His landlord’s door creaked halfway open to a slit before completely unlocking to let Elmer through.
“Yer sweating a lot. What? Was it too much work for ya?” he said while grinning, but Elmer had seen enough creepiness for his to be of any bother.
Elmer shoved the bag of ingredients into the little man’s arms and stumbled over to the wall of the room, silently falling to the floor as he gave in to the weakness that had taken hold of his knees.
What exactly was in the world of Ascenders? He had done a lot of thinking on that in the carriage on his way back—one which had been spurred by his restless heart—but still it hadn’t been enough. And even though he was now far away from the Black Market, and as well that mansion on the outskirts of the city, his body still shivered because of what they had shown him.
He took his blanched face to his landlord as the man wobbled to his table and set the paper bag there.
The man’s lips were moving but Elmer could not hear a thing. His mind only thought about what more he would possibly encounter once he had gulped down the elixir that was to be made, what horrors he would find lurking, and if he was going to be fit enough to face them.
He had to, surely. There was no other way. He had to be strong for Mabel—for her.
“Tenant!” the plump little man standing over him shouted, shocking Elmer free from the drowning waters of his mind. He had not noticed the man arrive even though his eyes had been placed on him the whole time.
Elmer sighed, pulled off his cap, and rubbed his head in exasperation.
“Is there a problem, sir?” Elmer asked, his narrow eyes dropping to tiredly prey upon the glass vial on the rug-covered floor before him.
“No. No problem, just…” The landlord brought out a wooden pestle from behind him and tossed it onto Elmer’s lap. “Ya get up and come work.”
Elmer eyed the wooden frame and his landlord, then his eyebrows squished together while his thoughts froze. “What? I don’t understand.”
His landlord waved a hand smugly while pointing the other at the small mortar beside the paper bag he had set on his table. “Go pound the snake’s heart.”
Elmer’s jaw dropped, his mind clearing while he jolted to his feet with the pestle in hand as he towered over the man before him. “What?!” he exclaimed. “You can’t be serious.” Working was not the problem now, pounding the snake’s heart was.
“But I am,” the plump man voiced.
“I can’t do that,” Elmer told him, pumping out his chest and jutting his chin to intimidate the little man beneath his upper body.
“Ya will!” his landlord shot back, crossing his arms.
“You must be crazy if you think I will.” He stretched the pestle back at the man. “The snake’s heart smells. You do it, it’s your job.”
His landlord jerked his head backward and raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Is it now?” Elmer did not have a good feeling about the expression the little man was wearing.
The landlord snatched the pestle from Elmer’s hand and walked back to his table in silence. A slight heaviness shadowed Elmer’s body then, just before the man finally let his lips loose.
“A shame for you,” the man told him. “Seems I won’t be making any elixirs today.”
Elmer’s expression pinched immediately while his toes curled within his boots. He was a lousy little man.
“Fine,” Elmer said hesitantly with a strained voice as he walked up to the table and grabbed the pestle from his landlord. “I’ll do it.”
The little man smiled, exposing white teeth beneath big lips. “Good tenant,” he said. “Make sure ya squash it well.” Then he went toward his window, lit the stove that was beneath its frame, and placed the cauldron on it. “And be quick about that,” he voiced before scooping water from a wooden bucket and pouring it into the cauldron.
Elmer adjusted his glasses with a sigh, then rolled up his sleeves before he turned his face away and reluctantly dug his hand into the paper bag, feeling for what might be a heart.
He touched the petals of a flower. He touched something thin and delicate, and crinkled like dried leaves. He touched something round and slippery with a delicate feel beneath his fingers, suspecting even a little squeeze might burst it—this one played with his mind.
Was that…? No.
Elmer shook his head and kept on searching.
He had touched tree roots before, so he immediately knew that what he had come in contact with just now was not a heart. The next thing he touched was a tongue, very obvious it was seeing as he had one, even though his was not of the same long length as the one he was touching.
Then following up his searching came a soft throb from what he felt next. Elmer had something of an elation hit him as his mouth curled up slightly. He quickly reached for it more and grasped it softly. It was warm within his palms, and squishy but delicate just like the jellies Mistress Eleanor used to serve as dessert once in a while at the orphanage; although… Why was it throbbing? Was it just his imagination?
Elmer pulled his hand out, holding the heart gently within his mildly bloodied palm as he turned to look at it.
It was not his imagination. The heart was throbbing, only just weakly. And then, the foul smell suddenly tainted the air, causing his breathing to seize as he quickly freed his hand from the pestle it held in order to pinch his nose.
“Why…” he muttered muffledly, directing his voice at his landlord who was still fumbling with the cauldron and stove. “Why is it beating?”
The landlord turned to look at him. “Because it was preserved,” he said, then waved impatiently at Elmer. “Hurry up and pound it, will ya? It needs to be beating when it’s squashed.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Elmer frowned both because of the smell of the snake’s heart as he dropped it into the mortar before him, and because of the confusion as to what his landlord meant.
He freed his nose, placing himself deeper into suffering as he picked up the pestle and pounded weakly. “What do you mean?” he asked, his face scrunching with each squelchy sound the heart made as he pressed into it with the rounded end of the wooden frame in his hand.
“Ah, finally,” his landlord proclaimed with glee and satisfaction before turning away from the stove to approach the table. “Stove don’t heat up no faster any longer. Cranky old thing. Move.” The landlord pushed Elmer to the edge of the table then poured out everything in the paper bag.
Elmer had already taken out his revolver in the carriage he had boarded beforehand and had stuffed it into his waist bag.
“See all this,” the landlord gestured at what he had laid out on the table. “Each ingredient represents each pathway.”
Each pathway…? Each God…? Elmer wondered to himself.
The landlord pointed to the squashed heart cuddled within the mortar. “That snake heart represents the Pathway of Desire. Do ya understand now?”
Elmer’s pounding momentarily ceased before resuming afterwards.
Your way of explaining is just as bad as your hygiene, little landlord… Elmer lampooned. Patsy would have done way better…
“No,” Elmer told him. “I don’t understand.”
The little man grumbled, but continued nonetheless. “A snake represents desire. The thing which feels desire the most in any living being is the heart. And so, the beating heart of a snake is the ingredient for the Pathway of Desire. Do ya understand now?”
Way better… But still…
“Why does it have to be beating though? Can’t it be dead and still work?”
His landlord groaned theatrically. “Do dead things have desires? Huh? And ya want to become an Ascender? Ya know nothing!”
Elmer shrugged. “Don’t shout at me. You’re the alchemist, you teach me.”
Through his continued mashing, Elmer looked at all the ingredients spread out on the table.
So each ingredient represents a pathway—represents a God… But there are ten Gods, the list had eleven ingredients… Elmer’s brows furrowed, and he turned back to his landlord.
“Which pathway does each ingredient represent then?” he asked, inciting the little man to shake his head with an exasperated sigh before he separated the ingredients.
“This,” his landlord said while pushing away a pristine white flower, “is a fully bloomed datura flower which represents the Pathway of Souls.”
Elmer’s face tightened and he halted his pounding. “Can we not take that away?”
“Unless ya want to lose ya mind by drinking an incomplete elixir, then sure.”
Elmer tsked and continued the job he had been given, before he suddenly stopped again.
“What do you mean by lose my mind?” he asked, and his landlord turned furious.
“Tenant, would ya let me do one thing at a time?! Keep pounding!” Elmer jerked slightly but adhered to the little man’s orders, keeping his mouth shut.
A gurgling sound suddenly came upon the room, and the landlord took a quick glance at the cauldron. “Right,” he said after. “Water’s boiled, mixing’s next.” He picked up the datura flower, hurried to the stove, and dumped it inside the cauldron.
“This,” he said to Elmer as he returned back to the table and took hold of a thin, papery material with the pattern of a gecko, “is the shedded skin of a leopard gecko, and it represents the Pathway of Time.”
Elmer nodded at that, and even though he wanted to know why it represented the pathway he was about to join, he kept his mouth shut, letting his landlord do his job of ripping apart the shedded skin and dumping it into the cauldron.
He also wondered why the elixir had to be made with the ingredients of all the pathways if he was just going to join only one. Would it not be better and easier to just have him ingest the ingredient of the Pathway of Time?
The little man picked up a jar next. “This contains a petal of each species of the morning glory flower. There are a thousand, and they represent the Pathway of Light.” He went ahead and poured them all into the boiling water, and that action caused a sweet and delicate scent to waft through the room, allowing Elmer to suck in air hungrily for what he felt like had been ages.
He was done pounding the heart now, leaving it in the texture of something akin to a bowl of mashed porridge, only red and disgusting. He was going to drink that.
The landlord returned and picked up a pair of eyes which were layered with goo. “These are the eyes of an owl. Represents the Pathway of Darkness.”
He squashed them and poured the result into the cauldron. Elmer chose not to think about it all, he would puke if he did.
“These are the capsules of the poppy flower,” he picked up five smooth layered fruit-like things, “and they represent the Pathway of Rage.” The man pried them open and poured their seeds into the cauldron, and a sizzling sound emanated from within it as though something was melting.
The landlord came and took the mortar. “Don’t need to explain what this is, do I?” Elmer shook his head, and the man went ahead to pour the mashed heart into the cauldron.
As a rough gurgling sound emerged from the boiling waters, Elmer had been expecting the room to be filled with a nasty smell, subject of the heart, but to his surprise a fog came out instead, one which exuded peace, and made his body tingle.
It peered into him, driving his mind to swirl with the thoughts of all the things he wanted, of all the things he could have. He felt naked. But soon after, those thoughts died down as the fog dissipated.
“Always so strong,” his landlord muttered with an exhale. Then he picked up the rest of the ingredients which remained. “This is the deepest root of an oak tree, and it represents the Pathway of Earth.” He showed Elmer a tiny tree root. “This is the tongue of a toad, and it represents the Pathway of Sin.” He dangled a long flesh at him. “These are eight webs of an octopus, and it represents the Pathway of Storms.” He picked up a folded paper and unwrapped it for Elmer, showing him a sandy-like substance as he said, “This is the grounded quill of a dove, and it represents the Pathway of Love.” Then he picked up a hard case-like thing. “This is the chrysalis of a newly transformed butterfly, and it represents change, metamorphosis, growth. I’m sure ya understand what I mean.” Elmer nodded. He did understand—now, at least.
The chrysalis was not unique to a pathway because it was a stand alone ingredient which would spur the transformation he would undergo when he drank the elixir.
His landlord breathed out, took all the ingredients and poured them into the cauldron, giving rise to a hissing sound which continued for a little over thirty seconds before it was subdued by a gurgle. Then he stretched his hand, picked a wooden ladle from his shelf, and constantly stirred the liquid within the cauldron for a minute.
Elmer kept his distance. He did not want to cause any problems as he felt this was probably a crucial stage, but he could not keep his heart from pounding at the prospect that he would soon become an Ascender. It almost felt like a dream. A dream he had hoped he’d never have.
“Good,” his landlord suddenly said as his arm stopped rotating, and Elmer’s chest tightened further. The man took out a cup from the shelf, scooped the liquid from the cauldron and poured it into the cup. “All done.” He returned to Elmer and stretched the cup at him.
The liquid inside kept boiling despite no longer being heated, and its color continually changed, going from red to blue to green to gray to cream and back to red all over again. Elmer swallowed a lump at the sight.
He took a hold of the cup and his hand shivered. It was freezing cold. How? The liquid kept bubbling as though it was boiling, but the body of the cup had an icy chill about it. Elmer’s mind spun. Why did everything have to be so weird?
“Now,” his landlord spiked him out of his mind. “Let’s see what pathway ya get.”