The Vanguards of Scion

by Michael E. Thom

  Kazimir blushed and averted his eyes to his alchemy tome, flitting through the pages frantically. This was not supposed to happen. His brows furrowed, and he sighed, making a fist in his desperate search. It wasn't supposed to grow like this. It was just supposed to hold a diameter of about two hands and brighten slightly before fading out. He had practiced in his study four several minutes before his presentation to the class. He had done the gestures correctly. The moth powder was pure, completely dried and free of debris.

  "Master, is this something you enhanced in the recipe? Magnificent if so, very impressive." It was Nochtli Etalpalli, one of two of Kazimir's apprentices, that had spoken up. He stood behind Kazimir with Xolin Tototl, the other apprentice, awaiting to assist Kazimir with his equipment and components and cleaning up after each demonstration.

  "Thank you, Nochtli," said Kazimir. It was not. It was bad, very bad and Kazimir waited with bated breath as to how this was going to end. "I hadn't thought to, no."

  The corona exploded with a splattering mess of white powder that coated all the faces and shoulders of the students below it. They screamed and got up from their pillows on the floor.

  Kazimir covered his face with his hands and sighed. He scratched his head and bit his bottom lip. Please let this not get worse, he thought.

  The pupils began choking and hacking.

  Xolin touched Kazimir's shoulder gently and spoke with his soft voice into Kazimir's ear, "Should we not fetch the Chief of Healers, master?"

  "Yes," Kazimir answered below his breath, then he cried out to the group,"Everyone stay calm! We are fetching the Healers! I'm sure this is not a major concern!"

  "You are not fit to teach!" a pupil cried out, then vomited on himself and his silken blue robes.

  "Master Drajor foils again," he heard another taunt at him.

  He turned to Nochtli. "Get them all some water or something. I'm going to get Rexim and her healers."

  Nochtli nodded and with that Kazimir exited the classroom and the Hall of Alchemy and made his way to the Healing Temple of Belaz City.

  Before he returned to retire in his study, Milintica, the High Lord of Alchemy and four Belazonian guards armed with spears pulled him aside on the marbled spiral staircase, escorted him all the way to the top floor and brought him to the High Lord's office chamber. They sat him down on the floor in front of High Lord Milintica's desk, eye to eye with him, though there was no cushion for Kazimir on his side of the desk.

  High Lord Milintica's took a long drag on his reed pipe and blew out a stream of thick tabac smoke before he said, "You have fumbled your last, you know. I cannot simply reprimand you this time." His voice had a bright tenor. He kept his violet Belazonian hair in a giant sculpted orb, though it had grayed slightly with age. His skin was still as dark black as any young Belazonian, though he was in his sixties. Most Belazonian's skin became much lighter after their fortieth birthday.

  "But Lord, I can explain this one completely. You must hear me out," Kazimir said,

  "Silence!" Milintica snapped. "I've heard you out many times over! This is not a meeting of council!"

  "But you don't have all the facts! This time I think I know what happened!"

  "You are suspended of your teaching rank of Master and henceforth banished from the Hall of Alchemy until further notice. I recommend you pursue one of your other many studies or fascinations of magic. The Star God knows you dabble in too many as it is."

  Kazimir looked down at his lap, admiring the silver fret pattern on his scarlet silk tunic and fleeted pant legs. He looked up into Milintica's eyes then and said calmly, "What will I do for fruit and bread? If I am banished from the Hall, where will I live without my study?"

  Milintica tapped his long, manicured fingernails on the clay desktop. "I have an idea. High Lord Listiquit is in need of another liaison officer. You've often excelled at diplomacy and whisperings between masters and lords. Perhaps you will do well in that position for the Emperor."

  Kazimir perked up a little. "You want me to work for the Emperor?"

  "I can write a recommendation for you myself. High Lord Listiquit and I are somewhat close. His daughter is betrothed to my son."

  "Many thanks, my lord. It is an honor; however, it does feel like a promotional punishment. I am honored to get a chance to work directly for the Emperor, but I am fully aware of why the position opens often. Liaisons are valuable targets for assassins, especially if their secrets are disclosed to the wrong ears."

  Milintica puffed on his pipe one last time, his square-jawed face in contemplation. The pipe was very long and carved with ornate Belazonian Alchemy symbols. He tapped it on the edge of a bowl on the desk to dump out the ashes. "Then be a good one. Don't make those mistakes. Alchemy is not your best venture. You could've easily killed those students today. One of them is still sick from whatever your spell transfused into the air. Don't be so...," he paused, "ambitious."

  Kazimir rolled his eyes. He would never stop being who he was. He had studied so many kinds of magic and foreign lost magic because it helped him unlock the secrets of things in alchemy he never would have learned without the outside perspective. Ambition brought knowledge and knowledge was more powerful than any magic. "It's fine. I understand. I will do my best. I don't have much of a choice. When do I report to High Lord Listiquit?"

  "I can have you a meeting with him tonight. I will see him this afternoon."

  "Uh, well..." Kazimir tilted his head slightly. "I have to act in a show tonight in the Belaz Market Theater. It's a free event for the merchants to help them get more customers in the market. It's been planned for weeks."

  Milintica nodded. "Very well, Kazimir. I will ask that he meet with you tomorrow afternoon then. Perhaps you should consider this theater interest as well as a supplemental income. It sounds to me like you've already got your skills sharpening for the job of liaison. You will do a lot of acting there as well."

  Kazimir stood up and sighed and bit his bottom lip before he said, "This is fine. Many starblessings to you for your..." He raised his hand palm up in a back and forth motion. "Support? Yes, that's it, your continued support over the last few months since my appointing of Master. It was an honor while it lasted."

  Milintica frowned. "Though I know half of that sentiment was sarcasm, many starblessings to you as well, Kazimir. Sincerely, I hope you do well."

  "I'm sure," said Kazimir, then turned away and went down to his study to get ready for the show tonight and start packing his things.

  * * * *

  A couple of hours later, Kazimir stood naked in front of the tall mirror in his study whilst Nochtli and Xolin used sponges to paint his entire body with scarlet red paint. He wore a black wig of long glistening black hair over his violet curls.

  "Master Drajor, it seems this red is not well for covering such deep black skin as Belazonian." Xolin stopped swabbing Kazimir's shoulder and took a step back out of Kazimir's view of the mirror.

  Kazimir eyed himself, noting the splotchy darkness of his skin that still shown through. "It's alright, I think. Maybe we can do another coat after this one is fully dry. The history books say the bloodskin or Ergosti race had dark red skin the color of wine, so it should suffice either way. No one on the continent has seen Ergosti in over a hundred years. They are from somewhere across the Mystic Sea. It's going to be great fun playing one. The people of Belaz need to learn more about other lands and cultures."

  Nochtli cocked his head, giving Kazimir a look over. "They were a bit frightening; I must say. Do you have a costume? I'm excited to see what kind of fashion they were into."

  "In fact, I do," said Kazimir. "It's in the wardrobe. You might not find it something you would wear to anything formal. It's a bit primitive. I had the school tailor put it together."

  5

  AEILE

  Aeile Melicleh stirred the bubbling pot of squirrel broth held up by a small wire cage she had crafted to rest over her campfire for cooking. She pulled out her skinning knife
and began to chop bits of carrot she had foraged a few days before into the mixture and inhaled deeply, her mouth salivating. "This is gonna be so good," she said to no one, as for all she knew only the forest creatures that dwelt south of Dreamer's Bay could hear.

  She grabbed a small pouch full of salt she had brought with her on her forage quest a month ago, happy that it was still half full. She had been very conservative on this run. Last year she had used up all the salt in two weeks. She took a sip from her waterskin and poured some of it over her face. She closed her eyes and relished the coolness seeping over her scalp and throughout her blond locks. She wasn't too worried about wasting it since the Dream River waterfall was only about a mile hike from along the edge of the cliff where she had made camp.

  Before she opened them again, she heard voices in conversation and a snapping of dead tree branches from someone walking nearby. She cautiously put the waterskin away, grabbed her longbow beside her and scanned the forest tree-line, her back to the cliff. She nocked an arrow and listened.

  Aeile slowed her breathing and brought herself to her hunting state of mind, senses sharpened and every tiny sound and movement in her surroundings amplified for her to absorb and evaluate. She heard them again then, traipsing through the forest rather clumsily. She smelled alcohol on their breath, possibly a home fermented brew from peaches.

  "I tell you, mate, we're never gonna find nothing in this part of the woods. No one goes this far north. Besides, I hear there's black cats up this way that can bite off your head. And I'm bloody starving!" The man's voice was nasally and a little slurred. "No cave up here that I can see. Let's stop and rest."

  "The map says there's a cliff just up ahead and the cave is near a waterfall. I'm feeling like we're close. Listen. You hear it?" said second voice, a bit impeded and syrupy.

  "And what the fuck does it supposed to sound like?" said nasally voice.

  "I dunno. Whoooooosh! Sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle! Whoosh, whoosh!" said stone in his mouth.

  "Hey, you smell that?" said nasally. "I smell chicken stew!"

  "Fuck, Grendy, your stomach's making you smell things! Wait! I think you're right!"

  Aeile lowered her stance and pulled back on the bowstring as she watched the two emerge from the trees, their soft leather attire nearly black from grime with patches of tan dried mud caked over their shins and boots. She didn't see any weapons in their hands. "Don't come any closer or I'll bury arrows in both of your foreheads within five seconds!" she shouted.

  Nasally voice was a thinner framed man, tanned and sporting a long thin frosted goatee and his face lined with wrinkles that were filled with dirt. He held up fingerless gloved hands in submission. "Hold on there, lady! We're just a bit lost in these woods and hungry. We smelled that delicious stew you got brewing there and couldn't help ourselves but follow our noses. We mean no harm. Please mercy!" With that, he went down on his knees and bowed with his hands still held up.

  "Yes," said Grendy, dropping his large frame to the ground. "Mercy! Milady! We's hungry!" He stood easily seven-foot-tall and was of much younger age than the other. He had a dirty brown beard that nearly covered his chest, and he wore a wide-brimmed leather hat that looked as though a rat had chewed through the side of it.

  Aeile stood still with the arrow poised to plunge between Grendy's eyes. "Well. How do I know you're not murderers?"

  "We swear, milady!" said the older small-framed man. "Look, we've nothing." He pulled his front pockets inside out and held up his tunic, showing his skeletal torso tufted with gray chest hair.

  "Yes, milady! We swear!" followed Grendy. He out-turned his pockets as well and pulled up his shirt to reveal a large knife strapped under his arm.

  The older man reached up and smacked him across the face. "Your stupid arse! Give her your hunting knife first!"

  "That's what I was doing, Frikk! I wanted to show her!"

  "That's how ya get killed!" said Frikk.

  Grendy slowly pulled the knife from its sheath on his side and tossed it handle-first gently a few feet towards her camp. "It's just for hunting, milady. We are lousy hunters, though."

  Aeile smiled at that. "Well, I could tell. You stomp through the forest like oxen." She lowered her bow. "Come on then. I will share what I'm cooking but you might be disappointed it's not stew. It's just squirrel broth with some carrots and shallots I picked from the forest earlier this week. I kept the bones of the squirrel I caught yesterday and made some broth from it. I do have some potatoes and salted boar meat to spare. Afterward, I expect you to be on your way. The closest road to Redfish Town is ten miles south of here." She pointed to her left. "That way."

  "Aye, milady! We won't be no trouble," said Frikk with a smile showing mostly blackened teeth. "Grendy here just lost his daughter in these woods, and we been lookin' for her for days. Thinks she might be still alive and I'm her Uncle, see?"

  "Your brothers?" she asked.

  "Well, brothers-in-law, anyway," said Frikk.

  Grendy gave Frikk an odd smile.

  Aeile raised her bow at them again but did not pull back the arrow. "You may approach slowly and a good distance from that knife."

  They both stood up in unison and started forward casually.

  "Hands behind your head!" she snapped.

  They both complied and slowed their pace a bit.

  "I want you both to sit there--," she pointed with the nocked arrow and bow, "a few feet across from me and my fire. I will bring you food, but you must stay seated with legs crossed." She didn't necessarily buy their story, but she could tell they weren't lying about being hungry, and she couldn't bear the thought of sending them away without at least a little help. Besides, they may be bandits or thieves, but they didn't look like much of a threat to her. Everything valuable to her she kept in her backpack, and she doubted it would be worth anything to them. She never went on forage expeditions with coins or valuables.

  They sat, and she brought them both cups of the broth with her spear in hand each time she approached. She cooked some small potatoes for them and split them and salted them and brought them over. She finally sat herself down on her side of the fire next to the lean-to she had constructed out of limbs and leafy tree branches and helped herself to the broth. "So, you are looking for your daughter, you say?"

  "Well--" Grendy began before being cut off.

  "Yes, milady," said Frikk. "She's been missing for a spell. We heard about a cave by a waterfall round here and thought she might be lost and taking shelter in there. You see a cave round?"

  "I don't know of a cave, but there is a waterfall about a mile that way where the Dream River flows down the side of the cliff. It's a small one though because the river is very narrow there, about--," she sat up from her rock seat and walked what felt to her like twenty feet to demonstrate, "that wide or so." She sat back down.

  Frikk and Grendy's faces both lit up with interest.

  Aeile sipped on her soup and then said, "Funny thing is. I'm out here to help someone dear to me as well."

  "Oh?" said Frikk. "Do tell, milady. Maybe we's can help ya."

  Aeile chuckled, setting down her tin cup of broth which still steaming. She picked up her spear from beside her and both men startled back with their hands up. Grendy dropped his potato on the ground he was about to bite into again. Aeile smiled and started jabbing the fire with the steel tip, tossing the smoldering coals to keep the heat dispersed and to keep the fire going. She was glad to see they didn't think she wouldn't use it on them. "I don't know if you could, really. I'm looking for a very rare plant called the white mariheema. It grows in very rocky forest areas and to be honest, I've only seen drawings of it in books. My baby sister is very sick, and she will die very slowly over the course of two years if I don't find this plant. She's only eight years. It's supposed to be the only thing that will cure the disease. This is my fifth foraging expedition to find it. I've been all over the southern and eastern forests of Red Wolf and now I'm following the coastline fores
ts north. Tomorrow, I'm climbing down this cliff because there are lots of little clusters of things down there growing out of the cliff face." She sat up and walked a few steps over near the edge of the cliff and pointed down the bluff and hurried back to sit on the rock.

  "What's wrong with your sister?" It was Grendy this time.

  "She's got the rotting plague. She suffers greatly and never leaves her bedroom. Her hand had to be amputated last month." Aeile felt a tear sneak out her eye, and she heard her voice crack when she continued, "I did it myself."

  "Savior Samuel! That's right fuckin' awful, milady!" said Frikk. "I'm sorry about your baby sister. Such a terrible thing for it to happen to a little girl. May the Worldmaker bless you on your search."

  Aeile smiled and wiped the tear that had now streaked down her face. "Thank you!" She stood up then, spear in hand. "The sun will be falling in a couple of hours, and I hope you don't mind me asking that you both take your leave, so I can see your backs disappear as you make your way along the top of the cliff towards the Dream River. A lady needs a secure night's rest, and I sleep with my dagger strapped to this backpack that I use as a pillow just so you know."

  "Oh right, milady," said Frikk. "We understand. You've been ever so gracious. We are about finished and have the energy for a few more miles hiking. We shall find this cave and maybe some sign of my dear niece." With that, he stood and motioned to Grendy to follow.

  Aeile dropped her spear and grabbed her bow.

  Grendy was headed over to the spot on the rocky ground where he had thrown his hunting knife.

  "Nope! Turn around!" Aeile had the arrow nocked and aimed at his back. "I'll throw it to you once you've walked a good distance away."