The Alchemists Academy: Stones to Ashes Book 1

by Kailin Gow

  “Transportation spells are useful, aren’t they?” she said, in answer to the unasked question of how she had shown up like that. Wirt expected her eyes to be roiling with anger, but in fact, she just looked sad.

  “You really put Merlin into an enchanted sleep?” Wirt asked, before he could stop himself. He had to know, if only because of what it would say about the teacher in front of him. Ms. Lake nodded.

  “Yes, and that’s all I’m prepared to say on the subject, so please don’t ask anything else. Priscilla, if you don’t run along right now, I’ll have you doing lengths of my lake until your fingers go wrinkly.”

  The princess scurried off. “So,” Ms. Lake asked, “what did you find out, while you were pretending to be members of staff?”

  “How did you guess?” Wirt asked.

  Ms. Lake smiled. “Who do you think gave Aloea and Gertrude the idea?”

  They recounted what they had heard, along with a brief version of Wirt’s adventure. Ms. Lake nodded.

  “Perhaps I was a little harsh on Priscilla then, if she helped. I will apologize the next time I see her. For now though, we have to think about whether all this brings us any closer to actually finding the chalice.”

  “I suppose,” Alana offered, “that it means we know of at least one group of people with motive to take it.”

  “That’s true, and I will keep my ears open for any news of one of them trying to sell something powerful.”

  “My money is on Ms. Preville,” Wirt said. Ms. Lake shrugged.

  “Maybe. We must continue to explore all options though. It might be that someone has taken the chalice for a different reason. It is very powerful. It let Morgana heal many of Arthur’s wounds on the boat to Avalon, and that was just a small use of its power. Who wouldn’t want the ability to bring back loved ones?”

  Wirt swallowed, thinking of his parents. Yes, he thought. Practically anyone would want it.

  Chapter 10

  Because there didn’t seem to be any obvious way of working out who had taken the chalice, life continued as normal at the school. Or at least, at what passed for normal there. Over the next couple of days, he found himself learning lessons that made storm clouds about six inches across spark with lightning, that made dancing colors appear briefly in mid-air, and that, in the case of Mr. Fowler’s alchemy class, made a complete mess of yet another classroom.

  Then there were the Transportation lessons. Wirt found himself enjoying them, partly because Ms. Lake did most of the teaching, and partly because he seemed to have a natural talent for it. Where the others in the class needed Ms. Lake’s help at first, Wirt found himself making short hops without her from the start. Even in the brief spaces when the Headmaster took over, things went well for Wirt.

  “Yes,” Ender Paine said partway through one of his contributions to a lesson, “we’ll soon have you making true jumps, young Wirt. Of course, then the question will become one of what you do with that talent. You could…go a long way.”

  Wirt was not sure whether he was meant to laugh at such a bad joke, but he didn’t bother. He did, however, find himself wondering exactly what the Headmaster had in mind for him. And what Ms. Lake had in mind too. As much as Wirt wanted to ignore the warning of the woman who had been a songbird, he found that he couldn’t. There was something about the way Ms. Lake kept such a careful eye on his progress, something about the way she had manipulated Ender Paine into letting him into the school, that said the teacher had as many plans for Wirt as the Headmaster did.

  Right now though, her plans didn’t seem to include an obvious one for finding the chalice. She actually said as much the next time Wirt, Spencer and Alana met with her, out on the meadow in front of the tree. It was a location that meant Priscilla could just happen to be having a picnic nearby, along with her brother, who busied himself by trying, and largely failing, to juggle a trio of apples. Wirt had the feeling that Robert was not quite as interested in this Quest as his sister was.

  “Until we can think of something better to do,” Ms. Lake said, “I think that we will just have to try searching the tree.”

  “I thought that it was too big to search,” Wirt pointed out, and Ms. Lake nodded.

  “It is, if we’re searching it thoroughly. But maybe we will get lucky. At any rate, it is something to try until a better idea comes. Maybe someone will reveal their hand. Maybe one of them will try to sell the chalice. Until then, we search the tree.”

  From their picnic blanket, Priscilla yawned and stretched.

  “You know, Robert, what I need right now is a long walk. Possibly several long walks. All around the tree.”

  “And it seems that our unofficial royal helper agrees,” Ms. Lake said.

  “So should we split up?” Wirt asked. Part of him didn’t like the idea, because he suspected that things might get dangerous if they actually found the chalice, but then he considered the possibility that he might be paired up with Alana. “I think we should split up.”

  Ms. Lake shook her head. “I don’t think that is a good idea. Try to stick together. You should probably keep an eye on Priscilla and Robert, too. Though I suspect,” she added, “that might not be as easy as it sounds.”

  So they searched, and in the process, Wirt started to get some idea of just how impossibly huge the school within the tree was. They looked down hallways thick with dust. They stared into storerooms full of crystal balls and even baskets full of rope.

  In between lessons, the five of them rode the transport tubes of the tree to every corner they could find, from library-like rooms where it proved impossible to speak, to the gymnasium where wizards in short robes lifted weights without touching them. Briefly, they stepped into what appeared to be a crypt, before beating a hasty retreat as shapes started to move in the shadows. Nowhere did they find any sign of the chalice.

  Wirt was starting to feel exhausted. Running around all over the largest tree in the universe was not exactly easy, even when it had its own transport system to help. Doing it while still trying to learn things in between was proving almost impossible. He vented out his frustration to Spencer and the others when they met up.

  “We should still try,” Spencer said. “Remember that we’re being marked on this. Father would be so disappointed if I just gave up.”

  “And finding the chalice is important,” Alana added. Priscilla murmured her agreement, but Robert shook his head.

  “We could be at this forever without achieving anything.”

  “How about if we do just one more stop today?” Wirt suggested. That got general agreement. Unfortunately, it also meant that the others looked to him when it came to deciding where they should go, and Wirt didn’t have the faintest idea. All he could do, as he stepped off from the side of the hole leading to the rest of the tree, was think “somewhere that will help us”.

  If Wirt was worried in the first few seconds, because he suspected that the tubes needed something more specific than that, he was absolutely terrified in the ones that followed it. Though to be fair, he was not alone. The five of them fell, and fell, and fell, picking up speed until they were going faster than Wirt had ever been in the tubes before. Would they fall until they hit the ground? Surely there were some safety features built into the tubes?

  He almost didn’t notice when they started to slow, finally drifting to a halt on a stone floor, with not a few sighs of relief all round. Wirt surveyed his surroundings as best he could. It seemed to be some kind of cave. It was brightly lit by mysteriously glowing moss along the walls.

  It was at that point that a voice came to the five of them, echoing with what Wirt could only think of as a strong Welsh accent.

  “Oh, I was not expecting visitors. Bore Da, all of you. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “Bore what?” Alana asked.

  “I think it’s a Welsh greeting,” Wirt answered, before realizing that people from another world probably wouldn’t have the faintest idea of where Wales was. Which raised the question
of exactly how someone Welsh had come to be there. Determined to find an answer, Wirt started forward, closely followed by the others.

  As they approached the back of the cave, Wirt saw a man approaching from a side tunnel. He was tall-well over six feet- and his hair was fire engine red, falling well below his shoulders. He wore a shirt and slacks of deep burgundy, which seemed to shimmer in the soft light of the cave. Wirt found himself looking more at the man’s shadow than at the rest of him, though. Where the cave wall should have sported the silhouetted figure of a man, instead it featured something huge, and clawed, and winged. Apparently, the others saw it too.

  “What are you?” Spencer asked. Alana just gasped.

  What happened next was, Wirt decided afterwards, like looking at one of those pictures where you could either see a face or a pair of candlesticks, depending on how you looked at it. One moment he was looking at a man in a red shirt. The next, he was staring into the maw of a huge red dragon, looming over him with wings spread wide. Priscilla summed up the general mood quite nicely, by screaming.

  And just like that, they were looking at a man again. A man with his fingers in his ears, as it happened.

  “Would you mind not doing that? I’m Llew, by the way.” He looked the five of them over, pausing when he came to Wirt. “It’s not often I run into someone who knows about the old country.” Llew thought about it. “Not ever, come to think of it. Tell me, do they still talk about me?”

  “Um… I think you might be on the flag,” Wirt said. Llew grinned.

  “I knew they’d remember. So, who are you all, and what can I do for you?”

  Quickly, Wirt introduced the five of them.

  “We’re looking for a chalice,” Alana put in. “The chalice of life.”

  “Now what would you want with that?”

  “You’ve heard of it then?” Wirt asked.

  “Heard of it? Boyo, I was there when they used it to patch up Arthur. Lovely bloke. Always handy for a fight when I was bored.” Llew turned his attention to Robert. “I don’t suppose that’s the kind of thing you do is it? I haven’t fought a prince in years.”

  Robert blanched, and didn’t say anything. Priscilla put a hand on his arm. “Leave my brother alone. He’s a lover, not a fighter. He just wants to make people laugh, not fight dragons.”

  Llew looked a bit disappointed. “Oh well, I suppose that’s fine too. I don’t suppose you feel like swapping things around a bit, maybe? Chain him to some rock, and you fight me?”

  Priscilla looked like she might say something unpleasant, so Wirt decided to intervene. “Can you help us find the chalice or not?”

  Llew shook his head. “How would I do that? I haven’t been out of this cave in… well, a long time. I could tell you a bit about it though.”

  Wirt nodded eagerly.

  “Well,” Llew said, “originally, there were lots of chalices. This one belonged to the sorceress Ervana. Not a nice lady. Made the mistake of trying to kill off a bunch of little wizards.”

  “So what happened?” Wirt asked. “Did people kill her?”

  “Oh no,” Llew said, “they couldn’t. Someone as powerful as her, the best you can hope for is to imprison her. So they turned her to stone instead, out on one of the lost islands.”

  “So you could tell us how to find her?” Wirt prompted. Llew shrugged.

  “I suppose so.” He pointed to the tunnel he’d come from. “Just head down there, then follow the tunnel marked “fforde allan”. That’s way out, to those of you who don’t know.”

  Wirt looked to the others who nodded. As they turned to set off down the tunnel. Llew waved them off.

  Chapter 11

  The entrance to the tunnel turned out to be on a small beach, where a large rowing boat sat dragged up onto the sand above the tide line. Out over a short stretch of water, several small islands were clearly visible. Wirt looked at the boat with a certain amount of distrust.

  “Is it just me, or is this a bit convenient? I mean, presumably the dragon can fly, right? So why have a boat?”

  “Maybe other people go out to the islands?” Spencer suggested. Wirt saw Alana nod.

  “Someone has been out here recently.” She pointed to a set of footprints leading up to the boat from further along the beach. Another set pointed back the way they had come. “Maybe it was whoever took the chalice.”

  “Or just some fisherman,” Spencer pointed out. “We can’t be sure.”

  “We won’t be sure of anything,” Wirt said, “until we get over to that island and take a look for ourselves.”

  Worryingly convenient or not, that meant taking the boat. It was not as easy as it sounded. For one thing, Priscilla flatly refused to get her dress wet, so only four of them were involved in pushing the thing into the water. After that, there was the problem of rowing, which turned out to be a lot harder than it looked, and was not made any easier by the fact that Spencer, on the other oar, didn’t seem to be able to coordinate his efforts with Wirt’s very well. They did at least one complete circle before Robert took the oars from both of them, propelling the boat across the water in easy strokes.

  “What?” he asked in response to their stares. “I have lots of practice rowing.”

  Wirt had to admit that it made a kind of sense, as rowing was meant to be a sport for the wealthy. You probably didn’t get much better off than a prince, even one who wanted to be a jester. Back in Wirt’s world, the thought of wanting to be a jester was not all too far-fetched of an ideal job. It was the equivalent of being a comedian, which was actually quite glamorous. However, if you were the Prince and had wanted to become a comedian, then it was not the kind of job a king would encourage.

  Which vanished when they were only halfway to it, along with all the others.

  In the horizon, the dark outline of land came into view. Then as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared. “No wonder they call them the lost islands,” Spencer said. “How do we find them now that they’re gone?”

  Wirt stared out over the water. Something about it was wrong. There was a faint shimmer to the air where the islands had been, not to mention a sense of simple wrongness to the whole thing. Why would you put a boat there if it couldn’t get you to where you wanted to go? As some kind of trap? Wirt didn’t think that Llew, the dragon, would have let them walk into something like that without at least a warning. At least, Wirt hoped he wouldn’t.

  “I think it might be a glamour,” Wirt said. “You know, to disguise the islands. If we keep going, we will probably hit the one we want.”

  “But then we’ll sink,” Priscilla complained. “We’ll run onto rocks, and we’ll sink, and we’ll probably end up stranded on the island forever, with nothing to eat and no servants.”

  “Only if we don’t remember where there was a beach properly,” Wirt said. “Um… someone does remember where there was a beach, right?”

  Thankfully, it turned out that Alana did. Or so she thought she did, anyway. She sat at the front of the rowing boat, shouting directions to Robert, who rowed without complaint. She did a good job of it too. While there were a couple of worrying moments as the boat’s bottom scraped on rocks, it was not long before the five of them found themselves on dry land again.

  As soon as their feet touched the beach, the island shimmered back into existence again. The others around it didn’t though, and Wirt found himself wondering whether they were ever real, or simply a distraction. This one felt real enough though. A shale beach sloped up to a stony path, winding through rocks beyond. Wirt and the others dragged the boat high up the beach before setting out along that track.

  The space it led to was not what Wirt had been expecting. A flat expanse of lawn stretched out in a square, broken in places by beds of what looked like flowers, along with the occasional tree. Finding a pleasant little garden in the middle of a hidden island was not the surprising thing though. That had more to do with the fact that everything in the garden was made from stone. Everything.

&nbs
p; The “lawn” consisted of petrified blades of grass, grey and hard; while the flowers’ petals shone with topaz, quartz and bluejohn, and their stems looked like polished marble. The trees were like huge columns that still somehow swayed in the breeze, occasionally shedding leaves that fell and shattered like roof tiles.

  “I suppose this counts as easy maintenance gardening,” Wirt said.

  “I don’t know,” Alana replied. “You’d still have to go around and polish everything occasionally.”

  The path continued through the garden, and the five of them followed it. Statues started to appear by the side of it, ranging from the classical and elegant to the simply odd. A marble statue of some man so heroic that he didn’t feel the need for any clothes other than a fig leaf sat right next to an amorphous blob of a thing carved from smooth basalt. Wirt decided that it probably was not the moment for art appreciation, though he noted that Priscilla was certainly appreciating one of the two, at least until Alana reminded her that they were supposed to be looking for something.

  The path came to an end in a circle of the stony grass perhaps thirty yards across. More statues circled it, on plinths of polished marble, but it was the one in the middle that caught Wirt’s interest. It was of a woman, who looked to be no more than thirty or so, wearing a long, hooded robe. She was crouching, her hands up as if to defend herself, and the expression on her stone features was caught somewhere between hate and fear. A bronze plaque sat next to the statue, reading simply “Ervana”.

  “That’s it?” Wirt asked. “Just one word?”

  “Maybe they didn’t want people knowing what she had done,” Spencer suggested.

  “Or maybe they thought that everyone would already know,” Robert added. “Maybe they thought she was just that famous.”

  “Infamous,” Alana corrected him.

  Priscilla stepped past her, reaching for the plaque. “Oh, I’ve seen these before. They’re really very clever.”

  As her fingers brushed the metal of it, a figure appeared beside the statue. It was that of Ender Paine, though without the beard.