Chapter 15
Shiro stabbed a piece of roasted field fowl with considerably more violence than the poultry deserved. His mood had soured to roughly the level of an unripened green berry, bitter, and getting worse the longer he chewed on it.
Sitting at a rough-hewn wooden table at a street-side stall, he reflected on the fact that he'd been in this city barely two hours and already felt like burning it down.
No, thinking back, that wasn't fair to the stall owner or the rest of the city's people.
The only thing he actually felt like burning down was its lords.
After settling into the Bower's Nest, he'd headed straight back out with one goal in mind: finding help.
Today he'd learned his body could still get hard. The morning wood that very morning had proven as much. More importantly, a girl could get him there too, Chaska had proven that much, by accident, which meant whatever was wrong with him wasn't hopeless.
So it was with hope in his heart that he went looking for people who could help with his urgent, inconsistently rising problem, people whose profession revolved around exactly sex. Unfortunately, his search had turned into a long, humiliating parade of slammed doors.
Stopped at the door, or sometimes in the courtyard, and once right as he was about to push through the curtain of an establishment, someone would deliver the same mechanical rejection, word for word, like it had been read off a script: "Sorry, but all our girls have been summoned to the ducal palace.
The local lords reserved every one of them for some event. "
"Typical nobles," Shiro muttered, grinding another piece of fowl between his teeth with even more aggression. "Couldn't even leave a few scraps for the rest of us. Greedy bastards, every last one of them. Sickens me."
He leaned back in the rickety chair and watched his fellow low-born brethren pass by on the street, having lost, at some point in the last hour, any real sense of which part of the city he'd wandered into.
He'd been lost for a while now, chasing down some establishment that would actually take his weary, frustrated soul in.
"Need some more?" the woman running the stall asked, warm smile in place, as fresh smoke billowed off her roast. "Still got plenty if you're hungry."
"Roast laaaaady..."
"You... you okay there? You’re cryi—You are you crying?! What’s going on?"
"Lady, if every establishment in this city treated its customers, noble or otherwise, the way you've treated me," Shiro said, with complete and slightly embarrassing sincerity, "Socity… Society would be better."
"Erm… Okay."
"What else have you got?"
"I've got paddlers," she said.
At the word, his mind conjured a two-foot, fully feathered swimmer gliding across a pond, its goose-like neck dipping gracefully while its paddle-shaped limbs steered it through the water in search of fish. Okay, I know this thing, he thought, and asked, "Give me one. No, actually, give me two."
"Two? Just so you know what you're getting into," she said, pulling out a dressed paddler to show him. “This is what it looks like.”
"I can handle two. I might not be a noble, but I've got the appetite and the money to manage it."
"Erm, alright. That'll be fifty Deor, including the two rustlers you already had."
"Will this cover it?" he asked, fishing a specific coin from his purse, the seventh biggest of his gold coins.
Gold coins dominated local trade, moving through markets in five smaller variants that functioned much like yuan.
Yes, yuan. The term had surfaced in his mind when he thought about currency, and along with it, six remembered denominations: ￥100, ￥50, ￥20, ￥10, ￥5, and ￥1, which he'd started mapping onto the five smaller local coins referred to as Deor.
The particular coin he handed over, based on what he'd worked out so far about value, sat close to the equivalent of ￥500. He watched the woman closely as she made change, waiting to see if her return would confirm the conversion he'd guessed at.
She handed back three coins, two of what were typically called T.Deor, and one F.Deor.
"Give me just a few minutes to get that ready for you," she said.
"Can't wait."
"You want to eat both here, or should I wrap one up for you to take else—" she started, then stopped as a chime rang out somewhere in the distance. Not the first time he'd heard it since arriving in the city, but the first time it had come this loud, this close.
"There's a temple nearby?"
"Yeah, just a short walk that way," she said, pointing with her tongs. "Lazarin temple."
"Lazarin," he repeated, testing the word and hoping for feedback. He got nothing.
"You don't know the Lazarin faith?" she asked, catching how he'd echoed it. "Now that I actually look at you, you're not from around here, are you?"
He smiled at that. Obviously sarcasm, since she'd already invited him to sit at her stall with the line, Are all the lads from your homeland born with hair and a face like that? Come, come sit down and tell me about your homeland while I get you something.
"It's the second Lazarin temple in the city," she explained. "The third-largest overall."
"Third," Shiro noted. "So the two bigger ones belong to different faiths? Or is one of those Lazarin too?"
She shook her head. "Only one of them. The largest is also Lazarin. Second place belongs to one of the two Temples of the Seven Apostles."
"I see."
"There's also a big temple for the Oracle followers," she continued, "and a shrine for the folks who believe in—" She paused, studying him. "You're not one of them, are you?"
"One of them?"
"Those lunatics believing in the end of the world."
He shook his head. “Never even heard of them."
"Good. Keep it that way. You're too young and handsome to be wasting your head on something that stupid. That's an old, senile men's hobby, that one."
"Noted," he said, though genuinely curious about whatever that faith was, right as the last echo of the bell faded out behind them.
"I was told temples have healers," he said. "People who can fix injuries. Work miracles, even. You think they could fix an issue that," he trailed off.
"An issue that what? You sick somewhere?"
"Kinda."
"Then go to the temple. They can fix pretty much anything that isn't too far gone, or too far up in the soul."
"Yeah. I should probably do that."
"You want these two paddlers wrapped to go, then? Because there's no way you're actually planning to eat both of these right here."
He was confident he could've surprised her, but settled for, "If you could do that for me, yeah, I'd appreciate it."
He bought a straw bag from a nearby stall, shoved both roasted geese inside, and followed the direction she'd given him, which led toward a wide, sweeping flight of stone steps climbing up to the single most imposing structure he'd seen anywhere, as far as he went down his memory lane.
Statues lined the climb on either side, prominent figures of the faith, presumably, looming down at him from a height that somehow made even architecture feel condescending.
He wasn't entirely alone on the stairs, but he still felt personally judged the whole way up, something he chalked up to the fact that he was exactly the kind of person who wouldn't have set foot near a temple at all, if circumstances hadn't forced his hand.
"Hey, I'll make a generous donation if your people can sort me out," he muttered, finally reaching the temple grounds proper.
The building was striking, graceful even, with smooth white walls rising high, topped by warm golden domes catching the afternoon light. Soft green ivy climbed the fluted columns, softening the solid stone with a bit of life.
Passing between the columns, he stepped into a corridor leading deeper inside.
The hallway held fourteen more statues, seven to a side, mirroring the ones he'd just passed outside.
The lower ceiling in here changed his perspective, though.
The outdoor statues had loomed far overhead, but in here he could look them straight in the eye instead of craning his neck up at a distant, judgmental chin.
"Huh," he frowned, stopping about thirty meters in, backing up, narrowing his eyes at the seventh statue on his left. "Is it just me, or does this guy look... Asian?"
Like with plenty of things since his amnesia, he understood the concept, what looking Asian meant, without the faintest idea where in his broken memory that concept had survived from.
Could this whole memory thing be some kind of curse, he wondered, and found, a little unsettled, that he could picture it that way without much resistance.
Because some of this feels a little too arbitrary to just be ordinary amnesia.
But if it is a curse, well, good thing I'm here.
As far as he'd gathered, temples served two practical purposes.
Three, if you counted prayer, though nobody he'd talked to seemed to.
People mostly came to the temple for their healers, and everyone who'd mentioned the temple to him had pointed him here for one or the other.
Since he doubted a sermon would fix his current predicament, he was aiming for the former.
He filed away the appearance of the Asian-looking statue and pressed on deeper into the building, following the flow of people down to a section where the air changed, grew heavier, thick with incense, dried herbs, and a faint metallic tang that stirred something from deep in his memory.
"Medical ward," he said aloud, picking up his pace to see how well the words matched the concept his mind had conjured.
The comparison landed strangely. Mostly right. Not quite, though, something about it felt incomplete in a way he couldn't pin down.
The section he entered was packed with people in ragged, stained tunics. Some slumped on cots, others limped along on bandaged limbs, or leaned heavily on exhausted companions. In stark contrast stood a coordinated group in tidy, near-uniform robes, temple healers, he recognized instantly.
Shiro had just taken his first steps toward a group of relatively idle healers when a voice cut in. "Hello there, friend! Don't think I've seen you around before."
Shiro turned to find a man approaching with practiced warmth, the kind of smile that belonged to someone used to greeting strangers before they had a chance to feel out of place.
The man's expression shifted slightly as he took Shiro in. Not suspicion exactly, just the subtle recalibration reserved for unexpected visitors.
Shiro noted his robe: simple, black, identical in cut to the others he'd passed on the temple grounds.
"I'm Antonein," the man said, offering a hand. "And you, friend?"
"Shiro."
"Shiro." Antonein turned the name over like he was tasting it. "Unusual name. Say, Shiro, you're not a Lazaren, are you?"
"I'm not."
There seemed little point dancing around it. As far as he'd gathered, there was nothing illegal about walking into a temple without believing a word of its teachings. Believers and skeptics alike seemed free to wander in. "I'm here to get healed," he said simply.
"Healed, friend? Are you hurt somewhere?" Antonein's eyes swept down and back up. "Ill, perhaps?"
"Yes, it’s not a visible thing," Shiro said, before noticing a knot of healers chatting in the corner go quiet, their attention turning toward the two of them.
His appearance kept drawing strange looks, something he'd noticed happening with every large group he'd interacted with so far, Anya's people, Maiq's, and now the city's.
He'd stopped minding the attention over his appearance much, but this, he didn’t want unneeded and undeserved attention on the topic of his inability to get normally hard.
"I see," Antonein said, nodding with a gravity that suggested Shiri he did not see, at all. Still, he offered a suggestion Shiro appreciated, "Would you like to discuss your condition somewhere more private?"
That was actually a good suggestion, Shiro thought, but still, "Are you a healer?" he asked bluntly, because the man didn't look like one. He at least didn’t dress like one.
He wore the same black robe as every other priest Shiro had passed on the way in, while the actual healers in this place wore white.
Antonein didn't deny or confirm. The man in black was silent for so long they were joined by one of the healers who'd been discussing in the distance. "Don't let this one lead you astray, friend. He's not a healer. Just a priest."
"One who's clearly overstepping," added another.
"Trying to take advantage of good people who need actual healing, so he can sell his trinkets."
"Trin—" Antonein opened his mouth as if to defend himself, then, catching the many eyes now fixed on them, visibly reconsidered his odds before backing off instead.
He retreated, leaving Shiro with the real healers. "Sorry about that,” the head of the group said, “he always does this when he sniffs out a particular kind of guest."
"What particular kind of guest?"
He didn't get an answer.
"You were lucky we noticed you."
"...I must be."
"So, what was your name again, friend?"
"Shiro."
"Right, Shiro. I'm Abel, this is Matt, and this is Daemon. What can we, as healers, do for you? I'm assuming he approached you because you're in need of healing."
"You guessed right," Shiro nodded. He was about to explain his situation, but looking around the open ward at the cots, at the people who, from what he'd just witnessed, would probably overhear every if just some of his words, he hesitated. "I'd appreciate some discretion, if that's possible."
"That can be arranged," one of them said. "For a Baelor, you can have a private consultation."
Shiro caught the quick, sideways glance Daemon shot his colleague the instant that price left his mouth, the universal look of did you seriously just say that out loud, and understood immediately he was being charged well above whatever this normally cost. He decided he didn't care.
As long as he got fixed, it was worth it. "You're confident you can help me?"
"I don't know yet what ails you," the healer said, "but I know for a fact that if anyone in this temple can help you, it's me." He turned to his colleague, who returned the look and confirmed it without hesitation.
"Yeah. Abel's one of our best."
"If not the best."
"Alright," Shiro said, reaching into his pouch for an O.Baelor coin and handing it to Abel.
"Follow me," the healer said, smiling wide, before leading him deeper into the building. Watching him go, Shiro could only hope they were as good as they claimed. Otherwise, Shiro would have to deal with con-men instead of the powerful healers they claimed they were.