The Heart of Alchemy

by James E. Wisher

  “Circle around,” Otto said. “When I distract them, attack hard from behind.”

  Hans nodded and led the guys around to the right.

  “What should I do?” Jet asked.

  “What can you do?”

  When she didn’t reply he shrugged and said, “Stay out of the way and keep a lookout. If anything else heads our way, let me know.”

  “Okay.”

  A few minutes later he spotted Hans sneaking up on the cultists in red.

  Otto channeled ether through his sword and lashed out. Thirty threads’ worth of lightning, nearly his maximum output, arced out into the cultists. The attack hammered them one after another.

  The first died instantly.

  The second fell and went still.

  The rest were only stunned.

  But that was all Hans needed.

  He and his men waded in, hacking and stabbing until nothing was moving.

  Lady White stood, looked his way, and smiled.

  They met halfway between their positions and before Otto had a chance to so much as offer a greeting, she hugged him. Of all the reactions he’d expected, that wasn’t one of them. Her body held the chill of the grave but also the curves of a beautiful woman. The result was an incongruous mix of sensual and repulsive.

  At last she stepped back. “Astaroth must still favor me if he sent you to my aid. I thought to never see you again.”

  “That makes two of us. I came primarily to deliver your follower.” Lady White looked over his shoulder at Jet and seemed to dismiss her immediately. Otto cleared his throat and continued. “I also hoped to discuss undead and how best to control them. But now I’m thinking our best move is to leave this place, quickly. Do you have a secure location where we can talk?”

  Lady White stretched, straining the fabric of her thin dress before focusing once more on Otto. “Nowhere is safe for me here. Astaroth’s High Lord has cast me out of the cult. Abaddon’s followers were selected to hunt me and my familiars down. I’m down to my final warbeast and he’s not in very good shape. I would be grateful for transportation elsewhere.”

  “I can arrange that.” Otto whistled. “Hans! We’re heading back.”

  The good sergeant trotted over, mithril blade still bare in his hand.

  Lady White shivered and moved away. “Could you put those swords away for now? Being surrounded by so much mithril makes me nauseous.”

  “You’ll just have to bear it,” Otto said as they set out. No way would he leave the others unprotected in the corrupt land. He’d lost one man on this journey and he had no intention of losing another.

  Lady White glared at him, but her expression quickly smoothed. She needed him and she knew it. More importantly, she knew Otto knew it as well.

  The little group set out at a quick march back toward the docks. The sooner they put some distance between themselves and the cursed city the better.

  They managed six blocks before Lady White said, “They’re coming.”

  Otto sensed it a moment later. Concentrated corruption headed their way, four of them it felt like.

  A gout of blue flame came roaring in only to be turned aside by Lady White’s magic.

  “Run!” Otto said.

  They broke into a sprint, abandoning all stealth for speed. Fortunately, the docks weren’t that far away and soon the ship was visible ahead of them. Even better, Axel had his archers on deck, bows at the ready.

  Otto waved and pointed over his shoulder.

  Axel nodded and said something to the scouts. Seconds later arrows arced over their heads.

  No more fire blasts exploded.

  The moment Otto made it up the gangplank, the crew cut them free of the dock.

  “Keep watch.” Otto sent thirty-four threads through his sword and formed them into a huge arm that pushed the ship away from the dock and out to sea.

  He fell to his knees, drained by the exertion.

  When Otto finally forced himself to his feet, the ship had put on half her sails and they were making good time away from the cursed land. On deck, Lady White and a cowering Jet stood on one side, while everyone else gathered on the other side and watched her warily. Perfectly understandable given that she was an undead demon worshipper. Still, Otto couldn’t have this tension the entire trip home.

  He made his way to a spot near the main mast, halfway between the two groups. “Hans, Axel, Corina, Lady White, if you’d be so kind as to join me.”

  When all four had met in the middle Otto went on. “Everyone, Lady White is my guest on this voyage. Please treat her with the proper respect. You have nothing to fear from her.”

  “What about that?” Corina pointed at the warbeast.

  “Rest easy, child,” Lady White said. “It will do nothing without my permission. The poor thing has been through a rough time and needs to rest.”

  Corina bristled at being called a child, but she remained silent which Otto appreciated. “Shall we descend to my cabin and discuss our arrangement further?”

  Before Lady White could respond, something hit the ship, sending it lurching to the side. Otto sprawled on the deck but quickly regained his feet.

  He looked up at the crow’s nest. “What was that?”

  “Can’t see anything!” the lookout shouted.

  “It was Dagon’s guardian,” Lady White said. “I didn’t think they would dispatch it after I left. It seems the High Lords really want me dead.”

  Otto frowned. “Dagon’s guardian, you mean that thing that pulled us into port last time?”

  “Correct.”

  “Something’s coming right at us!” the lookout shouted.

  Sure enough a long shadow was bearing down on the ship. They had about five seconds before it hit them again.

  “Hang on!” Captain Wainwright said as he frantically turned the wheel.

  The ship turned hard to the right.

  Otto used threads of ether to brace himself.

  “It missed!” the lookout called. “It’s turning back!”

  “How do we kill it?” Otto asked.

  “It’s a demon fused with a mass of corpses,” Lady White said. “It’s already dead.”

  “Can you control it?”

  Lady White shook her head. “The bound demon serves Dagon. It would never heed the commands of a follower of Astaroth.”

  Otto snarled away his annoyance. He considered and rejected using the Heart. This thing had so much corruption in it, he doubted he had the power to transmute it all into pure ether even with the artifact’s help.

  He peered closer at the approaching monstrosity. While the corruption ran through its entire being, there was a core at its center. It was as close to a heart as he expected to find.

  A desperate plan formed. “Axel, get your archers ready. When I force it up, have them shoot mithril arrows into it.”

  “How many?” Axel asked.

  “All of them!” He turned to Lady White. “I’m going to need your help.”

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  “Be the bait. Stand at the rail and expand your presence. Call it to the surface.”

  He hadn’t thought her pale skin could get any whiter, but it did. “You want me to challenge Dagon’s guardian? I’m strong, but I can’t defeat that creature.”

  “I’ll deal with it. You just need to coax it to the surface.”

  “Thirty yards!” the lookout called.

  “Quickly!” Otto hustled her over to the rail rather more firmly than he’d intended. If she took offense at his rough handling, she had no time to complain.

  Lady White raised both hands and corruption poured out of her. It reminded Otto of a warrior flexing before a fight to try and intimidate his foe. Compared to the darkness at the guardian’s core, Lady White’s power seemed a weak imitation.

  “It’s rising!” the lookout called.

  In an explosion of water, what looked like an amalgam of a dead whale, a giant squid, a shark, and a few other random
beasts Otto couldn’t begin to recognize burst from the sea twenty feet from the ship. A scattering of burning red eyes all focused on Lady White.

  For a moment Otto considered throwing her over the side in the hopes that the beast would spare the rest of them, but he dismissed the idea at once. She was too valuable a potential ally to waste.

  “Axel!”

  Bows twanged and mithril-tipped arrows soared out, hammering through the creature’s thick hide with ease. The magical metal burned away the corruption around them, but it hardly made a dent.

  Now that they were in place, it was Otto’s turn.

  He tapped the blade of his sword, connecting his magic to the arrowheads.

  Now the hard part.

  With every drop of ether at his command, he drove the arrowheads deeper into the demon beast. It thrashed and howled, spraying the ship with water and bits of rotten flesh.

  The flesh started moving on deck.

  Otto had no power to spare. “Hans! Deal with those things!”

  The soldiers hurried out, stabbing the fleshy slugs with their mithril weapons and flinging them overboard.

  Otto continued to force the arrowheads deeper.

  Only feet separated the tips from the creature’s core.

  With a final grunt of effort, he drove them home.

  The core dissolved and when it did, the amalgam broke. Pieces of different creatures fell off, splashing into the water until at last the whale corpse that served as the primary body sank out of sight.

  Otto blew out a long breath and staggered back to lean against the main mast. At this point, staying on his feet took every bit of his focus.

  A moment later Hans was there, slinging Otto’s arm over his shoulder. Corina joined him a second later, taking the other side.

  Otto glanced at Lady White. “Join me in my cabin. We still have matters to discuss.”

  She gestured at her warbeast to remain behind and trailed along behind Otto and his companions. When he’d settled into his chair and dismissed Hans and Corina she asked, “What do you have in mind?”

  “An alliance. You’re clearly no longer welcome in your homeland. Yet having been cast out of the cult, you still retain your power. That makes you useful. Especially your command over undead.”

  “As to my power, that comes directly from Lord Astaroth. Unless I displease him, I’ll continue to wield his might. The High Lords are another matter. They rule the Land of the Demon Binders with an iron fist and any failure is severely punished. I may well be the first to escape that punishment. You mentioned the undead before. Why the interest?”

  “Before I tell you, I want you to swear an oath on your true name to not betray me, my companions, or the New Garen Empire.”

  Her bloodred lips curled up. “You don’t trust my promise?”

  “You’re a demon worshipper. No offense, but that doesn’t make you the most trustworthy of allies. But your talents will be useful in what I think will be the final phase of my mission. In exchange for your oath, I give you my word that should your former countrymen come for you, I will be there to help.”

  She studied him, clearly uncertain, but equally short on options. While she might survive on her own for a time, eventually that time would be cut short.

  At last she said, “I swear on the name Alice Young to not betray you, your companions, or your empire.”

  The corruption shifted around her, bands of darkness wrapping around her heart and head. He’d never seen such a reaction. It had to be something to do with her unique nature. He made a note to ask Lord Karonin about it.

  “Satisfied? Now will you tell me what you plan?”

  “While I have no proof, I believe the next leg of my journey will take me to the Dead Lands. That haunted place is filled with undead. Who better to help me on my journey than someone that worships the lord of the undead? I’d like to drop you off on the coast and have you search for Amet Sur’s capital. I can meet you there once I finish researching the final item’s location.”

  “And what’s in this for me?” she asked.

  “Safety? A place at my side as an advisor to the second most powerful person in the empire? You’d be surrounded by enough wizards and soldiers that no one would ever dare make a move against you and if they did, they’d be doomed to fail.”

  Her smile broadened. “I like the sound of that. Very well, I accept your terms, but I will never call you master.”

  Otto smiled back. “As long as you keep your oath and serve my cause, I don’t care what you call me.”

  He didn’t add that the first thing he planned to learn was how to use her true name to compel her obedience. Oath or not, she was still a demon worshipper.

  Chapter 43

  Otto studied the bleak landscape of the Dead Lands. It appeared devoid of life, or unlife in this case. That made the sheltered cove Captain Wainwright selected as their temporary anchorage perfect. Once they escaped Dagon’s guardian, the journey had continued without a hitch. After everything that had happened, no one complained about the stretch of quiet.

  At least no one complained to Otto, who spent hours every day hunkered down in his cabin with Lady White learning necromancy. The magic fascinated and frustrated Otto in equal measure. Everything she knew about demons and undead was filtered through the teachings of her cult. Translating that into something useful to a wizard took more time and effort than he expected.

  But if he ended up having to spend any amount of time in the Dead Lands, the lessons he learned might make the difference between survival and death.

  Now his time of study had come to an end. It was time to drop his teacher off and see if she could find Amet Sur’s capital. Otto didn’t even know the name of the city, only that it had a huge black pyramid that served as the first Arcane Lord’s palace. How hard could it be to find a city with both a portal and a pyramid?

  As the anchor splashed down Lady White came to join him at the ship’s railing. “So this is where we part company.”

  He nodded. “I don’t have any advice for you. I assume some of the locals are capable of speech. If you can compel them, they might be able to guide you to the city.”

  She drew in a lungful of air and let it out slowly. That had to be a habit from when she still lived. “This place is rich in corruption. I will be at home here. Assuming I can find this city you seek, how do I let you know?”

  Otto took two items out of his pocket. The first was one of the thin crystal sticks he’d prepared. The other was a gold coin engraved with an empowered rune. “Snap the crystal and you can send me a ten-word message. I can then teleport to the rune.”

  She accepted the items and slipped them into a pocket of her robe. “Sounds simple enough. What’s the time frame?”

  Otto shrugged. “It takes as long as it takes. We’ll be a month minimum returning to port. After that I’ll need time to recover and prepare for the next leg of the mission. Probably three months minimum.”

  “I’ll do my best to be ready.”

  The crew had one of the ship’s dinghies ready and Otto escorted her to the boat. Her warbeast loosed a soft growl at him but Lady White swatted it on the nose and it fell silent.

  He turned at the sound of pounding boots. Jet was running across the deck towards them.

  When she stopped, she said, “I want to go with you.”

  “No,” Lady White said. “You’re still living, with all the weaknesses that come with that condition. There’s no food or potable water out there. And I can’t stop every time you need to sleep. Go with Otto and rejoin me when he does. If you still wish it, we can petition Astaroth to grant you his blessing then.”

  Jet’s face fell but she bowed. “As you command, Lady. Good luck.”

  Otto used his magic to steady the dinghy and Lady White climbed aboard with her warbeast. The unlucky sailors selected to ferry her to shore inched as far from the beast as possible without leaving the oars. Otto didn’t blame them even though Lady White was by far the more d
angerous of the pair.

  When the dinghy had moved away from the ship Jet said, “I’ll be below deck if you need me.”

  She sounded depressed, but Otto doubted anyone else on the ship would share her feelings.

  Chapter 44

  Otto couldn’t begin to describe his happiness when Lux’s port appeared on the horizon. How long had they been gone? A bit over a year if he wasn’t mistaken. It felt like longer. He’d once heard a veteran of many battles describe life in the army as long stretches of boredom broken up by moments of sheer terror. That described the last year really well.

  As the ship eased up to the dock Hans came striding over. “Orders, Lord Shenk?”

  “We’re heading home, Hans. As soon as we’re tied off and our gear’s unloaded, it’s straight to the portal and Garen. I haven’t desired a home-cooked meal this much in a very long time.”

  “I second that.” The sergeant grinned. “We really did it, didn’t we? We made it to the Celestial Empire and back in one piece. Most of us anyway. That’s a story I can tell my nieces and nephews. I can tell them, right?”

  Otto laughed. “You certainly can. I suspect Captain Wainwright plans to tell every captain in the city.”

  Axel and the scouts were coming up on deck, their packs slung over their shoulders. Corina was behind them and the rest of Hans’s squad, each of them heavily laden with their and Otto’s gear, brought up the rear.

  “I need to talk to Captain Wainwright for a moment,” Otto said. “I’ll meet you on the dock.”

  Hans saluted and went to join the others.

  For his part, Otto strode across the deck to the helm where the captain was busy shouting orders to his men who were equally busy tying off the sails and doing other things Otto didn’t understand.

  “Lord Shenk,” Wainwright said. “You’ve made my career with this journey. I can’t thank you enough for letting me command such a historic voyage.”

  “You guided us there and back,” Otto said. “I could ask for nothing more. I may not have need of you and the ship for some time. Do you have plans?”