The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice) (8 page)

It’s over a month long journey in the summer time to get to Clovis, the old capitol of Frederic the Bald, the last Frankish emperor,” Algornia explained.

“Is there a way to go by water?” Marco asked.

“Probably not with wintertime approaching.  The rivers may freeze over soon,” the older alchemist answered before he took a bite of the meat.

They both chewed on their dinner as Marco tried to evaluate what to do.  “My problem is that I’m traveling with a merman and a mermaid, and they can’t go overland,” he explained.  “If they can’t go by water either, there’s no way for me to travel.”

His master looked at him steadily.  “This is all extraordinary, Marco, and I’m sure that you can appreciate why most people would be dubious about all your claims,” Algornia answered.  “I might know someone who can solve this problem for you, but he will need something to substantiate your story.”

Marco looked at Algornia with interest.  “How can I do that?  I could take h
im to the harbor and show him my merpeople companions; would that do it?”

“Possibly,” Algornia said thoughtfully.  “I actually had something else in mind – a truth serum.  If you will let him administer a truth serum to you, and then answer some questions, I think he would be so excited by the story you tell that he could give you a potion that will solve your needs.”

Marco considered the offer.  “What would it be like to be under a truth serum?” he asked first.

“It’s very dangerous,” Algornia surprised him by answering.  “Not physically dangerous.  The medicine won’t harm you.  But telling the truth, the absolute truth, can be surprisingly dangerous.  For example,
under ordinary circumstances, if a dowager queen asked you how she appeared, you would naturally tell her she was beautiful and looking very good for her age – even if you thought she was hideous!

“If you were under the truth serum and told her what you thought, you might find yourself exiled from court.  The truth serum is one of the most insidious weapons to use in politics,” Algornia confided.  “It’s related to the purification fields that I study and practice in, but I stay away from it.”

“Master Sty, who is the alchemist I have in mind for you to visit, is a specialist in the field of transformations, and I think that if we convince him of your truthfulness, he can help you with you merpeople problem,” he concluded.

“Let’s plan to visit him tomorrow.  Would that be suitable?” Algornia asked.

Marco sighed.  He hated to waste any time, but a one day pause would not be unbearable.  “That will be fine,” he replied.  It would give him time to visit with friends around the Lion City.

“Good,” Algornia stood, and Marco looked down in surprise to see that together the two of them had eaten and drank everything on the table.  And he felt much better, he realized.

“Let’s go run one errand, shall we?” Algornia proposed as they left the club.

“Anything,” Marco agreed.

“We need to go to the Registrar’s office, and we’ll file the paperwork to emancipate you from your apprenticeship,” Algornia said.  “Otherwise, you will technically be a run-away apprentice subject to be hunted down and taken captive for a bounty by anyone who wishes to, and there is a whole class of individuals who are the bane of runaway apprentices.”

Marco had always heard about runaway apprentices, who left cruel masters and sought freedom.  He had never heard about hunters who chased after them.  The two of them walked through the town, but as they passed Abrianna’s shop, the door opened, and Algornia’s daughter-in-law came out.

“Father!” she gestured towards them to come over towards her, and they obligingly veered in that direction.

“Teresa told me that our hero was returned!” Abrianna gushed as she stared at Marco.

“Look at you!  You’re dressed in rags!  Do you have nothing better to wear out in public?” she asked, to which Marco shook his head.

“Let me give you a new wardrobe!  Come inside, come inside,” she took Marco by the arm and led the two of them towards her shop.  Inside she made a great production of introducing Marco to the customers within, and then invited a seamstress out to measure him for new clothing.

“Does Constance still model for you?” Marco hesitantly asked as his measurements were finishing up.

“She does, but only for a few more weeks,” the seamstress told Marco as she wrote his measurements down.  “She has been proposed to by the son of Signora Brachiatti; the boy’s father sells leather by the boatload!  Her fiancé does not wish for her to prance about in front of others once they are married, so her days of modeling are coming to an end.”

Marco felt a vague sense of disappointment.  “Tell her I wish her all the best,” he said.  “She was very kind to me.”

He and Algornia left the shop, but by the time they got to the office of the Municipal Registrar, it was already closed for the day.  “We’ll come back tomorrow, my boy,” the master alchemist promised.

“I’d like to go visit some of my friends, master,” Marco said.  “I’ll meet you at your shop first thing in the morning,” he promised, and then the pair parted ways.

Marco spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening visiting several of his former companions in the Lion City, telling them little of the truth of his story, but admitting that he had moved to Barcelon and was engaged to a beautiful girl there.  He and his friends teased and laughed until darkness fell, and Marco knew that he had to go meet Cassius and Pesino.

He walked back to the harbor front and snuck onto the main pier and down to the water’s edge.  Though he wasn’t sure why, he placed his face in the water and called to the two merpeople using the dolphins’ language.

He sat atop the cross-truss at the bottom of the pier and waited patiently for several minutes.  Just as he started to grow irritated with the slow response from Cassius and Pesino, there was a loud scream directly behind him, and something grabbed his hips.  He shouted in surprise and shot forward to escape the clutches of his captor, heedlessly throwing himself into the cool, dark waters of the harbor.

Marco inhaled a mouthful of water as he floundered and turned himself in the water, drawing his sword as he lifted himself upward, thrusting his head into the air as he choked and grabbed onto the pier with his free hand.  He heard a musical feminine laugh, and looked through the darkness to see Pesino just feet away, giggling with delight at the success of her prank.

“You must have jumped ten feet!” she crowed.

“What are you doing?” Marco asked angrily, putting his sword away.

“Oh, don’t be mad,” Pesino fluidly moved next to him, too close for his comfort as the undulating curves of her body brushed against his.  “I just had to do something fun.  I’ve been with Cassius all day today and he is no fun at all.  He has no sense of humor!” she pouted.

Marco hastily lifted himself up onto the crosspiece of the pier once again feeling wet and chilled.  “Where is Cassius?” he asked, watching Pesino closely in order to detect any further pranks she might have at hand.

“He found a small cove where a hot spring keeps the water pretty comfortable, so he stayed there.  He said that since I was the junior member of the group I have to come hear your report,” Pesino answered.  She slowly floated close to Marco, and he felt her hands firmly grab one of his feet.

“What are you doing?” he asked loudly as he tried to pull his foot free.

“Don’t fight,” Pesino said in the most sincere tone Marco had heard her utter.  “I just want to see what one looks like.  I’ve never really seen legs or feet before.”  Her fingers softly traced the lines of the muscles and bones in Marco’s foot, tickling him so that he squirmed.

“That tickles,” he explained as he moved his foot away.

Pesino’s hands left the bottom of his foot, and moved up his leg, exploring the lines along his calf.  “This is very muscular,” she murmured.  She suddenly thrust herself upwards and grabbed onto the pier, so that she was nearly level with Marco, then her hand started to run along his thigh.

“Stop!” he warned, and he slid down into the water to escape from her exploration.  “A girl shouldn’t be touching a boy’s legs like that,” he tried to explain.  “I don’t mind letting you do it a little bit, since I know you haven’t seen legs before, but some guy’s going to get the wrong idea,” he said nervously.

She dropped back down into the water with him, very close by.   “What idea will he get?” she asked innocently.

“Well, you know, if you touch his legs, he, he,” Marco stuttered, then watched a wide grin break across Pesino’s face.

“You!” he looked at her, aggravated, then grinned at her relentless sense of humor.  Even though she was having fun at his expense, she was able to make him laugh; he enjoyed the mermaid’s personality, despite whatever uncomfortable moments it might bring.

“I feel very proud that I was chosen to come on this trip,” Pesino said.  “I never thought anyone would offer me a chance, or see me as someone to be taken seriously.  But the assignment to travel on this mission shows that Neptin has decided to test me on an important duty.  I appreciate that trust, and I want to live up to it.

“And I think that maybe you’ll take me seriously too, once you get to know me a little more.  I may joke around or pull a prank from time to time, when the times allow, but you’re going to see that I can do what we need to do.

“So what’s your report?” she asked him, slowly backing a few inches away from him.  “Will we leave tomorrow?”

“No, not tomorrow, and things are a little complicated,” Marco answered.
  He leaned down closer to her as he began to make his report.

“What does complicated mean?” Pesino asked with a less winsome accent; there was more to the girl than she generally revealed, Marco suddenly understood.

“The man who I thought would tell me where to go to find the Echidna can’t tell me, but he did say there is a place where I may be able to find out.  But I’ll have to go there; it’s in a different city,” Marco spoke nervously, uneasy about speaking to Pesino about the potential problems their search was going to entail.  “And there may not be an easy way to swim to this different city; it may take a trip on land,” he stopped and looked at Pesino, awaiting her response.

“And so?” she prompted.

“And so I don’t know much else yet,” Marco equivocated.  “I’m going to go see another alchemist tomorrow who Algornia thought might be able to help.”

“So you’re going to spend the night here, and we’re going to spend the night at the hot springs, and we’ll get together again tomorrow night.  Is that the plan?” Pesino succinctly asked.

“Yes, does that sound okay?” Marco asked.

Pesino approached him rapidly with a single powerful thrust of her tail, so that her body pressed against his, as she suddenly put her arms around him and
kissed him soundly on the lips.  His own mouth responded to the heat of her passion for a moment before she backed away, leaving him speechless and shocked and filled with a momentary surge of amorous thoughts.  “There, now I know you’ll come back.  No man ever leaves me after just one kiss,” Pesino told him with a wink.  “I’ll be back tomorrow and hear what plan you have.”

Chapter 6
– Honesty

Marco watched Pesino swim away from him for five seconds, before she disappeared beneath the surface of the harbor waters.  He floated in the dirty harbor waters, holding onto the pier, feeling a sense of shock from the unexpected kiss he had received from Pesino, or, rather more accurately, feeling a sense of shock for having enjoyed it.  He thought of Mirra, back home at their estate at Sant Jeroni, as beautiful as any woman he could ever imagine, and as devoted to him as he could ever expect any woman to be.  He felt guilty for having let his body react to Pesino’s kiss, and he wished he could take the past thirty seconds back somehow.

With a snort of dismay, Marco started to climb up onto the support posts for the pier, then climbed towards his hidden cubby shack, hidden in the darkness.  He approached the curtained shack, absorbed in his self-flagellation, when he suddenly realized that a dim square of light outlined the edges of the blanket that covered the doorway, and a girl was crying inside.

Marco drew his sword, just as he reached the door, and just as the girl screamed.  Marco pushed the blanket aside with a brisk sweep of his sword, and looked at the scene within.  Two people were staring at him – a man who lay atop a girl, holding both of her wrists with one of his hands, while his other hand tried to control her flailing legs that were struggling against his control.

Marco knew the girl.  He recognized her face from somewhere when he had lived in the Lion City, though he didn’t know when.  He didn’t know the man, a barely grown boy who was
a little older than Marco.

“Who are you?  Get out!” the man shouted immediately.

“Marco!  Help me, please!” the girl cried out at the same time.

“Off her – get off her right now,” Marco ordered, stepping into the small room and extending his sword so that the point was just a foot from the man’s face.  He felt angry at himself for his temptation brought on by Pesino’s kiss, and he found a target, a way to release his anger.

Hold on, hold on,” the man said, focusing on the steel that was so close to his face his eyes nearly crossed in staring at it. 

“Stand up,” Marco ordered.

The man started to stand, then foolishly tried to tackle Marco, driving his shoulder low towards Marco’s midriff.  The sword in Marco’s right hand came alive; it pulled his hand low, then raised itself viciously, using the hilt guard to knock the man’s head upward with a vicious blow to his nose.  Marco’s sword then twirled itself in his fingers, and pinked the man in the shoulder, followed by a swiping slice downwards across the waistband and crotch of his pants, making them tumble downward just as the man tumbled backwards and landed on the floor, his hands going to his face and his shoulder and his groin all at once as he shouted in pain.

“Get out,” Marco nearly snarled the words.  “Get out, now.”  He pointed the sword at the man’s’ chest.

His victim looked up for a split second then scrambled out on his hands and knees, rolling out the door, and off the support beam, to splash in the harbor waters below moments later.

Marco stood, looking at the curtained door for a long second, then sheathed his sword, and turned to look at the familiar but unknown girl.

“Oh my lord, Marco, that was magnificent!  You rescued me again!” she cried.

“You’re Angelina’s maid!” Marco suddenly recognized the girl.  She had the
wide-set, gray eyes that he remembered seeing once at Algornia’s shop, and then again on his last night in the Lion City, when he had saved her from becoming a captive of the Corsairs.

“You’re the one who decorated this place,” he gestured around the cozy room, then sat down carefully on the pile of pillows and bedding.

“When you didn’t come back, and everyone thought that the Corsairs had taken you or killed you, I thought that this would be a nice place to get away to once in a while.  There aren’t many places I can go that Angelina doesn’t try to rule the roost, but this was the one place,” she explained.  “I don’t get to come out very often, but I thought the stableboy would be nice, so I brought him here, and then he,” she didn’t finish the sentence.

“Do you mind?  I’
ll leave it as it was if you’re coming back to live here,” she added.

“I’m not coming back, or at least only for a couple of days,” Marco answered.  “It’s your room now, if you don’t mind me spending the next night or so here.”

“So you’re not back to stay in the city?  Angelina’s family would give you a big reward, even now, for having saved her,” the girl said.  “I’m Kate, by the way,” she bobbed her head in greeting.

“Kate, I thought they didn’t have any money left, the way Angelina wanted me to go save her valuables,” Marco remembered the deadly assignment, when Angelina had asked him to leave the safety of the cubby and to go back up to steal goods from the Corsairs.  He had been caught, and thrashed, and sent on his painful adventures all because of her demand.

“Gracious, her family has more money that common sense,” Kate laughed, then slapped her hand over her mouth as her eyes widened in embarrassment.  “You won’t tell anyone I said that, will you?”

“She’s just greedy,” Kate added immediately.

“What happened to you?” Kate asked.

“Just now?” Marco asked in a puzzled tone.

“No, when you went back up, when the Corsairs were here,” she clarified.

“Oh, it’s a long story, too long to tell,” he answered.

She stood up.  “I best be going back to the family’s house now,” she said.  “It’s getting late.”

“Here, let me walk you back,” Marco felt compelled to offer, and despite Kate’s refusal, he did end up escorting her back through the city to the servants’ entrance to Angelina’s family’s grand home.

“I’ll be gone on a couple of days and the cubby hole will be all yours again,” he promised, then turned and walked quickly back to the cubby, where he lay down and quickly fell asleep, to terrifying dreams of Mirra watching him kiss Pesino all night long.

Marco went to Algornia’s shop the next morning, and was treated to breakfast prepared by the master’s cook, Sarah, as he waited for Algornia to come downstairs.

“Are you ready, my boy?” Algornia greeted him soon thereafter.  Together, they left the shop and walked through the streets to arrive at the shop of Master Sty.  The shop was located in a very rich part of the city.

“This must be an expensive place to have a shop,” Marco commented.

“Sty does very well with his work on transformations,” Algornia commented.  “People seem to have a great desire to change things, and are willing to pay a pretty penny to accomplish such changes.”

“You’re a great alchemist,” Marco told his master.  “Why don’t you do transformations to make more money too?”

“I’m not so interested in transformations,” Algornia told Marco earnestly.  “I believe that purification is the greatest goal we can achieve with alchemy, and that’s what I prefer to focus my studies on.

“But of course, as a practical businessman, I recognize that I have to sell what people want, eh?  That’s why we do love philters and a few other commercial goods from time to time,” he explained.

“But just think how much better the world would be if we could purify out the contaminations and impurities that spoil so many things – everything from food stuffs to the very souls of the people we work with.  Purification has so much more promise than transformation Marco.  It just doesn’t pay as well,” he said with a chuckle, then put his hand on the door and opened the way to usher Marco into the building.

“Algornia!” a middle-aged man sitting at a desk looked up in surprise.  “What an honor to have the foremost alchemist in the Lion City come to visit.  I’m not being reprimanded by the guild, am I?” he asked.

“You haven’t done anything that deserves a reprimand, have you?” Algornia asked with a twinkle in his eye.

Sty looked at him with a momentary blank expression, then grinned.  “If you don’t know of anything, then neither do I,” he declared.  “And that being the case, what can I do for you?”

“I have a former apprentice here who has a most extraordinary story, one that I thought you should hear because I think he may need some assistance from you,” Algornia clapped his hand on Marco’s shoulder as he spoke.

“Master Sty, may I present the Marquise of Sant Jeroni, Marco, my former apprentice?” he made the introduction in a formal tone.

Sty studied Marco closely for several seconds.  “A young man, almost still a boy, a former apprentice, now a nobleman.  Perhaps you’re the one dealing with transformations better than I am,” Sty said to Algornia.  “How may I help you, my lord?” he said in a deferential voice to Marco.

Marco looked at Algornia, not sure where to begin, but the master only squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and nodded at him.

“I need to get a scale from the Echidna, and I have to take a pair of merpeople across land on my way there.  Can you help me?” Marco blurted out.

Sty looked at Marco skeptically, then looked at Algornia.  “What are you up to?” he asked.

“Extraordinary as Marco’s succinct request was, I believe you will find his full story even more fascinating, with elements such as the tale of his hand,” Algornia reached down and raised Marco’s golden hand.  “Shall we retire to the back of the shop for a longer conversation?”

Sty stepped around them to the front of the shop and pulled his blinds down across the windows, then latched the door shut.  “Let’s plan to spend the day together,” he said with a gleam in his eye.  Algornia had judged and played the encounter correctly, Marco realized, appealing to some curiosity within Sty that might make him an ally in Marco’s quest.

They sat in a den, around a table, in seats that were comfortably upholstered.  “Why is your hand golden?  What does it mean?  How did you transform it?” Sty asked.  He reached over to Marco and held the boy’s right hand in his own, turning it and flexing it as he spoke.

“I was attacked by a sorcerer,” Marco began, “who threw a ball of his energy at me to try to possess me, I think.  I used dried gorgon’s blood to force the energy away from my heart, and trapped it down by my wrist, then I cut the whole thing off,” Marco started to say.

“Wait!” Sty spoke up, interrupting him.  “Did you say gorgon’s blood and a sorcerer and you cut your own hand off?  Algornia, have you verified any of this?”

“Not yet, my friend.  After I heard the story, I knew you would want to verify it personally,” Algornia answered.  “So I’ve waited, though I don’t doubt the boy’s truthfulness.”

“You’ll allow me to administer a truth serum?” Sty asked, speaking to Algornia.

“You need to ask the marquis, not me,” the elder alchemist answered, nodding to Marco.

“Will you submit to a truth serum?  These are extraordinary claims you are making, as I’m sure you know,” Sty spoke directly to Marco.

“Do you have the serum already concocted?” Marco asked.

“No, not yet.  But it won’t take long to create it,” Sty said reassuringly.  “You won’t have to wait long.”

“Do you mind if we watch you mix it?” Marco asked, curious about what was included in such a serum.

Sty squinted his eyes suspiciously at Marco.

“There’s no harm in the request,” Algornia reassured the other alchemist.  “Marco is technically my apprentice, but based on what he told me yesterday, I think he may be master class, at least in the field of healing formulae.”

“Come with me then,” Sty invited as he stood.  “My workshop won’t be nearly as elaborate as Master Algornia’s, but my humble space has enough to allow me to do my work,” he said modestly.

It turned out to be a rather false modesty, Marco thought, as they entered a workshop and storage room that was only slightly smaller than Algornia’s, though not as well-stocked as Marches’ had been in Barcelon.  Sty proceeded to collect together over a half dozen elements and ingredients, then sat down at his work bench as Marco and Algornia stood nearby and watched him mix together lettuce seeds, passion flower,
Scopolia's extract, and yellow sodium crystals, which he ground to a fine powder, then steeped in a fine sieve with willow bark.  He boiled the mixture down to half its original volume, then he poured the resulting thick liquid from one container to the next several times.

“Why are you doing that?” Marco asked.

“To help cool it quicker.  You’re going to drink this, you know,” Sty said with a laugh.

“There,” he said as he swirled the liquid around in a tall glass with a flourish, then set in on the work bench and laid a tiny lump of crystalized maple sap next to it.

“Drink the glass, all at once, then immediately put the cube in your mouth,” Sty directed.

Marco considered the ingredients he had watched the alchemist use.  “Does the crystal help metabolize the serum?” he asked in a puzzled tone.

“No, it helps you stop puckering!  That’s the worst-tasting product I’ve ever formulated, but it’s the most effective truth serum I’ve concocted,” Sty told Marco.

The boy reached out both hands and took the glass in his right with the brown maple crystal in his left.  He started to drink the truth serum, stopped and nearly gagged, then choked down the rest of the liquid and immediately put the maple in his mouth.  “May I have some water?” he gasped.