Alchemist Assault (The Alchemist Book 2)

by Dan Michaelson

  Sam nodded to him. He hesitated a moment. He felt as if Okun needed to know about what had happened in the city.

  “Did you hear about the—”

  Okun raised his hand. “Don’t,” he said, cutting him off. “I heard. I know what it means. And I know the danger that we’re in. Say nothing more.”

  Sam just nodded. “I won’t. I just wanted to make sure that you heard about it.”

  Okun frowned at him. “I hear about everything that happens here.”

  He gave Sam a gentle shove, sending him out of the room.

  Sam started down the hall and heard voices. When he reached the stairs leading up to the great hall, he found a cluster of students. Most were from the sharan tower, though there were a couple from olwand, which surprised him. Generally, the different towers didn’t mingle.

  He was tempted to join them, or at least find others from his tower, but who would he go to?

  Tara was pretty much his only friend these days. He still had James, but Sam had created his own separation with James, however unintentionally. By spending as much time with Tara as he had, and his own fear of eventual banishment from the Academy, he had not been much of a friend to him.

  Normally he’d go off to the library, but with it damaged, he didn’t really have anywhere to go.

  Which left going back to his room, or going to the Study Hall, or…

  Sam glanced behind him.

  He could go back to the alchemy tower.

  And maybe he should. At least there, he felt like he had a place. He felt comfortable.

  Even with everything that he had done to help the Academy, he still didn’t quite feel right here. The only thing that made him feel better was diving into a book.

  Thankfully he had some in his room. That was where he was going to go.

  What else could he do?

  Chapter Eight

  Sam sat at the small desk in his room, a lantern resting on the table nearby, the stack of books he had borrowed now filling the space in front of him. He rubbed his eyes, fatigue weighing heavily on him. He’d been reading for the better part of the last hour. He was ready for a break when the door opened.

  Tara smiled at him, flicking her gaze to the books. “I still miss the library,” she said.

  “Because you don’t have to talk to me?”

  She frowned at him. “Maybe this is better. I don’t have to think about the way that Muriel was looking at you.”

  “I didn’t see the way that she was looking at me. But can you blame her?”

  Tara shook her head. “I definitely miss the library.”

  She pushed the books away from her, staring at the stack that they had piled up. They had rescued several different volumes from the library cleanup process and made a point of cycling through them, bringing them up to their room to study, but it wasn’t the same. They both felt the same way.

  “I need a break. How about you?”

  “I think that would be perfect,” Sam said with a grateful sigh. The timing couldn’t have been better. He was ready for something else and needed to get up and move. “What do you have in mind?”

  She took his hand, leading him to the door and into the hallway.

  When they reached the Study Hall, they headed down toward the library, where Tara triggered the door to open it. They paused for a moment. They had not been coming here after hours nearly as much as they once did, partly because instructors were working in the library at all hours trying to get it back organized. Sam wished that there would be some downtime for them to have an opportunity to explore, but lately, they had only had the opportunity to dart into the library, grab some books before sneaking back out.

  “I hear something,” she said. “I can’t tell if it is in the main part of the library, the restricted section, or…”

  “Then we shouldn’t go there,” Sam said.

  “I’m willing to risk it,” she said.

  He smiled slightly. “I know. I’m not.”

  They lingered for a moment, but then he motioned for her to follow, and they headed through the hidden halls to the door that led down into the alchemy tower. When they were in it, the smell began to build.

  They had both gotten accustomed to the smell, though it wasn’t easy to truly deal with it.

  Tara wrinkled her nose. “You would think that they would have this cleaned up now,” she muttered.

  “I don’t think they trust anyone to come down here just yet.”

  “But it’s not dangerous. Not like they claimed.”

  “Again, I don’t think they want anyone to know that.” He glanced over to the table with the almanac on it and shrugged. “Not that I even blame them for that. I don’t necessarily want anybody coming down here. We don’t know anything about this book yet.”

  “We know some things,” she said. “We just don’t have full mastery of it yet.”

  “Fine,” he said. “We don’t have full mastery of it. Either way, we don’t really know it.”

  They walked along the hall, looking at some of the doors that were coated with some foul substance, before pausing at the vault where the key had been.

  “It makes you wonder what was here before,” she said.

  “Other than the key?”

  “The key was here, but there has to be something else here. Otherwise, why would they secure it like this?”

  Sam stared at it for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t really know. And I’m not exactly sure that it matters.” He turned away.

  “I think… oh.”

  He turned to see Havash coming down the stairs, who frowned when he saw Tara. “Ms. Stone. Perhaps it is best that you are here too. Come with me.”

  Sam and Tara shared a look before heading up the stairs with Havash.

  “Where are we going?” asked Sam.

  “To work,” Havash said.

  The walls of the stairs were narrow. The stone in the lower sections of the Academy was different than those in the higher sections. Given what Sam had seen of these corridors, he believed they had been constructed at different times. Lanterns were set in the walls, though only a few of them glowed. The air hung with a hint of dampness, a memory of the river that flowed nearby, and just the slightest undercurrent of the stench.

  They reached the hallway with the instructor quarters and made their way along to Havash’s rooms. He pushed the door open and stepped aside. Tara frowned for a moment before heading into the room, and Sam followed.

  The doors to the inner rooms were both closed, leaving only the outer room, a table, a pair of chairs, and some paintings that Sam had not seen before.

  “Have the two of you been working through the almanac?”

  “Somewhat,” Sam agreed. “We’ve been trying to use the key, but the techniques are complicated.”

  Havash turned to Tara. “Even for you?”

  “You did hear what was involved in the one when Ferand attacked, didn’t you?” she said.

  “I heard, and I also understand the potential you have, or at least how much potential all of the instructors believe you to have. Or is this misguided?”

  “It’s not misguided,” Tara said firmly.

  Havash started to smile.

  “He’s trying to get a reaction out of you,” Sam whispered.

  “It’s working,” Tara muttered.

  “And have you pieced anything together from the symbols in the almanac?”

  “If I did, I’m not sure that I would tell you,” Sam replied.

  Havash regarded him. “And why is that?”

  “Well, for one, I understand that only the bearer of the key is meant to access it, and two, I don’t know how you might use it.”

  “I am not one you need to fear,” Havash said.

  “But if I teach you, then what’s to stop any of the Nighlan from getting the same information?” Sam frowned at him. “Unless you were only trying to have me prove that it can’t be cracked. If that’s the case, then so far, I haven’t pieced anyt
hing together.”

  Havash pressed his hands together and frowned at him. “You are testing me, Mr. Bilson.”

  “I think it’s only fair,” Sam said with a casual shrug.

  “Careful,” Havash cautioned. “I think we both know how tenuous your admission to the Academy is.”

  “Fine. Then I take the key with me.”

  He wasn’t about to have Havash push him in any way. He had pushed him enough away as it was.

  Havash took a deep breath. “Fine. Perhaps the truth is better for you to have, anyway.” He motioned for both of them to sit.

  “Seeing as how the Nighlan have decided to target you, I think it’s only prudent the two of you learn what you can to defend yourself better. Ms. Stone, you can learn defensive strategies from what’s in the book. For Samran, it will be understanding the nature of the device on your hand and how it interacts with you. When the both of you can understand these things better, you will be better equipped to withstand at least what you faced the other night.”

  Sam thought there might be more, but Havash turned his attention to the book.

  “We will begin by having you work with a few of the more basic pages.”

  “When Ferand attacked, you had us use a more advanced one.”

  “This isn’t Ferand, and when we’re dealing with this, there is no point trying to make things more complicated. That is why we begin with basic and work up to more complex.”

  Havash stopped in front of the book and started to flip through the pages. Sam tried looking over his shoulder, but he couldn’t see anything. When Havash had mentioned “basic,” Sam had expected to use pages near the front of the book, but the Alchemist continued flipping before stopping near the back.

  “This is what we will start with.” Havash pointed to the page and motioned for Sam to join him. “Can you read this?”

  Sam looked at the book. There was a series of symbols along the page.

  He had been working through the various alchemy books, trying to interpret the symbols, but had not come up with any answers. It seemed as if the symbols themselves were some form of alchemy.

  Havash looked up at him. “There is another reference about the almanac,” he said. “One that speaks to the danger that exists.”

  “The danger?”

  “The danger of misusing it.”

  “So you know what exists in the book, but you don’t know how to use it.”

  “Something like that.” Havash leaned forward, watching him intently. “Now. I would like you to trigger the key.”

  Sam held his hand out, holding it above the book. He had learned the technique to trigger it, though consistency remained a little challenging and certainly more than he preferred. As he focused on the pattern required to activate the key, it started to glow.

  “Very good,” Havash said.

  Sam looked up at him.

  Could Havash see the glowing? Or was there something else that revealed what I had done?

  “Now read the passage.”

  Sam studied the patterns, then looked up to Tara. “Are you ready?”

  She nodded.

  Sam took a deep breath. It was angulation or some sort of it, but it was far more complicated than the kind of angulation he had read about in the Academy. Most of the works on angulation described various patterns, but what he had found within the almanac was far more complicated. Far more complex. Far more involved.

  “Hold the image of light within your mind,” he started. It was a different way of describing angulation, but they both agreed that was what it was. “You will draw power from the source, and let it flow out and push it against the fourth veneter before turning it 30 degrees and ambulating it back toward the source.”

  Even that much was complex, Sam had learned. Having studied angulation in the library, he understood the various veneters, consistent patterns of orientation similar to a clock’s face. Angling something a specific number of degrees was far more complicated.

  “Let me know when you want me to continue,” he said.

  “I can do it,” she said.

  Sam looked up at her clenched jaw. There was a concentration to her, and a bead of sweat formed on her brow.

  He turned back to the book. “You need to draw the second strand of power from the source and turn it toward the ninth quadrant, holding it for three seconds before you release it.”

  There was a soft glow from Tara, which suddenly surged.

  She breathed out heavily.

  “That’s about as much as I can do,” she said. “It was more difficult than I expected.”

  “It must be exact,” Havash said.

  Sam looked over to him, realizing that he also glowed with the same light.

  Is he trying to replicate what we were doing?

  Havash closed the book.

  Sam looked up at him. “Is that it? I figured you would want us to work with it more than that.”

  Havash arched a brow at him. “I suspect you and Ms. Stone will practice on your own. Now that you have full access to this part of the Academy, it’s not as if you have anything impeding your ability to investigate. I just ask that you be careful. Everything that I have learned about the almanac tells me that what is within it is dangerous.”

  “And what about you?” Sam asked. He glanced at the massive almanac resting on the table. He no longer strapped it closed, though he suspected that he probably still should.

  “And what about me?” Havash asked.

  Sam frowned at him. “Don’t you want to know how to use the advanced alchemy within it?”

  “Do you think that I am so eager for the power?”

  “It’s not eagerness,” Sam said, fidgeting in his chair. He still had to be careful here. His place in the Academy depended on it. Sam thought that his bonding to the key gave him some freedom, but it wasn’t a pass to treat Havash poorly. “It’s not about power,” Sam said. “It’s more about understanding the alchemy that’s here.”

  Havash rested his hands on the table. “I have spent considerable time within the Academy, Mr. Bilson. In all that time, I have known that there was incredible alchemy available and that I was not necessarily the right individual to master it. That is something that you will eventually have to come to terms with. Some have gifts in areas that others do not. Search for your own gifts.”

  He touched the key, running his finger over the smooth metal surface. There was a hint of warmth within it, and every so often, it seemed to pulsate on his palm, almost as if it were acting on its own, but it never fully activated. There was no plume of green alchemy energy that came from it, and he didn’t expel power in any way. He simply felt it. Sam had no idea what that meant for him, though, only that he was aware of the power within the key.

  “You mean outside of the arcane arts,” he said.

  “Have you come to believe that you have that potential?”

  Sam shook his head, ignoring the pointed look that Tara gave him. “No.”

  “In order to use the key—”

  Havash cut her off. “His ability to use the key is not necessarily tied to any reserves of the arcane arts. It is possible,” he said, raising one hand, “but not a necessity for it. That being said, the key did bond to you.” His gaze leveled on Sam. “And your mind suggests that you have a potential that most do not. Keep working on it. That is all I’m asking of you.” He held his gaze on them. “But now I need the space.”

  Sam looked at the almanac before frowning. “What are you going to do here?”

  “Why, I’m going to see if I can’t remove some of the offensive foulness that is here. And if you find yourself here, perhaps you might be inclined to do something similar.”

  Sam took Tara’s hand, and they headed toward the Study Hall and debated where to go.

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that he has remained in the alchemy tower even though he doesn’t have any connection to it?” Sam asked, looking back at the tower and thinking about Havash and how he’d look
ed at the almanac.

  “I know better than to get involved in that.”

  Sam raised his hand, flashing the key. “I think it’s too late. I think we are already involved.”

  “Maybe,” Tara said. “But right now, I think the two of us should do something else.”

  “Like what?”

  She took his hand and then leaned forward, kissing him on the cheek. “Maybe we don’t worry about our instructors for a little while.”

  Sam suppressed the heat that worked through him and smiled at her.

  Chapter Nine

  Sam was still smiling to himself as he remembered the romantic evening yesterday. That smile faded as he noticed Gresham walking up the stairs while he headed down to his next class. He wanted nothing more than to duck out of the way and perhaps hide. He didn’t want to get into a confrontation with him, though he suspected that it would happen whether he wanted to or not.

  He kept his head down, keeping his fist wrapped around the key, and tried to be ready for the possibility that Gresham would use his arcane arts on him, but nothing happened.

  He had to be thankful for that.

  At least, nothing happened at first.

  He had gone down a few steps, having passed Gresham, when he felt a painful stabbing in his back. Sam stumbled down several steps, spinning and rolling before landing hard on the stone ground. He twisted, trying to look up the stairs, but his ankle throbbed. It was the same one that he had injured when Ferand had escaped.

  Sam attempted to get up, but he couldn’t move. Instead, he laid there for a few moments until he saw a familiar face.

  “Lacey?”

  She was short, petite, and had a perpetual frown, but she was a tolath tower student.

  Lacey slowed. For a moment, a painfully long moment, Sam was afraid that she might continue on, leaving him lying there.

  He could crawl forward, but he didn’t even know where he would go. Maybe he could wait until he could reach Tara. She knew some different healing techniques, and he had to hope that she could figure something out for him, but what if she couldn’t?