The Alchemists

by Geary Gravel

  Leaning forward slowly, the empath lifted his dark eyes to the domed ceiling. He placed his right hand flat upon the table's polished surface.

  "Broth," he said in his rough whisper. "Here. Now."

  The steaming glass rose instantly by his hand. Chassman drained it and set it back upon the table, then turned and walked from the room. Light faded behind him.

  "I do believe that was a beginning," a voice said in the darkened room.

  Raille turned when her name was called, auburn hair shining in waves on her shoulders, many-colored skirts rustling in the meadow grass.

  "Cil! We didn't know when you'd get here. The aircar arrived yesterday, but your message just said you were on the way." Raille looked into the forest. "Where's Jack?"

  "He's taking his time. We decided to go on foot for a while; that's why we sent the car ahead." She nodded over her shoulder. "I expect he'll turn up soon."

  Cil looked to the far end of the wide clearing, noticing for the first time the two dark-cloaked figures pacing slowly near the trees. Emrys perhaps, she thought, and Choss. They walked side by side, no doubt engaged in solemn discourse.

  "How is everyone? How is Jefany?"

  Raille shrugged, smiled faintly. "Fine, we're all fine."

  "And the work?"

  A second, more ambiguous quirk of the lips. "Kin is responding quite well to the patterning. You'll be amazed at the things he can do."

  "The creature's all right, then." Cil released a long breath. "Good. I was concerned. We've learned more about them...."

  "No, he's fine. We're taking him out to March for today's lesson right now, as a matter of fact."

  Cil scanned the broad field. "We?"

  Raille motioned behind her. "Chassman and I." She frowned at the query in Cil's expression. "Oh, you haven't seen him lately, have you? Wait a minute." She turned and waved to the two figures.

  Cil's heart began to pound heavily as she watched their slow approach through the tall grass. "Isis," she said under her breath. "What's happened here?"

  Raille looked back and forth from the planalyst to the others, a look of mild puzzlement on her face.

  "Oh, I see," she said. "We were afraid he was getting too much sun, standing in the patterning frame, so they decided to keep some clothes on him while they're working on the Dance."

  Cil watched as the two drew closer. One face was white and one was brown. The empath and the kin were clad identically in dark-brown breeches, a gray overblouse, and a long brown cloak.

  Cil retreated a step in the grass.

  "What's wrong?" Raille said. "He's healthy. You can check for yourself. The Hut's medipal says he's doing fine."

  Cil stared at the empath and his dark reflection. Both faces bore the same expression.

  "You don't see it, do you?" she breathed next to Raille's ear. "Maybe you've been too close. My God, why am I whispering in front of these two?" She shook her head, turned to the other woman. "And what's he doing here? He shouldn't be in this meadow. He's supposed to be somewhere beyond the Verres, over the mountains." She looked around the clearing, looked at the sky, calculating. "Raille, this isn't even part of his territory anymore! He should've moved much farther south by now. We've got to take him—"

  She fell silent as the empath guided his charge up to stand behind Raille. Three faces confronted her, and for a moment she saw the same subtle, measuring expression flicker in each of them.

  "He's doing just fine," Raille said. "Really, Cil. We'd know if something had gone wrong."

  From My Journal:

  I keep staring at his forehead. Why? So blank and white above those dark eyebrows, those black eyes which I find so difficult to meet. I'd like to shut those eyes with my fingertips. Like touching eggshells, gently, mustn't break.

  He came down while I was on Watch last night. Can't think about Watch or Kin or anything when he's there. I sat in the console chair. He was behind me at the table, looking at the Screen, or pretending to. I didn't watch the kin, couldn't have paid attention anyway. Felt so strange. Tried to send my eyes back through my skull to watch him watching me. My back was burning from his stare! He knows everything, I think. Or: He knows everything I think.

  Sometime at night. Can't see the time. Just had another dream about him. I wonder, can he feel me dreaming about him? Maybe he lies awake in his bed, sending me these dreams,

  and then watching what they do to me Inside. If only he'd stay out of my head, I'd tell him whatever he wants to know.

  It was a terrible dream.

  I was back home, sitting alone in my room reading a book or putting a tag on a flower or something. I think it was dark outside. The lamp was burning on my writing table. I remember the scent of the oil.

  Then suddenly I could feel him staring at me. I looked up, but it was my father, standing there at the door and smiling. He had a piece of fruit in his hand. He winked at me and took a bite out of it. "Aren't you cold?" I asked him, and then all at once he stopped smiling and I saw that it was him, had been him all along: same whiteness, same black eyes, same intense stare. Why didn't I recognize him? I reached out and gently closed those eyes with my fingertips. He took my fingers and brought them to his lips and kissed them softly, like Kiri thanking Beleth. Then he opened his mouth and I knew that he was finally ready to tell me what he had found Inside, and I knew that it was going to be very important.

  And then I woke up, just like that. I felt so bad that I started to cry, without knowing why at first.

  Much, much more than he's told us. Oh, much more.

  When he sits next to me at the Hearth Room table and his eyes like charcoal smudges in that Face move up and down me slowly, then I can feel him walking, step, step, step, up my backbone, step, step, his black boots on my spine, up, up, peering, probing everywhere Inside, examining, evaluating, stepping up, up my vertebrae, coming closer. He straddles my neck and whispers an Answer in my ear.

  Emrys had been drawn out into the woodland by the same light cloudburst which had persuaded the others to spend the day inside. Jefany found him in the forest which bordered the southern edge of the Verres, hunkered down in a patch of glossy ferns. Tiny droplets sequined his hair. He smiled up at her, blinking in the cool mist.

  "Hoi, you shame me," she said, switching off her weathershield. She took a deep breath of the rain-washed air. "It's very pleasant, isn't it?"

  He nodded. "I've been out here reminding myself that it's only by chance. That it was designed to suit the kin, or vice versa, but not to bring us pleasure. We resemble them and receive this gift in return."

  She settled against a dark branch, which swayed lazily, scattering flower petals. "You sound full of secret intuitions."

  He toyed with the curled head of a young fern. "I'm just becoming more and more aware of what we'll be leaving behind when we depart this world. I guess I'm trying to make it easier to bear, by accepting that it was never meant for us." He looked toward distant mountains. "But it has so much of the feel of Earth, of Green Asylum. I ought to know enough not to try to caress things beyond my fingertips." He released the fern.

  "And I thought a person's reach should always exceed his grasp—so you used to tell me."

  "Or what's a heaven for? Quite right. But that was on Chwoi Dai, where the water burned our skin, and we needed modifiers in our lungs to be able to breathe outside. Here, it's too easy to get along with the world. Still, we've got to look elsewhere for our paradise. Pwolen's Third isn't it."

  "Ah, but smell this air, look around you. Do you really see much distinction?"

  He shrugged amiably. "It may well be paradise, but it's someone else's, not ours."

  She also shrugged. "It makes one wonder, though."

  "Hmm?"

  "At least we have the lure of beauty to justify our fascination with Belthannis. What bait could have drawn bleak Maribon to this restricted paradise, when love of beautiful things is most certainly beyond their pale fingertips?"

  He raised an eyebrow. "T
hat I guess we'll learn when bleak Maribon so wills it."

  She looked off into the trees. "Some may learn it before then, or claim they will."

  "What? This ridiculous confrontation plot still exists? They're determined to muddle things up."

  "I tried to talk to them—"

  "And they wouldn't listen. Children!" he said.

  "In all honesty, there wasn't much I could say to their arguments."

  He looked up from the plant he was examining.

  "D'you mean you're with them in this?"

  "No, I don't think so. But I don't know just where I am."

  He started to rise, then slumped back. "Jefany—"

  "What have you told me, Jon, what have you ever said to make me believe they shouldn't try to get some answers for us, to find out his purpose here once and for all, his intentions—"

  "But I don't think he knows the answers to those questions himself. Look, I've sworn he is no threat to any of us unless we become one to him. I've sworn that. What more do you want from me?"

  "I don't know that we want anything from you! Jon, can't you see the intolerable position I'm in? He could be controlling you now, and how would I ever know it? What proof could you offer that might not just be him, speaking through you, helping you say the words I want to hear?"

  He stared into the ferns for a long time. Finally he got to his feet with a sigh. "Yes, you're right, of course. I've been so wrapped up in the kin's transformation, so afraid of disturbing things now that they're going well."

  He touched the band beneath his sleeve. "Hut, where is Chassman?"

  "He is moving through the middle-level corridor. He appears to be on his way to the Hearth Room, Emrys."

  "The Hearth Room. Excellent timing. Is anybody else down there right now?"

  "Yes, all of the other Group members save yourselves are currently gathered—"

  "Hal," Jefany said. "They told me they would wait."

  Emrys turned to her with a stricken look. "What, nowf Oh Lords, we have to hurry." He took her hand and started off through the brush.

  "Raille's there," she said. "You know she'll intercede on his behalf. Jon, they wouldn't do anything to hurt him—"

  "God's geek, It's not him I'm worried about! Hut, tell the others—"

  "—under no circumstances are you to interfere with the empath until I arrive. End quote."

  "Spurge," March said through his tight grin. "Never trust machines to send your messages. They always garble 'em."

  "I assure you, Per March," came the voice from above their heads, "those were Emrys' exact—"

  "Quietv" March growled. "We're busy."

  "Please don't do anything," Raille said, knotting her hands in her skirt. "Please leave him alone."

  "March," Choss said. "Perhaps we should wait."

  "And give him the chance to take more of us? Look at her, you think he hasn't gotten into her, too?"

  Choss gave Raille an agonized look. "But how can we be sure..."

  The empath appeared in the doorway and glided across the floor, a silent shape in a long black cloak. He went to the table.

  March stepped immediately into the archway. "Got 'im," he said and stood there, arms folded on his chest.

  Choss rose from his seat and circled the table to meet the empath, then gave ground as the other ignored him, reaching past him for the main console.

  When the glass of steaming broth had risen to the surface of the table, Marysu leaned forward and grabbed it.

  "Why are you really here?" she said in clipped tones. "What do you want with us? What are your plans for the kin?"

  Silently, the empath extended his hand toward the glass. She stumbled to her feet, backing away. "Are you controlling Emrys?"

  The empath raised his head and met her eyes. Abruptly Marysu stepped forward and handed him the broth.

  "No," he said in his rough whisper.

  Marysu backed away again, looking back and forth in comical surprise from the pale face to her own shaking hand.

  "Ai, he did that," she said. "I wanted to give it to him just then, I really did."

  The empath turned and started for the doorway. March waited for him, face impassive.

  "Wait," Choss said. "Please. We only want to ask you some questions."

  Bright black eyes locked on the soldier's face. March blinked and left the doorway at once, wandering across the tiles to stand beneath one of the paintings, his face uncharacteristically serene.

  Raille sat with her hand over her mouth. "Thank you," she whispered. "Oh, thank you."

  "Well," Jack said in relief. "That takes care of—"

  "No!" March's face had come alive again, stiff with fury. As the empath glided past him toward the archway, he muttered three syllables in a fierce whisper.

  Behind him, beneath the portrait of an Isiac priest cradling Crook and Flail in gemmed, languid hands, there came a sudden surge of emotion from that mind which was forever gnawing at the thought of killing like a dog worrying a bone. The eruption of feeling was hot and unsubtle, all complexity burned away by its intensity as it sped through the mind like lava coursing down a channel. At the end of the channel lay wild violence, and the focus of that violence shone as clearly as if etched in blazing characters upon the curving wall.

  Obeying an implanted imperative to gather information, Chassman reached out for the blazing mind, grasped—

  And it was gone.

  No. Changed.

  The mind was still there, but it had begun to alter almost too rapidly to be perceived in a process similar to that slower transition the empath had observed when the touch-men entered their form of sleep: a hazy retreat to a level of reduced control and awareness. He pursued the dimming consciousness and found that the anger still blazed within it—but very distantly now, like a ship receding beyond measure into the Darkjump.

  Again he surrounded the mind's matrix, probed experimentally.

  Something slammed into the back of his neck.

  He fell forward and struck the floor, sprawling loosely like a doll, arms and legs askew. The dragon's eye swam unblinking at the edge of his field of vision.

  He lay still, collating the sensations that raced the length of his body. He examined the data meticulously but did nothing else, awaiting stet.

  His eyes watched the gold mosaic begin to darken as a small, reddish trickle wandered outward from his face. His lips and cheek were sticky and his tongue lay in a pool of metallic flatness. Slowly, using the technique of self-delineation, he imposed a pattern once more on the uneven pulse beat, began to rebuild the broken rhythm of breathing.

  A wedge-shaped object smashed into his body in the area of his rib cage, withdrew, swung, and hit again.

  Chassinan reached once again for the hidden mind, finding it at last where it lay slumbering like a soft thing deep inside a shell. In his own mind he formed a simple mote: terror.

  Closing his eyes, he impressed the pattern like a brand upon the other mind. Something howled silently in response, ran gibbering in the darkness.

  Then the heavy hoot struck him again with great force, and once again. With that ear not pressed tightly against the floor he noted the sound of bone splintering.

  He probed again, altering slightly the configuration of the mote, and observed the reaction of his subject. The withdrawn mind shrieked and cowered.

  He pondered the lack of correlation between the mind's tormented suffering and the smooth efficiency of the attacking body. He skimmed into the reservoir of unconnected data left behind by the Other and in an instant had found the key to this seeming paradox: Somatic programming. Internal manipulation ineffective.

  He loosed his hold upon the insulated mind and fashioned a new matrix of considerable complexity. As another series of blows began to jolt his sprawled body, he reached carefully outv/ard.

  One: Two. Three. Four. Five.

  The pattern caught them one by one, slipped off the last, settled again, slipped—

  The sudde
n fury on March's face had transmuted into cold resolve; Raille had watched, uncomprehending, as his dry lips mouthed the snapword that would trigger his Dance. Then for long seconds of horror she stood mute, unable to move as the

  soldier leaped at the pale young man and battered him unresisting to the floor.

  When the first heavy kick landed she found her voice. By then they were all milling around, shouting and hissing their dismay. But the Dancer moved much too quickly, an accelerated holo of a deadly machine gone berserk in their midst. Raille caught at the golden arm and was flung savagely away. The kicks and blows continued to fall, and she cried out helplessly to the body moving feebly on the tiles.

  She sensed a rippling, a stirring of the air...

  Choss darted forward, to step boldly between the soldier and the fallen empath. The heavy boot swung inexorably and a vicious blow landed against the historian's left leg. He staggered with the impact, but managed to remain standing. Raille called out to him: "Get back, he'll kill you, too!" But Choss' eyes were on the wall above her head, distant and calmly musing.

  Then suddenly Cil joined him, and the next blow seemed to swerve aside, only glancing against her skull as she knelt beside the empath. The next moment Jack was there between the other two, then Marysu, attempting to encircle them all with her braceleted arms.

  Raille alone hung back, watching them in wonderment.

  Their faces were clean of emotion, placid as they drew the battered figure to his feet and held him there, suspended in their midst. They moved ceaselessly as they supported him, their limbs writhing over his body and head. Glimpses of the bloodied, swollen face were visible from outside the ring of bodies, and Chassman seemed aswarm with insects, his silent head without expression, bobbing above the weaving arms like the object of some sadistic sexual rite from which both Raille and the golden Dancer had been excluded.