Shards

by James Duvall

  "This is the place," Aebyn announced. He crowded into the back of the main laboratory behind Timothy and Christopher.

  The floor plan was simple. The badly weathered door opened into the main laboratory area. Several tables stood resolute against their years, though one had collapsed on one side, spilling glassware across the stone floor. Dusty shards memorialized what had once been an entire rack of vials and several large mixing beakers. At the back of the room a furnace was tucked into one corner, draped in cobwebs and a thin film of dust. A door into the office opened up next to it, and further along the wall an open hallway lead into a storage room.

  Bits of broken glass crunched like autumn leaves under Timothy's boots as he picked his way through the disused lab and into the back room. Most of the shelves had survived, filled to the brim with sealed glass jars. Time had reduced most of them to desiccated shadows of the colorful leaves and petals they had once contained. Timothy picked up one of the little glass bottles and the leaf inside shattered like glass into dozens of little brown fragments.

  "If I were going to build a school, I would probably not build it so many miles from town," Timothy commented. He tapped another jar just to watch the leaf inside crumble as though it were made of delicately arranged ashes.

  Christopher poked his head in and glanced around before withdrawing to the lab area. "I don't think this was a classroom. It isn't big enough for more than a few people, and you're right, it's very far from town. Likely they didn't want to be too near the harbor in the event some incautious student produced a cloud of poison gas or reduced the lab to a smouldering crater."

  This bit of intelligence was enough to stop Timothy from further experimenting with the dried out herbs and flowers. It seemed likely that whatever virtue the plants had once possessed had passed out of them by now, but Faralon's treasure was unlikely to be so boldly displayed.

  "What are we looking for, exactly?" Timothy asked, rejoining the others. Aebyn shrugged his wings and took up a sentry's post just outside.

  "The journal says there's a keyhole around here somewhere," Christopher said. He began lifting books carefully off their shelf and stacked them one by one on the nearest workbench. Closer inspection revealed that the elements had taken their toll on the books. The pages were stuck together, most reduced to a singular blob of pulp, marbled with orange and black stains that had once been neatly organized rows of letters.

  “A keyhole is a strange way to put it, isn't it?” Timothy mused aloud. “Not a chest or a lock, but a keyhole.”

  Christopher simply shrugged. The two of them scoured the lab for the telltale keyhole that Faralon's words had promised. It would be a simple matter to open once found, Timothy surmised. It was a rare thing for a mage to use any special sort of lock to protect his valuables. The promise of vengeance via fireballs and gryphon's talons was usually enough to put the average thief off, but lost to the centuries, Archmage Faralon could offer no such retribution.

  If it were a particularly valuable treasure, the tumblers might have been lined with an edge of glidestone or emberstone, or some other mist-infused gemstone, but Timothy had tools to deal with these obstacles.

  The keyhole had still not appeared when Aebyn came bounding in through the open door calling Timothy's name urgently. His eyes were wide and frantic and his wings unfolded and folded restlessly.

  "Timothy! The dwarves! The dwarves are coming!" Aebyn warned.

  The men exchanged worried looks. Christopher ran to the window and looked out.

  “They're here already.”

  Timothy dug Samuel Raimes' ring out of his pocket and slipped it onto his hand. A sapphire inlay circled around the silver ring's band. The face bore a simple shape of a feather crossed with a gemstone shard; the Bridgers Seal. Raimes' orders were tucked neatly in his pocket still. They could serve as a valuable prop, but bore the dead bridger's name, and as far as Timothy was concerned, no man ever need know that Samuel Raimes had come to the Island of Mercy to die.

  In the remaining moments, Christopher hid Faralon's journal among the remnants of the older books. Left undisturbed since the days of the Shattering, they seemed a safer place than his own hands where the dwarves might take it simply for the fact that he carried it.

  The dwarves did not come into the lab, instead assembling in the courtyard. One began to bark orders in pendrian, but with such a thick accent that Timothy did not immediately recognize his own tongue.

  "Come out of thar," the dwarf bellowed.

  Timothy did as instructed, stepping out into the courtyard with his head held confidently high. He smiled at the dwarves and waved. He was wearing his new coat. It was dark blue with brass buttons and gold and silver trim. It was open in the front, showing a plain white shirt of simple design but well-stitched. Aebyn emerged at his side, completing the illusion.

  "Good morning, gentlemen," Timothy said, greeting them earnestly.

  "This is dwarvish land," the shortest of them answered in a brusque voice, as though this were all that mattered to anyone. He seemed to be the leader of the trio, the others deferring to him in Timothy's presence.

  Timothy simply nodded in understanding, and for a moment there was silence as he sized them up and looked back at the well-weathered building. Statues of featureless gryphons, worn smooth by wind and rain kept watch from above. Another pair had held up better, beneath the awning of the roof on either side of the doorway.

  "Of course it is, "Timothy said, agreeably. "I have simply come to inspect the ruins of His Royal Majesty's school building. We are here to survey the sad state of things."

  The lead dwarf did not seem at all mollified by this explanation and said curtly. "This is King Gabligar's land, and so is the building."

  "Heard and understood," Timothy said, bowing stiffly as he had seen diplomats do. "We of course did not intend any slight against his sovereignty. We simply did not wish to bother him with such a trivial matter as this."

  The lead dwarf furrowed his brow and grumbled a little, as though he had not expected this sort of answer. He turned to his companions. The three of them huddled up, talking in low, hushed voices. Occasionally one of them would peek up over his comrades and give Timothy a long, wary look.

  “You will come with us,” the lead dwarf said. “All of you.”

  Crouched behind the door, Sapphire watched as the dwarves took Timothy and the others away. When she was certain they were gone for good, she hurried back to the cupboard and retrieved her Dawn Shard amulet. Dawn did not immediately appear, but she felt reassured to have his amulet back around her neck. She was reluctant to ever remove it, but having Dawn appear in the middle of the lab while it was overrun would almost certainly have led to her being discovered.

  Her most precious possessions restored to her, Sapphire surveyed the damage the humans had done. The preservative elixirs had gone undisturbed. She would have preferred to have boiled them longer to reduce the jasperleaf oils further, but the smell and color was right. The preservatives only needed to last a few weeks, anyway, and these would last two or three months. Content with the outcome, Sapphire corked the little flasks and sealed them with a bit of melted wax. The rest of the wax went back into her satchel, along with one of the emberstones. She would use these to reseal the flasks when they had received a sample.

  Next, Sapphire lit two of her emberstones and started two more flasks of crystal-water boiling. Crystal-water served as the base for many of her more basic formulas. She could brew it without needing to offer it much attention. To begin, a bit of clear water was brought to a rolling boil. Most recipes called for eight drops of oil from any herb in the Winterleaf family. Sapphire added six drops of oil from a frond of Winter's Bite and a single drop of Brumwort oil. Winter's Bite had a tendency to be slightly acidic, but was in good supply around the rivers coming down out of Merindi's high mountain peaks. No formula in any book would ever ask for Brumwort oil, but it would bring down the acidity, making Sapphire's mixture more potent than a sol
ution with only Winter's Bite.

  Steam began to rise off the surface of the solution in each flask. The potions were ready for their mist-infusion. Sapphire dropped a pearl of glass into each. The bit of glass was no bigger than a seed. They glowed from within with soft white light, warm like candlelight on a still evening. It would take several hours for the mist pearls to surrender their magic into the elixir. Suffused into the water and oils, the mist would create the crystal-water Sapphire needed as a base.

  While she waited, Sapphire resumed her inspection of what the humans had disturbed in the lab. They had clearly not found the keyhole the dark-haired one had mentioned, but they had gone to the trouble to move around many of the old books. They were not bound with alchemy paper like Carrol's treatise, and so were all ruined by centuries of neglect and exposure. One book stuck out and drew Sapphire closer to the table. She peered up at it and rose up on her hind legs to get a closer look. Sapphire was certain it had not been there before. She would have remembered the reddish, well-worn leather cover, and the myriad of colorful ribbons marking the pages.

  The pages felt smooth and waxy against her digits, alchemy paper. Sapphire could not believe her luck. The humans had brought her an alchemist's personal journal. His name was written on the inside cover: Archmage Isaac Faralon. Please Return if Found.

  Odd.

  The mage must have had a penchant for losing track of things. Sapphire could not imagine letting one of her own books wander far from her sight. They were simply too valuable.

  With more than a little spare time on her hands, Sapphire stretched out on one of the benches facing the door and began to read. Archmage Faralon, she learned, had been a professor at Forrander University on the Island of Glory in the years leading up to the Shattering, which had forever altered the world with the arrival of the Shardwalls. It had also brought the mist fields, which had revolutionized the world of magic. In the years before the Shattering there had been the royal mages and the Arclorus. Mages were much more common in those days. Faralon had about thirty students in most of his entry level courses, and only five in an advanced course called Barriers and Blast Wards.

  Between alchemic formulas and statistics on his courses, Faralon found time to comment on his students. Sapphire got the sense that he was a gentle sort of soul, and he showed a genuine interest in both his research and his teaching.

  Charlie Fendrit is a shining example of the value of the Arclorus. While he shows no great reserve of magical strength, he has a mind for herbalism. His scores are subpar in many other fields, and I do not think he can pass the qualifying exam for advance studies, but I think I shall take him on as an apprentice either way. On this week's practical he was one of three students that thought to crush their berries before adding to the mixture, to ensure that the juices suffused properly into the base crystal-water. Potions made with crushed berries were of markedly higher potency than their uncrushed counterparts.

  Sapphire became so engrossed in the book that she did not notice when Dawn materialized in the room. He peeked over her shoulder, grinning.

  "What are you reading?" he asked.

  Sapphire jumped. Her wings snapped open on instinct, preparing to power her away. "Dawn!" she barked. She landed back on the bench with only three legs, her right hind leg slipping off and making her scramble for footing lest she tumble onto the floor.

  Flustered, Sapphire quickly smoothed out her wild, unruly blue mane and folded her wings neatly against her back.

  "Sorry!" Dawn said, grinning at her. Sapphire glared back with mock disdain.

  "It's a book I found," she said, deciding not to mention just how it had come into her possession. "It's the journal of an archmage. Archmage Faralon. He was a professor at Forrander University. He survived the Shattering!" she announced.

  "He survived?" Dawn asked, incredulous. He looked down at the book, tilting his head as though the words might reveal just how it was that anyone could have survived being present at the university when the world was broken. For over five centuries it was theorized that the Arclorus must have been responsible for the arrival of the shardwalls. It was not until the year 524 After Shattering that Nicholas Darenvar became the first bridger to enter the Glory Shard. He discovered the craterous remains of Forrander University and the glowing field of magic crystals that had come to be known as the Bright Haven.

  But Faralon did not speak of his experience at all. It seemed to Sapphire that it must have been so horrible that he had no desire to record it, or to remember it at all, even. The casualty list was written in a careful and reverent hand, commemorating Faralon's lost students and colleagues perhaps as best as he was able, under the circumstances.

  Dawn read over Sapphire's shoulder, huddled so close to her that she could feel his intangible touch like a benevolent spirit watching over her. He was this, in many ways. It had been nearly a year since she had been able to return to the tower in Havek Shard to see him. She longed to feel his warmth again, but for want of the cure, could not spare the time to visit in person.

  As the day passed by, the two of them read the journal together. Sapphire turned the pages, and took breaks now and then to advance her potions to the next phase. Mid-afternoon they came to a passage that made Sapphire's eyes widen.

  Bruskwood Chest, Keyhole in Alchemy Lab Floor

  "You don't suppose he means this alchemy lab floor?" Dawn asked, looking around at the room. There was nothing particularly special about it, except its age. The lab in the bottom of Whitestone Tower, Dawn's Home, looked much the same although better kept.

  Sapphire shrugged with her wings. "Why not?"

  To this, Dawn could not offer a reply. He opened and closed his mouth twice, and then looked around the room again with searching eyes. "I'll help you look," he said.

  "Bruskwood..." Sapphire mumbled to herself. She circled the room slowly, head low to the ground and searching. Where had she heard of bruskwood before? Likely she had read about it. She had no formal education. It was a thought that brought vitriol to her soul, and for a moment she had to stop and shake her head, willing her frustration away.

  "Why would someone make a chest out of bruskwood?" Dawn asked, voicing Sapphire's own question.

  "It must be special..." Sapphire answered, and then her eyes fell on the wood-burning stove in the corner. "There! It must be there! Bruskwood must shield whatever is in the chest from the heat."

  Dawn, being made of light and mist, could only watch as Sapphire squirmed between the stove and the wall. She braced her back against the stone wall and pushed with her hind legs until she had moved it as far as she was going to be able to without help.

  Maybe we should have brought Ruby, she thought. She was panting by then, and took a moment to catch her breath. Dawn didn't say anything. Instead, he put his nose to the ground and eyed along the cracks in the stone floor.

  "I think I found it!" Dawn said, beaming at his mate. Sapphire smiled appreciatively at him. It did him good to be able to help her in these ways. It grated on his better nature to only be able to watch in so many situations where his strength, what little of it he had, might have been helpful to her.

  Sapphire peered down at the juncture of several stones in the floor. The keyhole was subtle, barely appearing to be more than a shadow in the grout. It would have been easily missed, and the humans would have likely turned over the entirety of the lab before they had found it.

  "Oh well done!" Sapphire beamed, and pressed her forehead against his. Of course, neither could feel this, but the gesture was understood. Dawn made a little purr of appreciation.

  They consulted the book for information on the key, but there was no mention of one.

  "Maybe Faralon kept it with him?" Dawn asked. Sapphire shrugged with her wings.

  "If so, it isn't likely to be around here," Sapphire said, and looked over in the direction of the keyhole. She rolled onto her back and scooted under the stove, searching the underside for a hidden key. Nothing. Eventually the d
ecision was made that it would have to be opened by force.

  "If we can erode the grout along here," Dawn was saying as he traced a square around the keyhole with his claw. "You should be able to lift the stone out if it isn't very thick."

  Sapphire nodded her agreement without saying anything, so Dawn continued with his plan.

  "I will go into the archives and read up on bruskwood," he said. "Whatever we use to etch out the grout needs to be something the bruskwood can resist long enough for us to get to Faralon's treasure."

  Soon he was gone to do the research. Sapphire was left alone in the quiet of the old ruins to continue her own work and to read. Faralon's journal had many alchemical formulae written into the pages, no doubt copied from the textbooks he worked from. In the margins he had left little notes, adjusting the formulae to his own liking, often with comments as to why and the desired effect.

  On the page opposite the clue about the bruskwood chest there were four such formulae. Unlike most of the others, these were unlabeled and the margins were bare. Glad of a distraction, Sapphire set to deciphering them like riddles.

  At first glance, the first formula seemed to be for lacquer. It had an alcohol base and an assortment of waxy substitutes that could be reasonably expected to come together to form a synthetic resin. The last ingredient set off warning bells. Bruised white clover leaves were innocuous on their own, acting as a stabilization component in most cases, but the synthetic resin contained shavings from the rind of the fruit of a spiked neroli tree. Together, they would bond to each other, removing an essential component from the resin substitute and in the same fell swoop, canceling out all of the stabilization components, leaving the resulting compound dangerously explosive if it were to come together at all.

  That couldn't be right. Sapphire read the formula again, looking for something that might shield the volatile ingredients from each other. There was nothing. The second formula was similarly disastrous. Shavings from metallic Lidoren Ore mixed with crystal-water would produced a cloud of thick smoke and little else.