by James Duvall
"So, where are we?" he asked, sampling the stew again now that it was in a bowl. It tasted no better and no worse.
The trees were thin enough here that Christopher could take measurements off the stars, which confirmed that this was the river shown on the map.
"The short answer is: about a day out," Christopher said, confirming what Timothy already knew with some certainty. Timothy finished his stew while Christopher folded up the maps and then produced his copied pages of Faralon's journal.
"Have a look," he said, tossing the bundle of them to Timothy. Christopher cleared away the bowls and went to wash the cook pot out in the river. Willoughby hurried over to him and took the task from Christopher, instead relegating it to one of his own underlings.
In the transcribed pages were several basic recipes for flatbread using ingredients that grew native to the island. There was a section on berries that could be used to flavor the bread, and where they might be found. Timothy scanned up and down the page, looking for a mention of the treasure, but he could not find one.
"Chris? Nothing's here," Timothy called over his shoulder.
"It's marked," Christopher hollered back from the bank.
Consulting further, Timothy discovered a section marked with a little star.
Of course the reddest berries, when not poisonous, are often the ripest. There is a small sort of raspberry that grows along the river banks in the forest with the mist. It can scarcely be traveled by night, but by day a brave alchemist can manage. Watch for the night river, when the moon is set and the sun has not yet risen. Shadows stalk, it is guarded beneath the land. Store berries in an Arnwood box. Keep cool, do not expose to light.
"You're sure about this one?" Timothy asked. Christopher sat down at the fire across from him. He nodded and dug out another small bundle of pages. This one recording the location of the treasure lost to the luminarian alchemist.
"See? There in the corner," Christopher said, tapping at the page.
The page was marked with a five-pointed star, matching the one on the entry on berries. Timothy's skepticism must have shown through, because Christopher went on to add that the symbol appeared only on four pages, and that there was no reason he could find in any culinarian's cookbook on why a berry should be stored in an arnwood box.
"Is it fireproof like the bruskwood?" Timothy asked.
"No. Or, well, its not known for it at least," he corrected, then carried on. "It's hard to find, costs more than a few gold sovereigns once you have. It does not rot. Weathers slower than stone. If he were actually storing berries in there, they would go to dust a thousand years before that box rotted out."
"Sounds like that's our mark," Timothy said, putting the transcribed pages away. He noticed Aebyn's quietness and looked over to where the lighthound sat. Aebyn was looking out into the Mistwood, his eyes glowing subtly from within.
Timothy sat down beside him and put his hand on the gryphon's shoulder. "See anything out there?"
"No, or at least, not exactly. I thought I could hear footsteps when I was out hunting. I thought it was one of the crew, but when I came back I found everyone here. I cannot image how anyone might have traveled so quickly as to beat my return."
"A bear?" Timothy suggested. There was a mark on the map for those as well. They were not as ominous to his mind as the manticore, but were more abundant, and likely the greater threat of the two. Or at least the more likely.
Chapter 12
Kallisti's Burden
Forrander Alchemy Lab, Isla Merindi, Pendric Shard
Preparation of Modified Stormglass
For use in the prediction of weather in shards of low to moderate free magic. Begin with crystal water, ethanol, extract of potash, ammonium chloride salts, and a preparation of camphor of certain purity. Distill if source is disreputable. Infuse with oil of crushed leaves of archer's mercy. Apply to heat. Once all solid ingredients are dissolved, add Concoction 12 (for extremely low concentrations of free magic) or Distillate of Winter Clover prepared in the Magashan method. Without alchemy modification, these things only tell the temperature. I've tested this with snow and thunderstorms. Would be interested to see what it does for larger storms.
From Sapphire Nightsong's journal of practical alchemy, penned in Falfarren
Shelves of old pots provided Sapphire with useful salvage. They were brittle and desiccated and as soon as she touched them, pieces broke off and crumbled like the frail autumnal leaves long dropped from their trees. It was satisfying work, breaking them down to little chunks with her bare claws until they could fit into her mortar. These she pulverized into a thin powder and mixed with what was mostly crystal water and a mixture of reinforcing agents of her own design. The pasty concoction thickened as it dried. Lacking a suitable potter's wheel, Sapphire's creations were irregularly shaped but solid enough and round enough to hold wet soil. The moon flowers now sat on the window sill, taking in light.
An accumulation of grime coated the windows both inside and out. After an hour scrubbing at the old glass panes she felt comfortable with the amount of light that would reach the plants. Light became a scarcer commodity with each passing day. Winter was coming quickly to the island called Mercy. A few more weeks and food would become scarce, driving the alchemist back to the city to scrounge.
With a wide yawn Sapphire sprawled out on her belly, looking up at the newly potted plants. They were well worth the effort, even if they did not provide a cure. They were, at the very least, the most magical plants Sapphire had seen on this side of Mergen Shard. Already she was imagining them in the greenhouse back in Havek. There was probably still space on the shelves between the Bolding Fescus and the Asherby's Silver Rose. Sapphire let fond thoughts carry her away while her experiment quietly bubbled on the workbench behind her.
A network of tubes ran from a heating vessel where the harvested plant's roots were set to boil. Sapphire's filter removed the pulp and the solution was then carried into an alembic where the solution was boiled again, this time evaporating out the crystal water and the plant's natural waters until only the oils remained settled into the alembic's bottom-most chamber. A similar rigging worked at distilling the juices from the moon flower's petals. Dawn sat by this one, watching as a column of fluid turned a darker and deeper blue the longer it sat over the emberstone's steady burning flame. The two distilleries accounted for all of Sapphire's emberstones, and together they made the laboratory quite warm. The windows had begun to fog.
In the corner Sapphire had placed a little warden gem, newly enchanted for the sake of her security and the lab's. The gem was silent now, but would glow with a yellow light when humans were near. Sapphire used them sparingly, as they were not a friend to stowaways. Of course the light could be doused by wrapping it in an oilskin rag or a leather pouch, but accidents could still happen.
Sapphire had another project in mind, and she idly turned a gem in her claws. It was pyramidal in shape, like the emberstones. In fact, it had been cut to be an emberstone but was not yet infused with mist. This was due mostly to the cost; the process itself was easy enough. Sapphire had done it probably two dozen times, but most of these had been left back at the tower.
Mist was expensive, even if you knew where to find it. Sapphire had seven leaded vials of mist in her satchel. The vials were made of thick, rounded glass that generally held up well to her rough and tumble lifestyle. Surveying her inventory she had three of green; two of blue, though one of these was nearly empty; and one each of white and red. The red was nearly empty; all that remained would be required for another emberstone. Of course, she could sell the emberstone after the winter if it proved unneeded. Most of the cost could be recouped. But then she would need more red mist, and that meant facing the mistweaver. The thought of him made her stomach feel like someone had wrapped a chord around it and pulled it tight and she felt her wingtips twitching in agitation. His eyes were dark and silver, and they glinted like the Reaper's scythe in the moonlight. They were nearl
y always open too wide, as though there was a horror lurking in the room that he alone could see. The nights that they were not wide with terror were the worst, Sapphire prayed she would not find him like that again, but this was a prayer that often went unanswered.
Again and again Sapphire would return to him; she had few options. Not just anyone could entice the soft-colored auras into vessels, though surprisingly many of them were willing to deal with a luminarian. The skill required a blessing from the Night Warden himself, and the blessing did not come without a cost. Many died on the road to the Night Warden's power, searching for Talimor and the Black Altar. Everyone knew the legends, that he appeared only at night and usually on the roads leading into black shards. Though some said it was even worse than that, and you had to want it badly enough to venture into a black shard to search the roads of a kingdom claimed by the Reaper when the world was broken.
But that's not right, Sapphire thought, for she had seen it once before. She had seen it, but not approached. Looking upon it from the distance was enough. Too many times she had seen the fear in the mistweaver's eyes, the cold light that gripped him from within. It had been months since she last saw him and even still his craven rantings haunted her memories. This was a sign of the Cost, a great cost. One Sapphire had no desire to pay. One could only wonder at the madness that would drive a man to pay such a price as that man had borne. Sapphire wondered, and shuddered.
The looming threat of winter was enough to drive Sapphire to imbue the last emberstone. Once the distillation was done and the oils secured and put away, Sapphire uncorked the vial of red mist and poured it over the prepared gemstone. It sat in a shallow tin, and the mist washed over it like a fog rolling down the river in the early morning hours. Slowly Sapphire turned the dish, shaping the thin cloud of red like a potter at his wheel. Steadily it was pulled into the gem, drawn down to the pyramid's peak like a little tornado that drained the red clouds dry.
Then something happened that Sapphire had not expected. The warden stone lit up. It flickered for a moment like a candle in the wind, then glowed with a placid yellow light that belied the severity of the looming disaster that it heralded.
It really should be red, Sapphire found herself thinking. She groaned as she quickly surveyed the cornucopia of evidence pointing to her presence in the supposedly abandoned alchemy lab. Sapphire resented its failure to deliver on the isolation it had promised her.
Sapphire scooped up her emberstones and raced to the corner where the warden stone cast its soft light. This was the problem with using a warden stone. She had seconds to douse it or the humans would come in, see the stone, and perhaps realize that this meant someone was very close by that did not want to be found. In most cases this was an added incentive to find them. People that did not want to be found had things to protect. Sapphire cloistered herself in one of the low cabinets with the warden stone jammed into her satchel. She hurried to button the top flap down and tie the leather cord to hold it all shut. No light shone out from the well-worn leather satchel when she had finished.
"It will be okay," Sapphire whispered to Dawn. Slowly she reached for the clasp of the Dawn Shard. If she was going to die, it would not be while he watched. "It will be okay," she said again, trying to soothe him. He looked worried, but his eyes were on the crack in the door, not her. Slowly his head turned and before Sapphire could release the amulet, Dawn's eyes shot wide. He had figured her out.
"No!" Dawn hissed, reaching for her hand, his form turned to mist as it swept through her. "You will not send me away."
Sapphire gave in and lowered her paw back to the ground with the amulet still resting against her soft-furred chest. A few moments later they heard the laboratory door squeal as it was pressed open, and footsteps accompanied by the voices of many men. The familiar sound of luminarian claws ticked against the stone.
"She's not here," one voice said, a man's.
"It's warm though, maybe someone was cooking?" another man said.
"Let's just go back," a third voice said. This one sounded older than the others, or maybe just a little tired. "She didn't do nothin' to deserve Donovan wanting her dead anyway."
One of the other two did not like hearing this, and he began to shout. Sapphire wasn't sure which of the two it was. "She killed seven of us! Seven!" he said in a loud, growling voice. The tired man shuffled away, but the other man grabbed him up by the collar. Sapphire could see this playing out in the shadows. They were a few feet from her hiding place.
"Seven dead! And a dozen more with cuts all over 'em. I'm gonna find her, and I'm gonna cut her up real slow ya see?" he asked. The older man nodded meekly. "And if I hear you sayin' anything like we ought to let her go or pretend our brother's ain't got killed by her, I'll cut you up and your little pet, and tell Donovan the Night Warden took you both. Got it?"
"I am not Harold's pet!" a female voice sneered. It had the timbre of maturity, but there was something not quite right about it.
"Yeah, she's Donovan's pet," the first voice answered, and chortled at his own observation.
"Oh jus' shut up," the second man said, and he released the one called Harold, whom blew a sigh of relief and shuffled into the shadows by the moon flowers.
The female voice spoke again, nearer now. She sounded full-grown, but the voice was wrong, too low to the ground, too high in pitch for a woman but too mature for a girl.
A luminarian? With humans?
No, that couldn't be right. Then the cupboard door swung open and Sapphire found herself nose to nose with another of her own kind. Eyes. Blue on the left, silver on the right, both brimming with hatred. The dragon's eyes widened briefly in surprise and softened to something less intense. The collective attention dropped to the dragon's amulet, which she wore on a silver chain. An emerald set into it radiated an aura of sickly green, marked with swirls of darkness where not even the magical light could shine through the gem. Sapphire found her eyes transfixed upon it, a sense of dread and foreboding welling up within her. There was a touch of evil upon it, as though it were indwelt by some malevolent spirit.
Sapphire started to speak, but the strange female's look of mutual surprise faded in a half-second, and she reached out and held Sapphire's jaws shut. Then she stepped away and slammed the door shut. She moved to the next, opening it briefly and glowering at Dawn with her silver eye gleaming. A palpable feeling of spite emanated from the silver eye, and the crippled drake withered away from her, his image diminishing in intensity as though she were devouring the magic from his illusory presence. Then it was over, the door slammed shut, and the dragoness was gone, leaving the nightsong dragons to sit and wait in stunned disbelief.
"She won't be back," the blue luminarian announced once all of the cabinets were searched. "Not now that she knows we're looking for her. She's probably got warden stones everywhere by now. Harold's right; we're no use here."
"Aw she's stickin up for you, ain't that lovely?" the gruff man said to the meek older man in his growling voice. Then he turned and kicked the luminarian in the ribs. It was hard enough to lift her forelegs off the ground. The cabinets all rattled as her shoulder and wing slammed up against the doors. The force of the blow was enough to make Sapphire wince in sympathy, her own bruised shoulder reminding her of her recent encounter with the lighthound. The silver-eyed female did not whine though, and she stood much faster than Sapphire expected. With her head held high she walked straight to the man's side and looked up at him, silver eye ablaze with magical light.
"Wh-what are you doing, Aurora?" the man asked. He was surprised and it showed in his voice.
"Do you think that I am afraid of you, Thedrik?" she asked, her voice intensely quiet. “You are little more than a maggot to me, the frail and sickly things that come to feed on the corpses left behind by braver, bolder men. Your cowardice is as revolting as your stench.”
The one called Thedrik had his knife out in a moment. He grabbed Aurora by her amulet and hoisted her up onto her hind legs. S
he grinned at him as he pushed the edge of his blade against the soft skin of her throat.
"Do it," Aurora hissed softly, drawing the words out as though savoring them. "Take my life and then perish by Donovan's hands. It would be a glorious end! You will have your moment, and then I will be waiting for you in the darkest of places." She reached out her slender claw-hand and rested it tenderly across his hand as though to guide the lethal stroke.
Thedrik pulled back from her quickly. He sheathed his knife and frantically brushed off the front of his shirt as though fearful Aurora's madness was catching. He looked to his comrades. Harold had paled several shades and was mouthing words that came without any sound.
The other man, sporting a black bandana over his hair and too much gold in his smile shook his head. "No, no it ain't worth it. You kill that thing and Donovan will be the end of you. Only he ain't gonna kill you quick like. He'll make you wish you were dead. He'll make you wish the Night Warden had found you with a bloody knife."
"You stay away from me, animal," Thedrik said. He had the knife out again and was jabbing it at the air between them. She grinned at him with a hungry look until he was gone. His friend left with him.
Harold dropped to his knees and hugged Aurora around the neck, burying his head in her mane. He began to quietly sob into her shoulder. For the first time, Sapphire saw Aurora's gaze soften, the vitriol went out of her silvery eye. Quietly she turned to press her forehead to Harold's.
"I am sorry," Aurora said, the bitterness gone from her voice. "I had to. I had to..."
A few awkward moments passed, and all the while, Aurora looked as though she was finally at a loss for words. Harold rose unsteadily to his feet, wiped his face clean on his worn out shirt, and the two left together.
Dawn and Sapphire looked at each other in the dark, watching until the hunters were gone. They waited nearly half an hour before Sapphire undid her satchel and peeked in at the warden stone. The amber gem was dark as shale. The coast was clear.