Chapter 16 – Appointment with the Doctor

"Incredible, you Frosthold are something else." The Doctor commends George for standing up after her guards beat him until he is bruised. They were expecting him to confess, but his lips remained sealed.

"Leave us. I will squeeze him till he gives me what I want." The Doctor said to her guards.

George wished the guards never leave. He feels safer with them as the dread within the Doctor's plague mask intensifies with every second passing. He can feel the mask holding back a demon inside. 

The Doctor slowly approached George. George can see the Doctor's eyes begin to flicker into a reddish fire within the beady glass. George's heart skipped a beat as he saw something unnatural and unholy before him.

"The northern town of Frosthold is resting beneath the cold mountain region of our Kingdom. I wonder why its knight abandoned its post and prefers to meddle in my affairs. Why is that?" The Doctor asked while looking at George with unusual red eyes. But even with her intimidation, George remained silent.

The Doctor used her Sense to listen to George's heartbeat and follow its pace.

"Was it for revenge?" the heartbeat is steady.

"Is it about a lover that you followed here?" his heartbeat is the same.

"Or was it about a cough that took into a fever?" and there! The heartbeat of the sturdy knight jumped. Despite George keeping a steady face to show no emotion or hints for her, his heart does not lie.

"The whole Kingdom is suffering from this plague, George. What made you think my humble village is the source?" Like before, George didn't speak a word.

The Doctor took out the journal she left at the lab. And asked George if he had read this. The Doctor expected his heart to change its pace, but she was surprised it didn't.

"He wasn't alone." the Doctor said to herself. She used her Sense in that room and heard everything. If someone were relieved from not being caught reading her journal, their heart would change its pace to a slower one. Whoever that was, the Doctor was impressed. She figured a seasoned assassin was hired by a rival family who wanted her out.

She put her thoughts back on her mind and resumed her questioning of George.

"George, if I kill you here, will your grandfather, Berg Frosthold, raise his army for vengeance?" the Doctor hears no changes in George's heartbeat. A sign that George acted alone without knowing or informing his grandfather.

"Still no answer?" the Doctor quickly lost her patience and opted for violence. She quickly flicked her wrist, and a set of knives fell from her clothes and slid between her fingers. She threw two of the blades into George's left leg. 

"I grew tired of your deafening silence!" The Doctor sadistically smiled as she drove one of the knives deeper into George's legs. George's scream echoed thru the halls of the dungeon and into the upper part of the Keep.

"Ah, you got a healthy set of lungs. Loud! Like a bird that loves to sing. I hope this little bird tells me why it came to my Keep. It will be a shame if tune stops!" the Doctor twists the knives making George scream for mercy.

"The rats!" George yells. "The rats were everywhere! I followed them here! I blended as one of your aides yesterday to learn where the rats came from. I thought they made a breeding ground underneath your Keep." George finally gives. The years of being a knight taught him the familiarity of a stabbing blade. But Doctor's knives are something else. The blades are coated with a chemical that burns his flesh. Every second it stays on his leg, it builds up an excruciating pain that breaks his silence.

"Rats? Where?" feigning ignorance, the Doctor applied pressure on the knives to keep George talking. George began to shake violently from the intense pain. The Doctor revealed in George's pain; that this is one rare instance, she could observe the effects of the concoction she applied to her knives.

"A huge pack of rats! I saw them running from our mountains and back to this region! I thought they were the cause of the plague. Please stop!" George began to contort in pain and beg her to stop.

The Doctor, hearing no change of pace in George's heart, decided to recover the knives and give him a rest. 

"That means one of my generals failed to whistle correctly. Made the rats go to the regions where they shouldn't go yet. This would hamper my plans if this happened in the earlier phase, but it's a good thing the Chalice already spread. As long as the Kingdom sees the rats cause the plague, they can hide the truth of how my plague spreads."

"See? That wasn't so hard." The Doctor left him and promised to return in the morning.

The Doctor exited the dungeon and found one of the guards standing there and the other hurrying back to his position.

"Sorry! I just had to take a leak." The guard said as they hurried back to his position to greet the Doctor.

"Stay alert! There is an assassin in the Keep! Get back in there and lock the dungeon. You two will only let me or my generals enter. No exception! You two understand?!" The Doctor yelled at the two guards for their incompetency.

Once she left, the two guards began to argue with each other. 

"Why did you need to go while we were on duty?!"

"Hey, man! I can't help it! I need to go when I need to go, you know?"

"And it almost cost our lives! Didn't you hear that man screaming down here?"

"Of course I did! I kept hearing it when I was taking a leak."

"So that's why it took you, like, what? Ten minutes? You were scared while pissing?"

"Yeah? And what's it to you?"

"Feh! That's why I can smell your piss all over you."

The two guards return to the dungeon and see a beaten George lying on the floor with a bloodied leg. Both are in awe and scared of what the Doctor did to him. 

"I wonder how did he break? A while ago, he was quiet and shut like a stone. Then he was just stabbed, and he immediately spoke."

"Maybe Lady Margaret coated her knife with one of her alchemic mixtures. A mix so painful that even a seasoned knight breaks."

The guard turned his head and looked at his partner with confusion. "Lady Margaret?"

"Was I supposed to say the Doctor?" the other guard replied.

"We always address her as the Doctor after she saved us. You always did." The guard said before his suspicion grew. He held his hand on his blade and began to look at his friend and noticed that his hair was shorter, and his height was missing a few inches.

Before he could draw his blade and alert the others, a fist flew to his throat, stunning him and rendering him unable to breathe well. Then a kick swept underneath his feet and hit his head on the floor, rendering him unconscious.

"Yeah, this is why John is better than me at parties. Can't even use the correct title for Margaret." William then removed the helmet and recovered the keys from the unconscious guard. He unlocks George's cell and gives the unconscious guard's item for George.

"Come on, George, I'm here to rescue you. Wear his clothes, and let's leave before anyone else notices us."

George looked at the face of his savior and slowly remembered him seeing him in the Grand Tourney before the death of Eldric. "You're Eldric's squire. What's your name again? William, was it?"

A heavy weight hangs in William's heart. He cannot let this chance pass; else, his guilt will come to haunt him. 

"Yes, I am William. George, I know you have many things to ask, but you are caught in a huge conspiracy that has a far-reaching grip on our Kingdom…." William stopped and saw George's face gripped his fear and confusion.

William helped George to clean his wound. While doing it, William started to explain his story of how Eldric died after an assassination ordered by the shadow organization, Pentalium, how William trained for a year with the hunters in the mountains and managed to kill the Chief, one of the Pentalium. He then explained that his search for the Pentalium helped him uncover the truth of this plague, another orchestration by the Pentalium.

"At first, I had no clues to follow. I held a grudge against his old foes and friends as the potential killer. I thought Lord Lenato, you, and your grandfather, Berg, as one of Eldric's killers. But after what happened to you and how Pentalium almost burned Lord Lenato, I believe you are a victim, and I would like to apologize."

George looked at him, approving of his sincere apology. "You mean well, William. Thank you for finding the strength to say those words. I forgive you, but we can continue this later. Things are getting out of hand here. First, the plague, and now a woman with devilish eyes waking among us!"

They need to get out safely and hopefully find John along the way. William deliberately hid any information first regarding his red eyes. He knows it will throw off George or might shock him more from what he just went thru.

"I can stand in the Royal Court against this village, but I cannot do it without any damning evidence."

"Well, that journal in the alchemic lab got everything! That plague is not from the rats. It is distributed via a drink named the Chalice. But I failed to get it when the Doctor and her alchemist entered the room. I hid among the huge machinery above the vials and -"

William then read the room. George wasn't mad, but the two shared a long awkward pause. George breaks the silence and says he is thankful they have the answer to who caused this plague.

George and William left the dungeon and began their way out of the Keep. William can go thru the window and scale the wall of the Keep, but George's leg can't support climbing. Their only option is to the main door, where John entered early, while the back has barracks stationed there.

They managed to blend with the other guards patrolling the area. Sometimes, they would encounter the generals patrolling with their masks on. Having fought five of them already send shivers down William's spine; he can barely hold against one. He cannot fathom holding against 20 of them.

Finally, they arrived at the entrance of the Keep. William used his Sense to ensure no one was around the reception area. Once the coast was clear, William and George hurried to the gate. But before they could reach it, William heard a faint walking behind them.

"George, slow down. Somebody just entered the reception area and is heading toward us."

"Huh? How did you hear that?"

"Pretend that we are just patrolling, okay?"

William's Sense helped him recognize this person's walking pattern without turning around. Due to the delay of intervals in stepping and grunt of pain, while walking, William deduced it was the receptionist, Maria. 

When William and George turned around, they found Maria wearing her mask and donning her red silk clothing.

"Guards, what are you doing here?" Maria approached the two while holding her rapier by her side.

"Per the Doctor, we guards are tasked to patrol the Keep." George spoke up with a strong, commanding voice to assert him and William as hardy guards. They hope Maria will buy their deception, but she is like a hawk cornering her prey.

"Where were you before arriving at my reception area?" Maria asked George. William felt the tension rising. Something is off, but he cannot pinpoint what makes Maria suspicious of them.

"We were from the alchemy lab. We were en route to the kitchen and just had to pass thru here." George confidently said. He spent a day in the Keep and memorized the layout of Keep. He is confident that his answer will stave off Maria. 

While George was distracting Maria, William used his Sense and finally saw the small trail of blood droplets on George's foot. Due to his haste to put George in harm's way, he failed to notice the bandages were leaking blood. Maria might have seen their trial and followed all the way here. 

"That's the why she won't buy George's words!" William muttered to himself. Before William could react, he detected the shift in Maria's stance. William has no choice now but to fight her.

William unsheathed his blade and parried Maria's rapier before it could reach George. Even with Maria's limp, she was still fast enough to outspeed William's attack. Her attack was relentless! The barrage of attack manages to send hit William's helmet and send it flying off his head.

"I know you! You were the one who defended Lenato and foiled our plans!" Maria began to fume in anger as William reminded her of his failure.

William has no choice but to finish this fight quickly! William finally used his Sense's full power and made his eyes turn red. This throws off Maria, and in that moment of hesitation, William stabs her in the shoulder to render her immobile. But Maria was not going down without a fight and tried to stab William's side. George ignored the pain in his leg and rushed towards William and sliced off Maria's hand before she could hit William's side.

"Doctor?" Maria muttered before dying while looking at William's red eyes. William then returns to his normal eyes before George sees it. Before William can thank George for saving him, they can feel the loud charging of angry men coming from the hallway to the reception area. 

The moment William clashed against Maria, the Doctor immediately heard it thru her Sense. She quickly organized her infected initiates and was instructed to rush toward William and George. 

"We cannot outrun them," George says as he ready his stance.

William uses his Sense lightly and readies his 'dance' "Let's do this."