The summons arrives, as all edicts from the Priest Kings do, with an absence of flourish and an abundance of undeniable command. I was tending to a minor noble's fractured ulna, when a tall Elder Initiate, silent and swift, appears. His eyes, black beads in masked faces, convey the message before their guttural voices intone it.
"The Nest requires your presence, Physician. An Initiate of the First Circle. In the Sardar Mountains." I set down my bone-setter, my movements precise and unhurried despite the sudden cold knot in my stomach. An Initiate. In the Sardar. The Priest Kings do not waste their breath on common maladies or distant inconveniences. This is grave. This is a task that carries the implicit weight of their favour, and their displeasure should you fail.
"Prepare my instruments," I instruct my assistants, my voice calm, belying the rapid thrum beneath my ribs. "And ready a Tharlarion mount. The swiftest and most resilient."
The journey to the Sardar Mountains is a brutal tapestry woven of thin air and relentless cold. I am not riding; I am being carried, tucked into a specialized, heated tarl-cabin lashed securely to the back of a massive, sure-footed Tharlarion. Its scaly hide, thick and ridged, offers some insulation, but the biting winds that howl down from the peaks seem to find every crevice. Below, the ground falls away in dizzying precipices, the path a precarious ledge carved into the sheer rock face. Snow, driven by the gale, occasionally stings the small observation slit in the cabin, coating the world in a transient, blurring white.
Hours bleed into one another. I use the time to review my knowledge, mentally cycling through the various plagues, ailments, and injuries known to the Gorean medical texts. Considering the delicate physiology of the male Initiate, who are chosen young and bred for intellect and spiritual purity, often living cloistered lives within the high spires of Ko-ro-ba or the secluded temples. Such men, while mentally formidable, are often physically less robust than a caste warrior or a free man of the plains.
What could fell an Initiate so gravely that the Priest Kings themselves dispatch their Physician to such a remote and dangerous location? Poison? A fall? Or something more insidious, a slow decay that has baffled the lesser physicians tending to the secluded mountain sanctuaries? I prepare for everything, my bags filled with tinctures, restoratives, surgical tools of polished steel, and the potent, rare elixirs used only in dire emergencies.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity of bone-jarring ascent, the Tharlarion slows. The tarl-cabin is unlatched from the outside, and I step out, pulling my thick fur cloak tighter against the glacial air. I take in the narrow pass, flanked by towering, jagged peaks that scrape against the bruised, twilight sky. A small, temporary encampment is set up, a cluster of fur yurts and a flickering fire, watched by heavily cloaked guards. At the heart of it, a natural cave entrance, crudely but effectively sealed with thick hides, pulses with a faint, warm light.
I am led into the cave. The air inside is still and strangely warm, heated by concealed fires. It smells of dried herbs, sweat, and something else – the faint, sweet-sickly scent of impending death. Two junior Initiates, their faces pale and drawn, stand guard. They bow deeply, their reverence tinged with despair.
"He is within, Physician," one whispers, his voice hoarse. "He has not stirred for a full rotation."
As I step into the inner chamber. It is stark, hewn from the rock, with only a pallet of furs, a small brazier, and a few ritualistic carvings adorning the walls. On the pallet lies the Initiate. His name, I am told, is Israel . He is old, perhaps over one hundred and eighty, though the wasting illness has etched lines of accelerated age onto his face. His skin is drawn tight over prominent cheekbones, his lips cracked and dry. His eyes are sunken, but they are open, staring blankly at the rough cave ceiling. His breathing is shallow, ragged, a faint rattle in his chest with each exhalation.
As I knelt beside him, my Physician's bag already open, my touch is professional, my fingers cool and practiced as they find his wrist. The pulse is thready, irregular, a dying flutter against my fingertips. As I draw back his tunic, revealing a torso that was once undoubtedly athletic, now skeletal. There are no obvious wounds, no signs of external trauma. This is an internal siege.
My diagnostic tools are brought forth. I examine his eyes, noting the dilation, the sluggish response to light. Listening to his heart and lungs with a sensitive tarn-resonator, hearing the faint gurgle of fluid in his lungs, the erratic beat of his heart. I gently palpate his abdomen, my brows furrowing as I detect the distension, the subtle hardness beneath the skin. A slow, agonizing affliction of the inner organs.
"How long has he been thus?" I ask the attendant Initiate, my voice low, not wishing to disturb the dying man, though I suspect he is beyond disturbance.
"Near two weeks, Physician," he replies. "The sickness took him swiftly. The mountain priests attempted many remedies, many prayers. Nothing worked. He has wasted from within."
I understand now. This isn't a curable ailment. It's a consumption, a systemic failure, perhaps an aggressive form of the "Red Bloom" that sometimes claims those with weakened constitutions in high altitudes, though this seems far more virulent. My medical knowledge, vast as it is, whispers the terrible truth: there is no remedy.
As my eyes meet Israel’s, for a fleeting moment, a flicker of awareness, of agony, passes through the dullness. He tries to speak, a dry rasp escaping his throat. I lean closer.
"Physician," he whispers, the word barely audible. "The Nest… do they know?"
I understand. He is not asking if they know he is dying, but if they know “why”. If his path, his destiny, has been derailed by a mere sickness.
"They know you fought, Initiate," I reply, my voice soft but firm, a small kindness I can offer. "They sent their Physician. You are not forgotten."
His eyes close then, a single, clear tear tracing a path down his gaunt temple. He accepts these words, or perhaps merely ceases the struggle.
My duty now is not to heal, but to confirm. To observe, to record, and to report the inevitable. I administer a mild pain-dulling agent, a small mercy to ease his final hours. I could force nourishment, attempt last-ditch restoratives, but I know it would only prolong his suffering, a cruelty the Priest Kings, for all their ruthlessness, would not demand of a Physician. My task is to apply science, not futile ritual.
I sit beside him for another hour, meticulously documenting his decline, noting every symptom, every change in his breathing, every failing function. It is a slow, quiet vigil. The air grows heavier with each passing moment, the scent of death more pronounced.
When his breathing finally ceases, it is without a gasp, without a struggle. His chest simply stops rising. Placing my fingers on his neck, searching for a pulse that isn't there. I close his eyes.
"He is gone," I state, turning to the waiting Initiates. My voice is flat, devoid of emotion, as is expected. "The cause, I believe, is a rapid internal consumption, likely exacerbated by the mountain air and his constitution. It was untreatable."
As I leave the cave, the cold mountain air a sharp contrast to the stale warmth within, The Senior Initiates await, silent as ever. I hand them my detailed report, written in the precise script of the Physician's caste, laying bare the medical facts, free of conjecture or sentiment. It will be flown by raven to the Nest.
The Tharlarion mount is ready. I climb back into the tarl-cabin, pulling the furs around myself. As the great beast begins its slow, careful descent, I look back at the shadowy peaks of the Sardar Mountains, where an Ancient Initiate's light has flickered out. Another life claimed, another truth confirmed. The Physician of Gor holds the power to mend, but also the terrible clarity to know when the mending is no longer possible. My duty is done, the Priest Kings' command fulfilled, and the weight of another unavoidable death settles quietly in my soul.
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