Chapter Text
He would go into his study, lie down and find himself alone with It. Face to face with It. Nothing to be done about It. Only stare at It and go cold.
— Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Artemy Burakh reread the letter for the third time, running his hands over the crisp black ink, examining the navy-blue seal in which it was encased, peeling off the numerous postage stamps, even turning the off-white page over in search of some hidden meaning that could somehow be deciphered. But there was none. There it was, in plain and simple cursive: Bachelor Dankovsky would be returning to the town for reasons unknown.
Of course, the letter did try to provide some sort of explanation; “It seems”, the letter had said, “that my private research takes me once again to your hometown, Burakh. You needn’t reply, for I shall have departed by the time you read this.” Why in god’s name he would want to return after over a year’s absence was beyond Burakh. The man had failed, his final hope blasted to bits by artillery fire. What could possibly await him here, where equipment was scarce, and technology scarcer? And yet, it was undeniably his handwriting, undeniably transcribed with his fountain pen. Still… why—
“Artia,” he looked up to see the teen boy leaning against the door frame, a small rucksack slung over his shoulder. “I said we’re ready to go.”
“Right, I’ll be there in a moment. Just wait by the front door.”
At that moment, a head of unkempt black hair peered from under Sticky. “What happened?” Murky asked.
“Nothing,” Sticky hastily said, taking her by the hand and leading her away from the door, “let’s go.”
“Is it because Uncle Bachelor is coming back?”
“Murky!” Sticky hissed, giving her hand a right squeeze, though she appeared indifferent to the effect she seemed to have had.
Burakh’s eyes alternated between the two. “What— did you read through my mail?”
The boy cast his gaze to the floor. “We didn’t mean to. Sorry…” he mumbled.
Murky pointed a tiny finger at him. “He told me not to tell you.”
“Hey, you’re the one who opened the letter!” He retorted.
“Nuh uh! You said you wondered why Aba got a letter from the Captain.”
“Capital, not Captain! And that didn’t mean I wanted you to open it! I had to refold and reseal it all over again, too.”
Burakh examined the stray bits of yellow wax binding the seal to the envelope. “That explains the shoddy wax work. Dankovsky would never leave an imperfection like this…”
Murky tugged at the hem of Sticky’s flannel shirt. “I told you so, I said you did it too messy.” She scolded.
“Whatever,” he scoffed, taking her with him to the front door. “I wouldn’t have needed to fix it if you hadn’t opened it in the first place.” Their bickering faded into silence as they crossed down the stairs and out of earshot.
Sighing, Burakh looked to the bottom of the letter again. “I trust you to keep the nature of my visit confidential, to the best of your abilities, dear colleague.” He hadn’t even arrived yet, and he had already been failed by Burakh. Eventually, he folded up the sheet and tucked it carefully in the pocket of his trouser before following after the children.
As he walked with them under the early morning sun (grey and drab, as was custom of the late-autumn steppe), relieved that the wind was merciful that day, his thoughts trailed after him like a stray dog begging for attention; he had seen Dankovsky off at the train station, had glimpsed the greys forming prematurely at his scalp, the dark circles streaked beneath his distant eyes under his perpetually furrowed brow, the morose smile he tried to plaster on his face as he said goodbye. That day, a husk had stepped onto the train, not giving even a final glance at the town through the window.
And now, that husk was returning for… what? Research? Thanatica was gone, Artemy knew that much. Perhaps a private, morbid curiosity about his studies of death drew the Bachelor back.
“Hey,” Sticky said. “You wanna know something that Notkin told me?” The two walked with Murky holding one of their hands in each of her’s.
“What?”
“Apparently, if a pig looks at you weirdly, it’s ‘cause it’s tasted human flesh before, so now it knows that it can eat you too. Is that true?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know much about pigs. It’s not like we have any here, anyway.”
“But you know about bulls.” He pointed out. “Bulls and pigs are like the same thing.”
“Bovine and swine are nothing alike, Sticky. That’s like saying eagles and ducks are the same.”
The boy came to an abrupt halt just as they turned a corner. “Speak of the devil.” Ahead, they saw the hulking black form of a bull, air shooting out of its moist nostrils while it poked its snout into a trash can. The earthy, metallic scent of twyre lingered on its short, shimmering black fur, its eyes were beady and brown, and its powerful muscles bulged through its pelt.
“Just move slow now,” Burakh instructed as the children retreated behind him.
“I’ve never seen one this far into town before.” Sticky remarked. Hearing them, it reared its head, knocking off the lid of the trash can with one of its massive ebony horns as it did, chipping off a sizable chunk.
“Neither have I.” He replied, leading the kids to the other side of the road as they carefully passed the creature, which continued to stare at them, motionless except for the occasional flick of its tail, until they turned the corner of the next block. Even there, they could still hear the heavy huffing of its breath, and the clomping of its hooves against the ground.
“Why do they keep showing up? I don’t like them, they’re smelly.” Grumbled Murky. Burakh and Sticky exchanged a look. Even months after the eradication of the Sand Pest, after months of more and more bull sightings around town, Burakh had withheld on explaining to the girl that there were simply no more odonghs left to lead the animals through the steppe. The lizard was gone, yet the tail still flailed, lost. The few kinfolk that remained did what they could, but it wasn’t enough, could never be enough. How could he describe the sight of the Worms dropping like flies in Shekhen to her?
“Let’s go, or we’ll be late—” The cathedral bells rang out, reverberating eight times, Burakh feeling the echo of each gong rattling in the back of his cranium. Shit, Gravel’s gonna have my head for this.
Sure enough, waiting outside the Stillwater observatory, her arms crossed and her foot tapping impatiently on the ground, was Ravel, her shawl tied loosely around her neck, as she always preferred it to be. She bent down to greet the two children with a warm smile as they headed into the building, which had been transformed by her into the town’s only official school.
Burakh, on the other hand, only received a cold look from her. “You’re late again, Cub.”
“Whoops.” She didn’t seem satisfied. “Well, they’re here now, aren’t they?”
“This isn’t an easy job for me. Do you have any idea what it’s like to teach kids who know more about picking locks than they do the written alphabet?”
“It’s not all my fault. We saw another bull on the way here.”
Her expression softened. “Again?” She cupped her elbows in her palms. “Those poor, aimless creatures…”
Even through the layers of fabric, he felt the letter press against his thigh. “Another thing: Daniil Dankovsky is coming back.”
Ravel blinked. “What? Are you serious?” He nodded. “Why? — Oh, nevermind, I have to get going now. Tell me about it later, when you come to pick up the kids, okay?” She waved him off before disappearing through the door.
Burakh checked the pouches of his tunic once again: bottles of water and countless handfuls of twyre that had been picked the previous night filled each of his pockets. That was all he needed, everything else would be waiting for him when he arrived. When he got to the lair, he planted his foot firmly in the soil and hauled aside the heavy steel door. How Sticky and Murky always managed to sneak inside was still a mystery as it was to him last September.
His footsteps resonated through the lair as he descended the metal stairs, hearing water running through the pipes behind the thin walls. He emerged to find Rubin at the basin, furiously scrubbing his hands with a bloodied bar of soap.
He gave Burakh a brief nod of acknowledgement. “You’re late.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“I just had to birth a child again. Third one in two weeks.”
“You make it sound like you’re the one who had to do the birthing.”
In response, he scooped up a handful of water and splashed it at Burakh. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”
He dumped out the contents of his pockets on the counter beside the brewery. “Midwifery suits you, Stakh.”
After one final rinse under his fingernails, he shut off the faucet. “Why don’t you get your eldest to assist us here? I thought he was keen to take after you.”
“A boy who doesn’t know the difference between an antibiotic and an antibody won’t do us much good.”
“That says more about you as a teacher than it does about him as a student, Cub.” Rubin said, moving onto disinfecting an array of tools.
He stuffed a wad of blood twyre inside a grinding basin. “We’re still going through the basics. He’s a hard worker, I’ll have you know, it’s just a shame he’s starting his education later than most.” A red paste smeared across the stone as he grinded down the twyre, then he scraped up the remnants to store them in different labelled jars.
“There’s another thing, Stakh, a letter—”
Just then, the shrill scraping of metal rang out from above, followed by a quick pair of uneven footsteps bounding down the stairs. “No need to get up,” called a snarky voice, “I’m just passin’ through.”
“We were already standing, Grief.” Replied Rubin.
A second later, he appeared at the door, grinning. Blood spewed from an open wound on his forehead, blending into the fiery red hair of his head and dripping down his cheeks.
“What happened to you?” Burakh asked, setting aside the stone.
“Some unruly patrons.”
“I thought you’d left the crime business already.”
“Oh, I have.” He hopped up on the operating table, not caring for the traces of blood still visible, staining the table a deep crimson. “Did you pull a pike outta somebody here or something?”
“No, a baby.” Rubin answered.
His jaw dropped. “You pulled a pike out of a baby?”
“I pulled a baby out of a body, you daft fool.”
“Well just say that then, jeez. Y’know, it wouldn’t hurt for you guys to have a couple of cute nurses helping out here. Anyway, I paid the train conductor his fair share for getting me a buttload of goods, he was just bein’ greedy. Things got a little physical, a punch or two was thrown.”
Burakh approached with a needle and thread, swab, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. “That’ll need stitches. Was his fist made of knives?”
“He may have had a little blade, now that I think about it. Oh, and no anaesthesia, give it to me straight, doc.”
“What did you buy?” Rubin said.
“A whole warehouse full of newspapers.”
“You got knifed over a couple of papers?” He snorted.
From his coat, Grief pulled out a crumpled roll of newspaper, ripped in several places. “Not just any papers, check it out,” he handed it to Rubin as Burakh washed his hands. “People are gonna pay a fortune for this stuff.”
“Lie down.” Burakh ordered, dripping the alcohol onto a swab and wiping away the blood. “What is it, Stakh?”
Rubin’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “War’s over. For us, at least, it seems.”
“What?”
“Hey,” Grief interjected, “don’t distract the fella holdin’ a needle right above my eye!”
“There’s been another revolution,” Rubin continued. “The provisional government’s over, and the new one’s negotiating pulling out of the war.”
“Tsarist?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it.”
The needle went cleanly through the skin, the silver emerging on the other side of the flesh like a plant spurting from the ground, and the thread followed; two parts once torn, now reunited in surgical matrimony.
“You’re trembling, Grief. Are you sure you don’t want something for the pain?”
A drop of sweat ran down his flushed temple. “I’m fine, Cub. Looks like you oughta worry about yourself.”
“Hm?” A gentle tug on the needle pulled and connected and the skin.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed that furrow on your brow, you’ve had it since I got here. Something’s botherin’ you— ow!” He flinched away from the needle, which had jabbed into the sensitive pink flesh. “Watch it!”
“That wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed still,” he mumbled, tying the suture shut and wiping off the excess blood. “You’re right, there is something. Bachelor Dankovsky is coming back.”
Rubin tore his eyes from the paper and stared at Burakh. “How do you know?”
Grief snickered. “You look more surprised about that than news about the war.”
In an instant, he regained his composure. “I just can’t imagine what could bring him back here. Do you know, Artemy?”
He shrugged. “You can ask him when he gets here, I guess.”
“A city boy can’t fare well in the country.” Grief asserted. “He wants somethin’ from here, that’s why.” He looked at Burakh, the muscles under the sutures shifting against their bindings. “Well, Cub? Am I right?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Do you even have a spare room?” He reached to run a hand over the wound, which Burakh promptly slapped away.
“What makes you think he’s staying at my place?”
“It’s not like he can stay in Stillwater again.”
Burakh wiped Grief’s blood from his hands. “Lend him one of your warehouses, then. I thought real estate was your new business.”
He cocked an eyebrow, the stitches curving to accommodate the movement. “He wrote to you, didn’t he?”
“That doesn’t mean he plans on staying with me.”
“So what, you’ll refuse him a roof over his head?”
“Not if he asks politely.”
A sly chuckle came from him, like a mischievous child’s. “We shoulda called you Hound instead of Cub. You’re as loyal as a dog.”
“Would that make Dankovsky my master in this analogy?” Burakh mused.
“No,” Rubin interrupted, “it would make him the post you’re leashed to.”
“Say, about that baby that was born,” said Grief, “was it a boy or a girl?”
Rubin looked away. A quick answer, “Stillborn.”
The Capital
For the fourth time that day, Dankovsky tread over the clump of glass shards that lay between his bedroom and living room, and dredged the final bits of clothing from his closet. I should take sheepskin, he thought, it’ll be too cold for snakeskin alone. He crossed back over to the living room, again trampling over the broken bits of morphine bottles, and stuffed the clothes inside his suitcase on top of the sofa. With no idea of how long he would be gone for, he had decided to pack all the items his little luggage could hold. His doctor’s bag, like last time, would hold his medical equipment, which also included several vials of morphine, heroin, valerian extract, and copious amounts of nicotine (in its many different forms).
Despite having hours to spare before his train, his nerves prohibited him from remaining still for more than five minutes; always his fingers had to be fidgeting, always his foot had to be twitching, always his eyes had to focus on something, the skin on his bottom lip was perpetually flaking off from gnawing on it, the flesh around his nails was raw from being peeled off. Cigarettes were losing their effect, but he had to save the stronger sedatives for when he arrived in town.
Although… maybe a quick little relaxer will be fine. Beads of sweat raced down his forehead as he scurried around his apartment and fished out a tourniquet from underneath a pile of ancient, yellowed newspaper clippings, and tied it around his left bicep in one swift motion. No attention was paid to the sounds outside his window, of the tram rattling down its fated path, or the paperboy calling out news headlines. He hadn’t yet found an unused syringe before a shark knock came at his door.
Dankovsky whirled around, eyes wide with fright, breaking out into a cold sweat. “Who’s there?!”
“It’s us, chief,” came a familiar voice. “It’s us.”
He stumbled back. “Who’s ‘us’?”
“Don’t you recognise my voice? It’s me, Serafima. Platon’s here with me too.”
“Serafima and Platon… yes, I know you.” He opened the door as far as the chain would allow it to go, giving him a glimpse of the two. They hadn’t changed a bit, of course they hadn’t. Serafima had gotten a new pair of spectacles, Platon had gotten a shave, but other than that, they looked the same as they always did, even after all these months.
Platon stared at him in… what was that expression, disbelief? “Christ, is that really you, Daniil? You look like—” Dankovsky saw a flash of movement and heard a grunt as Serafima elbowed him into silence.
“Can we come in?” She asked.
Dankovsky glanced back at his apartment, unable to remember the last time he had cleaned it — moulding strips of wallpaper were slipping off the walls, clutter was strewn about the floor, making it impossible to traverse without navigating through the mess, the place reeked of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and that was just the living room.
He looked back at the two, who were still watching him expectantly. “Are you sure?”
“Please, Daniil.” Serafima pleaded. “We haven’t seen you since Thana— the lab closed down. We’re worried about you.” Reluctantly, he undid the chain and fully opened the door. The pair stepped awkwardly into the apartment, unsure on where to step.
Dankovsky suddenly became conscious of the tourniquet still on his arm, numbing it, which he swiftly undid, then he yanked the suitcase to the floor to free up space on the couch. “Please, sit,” he gestured to the couch, which had springs jutting out in places. The two sat stiffly, visibly uncomfortable. “Would you like tea? I’ll get you some,” he said without waiting for a reply. The kitchen cupboard was empty apart from a pile of shrivelled black leaves collecting dust in the corner. He grabbed a handful and tossed them in two chipped porcelain cups, the last clean dishes he had, though in his haste, he had forgotten to heat the water and filter the leaves. What he gave to his guests were two cups of room-temperature water with leaves sprinkled in.
Platon sniffed his cup. “Hey, chief, I think these are tobacco leaves…”
“Are they? Ah, apologies, let me get those for you.” He grabbed the cups and hurried back into the kitchen. He stopped before the sink, considered the sorry beverages for a moment, then downed each cup, trying not to gag at the bitter taste of diluted tobacco leaves, before dumping the soggy pile left at the bottom of the cup into the basin.
In the living room, he dug through a mound of empty bottles, eventually procuring a half-full bottle of cognac. “Drinks, anyone?”
The two shook their heads. “I think you’ve had enough, chief…” Serafima said quietly.
“Right, right,” he let the bottle clatter to the ground, then took his place on an armchair opposite the couch. “You know you don’t need to call me ‘chief’ anymore. We’re no longer colleagues.” His eyes moved instinctively to a clipping by the foot of the coffee table from a d-list scientific journal, the only one willing to publish his findings about the Sand Pest; then, as usual, he landed on the numerous clippings beside it from the most prestigious journals in the Capital, criticising his quarantine policies and his lack of concrete knowledge about the disease. He had been denounced by countless faceless scientists in countless different fonts from St Petersburg to Moscow.
“So… are you travelling?” Platon said, desperately trying to change the topic.
“That’s the plan, if the war doesn’t disrupt the train lines.”
Serafima and Platon swapped a worried glance. “Daniil,” she began, “the war’s over now. There’s been a revolution, Russia’s pulled out of the conflict.”
“A revolution, you say? So the Tsar’s finally been toppled?”
The worried glance turned into a baffled gape. “The Tsar abdicated after the first revolution, back in February — god, Daniil, what have you been doing all this time?”
“Yes, I’d heard about that,” he mumbled, recalling a brief mention of the debacle in the headline of a newspaper (which also featured an article about how Dankovsky was a fraud and deserved to have his degree revoked).
“You didn’t answer me. What have you been doing during these months.”
“I…” he reached into the pile of papers and presented her with a fistful of copies of his studies about the Sand Pest. “I’ve been publishing papers, of course. A strain like this plague deserves to be studied vigorously. Experiential docet, I think you’ll find my findings quite extraordinary.”
She shook her head. “You’re not listening to me. What have you been doing with your life since Thanatica—”
Platon placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “We’ve read your report.” He said softly.
Dankovsky clutched the clippings so tightly his knuckles whitened. “And?”
“Brilliant, as always. You’ve outdone yourself again, chief.”
The papers scattered to the floor. “You’re pitying me…”
“No, I mean it, the report was really well—”
“Stop it already, I won’t be babied like this.” He snarled, then switched his focus on Serafima. “You want to know what I’ve been doing all this time? Look around you,” he nodded to the bottles, broken vials, filthy syringes, “this is what I’ve been doing. This is what Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky has come to.” He reached for the cognac again, murmuring, “Qui totum vult totum perdit…”
Serafima leaned forward, the couch creaking loudly as she did. “Daniil, let us help you.”
“I don’t need your help.” He replied, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Besides, my train leaves at ten.”
“Where are you going?”
“I fail to see how that’s any of your business— hey!” He protested as she snatched the bottle away before he could lift it up to his lips again.
“You’re going back to that rural steppe town, aren’t you?”
His upper lip pulled back in a sneer. “Well, aren’t you a clever one?”
“But why? That disease was eradicated, wasn’t it?”
“Indeed, the Sand Pest is no more. I have my own motives, though. Ones that I don’t intend to share. I’m sorry, both of you, but that’s the way things are.”
A somber look passed over her eyes. “I just don’t see why you won’t let us help you,”
“I already told you, I don’t need any help.”
“But look at you!” She exclaimed. “No one’s seen you in months, you haven’t responded to any of our letters, you’ve got god knows how many substances inside you right now, and — forgive me, chief — but your life has gone to shit. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to kill y—”
“Enough.” It was a quiet warning, yet a warning nonetheless, one Serafima and Platon could recognise at any moment. “I think it’s time you take your leave. I need to finish packing.” Hesitantly, they stood and clambered over the apartment mess towards the door.
“How long will you be gone for?” Platon asked Dankovsky’s inert figure, which sat rigidly in the armchair, staring at the ground.
“I’m not sure.”
“Will you write to us when you return?”
“… Goodbye,” colleagues? friends? “doctors.” A minute passed before he heard the door shut.
Shakily, he rose, and looked around for the tourniquet again. So what if his former associates thought of him as a lowlife? So what if he was disgraced from academia? So long as he was still welcomed back into the town-on-Gorkhon, nothing else mattered.
Let them all cry curses against him, he was damned anyway.
His chest seized as he reached down to pick up the tourniquet, an invisible hand clutching his lungs with a steel grip. He lurched forward, feeling the air forced from him as the bitter taste of bile filled his mouth.
His peripherals blurred as he keeled over, grasping his chest. Dankovsky fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief, and spat out a congealed mix of phlegm and blood. The metallic taste lingered on his tongue long after he expelled the contents out of his body.
There was more blood than last time.
He dropped to his knees, heaving. Only then did he notice the other item that had fallen out of his pocket when he had taken out the handkerchief. His nerves jittered when he saw it.
A letter. The letter, folded neatly into a square. With quivering hands, he picked it up and opened it as though he was afraid something would jump out at him from inside it. Nothing had changed, it was the exact same as when he had first read it a week ago.
Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky,
There is another way.
— Victoria Olgimskaya Sr., The Light Mistress.