by Lyndon Hardy
Rendrac completed one slow step and stopped, eyeing the distance between them. "Come forward, little man," he said. "Come forward and show your mettle."
Alodar looked at the angle of Rendrac's sword arm across his body and tilted his shield upward. The man would slash down rather than across, he thought, as he slowly slid his own blade toward the side.
"You learn nothing of alchemy while you stand frozen," he spat back into Rendrac's smile. "To search the shop you must first win the right to do so."
"Very well," Rendrac growled. "If you are alive or dead, I will find out what I wish. To me it does not matter."
Then, with the swiftness of a much smaller man, he drew his sword and dashed it down towards Alodar's unprotected head. Alodar whipped his shield upwards and received the blow with a numbing jar. A shock ran through his arm; his elbow buckled from the contact. Involuntarily he stepped backwards, banging the heel of his boot against the wall. He peeked over the top of his shield and saw Rendrac's sword arm again raised above him. He took a deep breath and stiffened his body in anticipation for the next downward slash.
The blow rocked his shield and skittered away. Alodar staggered and huddled lower to the ground. He thrust tentatively to the side, but quickly withdrew his arm. His reach was too short. He would have to extend beyond cover even to prick Rendrac's skin. He scowled and gritted his teeth as Rendrac's arm flew upwards for the third time.
"When you have finished with him, prepare to take on another," a voice rang out suddenly from the doorway to the street. Rendrac halted in midswing and glanced in the direction of the challenger. He looked back quickly at Alodar, then thrust the countertop candle towards the door with his free hand.
The flame flickered from the motion, then held steady and cast its light across the entrance. Rendrac grunted in recognition and pointed his blade in challenge. "I am no weaklimbed and untutored pupil, old man," he said. "You would fare no better than the novice."
"You will not slip past my guard with words, Rendrac. I am willing to cross swords with one of your petty reputation, if you are with one such as mine. Use your sword or put it away. It is one or the other."
Rendrac flexed his fingers on his swordgrip and paused in thought. Alodar frowned at his hesitation, and then turned and squinted across the countertop.
"Cedric!" he said. "Why are you here?"
"I have not seen you at practice for two weeks now," Cedric replied, "and, as I have said, your activities with my cousin have piqued my curiosity. It seems that I arrive at a most fortunate time."
Alodar lowered his eyes and dropped his shield to his side. "You must think I am no great credit to your teaching, warmaster," he said.
"A big man is not often bettered by a little one, no matter how talented the latter," Cedric said. "And you cannot expect six months' training to make up the difference between you. Raising your sword against this Rendrac would have cost you your life and proved nothing. But I am more of a match in size. Let him decide if he wishes to measure which of us has the greater skill as well."
"As I have said," Rendrac growled, "you will find me more a match than your fledgling pupils."
"That I judge to be true, Rendrac," Cedric replied slowly. "But then you will find me more than you have yet encountered as well. In my life I have fought a dozen of your bulk and I suspect I will learn little from another. But the choice is yours. Sheath your sword and walk out unscathed. Or come forward with it drawn and afterwards we will remove your body."
They all stood silent for several minutes, but finally Rendrac scowled, thrust his sword back into its scabbard, and stomped around the counter. Cedric stepped into the shop and motioned to the doorway. Rendrac pulled in his cape and shot a last glance back around the room. His eyes danced to avoid Cedric's; when he looked in Alodar's direction, he saw the beginning of a smile. His scowl tightened and he waved his fist threateningly. "The next time, you may not have a protector," he growled.
Alodar opened his mouth to reply, but stopped when he heard loud voices suddenly spilling in from the street.
"But do you not see, Saxton, that the risks you take are unnecessary. I have to demand twenty years because, as I understand it now, no fair return will I get for the brandels I have lavished already upon your venture. But as a partner I can do much to ensure the success of all."
Two stout figures suddenly jostled to enter the doorway, and Alodar saw Saxton guided through by Basil's silk-covered arm. Basil's cheeks flushed red from the exertion of supporting the sagging weight at his side and Saxton's were redder still from his visit to the tavern,
"Rendrac," Basil said as his eyes adjusted to the candlelight. "What are you doing here?"
"No less than what you attempt with a jug of wine," he snapped back.
Basil looked to Alodar, then Cedric, and finally frowned at Rendrac's words. "We will speak of this later," he said at last.
"Why such attention?" Saxton cried gleefully as he sagged to the floor. "There has not been such activity in my shop since twelve years ago when I thought I had stumbled on to a philtre of longevity."
"Oh, be quiet, you fool," Basil said, "else I add the cost of the wine to what you already owe. Come along, Rendrac. The night is wasted here, and we should be off to attend other matters."
"Poor Basil," Saxton chortled as he sat with his hands folded over his stomach. "It is too much to bear, is it not? Someone else on the street is to make a profit from the Fumus Mountains and you cannot let it be."
Basil stopped in the doorway and turned to look down on the alchemist. "What about the Mountains?" he asked slowly. "What does your formula have to do with the mines?"
"You may as well know," Saxton laughed. "There is nothing else to purchase. We will be done in three days time and then it will not matter. Yes, Basil, it is the Fumus Mountains and the jewels of the lower depths. We shall get them, Alodar and I, while sweat stains your fine garments as you watch us pass by."
"A new tunnel," Basil said as he bent down beside Saxton and grabbed the folds of his soiled robe. "Some sort of acid that will eat through to the bidden passageway that runs high and cool."
"No, far better," Saxton giggled as he tried to brush Basil's hands aside. "A caloric shield that will make the depths accessible for exploration. I wager that you will be repaid with a topaz far larger than a robin's egg."
"Then the partnership," Basil said excitedly. "It is as I have promised. Forget the debt for the ingredients. Share with me the plunder from the bowels of the volcano and I will release you from the agreement to which you are bound."
"The wine loosens my tongue," Saxton said, "but some sense I still retain. It is Alodar and I who have shared this formula in good faith. It is only right that we reap all of the reward from it as well."
"A novice of a few months," Basil said. "How important could such a loyalty be? I have worked the Street for years and in truth am a member of your craft as much as one whose robe bears the inverted triangle. What cause can you have to deny me so?"
Saxton slowly shook his head. Then with surprising strength, he wrenched Basil's hands free from his robe. "I remember too well the stare of Eldan and the others," he said, suddenly sober. "Too many fine craftsmen have I seen you sweep into your factories and too many poor useless hulks have I seen you push into the alley on the other side. No Basil, I will not share with you the fruits of my labor."
Basil stared for a moment into Saxton's unflinching eyes and then slowly rose. He smoothed his tunic and adjusted the magic dagger at his side.
"Very well," he said at last. "If you choose to play by the letter of our contract, then so will I. You have assured your repayment by gold or by the future labor of your back and brain. But that assurance is good only so long as you possess sound faculties upon the date they are due. If I judge that you endeavor beyond the usual risks of the craft and jeopardize the value I may receive, then I can rightfully ask for a guarantee of sounder value. And adventure into the Fumus Mountains does qualify certai
nly as an undertaking of high peril. Your labor is no longer sufficient bond, Saxton. What can you offer in its place?"
"Why nothing else, as you well know," Saxton said, rising uncertainly to his feet. "And I have never heard of such a condition binding an alchemist so."
"The clause is there," Basil snapped. "Before, I have not had cause to use it. But if you have no assurance for your loan, then by right I can call it due immediately."
He stopped and twisted his face into a forced smile. "You are wrong when you think you have five days more, alchemist," he said. "It is in fact less than one. Have three hundred brandels in my hand by the next dawn or prepare to be measured instead for the restraints of the factory. I think I will put you next to Eldan's stall, so that each day you can watch and know full well what you will become."
"Your investment is well protected, Basil." Cedric broke his silence and reached into his cape. "Here is a pouch with ten brandels. In two days time I will arrange to have the rest. Take it as token and follow your hireling out into the street. I shall be the guarantee that the obligation is met."
Basil turned and looked up into Cedric's stern face. His smile vanished. For a moment he was silent as he studied the unblinking eyes and felt the gold in his hand. "You have a reputation as a warrior, Cedric," he said at last, "not as a merchant. I can not be sure that your promise is any better than the rest." With a flourish, he tossed back the pouch. "I need not accept this," he said. "Dawn is within my rights, and even the queen herself would have to agree to it."
Cedric took a step forward, but Saxton moved between him and the apothecary. The alchemist glanced out of the shop into the moonlit sky. "Your offer is well appreciated, cousin," he said. "But Basil's twisting of words does no more than to force us to hasten our work. The moon is not quite full, but enough so that probably it will little matter. Be gone, Basil. If it is by the first rays of the sun that we must stuff your purse, then so it will be. Return to your factory and await there your disappointment."
"Yes I will go," Basil snarled, "but to the first rays of dawn, and then no longer. Mark you, Saxton, even six hundred brandels a minute late would not be enough. You pay in the dark or cough on honeysuckle for a full score of years to follow."
The apothecary turned abruptly and stomped out of the shop with Rendrac close on his heel. Saxton steadied himself against the door frame as he watched them disappear down the street. Finally he ran his hand over his head and looked back into the ulterior.
"And good night to you, Cedric," he said. "Alodar and I will not need your help further and we have much we must do."
Cedric grunted and stepped to the doorway. As he left, he turned and looked back into the store. "Next time, hold your shieldhand yet higher," he said, "and prepare to thrust under rather than around the side."
Alodar started to reply, but Saxton waved his arm towards the workroom, "Find me the pills which will clear my head," he said. "The next eight hours will decide it all."
Alodar looked up at the moon well into the sky, and then down to the square opening at his feet. Saxton's bald head popped through, and he extended his hand to help the alchemist up the last few rungs. Saxton stopped his climb and waved away the aid.
"In a moment, Alodar," he panted. "It may be easy enough for you to climb to the roof of the shop a dozen times, but for one of my dignity, it is a different matter."
"The moon is almost to its zenith," Alodar said. "If we do not begin soon, there will be no time for the mountains before the sun follows it into the sky."
"As I already have taught," Saxton replied, "the purity of the ingredients materially affects the chance of success. The more the moon rises, the less the air pollutes the passage of its cool light. We must make haste, but not so much that what chances we have are thereby compromised."
He stopped and looked upward. "But a few degrees more should be satisfactory," he said. "Make ready the lens and the filter."
Alodar turned back to the apparatus at his feet and lifted the large lens from its case. He placed it in the semicircular base for the support stand and snapped the confining ring shut. He sighted through the thick glass at the two closely set panes placed some two feet behind and rotated the optical axis into line. Stepping over the gear they had hurriedly brought up from the workroom, he found the bulbous flask and pulled the cork. The odor of baneberry tickled his nose, and he carefully decanted the deep blue liquid into the narrow space between the two vertical sheets of glass.
Alodar walked back behind the lens and dragged the huge mirror into place. He sighted into the sky where the moon would be in the next few minutes and tilted the reflector to catch the light and bounce it horizontally. A parallel beam, he thought, converged by the lens, filtered by the baneberry and finally focused on the flask at the end of the line. How much more complex than the simple spells of thaumaturgy.
He pushed the gear into final adjustment and stood back to watch Saxton finish his preparations. "I am ready," he said as the alchemist pulled a long flexible hose from an earthen jar and inserted it into the mouth of the flask.
"As am I," Saxton replied. "When the moon's light strikes the mirror squarely, I will invert the jar and the limestone will fall into the oil of vitriol. The gas from the reaction, the blue moonlight and the granules we have placed in solution will interact and if we are lucky form the ointment."
Alodar nodded and stooped to sight the moon through a small hole in the back of the mirror. The bright edge crept into view and then the whole disk dazzled his eye with brightness.
"It aligns perfectly now," he shouted suddenly as he turned to watch the light streak through the apparatus and hit the flask with a dull blue glow.
Saxton inverted the jar and the first cautious bubbles burbled to the surface of the solution. The alchemist snatched a pad of parchment, activated the ingredients and scratched out the formula. As the final glyph formed. Alodar caught his breath, awaiting the reaction. He looked at the flask, hoping to see the clear liquid instantly haze into a tracslucent gel.
Several minutes passed but nothing happened. Saxton rocked nervously back and forth on his heels and ran his hand over his head. Alodar squinted at the glassware trying to see some change in the solution, a slowing of the bubbles' rush to the surface indicating a transformation.
"Have you placed the flask at the precise focus?" Saxton asked. "With the moon not full we need all of the intensity we can muster."
"It is the lens, Saxton," Alodar replied. "With such a size you cannot expect it to bend the rays that strike the edge with the same precision as those near the axis. I have placed the flask so that the circle of confusion is smallest. Any better is beyond the grinder's art."
"Then it is the brew which is bad," Saxton said. "Toss it aside and we will try another. Three chances will be as good as four since I have only enough salamander skin left for the two success we expect. The rest I already have used in barter."
He looked at the solution bubbling as if no formula had been activated. "Yes, let us dispose of it," he said. "Who can say what perversion of the desired result will occur if we let it interact any longer. Or if nothing is to happen, then it will surely spoil."
Alodar stared down the line from the mirror which first caught the moonlight to the flask which finally received its filtered rays. He passed his hand in front of the solution and saw the pale blue spot on his palm the size of a brandel. He frowned and thought of his training as a journeyman.
"Yes, that will work," he exclaimed as the idea struck him. "Saxton, do not yet disturb the brew. There is more that can be done. Quickly now, help me find the small glass we used to aid in removing the eyes of the spiders."
Alodar ran to the ladder and descended into the workroom below. He began rummaging through the tools of the trade, tossing the gear aside like an excited dog digging after a small rodent.
Saxton shuffled to the opening and peered inside. "Not more thaumaturgy," he said. "Remember what happened the last time you mixed the two cra
fts together."
"Here it is," Alodar said, ignoring the command. "Now with another small mirror and a sample from the flask, it will be done." He quickly scooped up an armful of stands and clamps, and staggered back up the ladder to the bubbling flask. Pinching the gas tube with his fingers he decanted some of the fluid into a vial and then fastened it to the stand he positioned nearby. He ran back to the first mirror, adjusted it slightly and then inserted the edge of the second into the path of the light. A slender beam separated from the rest and darted across the rooftop to engulf the vial in brilliance.
"We risk enough, Alodar," Saxton said. "Let us try the next batch instead and take our chances within the confines of the art."
"But a moment," Alodar said. "I do not mix the crafts so much as use them in complement to one another. You need intensity and by no skill of alchemy can you make lenses perform better than the grinder has designed them. But the key is the light, not the glass which bends it."
Alodar did not wait for a reply bat performed his spellbinding and then thrust the hand lens into the second beam's path. He slid it rapidly back and forth and brought the rays into a precise focus on the vial.
"The small glass converges with far more perfection," he explained, "and by thaumatugy we can force the larger to do so as well. Look now to the flask and observe how we fare."
"A sparkling brilliance," Saxton gasped, and Alodar turned to see the large tube of light converge into a tight point deep in the center of the solution.
Several moments passed in silence, then suddenly the liquid wavered before their eyes. The next bubble out of the tube dimmed from view and the one just leaving the surface left a small crater in its wake.
"It gels," Saxton shouted. "My lad, we have ointment on the first try. Yes, of course, we must have sufficient intensity or the ingredients will not interact. But no matter how you did it, let us set up for the second while the luck still points our way."