The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice)

by Quyle, Jeffrey

  The room they entered was a larger, more luxurious room than the one they had visited the night before. Two men they didn’t know sat at the table, along with Adhara and Acamar, their hosts from the previous evening.

  “We heard such extraordinary things about you,” said Taset, a burly man introduced as the leader of the librarians, “that I wanted to meet you for myself.”

  “I am Zosma, a reporter for our group,” said the other man when he was introduced. “I regularly go to the Lion City, and I wanted to meet some residents of the city.”

  They all were seated, as servants brought out bowls of warm soup to start the meal.

  “We have had a visitor from our neighbors in the city, the monks of St. Gereon,” Taset said. “They report that dangerous criminals escaped from their imprisonment, and they wish to recapture them,” he said to the alarm of Marco and the others.

  “They describe four people very much like you, except they say one pair is a witch and a warlock,” Taset looked at where Marco and Pesino sat side-by-side. “They described a woman who can seduce a man to follow her will, just using her voice, and a man who has supernatural powers.”

  “And Kied reports that you brought forth a pixie today in the library!” Zosma added with a smile.

  Marco and his friends sat silently, as their hosts smiled, waiting for the visitors to laugh and deny the accusations.

  “Well, we’re not a witch and warlock,” Marco said. He smiled briefly at Pesino. “But we’re not ordinary travelers. We’ve told your people that we are on a quest, one that was set for me by a higher power.”

  “How do you explain this mysterious fire that was reported last night in the library?” Zosma asked.

  “There was no fire, just a bright light,” Marco realized that he was going to have to be forthcoming with the librarians. They had too many questions to evade, and they hopefully were not bent on violence towards the travelers, or at least they had not seemed violent so far. Yet they seemed unlikely to believe what they were told, and how they handled relations with the monks was a serious potential problem, the solution to which was to find information about the echilda’s location, and to leave Clovis as quickly as possible.

  “Witch craft? Sorcery?” Zosma asked with a smile.

  “Gawail, would you join us?” Marco asked as he looked at Pesino, then Kate, unsure where the pixie resided.

  The small being rose from Pesino’s blouse, causing the faces of the hosts to turn pale, as the servants bringing in new plates stopped in their tracks, fascinated by the sight.

  Marco closed his eyes and concentrated on his right hand, which he raised from his lap. He needed to make the hand understand that he needed for it to shine, as a way to help his friends. This would help him make the case that his story was true, he told himself, and he focused his will inward on his vision of his hand glowing brightly.

  There was a gasp, and Marco opened his eyes to see that he had succeeded. He grinned broadly at his first successful effort to deliberately control the sorcery power that resided within his hand, a power that could be invaluable.

  Kate was staring at him across the table, her mouth hanging open just as much as four librarians’ were, while Pesino had gently placed her hand on his arm.

  “There is more to us than you had thought,” Marco told the two librarians. “Our story is true, and our search is real. We appreciate your hospitality and your assistance, and we want to be gone from the library as fast as we can so that we can find the Echidna and acquire one of its scales.”

  “That’s incredible!” Zosma said, staring from the hand to the pixie. “I heard about sorcery in the Lion City, but I didn’t believe it was real.”

  “I’ve not practiced any sorcery in the city,” Marco answered. “I know a sorcerer helped the Corsairs with a raid on the city many months ago; that was the first time I saw the powers myself.”

  “And you fought that sorcerer!” Kate affirmed.

  “May I return, or do you wish for me to remain out?” Gawail asked.

  “Thank you Gawail; you may return to your warmth,” Marco told the pixie, who immediately flew back out of sight.

  “We have cordial relations with the monks,” Taset spoke. “And we do not wish to upset those relations, for we will share this city with them and the other residents long after you’ve come and gone.”

  Marco closed his eyes again and focused on his hand, willing the light to fade away.

  “That’s remarkable,” Pesino said quietly.

  “And your wife has some powers as well?” Zosma asked.

  “Of a sort,” Pesino replied with a demur smile.

  “I do not wish to turn you over to the monks, nor do I want to become entangled in a conflict with them,” Taset moved the conversation back to the topic he wished to discuss. “The solution is for you to find the information you need as quickly as possible, so that you can leave the library.

  “Kied and Schedir think that your search could take some time. I will assign Adhara and Acamar to join you in your research the next couple of days to see if more sets of eyes can accomplish your mission. If you can be gone from our library within three days, we will have no ability to turn you over to the monks,” Taset told them.

  “Three days? Three days to search the whole library?” Cassius asked.

  “We will make your search a better one, more focused on the topic, so that we can find what you need,” Acamar said.

  The meal continued, as the conversation turned to other topics, the hosts curious to learn more about the world outside, especially Zosma, who thought he understood the societies of the large cities.

  “We are told that Carthag and Barcelon also suffered attacks by the Corsairs, several months ago,” he said.

  “The Corsairs were working on behalf of some other power, under the guidance of the sorcerer,” Marco answered. “They were going to alchemy shops in the cities they plundered, looking for gorgon’s blood.”

  “Alchemists are hardly worth plundering,” Zosma answered. “They seldom sell anything of real value; they are said to be charlatans and hucksters.”

  “Some are,” Marco said through gritted teeth, “but some produce results that would astonish you.”

  “Such as turning lead into gold?” Adhara asked.

  “No, such as creating cures for diseases, or transforming the nature of creatures,” Marco answered. “I was trained as an alchemist,” he added.

  “And you saw the Corsairs sacking your shop?” Taset guessed.

  “Yes, once, in Barcelon,” Marco answered. “And I followed them and fought their sorcerer to get the gorgon’s blood back.”

  “Are there really gorgons?” Acamar asked.

  “Perhaps you can research that after we finish researching the Echidna!” Pesino said brightly, easing the tension around the table, so that everyone relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the meal.

  Marco’s group thanked their hosts and then returned to the balcony, where they set a watch and slept peacefully through the night. The next morning they found the four librarians waiting on the floor for them to arrive. They split into four teams that matched one librarian and one of the travelers together, and they worked diligently throughout the day, finding three more references to Echidnas, but no definitive direction on where the mother of monsters lived.

  Marco worked with Kied that day and the next. On the second day Acamar and Pesino reported finding a scroll about the habitat of monsters, including a detailed description of the mountainous country they lived in. The group went to bed excited and happy that night, knowing that the next day they would be able to study and copy the directions exactly so that they would at last have instructions on where to go to find the Echidna.

  Chapter 18 – The Curse

  When they awoke on the third day, Marco’s group planned to resupply their packs from the farmers market, while the librarians copied out directions from the ancient scroll that detailed the Echidna’s home.

  Marco
was anxious to leave before the monks grew restive enough to come to the library seeking to locate the escaped travelers. But he also regretted the thought of leaving the library, where the peaceful interior of the building felt like a sanctuary from the world, one that was safe and interesting and permanent. He would miss the library when he had to leave, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to pass through the building again in the future, when he might have time to simply read and read. He hoped so.

  Marco checked with the scriveners assigned to copy the scroll, then he and Kate left the library to head to the farmers market, while Pesino and Cassius stayed behind to read books they had discovered that told the story of mermaids. The two had laughed and giggled at the preposterous assertions made by the human authors, and they delighted in the prospect of some more amusement before they returned to traveling through the dreary winter weather that awaited them.

  Marco and Kate took empty packs with them, and spent nearly all of Marco’s remaining funds to fill the packs with food supplies for the upcoming journey. They walked slowly around the circumference of the entire market to examine every vendor’s wares, then bought what they wanted, and finally returned to the library shortly before midday, where the scriveners met them.

  “We have your directions and map ready for you!” they gleefully told the two travelers. The lead scrivener laid the map out upon a table, and directed their attention to a large island off the coast of the mainland, to the northwest of Clovis, one of several islands in a long chain.

  “This is Arima, the land where Echidna lives in a cave,” the scrivener pointed out. “You’ll have to travel across this portion of the mainland to the coast, then take ship across these straits to reach the island. We know that people live on the island, but there are no large cities, only villages of hunters and farmers and trappers who trade with the mainland.

  “These islands in the north include several mountains that have fire in their tops; volcanoes. And underneath Tartarus, the largest volcano, is the cave of Echidna,” the scrivener explained.

  “How long will it take us to get there?” Marco asked.

  “If you float down the rivers to the coast, you’ll be five more days crossing the mainland,” the second scrivener answered. “Then I suppose less than a week to cross the channel and reach the mountains.”

  “This is promising,” Marco said as he carefully gathered up the map and folded it to put in his pack. “Did you show Cassius and Pesino?” he asked casually.

  “How could we; they’ve been with you, haven’t they?” the first scrivener asked.

  Marco’s head came up suddenly. “No,” he said as he looked at Kate, “we left them here in the library.”

  “But then you sent Zosma to bring them to join you,” the second scrivener pointed out. “He came in and told us you had sent him to fetch them. They followed him out a couple of hours ago.”

  “That’s not right,” Kate shook her head. “We didn’t see Zosma, or send him for anyone.

  “Where did he take them?” she asked.

  “We thought he went to see you,” the scrivener said.

  Marco felt a sense of betrayal. Somehow, he knew that Zosma had done something to harm his friends. “Kate,” he turned to look at the girl, “let’s take everything up to the balcony and you can repack everyone’s packs so that we’ll be ready to go. I’m going to go find out what’s going on and bring our friends back,” he told her in a grim tone.

  “You think it’s bad, don’t you?” Kate asked as they climbed the steps. “Are you sure you don’t need me to help you?”

  “I think you’ll do best by packing our packs for us,” Marco replied, “and staying here safe.”

  He picked up his bow and arrows, turned and walked away from the her, stalking back into the parts of the library where the staff worked, asking everyone he met along the way if they had seen either Zosma or Kied. Within a few minutes he found Kied, though no one reported having seen Zosma all morning long.

  “Where has Zosma gone, do you know?” Marco asked the young apprentice. “He lured our two friends out of the library and they’ve disappeared.”

  “He didn’t seem like he would want to talk to you or your friends,” Kied replied, his blond curls shaking as he bobbed his head. “Zosma didn’t seem to like having someone here who really knew what was going on outside, in the great cities. All the sudden people were questioning the things he told us, because you said otherwise. So I’m surprised he would talk to your friends at all.”

  “He told them that we wanted to see them, even though we didn’t,” Marco re-emphasized. “He was trying to get them to go somewhere with him. Where would that be?”

  “He wouldn’t take them to the monastery, would he?” Kied asked.

  “I have to find out,” Marco said. “Which direction is it to the monastery? I’ll go in that direction to see if I can find him, or them.”

  “I’ll lead you there,” Kied offered. He led Marco through back passage, then out onto the streets of the city. They walked out onto a broad boulevard, one that Kied said was the route Zosma was most likely to take, and they walked in a straight line along the ancient road to the gates of the monastery, where Marco stopped and stepped back into the shadows of the doorway of an empty house.

  “Is there another entrance to the monastery, one that’s not guarded?” Marco asked. He saw that there were guards at the entrance to the monastery before them, and he saw the tower where his friends had been held before.

  “I don’t know,” Kied answered. “We can walk around it and look.” They promptly left the empty doorway and began to circle the walls of the monastery grounds.

  “Here, this will do,” Marco said as he stopped in the middle of an empty street. There was a row of empty, dilapidated houses that backed up to the walls of the monastery, separated only by a narrow alleyway.

  “You go back to the library now, and I’ll take care of the rest of this,” Marco told his guide. He had faith in the ability of his sword to protect him as he worked his way through the monastery, where he was sure his friends had been lured. “Tell Kate I’m going to go get Cassius and Pesino,” he added, then patted Kied on the shoulder and moved into the ruins of an empty house.

  The staircase was wooden, and rotten, so he scrambled up over debris and pushed items into place to allow him to climb to the second floor of the building, then looked out the back window at the top of the monastery wall just a few feet away. He threw his bow and arrows over the wall, then threw his sword, then jumped as far as he could, and landed with a gut-busting thud atop the wall, part of his torso hanging on either side. He quickly flipped his legs forward to get inside the monastery property, then dropped to the ground.

  He stood up and grabbed his weapons. From his vantage point on the ground he could no longer see the tower that he suspected was the prison of his friends once again, but he knew what direction to start in to find it. He began jogging across the small lawn, then between two buildings, then around a corner, from which he could see the tower, just one row of buildings away.

  “Hey! Who are you?” a voice called from his left side. Without even stopping to look, Marco started running towards the tower, determined to get there as quickly as possible to set his friends free. He ran into the doorway of a building between his position and the tower, and passed straight through a cooper’s shop, where barrels and kegs stood in various stages of production, then he jumped out a window in the back, and started running towards the two guards who stood in front of the tower.

  The guards were armed, and Marco took that as a sign that they had something to keep under control inside the tower. He drew his sword as he ran at them. The two guards watched him approach without reacting, until suddenly he was too close for their comfort, and they scrambled in their haste to prepare to battle against him.

  Marco’s sword skewered the first one in the thigh, then the flat of his blade smacked soundly against the temple of the second guard, and both men
were on the ground. Marco blasted past them, and bolted up the flight of stairs to the first level above the ground.

  “Cassius? Pesino?” he shouted. There were only three doors around the landing, and Marco thrust one open, then another, and found both empty. He found an elderly monk praying in the third, and he bolted up the stairs again, to the second level of the tower, where there were two doors.

  “Pesino?” he shouted as he tried to throw the first door open, only to find it was locked.

  “Cassius?” he called, and heard a thumping sound inside. He threw himself at the door three times, until it splintered, and he was able to push his way in through the wooden ruins, just as he heard the sounds of others entering the tower below him.

  Both Cassius and Pesino were inside the room, tied up, with their mouths stuffed full of cloth. Marco’s sword quickly cut their bonds, and he helped Pesino pull the gag out of her mouth as Cassius took care of himself.

  “Marco! How did you get here so quickly?” Cassius asked, as Pesino wrapped her arms around him in silent relief. “We’ve only been tied up here a few minutes, less than an hour, certainly.”

  “You were missing from the library,” Marco answered. “Did Zosma do this to you?”

  “He did; he told us you were waiting for us out in the city, and then we were ambushed; they gagged us before we knew what was happening, then tied us up,” Cassius answered.

  The sound of boots on the stairs drew closer, and Marco moved to the doorway, holding his sword. “Come with me,” he spoke to the two behind him, as he stepped through the ruined doorway and attacked the first man who came up around the curving stairs.

  Marco was full of rage at the kidnapping of his friends, and the magical sword seemed to feed off his anger, weaving an aggressive net that quickly defeated the leading swordsman he faced, making the wounded man tumble downward, knocking several of his compatriots down on his way.