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

by Ogden Fairfax

  “Is this like a highlander thing where I've absorbed their power or something and now I'm going to tragically live longer despite the fact that's the last thing I wanted throughout all this?” I asked. The angel looked like she burst into laughter, but there was no sound. She stood, body shaking as she held her sides and silently stomped her feet in mirth at my last question. After a moment, she stood up straight again and held up her hands like she didn't have any clue, then shook her head like she didn't think so. The amused grin never left her face, though. Then she reached for my hands, holding mine palm up with the backs of my wrists grasped gently in her hands. I saw my hands glow like someone was holding a powerful flashlight up to them from beneath, and saw the traces of the lines Amber had carved into me what seemed like forever ago. The lines wove and snaked into a new pattern, similar to what they were before, but I immediately felt a change in my Azoth, like I was touching a latex balloon under so much pressure that I could just press a little and let its contents break free.

  I could feel the warmth of Azoth through that barrier, thin as it was, and I could sense that the angel had connected me to the source of the old laws. I could feel them like a tangled mass of firey ropes contained in a thin container that was ready to burst, and the knowledge of each of their words flashed through my mind with an intensity I hadn't dealt with since I'd first transmuted my coffee cup. The angel's hand pressed on mine, and I felt the pressure of the force inside the orb release slightly. Somehow, I knew it was a decree that had never come to fruition until now. It told me that if there was ever a time where all four courts of the alchemical crowns were lost, it would signal the end of the courts themselves, and that an arbiter would be chosen to reforge the world of alchemy and many of the laws that governed them. One by one, I felt the contracts and decrees of each court dissolve, seeping out of the bubble like air through a cloth bag. As each one was released, the orb grew smaller, and all that was left was a ball of Azothic laws the size of a golf ball. The weight of them in my hands made me think the angelic lady was trying to convey that this was my responsibility now, and when my eyes met hers, she nodded, as if reading my mind.

  “Did you just read my thoughts?” I asked. She made that “maybe” gesture by waggling her hand and then closed my fingers around the little ball of Azoth. It disappeared, like it had been absorbed into my body like all the other times, but it felt separate, like a bubble of thought in the back of my mind. Before I could start panicking about my thoughts being broadcast for her to hear, she touched my back and began leading me to the door once more. I made it to the door without any further questions, too tired to ask anything. Outside, a cab was waiting, and the angelic woman gave me a light shove to get me outside onto the sidewalk. When I turned around to glare at her for pushing me, she was gone. Worrying that I'd missed the chance to get more information about just what the hell I was in for, I resolved to get home and get some rest first before I tackled the insanity of the last few hours.

  “Hey, buddy, you're not drunk, are you?” the cab driver asked.

  “I wish.” I said before telling him where to go. I dozed in the back seat for a mew minutes while the cab driver drove me home in blessed silence. I had zero Azoth, but the migrane that pounded the inside of my skull was a distant echo compared to the pounding of my heart in my chest. I felt shaky all over, as if I'd just jumped in the lake again. Thankfully, the cab driver got to my apartment building before my shivvering became enough for him to question if I was on drugs as well.

  On wobbly legs made unsteady by the end of my adrenaline surge from before, I walked to the front door of the building and then stumbled to the door of my place. When my door swung open to my empty place, I thought for a second that I might have walked in to the wrong unit, and that this one was an empty one Bee would be hoping to fill shortly. The sight of Amber and Grace sitting cross-legged on the floor with the tablet between them brought me back from my confusion, and I remembered that I'd transmuted everything I owned to try to save Grace.

  Both girls had turned at the sound of my key in the lock, and stood in unison to greet me.

  “What did you do?” Amber accused, hooking her arm under my shoulder as Grace did the same on the other side. I tried to mumble out something in response, but the sounds sort of just fell from my mouth before becoming words. The girls half carried, half walked me to my room, where Amber picked up a gold brick from my closet and tried to hand it to me to absorb. I took it, feeling my headache subside but still feeling exhausted enough to pass out. I remember holding out my hand and conjuring my bed back into existence before falling face-first onto the clean sheets. I was asleep before my face came back down from its single bounce off the springy mattress.

  In my exhausted sleep, a dream formed in my resting mind. I stood on a platform of glass overlooking a vast expanse of stars and planets. Four figures stood around me in a semicircle, dressed in ancient-looking robes and face wraps that obscured their features. The shortest of the quartet, who still stood at around my height, stepped forward and held up a piece of metal that looked like some sort of strange crystal. The others began to do the same, offering similar small, metalic trinkets to me. I held out both my hands, and the ball of Azothic law floated above my palms. The little objects held by the four figures began to glow, reflecting the ball in my hands.

  Like shooting stars, the shapes zipped forward, off the hands of what I assumed were the ancient arbiters and converged on the globe of light in my hands. As each one dove beneath its surface, I felt as if a huge weight was placed upon my shoulders. At the same time, four stars in the black void of space in the background burst into an explosion of distant light before their firey auras began to move like a drop of dye in a gentle stream of water.

  Just like the arbiter's gifts had united in my palms, the glowing embers of the four dying stars coalesced into a single, bright ball of pale light, spinning faster and faster as it drew the remnants of its ancestors into itself. Then, the arbiters stepped aside as a thin wire of energy snaked through the blackness and touched my forehead, and I felt the connection between myself and this distant new star come online. Just as Amber's lines had burned beneath my skin when she gave them to me, the ones the angel had moved in my body began to burn the same way as the line of light coursed through me along their weaving path. Instead of the blinding pain I expected, I felt comforted, as if a blanket woven by a caring parent was being stitched together at lighting speed beneath my skin. I felt a calm breath fill my lungs as I bathed in the lines of light, and as the tightly-woven pattern reached completion, the thread of starlight exited my forehead and returned to the star from whence it came.

  As the dream ended, I closed my hand around the ball of Azoth, the old laws, and felt a soothing calm fill my body as I emerged from restful sleep to a comfortable awakening.

  35

  When I woke up, Grace and Amber were quietly discussing whether or not to try to rouse my from my sleep. A slow inhalation through my nose as I massaged my face with both hands interrupted them both. Slowly, thankful that I wasn't feeling dizzy or nauseated from the dream I'd just had, I sat up and cleared my throat.

  “How long?” I croaked, expecting to be told that I slept for about a week based on how groggy I felt.

  “You were down for about two hours.” Grace said, “but you slept like you were dead. I could barely tell you were breathing, and your heart rate was super low. I was about to call for help.”

  “And I've been trying to tell her not to move you or you might not wake up at all.” Amber said.

  “I'm fine, sleepy, and sore in a few places, but fine.” I said, moving my hands in a “patting down” motion to hopefully convey that there was no need to be alarmed. Amber and Grace shared a look before Grace sat on the side of my bed, putting the back of her hand like she was checking me for a fever.

  “Chance, I need you to tell me what happened.” She said. “Everything since we left.”

  And so, I did. I started
off with a description of the meeting with the heads of the courts, and only hesitated a little when I had to describe how forward some of their proposals had been. Grace seemed to look more and more angry as I talked, so I tried to rush toward more important details, but any time I did, Amber would stop me with a question, and then Grace would tell me to go back to an earlier point, causing me to repeat details that I was becoming less and less sure were reality each time I thought about them. When I got to my decree just before everything went sideways, Amber asked to see what I had written down. I patted myself down to find the paper, but it was gone. Then I remembered I had conjured the words on a tablet, and re-summoned the exact same thing.

  Grace took it from me with a swipe of her hand, and Amber wound up sitting on the other side of my bed to lean over and read the wording of my command. They must have re-read it a few times, because it was a good few minutes before Grace let go of the tablet and let Amber look it over more closely.

  “So, in one-fell swoop, you killed all three court rulers, and probably every alchemist who has been alive for more than a century.”Grace said, jumping ahead of my story to assume the result of what I'd done. I nodded, feeling the weight of guilt slowly pour onto me. I could account for the golems and the court holders who had all been in the room, but I had no idea how many old alchemists had probably died like some massive, simultaneous screenings of that one scene from Indeana Jones.

  “Not only that, but he's overturned every alchemical pact that has ever used the promise of ageless life as part of the bargain.” Amber said. “There's no telling how many conjurings, how many recipes, or how many established organizations anchored on agelessness or “as long as I live” clauses have been affected.”

  “That sounds like a lot of change.” Grace said, turning to Amber with a confused look. “I thought you said the bigger the change to the old laws, the more dangerous it was?” Amber nodded, and looked like she was about to explain, but she must have seen something in my expression that gave away how I felt about that knowledge. Grace's gaze shifted from Amber toward me, and then she must have seen it too.

  “You were counting on it, weren't you?” she said.

  “I really couldn't see any other option. So long as people like Peters existed, neither I nor anyone I knew would be safe. Someone would always see the need to try to mess with people in my life by hurting people near me. I'm not going to pretend there wasn't a bit of a selfish aspect to it, since if I was dead, I wouldn't have to deal with the outcome, but more than anything I just wanted it all to be over and for us to be left alone, even if it meant only you got to see the benefits.”

  I braced myself for the backlash of Grace's anger at me putting myself in harm's way again. Instead, she took a breath, and let it out, letting the tension in her posture melt away as she exhaled.

  “What you did was dumb, and would have been heartbreaking for me and Grandma, but I understand your reasoning. I don't think I'll ever agree with it, but I can forgive it. Just, please, clue me in the next time you feel the need to go all “blaze of glory” on me.”

  “I will.” I said, “I don't intend to break my promise about keeping secrets now.”

  “So, you were saying, Amber? How come our favorite moron isn't dead?”

  “My best guess is that the combined Azoth of everyone in the room combined with the un-doing of any deals relying on agelessness must have been enough to save us the trouble of planning your funeral. Just so we're clear, Chance, just because Grace isn't furious at you doesn't mean I'm not.” Amber crosser her arms over her chest, frowning at me. “You may be an idiot, but you're my favorite one at the moment.”

  “I'm sorry.” I said, “I never enjoyed the thought of how me dying would hurt you, both of you.” I looked between both girls as I said this. Amber let out a huff of a breath that flung a lock of her red hair up and out of her face. Then she seemed to slump down as a look of resignation crossed her features.

  “I know.” she said. “You'll just have to make it up to me.”

  “How?” I asked, “You want me to release you from your contract to me or something?” I said.

  “No, even though the courts are all but gone, the law about needing a tutor still stands. And even if that weren't the case, I'm pretty sure leaving you to your own devices would be akin to negligent homicide. Even without alchemy, I'm pretty sure you'd die the moment you were left alone in a room without everything being child-proofed.”

  “Ouch.” I said.

  “Fair,” said Grace before giving me a sarcastic roll of her eyes to show she was just playing along.

  “Yeah, so I'm pretty sure you're just going to have to make it up to me by letting me stay on after my year is up. If this is what you do in just a few weeks, you're going to need constant supervision, and Grace has to sleep at some point.” Amber stood and picked up one of the bars of gold in my empty closet. “And I'm taking an advance on my next paycheck.”

  “Okay, that sounds fair.” I said. “But I still have to figure out what to do next. Up until now, most of what I've done has been re-active, and without an obvious 'bad guy' to deal with, I'm not sure what to do.” I leaned back and rested my head on my pillow.

  “Well, the two of you have until I get back to decide what your next move is, boss.” Amber said, hefting the gold in one hand like a pitcher testing a baseball. “I'm going to get some shopping done. With no courts, the ban on selling gold is out the window, so I'll run some errands and we can regroup afterward. Just do me a favor, Grace?”

  “What?” Grace asked.

  “Don't let him burn the building down while I'm gone.”

  “Can do.” Grace said and turned back to me. “I won't let him out of my sight.”

  Grace leaned over and planted a kiss on my cheek as Amber grabbed the rest of the gold from my closet and left the room. A moment later, Grace and I were side-by-side on my bed, her resting one leg over mine as if to stop me from going anywhere. I put my arm around her and she rested her head on my shoulder as we just lay there like that. I wondered for a little while if Grace was planning on something more than just snuggling together, but honestly, after everything I went through to put her mind back together, it actually felt nice to admit to myself that moments like this were one of the main things I was fighting to restore. Grace and I could explore whether we were compatible as lovers some other time. For now, I just needed her close, to feel the warmth of her body against mine without any sort of sexual connotations. I had my friend back, and that was far more than I thought I would have wound up with when the sun had risen over my shivvering body back in the parking garage.

  By the time Amber had come back, Grace and I hadn't moved much. I was awake, but still laying on my back on the mattress. Grace had only gotten up once to fetch her laptop, and she lay with her head propped up on one hand as she used the other to type up notes on the computer as it rested on my chest. For the last hour and a half or so, I had been recounting the rest of my story, and only knew Amber had returned when she handed me a paper plate of pizza once I had finished the description of my dream.

  The three of us talked for hours after that, devising plans and ideas of what we would need to do to navigate the new landscape of a society of alchemists I'd only ever seen at the top level. Well, to be honest, Grace and Amber did most of the talking and actual planning. I asked the occasional question or added the rare suggestion to how I would rather do things, but by that point, I was well-accustomed to listening to their opinions and trusting their judgment.

  By the time we reached a stopping point, it was well after dark. Amber had just finished her report of her journey around the county selling my gold, a tale that ended with me having well-over eight figures in my bank account, but I was far too distracted by my own thoughts to internalize anything other than just knowing I had more money. Grace, for her part, had closed her laptop and had fallen asleep in my arms, so when Amber left to shrink down and ready herself for bed, I was left staring at the cei
ling. Try as I might, I had absolutely no clue what was going to happen next, but for now, with the presence of my best friends, I felt more than equipped to handle anything. I smiled to myself as I realized I had won, and with that acknowledgement of victory to satisfy some primitive urge in my brain, I allowed myself to drift my thoughts to mundane topics, content to rejoin a world I at last had a chance to enjoy. That was, at least, until the next cosmic problem found its way to my doorstep.

  About the Author

  Ogden Fairfax is a man who turned in his Grammar Police badge in favor of becoming a Paladin of the Order of the Lexicon. Between bouts of taking himself far too seriously, he spends his time doing things like imagining what speech he would give if he were the president and had to notify the public about the existence of space aliens. Together with his wife, Lisa, he travels the country, telling stories on long car rides while they both search for the world's friendliest dog. Fortunately, it seems to be a tie between almost every dog the two have ever met.