The Alchemist (4 page)

“It’s magic,” Pila whispered. “True magic.”

I laughed at that. “Better than magic. Alchemy!”

4

The next morning, despite the previous late night, we all woke with the first crowing of roosters. I laughed to find Pila and Jiala already clustered in the workroom, peering out the shutters, waiting for enough sunlight to see the final result.

As soon as the sun cracked the horizon, we were out in the fields again, headed across the muddy furrows to the bramble wall. The first of the bramble crews were already at work, with axes and long chopping knives, wearing leather aprons to protect themselves from the sleeping spines. Smoke from bramble’s burn rose into the air, coiling snakes, black and oily. Dirty children walked in careful lines through the fields with shovels and hoes, uprooting new incursions. In the dawn light, with the levee labor all at the wall, it looked like the scene of some recent battle. The smoke, the hopeless faces. But as we approached the site of my balanthast firing, a small knot of workers huddled.

We slipped close.

“Have you come to see it?” they asked.

“See what?” Pila asked.

“There’s a hole in the bramble.” A woman pointed. “Look how deep it goes.”

Several children squatted in the earth. One of them looked up. “It’s clean, Mama. No seeds at all. It’s like the bramble never came at all.”

I could barely restrain my glee. Pila had to drag me away to keep me from blurting out my part. We rushed back to Khaim, laughing and skipping the whole way.

Back in our home, Pila and Jiala brought out my best clothes. Pila helped me work the double buttons of my finest vest, pursing her lips at the sight of how skinny I had become since I last wore the thing in my wealth and health.

I laughed at her concern.

“Soon I’ll be fat again, and you’ll have your own servants and we’ll be rich and the city will saved.”

Pila smiled. Her face had lost its worry for the first time in years. She looked young again, and I was struck with the memory of how fine she had been in youth, and how now, despite worry and years, she still stood, unbent and unbroken by the many responsibilities she had taken on. She had stuck with our household, even as our means had faltered, even as other, richer families offered a better, more comfortable life.

“It’s very good that you are not mad, after all,” Pila said.

I laughed. “You’re very sure I’m not mad?”

She shrugged. “Well, not about bramble, at least.”

The way to Mayors House must pass around Malvia Hill, through the clay market and then down along the River Sulong, which splits Khaim from Lesser Khaim.

Along the river, the spice market runs into the potato market runs into the copper market. Powdered spices choke the air, along with the calls of spice men with their long black mustaches that they oil and stretch with every child. Their hands are red with chilies and yellow with turmeric, and their lungs give off the scents of clove and oregano. They sit under their archways along the river, with their big hemp bags of spice out front, and the doorways to their storehouses behind, where piled spices reach two stories high. And then on to the women in the potato market, where they used to sell only potatoes, but now sell any number of tubers, and then the copper families, who can beat out a pot or a tube, who fashion brass candlesticks for the rich and cooking pots for the poor.

When I was young, there was only Khaim. At that time, there was still a bit of the old Empire left. The great wonders of the East, and the great capital of Jhandpara were gone, but still, there was Alacan and Turis and Mimastiva. At that time, Khaim was a lesser seat, valued for its place on the river, but still, a far reach from Jhandpara where great majisters had once wielded their power and wore triple diamonds on their sleeves. But with the slow encroachment of the bramble, Khaim grew. And, across from it, Lesser Khaim grew even faster.

When I was a child, I could look across the river and see nothing but lemon trees and casro bushes, heavy with their dense fruits. Now refugees squatted and built mud huts there. Alacaners, who had destroyed their own homes and now insisted on destroying Khaim as well. Turis, of course is nothing but ash. But that wasn’t their fault. Raiders took Turis, but Alacaners had only themselves to blame.

Jiala hurried along the river with me, her hand in mine. Small. So small. But now with a future. Not just a chance at life and wealth, but a chance that she would not run like the Alacaners from her home as bramble swallowed her childhood and history.

Out on the Sulong, tiny boats made their way back and forth across the water, carrying workers from Lesser Khaim into the main city. But now, something else marred the vista.

A great bridge hung in the air, partially constructed. It floated there, held down by ropes so that it would not fly free. Magic. Astonishing and powerful magic coming into play. The work of Majister Scacz, the one man in the city who wielded magic with the sanction of the Mayor, and so would never fear the Executioner’s axe.

I paused, staring across the water to the floating bridge. Magic such as had not been seen since Jhandpara fell. Seeing it there, rising, it filled me with a superstitious dread. So much magic in one place. Even the balanthast couldn’t protect against that much magic.

A spice man called out to me. “You want to buy? Or are you going to block my trade?”

I tipped my velvet hat to him. “So sorry, merchantman. I was looking at the bridge.”

The man spat. Eyed the floating construction. “Lot of magic, there.” He spat again. Tobacco and kehm root together. Narcotic. “I hear they’re already chopping bramble on the far bank. Hardly any bramble on the west side at all, and now it’s growing in the wagon ruts. Next thing, we’ll be like Alacan. Swallowed by bramble because our jolly Mayor wants to connect here with there. Bad enough that all these new Alacaners use their small magics. Now we have big magic too. Scacz and the Mayor pretending Khaim should be another Jhandpara with majisters and diamonds and floating castles.”

He spat more kehm root and tobacco, and eyed the bridge. “Executioner will be busy now. Sure as bramble creep, we’ll have new heads spiked on city gates. Too much big magic to let the little magics run wild.”

“Maybe not,” I started, but Jiala pinched my hand and I fell silent.

The spice man eyed me as if I was mad. “I had to burn an entire sack of cloves, today. Whole sack I couldn’t sell. Full of bramble seeds and sprout. Someone makes his little magic, ruins my business.”

I wanted to tell him that the bundle on my back would change the balance, but Jiala, at least, had sense, and so I kept my words to myself. Magic brings bramble. A project like the bridge had an inevitable cost.

I hefted my bag of implements and we carried on, around the edge of the hill and then up its face to where Mayors House looked down over Khaim.

We were ushered into the Mayor’s gallery without fuss. Marble floors and arches stretched around us. My clothes felt poor, Jiala’s as well. Even our best was now old and worn.

In the sudden cool of the gallery, her cough started. A dry hacking thing that threatened to build. I knelt and gave her a sip of water. “Are you well?”

“Yes, Papa.” She watched me, solemn and trusting. “I won’t cough.” And then immediately her dry cough started again. It echoed about, announcing our presence to all the other petitioners.

We sat in the gallery, waiting with the women who wanted to change their household tax and the men who were petitioning to escape levee labor. After an hour, the Mayor’s secretary came to us, his medallion of office gleaming gold on his chest, the Axe of the Executioner crossed over the Staff of the Majister, the twin powers that the Mayor wielded for the benefit of the city. The secretary led us across another marble gallery, and thence into the Mayor’s offices, and the door was shut behind us.

The Mayor wore red velvet and his own much larger medallion on a chain of gold around his neck. His fingers touched the medallion every so often, a needy gesture. And with him, the Majister Scacz. My skin prickled at the sight of one who used magic as a daily habit, passing the consequences of his activities onto the bramble crews and the children of the city who dug and burned the minor bits of bramble from between mortar stones and cobbles.

“Yes?” the Mayor asked. “You’re who, then?”

“Jeoz, the alchemist,” the secretary announced.

“And he reeks of magic,” Majister Scacz murmured.

I made myself smile. “It is my device.”

The Mayor’s eyebrows rose, fuzzy gray caterpillars arching over his ruddy face. His mustache was short, no child in his history at all. An old scar puckered one side of his cheek, pulling his mouth into a slight smile. “You practice magic?” he asked sharply. “Are you mad?”

I made a placating gesture. “I do not practice, Excellency. No. Not at all.” A nervous laugh escaped my lips. “I practice alchemy. It does not bring bramble. I have no dealings with the curse of Jhandpara.” It was unbelievable how nervous I had become. “No need for the Executioner, here. None at all.” I untied my bag and began pulling out the pieces of the balanthast. “You see…” I screwed one of the copper ends into its main chamber. Unwrapped the combustion bulb, breathing a sigh of relief that it had survived the trip. “You see,” I repeated myself, “I have created something, which your Excellency will appreciate. I think.”

Beside me, Jiala coughed. Whether from sickness, or nervousness, I couldn’t say. Scacz’s eyes went to her. Held. I didn’t like the way he stared at her. His thoughtful expression. I plunged on.

“It is a balanthast.”

The Mayor examined the device. “It looks more like an arquebus.”

I made myself smile. “Not at all. Though it does use the reactants of fire. But my device has properties most extraordinary.” My hands were shaking. I found the mint. The neem bark. Lora flower. Set them in the chamber.

Scacz was watching closely. “Am I watching sorcery, sir. Right before myself? Unsanctioned?”

“N-no.” I shook under his examination. Tried to load the balanthast.

Jiala took it away. “Here, Papa.”

“Y-yes. Good. Thank you, child.” I took a deep breath. “You see, a balanthast destroys bramble. And not just a little. The balanthast reaches for a bramble’s root and poisons it utterly. Place it within a yard or two of a heart root, and it will destroy more than a bramble crew can destroy in half a day.”

The Mayor leaned close. “You have proof of this?”

“Yes. Of course. I’m sorry.” I pulled a small clay pot shrouded in burlap out of my bag and put on my leather gloves before unwrapping it.

“Bramble,” I explained.

They both sucked in their breath at the sight of the potted plant. I looked up at their consternation. “We use gloves.”

“You carry bramble into the city?” the Mayor asked. “Deliberately?”

I hesitated. Finally I said, “It was necessary. For the testing. The science of alchemy requires much trial and error.” Their faces were heavy with disapproval. I lit my match, and touched it to the glass bulb. Clamped it closed.

“Hold your breath, Jiala.” I looked apologetically at the Mayor. “The smoke is quite acrid.”

Mayor and Majister also sucked in their breaths. The balanthast shivered as its energy discharged. A ripple of death passed into the soil. The pot cracked as the bramble writhed and died.