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Dottore returns from Sumeru.
Pantalone knows of this—his arrival had been reported—yet weeks pass with no word, no invitation. The medicine arrives regularly, and that is the only thing that happens. Dottore’s mansion has gone blind: no light appears in the windows by night, and by morning it shuns the day behind heavy curtains. Dottore’s mansion has gone mute: not a single note, not a single letter. Dottore’s mansion has gone deaf: servants, acting on Pantalone’s orders, have bruised their knuckles bloody, yet failed to rouse anyone inside.
A month later, a message is brought to him on a ragged scrap of paper. Dottore’s swift, anxious handwriting speaks to him, warning:
“Feofan. Be careful, especially with him. He betrayed ‘himself’, he betrayed ‘us’—he will betray you too. You are ‘our’ longest experiment; you will live. That is all I can promise you. 45”
Pantalone reads it. Rereads it. His hands are trembling. His thumb slips three times against the wheel of his lighter; the very first drag catches in his throat, making him cough, heightening his anxiety instead of offering relief.
What happened?
What. Happened.
It has been a long time since Pantalone smoked twenty cigarettes a day. He had cut down to eight—with great difficulty, much grumbling, irritation, and inner bargaining. Tonight, he destroys a whole pack in a single evening.
Dottore has a foul disposition—even fouler than Zandik’s had been, for with age, the old man had grown calmer, more yielding—and at times that foul temper could manifest in bitter words. Yet Dottore is not one to play practical jokes. He is not one to write notes in an awkward, hurried, barely legible scrawl. How well does Pantalone know the man who is four hundred years old—eight, twenty-five, eighteen, thirty-five, sixty-five, forty-five…? Until this day, he thought he knew him well enough.
Refusing to admit to himself that he is afraid, Pantalone finds the keys to Dottore’s house. And takes a revolver with him.
If Dottore… If the Omega has lost his mind in Sumeru, Pantalone needs to see it for himself. For centuries, he had grown accustomed to the loss of Zandik; for decades, he had adjusted to Dottore—to all of them. The blunt, frighteningly earnest eight-year-old. The defiant, vulnerable eighteen-year-old. The focused, driven twenty-five-year-old. The mocking, self-assured thirty-five-year-old. The observant, ironic forty-five-year-old. The detached, unflappable sixty-five-year-old. Pantalone had grown used to them, accepting them all with his very soul—a stubborn, resisting soul that had once, reluctantly and with great difficulty, accepted Zandik, and later, his continuation. Or were they his source? Rivers flowing from a single lake.
His legs carry him forward along a familiar path; the fog in his mind devours all memory of the journey, and time mocks him, slipping away like desert sand. Sumeru. Sumeru… Sumeru, a hypocritical, cruel land that had mangled Zandik. What had happened to Dottore?
Pantalone enters through the backyard, sinking knee-deep into the snow, nearly losing a boot. Not because he wishes to sneak in unnoticed—it is simply closer to the laboratory. To the studies. To the very essence of Dottore.
The mansion is as cold and quiet as a morgue—yet Pantalone never makes it that far.
Like a moth indifferent to the flame, Pantalone follows the cold light bleeding through the crack between the floor and the laboratory door. His steps are measured—a countdown. Five. Four. Three. Two. The groan of poorly greased hinges.
Dottore’s white-clad back remains indifferent to him; draped in his lab coat, he handles instruments whose names Pantalone has never managed to memorize over all these years. He does not flinch, does not turn around, does not slow down. The eighteen-year-old would have jumped and grown flustered—interrupted mid-experiment, he always reacted like a teenager caught masturbating. The twenty-five-year-old would have asked him to leave—he was the one who fussed most anxiously over the sterility of his environment.
“…Omega?” Without realizing the movement, Pantalone reaches for his revolver.
“The Regrator?” Dottore places an instrument onto a tray. “I did not expect you to return to a moniker from the days of our most strained cooperation.”
Dottore rests his palms on the desk, hunching over slightly. He lifts his head—looking not at Pantalone, but at his blurred reflection in the tiled wall of the laboratory. He nearly sighs: drawing air deep into his lungs, but refusing to let it out sharply. Tilting his head to the side, still without turning around, he speaks:
“You are tense. My apologies for failing to pay a visit—so much required my undivided attention; I had hoped you would possess enough patience to wait for my arrival.”
Dottore’s composure, his weary relaxation, sends an unpleasant shiver down Pantalone's spine. The Omega is the most elusive and self-contained of them all, yet Pantalone has never seen him like this. Different. Something within him has changed—whether it died or grew into a venomous weed, it is impossible to tell. Different. Not his. Not his Dottore.
Pantalone saves the revolver for the future.
“Why was there no one to meet me?” he asks.
Vaguely, a half-hint. Not asking why he hadn’t come, hadn’t answered, hadn’t invited him over. Not asking why the house is plunged into such a sinister silence. Not asking about the very thing, the realization of which would destroy Pantalone far sooner than Dottore’s newfound madness.
Peeling off his blood-stained gloves, Dottore finally turns around. With a pinch of his fingers, he catches his medical mask and pulls it down beneath his chin.
“I presume that in the absence of recent briefings, it has escaped your knowledge that the Dendro and Electro Gnoses have successfully reached Snezhnaya and been delivered to Her Majesty. I must admit, the bargain brought losses alongside the profits—yet who better than you to know that no trade goes without its sacrifices? Sit down. You look tired.”
Pantalone has no desire to do so—something inside him rages, refusing to let him draw closer, refusing to let him turn his back to Dottore or lower his guard. Yet, he accepts the invitation. He crosses his legs, locking his gloved fingers together. Unconsciously, his hands wrap around his knee, his thumb tracing silent arcs and circles against the black fabric.
“And what, precisely, was put on the line?”
“‘Myself’. ‘Us’. I must admit, the fact that Buer appraised the value of two Gods' Hearts as equal to ‘us’ was rather flattering. It is somewhat troublesome, inconvenient, and I would prefer to omit the details—I am quite concerned by the likely need to stabilize your blood pressure.”
Pantalone closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Holds it. Exhales to a count, and releases the lock of his fingers. With a sharp toss of his head, he rises to his feet—Dottore’s expression does not alter. It does not alter even when Pantalone raises the revolver.
One. Two. Three. Four-five-six.
Six bullets lodge themselves into the tile behind Dottore, framing his silhouette.
The revolver clatters to the floor. Pantalone drops back into the chair, convulsively burying his fingers into his hair. He lets out a dry sob.
Dottore remains silent, but he does not wait for a breakdown; Pantalone pulls himself together, his cheeks remaining completely dry.
“I was concerned about your potential reaction, Pantalone. It would have been easier had I managed to clean everything up and prepare. I am sorry that we are… discussing this in such a setting.”
It is hard for Pantalone to breathe.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Pantalone wants to wrap his arms around himself.
Zandik… Dottore… How many more will he trust? How many will he love? How many will he lose?
Footsteps. The sound of a drawer sliding open. A brief rustling. The drawer sliding shut. Footsteps again.
Dottore offers him a clean cloth handkerchief and something else, resembling a small album. He pulls up a chair to the right, sitting down beside Pantalone. A long silence follows.
“Zandik’s death would have destroyed you, had ‘we’ not been there. I remember. It was an oversight not to consider your grief…”
The album Dottore handed him contains five spreads. Five locks of hair, the pale color of winter rivers. Pasted inside are a few lines torn from journals and reports—impossible to decipher without reading closely. Drops of blood. All that remains of "them."
“Dottore?”
“I am listening.”
“The cigarettes are in my right pocket.”