Ashan 4th Arc 721
Spying to the left and right as inconspicuously as possible, Rokas approached the weathered wooden door. One of the many in this grimy and dark alleyway. Although similar to those neighboring it, it was unique in minor ways; the grain of the wood, the way passage of time had eaten away at it, the irregular splotches of rust forming on hinges and metal supports, the specific pattern with which paint peeled off.
Wind sped from one end of the alley to the other, rounding corners and filling alcoves, brushing past second story windows and touched down on the rooftops, then returned. It carried with it the stench of rotting waste and stale urine, as well as dried flakes of grime and discarded snippets of paper. No-one in the immediate vicinity. Rokas muttered a quick thanks, then rapped his gloved knuckles on the rough door. Twice fast, wait, knock once, wait, and trice slow.
After a minute or so, a metal plate slid aside, and a set of eyes appeared in a spyhole, drifting up and down Rokas’s body. “What do you want?”
“Doc, I’m here to call in a favor.”
Immediately, the metal plate clanked back in place. With a clink the latch retracted, and the door swung open. The aging man on the other side hurried Rokas inside, checked both sides of the alley, then closed the door again. Thin and balding, Lawrence Langhedoque –or Doc, as people called him—looked smaller than he was due to a bad slouch. Wrinkles lined his face, and the skin of his cheeks seemed as if someone’d pulled at it too hard in the past, and it had been unable to return to its previous shape. They extended a little past his jawline, and flapped like a dog’s jowls whenever he spoke or shook his head.
He padded down a tiny hallway, beckoning Rokas to follow. They entered a room that smelled of chemical cleaning agents. The walls were white and spotless and the floor tiles gleamed in the light, but in the middle of the room, the mortar between them was stained dark. There stood only a few pieces of furniture: a desk, some chairs, a couple cupboards, a sink, a small but high table on wheels, and a large examination table.
“The Fence, eh? Don’t think I’ve seen you here before. You new?” Doc said, his voice perpetually hoarse from excessive indulgence of tobacco. As he spoke, the air in the room changed. Growing still and heavy and looming, as if one step away from smothering the life out of the old surgeon. He noticed the difference, scraping his throat, swallowing his own spit to even out the pressure building in his ears. The air refused to heed any request to stop, adamant.
“Not quite,” Rokas rumbled, shrugging his hood back and removing a ceramic mask from his face.
Doc’s thick eyebrows rose a couple inches higher on his forehead. “Rokas? You’re just about the last person I expected to show up. Rumor has it you’re dead. Some guy’s bragging he drowned you in the Southwood with a millstone 'round your ankles.” Doc squinted at him, gaze almost tangible as it scanned his figure in its entirety. “You look rather lively to me though.”
“Ah,” Rokas nodded, “That’s because I didn’t die.”
“Yes, so it would seem.” Doc gestured for the examination table, and strode to a small basin of clean water. Scooping some into a smaller bucket, he started scrubbing away at his hands with a bar of soap. “Anyway, what brings you here? Don’t think you had a limp when I saw you last. That a recent injury? Or do you want me to look at something else?”
“I was stabbed in the leg.”
“Deep?”
“Hit my thighbone.”
“How long ago?”
“About a dozen days? Give or take. But it doesn't seem to be healing as it should.”
Doc produced a slight hum, checking his hands carefully, and dried off. “Right. Take of your pants and go lie down on the table.” While Rokas did as asked, Doc rummaged through some shelves and drawers filled with medical supplies. The ones required were placed on a metal tray, which he then set down on the movable bedside table. Before too long his touch roamed the flesh around the wound, pensive hums and disapproving mumbles spilling from the surgeon’s lips.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had to treat your kind, I’d forgotten how annoying you lot can be,” Doc grumbled. “How am I supposed to accurately assess a wound when I can barely see it? And it’s an unhygienic nightmare to boot!” He rubbed away with a damp cloth, to no avail. “Well at least it’s just a layer on your skin rather than you actual skin. Did I tell you about the guy whose skin had become metallic?”
“Steeleater?” A crook from one of the smaller gangs in the North Oh’Pee. With a transmutation spark and a fondness for using it on metal, his physiology had shifted drastically throughout the years. Not only did his skin turn a gleaming silver in color, it adopted some properties of metals as well. Lost and absorbed heat easily, stuck to magnets, and hardened quite a bit. The price for that gain in durability was well known in the right clandestine circles: he had to eat metal to sustain it, hence the moniker.
“Yeah, him. Very annoying to patch up. Couldn’t pierce his skin with a needle for sutures. Had to use a hammer to get it through. Ruined the tip, and to call the end result shameful would be an understatement.” He sighed. “Speaking of, there's quite a bit of dehiscence. No wonder it's not healing properly. These sutures are sloppy work. Yours?”
Rokas nodded to the ceiling. “Yes.”
“Well, they are absolutely horrid. And that for a former Blackjack. Don’t they teach first aid in the Guard anymore?”
He frowned. “They still do.”
“Then they need to hire better tutors. Because if this the best you can do, then you’d better ask a seamstress next time. Neat sutures are not difficult to accomplish, you know.” Doc shook his head as a pair of scissors snipped through the knotted end of the stitches. He pulled them out in one smooth motion, then looked up. “This might hurt a bit. Do you require anesthetics?”
Rokas shook his head, and Doc returned his focus to the wound, cautiously spreading it open. His leg twitched a little as the walls of flesh pulled apart, the connective tissue that'd begun to form to anchor them together being torn off one side.
Immediately, the floor and walls and ceiling sang warnings, the very building itself producing a sound like a landslide, like mortar cracking and bricks shattering. Bits of pulverized stone rained down on Doc’s head, and though the surgeon frowned, he did not remark on it. “No pus, no necrosis. Looks like there’s no infection. That’s something, at least. I assume you disinfected the wound before you attempted to sew it closed?”
Rokas needed a moment to gather his thoughts, attention split between responding and talking the Guardian down. His kin element had very strong feelings on those who’d inflict pain on Rokas, regardless of the reason, and preferred to act on them too. Passionately. Violently. It took quite a bit of concentration to keep the element civil, soothing it with placid images and calming thoughts. “Yes. With alcohol. Ninety-six percent, I think it was.”
Doc nodded to himself, pleased. “Good. Good. Then you know the drill. Everything looks good, it’s just that your sutures were inadequate. I’m going to clean the laceration, and close it up again.” He did just that. After cleansing the wound with a wad of cotton drenched in some form of disinfectant, the surgeon got to work on the stitches, spindly fingers weaving the wound shut. Despite some of the floor tiles underneath Doc’s feet shattering the moment the needle pierced Rokas’s skin, the end result was a flawless line of loops of fine thread that didn’t bulge his flesh in odd ways. A stark contrast to the botched job Rokas had managed last season.
As Rokas examined the surgeon’s handiwork, Doc himself set about washing his hands again. “Right. You’ll want to give that leg some time to rest. No strenuous activity, keep as much weight off it as you can for the first couple days. Keep it clean. The stitches will dissolve on their own. To accelerate healing and prevent inflammation, I suggest an anti-inflammatory poultice. You should be able to get it in just about any apothecary.” He shook droplets off his hands and wiped them on a cloth. “Now, there’s the issue of payment.”
“I believe I told you I was here to call in a favor.”
“That you did,” Doc admitted, “but you’re not with the Fence anymore, are you? And while Eris is certainly generous, I doubt she’s willing to pay for someone who’s not of her own.”
The surgeon spoke sense. The debt Doc owed was to Madame Beliana personally, which he settled in reduced rates for his services for her and hers. He kept tally of every time someone from the Fence visited, and at the season’s end Beliana paid up. Other organizations and independent crooks stopped by as well, but they paid full price. Such was the deal.
“Also you destroyed my floor. I'm charging extra for that.”
Fair enough. Rokas reached out to Earth, and though the element protested, it did fuse the tiles back together. Stone melded with stone, shards huddling together and mending themselves. Within a couple minutes of careful negtiation with the earth, all signs of damage disappeared. Doc checked the repairs, stomping down hard where the cracks had been, seemingly satisfied they didn’t give in under his weight.
“That’ll bump you back down to the regular rate. Let’s see. Quick procedure. Minimal use of resources. Two gold should cover it, I think.” Rokas fished the coins out of a pouch. Doc accepted with a nod, then escorted the defier to the back door.
Rokas threw his cloak back over his shoulders, hood up, and covered his face with his mask. “I trust you don’t need telling, but I was never here. I’m supposed to be dead. If I hear rumors circulating that I’m not…” He fixed Doc with a piercing glare, towering over the smaller man. The building shook, dust trailed down in small trickles. “Is that clear?”
The surgeon beamed a polite smile that didn’t make it to his eyes. He stood at his full length and glared back without flinching, back straight, slouch gone. Despite his words, or perhaps because of them, his tone remained cordial. “I will not be cowed by the yapping of a dog that can do naught but bark. Go ahead and make your threats, go ahead and make good on them too. But you’d do best to remember the favors piled up in the room you just left. There’s a great many people who come to me specifically. Good doctors are hard to find. Doubly so for good doctors willing to cater to certain clientele, and who don’t ask inappropriate questions. I might not be irreplaceable, but I am a precious resource, and you do know what happens when someone messes with a precious resource so many influential people depend on, don't you?”
He unlocked the door, holding it open, an unmistakable cue to leave. Rokas refused to take it. Instead standing in the tiny hallway, waiting until Doc sighed and waved a hand in exasperation. “Your concern is unwarranted. Now get out. I have other patients waiting, the kind that comes in through the front.”
So Rokas stepped outside, Doc’s grumbling cut off by the closing of the door and clicking of lock and bolt behind. As he limped out of the alley, the wind spoke of a figure waiting around a corner, then falling in step behind him. Out of sight, out of earshot, but there nonetheless.
Same guy?
The wind whirled in a lazy spiral, kicking up dust. It couldn't tell. But Rokas knew it was, even though he had not spotted this stalker even once. He felt it in the churning of his stomach and the twisting of his insides. Only a couple days after his return to Etzos proper, and he already had attracted unwanted attention.
He ought to do something about that.
