Chapter Text
Nothing made sense anymore. The Daniil Dankovsky who had stepped off the train and set foot in Town-on-Gorkhon fifteen days ago was a public favorite, immensely popular, a capital luminary with a promising career, and still full of hope for the greatest discovery in the history of medicine. In those fifteen days, the Sand Plague had stripped him down to his skeleton, by its own or other hands.
The Town survived, but the Polyhedron was destroyed. It was unfamiliar and painful to look up at the empty sky from the doorstep of Broken Heart. Dankovsky shook the bottle once more and took a sip. Local alcohol was hardly intoxicating, but Daniil suspected it was because of stress, disappointment, and general body wear and tear after nearly two weeks in survival mode, where each next day had been worse than the last. He needed to get enough sleep, but now he could only sleep for a few hours at a time, inevitably waking up terrified and sticking with insomnia.
The trains weren't running yet, which meant he was trapped here in this damned Town where everybody hated him. Dankovsky sighed; he knew that returning to the Capital was almost a death sentence, but he didn't see much alternative. Everything had collapsed, one way or another, his future life seemed to him vague if it existed at all.
Burakh was probably celebrating, he thought. Despite his difficult return to the Town, he won back the trust of townsfolk and ruling families, and even a group of children who hung around him from time to time.
And still, looking not at the empty sky, but at the Town - the people who began to reappear in the streets - Dankovsky could understand why Burakh did what he did. In the end, it worked: the Plague was gone and there were no new infected people since the day the Polyhedron fell.
It was worth getting to the Stillwater before it got dark. The Plague was gone, taking the military with it and leaving the Town to recover on its own, still cut off from the rest of the world, with meager supplies of food. The nights were still dangerous.
He was about halfway down the road when a thin boy with straw-colored hair jumped out in front of him, looking as if he'd run across the Town. Dankovsky couldn't remember his name, but he'd seen him before.
But the boy certainly recognised him. “Bachelor!” He took several deep breaths as if he had no time to breathe normally. “Burakh is dying!”
His worst nightmare of the last few nights had come true. Dankovsky looked at the boy disbelievingly and swayed. “No…”
“Let's go, please!”
Daniil patted his pockets, suddenly realising that all of his medical instruments were at home. “Go to the Stillwater and bring my bag”. He waited for a nod. “Where's Burakh? In his basement?”
“No, he's in Isidor's House. It's unlocked, I had no time—”
“I get it.”
Dankovsky almost ran to the Hindquarters. His head was crammed with all the "what ifs." Isidor's house was clean: Daniil has made sure of that himself. And two days ago, Artemy Burakh was definitely healthy, except that he was exhausted. On the other hand, they all looked lousy on the twelfth day of the Plague, by working fingers to the bone and marauders. Dankovsky did not know what the Town looked like in peacetime. And apparently, he never would, he thought sadly.
His legs were heavy and his lungs were burning from running when he stopped in front of the porch of the Burakhs' house. The door was indeed unlocked. Dankovsky went inside, realising belatedly that gloves were the only protective equipment he had because he rarely took them off.
It was dark and quiet inside, with the smell of dust everywhere; it had not yet been inhabited long enough.
“Burakh!” Dankovsky shouted, but no one answered him.
He looked around the ground floor, and finding no one, went upstairs. In one of the rooms, Isidor's as Dankovsky remembered, he found Artemy on the floor unconscious. His breath was imperceptible, and Daniil rushed to him, pressing the artery in his neck. There was a pulse, but a slow one. Looking more closely, Dankovsky noticed the slow rise of his chest - so he was breathing. Daniil exhaled and took another close look at the body in front of him. The symptoms of the Sand Plague were still fresh in his mind, even the early ones, but Burakh seemed to be suffering from something else. Yes, he was paler than usual and the shadows under his eyes spilled with darkness, but much less than two days ago. He had no inflammation, oozing sores, red rashes, or fever. Dankovsky cursed himself at the absence of his bag, glanced at the stupid green coat, and realised that it would take too long to unbutton. Putting his ear to the slowly lowering chest, he listened to the breathing but found no wheezing in the lungs. There were no visible injuries or bleeding.
Nevertheless, Burakh was far from well.
“Will he die too?..”
Daniil turned around. In the doorway was a scruffy little girl about seven or eight years old. Dankovsky remembered that he had also seen her before.
“I hope he won't,” he answered the girl, feeling out of sorts. The children of this Town seemed mature beyond their years, but it was foolish to expect anything else after the second outbreak of a deadly disease in five years. “It's not the Plague, as far as I can tell.”
“Sticky found you,” she didn't ask.
“Yes. He'll be back soon, too,” Dankovsky noticed that it was starting to get dark outside the window and hoped the boy wouldn't get into trouble.
Burakh's body was still on the floor, and for a second it might have looked like he was merely sleeping. It was necessary to find out what had happened to him, but a seven-year-old child could hardly know.
Rising from his knees, Daniil shook off his trousers and turned to the girl again. “Do you know where the lights turn on in here?”
By the time Sticky returned, Dankovsky had managed to drag Artemy to the bed - he was heavy in his relaxed state, and it took a while. Daniil found an old armchair in one of the common rooms and moved it here, placing it beside the bed. It was frightening that Burakh had not come to his senses while he was being examined, or while he was being lifted. He didn't even frown at the pain test.
“Got it,” the boy put the bag on the floor and the glass inside clinked.
Daniil frowned, “Young man, there are tools in there, after all.”
Sticky also frowned, but did not reply. Instead, he walked over to Burakh and looked sadly first at him and then at the Bachelor. “It's the Plague, isn't it?”
“It doesn't look like it,” Daniil answered, putting some of his stuff on the table. Fortunately, he hadn't had time to unpack the bag, and it was full of everything he could use. “The Sand Plague has different symptoms. But I don't know what's wrong with him…” he glanced again at Sticky, trying to figure out his age; there wasn't much the teenager could help with either, but he didn't have much choice. “Did you see what happened? Did he fall?”
“Nah... He became silent suddenly, then sat down on the floor, and then this…”
Well, that didn't make much sense. Daniil frowned but nodded.
The girl appeared behind Sticky's back; she immediately clutched at his plaid shirt and asked quietly: “Will he help?”
The boy stroked her head, nodded, and answered just as quietly: “Of course. He's a real doctor, from Capital.”
A fortnight ago, Dankovsky would have been flattered. Now, after a string of failures in this Town, he only sighed. “Bring me a candle. I saw some in the house.”
The children left and Dankovsky returned to Burakh on the bed and began unbuckling the straps and clasps on his coat. By the fifth he hated what he was doing.
“Well, now I see why you slept in your clothes,” he knew Artemy was unconscious and wouldn't answer, but complaining gave him the illusion everything was under control. “And I was sure it was some local tradition.”
Finally finished with the coat, Dankovsky opened it and, taking a stethoscope from the table, listened to Burakh once more, but found nothing strange. He made another inspection and took a blood sample. When the children brought a candle, he checked the reaction of the pupils and frowned again.
“Why did you say he is dying?” Dankovsky asked, turning to Sticky and thinking belatedly that the question was pointless. People here were still frightened by the proximity of death and it was on everyone's tongue.
“That's what he said,” the teenager nodded at Burakh. “Before he fell. I don't know why.”
Well, that made even less sense. Maybe it's some kind of chronic illness, Daniil thought, glancing out the window. Night had already fallen on the Town, and Daniil understood belatedly that he would stay in this house at least until morning. He looked at the children still standing by the bed.
“You live here, don't you? With Burakh?” waiting for a nod, he stowed the coat on the back of the chair and covered Artemy with a blanket instead of it. “Then go to bed. I'll keep an eye on him until morning. Everything will be all right.”
Sticky glared at him, clearly intending to stay, but Dankovsky pointed to the younger girl with a nod and he frowned.
“Come on, Murky,” Sticky took her hand and led her out of the room, “I'll tuck you in today.”
When they were gone, Daniil sat down slowly in the armchair and buried his fingers in his hair, letting his panic run through him. He didn't know what was going on and didn't know what to do. To see Burakh in such a condition was terrifying, and even more scary was the lack of any apparent reason for it.
The microscope was still at the Stillwater, as were several useful books, but at the bottom of his bag, Dankovsky found his work journal, which he had kept during the Plague - when he had time to do it. He settled down in the armchair and began to reread the notes from the beginning, just in case he'd missed something, checking on Artemy from time to time.
He decided that he would send for Rubin in the morning. The local diseases might have had specifics that he was unaware of. The cursed Town with its cursed steppe…