The Code Keeper: Fragments of Alchemy Book One, page 12
Thea returned to the Keeper’s Antechamber and passed the Great Hall; she glimpsed the Keeper’s large oak door with the tree engraving. Many Alchemists in white robes lined the hallway, all glaring at her as she ran down the hall.
Thea came to a sudden halt. Someone collided with her from behind. “Excuse me,” Thea said, but when she turned around to see who had bumped into her, there was no one there. Something caught Thea’s eye: a sort of ripple through the air, but then it disappeared.
“Yes, what is it?” asked the grumpy Bookkeeper. The old man glared at Thea. “Well, do you want something or not?”
“Uh … yeah,” Thea said, though she kept staring at the empty space behind her. The hair on her arms stood up. Had some invisible person just run into her?
“Well, spit it out then,” the Bookkeeper said.
“Um, I need the dorm number for Todd Alder.”
“And why should I give it to you?” the old man demanded.
“Uh, well, he’s my Mentor.” Thea slid her hand into her pocket to comfort C.C., who had started to fidget when the invisible someone almost trampled Thea. The Chimaera’s nervousness started to spread to Thea, and she began to fidget too.
To make matters worse, C.C. started sending Thea a wave of fuzzy images and incomprehensible messages that made her head pound. As perplexing as her thoughts might be, Thea somehow knew that C.C. was trying to warn her that they were being followed by some invisible person.
The Bookkeeper checked his book and glared at Thea. “So he is. Well, if you were a good Protégé, you’d remember his dormitory number, since the Keeper had you sent over there earlier today.”
“Are you going to tell me the number or not?” Thea asked, unable to remain patient when her noctos flooded her consciousness with panicked thoughts, an invisible Alchemist stalked her, and this grumpy old man refused to be helpful.
“Absolutely not!” The Bookkeeper slammed his gigantic book shut with a flurry of dust. “Let this be a lesson to you, Hopeful. An Alchemist must remember all things, always.” He leaned over his book and glared at Thea.
Thea backed up and glared back at the Bookkeeper. What an awful person, Thea thought. Try as she might, Thea just could not remember if she had turned left or right down the blue hallway. She had simply been too enthralled with all the amazing sights to notice something as trivial as which way they had turned. She tried to picture Todd’s nameplate, but she hadn’t noticed the dorm number, so she couldn’t remember it now.
Thea sighed in exasperation and looked up toward the ceiling. Thea’s perfect memory was actually a magical memory. She’d learned how to summon images of the past when she turned three years old. She only needed to focus hard on the exact moment she wanted to remember. If she focused hard enough, she could recall which way the alepus had gone.
Thea closed her eyes and focused hard on the moment the Keeper’s Chimaera had led her through the halls. Slowly, she felt the power building around her until a surge of Energy flowed up her body. She focused hard on the exact moment earlier that afternoon, when the Keeper’s alepus had led Thea down all the twisting hallways to Todd’s dorm. When she opened her eyes, she saw the Bookkeeper seemingly surrounded by a transparent ghost image of himself.
Behind the ghost image, the actual Bookkeeper gave her an awkward face. “Look, she’s managed to remember something, I’ll wager.” He gave Thea a nasty smile and waved his hand for her to leave. “Move along now, Hopeful.” Then he went back to the paperwork on his desk.
Thea noticed the door behind the Bookkeeper’s desk. It opened, but at the same time, it didn’t! And she saw a shimmering afterimage of the Keeper’s Chimaera hop out, followed quickly by a ghost image of herself.
Thea looked up and down the hallway, quickly checking to make sure the ranks of Keeper’s Alchemists hadn’t noticed her performing her memory Conversion. Most of the Keeper’s Animarum stood at attention, gazing across the hallway without seeming to look at anything. But a few Alchemists in white stared back at her. No one made a move to detain her though.
Only Thea could see all the images of the past which filled the hallway. But some invisible person was following her. Whoever had run into her likely still watched as she gazed about the hallway, looking at something that only she could see.
“Stupid,” Thea said under her breath.
Then she broke out into a sprint after the ghostly afterimage of herself following the Keeper’s alepus.
Thea followed the ghost image of the Keeper’s Chimaera all the way up the main hall, right at the blue hallway, and down to the dorm with Todd Alder’s golden nameplate. She pounded on the door, fighting to catch her breath. “Todd! It’s me!” She knocked again as she looked over her shoulder down the hall. Even though she couldn’t see anyone coming, C.C.’s whirling thoughts told her that someone was still following them. “Todd?! Are you there?”
The door burst open; Todd stood staring at Thea. “What’s wrong?”
Thea rushed through the door, pushed Todd back into the room and slammed the door shut behind them. “Someone’s following me,” Thea said, and then she noticed a third person in the room. A man in orange robes sat at the table with a scowl on his face. His eyes and hair were as black as pitch, and his hooked nose almost perfectly matched the beak of the Chimaera that sat on his shoulder. Thea blinked in surprise as she recognized a golden griffin, and then she wondered what an Alchemist would call it.
“Venarius Malus, this is my new Protégé Althea Presten,” Todd said. “Althea, this is one of my tutors, Venarius Malus. He was just showing me how to Extract memories.”
Thea looked from Todd to Venarius Malus and back, painfully aware that she had interrupted their lesson, that she seemed crazy, and that she’d have to wait until the tutor left to talk to Todd about the invisible stalker. Would they make her wait in the hallway? Thea gulped.
“Venarius Malus, can we continue this lesson tomorrow?” Todd asked, and Thea had to hide a sigh of relief.
The teacher stared hard at Thea, obviously put out that his student wanted to end the lesson, all for Thea, a mere Hopeful. “We are almost done. Just have your Protégé take a seat, and we’ll finish up here, Todd,” the man said, not unreasonably.
Thea sat down at the table across from the tutor, while Todd remained standing. “Recite your learning for us, Todd,” the teacher said.
“When Alchemists are out in the world, they have to know how to extract memories from any Recreants that accidentally witness Conversions. The Extraction Conversion can affect a larger area and a longer period of time if the Alchemist puts more Energy into it. The Component is centella, an herb related to the mind. There is a charm that will protect from the Extraction.”
Todd held up his necklace, and Thea recognized the same silver circular charm that Aunt Fanella had shown Thea earlier that day, right after she had arrived in Norway. “This pure silver charm protects the mind from many other mind-altering Conversions, too.”
“Show us how it works,” the tutor said. “Extract Althea’s memories.”
Todd and Thea locked eyes. “But Venarius, it’s forbidden to Extract memories from any Alchemist or Chemist,” Todd said hesitantly.
“I’m glad you remember that, Todd, but Althea is not a Chemist yet,” the Venarius pointed out. “Hopefuls have no more rights than Recreants. Now, show me that you mastered your lesson for today.”
Thea looked back at Todd; he pushed his lips together in this way that told Thea he would do what he was told, but he wasn’t happy about it. Sorry, he mouthed to Thea, and then he held up the centella in the palm of his hand, and Thea saw a fresh tattoo there in his palm. Thea had only a moment to realize she was about to lose her memory of the invisible stalker when Todd said, “Separo,” and Thea’s mind went blank.
Thea found herself sitting in a chair at a table in a room with Todd. “How’d I get here?” she asked automatically, her heart fluttering. C.C. poked her head out of her pocket, and Thea softly pulled her out. For the first time, Thea’s Chimaera took flight, flapping her wings in smooth bursts as she flew around Thea’s head. Finally, she landed on Thea’s knee and fluttered her wings, her tiny hooves struggling to keep her footing.
Todd frowned from the other chair.
“Todd?” Thea said as she steadied C.C. in her lap. That’s when she realized her hands were shaking. “What just happened?” The last thing Thea could remember, she had been sitting in her own room studying the Beginner’s Guide to Alchemy. “How’d I get here?” she asked again.
“You just ran into my dorm room like a raving lunatic, talking gibberish, and interrupting my lesson.” Todd frowned at Thea. “So my tutor forced me to practice my lesson on you. I had to Extract your memories.” Todd stared down at his hands. “And now you don’t remember what was wrong. So we’re never going to know what you were going on about in the first place.”
Thea stared blankly at Todd, and then she clenched her jaw and jutted her chin out and her fists clenched in anger. “You erased my memory, just like that?”
Todd got to his feet slowly. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “But it’s not like I had a choice.”
“Of course you had a choice!” Thea yelled. “I can’t believe you erased my memory! How am I supposed to trust you now, when you do something like that?” She pushed herself back in her chair so hard the table quivered, and the chair nearly toppled backwards as she got to her feet.
Todd crossed his arms. “That’s not fair,” he said hotly. “When a tutor tells you to do something, you have to do it; that’s just how it works here.”
Thea rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe they expect you to blindly follow orders like that. You didn’t even try to wiggle your way out of that one, did you?” When Todd shrugged at her, Thea scoffed and turned to leave.
“Hang on,” Todd said as he grabbed the Beginner’s Guide and took a few quick steps to catch Thea’s arm before she left the room.
Thea pulled her arm free.
“I don’t need a Beginner’s Guide anymore,” Todd snapped. “And by rights, my Protégé is supposed to inherit it from me.” Todd practically shoved the book at Thea, and she winced. For a moment this made Thea even more furious as she wondered what in the world Todd could possibly be mad about, but then again, she had been rather harsh with him. She hung her head in disappointment and pressed her lips together tightly.
Somehow, Thea had ruined her friendship with Todd, the one Chemist she could always trust and confide in, according to the Keeper. Everything was ruined, over something she didn’t even remember.
Thea took the book from Todd, mumbled something unintelligible, and turned to leave the small dorm, pulling the door softly shut behind her.
Chapter Thirteen
The Trial of Entry
Thea woke the next morning with a cold lump in the pit of her stomach. She realized that someone had knocked on her door, and then she remembered she had fallen asleep in her tiny room at Blackthorn and Burtree. She sighed as she thought about how she had left the ranch to come live half a world away.
Her parents had warned her about the jet lag from traveling halfway around the world. She hadn’t been tired enough to fall asleep right away last night, and now, it felt like the middle of the night, but she had to get up. It certainly didn’t feel like morning considering she couldn’t see a thing.
She forced herself to roll over and sit at the edge of her bed. Her eyes searched for her large window that overlooked the ranch. At home, she always used to grab a notebook and sit in bed writing while she looked out the window until she could hear the noises of her parents in the kitchen downstairs. But here in Blackthorn, her bedroom wall didn’t have any windows, and they didn’t have a kitchen downstairs. As far as Thea knew, Blackthorn had no downstairs at all.
She hugged her purple quilt around herself, wishing she could just go back to sleep, or, she let herself think for just a moment, go back home. But this was her home now, she told herself. And she would complete her Trial of Entry today. The thought made her stumble out of bed as someone knocked on her door again.
“Time to get up, Allie!” her dad called through the door.
“I’m up!” Thea shouted back, then she finally remembered the light in her room, and she reached out and felt for the floating orb. Her hand landed on the smooth globe, and with just a tap of her finger, the light began to glow, slowly brightening until it hurt her eyes. She hurried about for a change of clothes from her dresser. Before stepping through the door, she spotted C.C. on the corner of her bed, where she had curled up to sleep last night. The size of a small dog, she slept with her legs folded underneath herself with her nose tucked under her dappled gray wing.
“Morning C.C.” She reached out and gently picked up the Chimaera. She woke up with a frantic flap of her wings. Thea held her tightly until she calmed down and then she cradled her noctos against her tummy. C.C. snorted. “I know, I don’t want to get up either,” Thea whispered. Then she opened her door and left her room to see her parents waiting for her.
Her parents wore the white robes and cloaks of the Keeper’s Animarum. Her mother’s robes were trimmed in yellow, while her father’s were trimmed in dark blue. The sight of them reminded her of their conversation at dinner the previous night. They were her parents, but they were also doing a job for the Keeper.
“I’ll shrink her down for you,” her father said, holding out his hand for C.C. She let him take the Chimaera and he pulled something from his pocket and then shrank C.C. down to the size of a large pocket.
“I didn’t make her big last night,” Thea said. “Why did she grow?”
“She returned to her standard size,” her father explained as he handed C.C. back. “The size she was when you made her yesterday.”
“Well, we best get a move on so we have time to eat before your Trial,” her mother said.
They left their apartment and headed down the white hallway toward the Great Hall for breakfast. Thea felt strangely fidgety as they stood in line for food. She crossed and uncrossed her arms again and again, shifting her feet. As they went through the buffet line, her parents began bombarding her with last-minute tips and suggestions.
“Remember to focus on the Ostium,” her father said. “You remember, that part of the Insignia where your Kundalini can enter the Circle.”
“You’ll want to open yourself up and get ready for the Conversions,” her mother added. “If you need to, you can even chant the Word as you channel your Kundalini up your spine.”
Thea nodded.
“And don’t be afraid to try something, even if you don’t know what will happen,” he said. “You might have to try many different Conversions before you can find something that will have the right effect.”
“Don’t be afraid to take your time either,” her mother added. “You have a whole hour to solve as many Conversions as you can, so you’re bound to unlock at least three or four Fragments.”
“I only have an hour?” Thea asked, and suddenly her face tingled as the blood drained from her cheeks.
“That’s plenty of time, trust me,” her father said. “I’ll be surprised if you don’t solve all seven tasks.”
“Don’t tell her that!” her mother said crossly. Then she turned to Thea and smiled. “It’s okay if you only solve some of the tasks, Thea. You can even decide to stop after only a few.”
Thea stared at her mother, her mouth hanging open. Never in her life had her mom given her permission to perform at less than her full potential. Wouldn’t it be like quitting to stop early? Why would she suggest such a thing? Suddenly unable to look her mother in the eye, she looked away and smoothed her curly hair behind her ear. She fidgeted with her cauldron of food, unsure if she should respond to her mother’s suggestion.
Her father shook his head, but he kept his mouth shut as he turned to search the vast room for an open table. Thea turned away too and looked out at the giant room full of tables and chairs, most of them full of Alchemists and Chemists eating their breakfasts. She would do her best, no matter what. Regardless of what her mother had said. But why had her mother given her permission to give up? Did she know something that Thea didn’t?
Thea followed her parents to a table and they all set fire to their cauldrons. Thea’s mind raced as she flipped through all her notes on the Conversion Circles and Code Words from the Beginner’s Guidebook. Her stomach in knots, she studied until her breakfast finished cooking, and to make matters worse, she had somehow managed to mess it up, overcooking her sausage and eggs into an inedible charred concoction inside her Alchemy cauldron.
Finally, the time came, and Thea’s parents walked her to the Keeper’s Chamber. The old man behind the oak desk seemed especially displeased to see Thea this morning. Instead of entering the Keeper’s door with the large tree engraving, they went further down the Antechamber to a set of massive double doors that mirrored the Keeper’s engraved oak doors, but instead of the Keeper’s seal, the doors had a different engraving of a large tree with an elaborate knot for a trunk. The branches and roots intertwined in a full circle around the knotted trunk of the tree.
They went through the double doors into a much larger room than Thea expected, even larger than the Great Hall. This room could probably hold every Alchemist and Chemist at Blackthorn and Burtree if needed. The walls and floors of the huge amphitheater were made of black and white marble swirling together in wispy patterns. Benches of stone formed circular rings surrounding a stage down in the center of the giant circular auditorium.
Thea stared up in awe at the magnificent ceiling of the gargantuan room. Giant black roots spread out along the dome of the ceiling. Thea guessed they belonged to the giant black tree far above them. The roots appeared to be petrified stone, polished as smooth as the marble.
