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Chapter Text

As the Plague Doctor approached the city’s outer walls, he saw that they were undefended and the gate left open. This did not surprise him, as the Black Death had left a number of cities too underpopulated to mind their defences as they once did. Once Doc entered the city however, what he found was not a plague-stricken town, but one showing signs of great violence.

There were no people in the town, only the smell of what the doctor’s trained nose identified as dried blood. Brown streaks trailed from doorsteps where they joined others in the streets, as though bloody bodies had been dragged out of their homes.

“Hello?” the doctor called out. “I come in peace!” he insisted, frightened that who or whatever had caused this violence might still be there. For a moment, he just stood there in the middle of the silent streets.

Nothing. No response, no stimulation except the pounding of his heart.

Not even, the doctor realized, the bark of a dog or the crow of a rooster- sounds that had been present even in towns that the Black Death had completely depopulated.

The doctor collected himself. There was no sense in playing detective- the people needed now more than ever for him to stay on task. He would see if there was anyone taking refuge in the town’s church or castle, and if there wasn’t he would press on.

After walking up and down a few streets, Doc came upon the town’s church and found it to be just as empty as anywhere else in the town. And so, he made his way to the castle.

The castle’s heavy door creaked open, revealing dust-encased floors with the same streaks of dry blood as the rest of the town. “Hello? If anyone is there, I’m here to cure your ailing.” the Doctor called out, letting himself in and allowing the door to close shut behind him, cloaking the building in darkness. Doc moved for the windows, hoping to draw back their curtains and let in some light.

Before the Doctor could get to the windows, however, a purple light lit up the room. No longer empty, the room was now crowded with humanoids with horns, masks, and thin limbs, all lined up to speak to a being sitting on a throne made of spikes that pierced through him.

Doc wasn’t sure where he was, but felt that he ought to leave this formal location where he could so easily be out of place. Drawing no attention to himself, he left the castle.

Outside, the doctor could begin to take in the location he’d found himself in. The place resembled the town he’d been in moments before if it had been recreated by an abstract painter. The houses and stairs, their colours brighter than they had been in their original dimension, worked in twisted geometries, some being sideways or upside down, and yet ghosts and humanoids alike walked along them without any issue. The doctor’s eyes followed as a person walked along a looping pathway until they happened to walk by an ailing woman who was sitting in the streets.

Doc’s instincts flared. This woman had the pestilence. He ran over to her at a light jog and crouched down next to her to get on her level. 

“Excuse me, miss- are you in need of some assistance?” the doctor asked, fully expecting that she’d say she felt fine and that he would have to forcibly cure her.

The woman looked up at the doctor with sad, soulful eyes. “I doubt you have a cure for what ails me,” she said, “but you’re welcome to try.” With that, the woman peeled up her sleeves, revealing yellow pustules on her arms. Pustules, the doctor realized, full of pestilence.

“I certainly will, miss,” the doctor assured her, “Now just relax.”

The doctor touched the woman on the back of the neck, and the woman fell asleep. As Doc carved the woman open and inspected her organs, his heart jumped for joy. In this world, the pestilence was visible! People might finally take his work seriously!

The woman’s pestilence was not very advanced. She needed only have her gallbladder removed and her intestines shortened. After the doctor was done, the woman woke up and gave him another pleasant surprise: she thanked him. Never in his time on earth had a cured patient been able to thank him after their curing. Their side effects were too great. But this woman seemed to have none at all. She even invited him to dinner that night, where the doctor and the woman’s family dined on fish, bread, wine and roast vegetables. No one stared at Doc to figure out how he ate without removing his mask. It was so pleasant that Doc could almost get used to their strange taste, and the world’s strange geometry.

“Do you see a lot of the pestilence in these parts?” the doctor asked the family.

“Oh, it’s in practically every fourth person,” the woman replied.

“My. Then I have my work cut out for me.”

“Do you have a place to stay? If not, you could stay with us as long as you need.”

“That is a kind offer. I will have to take you up on it.”

It couldn’t hurt to stay just a while, the doctor decided. Yes, the other world needed help with the Black Death- it was a plague so serious that the doctor had put the pestilence on the back burner until it could be controlled- but a doctor could not be everywhere at once.

The next few days were some of the most pleasant and productive in the doctor’s life. Patients lined up around the block for his cures, most with pestilence but some with other diseases. There was no fear, no one trying to arrest him for his anomalous nature, just thanks. On third day of this endeavour, the doctor was approached by two large knights in black armour.

“Excuse me,” the taller of the two said, “the hanged king has requested your services.”

Chapter Text

“Oh. Very well,” the doctor replied, gathering up his medical supplies and standing to follow them. It was a short and uneventful walk to the castle.

Once the doctor entered the castle, it occurred to him that, on his previous trip here, he’d been too preoccupied with leaving to get a good look at the king or his court. Now that the throne room was empty and the doctor was undistracted, what he saw shocked him. He’d already seen the throne was made of spikes in brief, but now that he could see how they bore through the chest and thighs of the humanoid figure sitting on it and trapped him there filled him with pity. The king was covered in black wrapping that left only his long, sharp fingers exposed, as though someone had tried to mummify in a previous life. And yet he held a dignified posture and a crown on his head, as a king should.

The guards walked the doctor right to the king’s throne, where the king was accompanied by four courtiers, each wearing black robes and a porcelain mask.

The king mumbled something unintelligible through the fabric muzzling his face.

“The king has heard of your healing powers and wants you to ease his pain,” explained the courtier wearing a smiling white comedy mask.

“I… I will try,” the doctor promised. He put down his bag and began to produce various medical supplies from it- a trepine, a set of scalpels, a few painkilling acid substances, various herbal medicines meant to treat pain, and a jar of leeches being just some of them. He took out a topical rub meant to prevent infections as well, though he doubted that the hanged king could be infected if he’d survived like this.

The process of treating the king’s pain lasted over an hour, and when the doctor was done, the king bowed his head before him.

“He says ‘thank you,’” the masked figure translated, “and that he’s feeling much better now.”

The doctor smiled, happy to have made another satisfied patient. “Excellent. Do come and find me if you’re ever in the need for more assistance.” He leaned down to gather his supplies, but was stopped by the mask’s voice.

“Wait. You must stay here. The king could have another flare-up at any time.”

“Oh, but I- the people-”

The king mumbled.

“The king orders it,” the masked man insisted.

The doctor had travelled through many countries in his centuries-long life, and one thing he’d learned was that it was often easier to pursue his goals when he could work within a society. He wanted to go out and heal the people, but he couldn’t do that from a dungeon cell. “I suppose I could stay a bit longer,” he conceded.

“Excellent. We’ll have a room prepared for you,” the mask replied. “And since we will be seeing a lot of each other, you should know my name. I am the black lord.”

—

The doctor couldn’t complain about his lodgings in the slightest. He was as comfortable here as he’d been when visiting the kings and queens of the old world. But the lack of freedom bothered him. He was essentially on call to deal with the king’s flare-ups, which could happen as often as three times a day or as seldom as twice a week. The rest of the time, he was free to use one of their spare rooms to do his research, to enjoy the castle’s library, or to watch fools entertain or knights joust. What he wasn’t ever allowed to do, for reasons they refused to tell him, was to leave the castle.

One day, weeks after the doctor had begun to live in the castle, a commoner with yellow pustules all over his body entered the throne room while the king, the doctor, and the lords were watching a jester entertain. The man stumbled halfway across the room before collapsing, and the doctor rushed over to him.

“Please, help me,” the man begged, “I’ve heard of your curing power. I need it badly.”

“Of course,” the doctor assured the man. As he reached for his medical bag, the black lord caught his hand.

“You must not,” he insisted. “Your powers are only for the king.” The black lord then produced a vial of black liquid from his coat and turned his attention to the dying man. “Take this. It will cure your pestilence.”

The man took the vial and chugged it down greedily. His spots receded within seconds.

“Thank you,” he breathed, getting to his feet once more.

“Of course,” the masked courtier replied. “But before you leave, tell me: where did you hear of the doctor’s powers?”

“Beatrice Roberts told me. He was staying with her family a while.”

The mask nodded inquisitively. “I see. Thank you for the information. I will send you the invoice for the treatment before dusk. And from now on, do not approach me directly. My servants are in the west wing of the castle, and they will give you any follow-up treatment that you need. Have a good day.”

The doctor watched in fascination as the man walked out, stronger than before. His cure didn’t work that quickly, nor that noninvasively.

“You’re a miracle worker,” the doctor breathed. “Please, allow me to study a vial of your miracle substance.” Who knew? Maybe it could work on people in the other world as well.

“I’m afraid not,” the mask replied.

“But… why?”

“That is not for you to know,” the black lord said firmly, returning to the king’s side and gesturing for the jester to continue.

Doc decided that he had to get ahold of the miracle substance. After a few more minutes of watching the jester, he excused himself to his lab and went to the black lord’s quarters in hopes of finding more of it. He rummaged through drawers and soon found a small box of similar vials. As he slipped a few of them into his coat, he heard a whimpering sound from behind him.

In the middle of the large room, there was a large object covered with a thick brown blanket. The doctor had previously given it no attention, but since it was where the whimpering came from, he uncovered it to find an iron cage containing a horrific creature. It was vaguely humanoid, but emaciated, covered in cuts and bruises, and a few feet taller than a man, with too-long limbs and a black covering that wrapped tight around its head. The doctor thought little of it until he looked to the floor of the cage.

Drawings. The beast had scratched drawings into the floor of the cage with its claws- flowers and smiley faces and the like. He wasn’t very good- in fact the drawings reminded the doctor of a five-year-old child’s, but they indicated that this creature was no animal. It was sapient.

“I’ll get you out of here,” the doctor whispered. He then covered the cage back up and hid under the black lord’s bed. Once the black lord was asleep, he’d steal the key off of him.

Hours passed. The black lord came into his room that night, and the doctor heard the sound of the cage door creaking open. “There, there, my little abomination. The king has orders for you tonight. You are to kill the resident of 318 Hucksbury lane, as he has been planning a revolution. And you have orders from ‘the king’ to assassinate Beatrice Roberts.”

Doc froze. No. He had to stop this. He slid out from under the bed and gave the black lord his touch of death, leaving him to crumple to the ground, but the beast had already run out the door. Doc ran after him as fast as he could, but he never caught sight of the beast, let alone came close to stopping it. It must have been faster than the wind. Beatrice wouldn’t stand a chance.

Helpless, the doctor returned to his lab. At least one good thing had come of the night: he’d gotten his hands on the miracle cure. He gave it to a trio of lab rats infected with the pestilence and wondered at the sight of their symptoms disappearing instantly. In the morning, he would have to research the substance further.

As the doctor returned to his room, the beast approached him and sat before him like a dog. Blood coated its long, sharp-nailed hands. The doctor sighed. The creature probably didn’t know any better, and he couldn’t in good conscience send it back to the man who had probably given it all those cuts and scars.

“Come with me tonight,” the doctor told him, and the beast obeyed.

As the doctor settled in for the night, the beast was curiously pawing through the doctor’s desk. He found one of the doctor’s sketchbooks and lifted it up, studying it as though trying to determine its purpose.

“That is for drawing,” the doctor explained. “Here, allow me to demonstrate.” The doctor took a pencil and took the book from the monster’s bloody paw, and drew a picture of him. Trained by years of doing medical sketches, he wasn’t terrible at it. The beast grunted happily and took the sketchbook and pencil to draw a much rougher sketch of Doc, complete with a mask that was little more than a triangle with two black circles for eyes.

“Yes, just like that,” Doc told the creature gently. It then scooped Doc up into a big hug. Doc chuckled to himself and hugged it back. “Goodnight,” he bid it.

The next day, the doctor made a startling discovery. The rats he’d dosed with the cure from the night before were once again covered in pustules of pestilence. If anything, one of them looking to be worse than the night before.

It was then that everything clicked into place for the doctor. This substance wasn’t a curative, it only masked the disease’s symptoms. The black lord was probably making a fortune off of it. And just as the lord had lied to his beast about the king’s orders, he could have lied to the doctor just to keep him from curing people in earnest.

The doctor grabbed his medical bag, beckoned the beast to come along with him, and took to the throne room. He’d known that the black lord was a monster, an abuser of the king’s assassin, but to find out that he had made such a mockery of the medical sciences on top of that awoke something brutal within him. He was going back to the other realm, and if the black lord had survived his touch of death as Doc knew some non-human beings were capable of doing, he was dragging the black lord there with him.

The four lords and the king sat in the throne room, talking to a commoner about an incident regarding his cows. None of them found the doctor’s presence to be surprising, let alone alarming, so they didn’t so much as turn to look at him before he got close enough to tap two of the lords with his touch of death, leaving them to fall limply to the floor. From there, pandemonium broke out.

The doctor was scarcely able to touch the king and the other lord using his enhanced speed before the black lord tackled him to the floor. The doctor managed to slink out from underneath him and get a pair of handcuffs out from his bag. As the doctor got up, he saw two guards coming for him, swords at the ready. Thankfully, the beast came to the doctor’s rescue, tackling them over and mauling them to shreds with frightening speed. The doctor and the masked lord faced each other, assumed fighting stances, and began to slowly close in on each other, looking for an opening.

You don’t want to do this, sounded an almost-supernaturally persuasive voice in the doctor’s ear. No, you what you saw was a mistake.

It was all the proof the doctor needed that the black lord knew he was physically outmatched. A few quick movements, and the black lord was in handcuffs. The doctor dragged him to where he’d dropped his bag, and soon he had the lord’s legs tied up, too.

Taking a few paces away from the tied-up lord, the doctor paused to catch his breath. He couldn’t wait too long- he’d never used his touch of death on non-human beings before, but he could tell that the ones surrounding him now were still breathing. Who knew how long they would remain unconscious?

“Beast,” he ordered, “help me to move these bodies. All but the body of the black lord need to be out of the room.”

Together, the two emptied the room of bodies, and the doctor closed the drapes on every window, bathing the room in complete darkness. He waited a moment, and then opened the curtains once again, to a dusty and abandoned castle.

The light from the window glinted on a pair of empty handcuffs next to a limp rope. The doctor nearly dropped the drape out of panic, but then he realized that a porcelain mask was lying next to it. It seemed that its black coverings had dissolved. Had there ever been anything underneath?

Put me on, the mask begged, you would look so beautiful with me on.

It took a frightening amount of willpower for the doctor to ignore its plea and finish opening the curtains. As he did, however, the beast scurried away from the light and into a corner, covering its face, whimpering and shivering. Its black face covering had disappeared, too, the doctor realized. And it didn’t want its face to be seen.

“Do you wish to come with me?” the doctor asked. “I could make you something else to wear over your face.”

The creature’s whimpering was its only response.

“Very well. If you change your mind, come and follow me. Farewell, kind beast,” the doctor said. He then picked up the mask, who was still tempting him to put it on. The doctor left the castle and found a good place for the mask in one of the houses’ chamber pots, where it would not have the opportunity to bother anyone for a very long time. With that, the doctor started for the next kingdom.