The Exorcist Doctor

Chapter 116 - In the Shadow // Of the Shadow

Of course, when Gael said ‘right now’, he meant after giving themselves a week to unspool their roots from the clinic.

Seven days of lists, jars, and Cara’s handwriting marching like legions across ledgers. Seven nights of his alembics running until the rafters sweated with copper breath. He set up a production line in the forge that even the Saint’s Hands could love: a row of squat-bellied stills, a rank of coil-coolers, racks of dried marrow-flax and bruiseleaf, and a new mixing drum he’d bullied from a scrap-merchant who owed him more than coin. For seven days straight, he sat there producing as much symbiote elixir as he could—and throughout all that, he tended to a few menial tasks as well.

He labelled every cabinet just in case the Saint’s Hands forgot which ones were medicine and which ones were poison. He chalked the floors with arrows to the herb gardens and built new signboards to direct patients to certain landmarks outside the clinic. He gave tons of coins to Miss Alba in hopes that she’d double the size of her noodle shop by the time he returned—this part wasn’t medically necessary at all, but he hated having to queue up just to enter the shop nowadays—and he also gave the apprentice physicians amongst the Saint’s Hands a few more crash-courses on first aid and applying the symbiote elixir to any Myrmur Hosts that might just appear while he was gone.

If nothing else, the Saint’s Hands should be strong enough to take care of one or two Wretch-Class Myrmurs in groups of three or four. It’d be embarrassing for him and Fergal if they couldn’t do at least that much after having been given so many points the past year and a half.

So, on the seventh night—after all was said and done—Gael and Maeve shut the clinic’s doors behind them and set out for the northern end of the southern ward. Maeve’s umbrella was folded back into its briefcase form, which she hadn’t bothered in almost an entire year given people in Blightmarch no longer minded the fact that she was an Exorcist, while Gael carried along his cane, his hat, his coat, his hungry flower gauntlet, and the rest of his bioarcanic equipment… apart from the Vile Canister, of course.

That thing was too heavy to lug around, and given how destructive and toxic it’d been when he’d used it against the Repossessors, he’d made an oath to himself not to use it again unless he was going to break his Bloodless Mandate.

And hopefully I don’t have to do that again

… Soon.

At the northernmost edge of Blightmarch, the two of them were met with the Wild Bridge. All rusted metal and thick vines, bolts and blossoms, the colossal bridge arched over a river of black water. Vegetation had conquered the ribs of the bridge decades ago, and wisteria and ivy threaded through the bridge’s lattice like lace.

Beyond the bridge hung the sky’s arrogance.

Vharnveil, the City of Splendors, floated so defiantly it smothered the horizon, so present it pressed on his eyes.

Maeve stopped at the metal fence beside the bridge and put her palms on the cold bars, leaning out to peer into the black river separating Blightmarch from the other wards.

“It’s so murky,” she murmured. “Why’s it black?”

Gael followed her gaze down. “It’s not water so much as a congregation,” he said. “There’s a species of siphon-eel—‘Noctiluca Melanophorus'—that gathers in waters with high metal ion density. Vharnveil’s belly leaks metallic and alchemic waste, so the eels eat it, and their mucus turns melanotic. Then, every season they die and dissolve, layering an even thicker film of melanin and oil that the river adopts as a uniform.”

She laughed softly, expecting the punchline. “Right. And then you kissed Miss Alba and the river turned into noodles.”

“No, I’m serious.”

She blinked. Then blinked again. “Oh.”

“Don’t ever go down there for a swim. I’ve a desire to see you in a swimsuit at least once in my life, but I’d rather you not die in the process.”

She kicked him on the back as they circled around to the mouth of the bridge. The Bridgewatch lounged like cats around their posts—a gang given free reign over this one part of the ward by every other dominant gang in Blightmarch’s history, including the Saint’s Hands, because they specialized in maintaining the Wild Bridge. The men wore sashes of braided wires and carried tools instead of sabers; one of them, wearing a mask cobbled out of mismatched metal plates, nodded at him as they passed.

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He tipped his hat at the boss of the Bridgewatch.

They’ve been guarding and maintaining all four bridges connecting the cardinal wards to the central ward for decades.

Best to keep them happy, even if the Saint’s Hands rule the rest of Blightmarch now.

There were two particularly noteworthy landmarks in the northern end of Blightmarch. One was, of course, the Wild Bridge itself—the five-hundred-meter-long and fifty-meter-wide-bridge crossing the black river—but the other landmark was the Southern Chain rising from the black river to their left: a colossal steel chain as wide as three belltowers pressed together, rising from the water all the way up to the southern corner of Vharnveil.

In the far west, east, and north, three more chains shouldered the sky—four identical titans holding the floating city down like a kite kept from cosmic ambition.

Maeve craned her neck up as they kept trudging across the creaky bridge. “They really chained down a city, huh?”

“They really chained down a city,” he agreed. “Four cardinal fronts, four chains. Keeps Vharnveil from galloping off and leaving Bharncair behind. Cool, right?”

“Who built them?”

“Vharnveil did. At least, the old architects of House Veydris did. Back then, the district of Vharnveil only rose and became an autonomous floating fortress to combat the descent of the Plague God, and the chains were built to ensure it wouldn’t accidentally fly too high.” He snorted at the thought of it. “Now, I’m sure House Veydris is just praying something would happen to these chains. Vharnveil’s attitude towards Bharncair was a lot different back then.”

Maeve tilted her head. “If they really want to fly off, why not just cut the chains off themselves?”

“House Veydris is but one of the Four Great Blood Baron Households. The other households—and the Church, to an extent—don’t necessarily want to be completely disconnected from Bharncair.”

“Why’s that?”

“There’s coin to be wrung from the starving, and there’s faith to be bled from the damned.”

The mist thickened the further they walked, swallowing the bridge’s metal ribs until the path ahead blurred into a pale haze. Only the sound of their own steps, hollow against the damp metal, marked their progress. There were few others braving the crossing at this hour of the night—only the faint silhouettes of two traders dragging a cart far behind them, and a woman leading a goat in the distance ahead. Otherwise, the bridge belonged to the mist.

As the shadow of Vharnveil began to cover them like the lid of a coffin, Maeve slowed her pace, shoulders tensing beneath her coat, and Gael caught the stiffness in her jaw as she peered up at the city’s colossal underside.

“... You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” he said idly. “Didn’t you come down through the Grand Cleansing Elevator, walk straight through Umbracross, cross this very bridge, and eventually find your way to my doorstep?”

Maeve smiled stiffly. “That was different,” she said quietly. “Back then, I’d just been let out of my cell. I was sick. Tired. Hungry. I barely knew where my feet were taking me.” She drew in a slow breath, her voice thinner as she confessed, “Now I’m seeing all of it properly for the first time, and walking back under the shadow of Vharnveil is… frightening.”

Gael sighed through his teeth. “Want a drink?”

“I’d rather not.”

“What about this?”

He reached out and held her hand before she could argue.

She blinked at him, cheeks flushing faintly, then let her fingers settle into his grip with reluctant dignity.

Step by step, the mist parted to reveal the far shore. Even before their boots left the bridge, the Central Ward of Trades, Umbracross, gleamed through the mist: an entire sprawl of tightly packed buildings in Vharnveil’s eternal shadow. No sunlight ever reached the central ward. Umbracross was perpetually in the dark for how much sky Vharnveil blotted out, so they borrowed light instead—tens of thousands of giant lanterns hung off chains connected to the underbelly of the floating city, dangling like captured stars.

It was dazzling in its own way, but Gael only tightened his jaw. He squeezed Maeve’s hand once.

“As usual, let me do the talking,” he murmured.

She turned her head, brows drawn. “Why?”

The answer stood waiting at the end of the bridge.

Ranks of Mortifera Enforcers lined the entrance to Umbracross. They numbered three dozen, all armored in lacquered uniforms with their faces hidden by ant-shaped gas masks. Long blades hung sheathed at their sides, and their rifles gleamed in the lanternlight—every last barrel trained on the two of them.

Gael slowed as he approached the wall of Enforcers, but he only stopped—and brought Maeve to a halt with him—when one man in a more regal cut of uniform, his ant mask detailed with more ornate engravings, stepped out from the line.

Authority radiated from the man in the way he carried his shoulders, so Gael tipped his hat with exaggerated flourish and swept into a mocking little curtsy.

“Gael Halloway,” he announced merrily, straightening. He gestured to Maeve with his free hand. “And my beloved wife. To whom do we owe the pleasure?”

“Captain Orsavian, Sentinel of Umbracross,” the man said, “and I represent Vharnveil when I say this: turn back now, and do not ever return.”