Alchemist Illusion (The Alchemist Book 3)

by Dan Michaelson

  “Who are you?” Sam asked.

  The man blinked slowly. A dazed expression on his face suggested that he hadn’t come fully around yet.

  “Who are you?” Sam asked again.

  A strange energy started to build. There was friction to it, almost as if Sam were rubbing his hands together too quickly. He held out the vrandal and forced power into it, and it started to glow. His hand pulsed with its power.

  Shaking his head, Sam looked toward the man. “Let the energy go, or I will release this power.”

  The man blinked again, and it seemed as if his vision cleared if only a little. “You made a mistake.”

  Sam clenched his jaw. Was that a barb at how he’d dropped the almanac? Or something else? “The Nighlan aren’t going to succeed in destroying the Academy,” Sam said. “We have stopped you, and we will continue to stop you.”

  “You think that trinket scares me?”

  “Trinket?”

  Sam didn’t take his eyes off the man, but he focused on the energy within himself, using the vrandal to do so. As usual, the power seemed to come more from the vrandal and less from him, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be useful. With as much power as he had seen from the device, he knew it could be beneficial—and dangerous.

  “You think that worries me?” the man asked.

  “It knocked you out, didn’t it?”

  “A lucky strike.” The man shifted, and Sam almost unleashed the power within the vrandal before holding back. “You don’t have any control. I can see it from you.”

  “Control?” He opened his palm. The vrandal pulsated, questing for release. That was what this man wanted. He was trying to bait Sam into wasting power, but Sam wasn’t going to fall victim to that trap. Instead, he would try a different strategy. “Where are the others who are with you?”

  “There are many with me.”

  Sam glared. “I know. Where are they?”

  “They won’t fear your trinket either.” The man raised his gaze from the vrandal to Sam, meeting his eyes. “None of us do.”

  “I’m not the one you need to fear here. Others know far more than I do. They’re the ones you need to worry about.”

  “They aren’t here, though, are they?”

  The sense of friction persisted, and Sam debated whether he should unleash this power on the attacker. He couldn’t tell what the man was doing, only that he seemed to be attempting something. The vrandal didn’t appear to be enough of a threat to him.

  Was there anything else he might be able to do that would be more intimidating? If only he had the almanac.

  Sam leaned close and held out the vrandal, pressing a hint of power through it. The device began to glow softly, taking on more of the green light. At this point, he couldn’t help but feel as if the man was trying to goad him into reacting a specific way, and Sam wasn’t willing to fall into a trap.

  They stared at each other, and Sam glared as he tried to decide what he needed to do. He could bring the man to Havash, who might be able to use his skills to get information from him. Sam suspected that if anyone could find out something, it would be Havash. Doing so would reveal what Sam had lost, though. He would be admitting that he had come down here, chased after the stone, and lost the almanac. But at this point, revealing that might be necessary.

  The strange friction building around him persisted, and it seemed to grow even more potent. Sam could feel that friction rubbing against him, the way it was scrubbing at his skin. As he stared at the attacker, he couldn’t tell if it came from him or from somewhere else.

  Sam broke eye contact and looked around the room. He was prepared to use the vrandal to blast power into this man, but he also needed to be ready for the possibility of something else out there.

  He fixed his gaze back on the man, who looked almost casual the way he leaned against the wall and rested comfortably. Far too comfortably for Sam. “How many others are with you?”

  “There are many others. Do you think we would come unprepared?” He nodded toward Sam’s hand. “Do you think we would come and not have some way of neutralizing your trinket?”

  Sam resisted the urge to unleash the power building within the vrandal. That was what this man wanted. “You’ve already been stopped before. Each time you’ve tried to attack, you have failed.”

  This man had to be one of the Nighlan.

  “You’ve stopped nothing. You only delayed. You have proved incapable of doing anything to stop us.”

  Sam got to his feet and looked around. He was going to have to get this man out of the chamber, whether that meant using the vrandal to knock him out again or marching him up the stairs. If he knocked him out, he would be forced to carry him.

  He could also leave him here. Sam could lock him in by sealing the room closed, get Havash or some of the others, and then return. When he did, he could blast him again and keep him from doing anything dangerous.

  Then again, it might be better to get him out of here, but that meant taking him through the tunnels. That was the only way Sam knew how to escape from this room, short of going through the city itself, and he wasn’t sure if the city would be safe. As far as he knew, the Nighlan still had control over Tavran.

  He had to make a choice.

  “Get up,” Sam said.

  The man didn’t move. “I think I’ll stay right here.”

  “Get up.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Sam held the vrandal out, shoving it toward him. “If you don’t, then I’m going to use this against you.”

  “We’ve already established how little I fear your trinket. Don’t threaten me with something you don’t intend to use.”

  “Get up,” Sam repeated.

  “I don’t think I will.”

  “Fine. Stay here. I’m going to go back up the stairs, and I’m going to lock you down here, much like I did before.” Sam wanted him to know that he’d been the one responsible for that. “Seeing as how there’s no reason for anyone to come down here, you might be here for a while.”

  The man glared at him. “No reason? You don’t even know what you have here, do you?” The man sneered at him.

  “We know what you already tried to release,” he said.

  “Tried? Succeeded is more like it.” He wrinkled his nose. “I can smell it.”

  He could smell it?

  Sam hadn’t known whether they had succeeded but had hoped they prevented Bethal from releasing that power. If she had succeeded, did that mean that she had access to some greater power than what she had before?

  She was Grandam, which meant that she had knowledge, perhaps even experience, that put her into a position of great power.

  With even more power, she would be deadly dangerous. That was if she wasn’t already.

  Finally, the man started getting to his feet. Sam remained on edge. He half expected the man to lunge at him or to do something with the power he obviously possessed, but there was no sign of it. The man started toward the stairs, and Sam nudged him, encouraging him to keep moving.

  At first, the man did so slowly, but Sam shoved his hand out and forced him forward. They reached the stairs, and Sam breathed a silent sigh of relief.

  The man spun.

  Instinctively, Sam released the pent-up power within the vrandal. It seemed to wash over the attacker when it struck, almost as if it did nothing to him.

  The man smirked at him. “See? I don’t fear your trinket.”

  Sam lunged, using all of his force to slam his shoulder into the man, wanting to knock him down.

  Both of them fell backward.

  The man grinned as he got back to his feet and started to climb up the stairs. The magic he possessed began to build, a steady sort of friction that Sam found incredibly unpleasant. The power rubbed against his arms, his chest, his entire body.

  Power gathered within the vrandal, and Sam used everything he could to hold that energy out from him and let that power fill him. It surged outward.

&nbs
p; As it did, the attacker did something strange, the nature of his power shifted. Sam sensed the man’s energy changing, and it flowed toward him.

  Sam ducked off to the side, rolling out of the way, and tried to move before the man had any way to harm him fully. Was he quick enough?

  At first, he could feel something within him, a sense of energy and power, but then it began to fade. That power washed over him.

  Sam knew he had to get up the stairs and past this man. He called upon the vrandal as the friction continued to build, burning against him, almost beyond what he could withstand. He tensed, feeling that power as it rubbed against him, and the energy of the vrandal poured out of him.

  Not only the energy of the vrandal but finally the energy within Sam.

  The vrandal produced a cloud of green light that began to build around him, the color and the power overwhelming.

  The attacker’s eyes widened as he backed away. Sam crashed into the man again and knocked him to the ground. He started toward the stairs.

  The man laughed, his voice a dark and terrible sound with a mixture of power within it. He watched Sam scramble up the stairs. “You’ve already failed. You don’t even know it yet.”

  Sam held out the vrandal, trying to prepare for whatever pattern he might use to trigger it so that he could explode that power outward. He had no idea if other patterns might be effective but knew that the one that he had used against Ferand had worked. Something like that would work now too.

  He prepared for that pattern and ignored the sound of laughter chasing him.

  There was something else mixed within it. Almost a friction of energy.

  At the top of the stairs, Sam paused.

  Pressure was building. He didn’t know what it was, only that he could feel it. It reminded him of the kind of pressure that he once could feel when he could not see, the kind of pressure that filled him, and the energy there.

  It was powerful and potent.

  He reached the top of the stairs.

  Laughter came from somewhere below him again. The man had not even attempted to come up the stairs. He stood at the bottom, watching him with a look of satisfaction on his face.

  Had Sam made a mistake?

  Almost too late, Sam realized that the friction wasn’t coming from the power the man held but from somewhere else. There was another surge of energy, and as it washed over him, Sam did the only thing he could think of. He reacted by unleashing power out of the vrandal.

  Only this time, rather than that power saving him, it seemed as if the energy within the vrandal flowed away from him and moved uselessly beyond.

  Something struck him.

  He crashed to the ground, and the last thing he saw, the last he remembered, was the laughter coming from the man below him. The steady rumble of his voice and the ongoing sense of friction that seemed to build.

  Sam tried to ignore it as darkness claimed him.

  Chapter Nine

  Sam awakened slowly.

  He couldn’t move, and at first, he worried that something had happened to him the same way it had when he lost his sight. But this felt different.

  Power pressed against him, the same power he’d felt when he passed out. In a panic, he checked his hand, but the vrandal was still there.

  Low laughter came from nearby, full of amusement. “Look at him. The first thing he worries about is his trinket.”

  “He doesn’t know better.”

  “He thinks it will save him.”

  Sam squeezed his hand around the vrandal, channeling the power within it. In doing so, he could feel the energy inside, and he exhaled. At least he wouldn’t be completely defenseless. Even if there was nothing he could do, he had some way of trying to escape if the opportunity were to present itself. With the vrandal, he knew several different techniques that could be utilized. He could trigger an explosion of power, maybe even something like the green cloud he had found outside the Academy. But there was some other use that he remained optimistic that he could eventually understand. If he could work through how to use the line of power in angulation, he could use the arcane arts. And that was something Sam was well-versed on.

  Opening his eyes, he looked around. He was in an empty room. There were no markings on the walls, no paintings or portraits, and nothing to give him any clue of his whereabouts. It was intentional, he was certain. They’d not given him anything or any way to know where he was.

  He attempted to sit up, but there was pressure against him. The laughter came again, and within it was that same strange, irritating friction. He tried to raise his arms but could not.

  “You’ll find that you are not going to be able to escape.” This came from a different voice, higher, softer. There was something almost apologetic in it.

  “Who are you?” Sam asked.

  He thought they were Nighlan, but what if they weren’t? As he detected the power that continued to build around him, Sam no longer knew if it was them. Why would they be holding him here?

  Because they had the almanac. At least the almanac was useless without the key. That was the lesson he’d learned. They had come for not only the almanac but also the key, though he had no idea what they intended to do with the stone. Here he thought he’d protected the stone from the Nighlan, but now he’d failed.

  He squeezed his hand around the vrandal, holding it tightly. The laughter came again.

  “Stop,” the soft voice said.

  The laughter cut off quickly. Sam looked over, trying to determine who it was that helped him.

  A woman with black hair and blue eyes appeared in front of him. The serene features that worked across her face made her look young, but he could tell she was not. “Do you know who we are?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know anything. You captured me.”

  “It was necessary.”

  “Necessary?” He squeezed his hand around the vrandal again, worried they were going to try to force it off his hand. The last time someone had attempted to remove the vrandal from his hand, there had been pain.

  “Yes,” the woman said. “You were where you should not have been. And dealing with the kind of power, and the kind of danger, that you should not have.”

  Sam frowned at her, then looked beyond her. They had the stone here, but where? He could normally detect energy from it, but he felt nothing now. “Where should I have been?”

  “Not there,” she said.

  Sam started to laugh before realizing that she wasn’t joking. There was no sense of mirth in her, but at the same time, she watched him almost with an understanding in her eyes.

  He looked from her to the others. The man who’d captured him leaned against a wall near the back of the room, watching Sam with a hint of amusement. For all his talk about not fearing the vrandal, the man’s gaze drifted to it often enough that Sam thought he did fear it. There was another man next to him, dressed in similar black clothing. His skin was brown, as was his long, braided hair. It was difficult for Sam to get a sense of age from either of them. They could have been his age, or they could have been much older. Looking at their deep brown eyes didn’t help either.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “You may call me Lilith.”

  “What do others call you?”

  She smiled slightly. “Something else.”

  Sam shifted, attempting to sit up again, but the pressure on him made it difficult. Something else mixed with the sense of friction he felt. What were they doing to him?

  “Where am I?” he asked.

  She crouched in front of him. She was tall and thin, and there was an energy about her that struck him as almost welcoming.

  That set off warnings within him. They wanted him to think he was going to be safe here. That was how they would harm him. He needed to remain alert, prepared for anything. All he knew was that they were using magic that burned against him.

  “Where do you think you are?” she asked.

  Sam looked around the room once more
.

  There was nothing about it that felt familiar.

  He hated that he had to resort to what he felt rather than what he could deduce, but that was where he was.

  “Did you bring me out of Tavran?”

  The corners of the woman’s eyes twitched slightly. Was that because he’d mentioned Tavran?

  “What do you think?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Sam looked around again, but this time he didn’t use his eyes. If his experience without his vision had taught him anything, it was that there were times when eyesight wouldn’t help.

  He used his other senses and focused on the way the room felt. There was a feel to each room, something Sam had come to appreciate and use to detect where he was within the Academy. Some of it came from the vague sense of distance between the walls, but some of it came from the way the air pressed against him, the smells that surrounded him, and even the hints of magic that existed in so many places.

  There was no air pressing against his cheeks. The smells here were all foreign, a faint spice coming off the woman, the stink of sweat from the other two men, and an earthy note he suspected belonged to the room and not its occupants. There was also the friction he’d been feeling. Sam believed that sense was magic, though he had yet to see how they were using it against him. It didn’t hurt so much as it was an uncomfortable presence.

  Could there be other magic?

  Sam had enough of an ability to detect the arcane arts that he thought that he should be able to see something if they were using it, but so far, he had not. Was there some other power here?

  If so, it wasn’t the arcane arts. Maybe it was advanced alchemy.

  Or perhaps that was why they wanted him here. Because he had the almanac. And the key. They wanted him to reveal how to use the almanac for advanced alchemy.

  Or perhaps even something greater. They didn’t need advanced alchemy. They might be able to use the arcane arts, hear him describe the kind of power within the almanac, and then use that against the Academy.

  He reached for the connection to the vrandal, letting that come to him. There wasn’t the same separation that he’d felt when Bethal had tried to take the device from him. Perhaps these newcomers would still attempt to do so, but for now, they hadn’t.