I startle at the sight of him, robe swishing toward me over the dried and brittle grass, like a teetering, ornately decorated bell. I squint, searching for feet beneath the robes, but there are none I can see. An embroidered pattern of suns and stars and moons extends down the length of either side of the robe. The golden thread glints as he teeters, temporarily blinding me.
I raise a hand to aid my sight.
The figure rustles to a stop in front of me. He steadies himself on a crooked wormwood staff. The hand clutching the staff is corpselike, blue-veined and spindly, protruding from the cloak’s massive bell-shaped sleeves. A fearful vision he is, wavering before me inside the rolling mist.
“Who are you?” I ask.
Slowly the figure lifts its head. Dark, sunken eyes peer out of the shadow of the robe’s billowing hood, amplifying the illusion of mystery that swirls about the strange figure like a drape concealing a magician’s trick.
“I can help you, sir,” he states, his voice a grating, scraggy whisper. He bows his already badly bent and trembling head deeper, then struggles to return it to its previously angled perch.
“How?” I snap, impatient. “On what grounds do you make this claim?”
“On the grounds that I am an alchemist, sir.” His voice is low and feathery, as if only intended for me to hear. “I’m well sought after in the land I hail from—”
“He is a witch,” a lone voice in the crowd shouts.
My chin snaps up, and I fix the woman in my gaze.
“A cantationer from the North!” she adds, her anxious eyes settling on me. “A well-known practitioner of wickedry! A sorcerer, that’s what he is! Not to be trusted.” She reaches for the crucifix on her chain and draws it shakily to her chest.
“She’s right. He’s evil,” another shouts.
“Do not trust him, sir. I beg of thee.”
My head swings back and forth, tracking several more panicked faces. Distrust spews up from the crowd. All of them caution me to send the stranger away.
“Is this true?” I turn on the anomalous man standing steadfast before me. Despite all the accusations, he shows no cracks, though fear flutters in my chest. “Are you as they say?”
A wind picks up, ruffling the hem of his cloak. Curled-toed, red-soled shoes are revealed.
“I am, sir,” the stranger finally says, his harrowing gaze never leaving me.
The crowd gasps and shrinks back. They caw, curse and wail.
“But I am the only hope your young bride has of remaining in this world with you.” His milky eyes fall to the whey-faced Eyelet, lying lifeless in my arms, her heartbeat slowing against my chest. “Time is of the essence, sir.” He glowers through the dark opening of his hood. “I can help, but we must hurry. The window on that design is about to close.”
Eyelet gasps—a convulsive breath—and I jump. Terror-filled poison trickles up my spine.
“No,” Livinea gasps as Eyelet’s eyes roll back.
Iris grabs my arm.
The stranger’s gaze shifts from me to Eyelet, and back again. “I lay hands on her soon or she’ll be whisked away forever. But then again, by profit, I think you know that, sir.”
His words roll over in my head, slowly crushing me.
There is something about his gaze. Something alluring and comforting, yet strangely… chilling. Profit? Whatever does he mean?
Panicked voices slice the air: “Don’t listen to him! Don’t do it, sir!”
“Don’t trust him!”
“Your majesty, please.”
C.L. jerks forward. “Listen to them, sir.”
“What?”
“Do as they say. Don’t listen to him. I don’t trust this, sir.”
“What would you have me do then?” I glare at him.
C.L. shrivels back. Livinea weeps, and sniffs.
One of the patrons in the crowd falls to her knees. She crosses her chest and prayers her hands. Others follow, bowing their heads and muttering prayer-like chants.
“Cast him out!” A burly man thrusts a pitchfork in the air—the same pitchfork that earlier was meant for me. The image bursts to the front of my brain. “Cast him out, or I’ll strike him down where he stands!”
“Hear! Hear!”
The crowd’s anxiety thickens. They draw in closer, closing off the path that led the stranger to me, pressing in at our backs.
“Stop!” I raise a hand, turning desperate eyes on the stranger. “Turn back your hood. Reveal your face. I cannot, and will not, entrust the love of my life into the hands of a man I cannot fully see.”
The stranger hesitates, staring out of his hood.
“I said, reveal yourself!”
He reaches up slowly.
“Don’t do it, sir.” An old woman shouts. “Don’t look upon his face. To gaze in his eyes shall be your death!”
My heart trembles in my chest as his nimble fingers clutch the sides of the fabric.
“Send him away before it’s too late!” The crowd screeches and turns their eyes away.
The stranger draws back the sides of his hood, just far enough for only me to see.
He has a long, thin, pallid face set in a raw-boned skull with angled cheekbones that cantilever his weathered and shrivelled skin. His hair is threadbare, white and spindly, and flutters straight up from the top of his head. Though his complexion is parched, it casts an oddly reverent glow in the dim twilight of Brethren.
I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
Swathes of great, gothic mist move in, as if summoned, coiling reverently about his feet and arms.
His eyes, are intense, amber— the colour of rich ale—but I detect no signs of evil emanating from them. To the contrary, I find his gaze eerily soothing.
I shake my head to break the trance, taking solace in the fact that he is at least earthly. I breathe out a great sigh of relief, but shiver just the same.
“I am her last chance,” he says. “You must believe me.”
“Believe him and we all die!” someone shouts.
Like dire hands, the alchemist’s gaze pulls at my will. “Please, sir.” He nods. “Let me help her.”
“How do I know you can do as you say?”
“Because I’ve been sent—”
“By whom?”
“You shall see.” His voice is thin and trails away, an eidolon whisper of what it has been. The hairs on my neck fray.
“I don’t believe him.” Masheck steps up, fists clenched at his sides. “I think he’s lying.”
“For what purpose?” I snap.
“Banish him while you still breathe,” shouts the woman with the crucifix. “While we still breathe.”
“See him hanged and dipped as he should be!” the man with the pitchfork shouts.
The rest of the crowd alights in rip-roarious rebellion. Chants of hate twist in the air.
I look out into their terrified faces, then back at the gaunt old man who stands before me—so decrepit, yet such a threat.
What do they see that I don’t see?
My first test as Ruler and I’m failing. I don’t know what to do.
Eyelet’s body gyrates in my arms. Just a small quake at first and then, terrifyingly, with increasing speed.
“Eyelet?” I clutch her to my chest, trying to stop the vibration.
“There’s little time,” the stranger says.
Eyelet’s entire body begins to convulse.
Iris looks up and screams.
“Let her go! Let him take her!” Parthena clutches her heart.
The stranger looks to me. “It is now or never, sir.”
I look up into his burning amber eyes. What do I do? Who do I trust? What do I believe?
Something sharp twists in my heart. I look down at Eyelet in my arms, then to rest; Parthena pleading, Livinea weeping, Iris with Cordelia’s lifeless body still cradled in her arms.
“Don’t, sir,” C.L. begs, as Masheck shakes his head, and the world around them becomes a blur.
“Please, sir.” The alchemist reaches for her.
“Take her!” I thrust her into his waiting arms.
“Good God,” C.L. gasps and falls back.
Iris crosses herself.
“Sir?” Masheck says.
“Not now.”
Almost instantly Eyelet’s condition improves. The ends of her fingertips begin turning pink again, the life-blood creeping slowly backward toward her hands. Even the blue of her lips have lightened a shade.
The feeble alchemist starts away, his arms shaking under Eyelet’s weight. “I’ll need access to a laboratory, some hoses, syringes, and ultraviolet light.”
“For what?” I ask, running along beside him.
He glares. “Do you have them or don’t you, sir?”
“Of course, we’ve access to everything, I believe...all but the ultraviolet—” I squint Parthena’s way—
“Which I can easily conjure if given the right materials. You must see to it that I get the materials.”
“You will, I promise.”
The alchemist gasps. “Take me to them. The lab and the materials, please. And hurry.” He trundles on, breathless, staggering beneath Eyelet’s weight.
I reach out to relieve her from his arms. “No.” He tugs her back. “She must not leave me. Now please, let’s hurry. We must get through this crowd.” His eyes press me to react.
“Masheck!” I call over my shoulder. “Help me cut through this crowd. Martin, Sadar, Wanda, stay back and help Parthena contain them. Parthena, can you address these people? Tell them they will hear from their ruler once I have Eyelet settled, but not sooner. Impress upon them to go back to their homes and wait in peace.” I glance out at the restless crowd. “There is to be no bloodshed.”
Parthena nods and heads for the stage, crumpled skirts in hand. The rest take their places. Masheck and I draw poison-tipped swords from the sheaths on our hips and start swinging.
The crowd falls back, aghast.
“C.L., see to it the girls get safely back to the castle,” I holler, breaking into a run. “And bring Cordelia. We’ll see her buried properly, later.” I turn and spring for the gates through the confusion.
The crowd, now an angry mob, surges.
The alchemist follows me, floating effortlessly over the ground behind me, as if walking on a cloud.
Chapter Two
Urlick
I HURRY THROUGH THE DOORS of the castle, swinging them open wide. The soles of my shoes clap hard against the stone steps as I bustle down to the belly of the basement. The alchemist follows close behind me, Eyelet in his arms.
Masheck passes us on the stairs and rushes ahead into the cold dark laboratory to set flame to the sconces lining the walls. Methane hisses as each vein is struck, flickers to weakly to life.
Eyelet’s father’s laboratory blooms around us—a sparse yet vibrant space. You can tell he was a man of measure, of quick mind and deep calculation, just by the medley of apparatus he kept.
The alchemist hastens into the space behind me, bringing Eyelet to rest on a large anatomage stone slab in the centre of the room. Why on earth is it here? This is not an operating theatre.
Eyelet looks like a lifeless skeleton, yet winces when her back touches the cold surface of the stone table, a welcome sign that she’s still with us.
The alchemist turns to me, a weary look in his eyes. “I will need you to gather some things for me: albine, coal chalk, terintimely, and saffron—”
“Saffron?”
“Yes, and the preparations for glassmaking: silica, lime, soda ash, fire. I’ll also need the furnace stoked to a tremendously high heat. And bring tongs and a bucket of cool water.”
I just stand there staring at him.
“Quickly,” he shouts.
I jolt to move, but Masheck beats me to it; leaping to action. He travels half out the door, then doubles back. “Where will I find saffron, sir?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Just hurry!”
Masheck turns to leave, but the alchemist grabs him by the sleeve. “You will find it where her heart grows,” he whispers, his voice barely a thread. “In a jar in the darkest corner labeled ‘freeze’.” He releases Masheck. Sparks flare from the alchemist’s fingertips.
Masheck’s eyes wax.
I stare in horror at the snapping sparks. What have I done? What am I doing, allowing him to touch Eyelet? What kind of a madman is he?
Masheck scuttles from the room.
The alchemist feeble hands hover just above Eyelet’s body, sweeping them head to toe. He closes his eyes and begins a throaty, guttural chant, his fingers quaking. “Humbaluma. Humbalora. Humbalingaloom,” he chants.
The room fills with the strange smell of energy—metallic energy, quantum energy, tribal energy from lifetimes past, twisting through me, driving through bone, blood and cell. I’m helpless to stop it . . . whatever this is.
Helpless to stop him.
I reach out and clasp his arm, but he flings me aside. I’m suddenly no match for his strength.
I cling to the wall as his chants clamour, bursting boisterously off the walls of the stone room. I dig my nails into the rock. I can’t move my legs. It’s as though they’re bound by chains, anchored to the floor by some invisible means.
On the table, Eyelet’s head tilts back, her neck forming an arc as her body rises beneath the swirling motion of his beckoning fingers. She levitates from the rock.
“What is this? What’s happen—”
“Hush!” The alchemist never breaks his attention from Eyelet. He draws his fingers upward, coaxing her to fly higher, and still higher, above the slab. His black magic holds her magically suspended in the air.
I hold my breath, fearful he’ll stumble and his magic will cease, and Eyelet will fall and crack open her skull. Energy loops about the room in great swirling spirals of crackling light. They pull together into a hardened ball.
The ball is not solid, yet nor is it unsolid. It looks to be some sort of magical gas.
I duck as it hurtles past my head, afraid for it to touch me, afraid it might burn a path straight through my body. It passes overhead again and again, commanded by the alchemist’s flailing hand. With the other, he holds Eyelet in place. She is gently sleeping, head hanging back, hovering a good metre above the stone slab.
Delicately, he guides the ball in a series of madly propelled figure eights around the room. He then directs it to loop Eyelet’s body, backward and forward, over and over, repeating the same pattern. The ball leaves a mare’s tail trail of ghoulish, greenish light wherever it goes. It sparks now and again, blinding me. I raise a hand and duck back.
“Drawing on all that is power in the universe,” the alchemist chants, his eyes tightly closed, “I command thee into my possession. Guide my hands as I resurrect the life forces of this child. Reinforce not what appears to be her current destiny.
He reaches for some rock, clear and sharply edged. “Generate these crystals. Activate their healing force that she my draw upon them.
Hold this child in a place of pause, do not let her falter forward.” He rolls the rocks in his hands. “Help me bring her back from the brink of dark force.” He tilts back is head, his eyes wide to the heavens. “Light of all lights, bestow on me the power to save her. Keeper of the crystals, grant me the ability reverse her plight. In the name of all that is and all that will be, empower me. Here, now, in this very moment…”
The ball of energy slows. Its spiralling light sparkles then gently fades, swallowed up in the flickering sconce-lit darkness of the room.
The alchemist turns his attention to Eyelet, his eyes still tightly shut. Holding a steady hand over her forehead, he whispers, “Go not thee into the light, my dear child, but keep to the darkness. If only for this one time. Reverse your present plan.”
&nbs
p; The ball of light bursts apart into thousands of tiny twinkling lights. They sail through the darkness, forming a luminescent cage around Eyelet, swaddling her like a blanket of fireflies.
I catch my breath as they glow brighter and bigger. The room shines like a night sky filled with vibrant stars. It is both beautiful and unnerving.
My chest heaves.
I’ve never felt anything like this before . . . this notion of exaltation in the face of doom. What dark power does this man possess?
He places the healing crystals on the slab beneath Eyelet’s back, below where her heart hovers above. The crystals shudder, roll then crash to the floor, shattering wildly around us. They clink and tinkle, singing out in a chorus of struck crystal-shard chords. It is all at once musical, yet ominously deafening. I reach to cover my ears.
“No! Don’t,” the alchemist shouts
He throws back his head and mutters something inaudible; the music is too loud for his words to be heard over the pulsing energy of the music.
And then it stops.
The alchemist’s tongue falls silent mid-chant. He gasps as if being choked. His arms fall to his sides. The stars go out, and Eyelet falls like a rock through water. My throat closes over. I spring to catch her but strangely, miraculously, there is no need. She comes to an unexpected stop above the stone slab, then drops, slowly, gently, settles upon it, unharmed.
The alchemist stumbles backward, breathlessly. I reach to catch him before he crashes to the floor and he collapses into my arms, gasping. Perspiration pebbles his brow.
“Are you all right?” My muscles strain. He is strangely, incredibly heavy. I grow weak in the knees.
Then, as if a hand has entered our universe from another, he is lifted from me and placed gently back on his feet. His body takes on its withered form again, and it’s then I realize he had been a different man as he worked the cantation. His spine had been straight, his neck unbent.
He reverts to his former twisted state. His neck drops forward, his head a heavy hook. His gaze fades to a dull shade of moss green.
“Your eyes,” I say. “They were amber before, the colour of ale—”
A charge flashes between us, striking me back. I stumble, fighting to regain my footing against an unseen force. My shoes crush the shards of broken crystals that now coat the floor.
Soleil Page 2
