Ви Корс - The Mist and the Lightning. Part 17

“Here it is. Do as you want.”

Kors took a pencil, he heard that Nik in his thoughts quickly thought: “Or do you want to cut your letter with a knife on the back of my head?” Kors froze for a moment, but decided to pretend he didn’t understand.

With a rod soaked in black dye, he renewed his letter. He circled the lines thicker and smoother. The letter “V” stood out brightly on his Nik’s cheek again, and Kors was overwhelmed with emotions, and he understood that they were base and wrong, and that he was feeding Demon with them, and now he was feeding him much more satisfying than with meat before, but Kors couldn’t do anything with himself.

“Let’s go,” said Vitor Kors to Nikto.

“Where?”

“To the doctor.”

“What for?”

“The reds have good medicines, let him give some to you.”

“Vitor, I don't want to.”

“But you need drugs, Nik, and preferably of the Upper.”

“Can you go to him without me?”

“What nonsense?”

“Well, okay, let me go with you and wait for you behind the door.”

“Nik, don't talk nonsense! What a slavish habit of always waiting behind the door? You will just come with me to the doctor’s office, and let him help you.”

“He’s red, I'm not sure he wants to help me.”

“First of all, he heals people, he took an oath and is obliged to help!”

“But not people like me.”

“I love that you keep away from people and don’t trust them, but you don’t have to be completely wild, Nik. Let’s go, why are you against it? Everything is alright. I’m with you, my dear.”

Nik, head down dejectedly, trailed behind the confidently walking Kors, he turned to him:

“Why do you remember now how I took you to dinner with the blacks? These are completely different cases. Don’t compare the noble blacks and the common red healer.”

“He's not common, he is Kudmer’s personal doctor.”.

“And it is very good! It means that he has good expensive drugs. Reds take tattoos and scars calmly, have you seen their teeth? What are you afraid of?”

“Yes, but the red ones treat black water very badly, he will refuse to treat me.”

“What do you mean refuse? Let him try! Then I'll make him do it.”

“Vitor, no… black water is taboo for the reds…”

“We won’t tell him.”

“If he is a doctor, he will understand, and he cannot help, this is taboo…”

But Vitor Kors didn’t listen to him and entered the doctor’s office without knocking. An elderly man in a white robe and a white cap raised his head in surprise and quickly got up from the table, he quickly reached out to the stack of sheets, taking his glasses from it and putting them on.

“A joyful evening,” said Kors loudly in red and himself laughed at what he said.

“Vitor, why are you doing that,” Nikto told him inwardly, but Kors continued to smile insolently, pretending not to hear him. The doctor looked at them, two black warriors in leather clothes, hung with weapons, in some shock.

“I… I… support the policies of the new Head of the town Sigmer and the idea of independence for the red underground people,” he said quickly.

“Underground?” Snorted Kors. “What kind of stupid definition do you give to our world? Why underground? Do you think we all live underground here?”

“This is what the reds from the Upper World think, sir,” justified the doctor, “for them our world is a huge cave in which we live, yes.”

“Okay, let’s skip their silly fabrications and geographic cretinism, we have come on business and for help,” Kors said sharply, and, slightly leaning towards the doctor, carefully looked at the rectangular badge attached to his medical gown at chest level.

“Doctor Cartmer,” he grinned.

“For help?”

“My name is Vitor Kors, and this is my son, and I want you to give us medicine for him.”

“He is ill?”

“Yes.”

“What is with him?”

“He has…” Kors was a little delayed with the answer, remembering the name on the red, “hepatitis. And we need the drugs of the Upper. The best.”

“Hmm, and what kind of hepatitis does he have, what form?”

“What do you mean, the form?”

“Hepatitis is different.”

“Really?”

“You don’t know what kind of hepatitis he has and ask for medicine, not really knowing anything about his illness?”

“Listen, Cartmer, it's your job to know about diseases, I'm not a doctor.”

And the doctor smiled condescendingly:

“I have noticed. Well, we need to find out first what happened to him. Establish a diagnosis and then seek medication. It’s strange that you don’t know his diagnosis. Maybe he doesn't have hepatitis at all, but something else? You would first figure it out…”

Kors suddenly abruptly drew his sword from its scabbard, forcing Nikto and the doctor to recoil from him in different directions, but he simply thrust the hilt into the doctor’s hands:

“Hold and make me an eight, show me a banal eight, well? Why don't you do it?”

The doctor turned pale:

“But… but. I'm not a warrior!”

“I'm not a doctor, damn it!” Shouted Kors. “And I don't have to know all the forms of your fucking hepatitis! You are too proud of your knowledge and medical subtleties here! You look at us with superiority! You see, he knows all forms of hepatitis, but we don’t! Let me now make you fight my son and see how you know all the intricacies of swordsmanship! What, you don’t know anything? So why the hell am I supposed to know your job?”

Cartmer was dumbfounded, and he carefully held out his sword to Kors.

“Take it, please. I am sorry if I was wrong.”

Kors made an arrogant and displeased face and took the sword from the doctor:

“That's it.”

He looked around the room. In Cartmer’s large and bright cabinet, in tall glass cases, there were many hermetically sealed containers, in which all kinds of human organs, embryos and babies with anomalies and other wonders were kept.

Kors looked sideways at the can from which, it seemed, a human eyeball was also staring at him:

“What the shit?”

“This is a unique collection of human organs, healthy and damaged by diseases. I have been collecting it for many years,” the doctor answered, not without pride.

Kors looked skeptically at the life-size skeleton in the corner.

“Oh well…”

His attention was drawn to medical devices located near a tall window, half-sealed with thin white paper.

“Is it a weighing machine?”

“Yes.”

Kors nodded at Nik.

“Weigh him.”

“Weigh?”

“Vitor…”

“Shut up, Nik! I want to know how much he weighs. I think he is underweight, I want to know how much to take action. It is strange that this is not obvious to you and is surprising. I have already begun to doubt your professionalism.”

“Well, well. But then he needs to take off his clothes.”

“No, this is impossible. He won’t undress in front of you.”

“Not in front of me, I don’t need it, but in order for the scales to show the correct body weight.”

“Go weigh him! I will subtract the weight of the clothes, I understand this.”

The doctor just shook his head.

“Then let him at least unfasten his weapon.”

“Okay. Nik, take off your belt and unfasten your swords.”

Nikto obediently took off his weapons and stood on the scales. The doctor aligned the weights on the bar in front of him.

“Well, what is there?” Kors asked impatiently.

Cartmer gave him a number:

“Normal weight. For his height, this is a perfectly acceptable body weight.”

“But he’s thin!”

“He is thin, but not below the norm for his height.”