Chapter 8: 8: The Courier's Tale

Not so long ago, in a town not so far from here, there lived a physician. Endras Cartiston, his name was. Back then, he was a young man - twenty-four or twenty-five, perhaps - and new in his vocation. He was beginning to gain something of a reputation for his good work healing and caring for the people in his town; before long, people started to come from a village or two over when they needed a doctor, having heard that Doctor Cartiston was a man of sound skill and good manners.

The doctor took only whatever payment people insisted and could afford: if he knew someone had nothing at all to give, he would firmly turn down anything they tried to make him take as thanks. Which was very noble and all, but left him in a slightly precarious position. What he should have done, incidentally, was register with the district council for a practicing physician’s salary, but young, naive, idealistic Endras had never thought to do so. His calling was to help those in need because it was good and right, not because it brought wealth. (Not that the salary would have made him wealthy by any stretch, but still: he who provided aid for money was surely less noble than he who did so out of the kindness of his heart, or so thought Endras.)

It couldn't escape his attention, however, that it was in fact generally quite important to have enough means to survive. If a doctor had no way to subsist and be well himself, he couldn’t very well help anyone else. This seemed an abstract problem to the good doctor at first, but - having festered as Endras, confident that the universe could not let him suffer for his moral righteousness, ignored the problem and left it to its own devices - quickly became one with an alarming level of immediacy.

(Endras, you see, had had the sort of upbringing that had not required him to worry about money, nor even to be more than passingly aware of the need for it - because who wastes energy thinking about what they have in such abundance as to barely notice it? But he had oh-so-nobly renounced all that in pursuit of a more charitable calling, not realising how badly it could hurt not to have this thing he had never gone without.)

To his dismay, he had to begin asking patients to contribute some small payment for their treatment - only if they could afford it, of course. But, while there were some who helped, most resented the request: not because of the prospect of paying, exactly, but because they had never had to pay before, and so what was still an incredibly generous offer felt like a disadvantage by comparison. Endras was forced to face the prospect that he might truly be unable to support himself before long, and what would happen to him and those who needed him then?

So, when he received a letter offering a healthy sum, plus expenses, in return for a simple rendering of his services, he could hardly decline.

Doctor Cartiston, (the letter began, or at least one imagines something along those lines)

I have heard from trustworthy friends that you are a physician of fine skill and decent character. I am in need of someone with just these attributes.

I hope you will agree to travel just a few short hours to Ellinton and conduct the services of your profession for me. I imagine you should return home within two days of leaving at most, so your patients will not be too sorely inconvenienced.

I enclose an advance payment in the hopes of your acceptance. On completion of the work, I shall pay you three times as much again.

My carriage will arrive at your practice tomorrow at sunrise.

I hope to see you very soon.

Yours in optimism,

Colroann oesh Ustlin

Endras read the letter several times. Then he opened the pouch that had come with it and poured its contents onto his desk. That down-payment alone, he realised as the heavy coins clatter-thunked on the wood, came to more than two weeks of that physician's salary he had so altruistically declined to claim.

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So, when a carriage appeared outside his door as advertised the next morning, Endras followed the call of the gold. Not only the gold, of course, for whatever this oesh Ustlin fellow wanted with him, it sounded as if it had to do with carrying out the work of a doctor, and our Doctor Cartiston would not have refused any request for aid. (Although, he thought it must be no sin to admit, he really did need the money.)

~~~

The mumbled singing of the driver and the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves lulled Endras, who had not enjoyed the most restful of nights, into that half-sleep in which, while not entirely unaware of the world, one tends to feel removed from any fixed time and space. So he had little idea how long had passed when the carriage came to a halt; a few hours, perhaps. He rubbed his eyes and opened the door, stepping out onto a clean, wide street, on both sides of which were large houses, high-roofed and generously spaced. The carriage driver led Endras through the small but intricate iron gate in the low wall and up the short path to the front door of one of the homes, unlocked and opened the door, and beckoned the doctor to follow him through the modest entry hall and up the polished wooden stairs.

At the top of the stairs was a small landing, and at the sides of the landing were several doors, one of which was ajar. The driver indicated that Endras should enter the room with the open door. He did. The driver closed the door behind him.

Lying in a wide, lushly covered bed, supported by several plump cushions and pillows, was a man who looked, in Endras’s professional opinion, not to be in the best of health - or, to put it less mildly, like someone whose remaining lifespan could be measured in weeks, if not days. He was in his elder years, though not yet so old that age alone could explain his sickened state.

“Mr oesh Ustlin, I take it?” said Endras, as friendly and professional as ever.

“Call me Colroann,” said the old man in a hoarse voice, thick like forest moss with the rolling accent of Vexrun. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course,” said the doctor, inclining his head respectfully.

“You may wonder,” Colroann began, “why I would call for the services of a doctor from a small town even a short journey away, when I must surely have plenty of them available here in the city?”

Endras realised that he had not wondered about that curious detail at all, but that perhaps he ought to have done.

“It’s true,” said Colroann. “There are plenty of physicians in Ellinton. Even some who’ve known me a long time, treated me. Skilled people, and moral enough.” He pushed himself slightly upwards and forwards on his elbows. “But I hear such things about your character, Doctor Cartiston, and that appeals to me, because I need someone of truly upright moral value now. And, I must tell you, what is about to happen here is something I would prefer to keep a secret from as many people as possible, so I thought bringing in someone from outside the gossiping networks of the city might help to protect in… in that way…” He descended into a fit of useless coughing, the kind of wheeze that wracked the throat with dry, rancid air and did nothing to clear the chest of any mucus.

Endras waited politely for the coughing spell to finish; he watched carefully, but knew there was nothing he could do to help ease that symptom at that moment. Colroann oesh Ustlin evidently knew it too, as he made no move to ask for help.

When he was done, the old man lay back and sighed a deep, frustrated sigh. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what must be patently obvious, Doctor Cartison, but I am dying.”

“May I ask the nature of the condition?”

Colroann gave him a calculating look, as if he might be about to ask the doctor’s own diagnosis as some sort of test, but then he gave another sigh and nodded. “I’ve developed tumours on… well, most of my vital organs now,” he said. “It was found too late; no physician’s treatment, no medicine, no surgery can help me. I have a red mage who can… can reduce the pain and some of the symptoms, but not cure it.”

Endras bowed his head. “My condolences.”

“Ah.” Colroann waved it off. “None of that. Not that I don’t appreciate it, or that I don’t believe you’re sincere in it, but it’s no use to me.”

“Of course. Then… with respect, what do you think I can do that would be of use?”

“I hope,” said Colroann, “that you will assist me in a certain matter of… of both medical and other kinds of significance.” And he reached his hand over to a table beside his bed, where Endras had not noticed a velvet cloth concealing an item lying there. “Allow me to explain.”

Colroann took hold of the cloth between his forefinger and thumb, and lifted it to reveal…