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the-iron-orchid · 3 years

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BOOK VI: THE LOVERS

Chapter 3: The Quaestor (~5100 words)

Warnings: Descriptions of lethal disasters and highly unethical medical procedures. Smoking CW.

Note: Marcus Aquila Summanus belongs to @vesuvian-disaster and appears with permission. :)

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I lift my head from yet another record, yawning mightily. I’ve been in the library all morning, and it’s just been more of the same. When Lucio wasn’t killing and extorting his way across Venterre and beyond, he was draining the coffers with lavish parties, statues to his vanity, and various follies built across Vesuvia.

I have read over many, many requests for civic funding, most of which went ignored. Several of these can be connected to later accidents or even disasters, as critical infrastructure gave way to the relentless actions of water and time. In fact, here and there I find slips of paper tucked between the pages, upon which neat lettering cross-references some of these ledgers and notes. It looks like someone else has been connecting these dots, as well - no doubt Marcus Aquila emself.

It’s easy to see exactly how the entire Flooded District situation came to pass. Once the port’s Market District, it now stands as a crumbling, mold-infested testament to Lucio’s neglect. Several other areas of Vesuvia face similar peril, or worse… and worse has already happened in at least one place.

Some ten years ago, a sinkhole opened up beneath a multistory building in Goldgrave - entirely due to failure to maintain the drainage system beneath the city. 19 were killed, 23 injured. But even this was not enough to budge Lucio’s intransigence.

Reading the account, it seems to come vividly to life despite the impersonal tone - I can smell the rank, moist air belching up from below, the stink of fear from those trapped, and those trying to help… A sudden, sharp pain jabs into my skull, another arcing over my ribs, and I find myself struggling to breathe. My hands are numb yet burning, my arms aching, my eyes gritty -

“Inquisitor... forgive me, Jinana. I thought you might be here.”

I open my eyes - when did I close them? Marcus Aquila stands before me, eir manner rather different from that of yesterday. There’s a tension in eir frame beneath the elegant drapings of embroidered voile that make up eir dress.

“Are you all right?” ey asks. “Some of that makes for very unpleasant reading, I’m afraid.”

I take a deep, somewhat shaky breath; the constriction starts to ease, the beating wings of impending panic to lift. “I… yes. I’ll be fine.” I close the book firmly and set it aside.

“Some air and a change of scenery may help. Will you walk in the gardens with me?”

I am coming to understand that this phrase has a certain meaning about the Palace, namely that one wishes to speak privately on matters of importance. “Of course,” I answer.

“Wonderful. If you’ll follow me?”

I rise, shouldering my bag, and follow the Praefectus as ey leads the way deeper into the library. We pass among the tall shelves, until Marcus Aquila pauses, reaching up to slip a particular book from its place… but it does not slide out. It merely tilts, standing out at an angle. Ey does this to a second, then, grumbling, hitches the skirt of eir dress slightly and ascends a stepladder to pull forth a third.

“Dramatic bastard.” I am uncertain to whom this is addressed, exactly, but before I can ask, an entire section of the bookcase slides aside, revealing darkness. It’s a short passageway, rough-hewn despite the clever mechanism that obscures it.

Marcus Aquila steps down into the darkness without hesitation - I can just make out the first stone steps. “Be careful,” ey warns. “The steps are uneven.”

I summon my globes of magical light, illuminating my way. Marcus Aquila clearly has no need of this; ey must use this passageway constantly. I pick my way down, finding a T-junction at the foot of it. The Praefectus turns left, and I follow.

The glow of heatless torches greets us here, though the passageway remains rather rustic.

“What is all of this?” I ask.

“Oh, just a little relic of the Plague Times. It was all very hush-hush back then… but it hardly matters now. You could probably ask Valdemar for a guided tour and they’d give you one.” A mirthless little laugh.

We pass another tunnel that seems to lead to a more finished section of the complex, with a series of doors visible, but Marcus Aquila leads on. The floor begins to slope upward again, and a final section of tunnel leads to a dungeon-like door of iron-bound timbers.

We emerge, blinking, into sunlight. We seem to be behind the Palace, in a less-used (and less-maintained) portion of the vast gardens that nestle between the Palace proper and the high defensive wall that rings it. Here, stands of trees almost obscure the white limestone cladding of the wall beyond.

Marcus Aquila fishes in a pocket in eir dress, removing a single embroidered glove. Ey puts it on, rather baffling me, then slips a small chased-silver case from the same pocket. It opens to reveal a number of pre-rolled cigarettes, and a tiny device of some sort. Marcus Aquila places one of the former between eir lips, and uses the latter to ignite it, holding the cigarette in eir gloved hand and blowing the plume of tobacco smoke considerately away from us.

Ey gives a little sigh of seeming relief, then starts slightly. “Oh, how rude of me. Would you like one?” Ey proffers the silver case in my direction.

I decline with a smile, and ey tucks the case away once more before leaning against the cool shadowed facade of the Palace and taking another drag. “Earlier today, I went to check on… some old things. I thought it might jog my memory, so that I could give you more information.” The sunlight seems only to enhance their pallor, almost as if one could see the bones underneath shining through. “I found something that perhaps you should see.”

“It has to do with the investigation?”

“Maybe not in so many words. But it could very much cause trouble with the Countess’s plans.”

The Praefectus pushes off of the wall and begins leading me along the rear perimeter of the Palace. I can see the stacked-stone foundations emerge as the ground slopes gently away. The breeze brings an odor wafting toward us, not quite putrid, but unwholesome, like spoiling meat.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Marcus Aquila says with a grimace. Ey gestures to the rear corner that stands perhaps thirty feet away. “Don’t get too close… it can’t be good for you.”

Ey pulls a folded white square out of another pocket, shaking it out and handing it to me. It is a scented handkerchief, lavender and citrus mercifully overpowering the whiff of rot. Ey then stands back fastidiously, alternately puffing from eir cigarette and holding an identical hanky to eir own nose.

Here, the foundation stands almost my own height above the ground. I can see now that a reddish substance appears to be oozing from between the stacked stones at ground level, looking for all the world like the Palace is bleeding. The odor is stronger the closer I get - and I do not want to get very close at all. I can see that the liquid gathers in a sort of narrow, irregular trench, leaving visibly blackened grass to either side.

“There’s a stream, further down,” the Praefectus explains. “I’m concerned that this… run-off is getting into it, maybe even into the city’s water supply. Since you seem to have the ear of the Countess these days, at the least you can bring it to her attention.” Ey gives me a sidelong look. “It really would not do to have revelers stumble upon such a thing.”

“No indeed.”

Ey nods, taking another deep drag from eir cigarette. There’s still a tight-wound feeling to em, an anxiousness that seems great even given what we have just seen.

“May I ask a personal question?” I venture, and Marcus Aquila gives a brittle little laugh.

“Why not? You are the Inquisitor, after all.”

“Forgive me if it’s intrusive, you don’t have to answer. It’s just that you seem very, um, invested in exonerating Devorak. Were you close?”

Marcus Aquila raises eir eyebrows. “Close? No, I wouldn’t say that… but we worked together under tremendous pressures, and I suppose that does form a kind of bond. Moreover, I saw what they did to him. I still have nightmares about it - all of it. We all do. I’m sure that Devorak does, too.”

I remember the way the color drained from Julian’s face when I showed him the drawing, the one that he said was a human brain... one of many. There is a part of me that is sorely glad that I have no memory of the Plague-time and its horrors. “I’m so sorry,” I offer. “It sounds like it was a terrible time.”

“It was a desperate time,” ey says, shaking eir head. “None of our hands are truly clean… but Devorak doesn’t deserve the gallows. Not after everything he went through - everything we all went through - just because of fucking Lucio finally catching the damned plague.” Ey says the dead Count’s name as if it is the most vile curse ey can muster.

“You must understand… I was there when they did it. I watched them force a fucking plague-beetle down the man’s throat. And I could do nothing to stop it.” Ey drops the remains of the spent cigarette, crushing it out under eir heel, and immediately pulls out the silver case again, fumbling to open it. “Lucio wanted to make an example of him in the cruelest, most horrific way possible… probably because Devorak wouldn’t fuck him.” The shaking of eir hands makes it more difficult to light the fresh cigarette, but ey manages. The action seems to calm em slightly.

“I’m not about to stand by and let him be executed on top of that... and for something I don’t think he even did.” This is punctuated with another cloud of smoke. “I can try and do that much, at least.”

“I understand,” I say, though I am still trying to digest what ey has said. It sounds too awful to be true… but it seems that no cruelty was beyond Lucio. “Was the Count in the habit of, um, forcing his attention on people?”

Marcus Aquila snorts. “Actually, that was the one thing he wouldn’t do… but he would also never stop trying his luck. Even right in front of his own wife… though there was no love lost there, either. That was certainly no secret.”

Ey takes another, more thoughtful puff. “That’s what’s so strange about all of this, though… why does the Countess want Devorak dead so badly? Those three spent the better part of a year being almost inseparable.”

“Nadia, Devorak, and Lucio?” I ask, puzzled.

“Oh, no. The Countess, the doctor… and your master, Asra.”

I blink. Asra did mention once being close to Nadia… but she has forgotten it all. He also spoke of his former relationship to Julian… but not of Nadia and Julian being close. Clearly this knowledge has also been lost to Nadia - and perhaps to Julian himself. I am unsure of the extent of his own memory loss.

I can only hope that it extends to the terrible thing that was once done to him.

The Praefectus lifts eir head, as if ey has heard something that I cannot. “We should return, before I am missed,” ey says, and begins leading me in the direction of the door we came from. “With the Masquerade so close, there is much to do.”

We walk back in silence, each in our own thoughts. As we approach the door, Marcus Aquila extinguishes eir cigarette and slips the glove back into eir pocket. Ey pulls open the door -

And Quaestor Valdemar is standing there, unblinking as their pupils close tightly against the sunlight. (Are they… slitted? They can’t be. Can they? Why, exactly, is their presence so upsetting to me?)

“Ah, there you are, Marcus.” The Quaestor seems to be smiling, though it’s hard to tell behind that cloth mask. “It seems our shipment has arrived ahead of schedule. I want you to oversee it personally.”

This does not seem to be welcome news to the Praefectus, but ey nods. “Of course, Quaestor. I can escort Jinana back with -”

“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary at all.” Valdemar leans forward, uncomfortably close, but I stand my ground. “I’ve been looking forward to a chance to speak with the new Inquisitor.”

This seems to please Marcus Aquila even less, but ey bows eir head. “As you wish, Quaestor.” Ey glances at me. “I simply hope that the Countess is not inconvenienced.”

“Our dear Inquisitor will be back in time for supper… I promise.”

This seems to carry a strange weight with the Praefectus, who closes the door and then nods briskly to me. “Thank you for your time, Inquisitor.”

“And you, Praefectus, for yours.”

With one last glance at Valdemar, ey sweeps past in a rustling of voile and the scent of lavender.

I must go on the offense, here; I must take control of the situation. It is my job to be the one asking questions, after all.

“Where would you like to talk, Quaestor? It’s quite lovely out at the moment, and I do have some questions of my own for you.”

Valdemar turns their back on the door that leads outside, and begins walking. (So much for taking control of the situation.) “You are here investigating Doctor 069, yes?” they ask, as I hurry to catch up.

“I’m sorry?”

“We went through so many doctors,” they say with a wave of one gloved hand. “We began giving them numbers; it was simpler to keep track of them that way. Doctor 069 was the one who appeared at Lucio’s rooms that night.”

“I see.”

They lead the way back toward the passage that Marcus Aquila and I took down here… and pass it, heading into the gloom, barely a white smudge in my vision. I summon my magical lights once more.

“Oh… you do need light, don’t you?” Their cold, dry little voice sounds almost amused.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Why, to the dungeon, of course. I’ve not taken anyone down there in so long. You simply must allow me to show you around.”

Without waiting for an answer, they continue down the tunnel. At its end there looms some strange cagelike contraption, with an inscribed plaque that reads:

Bloody hands may turn the key. Know the weight of your sins, and enter.

This does not strike me as a motto of doctors.

Valdemar touches the plate with their gloved fingers, giving a little sigh. “Ah, truly an inspired bit of decor, don’t you think? It frightened them so much, the gullible little creatures.” They reach into a pocket of their apron and remove a strange key. Its surface is an oily-looking black; it is set with a stone of a sullen red color. I am reminded of the fluid seeping from the Palace foundations.

The lock gives an ugly screech as Valdemar turns the key; the door of the cage slides open with a grudging groan of disused metal.

“Go on, now.”

“Into a cage?” I ask, incredulous.

“An elevator,” they say, unperturbed. “Oh, are you claustrophobic?”

“No, but -”

“I don’t actually care,” they continue, in the same exact tone. They advance, and I don’t have much choice but to back into the elevator as they crowd in with me. The space is small - hardly big enough for one adult - and the only reason we both fit in here is my own lack of size and Valdemar’s thinness. I press my back to the bars behind me, everything in my being warning me away from the Quaestor, who simply watches me from over their mask. In this light, their eyes seem as blood-red as the key, or the ruby brooch at their throat... and I finally realize what it is that disturbs me about them.

Everything that lives has an aura, an energy that emanates from and surrounds them. It isn’t that Valdemar doesn't have an aura... it’s that it is so utterly void as to be like a hole in existence, a negative cutout, an inverse aureole. To my sight it is intensely wrong... unnatural.

They pull a lever, and the whole thing begins to descend in a shrieking, rattling cacophony of rusted gears. As it does so, the darkness grows and grows around us, until my lights are barely a feeble flicker reflected in Valdemar’s unblinking, reptilian gaze.

And then even that goes out, the darkness pressing in almost dense enough to touch.

I force down my threatening panic as the lift comes to a bone-jarring halt, and once again I hear the horrid scraping of the door as it opens. There is a rustling, and then the suffocating blackness gives way to flickering shadows as an ordinary torch is lit. It’s almost worse for the ghastly way it illuminates the Quaestor’s sharp features.

“Hurry along now, there is much to see.” Valdemar strides forth with the torch, lighting more torches set in holders as they go, revealing a rather narrow stone hallway. I hurry to catch up - light or no light, I don’t want to be alone in this place... or lost.

“You have questions about Doctor 069, yes?” they offer as we walk.

I do, and I should not let this chance escape me, as bizarre and unsettling as it is. “What, precisely, did he do here?”

“Oh, a little of this, a little of that. I didn’t pay much mind to any of them, you see.”

I wish this answer surprised me, but Marcus Aquila did say that the Quaestor cared primarily for their research, and little else.

“He was always on about leeches, I seem to recall… saying that blood was the key to the Plague. But if you want the specifics of his research, I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

My heart stumbles for a moment - do they know that I have been in contact with him? But Valdemar continues on to a huge door set into the end of the hallway, pushing it open with another creak of protesting metal. Inside is some sort of mudroom or dressing-room where oiled-leather aprons hang by the dozens, with various tools of obscure purpose set into racks. At the far end there sits a legion of familiar bone-white beaked masks upon a rack. The torchlight gleams off the red lenses, making it look as if there are eyes behind them.

Valdemar sets the torch they are carrying into a holder by the door, and claps their thin hands together sharply. “Now, then! Please hold any further questions until the tour is concluded. First of all…” They turn abruptly, causing me to stop short as they once again inspect me from an uncomfortably close distance. It takes all of my courage not to flinch away when their gloved hands reach out - but they seem to be taking my measure, like some bizarre tailor.

“You are very small, aren’t you? I’m not sure we’ll have anything that fits.” Valdemar turns away just as suddenly, striding toward the gear hanging on the other side of the room. Their fingers walk over the aprons like purposeful spiders, finally snatching one that seems to meet with their approval, along with one of the masks.

“Safety first… or so they tell me.” The Quaestor returns to hold the apron up to me, checking its fit. The leather bears very old stains - black from ink, brown from… well. Best not to think on it.

“Arms up.” I comply, once again forcing myself to keep still while they fit the apron over my clothing and the mask over my face. Their touch is as cold as death, even through their gloves, seeming to suck the living warmth from my body. “Ah, perfect.” Mercifully, they then retreat, opening the next door.

The elderly herbs packed in the beak of the mask cannot hope to entirely cover the indescribable fetor that rushes in. Valdemar pauses just beyond the threshold, almost causing me to collide with them, and turns to face me once more. They reach up and pull down the mask covering the lower half of their face, closing their eyes and taking in a deep breath, like one might in a summer meadow. “Ah, memories.” Their thin lips curl into a cruel smile, and they walk backward into the chamber, their eyes never leaving mine.

Even empty, this is a place of horrors. At its center there is a sort of elevated stage, bearing a metal table with well-used restraints. There is a dark stain on the stone platform beneath that no amount of scrubbing could ever remove, I am sure.

With some relish, Valdemar explains how it was used, shows me the additional ranks of vivisection tables… which eventually became dissection tables as their unfortunate occupants perished. With a flourish, they point out the cages where they kept their ‘patients’ - and the many doctors who became patients.

I don’t know if Valdemar is trying to unnerve me with their blithe commentary, but it’s working.

“All lovely, of course, but this is my favorite part. The poor little dears just don’t get to eat like they used to... but they are very hardy.” Valdemar pulls a rusty old lever, grinning widely, revealing rows of inhumanly sharp teeth. (Vulgora, too, had such a smile… I am beginning to wonder if any of the courtiers are truly human.)

A scraping sound draws my attention to a strange pit, almost like a half-well set into the wall. Its cover lifts itself up, triggered by some mechanism, and a sound like trickling water comes forth.... no, it is a strange, dry scuttling sound. Not water, but beetles, so many that they flow like a liquid over picked-clean bones, the distinctive carrion beetles synonymous with the Red Plague. Their long, thin antennae are more like those of roaches than anything else, their chitinous red bodies once the source of a prized crimson dye that is now shunned as a reminder of the Plague.

Crimson fluid drains from this pit, into a channel that disappears into the wall behind. I know where this goes - or at least, where it is ending up now. The same smell of bad meat is here, but a hundred times stronger in the enclosed, airless space.

Insects do not disturb me… but this does. There’s something so deeply unnatural about it that it sets all the hairs on the back of my neck bristling. And amid it all, Valdemar stands, still grinning that terrible, sharply tessellated grin.

“Such marvelous little creatures,” they muse. “So fascinating… and quite lethal. And so very effective at disposal.” They sniff. “Not that everyone appreciated this. Corpses burn poorly at best, it was so much more efficient to toss them in here. But people are so squeamish about these things.” They give a clucking sound, and restore the cover to its place. “I’ll see you again, my little darlings.”

They turn back to me, cocking their head to one side like a curious bird. “Well, that concludes our little tour. What do you think?”

“Why would anyone do this?” I ask, my voice thick with revulsion.

“Why? Why for science, of course!” Valdemar shakes their head. “069 was the same way, really… always on about consequences and morals, when all the patients were just going to die anyway. Always scribbling, always doodling, never really getting hands-on with the science. Elbow-deep, as it were.”

I can’t help but note that their own gloves rise well above their elbows.

“Ah, but you weren’t here for the Plague, were you? Most patients went from feeling a bit poorly to being quite dead within three days. A very few lasted a week. There were so many bodies that we could never have buried them all… or even burned them. By the end of it, corpses piled up in the streets faster than they could be carted away. Those left alive were nothing but corpses yet to be.” Once again the inhuman grin, their eyes alight with a sinister sort of glee.

“Compared to that, what were a few dying a day or so earlier, in the pursuit of a cure? Necessary sacrifices, and all that. The ends always justify the means.” They sigh wistfully. “Those were the days.”

This avails me nothing.

“Doctor 069 - wasn’t he in his office during the last Masquerade?”

“Oh, yes, locked inside in fact. He’d come down with a touch of the Plague himself, you see. Such a shame he survived; I’d been looking forward to prying open that thick skull of his. But perhaps I’ll still get the chance, if our dear Countess has her way.”

“Show me his office.” I try to keep my voice firm, to reclaim some modicum of control. Valdemar merely indicates a barred wooden door with a tilt of their head.

“There are still personal effects of his in there, for what it is worth. Perhaps they will hold some clue to tracking him down.”

I peer into the tiny barred window set into the door. It is a mean little place, but also oddly homey, cluttered with items. I can somehow feel that it was his, a residual energy embedded in this small hideaway in a place of unending horror.

Cold, spidery fingers grip my shoulder, and Valdemar’s chilly spareness leans over me to look, as well, their icy cheek brushing mine. I flinch away in startled revulsion, unable to help it, but this in no way upsets them. Indeed, they are grinning again, the most horrid expression I have ever seen.

Clinging to my purpose, I demand to be let inside. They are clearly enjoying my discomfort, but they open the door and leave me to investigate. They will be right out here, they tell me, indulging in nostalgia for the Plague days.

Inside the little chamber, the air is stale but not nearly so vile. I remove the mask, the better to see outside of those disorienting red lenses. It must have been very cramped in here for Julian, and there is a distinct damp. A small rumpled cot is in one corner, and it’s hard to believe he could have fit all of his limbs onto it. Over it, rickety shelves hold long-dried bottles of leeches, a few trinkets, mildewed books. A desk takes up the remaining space in here, covered in papers. The inkwell is overturned, the quill discarded, the wooden stool pushed away.

I close my eyes and try to summon the feeling of such a desperate time, when Death itself ruled the city, the greatest of tyrants. My mind paints an image of Julian so detailed, it’s as if he is truly present. I can see him just so, in my mind’s eye. Feverish, dying himself even as he worked to find the cure. A feeling of vertigo, of falling, though I remain standing...

When I open my eyes, I can see him, just as he must have been then, down to the last detail. There is a quill between his long fingers, his hands bare of the gloves... and the sclera of his right eye is scarlet. The other is hidden under the messy, lank fall of his hair. The quill scratches over parchment as he mutters to himself incoherently, occasionally sending a hunted glance to the door of this little cell. He must think, he tells himself, before the faculty is taken from him by the Plague. But none of it makes sense, none of it works.

Sudden frustration overtakes him, inkwell and quill falling victim to it.

It is oddly painful to watch as he runs the gamut from anger to unstable laughter to fear, wrapping his arms around himself and hunching forward on the stool, shivering with fever.

“...is this… is this how you felt?” His voice is low, pained, exhausted, and he slumps to the desk, unmoving. Before I can help myself, I reach out to him… but it is only a memory, and my hand passes straight through.

I startle back when he suddenly leaps to his feet, babbling wildly that he has found the cure… and the vision fades. In frustration, I reach out again with my magic. But the memory is gone.

With a curse, I look around the room for anything else that might afford some small clue.

That’s when I see it… a faded chalk outline of an oddly familiar symbol - though I cannot say exactly where I might know it from. I know only that it is magical. But why would a symbol of magic be in this place of science?

I search more thoroughly, scattering papers and dusting off books, until I find a tome inscribed with the very same symbol. The language inside is unfamiliar to me, but I have seen something like this before. It resembles one of Asra’s books, once seen back at the shop. But why is this here, sitting for three long years in a godsforgotten dungeon cell?

I page through the book, finding Julian’s distinctive scrawl decorating the margins in places. I can make out perhaps one word in five. It’s clear that he was delirious by then, with disjointed writings about a man with the head of a raven, about belief and portents. A torn page has been shoved in between the back cover and the endpaper. The words I want to believe are scribbled over it. I unfold it carefully - and almost drop it in shock.

The drawing is crude, but it is unmistakable: The Hanged Man, 11th of the Major Arcana, the very image that is in the deck I carry with me. I open my bag and fumble the card from the deck, listening desperately for the voice of the card - but it offers me nothing, beyond a sense of waiting.

Once again, I am on my own.

Valdemar’s inquisitive voice almost makes me leap out of my own skin. (They wonder if I am quite done here.) Quickly, I stuff the book into my bag, and replace my safety gear. I say that I’ve seen enough, and Valdemar asks if I am very, very sure. (I am.) Humming some nameless little tune that is at odds with this place, they lead me out and away, replacing their own mask over their face as we go.

#the arcana rewrite #arcana rewrite: tides of chaos #jinana aditya #marcus aquila summanus #Quaestor Valdemar #Me: sequence breaks like a Metroid speedrunner

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