The Alchemists' Council, page 12
“Alternatively, in a worst-case scenario,” added Linden, “the incident could be Rebel Branch activity, complete with a breach into Council dimension.”
“The Rebel Branch,” repeated Jaden. “What’s the Rebel Branch?”
“Vigilantes,” said Linden. “A self-sustaining branch of the Alchemical Tree as old as the Council itself. For thousands of years, legions of generations, the Council has maintained control over the Tree, its Rebel Branch, and the outside world, but not without losses and irreparable damage. Congratulations, Jaden, you may have thwarted a rebel plot — quite the feat for a new Initiate.”
“Are we in danger?” Jaden asked. The fear she had managed to suppress earlier now invaded both mind and body.
“Not for long,” replied Linden. “We will consult with the Elders. Until told otherwise, do not venture beyond the main courtyard and surrounding buildings. We will call you if we need you to appear before the Elder Council.”
Sadira and Linden left the library, leaving Jaden to contemplate her circumstances. Though Sadira had praised her decision to report the incident to the Magistrates, Jaden questioned whether she had indeed made the right choice. Perhaps she should not have said anything at all. Perhaps she should have gone directly to the Elder Council instead of coming to Sadira. She could not help wondering if the comfort of familiarity with Sadira had caused her to act impulsively, without justification. What if the two strangers were completely innocent? She could have waited to learn more information, waited at least to talk to Kalina again. She questioned what the Elder Council would do with the strangers and, worse, with Kalina if they were determined to be members of the Rebel Branch. Of course, this made her wonder what precisely the rebels were rebelling against. She stood up, but instead of returning to her room, she ventured farther into the library.
Sadira and Linden had almost reached Azothian Chambers when Sadira stopped and pulled Linden aside into a small alcove.
“What are you doing?” Linden said loudly.
“Quiet! The Azoths might hear you.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
Sadira glanced up and down the corridor to make certain they were alone. “I have been thinking that perhaps this is not the best course of action.” She paused, attempting to anticipate Linden’s response. “Perhaps we should not go directly to the Azoths.”
“An Initiate has witnessed a potential breach!” said Linden. “The Elders must be consulted immediately.”
“Yes, of course, but do you think it wise to disturb the Azoths directly? What if these so-called strangers were, in fact, Council members on assignment for the Scribes? You know as well as I that the cliff face can be used as a portal to eastern hemisphere destinations. Perhaps they were en route to the Qingdao protectorate on official Council business. I believe it would be prudent to consult Amur or Cedar or one of the other Novillian Scribes. If the activity is cause for concern, the Scribes can inform the Azoths. On the other hand, if Jaden misunderstood the situation, we could be saving ourselves potential embarrassment by going to the Scribes rather than the Azoths.” Sadira again glanced along the corridor. “Think about ascension,” she added.
Linden glowered at Sadira. “What is going on?” he asked. “Do you know who they were?”
“Who?”
“The strangers!”
“Of course not! I am simply . . . thinking about our future.”
Just then the door to the Azothian Chambers opened. Linden stepped out of the alcove, prepared to address whichever Azoth appeared before him. To Sadira’s relief, the Council member who entered the corridor was not an Azoth, but a Novillian Scribe: Obeche.
“Where’s Cedar?” asked Sadira before Linden had a chance to speak.
“Still in Azothian Chambers,” responded Obeche, “with Ruis. She requested private council with him.” Obeche looked specifically at Sadira as he said this. “I would not disturb them, if I were you.”
“Then may we hold council with you, Scribe Obeche? Sadira and I have a matter of potential urgency to discuss with,” Linden paused momentarily, “a member of the Elder Council.”
“Potential urgency?”
“We require an Elder’s judgment on the matter, sir,” said Linden.
Sadira nodded her agreement. Privately, she hoped Cedar would emerge before Linden revealed anything else to Obeche, but it appeared to be too late. Obeche was intrigued and, it seemed to Sadira, pleased at the happenstance that ensured him a place of privilege on a matter of urgency. Potential, for Obeche, had already dissipated.
“Come to my office,” Obeche instructed.
Both Linden and Sadira followed. What choice did they have now? Cedar had not arrived. Sadira would have to update her later and could now hope only that Obeche would not overreact to the news. From what Sadira understood and had, on occasion, observed, Obeche tended towards the dramatic.
After they had settled into Obeche’s office and ordered tea from the kitchen, Linden recited Jaden’s account of events with admirable accuracy. Occasionally he consulted his notebook and provided a direct quotation. Obeche punctuated his reaction with a periodic grunt of surprise or echo of Linden’s words intoned as a question. Two people? At the cliff face? One held a large red stone? When Linden had reached the end of his account, Obeche asked Sadira if she had anything to add. She did not. Obeche held his pendant to his forehead and breathed deeply and audibly. After a few moments, he released the pendant and announced his plan to consult the Azoths and convene the Elder Council.
After Sadira and Linden had left the office and were rounding the corner of the corridor en route to their own offices, Linden admitted that Sadira had been wise to suggest they not go directly to the Azoths. Sadira then realized that Linden must believe he had won approval, or at least recognition, from Obeche — a rare feat for a Junior Magistrate. Sadira, meanwhile, barely managed to hide her concern. She could not help but worry that the strangers were associated with Cedar’s recent procurement of Sephrim. What if the Elder Council meeting led to an investigation? What if the investigation revealed the identities of Jaden’s two strangers? What if the strangers identified their Council dimension accomplice? What if Cedar were implicated or, worse, erased? Sadira shook her head against the encroaching anxiety, took her leave of Linden, made her way past the classrooms, through the kitchen garden, over the back grounds, and into the forest. If evidence remained, she needed to be the first to find it.
Jaden did not see Kalina in the dining hall at lunch. More surprisingly, she did not see her during afternoon lessons. Linden, who was the tutor for the joint Initiate session on minerals and metals that day, did not remark on her absence. Jaden wondered if he simply had not noticed Kalina was missing, given the presence of both Junior and Senior Initiates in the classroom. But this theory dissolved when, just before the mid-afternoon break, he called attendance from a registry list and purposely (or so Jaden assumed) skipped Kalina’s name. Linden must have received advanced notice of her absence, and he most likely knew her whereabouts.
Kalina must have returned to Council dimension. Surely classes would not continue as if all were well if an Initiate had disappeared and not returned. During break, Jaden stayed close to various pairs or groups of Senior Initiates in hopes of overhearing a snippet of conversation about Kalina, but no one mentioned her — at least not within Jaden’s hearing. Finally she asked Zelkova, as casually as she could manage, if Kalina would be joining the class after the break. Zelkova shrugged, looked around, and claimed she had not realized Kalina was missing. Jaden found that difficult to believe given that Zelkova and Kalina were in the same quarto. Further inquiries about a Senior from a Junior Initiate would seem odd at best and suspicious at worst, so Jaden kept her concerns to herself for the rest of the day.
After the dinner hour, Jaden sat in the window seat of her residence chambers and stared out across the Council grounds. The evening light was such that the greens of the lawn and trees appeared unnaturally bright. She wondered if the landscape was influenced by an alchemical process. She could not determine whether she liked the effect or not.
A red light suddenly flashed amidst the branches of the large willow tree near the edge of the Amber Garden. She had been looking directly at the tree when she saw a flicker of light, barely noticeable at first but then distinct and, finally, rhythmic — like a code. She opened the balcony door and walked outside. She breathed the cool evening air. If the flashes were indeed a message, it must be meant for someone in this wing of the residence chambers. She leaned with her back against the balcony railing and looked up towards the other balconies and windows. She could see no one — not at the windows and not on the grounds. Yet the flashes continued.
Jaden moved swiftly through the halls and across the courtyard. Just before she reached the tree, she turned to look at the residence-wing windows and balconies. As far as she could tell, no one was watching her. She ducked through the hanging branches and leaves and then stood upright under the tree’s canopy. Kalina, holding a portable lantern and dressed in dark robes, appeared relieved to see her.
“Come with me,” she insisted. “We don’t have much time.”
“Wait! How did you know I would be the one to respond to your signals? What if someone else had seen the lights and come to investigate?”
“The light frequencies were alchemically synced to your elemental essence; no one else could have seen them. Come with me.”
She brushed aside the willow branches and moved swiftly across the courtyard. Jaden, her curiosity piqued enough to acquiesce, followed closely behind. As on the earlier occasion when Jaden had followed Kalina across Council grounds and into the woods, the cliff face was her destination. Jaden was startled to see a robed figure awaiting them.
“This is Dracaen,” Kalina said.
Jaden stared, attempting to determine if Dracaen was the man she had witnessed disappear through the cliff face. In the light of Kalina’s lantern, she could see his robes were a brilliant blue — brighter, perhaps, than the robes worn by the stranger.
“You must trust us,” Dracaen asserted.
“How can I trust you? I have no idea what’s happening.”
“You must trust us. Otherwise we will repeat this perpetually.”
“Repeat what perpetually?”
“We’ve met before,” said Dracaen. “You don’t remember. But we have met before.”
“When?”
“We have met in the past and we will meet in the future, but you will know me only in the present. I exist here. Elsewhere, I am erased.”
“Erased?”
“Come with us,” said Kalina. “We will explain. It isn’t safe here.”
“You mean through the cliff face?” Jaden looked apprehensively at what appeared to be solid rock.
“Take my hand,” said Dracaen. He held out a dark red gemstone in his left hand.
Jaden hesitated.
“What do you have to lose?” asked Kalina.
Jaden stepped forward, reached out, and touched the stone. For several seconds, she moved effortlessly through darkness. When the movement stopped, she stood in a cave, illuminated by small, glowing protrusions around the walls. Wind chimes made of wood hung at intervals, filling the cave with light, hollow notes. Dracaen and Kalina motioned for her to have a seat at a table. Dracaen poured a dark, red liquid into a clay cup and handed it to Jaden.
“Drink this,” he said. “It will help you remember.”
“What is it?”
“Dragon’s Blood,” Dracaen responded. “Not literally, of course.”
Jaden peered cautiously into the cup. She accepted it and drew it cautiously towards her nose. It smelled fragrant, like cinnamon and cardamom.
“It is a tonic of spiced wine infused with the essence of the Dragonblood Stone,” said Kalina. “Do you know of the Dragonblood Stone?”
“No,” replied Jaden.
Kalina gestured towards a large alcove on the other side of the cave.
“Observe for yourself,” said Dracaen.
Jaden walked to the alcove and peered over an intricately cast, wrought-iron structure that formed a barrier between the place where she stood and a deep, open chamber. In the midst of the chamber was what appeared to be a much larger version of the stone Dracaen had earlier held out to her by the cliff face.
“Do you recognize it?” Kalina asked. She now stood beside Jaden.
“No. Should I?”
“It’s the Flaw in the Stone. It exists simultaneously here and there.”
“But the Flaw is so small — just a fraction of the Lapis.”
“From your perspective. Time and space are relative in Council dimension.”
“But I remember. Cedar showed me. She said the light must fall onto the Lapis at a certain angle in order for the Flaw to be seen at all.”
“Yet here,” said Dracaen, “it is all you can see.”
“If not for the Flaw in the Stone,” explained Kalina, “Council dimension would cease to exist as you know it. The Flaw permits free will both within Council dimension and here. Without it, we would all be One — a goal of the Council in its quest for unified perfection, but one with severe implications to those who prioritize individual intention.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jaden. She watched ribbons of mist move slowly across the surface of the Dragonblood Stone.
“Drink the Dragon’s Blood tonic, Jaden. It will allow you to remember what we have discussed before and to retain, at least temporarily, what we discuss now.”
“Have I drunk it before?”
“No,” said Dracaen. “But you will drink it again. Each time, as long as you are here, you will remember what you have forgotten. But the effects will last only a few hours once you return to Lapidarian proximity. The Dragonblood Stone and Lapis vie for supremacy, even over alchemists themselves, let alone Council dimension. Here, in the presence of the Flaw in the Stone, you are freed from the Lapidarian effect to which you are bound in Council dimension.”
Jaden held the cup to her lips; she took only a sip first and then drank the entire portion of tonic. Within seconds of setting the cup on a nearby table, she noticed the effects of the Dragon’s Blood. She recalled images — as if from a dream — that gradually progressed out of the realm of her imagination into the seeming solidity of memory and reality.
She had indeed met Dracaen previously — not in Council dimension, as she would have predicted, but outside, a few days before her first meeting with Cedar. She had been standing in the rain at a bus stop. Several people had also been waiting, huddled under the nearby shelter of a storefront awning. A man had stood beside her, sheltering both of them with his large umbrella. She had smiled at him, grateful rather than discomforted. Keep this with you at all times, he had said to her. She had assumed he was offering her his umbrella. Instead, he had held out to her a small red gemstone. For good luck, the man had said. Though she had found the offer perplexing, she had nonetheless accepted the stone. Perhaps it would bring her luck, she had thought at the time. She had placed it in the right pocket of her jacket — the same jacket she had been wearing when Cedar approached her. Upon her arrival in Council dimension, the clothes she brought with her from outside had been abandoned in favour of Council robes. She had completely forgotten about both Dracaen and the stone until now.
“The stone you gave me at the bus stop — was it a fragment of the Dragonblood Stone?” Jaden asked.
“Yes. We knew you were to be the next Initiate. We hoped you would indeed keep the fragment with you and thus transport it into Council dimension. Even the smallest fragment of the Dragonblood Stone inside Council dimension — existing independently, outside the containment of the Lapis — provides a means for its bearer to counter Lapidarian memory loss after consumption of Dragon’s Blood tonic. You, of course, having lost immediate proximity to the Dragonblood fragment and having gained proximity to the Lapis upon your arrival in Council dimension, forgot both the fragment and me. Not that memory of either would have done you much good before today. After all, to you I was merely a stranger at a bus stop offering you a good luck charm.”
“I left it in my jacket pocket.”
“Yes. I know. We know the location of every Dragonblood fragment. Upon your return, you must retrieve it. As I advised then, I will insist now: keep it with you at all times,” said Dracaen. “Otherwise, you will have no means of remembering me once the effects of the Dragon’s Blood tonic have worn off. Of course, ultimately, you must choose whether or not to accept proximity to the Dragonblood Stone. Its power cannot be forced upon you.”
“Be careful,” warned Kalina. “If you are caught with the fragment, you will be suspected — perhaps accused, with dire consequences — of rebel activity.”
“Rebel activity? You’re rebels?”
Dracaen gestured towards a chair and asked Jaden to sit down.
“Tell me who you are right now!” insisted Jaden.
Dracaen moved slowly towards Jaden, stopping directly in front of her.
“I am Dracaen, High Azoth of the Rebel Branch of the Alchemists’ Council. I have carried my Dragonblood pendant for four hundred and forty-three years. I restored the Flaw in the Lapis on the third night of the Third Rebellion of the 17th Council.”
“And what is your current mission?” asked Kalina.
“The recruitment of Jaden.”
Cedar walked along the corridor towards Azothian Chambers for the second time that day. The Azoths had called the Elders to an evening meeting. Based on what she had gleaned from Sadira, Cedar assumed Obeche to have been the meeting’s instigator. If only she had emerged from Azothian Chambers before Obeche earlier that day. She could, at the very least, have delayed an Elder Council meeting until the next day, suggesting to the Azoths that a few Novillian Scribes investigate the situation thoroughly beforehand. She saw no reason for yet another meeting of little consequence. Obeche seemed always too willing to suspect the worst. His paranoia regarding Rebel Branch activity had all too often led to accusations, followed swiftly by meetings, investigations, and trials that proved, in all but a few cases, to be completely unnecessary. Still, even Cedar could not deny that today’s events, as witnessed by Jaden and reported to her by Sadira, were cause for concern.
