Archive of Our Own

After the matter of the sand pest has been resolved, Daniil Dankovsky returns to the capital fully expecting the gallows to be his next and final destination. He is proven wrong, and the relief he feels is humiliating in and of itself, as he would have so liked to declare himself above fears such as that of death.
Thanatica has been burned to the ground, his colleagues nowhere to be found, most likely dead or manhandled onto a train with a haphazardly packed suitcase and a one way ticket to somewhere very far away. For some twisted reason the same doesn't await him. Instead he is treated like an embarrassment, with hushed whispers behind his back, and hired muscle escorting him out of office after office as he tries to figure out what happened to his life's work.

Perhaps his deeds in Gorkhon bought him a certain kind of untouchability. Or perhaps the powers that be decided that being ignored and outcast and left to stew with his life choices would be the most shameful thing bachelor Dankovsky could face, and he finds that they may be right.
Nobody speaks to him in the places he used to frequent with his colleagues. The few acquaintances that do not flat out refuse to meet him regard him with suspicion and disdain not unlike the welcome Gorkhon gave him, and he wonders if the town disfigured him somehow, left some sort of mark invisible to him but clear as day to others, that now sets him apart from all humanity, because surely not everyone believes the malpractice accusations, the rumors of questionable experiments... Rather, would all of these people be so keen to deny him the pursuit of truth in the name of science?

He tries to look for a mark, a brand that sets him apart from everyone in the mirror on the darkest nights, drunk on cheap vodka in his cold, dusty apartment. He sees nothing but his own weary stare and the dark circles under his eyes brought on by constant fitful sleep full of plague and suffering.

Bachelor Dankovsky settles back home. Though, what is "home" anyway? Where do you go home when you’re hardly the same person you were when you left, when you feel as though you have circled through five incarnations of yourself in the span of two weeks, each of them more alien to you, and each rebirth more painful? Thoughts like this haunt him in the early hours of morning and he tells himself, good going, Dankovsky. Keep talking like that and you may as well abandon the last shreds of your dignity and become a poet.

He writes unimportant little medicine columns for unimportant little publications to stave off the eventual dwindling of his savings, texts that no real professional would stoop to look at twice. His academic pursuits are reduced to pandering to the masses for scraps. The nightmares eventually fade into distant echoes, and in place of constant dread is a dullness.

It has been more than a year since Gorkhon, when a letter arrives in familiar handwriting, and Dankovsky feels something spark amidst that dullness for the first time in months.

Oynon,

I find myself wondering how you are, these days. Will this letter reach you at all? Does bachelor Dankovsky still walk this earth?
Perhaps presumptuous of me to say this after all this time, as I am aware our methods and priorities differed and you may think of me as a stranger, now, but I wish I had taken that time and asked you to stay longer. There is something about our experiences a year ago that is hard to relay to another.

If I asked you, would you be willing to return? There are many matters, professional and not, I would have liked to discuss.
In fact, I will ask. Come to the town sometime. It is beautiful in the winter. You will find me at Isidor Burakh’s old household.

Artemy Burakh

The letter is peculiar. Burakh sent him many during his stay in Gorkhon, and out of all of them this is the most sentimental, as though the man was speaking to himself as well as Dankovsky.

Dankovsky thinks about it. He tries to formulate a response and fails time and time again. The letter sets off a chain reaction in him, and suddenly the familiar hovel he’s called home feels constricting, like it is pushing him away. Like the entire capital is spitting him out like a rotten tooth. Perhaps it has since his return, and he is only now acutely aware of it. But returning to Town-on-Gorkhon intimidates him equally- what could the place that unmade him offer him now?

He thinks about Artemy Burakh, and berates himself for being a desperate little weasel for the entire time it takes him to pack a suitcase and make his way to the train station.

The journey is long and entirely too uneventful, leaving him plenty of time to ponder why on earth he is throwing himself to the wolves for the second time of his own free will. There may be significantly less bloody Kains and Saburovs, but when he left the children seemed to be establishing some sort of order, and in a way they're even more unpredictable than the power hungry rulers that made him their errand boy.

He tries not to think about why he is so eager to respond to a vaguely worded letter from a colleague whom he knew for two weeks in the midst of an unimaginable crisis, and who he perhaps held in very high regard but was unsure if that respect was reciprocated, a colleague with methods bordering on suspect, although a very, very handsome one-
Dankovsky shakes his head and regards the rolling landscape from the train window. A woman is operating a samovar in the train car, shaky as it seems, and he buys a cup of tea so that the heat of it can wash away unnecessary thoughts of men with a butcher's hands and the clearest eyes he has ever seen. He dozes off eventually, to the rocking of the train.

He lies on his back on a slab of stone and calloused hands cut open his chest and crack his ribcage, lifting out his heart. It is dusty and unused, not having beat in years. He knows it is useless.

The town is different in the winter, the snow banks that glitter in the dim lights from house windows making the streets appear almost homely. Deceptively pleasant, like its inhabitants. Most of the houses are dark.

Dankovsky heads to the address scrawled on the back of Burakh’s letter. It is late, and he hopes his intrusion is not entirely unwelcome, as finding a room to rent at this hour does not sound appealing. Surely Burakh can stand him for one night. Afterwards he will think of something. He wonders if the Broken Heart still stands, and would turn him away. If the Stamatins still live they are unlikely to want anything to do with him, after he forfeited the fruits of their ingenuity to destruction. Another mark against him. He tries not to dwell on it.

The house is dark when he arrives, and panic grips him momentarily. Has Burakh moved? He is certain this is the address. Dankovsky circles the building and finds the back door open. Surely inspecting the place will not hurt. He slips in, a grotesque imitation of the sneaking he had to do during plague-times. By following the dark corridor wall with his hand he finds the first doorway and has just come to the conclusion that the room is the kitchen judging by the outline of a large hearth visible in the dim streetlamp light filtering inside, when he feels a sharp blow to his knee and nearly collapses from the impact. There is a small human shape with what looks like an iron poker in its hand preparing to take another swing at him, and Dankovsky barely has the time to react and wrench the makeshift weapon away. The kid tries to bite him.
"Stop it! Stop it, you bloody pest!" They end up at a standoff, with the little mite held at an arm’s length, and the poker in his left hand. He throws it away with a loud clang, deciding against intimidating a child who doesn’t even come up to his hip. They did just try to break his kneecaps, but Dankovsky will be the bigger man about it. "All right. I am going to let you go now. Do NOT try to break my bones again. I’d like to ask you some questions." He releases the child slowly.

"Murky!"

"What?"

"My name is Murky!" The voice is of someone greatly wronged. Daniil rubs his temples. He remembers Murky now, the girl was one of Burakh’s little orphans, wasn’t she? "Murky. Bachelor Dankovsky, perhaps you remember me. What are you doing here?"

"I am waiting". The girl speaks in short sentences, like everything she did was perfectly self-explanatory.

"For what?"

"I need to be here in case Artemy comes back".

"As it happens I am looking for him as well. Where has Artemy gone?" He has a horrible premonition when the girl sucks in a sharp breath and holds it for a moment too long before answering.

"I don't know," says murky. "He's been gone. For a long time." Quiet, indignant.
Dankovsky has to steel himself against the doorframe. "I need to know more."

They sit at the table, and Dankovsky explains to the little girl that no, he’s not here to steal Artemy’s things, the man invited him, and he’d like to find him, and he’d like her to tell him everything she knows. "Say please", says Murky.

"Please", Dankovsky grits his teeth. The feeling of being yanked around by children half his size will never stop being humiliating.

Murky takes a breath. "He isn’t dead. I know what dead means" the girl levels him with a stubborn look, as though he had questioned her expertise. "My doll would tell me if he was dead".

"Your… doll?"

The girl shows him a tattered thing made from burlap and stitched together with spite. "The earth tells things to my doll. The earth would know if he was dead. Now he’s just gone, and I don’t know where, and if he was dead he would be part of the earth but now he’s just somewhere and I can’t find him and I hate it" The words tumble out of Murky as though she had been holding onto them for a long time, and when she’s done, she purses her mouth and stares at the tabletop like she was trying to burn a hole in it. Dankovsky prays she isn’t about to start crying.

"I… see. Did he ever tell you what he was doing? When did he vanish?"

"He told me and Sticky to go to Ravel’s. Sticky was mad because he didn’t take him even though he was going somewhere. We went to Ravel’s and he didn’t come back and we ran away. I didn't like being at Ravel’s, she looks at me like she's sad all the time and it makes me sad. I'm waiting here. I'm keeping the kitchen warm."

"Where’s Sticky?"

"He comes by a lot. I don’t know."

"You’re just living here by yourself?"

No answer. Perhaps a redundant question to ask in a town full of children running around like they own the place. In fact, they might. In that moment Dankovsky feels exhaustion settling in his bones, the beginnings of a headache blooming behind his eyes. Screw Burakh and screw this cursed place for always finding new ways of taking things from him. "All right. Thank you for your information. I’ll… listen, I will come by again tomorrow. Take a look at his workroom, notes, things like that. Are you willing to let me do that? Perhaps we can learn something." Murky nods with an unconvinced expression.

"DO avoid trying to maul me, next time I come in", Dankovsky adds for safety.

That night, Daniil Dankovsky dreams of Artemy Burakh, and not as a supporting role in one of his repeating nightmare spectacles where he runs along endless streets while people’s lives slip through his fingers like sand. He is in the steppe which glows golden yellow under a starry sky, an impossible phenomenon of light but no less mesmerising for it. He does not recognise the constellations.
There is someone whom he is chasing. The man seems perpetually out of his reach until he suddenly isn't, and Daniil almost runs into him. Artemy is taller than he remembered, bare-chested, hands covered in blood. His eyes are so clear when they search for his gaze, even more blue in the dream than in flesh.

"Is this how you see me?" Artemy asks.

Daniil cannot answer for a moment. How does he see Artemy? Devastating, his mind supplies. Beautiful.

The man does not wait for his response, shaking his head. "No matter, oynon. No matter."

"I'm looking for you", Daniil blurts out.

"You've found me".

"Not- not here. In the waking world."

"It's all the same thing, oynon. This is also a reality."

"Please, spare me the riddles."

Artemy only looks away, as if listening to something distant.

Daniil tries again. "Where have you gone? You wrote me.”

Artemy looks at him, opening his mouth as if to speak, but he is fading along with the steppe, and Daniil wakes with a start.

For a moment he is disoriented, unsure of where he is. There is a persistent knocking at the door of his dingy rented attic room. Dankovsky stumbles into clothes and opens the door when it becomes clear that whoever is pestering him won’t leave, and finds three children at his doorstep, one of them being carried on piggyback by the tallest girl. He’s clearly in some level of pain, judging by the pale face and sweat on his brow.

"What on earth is this?"
"You’re a doctor, aren’t you?" the smallest child pipes. "Spiky is hurt, you gotta fix him!"

Dankovsky takes a moment to collect himself. "I arrived in town yesterday. How the hell did you know where I am, or what I do?"

The question only results in vague shuffling and muttering about "not ratting out informants", and he decides it’s too early to start. He lets the kids in and they pile on his bed unprompted, and let him probe the boy’s ankle, which turns out to be badly sprained. ("He fell off a train car, it was amazing"). He bandages the boy up, ordering him to bed rest for the time being.

The children gather him up again and begin to shuffle out, and Dankovsky is so bewildered he has stopped asking questions by the time the smallest of them slips something into his palm. "A fair price for your work, doctor", the child says solemnly and leaves with the others. He opens his hand to find a needle, a string of thread, and a piece of bone.

The haruspex does not seem to be keen on two things: an archiving system, and writing down literally anything that matters. His study is controlled chaos. Dankovsky finds a stack of absolute jokes for patient records, illegible notes on recipes, and miscellaneous drawings of plants and notes on the life cycles of steppe vegetation, but no diaries, no hypotheses based on the man’s research. Looking at the mess Dankovsky suspects that as a doctor Burakh operates hands on, by simply remembering every single person and their patient history, and it drives him insane, because despite this massive show of incompetence and the suspicious folklore medicine he knows that Burakh is good, has seen the man do his work, and just from his bedside manner, Dankovsky trusts him. Treating a patient, the man is like a rock, even without resources or certain cures. The haruspex always did what had to be done.

On a cursory glance Dankovsky finds nothing that would hint at the man's whereabouts.

Eventually he tires of looking through notes that hold absolutely no meaning to him. He goes out instead, hoping the winter air will clear his head. The town is awake during the day, not quite vibrant, but lively to an extent. He tries to convince himself that the people staring at him don’t do so with contempt.

His wandering takes him to the theatre, as imposing as ever. He was never one for Immortell’s bizarre premonitions he called plays, most of them annoying him beyond measure, but something draws him in anyway.

Dankovsky steps into the theater and for a moment is transported to a time when it was lined with corpses, stench thick enough to cut with a knife. His heart hammers his chest, and he blinks rapidly, trying to rid himself of the startlingly vivid mirage, and he really thought he had this under control, damn it.

A voice reverberates in the hall. "We have an esteemed guest tonight! Gather round, everyone!" A stage light turns on with a loud snap, banishing the ghosts of the past and revealing the colourful figure of Immortell standing on the stage. The man wasn’t a stress-induced hallucination, then. "Welcome, bachelor Dankovsky!" he bellows. Dankovsky is still trying to control his breathing, when the man leaps off the stage and crowds on him to shake his hand and usher him into the singular seat in the audience.

"Come, come, there is no play on the schedule today but for you, my fellow connoisseur of the performing arts, we will make a special showcase".

"I would ask a few questions, in fact-" Immortell shushes him by putting a honest to god finger on Dankovsky’s lips, and for a moment he is tempted to take a page from Murky's book and bite him.

"No words can convey meaning with such nuance as art, doctor" Immortell smugly tells him. "Sit back and enjoy!" Then he claps his hands and a dozen tragedians flood the stage, and begin a grotesque dance. Their shuffling reminds Dankovsky of the plague victims who wrapped themselves in rags and shuffled the streets looking for salvation.

"Oh, yes. Spectators may recognise the scene playing out in front of them”, Immortell drones. "Not too long ago this beautiful town was ravaged, turned inside out by a sickness unimaginable".

The actors on stage are proficient in their imitation of agony.

"We all know how this goes, do we not? Failure, success, success, failure, who can say what the end result truly was? Ask a commoner on the street, and you will have an answer. Ask a landowner in their fine lodgings and you will have a different answer. Ask an outsider who willingly shouldered the burden of people’s lives, and I wonder what the answer would be then?" Immortell’s voice changes tone. It is now quieter, conspiratorial. “But this is not that story, is it?”

A new stage light flashes to life revealing Artemy Burakh standing center stage amidst the twisting bodies. The tragedians pull at him from all sides, tugging at his clothes and pawing at his hands and feet. The man turns to Dankovsky, looking directly at him, and he sits in darkness in the audience but the illusion of eye contact makes his breath catch. Artemy’s eyes are so clear with a twinge of something unspeakable in them, like pain, or recognition, and then he extends his hand towards Dankovsky like he is about to-

He blinks and the stage is full of men in masks again without a trace of Burakh.
The narration goes on: "This town was supposed to fade into obscurity, to become nothing but a distant nightmare. But look!" a snap, and a light illuminates the figure of bachelor Dankovsky, now standing alone on the stage, bag in hand.
"My dear spectators, one tragedy has ended and there is still hope. My lovely audience, there is still entertainment. Some things do not change! Love and heartbreak and pain never truly end. See, a hero returns to us, or was he a hero at all, perhaps a villain? A cold heart set aflame in the throes of suffering, a lovesick doctor returns to us-"

"I am not lovesick-" Dankovsky is out of his seat before he has time to realise he’s opened his mouth.

"We do not encourage audience participation, kind sir!" Immortell barks with a tap of his cane on the floorboards. Dankovsky sits back down, shame curdling under his ribs, despite there being no other spectators.

Mercifully, the farce is soon over and the stage lights dim. Immortell materialises next to him from the darkness. "How did you enjoy the spectacle, my good sir? I rather suspect there are some similarities to your own life."

"Similarities- That was obviously me, on the stage, Immortell."

"Many a man says so after watching a tale of heroics!"

"You call that heroics?" Dankovsky mutters. Immortell only smiles. The desire to strangle the man is getting quite dire, and Dankovsky cuts to the point. "Where's Artemy Burakh? You referenced the haruspex, just now, on that stage."

Immortell’s enigmatic smile grows wider. "I have no knowledge of such earthly individuals. Me and my beloved actors tap into the subconscious here, the heart of what makes humanity so singular. Any resemblance to living beings or locations is purely coincidental."

"Right. Thank you for your time." Dankovsky makes to leave, and even as he has his hand on the door handle he hears Immortell call after him cheerfully: "If you happen to be out of a job we are always casting! Lately I have been considering expanding our repertoire to clownery."

When he lays his head down to sleep he dreams of walking the rolling steppe landscape, the limitless sky, bulls grazing in the distance. He passes by rock formations so large that they seem to reach the stars.

The next day when Dankovsky visits the lair under the factory that was Burakh’s base of operations he finds it occupied. A blonde boy sits in dim light tending to machinery, and only acknowledges his arrival with a “Oh, it’s the city doctor.”

Every child in this town so far regards him with sharp, expectant scrutiny and the boy is no exception. Dankovsky bristles under the evaluation.

"What, pray tell, are you doing here?"

The boy points to the alembic making ominous gurgling noises.

“And you… Know how to operate that?”

"Burakh taught me," says Sticky. Dankovsky wonders which one.

“Murky said you’d show up, because you have questions about him?”

“Yes, well. I came to town expecting to find him. What do you know about his disappearance?”
Sticky gives him another calculating stare and Dankovsky realises he's forgotten the bizarre rules of this town again. Before the boy opens his mouth he adds "yes, yes. And name your price, I suppose. I'll warn you, I'm not running your errands".

"I will tell you about Artemy and you'll teach me doctoring" Sticky says.

"No!" The boy has the gall to only raise an eyebrow at him.

“What makes you think I have any intention to stay that long?”

“Oh, you know. You can teach me some things for sure. I learn fast. Artemy said so, too.”

"I don't take little runts like you for assistants. I barely know you."

"You know I helped Artemy. You may not trust me but do you not trust him either?"

Damn the children and the way they ask questions that will haunt him. Dankovsky counts to ten to have some time to wrestle his pride to the ground and concedes: "Fine. I’ll see what I can do. I’m certain your knowledge of anatomy is lacking, I should have some diagrams with me..."

"Murky was right, you're kind of patronising. Okay!" Sticky hops off his chair. “Now what do you wanna know?”

Sticky doesn't have anything much for him, either. It has been about three weeks since the disappearance, and the letter Burakh sent had been stamped just before. He would often go out into the steppe, and this time he didn't return. He wasn't especially odd before vanishing. Seemed tired. Dankovsky has never seen the man not tired. There is worry in the boy that he works hard to conceal but Dankovsky doesn’t confront him about it.

Sticky offers to take him to the steppe, where he would go with Burakh sometimes, and Dankovsky is so entirely without leads to follow that he agrees. Murky tags along, appearing in the doorway as they're about to depart, and demanding they take her as well.
Nothing can be found in the windblown expanse of snow, of course. They pass curious rock formations and remnants of last year's vegetation sticking through the snow where the wind has blown the snow away, and Dankovsky's boots are full of snow and he thinks his nose might fall off from the cold, and he ends up carrying Murky who is so small that it looks like she could drown in a unexpectedly deep snow bank. The emptiness of the place terrifies him more than he dares to admit.

After a couple of days of staying in town and burying himself into the Burakh library, he starts receiving visitors. There seems to be a steady trickle of children with cuts and scrapes that find him on the streets and in his rented room, and slowly but surely he amasses a whole clientele that somehow knows exactly where he is at any given time, and pays him for his services in nuts and marbles. Dankovsky relents and starts telling them to come to the old Burakh clinic where there is actual supplies at hand. It feels completely wrong, yet he knows he could use the space, and this is a justification for him to stay while he tries to figure out what happened to the haruspex. He is starting to suspect that Capella has told the children to go to him: it wouldn’t be beneath her to wrap him into whatever little scheme she has for her town, and he despises himself for allowing this, and yet cannot bring himself to leave.

He stays in his rented room at first, then tires of the trek across town, and starts sleeping in a small room meant for solitary patients upstairs. Murky can have the downstairs living quarters. It’s easier to check that she hasn’t wandered off somewhere and frozen to death like this, anyway, and he has better access to Isidor’s library.

Tonight Daniil stands on a bridge, bracing himself against the railing, and watches as Artemy floats under him in the river, tangled in aquatic plants that resemble tendrils. Eyes open and unblinking, he is like a corpse until he opens his mouth.

"Oynon" calls the man in the water.

“I did not think I would see you so helpless” says Daniil, ever inadequate.

"Do you enjoy it, bachelor Dankovsky?"

The hateful part of him answers yes. Has he not envied Burakh’s endless resolve and strength from the moment he set eyes on him? Perhaps Burakh appearing to him this way is a reflection of his feelings about the man. Or perhaps this is one of the meaningless thing his subconscious spits out night after night. Was that judgement in his voice? Daniil shakes his head, tries to focus. The dream ripples around him but does not fade. “I simply thought I would find you in a different state. When I left, you had so much here. So much to care for. I expected… I would have seen you thrive.”

“That is surprising, coming from you.”

“Forgive my past transgressions that would give you such an unfavorable image of me. I was not in my right mind when we last saw each other.”

“None of us were.” Artemy sighs. “I am not what you think of me, either, oynon.”

“Then who are you, Artemy Burakh?”

“I am someone who couldn’t live up to all the images of myself that exist in the minds of my people.”

“That cannot be true.”

Artemy closes his eyes in resignation.

A missive arrives from Capella one morning, requesting a visit. Dankovsky had been hoping to slip under her gaze, do his business and leave, but he no longer knows what his business is and it was a hopeless endeavor to begin with. Her net is wider now than ever.

Capella's hair is longer and her dress is floor length now, but otherwise she still occupies that peculiar space between adolescence and adulthood that makes her powerful presence all the more unsettling. She is young one moment and seems to know all the secrets of the world in the next.

"I hear you've been caring for the children" says Capella, after they exchange greetings. "I'm grateful. I would like to reward you somehow."
"Not of my own volition. They keep finding me no matter where I go." It's practically blackmail at this point, he doesn't say. Inexcusable to show up and look miserable until he does something about it. "They do pay me. In needles, usually, but then again I seem to be able to find food for the same, so…."

Capella's smile has been widening his entire speech. "You seem to be settling in?"

"I, ah, am doing some research."

"Of course," she hums. "Were you to stay though, or spend some time longer, at least… Well, we do not have an abundance of doctors."

"You're saying I should…"

"By no means am I telling you what to do," says Capella. Dankovsky hears the "when you seem to be doing exactly what I hoped you would" tacked at the end without her speaking it out loud.
Capella says, "However you decide, the old clinic is at your disposal. You're welcome here for as long as you stay, no matter what some might say."

Dankovsky sighs. He might as well make his position official at some point in words not just in actions, as it would give credibility to his stay and his searching, but saying it out loud would make an escape back to the capital more difficult. The escape back to his medicinal columns. The dust and the quiet nights. He shakes his head out of his reverie.

"Do tell if I can aid you in any way. Despite everything that transpired last time, it is good to see you, doctor," Capella continues with sincerity in her voice. The sincerity which is perhaps the most terrifying thing about her: her honesty is disarming even as her knowing eyes seem to pierce through the soul. She is surely powerful enough for deceit, yet he hasn't seen a single sign of it.

Dankovsky concedes. "I could do with more medicine."

Capella smiles. "Perhaps you could compile a list? I am certain there will be funds for this kind of thing. I take it you’re not eager to meet with Saburov?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I can mediate. He’s become surprisingly amicable, as of late. Tragedy bends even iron, I suppose.”

Dankovsky nods. Now would be a good time to make his excuses and leave, but… "There is one thing. I find myself prone to dreams, as of late."

Capella hums for him to go on, interest clearly piqued.

"The peculiar thing about these dreams of mine is", he pauses and tries to put together a sentence that won't make him sound like a lunatic. "I am not myself, in them. I see these visions, these places that are more vivid than I've ever seen asleep. Almost like memories, but not mine."

"My, Daniil, I didn't know you had the makings of a mistress in you" Capella giggles, then immediately pulls on a serious face: "Forgive me. I understand this is a serious matter. And these are reoccurring?"

"They keep increasing ever since I came."

"If not yours, then whose?"

"You will find me quite out of my mind if I voice my suspicion."

"Try me."

"Artemy Burakh’s."

Capella cannot hide the catch of her breath. The subject of the haruspex clearly weighs heavy on her.

"I know. It is quite unthinkable, and yet, I cannot imagine who else goes about with this knowledge and this skill. I've seen things… places here that I find hard to account for as figments of my imagination. I've seen him too. Talked to him as though he was there, not just a dream-fabrication." It is bizarre to speak out loud. A year ago he would have dismissed such events as imagination or delusion, but now he feels that he must speak. "Do you know what happened to him?" He finally asks.

Capella doesn’t look at him, possibly to keep her composure. "No. It is my greatest failing, not being able to help him as he helped me.”

Dankovsky well deserves the stab of guilt he feels. Capella knows what his own final decision would have been for the town, and still entertains him under her roof. A young saint, or a politician.

"I take it these dreams are not common for you?" She asks.

“Most certainly not. I thought I was losing my mind at first.”

Capella eyes him. “If he comes to you again, speak to him. Do not dismiss him. I do not know what your connection is, but you are not the only one in this place who speaks to the ones absent, one way or another; and we may learn a lot from them. I do not know where Artemy went, or how, but I have not yet given up hope of finding out”

Days go by and the Bachelor settles to Town-on-Gorkhon, now relying on the hospitality of the absent. Sticky regards him at first with indifference, and then as a walking medical knowledge book, asking him question after question. He starts finding it oddly flattering. It reminds him of Thanatica, in some crooked way, when he had his assistants and his daring hypotheses were at the lips of everyone in the medical community. It was glamorous. People would flock to him, and he basked in the attention. Except now his research is replaced by administering medicine for common colds, and his followers have dwindled into one overly enthusiastic child.
A smart child, though. Sticky struggles to read but otherwise absorbs information like a sponge. He proves to be an adept, although sarcastic, assistant. He knows how to stitch wounds remarkably well, and Dankovsky can all but see the ghost of haruspex hovering over the boy's shoulder, teaching him.

Where Sticky is hell-bent on squeezing every last drop of information out of Dankovsky, Murky quietly tolerates him, he supposes because she’s bright enough not to bite the hand that feeds her. If asked he would deny that he looks after them, but he does ensure there is enough food in Burakh’s house for both of them. It’s the least he can do for intruding. The town isn’t exactly rich in resources after the plague, but there is enough to eat, barely, and the ominous horde of children that has nominated him as their doctor trades with him very willingly.

The days leave him plenty of time to question himself and the fervor with which he clings to the memory of Artemy Burakh.

The first time he had heard of the Haruspex, he’d expected to meet someone ruthless, brutish. But the man who walks into his makeshift laboratory in the Stillwater is striking both in stature and intensity. He has something unreachable about him, even as they become more familiar, settling into comfortable banter after a few days of shared horror.

There is no excess in Burakh's movements. The way he takes his space is utilitarian. He seems to always know where to be and to know something he will not share but which drives him, gives him a sense of being unwavering. He is content to run Dankovsky’s errands but does not say much about his own goals or hopes, both a dependable man and a complete mystery. Distant and close at the same time, a man of earth and a man of blood.

It is the sixth day he spends in the town and Dankovsky is acutely aware of the passing of time and it’s consequences. Every minute ticking away on the clock feels like another sacrifice. Particularly today: he knows the haruspex is supposed to come to him with something for him to inspect, should have already arrived, in fact. They’re at a crucial point.
Dankovsky is considering loading his gun and risking going out to look for the man himself when Burakh stomps up the stairs and barges in. He places a vial of blood on Dankovsky’s desk without so much as a greeting.

“You were able to obtain it?”

“I bled for it. You better get something out of this, bachelor.”

“I will- wait. You're wounded?” Indeed, there is a bloody bandage hastily wrapped around Burakh’s shoulder. The man looks exhausted too, pale and sweating. His usually sharp eyes are downturned and dim.

“I ran into some trouble, but don’t concern yourself. I’ll take care of it.”

“Please. You've been running my errands for days, it’s the least I can do.”

“I can take care of myself.” Petulant. Is that pride nestling in the stubborn crook of Burakh’s mouth? This Dankovsky understands, pride being an intimate guest in his own life. He cannot entertain it at this moment, though. “Stop the nonsense, you're swaying on your feet.” He offers the chair he'd been using.

“I'm fine-”

"Sit down, for heaven's sake, you're like a walking target for anybody with a knife. What good will you do like this?" Finally the haruspex has no argument, and all but collapses into the chair.

It is a relief to be able to control something, if only a needle and thread for sutures. Dankovsky knows his stitches are messy, and his bandages are far from medical grade material, but this he knows how to do. He cannot stop the sickness, but he can stop his colleague from bleeding to death, and it brings a heady feeling of relief to be able to be of use. The man hardly flinches even when he pours alcohol on the wound.

“Thank you,” Burakh says after. “Sorry.” For what, Dankovsky is not sure.

“Spare me. This is the most useful I've felt all day, I should be the one thanking you.”

Burakh gives a sardonic smile. "Should I go get stabbed more often, to give bachelor Dankovsky a sense of purpose?"

Dankovsky laughs, but in shameful truth, he is relieved to be of use to the haruspex. It is unbelievable how the barely educated man from an uncivilized little town makes him feel the need to please. It is not only that he wants to prove himself. There is a traitor part of his brain wanting to bind Burakh to him somehow. Perhaps it is because of how completely useless he feels in the face of catastrophe, but he who has considered barely anyone his equal, now wonders how long it would take him to obey if Burakh told him to heel.

The object of Dankovsky’s musings is nodding off where he sits, the painkiller and exhaustion doing their worst.
"For heaven's sake, man. There is a bed, use it."

"Are you sure?"

"I have work to do, I won't be needing it any time soon."

Burakh drags himself into bed, and Dankovsky is about to immerse himself into his bacteria samples once more, when he hears a voice, almost a whisper: “I have no idea if I’m following the path set up for me like I should.”

He looks at the resident of his bed, not knowing if it is his place to offer reassurances, and wishing fervently that he could. Burakh seems to be asleep.

The next time the haruspex graces his doorstep in the dead of night, personal space is no longer high enough on the list of necessities to be negotiated. Burakh limps up the stairs of the stillwater at two am, and barely greets Dankovsky before collapsing on his bed. Daniil digests this for a second and decides that at this moment, this is perfectly acceptable. He keeps working. Only when he almost faints over his microscope he gives up and unceremoniously folds next to Burakh, who grunts and makes more space.

Dankovsky stirs awake not too long after, far too aware of the passing of time for good rest. It is still dark. He's warmer than he's ever been in the Stillwater's drafty attic. His brain catches up and registers that he's currently enveloped in a thorough bear hug, with Burakh gently snoring into his hair. He smells like gore and herbs yet the touch is comforting, somehow, instead of awkward, and he is excruciatingly aware of the strength of muscle in the man's body.

Daniil has been taut like a wire from stress and horror, and this simple human contact is overwhelming his nervous system. Perhaps is he let his hands wander Burakh would not object, would even-

He is Daniil Dankovsky, a man of science, and he has no need or time for comfort, for such matters are below him, and also, there is most definitely a plague to be dealt with.

He maneuvers himself out of the embrace carefully. It is time to set out.

They do this a few more times, not speaking of it, sharing grim understanding in the way they lie back to back, or wake with limbs tangled. The days blend together into a grey mess of exhaustion and the weight of consequence and there is no time to question or regret the nature of their relationship as they seek whatever warmth they can in the midst of chaos.

He is the one burning. He is being flayed alive, parts of his body scabbing over then being torn open again, and there is a spike in his flesh, scouring. Then it is over and he is empty and cold, so, so cold. He has been bled dry, violated by countless strangers and greed and malice, and now he has nothing left. He cries like a child, and the earth, the mother, is too exhausted to console him.

He the one is running through the streets, looking for something that is calling for him, always calling, and always begging for something. It is formless and uncontained, hunger as well as helplessness. He is the only one who sees it, the only one who it calls for. It is his duty to fix this, and he knows he is failing. The streets grow darker, cold seeps through his clothes. The familiar town around him is maze-like. He stops running eventually.
“What will it take for you to be satisfied? What will it take for you to be whole? Will you take a part of me instead? I’m already bound to you by my life, and all the lives that I didn’t save. Do you want my flesh as well as my soul?”
Yes, the dark streets around him echo. Yes, thrums the ground under his feet, the place that was once flowing with Boddho’s blood and is now barren of life. The loudest of all who agree is the ache in his soul.

Dankovsky keeps wading through the haruspex’ notes, his drawings, his patient record, anything that might give a hint as to what he was doing and what his summons might have concerned. When that well runs dry he moves to Isidor’s library, hoping to find perhaps notes on the kin beliefs, any mentions of unexplained disappearances, but draws a blank again.

The worst case scenario is that Burakh went into the steppe and took his own life, and while he did not seem the sort, Dankovsky knows intimately the ways in which trauma ravages a person. Less than what they experienced a year ago would break a man. His only evidence against this tragedy is the words of an odd child, and a persisting feeling, a tugging at the edge of his being, that drives him time and time again to the library to continue his search. He feels a lingering presence that half the time he chalks up to delusion. Not to mention the dreams that come multiple and vivid every night, where it feels like if he could only reach out the right way he could grasp Burakh and pull him out.

He is going insane, or he really is desperate, and of the two, the latter is much more damning. Matters of the mind could be cured, sentimentality is a tougher nut to crack.

Dankovsky remembers the moment when the haruspex walked into his lodgings for the first time, when things had yet to completely fall apart. It is hard to explain in any other way, although he despises the drama of it, but in that moment he felt his entire world shift, slightly but meaningfully, and he is still chasing after the stability of the man he had been before. The man with the good sense not to tell a complete stranger they were two parts of a whole. Burakh had agreed, for some unholy reason, as though Dankovsky's drivel made a lick of sense. The man always seemed to know something a little more than the average person.

Dankovsky underlined his aversion to mythical inclinations then, and he still does so now to himself, but when Murky tells him Burakh is not dead, he finds himself believing the child. Right hand, left hand, surely one would know if the other had been severed completely.

Daniil is in the steppe again, and everything is just slightly too vivid, the sky full of stars, the grass glowing gold.
He lies on the ground, and in the way one simply knows things in dreams, knows that the soil is only a few inches deep, like a mirror to another reality, he himself a reflection on its surface, and if he were to dig down he would see the same stars that are above him reflected below. Two worlds almost touching.

The soil sticks under his fingernails and he scrapes his hands on rocks as he digs with his bare hands. It takes a long time to reach the other side. When his hand breaks through, someone grasps it on the other side. What he sees is himself, climbing out to meet him, naked as the day he was born, and with flowers spun in his hair like a mockery of a herb bride. The apparition says: “what is it that you’re looking for?”

Daniil is stunned into silence.

"Artemy Burakh? For all you know he's gone into the wasteland and killed himself, yet here you dawdle," says the reflection.

“You don’t know that!”

"Neither do you! All you have to go on is dreams. Will you become another mistress for this wretched place now that you couldn't win the game?"

"As if it was a game and not a catastrophe."

"Is that truly how you feel, bachelor with your failed vaccine and broken utopia? Deep down you would have seen yourself lauded as the hero of the newborn world!"

"Shut your mouth."

"You forfeited and chose nothing for yourself, then came back begging for scraps, dissatisfied. Look at you, chasing mirages. Pathetic man, what would you be able to do for him? Would you dance for him like his herb brides?” The apparition draws close and sneers. “What a farce. Although, I must say it is very like you to try to make something out of nothing. Curing the incurable, trying to salvage the unsalvageable. There’s nothing for you here." Or anywhere, goes unsaid. Daniil stands and stares awhile, dumbfounded, and afraid, because isn't this exactly what he has known all this time?

His mirror image stands so close, now, leering at him, and then it laughs. Daniil breaks. He rips the flowers from the head of his doppelganger, not caring how much hair he tears out, and fake Daniil howls in pain or in rage, face twisting into an ugly, animalistic grimace.

Daniil feels lightheaded, unsteady on his feet, wonders briefly if the steppe has become alive under him and is about to swallow him whole, and whether such a thing would be an act of mercy. There is an animalistic satisfaction in punching himself square in the face, and Daniil feels no regrets even as the other overwhelms him and the steppe welcomes him into her arms. He feels the grass under his back, the scent of twyre heady and sweet as his own hands close around his throat. Grass and stones digging into his back, he thinks, is this not exactly how I thought I would go?

That morning Murky addresses him. She speaks rarely, and in a way Daniil is glad, because the girl is unsettling, with her insights and apparent mystical knowledge that go hand in hand with the behaviour of a child who has been alone for a very long time. Dankovsky feels like a fish out of water with her, and so resorts to addressing her like a small adult.

"Why are you looking for him?" Murky pipes up from the kitchen table where she swings her legs and watches like a hawk as Dankovsky slices bread. As usual he has to spend a moment catching up with the conversation that has been stripped of anything extraneous.

"Burakh is a colleague," he says, and then realises it is completely insufficient as an explanation. Not just to Murky, to himself. Because the man went through hell with him? Because he is completely unique in the landscape of Dankovsky’s world, and he is inexplicably drawn to him? Because he’s pretty sure Burakh has done something stupid and for some godawful reason he is the only one aware of this, and because he’s probably in love with-
"I owe him," Dankovsky says instead, just to break the silence, because Murky’s eyes are currently boring a hole in the back of his neck.

"I miss him too" Murky says, solemnly, and if it isn’t simply one of the most mortifying things he's ever experienced, to have a child see right through the meticulously constructed walls that he’s built around what he has labeled excessive human emotion.

Then the girl speaks again: "My doll says to tell you: some things we tell ourselves are true, and some things are just the things we are the most afraid of, twisted into a knot. So don't worry about it".

Daniils stops his tea pouring, and mentally retraces their conversations of the previous days, trying to connect this to something else, anything else, than his most recent dream. He fails and then feels a strange calm come over himself.

"An unusual message, certainly. Thank you, Murky."
They eat bread and drink tea in peaceful silence.

That day he is stopped by a street urchin beckoning at him conspiratorially, and he trades a handful of marbles for some sweets. The child lifts the largest of the glass spheres and looks at it in awe, and informs him that it is the image of the world. Dankovsky pretends to understand, and goes on his way.

It is day 11 of the sand plague, when all is falling apart and soldiers are executing people as they please. Two little children plead for him to save their fathers from unfair death and as always he goes. Perhaps this one will give him clarity. Perhaps this deed will absolve him.

Four men stand at the graveyard wall moments away from death. Finger on the trigger, the other hand steadying the rifle. Deep breath. As the first soldier falls to the ground, Dankovsky realises he is executing a routine. As the fourth one puts up a fight and almost tackles him to the ground, he does not have to hesitate on where to slide his knife in between the ribs.

Afterwards he shaken townsmen he has saved, or left to die slower, more painful deaths, make haste for the town and he sits with the cooling bodies of soldiers and smokes all three cigarettes he had been hoarding like gold.

The miraculous tower can not be seen from this side of town and he tries to invoke it’s image to give him back his sense of purpose, but finds it lacking. Thanatica is gone regardless, and he will still be hunted like a rabid dog if he sets foot back in the capital. Will any kind of promise of immortality repay what is being done right now, what he is doing?

Sitting in the browning grass of the graveyard, the paradise Maria’s words paint seems feverish rather than purposeful. Victor Kain sounds mad with grief, and Georgiy old and insane. Dreamers, all of the ones he sought to protect. Just like Eva, just like the brothers, although somehow Eva’s dream seemed the purest of them all, the most selfless: and look where that got her.

Peter’s dream has been equally pure-hearted, he thinks, and the result breathtaking, but he does not know if he has it in himself to protect it any longer. It is being devoured, like him, and like everything else in this town. Mors vincit omnia.

It is a moment like any other but the weight of it feels like it should split the earth where he sits. What he saw as his salvation, the polyhedron and the man Simon Kain, have turned around and now seem a hollow dream for hollow people. Like him.

Dankovsky is being watched. The pale girl from the graveyard walks quietly, and before he has time to stop her, she approaches the bodies and closes their eyes. What good would it have done to pretend he wasn’t the perpetrator? She has likely seen it all by now. He has blood drying on his face.
"More residents for your graveyard. I apologise."

"You shouldn’t apologise to me." Her voice is calm and airy, like wind in reeds. She doesn't look at him but focuses on the soldiers instead, gently touching each of their faces one by one. A last rite of a kind.

"I don’t think there is a way for me to apologise to them in a way that matters."

Grace only looks at him with watery eyes.

"Gravekeeper. Tell me, what do you think of the children's tower?"

"Oh, it is so high up there, and I am down here. It is not for me."

"Who do you think it is for, then? Is it not the children’s tower?"

"I'm not sure. It is so far away from the earth. You could get lost in it."

"And the earth is for you?"

"The earth holds the dead so gently, don’t you feel it?"

"What about the town?"

"The earth holds it too."

Dankovsky feels as lost as ever. "You speak like the Haruspex."

Grace smiles gently. "I like him. He cares about both the living and the dead."

Dankovsky steps into the cathedral on the evening of the resolution, and as Aglaya Lilich demands that he presents his case, he says: "I have nothing. I vote that Artemy Burakh be the one to speak: I trust his judgement."

Artemy looks at him in disbelief, and starts towards him, perhaps to demand an explanation. There is no time, as Aglaya's voice rings out over them: "Well then. You have only a moment, Burakh." Dankovsky watches as the man steels himself and steps up.

It is done. How thoroughly he has built his own heartbreak.

Dankovsky stands in the cathedral square and watches the polyhedron fall, signaling the end of the suffering, and of him. The building shatters and falls like glass, like brittle bone china. Dreams are so insubstantial in nature, even here. Afterwards, when he thinks of the scene, he remembers no noise after the blast of the cannons, only an odd silence.

Perhaps he should have chosen otherwise: perhaps there was a sliver of hope that securing the tower would have found him a purpose. He doubts it. Better to leave something for the living, something to touch, something to keep warmth. Children would always dream, magical structures or no. There would be new games in place of old ones.

This is how he sees the Haruspex in the flesh for the last time. When it is all over, the earth milked for all the lifeblood it would give out to be turned into panacea, when the barricades from the streets are finally being torn apart, Dankovsky drinks himself silly and wanders through the wretched town. He's heard the tales of how twyrine leads one to hear the whispers of fate, to see omens of things to come. He sees nothing, hears nothing but the empty buzz of tragedy that has reached its apex and died down. There must not be anything left for him.

His footsteps lead him to where the polyhedron once stood. The ground is still a rusty red from the blood and gore the structure has pulled out of the earth, and it stains his clothes as he collapses to sit on the bank of Gorkhon. No matter, now.

He barely hears the messenger approach. The child hands him the letter and vanishes without asking for recompense, this time, and he opens the missive with dread building.

From The Powers That Be,

Are you proud of yourself?

He tosses the letter into the river, except it refuses to fly properly and gets stuck on some reeds, fluttering in the breeze.
Did he fight hard enough? Probably not. Could have struggled harder, made the puppet show a more entertaining experience. Perhaps if he had been faster, sharper, known where to dance, he could have cut his strings. Instead he was weak, and letting Burakh be the judge and jury was simply easier.

Burakh finds him next, and Dankovsky wishes he had the strength to toss him into the river too, because now he no longer has it in him to steel himself against the tears that had been threatening to make their visit. A sight he must be, cradling a bottle of twyrine, bawling like a child. Burakh just sits next to him on the riverbank, squeezes his shoulder, once, and doesn’t even ask. No courtesy of a “what’s wrong, oynon?” so he could explain that his research is in ashes and he is a dead man walking. It would be more dignified, to be seen losing control for a reason.

"Do not waste kindness on me, haruspex", he chokes out, but the man does not release his hold, looking him in the eye, searching. What for?

The haruspex doesn't gloat his victory. Dankovsky would much prefer it, so that he could resort to anger instead of grief. Deep inside he knows Burakh has no reason to taunt him: he doesn't truly think the man is proud of what he’d had to do. Yet he still has something tethering him to the world and it stings. What also stings is the fact that Dankovsky wants this silent understanding that Burakh is offering. He wants to curl up in it like a cat and be soothed, but knows he has no right to hang onto such things.

"Thank you", Burakh says finally. "If you need a place to stay, find me at the workshop." His eyes are kind, compassionate, in a way that is two steps short of pity.

Dankovsky leaves on the next train, sharing the cabin with stone-faced soldiers.

The bronze bull lies on a slab of stone on a hill surrounded by smoking torches.

Daniil dreams of cutting it open, of draining the blood and sectioning the meat and bone. The large, calloused hands expertly holding the knife are not his own.

The meat to be cured, the hide to be tanned, the blood for the earth to nourish.

Something goes wrong. The earth rejects the blood and unabsorbed it flows down the hillside like a river. He cannot get his hands clean of it.

Is this not what you wanted? Have I offended you again?

He cuts into the soft flesh of his palm, a half-moon crescent wound weeping onto the earth.

Daniil sits in the audience as the image of steppe grass, the fire of the torches, the entire hill melts into a kaleidoscope of colors that eventually fades to black. In the centre of the empty stage is Artemy, looking lost and heartbroken, and the darkness wraps around him like an embrace until he cannot be seen any more.

A voice in the darkness, more an idea of sound than spoken words, says: “Is this not what you wanted, child?”

He wakes in the early hours of the night to somebody calling his name in the hallway, and he hastily scrambles out of bed, still wrapped in a blanket, and lights a lamp wondering who is bleeding to death.

It's Murky, holding a candle, and looking like she'd seen a ghost.

"What is it? Is someone hurt?"

Murky just curls up into a little ball. Dankovsky kneels slowly, and curses himself and his inability to deal with crying children, and his inability to do anything about Burakhs disappearance, because surely the man would be more equipped to handle whatever the hell is going on.

"Murky?" he tries. "Are you ill?" A little shake of the head. "A nightmare, then?"

Murky answers in the smallest voice: "Everybody else was gone too and I didn't know if that happened for real or no and I then I didn't remember which room you slept in."

Ah. "Come in, the hallway is freezing." When there's no response, he asks: "Can I lift you up?" Murky gives a nearly imperceptible nod, and so Dankovsky bundles her in the blanket and carries her inside.

He sits on the bed and gathers even more blankets around them, gathering the child into his arms awkwardly, and then he waits for her to stop shaking. Eventually Murky calms down, and by her breathing, Dankovsky supposes she's asleep, so he carefully lays her on the bed and makes sure she has enough blankets. Then he pulls on his coat and settles at his desk to write. The weight of something in his pocket reminds him that he still has a hefty collection of marbles, and idly he leaves them on the nightstand, where Murky will see them.

Dankovsky wakes with his face stuck to his notebook, having drooled all over it in his sleep. It’s still dark, but at this time of the year that tells nothing. It is always dark. Somebody is tugging at his sleeve.

“What are these?” Murky asks, holding the marbles.

“Uh. Good morning to you too. Marbles?”

“Yes but why?”

“I thought you’d like them?” His neck hurts tremendously, and he is truly not prepared for an interrogation. Murky looks contemplative, so he picks up one of the marbles, the most vivid blue, and says: “A child on the street told me this is the image of a world. Isn’t that fascinating?”

“That's silly. It's a glass ball. It needs to try harder.”

“Ah.” The attempt at distracting the child by instilling a feeling of curious wonder has failed completely.

Murky thinks for a moment longer and then says: “I'll bring you something in exchange.”

“You can just keep them. Have you ever heard of gifts?”

Murky looks at him suspiciously and leaves without goodbyes.

The night's dream echoes in his mind long after sunrise. He can recognise which dream is his, now, and which is Artemy's and this one has given him painful understanding.

He knows what it is to entertain a hunger in the mind, in the heart. His was ceaseless and loud in the capital, and by some miracle now has been reduced to a pathetic, mewling thing, but it still calls to him, and it is persistent. At times in his life he has been close to giving it something he wouldn’t be able to take back.

He has lost the thread and does not know where the wound is, only that it’s been bleeding all this time. Artemy would know, he is the one more adept at operating skin, bone, muscle. But it’s only Dankovsky, now, with Artemy somewhere just out of his reach.

Walking the streets of the town, he feels like an impostor. Surely Burakh should be in his place, and he does not understand what he should do to make things right.

The script, the play, children's play, make-believe... Such things seem to hold much more weight in this town than anywhere else and he suspects if he understood their secrets he might be able to see the truth of the matter, because his logic and reason fail him.
It would be the rational thing to do to presume the haruspex dead and continue on. Dankovsky doesn't. A sense of purpose drives him, a sense that there is something he must still do.

The image of the hill with the stone slab like an altar haunts Dankovsky, and one day he describes it to Sticky, who immediately knows what he is talking about. With the name Ragi Barrow and instructions to go past the graveyard southeast, he sets off into the snow. He has two hypotheses that he is hoping to test.

Precisely like in Sticky's instructions, the hill from his dreams comes into view after a while of trekking. Dankovsky climbs, getting his boots full of snow, cursing quietly to himself. The stone is mysteriously clean of snow and he lies on it. He pulls his hat on tighter and downs a bottle of twyrine, grimacing.

He blinks and it is nighttime. The stars are too bright, and seem to be in a peculiar pulsing dance in the sky, the milky way like a living snake. Artemy stands beside the altar and greets him: “stupid man, you’ll freeze to death.”

So Artemy comes to him, when he wills it enough. That is one of the hypotheses proven true.

In the dream-place there is no snow, only golden steppe grass and twyre. Fireflies dance around them. Daniil sits up.

"Why have you come?" Artemy asks, and the words seem to contain multitudes.

“Is this where you vanished?” Daniil rushes out.

“I think so.”

“You do not know?”

Artemy only looks lost.

“I saw you, Artemy, I saw you here. In a dream I saw darkness swallow you.” He can’t help but reach out to take the man’s wrist. Artemy lets him. “Tell me, what were you doing?”

“The bull offered himself for sacrifice and I bled him dry, but it was not enough. There was a hunger, there was a longing, and the blood only stoked the thirst.”

“You offered yours.”

“I offered mine, and still it was not enough. I could have bled dry and it wouldn't have been enough, because it was not bloodletting that was needed but I didn't see it at the time. A wound needs stitches to close. Now I pay.”

“Haven’t you, already? Why did it have to be you?”

Artemy shakes his head. “Who else?” he doesn’t meet his eyes. Daniil sighs. Perhaps he has an answer. “I'm starting to wonder if this town branded me, and now has a hold of me for eternity." He lifts his gaze and finds Artemy’s steady one, and speaks what he has been wondering: " That may be why I came back. Perhaps you branded me, Artemy Isidorovich, and I am to be your sacrifice."

Artemy takes a sharp breath in. "Don't speak like that".

"If I am willing?" Daniil goes to stand in front of the man and kneels, and finds that he is, indeed. The grass hears him, growing to bind his hands behind his back like the most beautiful shackles. "If it takes another for you to get back your life-"

Artemy sees him, and understands, because his expression shifts into surprise and then the same determination Daniil saw that final day in the cathedral, and for a moment he is sure that his submission has been accepted, until the man kneels with him, gripping his jacket lapels with trembling fists, and oh, he must have mistook despair for determination, because when Artemy speaks, he sounds like he's choking. "Don't do this."

"Why?"

"Do you think I could slit your throat and watch the earth take you in my stead and not be haunted by that until the end of my days? I have enough ghosts, Daniil! I have taken enough lives. Don't make me be a judge and an executioner for you too."

The weight of his misstep sinks like lead in the pit of Daniil's stomach. He is just a young man, he thinks. Younger than I am, and already he's buried so many people and is responsible for many more living. He must be so tired. God, he must be tired. Daniil wants to reach out but the grass around his arms only winds tighter.

After that, no more dreams come.

“I made a mistake.” Here he is, esteemed bachelor of medicine, recounting his dreams to a teenage girl. Capella doesn’t judge, she only listens attentively. “I’ve spoken to Artemy while asleep, half thinking he is a delusion, and yet… I do not know where this town took him, and how, but I offered to take his place so he could walk free. Now I no longer dream. It has been a week and he hasn’t come back to me, and I fear he never will. I think he was asking for help and I offered him selfishness disguised as goodwill.” The words spill out like a torrent. He feels raw.

Capella closes her eyes, frowns. “Oh, Daniil. I truly wish you hadn’t.”

“As do I.”

Capella moves to take his gloved hands into hers. “I speak to you as a mistress. Have you been honest to yourself about what you want? About who you are? He cannot make the decision for you, and you cannot make the decision for him. He may not yet be out of your reach. If you wish to apologise, do so. In whatever form you deem best.”

Capella’s voice is unwavering like iron. Dankovsky nods, unable to speak. The girl releases his hands and looks away. When she speaks she is less a mistress and more the child she was not long ago. “He is drifting without an anchor. I wish I could give him one but he may not accept it from me. I was half hoping you could be one.”

Murky intercepts his trek back to the Burakh household by appearing out of nowhere and tugging on his sleeve. She forgoes greetings as usual and offers him a little package wrapped in string and yellowed paper. “For the marbles," she mumbles.

"I assure you, you owe me nothing,” Dankovsky protests, but Murky just keeps her hands extended with the package. After a moment he relents and slips the mystery gift into his pocket. “Fine. Thank you.” The child seems content with this, and slips away without another word.

Upon inspection he discovers that the package contains a black blue beetle with a perfect oblong shell. He almost discards the wrapper, when the inside of it catches his eye: an old map of the town. He smooths it out on idly. He hardly needs maps, now, for his everyday endeavors. Then the drawing shifts in his eyes: now the town is surrounded by an outline of a bull, as though carried on its back. The streets are lines like blood vessels connecting to the animal, and where its heart would lie- Daniil's heart hammers in his chest. A man lies in a fetal position in the place where the arteries all connect. A blink and the vision is gone.

The way Dankovsky has made sense of the world before is by putting it into writing. Scientific theorems spoke to him from the pages of books, and he responded in kind by scrawling endless notes of his own. Voicing his thoughts is difficult especially in matters of the heart, and so he decides to take to writing again. If Capella is to be trusted, and usually she is, perhaps the words will reach the recipient.

Artemy,

Consider this a belated reply to your letter earlier in the winter. I apologise for my tardiness.  

I wanted-

What did he want?

I wanted I did not realise that my offer, last time, was only an extension of my own grief. It was not a place I should have put you in, especially considering your own pain.
I apologise. I do not know if you can forgive me, and if you should. Neither do I know why it is me that you have shown yourself to, when there are so many here who hold you in high regard.
Please do not misunderstand, I am not displeased. I only hoped to help you. Still do. I consider you

A friend? Colleague? He sighs, and tangles his hand in his hair. He feels like there are eyes on him. His own self, perhaps, the dream-spectre, laughing at his foolishness.

-someone who could have well been a friend, despite our differences. I would have enjoyed that, I think. You are unique, Artemy, a singular entity the like of which I have yet to encounter elsewhere.

What is there to say, except how he feels, which is what he has done his best to avoid all this time.

If you were dead, I could grieve. But you seem to be just out of reach, and I can't accept it. You did so much. You did all you could. I cannot stand to think that you would become another one of the ghosts in this place, especially against your will. I refuse to believe this is what has happened. It's like I feel you close by, I expect to run into you at every street corner. The children miss you too, tremendously. I am hardly a replacement, though they seem to have taken a liking to me.

I envied you. That you had a place to return to, a purpose. I did not stop to think about how the place greeted you, and what it demanded of you. I only thought about my attempts at finding purpose and how they failed one after another. I never did ask, what do you want, Artemy? What sort of a life would you want to lead?

I know what it is to carry a darkness within that would take everything you’ve accomplished and say, more. I know guilt, and I know inadequacy. I can’t claim I understand your position, but I know self-sacrifice when I see it. I'm the opposite of you. The other side of the coin. I’ve always tried to deal with my own inadequacy by convincing myself that I am better than everyone. Even after the pest, I tried to cling to my career, my title, any spare bone the capital was willing to throw at me, so that I could pretend I’d never had to grovel in the dirt for some backwater town. You stayed and continued to give your all. I am aware of my selfishness, one could argue that I'm chasing you, too, for my own gain, and maybe so! If there is no selfishness left in you then perhaps I finally have one noble use for mine.

If you are still here, hold onto that. Please. I do not know where to go from here, or if my claims have any bearing, but I would see you live your life the way you choose. If I can play a role in that, I will. Shall I plead to your sense of justice or your competitiveness? If you need someone to laugh at, I'll be the big city fool for you. If you would have a target for your anger, I can demand unreasonable things from you again. If you would chase me away, so be it, but you must return in order to do so.

Yours,
Daniil Dankovsky

The letter goes into an envelope. Daniil does not proofread it, in fear that sheer mortification will have him tear the whole thing into pieces.

He has not been to the cathedral square since his arrival, has had no desire to see the reminders of the Kains' delusions of grandeur and what is left of them, but now he feels the need to. He stands a moment at the cathedral steps and pays his respects for Eva.

All that is left of the polyhedron is the bridge over the water and the platform. Everything else that there may be is covered in an expanse of pure white snow.

"Dum spiro spero," he mutters to himself, and places the letter on the platform. Something else is in his pocket: the beetle Murky gifted him not too long ago. He places it in the snow as well, where it shines blue.

Bachelor Dankovsky may be dead, and he is not sure how long ago it happened, perhaps even before he confronted the sand plague. Countless rebirths, always more painful than the last. But he is still here, watching the river flow sluggishly. In his heart is a feeling like the opening of a long-closed door.

Give him an anchor, Capella said.
Perhaps he can make himself one. Perhaps he can even be one for himself.

On the fleeting precipice of sleep he feels a gentle touch of fingers in his hair. They trail across his face, mapping his features, then a palm settles over his eyes. A familiar voice says: “I hear you. I’m still here.”

“Artemy. Stay here.” The words come out in a rush. He needs to say them now, or he might never have the chance. Artemy laughs with no joy. “I kept thinking I should have told you the same. All this time I regretted letting you on that train after the pest.”

“Why?”

“The last time I saw you, there was something about you... On the riverbank.” He hesitates.

“Yes?”

"I had to go, I had so much to do that I wished I could split myself in two just to be everywhere I needed to, so it was only afterwards that I realised your eyes were those of a dying man."

Daniil hates the way his throat threatens to close. Another bad memory he left for Artemy. Another person to fear for. He doesn’t want to tell him that he is right, things just did not pan out. “What could you have done?” he asks instead.

"Given you shelter."

"Had I stayed then, I would have become bitter and poisonous towards everything, especially you. You would have regretted it".

"Your bitterness isn’t a stranger to me." Is that a smile in Artemy’s voice?

"Hilarious, Burakh." He takes a breath. "I went back to the capital for the last dregs of my pride and dignity. They may have thrown those back into my face, but I had to know if I still had a place in that world.”

“And did you?” Daniil laughs and shakes his head.

“Where is your place now, oynon?”

“I’m trying to find out.”

“As am I.”

“Tell me, Artemy, what drove you into the dark?”

A deep breath. “Nothing happened to me, and everything did. The Kin looked to me for help, for they are waning, but I do not know how to be the person my father was for them. The townsfolk think of me both as a saviour, and a ripper. I feared the day a patient dies in my hands. I don’t know what new title I would have earned then. I didn't choose this position, it was given to me and I chose to accept it. I fear I am not all that I promised.”

“Surely that is not true.”

“Whether it is true or not, does not matter. It led me to this point.”

Daniil feels a surge of helplessness, and something that is bordering on spite. “There must be a way to end this imprisonment.”

“I’m starting to think the town didn’t imprison me, Daniil. Perhaps it tried to protect. Perhaps I tried to protect myself.”

Artemy’s hand finally uncover his eyes, and a brief touch of fingers wipes escaped tears from his cheeks. When Daniil opens his eyes, he is alone.

Daniil heads for the theater that morning, when it is still the long dark of winter, and the kind of cold that freezes one’s eyelashes together. The theatre door is boarded shut. Daniil doesn’t know when Immortell and his eccentric bunch packed their bags but it seems fitting. It takes him some time to wrestle the boards down, and in that time a small group of children gathers in the yard, ogling like this was the best entertainment they'd had in a long while. Considering the place, it may well be. Daniil ignores them pointedly.

The stage seems smaller than it used to, derelict. It creaks under his boots. He has an idea that makes his head spin, and yet, if it does not work… At least he has no spectators to witness his humiliation. Only the emotional damage will be considerable.

Daniil Dankovsky closes his eyes and improvises.

“Artemy Burakh, I’ve come to barter.”

"For what?" A familiar voice. A thrill runs down his spine. So it is this easy.

The man stands there, butcher’s jacket and all, unchanged. They’re both enveloped in darkness, only a spotlight’s worth of light illuminating them. He unbuttons his vest and shirt with fingers clumsy from the cold, as Artemy watches his movements like a hawk. "My heart, if you'll have it."

A complicated array of emotions passes over Artemy’s face. “And what of mine will you have in exchange?”
Daniil swallows down his rational side which is calling him preposterous and worse. "Let us exchange hearts.”

The haruspex looks at him. “This is not something to offer lightly, Daniil. I must ask for your reason.”

“Mine is still tied in flesh to the world. Perhaps it will act as an anchor. To bring you back.”

"Or to bind you like it bound me."

"Then you will simply have to put up with me." Daniil tries for a smile.

Artemy steps closer and takes a firm hold of his shoulder. His breath is shaky, but in his eyes is determination. “I could not have asked this of you, but since it is you offering...”

"I am offering. Take this, not as a sacrifice but as a gift."

He helps Daniil lay down and bundles up the snakeskin jacket to act as a pillow. “To think that the capital man is playing by rules of a myth.” He is smiling.

“You did that and cured a plague. My turn,” says Daniil and closes his eyes, trusting himself to the man before him.

Artemy makes the first cut. There is no pain, only an idea of pain on which Daniil refuses to dwell. In this odd state of existence his mind demands that he should be in agony but his flesh and blood body knows better.

Steady hands crack open his ribs.

When the heart is out of his chest Daniil speaks: “With this, may you have some of my selfishness, so that you may live for yourself as well as others.” The words come out a desperate rasp, but the meaning is there, hopefully conveyed. Artemy looks at him and nods, and then makes the first cut on his own body. Time goes hazy.

Then it is done. He is lying on the cold, dusty stage of the theatre and strong hands sew his chest shut with precise motions. He feels heavy. Artemy runs a rag over his body, wiping away excess blood, and stops right over his heart. There is a slight tremor in his hand. Daniil takes it in his own and brings it to his lips.

Artemy takes a deep breath and bows his head over his body, closing his eyes in exhaustion or perhaps devotion. “I suppose it is fitting for you to be the person to truly see me.”

“A disappointment, I’m sure,” Daniil remarks, wryly.

"Far be it for me to call myself a man of mystical inclinations", Artemy parrots and smiles, "but I have a feeling it was always going to be you.” Daniil looks at him, deer in headlights. Artemy continues, now looking him directly in the eyes: “With this I will give you a duty. You have my life, now. Don't waste it, Daniil Dankovsky. Keep living.”

“I will”, Daniil croaks out.

“Swear it to me”, says the menkhu.

“I swear, Artemy. I will protect it.”

It hits Daniil how beautiful the man is in this golden half-light. Unable to stop himself he runs fingers along Artemy’s arm, drinking in the sight of him like a man starved, and places a palm on his neck, afraid to touch but unable to be apart. Artemy leans into the touch, still not breaking eye contact. The beat of his pulse seems to fill Daniil’s ears too, his own body rushing to beat in sync. He feels it again, the sensation of something clicking in place, an experience similar to when Artemy first walked into the study in the Stillwater. Left hand, right hand, clutching the head. Right hand, left hand, now joined together in prayer.

A hand covers his own on Artemy’s pulse point, not to push away but to keep him there. Everything but the rushing of blood fades, and in the profound darkness where only the two of them are illuminated, another miracle begins to take shape.

The moment stretches on for what seems an eternity, but reality seeps in eventually. First Daniil is aware of the cold, then the howling of the wind outside. Artemy looks around as well, almost in disbelief.

“Care to see what is on the outside of that door?” Daniil asks. The man looks hesitant but helps him stand up anyway. “I fear I will open it and you’ll be gone, like always”, he says quietly. Daniil has no reassurances in him, for his fears are much the same. They walk off the stage, regardless.

Hand in hand, they push the large wooden door of the theatre open, and what greets them is blinding winter sunlight and a freezing wind. No stars, no bizarre dream-scapes. Daniil almost slips on ice going down the stairs, getting a hold of Artemy’s shoulder the last millisecond, and the man laughs like he has never heard him do before.

Peace feels terrifying and fragile, and the vulnerability of it is so alien it would almost be preferable to deny it altogether. Daniil doesn't. They walk together.