by K. G. Wilkie
Soon they came to an end of this tedium. They hit snow, lots of snow. The carts were slowed down by the terrain. Unable to endure any more sitting around or awkward conversations involving Darien sharing memes with the rest of the guys and having fights over which clumsy cat was cuter, Jackie put her foot down and insisted on walking.
It was a long trip and they'd all come close to giving up and going back a few times, but they all knew that quitting royal orders was not really an option even if they wanted to do so. So the group continued on in their journey to follow the Alchemists, who had a small chance of saving the day. Jackie walked in front holding Priscilla's hand. The others behind them were using the same carts Jackie had refused to sit in, still moving more slowly, but in greater comfort. In a blizzard she was just as fast as the carts and had no visibility issues because of her fairly nature-aligned magic, making her immune to the weather's effects so it was not a dangerous decision to make. The snow was still deep and hard to walk through for Priscilla and her much shorter legs. Poor Pris had no say in the matter and dragged her feet through the snow mounds. No one in the conveyance had their health at risk from the cold, of course, but it was still a little uncomfortable and dashedly inconvenient to deal with the stuff. Once again Layel tried to insist on the younger girl being allowed to sit up in a cart bundled up in blankets and feeling nice and cozy, but once again he was rejected.
Jackie looked at all of them in suspicion for even asking it of her.
It seemed that somewhere in her heart the knowledge that her sister had not been missing at all but instead had been in a safe place known of by all the vampires and her boss besides had left her feeling resentful of the lot of them. Her natural inclination of loyalty to her prince despite his imperfect personality seemed to have degraded the appearance of easy friendship she and Darien had once shared as well.
Eventually a faint glow pierced through the endless haze of snow. They saw a town made of tree trunks pierced into the ground and covered in haphazardly-stacked pine branches. As they came closer, they could see a sign thrust into the ground that warned foreigners to stay away from their land. It was an arresting sight, but they knew they had no other options if they were going to track down the wizards, so to follow orders, they had to continue moving forward.
The group stopped to discuss who would venture in. Jackie and Priscilla were part of the group, of course, but with Pris still a child everyone shared her older sister's reluctance to directly involve her as part of a frontline meeting with potentially hostile individuals. Instead, the trained warriors went in front, with Darien behind them, and the nymphs in the back, though Jackie protested she had plenty of battle experience fighting for her family's honor in Nymph Village. Darien confessed to being reluctant over the arrangement as well, but no one paid attention to what he had to say.
The group was suspended in midair, a horde of a thousand trolls standing underneath them and brandishing spears at them. They chanted their war cry at them.
Meat, meat, all the people we meet
Are nothing more than tasty meats
We'll sear along our spears.
Meat, meat, we'll gladly eat
All enemies who dare to enter here.
Darien protested against their wording. He felt he had some affinity with the Alchemists, being a former castout wizard himself, and the others in his group didn't seem to mind his taking advantage of the connection these monsters shared with him to take on the role of speaking for the group. That, or they were distracted by trying to escape their bindings. "I am here to find the Alchemists and any others who are enemies of The Domed City, because we are allies. I am not your enemy!"
There was a rumble from the group under him. "He lies, he lies," some sneered. Spittle flew from brown teeth at their words and would have struck terror in the hearts of many others, or revulsion at how disgusting they looked. But still Darien persisted in trying to persuade them on an emotional level.
Darien stared down at the one closest to him. "I am not lying. I stand against the wizards and Gruzelvelt and all the rest of them because they sought to act cruelly against the Mundanes who are humans just like me, and when I refused to participate in that, they instead tried to blame me for their evil ways and cast me out. I stand against them, which means I stand with you," the young wizard said.
The tallest troll cleared a space around him and addressed the captives. "Your story is good. Why should we believe it though? How can you prove that you are no friend of the City and those who rule it? Even if you do, how can we be certain that you are friends of the Alchemists," he yelled up at them.
The captives looked at each other. It was a good question. How was it possible to prove your feelings? How did a person provide evidence for their thoughts?
"I can prove my innocence," Darien called down, "by telling you secrets of the City and its elders that no loyal member would ever reveal, I could confirm my loyalties. How would that work for you guys?"
The leader shrugged. "That's not the best proof I've ever heard of, but I suppose that's good enough to take you in on probation. It'll do." As soon as the words were said all of the hulking forms melted away to reveal the humans beneath the disguises. The leader was revealed to be the shortest person in the group. She gave a cheeky laugh as she released the spell holding them up and Darien's companions gracefully coasted down as he fell in a heap on the ground. She gave him a hand up, close enough now for him to see the faint dusting of freckles and unusually grey color of her almond-shaped eyes.
She held onto his arm and pumped it in a handshake. "I'm Taiya. I'm one of the first five, and the second witch ever cast out." Darien was lost looking at those storm-colored eyes. Taiya caught it and waved her hand in his face. "It's okay, those who have spent too long in one of the cities always take awhile to adjust to other genders."
Darien blushed and Jackie patted him on the shoulder. The nymph was smiling at his mistake, so his clumsiness must have brought him somewhat back into her good graces. She still was chilly disdain to the vampires whenever they looked her way as Taiya led them around the settlement, but it seemed Darien had committed a smaller crime in her book and was well on his way back to the shallow, yet comfortable, relationship they had previously shared.
The camp the Alchemists pulled them through was surprising. There were tarps and tapestry strung up on strong ropes to make a semblance of camping tents like they had back on Earth, but there was something different. Inside of the roughly-thrown-together tents were gorgeous buildings filled with ornately-carved furniture, plastered walls, and marble floors.
Their guide just shrugged when asked about it. "Well, we live on the road you know. That would be pretty miserable if we didn't have a nice place to come home to each day." Taiya grinned at them and a dimple popped up on her right cheek. "Besides, we have magic. What's the point of having magic if you aren't going to use it to have fun sometimes?" Taiya snapped her fingers and firecrackers whizzed around the group as a shower of iridescent bubbles brushed past them. Jackie rolled her eyes at the display of this whimsical form of magic. "All we have to do is set up a sturdy enough tent to keep out the worst of the elements so a house box can be safely stored inside of it, and then after setup, each time you walk in you are going in to a permanent structure set up somewhere in the space between spaces. Obviously, no one can live between dimensions, but you can fit a surprising amount of stuff in there. Basically, all we have to build to make camp is just a doorway to access our homes, and that grounds them so they now exist right here in this dimension. Then we're good to go, and camp is all set up," Taiya said. "It makes for really easy cleanup, too, which is great because we do our best to move around pretty darn often."
"What did you mean you were one of the first five?" Darien asked.
She sighed. "The first five are those of us who first started the Alchemists. Before us, any who were cast out of one of the cities either lived in isolation and shame on their own and basically set up hermita
ge, or they journeyed to the Original world and tried their luck to make a life there." She grimaced. "As you can guess, those who tried to live in the Original usually failed and ended up being discovered by the Mundanes and were killed for their magic."
Darien nodded. He'd heard about that; all of his peers in Domed City had. It was one of the lessons taught to the youngest trainees, to be sure to remind them why absolute loyalty and obedience were needed in everything they did, because the alternative meant being killed by the evil Mundanes. Of course, he'd spent years among Mundanes in the Original, and he'd soon found that they thought and acted the same way he did, so he hadn't really had any of the nightmares the child trainees were always plagued by as visions of pitchfork-wielding hordes hunting someone down merely for the sin of existing and having strengths they lacked. It made a great fairy tale, but obviously it was nothing more in today's world. He still remembered that in times past it had been real, all too real, and even the Mundane's history lessons backed that up, but it hadn't really been a concern in his time on the other side of the veil between worlds. The nymphs and vampires of the group were less familiar with the details of humanity's magical history, but then every race there remembered their people had run away to the Shadeworld to escape the witch hunts and persecutions that once happened in the Original. None of them needed any description of that time to understand the gist of the alchemist's story.
"Then the first five were cast out at about the same time, so we banded together to form a new way of doing things. We were thrown out for disapproving of the violent totalitarianism of the Elders, so we made a group to fight back against them." She smiled. "Actually, since we separated, more people who disliked the way things were run abandoned the city so they could join us. In the last few years, we've grown big enough to be a force of our own."
An old man with a rainbow patchwork vest came up beside them. "Not big enough that we feel safe making up our own stronghold, though. And we are still just humans in a world filled with other species that are physically much stronger than us, so we have to use our magic and take on the appearance of terrifying beasts to grill everyone who comes to our camp. It tends to keep out the riff raff."
He pointed at the buildings. "They change for us, but they also change for other people. Anyone who sees these buildings will see different things each time, and our homes always change to welcome or scare off people, based on what they think is needed." He patted one of the walls fondly, and the structure leaned over to rub against his hand. "We're here to do something important, and everyone chips in to help. Even old stucco here," he added.
"What's the big deal? I see you guys hanging out here, but I'm not sure how that's such an important or influential kind of thing going on here," Cillean said.
"We're involved in certain," she paused, "Activities. We extract various things, like information. And assets. And we do whatever we need to do to support our goal." She glared at the man in patchwork. "Gill, we talked about this. Some secrets are meant to remain secret to outsiders. The houses are one of those things," Taiya said. Gill shrugged, clearly unrepentant. She looked at the others. "It is a secret still, except now for your lot, so please be sure not to spread that information around. Part of the point of secrecy spells is that they stay secret," she said.
The rest promised their silence.
One of the vampires held up his hand in objection. "I understand your secrecy and agree to keep it. I am not sure I can hide something else you mentioned though. It is wrong to so say 'extract' those things which are not owned by you. It is not the right way of doing things," Daerick protested.
Gills shrugged again. "We do what we have to do. We are fighting here directly against one of the two cities, and we sometimes clash with the Witch City as well, and all of that power is stacked against us and holding us back from reaching our goals. If we're already treated as outlaws by those people, we might as well take what we need from them," he told them.
Taiya kept her eyes trained on the ground. "It's not ideal; we all know that. But we only take supplies marked as belonging to the Domed City, because they are the only ones directly trying to harry us. We leave the witches' things alone. And that's not because I grew up with them," she added bitterly. It was clear she'd heard that often before.
Fyojhan stayed silent throughout the exchange. His priority was instead to stay focused, looking at all of their surroundings and the people around them, even as he kept an eye trained on the building in front of them. After hearing about the mysterious properties of the homes he had come to consider them to be a threat as well.
"I've heard a lot about the Alchemists," Cillean said. "This is the first time that I've heard that your lot were rebels and wanted men," he looked at Taiya, "and women, however. I was more under the impression all of you had an obsession with rare metals."
Taiya blushed as Darien looked between the two of them. "Rare metals? What do you mean?" he asked.
It was clear both Gills and Taiya knew exactly what Cillean was referring to, however. "Well," Taiya began. "In our early days, the first five were a bit short on funds. So we tried to figure out a way to, well, supplement the money we already had."
Cillean smirked. "What she means is that they wasted years trying to figure out how to transform cheap metals into gold. You guys took, what, a century to realize that neither magical nor chemical means could do what you wanted it to do, right?"
Taiya shook her head. "No, they figured out a way to do it eventually, and figured out how to transform a lot of other things along the way. That's why we can set up these easy tents at every place we stop in a flash and then transform the outside into the exterior of any kind of building we want. Gold is tricky though; there's a secret to getting anything to become that. Ironically enough, pyrite is the key to creating real gold." She looked at their blank expressions. "You know, that stuff they call fool's gold? That's pyrite," she explained.
Darien frowned at her. "I get that. What I'm confused about is the 'them' you mention. I thought you were part of the first five?"
She hemmed. "Well, I wasn't actually one of the first five people to be an Alchemist," Taiya said.
"I'm seventeen, you see, and the first have been around for way longer than that. But I am still called one of the first because of how I joined. When I joined the group, they were already wandering both worlds and working with gold like I said, but they didn't have any purpose to their lives beyond surviving. They didn't have much training or skills to keep each other safe, either, and the reason there are only five firsts is because the others suffered through a lot. You know, troll attacks, werewolf slayings, angry mobs chasing them through alleys for being suspected of using magic, that sort of thing. I came into the group more recently." She sighed. "When I was kicked out from the Witch City, I came to join the group, and I saw it was a pretty ragged collection. So I said to them, why not train ourselves and arm up so we can defend ourselves? Why not fight back against the tyranny of the Twin Cities? Why not spread the word that we are willing to stand as a safehouse for any who want to escape them so we can get more members and have safety in numbers? I asked a lot of questions, and eventually the first decided that they wanted to assign me to give the answers. Now I'm in charge of directing this entire town and all the people in it and the first shared their title with me so everyone knows I'm the person to go to for leadership." She smiled at them. "Mostly they were tired and wanted me to go away and take care of all my ideas for them, so they kind of passed the buck onto me; but I appreciate that they've given me the chance to do that and I'm glad that we have come so far from where we started. Now when people talk about the Alchemists, they aren't made fun of for the gold incident or any of the other experiments the first did, and they instead talk about how much progress we've made and how powerful we've become. We've even received death threat letters from the leaders of the Domed City, at least," she smiled at that.
Darien looked shocked. "But doesn't any of that bother you? I'
d think if it was so hard to be here and take on all this work, it might almost be worth it if you left it all behind and went back to your city," he said.
She shook her head. "I would have had a lot of plans and ideas in my city as well. Basically, I was kicked out because of them. I kept questioning their authority and trying to improve the way things were done, and they didn't appreciate it at all. Here, I'm free to have all the ideas I want, and people are mostly actually happy when I use them. It's much more satisfying than being an unappreciated worker bee; that's for sure."
Darien waved at the vampires and Alabaster as they headed back to the palace together. "Glad you guys have your summons to this big Council meeting thingie, but I'm very happy to stay here," he said. He watched as the others worked together on building a gate to the Shadeworld. It was difficult for anyone besides the royal family to cross between the Original and the Shade, but a gate could be made to connect directly to a royally-approved and sanctioned portal in the kingdom. The problem with gates, of course, was that they took a lot of power and were blasted difficult to build. Not only that, but because they used a redirection instead of directly connecting them, they tended to take forever to actually transport someone. He stood and watched as the group slowly faded over the course of the day until he was finally sure they were all the way gone.
"Taiya," he called out. "I need to talk to you." Darien explained that he wanted to check in on his sister and they gladly set up a scrying sphere connection for him and left him alone in one of the guest tent homes to speak to her.
His eyes widened when he saw the stark room where she was. Darien stuck his head out of the door. "Taiya! I need help."
The girl rolled her eyes and walked over to him. "You seem to be awfully demanding. I've singed a few lads who made too light with my name, and I'm letting you know right now you are walking the knife's edge on that path. I'll have you know I can curse your tongue right off if you keep demanding things of me like I'm some servant." She stopped berating him, though, when she looked into the scrying sphere. Alyss's room still looked like a sleek and modern guest room, but they could easily see the magical currents in the air that allowed some people to enter but didn't let anyone out. The alchemist leaned closer and narrowed her eyes at some invisible detail.
