by J. F. Penn
“Who was this guy?”
Finn ran a fingertip across the top of the sarcophagus, tracing lines in the dust. “Some accounts say it’s Nicolas Flamel, a fifteenth-century scribe and seller of rare manuscripts who discovered the philosopher’s stone. It is said that two hundred years after his death, he learned the steps to immortality from a converso on the road to Santiago, a pilgrimage town on Earthside.” He shrugged. “Clearly, it didn’t help him much. His corpse still lies here. But this place has been used by other chemists over time, so perhaps something lies here for you now.”
Titus hunkered down by one of the boxes, his eye caught by spidery writing on the labels. Hemlock, deadly nightshade, snakeroot and rosary pea. All deadly poisons in the right dosage. Sometimes, the same compound could be used in small measure for the good of the patient and where there was poison, there was often an antidote.
The alchemical symbols covering the central stone sarcophagus brought back memories of studying books in the Warlord’s forbidden library back in Old Aleppo. He would creep in at night to read after a day of hard training and no matter how tired he was, Titus always made time to learn. He was muscular and physically powerful, even as a teenager, so it was assumed he was more brawn than brains. But his mother encouraged him to read from an early age and above all, Titus valued knowledge.
When the Warlord caught him one night with a chemistry book and tested him on his knowledge, Kosai directed him into munitions, helping to research new compounds for war. But Titus had learned enough to understand the balance in nature — that what can destroy can sometimes heal, and perhaps that applied to people as well as plants. After he joined the Resistance, he swore that he would only use his knowledge to help the people of the Borderlands from then on.
Titus knew that the drug Liberation had a natural plant base, grown in vast fields on the plains out east. Perhaps lupine or locoweed, known to cause birth defects in animals, but not strong enough to bring on miscarriage. It was mutated with magic, imbued with something that encouraged the genetic makeup of the fetus to develop new powers, some never seen before. Every day it was used in the population meant more children born under the veil of shadow.
Enough. He would not let it continue any longer.
Titus turned to Finn. “We need a still. Look for glass flasks of different sizes.” He pointed to the benches and boxes on the far side. “Search those — but be gentle. This stuff is fragile and you don’t want to break open one of those bottles. Who knows what we might breathe in?”
Finn hunted through the boxes, and Titus searched his side of the room. He needed to distill the liquid down to understand what it was made of. Perhaps that way he might discover some method to neutralize it. But of course, that would only reverse the natural element of the drug. The magical part could only be stopped by destroying the manufacturing plant. Perhaps his munitions expertise might come in handy, after all.
He pulled out another box and picked through the vials, carefully examining each before laying them gently aside. His fingers were soon covered in the dust of years, but he kept going at a steady pace. As every minute passed, time ticked away for his wife and the baby that grew inside her.
Maria had trained alongside him in the Shadow Guards, a lithe athlete with a ready laugh who pulled him out of the library on sunny days to dance in the water fountains and make love in the dappled olive groves. But he had not known that the women of the guards were encouraged to take Liberation, and if they rejected the drug, it was dosed in their food, anyway. When Maria found herself pregnant, they rejoiced — until the moment she found herself craving the drug, then demanding it, a slave to the blue addiction. That’s when Titus had turned to the Resistance for help.
Now Maria lay tied to a bed in the rebel base in the mountains, screaming as she went through never-ending withdrawal, her mind lost to the drug. The child growing within would likely be mutated and if discovered, it would be sent for evaluation. The Resistance camps were full of such children now, born in secret, some physically altered, others with anomalous abilities, others still completely normal — or so it seemed.
If Titus could find an antidote for Maria in time, maybe their child would be one of the lucky ones. He could only do what lay within his power — and he knew chemistry. He could not hide in the mountains listening to her scream when his action might save her and so many others.
“Is this it?” Finn’s voice broke into his thoughts and Titus spun around.
Finn held a glass alembic, an alchemical still made from two glass vessels connected by a downward-sloping tube. It was dusty, but it would be enough.
Titus cleared a space on the bench top. “Put it here, gently now.” Finn placed it down with care and wiped the glass with the edge of his shirt.
Titus searched in the same box and found an iron tripod, dulled to a dusty grey, to hold the alembic above a flame. He set up the equipment, part of him wishing he had lived in the mysterious time when the alchemists searched for the secrets of transformation. In another life, perhaps Titus could have joined the search for the philosopher’s stone or the perilous route to immortality. For alchemists did not merely seek to turn base metal to gold. That was mere camouflage for their real mission, the true metamorphosis of nature itself.
With the alembic in place, Titus poured the blue liquid inside, hoping that whatever had been in it last was long evaporated and would not contaminate the sample. Finn lit the tiny pool of oil underneath the flask and within seconds, it began to bubble.
The first drop of liquid appeared at the top of the connecting pipe and slid down into the receiving beaker, with another following. Titus caught the next on his fingertip, its color now faint blue, like the reflection of water in ice. He sniffed it first — only a slight hint of sweetness, like honeysuckle in a far-off hedgerow. He touched a tiny amount to his tongue, closed his eyes and concentrated on the sensation. Chemists down the ages had relied on this most basic of tests and there was no time for anything much more sophisticated right now.
A definite sweetness followed by a dry mouth, his heart beating faster almost immediately. Signs of one of the most deadly plants, easily grown in terrains throughout the Borderlands. Laced with magic, certainly, but the base was a common noxious weed. Titus opened his eyes.
“It’s mostly belladonna, sometimes called deadly nightshade. I’m sure of it. The antidote can be extracted from the seeds of the Calabar bean, which in itself is a poison, so it must be used carefully. The alchemist must have had some.” He searched the bench, rifling through bottles of multi-hued powders.
Finn investigated the opposite side of the tomb. “What does it look like?”
“Black, small like a coffee bean. Maybe ground powder or perhaps in pods about six inches long.”
After a few minutes, Titus unearthed an ebony box and opened the lid to find a black powder inside. A hand-written label pasted on the inside noted the danger of the Calabar. “Found it.”
“How do we know it will work?” Finn asked.
Titus sighed. “We can’t know for sure. The only way is to take it back to the trader town and test it. The midwife I know is ready to try anything to save the women and children in her care. She’ll help us.”
Titus held the box in his hand, knowing that the powder was just as much a poison as Liberation itself. But in the chemistry of plants, this was often true. Dosage was everything and what could save one might kill another.
It was a step in the right direction and he had to do something practical or he would go crazy with thoughts of Maria’s torment. Every night he dreamed of mutated babies thrown into blood pits at the Castle of the Shadow, their tiny faces contorted in screams. Action was the only way he knew how to deal with it all — and he would keep going until Liberation was ended, or until he was.
“Check the boxes for any more of it,” Titus said. “And anything labeled with Manchineel. But whatever you do, don’t get it on your skin. In tiny doses, Manchineel can counteract be
lladonna, but it is one of the most toxic plants, known as the little apple of death.”
Finn gave a rueful smile. “And I thought my sword was the best weapon.”
After an inch by inch search of the place, they collected up five boxes of powder, three of Calabar and two of Manchineel. Titus wrapped them carefully with lengths of rag found in piles beneath the benches so the boxes wouldn’t leak and then loaded them carefully into backpacks.
At the door to the tomb, he looked back at the cornucopia of alchemy. He could only hope to amass such a heritage by the time he left this earth. Perhaps there would be time after they had ended the Liberation addiction for him to pursue the knowledge he craved. But not today.
Together, Finn and Titus rolled back the stone and left the ruined temple. As they hiked back through the desert, energy renewed by their find, Titus outlined his plan.
“This will be enough for initial tests in the trader town. Once we know what works, we can source more antidote ingredients. They’re tropical plants, so we’d need to go inland.”
Finn nodded. “I know of such a place where we might find them. It has giant beasts and the produce of the rainforest might be just as bountiful.”
“We can send a team out there to find more.” Titus couldn’t help the grin on his face, encouraged by their find and its potential. “While you manage that, I’ll take a tiny batch to the mountains for Maria. She’ll be well again, the baby will be perfect. This will work, Finn, I know it.”
As they walked on through the night, Titus thought three steps ahead, planning the mechanism by which they might harvest the drugs, how long it might take to produce a batch of antidote, and how they could get it to the farthest reaches of the Borderlands. He carried hope on his back and for now, that was enough.
7
Sienna couldn’t have walked much more slowly to the door of the medical wing of the Ministry, but since Bridget wouldn’t let her leave with the team until a doctor had cleared her, she forced herself to go. She tried to think of it as a positive step, valuable preparation before what could be an arduous journey, but her limbs were heavy as if her very being rejected the idea of such help.
Like all the doors of the Ministry, this one was solid wood. A dark grained ebony embedded with a carved Rod of Asclepius, a serpent entwined around a staff, representing the Greek god of healing and medicine. The rod was made from willow bark, used in many cultures as a pain reliever. All of this should have made Sienna feel better, but a sense of foreboding rose inside as she raised a hand to push at the door. There were stories of those who entered here and never emerged again. But there was nothing she could do but face whatever would come. She braced herself and walked inside.
The ancient wooden door disguised ultra-modern facilities within. A waiting room with comfy chairs decorated in shades of sage green, the relaxing scent of lavender. But underneath the calm, Sienna could make out the beep of medical devices in the ward beyond and the smell of antiseptic that betrayed the true nature of this place.
Her pulse raced at the possibility of being trapped here. She would not be entombed in the bowels of the earth. She turned to duck back out the door.
“Welcome!” The voice was warm and sweet, like peppermint tea served to guests as hospitality. An open gesture that promised no harm.
Sienna stopped, took a deep breath and turned round.
Dr Rachel Tabib was rounded and bespectacled, short and plump with a wide smile. Her straight dark hair was tied back in a no-nonsense ponytail and her Middle Eastern origins were clear in her darker skin and slight accent.
Rachel smiled. “Were you leaving?”
A beat of silence as Sienna considered her options. She could leave now, avoid all of this. Would Bridget really stop her from traveling to the Borderlands? She might want to, but Sienna knew her magic was necessary, so she’d probably be allowed to go, anyway.
But as she looked into Rachel’s eyes, she sensed no threat, only gentleness and a desire to help. There was almost a hum of healing magic around the doctor, as if she had a hive of golden bees inside, producing honey to soothe those in need.
Sienna shook her head. “I’m staying.”
Rachel indicated an open door behind her. “Please come this way.”
The smell of antiseptic grew stronger as they walked together down a corridor to a suite of examination rooms. A nurse walked past and glanced down at Sienna’s arms, his eyes widening in concern. Sienna pulled the sleeves of her t-shirt down, covering the tendrils of black that grew more intense as her anxiety rose. She tried to dampen them down, breathing deeply to calm her fear. The Shadow fed on such emotion and she could only keep it in check if she controlled herself.
Once inside the examination room, Rachel closed the door. “I saw what you did out there. Can I see your arms now?”
Sienna pulled up her sleeves again to reveal the marks already fading to grey.
Rachel reached out a hand. “May I?”
Sienna nodded.
The doctor’s touch was feather light as she traced the whorls, her gaze following the patterns. “I’ve never seen them fade so quickly.”
“I have more.” Sienna’s voice wavered a little, and she felt the prick of tears. She realized how much concern she had been holding inside and how worried she really was about the marks.
Rachel stepped back and Sienna pulled off her t-shirt to stand in her bra. Her skin prickled in the cool air and she was acutely aware that she must look diseased or infected. Tainted by darkness.
But the doctor’s eyes brightened. “They’re beautiful, Sienna. Truly, I’ve never seen anyone like this, not here in the wards or in any of the Ministry records.”
“What is it usually like?”
Rachel sighed and shook her head, as if seeing the faces of lost patients before her. “The Shadow usually presents as a stain through the blood and blooms on the skin like a bruise. Once it reaches a certain point, the individual is overwhelmed and slips into a coma of nightmares.”
Sienna remembered the horror of the shadow weave and felt her chest constrict. The whorls darkened and swirled across her skin, moving like constellations, their power held in check until an inevitable explosive end. They spun faster, obscuring the freckles on her pale skin.
Rachel reached behind her to press the emergency call button, her eyes wide with panic.
“Wait,” Sienna said. She closed her eyes and thought of her grandfather’s map shop, the rustle of paper like stalks of corn in a summer field edged with poppies, the smell of elderflower as she walked along the canal and the sound of birdsong. As her breath returned to an even cadence, tension releasing from her body, she sensed the marks fade. She opened her eyes.
Rachel stood in stunned silence. “You can control it?”
Sienna nodded. “I think so. I just don’t know how much I can take, or how long I could do it for, or under what conditions. I have so many questions and no one to talk to.”
Rachel held out a hand and took Sienna’s. “You can talk to me, but I can’t possibly understand what you’re going through. Nobody can.”
Sienna pulled her long-sleeved t-shirt back on. “I don’t want Bridget or my father to know how extensive this is. They’ll stop me going to the Borderlands again.”
“They want to protect you.”
Sienna nodded. “Yes, but I need to discover what this means. Something draws me back there. I have dreams …”
Rachel froze. “Dreams?”
“Of the Tower of the Winds, voices calling my name. I’m flying with creatures who might tear me apart, but I long to soar with them between the worlds.”
“That’s more like the reports of those who slip into shadow coma. They talk of being called over there, of desperately wanting to go. Be careful, Sienna, the Shadow is not always what it seems.”
“What could happen to me?” Sienna asked softly.
Rachel met her gaze without flinching. “Come to the ward. See for yourself.”
Without waiting for a reply, Rachel walked to the door, and a second later, Sienna followed. Behind the examination rooms, there was another row of doors. Like much of the Ministry below the streets of Bath, it extended in unexpected directions. Sienna suspected magical layers to the geography as it was impossible to see how there was space for everything down here.
Rachel pushed open one of the doors to a darkened space beyond, lit only by occasional lamps that cast golden pools of light onto faces of sleeping patients. She beckoned and together they stepped onto the ward, walking softly between the beds.
It was calm and quiet and for a moment, Sienna wondered why there were such dire stories about the place. The patients looked well cared for and at peace. Then she noticed the black lines running under their skin, the marks of shadow holding them in a netherworld from which they could not escape.
A moan came from one of the beds.
Monitors beeped faster and a distant alarm sounded from outside the ward. The sound of running footsteps.
A young woman thrashed against her padded shackles, terrified of something in her nightmare. She howled, an animal sound from the core of what remained of her humanity, the part of her that could still respond. The lines of her IV drip stretched as she arched her body off the mattress, straining to escape her bonds.
Sienna wanted to run, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Thoughts of the shadow weave that Sir Douglas had trapped her in surfaced once more, memories of teeth and claws that ripped into soft flesh, devouring what was left of her. To be trapped in something like that was beyond terrible.
The nurse they had passed earlier jogged in, his concentration fixed on the patient. He nodded briefly at Rachel, then went to the woman’s side. He pressed a button to increase the dose of sedative and after a moment, the terrified woman lapsed back into fitful unconsciousness. But her mouth still twisted in pain, her fingers clutching at the sheets.
