Class Reptilia

In all her years living in Ciradyl, Ember had never been to the slums. The ever-spreading mass lay east of midtown, where even the city guard rarely entered. Now she, Blackstone, and Lilith were walking along a cobblestone road pitted with deep holes, where a brown liquid festered. On either side were rows of crumbling brick buildings, many of which were missing walls or patches of roofing, although the full clotheslines indicated that they were still occupied.

In front of the buildings, the less fortunate lived in hastily-erected huts of cardboard and scrap wood. There were mothers with young children, old drunkards, and prostitutes, all with flinty eyes. Cockroaches, rats, and larger things scurried along the streets where the lights didn't reach, and in those same shadows, Ember sometimes spotted an animal or human-shaped lump that no longer glowed with the heat of the living.

There were establishments, too—rooms with teetering piles of dubious goods, merchants' carts ready to be packed up at a moment's notice, and staircases that disappeared into the dark underground. The three Linnaeans kept a respectful distance, and nobody tried to speak to them.

At last, Blackstone turned down a narrow alleyway, squeezing past piles of rubbish. At the end was a barely-noticeable door, on which he knocked thrice slowly and twice quickly.

A slot slid open at the top. "Your business?" a woman's voice asked, and then stilled. "The bear-devil," she said a little dryly. "Are you here to cause trouble again?"

"No, ma'am," he said, smiling slightly under his mustache. She harumphed and opened the door for them.

She was a younger woman than her voice implied, perhaps in her early thirties, and she wore a white smock and elbow-length gloves. Behind her was a catch-all room, with odds and ends stacked from floor to ceiling: wooden chairs, linens, jugs of alcohol, and machinery in various states of deconstruction. An old man kneeled at the base of one such stack, cataloging its contents on a clipboard.

"Now is not a good time for whatever you're doing," she said to Blackstone in a low voice. "The guards have been coming deeper into the slums. We've not been found, but it might not be long before we have to move again."

"It's a matter of some urgency," Blackstone grimaced. Then, like ripping off a band-aid— "There are three more coming. Can we sleep upstairs?"

She sighed deeply through her nose. "...Humans?"

The commander's look was answer enough. "We can spare two rooms upstairs," she finally said. "Feel free to make yourselves useful around here. Now, I have to get back to my patients."

"Patients?" Ember asked, unable to stop herself.

The woman nodded, her eyes narrowing. "Do you have some skill in healing?"

"Nothing noteworthy, but I worked in a clinic here, before…" she made a half-aborted gesture.

The woman's eyes widened, and she took hold of Ember's upper arm. "Come with me. I'll show you."

Ember looked at Blackstone for permission. "Sure, go," he acquiesced with a tilt of his head. "Lilith and I need to speak privately."

A little apprehensively, Ember turned and followed the woman through a door at the rear of the room. They climbed down a brick stairwell, where the air was cool and damp, and emerged into a low room. Patients filled the ten cots pushed up against the wall, and others waited on mats closer to the center of the room. Another woman, possibly a nurse, was bustling about and changing linens. It smelled of antiseptic, a sign that it was at the very least cleaner than the city's hospitals.

Ember stopped on the threshold. The whole operation, whatever it was, was obviously outside of the church's jurisdiction—and foolish as it might be, she had never realized that anything happened outside of the church's jurisdiction. She shivered with the thrill of it.

"They call me doctor, here," the woman said. "Keep your mask on for your safety and theirs. There's water in the jug over there," she pointed with her chin, "clean bandages, herbs, painkillers, and disinfectant on the cart. Ask me if you need anything."

Ember blinked at her, still shocked, and then shook her head to snap out of it. Finally, a chance to be useful. She washed her hands at a basin on the wall and spurred herself in the direction of the closest patient, an elderly woman whose red and swollen foot was elevated on a pillow.

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"Afternoon, ma'am," she started. "May I take a closer look at your foot?"

"Sure," the woman agreed, watching her with kindly eyes. "I've just come in."

Although she was curious, Ember didn't ask questions about why the woman was at this clinic instead of one of the church's—she just bent a little at the knees and started to examine her foot. The cause of the inflammation was an abscess, the likes of which Ember had seen several times before, likely originating from a mishap on the streets or an incident in the woman's workplace. It had a darkened, foul-smelling spot in the center that oozed pus.

"Any pain?" Ember asked, manipulating the foot slightly in each direction.

"Some, and throbbing," the woman admitted. Ember activated her infrared, cataloging the deep redness that revealed the extent of the inflammation.

"Your foot is infected," she explained. "It's localized right now, but it's important to keep it from spreading. I'll see what I can do."

The woman nodded, and Ember walked over to the supplies cart, thinking. She hadn't done much more than change bandages at the clinic in Ciradyl, but she had learned since then—a little in biology and Hickory's class, and more from the reading she'd taken up after Lance had been injured in Ophelia's practical.

The cart was well-stocked, and she was relieved to see that there were none of the large ceramic basins that would be present in a clinic practicing bloodletting; the practice was completely defunct in Mendel, but some physicians in Ciradyl still held on to the old ways of balancing the humors. First, she grabbed a bottle of ethanol and a clean towel, using it to dab at the abscess until the surface was clean of debris.

When she returned to the cart, she focused her attention on the minerals and dried herbs. She recognized epsom salt for drying the pus, marshmallow root for irritation, echinacea for infection, and clay for binding. She tucked them into a pouch, then gathered the mortar and pestle and water jug she'd need to make a poultice.

"The salt is a good choice," the doctor said behind her, and Ember startled from where she crouched. She reached over Ember to pinch up more herbs. "I suggest goldenseal for infection and calendula for tissue growth. There's a fireplace on the second floor."

Armed with supplies, Ember climbed the stairs. The common room was cozier than the entrance—overwarm and carpeted, with a worn sofa and some chairs in front of a brick hearth, where coals smoldered. Two people spoke in low tones on the sofa, and they nodded at Ember when she entered.

Ember settled in front of the fireplace and stoked the fire. On the mantel, cast-iron pots and pans hung from hooks, and she took a pot, filled it with enough water to cover the bottom, and set it on the stand to heat. In the meantime, she ground the herbs and clay into a coarse powder with the mortar and pestle.

When the water was hot, but not yet boiling, she took it from the heat and added the herbs. A paste formed, which she stirred with a wooden spoon until it had a smooth consistency. Then she added the salt and spooned the mixture back into the bowl.

She returned downstairs, putting the poultice in the center of a fresh towel to apply it to the patient's wound. The woman let out a sigh as the warmth seeped in, easing her pain.

"Good work," the doctor said in passing, and Ember allowed herself a small smile. "That one, next," she added, waving a hand in the direction of an obviously pregnant young woman.

The hours went by thusly in the underground clinic—Ember saw a couple more patients, but mostly she did the everyday tasks of a medical assistant: cleaning the bloodied linens and the surgical instruments with hydrogen peroxide, making up new aid kits, mopping the floor, and taking the patient's waste out the back. No one questioned her, nor did she ask anything of them. There was something calming about the repetitiveness of the work; it soothed her and took her mind off the tasks ahead.

As she was on her knees, scrubbing at a bloodstain on the floor, the doctor stilled her with a hand on her shoulder. "Go upstairs and sleep," she said, "you've done well, and most of the patients are sleeping."

Ember looked around to see that indeed, almost everyone had fallen asleep. She stood to her feet a little shakily, all of the day's work catching up with her at once, and staggered over to the sink to clean herself as best she could. Then, with clean hands—but still-filthy clothing—she climbed the stairs up to the second level and found the rooms that the doctor had assigned to the party.

There were voices coming from within the first room, so she knocked, and Blackstone came to the door. "Ember," he said, "come inside. The others have just arrived."

She was massively relieved to see Kairo, Orthus, and Callia gathered in the room. They looked exhausted and a little bruised, but overall none the worse for wear. Behind them was a small, dirty window, through which Ember thought it looked like twilight.

"It's safe to speak freely here," Blackstone said. "I trust you encountered no problems?"

"None," Callia answered. "We were careful. Waited long enough for a shipment too large to be thoroughly searched."

"Barrels of mead," Orthus said darkly, and Ember sniffed, finding that the three of them did indeed smell strongly of liquor. She chuckled, earning a huff from the octopus.

"Where's Lilith?" Kairo asked.

"I sent her out on reconnaissance," the commander answered. "There have been public executions since I last corresponded with our informant. I'm afraid our spy may have been relocated or killed, so there's no point in making a move until we can confirm her location. The rest of you can rest here." He handed Callia the keys to a second room. "You and Ember can take the second room. Lilith will join you when she comes back."

After glancing at Orthus one more time to make sure he was unharmed, Ember gladly followed Callia into the room, where a shabby—but surprisingly spacious—bed rested on a wooden frame. Too tired to care about modesty, she stripped off her soiled clothing, toweled herself clean, and collapsed on her side of the bed.