned to be Gerard Faure, he would make certain that he took what he could from his flesh what he could when he was in torment. And as if sensing their master's growing manic behaviour, they began to converse with one another and eventually lowered their guard. There were eight of them who walked in close quarters, and at least three of them had to be within arm's reach of the Salvarian noble at any one time. They dressed in black leathers and for their part had come heavily armed, but as all mercenaries and cutthroats they came of varying skill. At least one of them had never drew blood outside of the practice yard before, and the few who had fought in the war and bloodied their blades with scarlet had grown lazy and let the discipline in their brutal profession wax with promises of gold coin, good drink and the warmth between a woman's thighs. It was at the Baron's peril that he had employed such men to safeguard his life. But, he was an autocrat who had fought in the war with the charge of a vanguard, and had only been in command of it by being enlisted as a substitute for a seasoned commander who had had better sense then to be involved in the bloodbath that was the siege at Knife's Edge. He had a head full of desires for glory, but the Baron had neither the discipline nor the deterimination to pick up a sword or answer to someone else who moved in a higher position than he.

Still, though, Baron Zurich's vanguard had done its part in running down refugees on horseback, or enemies of the state as they had been called, and put them to the sword or hanged them from trees. His orders had been to keep the streets leading to the capital free from highwaymen or outlaws, but as the young, upstart noble had interpreted, outlaws often dressed in plain clothes and anyone could be an outlaw. So it was with that obtuse, devilish logic that Baron Petyr Zurich made a name for himself by setting up pavillions on the roads leading to Knife's Edge where his men sat and sharpened their knives and whetted their steel patiently waiting for their next victims. They bloodied the fields and fouled the rivers in scarlet blood in those that they pursued, more than most who had suffered brutal ends by their hands had been innocent. Those that had died whimpering and quickly were the lucky ones. The ones who resisted were hanged, beheaded or nailed to crosses that would be raised on the sides of the roads leading to and from the capital. It was even rumored among soldiers and nobility that Zurich had earned his namesake as the Butcher of Candar, the name of the road that he policed, for mistakenly leading an attack on a supply train bound for Knife's Edge to resupply the nobles and their forces that had already been fighting in the bloody streets for days. His men, consumed by bloodlust, desire and avarice that emanated from the young noble attacked the train, killed all who had accompanied it and took the supplies for plunder. It was said among some that if that supply train had reached the city with bandages and food which had been so sorely needed by soldiers who had been fighting in the city that the battle might had ended days earlier then it had. After the war, instead, the young commander had received a commendation and brought into nobility by doing his duty for the realm.

Because of this, Baron Zurich was never well received where news of his rumored exploits, however vague, reached virgin ears. He had seen being raised to a noble house as an outstanding achievement, even to be a minor house, that most people in his position could never hope to achieve. But news of his crimes had been well publicised by the foreign press despite his efforts to have them quieted and were framed as the picture for the whole world to see as the service Salvarian nobility had done to end the war. It had caused the man who walked through the dark streets to grow bitter of his greatest achievement which he must wear around his neck like gilded fetters. Imprisoned by his crimes and known by all who had followed the war. It was because of this and more that the autocrat sought vengeance for a grevious insult by taking it out of the good doctor's flesh. He even had a mind to hang the doctor's body up for public display and would have already planned to do so if the exploits of the race riots had not reached his ears. Instead, he was formulating other plans.

Or he would have, had he not turned that fateful corner and into an alley that led its way back along the other side of the building and towards the main square of the aristocrat's quarter. It had been his plan for his litter to meet he and the rest of his confederates here, but instead he found much more than he could have ever bargained for. Precious moments later, the screaming began.

Baron Petyr Zurich and his men carried Gerard into the city streets of an adjacent alley under the cover of darkness, with only glowering torchlight to guide them down the sandstone steps. The Baron smirked as the doctor continued to stumble over his words trying to piece things together, but the poison used would leave him incapacitated for some time without an antidote. He played the idea of giving his captive the antidote once they returned to his home and allowing him to regain clarity, because after all, what fun was there in shortening someone's fingers or loosening their tongue if they weren't sober enough to be terrified in their agony?

A cool breeze like the breath from the desert sent a chill up the Baron's spine as he watched his men from the bottom of the stairs while they tried to haul the doctor down the steps without dropping him. Regarding them coldly with his long knife as he picked at his fingers, Petyr muttered, "Not a hair out of order until we get him back. We'll take the back streets to avoid the thoroughfare-"

The Baron began to gurgle and tasted coppery, arterial blood spurt from his mouth as more than a foot of cold, plied steel skewered his heart and erupted from his chest. A heavy, gloved hand rested on his shoulder while a deep, baritone voice Gerard would recognize belonging to Waldar whispered mirthlessly in his ear, "[The Young Lion sends his regards, Butcher of Candar. May the sands drink of your blood and your soul wander unfettered in these godless wastes]."

Gagging on his own tongue and experiencing something akin to vertigo as bright crimson lifeblood evacuated his body, Petyr's fat lips sputtered in response, but he had lost the strength to do anything but scream. The Urodan clamped his gloved hand upon the vile baron's shoulder and turned his blade, pushing it outward with a strength and savagery known only to a native of Salvar, his sword cutting its way through flesh and bone until it sang freely from his victim's side. As the Baron screamed in agony and animal terror of what fate had dealt him, Waldar kicked the baron to his knees and brought his steel back one more time to behead him in front of his men before howling, "Attack!"

Whatever nerve the Baron's men had as they exited the library was lost when they witnessed their leader being eviscerated before them. Eight big, burly Salvarian men from the Vagarand drew steel, stumbling to recover from the ambush. Gerard was dropped on the stairs with a thud and forgotten as the agents of the Vagarand sought to protect themselves. Trapped on the stairs with their captive in tow, they were flanked as Waldar and his men converged upon them. They came out of the darkness and in all directions. From the Library, up the stairs, from the side. These nameless warriors from Uroda slashed and cut their way up the stairs, cutting their Vagarand enemies down with a ferocity and something akin to hatred that by the time the third man fell, the rest were seeking refuge back in the library. Or they would have, if Rolf did not block their exit. These agents were peasants and farmers, sellswords and vagabonds who joined the upstart noble as he plundered his way in Salvar. Not a one of them had ever truly fought against a disciplined force of soldiers or actual warriors who knew the profession of arms. The Urodan band cut them limb from limb in such savagery that it caused Gerard to vomit all over himself as his ebbing consciousness was flooded with the sounds of people fouling themselves, the singing of steel and the screams of dying men who thought themselves as only butchers, but were akin only to pigs led to the slaughter.

And, within minutes the bloodletting was over. The last man died violently as Rolf pulled his dagger from the dying agent's neck and jammed it into his eye socket, blinding him. Smiling with mirth, the redheaded Urodan could be heard uttering something to his dying enemy. Gerard did not need to be sober to know it was nothing good. Silence and death hang over the alleyway as news of the day's riots caused anyone within earshot in the aristocratic quarter to flee the violence. But, it would not be long before the city guard came in force to investigate.

The sandstone steps of the library were slaked with blood, decorated in the savagery of entrails, limbs and the remains of the Vagarand agency. The doctor was covered in blood and cowering at the side of the steps, delirious with fear and poison. As the victors cleaned their blades and orders were barked by Waldar, someone reached for Gerard's mouth and forced it upward and open like a suckling, baby lamb. A foul, acrid taste wetted Gerard's tongue, threatening sickness again as it dripped down the back of his throat. Sticky with someone else's blood and flecks of their flesh covering his person and ruining his clothes, the doctor felt the delirium from the poison begin to immediately fade. His vision swam and began to grow dark as he became truly aware of his surroundings and the murder and mayhem that had befell his captors. The last thing he remembered was Waldar ordering one of his men to cover him and carry him back, and then there was only darkness.


[Translated from High Salvarian]

It was several days before Gerard saw daylight again, his slumber nascent from the beer, the trauma inflicted that awful night and remnants of the poison in his system. As Rolf would later tell him, they smuggled the doctor out of the quarter under the cover of darkness and the trip was without incident. It was surprising that the city of Assan would kill white foreigners in daylight when bloodlust and fury caused them to riot, but the sight of several armored Salvarian warriors covered in blood and flesh was quick to go unnoticed as they navigated the back streets. Waldar had gotten him a room on the second floor of the tavern. They had cleaned, bathed and clothed the ailing doctor, leaving him to his rest where he was checked on periodically. Waldar joked that he had brought food to the doctor personally and watched him eat, but Gerard could remember none of it. But, his fugue state was short lived as he woke later that afternoon on the third day to the sight of the large Urodan watching him from afar. Putting down a thick tome he had been reading for pleasure, Waldar grinned wolfishly at Gerard, "Welcome back to the land of the living, Herr Doktor!"

Gerard rubbed his eyes and felt his stomach roil with the type of sickness that was only brought on by the poison of sleep. The soft, afternoon light was bright and nauseating, causing the doctor frail from pangs of hunger to shield his eyes. "W-what day is it?"

"Wednesday," Waldar replied as he pushed a dish of fat, greasy sausage forward on the doctor's nightstand, "You should eat, it has been awhile since you have and you need to regain your strength."

The sight of the sausage reminded him of the entrails spilled from the Vagarand agents that night and caused him to reach for the old iron bucket at his bedside and vomit. Waldar got up and laughed, distancing himself from Gerard, "Too much too soon, eh? Sorry about that."

"Fugh.." Gerard uttered as he spat sickness into the bucket and hung over it as he prepared for more vomiting, wishing the sight of dead men to leave his mind's eye. After several long moments, Gerard recovered and muttered, "It was a set up."

"What?"

"Y-You heard me, Salvarian." Gerard snapped feverishly as his vision swam, turning to the warrior who regarded him with interest, the doctor growled, "You set me up. All of this was meant to draw those bastards out into the open for you to murder and I was the lamb tied to the stake for you to use. You had no intention of telling me any of this before I left to go to that event with my friend and you put us both in peril by doing so. I am very fortunate to be alive and as far as I know, Silas still breathes. And he better for all your sakes." Stopping long enough to spit in the bucket, Gerard looked up and glowered at him, "You betrayed me."

Waldar pursed his lips and considered this for a moment in silence. Rubbing his chin stubbled with salt and pepper, the Urodan finally shrugged his shoulders and nodded, "Yes, Herr Doktor, I did."

"Why not bring me in on the ruse? You already told me so much. I patched up your friend down there who is obviously somebody of some importance to all of you. How could you not trust me enough by that point that you were willing to get me killed to slay that stupid man?" Gerard said with a calmness befitting a man who had recently stared in the face of death.

"We could not risk it." Waldar said simply, holding up his hand to silence the doctor's anger, "This operation has taken months to prepare, and we are not in Fallien or in Assan by incident. While you will get your answers in time by a power higher then myself or my brothers, I will pull the shroud for you to see before that time. My men and I are here on behalf of that man you saved days ago. And you are correct, he is very important to us all. He is the one whose hand has guided our efforts. He and his family are who we pledged our steel too and foreswore our lands, titles and wealth to protect and serve when we left our country in exile. This is a cause that does not merit notoriety and this a game that is larger than us all.

You make think the Butcher of Candar as a nuisance and somebody who would have probably met an ill fate on his own, and you would be correct. However, he and his men were agency of the Vagarand, and they were in Fallien for a reason. Perhaps they heard rumors of their cohorts being murdered in the night, savaged by a band of nameless warriors roaming both land and sea, but I can guarantee you that Petyr did not know we were in country before he met his end. The stubborn fool never did listen to his betters, and if he had he would have known after we were attacked by those assailants that other night." Pausing to let it sink in, Waldar returned to his seat and looked at the doctor with a gaze mixed with fervor and regret before he spoke softly, "But know this, Gerard. We are the fear that causes these upstart nobles to piss themselves when they hear of our savagery. We keep them up at night and been responsible for many, many of their deaths. And we will not stop until the last of this new political order ruling Salvar retreats back to our homeland's borders where we can strike the killing blow. But for now, we harass their lines and make them think twice about seeking safe harbor in any land outside of our own."

"Who are you all?" Gerard replied, as he sat up in bed and pushed himself over to the side, "This sounds bigger and more political than something a band of warriors such as you could be plotting yourselves. What is all this? The Vagarand number in the thousands, and a collective of baronies that now hold sway over that country are larger then you could hope to overthrow. . . Unless. ."

"Unless what?" Waldar replied, piqued with interest and delight as he watched the doctor piece it together.

".. Unless the only family in Salvar with the power and will to rid this country of yours from that corruption was actually not dead as so many newpapers and people have been saying since the war broke out, but in exile." Gerard deduced, "Waldar, you're sworn to the man down there.. whoever he is knows the royal family!"

"You are sharp, Herr Doktor," Waldar grinned, "Yes, my brethren and I are all knights, members of the royal guard and belonging to the Order of Perun, sworn to protect King Rathaxea and his family in their exile and act as agents of their will."

Gerard realized that Waldar was entertaining him with a wealth of information that up until now he was forbidden to know. Secrets and plots, lies and deception that countless people have been killed or silenced to protect. The thought occurred to him as to why now he was being told everything even after he had been betrayed. Waldar may have owed him for Petyr's death and what Gerard had done for him in the past week, but it did not make sense for him to say so much and so freely. Choosing his next words carefully, lest he was being tested, the doctor raised an eyebrow and whispered, "What is going to happen to me now?"

Waldar smiled and pushed the dish forward again, "You are going to eat and regain your strength. Spend the afternoon and contemplate your thoughts before nightfall. Get dressed, enjoy whatever pleasures beset a man of your intelligence and prepare for an audience with the man downstairs. He is well enough to speak to you and he has wished to since he knew of the life saving aid you have brought him. While I can see the gears turning in your head to try to figure out who he is and more of what I told you, I suggest you leave it for tonight. I have entertained your questions to prepare you for this and because I think I owe it to you for the service you have provided the Crown this week. If we were in my country, as I said before you would probably have been granted a land and title as well as enough notoriety to carry you far with the King's favor. However, we are not there and likely will not be for some time. So hopefully what my charge chooses to reward you with is fitting given what we have put you through."

Gerard nodded and looked out the window and into the city below that thrived with life in the glowering desert sunlight. It was some time before Waldar stood and offered his hand, "I want to apologize to you, Gerard. You are keen man and someone who has provided more aid then we thought someone who was not a native of our homeland was capable of. Sorry for keeping you in the dark, and I hope my betrayal of your trust does not poison what could be a fruitful friendship, Herr Doktor."

Gerard stood and shook the knight's hand firmly, regarding the Urodan coolly and in his underwear. The doctor knew Waldar thought highly of him, and after all this, perhaps there was something to be said about having friends in high places, "I accept your apology, Waldar. Thank you for the hospitality you and your Order have provided me while I have been under your care."

The two men smiled and exchanged courtesies and before long, Gerard was left alone in his room and to contemplate what would befall him later that night.

Dying sunlight waned as the city of Assan invited the coming night and the Red Pony engorged itself on patrons coming and going from the bustling streets of the foreign quarter. Men and women came and bought food and beer, japed and made merry much to the delight of the owner of the tavern, welcoming a flush in business. But, as night fell, a solemn agreement from the day before came to mind and he began to dissuade his patrons from staying any further. Giving out last call hours early and watching many fat coin purses walk out with their owners, the tavern owner grunted and worked with his barmaids to close the tavern for the night. Save for one table in a distant corner of the room, oak tables stained with all matter of food, beer and debris were cleared and wiped down. Chairs were set upside down on each table and the wooden floor was swept of debris, sand and dirt carried in by their patron was swept away. Before long the bar was closed, and the owner of the Red Pony beckoned his barmaids to be on their way who welcomed an early night off with few questions. When the last one left, the short and stocky tavern keeper shut and locked the door behind them and began to blow the lanterns out. By the time he was finished the empty, quiet tavern sat in darkness save a table at the far corner where a candle glowered in the darkness.

Knights of the Order of Perun walked around the floor, looking out the dull, glossy windows and into the darkness outside as they roamed the floor. Dressed in doublets and their hands resting upon the pommels of their swords, the Salvarians prowled the tavern looking for stowaways or something amiss. When they turned up nothing, the knights took their positions around the tavern and each floor. Sigmund and Rolf sat outside while Josef and Berengar went upstairs to stand watch. As they climbed the steps and up the second floor, Josef rapped loudly upon Faure's door and barked, "Herr Doktor, it is time."

Gerard opened his door and was solemn, dressed in clothes that had been washed too many times to remove stubborn bloodstains. The doctor swore after this was all over he would take these clothes home and burn them, but that was then and this was now. Even so, the doctor greeted both the knights and exchanged courtesies. Berengar smiled too widely and Josef simply stared at him while they were waiting for him to get moving. They both chided him, telling him to remember his lessons and not to embarrass them during the audience. The point had been driven home hours earlier when Rolf had been instructed by Waldar to go to the doctor's room and show him proper courtesies and what was expected when in the presence of actual Salvarian nobility. Though nobody would speak of the identity of the injured man that had such power and influence over him, the point was driven home that Faure expected the mysterious man had to be of the royal house. Washed and preened and fit to be in the presence of powers that be, Gerard put his on the bannister of the stairs and began to step into the glowering darkness below.

By the time he got to the bottom, Waldar was waiting for him at the end of the stairs, shadowed face fixed upon him solemnly, "Herr Doktor, thank you for joining us. Allow me to introduce you to our Lord." Turning to the only table where a candle flickered in the darkness, Waldar bowed with his left hand extended, beckoning Gerard to do the same. "Prince Johan of House Rathaxea, son of King Iorlan Rathaxea I and Heir Apparent, I introduce Herr Doktor Gerard Faure, the man who saved your life and assisted in the slaying of the Butcher of Candar."

Both men rose simultaneously as a man sitting at the table beckoned them, "Thank you, Sir Waldar. Please come forward and sit with me, Gerard."

Even speaking softly, Prince Johan's rich voice carried with it the power and might of a member of the royal family. As Gerard approached, he saw the prince for the first time as he stepped into the light. He was tall like his countrymen, and looked to be hardened by the war that had plagued his homeland. He had a foxlike face and looked immaculate in his dark doublet and trousers. He dressed like a commoner as befitting his current circumstances, but even meeting him for the first time, Gerard could tell the man before him had an air of superiority and power before him that commanded a certain respect. A long scar extended from his brow to the edge of his chin, and Prince Johan's curly, raven black hair was oiled and well kept. He looked out of place and even as he stood and beckoned the doctor to join him, Gerard could tell he was still ailing from his injury. It was the first time the doctor had been in the presence of a royal prince. Remembering his customs and courtesies, Gerard waited for the prince to sit before he took his seat, "Thank you for granting me an audience, Your Grace."

The prince regarded him coolly, with a smile that belied nothing, "Yes, Gerard. It is good to see you, if you do not mind, I have Olan, our host bringing us something to eat. It has been a long day and my stomach troubles me. I hope that roast lamb, potatoes and a bit of red shan't trouble you?"

"No, of course not, Your Grace. I welcome the chance to eat." Gerard replied. "If I might ask, how are you faring after I saw you last? How is your side?"

Considering it for a moment as he sat straight in his chair, Prince Johan shrugged, "My side continues to ache from the encounter I suffered, but it has been healing well. My bandages are changed twice daily and I clean my wound as best I can. As far as I or my knights can deduce, there is no sign of an infection. I trust I am fit for travel."

The Prince was not asking, but rather telling the Gerard that he was ready to leave this place, and judging by his patient's present condition he was inclined to agree, if reluctantly. After years of healing others, the doctor had learned long ago that it was best to guide his more willful patients rather then remain firm in his prognosis. "Yes, Your Grace."

Rapping his fingers against the table in the uneasy silence that followed, Prince Johan decided to change the subject, "As I am certain Sir Waldar has gotten you up to speed, within certain limitations, I grant, I trust you have some grasp as to why speaking with me tonight is necessary?" When the doctor nodded, the Prince continued, "Good. Part of this conversation is for me to tell that I appreciate your help, whether unwittingly or not, in the execution of the Butcher of Candar and his consort. These efforts do not go unnoticed, and for the trouble you have been caused for what I am sure you had thought would have been a simple intervention on your part, I am doubling the sum of your reward. Though, if I am honest, this generosity is also a demonstration that there is much to be gained when you are in my favor."

"Thank you, Your Grace, but the money is not why I saved your life," Gerard interrupted. "It's what I do. And my participation in this plot against the baron is something I would not have consented to if I had known what my participation would have meant."

Not used to such candor from a foreigner, the Prince visibly bristled at the notion, "Even so, you will be rewarded for what you have done here. What you choose to do with what you might see as blood money is your wish. And I still thank you for your efforts in saving my life, even if your humility might deny you an appreciation in the scope of what you have managed to accomplish."

"Thank you, Your Grace." Gerard replied as he watched the tavern keeper, Olan come from the kitchens with plates rich with food fit for someone of the Prince's stature. It looked very much like Olan had practice in this sort of thing as he returned with two wooden cups and filled them with red wine and stood back. To Gerard's surprise, Waldar reached down with his own fork and knife and tasted the Prince's food for him, finding it fit for consumption with a quiet nod. This practice was not something the doctor had witnessed before and outside the bounds of his own country's customs, even though he understood it found it to be intolerable.

"Thank you, Sir Waldar." Prince Johan stated as the knight stepped away from the table, he stabbed a chunk of roasted potato from his plate and began to chew. Nodding with appreciation, the Prince beckoned the owner of the tavern and thanked him for indulging him. Olan bowed and spoke pleasantries in Salvarian before he went back to the kitchen, presumably to clean up. Noticing the perplexed look on the physician's face as he ate, the Prince grinned as he grabbed another potato, gesturing the fork at him as he leaned in, "You men of the free cities of Corone are not used to dining with royalty, I am sure. Don't worry, Herr Doktor, your secret is safe with me. But you should eat, the lamb is quite delectable. And be less rigid, I promise you there are no dungeons to throw you in."

Grabbing his own fork and knife, the doctor acquiesced and began to eat. The roasted potato had been rolled in spices of coriander and sage to give it an exotic flavor. The lamb had also been roasted and carefully crusted in herbs and smelled of onion and garlic. As he sank his teeth into the lamb and savored its flavor while the juice dripped down his lips, Gerard wondered how good it actually was to be the son of a King, even in exile.

"You would be shocked to know, Gerard, that I do not entertain many guests since I have left my country during the war," Prince Johan mused as he paused to drink from his cup, "It is refreshing to have some sort of return to my old life. My father, King Iorlan, resides with my family on an island under constant watch by the Order of Perun for plots against his life. Since the second attempt on his life during the height of the civil war, my father no longer leaves the haven of his island. Preferring his retainers to do his will while he waits to return to his throne in due time."

"Your Grace, you sound a little bitter in that notion. The waiting to return home, I mean." Gerard replied as he ate.

Pursing his lips in thought, the Prince nodded, "You are right. I do not have the fortitude and patience that my father has benefited from during his reign. My knights often remark me as the Young Lion of House Rathaxea, and they would correct. My hands are better served in our efforts to wipe away opposition and to indulge in intrigue then to remain idle and wait for diplomatic rhetoric to run its course. The truth is, House Rathaxea has few friends willing to loan us the armies needed to bring the Vagarand to heel. It has been years since my father, I or any of my family have set foot on the shores of Salvar. I can tell you that all of us want to return to Uroda, but I fear it will be some time before any of will be able to do so safely."

"If what Waldar has said is true, your plans of driving the Vagarand back into Salvar might help you do just that," Gerard replied diplomatically. It occurred to him that the Prince was oversharing and that in the right hands, the information he knew could get him killed. The weight of that burden on his shoulders did not go unnoticed.

"It may be a fool's game with shoveling sand against the tide to any spymaster or diplomat worth his salt, but I have gotten results. My father wishes to rally his allies against our countrymen and to fight for the crown once more, but the will just is not there. I am not certain that King Iorlan has the political capital to draw what he needs. However, between you and me, our disappearances and killings of Vagarand nobility have given them pause. Originally, the collective sought to send envoys throughout Althanas to every major power to legitimize their rule upon my country. But, since our war continues to wage, the powers that be in that faction have begun to reconsider whether or not it is fruitful to do so. But, heed me, Gerard, if it is with my dying breath I will continue to blunt their efforts and wait for the opportunity to strike against these pretenders so that my family might return to where we belong."

"But. . " Gerard prompted as he finished his meal, "Why do you need me?"

The Prince smirked at the doctor's wit, "You are a clever man, Gerard. You must know already that you are learning too much, too quickly. I fear that this will be the last time we meet in person for a long time, and I want to make my point clear. While my efforts to keep the Vagarand away from expanding their influence outside of Salvar with countless plots over the years that have seen many imprisoned, dead, or ruined, it has not been without sacrifice. This political game of thrones often involves uneasy choices. It is embarrassing how much influence and allies House Rathaxea has lost since it left Salvar. It has not gone unnoticed, but it seems the Vagarand have successfully pled their case to the powers that be in the free cities of Corone. Though one of our country's biggest rivals, and not one that has ever appreciated the finer points of autocracy, I cannot let our enemies befriend one another. The Butcher of Candar was here in Fallien as an envoy who would have eventually made his way to Irrakam and sought an audience with the Jya, as we have demonstrated such efforts will not be tolerated. This sort of approach will be.. tougher.. in Corone. There is too much political will to turn the page after Salvar's civil war, that any power seeking to govern it will be welcomed, whether or not they are pretenders. A simple disappearance or public execution will not do to undo these mistaken ideas."

"So?" Gerard replied, "You are looking for me to help you and your family gain influence in Corone? How?"

"Be our man in Corone," Prince Johan replied simply, "You are a physician and have a social mobility that many of your countrymen can not dream of. It would not be unreasonable to believe that you could treat men similar to my station in your own country if applied with the right leverage. All that I ask during this conversation is that you consider it. While I am asking you to conduct espionage against your own country for my family's benefit, I wonder how much that really means to a free man such as yourself. After all, if the Vagarand gain traction and legitimize their rule, what will that mean for the rest of the world? Do you think that the Vagarand will stop at our shores once it has concluded its endless march east and brought all of Salvar's nobility under its rule? The Kingdom of Salvar has acted as a bulwark against a country prided on its affinity for war from a powers that are bellicose and willing to do anything to get what they want, even if it is outside of their borders or against the will of the Gods."

"Well, with that logic, Your Grace, to deny your offer would be inviting the potentiality of what onto Althanas? World War?" Gerard said as he watched Waldar visibly stiffen at his candor.

"Maybe. I could be overreaching, but the fact remains that I want to see my family return to power. And there is much to be gained or lost in this matter, Gerard. Be our man in Corone, with enough work perhaps you can be our spymaster in the free cities with a spy ring of your own. Do you not have ambitions of your own?" Prince Johan asked, pressing the matter hard with any leverage he could use to gain the upper hand in what he believed was a worthy cause.

"I did." Gerard replied, "However, I understand your position, Your Grace and while I am not used to talking to royalty, I am willing to say that I am considering your offer. I will not say no, but understand that I am a man who heals his fellow men, not stabs them in the back."

The Young Lion scoffed at the notion and snapped his fingers, sitting back in his seat where his features flickered in the soft candlelight, "May it be that all of our hands be as clean and righteous as yours in order to carry out our work, Herr Doktor. You would make a fine steward, Gerard, you certainly have the temperament for it. My knights and I leave on the morrow to press on. Go back to your country and consider what I have said, we will be in touch. Look for my seal in our communications, they will be written by my hand. Before you hold the parchment to the light, use lemon juice. Thank you for your time, Gerard. Hopefully you will see you are an asset to our cause... Sir Waldar?"

As Gerard stood, Waldar handed him a pouch fat with crowns and an ornamented dagger that was sheathed. Along its hilt was silver fileagree ending with the head of a roaring lion holding a ruby in its maw. "Thank you, Herr Doktor, may we meet again."

As the Prince sat there in silence and both he and his protector watched him go, Gerard noticed an agitation in the Young Lion and concluded that he might have chosen to turn him against his country to benefit the royal family. Maybe he was his only option? As Gerard left the tavern and exchanged pleasantries with the other taciturn knights, the doctor walked into the darkness and disappeared into the night. Perhaps Silas was okay and he could see him before he left aboard the Painted Lady for Corone the following day. His mind was busy putting things together, and for the first time in a long while the doctor wondered who his friends and enemies in this world might truly be if he brought their true intentions into the light.

Quote:

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Spoils:

600 GP

The Lion's Tooth: An ornamental dagger, eight inches in length of curved plied steel. It is decorated in symbols and silver. At the pommel of the hilt ends in Lion whose jaws hold a ruby firm in its mouth. Gifted to Gerard by Prince Johan of House Rathaxea, Kingdom of Salvar.

Skill:

Blood transfusion: Gerard has gained a rudimentary understanding of how to conduct a blood transfusion and the tools required to do so during a lecture in Fallien. With this, the doctor can save his patients from dying from blood loss provided he has the means and tools to do so.

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Thread Title: The Good Samaritan
Judgment Type: Full Rubric
Participants: Faure

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Plot: 21/30

• Story- 8/10

Overall the story had enough "meat" and activity to keep the reader interested throughout. There was not much to be distracted by, no boring bits. The relationship between Gerard and his patients (and also with him as a patient) is played out very well. There is a good order to things, and a great build of up action from "Man dying" on the note, to the final end where Gerard meets the crown prince. The only real weakness that was here was that there was a lot of heavy information and important things, whereas you could allow yourself a post or two of some minor setting structuring.

• Setting- 7/10

Capturing the reader right from the outset, you lay a brilliant and lively scene of the marketplace. Such words as "cacophony" in post one add to the scene and bring out the idea of sounds and life, despite the fact that the Civil War finished recently, there are signs that life is getting back to normal.
You continue in this strength, using similar strong language to really tease out some interesting facts about the setting. Towards the middle (posts 10 and 11) there is something of the loss of the strength of the setting due to the action and story becoming the main focus, and in future this judge would encourage you to just watch out for this. A little more use of 'alternative' senses could also be added, however, you have a good strength here.

• Pacing- 6/10

Pacing seemed to be flawless for the most part in terms of action, everything having its right time and precedence. One suggestion, however, would be to break down your large chunky paragraphs. Though the general timing of the piece is set out right the flow of the reading itself is jarred because of the large paragraphs. Try using paragraphs to mimic the rise in tension and so on, to get the reader to slow down their reading pace etc. This can be done with one sentence (or even one word) paragraphs and such things as elipses (...).

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Character: 19/30

• Communication- 7/10

Other than having a casual joyful tone with his friends (post 11) there is a good ease of profession behind Gerard that one sees whispers of, in connection to his profession. He is an adaptability that is very believable with "What do I owe the pleasure," in post 12, which, when compared to the first example used here, is suggestive of a respectful quality. There is little at fault here, that can be noted, aside from perhaps one thing to work on for personality individual purposes is to generate a form of swearing, cursing, blessing etc, unique to your character for future development.

• Action-7/10

Gerard seems to be all the picture of a gentlemanly honourable doctor. He has friends, this is clear, (Silas) and has workmates (Dimitri). His actions are definite and written well, with little confusion ("signalled his men to hold his patient down", post 6) - though, similar to communication there is little in the way of a unique palour about them. What you could work on is a small habitual movement perhaps that Gerard has, that would help to make him more of a stand-out main character.

• Persona- 5/10

I did not notice many uses of internal thought, which can be key for persona. In terms of personality there is a clarity of this concerning Gerard - that being, a good-hearted gentleman though with the strength of character to be tough when he needs to be. He deals well in the tricky situations he is faced with in this thread, however what would be good is to know what is going on in his head, what are his thought patterns etc. You do not need to use internal thought for this, but most of what this judge saw about his personality was through his actions and gestures and expressions, not persona.

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Prose: 20/30

• Mechanics- 6/10

Spelling is perfectly solid, as is the majority of mechanics. There are a couple of paragraphing issues, as mentioned in pacing. More or less all punctuation and sentence structure is in the right place, as is the heart of the thread, which is what one wants.

• Clarity- 7/10

Very well written and actually pretty clear. There were rare times that I needed to read back in understanding of what was going on -most of going back was out of shock instead: "to bleed her in front of everyone" in post 11. Only paragraphing perhaps alters understanding somewhat, jars clarity for larger paragraphs with important information can be hard to dissect.

• Technique- 7/10

There was a really good, strong base here. Using elaborate words and keeping the idea of description going you did bring to life a lot of this thread. In reality technique is a really great strength of yours, though certainly you could explore some more metaphor, imagery etc. These ligusitic techniques, although you touch on them, can really be used somewhat more, such as in setting. Overall your language was rich and enthralling but there is room to improve.

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Wildcard: 4/10

Points here for a great title that fitted well with the overall theme of the story.

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Final Score: 64/100


Faure receives:

• 1815 EXP!
• 250 GP!

Congratulations!

EXP & GP Added!