Alchemised: A Novel, page 2
Her words trailed off. She set the screen aside and peered probingly at Helena.
“Who worked on you?” The question was loud, slow, and over-enunciated.
Helena just shook her head.
The woman’s expression hardened dangerously, but then she seemed to reconsider. “I suppose you wouldn’t know, given the state of your brain. You’re probably lucky to remember your own name. You were an alchemy student, I presume.” She idly tapped a metal cuff around Helena’s wrist.
Helena gave a wary nod.
“And foreign. Obviously.” She gave Helena a pointed once-over.
Helena swallowed. “Etras.”
“Ah, quite far from home then. Do you remember your resonance repertoire?”
“Div … erse.”
“Hmm.” The woman’s eyebrows furrowed, and she studied Helena more carefully. “Wait. I remember hearing about you. You’re that little savant the Holdfasts sponsored. That must have been more than a decade ago, so you must be what, twenty-something now?”
Helena’s eyes burned, and she gave a stilted nod.
The woman raised an eyebrow. “Do you remember what happened to your sponsor, Principate Apollo?”
“Killed.”
“Mhmm. And the war. I’m sure you remember that. Did you help the Holdfast boy burn down the city? Your darling Luc, as you all liked to call him?”
Helena’s throat tightened. “I didn’t—fight.”
The woman gave a small sound of surprise, and her eyes narrowed. “But the final battle? I assume you remember that?”
Helena’s mouth parted several times, her tongue struggling to untangle. “We—the—the Resistance lost. There were—executions. M-Morrough came—at the end. He—he had Luc. K-Killed him—there. Then—then they—they took me to the warehouse.”
“Who’s they?”
Helena swallowed bitterly. “L-Liches.”
The woman chuckled. “I haven’t heard anyone dare use that word in a long time. All of the Undying, regardless of their forms, are the High Necromancer’s most ascendant followers. Their immortality is the reward for their excellence. In this new world, death claims only the unworthy. No matter what insults you attempt, it is your friends who are nothing but ashes to be forgotten.”
She tapped Helena’s forehead. “You do seem mostly intact, though. So why go to all the effort? And who could have even—?” The woman picked up the resonance screen, glancing at it once more, and then disappeared through the curtains.
Helena was relieved to see her gone.
Her memory or mind had been altered?
She would have thought it a trick, but she’d seen the resonance screen. She knew what a brain should look like. It would have required a highly specialised and extensive degree of vivimancy to transmute a mind into that state.
It wasn’t something a person would forget having happened to them.
Yet she didn’t feel like she’d forgotten anything, except the mention of an extensive injury.
She couldn’t remember any injury, just shock, and grief, and horror.
She swallowed and blinked hard, trying not to think about it.
Looking around, she tried to make out her surroundings. Whatever she’d been injected with was a brutally effective drug. There was a sharp bruise forming on her chest where the needle had punctured its way to her heart. It hurt with every beat.
She looked down. There were bars along each side of the bed, and the metal cuffs around her wrists were shackled to them. The skin was raw and bruised, and beneath the cuffs chaining her to the bed, a greenish band of metal was also locked around each wrist.
Those at least were familiar. They’d been snapped around her wrists during the celebration.
In the darkness, thick with blood, with little torchlight and too many bodies in a cramped cage, she’d barely been able to make them out. But she remembered them.
Inside the stasis tank, she’d been constantly aware of them clamped around her wrists. Their existence had persisted along the edge of her consciousness, an inescapable presence that stifled her resonance, preventing any transmutational manipulation that might have let her escape.
Even in the tank, she could feel the lumithium inside them.
By its nature, lumithium bound the four elements of air, water, earth, and fire together, and in that binding, resonance was created.
The Sacred Faith held that resonance was a gift, intended by Sol, godhead of the elemental Quintessence, to elevate humanity. Resonance was a rare ability in many parts of the world, but not in Sol’s chosen nation of Paladia. The pre-war census had estimated nearly a fifth of the population possessed measurable resonance levels. The number had been expected to rise further with the next generation.
Usually, resonance was channelled into the alchemy of metals and inorganic compounds, allowing for transmutation or alchemisation. However, in a defective soul which rebelled against Sol’s natural laws, the resonance could be corrupted, enabling vivimancy—like what the woman had used on Helena—and the necromancy used to create necrothralls.
As the element of resonance, lumithium could increase or even create resonance in inert objects through exposure, making them alchemically malleable. However, pure lumithium was too divine for mortals; overexposure caused wasting sickness, and for individuals with resonance, direct exposure could result in a raw, metallic pain within their nerves.
The lumithium in the manacles didn’t seem to make Helena sick. Which meant that something had altered it. The sharp energy inside was keyed into her resonance, but rather than turn it raw, it blurred her senses. She could feel her resonance, but when she tried to control it, the cuffs were like static in her nerves. No matter how she tried, she could not push beyond it.
All she knew was that as long as those manacles remained locked in place, she wasn’t an alchemist at all.
CHAPTER 2
THERE WAS A NECROTHRALL SOMEWHERE NEARBY. ALONE and able to focus, Helena could smell the rotting meat and chemical preservatives. The Undying used the dead like puppets to perform any undesirable or menial tasks. Chained and waiting, she wondered what this one was being used for. She peered around, looking for any shadows beyond the curtains.
“Marino?”
Her name was whispered so softly, it could have been a breeze.
Turning, Helena made out a face peeking through the dividing curtain. She squinted hard, and her eyes managed to focus enough to make out a pale face and hair.
“Marino, is that you?”
Helena nodded, still trying to see who it was.
“It’s Grace. I was an orderly in the hospital.” She crept through the curtains as she spoke. She had a heavy Northern accent, the kind that pulled hard on the consonants.
“Sorry, I’m—disoriented,” Helena said.
“I didn’t expect to see you here.” Grace came closer, youthful yet sunken features emerging from the dimness, her expression both frightened and curious.
Helena’s eyes widened.
Grace’s face was disfigured with scars, long cuts that bisected her cheeks and chin and nose. Not the accidental marring of injury. They were intentional.
Helena tried to lift a hand, but the shackles on her wrists were too short. “What happened?”
Grace looked confused, and then—following Helena’s stare—reached up to touch her face. “Oh, the cuts? We all have them.”
“What? Why would the liches—”
Grace shook her head sharply. “Keep your voice down.” She glanced around quickly, sniffing at the air before looking back at Helena again, her eyes angry. “They use the greys for listening sometimes. There’s one in here, can’t you smell it? You can’t call the Undying liches.” The word came out barely a whisper. “If they hear—there’ll be—consequences.”
Helena nodded quickly, afraid Grace might flee if she wasn’t careful.
Grace crept closer.
“The Undying didn’t do this.” She gestured at her face. “We did it ourselves. The Undying can do anything they want to us—to anyone labelled Resistance. It’s the thing nowadays to keep greys instead of staff. Other times—they just want something to play with. At a party or—after a night out.” Her face twisted. “No one interferes. Even the ones who aren’t Undying or in the guilds will go along with it because they all hope it’ll give them a better chance of earning immortality, too.”
Grace gave a jerky, stilted shrug. “But if you’re messed-up looking, they won’t keep you for long.” She drew a shaky breath and then peered hard at Helena. “Where have you been?”
Helena shook her head, trying to absorb everything Grace had said. “They took me to a warehouse—after—”
Grace’s eyes narrowed.
Helena stared at her searchingly. “Is the Eternal Flame still—”
“No.” Grace shook her head violently, and her expression turned angry. “They’re all dead. Every one of them. After Luc was dead, they sent the rest of us out to the factory Outpost below the dam. Most of us can’t leave. Takes months of good behaviour to get permission, and we have to wear these.” She held up a wrist cuffed with a copper band, brighter and more fitted than Helena’s. “We have to check in morning and night. There’s a curfew. If anyone’s missed for more than twenty-four hours—” She swallowed. “If they don’t turn up, the High Reeve’s sent to hunt them down, and they’re always dead by the time he brings them back. The Warden likes to string them up, leaves them hanging for days sometimes, and then when they’re starting to rot, she’ll reanimate them and have them ‘work’ with us for a while before they go to the mines. Says it’s so we don’t forget the rules.”
“Who—” Helena forced herself to ask, even though she was afraid to know.
Grace hesitated, eyes softening slightly. “Lila Bayard was the first one he brought back.”
Grace was saying something else, but Helena couldn’t hear her. All she heard was “Lila Bayard was the first,” over and over.
Not Lila …
Grace’s voice came slowly back. “The Warden had her put into paladin armour and stationed at the gate. She’d been dead awhile already. Must’ve gotten pretty far. More than half of her face was missing, and she didn’t have the prosthetic leg anymore, so they welded a steel bar on to keep her upright. She—It can’t really move. Just stands there. We go past every day.” Grace seemed to finally notice Helena’s expression; she looked down. “She’s mostly bones now. The Warden thinks it’s—funny.”
Helena shook her head, struggling to accept it, but of course Lila was dead. For Luc to be captured and killed, his paladins had to be killed. That was the oath they took, to die for the Principate.
Helena swallowed hard. “But surely somewhere—the Resistance—”
“There’s no Resistance!” Grace said in a harsh whisper. “You think the rest of us were going to keep fighting, with everyone in the Eternal Flame dead? There’s no point. The High Reeve kills everyone. Any hint, even whispers get people killed. He has this—this monster he uses for hunting. There’s no point in running away or resisting or organising unless you want to be the next corpse.”
Helena fell silent. Grace watched her warily, fidgeting and seeming ready to bolt at any moment.
“Who’s the High Reeve?” Helena hoped it was a safe question to ask. She didn’t remember the title.
Grace shook her head. “I don’t know. He still wears a helmet the way the Undying did during the war. The High Necromancer’s too important for public appearances, so he sends the High Reeve instead. He’s some kind of vivimancer, but not like the rest. He kills people without even touching them.”
“Resonance doesn’t work like that,” Helena said, correcting her reflexively. “Without an array, a stable channel has to be formed through contact, and then—”
“I know how resonance works,” Grace said sharply. “But I’ve seen him do it. Last week—” Grace’s voice failed; her throat bobbed several times. “There was a smuggling ring. There’s been a grain shortage. Most of what we get on the Outpost is rotten. A few people were bringing in extra food. It wasn’t even a lot, but the Warden heard rumours about the prisoners organising. Ten people in all. Public execution. The High Reeve did all of them at the same time. Did it ‘clean’ so they’ll last longer in the lumithium mines.”
Grace seemed to shrivel as she spoke, as if the memory were enough to paralyse her. “All there is now is surviving. That’s all that matters.” She whispered the last words as if they weren’t for Helena, but for herself.
“Why are you here, Grace?” Helena asked, glancing half-blindly around. “This isn’t—we’re not at the Outpost, are we?”
Grace shook her head. “No. They call this Central now. Houses all the Undying’s experimentation. I—” She choked. “I have three brothers. They’re littler than me. None of them were old enough to enlist, so they weren’t in the Resistance rosters. My brother Gid, he’ll be old enough to work soon, and he can come off the Outpost. He’ll get real wages when he does. We—we just have to make it till then.”
“Grace …”
“They’re offering really good money for eyes. Just one, and it’d cover us for months.”
Helena looked at her, bewildered. “What do they want eyes for?”
Grace shook her head. “I don’t know. I just want the money.”
If she weren’t chained to the bed, Helena would have reached towards her.
“Grace, if you do this—that’s not ever going to be healable—”
Grace gave an abrupt, almost wild laugh. “I know eyes don’t grow back. That’s why the pay’s good.”
“Yes, but—”
“Why should I keep them?” Grace sounded nearly hysterical. “So I have two eyes to watch my brothers starve? There’s no food!” She wasn’t whispering anymore. The scars on her face reddened, growing stark. “You don’t know—you don’t have any idea what it’s like now. Where have you been? Why didn’t you save Luc? You were supposed to, but you didn’t. He died! We all watched it. And the Bayards are dead. And everyone in the Eternal Flame is dead—except you. And you think I should care about my eyes?”
Before Helena could answer, or Grace could say more, the sound of footsteps drew close.
Terror washed across Grace’s face, and she fled.
The curtains on Helena’s other side were shoved aside, and several figures filled the space. As one came towards the bed, Helena recognised her interrogator. The lines on the woman’s face were stark with tension.
Helena couldn’t make out the others behind her, but they were an unnatural grey that instantly made her skin crawl, the space within the curtains filling with the smell of preservatives.
“It’s this one,” the woman said. “Quite secure, as I assured you.” She glanced nervously towards the figures, which seemed to move as a collective.
Necrothralls. They were all necrothralls.
She looked at Helena. “The High Necromancer has sent for you. He wishes to watch your examination personally.”
Helena’s chest clenched, and she pulled against the restraints. “No.”
She couldn’t. She couldn’t see him again. The only time she’d ever seen the High Necromancer, Morrough, he’d killed Luc.
Luc, who’d been the whole world to her.
Helena had enlisted in the Resistance and sworn fealty to the Order of the Eternal Flame—not out of faith, but because of Luc Holdfast. Because she might not believe in the gods, but she had believed in him, that he was good and kind and cared about everyone.
She’d promised she’d do anything for him.
But he’d died before her eyes.
Her throat was closing. “No,” she said again as the bed jolted and began to roll, her captors paying her no mind.
It was at the lifts that Helena recognised her surroundings, realised what Central was. The murals and art had been scraped from the walls, the portraits and gilding all gone, leaving the interior brutal and raw, but she knew the intricate metalwork of the lift gate.
She’d seen it every day since she was ten.
She was in the Alchemy Tower. In the very heart of the Alchemy Institute that the Holdfasts had founded.
This was Central.
“What did you do?” Her voice shook with horror and grief. “What did you do?”
“Calm down,” the woman said through gritted teeth, glaring at Helena. She kept glancing at the necrothralls around them.
Helena couldn’t be calm. It was like coming home and finding all the comfort it had once offered torn apart, the beauty flensed, everything once familiar peeled off into ruin.
Helena had come halfway across the world to study in this Tower. Luc had been so proud of the Institute his family had built. It had been the heart of Paladia. She’d known it through his eyes, all the history and meaning of it. Now it was ravaged and mutilated.
The breadth of Luc’s loss was more than she could hold, but somehow she had the capacity to grieve this fragment of it. A sobbing, screaming moan tore from her.
Fingers gripped the base of Helena’s skull until nails bit into her skin.
She was spiralling down. Down.
A long tunnel. Twisting darkness.
Cold dead hands and the smell of death.
When her mind cleared, she was strapped down on a table. A bright light hung overhead, the beam directed at Helena so that the room beyond disappeared.
There was a small man beside her with a pinched nose, and he kept touching Helena’s face with sweaty, damp fingertips, prodding between her eyes, at her temples, poking through her hair to her skull.
“This is—quite a marvel of human transmutation, I must say,” the man was saying in a high, rapid voice. He had an accent—not the Northern dialect, but something more western sounding. “Vivimancy of this skill is—miraculous. Very right to call me.”
