The Alchemists

by Geary Gravel

  in shards they fell, invisible at last.

  FROM PUR KWAH? BY SERUKH OF MEJTRE

  I

  Rain fell steadily the next day, mated to a capricious wind that wove it into ever more complex patterns, a cold gray dance above green grass bending ceaselessly into silver. The Water had overflowed its banks in the storm's third hour, and its dark

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  fingers quested through the fields near the Hut. All night lightning raked the sky, wringing great rolling waves of thunder from the air.

  Long after the rain had stopped, the wind moved in great gusts, like an invisible hand passing again and again across the meadows.

  Emrys stood in the doorway and watched Jefany, thoughts and feelings gathering to form a tight constriction at his throat. Having so much to say made it almost impossible to speak, and for a moment he considered turning silently and going back upstairs.

  But she noticed him then with a quick glance and a small, rueful smile. He came into the room.

  "Anything?" His voice sounded strange to him. He had been feeling his considerable age these past several hours, obsessively sifting through three centuries of accumulated tragedies and disappointments. But the voice was still that of a naive young man. Green leaves, he thought, the vague memory of another night stirring. Green leaves and life persists where it has no right to be.

  "Not yet," Jefany replied. "I've only been trying for a little while. She must have left the droshky. Well, I'm not surprised. She's always felt encumbered riding around on that thing. She probably has it following her at a distance, as she did the last time, and if so—" She looked up from the silent console and gestured helplessly. "I just wish she would answer now," she said to him. "I really just wish she would answer."

  They looked together at the blank information strip.

  "How is it with Raille?" Jefany touched a series of keys. "Any change at all?"

  "No change." Emrys ran his copper-dark hand along the smooth white surface of the console. "She's recovered from the chill, and her body's not in shock any longer according to the medipal, but inside— The Hut says she's just letting go inside. The Hut says she's dying."

  Jefany stared unseeing at her empty hands, the words like a trickle of icy water on her spine. "Dying." She bit at her lower lip. "Hai, and we can't do anything? Nothing?"

  "They're still trying. It doesn't look very hopeful." He looked

  at her in defeated exhaustion. "It's as if she were trying to follow Kin, you know? Drifting away from us, colder and colder..."

  Jefany's fingers moved automatically on the control plates in the long silence that followed, her shoulders bowed under disheveled hair.

  "I guess I'll go back up now," Emrys said. "Let me know..."

  Jefany nodded. "You, too."

  As he turned to leave, the console emitted a bleat and a series of blue and green ripples began to pulse along the information strip. Jefany's eyes widened. Her hands darted through a sequence of keys.

  "—away from the bug, of course, but I let it catch up this afternoon," a clear, very distant voice said. "We've had some rather bizarre weather down here—"

  "Oil," Jefany said. Her voice shook as she gripped the rounded edges of the console. "Oh, thank God, Cil."

  "What is it? Jefany? Has something happened?"

  "Everything. There was a storm here. Last night. It was terrible." Jefany took a long breath, nodding to the pulsing line of color as if it bore Cil's likeness. "Raille was alone on Late Watch. She went outside the Hut. She had taken a moodbender earlier, a drugwine, not a lot. She went outside to where Kin was—to protect him from the storm, maybe. We're not sure why. But there was an accident. They fell among the jagged rocks. We found them in the little cave on the side of the Hill. Now Raille's very sick: unconscious most of the time, incoherent when she does wake. The medipal, the Hut, they don't know what to do for her. Oh, and Kin—" She squeezed the console again, took a shuddering breath. "His head was injured. On the rock. We fixed the damage as best we could, but it didn't help. Oh, Cil, the kin has died."

  There was silence from the console, an emptiness which stretched until Emrys feared the fragile contact had been broken. Then Cil's faraway voice came again:

  "I'll be there at once. I pray Raille can be saved. And the kin—I was almost expecting—well, I'll tell you everything after I get there. Probably a day. Keep everyone calm and strong, give them my love. I'm leaving immediately."

  "Be careful." Jefany searched for words. "Please hurry."

  "I will, as fast as this thing can hop. I'll see you tomorrow morning, latest. Goodbye."

  Green swallowed blue and the narrow strip blanked with a tiny beep.

  Emrys cleared his throat after a few moments. "Well, that's good, that's good to know—that she's safe, that she'll be here."

  Jefany pressed his hand against her damp cheek.

  Upstairs, Emrys heard the cries and scuffling sounds before he reached Raille's door.

  Choss and Jack were holding her down on the pallet, a worried determination on their faces as she struggled silently, fiercely. Her hands twisted and clenched; her contorted face rocked from side to side, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.

  "We barely grabbed her in time," Choss whispered. "She was trying to hurl herself against the wall." His expression was bewildered, his eyes fearful.

  "Through the wall's more likely, the way she lunged at it." March drew a thread from the medipal to Raille's forearm, made adjustments on the small floating unit. Her frantic movements subsided gradually, pale arms falling limp and lifeless at her sides. They released her cautiously at the soldier's signal.

  Emrys noticed Marysu standing just inside the doorway, her back pressed tightly to the wall behind her.

  "Those were signs she was making, weren't they?" he asked.

  The linguist nodded, intent on the sleeping figure, her blue eyes wary.

  Emrys touched the brown shoulder. "Well?"

  Marysu roused herself with a shiver. "One sign only, over and over," she whispered. "Out, out, out..."

  Emrys followed her gaze to the other side of the room. It was a southern wall. Beyond it lay the estate of the dead kin.

  Chassman had left the Hut at daybreak, remaining outside for most of the day while he wandered unshielded through the storm-wracked forest.

  It was late when he returned to the Hut. No one was in the Hearth Room. His bare feet made no noise as he climbed the cool stairs and made his way down the long hallway to her room.

  Emrys stood in the doorway. His eyes were dull, rimmed with red. "I suppose you want to come in." His voice held no discernible emotion.

  "Yes."

  After a moment's hesitation, the old man sighed and stepped aside. "She's alive, but she won't wake up. We sedated her, probably a mistake. But she would have harmed herself. Now she won't come out of it. The Hut says—" He wiped his hand across his face. "We don't know what to do. We're going to lose her."

  Raille lay on her back on the cushioned pallet she had favored, dark blue furmock to her throat, a long pale tube of wire curving from one exposed wrist to a silvery area on the nearest wall. Choss was sitting next to her, his hand gingerly touching hers while he murmured assurances to her blank face. He lifted his head when the shadow fell across the pallet.

  "Get away! You're not going to hurt her any more." He motioned to the others. "Make him go!"

  "Let me help." Chassman knelt next to him. "Let me."

  The historian rubbed wearily at his eyes, slumped back against the wall. "What could you do?" he asked.

  "I don't know." Chassman placed his sunburned hand against Raille's cheek, framed her jaw in thumb and fingers. "Something," he said finally. "Something is missing. Almost as if—" He closed his eyes, and a look that might have been pain clouded his features. Abruptly his fingers jumped away from her face and he stared down at her with his head cocked to one side, looking almost surprised, as if he had caught a whisper too faint for the re
st to hear.

  He rose and motioned to the door. "Take her to the Library. Put her in the sensebath."

  "Oh no." Choss wagged his finger in tired negation. "Not again. It didn't do one bit of good before. She's probably immune, or something."

  Chassman stood very still. He turned back from the doorway and faced the others, pale again beneath his new tan. "When was she last in the machine?" His quiet voice was like frost falling toward them.

  "The day she arrived," Emrys said. "She came somewhat later than the rest, you know—or maybe you don't—straight from Weldon on the Chatoyant. So she was dropped all alone,

  like you. We never did find out just what happened to her, but we found her senseless on our doorstep that afternoon, all scratched and her garments torn. I assumed she'd run into— into Kin in the forest and been so unsettled by the sight of him that she just started running. We put her in the bain-sense at once. She seemed to have had a great shock, though somehow she'd managed to find the Hut before collapsing."

  "Somehow, yes," Chassman said. "As she had first managed to find the creature. It wasn't the sight of it that unsettled her. It was drowning inside, it was falling into silver.... The strangeness, the slipperiness always when dealing with her. Why did I not understand?" He turned to Emrys. "You recall what happened to me when I first encountered the creature."

  "Silver—" Choss raised his eyes. He had been staring at Raille's sleeping face, chewing absently on his finger. "You know, that's almost exactly what she said to me after she woke up that night. About a dream she'd had, about being surrounded by oceans of silver. Nothing about the creature. I thought the machine had blanked out part of her memory and substituted that silver business as some sort of therapy—though it hardly seemed to relax her, whatever it was. And she still had the fear of the kin; it was always difficult for her to face him, long after the rest of us had gotten over it."

  "Not the machine's fault. She out-tricked it. She didn't wait for it to finish." March stood in the corner of the room with arms folded, his expression fierce as he stared at Raille, in contrast to his gentle, almost admiring tones. "Woke up too early, before the session was over. I found it on the log."

  "Yes, of course. The unmodified program could not hold her. Nor could I." Chassman looked at Raille, closed his eyes briefly. "Take her to the Library," he said again. "We are wasting time here."

  "But—I still don't understand why she has to be moved. It could be dangerous." Choss laid his hand on the furmock close above the violated wrist, his voice a doubtful child's. "And if it didn't help before, why would it solve anything now?"

  "It has already been solved." The empath moved past them into the corridor. "All that remains is to save her life."

  Jefany met them halfway to the Library. Her eyes grew wide when she saw the strange procession with Emrys at its

  head. March and Choss came behind him, guiding the floating pallet, then Jack and Marysu, silently, not looking at each other, and the empath last of all, moving with his dark head bowed in meditation.

  She moved to the side of the corridor. "What's happened?"

  Emrys gave a tired shrug. "I'm not exactly sure why, but the empath wants to put Raille in the bain-sense. He claims he knows what he's doing."

  "He wants to," she repeated.

  Emrys nodded. "He's changed so much."

  "Then he's not a piece of carefully programmed machinery any longer. Do you trust him in this new incarnation?"

  "I don't know. She's dying. I guess we have to." He stepped aside, and they gazed down at the sweet, unconscious face as Raille was borne past them. Jefany took his hand and they followed the others down the hall, passing once through a quiet section where the walls swam blue, and once through a dim place where low music played.

  "Put the pallet down inside the doorway," Chassman said as they neared the small room. Jefany noticed with a start that he was barefoot, his feet dark and grass-stained below the black breeches.

  "Wait here." Chassman disappeared into the room. The others stood in the corridor. Raille lay unmoving near the door, her face serene in the room's dim light.

  "She was someone to talk to," March said softly.

  "For God's sake, she's not dead!" Choss cried. "She's'not dead!"

  The empath was kneeling at the head of the bain-sense, partially visible to those who waited in the corridor. He looked up to where March slumped by the doorway.

  "You have a familiarity with technical devices," he said to the soldier. "The planalyst would have more skill at this, but she is not here. I will tell you what tools to get from the Hut and then you will work with me to alter this machine."

  March stood silently, his face set as if waiting for the wave of compulsion to grip him. When none came he looked almost bewildered. Then he moved slowly into the room and squatted down beside the other man. "I'll help," he said. "Tell me what to do."

  The others waited in the hallway. From the Library came

  Chassman's rough whisper, March's muttered replies, long silences. Emrys and Jefany were nearest the door; they sat quietly, speaking with their eyes. Opposite them sat Choss, and not far from him Marysu and Jack, who had begun to converse in low tones. As time passed Marysu lowered her head against Jack's shoulder and he stroked her face lightly while she slept.

  At last Emrys rose from the floor and peered into the small room.

  The bain-sense looked as if it had exploded. Raille still lay on the pallet, but a jungle of wires ran between her body and the partially disemboweled mechanism.

  "What have you done?"

  "He's rearranged half of it," March said. "Now we're trying to get it back into one piece, though what he thinks—"

  "My people created this device for their own use," Chassman said without looking up. "It can perform functions which are unknown to you." He leaned away from the casket. "She must be placed inside now, and the machine sealed."

  The others had followed Emrys in silently. He felt their eyes on him. Turning, he gazed at Raille for a long moment. Then he motioned to March, and the two of them lifted her cautiously and lowered her onto the pearl-colored silk.

  Chassman laid his hand upon the lid, but Emrys stopped him with a gesture. "A moment," he said.

  Choss went to Raille's side, watching her a little fearfully as he bent to smooth a strand of auburn hair from her face. His eyes stung with tears, and then he felt them on his cheeks. He said her name aloud, not caring if the others heard his voice break, nor what they thought of him at all. But when he finally looked up from the side of the silver casket, he saw that Marysu, who stood nearest, was watching him with an odd gentleness, an expression he did not at once recognize, having never before seen it on her face.

  Two hours later Emrys returned alone to the Library to find Chassman sealing the last panel of the altered machine. March was slumped in a body hug near the door, cleaning a cluster of tiny tools.

  "Asleep," the Dancer said in response to Emrys' lifted brows.

  "Body and mind, outside and in. Stable now. No more drifting away."

  "What's to be done with her now? How long can she survive like this?"

  March shrugged, turning to watch where die empath worked. "Life support hooked in. Power pack. No limit on that."

  "She will live in here until such time as she may be safely brought back to full awareness," Chassman said, rising to his feet.

  "She can be healed, then?"

  "Not here." The eyes of the empath scanned him impersonally. "When the time arrives to leave this world, then she must be taken to those who have the means to help her. There is no other way."

  'Taken—"

  "I put a basic Dance in with her," March interjected quickly. "For muscle tone, to prevent atrophy. She'll wake up healthier than when she went in."

  Emrys faced the empath. 'Taken where?"

  "To Maribon."

  Emrys felt his scalp tingle. "What makes you think they'd want to help Raille?"

  A hint of irony appe
ared in the calm face. "The thought of one is as the thought of all. I could not say it if it were not correct."

  "Maribon." Emrys looked down at the silent oblong.

  "Seems like the only way." March spoke hesitantly, as if weighing the words as they left his lips. "His people, they would know, they'd have the skill. And he seems to want to help her." Brown eye and green stone studied the black-haired youth on the other side of the casket. "I believe him."

  The empath sat cross-legged on the floor of the north high room, his eyes closed tightly. In his mind were parodies of sight and sound: distorted whispers, ghosts of insubstantial color and movement.

  "Hut," he said at last.

  "Yes, Chassman."

  "I must contact my people. I must have a connection with the City of Delphys on Maribon. There is only one Screen. Emrys has authorized reinstitution of the Net-link."

  "And for purposes of billing?"

  He pressed the heels of his hands to his closed eyes. "They will pay."

  "Very well. There will be a delay of some hours."

  He sat silently on the bare floor, his teeth clenched, his brain a dance of noise and shadows. The inner chaos had begun as a flicker when he delved into Raille's mind and discovered the familiar pattern hidden there; hours later, it had become a murmuring whirlwind that threatened to separate him from his own thoughts.

  As he struggled to remain free of the images in his mind, the voice of the Hut intruded on his silent battle. "Chassman. May I speak?"

  He nodded, hoping that the concentration required to discourse with the golden machine-voice would distract him from the internal turmoil.

  "I spoke to you once of my difficulty in placing you within this universe we share. There has been some revision of my perceptions of the Maribonese people. Would you care to hear my latest thoughts on the subject, to help pass the time?"

  "Go on."

  "I have come to think that we are very similar, you and I, two beings in motion relative to humankind. Perhaps our movements occur at different portions of the same great ellipse; at any rate, your progress attracts far more attention from our primary at the moment. They see you hurtling away from them, cold and silent, and they fear you, while my kind drifts ever closer, moving as yet unnoticed."