The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice) (10 page)

“More than that,” Marco said defensively.  “Probably a couple of months, plus a little more.”

“And just like that, you’re engaged?  Why did the most beautiful woman in Barcelon,” she put a sarcastic accent to her words, “become engaged to an everyday ordinary apprentice like you?”

“Teresa,” Algornia stood in the doorway, “why don’t you leave Marco alone today?  He’s had to take a serum earlier and he may say some things he shouldn’t.  Come along now,” Algornia directed her, and with a last look at Marco she followed her grandfather out of the workroom.

No longer distracted by Teresa’s presence, Marco turned back to his salve, which was nearly done, but as he did, he heard in his mind the words of Teresa’s last question – why would the most beautiful woman in the world be engaged to him?

There was more to the situation than he had told Teresa, he told himself – he had saved her daughter’s life when they had first met, and he had saved her brother’s life as well.  And he was a marquis, who gave her a castle to live in.  She had many reasons to agree to marry him.  He believed that she loved him, yet a tiny kernel of doubt sat within his heart, wondering if she loved him, or
whether she really loved what he had done and what he possessed.

He finished the last steps in preparing the salve for Eagle Eye the blind man – he smiled at the irony of the name the beggar’s friends had given
him.  He cleaned up his work space, then picked up the salve and walked past Algornia on his way out the door.

“Marco, go find a hiding place, please, after you cure this man,” Algornia implored him as he left.

Out in the plaza Marco found the beggar and his friends standing on a corner on the far side of the opening.  “Here,” Marco greeted them.  “Let me see your eyes,” and without waiting he reached out to hold the man’s chin and lift his face so that Marco could study him momentarily.

He placed a dab of the salve on his fingertip and gently rubbed it across each eye, as the men gathered closely around him and watched.  Marco thumbed the eyelids shut on Eagle Eye’s face, then rubbed them momentarily.

“Now, blink three times,” Marco instructed.

“Open your eyes,” Marco said next, and the blind man slowly raised his lids and looked directly at Marco.

“Are you the man who did this?” he asked, his eyes moving purposefully, examining every aspect of Marco’s face.

“I am.  And these are your friends who watched out for you,” Marco added, stepping back as he motioned at the trio of shabbily-dressed men who surrounded him.

“Which of you is Gabby?” Eagle Eye asked, as a man silently raised his hand.

“And who’s Stepper?  Who’s Curly?” he asked, as the man with a limp and the bald man each raised their hands, then embraced their friend with joyful cries.

“You’ve done a miracle!” Eagle Eye told Marco, looking over the shoulders of his friends.

“It’s just alchemy, not a miracle,” Marco replied truthfully.  “You go out and enjoy your eyesight,” he added, then walked away from the joyful celebration of the friends, and returned to his cubby under the dock.  The sky was starting to darken, a
nd he knew he’d have to meet Pesino soon.

He stopped on the way and bought a meat pie for his evening meal, then sat down beneath the dock astride one of the support beams and waited for Pesino to arrive
, as he ate his pie and thought about the possibility of giving the two merpeople legs.  Would they accept the idea, he wondered?  If he was one of them, would he agree to it, he asked himself.  Probably not, he decided – it was such an unheard of, farfetched concept that no one would ever consider it to be possible, especially if they couldn’t see it proven to be successful first.  And he’d want a guaranteed way to return to his natural state when it was finished, he decided.

“Hey!”
he shouted as Pesino snuck up behind him and poked him in the ribs, just as she had done the previous night.  And just as he had done the previous night, he started forward, and fell into the water of the harbor.

“Pesino!  That’s mean!  And I think it’s a way for you to flirt with me,” Marco said.

Pesino’s head snapped back, and the smile on her face became a straight-lined pair of lips.  “And were you flirting back last night?” she asked as they stared at one another.

“I was, a little,” he said slowly, wishing that he could prevent the words from emerging. 

“And,” Pesino closed the distance between them, “do you remember our kiss?” she asked.  “Because I started it, but you responded, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Marco’s voice was husky now, despite the cool temperature of the water.

“Would you like to kiss again?  Would that be flirting some more?” Pesino inched even closer.

Marco closed his eyes.  “I’m engaged to a woman, a good woman, a beautiful woman.  I shouldn’t do this,” he told her, hoping that he had the will power to resist.  His inhibitions against telling the truth had been stripped away, and with them he feared that some other inhibitions had been removed as well.

“Is she a land woman, a woman with legs?  Is she close by?  Is she the woman you left behind at our village?” Pesino breathed the questions.

“Mirra is my beloved, and she does have legs, as I do.  She is far away in Barcelon, and I’ll return to her someday, when all of this is done.  And though I think you are very attractive, I do not want to break her heart, Pesino; please don’t temp me,” he begged.

“Am I tempting?” Pesino asked.  Darkness had fallen, Marco realized, and he could see the pale oval of her face, and the softly tanned curves of her bare shoulders, falling down to the waterline, where her flesh was partially visible through the opaque water.  “Do you wonder what it would be like to be passionate with a woman who has a tail instead of legs?” she asked, and she moved even closer, so that the two of them each placed a hand on the other’s neck.

“You could have legs tomorrow,” Marco blurted.  “That’s what I meant to tell you.  That’s how we can travel to the library I have to go to – you and Cassius can use a special potion that will change your tails to legs, and then we can all walk on land.”

Pesino stared at him, then floated rapidly backwards five feet, and silently looked at him some more.  She suddenly dove under the water, and Marco stared around, wondering where she was and what she was thinking.  He had startled her with his exclamation, he realized.  It hadn’t been the right time to tell her; or perhaps it had been, in the sense that it seemed to have ended the alluring temptation he had been about to succumb to.

Marco was startled as he felt himself driven upward out of the water, propelled by the force of Pesino’s hands pressing him as she shot upward at a high speed.  He rose above the surface of the water, then fell back down in a great splash, and raised his head in a sputtering fit of surprise.

“You are a joker, my friend!  You played me very well,” Pesino slapped him on the back as she floated just behind him.  “You had me believing we were going to cross the line together, and then you told me such an outrageous story that I believed it!  Two jokes in one for you is good, but beware, I’ll get you back when you least expect it!” she laughed, and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek with sisterly affection.

“Pesino,” Marco answered, turning to face her, “it wasn’t a joke.  I really have met an alchemist who says he can make a potion to make you grow legs, and then to grow your tail back when we’re done.”

She stared at him, then gripped his upper arm, hard.  “This is impossible!  You are a fool!  What are you trying to do, trick us into taking some poison?  If someone has to change, it should be you – you should grow a tail and swim with us instead of us walking with you,” she seethed her sentiments.

“The place we have to go,” Marco said as he pried her fingers from around his arm, “is on land.  That is why you must have legs.  I would grow a tail if I had to, if we were going to a place in the sea.  I have watched the dolphins and I have watched you, and the graceful motions you make in the water are wonderful things.”

“So you’ve watched me, have you?” Pesino spoke with less heat.  “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” she asked, as Marco nodded.

“Let me carry this extraordinary request to Cassius,” she told him noncommittally.  “Now here, give me a kiss good night,” she said, and leaned into him to land another of her extraordinary busses that left Marco in a momentary fog, and then she disappeared for the evening.

Marco was breathing heavily, he realized.  He climbed out of the water and went back to his cubby, happy – thankful even – to find that Kate was not there.  He didn’t need to be around any other people for the rest of the night, he realized.  He flopped down onto the bedding in the dark room, and let him mind drift to thoughts of Mirra, and how close he had come to betraying her, as well as his worries that she might not be truly in love with him, not for the right reasons.  With such troubling thoughts, it was a long time before he finally fell asleep for the evening.

Chapter 7
- Transformations

When Alec awoke the next morning he was still within the last few hours of the potency of the truth serum, and he awoke knowing that he had to write a note to Mirra to tell her all that he had thought and experienced.  She needed to know the truth, he felt convinced.  She would want him to be completely truthful, he was sure.  She would respect him for his honesty.

He arose after the sun had leapt above the horizon, and made his way to Algornia’s shop, already comfortably falling back into the patterns of life as he had known them when he had lived as an apprentice in the Lion City.  He visited Sarah and received a bowl of oatmeal for a plain breakfast, then helped himself to a pen and paper from Algornia’s desk and began writing his letter to Mirra.

“You are truly the most beautiful woman I have ever known or seen or dreamt of,” he told her.  “And I am amazed at my good fortune to have you in my life.  But I worry that I am not worthy of your affection – that only gratitude has made you say yes to me, and I worry that such gratitude will wear away, and other men who are more worthy will tempt your heart away,” he wrote to her.

“For the past two nights the mermaid Pesino has kissed me goodnight, and has flirted with me, and I find that I respond to her temptations.  I am sorry for this.  She is a lovely girl, and an outgoing, warm personality, and it would be natural for any man to respond to her exotic entreaties, I know,” he confessed, before he went on to write more about the journey he planned to undertake with Pesino and Cassius, and his hopes to return to set Glaze and Porenn free from their hostage state.

I was a very ordinary person just a few months ago," he wrote.  "I was just doing enough work to stay out of trouble.  The things that I've done since then, since I met you, haven't really been me, it feels like in a lot of ways – I’ve just tried to survive every new challenge that’s come along.  I know that I’ve been lucky to love a girl like you.

“I love you very, ever so much,” he signed the letter, then promptly went down to the postal center, where he was assured that a courier ship was bound outward to the east that morning, and he paid for the delivery of his missive.

When he returned to Algornia’s shop the master alchemist was up and about the shop.  “Are you ready to go see what Master Sty has prepared for you?” he asked Marco.

“Did you stay out of trouble last night?” Algornia asked as they walked through the city.  “Did you interact with anyone, because if you did, you didn’t stay out of trouble.”

“I just saw Pesino,” Marco answered.  “I told her about having legs, and she’s going to talk to Cassius about it.”

“How did she react?” Algornia asked.

“She said I should grow a tail instead of them growing legs, but I told her we had to travel on land,” the former apprentice explained.

They reached Sty’s shop a few minutes later, and a knock on the door gained them entrance to the dark and closed storefront.  The alchemist greeted them cheerfully, though he looked haggard, as though he had been at work all night long.  “Come in, come in.  I think I’ve got the formula right.

“Here,” he held up a half dozen small ceramic jars that were decorated with designs of red fishes swimming in green water.  “I thought these jars were appropriate.

“These are all identical.  If the merpeople take a dose of this, their tails will become legs; if they take a second dose their legs will become tails,” Sty explained.  “I had enough material to make a couple of extra doses, so I’ll throw those in for the price of the others.  That’ll be five silvers for the cost of the items used, by the way,” he said as he placed the jars in a leather sack and handed it to Marco.

“And you are sure these will work?” Marco asked.  “The mermaid was suspicious when I told her about this.  She wanted me to change into a merboy instead of her changing into a woman, but I told her we had to walk on land to get to the library.”

“I cannot believe you are truly going in search of the
Echidna!” Sty said.  “What an adventure that will be, and just imagine if you really found it!”

“I will find it,” Marco said intently.  “The spirit of the island told me to, so I know I will.  It’s part of the prophecy,” he spoke more to himself than the others.  “There’s some way that this is part of the prophecy.  I have to find the monster, and take one of its scales, or die trying.”

“Well, yes, that is exactly my point – there is that other option, and for your sake I hope it doesn’t come to pass.  Please bring your mermaid by here to let me see the results,” Sty said.  “And now,” he pointed them towards the door, “it’s time for me to get my beauty rest.”

“You need it, badly,” Marco said bluntly.

“Honesty is much overrated,” Sty said pleasantly as he held the door open, “farewell.”

Marco carried his leather sack, and began to walk along the street side, when he felt his head jerk up, and an event like a crystal clear bell tone sounded in his mind.  He shook his head slightly, and noticed that the world looked softer, as though somehow, suddenly, all the sharp corners and edges had been sanded down into softer, gentler rounded shapes.

“I, I think the truth serum just wore off,” he told Algornia as he reached out and grabbed his master’s sleeve.

“Well, that’s a blessing.  It served its purpose; you convinced Sty to create the transformation potions for you, but it will be interesting to see what the costs are,” Algornia said.

“I’m sure there’s not much to worry about,” Marco said, trying to remember if he had said or done anything foolish in the past twenty-four hours.  He could remember very little of what had transpired while under the potion’s influence; he remembered that he had talked to Pesino, but he knew very little else.

“So how quickly will you act now?” Algornia asked.

Marco tried to think.  “I need to talk to Pesino, and that will be sometime today – probably tonight, I imagine.”  The two of them parted ways, and Marco walked down to the harbor, even though it was only midday.  He bought a small portion of fried potatoes and a large meat pie, along with a skin of wine, and when the chance came, he snuck past the security and climbed down to the bottom of the pier, where he placed all of his various pieces of cargo along the beam he sat upon, then leaned down to the water, and called for Pesino in the language of the dolphins, then repeated the call in his own words.

“I hear you, mister betrayer of hearts,” Pesino said.  “Look who I managed to drag away from the hot springs finally,” she announced as she swam up to Marco, with Cassius swimming languidly along beside her.

“I hear you have some wild plans, Marco,” Cassius said as he arrived in front of Marco.  “What tremendous plan do you really have, that Pesino has managed to garble into some ridiculous tale about us losing our tails?”

“We have to travel on land to go to a place to try to find out where the
Echidna is,” Marco explained.  “It’s far away, and the waters there will be covered in ice, so we can’t swim there.  So you two have to travel on land with me.

“A great alchemist mixed a potion that you can take.  If you take it once your tails will become legs, and if you take it again your legs will become tails again,” he explained as he held up the leather bag.

“Winter is approaching, and the waters in the north will freeze over.  I have to go there, and you want to go with me, so this is only way to go, unless we wait until next spring, and I can’t wait that long,” Marco said.

“How do we know we can trust this alchemist with legs?” Cassius asked.

“I trust him.  I let him give me a medication yesterday, a serum that made me tell the truth, and only the truth all day long,” Marco explained.  “I trusted him enough to take his product, and you can too.”

“Everything you said last night was the truth?” Pesino asked.  “All the things you said to me?”

“What have you two been up to?” Cassius interrupted.  “What do I need to be aware of?”

“Nothing,” Marco said quickly, seeing Pesino about to answer, and cutting off her opportunity to answer.   He saw her eyes widen in surprise, and perhaps in a flash of pain, then narrow as she looked at him.

“Will you try this potion?” Marco asked.

“I’ll try it,” Pesino spoke up.  “I’ll try it to see if it works.”

“Really Pesino?” Cassius said in surprise.  “You’re willing to test it?”

“I will; I’ll see if I can have legs and walk like the humans,” Pesino offered.  She approached Marco and held her open hand up towards him.

He reached into the leather bag and pulled one of the ceramic jars out, then twisted the cork out of the mouth, and placed it in Pesino’s hand.

She looked at the jar, then looked at him, then looked at Cassius.  “Here goes nothing!” she raised the container in a mock salute to Cassius, then downed the contents in a single long swallow.

Pesino handed the jar back to Marco, then allowed her tail to float to the surface, as she lay back, recumbent in the water, so that the length of her body was visible for all to see.

“Well Marco, what’s going to happen?  Maybe you gave me a truth serum by mistake?  Maybe I should tell you the truth?  Do you want me to tell you – oh!” she interrupted herself with a small sound of surprise.

“I feel it on my stomach,” she told them and all three of them looked to see that the line where her skin changed from human tone and texture to the grayish, pliable flesh of the dolphin-like tail portion of her body.  The line was moving, as her body began to change.  But the change was going wrong!  Instead of her water-adapted flesh changing to become terrestrial-oriented, the change was going the other way!  She was becoming more dolphin-like across the rest of her body.

“Marco?” her voice expressed confusion and fear.

“Ow, my arms hurt.  Cassius, help me!  This is…” her voice cut off before she finished the sentence, as her neck grew thicker, and her torso turned gray and deeper, while her arms shortened and flattened.  There was a moment of silence, and Marco saw fear in her eyes, then her hair withdrew into her head and her nose grew longer and grayer and she became a dolphin through and through, her voice  chittering loudly and angrily with the sounds of a dolphin, though without using the vocabulary of the species to express any coherent thoughts.

“Marco!  What have you done?” Cassius gave a great leap upward towards Marco, grabbing his leg and pulling him into the water.  The merman grabbed Marco around the neck.  “You’ve tricked her!  You’ve changed her into a dolphin!  You’re a monster to do that to that beautiful mermaid!  You’ll pay for this!” he shouted loudly.

Marco flailed wildly.  He released the bag of potions as he tried to grab Cassius’s powerful arms and wrench the merman’s hands from around his neck.

“Hey!  What’s going on down there?” the voice of the watchman sounded from several feet above them, up on the surface of the pier.

There was a sudden flash of light from Pesino’s body as the entire length of her form began to glow, and then she gyrated and thrashed wildly, as her body began to change again, this time changing in just a matter of moments as it evolved from dolphin to human.  And suddenly, the glow disappeared, and the area beneath the docks seemed dark and gloomy by comparison.  Cassius eased the pressure on Marco’s throat as they both turned and saw that Pesino was attempting to keep her head above water, but bobbing up and down as – disoriented by her transformation – she failed to understand how to use her new human legs to tread water.

Cassius released Marco and flipped over to Pesino’s side, wrapping his arms around her, as she immediately wrapped her arms around him and clung to him with desperate strength.

“Oh my word!” she breathed, looking at Cassius, and then at Marco.

“They’re so weird!” she said softly.

“You come on up here right now, or I’ll call the patrol!” the guard called down from the piertop.

“We’ll, we’ll be there in a second,” Marco answered.

“Hurry it up!  Now!  Both of you,” the guard sounded like a bully.

“Can you climb up?” Marco asked Pesino quietly.

“I’ll try,” she answered.  Cassius floated her over to the post that held the pier, while Marco swam over and climbed up ahead of her.  He reached down, and grabbed her hands, then pulled her upwards.

“Use your legs,” he hissed at her.

“How?  Where?  What do I do?” she asked helplessly.

“Put your feet up here,” he tapped the top of the beam with his own foot, then watched as Cassius lifted Pesino’s feet, one at a time, to the indicted spot.

“Now, push with your legs and straighten them out so that you’re standing up,” Marco told her, raising himself and delicately trying to maintain his own balance.  He held both her hands with one of his, while his other hand held onto the post to keep steady.

He looked at Pesino with an awkward glance at her unclothed body, then focused on her knees, which were wobbly and bent deeply.

“Straighten your knees,” he said.

Suddenly, Pesino managed to do as directed, making the move so quickly that Marco wasn’t prepared, and the couple fell – Marco falling backwards with Pesino atop him.