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

by Ogden Fairfax

  Amber didn't just sit idly by while I worked. Since she couldn't convert matter as effeciently as I could, she didn't chip in with the gold production. Instead, she hooked up my phone to my computer's speakers and played music straight out of a movie montage. It actually helped me fall into a steady rhythm as I got used to the motions of picking up one matter and setting another down. By the time I had converted all the parts of the last two days' worth of projects into gold, I had seventeen pounds of gold sitting in a stack I intended to turn into a single twenty-five pound bar.

  Since I was out of easy-to-reach material, I took a second to rub my eyes and breathe. Amber had started to keep a tally of my progress on a whiteboard she'd taped to my apartment door, and above it I saw a digital clock reading midnight. The whiteboard read seventeen out of eight hundred, and I felt my heart sink as the weight of the task ahead settled on me. I'd made almost as much gold as I'd done on my first attempt, and while I wasn't feeling as worn out as I had then, I was still moving at a pace too slow to even keep up with what Peters had demanded.

  Frustrated with my slow progress, I proceeded to go around my home, transmuting everything I owned into gold. My computer, furniture, dishes, clothes, everything I'd brought with me when I'd moved here. Each heavy item I transmuted felt good, like watching a loading bar on a computer screen make a leap forward after not moving much for a long time. My home steadily grew more and more barren as I went through my closets, cupboards, and any other places I thought might be hiding a bit more junk. My final desperate attempt at a bit more matter, I got down on all fours, put my palms on the floor, and demanded every last speck of dirt and dust that was stuck in the carpet. It was all just enough for a sixth bar, putting my total at a hundred and fifty pounds. Not even enough to give Grace a full day of memory.

  Low on energy and upset at feeling like I was letting my best friend down, I snapped, smashing a fist to the carpet and getting up to shake my painful hand as I walked it off. As I paced around like a caged animal, Amber sat in her small form on her electric heating pad bed in a meditative pose, peering at me with one eye through a lock of her polished-copper hair.

  “You're running low, aren't you?” she said.

  “Yeah.” I said. “I'm starting to get antsy. And pissed. I keep thinking I should just do a big batch of water again, but every time I do the math, it comes down to the fact that my sink just doesn't flow fast enough. Even without the little aerator cap on the--”

  “Are you pissed at me for what we talked about earlier, yet?” she cut me off.

  “You working for Peters, you mean?” the accusation lashed out of me like my tongue was a bullwhip.

  “Yeah.” Amber winced at my tone.

  “I'm more mad at myself for trusting you.” I said, no small amount of venom in my words. “Grace was hurt and you were the only one I felt was on my side, and it sucks to know you weren't.”

  “I am now, though,” she said, softly.

  “How can I be sure of that? How do I know your story earlier isn't just a new way for Peters to mess with me?” I asked.

  “Order me.” she said. “It's that simple.”

  “Order you to do what?” I said, “Be completely honest?”

  “No, genius, order me to shit my pants and recite dirty limericks in City Hall.” She said, sarcastically. “Order me to do something I could only do if I weren't betraying you.”

  I frowned, feeling my anger urge me to order her to punch herself in the face for every insult she'd given me instead. I thought about it for a while, feeling the anxiety over the passing of time like when Grace was in my arms. I fought the urge to embarrass Amber just as she'd suggested, and tried to focus on what Grace would do. But my anger and bitterness rode along with my fear and the next spiteful words left my mouth like snakes oozing from between rocks to strike at unwary prey.

  “I order you to break your amulet.” I said. Amber's eyes went wide as her hands seemed to involuntarily reach for the pendant under her tiny shirt. I watched as tears sprung to her eyes as her hands gripped the tiny disk, about to snap it like it was made of plaster. Shock filled me as I saw her about to destroy the one item she seemed to value, and I suddenly hated myself for telling her to do it. I took a breath and quickly spoke again. “Stop!”

  She froze, the tension still in her arms and hands as she wept.

  “Please make me do it.” she said through a sob. “It's the only way I can.”

  “Let me do this right.” I said, almost able to hear how Grace would word my command. “Break your amulet if you are still under any orders to betray or spy on me.” I said.

  Amber didn't move for a moment, and I watched the tension melt away from her form like she'd been frozen in ice. Then she let go of her amulet, breathing a sigh of relief before shaking the stiffness out of her hands and wiping her tears away.

  “You really scared me there.” she said.

  “I scared myself,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

  “Here,” she said, rolling a tiny marble of osmium across the floor to me. “It rolled over here earlier.”

  I picked up the small sphere and absorbed it in an instant. I felt a wave of calm start to seep back in, like I'd just come indoors from a cold day outside.

  “I'll have to remember you get really bitchy when you're low on Azoth.” she said, grinning. “Feel a bit better?”

  “Yeah.” I said. “I'll have to remember that too. Is that normal for alchemists?”

  “Most phegmatics tend to listen to their lizard-brain more when they're low, yeah.” she said. “Other types react differently. Cholerics get really angry, Melancholics tend to become reclusive and depressed, and sangines tend to get stalker-y.” Amber said. “And each one reacts differently if they're too full-up on Azoth too. Lucky for you, Phlegmatics tend to get better at problem-solving when they have more Azoth. I bet if you tooka bar of gold back you could brainstorm your way out of this.”

  “I don't think—” I started to protest undoing the hard work I'd just finished.

  “Just take the bar for a minute and relax, dummy. You'll think of something.” Amber looked like she was trying to set an example for me as she touched her middle fingers to her thumbs as her hands rested on her little knees.

  Deciding to take her advice, I took a bar of gold from the first of the eight duffel bags and took a seat next to Amber, facing the same direction as her. Slowly but surely, a few ideas began to seep in like moisture through the cracks in a basement wall. I needed matter, and I needed time to transmute it into gold. I couldn't sell a bit of gold to buy something cheap and dense like sand or rice or salt since I wasn't allowed to sell gold to anyone but Peters. I also didn't want to press my luck at trying to sell something else valuable like diamonds or other jewels to see if those were also forbidden. Any plan I came up with that involved buying matter to use quickly fell apart as I realized that by the time any place was open, I wouldn't make the deadline of noon. I'd wind up owing another two hundred pounds and praying that Grace's condition wouldn't deteriorate if I missed my first window.

  I needed lots of matter, really fast. Again, my thoughts kept turning back to the sink, and kept getting caught up in the fact that it wasn't enough matter in enough time.

  All my thoughts of water made me realize I was thirsty and tired. I conjured a can of soda from my grocery trip almost a week ago into my hand, holding the cold cylinder to the back of my neck. I felt the wave of goosebumps crawl across the surface of my skin as the heat from my body was pulled to the relative cold of the soda can. I opened the soda and took a sip before holding the can to my forehead. Then, an idea hit me, and I stood, dismissing the barely-touched soda with a flash of light in my hand. In another flash, I called my winter coat to my hands and began putting it on.

  I looked at the clock and saw that it was two-twenty in the morning. Conjuring my phone again, I started looking up some things that would be important to my plan. It could work, but I'd need to be careful.

  “W
hat's up?” Amber said, yawning.

  “I've got an idea. You'll need to be big, and you're going to want to bundle up.” I said.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, shaking the sleep out of her legs from her meditation.

  “Have you ever heard of the polar plunge?” I asked.

  28

  “Uh, Chance?” Amber said, her breath steaming in the air as she rubbed her upper arms with her mitten-clad hands. “I know Grace isn't around to keep you sane, but can I just say I think this is a really dumb idea?”

  “I'll be fine.” I said, looking at the clock on my phone before reaching for my belt and undoing the buckle. It was almost three in the morning, and although the sun wasn't due for several more hours, the sky still held the deep shade of red it wore from the light pollution coming from thousands of street lamps.

  We had arrived at a public park that was a popular destination in the summer time. It was surrounded on three sides by a horseshoe-shaped lake that used to be connected to the river that snaked its way through the middle of the city. In the warmer months, it was the home of music festivals, baseball games, and fireworks every July, but between the winter temperatures and the late hour, there was no sign of people here other than some trash strewn about by some teens who had fled at the sight of my car coming up the road. I guessed they thought I might have been the cops or something.

  I'd backed my car up as close as I could to the little boat landing that people with trucks would use to back their boats into the lake. Aside from the faint glow of the little light in the hatch of my car,, the only sources of light were the city lights, the gentle glow of the winter sky, and the little flashlight rolling on the frost-cracked pavement where I'd set it on my winter coat. The heat from my car was on full blast, and Amber seemed very reluctant to move more than a foot or so away from the open hatch.

  “Just don't come crying to me when you freeze your balls off, you lunatic. I'm pretty sure Grace would be listing off all the ways this is unsafe.”

  “It's safer than you think. I did this once in high school.” I said, threading a sturdy rope I'd conjured through the belt loops of a pair of shorts I'd changed into.

  “I didn't know your teen years were bad enough to give you a death wish.” Amber's witty words were dampened by my Azoth and the fact that she was speaking through a trembling jaw. “And something something the cold isn't why your dick is small.”

  “You're free to wait in the car with the hatch closed,” I said. “I've got towels, a change of clothes, and a hot car to warm me up when this is over.”

  “I still don't understand why you have to be practically naked.”

  “I've got symbols all over me, right? If I put all of them to work, it'll go faster than if I'm only using my hands.”

  “And why can't you just convert the ice on the surface instead of turning yourself into a shit-for-brains-flavored popsickle?”

  “Because the ice is less dense, and it will take longer for me to convert it all, and so I'll probably just fall through into the lake anyway.”

  “Isn't this going to have some sort of environmental impact?”

  “Not if my math is right. The water level shouldn't change by any noticeable amount.”

  “Oh, perfect. We're counting on your ability to do math.” she said. “I have full confidence, then.”

  “Thanks.” I said, meeting her sarcasm with an optimistic grin. “It's good to know you believe in me.”

  “Just hurry up and get this over with before I drive off and leave you here.” she said.

  Once the other end of the rope was securely tied to one of the back seats of my car, I secured my end with a knot and started walking toward the edge of the lake. I must have looked pretty strange wearing only a pair of shorts and a frozen grin as I set a bare foot on the surface of the ice.

  I managed to preserve some sort of macho pride when I didn't leap back when I felt the cold bite into my heel, but any illusion of stoically withstanding this whole ordeal went out the window when a few steps later I fell through some thin ice that brought me into the water up to my waist. I didn't scream so much as squeal as the frigid water felt like it had punched me in the groin and sent a chill that rode my spine like a rickety old roller coaster. But I'd managed to raise my arms enough that the duffel bag I'd carried over with me hadn't dropped into the lake beside me. Even if it had, the rope that acted as my lifeline was tied to the bag as well, so we wouldn't lose it if Amber had to pull me out like my plan dictated in the case I pass out.

  The “yeep!” I let out echoed across the lake, and I mentally scolded myself for making too much noise. Luckily, no lights turned on in the apartment buildings that had the best view of my impression of a frozen cave man. A week ago, I might have been offended by hearing Amber burst out into laughter from where she stood, but either having a friend close by was helping my morale or the sudden shock had deprived enough blood from my brain aht there just wasn'e enough oxygen in my skull to feel the appropriate embarrassment.

  “Okay, here I go.” I said to Amber over my goosebump-covered shoulder. “Be ready to run bags back and forth.”

  “Okay, boss.” She said, saluting with her covered right hand. “Just hurry up and don't freeze your ass off.”

  With a breath to brace myself, I sat down in the water, turning the waist-deep cold into neck-deep cold as I brought every transmutation symbol under my skin into contact with the lake. From there, I got to work. With all my mental strength, I focused on the points on my body that were the centers of the symbols. With a pull of my willpower, I began to convert the water into Azoth. It felt like several bathtub drains had opened up in my skin, and I could feel myself begin to fill with energy. I started to shiver as each jet of water felt like the icy finger of death trying to lull me to sleep with a shiatsu massage.

  About a half a minute later, I felt my Azoth level climb up enough to convert it into the first gold bar. “One down, twenty-nine to go.” I said, standing and putting the wet gold brick into the duffel bag where it sat on the thicker ice. Then I went back to my spot to repeat the process.

  As I worked, feeling my Azoth level fluctuate, I could feel my world shift between the wild panic of being nearly drained of Azoth to the serene calm of knowing what I was doing. Each time I made a bar, I felt myself question why I was doing this, felt doubt and fear scream in my brain to tell me to get out of the water before I died. I'd already transmuted all my posessions, literally given up everything I owned in pursuit of my goal. Wasn't that enough?

  But as I fought through the pain in my fingers and toes, letting the water be turned into Azoth as fast as I could will it, I felt the rational part of my mind gain more of a hold over me. With the first seconds of Azoth, I remembered I only had twenty eight bars left, then twenty seven, and so on. When my body began to shivver more and more, I distracted myself by trying to keep track of how many gallons of water I was draining from the lake each time I put a bar of gold into the bag.

  Each bar weighed twenty-five pounds, totalling four-hundred ounces. Since it took about twenty ounces of water to make one ounce of gold, knew each bar was taking a bit over sixty gallons from the lake. Factoring for the Azoth I lost from inefficiency, I guessed it was probably closer to sixty-five gallons. I was aiming for thirty bars, and it took me about thirty seconds to make each bar. That meant I'd be in ice-cold neck-deep water for around fifteen minutes.

  Each time the duffel bag had three bars in it, Amber would run over, scoop the bag off the ice, and empty its contents into the back of my car before returning it to me in time for the next bar. It went on like that for a while. Absorb, transmute, deliver, repeat. Over and over again until my hands and feet had gone well past feeling numb and started to burn with an ever-increasing cold pain. When Amber tugged on my rope, I hadn't noticed that I'd closed my eyes. I felt the crinkle of little ice crystals on my eyelashes as I opened them. I realized I'd lost count of how many bars I'd made, and I could feel my shivvering start to
slow down. Some distant part of me knew that was a bad sign, so I stood with the next bar of gold and followed Amber back to the car.

  I climbed into the back seat, which I'd draped with dry towels and equipped with a warm set of clothes in a bag with a large version of those hand-warmer packets that I'd conjured earlier. Robotically, I slipped the freezing wet shorts off of my lower half, not able to care that Amber might see me. I managed to put on the warm clothes, feeling them burn at the cold in my flesh as hot as if I'd just draped myself in red-hot metal. I felt my head land on the seat as I slumped sideways to absorb as much heat from the seat warmers as I could. When Amber did it, she made it seem like some sort of luxurious experience, but all I could feel were pins and needles digging down all the way to my bones.

  I don't remember seeing Amber open the door by my head, or feeling her tilt my head to pour another one of those healing energy shot things into my mouth. She told me later that I had kept rattling off numbers like a mantra, chattering out the total amount of water I'd transmuted like it was my handhold keeping me from falling into insanity or worse. What I do remember is feeling the shivers come back to my body the moment I was concious enough to see daylight through the windshield.

  I sat up, feeling bruised and numb at the same time, finding two more little bottles in the back-seat cup holder. I picked them up, struggling to open them with the lack of traction in my wool-covered hands. I took the glove off to find my fingers were the deep black and blue I'd seen in pictures of people who'd suffered from frostbite. Ignoring the distant cries of my horror at seeing my hands the way they were, I opened the first bottle, seeing a few fingernails fall off in the process. The liquid inside the bottle tasted bitter, but when I opened my eyes from the grimace the taste had caused me, I saw that my hands were already looking much better. The finger nails I'd lost were still gone, but the blue-tinted hue had receded to just my fingertips. I drank the second bottle and suddenly felt like I had a fever.