DOCTOR CHARCOT

Insufferable woman! It’s a joke that I’ve been stuck with her for all these years, unable to move because I’d decided to listen to a charlatan! Anger buzzed inside the doctor. He couldn’t understand how she was more interested in the bandits than her daughter! Why am I angry at the mayor when I stopped Giliad from going after the bandits who had kidnapped Tzin-ake? How is that different from what Tenoch-Ling is doing?

But the difference was there whether doctor Charcot liked it or not. The truth was an ugly cesspool and this pained him to acknowledge it. Tenoch-Ling was critical to Giliad’s survival, and Giliad was crucial to fulfilling a prophecy. In the face of this, what a solitary little girl meant? Of course, doctor Charcot hated himself for these thoughts and he refused to accept this anymore. He already forgot how for many years he’s stayed here in Cape Town, helping Tenoch-Ling build a dangerously growing drug empire. It has never meant to reach the Red Cities. It was about time to end this. Tenoch-Ling’s wealth was enough to offer her and her children and grandchildren a luxurious life.

The doctor finally banished the mayor out of his mind and focused on the task at hand. Things needed to be done and they didn’t belong to pleasant ones. He had Red Bill in his house. At the moment, the bandit was stuffed with dreamroot. In his current state Red Bill was harmless. His body was healing nicely. All for nothing. They’d execute him tonight or tomorrow.

The bridge was congested with folks. Some wanted to check on the fire, others were helping to put it off. For too long Cape Town was a peaceful place. It wasn’t natural. The things out there, the horrors and pain. It would break them if they weren’t ready for reality. It’s our creation, Tenoch-Ling. A perfect world. But this place is good for nothing. This cannot last any longer. It should not. Doctor Charcot didn’t remember the last time his thoughts were this sharp and critical. He enjoyed his life and character for so many years. Just a timid and kind old man applying ointments and mending broken bones. This was only a necessary mask put in place to ease those around.

Cape Towners nodded, welcoming the doctor. They pressed to each side, making a thin passage in the middle. He thanked them, keeping his head down and ignoring questions that befall upon him. As a member of the council and the closest advisor to the mayor, doctor Charcot was seen as a man with answers. These folks were difficult learners. How little their memory carried. Doctor Charcot could be all these things but he was the last to tell anyone the secrets of Tenoch-Ling’s office.

In the background, guards tried to shove people out of this side of the river. Only a thin trickle of smoke remained above the mayor’s mansion. People were swift in putting the fire off. How many of them expected compensation for it? Perhaps all of them. There was nothing wrong with that. They lived in peaceful poverty.

Breaking out of the crowd, the doctor gave the inn one more look, maybe the last one. Who could say at this point?

Rigial-Pik welcomed him at the door and the doctor admitted not for the first time that Cape Towners adopted the nightmarish names. Having the second name in the empire was a risky maneuver. Only Royalbloods were permitted to possess surname. Tenoch-Ling’s dreams of grandeur were dangerous ones.

“Doctor, what’s happening?”

“I’ll take it from here. Go home, Rigial-Pik. Go home.”

The assistant looked at him with a relieved expression. It was nothing unusual to let the younger man go earlier. The day was far from over, but noon was long gone. Doctor Charcot swept the lab with his gaze, feeling staggering regret. This place was the epicenter of many of his discoveries. The drug they sold wasn’t a new concept, but without the readily available ingredients from the jungle, he wouldn’t be able to perfect it. The Fifth Region possessed an unmatched supply of medical ingredients. Why the imperial doctors and alchemists haven’t swarmed this region already was a mystery to him.

It’s time to abandon the dream of Jea Liveren’s fame and move on. Tenoch-Ling knows what to do. I hope…

The healing room held not much except for a bed and commode. It was designed to keep patients in the bed, ideally under influence of dreamroot. The doctor’s eyes fell on the man on the bed. His wounds were dangerous and not many other doctors could have saved him. It wasn’t bragging, this was the truth. At the bottom drawer in the hidden compartment with a secret switch, doctor Charcot kept something for emergencies. A mixture of sharproot, refined charcoal, and the bottom dweller’s stomach acid. In the Fourth Region, the doctor had used sabertooth flower instead of sharproot and had used the blood of the pinching scorpion. It wasn’t the Tyt’s Sting but the effects of this particular elixir were similar using either of the specimens. Naturally, it had been cheaper to get the pinching scorpion.

Doctor Charcot held the elixir in his hand and shuddered at the memories of the Fourth Region. They used the mixture to keep the victims awake for hours during tortures. The doctor wished to erase these things from his mind, to forget his past, monstrosities he’d committed. He prepared the syringe, then injected the elixir into the bandit’s neck. Forgive me. There was no telling to whom these words were addressed. The healing wasn’t anywhere near finished but it didn’t matter. If not the wounds then the elixir would kill Red Bill’s heart in an hour. Chances were that he would be killed by Tenoch-Ling’s guards by then.

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The bandit gasped, his eyes bulged as the powerful stimulant woke him up. He jumped off the bed and moved, his hand catching the doctor’s throat.

“Where am I?”

For an ordinary human, the strength of the bandit was impressive. Maybe he had a tiny scrap of Royalblood in him. Too little to make him a Royalblood but enough to put him above fellow humans. Doctor Charcot couldn’t speak and the bandit didn’t seem to comprehend why. It’s happened as the strong stimulant made a mind chaotic and incohesive.

“Speak!” Red Bill roared. Doctor Charcot tapped the bandit’s hand, letting him know that he couldn’t say a word with his grip on the doctor’s throat. Red Bill shoved the doctor against the wall. His manic eyes swept the room. There was nothing he could use as the weapon.

“Your friends brought you here last night. I had been tending your wounds until they left you here, Red Bill,” the doctor said, massaging his throat. “There is nothing you can do. They will execute a criminal like without a trial.”

Red Bill stiffened. Perhaps, he didn’t expect an old man to be so bold in his position or maybe he understood the betrayal of his fellow bandits. It had no meaning to the doctor. The bandit was an excuse and distraction the doctor needed.

“What town is this?”

“Not exactly a town, but its name is Cape Town.”

“Cursed forest! Butcher said to not mess with this place.” Not waiting for a response if he even expected one, Red Bill left the healing room, the doctor heard sounds of shattered glass and crashed furniture from the other rooms. If the bandit was looking for armor and weapon then he would be disappointed. Doctor Charcot had neither. But it was no time for resting. He needed fire, the only way to disappear completely. Many substances in the lab were flammable. It would be easy. The doctor got into the lab. The place was a mess. Red Bill destroyed what he could. I saved his life and this is how he repays me. Some people are destructive by nature. One of the drawers held a burner. All the stuff spilled on the floor would burn easily. As the doctor reached for a handle, he heard a splintering of a front door. Only one man in Cape Town had the strength to do so. No. No. No! Driven by instinct, doctor Charcot reached for the scalpel and drove it into his chest where the human’s heart was supposed to be. Even though the wound wasn’t fatal, the pain shocked him. Blood stained his clothes and he dropped to the floor.

Giliad burst into the lab. At the age of thirty, Giliad was still a boy in the doctor’s eyes.

“Old man!” Giliad’s speed was inhuman but it wouldn’t change a thing here. “That guy … what can I do?” Giliad looked around, slowly understanding the extent of the damage. Doctor Charcot was glad that Red Bill had demolished his lab. It gave him a handy excuse.

“Nothing,” the doctor whispered. “He stabbed my heart, it will stop any second now.”

“But you must have something that can fix it!”

“Look around you,” doctor Charcot replied, painfully aware of the deception. Giliad was a good man. Lazy and rough, but nothing as other Royalbloods who have thought they were gods. “It’s all destroyed and even if it wasn’t. You cannot fix such a wound.” That was a partial lie. Medicine couldn’t do a thing about it, but alchemy was a different matter altogether.

“I am going to kill him,” Giliad snarled, his muscles tautened. One punch of that man could kill a fully armored soldier. The strength limits of a Royalblood body were unknown. Some people who walked this world were stronger than entire armies.

“You will not.”

“What?”

“He’s on a clock. Either his wounds or guards will have him. You can’t…” the doctor feigned a coughing fit. There was no blood as he didn’t pierce his lungs. He needed to be careful. Giliad could be young and inexperienced but not stupid. This boy was sharper than most people believed.

“Easy there, old man. Stay with me.”

“You can’t go and kill this particular bandit in front of everyone. They’d know who you are. Did you get the soldier?”

“Yeah. I knocked him off. And I get it but … I am fed up with running from the empire. I have enough of hiding.”

Doctor Charcot smiled, feeling the same way. They were fugitives. Their lives would never be legitimized beneath the Aael Empire’s rule. They couldn’t help it. In the face of the empire, they were just particles of dust.

“I have a request, Giliad. It’s important.”

“Whatever.”

“Stay with the mayor until she says it’s time.”

“I won’t be staying here. I’m going after Tzin and after that, I’ll move on.”

The doctor shook his head. Giliad could be a stubborn idiot.

“You must stay. The mayor will hand you something when time is right. But only then, not earlier not later.”

Giliad ground his teeth, staying silent. Doctor Charcot couldn’t tell if the Royalblood would listen to him. Giliad had a rough past, filled with pain and regrets. He’s never fully opened before the doctor or others and so there was no telling what was the true extent of Giliad’s experience. Though, the doctor was pretty sure that the infamous pogrom in Kauri City had something to do with Giliad. Where he had come from was an absolute mystery. Seeing the pain in Giliad’s eyes, twisted something in doctor Charcot. I am doing this to him again. Putting him in a situation where he has no control. When he suffers because he is too weak, too late, too incompetent. We share a similar fate, Giliad. Always forced aside to watch the death and misery of others. I am sorry.

“I am sorry,” the doctor repeated aloud this time. “Things I’ve done should shatter my heart a long time ago.”

“What are you babbling about?”

This is the only way for him to let go.

“I am a despicable man who lost its humanity to an unachievable dream. I joined Aka Manahi, Giliad. It’s time to pay for my sins.” Forgive me, Tahmur and Awfii. I promised you to change but failed again.

Giliad shook his head, denying the truth. It was the confirmation that he knew what Aka Manahi was. Giliad was from the Fourth Region or at least he’d traveled through it.

“Burn my body, please.” Switching off its own pulse wasn’t an easy thing to do even for the doctor, but has learned it a long time ago. It saved him in the past. It was necessary. In Giliad’s eyes, doctor Charcot just died and it hurt him to do this once more. People deserved the truth. But the truth was such an ugly thing. The ugliest one.