The Apprentice's Path: The Alchemist #1

by Stacey Keystone

  Alchemists have long ago stopped chasing gold. Steel is a lot more useful. Gold is kind of useless. Have you ever tried a gold hammer? Other than being useful as coin and not rusting, gold cannot be used to make tools. And alchemists never tried to make pretty things. That's what jewelers are for.

  So, try to think of things as both magical and physical. I never thought about the magical aspect of reality too much. Magic was just there, making useful things. Safety devices for the lab. Air filters. Regulating many production processes. I still had to learn how it works, its rules and notation — because alchemists have to work around magic's limitations.

  I stared at the pendant again, trying to feel it. Nothing.

  At some point, I got so bored that my mind wandered away, making random multiplications in my head. I sometimes do that when I meditate — it calms me down, puts my mind at ease. But now, I was supposed to be concentrating on feeling something. I tried to do it again, and that's when I felt it. Vague, faint — the feeling I had with my eyes closed, but while seeing the object. I could even feel where the main magic pattern was — a circle on the edges of the pendant. Feeling while seeing — it kinda felt like seeing.

  "Gramps," I said. "I think I feel it."

  "That's great, Miss Dana. About time, too. Now that you've been able to do that, let's go for lunch. It three p.m. already."

  "Is it?" I asked, taking out my pocket watch. "Wow!" I wouldn't say time had flown by; it didn't. I had felt really, really bored, so timed moved really slowly. But last time I checked the watch, after what felt like an eternity, only an hour since the beginning of the exercise had passed. Had I become so immersed in the exercise, I hadn't noticed how five hours had gone by?

  "Now that you have seen it's possible," grandpa said, "trying to visualize magic won't feel that pointless. I was starting to wonder, myself, whether it was possible at all to teach you. My apprentices had usually learned to feel magic in a couple of hours. But let's go eat. Using magic like this depletes it, so you'll be hungrier than usual. I instructed Bettie to make extra for you. And make sure to eat the vegetables, too. You'll need that."

  Progress after the first breakthrough was painfully slow. After lunch, grandpa made me try to maintain a state of feeling magic for hours. Staring at that medallion was certainly really boring. But I started to see the use of it. Maybe I could use this at work? I wasn't really sure about what to do with the project, other than the literature search. And I was hired as an alchemist — surely I should come up with more than a report of what is unknown and unknowable?

  I resolved to continue trying to learn to visualize magic while keeping on working on the archives and the studies. That, on top of the ordinary work schedule, meant I didn't have much personal time, so I only went on a few dates with Jack. And even those dates, I didn't take half a day off anymore. It was mostly dinner, and once a week, training followed by dinner.

  "You know," grandpa observed one morning, as I was doing an exercise. To his relief, we'd dropped the experiments with his magic, so he didn't have to do weird spells anymore. "You seem to be able to focus much better after you go out. Seems like that beau of yours is good for you. You should bring him to dinner. You said you wanted to, right?"

  "I honestly didn't think you'd take that seriously," I said, standing up and sitting on the chair, allowing my knees and bum a brief respite. "I thought you don't like who he is."

  "I still don't. After living in a family whose profession was professionally spying and interrogating everybody, I came to value discretion and loyalty in my personal life. Why bring work into your personal life? Home should be a place to relax."

  "You are proposing to bring him to your home, though," I observed. "Isn't that a bit contradictory?"

  "Oh, I'll make sure somebody keeps an eye on him. He won't be allowed to wander alone around the house."

  "Like I wasn't allowed to wander?"

  "That was an exception. Really didn't expect anybody to just storm in that openly. But you should know, Miss Dana," grandpa's voice was still quite friendly. "That, if I'd thought you were a threat, I would have dealt with you. Don't do that anymore. Curiosity is not worth your life."

  I shrugged. First, he told me he hadn't even been able to protect his family, and now he was issuing threats? What could he do, really…

  "Why do you want me to go have dinner with your supervisor, again?" asked Jack after he picked me up from the library.

  "He invited you," I said, maneuvering around the ice on the sidewalk. The university poured sand and gravel on the sidewalks, but still, the floor was quite slippery. At least I wasn't feeling the cold at all, dressed as I was in a heavy sweater under a thick coat, with two layers of woolen socks and solid denim trousers.

  "Lots of people invite me. That's not a good enough reason for me to go to their house," Jack continued grumbling.

  "It's important for me for you to get along. He's my supervisor, I spend a lot of time with him, and although all the rumors have quieted down, I think it's still important to keep showing there's nothing going on here."

  "And why do you spend so much time with him? Going to his house for meals, spending weekends there. It's quite inappropriate for a single young woman to spend so much time with a widowed man 50 years her senior."

  "Oh, please. It's been ages since standards have changed. And you didn't seem to think it was inappropriate for me to spend time alone with you in a hotel room. You seem to want to do so now, too." Despite respecting my desire to go slow, he still did pushed me on the matter occasionally.

  "Are you saying it's the same?" he asked, with a hint of jealousy in his voice.

  We stopped. We were a hundred meters from grandpa's house by now, and this conversation had to be finished before we went in.

  "Of course it's the same. I chose to spend time alone with you, because I'm a free independent woman. I don't have to report to anyone what I'm doing. I'm also choosing to spend time alone with him, albeit doing different things. And do you really think I'd prefer him to you? Are you really that insecure?"

  I was starting to get angry. He'd never tried to control my behavior before. Did he think that our relationship being more serious now meant he could control me now? Because that certainly wasn't on the plate.

  "No, I don't," he grudgingly admitted. "I just don't understand why you spend so much time with him. More than with me."

  "Well, you can see for yourself today. I guess this dinner is going to be good for you, too."

  As we came into the house, and Jack gave Bettie the wine bottle he brought as a gift, Billie rushed to the door. Between work and classes, I had barely spent much time with him, so he seemed to be eager to spend some time with me.

  "Dana! It's been ages since you've played with me. You're always busy talking boring things with Papa. Let's go play!" then he noticed Jack, who was watching the interaction, with a shocked expression on his face. "And who is that?" Billie demanded.

  "Oh, this is my boyfriend, Jack. Jack, this is Professor Bedwen's son, Billie."

  "What's a boyfriend?" Billie asked, frowning. But then his face cleared. "Is he your friend? Then he can come to play, too!"

  I looked at Bettie, who hadn't left yet.

  "Is dinner ready yet?" I asked her.

  "Oh, no, Miss Bedwen. You can go play, for now. I'll call you when it's time for dinner," she said.

  I turned towards Jack. He seemed to have recovered from his shock and was just standing, staring at me.

  "Would you like to come? We'll be playing with trains."

  "Eh, no, thank you," Jack said. "I'm sure your friend here won't want me to ruin everything. I'm sure I'll be able to find something to do before dinner."

  "Grandpa has an extensive library," I pointed helpfully, as Billie started dragging me to his playroom. In these moments, I was reminded he was in an adult body. He was quite strong.

  18

  As the housekeeper escorted him to the library, Detective Jack Taylor wondered
about the scene he'd seen. He'd heard before about Professor Bedwen's son, of course. After he wasn't able to find anything through the official channels, he had started collecting rumors.

  The rumors he heard were enough to tell him; this man was dangerous. Unlike Dana, who seemed to believe this man was just a harmless lawyer, he'd felt the danger that emanated from the man from the beginning. Her view seemed to be tainted by her first encounters with light arall, the sentimental fools that filled Ashford's student societies. Somehow, the fact that the Inquisition had been created and staffed mainly with light mages escaped her view. And this man had studied at the Inquisition College. To be a prosecutor. What more do you need to draw conclusions?

  The rumors pictured a man that was far from the repentant mage he wanted to appear. An explosion in an illegal drug manufacturing facility; the death of a healer during a robbery; the death in prison of the members of a huge money-laundering scheme, all those people linked to what had happened to Willhelm Bedwen twenty-two years ago. All those things had happened years apart, and no links to Professor Bedwen were found. This old man was ruthless and knew how to bide his time.

  And this man, for some reason, was spending a lot of time with his girlfriend. He didn't really think there was an affair going on. A dark woman and an ex-Inquisitor? But something was making those two spend time together. Dana certainly had many harebrained ideas. A brilliant alchemist, sure, but she was never very good at the art of intrigue. Better than most dark arall, but then, that's quite a low bar.

  "Detective Taylor," he then heard behind him. He turned, seeing the man he'd been thinking about.

  "Professor Bedwen," he greeted. "Thanks for the invitation. Dana is quite fond of you," for reasons I don't understand, he thought.

  "Miss Bedwen's a lovely lady. Smart, proactive, hardworking. She's got a great future ahead of her. A pity she doesn't want to be a mage."

  He stared at the old man, trying to understand. A steely gaze met him, the eyes of a predator. They stood there, for a while, trying to size each other up. The old man's stance reminded him of an Inquisitor he'd arrested. They needed a full assault team to subdue that man, who wasn't wearing anything other than his nightgown. This man had been trained by the same people and hadn't forgotten a single lesson.

  "Dana also admires you greatly," he said, breaking the silence. "And she seems quite attached to your son. They just went playing with your son."

  "Ah, yes, Bettie told me they went playing. Which is why I came to make you company," and keep an eye on you, was left unsaid. "It's nice that Billie has a friend. In Ecton, we lived a rather more… secluded life."

  "Yes. I've heard quite a bit about your life in Ecton," he probed, trying to see if he'd get any response. The old man didn't flinch.

  "Ah, my life in Ecton. There have always been groundless rumors about me. Like the rumors about me and Miss Bedwen, which you helped her quell. The rumors about my life in Ecton are also quite unfounded."

  "As unfounded?" he asked.

  "Well, you certainly know that the rumors about Miss Bedwen and me are completely untrue, don't you? So you understand that rumors can be based on nothing but coincidences."

  "Coincidences."

  "You don't seem to believe those rumors, either," pointed the old man. "Or you'd have shared them with your beau. And you haven't, so far. I'd rather you continue not sharing them with her, although I doubt it would change anything."

  "Wouldn't it?" getting rid of this old man's influence seemed like a rather good idea right now.

  "If anything, it would increase Miss Bedwen's opinion of me. Despite her rather atypical behavior, she holds the values of her kind dearly. So you wouldn't change anything by telling her."

  "Yet, you'd rather I don't share the unfounded accusations against you with her," Jack said, puzzled.

  "I would. But let's stop this unpleasant conversation! Do you follow the Bingham horse race?"

  "Oh, yes. Lucky Champion seems to be the most likely winner this year."

  "Well, who knows — with a name like that! Were they trying to jinx him?"

  They continued with a discussion of the horse races, and the weather (horrible this time of year), until called to dinner.

  It was quite fascinating to observe the sharp-eyed man, the wolf, putting on a sheepskin coat. The gaze he directed at Dana, who had just ruffled Billie's hair and told him to eat the veggies "Tell you what, let's see who finishes all the mushrooms first!", was strange. Not romantic in any way, that's for sure. But it wasn't the look of a teacher proud of his student. Oh, there was pride in that look. But there was also longing — and what seemed like… amusement? The old man looked up, and the moment was gone. The blank, poker face look he got didn't have the menace he'd seen before — but he could sense it there, underneath all the layers.

  He wasn't understanding what was happening, but one thing seemed clear. Dana wasn't in danger with this man… for now.

  So he took another bite of steak, with a piece of deliciously cooked greens. It's not like Dana would listen to him if he told her to avoid this man. If anything, informing her of danger would make her more reckless.

  I'm not sure what Jack and grandpa thought of each other, but after the dinner, they never mentioned each other. None of them wanted to repeat the experience, either. I was OK with that, as it was starting to become harder and harder to keep our family relationship hidden from Jack. Now that he'd stopped asking, I could breathe easier, focusing on the rest of the matters at hand.

  The lack of progress was quite frustrating. Four months in, and I barely had much more than I started with. It was also the time for my mid-year reports. We don't have exams in Ashford, except for the entrance and final exams. Those were next year, but there was still plenty of work to do. I had to submit the project plan and literature review for both my minor and major thesis. And, while the project plan of my major thesis had been written years ago (I wrote it as soon as I started university, as those working on their thesis could use the lab facilities for free), for my minor thesis, things were not going so well. Grandpa was a terribly demanding supervisor.

  Every time I brought him the typed pages, he would quickly destroy everything by splashing red ink over everything. And he wouldn't let me fix things by amending the draft with notes, no. He demanded that I re-type every draft I was submitting to him.

  "Only the last version has to be clean," I complained, as he made me re-type the same page around four times, fixing some minor mistake every round. "Why can't I fix the ongoing version and retype the final version?”

  "Because that's sloppy. And I don't do sloppy, nor do I accept it from my students. Especially if the student in question is my grandchild."

  "It's not like anybody knows you're my grandfather," I pointed out. "So nobody will accuse you of nepotism or something. Besides, nobody will see the drafts. Only the final version will be made available to the public."

  Re-typing the literature review also meant visiting Prof. Derwen's office every time. Grandpa insisted I quote the supporting literature in the original language, which meant I had to go there and copy the fragments every draft round. Copying them from the previous draft was also sloppy, according to grandpa. And he'd know if I did that; turns out, him and Prof. Derwen were best pals. Figures. Of course grandpa's best friend was the most unpleasant guy in his department! But then, I couldn't stand any of them, so it's not like I'm a very objective judge of light arall character.

  "Another round of corrections, Miss Bedwen?" Prof. Derwen asked as I knocked his open door.

  I had finished reading the books by November. It's not like they were that long. With a primitive binding, written manually, with quite a large font size, they were easy reads if you knew the language. Which I did, thanks to my father's insistence.

  "Yes. Could we start with the usual order, please, Professor Derwen?"

  By the fourth round of re-typing, I had made a routine for the copying, optimizing it to the maximum, so I co
uld get it done in an hour. I had marked the lines on the page which the cited passages would occupy; the pages numbered and organized by book cited.

  "Professor Bedwen seems to be much stricter than usual," he commented, opening the locked bookcase. "So I'm expecting great results for the project. Especially after the presentation you gave at the Historical Society."

  I nodded, sighing internally. I'd already been told there was quite a bit of interest in my work. Student's minor thesis' literature reviews usually passed with little notice or examination. Rumors said the Dean of IAIRD would personally review mine to make sure it passed muster. Which certainly added to the pressure.

  Still, re-typing everything to correct mistakes is stupid, especially when you're on your fifth round.

  Work was going much better. Thanks to grandpa's insistence on me learning to see magic (which was probably in part to avoid working himself), I had started to partly visualize the button's magical symbols. What I was seeing was too blurry to make out anything with any clarity, but I could guess a few things. I gave the really vague drawings to the captain, who seemed quite happy at the results.

  "Have you gone through Initiation, Miss Bedwen?" he asked, checking the drawings, which I made with black ink and lots of water, to show how blurry it was.

  "Ah, no," I said. "But I've learned a few visualization techniques."

  "Quite a useful skill to have," he observed. Then he checked the rest of the pages. "And what are these?"