Goldenfire

by A. F. E. Smith

  She grabbed his forearm with both hands, pinning it to her chest. Then she hooked a foot over his calf and pushed upwards with her hips, pivoting the two of them until she could swing her other leg across to sit astride him – and now she was the one holding him down. He tried to throw her off in turn, and then – failing that – he smirked at her.

  ‘Oh yeah, Ree, that feels really good …’

  She headbutted him in the face.

  Later, once Timo – his lower face covered with a mask of blood – had been escorted away by one of the fifth-ring physicians, Ree found herself standing in Weaponmaster Bryan’s office. The weaponmaster himself sat on the other side of the desk and studied her without speaking. His expression was grave, rather than angry, yet Ree began to quiver all the same. He’s going to throw me out. He’s going to send me home. I’ve failed.

  ‘Sir, I –’ she began, about to attempt some form of defence, but Bryan held up a hand to silence her.

  ‘Ree, you broke his nose,’ he said. ‘You were sparring, so it wasn’t against the Code, but still … you didn’t need to do it. You already had him beat.’

  She scowled. ‘He deserved it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He said I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘So what, girlie? Not like he has any actual say in the matter. Captain Caraway and I –’

  ‘He said you went easy on me because I’m a girl.’ The words caught in her throat. ‘Is that true?’

  Bryan looked at her a moment longer from beneath heavy brows. Then he said, ‘Sit down, Ree.’

  She sat. The weaponmaster frowned across the desk at her as if trying to work out the best way to explain some fundamental fact of life.

  ‘If anything, I’m going to be harder on you because you’re a girl,’ he said at last. ‘That make you feel better?’

  ‘Harder?’

  ‘’Cos you’re an unknown quantity. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve trained plenty of women in my time. Had my arse handed to me by a few, too. But Helm training …’ He spread his hands. ‘That’s different. I have to be sure you can take it. Have to be sure the others can take it, too.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘The boys.’ Bryan planted a finger on his desk for emphasis. ‘Because you know what the difference is between a Helmsman and any other warrior?’

  ‘He’s better?’ Ree faltered, and the weaponmaster barked a laugh.

  ‘They’d like you to think so! No, the difference is one of trust. The Helm have to trust each other. Utterly. Completely. How you work with these boys is just as important as your skill with a sword. So if you can’t win them over –’ He made a gesture that suggested instant death but probably just meant the end of your chances, and added surprisingly, ‘You could learn from Saydi in that respect.’

  ‘From Saydi? But they laugh at her!’

  ‘They did,’ Bryan said. ‘But now they’re starting to respect her. She may not be as proficient as you, Ree, but she works hard. And she doesn’t treat the others as an obstacle to overcome. If you weren’t so busy trying to avoid her, you’d have seen that.’

  ‘But she does nothing but flirt –’

  ‘She’s settled down,’ the weaponmaster said sternly. ‘She’s knocked some of her own corners off. Maybe you could stand to do the same.’

  Ree bit her lip, cheeks hot, and said nothing. She wasn’t sure what was worse: that Bryan had noticed her avoidance of Saydi, or that he thought she could learn from her. As usual, her instinct was to defend herself, but she fought it back. Whether she liked it or not, she had to listen.

  ‘Look,’ Bryan said. ‘I know they give you a hard time. And if I thought it was anything more than words, I’d stop it. But that’s what soldiers are like, girlie! Men and women. They rip the piss out of each other, but they have each other’s backs. The Helm most of all. And if you want to be a part of that, these lads have to know you have theirs.’

  Ree nodded mutely, a little overwhelmed, and he raised his eyebrows at her.

  ‘Here’s a secret,’ he said. ‘You all think it’s a contest, and in part you’re right. In terms of skill, you’ve got to be one of the best. But when it comes down to it, anyone who succeeds by stepping on the backs of their fellows ain’t gonna be welcome in the Helm. Maybe the old Helm,’ he added reflectively, ‘but certainly not Captain Caraway’s. Got it?’

  ‘I don’t want to step on anyone,’ Ree mumbled.

  ‘I’m not saying you do. I’m saying, you have to find a way to become their colleague, not their competitor. ’Cos like it or not, they ain’t going to make the effort on your behalf.’ Bryan looked at her sternly. ‘And in case you were in any doubt, Ree Quinn, breaking their noses is not the way to do it.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘All right. Then go away, and don’t do it again.’

  As she stumbled back to her barracks, tears of hot frustration stung her eyes. It wasn’t fair. She was going to fail, not because she wasn’t skilled enough at weaponry – which, until she came to the fifth ring, she’d considered her only potential downfall – but because she wasn’t skilled enough at getting a bunch of boys to like her.

  It wasn’t fair.

  The tears threatened to overwhelm her completely, but she blinked them back. She had two choices: she could let them beat her, or she could keep fighting. And she wouldn’t have come here in the first place if she hadn’t been willing to fight.

  She simply had to find a different way of doing it.

  Ayla had begun to think of Miles’s visits as the one time each week when she felt as if she were achieving something tangible in the drive to preserve her own life. Today, as she waited for him to climb the hill to Darkhaven, her impatience was more acute than usual. It had taken several weeks of conversation – Miles finding out what she could do, what it felt like, what she was – but he was now ready to start the practical side of their investigation.

  Darkhaven had been built to accommodate Changer creatures, so she and Miles could have done their work anywhere, but Ayla had decided that the two of them should use the transformation room. No-one was likely to walk in on them, there was room for her to Change as well as a screen to preserve her modesty, and there was enough space for Miles to have all his alchemical equipment set up without her wings knocking it over. She hadn’t expected so much equipment, to tell the truth. She’d thought alchemy was more of a spiritual discipline than a physical one: all arcane rituals and ceremonialism. But Miles had alembics and flasks and tubes and pipes, a small fortune in glass-blowers’ wages.

  In a way, it was amusing. The Helmsmen at the gate had carried out a thorough search of all that equipment when Miles had first brought it up to the tower, looking for concealed firearms. They’d opened every crate, handling all the delicate glassware with care whilst Miles hovered anxiously in the background. Of course they hadn’t found anything, so they’d admitted the lot. They’d even helped to wheel the little cart to the transformation room. And all the while, it hadn’t seemed to occur to anybody that if Miles wanted to hurt Ayla, he could simply smash one of his flasks and slit her throat with it. An alchemist’s equipment was a potential armoury of viciousness.

  To be fair, a shard of glass was unlikely to do her any damage in creature form, so she’d be able to Change to get away from it – whereas that wouldn’t help with a bullet. Still, it was quite frustrating how everyone – even Tomas – had fixated on the idea of an assassin with a pistol, the blithe assumption being that if she were attacked in any other way, she’d be quick enough to escape. They might have forgotten what had happened three years ago, but she hadn’t. Being a Changer didn’t help if the room was too small for her creature-self, or if someone incapacitated her before she could react. That was why she’d wanted Tomas to teach her how to fight – and that was why, now, she was putting her trust in alchemy.

  She met Miles at the gate, and they walked to the transformation room together. Once there, he set to work with barely a word, selecting glasswar
e and mixing substances and … Ayla wasn’t sure, but whatever he was doing, it didn’t involve giving her an explanation. So she walked slowly along the far side of the long table, examining the half-emptied crates with some interest. Most of them were old battered things, but one was newer: a small chest carved with what looked like the alchemical symbols Miles occasionally scrawled on a piece of paper.

  ‘This is pretty,’ she said, risking an interruption. He glanced up to see what she was referring to.

  ‘Yes. I bought it from someone in the fifth ring. It seemed perfect for this purpose, because there is a schematic of Arkannen in the lid.’

  ‘Really?’ Ayla opened it. Inside, the thick walls of the chest took up a considerable amount of space, leaving a compact cavity that Miles had filled with packets of different powders. Yet it was the lid that held her attention. As he’d said, seven concentric circles were carved into the wood, with the gates clearly marked on the boundary walls and a tiny heptagon at the centre to represent Darkhaven. It wasn’t just Arkannen, either. Around it was the outline of Mirrorvale, disproportionately small in comparison to the city, and the edges of the other countries beyond.

  ‘See?’ Miles leaned across the table to point at the design. ‘How the gates are joined by dashed lines to the countries surrounding Mirrorvale? Each gate is on the opposite side of Darkhaven from its corresponding country, meaning that the lines cross each other right in the centre of the circle.’

  ‘Where Darkhaven is,’ Ayla said. ‘So what’s at the other end of each line, Miles?’

  ‘As I said –’

  ‘What I mean is,’ she interrupted, ‘the lines join each gate to a country.’ That was still a strange idea in itself. ‘But a country is a massive thing. The lines could have been drawn connecting gates to countries without meeting at Darkhaven at all. So if there’s any truth in this idea, and it’s not just some esoteric theory, there must be something at the other end of each line. Otherwise …’ She shrugged. ‘I could draw any shape I liked over Arkannen and claim it revealed some deep-hidden secret, but that wouldn’t make it true.’

  He bent forward to peer at the diagram. ‘It is hard to tell at this scale, but I think the line connecting the Gate of Steel to Parovia ends at Rovinelle, the King’s Seat. And it is possible that the Kardise line terminates in Kardissak.’

  ‘So capital cities,’ Ayla said. ‘Centres of power. But the Ingal States have nothing like that – or rather, they have a dozen. Unless …’ She touched the spot with a fingertip, glancing up at him. ‘The old imperial palace?’

  ‘Where the sovereign lords of Ingal once ruled before the country splintered,’ Miles agreed. He straightened up and smiled at her. ‘You would have made a good alchemist, Lady Ayla.’

  She nodded absently, still thinking about the diagram. It all seemed very strange, close to unbelievable – and yet, it was widely held that the temples of the sixth ring kept the natural powers of the world in balance. If that were true, she saw no reason why the gates of Arkannen couldn’t have a similar effect. But to what end? To counterbalance the influences of the countries surrounding Mirrorvale, Miles had said before; yet she suspected there was more to it. Again, she thought of her father’s words: Darkhaven and the city that upholds it. We are tied to it, and it to us.

  ‘I never noticed before, but I think the Altar of Flame is positioned on a direct line between Darkhaven and the Gate of Flame,’ she said aloud. ‘Likewise, the Spire of Air and the Gate of Wind. And no doubt others … It’s amazing, Miles! The more I consider it, the more I’m convinced that every part of this city was built with alchemy in mind.’

  He nodded. ‘I am sure of it. That is the difference between a city that grows out of a smaller settlement, and one that was built wholesale for a specific purpose.’ Turning away, he returned to the bottles he’d been working with before and picked up a flask of water that sparkled with silver glints. ‘I am ready to begin now, Lady Ayla.’

  Ayla closed the chest and eyed the flask with some trepidation. ‘What exactly is that?’

  ‘Distilled crystal. I thought we would start with your own elements.’

  ‘All right. Then … before we go any further, can you explain how the whole thing works? I mean, it doesn’t seem possible that just a few everyday materials combined can achieve … well, anything. It’s not even as if you’re using the actual elements, flame and wind and whatever. Just symbols.’

  ‘We use both,’ Miles said. ‘When we make a solid object, we need something to make it out of. So we use the representative materials – the symbols, if you like. But you are correct: a thing made out of glass and crystal and amber and wood and steel is just a thing. The alchemy comes from three principles: the order the materials are combined, how they are combined – so we might use flame to heat them, for instance, or wind to scatter one into another – and the addition of the two spiritual elements. It really is quite fascinating –’ He visibly caught himself, blushing. ‘I am sorry, Lady Ayla. You have no desire to listen to this. For a moment, I thought I was back at the university.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Ayla said. ‘I’m interested. If alchemy is in my blood, it seems wise for me to know as much about it as possible.’ In fact, given the number of other useless subjects she’d had to cram into her head when she was younger, she was surprised her father hadn’t hired a tutor in alchemy alongside the rest. But then, Florentyn had always approached the subject of their family’s origins with a caution bordering on paranoia. Along with his conviction that the bloodline must be kept pure had come an equally strong insistence on secrecy. Exclusivity. Detachment from the common folk. The Nightshades were special, and they were to be kept that way, and no-one else in Mirrorvale should be allowed to know more about their overlords than was good for them. Even, apparently, Ayla herself.

  She wondered if Myrren had known any more about it. He’d been brought up as their father’s heir, after all. Or had Florentyn thought it was too dangerous a topic for anyone to mention? After all, there was that question Miles had asked. If an alchemist created Changers, what is to stop someone repeating the process? Ayla could imagine very clearly what her father would have done if someone had said that to him.

  ‘So you use representations of the elements to create a material object, and the elements themselves in the process of creation,’ she said aloud. ‘What of these spiritual elements you keep talking about? Birth and death? I can’t imagine how you …’ She bit her lip as an unpleasant thought struck her. ‘Don’t tell me you add living things to these mixtures.’

  Miles laughed. ‘We are not sorcerers, Lady Ayla. Birth and death – boros and auros – are simply the driving forces that animate our work. Without them, we would have nothing but inert objects on our hands.’

  ‘That doesn’t really answer the question, Miles.’

  ‘That is because I have no answer to give you.’ He was still smiling, but now she sensed just a hint of dogged steel behind it. ‘Some things must remain a mystery.’

  She gave him a sly glance. ‘Is that what you tell your students?’

  ‘Yes, actually. At least until the fourth year. If alchemy were possible to understand in a morning, Lady Ayla, I would be out of a job.’

  ‘All right. Then if we’ve gone as far as we can with the theory –’ she smiled back at him to show she understood – ‘do you want to tell me exactly what you’re planning to do in these experiments?’

  His lips quirked. ‘Better that I show you. If you could just drink a little of this for me …’

  He held out the flask. Ayla hesitated. Never mind slitting her throat; he could dispatch her without any violence at all, simply by offering her poison. He wouldn’t even have to touch her. Admittedly, only a handful of poisons could actually kill a Changer – but if anyone had the necessary knowledge, it would be an alchemist.

  Still. She had to trust him. Else why were they even here?

  ‘All right.’ Before she could change her mind, she lifted the flask to he
r lips and swallowed a mouthful of the contents. Immediately her throat constricted, sending her into a coughing fit. ‘F-fire and blood, Miles! Th-that’s horrible!’

  He nodded. ‘Unfortunately, Lady Ayla, that was only the beginning.’

  After that, it was relentless. He got her to drink different concoctions of water mixed with powdered substances – Only tiny amounts, he said, they probably will not make you sick. Ah … Changers have strong stomachs, do they not? He asked her to hold various items – an ebonwood wand, a chunk of amber, a carved metal ring – while he measured her pulse rate, her breathing, her swiftness of reflex. He took samples of her hair and set fire to them, sprayed a fine mist into the air and told her to breathe it in, put a blindfold on her and asked whether particular materials felt cold or warm to the touch. And all the while, he got her to Change. Back and forth, back and forth. Woman, creature, woman. Until she was dizzy and breathless with it. He didn’t seem to notice her nakedness, so after a while she didn’t either.

  Finally, back in human form, she grabbed her robe from where she’d flung it over the abandoned screen and sank down onto the floor. ‘No more, Miles, I beg you!’

  ‘My apologies, Lady Ayla.’ He was already holding another flask, half filled with murky greyish liquid. He began to extend it towards her, then – at her look – lowered it back down to his side. ‘You are correct, of course. That is more than enough for today.’

  He turned back to the table and began busying himself with his equipment. Ayla gazed up at his back. Strong Changer stomach or not, she still felt sick.

  ‘Did you learn anything?’ she asked plaintively.

  ‘Oh, I think so,’ he mumbled to the glassware. ‘It is all most interesting. Did you know, your hair is almost impossible to burn? Fascinating.’

  ‘Miles.’

  He spun on his heel to look at her, then folded himself gracelessly onto the floor beside her.

  ‘I learned plenty,’ he said – a soothing note in his voice that she found more amusing than otherwise. ‘Your ability to shift shape is not affected by anything in the air, or by anything you ingest –’