Sights and Smells

The Emperor created quite a stir in the halls as he and 'Junayd' moved toward the infirmary. The servants were not used to seeing Devrim in the evenings.

To keep things streamlined during the day, the evening shift completed all the maintenance they could in the late hours of the night and the early hours of the morning.

The startled servants scattered like mice before their leader, most bowing before making a hasty retreat into a room. "Are you usually so frightening?" Gandr whispered to the man beside him. He assumed it was the grim look on Devrim's face that had chased them off.

"The attack on the palace has made everyone jumpy. Being around me at night is likely a death sentence if the intruders should strike again. I hope you don't mind that you are putting your life at risk by even standing near me." The corners of Devrim's mouth turned up slightly.

"I live for adventure," Gandr answered with a mischievous grin. "You should tell them we are going to examine a dead man in the middle of the night. That will calm their nerves."

Slowing his walk slightly, Devrim cut his eyes at the halfling. "We have enough ghost stories around here, thank you."

"Ghost stories, hm? I suppose every group has some version of those. But surely no one in the palace believes them!" Gandr raised one eyebrow.

He had spent limited time in the palace while working with spymaster Brinn, so his knowledge of the lore in the castle was not extensive. But having such tales made sense to him.

Even the gnomes had their versions of things that walked the night underground. While some, like the giant rats, had more basis in fact, others were gross exaggerations of horrors that had been used to keep the females and children in line. Thankfully under King Lukoss, those types of scare tactics were becoming a thing of the past.

"Oh the palace staff relishes them, I think. There was a tale about Empress Zephyra when she was alive that she took a bite out of a fruit and then threw it at one of her advisors. The next day, he ended up dead. So the ghost story goes that if you find a piece of fruit with one bite out of it, Zephyra is coming for you and you will die the next day."

Gandr thought for a moment, his steps mirroring his pensive state. "Seems harmless enough. How often do you really find a fruit in that condition?"

"That's the thing. Alaron went through a phase when he was around two where he would request fruit, take a bite and then hide it somewhere randomly because he no longer wanted it. It took us months to figure out why the palace staff was quitting in droves. Nanny was horrified that her charge had created so much mayhem...she had no idea that he would create far more chaos."

"So, if I want to scare off someone, I just leave them an apple with my teeth marks on their pillow?" Gandr winked.

"Really? That is your takeaway. Sometimes I forget that you are just as sneaky as..." Devrim stopped as they reached the infirmary.

A putrid smell assaulted their senses. It was so rank that neither of the men wanted to breach the threshold of the sickroom.

"It was not like this before," the Emperor commented as he swallowed down the contents of his stomach to keep from retching. He pinched his nose, but letting the air through his mouth did not seem to help.

"Your Majesty. Advisor Junayd," a voice from behind the males addressed them.

They turned around to find the healer Lina, freshly dressed and still wiping the sleep out of her eyes. Someone had clearly woken her to warn the slender woman that they were coming. Her brown hair was rather disheveled, but pulled back from her face. Around her mouth and nose, a cloth was tied so that only her brown eyes were visible.

"I am sorry to have woken you, Healer Lina." The Emperor remembered that she was the one that the doctor had left in charge when he left. "We should have come at a better time."

Lina curtsied. "I am very happy to see you. As you can smell, we have a slight problem down here."

The healer produced two more cloths for the males to place on their faces. As Devrim wrapped the bandana around his nose, the scent of vanilla and coffee drowned out the reek of death.

"Is that odor due to..."

"Chancellor Fannur has been with us too long. But because it was a royal edict, we had no way to move him." While she could not really make a direct request, Lina's eyes pleaded with Devrim to fix the problem.

The man blanched. How much trouble had been caused because he was not diligent! The sick and injured of the palace should not have to deal with an extra burden.

Devrim grunted softly, "I believe something may have gotten lost in communication. The doctor was supposed to examine the Chancellor's body when it arrived."

"The doctor has gone on a short sabbatical, as you know. He should be back eventually, but I do not think we can wait that long…" Lina's face stiffened as she could see the question in the Emperor's pale grey eyes.

"Could you examine it and tell me is there is anything out of the ordinary?" Devrim could see his question made the woman uncomfortable.

"I have no idea what is normal for a… body without a soul." She answered him.

Devrim remembered the kindness that the healer had shown Nanny. It was actually Lina's actions that had shown the old woman to be alive when she had been attacked.

Dipping his head, the Emperor spoke softly, "I will go with you. Perhaps between the two of us, we can discover something and remove the smell from your clinic."

"The three of us," Gandr added, "I would like to join you."

Lina nodded. She saw no other option if she wanted her place of work to return to normal. The males parted and she passed between them to lead the way.

Fannur was on a cot in a curtained off area with a light sheet covering him. As soon as the cloth wall was pulled back, not even the vanilla and coffee could hide the stench.

"Best to be quick," Devrim gasped. "Help me get him to the doctor's surgery."

The two men hoisted the covered body onto the stretcher, which had been leaned against the wall for safe keeping. Entering the surgery room, the males laid their load onto of the doctor's exam table. There was no need to dirty an extra surface as the thick canvas of the stretcher hugged the table while the wooden rods hung loose over the side.

Devrim reached out his fingers to remove the sheet.

"Wait!" Lina held out a basin of water. "We probably should have already done this, but you should rinse the dirt from your hands."

The Emperor furrowed his brow. "I understand why to do this when he is alive, but well, he isn't."

"If you don't rinse, you cannot be sure that the dirt you find isn't from you. I don't know much about what the doctor does, but I do know that," Lina insisted.

The males shrugged and complied. Rinsing their hands in the basin and wiping them clean, they prepared once again to remove the covering. The sheet flew through the air revealing the chancellor underneath.

Lina screamed.

"Shut the door!" Devrim told Gandr. The halfling sealed off the surgery from the infirmary before any one could investigate.

"What happened to him?!" Lina hugged the wall, collapsing into the wooden stool up against it.

Gandr returned to the Emperor's side and also stared, trying to puzzle out what he was seeing.

Fannur's body lay with his arms to his side. The long sleeves of his black scholar's robe were tucked neatly beneath him. That supine position allowed the three examiners to view the full horrific carnage of the chancellor's abdomen.

From heart to hip the man's robes were shredded and torn away. Beneath the the threads left behind, groups of five thin long gashes started from above Fannur's ribcage and ran all the way down past his navel.

Fannur's arms and legs were likewise covered, the skin that was visible was already a sickly green. The chancellor's body was so covered with the scrapes that if not for the man's head, it would have been unrecognizable as a human.

Only the sharpest of claws could have made such precise cuts without eviscerating the skin in between. Only their wide spacing and lack of real depth played a part in keeping the gruesome contents of the man's insides from spilling forth.

Yet none of this was what the three were what had drawn the attention. From the cuts, a spiderweb of unnatural veins crept along the man's skin in a sickening display. It seemed the process was carried along by the man's own blood, but had been stopped as he finally expired.

Devrim took one of the Doctor's long metal utensils and scraped along the edge of one of the gashes. Collecting the dried flecks on the edge of the flattened rod, the Emperor held out the residue for Lina to see.

The woman's eyes grew wide. Lina knew the purple hue all too well. "The wolves!" She gasped.

"Wolves? I thought you said lizards attacked him," Gandr's face was wrought with confusion.

"I did say that. Yet this purple is identical to the ooze that came from the Empress's wounds from the wolves. But how can two entirely different creatures possess the same strange poison?" Devrim's face darkened. "Unless it isn't two separate incidences we are dealing with, but one much more deadly problem..."