The Fatal Gate

by Ian Irvine

  He let out an ear-piercing screech, went so still that she feared he had been paralysed, then shuddered wildly and toppled sideways. Instantly, and with scalp-crawling horror, Aviel knew that she had gone too far. Scent potions were only supposed to be sniffed, but it was on the skin under his nose and on his mouth. He was getting a far greater dose than she had intended. What if it killed him?

  When Tule let out another screech and began to convulse on the floor, terror flooded her. People would come to investigate and discover what she’d done. She wet a rag and wiped his face again and again until all the scent potion was gone, then tossed the rag onto the hot coals under the water cauldron, at the back where it would quickly burn away.

  She was shaking; she had smelled the scent potion and it was affecting her too. She tried to think—what else must she do to cover up her crime? The phial! She found the stopper, tossed it and the phial into the fire and raked the coals over them. Her hands were shaking badly now.

  The grimoire! She closed it and hid it and scanned the bench where she had made the scent potion. She had washed up all her eye droppers but the phials containing eleven scented oils, the ingredients for the potion, still stood in a line. She put them in her scent box with all the other phials then hobbled back to Tule, stomach acid burning a track up to her throat, wondering what to do.

  If he died, Tallia’s forensic mancers would work out how Aviel had attacked him, and she would hang for murder. But if Tule recovered quickly he would inform on her and she would also be done for.

  He grunted and gasped, then began shuddering so wildly that his brown teeth were clacking together. There was blood on his lower lip; he must have bitten his tongue. She was forcing a wooden spatula between his teeth when Tallia ran in, followed by Commander Janck.

  Aviel stood up, feeling sick. Tallia studied her swollen and bruised face, her bleeding ear, then looked down at Tule.

  “Speak,” said Tallia.

  Aviel told them how he had refused to teach her anything and kept hitting her.

  Tallia’s face hardened. “Are you telling me that, after all this time, you’ve made no progress whatsoever?”

  “Yes,” Aviel whispered.

  “But you know how urgent this work is.”

  “He won’t tell me anything. He doesn’t believe nivol can ever be made.”

  “It’s your job to convince him.”

  “With respect, Magister, that’s our job,” said Janck. “How can a kid be expected to deal with a fellow like Tule?”

  “I rather suspect she has dealt with him,” said Tallia, walking around his shuddering body. “What happened, Aviel? Leave nothing out.”

  She told them, up to the point where she had been lying on the floor and he had been about to stamp on her face. “Then he went all funny,” she lied, “as if he’d had a seizure.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” observed Janck. “He’s a choleric man.” He gave Aviel a sympathetic glance.

  Tallia, who had always been friendly to Aviel, looked more forbidding than ever. She crouched and inspected Tule’s face, sniffed and wrinkled her nose. Her head shot round and she stared at Aviel. She knows! Aviel thought. Her face grew hot; she prayed that the bruises would conceal it.

  “Peculiar smell,” said Tallia.

  “Tule’s breath stinks like a drain,” said Janck dismissively. “Magister, our meeting grows urgent.”

  “Yes,” Tallia said absently. “Would you call for a healer?”

  Janck went out.

  “We’ve long been friends, you and I,” said Tallia, then paused.

  Aviel had once done Tallia a great service, though the idea that she, an inexperienced girl, could ever be friends with the great Magister was preposterous.

  “If we can’t work as a team the enemy will soon overwhelm us,” Tallia added. “Individuals are no use to me, Aviel, no matter how gifted. They cause more trouble than they’re worth … if you take my meaning.”

  Aviel took it to mean that if Tallia discovered how Tule had been attacked, it would be the end for herself.

  “Yes, Magister,” she said. “But what am I to do?”

  “Tule is a difficult man, but he’s the only master alchemist we have. You’ve got to work with him.”

  “But he refuses to tell me anything I need to know.”

  Tallia frowned. “What do you need to know, precisely?”

  Aviel showed her the key papers and parchments. “All the methods are full of obscure words and symbols, and abbreviations. I can’t follow the instructions.”

  Tallia frowned. “A pity that Shand …” She broke off, shooting Aviel another keen glance.

  Aviel’s heart gave a convulsive thud and the blood that had surged to her face drained from it. Did Tallia suspect that she had spoken to Shand and was protecting his secret? Was that why she was being so hard?

  “I’ll send you an adviser,” said Tallia. “He doesn’t know anything about practical alchemy, but he’s read all the books and he knows the words and symbols. He can help you until the grand master … gets better.”

  She gave Aviel another cold stare and went out. Shortly a healer ran in, followed by his assistants. They lifted Tule onto a stretcher and carried him away. He looked bad. And what if he died? What if she had killed her master?

  It would add manslaughter to the list of crimes she had committed in the past two months. Or was it murder? If he died she might well be accused of murder. How quickly she had descended to the dark side.

  26

  WHAT DID THE LIFE OF A CRIPPLED GIRL MATTER?

  “Earnis,” the young man said, offering Aviel a large, solid hand.

  She looked up at him. Being barely sixteen and a late developer, she had given little thought to the merits of the other sex, though she had to concede that he was worthy of further study. Earnis was a very handsome young man, taller than average, with twinkling cocoa-brown eyes, wavy chestnut hair and a square jaw along which the shadow of a heavy brown beard could be seen. His muscular arms were hairy, though not unattractively so, his voice was deep, and he looked altogether strong and solid and friendly—the very opposite of Grand Master Torsion Tule.

  But a life of adversity had taught her to be wary. “What do you want?” Her voice sounded high and squeaky.

  Earnis smiled. “Tallia sent me. I’m to teach you the language and symbols of alchemy.”

  “Oh!”

  He was still holding out his hand. She extended her own. His palm was hard but his handshake gentle.

  “What do you know about it?” she added. Tallia had said there were no alchemists in the west any more.

  He looked around the crowded workshop with its shelves of bottles and jars, racks of tubes, beakers and phials, and the benches full of incredibly clean equipment. “About the practical side—about actually doing alchemy—I know nothing at all,” he said cheerfully. “But I know the language and symbols, and the philosophy behind it.”

  She frowned. “You look more like a soldier to me.”

  He laughed. “I’ve just done a month of army training; I’ll be sent to fight the enemy before too long.”

  And unless I can make some nivol, quick, you’ll be killed with everyone else, she thought with a shiver.

  “I have to make … something, urgently,” she said. “I don’t have time to learn the philosophy of alchemy.”

  “And I don’t have time to teach you, because it takes many years to master and I’m far from a master myself. What do you need to know?”

  Aviel folded over her papers and parchments so he could not see the titles. “Er …”

  He glanced over his shoulder, checking that no one could see into the workshop. “Tallia said you’re trying to make the alchemical fluid called nivol. Without knowing that, I’d be little help to you.”

  “Oh! Well, I’m used to reading recipes for scent potions but the methods are all like this.” On the top parchment she indicated a large symbol consisting of several concentric circles with small
er symbols around the outside. “It’s gibberish.”

  The smile left his face; she had offended him. “Alchemy is an ancient discipline, powerful and dangerous,” he said stiffly. “And its adepts have often been persecuted; in some countries it’s forbidden on pain of a most unpleasant death. Long ago, the grand masters of alchemy developed its language and symbols for three reasons: to protect dangerous secrets from the reckless, greedy and ignorant; to protect their art from those who would debase or destroy it; and to protect themselves.”

  He paused, then, before she could speak, went on in a slow voice, now devoid of colour. “For the same reason, it is forbidden for adepts to teach the language and symbols of alchemy to outsiders, under any circumstances.”

  “Are you saying you’ll be punished for telling me?”

  “I’ll be ostracised, cast out and for ever cut off from my colleagues all over the world. And there’s no way back.” Earnis forced a smile. “But Santhenar stands in peril and we have to make sacrifices.” He looked her up and down. “Extraordinary,” he said softly. “But still impossible.”

  “What do you mean?” said Aviel, though she understood all too well.

  “Alchemy is an aspect of the Secret Art, and using it involves far more than getting the techniques right. It’s also a mental disciple where understanding the use of power, and controlling it, is vital. Even for those who have the gift, and they are few, alchemy is an art long in the learning—and fraught.”

  She stared at him. “You’re saying I’m a deluded fool with no hope of succeeding and every chance of being killed by forces I can’t understand.”

  “I don’t think you’re deluded,” he said quietly.

  “But you think Tallia is, for giving me the job?”

  His cheeks coloured, then he looked away. “That’s not for me to say. We’re desperate and … maybe our leaders think it’s worth the risk.”

  Aviel swallowed. So Tallia, Malien and Nadiril had little hope that she could succeed, but it was worth the gamble. What did the life of a crippled girl matter when the whole world was in danger?

  She slumped on the couch, her heart thumping leadenly. If they had so little faith in her, how could she believe in herself? “Then what’s the point?”

  Earnis came across at once, looking chagrined, and lifted her to her feet. “Don’t take any notice of my silly maunderings. Tallia chose you because of your strength, your courage and the great gift you’ve already proven. No one can argue with those things, and if anyone can do it, you can.”

  Aviel scowled and looked away. Did he think she was that easy to get round? He had said it right the first time.

  “Shall we begin?” he said with fake cheer. “What do you need to know?”

  She forced herself to focus. “I need the full list of ingredients and how each one has to be collected, prepared or purified. Then I’ve got to have the recipe for making nivol.”

  “That you call it a recipe shows how little you understand about alchemy.”

  “Or want to know,” Aviel said tartly.

  He frowned. “Then why—”

  “I’m doing as I’ve been ordered as best I can, and it’s already cost me more than you can know.”

  “It’s cost Grand Master Tule too,” he said quietly.

  “Is he … all right?”

  His look was frosty now. “Very far from it. Let’s get to work.”

  By the end of the day Earnis had gone through the papers and parchments Shand had said were useful and had helped Aviel compile two lists. The first contained the thirty-seven ingredients that the simplest and quickest formula for making nivol required, and the second the step-by-step methods for purifying and refining certain key ingredients.

  She ticked items off the first list. Sixteen were common alchemical substances she had in the workshop, such as Koboldt, Spiritus Fumans and the highly corrosive Oil of Vitriol, though others, such as Colcothar, Butter of Antimony and Fulminating Gold she would have to make.

  “It’s going to take ages to make all these,” said Aviel, studying the other ingredients on the list in dismay. “I’d have to learn the techniques, and some of them can take weeks.”

  “Many of them can be bought if you know where to shop,” said Earnis.

  “I was told alchemy was almost unknown in the west these days.”

  “It is, but many alchemical substances are imported and used in healing, tanning, for making blasting powders … and a hundred other purposes, not necessarily legal. I know all the apothecaries and chymical suppliers in Sith.” Again he glanced over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. “And there are other sources. Less … official.”

  “I’m not buying stuff from bad people,” said Aviel. “How would I know if it’s what they say it is?”

  “I wouldn’t purchase from criminals,” Earnis said hastily. “But not all the laws of Sith are … um, conducive to certain lines of business. There are reliable suppliers, people with a reputation for quality, who just skirt the rules a little.”

  “I don’t like the idea.”

  “It’s the only way. If you had to make every chymical you need, to the required purity, you wouldn’t get the job done inside two years.” He glanced down at his list. “All these chymicals can be bought.” He ticked off another thirteen items. “That’s twenty-nine. And these five—” he circled them “—you will have to prepare fresh, immediately before use.”

  Aviel studied the methods for preparing the five items. “I think I can do that.”

  “That’s the easy part,” said Earnis.

  “What do you mean?”

  He tapped the parchment. “The last two ingredients are very rare and can’t be obtained in Sith. They must be collected from where they occur, far away.”

  “What are they?”

  “A perfect golden brimstone, the length of the palm of the alchemist’s hand.”

  Aviel studied her small hand, then indicated a jar on the highest shelf. “That’s full of brimstones, though most are broken.”

  “They won’t do at all. Brimstone is common but rarely found in perfect crystals, however the only place golden brimstones can be found is Grund.”

  “Where’s that?” Aviel’s knowledge of geography was feeble.

  “In the arid land called Taltid, a hundred leagues south-west of Sith across the Sea of Thurkad. Grund is a bitumen seep, one of many in that land. It’s been used since ancient times, and around the edges there are veins containing golden brimstones, though it won’t be easy to obtain one.”

  “Why not?”

  “The people who own and profit from the seep consider them to be unlucky. Cursed, in fact.”

  She laughed hollowly. “So am I.” She peered at the last item on the page. “Colophony from a bubble-bark pine. What’s colophony?”

  “Rosin—the hard stuff that remains after distilling off the volatile oils from tree resin. But a bubble-bark pine?” He shook his head. “They’re thought to be extinct.”

  “Can I use any other kind of colophony?”

  “No,” said Earnis.

  “Why not? There are lots of different kinds of pine trees.”

  “Nivol is an incredibly potent substance, and to make such things every ingredient must be exactly as the formula states. The alchemical power of colophony from the bubble-bark pine undoubtedly comes from its incredible rarity.”

  “But if it’s extinct, nivol can never be made,” said Aviel.

  “Thought to be extinct, I said. I’ll ask old Hammibas, the apothecary. No one knows more than he does about such things.” He headed for the door.

  “Wait,” said Aviel. “That’s only thirty-six.” She turned the page. On the other side she had written down the last ingredient, used in the final step that created nivol. “Three drams of Archeus of Eidolon, whatever that is.”

  Earnis’s thick hair stood up and he took a step backwards, eyes wide. “No!” he gasped. “That’s … too much. I can’t help you any more.”

 
; He turned and reeled towards the door.

  Without thinking, and at great cost to her bad ankle, Aviel grabbed him by the arm. “Wait! You’ve got to tell me what it is.”

  He caught her wrists in his big hands and for a moment she thought he was going to fling her from him. He was gasping, fighting for air. He bent double, his throat rasping, put his head between his knees for a while, then slowly straightened up, his tanned face drained of all colour.

  “Archeus … of Eidolon,” he panted, “isn’t an alchemical substance at all. It’s a necromantic one.”

  The dark side crept a little closer, and Aviel imagined the floor had tilted beneath her feet as if to slide her down into an abyss from which there would be no escaping. “What is it?” she whispered.

  “Spectral blood distilled from a ghost vampire, and it’s one of the darkest substances of all. Perhaps the darkest.”

  Aviel shivered. Why did her work keep leading her away from the scent work she loved and down this terrible path? “Are vampires real, then?”

  “Very uncommon but very real. And sometimes, very rarely, when a vampire that feeds on the blood of the recently dead is itself killed, a ghost vampire will form. They’re exceedingly dangerous—far more so than any living vampire.”

  “Are you saying that to get Archeus of Eidolon, I’d have to catch a ghost vampire, kill it and distil the spectral blood from its spirit essence?”

  “No. It has to be distilled while the ghost vampire is ‘alive’ … but that’s unthinkable.”

  “As unthinkable as allowing the Merdrun to wipe us out and take Santhenar for themselves?”

  He was sweating so profusely that it was trickling down his face. He staggered to the settee and collapsed onto it, his chest heaving.

  “If I’m distilling the spirit essence of a ghost vampire,” she added, “what will that do to it?”

  “Assuming you could, conceivably, do such a thing—” everything about Earnis’s manner said that it was impossible “—because it will fight you with all its terrible power, it will die very horribly.” He gave her another assessing glance, then looked away, shaking his head.

  Cockroaches scuttled up and down her spine. “Where can ghost vampires be found?”