The Marechal Chronicles: Volume V, The Tower of the Alchemist (15 page)

“What do you mean ‘turned you out’?”

Bellamere nodded.

“Aye.  I always knew it was coming.  But still it was a shock when he actually said the words.  Simon’s to take my place since he’s already taken it and I wasn’t ever sorry that he did.”

He scuffed the ground with his foot before continuing.

“A scribe’s life is the one for me.  Not that of a blacksmith.”

“No, of course not,” Etienne replied, still frowning.

“My thinking is that Barristide has need of lettered men and with some luck, I might fall in with a guild thereabouts.  Eventually, I think I’d like to go on to Lutèce.”

Etienne shook his head.  He could not imagine his friend making the journey so far north to the capital city, let alone to Barristide.

“But Louf, a journey like that is a hard one.  Do you really think this is for the best?”

At last, Bellamere smiled.

“It is for the best.  I know it is.  I’m going to live my life the way I want, Etienne.  After all this time, I am not just going to read about great adventures.  I’m going to live one.

“And that reminds me,” he said, before going to the mule and rummaging about in one of the many sacks tied over the poor beast’s back.

Apparently, he found what he wanted, then turned around with a book in his hands and held it out to Etienne.

“Here.  Your father lent me this and I could not leave in good conscience without returning it to him.”

“Of course,” Etienne said absently.

“And how goes it with your father?  Perhaps I should go up and return the book myself?”

The alchemist’s son roused himself at these words and shook his head.

“No, Louf.  There’s no need to climb all those steps to see someone who won’t even notice you’re there.  Best save yourself for the road ahead.”

“Ah.  That’s the way of it then.  At his research, as usual.”

“No, not as usual,” Etienne replied, “It was only a few days ago that his foolishness nearly killed him.  I had to haul him back inside after he had been blown out the window.”

Bellamere’s eyes went wide and round.

“My word.  What blew him out there?”

“Oh, you know.  His great procedure.  His life’s work.  Which ended in failure, of course.  Naturally, my father can’t accept that he will never succeed, saying instead that the explosion was due to the quality of light.”

“Quality of light?  What a strange thing with such terrible consequences,” the smith’s son mumbled, then brightened and said, “As it happens, that very book brings up the subject of light and reminded me of something someone said to me often ... ‘the subtle light of the abyss overhead’.  Or was it ‘the subtle light of darkness’?”

This time, it was Etienne’s turn to scuff the dirt with his boot instead of looking his friend steadily in the eye.

Bellamere laughed.

“Oh, not to worry.  That ‘someone’ has gone and disappeared.  I might say that I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”

Etienne looked sharply up at his friend before realizing he had not once seen him looking at someone who was not there, nor had he seen him swat or kick at a thing only he could see.

“Do you think this is because you have decided to leave and seek your fortune in the city, Louf?”

“Ah, Etienne.  You don’t want to come right out and say it, so I will.  Has my madness fled from me at last?  As to that, I don’t know, nor do I care all that much.  For now, I have my future before me and the sense that I have been waiting all my life for something else has come to end, Etienne.  That is what is important.”

Etienne’s serious face grew even more serious as he asked, “And money, Louf?  What shall you do for the way is long and the larder you’ve packed onto that poor beast will last only so far?”

“Not to worry,” Bellamere said, then fished a tiny sack from one of his pockets.  It jingled, but the sound was a pitifully quiet one.

“But that is nothing.  You’ll never manage with just that, Louf,” said Etienne as he thought to himself that even if his friend no longer saw people who were not there, his judgment remained suspect.

“No, this is but a decoy in case I cross paths with brigands on the route.  The real treasure is here,” and he patted a haunch of meat that hung among his various affairs.

“Louf, that ... “ and Etienne searched for the right words before saying, “... looks less than palatable and far from being the treasure you think it is.”

A wide grin was Bellamere’s response.

“Yes, that’s the point.  The genius of the thing.  My father gave me the whole sack of coin you paid him so I can travel and pay my way once I arrive at Barristide for simple lodging and probably for quite a long time if I’m frugal about it.  But to keep the money safe, I took a saw to this stringy excuse for a haunch of meat, cut it in half, hollowed it out and hid that sack of coin inside.  After that, it was a simple matter to wind some old cord around the whole and then drag it around on the ground to dust it up a bit.”

Etienne grinned wide and clapped Bellamere on the shoulder for the second time.

“Okay, Louf.  I think you’ve got something there.  I doubt even the most desperate cutthroat will think to steal such a wretched bit of provender.”

Etienne peered more closely at it.

“What is it, exactly? Beef?”

The color rose in Bellamere’s cheeks at the question.

“No, not beef,” he said, then they both took a long look at the mule who seized that moment to heehaw and scuff its own hoof in the dirt.

Etienne chuckled again.  His friend was, perhaps, no fool after all.

Bellamere smiled wide and said, “I’d best be off.  With a little luck, I can reach the next hamlet on the road and sleep with a roof overhead this night.”

Etienne’s smiled faded and his face grew serious again.

“Louf.  I don’t know what to say.”

“Then let’s not say anything, Etienne.  Not ‘goodbye’, but ‘until the next time’ and once some time and distance lie between us, why I am sure when that next time arrives, it will be with a glad heart for both of us and we’ll have stories to tell one another for a week or more.”

“Yes.  You’re right, Louf.  So ... until next we see one another.”

“Until then,” Bellamere replied, then took the mule by its bridle and walked with his head held high back down the tower road.

Suddenly, Bellamere turned around and called out, “Don’t forget to tell your father, ‘the subtle light of darkness’.”

Etienne nodded then waved without saying anything, and he watched the blacksmith’s son walk away until he disappeared around a bend.

“Until next time, Louf,” he whispered, then turned back to the tower with his father’s book in hand.

Chapter Eleven

The way up to his father’s laboratory had never seemed so long to him as it did this time.

But he went up because he knew that his father and Bellamere had always shared a love of books, and surely his father would want to know that the blacksmith’s son would not borrow any more after this last.

He shifted the leather bound book from one hand to the other, then knocked lightly at the door before him.  As expected, there was no response and Etienne let himself in.

His father had remade all of the lenses that had been destroyed only a few days ago.  Etienne supposed that alone merited some of his respect, for it was an arduous process from what he understood.

He cleared his throat, but his father did not appear to notice.  The old man was near a window, and set before him was one of the lenses held in a thin band of gold upon a pedestal.  The old man adjusted it with a tiny key.  Etienne knew that no one but the Alchemist himself could have remarked the change he had just made, for the movement was as minute and fine as the Alchemist could make it.

Etienne waited patiently until at last, his father straightened his back and set the key to one side.  He then covered the apparatus with a black velvet cloth.  That was when Etienne noticed that there were black cloth covers set over what he supposed were similarly adjusted lenses and mirrors all over the entire room.

“Bellamere has gone away, Father,” Etienne said without preamble.

His father bustled over to another of the yet uncovered lenses and bent to it, then appeared to remember that he had forgotten the adjustment key.

He turned back for it and Etienne spoke again, his voice raised.

“I said the blacksmith’s son has left for Barristide.”

And then he did not just set the book in his hand down, he made sure to do it hard enough that several items on the table before him jumped.

“The blacksmith has left Urrune?” his father said, then hurried over to the table before his son and began readjusting whatever Etienne had jostled.

“No, Father ... his son.  The fellow who used to borrow books from you.”

“Ah, yes,” the Alchemist said while fiddling with a mirror on a stand, “And how is he?  Turned myopic perhaps?”

Etienne shrugged.

“No.  I’d say the converse is more likely.  He has learned to look far to the future and is convinced that his path lies to the north to Barristide, then perhaps even as far as Lutèce.”

The old man nodded, although his son had no way of knowing if he nodded over what he had just said or if it was because he had succeeded in setting the mirror to rights.

“Well, that’s the way of it, isn’t it?” He said at last, and Etienne still was not sure of which subject he spoke.

“Did he say if he enjoyed it?” the old man asked, then went quickly to yet another lens to begin the process of adjustment again.

“He did not, Father.  However, he said that he read something in the book that he has mentioned to you once before.  Only he seemed to think you need to hear it again because it was in the book this time and not because he heard someone else saying it.”

His father’s back was turned to him, and Etienne could not tell if he replied with a smile or not as he said, “Ah, you mean the Laminak.  I’m afraid the creature spoke of many things to our Bellamere while keeping so much more to itself.”

The alchemist’s son could not think of what his father might mean.  He had never heard such a word before and the sound of it made his skin crawl, much in the same way as when anyone mentioned the Black Boar.

“I don’t know, Father.  He did say that he doesn’t hear voices anymore and once he had heard of your ... problem ... earlier this week, I told him that you suspect it is a fault due to the quality of light.

“So he made sure that I would repeat this phrase for you, ‘the subtle light of darkness.’  As to what that means, I haven’t the least idea.”

His father stopped moving.  The hand that held the adjustment key froze, then the old man slowly stood up straight and turned around to look his son directly in the eyes.

“What did you say?”

Etienne pointed to the book before him.

“Bellamere said he read that same thing in the book you lent him and he seemed to think it was important.”

His father’s eyes went wide, and he rushed to the table and seized the book to look at its cover more closely.

“The subtle light of darkness ... ?” he murmured and Etienne understood that it was not to him that his father posed the question.

The old man had already opened the book and begun pacing around the room as he turned its pages when Etienne tried to speak to him again.

“So, is it?  Do those words mean something to you, Father?”

But he recognized the stiff posture, the almost maniacal way his father’s lips moved as he read the words written on old vellum pages.

His own son had ceased to exist for him.  It was nothing unusual, and Etienne made sure to close the laboratory door gently as he left. 

He did not want to disturb his father while at his research.

Chapter Twelve

Once again, Etienne found himself lying awake on his own bed.

The tower was quiet, but he had no doubt that his father was still at work in his laboratory. 

He turned from one side to the other and hoped that sleep would come as the glow of the day’s last light slipped into true night.

The subtle light of darkness ...

It was a phrase that came back and back like an unwanted memory he could not forget.  It was an itch he could not scratch, and not just because of the way he had seen his father react once he had heard it for himself.  For there were other words from someone else’s lips, a someone who had become so very dear to him, yet all of it seemed somehow perfectly related even if he could not have said how or why.

... you and your father have in your possession an object of extraordinary power ... a talisman that will be mankind's only hope against the threat to come.

Etienne turned again from one side to the other, then rose up to sit on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands.

... an object of extraordinary power ...

With a sigh, the alchemist’s son got to his feet and dressed himself.  Then, almost as an afterthought, he pinched the flesh of his forearm hard enough to make the breath hiss between his teeth.

“I do not dream,” he said, and the sound of his voice was clear and steady.

He opened his door and made his way down to ground level, took his tunic from the hook beside the door, and stepped outside.

There was no moon this night and instead of searching for Myri as he had done in his dreams, Etienne cast about him, looking down at the stones scattered about upon the cobblestones.

Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he walked slowly around the grounds waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the nighttime world.

He continued round the tower until he came to where he had left his tools earlier that day.

After Bellamere’s visit, Etienne had lacked the courage necessary to continue his work.  Suddenly, it had all seemed so useless and nothing more than a way to use up the time between him and the next occasion he would have to see Myri.

He threaded his way among the stones, never stumbling because even if they were scattered about, they had been that way for years and Etienne knew where his path as well as he knew his own pockets.