Arbiter's Word (Alchemist's Fire Book 1)

by Ogden Fairfax

  “I have a name, you know, asshole.” Amber's voice came from my hoodie.

  “That was her?” Grace raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, she's a real peach. Also she's going to manage my money because I can't sell gold to mortals because investigations and economy and whatnot. And I'm paying her to be my personal assistant so she's less like a slave since she didn't have a choice in this either.”

  Just then, Amber climbed out of my hoodie pocket and fell to the floor, slowing her descent by grabbing the fabric of my jeans. “Damn, was hoping I could pants you in front of your girlfriend. Curse you, belts!” Amber then turned to face Grace, giving a very regal bow and curtsy with the hem of her doll sweater. “Pleased to meet you, Grace. I'm Amber.”

  “Charmed.” Grace said flatly before looking up at me. “One year?”

  “One year. I made her promise to be nice to you, at least. I'm still fair game. That box is her stuff.”

  “Can I go change, now, master?” Amber looked up at me, piteously.

  “Don't you dare think you're going to call me that.” I said. Amber gave me a mischievous look. “Do you need help moving the box?”

  “Yes, unless you'd rather I get big and naked right here and now so I can do it myself.” Amber made a motion to undo one of the two tiny buttons that held her tiny little sweater on.

  “I'll help,” Grace picked up the box and moved it to just inside the bathroom doorway.

  “Aww, thanks!” Amber seemed genuinely grateful as she skipped over to the bathroom. Grace shut the door when the sprite was inside, then walked over to me.

  “What the hell?” she whispered. I shrugged my reply. “Does she hate you or is that just who she is?”

  “I think she hates the idea of servitude, but also likes just causing a bit of trouble. She knows you and I are a thing, so I'm not going to flirt or have her parading around in-”

  “I'm ready!” The bathroom door flew open and Amber came strutting out. She was the size she was in the gem shop, dressed in a maid costume with a short skirt and thigh-high stockings. A tiny feather-duster peeked out from where it was tucked between her barely-covered chest.

  “-skimpy clothes.”

  “Okay, no.” Grace said, covering my eyes with her hand. “Not cool.”

  “What? He bought this for me.” Amber pouted.

  “I did not!” I protested, seeing Grace pull her hand away to glare at me.

  Grace's voice got really cold, and I knew my best bet was to sit still and try to blend in with the old wallpaper. “Amber, do you have to follow Chance's orders?”

  “To the letter.”

  “Do you understand he has to follow my orders, since I'm his girlfriend?”

  “Uh,” Amber said, a look of genuine fear starting to take hold in her eyes.

  Grace turned to me, suddenly calm, and even a little sweet with the smile on her face. “Chance, repeat after me. 'Amber, you are to follow any order Grace gives you as if it came directly from me.'”

  I repeated her words verbatim, and then watched as Grace systematically locked down Amber's ability to cause mischief as much as possible. She couldn't try to strain Grace's relationship with me, she couldn't purposely cause damage to me, my property, or anything or anyone I cared for, and she couldn't swear. She was to speak and behave in a manor considered befitting of a professional human personal assistant who was good enough to earn her wage, and most importantly, she was, above all else, to be polite.

  It was like watching a child see all their toys get tossed in a pit and burned before their very eyes. Then, she looked dazed before falling to her knees and then landing face-down on my floor.

  “Uh, Grace?” I said.

  “Hmm?” she turned to face me again.

  “I think you just gave an order like telling a fish it wasn't allowed to swim anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kobolds are mischief spirits. You just forbade mischief.”

  “Will that kill her?” Grace asked. We turned to look at Amber, and could see that she was turning blue on the floor.

  “Fine, I was too restrictive. Amber, disregard my previous orders.”

  Amber gasped like someone who had just been rescued from drowning.

  “You may cause small, light-hearted mischief to Chance, but any pranks you pull must be approved by me. As a general guideline, you may not be abusive or put him in harms way with your words or actions, Is that better?”

  Amber gasped between each word as she spoke “Can, I, keep, the,”

  “Not the maid outfit, but you can bring other outfits to my attention and I'll let you know.”

  “What about when I'm tiny?”

  “Dress however you want when you're tiny. I don't care. I'm assuming you're not supposed to be visible to anyone but me and Chance, correct?”

  Amber nodded.

  “Good. Now, Chance, let's do that Oath thing.”

  “Wait,” Amber asked. “I have a question.”

  “Ask.” Grace gestured for her to speak.

  “How the heh, heh, heck” Amber stuttered as she struggled with her urge to curse “did he wind up with someone like you? You're way out of his league.”

  “It helps that he's filthy rich right now.” Grace replied.

  “Ha! I like you.”

  17

  Grace ordered Amber to get to work cleaning my place up for now while the two of us caught up about the day's events. Grace went first, letting me know her test went well and that she's pretty much free of schoolwork until after New Years. When it was my turn, she suggested I go over my meeting with Peters in detail.

  “Wait, it was your doctor from the hospital? The blonde one?” she interrupted to clarify.

  “Yeah, and she had four goons with her, and they all looked like secret agents.”

  I went on to retell the meeting until I got to the part with the secrecy thing.

  “So, you have to hold this thing,” I said, opening the box to produce a coin that looked made of wedges of multiple different metals, “and promise not to betray my secrets to mortals.”

  “What happens if we break up?”

  “The oath stands,” Amber said, now dressed in a black t-shirt with a tuxedo design printed on the front. She wore matching dark jeans with a black leather belt with square metal studs. She'd even put on some dark lipstick to complete the sort of goth punk look she was shooting for. Grace looked in her direction and she continued. “All it will do is hold you to silence. Even if you try to tell someone, your mouth and voice will not cooperate. You'll keep stumbling and stuttering until you “porky pig” your way into something else to say.”

  Grace leaned back on my couch and seemed to consider as I massaged her foot through her Nikola Tesla patterened socks. “And if I refuse, my memories get wiped.”

  I nodded. “And we have to do it before midnight or the magic cops will come and kill us, I guess.” I added the final detail that weighed me down.

  “Well, I suppose I can deal.” she said.

  “I'm sorry.” I said. “This isn't fair to you.”

  “You're right. It's not fair that my pasty-white boyfriend can literally spin straw into gold and I have to go about things the old-fashioned way by working my ass off ten times harder than someone with a lighter skin color. But I'm not going to ask you to give it all up for me either. Give me the coin.”

  I handed Grace the coin and she looked at Amber. “Is there anything special I have to say?”

  “'I promise to keep your secrets, Chance.'” Amber recited.

  Grace repeated the words and then there was a pause while we all waited for something to happen.

  “That's it?” I asked, turning to Amber.

  “Did you feel the tingle?” she asked.

  “Tingle?” Grace repeated.

  “You should have felt a tingling from your heels to your scalp, like your whole body fell asleep in a Star-Wars scene transition.”

  “Nope,” Grace shook her head.
“Nothing.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, turning around to look back at Amber.

  “Nothing good,” she said, looking worried. “Maybe the coin's a dud? Gimme a sec.”

  Grace and I watched as Amber reached into a pocket and pulled out a box not too unlike the one the coin had been in. In it was a thick lense that she then split open into two halves of a set of spectacles. Taking a moment to balance them on her nose, she peered in our direction. Then she sighed and clasped the lenses closed again before boxing and pocketing them again.

  “I dunno what to tell you. The oath is fine, it's in place and everything. You sure you didn't touch the coin and make the oath already, Grace?”

  “Positive,” she said. “I didn't even know what it looked like until we just tried.

  “Well, as long as it worked, right? I mean, we already agreed that trying to be careful and keep this all a secret was a good idea, didn't we?” I asked.

  Grace paused a second. “Amber, what does it take to make something like this? Is it the coin?”

  “Partially. The full answer is a long history lesson that I don't want to bore you with, but a long time ago a bunch of big-wigs got together and decided on universally-binding rules for alchemy and the use of magic. Stuff like keeping it secret and not selling magic to mortals. Those guys have been dead for practically ever, and nobody has changed the laws since. Only an Aribiter reading a decree aloud can make or change any rules.”

  Grace turned back to me. “Chance, I'm going to write something down, I want you to read it out loud when I hand it to you, okay?”

  “Like, Mad Libs or something?”

  “Just work with me here.” Grace pulled out her notebook and wrote something on a page, then tore it off and handed it to me. I read it out loud.

  “If you promise to sneeze six times in a row one minute from now, I promise to cluck like a chicken for ten seconds. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Grace and Amber said in unison.

  “And this proves what exactly?” I said. “You think that a minute from now, you both are going to have a sinus freakout while I do my best poultry impression?”

  “If it works,” Grace said, “it means our previous promise earlier is binding in the same way as the coin's oath was.”

  “I only agreed since it sounded funny and I want to watch you act like a chicken.” Amber shrugged.

  “So what does it mean if it works?”

  “It means that you can make alchemical law, and, ah, ah, choo!” Amber let out a sneeze that caused her to jump in place slightly. An instant later, Grace sneezed as well.

  “Okay you two, but I'm no-AWK!”

  For the next ten seconds, I was at the mercy of an uncontrollable urge to cluck and flap my elbows like a chicken while Grace and Amber took turns sneezing half a dozen times each. Then, the piece of paper burst into the light I usually saw when I made an exchange of Azoth.

  “What the--”

  “Fuck!” Amber shouted. Her eyes must have been watering from all the sneezing because I could see a tear on her cheek. “You're an Aribiter!”

  “A what?” I asked while Grace blew her nose.

  “Those old dudes who decided the rules? Those were Arbiters. Hold on, I need to check something.” Amber pulled her glasses out again and put them back on. She then proceeded to get uncomfortably close, looking at various points in my torso before staring through the thick lenses right into my eyes. “Yep. Phlegmatic.”

  “If I hadn't just watched you do it six times in a row, I'd ask you if you sneezed.”

  “Phlegmatic, you know, like the four humors? Choleric, melancholy, sanguine, and phlegmatic?”

  “What about this is funny to you?” I asked.

  “Not humors as in jokes, Chance. It's an ancient theory about medicine from the dark ages.” Grace explained helpfully.

  “Except it's also how the four alchemist courts are divided.” Amber added. “The Arbiters were all Phlegmatic alchemists and they used their alchemy to set the rules in stone for all time. If you were any other type, you couldn't be an Arbiter.”

  “I haven't joined a court, though.” I said, confused.

  “It's not just the courts, each alchemist has different affinities and stuff they can do better than other alchemists. Cholerics are good with offensive alchemy, Melancholics are better at modifying their bodies. Sangines are better with summoning and enchanting stuff. Arbiters are better at understanding the “rules” of alchemy and do most matter exchanges and convert matter to energy at a reduced cost, close to one-to-one. I should have known when you had so much gold in one day.” Amber made a face like she was mad at herself.

  “Hold on, so most alchemists can't make gold like I do?”

  “No, most of them just focus on teeny exchanges and things like potions or advanced matter types.”

  “And you're sure I'm one of these legal-loogie lords?”

  “Okay, let me ask a few questions.” Amber said, putting her glasses away once again. “When you transmute solids into gas, or turn stuff into Azoth, what happens?”

  “I get loopy and feel kinda drunk.” I said.

  “And when you do too much or spend too much energy?” she asked.

  “He gets headaches.” Grace finished. “The four humors system thought phlegmatic stuff was focused in the brain.”

  “And that's where his Azoth is concentrated in his Aura. I guess I'd just never seen you at full power close enough to tell before.” Amber shrugged. “The Phlegmatic court is pretty big, but they're all based more out in the northwest. Their headquarters used to be here in Wisconsin until the leader, Marshall Blake, died.”

  “Wait a second, I know that name. The CEO of the company that made my car, right?”

  “Mobius, yeah.” Amber nodded.

  “Wait, you have a Mobius car?” Grace asked. “You've had a Mobius sitting outside and haven't told me? What happened to being subtle and careful?”

  “To be honest, I kinda forgot to tell you. It was a bit low on the 'important events of today' list. ”

  “Chance, you've got a giant four-wheeled “Look at me!” sign sitting in the parking lot. You're probably one of two people in the county that can afford a car like that. Please tell me it's at least not a flashy color.”

  “I told him not to get bright yellow, but he wouldn't listen,” Amber dramatically testified. Grace had learned by now that statements like that were obviously just to throw fuel on any fire she saw.

  “It's grey. Not even that shiny. Yeah, it's a new car, but Amber told me-”

  “Hey don't throw me under your brand-new electric school bus, buck-o.”

  “--that the Mobius could be charged with the tablet.”

  “I didn't say that.” Amber protested. “I said I could teach you how to charge it with your Azoth.”

  Grace stepped closer to me, hand outstretched. “Keys.”

  18

  A few minutes later, and Grace was at the wheel of my new car, giggling like a mad woman as she merged onto the highway at one of the area's most notoriously terrible exits. As she slammed the pedal down, bringing the car from twenty to seventy in a whisper quiet surge, she held the steering wheel in a tight grip like she was holding the reigns of a bucking steed. I was trying to maintain a smile over my petrified feelings of fear, while Amber was sliding around unbuckled in the back seat like a lubricated crash-test dummy. I would have been worried about her, but she was giggling and going “Whee!” too much to seem like she was in any danger.

  “God damn I love this car.” Grace said when she finally parked. “I think I forgive you.”

  “Where did you learn how to drive like that?” Amber stuck her head between the front seats with an amazed look on her face. “That was amazing!”

  “After my mom died, I was terrified of driving. Kids in school were taking Driver's Ed and I couldn't do it. I tried not to let it bug me but it did. One time during a fundraiser for new gym equipment at the dojo, I heard a guy say he used t
o teach the driving course that the Secret Service has to take. I paid him my winnings from a martial arts tournament to teach me.” Grace sounded cold and almost clinical, like she was just listing ingredients in a recipe. It sucked to hear her cut out any emotion in her own voice. “I needed to get over my fear of driving or get used to life on foot.”

  “Whoah.” Amber said. “Sorry to pry, you don't have to make things up.” She sounded suspicious as she moved back into the rear seats.

  “Oh no, she's entirely serious,” I said, turning around to look at Amber. “Did you not just ride through the same action-movie car chase that I did?” I put my hand over Grace's, still on the parking brake handle. “Grace often sounds hyperbolic but trust me, if she tells you she learned krav maga from a blind monk on a mountain top, she's not kidding.” Grace pulled her hand away from mine and grabbed the wheel again.

  “I'm hungry,” she said, changing the subject. “Let's go get some dinner.” Realizing I might have said too much, I fell silent as the three of us rode along for a slightly less harrowing car ride than before. Grace had always hated hearing people brag about her to others. After a while, Grace let out a small smile and said “and it was kung fu, not krav maga.” She reached out and squeezed my hand once before putting all her attention back on the road. Amber leaned up to my ear, whispering loudly enough that Grace could hear her.

  “She's out of your league.”

  “He knows.” Grace said,

  Later, the three of us were sitting in my car parked in the lot of a fast-food burger place. Grace was enjoying an impressively-sized burger, and I was munching on the potato chips the chain was known for handing out. Amber, however, hadn't ordered anything, and instead was sprawled out across the entire back seat, all three seat warmers on full blast. She'd switched her outfit into some sort of biker outfit that required one of those tiny leather jackets that left the bottom half of her torso uncovered. Beneath the jacket was a sleeveless black turtleneck and black leather pants with pink reflective tape wrapped around the thighs. For someone who complained of the cold a lot, she seemed determined not to wear insulating clothing.