Eyes of the Alchemist (4 page)

“I’ve never seen Cabrilan’s orbit this low, and there’s a storm on the horizon.” Even as she spoke sand stung her face. Dry storms were common when Cabrilan was low, but this one promised to be savage. “There is lightning.”

Sybilla was on her feet in an instant and rolling up her blanket. Her voice was calm. “We will find shelter at the cave if we hurry. The last time this happened was when the God Beltane was angered. He roared so loudly that Cabrilan was blown off course.”

Her glance fell on the fruit basket and her eyes began to shine. “Ah . . . I have not seen cherries since I was a girl . . . and what are those? Grapes, I think.” She popped one in her mouth, bit down on it and gave a smile as she savored the sweet juices. “I’ve only seen a pictures of them before. The seeds were brought from Earth by our ancestors, and flourished until the split occurred. They used to make sweet, white wine with the grapes.” Juice ran from the corner of her mouth and she gave a blissful sigh. “Ah . . . delicious.”

“But the split was thousands of generations ago. How –”

“You think you’re the only one who can conjure up images, even ones such as this that don’t disappear in the blink of an eye? I must have dreamed of them. Quickly girl, put them in your sack before the wind dries the juices from them,” she said with a show of unusual brusqueness. “We shall feast well this day, even if it is an illusion.”

“But it’s not an illusion. Last night -”

 But Sybilla was shoving her blanket into her sack. “Stop your babbling and grab your blanket before the wind takes off with it.”

The shadow of Cabrilan had turned dawn into dusk. The storm howled around them as they readied themselves for flight, and before too long their heads were bowed before the fury of it. Bent almost double they shuffled forward. Lightning crashed to the ground, setting fire to dry vegetation and rotting flowers. The desert bloomed with fire and roared with the sound of fury.

The cave they’d headed for was set high in an overhang of porous rock its surface pitted and scored from countless such storms.

They didn’t see the rock goat until it charged from the entrance, its curved, sharp-pointed horns lowered. Tiana shouted an order and the Pitilan launched itself at the goat’s throat. Gibber monkeys screamed a warning. It was over in an instant for the goat, its neck broken in one snap. The kid it had been defending bleated with fear. One flick of the Pitilan’s head tossed the goat’s carcass down the slope.

Tiana paled when she turned towards Sybilla. Split open from chin to chest, her mentor was soaked in glistening blood, blood the grit-dusted surface absorbed the instant it touched, taking the nourishment it afforded for itself. Her fingers pressed against Sybilla’s pulse, seeking signs of life. But her mentor’s heart had been sliced in two.

“Sybilla!” Her anguished shriek was lost in the maelstrom of wind as she plunged her hands into Sybilla’s chest and frantically held the shattered heart together. She bowed her head and concentrated on the healing, intoning a mantra over and over.

“
Sybilla, mother mentor, take my strength for your own, let me feel your heart pulse. Don’t leave me, little mother. Take my life and use it, it’s useless. I’m useless, not worthy of the honor of your choosing. Allow me to die in your place.”

Tiana didn’t know how long she knelt there. Black clouds descended around them, blotting out the light. She heard Sybilla’s voice inside her head.

My spirit needs to seek rest
.

She ignored it. Grit swirled to sting her eyes and flay her skin. Her back began to ache.

Others will need my guidance.

Gradually the storm intruded on Tiana’s meditation and Sybilla’s voice grew faint.

Let me go Tiana. You tire, and my body is too old and too damaged to heal
.
Believe it when I say we will meet again in the future.

Sybilla was growing cold and her blood had been soaked up by the earth. Tiana had failed, but she’d known right from the start that she’d fail. She covered her face, wrapped her arms around her body and rocked backward and forward, moaning in her grief.

Sybilla had known, she’d tried to warn her they would part, but hadn’t she said others would need her in the future? Calm stole through her, filling her heart with peace. She must not mourn. Sybilla had left her this last wisdom and she must prepare her for the journey forward, where her skills would be used to heal the wounded while she grew in wisdom. She knew now that she would meet Sybilla one day. She would follow her mentor’s teachings and make Sybilla proud of her.

She grinned a little as she thought, would she never be rid of her vanity? She must try harder.

 The monkeys had gradually fallen quiet. Only the baby goat kept bleating. She understood its distress and drew its trembling body gently into her arms. “I’m sorry, little goat,” she whispered. “You will not survive without a mother to defend you. The desert hawks will eat you alive.” After a while it stopped bleating and nuzzled contentedly against her.

The monkeys must have picked up the aroma of fruit for they darted forward, snatching at the contents of the basket. She slipped some fruit into her sack and let them squabble over the rest.

Tiana comforted the kid until the storm abated and then took it to its mother’s body. Coating the bloated, leaking udders of the carcass with a potion from her sack, she put the kid to the teat. After a while the kid stopped sucking and fell asleep against its mother’s stomach. It was a sleep it would never awake from, but at least it would die without pain or fear.

The monkeys made good their escape. As they loped past her the more courageous amongst them pinched her or stuck out their tongues. Some jumped up and down, throwing rocks and jabbering insults back at her from the bottom of the slope.

“Eeeyaaaah!” she yelled, and they took fright, falling over each other to escape. She smiled without mirth and then explored the cave for a suitable burial place for Sybilla. There was a hole in the cave wall near the back, large enough to take a body. She wrapped Sybilla in her blanket and strewed the sweet smelling herbs from her pack on to her body before pushing her into the cavity. Then she plugged the entrance to the tomb with the rocks littering the cave floor. It took all day to make the tomb airtight, except for one tiny hole through which Sybilla’s spirit would emerge. That she would plug later. Tiana was exhausted when she started the sequence of prayers that would assist the spirit to vacate the body and journey to Assinti.

It was nearly dawn before she was rewarded by a shaft of white light, which touched in a cool kiss against her cheek before gathering speed and streaking joyously into the sky like a shooting star.

“I’ll miss you, little mother,” she whispered. “Your spirit will guide me always.”

Curled in her shabby brown robe and blanket, she fell into a deep sleep that lasted nearly all day. The sun was just sinking over the horizon when she woke. There was a stale taste in her mouth. She ate a little bread and the fruit she’d saved, and drank some water. It was time for her to leave, there was nothing left for her to do here now.

The world outside the cave was bewildering without Sybilla and Tiana wondered in which direction to go. Followers of the
Grand Alchemist
had no temple except the sky and its horizons, though all earthly temples were open to them. They also had no set profession, for they were multi-talented. Mystics and healers, they spread the fable of the stars far and wide. Mostly, they wandered where the road took them. Now Sybilla’s spirit was journeying to Assinti and Tiana couldn’t decide where her own path lay. 

She gazed above her, where Cabrilan hung oppressively. It was slow in starting its return orbit. She shivered, wondering if Lord Kavan had been back to the temple. If there had been raids she had not heard of them. She started down the slope, passing the little goat lying next to its mother. They were one in spirit now.

There was a little daylight left, and it was time to leave this place of sorrow behind. Desert lilies were thrusting up through the sand, turning the wilderness into a place of beauty. Around the sticky flower buds flying insects began to cluster, waiting to sip of the life-giving nectar. She shuddered. Many of them were destined to become food for the lily.

 A bird hovered above her. It looked like a desert hawk, but was silver-grey in color. It flew in the direction of Truarc City, then fluttered back to her and hovered again. She had no intention of going back to Truarc, not yet. Not until the danger of Kavan had passed and Cabrilan had begun its outward orbit.

Her fingers touched Atarta’s collar. “We shall head south, out of the wilderness and towards the edge towns. Perhaps we’ll find someone to travel with, and I shall learn to practice my skills without Sybilla’s guidance. Decision made, she set off, her sack and blanket thrown over one shoulder. The bird swooped down on silent wings and landed on her other shoulder. Its cry was harsh against her ear.

When she caressed its soft head it dug its curved beak into her palm. She jerked her hand away and sucked the blood from the wound. “Don’t be so bad-tempered, little bird. I don’t mind giving you a ride, but I’ll expect good manners in return.”

The bird hopped on to the hand she extended and gazed through predatory eyes at her. It was well fed for a desert hawk, and there was a glimpse of a collar under its neck feathers. Obviously used to being handled, it cocked its head to one side and trilled when she said. “I see you are someone’s hunting bird. You must have lost your bearings in the storm. We are going to the edge towns, you may come or not as you please.” She set the bird once more on her shoulder and turned towards the south edge.

The hawk’s talons gripped tightly at her shoulder as if it would fly off with her, its eyes hooded over and its body settled into a ball of ruffled feathers. 

* * * *

“She’s come amongst us, Tiana, the daughter of light.”

It was a whisper in the market place, as there had been in all the edge towns she’d passed through.

Tiana set herself up in her usual spot and tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible by keeping the cowl of her robe over her hair, which sometimes gave off a luminous light it absorbed from the moon. Her badge of office soon attracted a crowd, and she was kept busy curing infections and setting broken limbs.

“It be said that Tiana, daughter of light, is amongst us,” the last woman in the queue whispered to her. She grimaced with pain when Tiana placed the neck of a heated bottle over a boil on her thigh to draw out the poison. “She travels with a hunting hawk and a strange animal. They say her hair is like a river of moonlight and her eyes so green they resemble the precious crystal called emerald. ”

Both animals were safely concealed at her campsite. When the boil swelled and began to drain Tiana grunted with satisfaction. “From where did this rumor come?”

“From the story teller. It is said the Cabrilan Lord, Kavan, has claim over her, but she tries to evade him by hiding amongst us.
The High One
has posted a reward for her capture and return.”

Her heart leapt crazily against her chest. “By what right does the Cabrilan lord have claim over her?”

“By right of decree and of birth. Their union was predestined by the gods.”

“The gods?” She hoped she didn’t sound as startled as she felt. “Why have the gods predestined them?”

“That, I cannot say.” The woman winced as Tiana cleaned up the boil site and placed healing salve over it. Relieved of most of her pain, and faced with payment, she became slightly scornful. “It be said that Tiana once restored a severed hand to an arm. She would have healed me by the placing of hands. What do I owe you for pain of my cure?”

I would not have wasted my inner energy on healing a trivial complaint in such a manner
, Tiana thought, without looking up. “A little fruit or grain will be sufficient reward.”

The woman dropped a withered cactus apple into her lap with the air of one bestowing a favor. “There, that should do. No doubt the boil would have healed itself in time.”

“Perhaps it would have. Then again, the boil might have given birth to another ten to plague you with their putridity. And that putridity may have entered your blood stream and slowly poisoned your body. You can never tell.”

The woman shuddered.

The hawk chose that moment to glide silently from the sky and land on her shoulder. Its harsh cry made the woman’s head jerk. Her eyes widened when Tiana’s eyes met hers. Before she could open her mouth Tiana had gained access to her sub-state. “You will sleep for a few moments. When you wake you will forget you ever saw me.”

Five tix later she was on her way back to her camp-site. She’d chosen a small cave on a rocky outcrop right on the edge, a dangerous place but wonderful for renewing the spirit through meditation. The local inhabitants avoided it, believing it a place of evil spirits.

 Below her, the rock dropped away into a void of stars that made up the universe. Truarc curved inwards in a rough crescent from the edge towns. When the two planets had been one, Cabrilan had fit inside the crescent. 

The edge induced euphoria, and there was a feeling that if you stepped off you would float. It was not possible, of course. If she took a step forward she’d be swiftly drawn away from Truarc by the greater gravity of Cabrilan and perish through lack of air to fill her lungs.

The noises were strange here at the edge, the air currents sounding sometimes like a sigh or a moan, and sometimes like laughter. There was no daylight, just a constant and deep velvety, blueness, eerily lit by bright stars that seemed to go on forever. No wonder the people of the edge towns stayed away. Assinti was shining brightly in the corner of her eye, as if gaining Sybilla’s spirit had added a new sparkle to it. Beltane was red and sullen.

 She yawned and put Atarta on alert. This was a fine place from which to hide from Kavan, but she must be on her guard if her sire had posted a reward. 

She lay down on her blanket. The hawk perched on a nearby rock. In the starlight its eyes were liquid mercury. It gazed at her in a speculative manner, the expression disconcerting, as if the hawk regarded her as prey. She hadn’t been able to befriend the bird, and she had the feeling it put up with her company.