The following weeks held a lot more walking than he had at first anticipated. Accompanied by a priest called Genrel, a doctor at the Academic Hospital, who served as his guide and a mentor of sorts.
Doctor Genrel was a tall man with short blonde hair, though some gray hairs had already entered the mix. He always, even in a rush, seemed to make a point of pronouncing every word as properly as he could. His clothes were always clean, and when they got dirtied by bodily fluids of his patients, he'd instantly have them cleaned with a quick code. His blue eyes were sharp, and there were clear wrinkles near the corners of his eyes, as well as around his mouth. Either the man liked to frown, or he happened to smile a lot.
The first few days, he just followed him around, a notebook in hand, writing down observations about the patients as well as how Genrel conducted himself.
The man always approached a new patient with a smile that reached his eyes, followed by a calming voice and enough knowledge to diagnose a patient, but also explain the diagnoses in a manner that left the patient more or less satisfied, and not trapped in uncertainty about his or her condition.
Genrel didn't seem to mind the social aspect of it all. He'd engage in idle conversation with patients and nurses while diagnosing or straight-up healing a patient. With patience, he'd listen to an old woman tell about her grandson who'd just recently gotten married, and how excited she was to have grand-grand-children to spoil and play with.
He didn't mind an angry merchant, who, as busy as ever, wanted to be done with his treatment and return to his shop. Nor did he mind a mother and her child, who, with teary eyes, explained how her child had fallen over and broken his arm. Instead of pushing her worries to the side or ignoring them, he'd instead smile and say things like, 'Worry not Mrs Jolen, his arm will be as good as new in a minute or two, these things just happen sometimes.'
And after a few days of following Genrel around, the priest asked Kanrel: "Why do you think I make a point of explaining the ailment of the patient out loud, and why do I approach them in a manner that could be described as pleasant and gentle?"
Kanrel thought for a while. "To, both, explain them to me, but also to them, so that they might become calm and less scared of what has happened to them?"
Genrel nodded. "That is most of it. But we also do it so that in the future, when someone they knew gets hurt, or they themselves get hurt, they'll know that they can always come here, or find a priest, to heal them," he explained. "We do it to show that they can trust us with their lives."
"It is our duty."
Kanrel nodded in turn and wrote down what the man had said. It all made sense. Among the commonfolk there were many doubts about the priests in the form of superstitions. Depending on the person asked, one might say that housing a priest would bring luck, and another person might say that a priest would instead bring misfortune.
"Now that I've shown you the ropes, it is your turn to impress me with the knowledge that you have acquired while training in the simulations," Genrel then said. "You will be mostly diagnosing, healing, and otherwise interacting with the patients on your own, but worry not, I will be just behind you, evaluating your performance. So if you have questions, just ask me. And if it seems that you have difficulties in a manner that might lead to a permanent issue with the patient's health, I will have to step in and take over. Understood?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Good. Now, lead us to the emergency ward," Genrel urged him and revealed a notebook of his own. Kanrel went ahead, his mind already racing. He had been paying much attention to how Genrel did things, and he was worried that the doctor might find his approach regarding the patients lacking.
A young man sat on a bed, holding his right arm close to his chest. He had a pained expression that he tried to mask with an awkward smile that would much rather turn into a pained grin. An angry-looking woman, perhaps the man's mother, pointed at another man, who sat on a nearby bed, holding his jaw; he had a black eye.
Kanrel approached the woman with Genrel right behind him.
"Why'd you do that? Did I raise a brute? You were–" the woman asked in loud whispers, but stopped the moment she noticed Kanrel. The young man on the bed scoffed.
"Oh, good afternoon, doctor...?" the woman suddenly exclaimed and looked at Kanrel up and down, her expression had changed completely, though her mask of politeness could not hide away her annoyance.
Kanrel cleared his throat. "I'm Kanrel, a novice priest, and today I will be serving as your attending medic. And this person behind me is Doctor Genrel, and he will be supervising everything, so if there's a mistake on my part, he will swoop in and make sure that nothing goes wrong," he explained, then smiled as naturally as he could.
The woman looked at Kanrel and Genrel in turn. "Pleasure to meet you…" she then stared at her son, who soon muttered a greeting as well. She then placed her hand on her son's shoulder, and begun explaining: "This brute here, whom I call my son, has went ahead and punched another man," she gestured toward the man sitting on another bed across from them, "and as you can see, he has caused some unnecessary damage to him and himself—the little bastard keeps claiming that his 'fist hurts' and that his 'friend' there 'duly deserved a good punching'."
"He did," her son muttered, to which the mother rolled her eyes.
"Anyways, ignore whatever he might say, I only ask of you to see what is wrong with his fist and then see if my son's 'friend' needs anything fixed," she asked, then stepped aside so that Kanrel might do his job.
Kanrel grabbed the son's hand and looked at it from all angles. The middle and index fingers were both red, and there was swelling. Kanrel explained this out loud, then asked the son, "Could you open and close your fist a couple of times?" The son did as he was told; he grunted slightly because of the pain.
"Well, as you've probably realized, you have two broken fingers, and two options on how we could heal them…" Kanrel met eyes with the mother. "But out of the two, I'd recommend that we align the bones with a splint and then bind them to the rest of the fingers so that they might heal on their own. The healing should take a month or so," he explained.
The mother glanced at her son, then nodded. "No magic needed?"
"Not really, though I suppose I could heal the fracture in less than thirty minutes…"
The woman's brows furrowed, then she suddenly smiled somewhat devilishly, "No need for magic... Maybe a month with a few broken fingers might teach him better than I ever could…"
Kanrel smiled. "As you wish." He then called a nurse, who soon brought with her the required equipment to bind the son's fingers. Then he applied two splinters to the broken fingers to keep them straight, and bound them to the rest of them, leaving most of his hand covered by white cloth, he then explained. "Don't use the broken hand to do anything, and don't remove the cloth or the splinters. Come by in two weeks to have it checked, then you'll hear more instructions. And, of course, if there is intolerable pain, or the splinters fall off for a reason or another, return to the hospital."
The mother thanked him profusely, and the son managed to mutter a somewhat embarrassed 'thank you' as well. He then went across to meet the other young man.
He still held his hand against his jaw, and after a quick introduction, he extended his other hand and revealed a bloodied tooth, "I loft a tooth," he explained. Kanrel looked at it and then at him. "Do you want it reattached?" The man nodded. "It will be painful," Kanrel said. But the man was insistent, "Ith okay."
Kanrel suppressed a sigh. "Open your mouth as wide as you can, and don't close it unless I allow you to." The man did as he was told and soon revealed his mouth of slightly crooked teeth, as well as the spot where a tooth was missing. He floated the tooth from the man's hand, and washed it multiple times with a code of water that swirled.
Then, he rinsed the spot from where the tooth had fallen. He formed another code, this one to shine light into the man's mouth, and floated the tooth where it belonged, after which he inserted the tooth to its place—the man grunted in pain, and a couple of tears involuntarily gushed out of his eyes—attaching it by regenerating the tissue.
It didn't take long, and soon enough, Kanrel called for a nurse to bring him a piece of cloth, into which he formed a few pieces of ice. "Gently hold this against your jaw for a while; it should help with the swelling," he explained. "Come by in a week or so, so that we may check the condition of your tooth."
"Tfhank you," the man said and soon left.
Kanrel was left standing with Genrel as his company. "He must've gotten his teeth punched out a few times before," Kanrel commented.
Genrel sighed. "He indeed has. I saw him just last month…" he said and shook his head.
"Either way, well done allowing both patients agency and explaining the process as well as informing them of potential issues," he then added. "Lead the way, the next patient surely awaits."
The next three weeks went similarly. Kanrel went around the different wards of the hospital, diagnosing and healing patients while Genrel followed him around, taking notes and commenting on his successes as well as pointing out where he could've done better, or could've approached something differently.
The man seemed mostly pleased with how Kanrel was doing. He seldom had to intervene, and he less often had to give any actual criticism after each patient. Though mostly it was directed toward Kanrel's demeanor when talking with a patient and the patient's potential family members.
One day, Kanrel asked how he managed to be so natural, the complete opposite of how Professor Forsvarn seemed to conduct herself. It was the first time that Kanrel had met a priest like him.
And Genrel soon shared why. Apparently, it was all because of his upbringing as well as the tasks that the Priesthood had commanded him to do.
He was just so used to working with ordinary people, so his demeanor was always approachable and pleasant. It had become a habit of his because of years of traveling the edges of the kingdom, meeting people who were very different, and coming to the conclusion that things went much more smoothly if the person talking to him could think of him as a normal human who happened to be a priest instead of someone who might bring them misfortune.
Genrel was basically acting, but it all had a reason: making people around him feel comfortable with him.
This was perhaps the most important thing Kanrel learned during the weeks with Genrel.
During the weeks, Kanrel saw the others usually in passing. Once in a while, during lunch or dinner, they'd have the possibility of talking with each other.
"This is nothing like the simulations," Wen bluntly said during one such lunch. "There really aren't that many overtly dramatic wounds, and more often than not, I find myself not needing to use any codes to fix any ailments…"
Uanna nodded. By the day, she seemed more like herself, though it was unlikely that she'd ever become as she once was. "Yes, I fear that Professor Forsvarn only had her own thesis regarding our uselessness in mind when she taught us…"
"Or she wanted to make sure that none of us would ever become interested enough to want to study medicine, perhaps she wants to have all the potential medical discoveries to herself…" Yirn theorized with a slight smile curled onto his lips. "I believe that she might've figured out how to regain desire through her unethical human experimentation."
Yviev snorted. "So the simulations were only meant as a means to study desire?" She glanced at Kanrel and Uanna, "Perhaps you're onto something... I can't say that I've felt any, but some of us might have... You included."
Yirn grinned. "Come on, I only suggested that we kill her once. I've reformed."
Kanrel blinked. "Well, yes, you can usually only kill someone once," he pointed out.
Yviev rolled her eyes. "Oh, really? I couldn't have figured that one out without you."
Mostly everything was going just fine; there were a few mistakes here and there, but none of them had caused accidental deaths or failed to save their patients. However, some of their guides have had to give tips during diagnoses so that such things wouldn't happen.
He would also see the flock of other novices entering at the same time they did; they were all tired, and he could imagine the things they had to go through daily. And at the end of the day, he'd see proof of this; suffering in their eyes could be seen so easily.
He felt bad for them, but there was a sense of relief within—an emotion he hadn't felt in such a long time. Not the kind that he had felt before, but a comparative one, for the suffering he now felt was surely lesser than what the other students went through. He wouldn't have to go through such pain; it was all behind him now, though it would still visit him in his dreams. In a cold sweat, he would wake in the mornings.
Things could only get better from here.
On the evening of the second-to-last day at the hospital, Kanrel finally received what he had been waiting for. A letter from his mother. At first, he had felt tired, but now, with the letter in hand, the tiredness dissipated, and his hands shook as he opened it to see the long-anticipated words. He felt his body sink as he read:
'Kanrel,
I am glad to hear from you. I've waited for you to write to me for months now.
I am pleased that things have been well for you, and I am even more pleased that you finally tried to make contact with those around you, your fellow novices.
We'll talk about the rest later, for I've managed to make time for a visit there. Though this visit will only happen during the last week of your studies, I will hold a special lecture and a speech on the day of your graduation, and I will be the one to accept your vows.
We will see then, and I hope that such thoughts of doubt will be allayed when we get to talk.'
Her writing was elegant, and her style was as direct as ever. Yet he felt a sting of disappointment. There was no explanation regarding anything. Not even why it had taken so long for her to reply... Sure, she must have been busy; she always was, but it had never taken so long for her to reply. There was something she wasn't telling him, and he wanted to know what that something was. Sure, the rumors regarding her had died out, at least among the novices, and there hadn't been even a single case of vandalism in the past few months. Though this might be because of how little time Kanrel had for walking around the campus, these things might still happen frequently.
He went to bed and found himself churning thoughts within instead of sleeping.
The last day, he was as tired as during the other days, but now he had something different to wait for, something that wasn't too far away. He wasn't excited; instead, he had expectations. Questions that needed to be answered.
The last day was the final lecture that Professor Forsvarn would give to them and only to them. They got the honor of entering her messy office. Paper and books were scattered around; some of the papers seemed to be patient charts, others notifications about some donor-related things regarding the academy itself. A book lay open on the floor, just before them, and what Kanrel could make out of it, he figured that it was about human anatomy.
They didn't get any chairs, and only Forsvarn sat behind her desk, facing them. She didn't welcome them in or give any real orientation to her lecture; she just began:
"Relief is probably what all of you feel in this moment. Ah, it is finally over; no longer do I have to see this bitch of a woman, nor longer shall I suffer on one of those horrid simulation beds."
"Congratulations! Soon, you'll all be free. For now."
"What you're about to hear, you might think that I am saying out of malice, but I assure you that is mostly not correct. Although I do take great pleasure in saying what I am about to say," she said and faked a grin.
"You're all aware that the Priesthood is the one that chooses where you're all appointed, but are you aware that here, in this academy, we, your teachers and professors, have a lot of sway in where you might find yourselves?"
"As in, we get to recommend a position for each of our students, and I've just finished and set multiple letters of recommendation, as well as the results of your past months in my care." She looked at each of them in turn.
"To some of those recommendations, I've written a plea for you to be sent back here or to other hospitals around the kingdom."
There was absolute silence as she spoke, and a level of nervousness had risen among the novices present. Each of them could, in a way, guess if they were recommended or not just based on the conversations they had with their guide.
"Now, do not fret, and instead take this as a sincere compliment from me. I am in a way proud of your performances, how you dealt with your patients, and how you managed to improve and solve the different situations given to you by the simulations."
"There is a lot of aptitude among you. And for that, you all should be rewarded in one way or another."
"So, those letters of recommendation are that reward; they don't only hold my wish for you to all work under me, but also about your abilities in magical medicine, your coding skills, and perhaps most importantly, your problem-solving skills and the will that you all seem to have."
"Such a reward can of course be a curse instead, a condemnation to a life you might not want to live, so let me at least give you this as well: the rest of this day you're free to do as you will."
"You are novices, after all, barely adults, so go and do things students do in their free time: swim naked in the lake or whatever I've seen some of you do before."
They were dismissed, and again Kanrel found himself in the park with his group, sitting on the same benches they had sat on before. The day was less bright and less warm as autumn was slowly coming; the leaves of the great oak trees were starting to shift in color, and soon enough, the ground would be covered with golden and rose-red leaves.
There was no time of the year when the park wasn't somehow beautiful. Even autumn, which many thought would bring death with it later in the form of winter. Around the kingdom, many must have already cleared their fields and paid their taxes, and perhaps even celebrated the bountiful harvests they hopefully had. Kanrel had no image of that; he had never seen a harvest collected, he had only heard of it from his mother and from others.
"I know for sure that I am safe," Yirn blurted out suddenly. "There is no way I'll find myself working in one of those hospitals; I'll make sure of it." Today, he didn't seem tired at all.
Yviev scoffed, "You'll come by as a patient; I am sure of it. Then I'll be waiting there for you to use one of Kanrel's favorite tricks!"
"And what is that? No, let me guess!" Yirn said with a smile on his face, "Does it have something to do with removing my robes and squeezing here and there?"
Yviev grinned while eyeing Kanrel and Uanna. "Yes! I might even squeeze a little too hard so that when you do that, you'll know to moan in excitement!"
Uanna suddenly looked at her with such murder in her eyes that Yviev just made a face at her and then let the topic drop.
Kanrel chose to ignore the jokes of his friends: "I finally got a reply from my mother; she will be visiting during the last month of our studies, and she will apparently hold some lectures and even a speech during our graduation day."
"Some good news at least; I can't wait to meet her," Yirn said with a smile on his face. "I've got some questions of my own for her as well, you know."
"Like what?"
"It's a secret," Yirn whispered loudly, then smiled mysteriously.
Then Uanna got up and pulled Wen with her. "I think we'll go for a long bath; days of not having time to do so have been perhaps worse than anything else," she announced then, with a sudden smile. "Kanrel, you can of course join us; would there be a better way of truly understanding the human body, and this time you'll have my permission as well…" Her invitation was left in the air, and she laughed brightly as she left, pulling Wen with her.
Kanrel was left blinking and baffled. He didn't know what to do or how to react. So all he did was sit in silence and look at how the two girls disappeared into the distance. He couldn't even manage to find a blush to cover his face. Should he try?
Surely she was just joking.
"Well now… Did you do more than carry a couch to her room?" Yviev asked; she was as confused as he was.
Kanrel shook his head. "I only offered a few words of consolation and a smile."
Yirn took Kanrel into a headlock and said, "You fox, that is sometimes all one needs." He had a sweet smile on his face. "You've grown so much, and I am proud of you and all, but can we go somewhere else? It is kind of cold out here."
So they left the park in its blooming autumn beauty and went somewhere they hadn't visited in what felt like an eternity. The Laboratory for the Study of Magical Energy; they hoped to find Oidus and ask her about the coming classes. They visited her laboratory, but there was no one there.
Just more notes scattered around the floor and a lot more notebooks than there were before; Kanrel couldn't help but read one of the pages on the floor: '...they had disappeared before the lectures on magical medicine, and soon after, the amount of graffiti found was more than halved…'
She seemed to be investigating or theorizing about the disappearance of the three students; maybe Kanrel's own theories had been incorrect? He felt another sting within, a slight anger, and he was reminded of the letter his mother had sent his way. He pushed it aside for now; he had to believe that everything would be explained to him in the end.
They hung around for a couple of hours in the hall, trying different codes they hadn't had much time to practice with, like lifting a chair in overly elaborate ways. Poor chair.
When it was getting too late, they left the laboratory behind. At the northern building, they ran into Oidus, but she seemed to be in a hurry and ignored them when they tried to ask her questions. Maybe she had suddenly gotten another brilliant idea that would lead to a failed experiment and then an explosion that would cause her laboratory to be remodeled... again.
Kanrel felt almost relieved when he reached the door to his dorm room. Today had been uneventful with little unnecessary pain or surprises. He had been allowed time for himself, and for the rest of the day, he'd be able to review his notes and arrange them.
He opened the door and saw something unusual. Rose petals, lit by the warm glow of candles. They formed a pathway toward the bed, on which someone was lying down. His hand departed the door's handle; he didn't close it behind him, he approached the bed and soon saw her. Naked, lying on the bed with petals covering her most private parts.
Her eyes were open, and she looked at the ceiling. She was beautifully positioned on the bed as if she had been a piece of art.
Her chest did not rise. She did not blink her eyes. Her gaze was dead. She was dead.
He backed out of his room and went back to the corridor. His hands shook, his whole body did. What was going on? Who was she?