“The Lady Iasco is dead!” another woman shouted, as she feinted with her sword.
“I can bring her back to life!” Marco shouted angrily, so loudly that it felt as though his words echoed off the walls of the alley.
He had no idea what made him say anything so extraordinary, but it had clearly shocked the women.
“What do you say?” one of them asked.
“He may be right, my friends. Leave this to me,” a voice at the end of the alley caught the attention of them all.
“Are you Folence?” he asked.
“The Lady Folence to you,” someone in the group nearest him corrected him with a growl.
“Of course I am, boy. Now come to me,” she ordered, and there was a compulsion in her voice that made Marco’s feet involuntarily start.
Marco checked himself from going, and watched carefully as the women around him shuffled into new positions.
“If I go to her, are you going to try to attack me?” he asked the group.
“We won’t try; we’ll either attack or we won’t,” someone said with bravado that made Marco grin in spite of himself.
“I’ll trust you this time,” Marco said.
Folence’s entourage included two women who held blazing torches that provided illumination around her. As Marco approached her, he studied her looks by the flickering light; she looked regal, and determined. He wouldn’t want to be opposed to her in a test of wills he realized, even as he was possibly headed into just such a confrontation.
“Why are you limping Marco?” she asked.
“I want my memories back,” he said at the same time as they came face to face.
“Bow to the Lady,” said one of the attendants, who shoved him down to the ground.
And at that moment, his hand exploded forth a bursting shower of fragments of light.
Alchemy’s Apprentice Series
The Gorgon’s Blood Solution
The Echidna’s Scale
Scarlet from Gold
The Southern Trail
The Inner Seas Kingdoms Series
The Healing Spring
The Yellow Palace
Road of Shadows
A Foreign Heart
Journey to Uniontown
The Ingenairii Series
Visions of Power
2. At the Seat of Power: Goldenfields and the Dominion
3. The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell
4. The Lifesaving Power: Goldenfields and Stronghold
5. Against the Empire
6. Preserving the Ingenairii
7. Rescuing the Captive
8. Ajacii and Demons
9. The Caravan Road
10. The Journey Home
Also by Jeffrey Quyle
The Green Plague
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Scarlet From Gold
Alchemy’s Apprentice Series
Book 3
Jeffrey Quyle
Index
Chapter 1 –The Pilgrimage Begins Page 1
Chapter 2 – A Cathedral Reunion Page 20
Chapter 3 –The Fight at the Inn Page 31
Chapter 4 –The Journey Resumed Page 38
Chapter 5 –The Most Beautiful Woman Page 50
Chapter 6 – Return to Ophiuchus Page 55
Chapter 7 –An Unkind Welcome Page 61
Chapter 8 – Folence’s Report Page 64
Chapter 9 –The Trial Page 70
Chapter 10 –The Journey Begins Page 74
Chapter 11 –Athens Page 84
Chapter 12 – Conversations with the Dead Page 100
Chapter 13 –The Resurrection Page 111
Chapter 14 – Departure from the Underworld Page 115
Chapter 15 –Crossing Iberia Page 126
Chapter 16 –A Wedding at Sant Jeroni Page 149
Chapter 17 –Another Departure Page 162
Chapter 18 –Iasco’s Resumption Page 165
Chapter 19 –An Interrupted Voyage Page 179
Chapter 20 –The Memories Lost Page 187
Chapter 21 – Lion City Return Page 192
Chapter 22 – Joining the Cult Page 217
Chapter 23 – Arrival in Reme Page 236
Chapter 24 – Success in Nappanee Page 250
Chapter 25 – The Gathering at Malta Page 257
List of Characters
Marco, Marquess of Sant Jeroni, alchemist
Mirra, Barcelon daughter of Coosie, mother of Sybele
Glaze, Brother of Mirra
Sweetness, cook at Sant Jeroni castle
Sheafield, huntsman at the castle
Perago, steward of the Sant Jeroni castle
Porenn, acolyte of Ophiuchus
Algornia, alchemist of the Lion City
Teresa, Algornia’s granddaughter
Iasco, high priestess of the Order of Ophiuchus
Folence, Barcelon priestess of Ophiuchus
Siplin, duke of Barcelon
Sybele, infant daughter of Mirra
Sty, alchemist of the Lion City
Ophiuchus, the spirit of the island
Baronet Gustaf, Barcelon nobleman
Kieweeooee, a dolphin princess
Mitment, a former guard of the island
Diotima, a water spring spirit
Iamblichus, a Docleatean sorcerer
Neptin, leader of the merfolk village
Laris, priestess in the Lion City
Penelope, an acolyte of the Lion City temple
Count Colonna, Lion City nobleman
Statbir, a cardinal of the church
Cardinal Savoy, an ambassador of the church
Neapole, Grand Prince of Nappanee
Prologue
Marco was an under-achieving apprentice in a prestigious alchemy shop in the Lion City, one of the most powerful trading metropolises of the cities from the former empire that Clovis had governed. On a fateful day, a strange, unknown elderly woman gave him a coin, and a threatening stranger frightened him into swallowing the coin.
Marco became suddenly proficient in alchemy, rapidly completing a complex formula and showing promise. But before his promise could be realized, he was caught up in an unforeseen raid on the city by a band of brutal Corsairs, aided by a powerful sorcerer who traveled with them.
Together, Marco and Kreewhite the merman escaped the Corsair ship in a storm, and landed on an enchanted island, Ophiuchus. They became separated, and Marco found that the island was a center and a temple for a female cult of healing.
Marco went to a medium-sized city, Barcelon, where he found work in a dying alchemy shop.
Marco healed and helped a young mother, Mirra, and then helped save the city from both a plague and a raid by the Corsairs and their sorcerer-leader.
Afterwards, injured in a fall, Marco was sent to Ophiuchus for healing. From there he was commanded to go in search of a mythical monster, the Echidna, and acquire one of the monster’s scales.
His journey to find the Echidna became an epic winter journey through treacherous mountain heights, accompanied by three companions who bonded with him as their trip was beset by challenges and dangers.
In the far north of the world, they find and battle the Echidna, and escape with a scale in hand, but then travel through the underworld to find a path to freedom. And the path proves to have challenges of its own, so that Marco becomes separated from the others, and emerges from the underworld in a different location, alone, and without his memories.
He only knows that he must travel to see Lady Folence if he wants his memories back.
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Chapter 1 – The Pilgrimage Begins
&
nbsp; When the boat from Station Island reached the pier at Lacarona, Marco was one of the first passengers to disembark. The members of the crew watched as the odd but pleasant young man left the ship, and a few called out a sincere farewell as they observed him work his way through the milling crowds along the port’s harbor front and disappear from view. They quickly returned to their duties around the ship, and Marco was forgotten.
Marco had spent his time on the ship listening to the other passengers and asking them questions about the directions to get to Compostela, the site of the great holy cathedral at which so many pilgrims reported having miracles performed and prayers answered. The passengers on the ship included many of the very devout and the fairly wealthy, those who had the motivation and the means to make back-to-back pilgrimages to the monastery of Saint Joseph on Station Island and then to the cathedral at Compostela. They had proven to have a wealth of knowledge that they had been eager to share with Marco over the two days the voyage to Lacarona had lasted.
Between the passengers and the crew, the odd young man named Marco, the boy who had arisen from the cave of the dead with no memory, had been thoroughly watched after. The passengers had talked with and educated him, while the crew had groomed him, cutting his unruly hair to a short length, and clothing him in clean clothes, excess slops that the ship carried, that turned out to be in much better condition than the worn, torn, and stained clothes that Marco wore when he boarded the ship.
He therefore didn’t stand out drastically as he wove his way through the Lacarona crowd on his way to the road to Compostela. The road would take him east to the great cathedral city, and then the continuation of the road would take him further east from there, all the way across Iberia to the eastern coast, where the modest-sized city of Barcelon awaited his arrival. The city, and the priestess named Folence who served there, would provide Marco with the completion of the task that was his compulsion, his sole, consuming, overwhelming, single-minded obsession.
The ship arrived at Lacarona at midday, and Marco was astride the road to Compostela within half an hour. He still carried the torn and tattered backpack that he had possessed when he arose from the cave on Station Island, with a pair of small, sealed jars, a few dried foodstuffs, and not much else. He wore a sword and a bow and a nearly empty purse with some silver and brass coins. He didn’t think he needed anything else.
So it was that in the middle of the afternoon he reached the top of the hill that was east of Lacarona, where the Pilgrim’s Way crested the hill and gave him one last opportunity to look down and see the ships in the harbor before he went inland and lost sight of the ocean behind it.
“Here now, slow down. That’s not how a pilgrim travels,” a voice called out to him as he turned and began to stride purposefully forward.
Marco looked around, and saw two elderly men sitting on stones nearby, both looking at him.
“Were you talking to me?” he asked.
“He was; I was listening,” one of the men said. “He had it right though. You can’t be a pilgrim and feel the joy of the blessings if you don’t slow down and take a little time to contemplate your journey.”
“I’m not really a pilgrim,” Marco answered.
“Are you a perfect human being? If not, you’re a pilgrim, whether you know it or not,” asserted the man who had spoken first. “And you’re on the road to the greatest pilgrimage in all of the Old Empire of Clovis; you ought to slow down. Here, take your time and walk with us for a while. We’ll put your heart in the right place. You’ll forget you’re carrying that shiny sword on your hip.”
Marco looked at the two old men. They smiled at him in a friendly way. They weren’t seeking to distract him from following his compulsion, it seemed, only trying to alter the pace of his travel. “You’re going to Compostela?” he asked to assure himself.
“That’s where this road goes,” agreed the man who wore a red hat. “Come along with us. Take it at a gentle pace. See the world as you pass through it,” he urged.
Marco felt a gentle wave of agreement wash through his thoughts. Surely there would be no harm in traveling a little more slowly, he told himself. “Alright,” he agreed. “I’ll join you on the pilgrimage.”
The two men grinned. “It’s always good to have someone to pass a tradition down to,” said the man with the full, gray beard. “We’ve been making this pilgrim’s journey together every ten years, and this is the fifth time we’ve done it.” The man with the beard stood up, then helped the other one rise, and they walked over to Marco. “So let’s get going,” the bearded man said, and they started walking.
“My name is Pivot,” the red-hatted man introduced himself. “And this is my son, Dex,” he motioned to his bearded companion.
“Son?” Marco blurted out.
“I’m not his grandson,” Dex responded. “I know I look that much younger than him, but looks can be deceiving.
“We take this pilgrimage every ten years, since I was a little fellow,” Dex repeated as they started to walk. “See that?” he pointed to the side of the road.
“The house?” Marco asked, looking at a cottage set on a knoll just above the roadway.
“The lintel,” Dex specified, “the stone beam over the door. See the bird’s figure that is carved in the stone? It’s a swift.
“The swift is the symbol of the pilgrimage. The pilgrims start coming to the road to Compostela in the spring time, just when the swifts return to the holy site to build their nests,” Dex explained. “And a home that shows a pilgrim’s symbol is a place that will allow pilgrims to rest during their journey.”
Marco stared up at the symbol of the bird, fascinated by the story. “Why do they do that?”
“The swifts?” Pivot asked.
“No, the homes with the symbols,” Marco answered, then looked over and saw the grins on the faces of the two men, and he grinned as well.
“The folks who open their homes do it for their own reasons,” Dex answered. “Some have been pilgrims themselves, some simply want to do good.”
They walked along the road, and Marco looked at the doorways of the homes they passed. “There aren’t many homes with the swift,” he observed after an hour.
“We’re pretty close to Lacarona,” Pivot said. “There isn’t much need for many pilgrims to stop this close to where they just got off the boat.”
“And not everyone is going to want to help strangers anyway,” Dex added.
“We’ll come to the pink barn in about an hour,” Pivot said. “We can stop there for the night and get some dinner.”
“How do you know?” Marco asked.
“We’ve stopped there the last three times we’ve come on the pilgrimage. The farm wife who lives there was a pretty young thing when we spent our first night there,” Pivot answered.
“But she’s grown older every time we’ve returned, while we’ve stayed the same,” Dex laughed, drawing an answering laugh from his father.
“We’ll help milk the goats. Have you ever milked a goat?”
Marco shook his head in the negative.
“Well, they’re easier than cows in some ways, ‘cause they’re not so big, but they’re more nimble than cows too – harder to catch,” Pivot explained.
“So, are you going to tell us?” Dex asked as they continued to walk along at a casual pace, slower than Marco would have walked on his own.
“Tell you what? Tell you why I’m on the pilgrimage?” Marco asked. “Or tell you my name?”
“What do you want to tell us?” Pivot asked. They started to climb up a hillside, as a group of five other pilgrims passed them.
“I can’t tell you much. I’m not really on the pilgrimage. I’m on my way to Barcelon, to see the Lady Folence there,” Marco explained.
“The Lady Folence? Is she a relative?” Pivot asked.
“No, she’s in charge of the temple of Ophiuchus,” Marco answered.
“Are you ill?” Dex asked. “Do you need healing?”
&nbs
p; “No, I feel pretty good,” Marco answered.
“Is your mother or your sister ill?” Pivot plied the next question.
“I don’t know,” Marco answered. “I don’t know much of anything. I only know that I have to go see the Lady Folence. I don’t know who my family is, or where I came from, or why my hand is golden,” he had fielded questions about that on board the ship, “or even who I’m married to,” another pilgrim on the ship understood the meaning of his golden torq. “I just know that the only thing I want to do is see the Lady.”
“Are you under a bewitchment?” Pivot asked.
“A geas?” Dex asked.
“I don’t know,” Marco expressed his frustration.
“Maybe your beautiful wife put you under a geas and sent you to the Cult to pray for her healing,” Dex suggested.
“It could be anything,” Marco said.
“Is that the pink barn?” Marco pointed far ahead, desperate to change the topic.
“I don’t see it. We need to go a bit further,” Pivot answered. He sensed that Marco had no wish to speculate further on his mysterious condition.
“So what’s your name? Do you know that?” the elder traveler asked.
“Marco; I’m sure of that,” Marco answered immediately.
“Well Marco, maybe you should pray at the shrine at the cathedral for your memory to be restored,” Dex suggested.
“That’s an excellent idea,” Pivot agreed. “We’ll pray for you as well.
“We can ask the other pilgrims to put you on their prayer list,” the elderly traveler added.
“Which other pilgrims?” Marco asked.
“The ones we’ll meet along the way,” Dex replied. “We’ll talk to other pilgrims every day, maybe even walk with them if we decide to, just like we’re doing with you.”
“Ah, there’s the barn. Let’s hope the excellent madam Roural is still the mistress of the farm,” he pointed ahead.
They walked up the road, then down the farm lane to the house and pink barn built at the foot of a tall hill, where cattle were slowly trodding along a narrow path that wove among the stone walls of the fields that checkered the hillside.
Scarlet From Gold (Book 3) Page 1