Murder of the Belvedere Eye

Chapter 6

6- Doctor Pagas

Doctor Pagas was standing over me when I woke. I was suspended in the air. I could not move. I was unclothed, and my skin was hot as a forge. Needles ran beneath my skin, attached to tubes intestine. Blood flowed through one. I had no idea what the colored liquids were that went in and out of the other six.

I shouted. The air smelled of ethanol and grease. It made my stomach turn. Pure white plinths were arranged on the floor around me. They were as bright as the sun.

“Hold on, Rummy, you’re nearly dead,” the Doctor said.

I gasped as my skin was pulled tight.

“Relax, Rummy. You were in pieces. Half of you is still out on the front lawn. The goat man came around to clean it up.”

“My silver.”

“Your precious coins are safe. Minus our fee, of course.”

“Let me down.”

“Can’t do, dear boy. You’ll have to wait until we are done.”

“What have you done to me?”

“We revived you! You should be thanking us. If Masteus hadn’t gone out for a smoke of drrr, you’d be nothing but a pile of meat under a ragged cloak!”

With effort, I turned my eyes to the side. The man speaking was old. He wore spectacles on the top of a wide nose, his face hidden behind a long white beard and wild crop white of hair. His robe was maroon and trimmed with silver and bronze.

“That should be enough, Doctor Pagas,” a woman said.

“Let him down then, brothers and sisters. Remove the leads first, he’s likely to squirm.”

Hands came and pulled out the needles. The spots where they had been dripped fluid. The hands came back with pointed fingers, and where they touched it felt like branding irons.

I screamed.

“Set him down,” Dr. Pagas said. I fell from the air onto a hard wooden table. The plinth lights weakened.

The dining hall came into view. It was crowded with colored robes, with white-bearded men and smooth-skinned women. The windows were black with the deep night.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Pagas asked. “Your muscle, your movement, normal?”

I clenched my fists and rolled my neck.

“Little stiff.”

The magicians laughed like creaking doors.

“That is expected.” Pagas extended a hand. I stood without it.

“Clothes?” I asked.

“Ah, yes. Mort?” the doctor shouted. A young boy came forward with a canary-yellow bundle of cloth.

“What is this?”

“It’s a set of large robes.”

“Where is my cloak?”

“Thrown in the fire, I’m afraid. The damage was… too great.”

“You are able to stitch flesh back together, but you can’t weave wool?”

“The wool was reduced to scrap, my boy. Everything has its time.”

“You can’t expect me to walk around like a duckling!”

“For the time being, please,” Pagas set the clothes on my lap. I lifted the top piece. It was the same make as my cloak.

“What is this?”

The doctor grinned. “Not all is lost, Street Cat! We were able to weave you what you lost. You’ll find your pockets in place, with every item properly placed.”

“What happened to the color?”

“All that black was awful drab, no?”

“Gods.”

I pulled on the yellow robes, and the yellow cloak over the top. They fit as if I had been wearing them for years. I felt the small pocket where the seeress’s scroll was kept. It was empty.

“Ah, yes,” the doctor rubbed his forehead. “We found that note. Quite concerning really. You should have brought it to us sooner. It would have required less of my late client’s body.”

I pulled out the lord’s necklace. I showed it to the doctor.

“That has no effect on me,” Pagas said, “I am not under the lord’s command. As such, the charm will not loosen my lips.”

“I’ve been hired to find the killer. I’ve been promised the aid of everyone in the estate.”

“I have no qualms about questions, dear boy. I am a student of life as much as a practitioner of medicines. We are taught to be open to investigations and inquisition. I only let you know so that you may understand your own bounds.”

“Who committed the murder of the Belvedere Eye?”

“Who indeed,” the doctor stroked his beard. “We’ve been asking the spirit of Ezema but we have learned very little. Come with me, if you are able.”

I stood and found my body behaving as expected. In the center of the hall, a brazier was smoldering below a dark pan filled with charred remains.

“You do not have the eyes?” I asked.

“No! They were gone when I was called to the body.”

“Everyone is sure that you have them.”

“And how would they know that? News of their price is public and known. They assume we have them because they see us as power worshipers. But our order prioritizes aid over profit.”

I eyed him.

“In reductionists terms, if we had the eyes, and sought to sell them, we wouldn’t be waiting around here.”

“Perhaps you’re covering your tracks.”

“You think we would wait in the lion’s den where we are seen as snakes? I think not.”

“What did you learn from your magics?”

“We learned that the seer had little to no self. She was truly part of the whole, in the most impressive way.”

“How does that help me?”

“Perhaps it provokes an inner monologue about Edgar Rummy’s place in the world. Your lust for coin is well known. But beneath it, there is something deeper. You act as a hand of the Gods by settling the qualms of mortals. Your drive for the self, coin, is miniscule to your need to seek justice.”

“Don’t talk like you know me.”

“You helped a young man take down his abusive father in Old Sea Province. You spent months tailing his caravan, planning your strike. You hid in the loft of his summer house, not moving and not sleeping for three days, waiting for him to be alone. You struck like lightning in an open field. And you were paid in copper tokens.”

“There is more to that story.”

“We know more about you than you realize! We gather stories from the eastern mountains to the western sea. We know of your aid to the northern mountain clans and the southern islanders.”

“You’ve been following me?”

“Every person that has stitched you back together, given you a draught of health, and magicked you out of hell, is a part of our society. The aid you have received is tracked and documented. Based on our counts, you have received more aid than any other person in the empire. You’ve become something of a celebrity in our circles. Your deeds for the whole are impressive. Most long to have you journey in their area, so that they may have the chance of putting a stitch on your body. There are those of course who find you over-rated, self-indulgent, and your vigilante justice to be abhorrent.”

“And which are you?”

“Neither. I respect you, boy, which is why I took the gold from your pocket. So, you can pay like any other self-respecting man.”

“What did you learn from the smoke, beyond the girl’s selflessness?”

“The one who attacked her was nearly her opposite in every way. Someone who looks for the self before the whole.”

I thought of the people I talked to so far. Charles, the king-brother, had put his love for the seeress before his duties as royalty. Dorlien put her independence above her role in servitude. Glastius’s pride was in constant swell against his honor. Belham, the lord’s son, valued his freedom over his father’s legacy.

“A token for your thoughts,” the doctor said, pulling a copper from his pocket.

“Everyone in the estate seems to be battling between the self and the whole.”

“Very good,” the doctor said. He pressed the coin into my hand. “So, you must look further. Who stands to lose the most if they give into the whole?”

“He with the least duty to the whole?”

“Or he with the greatest? It is not a weight everyone can bear, perhaps.”

I rubbed my temples. Gods, magicians could talk your head into knots. “This encounter has not made things clearer, doctor.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“Don’t leave until it’s settled,” I said, walking away. As I passed by the others, the smell of incense hit me like a wagon. It made me feel sleepy. I found the door along the wall and passed through it. I leaned against it, sucking in breaths of cold air.