Castle Kingside

Sitting on his ‘throne’, a massive granite chair on the monastery’s second floor, Dimitry perused the latest parchment scroll Claricia had delivered to him. A long table stretched down its rough yellow surface. Each row corresponded to a recruit, and the intersecting columns recorded their name, job history, physical fitness, visual acuity, medical conditions, and every score on every exam they took. Invaluable data that Dimitry went to great lengths to get.

With the help of Lili and his other nurses, he gave every recruit a checkup, which included testing their vision, examining them for obvious physical deformities, and administering a questionnaire to uncover underlying medical issues. Those Dimitry deemed healthy underwent a cardiopulmonary stress test—lapping around Malten twice. Anyone who passed without wheezing or vomiting would soon undergo infantry training.

But Dimitry didn’t discount the physically hindered. Those who couldn’t fight, whether from age, illness, or missing limbs, would occupy support positions in his army. Everyone had a role to play in the Sacred Order of the Hospital of Archbishop Dimitry. Or more succinctly, the Sacred Hospitaller—a name Saphiria came up with.

Even recruits who would never wield a flintlock had to take exams. Whether they could brew ale or hammer out nails, Dimitry valued their talents. All types were necessary to establish a coastal barrier and outpost. By cross-analyzing their demonstrable skills and past jobs, Dimitry scrolled through the parchment, assigning everyone suitable roles.

Some recruits were difficult. They possessed neither trade skills nor combat fitness, so giving them a job proved challenging. But they were blank slates ripe for the picking. Dimitry planned to educate all who were willing to learn, extracting potential even from peasants that had shoveled hay until now.

Yet his ambitions had a flaw: providing education was expensive. The ongoing examinations downstairs were already burning through Dimitry’s funds. He was so broke that he had to ask the queen for a loan to organize today’s events. His dwindling funds meant Dimitry had to prioritize.

To do so, he employed an intelligence exam—a hodgepodge of questions that tested reasoning without relying on verbal or mathematical abilities. Dimitry sought to identify recruits with superior cognition. They would grasp concepts fastest. Educating them offered the largest return on investment, and more importantly, some might become leaders in fields that didn’t exist in this world. Toxicology. Explosives handling. Pharmacology. This small team of experts would one day act as professors and enable education on a massive scale.

Sadly, the intelligence exam wasn’t perfect. Though Dimitry modeled it after Raven’s Progressive Matrices—one of many IQ tests he studied while earning his undergraduate degree—IQ wasn’t a perfect metric, and a lack of standardization meant the questions weren’t precise. Even if they were, intelligence was meaningless if the examinees were unmotivated.

But taking this gamble was Dimitry’s most promising option. Until he could educate over a thousand people, he had to focus on those who could generate profit and technological advancement soonest, lest he end up with a half-baked failure and countless broken promises.

The thought gave Dimitry pause. He looked down at the parchment he held, which detailed two-hundred and fifty recruits. This was the fourth parchment on his desk. By the end of the day, there’d be two more.

One thousand five hundred recruits in total.

They all depended on him.

The pangs of inadequacy clawed at the walls of his gut. Not a week had passed since the Night of Repentance, and Dimitry was already running low on food and funds. Building a coastal barrier seemed like a distant dream. What if investing in education was a convoluted waste of resources? Would this be the mistake that ruined it all?

“This again?” a high-pitched voice came from under his red and gold uniform. “I keep telling you, you’ll be fine.”

To need a faerie’s encouragement. Dimitry was out of his depth.

Small hands took turns gripping his undershirt as a tiny weight clambered up to his neck. A small palm patted the back of his head. “There there.”

“Thanks. I feel worse now.”

“Stop feeling worse!”

“That’s not how this works.”

“Do it anyway!” The frustration in Precious’ voice grew, and her patting intensified into a harsh scalp massage. “If you get scared and run away, I’ll never be able to shop at fruit stalls like you promised!”

“How surprising,” he said. “Your sympathy was just you looking out for yourself. Also, when did I say anything about fruit stalls?”

She stopped. “You forgot?”

“Forgot what?”

“You told me I’ll be able to show myself in public someday.”

“Ah.” Dimitry did promise her that and for good reason. Faeries made for excellent allies. Their emotion-sensing abilities enabled masterful negotiation, flight made them natural scouts, and their capacity for thought resembled that of a human. Anyone with sense would grant the rascals basic rights in return for their loyalty.

Unfortunately, the task wouldn’t prove easy. “I stand by what I said, but at the rate things are going, it’s hard to say how long it’ll take. Even people who hate the Church think you’re a corrupted creature. Undoing the lifelong brainwashing will take effort.”

After a long silence, Precious spoke again, a rare somberness in her tone. “Just don’t end up like him.”

Dimitry furrowed his brow. “Like who?”

“You’re not the first dummy to promise me freedom. I told him faeries were annoying and nasty and that we’ll never ever get along with humans, but he was just as naïve as you. Because of that he—“ Precious’ head shot up. She scrambled back down into Dimitry’s inner pocket.

A knock echoed from the two granite double doors across the hall.

“Your Holiness!” Claricia’s muffled voice eked through thick stone. “The qualified recruits of the fourth block are here!”

So that was why Precious hid. Dimitry had many questions, mostly concerning the man who met an unkind fate trying to help the faerie, but he dropped his quill and sat up straight instead. “Enter.”

The heavy double doors opened with an intimidating creak. First to pass through their massive arched frame was a man whose abundant scar tissue struggled to cover his even more abundant muscle. Milk marched down the gratuitously long hall. Upon reaching Dimitry, he turned to face the recruits hobbling behind him. Seven sheepish faces shot timid glances at the equestrian statues towering over them from the periphery of the hall. Their hunched postures told all.

And who could blame them? The Church must have dumped ridiculous sums of money into this place for precisely that reason. Brazen displays of wealth inspired awe and submission like nothing else.

Which was why Dimitry met with them here. Though he did not enjoy heavy-handed power plays, these seven recruits scored highest on the intelligence exam within their block. He planned to use this overindulgent hall to instill them with loyalty and zeal. Hopefully, the grand display of religious might would motivate them to dedicate themselves to their studies.

Alongside her six compatriots, a young lady knelt a short distance away. She held up a trembling, upturned hand.

Dimitry replicated her hand gesture with confidence as he walked down the four overly luxurious steps at the edge of his throne. “Though you may not know it, for your entire lives, Celeste has been guiding you here. To Malten. To me.”

A man with a black and gray beard raised his head to glance at Dimitry, wide-eyed. But as if committing a sin most foul, his gaze shot back down to stare at his reflection on the glistening granite floor.

“Zera has blessed you all with a gift, and the Trial of Wills you have excelled on is proof.”

A kid no older than twenty looked up. His eyes burned with an inquisitiveness stifled by fear.

“If there is something you want to know,” Dimitry said, “I encourage you to ask. There is no shame in ignorance, but there is vice in contently living with it.”

“Y-Your Apostleness,” the kid uttered.

“Go on.”

“Why d-does Zera need us to recognize patterns? Are they gonna help us kill the h-heathens?”

“The trial’s purpose was merely to identify those with potential,” Dimitry said. “But that’s all it is: potential. Four of you were once farmers. While the cultivation of crops is vital for humanity’s survival, have you ever felt overwhelmed by the daily simplicity? The ceaseless repetition of tasks? Meandering thoughts that sought mental stimulation when there was none to be had?”

A girl wearing a tattered tunic raised her head, mouth agape as if words were put to a problem she didn’t know she had.

“That’s because you’ve been born with a gift and a burden. It is a gift because you are fortunate to have the opportunity to excel beyond your peers, and it is a burden because you owe it to Zera to hone your talent. There is no one to replace you. The road I offer you, one of ceaseless study and strenuous mental exertion, will push you to your limits, but it will also bring you pride. And with effort, one day, you might be recorded as heroes. If that’s something that interests you, raise your hand.”

The recruits watched him, desire in their stares. One by one, six upturned hands rose into the air. But the seventh stayed down. The kid hesitated.

Though Dimitry had practiced his spiel on the top scorers of the previous recruit blocks, his words growing grander with each repetition, it seemed he couldn’t light a fire under everyone’s ass. But he would damn well try. These recruits had more potential than him. With a coalition of think tanks at his side, endless possibilities lay within reach.

He approached the kid. “Does serving Zera through scholarly pursuits disinterest you?”

The kid shook his head with enough force to unscrew his neck. “N-no, sir apo—Your Apostleness! It’s just that someone’s made a mistake. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I…” He glanced at the recruits to his left and right. “Because I’m different.”

No more had to be said. The kid’s disgrace shone through his slumped shoulders and spine.

While Dimitry didn’t know his circumstances, he thought he could relate. The mistakes of his youth—violent and crude—were once tethers, convincing Dimitry that a thug was all he could ever be. And without his sister’s kindness, he would have remained that way. Rebelling against one’s self-image wasn’t easy. Fortunately, there was an omnipotent being that could help.

“You can be wrong,” Dimitry said. “I can be wrong. But Zera—she is never wrong. One day I will teach you to scry her will through the divine art of science, but until then, know that your potential is absolute. Even I doubted my holy duty as apostle once.”

Mesmerized like a snake by a charmer, the kid looked on unflinchingly.

Dimitry opened his mouth to further fuel his appetite with relatable promises of excellence, but a deformity caught his eye. An excellent opportunity to show off the boons of study. Dimitry pointed to the kid’s arm. “How did that happen?”

“M-my bent wrist, Sir Apostleness?”

A frequent misunderstanding. While the bumpy curvature of his hand appeared to be a wrist injury, the all-too-common dinner fork shape hinted at a malunited distal radial fracture. “I’m sure your wrist is in a lot of pain, but the problem is in your forearm. One of the two long bones inside broke and healed incorrectly. I’m guessing you fell with your arm out?”

“H-how did ya know?” the kid asked. “Did Zera tell ya that too?”

“No,” Dimitry said. “Zera watches over us all, but we must do the work ourselves. I learned medicine through my own efforts.”

“Can we learn medicine too?” a middle-aged man asked.

“If that’s something that interests you, but you don’t have to limit yourself to what I do. You’ll be able to sample different fields and study those that excite you. With effort, who knows? Maybe one day it is I that’ll praise you for doing something I cannot.”

The kid’s lip quivered. “Even… even if we’re outcasts?”

“Who you are is irrelevant. All that matters is who you strive to become. Zera will always reward good-hearted ambition.”

As if limitless possibilities flooded his mind, the kid absently stared at Dimitry. He then pressed his head to the floor. The other recruits followed suit.

The over-the-top reverence made Dimitry feel like a creep, but at least that meant they bought in. His plan proceeded smoothly. “Also, if you ever want me to take a look at your arm, just ask for me in the cathedral. I’ll—“

The hasty stomping of boots neared.

Milk stood up, casting a broad shadow over Dimitry.

Angelika rushed into the hall, gasping for air. “Dimit—Your Holiness! We need you!”

Though Dimitry preferred to avoid open surgery, especially in a world with potentially unclassified pathogens, he had no choice. The patient presented with multiple abdominal stab wounds. Without CT scans to evaluate the extent of the damage, cutting open Heze’s belly for an inside look gave her the best chance of survival.

Under an illumina surgical light and surrounded by the hospital operating room’s four bleak granite walls, the scalpel severed fat, muscle, and fibrous fascial layers as it sliced down from Heze’s lower chest, around the belly button, and to her pelvis. Dimitry cut the peritoneum with scissors, and Lili, his head nurse, separated the edges of the midline incision with wrought iron retractors to reveal blood and half-metabolized stool pooling inside the patient’s abdominal cavity.

Dimitry’s heart pounded in his ears—an uncharacteristically anxious display. Having done primary repairs to stabilize sharp force injury patients countless times, exploratory laparotomies didn’t faze him. It was just another morning.

But this patient was different.

Heze was one of his recruits. His responsibility. His fault.

He mopped up the fluids with a sterilized rag. Then he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. Dimitry pointed at a retractor that looked like a spatula with a bent head, which Lili shoved into Heze’s gut to pull up the abdominal wall. After packing the patient’s abdomen with rags, which soaked up bloody gastrointestinal spillage and allowed for a close examination, Dimitry checked for injury.

Thankfully, the liver, spleen, and kidneys looked fine. No profuse bleeding there. Could handle them later. The small bowel—now there was a problem. Mesenteric tears and hematomas. Lacerations aplenty.

Dimitry pulled Heze’s small bowel out of her belly and ran the floppy pink organ from top to bottom, segment by segment. He stitched lacerations as he found them, manipulating the curved iron needle with speed, hoping to stem the blood loss. He didn’t have IVs. He couldn’t replace fluids. If hypovolemic shock took hold, which her racing pulse and breathing hinted was already happening, this would be the end.

Lili pinched the patient’s thumb until the nail bed turned white. Six seconds passed before the finger’s pink color returned. A sign of massive blood loss. At least thirty percent of total volume. Judging by Heze’s ghastly pale skin, forty percent—a grade four hemorrhage. Knowing that irreversible organ damage had begun, Dimitry hastened his pace, now fixing a perforation in the patient’s large bowel.

But he was too late. Heze’s breathing grew sluggish, as did her pulse. Within minutes, her pupils stopped responding to light. Brain death was confirmed.

Blood splattering her apron, Lili nudged her ponytail away with her shoulder, staring at the corpse between them. “She was a mother.”

“Yeah,” Dimitry said.

“What should I tell her son?”

“I’ll handle it. Go clean up.”

With slow steps, Lili reached the doorway. She glanced back. “Like you always say, these things happen. Not even the Church saved every life, Your Holiness, so don’t put that pressure on yourself.”

“I won’t.”

She nodded and vanished into the cathedral’s main hall.

Recruits, nurses, and the ambulance that rushed Heze to the hospital stepped closer to look at the unmoving body. Though a boy among them was once thrilled to witness the apostle save a life, he glanced away, eyes now devoid of holy fervor.

“I need solitude to conduct the prayer of parting,” was the excuse Dimitry gave as he closed the door.

He approached Heze. Meeting the still gaze of the woman who was murdered while running laps around Malten, fury bubbled within. Dimitry’s foot slammed into an iron instrument table, artery clamps and scalpels flying off its surface and clanging against the floor.

Why the fuck would anyone kill a woman with no possessions? All Heze had on her were some tattered rags and punctured boots! What did the thief hope to steal?

Heaving through clenched teeth, Dimitry knew the truth. The answer was ‘nothing’. Whoever killed her while she caught her breath in an alley wasn’t a thug seeking profit. Heze was a recruit taking the endurance exam, and she served as Dimitry’s most accessible representative. Her death was a rebellion against the new Church.

She was a casualty of Dimitry’s ambitions.

He dropped into the only chair in the operating room and slumped into the backrest. How Dimitry wished for intravenous therapy equipment. Blood transfusions saved lives, and today, a simple hypertonic saline infusion might have sufficed. Maybe if he spent less time playing politics and more time developing medical equipment, he might have avoided today’s tragedy.

The dense thumping of steel heels reverberated through the dark granite floor.

“Your Royal Highness,” dozens of voices chanted outside, audible despite the thick wall between Dimitry and them.

The door flung open, and Saphiria strutted into the room. She lifted the visor of her gold-glowing plate armor, seething indigo eyes beneath. Her gaze fell to the corpse on the bed and down to a stitched belly bearing four stab wounds. “I’ll slaughter them all—this I vow.”

Dimitry didn’t look up. "Did you find out who did it, Your Royal Highness?”

“Witnesses claim it was some hoodlum. A gangster, no doubt.”

“So you didn’t.”

“Not yet. Like vermin, they skitter away at the first sound or light. But I will find him. And when I do, I will hang him in the market square. A short drop, slow and excruciating. All will witness his eyes soak red and his final desperate cough as it escapes his lips. Then, right before he dies, I shall disembowel him and cast his entrails into a fire.”

Learning of a man’s brutal fate did little to reassure Dimitry. But not because he didn’t want the murderer to suffer. He did. Rather, killing one person would do nothing to keep his recruits safe.

A swelling tide of observers looked on from the emergency department. Among them was a nurse who stared at Dimitry as if waiting for him to say something divine and inspiring.

Though he tried, Dimitry couldn’t muster the will to put up a front. He just wanted a moment alone.

Saphiria shut the door and hovered over him. “Stand.”

“I’m really not in the mood.”

“Come.” She pulled his arm. “You and I—we cannot show weakness. Not while they watch us.”

“You shouldn’t touch me. I’m covered in blood and other unmentionables.”

“Blood and unmentionables don’t frighten me. Seeing you like this, alone in an untidy room, does.”

Dimitry glanced up at the girl. The full helmet she wore concealed all but her rosy, winter-bitten nose and concerned gaze. “It would be easy not to show weakness if some prick wasn’t getting away with killing Heze in broad daylight. But he is. And apparently, no one in this shithole of a city can do a thing about it.”

Fragile like a glass sheet, Saphiria’s commanding demeanor unraveled. She glanced away. “Malten isn’t a shithole.”

With how hard Saphiria had been working to secure her home, Dimitry cursed himself for insulting her efforts. She spent her days endlessly patrolling the streets, maintaining the orphanage, repairing the mines, and trying to earn clout with nobles after being gone for nearly a decade.

“Sorry,” he said. “Got carried away.”

She didn’t respond.

Dimitry changed the subject. “This won’t stop here, will it?”

“I don’t know,” Saphiria muttered. “Even when I catch a gangster, by the time Lukas or I interrogate them, their hideout has already moved. It is difficult to say how many gangs there are, but at least one is targeting you.”

“Because they raided my chemistry lab on the Night of Repentance?”

“The monastery as well. It was a hideout before we reclaimed it.”

“In that case, could there be two gangs targeting me?”

"It's possible."

He sighed. If gangs selling ‘grimberry juice’ and clogging up Dimitry’s hospital with methanol toxicity patients wasn’t enough, now they attacked his employees as well.

The conversation lulled as both participants grasped for a solution. Saphiria paced the room, head down and steel heels clacking against dark granite. Gaze unfocused, Dimitry watched her armor’s gold glow reflect off the polished floor.

He had to deal with the gangs before any more of his recruits died. But how? How could he find and disarm gangsters in a city of over forty thousand? They looked no different from the average citizen, and asking locals to rat them out might end up getting even more people killed—a political disaster. Precious also came to mind, but her emotion-sensing abilities lacked clarity across large populations and couldn’t distinguish friend from foe.

Saphiria stopped walking in circles. “Dimitry.”

“Yeah?”

“How fares your development of the flintlock?”

“Don’t know,” he said. “Elias keeps saying he’ll get it done, but I haven’t seen much progress. Why?”

“If your soldiers wielded weapons,” Saphiria said, “gangsters would hesitate to assault them. Until your magic-less voltech rifles are ready, teach your believers in the handling of bladed armaments. Such a deterrent would give me time to secure the streets. Only then will you see Malten’s beauty.”

Her solution made sense. If his misspent youth taught him anything, it was that street thugs shit their pants at the first sight of a knife. So how would they respond to a sword? A mace? He didn’t have to find and maim every gangster; he just had to scare them off.

Or so he hoped.

“Unfortunately,” Dimitry said, “I know nothing about swords or spears.”

“Shall I assign someone to instruct your recruits?”

Saphiria’s offer was tempting, but Dimitry needed more than an instructor. He needed an experienced general that could organize and discipline his army such that they didn’t swing their weapons blindly. Though Richter came to mind, Dimitry had no power over the marquis. There was no way to ensure his loyalty.

But there was another option. Hopefully, it would prove more fruitful.

“Hold on to that offer,” Dimitry said. “There’s a patient I need to see first.”