The Curious Case of the Cursed Crucible

by Constance Barker

  “But?”

  “He was never successful. And, at some point, the crucible disappeared. I don’t even know if it was before or after his death. That was a chaotic time.”

  “And you have been trying to find it again, I assume.”

  “I have. If I can find it, if I can figure out what he did wrong... well, the philosopher’s stone would be worth the effort. It is such a pivotal concept in our world.” He grinned at Clarence. “The unreal world people like us live in.”

  “I suppose it would.”

  “Just being able to create one would validate so much. As a result, I hope we actually learn something at this hospital,” he said, finally dropping a clue as to where the report was taking us.

  “Me too,” Clarence said. “This crucible doesn’t seem to be a nasty artifact though. So far, it’s given a number of people, desperate people, a little extra time so that they could say goodbyes and settle their affairs. That’s not a bad thing.”

  “I guess not,” I said. “Usually, however, using any artifact comes with a catch or side effect.”

  “Almost always,” Bel said, nodding.

  “I wonder what the downside of this one is.”

  As we came close to the hospital, Bel perked up. “I think we might be a few steps closer to finding out,” he said, suddenly turning off the highway and down a two-lane road into a small town.

  “Aren’t you going the wrong way?” I asked. “The hospital is that way,” I pointed. “It’s a way up the road yet.”

  “I know that,” Bel said. “But I sense an artifact and I think it’s here.”

  I looked at Edgar who shrugged. “I can’t tell anything yet,” he said. “Bel seems to be better at long-range sensing of these things than I am. I need to be closer.”

  Just when I accepted that Bel was taking us to the artifact, he pulled into a roadside diner. “Why don’t we have some coffee?” he asked cheerfully. He looked bright, like a hound dog on the scent, which I suppose was an apt simile.

  “I could use one,” Clarence said.

  I sighed. “Let’s be quick and get back on the trail before it grows cold.”

  As we climbed out, Bel smiled at me. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

  The diner was relatively empty except for a couple who sat at a table eating waffles and an old man in a booth having coffee and slurping a bowl of soup. The old man looked rather ordinary and I guessed that he was in his eighties. As we walked in, Bel surprised me by walking right up to his booth. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, stopping in front of him. “I hate to interrupt your meal, but would you mind if I were to examine the crucible?”

  The man looked at him. “What did you say?”

  “I asked to see the crucible.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The crucible of Nicolas Flamel. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d very much like to see it... hold it really. It’s of great personal interest to me... to us.”

  The momentary look of shock on his face passed, replaced with curiosity. The man pointed to the empty seats in the booth. “Please sit down,” he said. We sat quietly. “Coffee?” he asked, waving to the waitress.

  Clarence and I nodded. “Milk for me,” Bel said.

  “Put it on my tab,” the old man said.

  After a moment, looking like he was ready to burst, Clarence spit out the question bubbling in his brain. “Sir, are you Nicolas Flamel?”

  The man laughed. “Hell no. I happen to be Leopold DuLac the third.”

  Bel’s face told me that this meant something to Bel. He put his elbows on the table and leaned toward the man. “So you are with the family.”

  I wondered what that was. “The... family?” Clarence and I exchanged clueless looks, but DuLac understood who Bel was talking about.

  “That’s right, I am.” He smiled at me. “You must be fairly new to this.”

  “Relatively speaking, I suppose we are,” I agreed. “Given that some of this, whatever you might mean by that, seems to have been going on since the beginning of time.”

  “He meant the DuLac family,” Leopold said, nodding toward Bel. “The DuLac family is well known as collectors of artifacts. We’ve always been selective, collectors who are only interested in a very few, very particular artifacts.”

  “So you buy and sell cursed objects?” Clarence asked.

  Leopold shook his head. “No, no. We are private collectors. We seldom sell anything at all. The artifacts are far too much trouble to bother with reselling them. No, we collect them for our purposes, although, having said that, we haven’t acquired anything recently. Nothing at all. Not for a long time.”

  “How long?” Clarence asked.

  “Our current collection has been the same for, oh, a couple of centuries now, at the very least.”

  “That explains why we weren’t aware of you,” I said.

  “Of course, that makes sense,” he said.

  “Sensing the crucible, that it was out there being used and on the move was quite a surprise,” Bel said.

  “How is that?” Leopold asked.

  “First, simply that it seemed to be on the move. As you said, your family has kept it tucked away in one spot for quite some time. Generations. And then, sensing that it was being used so frequently was another change. It seemed very unusual. It hasn’t been used often in all the time I’ve been watching for it.” He raised a hairless eyebrow. “And I’ve watched fairly carefully.”

  Leopold sighed. “Yes, it was used sparingly until recently. I didn’t know that would be apparent.”

  “The use of artifacts is noticeable.”

  “It certainly is,” Edgar agreed.

  Leopold folded his hands. “And you two are a surprise as well.”

  This caught Bel off guard. He sat back. “Is that so? And how is that?”

  “Well, I imagined that if anyone was going to catch up to me, notice I was using the crucible, it would be the Cabal. I didn’t realize that they worked with ghosts,” he said looking at Edgar. It was disconcerting whenever someone could see Edgar, but then his family was in the business. “I never, never imagined they would send you, Bel. I’m flattered though. I’ve heard stories of you, of course.”

  “They didn’t send me.”

  Leopold scrunched up his face. “In that case... Given your history, I think I can understand why you would like to handle the crucible.”

  “I see.”

  “And naturally you are welcome to do so.”

  Bel flashed a smile. “It’s all right with you?”

  “Certainly. I’m afraid, however, it won’t be of any help to you.” He smiled at Bel. “Still...” He reached into his bag and fished out a finely carved white box. It looked like ivory. He sat it on the table and pushed it over to Bel. I saw a look that I could only describe as sheer reverence came over his face as Bel carefully opened the box. Inside was a battered old crucible, just as the woman had described it. Bel held his breath and ran a finger over the rim of the thing.

  “Why did you say the crucible won’t help Bel?” I asked DuLac. “And what does he need help with?”

  DuLac shrugged. “If Bel hasn’t told you anything, it’s not my place to share his story.” Then he reached out and touched Bel’s arm. “As near as I can tell, as near as the family can figure, the reason Von Hohenheim couldn’t make the philosopher’s stone with this crucible is that it was damaged. Somehow, Flamel’s work changed it fundamentally. When Flamel made his philosopher’s stone it altered something in the crucible. Whatever he did imbued it with its present power, but did something to it that prevents it from making another stone.”

  “You’ve tried, I take it,” Bel said sadly.

  “Over the years it’s practically become a rite of passage for each generation in our family to give it a shot, hoping for success. But it hasn’t worked for any of us. No one has succeeded since Flamel.”

  Bel closed the box and pushed it back to DuLac. “I was afraid of that. I’m not
sure what made me think I might be able to do what my father could not. Hubris, I suppose.”

  DuLac raised an eyebrow. “I thought the same thing when I was young. We learn.”

  “So, I assume the family is after you now? The woman I talked to mentioned being bothered by others looking for this.”

  That rang a bell. She’d mentioned other people, but I’d assumed they’d all shown up together. No wonder she felt harassed.

  Clarence was sorting all the new information out too. He raised a finger. “Wait a minute,” he said. “If I’m following this correctly, the family is after you, Leopold?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Your own family? The DuLac family?”

  “Again, correct.”

  “What did you do?”

  “As I said, the family collection has remained static for a long time, and they didn’t take kindly to me absconding with one of the pieces. Especially this one. It has proven to be a very profitable item over the years.”

  “Profitable?” I asked.

  “That’s what the family does, what they’ve always done. I said they were private collectors, but the truth is that they actively use their collection of artifacts in order to build wealth.”

  “Like selling miracle cures?”

  “It never sat well with me at all. My father feels that it’s just a millennial thing. He thinks I’m a bleeding heart liberal and all that.”

  I laughed. “Your father thinks you are a millennial? Aren’t you a bit old for that?”

  Leopold smiled and I saw a tremendous sadness in it. “Yes, he thinks that..” I watched him sigh as he put the box away. “And he’s right. You see that’s the downside to using the crucible. Every artifact has one, you know, at least one downside, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean?” Clarence asked.

  “You see, the curse of the crucible isn’t its limited extension of life. In fact, it doesn’t actually extend life at all. It only appears to. It doesn’t create the time it gives to the people it heals; that time, those six months don’t come from nowhere.” He smiled. “The fact is, I’m only thirty years old.”

  Clarence and I exchanged dumbfounded glances and then sat in our stunned silence.

  Chapter Ten

  The idea that the DuLac family had been using the crucible and other artifacts to earn money over the years didn’t come as too much of a surprise. That was less of a concern than the Cabal’s antics. But learning that they did it at Leopold’s expense did shock me. They knew that the time they sold people came from Leopold’s life did unsettle me. Who did that to their own family?

  I saw that Bel didn’t seem the least bit shocked. I suppose, given his background... if you were born of this magic, were integrally part of it, that might give a person, assuming you considered Bel a person, a different perspective on the matter.

  Clarence asked what had to be the most obvious question. “If you know that this happens, what using the crucible does to you, why are you using it? Isn’t that why you left?”

  Leopold sat back and folded his hands. “As it happens, I was born to privilege. From the time I was born, I was given everything I could possibly want. But that luxury, all that lavish life came at a cost. My family had a lengthy history of collecting and then using its hoard of artifacts to sustain that life. They prostituted them, taking advantage of their powers to earn gold and jewels, and these days even stocks and real estate.” He laughed. “My father recently even started accepting Bitcoin. That money has given them the opportunity to buy power and protection. Over the years that power has accumulated so that now they own politicians across the globe, they have their fingers in every imaginable financial pie.”

  “But no one hears about them,” Clarence said.

  Leopold nodded. “That’s part of what they buy. It’s a sophisticated way to run the world. In a way, using artifacts that harm the family isn’t much different than some aspiring financial deal maker using cocaine to get a perceived edge, although the profits from using the artifacts are far more of a sure thing.”

  “I suppose that’s a valid comparison,” I admitted.

  “It should be no surprise, therefore, that my family considers the Cabal thugs with no tact. They want nothing to do with them or whatever their plans might be. The family is insular. Yet, they have no problem with them. The world is big enough for more than one group to control certain aspects. In general, however, we steer clear of one another.”

  “I still can’t see how they could use the artifact knowing it hurts you,” I said.

  He sighed. “That’s the benefit of an outside perspective. Every member of the family is born into the life. We grow up in that world, and honestly have little choice in the matter or even any suspicion that it might be otherwise..”

  “But, obviously, if you broke away...” I began.

  “As I suggested, I grew disenchanted with this crass manipulation. Not so much of me, but of the world. I didn’t like the way the family used its power. I decided I wanted to do some good—compensate for what the family did.”

  “What triggered that?” Clarence asked.

  Leopold shrugged. “Some time ago, my own mother got sick. She was terminal and although my father could have used the crucible to give her those few months of health, let her wrap up her life while feeling good and energetic, he refused. The amount he could gain from selling that six months of life was worth more to him than giving it to her. I pleaded with him to give them to her, but the rest of the family was on his side.”

  “That’s awful,” I said.

  “And so, she deteriorated to the point that when she died, she didn’t even know who she was, or who I was. That was the end for me. I saw that he had no compassion at all. If the quality of her life had no value, then clearly money and power were the only things the family cared about. I knew then that I was done with them, my entire family.”

  “And you left with the crucible?”

  He nodded. “Not immediately. It took some time to plan things, and I had to wait for the right moment, but that’s what I did.”

  “But now you are using it... and taking years off your life.”

  He smiled weakly. “I took it with me when I left to do some good. I thought I’d find one or two people I could help.” He grinned. “I didn’t intend to use it so often but... once I did... you should have seen their faces, the way they lit up when they realized that I had told them the truth. When I began to see the incredible amount of happiness it brought them, well, I found more than I expected. And all of them were people who, very soon, were going to experience tremendous grief and loss. I gave them some respite.”

  “At the cost of years of your life,” Clarence said. “You shorten it by six months each time.”

  He shrugged. “Well, it seems to me that it’s a fair trade. Isn’t that the best use of one’s time on this earth? Even if it does mean that my time is going to be shorter, isn’t it better as well?”

  “I suppose it is,” I said. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d be that noble about giving away years from my own life.

  “Some people throw their entire life away in one act of heroism, such as a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades. I do it in bits and pieces. That doesn’t require nearly so much bravery. And this is relatively painless. You can’t miss years from the end of your life.”

  “But you’ve aged so much, Leopold. How is that? We’ve only managed to find notice of a few of these miracles recently.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, not everything ends up in the paper. I generally ask the people who benefit from my assistance to keep it quiet. They try, but many of them have doctors or relatives, or even friends who want to object publicly.”

  “Object? Why would they object?”

  “People don’t care for much of anything that seems miraculous. They like to issue stern warnings that remission isn’t healing. And, of course, they are right. I don’t heal them, even though journalists often get t
hat wrong. Sometimes my work gets reported because they have a doctor who has tried some innovative treatment and he or she wants to take credit for the ‘cure’ and squash the idea that a traveling shaman had anything to do with it.” He smiled. “Although those doctors are unlikely to continue making that claim after the patient dies.”

  “So we’ve missed how many?” Clarence asked.

  Leopold folded his hands on the table. “Since I started my little quest I’ve healed nearly a hundred people.”

  “That’s fifty years,” I said.

  “Which makes me... around eighty, I suppose. I sure feel eighty.” He pointed to the half-finished bowl of soup he’d been eating when we arrived. “My poor stomach can’t quite handle the food it once did.”

  I felt for him. “So what happens when the family catches up with you? I assume they want to find you and the artifact.”

  He chuckled. “Well, I suppose all that will happen is that they’ll take the crucible back. They don’t give a damn about me. That’s another reason I’ve worked with so many people. I don’t know how much time I have.”

  “What if you don’t have it when they catch you? What if it’s gone?”

  That got his attention. “That would piss them off. I like it. The only problem is that I’d need to pass it along, putting it into safe hands.”

  “We could take it,” Clarence said. “We know about keeping artifacts, cursed objects safe.”

  “You do?” Suspicion darkened his face. “How is that?”

  “We are Antique Dealers,” he said. “We do it all the time.”

  The suspicion twisted into a frown and he shook his head. “No, thank you.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “If I’d known they were antique dealers, I wouldn’t have spoken to you at all. Now I must be going. People to heal and all that.”

  “But why? We can help. We store artifacts away and protect people.”

  “Because you are part of the problem.”

  “How is that?” Clarence asked.

  “Antique dealers, the Family, the Cabal—in my opinion, they’re just shades of the same color. The Family wants to make a profit, the Cabal thinks they can rule the world, and Antique Dealers think of themselves as white knights who get to tell the rest of the world what it can and can’t make use of. It’s all about finding and controlling artifacts.”