Alchemist (15 page)

Closer to the
fire, among the giants, the human-sized party members sat. None of
them really needed the heat of the flames, but the fire was a good
source of light.

Darius took a long
pull from his water skin. He then tipped his head back, dosing his
filthy, sweaty face with the cold fluid.

Fallo observed
him. “Tell me child, how much water do you have left?”

Darius immediately
stopped what he was doing, staring at the king with hunted eyes.
His lips moved but he couldn’t seem to speak.

“You can speak you
know.” The King said, inclining his chin.

“He’s scared of
you.” said Terry, idly poking the fire with a stick. Her father
raised an eyebrow. She smiled. “You frightened him earlier.”

“Really?” he said,
indifferent to whether it was true or not. He turned his gaze back
to the young water elemental. “What is your name?” he asked.

Darius looked on
nervously. “Darius...” he muttered, quickly averting his gaze. He
preoccupied himself with re-corking his water skin and returning it
to the satchel he had been given at the start of the day before
they left Cresswell Colony.

Fallo sat silently
for a minute then said, “You’re a son of the Daro line?”

Darius’s eyes
widened. “Yes...how did you know?”

A smile formed in
the corner of Fallo’s mouth - a very human expression. “Darius is a
very uncommon name in your culture. But there is one family which
has used it for twenty generations.”

“Did you know my
father?” He asked, sitting up keenly.

“No, we have never
met. Nor do I know of him, but I have heard of the family name many
times.”

“I’ve never heard
of the name.” Connor admitted at a loss. “Is your family famous for
some reason?”

Darius shook his
head. “No, but we have done many things. My ancestors also served
and survived in the last Great War.”

The party around
the campfire fell silent, including the Monoglyphs. The mention of
the Great War still held the peoples of the world in silent unity
even generations after it had taken place. Known to history as the
War of the South – it was the bloodiest chapter in the Southlands
history.

It was the time
the water and fire elementals fought over the two nations in the
southern hemisphere. The war lasted nearly 25 years and in that
time 50 million people died. In the end the war only ended because
the fire and water nations simply could not carry on. There were
not enough soldiers to man the war machines, nor were there enough
people left to organise or feed them. Both societies collapsed. It
was rumoured at the time that only two million fire elementals
survived. The situation for the water elementals was even graver.
They only numbered thousands. The Alchemists and the remaining
races were also eventually drawn into the conflict as the battle
consumed most of the planet. It was from the Great War that the
modern country – the Southlands was formed and its government
forged and the two races of fire and water co-existed side by
side.

After a prolonged
silence Faye said, “I think I shall retire.”

Everyone bid her
goodnight and she disappeared into her tent. Terry yawned, suddenly
realising how tired she was. It was time to call it a night. With
quiet words the party broke for the evening, everyone retiring with
heavy thoughts and heavy heads.

The thought of war
turned Terry’s stomach as she lay down for the night, the prospect
weighing hard on her mind. She knew if war came it would never
match the scale of The Great War, but she clung to the hope still,
that it would never come...

Southward
Bound

Fallo sat upright,
hissing. His sudden movement woke Terry, who had lying nearby.
“What is it?” she asked, looking this way and that in the predawn
gloom. The rest of the camp was silent and the two primeval
Alchemists who were keeping watch continued to do so at ease.
Whatever her father had noticed, no-one else had.

He continued to
stare into the distance. “Can you not hear it?”

Terry harkened.
Only silence. “Hear what?”

He looked at her,
his eyes flashing angrily. “Then lie down and listen, feel the
vibrations.”

Terry hesitated.
“Dad if there was someone out there the guards would have...”

“They cannot
hear as well as you or I and they never will. It is in your blood.”
He interjected his tone impatient. “Now
try
.”

Reluctantly she
lied back down, pressing her ear to the rock. “Listen.” So she did.
For a few minutes she tried and there was nothing but silence
punctuated by the occasional sound of someone turning or the
primeval Alchemists shuffling about where they sat. Through her
body she could feel no vibrations, only the solid ground beneath
her. She was about to give up when she felt a murmur. Had she
imagined it? No, there it was again and then again. With each
murmur the vibrations grew louder and her ears pricked at the
rumble of distant thunder. When she finally opened her eyes she
drew a sharp breath – the air stabbing at her lungs. She must have
forgotten to breathe for a few moments – but she could not recall
doing so. “Thunder.” She said, looking at her father, her eyes wide
with shock.

Her father smiled.
“Good.”

Terry sat up,
placing her hand against his chest. Closing her eyes she listened.
She could feel his heart. Every beat was as loud as a drum and the
vibrations doubly so. She could also feel his blood racing through
his body and the electrical discharges coming off his hybrid organs
of metal and tissue.

Terry suddenly
opened her eyes, drawing another sharp breath. She removed her
hand. Every nerve in her body tingled.

“Are you
alright?”

“Yeah...” She
puffed, leaning back on her arms to catch her breath. She felt
giddy.

Her father glanced
off toward the dark horizon. “It will be another few hours before
it is upon us. We should get some more rest.”

Terry glanced in
the same direction. She yawned, allowing her mandibles to fold out
for a second. She felt tired. Without further word she curled up
into a ball and shut her eyes.

“Daughter?”

But she was
already fast asleep.

******

Connor peered from
under his hood. Rivers of raindrops ran from its edges ceaselessly
as another flash of lightning lit up the landscape, before plunging
it back into near darkness. Connor was soaked, despite the heavy
duty raincoat he wore. He didn’t mind being wet but he hated having
his clothes plastered to him.

The storm had
forced them to travel on foot. Something Connor did not have any
qualms about, the Monoglyphs were like giant, walking lightning
rods.

“Are you alright?”
Terry shouted over the howling wind. Even she was struggling to
walk into the prevailing wind, despite her weight. Her clothes were
as sodden as his were.

“I’m a bit
soaked!” he laughed, his voice drowned out by a loud strike of
thunder in the distance.

She nodded,
smiling as drips of water flew from her face. “I know!”

“Keep up. It will
break soon!” Lyle shouted as he pressed past them.

Darius gave them a
dubious look as he caught up, hugging his thick jacket against the
brazing wind. “He said that an hour ago!”

Terry laughed. “I
think he only told you that to wind you up!”

“I’m not
surprised!”

“It should not be
much longer now, it’s nearly passed!”

Darius braved a
glance upward into the black sky overhead; it was as dark as it had
ever been. “Are you joking as well or are you being serious?”

“I’m being
serious! I hate getting soaked as much as you do!”

“I wish your
father had your sense of humour!”

Terry nodded. “Me
too sometimes!” she shouted, as they were buffeted by another blast
of freezing air. A flash of lightning forked across the sky.

Connor moved
closer to Terry so that he did not need to shout so much. “Forgive
me for saying but in a few hours we’ll be exactly where we were a
few days before we were ambushed!” He grabbed his hood as another
gust threatened to blow it from his head. “I’m not being nasty, I
know you’re wounds were quite bad and you needed treatment
but...we’ve just lost so much time. I know that’s terrible thing to
say, I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay. I feel
the same way. I don’t understand why they couldn’t have just
rescued us and we could have all carried on together instead of
being taken back to the colony.”

“Jo is probably
beginning to wonder where I am!”

“I know. But
there’s nothing we can really do about it!”

Connor’s
expression turned grim. “It is times like these that I wish gate
travel still took place.”

“I know it would
have made getting to the lake and the capital and home again a lot
easier.”

The capital of the
Southlands, Marrich, like a handful of other cities across the
globe, used to have temporal transport leaving for Earth a dozen
times daily. It was a thriving industry for several generations.
The travel choice of merchants, it originally served as a means for
goods to be transported to Earth where they could be sold on for a
high profit. Merchants could fetch a much higher price on a
parallel world where everyday goods would only turn a few coins
back home. A lot of the common everyday fruit, vegetables and
flowers the humans enjoyed had originally came from Terry’s home
world.

At its peak, tens
of thousands worked on the temporal transport system – including
smugglers. Sixty years earlier it had become so blighted with
corruption that it became much more tightly regulated by
governments across the world. Another reason for the move was the
human races improving knowledge of technology. In centuries gone by
one part of the world would go years, if not generations, without
contact with other parts of the globe. Now the humans could speak
to each other instantaneously because of the internet and other
ways of communication. And as the society became more in touch, its
food industries became much more regulated.

The temporal
transport system was only created to trade with Earth on a discreet
level, something modern times had made increasingly difficult. The
fire elementals had tried to make first contact with the human race
on three occasions back in the days when the technology was still
used for exploration. None of the encounters had ended well. One
which occurred in the Middle Ages led humanity to brand the aliens
demons. More than thirty missionaries were killed and only three
made it home alive.

After that the
fire elementals changed tactics and only ever approached humans on
more low key visits, opting to hide their true abilities and origin
in exchange for trade. The humans, it seemed, were far less fearful
of people who looked and acted like them. In time more and more
merchants began to trade with the apes, often tribes or those in
the East where they knew if their true nature were to be
discovered, they would more likely be revered from a healthy
distance than killed. The merchants had tended to steer clear of
the West, where men were much more suspicious. There had been
encounters in recent decades where merchants had been killed in
countries such as the United States, England and France. Secrecy,
it had been decided, was in the best interest.

The final nail in
the coffin to the industry came twenty years ago. A group of
merchants had decided, rather foolishly, and without official
permission from the Senate of the Southlands to go to the United
States and sell rare fruits in Chicago. Unfortunately one night,
three of the merchants got into a bar room brawl, revealing their
true abilities. Among the two fire elementals had been an
Alchemist. The army had quickly got involved and the three were
never heard of again.

The first anyone
back home knew about the awry mission was when a squad of armed US
marines appeared in the temporal chamber in the centre of Marrich.
The marines were taken prisoner and temporal transport was swiftly
banned. The fire elementals had glimpsed the nature of the human
race and the thing they feared more than being discovered was the
threat of invasion.

Many temporal
machines were destroyed after the ban. Only four were kept in
operation by the Senate for government matters only. Though many,
like Terry, knew that there were others still in operation; ones
that had disappeared onto the black market. How many exactly still
existed no one knew, but it was suspected that the number was quite
low. The Senate did not fear their illegal use. Anyone who used
them to get to Earth would be on their own if they got caught. The
Senate thought this was enough of a deterrent.

The rain suddenly
eased to a light drizzle as if someone somewhere had flipped a
switch. A distant rumble to the west heralded a break in the clouds
over the far horizon.

Darius looked to
the sky. “I hope there aren’t any more storms on the way.”

“I couldn’t tell
you.” Terry replied, wiping back her soaking hair.

“Do you think they
will allow me to go back?” Connor asked, ignoring the elemental
change.

“Who? The Senate?
I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s going to happen to me yet.
But whatever happens I’ll make sure you get home.”

“I hope so.” He
sighed, lowering his voice with the falling wind. “I am going to
have one very pissed off wife when I get home.”

“That’s also
assuming Faye will abandon her mad plan.” Terry said, peering
behind her. The water elemental walked alone, unfazed by the wild
winds and rain whipping about her. She caught the young Alchemists
gaze and stared at her coolly for a moment before looking
elsewhere. She knew she was being spoken about, Terry knew, but she
did not care. Terry looked back to Connor. “Darius is right,
there’s something still not quite right about her.”