Enlightened Empire

"We need to begin treatment soon. Please, could the men present offer a prayer to the Lords?" As if under water, a muffled sound reached Corco's ears. Weary and heavy, his eyelids opened to find unfocused silhouettes of several men towering over him.

"Doctor, is it bad?" he heard Brym's voice, worried.

"Hmm... there is hope yet, but we will have to act fast," an unfamiliar voice said as the silhouettes began to leave his sight.

With some effort, Corco managed to open his eyes and sharpen the image around himself. As he lay on his back, he only saw a dirty wooden ceiling above. There were no sounds of murmurs coming from the outside, so they couldn't be in the city. This room should be the inside the castle proper.

"Doctor, he is awake!" This time, it was Fadelio's voice to call out.

Soon, the entire gang bent over the uncomfortable bed he was laying on, crowding his line of sight. Brym, Fadelio, Atau and Ronnie.

"Laqhis, everything fine?"

"How do you feel?"

Don't worry, the doctor has been sent to save you."

"Big Bro..."

Under the bombardment of voices, Corco tried his best to push himself up into a sitting position. Suddenly, a biting pain stung his left and pearls of sweat formed on his face. His heavy groan caused Fadelio to step in and hold down the injured prince.

"Careful, Boss."

With his warrior's help, the crown prince managed to sit up. Finally, he could get a better look at the surroundings. Dark, dirty and cramped, the room's interior design was the preferred style of Albius, king of Whiteport. However, something was off about the room. From his left, Corco felt a heat, emanating from a warm illumination, so unusual for the grim halls of Lordspire.

"Hey, you're gonna say something?"

"What's wrong? You can't talk?"

While the words of his companions became increasingly panicked, Corco narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

"Can you move over?" With a scratchy voice, he spoke up and pushed Atau to the left. The move freed his sight onto the source of the heat. A middle-aged man in black robes stood over a bucket of glowing coals, his short, trimmed beard lighted up by the glow. The iron poker his clean hands held into the heat gave Corco a bad premonition. Even worse: He had seen the man before, when he had performed at the royal court two days ago. At the time, the men and women of the gallery had shown the greatest respect for the bearded man. After all, he was the famous court physician Freigen, of great repute along the western coast and confidante to King Albius. At the time, the doctor had seemed less than impressed by his mentalist act.

"Oh, Great Seer Corco. You are awake. What a shame." Their eyes met across the room and Corco could see the mocking twinkle within them. "I wonder, just how could the strange attacker surprise the great seer, the man who can speak to the Lords and read the future?"

"It was me who failed big bro! He stepped in front to protect me!" With a step between Freigen and his brother, Brym called in a loud voice. "Please, great doctor, you have to save him!"

"Hmmm... as I said, it is a shame that the patient is awake now. I really would have loved to do my work without anesthetics, but it seems like this won't do anymore. Hold him still and make sure he won't lose too much blood. I will return with the dwale as soon as possible." With a satisfied smile, the doctor rammed the metal poker into the coals before he turned and left the room.

Bit by bit, it dawned on Corco just what fate lay ahead of him. It seemed like the good doctor had a problem and wasn't intent on treating him like a normal patient. Although even if the doctor were to return with best intentions, the crown prince would still be treated with medieval methods. From his memories, Corco knew just what "dwale" was. The vile concoction he was about to receive included hemlock, along with various other nasty substances. He really didn't want to drink poisoned testicle juice and then have his wound sealed by a branding iron.

Crap.

Beads of sweat formed on the prince's brow, though he didn't know if it came from the pain or the fear.

"Lock the door!" Corco shouted, to the confused looks of his companions. "Quick!" Only with his second, more urgent call did Fadelio move over to push closed the bolt and lock the door. He needed time to think.

"Big Bro, what are you doing? The doctor will soon come back to heal you," Brym said.

"Fuck the quack!" came back the succinct response.

"...but he is the best doctor in the country. The king's personal physician, specially sent to help the great seer."

"I don't need his help."

"Bro..." Brym's voice became quiet, almost disappearing, as tears formed in his eyes.

"How 'bout you first look at the damage before you talk big." Atau butted in behind his left. As if remote-controlled, Corco's view went down to his side in a mechanical motion. The bed he lay in had been dyed red in his own blood. The precious liquid had soaked the cloth and was now dripping down to form a puddle on the dark brown floor boards.

Crap again. Now what?

After his brain had become aware of the wound, the pain in his side returned with a vengeance. In search for an answer to his dilemma, one which wouldn't involve insulting the king by refusing his help, Corco's mind began to churn. They had prepared for this sort of emergency, but for the first time they had to deal with interference from a self-pronounced professional. In his first step, the prince pressed his hand onto his wound to stop the bleeding. Then he asked the questions he needed answers to if he wanted to avoid the iron.

"Do we have the travel bag with us right now?"

"Right here!" Ronnie said as he held up the large bag they carried all their stage equipment in.

"Good. Perfect. Take out the brandy, ethanol, catgut, needle... and the cloth. Do we have water?"

Even though he should have known what Corco's words meant, the alchemist only looked back in confusion.

"Are we... not waiting for the doc-"

"Right here!" Atau shouted over the alchemist as he brought a clay pot of water to Corco's lips. Annoyed, the prince pushed his cousin's hand away.

"Not for me, man. Put the pot over the coals and boil some cloth for the bandages. We've done this before, right? Why is everyone just standing around?"

In fact, they had suffered their fair share of wounds in their early days on the road. They had applied the procedure Corco had learned from his memories and it had always been effective. Still, the men around him showed little confidence.

"...but, doctor Freigen should know better than us, shouldn't he?"

"Bro, the doctor is a real physician and you're bleeding an awful lot..."

As Brym and Ronnie were coming up with reasons to push away responsibility, Corco narrowed his eyes in anger. He had thought they would believe in the advanced knowledge by now.

"...you're gonna trust that quack rather than me, after all we've learned and seen over the past year? What, you want that so-called doctor to feed me donkey piss to cure my asthma? The guy hates me anyways. Even if he shows up again before I bleed out, I'm not gonna survive today if you let him work. How did you miss that?"

At the foot of the bed, Brym thought for a second, before his face became pale. The kid was good at putting together clues and reading people, as long as he calmed down and tried. Maybe it was because of his age, but the young merchant was still far too trusting. Once he had been made aware, he soon noticed the malice hidden within the doctor's words and actions.

"So what, then?" As the kid was still thinking about his negligence, Atau asked the more important questions.

"Same as always. Clean, disinfect, suture, bandage. And give me the brandy. This shit's gonna hurt like hell... hurt a lot, I mean."

While Corco gave out instructions, Ronnie had already moved up to the left side of the bed and placed the travel bag on the ground. To dull the pain, he handed the prince a bottle of the precious drink of Lords. While Corco unsealed the bottle with his teeth and took a small mouthful of the strong liquor, the alchemist began to pour medical alcohol over the needle-threaded catgut for disinfection. Meanwhile, Atau had put the water and some bandages over the bucket of coals. As everyone became immersed in their tasks, a sudden knock on the door made their heads jerk up. Apparently, Freigen had returned with the Dwale, faster than the prince had thought. To make sure no one would enter without permission, Fadelio promptly pushed his back against the door.

"Open up, there is no time to lose." After a few more futile attempts with the door handle, the doctor's muffled voice rang from the outside. Considering the long time it had taken him to bring over a single, simple medicine, he hadn't seemed in a hurry before, but his angry voice made him appear much more caring.

"Impossible. Doctor, I have been tasked to never let this door open, for anyone." Fadelio answered in a calm voice.

"The king wills it so! Seer Fastgrade cannot be left to perish, not on the king's lands!"

A frown formed on the warrior's face as he tried to come up with an excuse. Not an easy task, as the reason for his insistence would have to trump the king's command. Meanwhile, the knocks had intensified and turned into a pounding.

"Let him in and hold him back. Don't let the quack near me," Corco commanded with a grin, soon turned into grimace as Ronnie worked the ethanol onto Corco's wound with a drenched piece of cloth.

Soon, the doctor was rewarded for his persistent efforts as the bolt was lifted the man fell into the room with the door he had been abusing. Another loud bang and the door closed again, before the steel rod bolted it shut once more. The doctor was first preoccupied by the dawle his fall had spilled all over his expensive black robes, but soon he looked up and saw the activity within the room.

"What in all the heavens is going on here?" he asked towards the gang, busy in their various medical exercises.

"Just sit and watch," Fadelio's threatening voice came from above the doctor, who looked back to the towering warrior and scrambled away to an unoccupied corner. With large eyes, he looked on as the alchemist used equipment meant for housewives to sew shut the nasty wound. Corco, meanwhile, had another piece of cloth in his mouth, to make sure he wouldn't ruin his teeth or bite his tongue during the operation. At least the doctor's panicked look gave him a modicum of comfort as the rough cloth suppressed his groans of pain.

"What are you doing!? You will murder this man! Do you understand what will happen to me if the seer dies?" Freigen tried to stand up, to stop the man who stuck the needle into the bloody flesh of his victim, but a heavy hand landed on his shoulder to press him down onto his knees with the weight of an anvil.

"On your way here, it seems like the king told you to do your work properly," Fadelio said from behind him as his hand increased in pressure, "but there's no need to be alarmed. Just sit back and watch as we do our thing. Worst case, you can always tell the truth and then none of this will be your fault."

The warrior's words soon shut up the quack, who calmed down further the more he thought his position through.

Best he dies now. That way I won't have to make my hands dirty, was what Corco imagined the man would be thinking. He knew that the worst of the pain had passed after the disinfection, especially now that the brandy had kicked in. Thus, the prince removed the cloth from his mouth and presented the quack with his bargain.

"I won't die," he opened with a smile, "no organs were damaged. The blade got caught on the ribs, but didn't do damage to the bone, at least none Ronnie here could see."

"True, but you should hold still unless you wish to see that change," Doctor Bombasticus said, still fully focused on his stitching work. After another prick of the needle had caused him to suck in the air through his teeth, Corco began to complain. "How big can that wound possibly be?"

"It is the result of your fight with a knife stuck in your side, oh great seer. Just hold still and take it like a man. I will soon have you fixed up, right as rain."

"Brym, can you get the kitchen to bring me some red meat? It's best if its a bit bloody." Corco instructed the boy who had been glued to the foot of the bed with a worried look. Though he wasn't sure if it would help with his blood loss, it was better to get Brym out of the way for now and occupy his mind. That way, he wouldn't blame himself so much for the attack.

"Count on me!" With the chance to become useful, the kid jumped up and passed the downed quack and Fadelio the gatekeeper, before he disappeared through the door.

"Okay fake doctor, I have a deal for you, so listen up well."

"Who's a fake, you charlatan!? How dare you compare a great physician to the likes of-" the doctor called out in anger before another heavy-handed shoulder pat shut the man up. Corco had no patience for self-important quacks anyways, even more so now that he had partaken in his anesthetic.

"Look dude, I know exactly what you were trying to do with that hemlock you've spilled all over your robes. Even if the king threatened you into doing your best, with your methods, how big would my chances for survival be? I bet you have an idea just how real your healing powers are, you've done this long enough. Face it, you're as much of a fake as I am. It's only a matter of time until the paranoid king realizes that you're not all that great after all, and then it's off with your head."

"Done." While the face of the fake doctor paled from Corco's implication, Ronnie's voice interrupted the talk from the crown prince's side. "How do the bandages look?"

Corco looked over to Atau who was still leaned over the coals and the bubbling pot of water.

"A bit more. Shouldn't be long though."

With a nod, the fake seer looked back over to the fake doctor. "As you can see, I'm not gonna die from this. Considering my constitution, I'll be able to walk within a few days. With the way it's been treated, the wound will leave behind almost no scars either. That's a miracle if I've ever seen one."

Amused, Corco stared down to the kneeling doctor's dumbfounded face.

"So how would you like to be the creator of that miracle?"

"Huh?" The dumbfounded man answered with all his cunning.

"It's simple. We have something you want: A chance to prove your supreme healing skills. Meanwhile, you also have something we want: You're a close confidante to the king and we'll need your word if we want to achieve our goals." Corco put on his best harmless smile as he continued. "The man who was out to kill me was sent by Herak of Balit, the bornish duke. The attacker should be one of his knights, or someone else close to him. Has that been cleared up yet?"

"Yeah Boss, we found an insignia on his body," Fadelio answered for the confused quack. Of course Corco couldn't know if the man had really been dumb enough to carry the duke's heraldry or if the tall warrior had slipped the corpse one of their fakes, but it really didn't matter right now.

"Okay, so here's what I want you to tell the king: You, the great Doctor Frighten-"

"Freigen!"

"Okay, whatever. You, the great doctor have used all of your skill to save the life of the seer, but during your operation the medium began to speak in a strange voice. The voice warned of a great threat to the streets of Whiteport, a calamity caused by one who has lost his path and turned away from the Lords. Duke Balit has turned to the old idols, and the heathen needs to be stopped to guarantee Whiteport's continued prosperity. As you heard the voice, your fingers began to move by themselves, working better than they ever had. Thus, the miracle of my cure was born."

The doctor's eyes became larger and larger as Corco continued. In the end, his head shook again and again as he whispered "blasphemy", unwilling to believe what he had heard.

"Whether it's blasphemy or not doesn't matter, really. Just tell me who you want to be: The fake doctor who tried to kill the king's newest toy, or the miracle worker who saved the greatest seer of Arcavia?"

With a smile, Corco watched as the man's face of horror was slowly replaced by one of deep contemplation. Though he had to pretend a struggle to preserve his reputation, the prince knew that Freigen had made his decision already. Finally, Duke Herak would get to taste some of his own medicine.