“I'm not interested in being fawned over like a celebrity. I just want my friend back.”
“Really? Because based on your friendship with Grace, I guess I just assumed you liked strong women with ambition. I'm not ashamed to say even I would be one of those eager to have you all to myself. I'd love to have you at my side. especially as a consort.” She eyed me hungrily as she spoke her last words.
“Fuck. You.” I said.
“That's precisely what I'm suggesting.” She grinned. “But you might want to keep your voice down. This is a public area. I wouldn't want security to have to be rough with you or your minion.” At her words, I looked over her shoulder and noticed a janitor mopping a section of the caffeteria. I recognized him as the biggest of her pet apes. When his eyes met mine, he showed me a wide grin and wrung his hands around the mop handle like he was snapping a small neck.
I let out a breath, my hands balled into fists on the surface of the table. I was doing my best to remain calm, I couldn't deal with getting two friends hurt, not if I could prevent it bu just calming down.
“Eight hundred pounds.” Amber said, timidly.
“Did I ask you to speak, sprite?” Peters letcherous smile gave way to a bitter smirk.
“What?” I said.
“Eight hundred pounds of gold. An extra two hundred pounds each day.” Amber intoned, then turned to me. “That's how much you owe.”
“That's enough.” Peters made a gesture like a someone grabbing a fly out of the air, and Amber gasped as an object flew out from under her shirt into Peters' hand. I recognized it as the disc of Portsmouth she was wearing when we first met. “Speak out of turn again, and I will crush you like the worthless minion you are.”
“Hey, she manages my finances, so she's just doing her job. Leave her alone.” When the tension didn't start to lessen, I added “Where do you want it delivered?”
“Hmm?” Peters turned back to me, her wan smile returning as her predatory gaze settled back on her chosen prey.
“Where do you want the gold delivered?” I asked.
“The pizza parlor.” She looked disappointed. “Bring it by noon tomorrow or you'll owe for an extra day.”
“Then I'll bring you your gold tomorrow.” I said, taking Amber's necklace from Peters' grasp and offering it back in an open palm. Amber snatched the pendant as if it were her only child, and stood to follow me.
“I'll see you later, darling.” Peters' practically sung her farewell across the caffeteria.
“I'll see you in hell.” I said, over my shoulder and headed for the parking lot.
Amber and I made it to my car without any more issues. With the press of my thumb to the starter button, I felt the gentle hum of the vehicle coming online. Next to me, Amber wordlessly buckled herself in. I sat there for a minute or two, staring at the concrete wall in front of my car. I kept thinking about how I should have seen this coming, that Peters' “gift” of healing Grace would have a price. I should have trusted my first gut reaction, taken more notice of the fear and worry Amber showed whenever she was around any meeting with Peters and I. I should have known she was maneuvering to control me.
I pounded a fist on the rim of the steering wheel in frustration, feeling guilty when I heard Amber jump and scoot toward the door to put some distance between herself and my rage. Now ashamed at my outburst, I put the car into reverse and started to drive home. Neither of us spoke the whole way there.
Once I was home, I walked to my couch and sat down. During the drive I had resolved to get to work right away. Learning new techniques could wait, I needed to bring Grace back. I felt that I had to work fast to get her out of the loop she was in as soon as possible. If I helped her recover in doses, she'd suffer over and over again as her incredible mind failed her. I imagined that if she knew what was going on, she'd be horrified at her current condition.
Amber came in and shut my apartment door to find me picking up marbles of osmium and converting them to gold.
“Chance,” she started, “We-”
“I don't want to talk. I have work to do.”
“God dammit, chance, listen!”
“No, you listen, Amber. I'm an idiot. I thought this tablet was a chance for me to leave this place a bit better than when I got here. I thought it was a chance for me to take care of the people I love and let them live their best lives. I thought I was making progress. I thought I was doing the right thing by following the rules and trying to keep Grace safe. I was doing my best to learn what you could teach me and all it had done was waste time and let Peters toy with me so she can try to turn me into a plaything that can bankroll her personal power trip. Instead of making things better, I keep getting pulled in deeper and risking people close to me.”
“It's not your fault, dumbass.”
“But it kinda is, isn't it? Instead of maybe playing it safe and slowly working on my life until I could afford any sort of security, I go and buy a fucking futuremobile and probably led that thing right to my doorstep. And now Grace is in the closest thing to her own personal hell that I can think of and the only way I can fix it is to buckle down and get to work.”
“Hey, fuckwad! Could you take a breath? Not only do you need to get some oxygen into your brain, you need to let me speak.” Amber looked pale. She and I both knew I could order her to stop talking and let me finish my work, and I was a little ashamed to admit to myself the temptation was there. Not because I didn't value her words, but because it was the closest thing to any sort of control over my life that I had at the moment. Amber waited for me to say something, but I just took a breath and made a gesture for her to continue.
“It's not your fault because you've been played like a fucking fiddle. You're new to the game and it was rigged against you from the fucking start because you don't know all the rules. And also,” she said, looking like she was bracing herself against her next words, “because it's my fault. Not yours.”
“What?” I said, confused.
“I work for Melancholy, remember? She's had me informing on you from the beginning.”
26
I sat in shocked silence as Amber looked at me. She looked as if she expected me to punish her somehow. I couldn't think of what to say or do. In a flash, I tried to think over everything she has said or done over the last week and looked up at her. “I'm listening.” I said.
“After you bought the tablet, I had to go tell the Queen about it because that was what I was trying to do. I told her I thought you were a Phlegmatic creep and that you were staring at my tits and that gave Peters the idea that you were probably some virgin loser who would jump at the first set of breasts he got to be near. She personally assigned me to be your kobold because she thought you liked me, and commanded me to tell her anything I learned. I tracked you down with your bank card, and that's how I wound up in your car.”
“Is that why you went on that rant about being my slave?” I asked.
“Well, kinda. I thought you were creepy and gross but Melancholy specifically ordered me to sleep with you if you seemed interested. She didn't say I had to try to make you interested, so that's why I swear at you a lot. Sorry.”
“So you're normally not so foul-mouthed?” I said, trying to keep my emotions in check until she told me she was done.
“Oh, I am, I just don't usually direct it at people. Anyway, I found out pretty quick that you're an Arbiter. Every time you say stomething you know to be true, there's this little tug that I can feel just like any kobold hears an order from the person they work for. But I didn't know for sure until we did the whole sneezing and chicken dance thing. When I went to the shower, I sent a message to melancholy because I didn't have a choice. In fact, any time I was showering or away from you, I being forced to send my knowledge to the queen. I'm sorry.”
“You had to obey her orders? You couldn't wiggle around them like with the swearing?”
“She ordered me not to misinterpret her commands after she found out about my swearing to keep yo
u from getting sleazy, but she couldn't order me to act different or it would risk you thinking something was up. Now stop interrupting. I'm trying to come clean here.”
“Sorry.” I said.
“Melancholy sent the golem. She was never going to hurt you, just eliminate Grace as a distraction. The cops who showed up worked for her and were ready to jump in when they got the signal. If Grace didn't die of her injury, she'd be poisoned by some other minion that works for the Queen. Knowing her, she'd have likely made me do it. But when I told her you were an Arbiter, she switched it up and now she's all hell-bent on controlling you. That's why she wants you to sell to her exclusively. That's why she was willing to give you her recipes and And that's why Grace is living a fucked-up version of groundhog day. I was ordered to stall you for a couple days until Grace wakes up. She wants your power, whether you work for her or breed for her.
“So she was serious about wanting me as a, what did she call it, a consult?”
“Cornsort.” Amber corrected. “Remember those old noble families that focused on inter-alchemist breeding? Melancholy comes from one of those families. In fact, she thinks she can trace her family all the way back to one of the arbiters.
“So we'd be like, distant cousins?”
“Not if you're not related tot he same Arbiter, but I guess there's a one-in-four chance that you're distant cousins, yeah. And even though she's a few centuries older than you, being the queen of winter and a master of body alchemy means she has complete control over her fertility. But you're getting side-tracked, Chance. This is the part where you get mad at me and order me to fuck off for betraying you.”
I furrowed my brows as I thought about what she'd said. “You already said you had no choice, why would I be mad?”
“Because you're human! You do irrational, stupid things all the time. You bought a big dumb compensation machine the moment you had money, remember? You're not pissed or hurt a little bit that the kobold bitch has been screwing with you this whole time?”
“I mean, I'm hurt, sure, but I just got done turning a bunch of osmium into gold. I think the excess Azoth kinda numbs my anxiety, maybe my other emotions a bit.” I said.
“Oh god dammit.” Amber said, slapping a hand over her forehead. “Now I'm going to have to worry about you flipping out once your energy runs low.”
“Amber, why now?” I said, digressing a bit.
“Huh?” She lowered her hand, color slowly starting to return to her once panic-stricken features.
“Why did you tell me all of this just now? Weren't you compelled to secrecy by Peters?”
“I was, but you fixed that.” she said. “Remember at the hospital when she took this from me?” Amber pulled the clear disc with the chunk of bismuth in it. “She helped me make this. It's what lets me turn the warmth I live off into Azoth for alchemy. I swore on it that I'd be forever loyal to the alchemist who gave it to me. When you took it from her and handed it to me, that loyalty switched from her to you. So not only could I be completely honest and tell you all of what I did just now, but also now I don't have to keep following her orders over yours. And I'm free to do this.”
Amber surprised me with a leap from where she stood near my door into the air. As she lept, I got my first look at her transformation from big to small. I thought I was about to have to deal with a naked amber zooming around whener human-sized clothes fell off in a heap on the ground. Instead, a wisp of blue flame like something from a burning candle zipped through the air and arced toward me. The cobalt ball of fire bounced off my knee and hit me in the forehead. I blinked at the force, feeling like I'd been pelted with a golf ball, but when I opened my eyes, the flame was nowhere to be found.
“Don't panic.” I heard Amber's voice in my head. “This is me just paying you back.”
“Um, Amber? What-” My words cut off in a scream as I felt my palms light up with intense pain. I held them up, looking at them as I saw thin blue lines carve through my hands just beneath the skin. It was like a thread made of molten metal was stitching itself into a design in the meat of my hand. A distant part of me thought the twisting lines and fractal design looked similar to the tablet, but I was caught up in the searing torture of the lines in my flesh.
“Just hold on, this won't take long,” I heard her voice in my head as it felt like my body was being carved up by a thousand weasels wielding tiny red-hot box cutters. I could smell burning hair as the pain climbed up my arms and over my chest, and I saw smoke start to billow up from the collar of my shirt. As the lines climbed up my neck and through the underside of my jaw, the pain became too intense and I blacked out.
The fact that the slow climb back to conciousness was becoming familiar would have felt more alarming if I'd woken with all my mental faculties. The first thing I remember was seeing a disassembled smoke detector on a blank white wall in front of me, and then realizing I was on my back when I recognized the sensation of the couch cushion against my back. I blinked, and an Azoth-deprived headache slammed into my skull like the golem who'd attacked me had just stomped everything above my shoulders into mist. The next thing I felt was that my hand was resting on my coffee table, which had been pushed to be up against the front of my couch. Under my palm was a marble of osmium, and I felt the cool stone of the tablet at my fingertips.
Absently, I tried transmuting the osmium to relieve my pain, and I felt he marble under my palm disappear. Relief came shortly afterward, and I managed to open my eyes and look around. I still felt weighed down, and as I remembered the lines carving themselves under my skin, I wondered if Amber had just severed so much muscle tissue that I just didn't have enough flesh to move. With the help of gravity, I turned my head to see that the tablet wasn't on my coffee table like I'd thought. A rectangular chunk of white marble with a similar indentation was there, but there was no design. I swallowed in terror as I added stealing my tablet to the list of things I believe Amber might have just done to me.
As I brought my hand back to rest on my chest, it collided with something warm that wasn't my own skin. I looked and found a tiny sleeping Amber, dressed in a little one-piece bathing suit, sleeping with her face pressed into my chest hair like I was just a part of the couch. Draped over her lower half was the electric heating pad she used as a bed.
“Amber?” I said. “What happened?”
The tiny sprite smacked her lips and rolled onto her back with a sleepy yawn.
“Sorry, I got tired. Needed warm. You were warm.” she said, pushing her palms to my still-bruised sternum as she sat up to slide off of me.
“Where's my tablet?” I asked.
“On your counter.” she said, walking over to her crumpled clothes on the floor. “Gimme a minute.” In a flash of the same blue light, she was standing, fully clothed and blearily blinking her eyes as she fought to keep her balance with her larger form. Absently, she pulled a tiny torn bathing suit out from under her shirt, and tossed it at my trash can.
Weakly sitting up, I looked at my hands, which still stung a little from what I remember happening before I passed out. There weren't any marks on my skin that I could see, but I could feel something, like a thread had been knitted around me in a crazy, crisscrossing pattern.
“What did you do?” I asked. Amber just walked over, picked up my shirt, and then dropped it again when she saw that it looked like it had been sliced up by a serial killer. She didn't answer me until she had ducked into my room and tossed me another shirt.
“I wove a pattern under your skin.” she said. “stings like a bitch, doesn't it?”
“Why?!” I asked. “And what did you use? I feel like I've got fishing line strung all over me.” I itched at a spot on my chest where it hurt most before putting my shirt on.
“I used Azoth. You have tiny burns but they'll heal. Especially if you drink this.” She reached onto my counter, and I saw the flash of her blue-tinted Azoth before she handed me a little plastic bottle that looked like it was used to store an energy drink. “This is go
ing to taste awful, so just chug it.”
I did as she said, but the taste was worse than I'd imagined. I managed to gulp it down before gagging, and the painful lines under my skin started to fade even more. “So why did you do this?” I asked.
“So you don't need the tablet and can transmute on the go without hauling a fucking gravestone anywhere. There are patterns in your hands, feet, and most of your major joints. Multiple patterns will help you transmute faster too. Oh, and the pattern under your scalp helps increase how much Azoth you can hold.”
“Do you have marks like this?”
“No, I can't. My body regenerates anything it sees as damage when I change forms, and any change to my body that isn't from my forms gets flagged as damage. Now are you going to sit there and bellyache some more or do you want to help Grace?”
27
It only took a few minutes to get the hang of using the symbols under the skin of my palms to transmute things into Azoth, or “zothifying” stuff as Amber kept calling it. I quickly found that anything I had transmuted with the tablet was still available to me by just conjuring it into my hands instead, which saved me the time it would take to re-acuire new types of matter all over again. Since there was nothing stopping me from getting right back to making gold, I dove right into the task, picking up osmium with my left hand and putting gold down with my right. At some point, I noticed that the rush of energy I felt from gaining Azoth from the osmium was much less than it had been earlier, and Amber reminded me that the symbols she'd given me would increase the maximum energy I could hold.
In a few minutes, I had finished the first pound of gold, and felt fine enough to try to mold it into a solid one-pound bar instead of the little nugget bricks I'd been doing before. Holding a pound's worth of Azoth in my body only made me slightly dizzy, and I did my best to make note of the sensation to guess at my new capacity.
Arbiter's Word (Alchemist's Fire Book 1) Page 13