Alchemist (21 page)

Darius crawled his
way to Connor and Terry. The three of them had taken refuge under a
bramble bush, which lay beneath the shade of a tall tree; moments
before they had been running for their lives. Three giant, winged
beasts circled overhead; their calls piercing the sky.

The Manbur were
large birds that lived in the wilds of the Southlands. Although
rare and easily frightened by large groups of people, they did not
fear lone travellers or small groups, especially when they numbered
two or more. The Manbur were as beautiful as they were deadly. They
looked reminiscent of the golden eagles that resided in northern
Scotland - only far larger in size and with a white chest and
indigo beaks. An adult’s wingspan reached thirty feet and the birds
weighed more than three hundred pounds. They had been notorious for
the deaths of countless travellers over the ages.

While a primeval
Alchemist could easily fight one or two off in close quarters, the
Manbur could easily pick one off if there was a flock of them. They
had been known to surround Alchemists, some acting as distraction,
while two of three would sneak behind and carry them off to great
heights before letting go. Gravity did the rest.

Terry was certain
that had it been a better day she could have fought off all three
of the Manbur circling above due to the superior strength and size
she possessed over her brethren. But this was not one of those
better days. She was tired and she was hungry. And in the time it
would have taken her to transform she would have broken cover and
the blood-thirsty birds would have attacked; possibly inflicting
fatal wounds.

“Shit!” swore
Darius, as he reached Connor’s side, his heart pounding. “They’re
everywhere!”

“You okay?” asked
Terry.

“No...” He
fidgeted, pulling his sleeve free from the snaring grasp of the
brambles, only to have it catch on another knot of barbs.

Terry rolled her
eyes.

Connor peered
skyward through a gap in the brambles. One Manbur circled above the
tree, out of sight, though its shadow still pressed through the
green leaves. “They’ll lose interest eventually.”

“Or they’ll come
back with their friends.” Darius muttered. The thought terrified
him.

Connor shook his
head, as best he could in the sharp embrace of the brambles. “Nah,
Manburs only usually travel in pairs or groups of three.”

“How do you
know?”

“I saw it on a
documentary once.”

Darius clucked,
incredulous. “What? That doesn’t mean you’re right!”

Terry knew they
travelled in far larger numbers sometimes but decided it best to
keep the knowledge to herself. “Have you ever tried Manbur?” She
asked, before anyone had the chance to inquire her thoughts on
numbers.

Darius stared at
her blankly. “No. Have you?”

“Terry’s eaten
most things, just ignore her, she’s trying to wind you up.”

But Darius’s
curiosity was piqued. “What does it taste like?”

“Chicken.”

Darius looked up
as another winged shadow sped overhead. “Can’t you kill them?”

She shook her head
as she peered through the brambles. “They would attack me while I
changed.”

Connor shuffled
about, the thorns stabbing into every inch of his body. “It’s
funny, your next meal is right there but it’s trying to eat
us.”

She furrowed her
brow. “That’s not funny.”

He shrugged. “It’s
true.”

Terry sighed. She
gazed up at the shaft of blue sky which was barely visible between
the tall grass and the leaves.

“Well...” Connor
mused loudly, “While we are here we may as well discuss how we are
going to deal with Edward.”

“We talked about
that earlier.” Terry reminded him, squinting through the gaps in
the brambles.

“Yeah but we still
don’t know where he has been hiding all these years.”

“You can guess as
much as you want, it won’t give you an answer.”

Darius shifted
about where he lay. “Forgive me for asking, but I wasn’t there. How
did you kill him all those years ago? I mean, how did you get rid
of him...sort of...”

Connor and Terry
looked at one another, unsure of who should tell the story.
Eventually it was Connor who decided to take the plunge once Terry
looked away. “There is only two ways you can stop a Phantom.” He
shuffled about on his front, trying to get comfy. “One way is to
trap them in the body they are possessing. The only problem with
that is when the body dies they escape. The other way is to
destabilise them with an electro-magnetic pulse.”

“
Why?”

“Because our heads
work by sending electrical signals around the brain and after
people die their minds continue to create a residue of
electro-magnetic signals for a while. Sometimes those escape the
person’s dying mind and take a bit of their personality with them.
When someone says that they’ve seen a ghost, that’s what they’re
really seeing. I think Phantoms are the same.”

Darius looked
perplexed. “Are you saying that Phantoms are ghosts of other
people?”

He shook his head.
“I don’t know, it’s only a theory. No-one knows exactly how they
evolved but that’s not my point. They aren’t like ghosts. Ghosts
are just shadows of someone who has passed away. They follow the
same routine and haunt the same places.” He shuffled about on his
arms. “Phantoms are as real as you are, they are conscious, they
had a culture and a society before they all disappeared. I meant
that they’re like ghosts in the sense that they exist as an
electro-magnetic force.”

The water
elemental looked even more confused than before. “Right, I think I
understand...but why can’t you just kill him the way you did the
last time?”

It was Terry who
answered. “Because we don’t know where he is at the moment.”

An ear-piercing
squawk snatched their attention back to the giant predators that
circled the sky.

“What are they
doing?” Darius asked, unable to see.

“I don’t know.”
Connor whispered, straining to see and hear.

One of the other
birds squawked in response, its cry ringing across the grassy
plains.

The three of them
continued to stare upward, despite the brambles obscuring their
view.

“There is
something that I still don’t understand.” Connor whispered.

Terry cast him a
sideways glance. “What?”

“Why hasn’t he
just attacked us? He’s never hidden from us before.”

“I don’t know. In
fact there are still lots of things we don’t know.” Terry admitted,
more to herself than him. It frustrated her to think about it. “You
know what? A few weeks ago I was thinking how boring life was these
days.” She picked at the dry grass with her gauntleted hand. “You
know, living in Edinburgh is fine, but having a job and paying
electricity bills are not the way I thought I would live my
life.”

Connor shrugged.
“What’s your point?”

“Nothing, but I
just...kind of missed the old days a bit.” Her lip curled up. “I
know, it’s stupid, we nearly got killed how many times?”

This bought a
smile to Connor’s face. “No, but I know what you mean. I miss the
adventure as well.” He laughed. “But not all the parts where we
nearly died.”

“My point is it’s
strange that I was thinking about it a few weeks ago and now Edward
reappears”

Connor smirked.
“Sods law isn’t it?”

He flinched
as a Manbur plopped to the ground with a heavy
thud
. It seemed to have appeared from nowhere.
The giant bird stood amongst the tall grass a short distance beyond
the other side of the tree, twitching its head in various
directions. It knew they were there but it was just not quite sure
where.

“Shit.” Connor
swore, backing further under the bramble, enduring more jabs from
the barbs.

The bird, still
twitching its head in search for its missing quarry chirped, then
began to move their way.

“It can’t reach
us, can it? I was told they hated brambles, right?” Darius asked
his tone brittle with fear. “Right?”

“Shh.” Terry
hushed him. She quietly raised her arm, the unsheathing of metal
the only sound to be heard in the desolate landscape. The curious
Manbur continued to stroll toward them, its head swivelling this
way and that in search of its elusive prey. There was a low
whoosh
and the bird fell to the
ground with a heavy
thump
, a
silver blade protruding from between its eyes; grass crunching
beneath its weight.

Terry lowered her
arm.

“Nice shot.”
Darius whispered. The only things he could hear was the blood
rushing through his ears and the pounding in his chest.

“And now the other
two will notice something’s wrong and come over here looking for
that one.” replied Connor, dreading Terry’s actions.

As if they heard
him, the two remaining birds began squawking relentlessly

Now Darius was
truly terrified. “They’re going to rip this bush apart aren’t
they?” He shuffled back but the brambles held him.

“No they’re not, I
have an idea.” Connor whispered. Before anyone could ask what it
was, he began throwing fireballs at the overhanging foliage. Within
a couple of minutes the tree was ablaze.

The two remaining
Manburs seemed to grow even more frenzied as the flames climbed
skyward; but after several minutes of panicky squawking and
circling the birds fled. They took off on mighty wings to the
east.

Darius cautiously
emerged from the undergrowth, the thorns tugging as his clothes,
desperate to keep him. “I can’t believe that worked.”

“I didn’t think it
would.” Connor admitted, brushing bits of grass from his
trousers.

“Why did you do it
then?”

A smug smirk crept
across his face. “I saw it on a documentary once. Apparently most
animals are scared of fire.”

“Well done.” Terry
said, watching the birds as they became nothing more than black
specks on the horizon.

Connor looked
around. “It’s nothing but flat grassland in every direction. We
might not be so lucky next time.”

“Let me have
something to eat and I’ll carry you.”

Connor’s eyes
betrayed his doubt before he even gave them words. “You can’t walk
four hundred miles.”

“You can walk any
distance given enough time.” was her reply, as she headed over to
where the dead bird lay.

******

By mid-afternoon
the grasslands had given way to the Gyris – a mountain range that
slithered almost horizontally across two thirds of the country.
Once upon a time the mountains had acted like a natural barrier,
cutting off passage to the warmer north. This restriction had led
to the formation of two countries, both oblivious to the other for
at least a century until travellers from the north finally ventured
through.

While journeying
on foot was treacherous at the best of times and cost nothing less
than several days to complete, even for the most adept explorer,
Terry traversed the great rocky mountain range with ease. She
nimbly clambered up the featureless bare rock, her many large toes
and claws helping pick her way up and over, what others would
consider, impassable routes. She always seemed to know which ledge
to move one of her many feet to next.

Darius clung to
the spike in front of him for dear life. The ascent Terry was
making was near vertical, up a narrow, rocky climb just below the
top of the mountain. Darius glanced back. His fear warned him not
too but something pulled him. He was unable to resist, like a child
told to stop staring. He wished he hadn’t – the sight of the valley
floor far below made his stomach lurch. He got a terrible fright
when Terry sneezed, her entire form rippling under ferocity. She
grumbled, letting go of one of the ledges, which held her above a
fatal drop – to casually scratch her nose with a hand. She coughed.
Satisfied, she carried on upwards.

Reaching the
summit, which was no wider than a narrow goat path, Terry levelled
her head and chest, using her hands once again to her advantage -
eight beat six any day. She picked her away along the narrow ridge
until it dropped away into a sharp, faceless cliff. There she came
to a halt.

“Why have we
stopped?” Darius asked, peering around the spike he clung too.

Connor looked back
from her shoulder plate, which clung too. “Terry’s trying to find a
way down. You may have to get off and meet us down there.”

“What? How am I
supposed to get down?”

Connor rolled his
eyes in disbelief. “You can turn into water can’t you? You wouldn’t
feel the impact and you certainly wouldn’t die like if you tried
jumping down just now.”

“It
still
hurts. Do you have any idea
what it feels like to be separated into a million water droplets
and then having to reassemble yourself?”

Connor smirked,
his hair fluttering in the wind. “So you have done it before
then?”

“Why can’t Terry
carry us down?”

“Because if things
don’t go to plan she might crush you.”

Darius’s eyes
widened. “There has got to be another way down. I don’t like
throwing myself over an edge, I’m always afraid I won’t change in
time.”

“I’m going to have
to do it as well.”

Terry growled.
Connor nodded.

“What’s she
saying?”

“She said if you
don’t jump she’ll throw you.”

Darius remembered
Micca. “Just...help me to the edge.” He muttered, shaking violently
as he stood on the uneven surface of Terry’s back, fearing to let
go of the spike. Connor carefully made his way down to the
frightened youngster. He offered an arm, which Darius gratefully
took hold of. Connor then led the nervous man back to Terry’s
shoulder, letting him stand closest to the edge when they got
there. Leaning against the curve of the plate, he peered out over
the sudden drop which Terry perched on.