The Alchemist's Run

by L James Wright

  Bigby snatched the alchemist’s key away from Penelope. “Fine then. This key’s so important to you, get us both across the river, and no more lies!” Bigby knew there had to be more to this story, given the hot pursuit, and knew he needed a bargaining chip if he was to be included in the game. He half considered threatening to toss the key into the river as a warning, but feared that even he wouldn’t believe those words, when something caught his attention.

  The underbrush shifted, and they both tensed. He looked at Penelope, and her grip tightened again, almost willing him to simply stay and wait it out. He did.

  A man, as ragged as the two of them, fell backwards out of the brush, a nichrome-edged hatchet in one hand, and a buzzing volt gun in the other. He quickly righted himself in the soft mud of the bank and stood, still facing the bank. When no one immediately followed, he turned around.

  Even through the grime that coated his face, the smearing of coal and sweat and dirt, Bigby knew him. The clothes were old, torn, unkempt, and yet Bigby knew. He turned and looked at Penelope, who smiled weakly, as if to say, please, Bigby, just one last time. When Bigby looked back at the man, he was smiling and waving the two weapons in his hands.

  “Mr. Dolan,” he said, “fancy meeting you here.”

  “Edgar Marlby,” Bigby said, relieved.

  “Why are we just standing around?”

  Without waiting for a response, Edgar turned and fired another missile into the woods from the hand cannon and then tossed it to the ground. He did not wait to see if or where it hit, and rushed to Bigby's side. Bigby grinned and accepted the hug as Edgar wrapped his arms around him.

  “Good to see you, friend,” Edgar said, reading the pleasantly baffled expression that Bigby wore. “You didn’t think you snuck by that armored unit on your own, did you? Or that that boat got out there on its own, now, huh? Now come on.”

  Bigby glanced up at Poppy, and she just nodded knowingly.

  Edgar slipped the finely crafted hatchet into his belt, and Bigby saw an index finger missing on his hand there. “Boerners took it,” Edgar said. “Figure it’s not much use for pulling triggers anymore,” he grinned.

  Penelope pulled Bigby gently into the water. He stopped.

  “I can't,” he said. “I’ve never swam that far before.”

  Penelope looked squarely at him. “I'll get you there.”

  There was no other way. He looked over his shoulder at Edgar, patiently watching their backsides and seemingly confident in the path he had chose. Behind them, coming quickly amongst the trees, the sounds of men and vehicles could be heard.

  Bigby motioned for Penelope to lead the way, and he walked gently with her.

  “Lay on your back,” she said, “and just let the water lift you. I’ll have hold of you.”

  Bigby closed his eyes.

  There was Alec, south of the camp. They had been the only two to make it as far as the Sentinel River. When they had reached the river more than an hour later, they were only moments ahead of their captors. “Here, take hold of it!” Alec had handed Bigby the one weapon they'd been able to confiscate and rushed out onto the jetty. Bigby had followed a few steps after, backing up slowly, so he could fire soon as he heard them. He looked behind him, and Alec had been working desperately with the ropes. Shouts came from the path they had come on, and Bigby turned around.

  A dozen Atanakan soldiers were standing with weapons raised. Bigby had fired off three shots and threw down the weapon. He turned and made for the small boat that Alec had made certain would be waiting for them. Only it hadn't been there. Out across the water, Alec had already shoved off and was making his way to the Ulleran side of the river.

  “I trusted you!”

  “I'm sorry, Bigby! Forgive me, but I don't want to die.”

  Before Bigby could answer, they had been on him. They hadn't killed him after that, instead making a painful example out of him to the other prisoners, and he'd been under close guard until shortly before the children came to provide him a new avenue for escape and restore his optimism. That had been the last time he felt that way—about anything.

  Bigby's eyes shot open as he felt the water erupt around him. He was sputtering, water splashing into his mouth. On his collar, though, he felt Penelope’s grip tighten and haul him away from the geyser. Above him the sky was clear, beautiful, the birds cawing and chirping as they fled the cacophony of noise coming from the shore. Then he felt himself lifted, the hard jolt of wood in his side, and then he was facedown in the bottom of the small boat. It rocked back and forth as first one and then another body got in with him, and then he looked up.

  Penelope grinned down at him. He saw Edgar behind him raise the hatchet and slash through the rope that held the boat to whatever anchor lay at the bottom of the Great River. The boat lurched forward in the current, and Edgar stumbled and fell onto them. Without bothering to move, he lay there as they floated down river, the sounds of shouting and wayward cannon fire following behind them, until, after only a few minutes, it was lost, and they were floating toward the other shore.

  In the boat, Bigby saw that Edgar had filled one corner with a small store of supplies for their journey ahead. Much needed food, medicine, and other perishables sat wrapped in wax paper and pitched boxes. Even a few precious tools and machined items were cleverly kept in oilcloth to protect them from moisture or if the boat were to capsize. He pocketed the alchemist’s key, which he had been clutching since he took it from Penelope, and began sorting through the sundry items. If he was officially in the game now, he intended to pull his own weight.

  After several long minutes of floating and keeping their heads down—during which cannon fire continued to splash down as close as ten yards away from them—Edgar propped himself up in the middle of the boat and began to row them in. Eventually, the dinghy nudged up against a sandbar on the opposing shore. Edgar reeled the oars in and lowered himself into the waist deep water, indicating that he was going to go ashore. Bigby remained busy in the boat as Penelope too climbed into the water and helped Edgar tug the boat closer to dry ground. The cannon fire had curiously stopped now. When they were secure, Edgar smiled gamely and saluted them before fetching a spare pistol from the supplies in the boat, drawing his hatchet, and setting off to scout a safe route ahead.

  “Don’t know what else Mister Marlby’s got hid in here,” Bigby said, still working, “but take this.” Bigby reached out with his coat pistol in hand. “Shoot anybody who comes snooping.”

  Penelope took the undersized gun, not for fear of her safety, but to help lessen Bigby’s load as his hands flew in frenzied passes over the work in front of him.

  Bigby had not felt so possessed in his work since before all this had begun. He juggled ingredients and cannibalized oddments—siphoning top fluid from a found jar, collecting vapors from an unscrewed cylinder piece, and taking scrapings from the hull of the boat—to fabricate a handful of catalysts. After tamping a torn piece of wadded cloth into the ends of one of his devices, he was primed and readied to light and toss the first of his scratch-built bombs at a moment’s notice.

  Presaged by the faint sound of working gears and pistons, High Adherent Kard Val Daart emerged from behind a tree not twenty paces from the boat. Strapped to his shins were the metal skeleton-like replica of a dog’s hind legs, braced to his thighs, knees, and ankles like some sort of exotic prosthesis. The augmented leg extensions caused the widowman to move from side-to-side as he positioned himself. He wore no look of satisfaction on his face, but it seemed obvious he had been expecting them.

  There was no sign of Edgar, for good or ill.

  Penelope saw the recognition of trouble in Bigby’s face as she turned and fired. The alchemical cartridge flew, sparking, from the pistol with deadly accuracy, but Val Daart was wary. The Leatherfoot widowman seemed to buckle down in an attempt to duck the bullet—which would have placed the line of fire at his eye level, given the mechanical legs—but instead leapt forward and over, twisting in
an acrobatic display to avoid the shot. The alchemical cartridge took him in the metallic calf instead, sparking and sputtering with the sound of burning metal.

  Val Daart failed to take notice, however, and pressed on through his midair, somersaulting leap to fall into a charge straight at Poppy. Bigby saw this and lit one of his bombs, but he was too late. Val Daart was already on top of her, metal leg kicking.

  Penelope was no pugilistic greenhorn, though. She pivoted, arms out, by throwing her body weight against the momentum of Val Daart’s charge, looking to counter. She seemingly allowed Val Daart to disarm her of the spent pistol with his kick—that gripped the gun and ground it into the dirt—then brought her heel up out of the pivot as she landed it squarely on Val Daart’s chest.

  Val Daart’s head snapped back from the blow, and he bit his lip. Touching a hand to his mouth, his eyes brightened at the newfound respect he held for Poppy. She was truly willing to go against her own.

  Bigby desperately searched for an opening to launch a bomb, but he couldn’t risk placing Penelope in the blast radius. He tossed one into the river as it began to fizzle out, and moved to light another. “Poppy, move!” he cried.

  Penelope hesitated, and Val Daart dived back in to engage her.

  The Leatherfoot operated the mechanical legs with a practiced rhythm; ducking, twisting, turning, and leaning to follow the momentum of his heavy lower frame. The legs too added something to Val Daart’s fighting style, granting him added leverage and speed that he otherwise would not have possessed.

  Penelope made every effort to dodge and turn out of the way of those terrible legs. They appeared more dinosaur-like to her than dog-like, and she fought the High Adherent with the same level of regard reserved for cold-blooded creatures, her tattered clothing whipping as she went.

  The two trained widowmen battled more defensively now, testing the limits of the other to defend against punches, kicks, elbows, and knees. Sparks flew between them as the phosphorous from the alchemical cartridge continued to burn on the High Adherent’s mechanical leg. Val Daart scored a series of minor hits, to which Penelope would counter and belt him one. Still, Penelope was already showing signs of fatigue from her earlier scrapes through the brush. She wouldn’t last long.

  Bigby at last saw his opening and let one go at Val Daart. The sharp-eyed widowman spun one mechanical leg up into the air and batted the flying bombard back at its origin. Bigby gawked in disbelief and launched himself from the boat. The bomb cascaded against the boat’s hull, sending a lick of flame into the air.

  Right then, Val Daart feinted high and caught Penelope distracted, and she yelped as a clawed metal foot rammed into her knee. She buckled and back-stepped, but Val Daart was right there and landed a vicious uppercut to the jaw that sent Penelope sprawling.

  Val Daart sighed from the effort and looked over at Bigby.

  Bigby raised both arms to light and throw, despite being wet, but his arms went slack as his eyes fell on the prone Poppy.

  “Go on, Dolan,” Val Daart said, standing over Penelope. “Send us both to our final reward.” His face was still expressionless.

  Bigby ignored the widowman and kept his eyes on Poppy, her lids fluttering and mouth agape.

  Kard sighed again, longer this time, and smoothed a few wrinkles out of his crisp uniform. “I take no pleasure in this, Mister Dolan. You’ve given me a hard run. One of the hardest of my career. I cannot applaud you for that, but—”

  “Go to hell, widowman,” Bigby growled.

  “I am Kard Val Daart,” the Leatherfoot began, “of the Drevan Academy, yes. But not originally. Not at first. I am of the Pitch Tree Tribe of Leatherfeet; a long line before me. I was one of many that fought with distinction for the Commonist cause during the war in the Bastion.” At this announcement, Val Daart seemed to buckle and his eyes were creased with pain.

  Bigby, edging out of the water, thought to take advantage of this and attack, but saw something else in the vulnerability displayed before him.

  Kard regained his composure. “I fought in a war that saw brother against brother. Fellow countrymen torn apart. Inconceivable to those of us only a decade before, yet there we were. The Folk and tallmen, dwarves and icetreaders, Leatherfeet and Tenderfeet. The very same who had built this nation up were tearing it apart to command the future.” He glanced down at Poppy. “I became the future, Mister Dolan, as a widowman in the service of Summit City. I became the future and I enforced it. And from this day forward I have seen the future, Mister Dolan. I want no more part in it.”

  Kard ripped at the brace buckles and straps that held him in the dog’s legs. “You and I don’t need these to see each other eye to eye,” he said. The phosphorous from the alchemical cartridge had done its work, eating straight through a strut on one of the mechanical legs, and the widowman lost his balance and tipped over backward. He landed with a huff as he came free of the mechanical legs, and hissed his displeasure.

  “Tend to her,” Kard said in a hush.

  Bigby, still holding a bomb at the ready, inched closer to his friend but never took his eyes off the enemy.

  Behind him, the dinghy’s outer edge was on fire.

  Kard crawled out of the legs and struggled to stand.

  Bigby knelt next to where Penelope had fallen and was content to see her chest rising and falling.

  Finally on his feet, Kard Val Daart looked sidelong at Bigby Dolan and nodded his assent.

  Bigby glared up through the dipping sun at his persistent foe. He could see Val Daart’s pain. Brought on by years of fighting, nagging injuries, and thankless servitude to a life the widowman saw as betraying his honor. There, on the edge of civilization, facing the frightening prospect of a life unsuited to his surroundings, each saw himself reflected on the face of his adversary.

  “You’ve given me a good hunt, Mister Dolan,” Kard said. “Let history record that High Adherent Kard Val Daart tracked his quarry across half the Federated States, and finally caught up with him on the verge of the frontier.”

  Bigby allowed the widowman to limp cautiously around his perimeter, and followed Kard’s movements closely. Guarding Poppy’s body, Bigby wouldn’t allow her to be harmed again, but neither did he feel compelled to harm the wounded soul standing before him, feeling instead disarmed by the Leatherfoot’s resigned and unprovoked posture.

  Kard lifted his arms as he spoke. “Let the records show that the final struggle took place on the banks of the Heartwater. It will show that no witnesses were there to report the last moments. But they must be convincing nonetheless.”

  Bigby tensed anticipating Kard’s next action, but even hurt the widowman reacted faster than the awestruck alchemist. With a surge of motion, Kard pressed into the burning boat and managed to send it back toward the river as the fire crept ever higher. At the last moment, Kard hoisted himself aboard the boat and turned to look back.

  Something moved under Bigby’s gaze, and Penelope’s arm shot out like a rope drawn taut to the movement of the boat. The end of her hand discharged in a cloud of gun smoke, and Kard clasped at his neck as he was struck in the throat.

  Any yell or shout at the sudden attack was lost as blood trickled between the widowman’s fingers, holding tight to his throat. Strangely, though, Kard’s expression was not opposed to the fate, and his eyes held calm. With a haunting salute, Kard Val Daart raised his free hand to the shore where Bigby stood, then collapsed onto the would-be pyre overcome with pain.

  Bigby tried to utter words, but none would come. Craning to see his face from her awkward position, Penelope’s expression was glazed but betrayed no indication that she was uncertain of what she had done. Together, they simply watched the shocking death—fires licking and wood popping—as the dinghy was caught up in the current and floated downstream.

  A twitch stole its way across Bigby’s features. He suddenly felt as if he was holding a great weight in his lap. Poppy struggled to sit up. Bigby’s head moved in tiny jerks as he came to stare a
t her. It was obvious to him now. She had landed atop the coat pistol when she fell, surreptitiously gathering it and a spare cartridge from Bigby’s pocket as he huddled over her. Hadn’t Val Daart seen her do this? Why give her the opportunity?! The heat of mad anger swelled inside him then, but it washed away in the wind as something rustled at their backs.

  Edgar Marlby lunged out of the brush, finding a much different scene than when he had left. “Biggs! What happened?” he croaked.

  Penelope finally stood, leaving Bigby still on his knees, as Edgar rushed closer to inspect.

  Bigby raised a quiet hand to his friend.

  “Hey! What happened?” Edgar said. “You two all right?” He glanced up at the drifting smoke and the dancing glow of fire on the water in the near distance. “Where’s the boat? Our stuff?”

  Bigby just shook his head. “Gone.”

  Edgar’s face strained at the news, but he had come prepared. “S’good thing I hid half our supplies in the woods up yonder. Can you move? We need to get while the going is good.” He stooped to help Bigby along.

  Penelope’s eyes held those of Bigby’s. “It’s done,” she said and nodded, offering her thanks and accepting his, even if he wouldn’t vocalize it.

  “No.” Bigby shook his head.

  Edgar, always in motion, ignored their vacant chatter as he focused on getting them to safety.

  Bigby, though, knew his life’s road had changed forever. Too much time had already been spent on running from the change. It was time to accept it, even if some parts of the life he had chosen were wrong. Now, at least, he wouldn’t walk the road alone. They would do it together. Wouldn’t much do to walk it, either. Time to run.