When the Villian Comes Home

by Gabrielle Harbowy

  “Third storey, fourth window from the right. See that gargoyle above it? It inspired my shape. Old Man Reeve left his elixir of intellect on this ledge, thinking it had failed, but did I ever surprise him.” He grinned. “And if the new alchemist’s a perfumer, as you say, she might even leave that window open to air out her lab.”

  Myrina crinkled her nose. “You sure Professor Lavender hain’t ferreted out the notebook already?”

  “Quite certain,” Treg said, indignant. “It takes three key concoctions poured in the right sequence to open the secret panel. No one’s clever enough to figure that out, or lucky enough to stumble upon it.” Reeve wouldn’t have told anyone the combination, either. Last he heard, the alchemist was a drooling guest at the local sanatorium and couldn’t even remember what a chamber pot was for. Water-of-lethe in the professor’s midnight cordial had robbed the man of his mind, a parting gift from Treg and Leech to repay their harsh master.

  “A bloody alchemy lock? You should’ve told me,” Myrina skulked across the green to the wall and hid amidst the shadow and ivy. “Have we got everything we need?”

  “I understand you’re nervous, Myrina, but I will walk you through the steps. You just focus on what you do best and get us there. We’re a team, remember? Your skill, my brilliance? We can be rich, but only if we work together.”

  “Like how you made Leech rich?” she whispered. “Oh, wait, he’s in a coma.”

  “Not my fault that he messed things up,” Treg said. “How was I to know the fool would use bear’s piss where I specifically told him to use a bull’s? When it comes to alchemy, be careful what you mix.”

  “I’ll try to remember. What did I ever see in that fool, anyways?” Myrina kicked off her shoes, tucked Treg back inside her satchel and began to climb.

  He envied Myrina her freedom. Humans might be blood bottled in skin, but because of their flesh they could do things he couldn’t. Sure, he had the spells he learned from a bottled djinn drifter to allow him to escape into another bottle in case of danger, but that magic relied on him being able to see his destination. Being in the satchel blinded him to the world.

  They shouldn’t even have been back here. The three of them had a simple scheme to strike it rich: sell strength potions to prizefighters and bet on the outcome. But Leech’s bright idea to improve the draught worked all too well. The boxer who drank the potion sneezed so hard, he broke almost all his ribs before the match. When the poor man’s brothers paid Leech a visit, Myrina had the foresight to grab Treg and clamber out the bedroom window. If she hadn’t, Treg might have been thrown off the roof with Leech.

  “We’re in,” Myrina whispered. She took him out and set him down on the ledge.

  “I’m impressed—I didn’t even hear the window creak.” Treg began drinking in the moonlight with his substance. It tickled. “Myr, I’m ready for the catalyst.”

  Myrina uncorked his bottle and produced a small phial. Treg opened his mouth and caught the catalyst she poured into his bottle. The liquid burned pepper-hot as it mixed into his potion-self, setting his substance aglow. He delighted in the dose of vigor it gave him.

  When his illumination lit their corner of the laboratory, Treg was surprised by what he saw.

  Old Man Reeve had always kept the lab orderly, his glassware immaculate, and his alchemical supplies arranged by name and function. For all their gripes about their master’s obsessive cleanliness, both Treg and Leech kept the same standards when they set up their own workshop. But the perfect order that once ruled the lab had been storm-tossed. Where once there was one cavernous hall where no student could hide from the watchful eye of the professor, mismatched storage shelves now rose like stalagmites, creating small pockets of workspace. Hastily labeled oils, elixirs and philtres shared the shelves with bottled vapors, perfumes and effluvia. Stacked tomes perched on top of a chair, while a moldy sandwich lay forgotten on a table crowded with alembics and crucibles. Treg could hear drips and bubblings elsewhere in the lab, likely experiments left to simmer overnight.

  Worse, the air reeked of strange scents, sour and musky and cloying. He didn’t know much about perfume alchemy; that fledgling art wasn’t part of his vast alchemical knowledge. He was just glad when Myrina re-corked his bottle.

  “What next, Yer Impship?”

  “You can’t see it, but at the other end of the lab there are two grotesques carved into the mantelpiece over the fireplace,” Treg revealed. “First pour a dram of kraken ink into the right one’s mouth, and a half-dram of ant venom into the left.” He’d give her the final key later.

  Myrina gave him a look of exasperation. “Where do I even start? What do they look like?”

  If the lab had been left in the same configuration as Old Man Reeve’s, Treg could tell her exactly where to find them, but now that notion was moot. “We’ll have to try shelf by shelf. Read out the labels, assuming you can decipher that wretched handwriting.”

  “How about I just hold you up to the shelves?” Myrina snapped.

  “If I must,” Treg said, wondering what he had said to irritate her. “These look more like finished potions, not raw materials. Let’s start at the far end of the hall. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Myrina carried him deeper into the lab. The bubbling and dripping sounds grew louder, and when Treg saw the source of the noise at last, it was too late to warn Myrina. A great automaton with eyestalk lenses and brass spider-like legs reached out with a pneumatic arm to catch the thief’s neck in its pincers.

  Though Myrina was quicker, tumbling out of the way, her grip on Treg’s bottle slipped. Luckily for Treg, the impact on the stone tiles didn’t break the flint glass, and neither did he roll...but as the monstrosity moved to catch Myrina, its metal foot was poised to crush Treg’s bottle.

  In panic, Treg painted the decanting spell on the side of the glass and targeted the first bottle he saw, trading places with the contents. Unfortunately the smaller bottle couldn’t hold all of Treg’s potion and popped its stopper, spilling glowing liquid on the shelf and the floor. Treg tasted the remnants of the previous contents as they mingled with his potion: gummy and pasty. Glue? He did feel his imp shape sticking to the walls of the new bottle.

  To Treg’s surprise, the Contraption (as he had just dubbed it) didn’t crush his former prison underfoot, but only stomped on the ground beside it. However, it noticed Treg, who was still shining inside his new bottle. It plucked him off the shelf with a claw.

  “Myrina! Help me!” he cried.

  But the burglar was having problems of her own. As quick as she was, she couldn’t outrun a cloud of gas. The Contraption blasted Myrina with a greenish vapor. She choked, stumbled, and fell.

  The claw raised Treg’s bottle before an eyestalk lens, giving Treg a chance to glimpse inside the Contraption’s bulbous torso. He could see bubbling flasks and piping caged within, the source of the alchemical reactions he heard earlier. Was this drip-drop spider programmed like a golem, or was it truly thinking?

  No matter. It reminded Treg that he was mind and will, and the potion-body an afterthought. He drew a variation of the decanting eye, a spirit-leap spell that allowed him to tear his mind from the glow potion and piped only his force of will into the new bottle. He claimed the liquid within and shaped it into his next body.

  Strangely, his new body floated up against the top of the flint glass flask, and a wave of sadness overtook him.

  Treg realized that he had taken possession of pegasus tears, which only fell skyward.

  He fought the urge to weep. Whenever he took a new potion-body, he gained the power of the substance, but sometimes the magic changed his mood as well. These pegasus tears sent him into a deep sadness that made him want to drown his sorrows in a bottle of whiskey.

  The Contraption was examining Myrina with a long eyestalk lens, while its other eyes scanned its surroundings. Poor Myrina! If she was discovere
d here in the morning, it was prison for her. Though he knew his newfound affection for the thief was probably a side-effect of the pegasus tears, it pained him too much to leave the woman to her fate. But what could he possibly do to help her? He was just a useless imp stuck in a bottle.

  Yet...if he could find smelling salts or spirit of hartshorn, he might be able to rouse her. Surely he could find some in an effluvium lab like this. But he couldn’t keep hopping bottles without knowing what was in them. He couldn’t always read the labels. What if he ended up in water-of-lethe? Thought and memory were all he had. Forgetting everything would equal death.

  At least he could now read some of the labels on the neighboring bottles. Vessels of all shapes and sizes contained one’s pick of liquids, powders or fumes. He saw jackalope droppings. Unicorn breath. Ambergris. Tincture of mandragora. And was that kraken ink? More jars with handwriting that he’d have to decipher.

  The problem wasn’t finding the spirit of hartshorn. It had to be kept close at hand in a lab where one wrong whiff would steal consciousness. In fact, a bottle of the liquid lay on the same shelf...but pushed to the back, behind the kraken ink and a phial of sneezing powder. How was he going to get the spirit of hartshorn to Myrina? Even if he did wake her, how could they bypass the Blasted Contraption?

  Treg studied the drip-drop automaton. He knew nothing about pneumatics or clockworks, but the Contraption was designed to protect the lab, and it couldn’t do its job unless it knew not to break bottles or upset tables. Proof: it had stepped aside to avoid crushing Treg’s bottle. But was it truly reasoning, or simply following the dictates of its mistress? Treg wondered if Professor Lavender had discovered the notebook and mixed another imp like him to control the Contraption, but he gave up that hope as a foolish dream.

  Those bubbling potions running through the Contraption’s head must be its set of rules. Treg could mess with that, but he didn’t know how those alchemical reactions worked. However, if it was moving, it must have an alembic engine for its heart. That, Treg understood.

  The alembic engine required three fluids reacting in balance: ruby, emerald, and bronze. Wait, those weren’t right. Why was his memory failing at such an inconvenient time, on such a rudimentary reaction? He bashed his head against the glass. Ruby was...phlogiston. Emerald was oil of philosophers. What was the bronze?

  He cursed his fading intellect, and hoped he would recall it later. He drew a spirit-leap sign and left his bottle, possessing the kraken ink instead. Although the spell took him into the new bottle, he wasn’t able to coalesce a body out of the liquid. He could see nothing, and it scared him.

  Could it be that the djinn’s spells diminished him every time he cast them? Maybe it had been a mistake to assume djinn magic would work safely for him. He should never have left his original elixir!

  But the fear of being stuck as formless ink forever pushed Treg to keep trying. It seemed an eternity before he could shape a hand, and the rest of his potion-body followed.

  The Contraption stood over Myrina now, running drip-drop drip-drop like clockwork.

  Talosian ichor! That was the bronze liquid he had forgotten. If he could replace the ichor with tonic orichalcum, the orichalcum should stop the alembic engine dead. But if things went wrong...the Confounded Contraption might blow up, taking Treg and Myrina with it. Treg shuddered just thinking about it.

  Unfortunately, he needed Myrina to find the tonic orichalcum in this mess, which meant waking her and keeping the Contraption from knocking her out again. Even getting the spirit of hartshorn to Myrina would be a challenge. If he could break a bottle of it next to Myrina, the fumes should be enough to rouse her. He supposed he could spirit-leap into the hartshorn, trade places with the kraken ink, then roll this brittle bottle off the shelf. But could he get out of the falling container in time? He was afraid he wasn’t fast enough. Unless....

  Treg regarded the bottle of pegasus tears again. The buoyant tears were contained in a vessel of heavy flint glass to prevent the whole thing from floating into the air. His current prison was made of more delicate glass. With the right sequence of spells, it might work.

  First, he spirit-leapt into the pegasus tears. While Treg was struck by another bout of sadness, his fears thankfully subsided. He could pull this off.

  Treg targeted the ink bottle again, but this time he used the decanting eye and swapped the pegasus tears with the kraken ink. His tear-made body pushed against the top of the thin glass, levitating the entire container. The glass clinked against the roof of the shelf.

  The Contraption heard the noise and turned an eyestalk his way.

  Rolling the ink bottle from the inside, Treg forced his container to the edge of the shelf’s roof, then cast his decanting eye and exchanged places with the spirit of hartshorn. With the hartshorn unable to keep the jar afloat, it fell and bounced off the shelf. Treg’s current bottle was too heavy for his tear-made body to levitate high enough for him to see, but he did hear the sound of glass smashing to bits.

  “Myrina, if you can hear me, play dead,” he shouted. “I bet the Contraption’s too dumb to tell that you’re faking sleep.”

  The sound of his voice drew the Contraption’s attention. A pair of claws snatched him from the shelf.

  Treg had been counting on it. When the automaton brought his bottle close enough that he could see its glassy innards, he leapt spirit-wise into the reservoir of talosian ichor. He forced his imp shape onto the viscous ichor, withholding any droplets of his new substance from leaving his new glass cage.

  The drip-drop rhythm stopped. The Contraption sputtered, and Treg felt heat rising from the pipes connecting the reservoir to the alembical heart. The phlogiston was reacting to the oil of philosophers without the talosian ichor acting in counterbalance, and that wasn’t good.

  Could he perhaps stay in the Contraption, regulating the drip of ichor into the alembical reaction? It was a tempting thought. He might even be able to control the automaton and actually touch things and move!

  But there didn’t seem to be enough substance to keep the alembical heart beating. Professor Lavender must replenish the reservoirs daily. It wouldn’t do to have his ichor-body consumed by the process!

  “I can’t hold this Contraption for long, Myrina,” Treg said, his words slurring from the thick nature of the ichor. “I need tonic orichalcum to stop it for good. For the love of glob, find some and hold the bottle up!”

  Myrina stood, rubbing her eyes. “What’s it look like?”

  The Contraption was shaking now. “Just read the damn labels,” Treg shouted.

  “What’s. It. Look. Like.”

  “Oh.” Treg realized what Myrina was too proud to admit. “You can’t read?”

  “Lots o’ folks can’t, but it don’t mean they hain’t smart.” She grabbed a golden potion off a shelf. “This it?”

  Treg squinted at the label. “No.” The heat from the pipes was growing insufferable, and the Damned Contraption was rocking wildly on its legs. “Show me another. Quickly, before it blows!”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Myrina backed away from the Contraption. “Sorry, Yer Impship. You’re on your own.” She turned and sprinted for the window.

  “Come back, you cask of ungrateful blood!” he cried, but she was gone.

  Without Myrina, Treg had no choice but to try finding the tonic orichalcum himself, but he couldn’t see anything clearly beyond the hull of the Infernal Contraption, much less see the hue of a potion or read the labels. Maybe Myrina had the right idea. He could come back for the notebook another day. It was time to get out of here.

  He saw the narrow and square bottle he arrived in, which now held glue. He traced a spirit-leap sign and—

  The Contraption blew up.

  The force of the explosion sent tables, flasks and books flying, just as Treg’s spirit flowed through the spirit-leap sign. Instead of pouring in
to his intended bottle, however, the blast threw a different flask in his path, forcing him to infuse the unknown liquid with his mind—

  The outside world went dark, and Treg lost the strength to keep his shape and thought.

  5

  When he awakened, Treg imposed his imp shape on the liquid he now inhabited, wondering where he had ended up. Scant sunlight peeked through the chaos of twisted bronze, sundered wood, and broken glass around him. He wasn’t sure what the potion was, except that it was sweet and smooth. Treg had a sudden longing to see someone, anyone, though he couldn’t say exactly why.

  “Myrina, are you there?” he cried. “Anyone?”

  A hand pushed through the debris, clasped around the neck of his bottle and lifted him up. A red-haired woman in her thirties smiled at him from the other side of the glass. Professor Lavender.

  From the moment Treg saw Lavender, he knew she was the one who had been missing from his life. She was the taskmistress he longed for, the brilliant mind he admired.

  He was stuck inside a love philtre, he realized...but looking at his truelove, he was just fine with that.

  “What a strange thing to find,” Lavender said. “What might you be? And do you know what happened to my workshop?”

  “Why, there’s a tale in that, Fair Lady Lavender, and a gift of a notebook at the end of its telling,” Treg cried with heartfelt words. “But I, Tregnum your loving servant, must first sing praise to your beauty.”

  As Treg sang of love and devotion, he wondered if Mistress Lavender would rebuild the Contraption for him. But she wouldn’t need bubbling potions to control the blasted thing. Not when his brilliant mind would do wonders in their place...

  TONY PI always wanted to be an alchemist, but organic chemistry in university proved to be his downfall. That’s why he’s a linguist and writer now. A writer based in Toronto, Canada, Tony was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and his work has appeared in many places such as Clarkesworld, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Fantasy Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and When the Hero Comes Home.