“What are you doing?” Tara asked.
“Trying to remember.”
“The book has to be nearly four hundred pages long,” she said.
“Just a minute,” he said.
It was like so many of the other books that he had come across in the library. Sam had memorized it, mostly because he hadn’t the time to try to sit down and understand it, but perhaps that was the mistake. Methanial was one of the very first alchemists at the Academy. Obviously important enough that he had left symbols behind that had some importance as well.
He focused on what he could come up with, continuing to flip pages in his mind, trying to come up with those answers, but he couldn’t.
He shook his head, opening his eyes. “It’s just not there. I feel like it should be, but I can’t come up with it.”
Tara started to laugh softly.
“I’m glad I can amuse you.”
She shook her head again. “It’s not that. It’s just that, well, you seem so confident that you would be able to come up with an answer in a book like that out of memory.”
“Normally I could,” he said.
“Maybe there’s something about that book that makes it difficult to memorize,” she said. “Or maybe your memory isn’t as good as you think it is.”
“Maybe,” Sam said.
She took his hand, squeezing it. “We can go back to the library. We can see if there something there. Besides, I think we need to look into the alchemy section more. Not that I want to,” she added quickly. “It’s just that if they are after something there, maybe there is more that we haven’t uncovered yet. And if so, we probably should figure out before they make another attempt.”
Sam appreciated her willingness to do that, but he hadn’t found anything even though he had spent time looking through that section.
She tugged on him, pulling him away.
As he started to turn, a different question came to mind.
“Why are there three armies around Tavran?”
“What was that?”
“You said there were three. Why?”
“I don’t know. They’re based here, but the full might of the army isn’t generally here. It’s just…” She frowned, turning and looking out into the darkness. “There are more here than usual.”
“Maybe they know something,” Sam said. “The Nighlan?”
“They would never admit that,” she said. “Even if it was true.”
She pulled on his hand, and they started back toward the city. Even as they went, Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he was missing. He wasn’t sure what it was, only that he felt as though he needed to come up with answers quickly.
Chapter Thirty
It surprised Sam when Tara headed straight to the library once they returned to the Academy. He thought that she might want to head to bed, especially after a long day, but she dragged him into the Study Hall, pulling him through until they reached the entrance to the library.
“What are you waiting for?” Sam asked when paused just inside.
“You always have to make sure there’s not somebody else here,” she said.
“If they have access to the Study Hall, then it really doesn’t matter if they know I am. You still haven’t told me who else has access to it.”
“Not anybody in the tolath tower,” she said. She stepped forward, out into the library. It was dark, but Sam was accustomed to the dark in the library, and he didn’t mind it at all.
She guided him through. When they reached the alchemy section, Sam paused in front of the stack of books.
“There used to be more,” Sam said, running his hand along the shelves. “They keep disappearing. Do you think it’s the instructors, or…” He looked around the library, and though he didn’t see anybody else with them, there was still a feeling that they weren’t alone.
“Maybe,” she said. “If this is somehow tied to what happened in the alchemy section, it could be that somebody is grabbing the books and trying to use them to find answers.”
Sam began to work along the shelves, but he didn’t see it.
There weren’t many alchemy books anymore. Certainly fewer than there had been when he had first come to the Academy library. He ran his hand along the spines of the books, realizing that he had read most of them.
Those that he hadn’t, he hurriedly grabbed and stacked on the ground near him.
“What are you doing?” Tara whispered.
“I just making sure that I have an opportunity to read these before they disappear.”
His stack was only ten books high, and Tara looked at those remaining.
“You read all of these?”
He nodded. “I’ve read them, but again, it’s not as if I understand them. I just—”
“Memorized them,” she said, smiling slightly. “Which is impressive.”
Sam started to say something when he noticed a greenish light.
He raised a finger to his lips and motioned to Tara. He leaned close to her, whispering in her ear. “There’s somebody else here,” he said. “Greenlight.”
“I don’t see anything,” she said.
Sam grabbed the stack of books. If they were here for the alchemy books, he wasn’t about to lose them. Carrying ten books wasn’t easy, though.
As he struggled with his stack of books, Tara slipped off the topmost books, and she shrugged. “I can help,” she said.
“We should get out of here,” he whispered urgently.
“What if they’re just here to read like we are?”
“If they are just here for that, and if they are using some dangerous alchemy—”
“You don’t know that it’s dangerous alchemy,” she said.
“Any time that I’ve seen that light, it’s been dangerous.”
“Every time?”
He frowned. “Maybe not every time.”
The only person that he had ever directly seen—other than Ferand—had been Chasten. What if he was involved with Ferand? Chasten was Havash’s friend, at least according to the Secundum, so that by itself could pose some challenges.
And it might implicate Havash.
Sam noticed that the light seemed to be moving. It was drifting along the outskirts of the curved walls of the library.
He raised another finger to his lips, tucking the books close to him, and made his way toward the door for the Study Hall. They had closed it after entering the library, as they often did on the off chance that somebody might follow them.
He paused for a moment. The light seemed to be moving away from them.
He stacked his books on the ground near the opening to the Study Hall, and he motioned to Tara. “Wait here.”
“I’m not going to wait while you go off and do something stupid,” she said.
“I’m just going to see if the light is real or not.”
She frowned at him, but she didn’t make any movement as if she were going to follow him. Sam darted around the perimeter of the room.
He tried to move as quietly as he could, thinking back to when he had lived on the streets in Erstan when he had been forced to sneak there. He had never been much of a thief and certainly not skilled at sneaking, but he had known how to try to stay as quiet as possible.
The greenish light continued to glow in front of him, barely more than a faint tracing of color. Had he not seen it, and he had not known that it was alchemy, Sam might have done nothing. But all of this was tied together somehow.
The light suddenly stopped.
It was a trail, nothing more than that, and as he followed that trail, he thought that perhaps it would lead him to the one responsible for it. Maybe Ferand, though Sam doubted that he would be in the main part of the library. Maybe Chasten, as he was the only other person that Sam had seen using that kind of power. But there was no sign of either of them.
What if it wasn’t either of them. Having seen the greenish hue before, it might only be alchemy and nothing more.
Sam realized that he could be looking for the wrong thing. It might not be anything more than some alchemy device designed to protect the library. He paused for a moment as he looked around, searching for anything that might suggest that it was divisive alchemy. He didn’t see anything.
The pale greenish light simply faded until it disappeared altogether.
Sam hurried back toward the entrance to the Study Hall and found Tara waiting for him, irritation flashing in her eyes. “Did you find anything?”
“I don’t know what I found,” Sam admitted. “I thought that maybe it was somebody there, but it might have just been some alchemy device.”
“Now alchemy devices are putting off a light too?”
Sam held up his hand. “This one does.”
“Let’s just going,” she said. “You can take your books and see if there’s anything here that can help you, and…” She frowned. “Did you hear that?”
Sam shook his head.
“There. I hear something.”
Sam turned, and though he didn’t hear anything, there was another tracing of pale green light.
“We should get moving. I don’t want to get caught here, especially if we don’t know who else is here.”
Or whether it was some sort of security device designed to defend the library against intruders.
They triggered the door to the Study Hall, Sam scooped his books, and they retreated into the hallway. When they reached the tolath tower, neither of them had spoken yet. On Tara’s level, she paused, turning to him. She took his hand, squeezing it for a moment, and smiled at him. “It was nice getting out of the city with you.”
Sam smiled back. “It was nice.”
“And it was nice exploring the halls with you.” She leaned forward, and she kissed him on the cheek. “I don’t usually have somebody with me. I enjoyed it.”
With that, she headed down toward her room.
Sam stood for a moment, heat rising in his cheeks.
He carried his books back to his room, pulling the door closed and shutting it tightly. He heard voices outside of the door a short time later, but he was still focused on Tara’s kiss on his cheek.
He had taken a seat on the floor and was flipping through the pages in the book spread out in front of him. He had gathered these ten, and though he hadn’t found anything yet, he was having a hard time concentrating.
By the time he reached the sixth book that he had grabbed, an older work by someone named Votalr, Sam had stopped thinking that he might find much of anything.
It was on the third page when he saw a word that he recognized. Almanac.
He hurriedly grabbed for the other book he’d taken from the library.
It had mentioned almanac as well.
He continued flipping through the pages and saw several other references to an almanac. What was more, there was some sort of key to it. Was it to decipher it?
The almanac might be like a map. It would need a key to guide how to find certain things within it. Or perhaps it was some way of translating it.
Or perhaps it was more a literal key. Some way of unlocking it. If it was tied to alchemy, Sam wouldn’t put it past the authors of something like that to have an actual physical key required to open it.
He didn’t find anything else in the book. The book described various alchemical compounds, of which Sam thought there might be some benefit. Several were explosive, though the description of them made it sound as if they were useful for lanterns, starting fires, and generally constructive purposes rather than destructive, though Sam had several different ideas that came to mind about how else they might be useful. There were other items within the book, ways of mixing compounds, creating different healing components. He found several other more obscure uses of alchemy, tied to various ways to link the alchemical creation to something organic, which led Sam to think that maybe he might find some understanding about how to remove the device from his hand, but everything was far too complicated. It was like looking in a cookbook but not having any of the ingredients.
He turned to the next few books. He didn’t find anything in the first couple that he went through, but by the time he reached the ninth book that he had taken from the library, he once again came across mention of the almanac. He set those books off to the side.
Three. Three books out of all of the works on alchemy mentioned in almanac. And in each of them, they referenced advanced alchemy that could be found in the almanac. As if he could take something from one of the basic books, add it to what was found in the almanac, and do something more.
How many other books had referenced the almanac and were now missing?
Sam paced around in his room. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep with all of this on his mind.
He stuffed the three books that reference the almanac under his mattress and looked at the remaining seven. He had already read through them, memorized them, and so didn’t need them any longer. And since he couldn’t sleep, maybe he should just bring them back to the library.
Sam poked his head out of his door, checking the coast was clear, and then hurried through the hall. He headed down the stairs, and when he reached the landing with the entrance to the Study Hall, he triggered it quickly and slipped inside. It was far more fun to have Tara with him.
He navigated quickly, making his way toward the library, and paused after opening the door. There was no sign of the greenish light inside the library. He stepped into the library, return the books to the alchemy section, and then started back toward the entrance to the Study Hall, triggering it to open.
As soon as it did, he saw a pale greenish glow.
Sam hesitated. The glowing was getting brighter.
He sealed the door closed again. He backed away. He headed to the back of the library, to the alcove that he preferred, and squeezed his hand around the alchemy device. If it came down to it, he might have to trigger the device, if only to protect himself.
Nothing came.
Sam started to relax when he noticed a faint greenish glowing in the library.
It was coming along the stacks. And it was coming straight at him.
He had two options.
He could race back toward the Study Hall, or he could go to the entrance of the library. It would be locked, at least as far as he had seen, but maybe he would have some way of shoving the door open.
With that light coming toward him, he had no choice. He raced forward, heading toward the front of the library. The green light shifted, coming toward Sam.
He didn’t see whoever was with it.
But he noticed something.
The area closest to the Study Hall was darkened.
Sam darted away from the Study Hall before quickly shifting directions and sprinting straight at it. He reached the door, found it open, and stepped inside, quickly closing it, slamming his fist against it. As he did, the alchemy device pulsed with a burst of greenish light. Sam raced forward, looking toward the tolath Tower hallway, before changing his mind.
He ran toward the kitchen. When he triggered open the door, he stepped into the closet, where he sunk down for a moment.
He looked behind him and noticed no greenish light. There was nothing.
He closed the door.
Sam stepped out of the closet, into the kitchen, finding it completely quiet.
It wouldn’t be that way for long. Eventually, the kitchen help would be up. Thankfully, as the Academy didn’t provide for a morning meal, he had a little more time than he would otherwise.
But he didn’t want to get caught here.
Sam poked his head out of the door. When he did, he heard voices.
They were near the stairs leading down to the alchemy tower.
He couldn’t hear what they were saying. They were muted. As if they were wearing some sort of mask.
What was going on here?
He might want to help Havash figure things out, but this was well beyond his understanding, and he didn’t think that he co
uld be the only one responsible for it.
No. He couldn’t be. He shouldn’t be.
He just had to get to Havash. It might be time to tell Havash about the alchemy device that he’d taken. And then Havash could deal with the rest.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sam shifted his weight from foot to foot as he stood in front of the door. It had not been that easy to find Havash’s room, and yet, this was where he felt he needed to be. Tara had either been gone already by the time he’d gone looking for her, or she wasn’t awake. Either way, Sam didn’t want to wait around too long. He needed to get to Havash and to get his questions answered.
He knocked again.
It was the third time that he had knocked, and he was getting tired of waiting.
As he started to turn away, the door finally came open.
Havash was dressed in a light gray robe, not his professor robe, and his beard was disheveled. His eyes were drawn, and there was red touching the whites of them.
He frowned at Sam. “What are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you.”
Havash looked along the hallway. “Here? I do have classroom hours, you know.”
“It’s not about our classes.”
Havash’s eyes darted around for a moment, and he continued looking at Sam, the irritation burning in the back of his eyes. “This had better be important,” Havash muttered.
He stepped aside, and Sam followed him in.
As soon as he stepped inside, he realized why Havash probably hadn’t heard him. There was more than one room here. It was enormous. This outer room looked something like an office, with rows of shelves long wall, lanterns glowing in several of the shelves, putting off enough light to brighten the entire space, and books stuffed into those shelves, along with several other sculptures and different devices that Sam suspected were alchemy. A plush pale blue velvet chair rested near one of the shelves. There were two doors said into the wall, and one of them was cracked, revealing a little more light so Sam could see the outline of a bed, and the other door was closed, with several marks on the door. Alchemy. It was some sort of lock, he realized.
Alchemist Apprentice (The Alchemist Book 1) Page 26
