by Lyndon Hardy
“I shall repay you with honor, warmaster,” he said at last. “But for now, my quest comes before all else.” He grabbed the writ firmly and plunged down the road. Sprinting around a corner, he raced back to Honeysuckle Street.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Moltenrock Treasure
ALODAR panted up to Saxton’s storefront too out of breath to shout his return. He entered and swung around the counter and into the workroom. As he dashed through the doorway, he stubbed his toe on a plank jutting in the way and his eyes widened in surprise. The shelves and cabinets lay tumbled to the floor in a vast clutter. Alodar stepped cautiously through the rubble, knee high in splintered wood and broken glass. The air stank of a mixture of odors from ruptured containers and he could not see a familiar sight in the confusion.
He walked slowly forward, scanning the floor, each step accompanied by the pop and crack of additional small destruction. The large cabinet from the south wall blocked his path. As he surveyed a way around, he saw a single pudgy hand thrust from underneath its heavy oaken boards.
Alodar quickly stooped and heaved the box off the fallen alchemist, who lay face down in the tangle on the floor.
“Saxton,” he shouted as he rolled the brown-robed figure over. “What happened? What happened here? Are you whole or hurt?”
Saxton stirred slightly and opened his eyes to the noise. He frowned and focused with difficulty, small trickles of blood oozing from his mouth and the many small cuts on his face.
“Alodar,” he stumbled out softly. “Alodar, by the laws, it worked. It worked not once but twice. As I said, the random factors aligned and both of the flasks produced safe ointment. The chance of an alchemist’s lifetime and I had it succeed twice.”
“But what happened here, Saxton?” Alodar persisted.
“Rendrac,” Saxton said, and then he began to cough uncontrollably, throwing up great quantities of clotted blood. Alodar looked quickly about and spied a pottery jug still unbroken on a high shelf. He fetched it and, cradling the alchemist’s head, gave him a small drink of water.
“Yes, Alodar,” Saxton continued after a moment. “The luck of a lifetime is often balanced in this perverse world. The factors aligned, but Rendrac could not give us the slightest chance of success thereafter. While you journeyed to Cedric’s, he returned here just as the contents of the second flask transmuted into a form safe to the touch. I thrust them into the clutter as he entered, but this body was not meant to withstand the warrior’s pain. He pummeled me as well as the shop, and finally I had to tell him where they were.”
“You did as well as you were able, Saxton,” Alodar said as he looked about the room. Anger began to boil. “I will pursue and give Rendrac his due. We shall recover the ointment yet and your treasure as well.”
“It is too late for that, my lad,” Saxton said, beginning to breathe with difficulty. “I have studied the inner organs of animals enough to guess what has happened to me. I am not to partake of any of the jewels of the mountains.”
He stopped, and a deep sigh rattled through his lungs. “But then neither will Basil have his way,” he continued. “Two successes with a caloric shield! It is enough for any alchemist.”
“Sweetbalm, or perhaps thaumaturgy,” Alodar said. “We have quested, Saxton, you and I. Do not falter when the goal is in sight.”
“All the balms were destroyed in the mess.” Saxton waved one arm in a feeble arc over his head. “Think no more of me. Flee instead while you can. Basil will receive enough from Rendrac’s trip into the heart of the mountains to care little for the service of a novice.”
“Rendrac braves the heat?” Alodar asked.
“Yes, he anointed himself with the full contents of one flask as I looked on helplessly,” Saxton replied. “When he was done, he resembled less a man than a silver demon, the coating did shine so. And the second batch he crushed underfoot and rubbed its precious salve into the muck he already had made. The other two flasks on the roof were destroyed as well, I fear, when he tossed all the gear to the earth in his rage to find the ointment.”
Saxton resumed his coughing. As Alodar offered him another sip of water, he waved it aside. He hacked on for several moments more and then, in one giant convulsion, arched his back with a final gasp. He fell limp into Alodar’s arms, staring at the ceiling with unblinking eyes and saying no more.
For a moment Alodar held him in silence and then lowered him gently to the door. He stood up and ran his eyes aimlessly around the clutter. He remembered Saxton as he had first seen him preparing the nerve elixir, struggling with his craft but free of the doom which finally claimed him.
It was the formula, the quest that had turned him from what he had done so well. Had Alodar not come to his door, he would be tinkering here still, not breathing his last trying to defend a treasure he probably did not know how to spend.
Alodar slowly let out his breath and looked out the window into the night. “But by the laws, it is done,” he said. “There is nothing in my knowledge of the crafts to bring him back.”
He pulled the small packet of salamander skin out of a pocket and tossed it into the clutter. And now that the alchemist has finished, what of the novice? What Saxton had said was true enough. If Alodar disappeared now, Basil would see little profit in tracking him down. And so little time remained before dawn that the chance of finding gemstones to redeem his future was impossibly small.
Alodar wiggled his head and tried to shake out the fatigue. But if he were honor bound to aid Saxton in life, then the vengeance was his as well, he thought. No matter that safety lay in the opposite direction from the mountains. He must track Rendrac there, regardless of the consequences. And the fair lady—a treasure for her he must have as well.
He gave Saxton one final pat and rose with his jaw set in a determined line. “Rest easy, alchemist,” he said. “Rest easy for I will continue on.” He paused and then pulled his face into a bittersweet smile. “We quest, do we not?”
He shook his head to clear the feelings and, for the third time, surveyed the wreckage scattered about. As he scanned from wall to wall, the torchlight reflected into his eyes from the shards of glass and plates of metal on the floor. Then he caught a glimmer subtly different from the rest, silvery and opalescent, from a small bead in the midst of the litter.
“The ointment, surely,” Alodar said half aloud. “Perhaps Saxton’s second flask will serve its purpose as well as the first.” He stooped and extended his gloved index finger into the small drop. It parted sluggishly and formed a pool around his fingertip, dense like mercury but affinitive like water.
Alodar put forward his other hand and gently stroked the drop up the side of his finger. The ointment followed, leaving a thin layer of shimmering silver. Heartened, he quickly worked the rest of the salve onto his hand, kneading it around to fill all the cracks and crevices of the glove. When he was done, his entire hand was covered; when rotated in the torchlight, it gave off a soft silvery glow.
Alodar looked around the floor, carefully righting equipment and pushing aside the rubble as he went. He found a second small bead and then another; with each he repeated the same slow process of transferring it to his body. In an hour, both his arms were covered; in another two, his legs and the front of his torso. He rummaged through the wreckage, found a sliver of a mirror, and then carefully covered his back with a small stick and the droplets he found nearby. As he discovered more and more of the ointment, the search for the rest took longer. The moon touched the horizon as he finished his face and eyes.
One part of his mind cried for haste, to strike out after Rendrac before his headstart became too great, before all the time was wasted in preparation. But the balance argued caution, and he continued his methodical search and application. He had begun to despair of finding yet more salve when he discovered a bead in the corner, evidently arched high over the intervening floor by Rendrac’s shattering stomp.
He deftly scooped up the globule and rolled it around his palm
, hesitating as he watched it skitter about. Saxton had said nothing about the internal effects, but what he must do was a logical necessity. Shrugging his shoulders, he popped the droplet into his mouth and began to swish it around. His tongue glazed and his lungs acquired that tickly feeling he had had as a sick child. He exhaled forcefully and felt his nasal passages coat up as well.
He held his hands before his eyes, turning them from side to side, watching for telltale signs of spots with no protection. The stuff was spread too thin, he suspected. How could such a meager layer protect him from the heat of the mountain?
He stepped into the rubble and flipped open a small strongbox. Reaching inside, he scooped up the handful of coins that remained. Four coppers—all that was left of Saxton’s wealth. Barely enough for the rental of a horse to take him to the Fumus Mountains.
Alodar raced his mount into the midst of the torchlights and jumped from the saddle. The horse stomped forward into the circle of miners taking their morning meal. On his left, Alodar recognized the circular hole where the gas bubble had burst through the mountainside. At his feet were picks, torches, iron strapped chests, and piles of small leather pouches, mixed with the pockmarked rock littering the gently sloping hillside. Straight ahead, rising from a silken mattress spread over the rough ground, was Basil the apothecary. Alodar glanced at the pale glow forming in the east and quickly drew his sword.
“You come a trifle early to pay your debt, novice,” Basil said as he recognized the intruder. “And in so theatrical a manner. I am a reasonable man and would have allowed you the hour remaining.”
“Rendrac—where is he?” Alodar snapped. “He has an obligation to pay to Saxton as well.”
“The alchemist is no longer bound,” Basil said. “I do not fault a man if he changes his mind, so long as his last decision is the correct one. And having Rendrac coated in the caloric shield is payment enough for what Saxton owed. I do not mind assuming whatever risk resides in the depths of the mountain. Full share is far better than a part.”
He stopped and shredded a piece of parchment into the air. “See, the contract is concluded,” he said.
“If the ointment was satisfaction enough,” Alodar spat, “then why did you direct Rendrac to take his life as well?”
Basil knitted his brow. “Saxton’s life,” he said, puzzled. “I know not of what you speak. I would not order Rendrac to such an extreme measure, for what could it profit me to do so? Saxton dead is of no value whatsoever. Alive he either repays in goods or with labor. No, I may covet the products of his craft but I have no use for his life.’”
Alodar stared into Basil’s eyes and hesitated. It might be true, he thought. Basil’s control over Rendrac did not seem absolute. He tightened the grip on his sword and looked quickly around the group of miners slowly creeping back to form a circle around the two. He glanced into the opening into the mountainside and made up his mind.
“Then where is Rendrac?” he asked. “It is he that I will deal with first.”
Basil looked to either side and signaled for his men to converge even closer. “He is already into the mountain,” he said, “but that should be no concern of yours. Saxton was freed of his contract, but unless you have the brandels then you are still bound to my will. Put down your sword and submit. I will even let you stay and see with us what Rendrac brings from the depths below.”
Alodar cast quick glances to either side and took one step backward. “It is not quite dawn. Until then I am still a free man.”
“An exercise in futility,” Basil said as he motioned his men forward. “If you do not have payment now, how can you hope to within the hour?”
“I will discuss it with Rendrac.” Alodar suddenly turned and scrambled up the lip of the opening. He tumbled over into the passageway and spun around with his sword still pointing forward. Two miners appeared over the edge and then hesitated as Alodar flicked his blade back and forth in challenge.
“Oh, let him go.” Basil laughed. “He will return soon enough, begging for water. Or if not, Rendrac will spot the body on his way out and we will dispose of it later.”
Alodar did not bother to reply, but turned and headed into the bowels of the mountain. He followed what seemed to be the same tunnel he had traversed before, torchlit and sharply sloping downwards. He raced past the side passage in which he had bartered with Basil, and the line of torches led him onward for three hundred paces more. He ripped the last source of light from the wall and dipped through a small opening into the blackness that extended beyond.
The path tumbled and pitched as he slowly progressed, occasionally opening up to impressive heights and then narrowing down to slits to be traversed on hands and knees. But each step led him generally downward; and with each, Alodar felt the increasing discomfort of stillness and heat.
Suddenly the pathway opened wide into a larger tunnel that sloped even more forcefully into the mountain’s interior. Alodar looked up at the roof, fully three times his height and could see bright spots of light from cracks that led to the surface. He held his torch to the floor, illuminating the smooth and hardened rock that had confined an ancient upward thrust of heat-laden gas.
Alodar looked down the direction of the tunnel’s path and saw a dull glow in the receding blackness. He thrust his torch forward and picked up a small dot of light far ahead. He watched for a second to make sure it moved, then ran to follow, his footfalls echoing loudly down the passageway.
Apparently alerted by the noise, the bearer of the light stopped and waited for Alodar to get closer. The dot resolved into a torch, its light reflected from the gleaming ointment of Rendrac the warrior.
“Sweetbalm, you are indeed a nuisance.” Rendrac’s voice resounded through the cavern. “But, I see, a dimwitted one at that. If you come no more protected than that dull sheen indicates, I need worry about you only a few steps further.”
“The ointment protects me as well as it does you,” Alodar shot back. “I feel only a little discomfort and could survive with even less if I had to.”
Rendrac responded with a booming laugh. “Oh could you now, novice? How well do you think you are protected now? Try your spittle on the rock before you answer.”
Alodar wrinkled his brow, but complied. To his surprise, his saliva hissed and foamed and in an instant was gone.
“Yes,” Rendrac continued, “the meager ointment you have protects you well enough now. But if you have any sense, you would turn back to save your flesh from baking.”
Rendrac whipped his free hand about with a flourish and then placed it firmly against the wall. A blur of fine mist spewed from the contact in much the same way as the spittle had from the rock. “The ointment also evaporates in response to the heat,” Rendrac continued. “I am well anointed and presently feel not even your discomfort. I shall be able to descend much farther into the depths of the mountain, but that thin coating of yours will be gone in a trice.”
Rendrac laughed again and turned to continue his downward march with an easy stride, small tendrils of vapor rising from where his boots touched the hot rock-bed.
Alodar breathed deeply in defiance and then immediately regretted the act, coughing back the harsh volcanic gases into the humid air. He pressed forward after Rendrac, dimly aware of pinpoints of heat in his boots where the nails joined the heels to the soles.
Downward they went, following the tunnel’s gentle turns, shining torches high to illuminate the smooth and featureless walls. Alodar stepped rapidly, trying to keep up with Rendrac’s easy gait. Concentrating on closing the gap, he struggled to shut out the growing discomfort and feeling that his strength and clearheadedness were ebbing away.
They trudged on in silence for many minutes, Alodar some ten yards behind and unable to draw closer. The walls echoed the methodical rhythm of their step as they placed feet firmly against the downward slope of the tunnel. The cavern of smooth and unweathered rock loomed high and wide about them, majestic in its size. Like the intestine of some giant mon
ster, it undulated forward into the very center of the mountain.
As they continued, Alodar suddenly caught another gleam of light reflected back from his torch.
Before he could act Rendrac cried out in recognition. “The first one! By the staves, it alone makes the whole journey worthwhile,” he said. He stopped, reached on tiptoe to the tunnel’s high wall, and deftly wrested a gem from the matrix which held it.
“A topaz of at least thirty carats,” Rendrac exclaimed as he dropped it into a silvery pouch hung at his side and resumed his pace. Almost immediately, he shouted again, “More sparkles. Just look at them! Sapphires, emerald’s, aquamarines, bulging from the walls like the warts on the face of a crone. I doubt if a pickaxe is even needed for them.” In a hastened effort, he began wrenching the jewels from the bedrock, excitedly advancing further into the depths for still bigger stones that blinked back his torchlight.
Alodar exerted himself to plunge after, now that Rendrac was slowed with his gathering, but his limbs responded sluggishly to his will. Small pains began to shoot through his lips; when he held them apart, the interior of his mouth ached for them to be shut again. Eyes darting about, he spied a small stone that Rendrac had missed and hastily reached out to snare it. With a start, he dropped it to the cavern floor, fingers stinging from the hasty contact. He spread his hands as he had done before he left Ambrosia. The opalescent shine was still there, but now barely noticeable against the fabric background that it covered.
Alodar turned to pursue Rendrac with plodding steps, each one an effort that barely kept pace with his adversary’s slower meander back and forth across the tunnel’s breadth. He saw Rendrac stop, pant, and catch himself as he almost wiped his brow. Alodar’s own eyes watered and ached, and each breath brought fresh pain when he inhaled.
They rounded a sharp corner, and Alodar noticed that he could see farther ahead than the sphere of light provided by his torch. In the distance, a bright red glow filled the cavern floor, and the reflections bounced back and forth off the walls. Beneath the sharp echo of Rendrac’s boots, he heard what sounded like a creamy ointment bubbling in a cauldron.