The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice)

by Quyle, Jeffrey

  “You haven’t done anything that deserves a reprimand, have you?” Algornia asked with a twinkle in his eye.

  Sty looked at him with a momentary blank expression, then grinned. “If you don’t know of anything, then neither do I,” he declared. “And that being the case, what can I do for you?”

  “I have a former apprentice here who has a most extraordinary story, one that I thought you should hear because I think he may need some assistance from you,” Algornia clapped his hand on Marco’s shoulder as he spoke.

  “Master Sty, may I present the Marquise of Sant Jeroni, Marco, my former apprentice?” he made the introduction in a formal tone.

  Sty studied Marco closely for several seconds. “A young man, almost still a boy, a former apprentice, now a nobleman. Perhaps you’re the one dealing with transformations better than I am,” Sty said to Algornia. “How may I help you, my lord?” he said in a deferential voice to Marco.

  Marco looked at Algornia, not sure where to begin, but the master only squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and nodded at him.

  “I need to get a scale from the Echidna, and I have to take a pair of merpeople across land on my way there. Can you help me?” Marco blurted out.

  Sty looked at Marco skeptically, then looked at Algornia. “What are you up to?” he asked.

  “Extraordinary as Marco’s succinct request was, I believe you will find his full story even more fascinating, with elements such as the tale of his hand,” Algornia reached down and raised Marco’s golden hand. “Shall we retire to the back of the shop for a longer conversation?”

  Sty stepped around them to the front of the shop and pulled his blinds down across the windows, then latched the door shut. “Let’s plan to spend the day together,” he said with a gleam in his eye. Algornia had judged and played the encounter correctly, Marco realized, appealing to some curiosity within Sty that might make him an ally in Marco’s quest.

  They sat in a den, around a table, in seats that were comfortably upholstered. “Why is your hand golden? What does it mean? How did you transform it?” Sty asked. He reached over to Marco and held the boy’s right hand in his own, turning it and flexing it as he spoke.

  “I was attacked by a sorcerer,” Marco began, “who threw a ball of his energy at me to try to possess me, I think. I used dried gorgon’s blood to force the energy away from my heart, and trapped it down by my wrist, then I cut the whole thing off,” Marco started to say.

  “Wait!” Sty spoke up, interrupting him. “Did you say gorgon’s blood and a sorcerer and you cut your own hand off? Algornia, have you verified any of this?”

  “Not yet, my friend. After I heard the story, I knew you would want to verify it personally,” Algornia answered. “So I’ve waited, though I don’t doubt the boy’s truthfulness.”

  “You’ll allow me to administer a truth serum?” Sty asked, speaking to Algornia.

  “You need to ask the marquis, not me,” the elder alchemist answered, nodding to Marco.

  “Will you submit to a truth serum? These are extraordinary claims you are making, as I’m sure you know,” Sty spoke directly to Marco.

  “Do you have the serum already concocted?” Marco asked.

  “No, not yet. But it won’t take long to create it,” Sty said reassuringly. “You won’t have to wait long.”

  “Do you mind if we watch you mix it?” Marco asked, curious about what was included in such a serum.

  Sty squinted his eyes suspiciously at Marco.

  “There’s no harm in the request,” Algornia reassured the other alchemist. “Marco is technically my apprentice, but based on what he told me yesterday, I think he may be master class, at least in the field of healing formulae.”

  “Come with me then,” Sty invited as he stood. “My workshop won’t be nearly as elaborate as Master Algornia’s, but my humble space has enough to allow me to do my work,” he said modestly.

  It turned out to be a rather false modesty, Marco thought, as they entered a workshop and storage room that was only slightly smaller than Algornia’s, though not as well-stocked as Marches’ had been in Barcelon. Sty proceeded to collect together over a half dozen elements and ingredients, then sat down at his work bench as Marco and Algornia stood nearby and watched him mix together lettuce seeds, passion flower, Scopolia's extract, and yellow sodium crystals, which he ground to a fine powder, then steeped in a fine sieve with willow bark. He boiled the mixture down to half its original volume, then he poured the resulting thick liquid from one container to the next several times.

  “Why are you doing that?” Marco asked.

  “To help cool it quicker. You’re going to drink this, you know,” Sty said with a laugh.

  “There,” he said as he swirled the liquid around in a tall glass with a flourish, then set in on the work bench and laid a tiny lump of crystalized maple sap next to it.

  “Drink the glass, all at once, then immediately put the cube in your mouth,” Sty directed.

  Marco considered the ingredients he had watched the alchemist use. “Does the crystal help metabolize the serum?” he asked in a puzzled tone.

  “No, it helps you stop puckering! That’s the worst-tasting product I’ve ever formulated, but it’s the most effective truth serum I’ve concocted,” Sty told Marco.

  The boy reached out both hands and took the glass in his right with the brown maple crystal in his left. He started to drink the truth serum, stopped and nearly gagged, then choked down the rest of the liquid and immediately put the maple in his mouth. “May I have some water?” he gasped.

  “I warned you,” Sty said, handing him a cup of water, then leading the trio back to the den.

  “Oh, by the way,” Sty added as they settled into their seats, “the serum’s effects will last for almost twenty four hours. My recommendation is that you stay away from people as much as possible, especially any women whose attention or affection you might crave.”

  “Why?” Marco asked. He felt a sudden thrust, like a blow to the side of his head, and his mind seemed to see and consider the world around him in a different manner, as though a dirty pane of glass had been wiped clean.

  “Because you are going to be as defenseless and unprotected as an innocent babe,” Sty said. “You won’t be able to tell someone they look lovely – unless they truly do; you won’t be able to deny that they made a stupid decision if they did; you won’t be able to hide your own indiscretions if you have any. Go lock yourself away until tomorrow morning, as soon as you leave here.”

  Now, tell me, since enough time has passed for the serum to take effect, did you really have gorgon’s blood?” he suddenly changed the topic.

  “I found the jar and didn’t know what Marches had until my finger started burning from the touch. I used it - well, I had Mirra use it, and then Folence – to chase the sorcerer’s energy away from my heart. Here,” he suddenly took his shirt off, “look at these scars from where the energy ripped my body apart trying to evade the gorgon’s blood,” he said as his finger traced the paths along his torso and arm. “Even after the bath of Asclepius, these wounds left scars.

  “The bath also is where my hand came back to life, after the Lady Iasco reattached it. It took on the golden color I think because she kept it suspended in some type of a sorcery spell for several days to preserve it after I sliced it off,” he was babbling, he sensed, but he wanted to answer the question completely. “Of course, the sword really did the slicing, and it’s a good thing I have this enchanted sword, because I don’t know if I could have cut the hand off myself – but I wouldn’t even be alive if the sword hadn’t helped me fight the Corsairs, not to mention the guards on the Isle of Ophiuchus.”

  “What have you brought me here, dear God!” Sty exploded, looking at Algornia. “Is he immune to the serum? He’s babbling along a mile-a-minute as though it’s effective, but here in sixty seconds he’s already said what – four, five, six things that are impossible to believe?”

  “Tell him about
the dolphin wedding,” Algornia said mildly to Marco.

  “Well that was something,” Marco immediately launched into a description of his journey to Kieweeooee’s wedding. “And that just made me think about Mirra, and how I wanted to marry her,” he added. “I was starting to fall in love with her even before I gave her the salve, to be honest – she’s so kind and tries so hard to look out for me. But once her beauty was revealed – I do think she’s the most beautiful woman in the world now – I tried not to desire her just for her looks, but we did so many things together that it just had to happen. And so I’m betrothed to her.”

  “You still haven’t mention the Echidna or the merpeople,” Algornia prodded Marco, as Sty sat back deep in his chair, listening in astonishment.

  “The merpeople! How could I not have mentioned them yet?” Marco exclaimed, and he began to tell his tale of being startled to discover that Kreewhite was a merboy, when they were together in the Corsair’s bilge hold, and then rambled on through a lengthy exposition.

  “So now I have to travel with them – Pesino and Cassius – and I still don’t know what to do about Pesino’s kiss,” he said in an aside, “but I have to go to the old imperial library in Clovis, and Algornia says the merfolks can’t swim there, but maybe you can help?” he finished his story in an inquisitive pitch.

  “By the bells of St. Resturian!” Sty exploded. “This is incredible! How can one young boy live through all of that in what, less than a year?”

  “And I think he’s just begun,” Algornia said. “He’s marked as a champion, for better or for worse.”

  “Marked or cursed?” Sty asked cynically.

  “Well, at any rate,” their host didn’t wait for an answer, “I think I can help you,” he directed his attention to Marco.

  “One more thing – tell me about your golden hand,” Sty asked Marco.

  “It’s special. Iasco used sorcery to preserve it, and the bath seems to have made some type of sorcery power live on within the hand itself. I don’t feel like I can control it though; I don’t know how the sorcery works, or why. One time I hit a lock with the hand and it came open. Another time I touched some wet wood and started a fire that wouldn’t go out. When I was paralyzed, the hand still had movement and sensation. If I understood it I think it could be powerful, but there’s no way to figure it out,” Marco droned on, then stopped.

  “Do you get a lot of female customers?” Marco asked suddenly. “You’re still sort of good looking for an older gentleman, but you’re starting to get a bald spot, you know. You may want to cover that up.”

  Sty sighed, and looked at Algornia. “This is the downside to dealing with the truth serum.

  “It sounds like your problem is finding a way to go to Clovis, and to be with the mermaid and merman at the same time,” he continued. “And I have a way to help you. And since you’ve fascinated me so completely with the story of your adventure, I’ll only charge you the costs of my materials.”

  “What’s your solution?” Algornia asked with keen interest.

  “We’ll have to transform their tails into legs,” Sty replied with a smile. “Would you like that?” he asked Marco.

  “I don’t know if I like it or not; it doesn’t matter. It depends on whether Cassius and Pesino will go along with it. Will it really work?” Marco responded.

  “It will be a little different from a similar transformation formula I used to make a race horse run faster; it makes the legs stronger. I’ll have to make some other changes as well, of course,” he held up a hand to forestall Marco’s rising objection. “I’ll combine it with another formula I used to transform leather into silk, and I’ll make modifications to that as well.

  “Give me a day to work on it, and I’ll tell you tomorrow morning what I have, but I’m sure I’ll have something,” he said confidently.

  “Very resourceful, Sty. I knew you were the man to come see about this,” Algornia said, rising from his seat.

  “Let’s be off, shall we Marco, and let this genius get to work.”

  “You have some crumbs from a piece of fish in your beard, and they smell bad,” Marco blurted out.

  Algornia rolled his eyes as he brushed at his beard. “I better go lock him up before he really offends someone,” he said as he started to walk down the hall.

  “Wait!” Marco said suddenly as they stood at the door. “What about changing them back to merpeople? Will you be able to do that?”

  Sty looked at him thoughtfully. “You raise an excellent question. Let me give that some thought. Now run along,” he said, and closed the door behind them, the blinds still down in the windows.

  “You walk slowly, master,” Marco commented as he slowed his pace to stay even with Algornia.

  “Marco,” Algornia said, “I believe you have a place somewhere where you can go and hide from everyone else, the place you used to go in the evenings?”

  “Yes I do, down at the docks,” Marco affirmed.

  “Go there now, and don’t come out until breakfast time tomorrow,” Algornia said. “You’re going to keep muttering little truths until you annoy someone too much.”

  Marco and Algornia parted ways at the next corner, and Algornia watched with concern as Marco walked away. He worried about how the truthful boy would deal with people, but he wasn’t willing to personally persevere through the constant darts and pricks of Marco’s observations.

  Marco walked alone through the streets, uneventfully, until he was nearly at the harborside, where he was approached by a blind beggar. “Can you help me?” the man asked, listening to the sound of Marco’s footsteps on the street.

  “How long have you been blind?” Marco asked.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” the beggar asked indignantly.

  “Well, I want to know if you’re blind from an illness, or an injury, or if you were born that way. Once I know that I can figure out what I can do to help,” Marco replied. “I have some time, so I think I can mix up a cure if Algornia will let me use his shop.”

  The blind man whistled a short note, and then a long note, and three men emerged from doorways around the pair.

  “This guy’s giving me the business,” the blind man said.

  “I didn’t give him any business,” Marco protested. “I was going to try to cure his blindness, but he won’t answer my questions. And they’re simple questions,” he added.

  One of the protectors for the blind man pulled a cudgel off his belt, and Marco immediately drew his sword from its sheath. “With this sword I can kill and maim all of you before you even land a finger on me; you won’t stand a chance. You’ll look like fools and be badly beaten,” Marco warned them. “You’re not very bright to even be thinking of taking me on with my enchanted sword, so you better run away.”

  “Oh yeah?” one of the thugs asked, enraged by the callous confidence Marco displayed. He pulled a knife from his belt. “Here, maim this, why don’t you tough guy!” he said as he flung the knife at Marco.

  The sword twisted itself around and struck the knife squarely across the blade while it was in mid-air, and knocked the knife straight upwards, so that Marco was able to grab it as it fell back down.

  “I told you,” Marco warned as he held the captured knife. “I’m a much better fighter than you, and you’re going to lose, and you’re going to make me mad if you don’t leave immediately, so please leave for your own sakes.”

  “Can we take Eagle Eye with us?” one of the men asked, jerking his thumb at the blind man. “We’re just here to watch out for him.”

  “I was going to take him with me so that I could heal his blindness,” Marco responded.

  “Heal his blindness? He’s been blind since he caught the pox from one of the business ladies twenty years ago. You can’t heal that,” another ruffian protested.

  They had lowered their weapons and their belligerence, Marco noted. “Meet me in Chemists Square in three hours and I’ll have a cure for him,” he promised. He slid his swor
d back into the scabbard on his hip, and walked away without further conversation.

  He strolled directly to Algornia’s shop, and entered the front door, surprising the master alchemist.

  “I thought I told you to go hide someplace,” Algornia said in surprise.

  “I met a blind beggar, and I told him I’d cure his blindness,” Marco replied. “So I’d like to use your workshop to create the salve. It doesn’t use any expensive ingredients, and it won’t take long.”

  “You know a cure for blindness?” Algornia asked in astonishment.

  “I know cures for most blindnesses, but not all of them. This fellow caught the pox, and I know how to cure that. I just need some quicksilver, some sunflower oil, some saffron, and philosopher’s wool, and couple of other items that I think you have. I probably know your stores better than you do, as much as I had to root around in them the past couple of years,” Marco said.

  “Go, just go, before you become insufferable,” Algornia waved him back to the workshop. “And write down your formula for me, by the way,” he added as Marco strolled past.

  Marco helped himself to the needed materials and began to grind and mix the ingredients in the order that his magically-induced memories dictated. As he worked, Algornia’s grand-daughter Teresa entered the room – Teresa, who had been his antagonist throughout his apprenticeship at the alchemy shop, and who had been the protected and privileged granddaughter of his master.

  “Teresa, hello, you look nice today,” Marco commented, as he noticed the clothes she wore.

  “Thank you Marco,” she said in a puzzled voice, not used to compliments from the boy, who she had tormented, but who she also had always secretly wished would have done such things as compliment her and swoon over her. “Mother said that you were at her shop yesterday, and she’ll have some clothes for you today.

  “One of her seamstresses made this frock for me; do you like it?” she asked.

  “I think the cleavage you’re showing is the most interesting part of it,” Marco said without looking up.