Willsappers. Plotters. Men-with-a-plan. He knew enough about this rare branch of Spinners, spoken of in hushed whispers within his circles. Their domain was the modification of plans, thorough analysis, and altering attention and motivation, in the same way that Ascion’s lay in control of rhythms and timings. The frontal lobe of Ascion’s brain was being nudged and pulled by the threads extending from the Court Alchemist, made visible only because he, too, was a Spinner.
Even now, he was struggling with conflicting thoughts: grab the azoth. Stop moving. Run away. His brain was getting muddled as he tried formulating what he wanted to do, pushing his mercury as far as he could in an effort to block out the foreign intrusion onto his brain’s action centre.
What could he do?
The most he’d had to deal with so far had been a minor alchemist back at the Caltrus house – a Shaper, he remembered – that he hadn’t recognised the Spinner at work until it was far too late. Spinners could see the threads pulled by other Spinners, but without practice in dealing with any actual Spinners, Ascion only now belatedly saw what was so blindingly obvious in hindsight as the threads leading to his frontal lobe were nudged by his opponent.
Ascion drew on mercury, desperately tugging at the threads being pulled by the other alchemist, but the Willsapper’s mastery and power were far too great, overpowering his defences immediately. Ascion was only of the prima stage, after all, not even having entered nigredo. Mercury was rapidly burning away, and with the Willsapper’s influence, he couldn’t think of a good plan to get himself out of the trap.
“Admirable,” the alchemist calmly said, a smirk on what was exposed of his hooded face. “Formidable mental defences, for a Weaver.”
Defence was pointless. The threads were dancing to the tune of his opponent’s spectral fingers, forcing his thoughts into complete incoherence.
Somewhere, in that mess of thoughts, Ascion barely had the presence of mind to react on pure instinct. It was simple: if he couldn’t block out the Willsapper’s attack, then he’d just have to launch one of his own. He hadn’t made active use of his Spinning in plain view of the Willsapper yet, and so he presumed him to be a Weaver, likely because of the sulfur stunt he’d pulled off with Caltrus.
And so, with what remained of his mercury, he pulled. It didn’t matter exactly what he altered, so long as he did. In one massive flare of mercury, the unknown Willsapper’s circadian rhythm, his regular bowel and urinary schedules, meal timings, schedule for the day, and the timing and coordination of his Spinning were all simultaneously shifted.
The pressure on Ascion’s mind abruptly lifted, and Ascion heard the man gasp in shock. With his own perception of time stretched out impossibly long, he finally had the room to think.
Unfortunately for him, the Willsapper was clearly at a stage of alchemical far beyond his own. Already, he was brushing off the effects of the foreign mental bludgeoning to his temporal circuits, fishing out a flask of what Ascion could only presume was mercury from underneath his robes.
“A Spinner!”
He didn’t waste any time. 0.247 seconds, and his sole countermeasure against other Spinners was launched. Yellow powder clouded the air between him and the Willsapper, as the bagful of sulfur was thrown at him. The powder dissolved into the mercury the alchemist had been about to draw from, transforming it from mercury fit for use of Spinners to one used only by Weavers in altering the substance of their elemental feats in conjunction with the Prime Metals.
It was something he’d improvised, but it seemed to do the trick, because the pressure completely dissipated now. With coordination made possible only by his own Spinning, Ascion grabbed hold of a flask of mercury on the table, downing the entirety of it on his skin, and rushing back the way he came from in the same smooth motion.
Ascion began to run as fast as he could, mercury diminishing rapidly as he drew on it both to continue mucking up the Willsapper’s coordination, and to bolster his own sense of timing. He couldn’t physically see the Willsapper, but having identified the right threads from before, he just needed to keep pulling and tugging at them.
30.839 seconds until he could get to the window. 10.4726 seconds to clear the fence. 20.371729 seconds to get into the winding alleyways, and hopefully lose his pursuer. He was pushing the mercury as hard as he could, his mind making impossible calculations and projections as he ran, each estimation made more precise than the last. He could hear heavy footfalls behind him, but couldn’t easily translate that into a spatial location. His best estimate was that he had a five second head-start on the Willsapper.
Was that enough? Mercury continued burning. Only a trickle left. Panic was rising –
Turn left.
Wait, the fastest way to the window was –
Turn left!
Left meant he needed to loop around the entire corridor, while the right was a direct route. Right would save him 5.209 seconds –
TURN LEFT!
Rationality demanded he turned right.
The overwhelming mental hammer unleashed by the Willsapper barrelled him leftward.
With both conflicting ideas attacking him at once, he stumbled, supernatural coordination of fading mercury rendered completely moot.
It cost him a good one second, or so. No good. His inner perception of time was diminishing, what with how little mercury he had left. Thirteen seconds to make it to the window. Was that enough?
Stop.
He resisted the urge. If he stopped, he would be captured, and that meant the Camps, and from there, the warfront. First Generation alchemists didn’t have the privilege of being deployed within the relative safety of Azenar. Willsapper or not, there was no way in hell he’d let that happen. Even Spinning had its limits.
Nine seconds. The footsteps were directly behind him, now. It was a straight dash.
Stop.
Seven seconds.
Turn around. Stop moving.
Five. He could make it.
Then there was a lance of ice that shot past him, striking against the ceiling above his head, solidifying and spreading into an impenetrable wall that blocked him from his only exit.
What?
In a panic, he tried bashing his way through, but it didn’t yield.
Shit. Shit!
“Cunning.” Far from being annoyed, the alchemist sounded impressed. “To use sulfur in such a manner… certainly, against a prima, or perhaps a nigredo, you would have successfully escaped. And your Spinning… most curious, indeed.”
With no other option, Ascion turned around, to face the Willsapper that had completely cornered him. Cool mist emanated from his palm, fading away as vapour.
A Willsapper with access to a Weaver’s power, with mastery of both at a level far beyond what Ascion was capable of even with his primary talent.
“Unfortunately for you, little rat, I happen to be an albedo.”
The Court Alchemist’s cloak had been ruined by the desperate move he’d deployed with the bag of sulfur, and he’d tossed it aside, revealing his face. Silver hair, with features of a man in his thirties.
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It clicked.
Manipulation of ice, along with the rare Willsapper gift. An alchemist already in the late albedo stage.
Ventus Haran, the so-called Hound of Azenar. Not just any Willsapper, he was the Willsapper, the Counterplotter, whose name honestly sparked more fear among criminals than the Emperor himself, for using his gift to successfully pick up the trail of robbers, thieves, and murderers across the Empire where others have failed.
And now, he was after Ascion.
“And here I thought we were just dealing with another rogue Weaver to be tossed back to the Camps.” Ventus’ grin widened, but there was no mercy in his gaze. “Instead… what do I find but a prima Spinner? Now, then… what should I do with you, I wonder?”
Ascion had no more mercury. He had salt and sulfur used for laying down false trails, but he couldn’t actively make use of them in the ways that Shapers or Weavers could, with the parts of the Net corresponding to Body and Soul as invisible to him as when he was still a Mundane.
He didn’t think he was still under Ventus’ influences, but he stood rooted to the spot, eyes wide with fear, sweat rolling down his back, mind utterly blank.
His timings had all been flawless. He’d made precautions against any stray alchemists in the estate, even though Count Gloucester himself was the only alchemist of his House.
Ascion’s only mistake had been failing to consider that the damned Hound of Azenar himself would take a trip out of the capital, connect the attacks on minor noble houses in different cities together, and give enough of a damn to lay a trap for him.
He was trapped. No mercury. If he had enough presence of mind to take the damned azoth earlier, he might have been able to do something, but now…
Ventus stepped closer, a calm, sinister smile on his face. Cold mist emanated from him. Ascion stepped backward, his back against the ice wall.
He couldn’t fight, but he couldn’t let himself get captured. He knew the statistics: of all the alchemists deployed to the front lines, First Generations had it the worst –
“To the Camps, then?”
Panic, fear, and terror gripped at him, as rationality broke under another display of Ventus’ Spinning –
…and then the world shattered.
-o-o-o-
Ascion remembered the day he first saw the Great Net.
It had been a fleeting glimpse, one that had consumed whatever little bit of mercury he had contained within him through impurities in food and water. Even then, that single moment of witnessing the Threads of Creation had almost threatened to overwhelm his mind, as time was simultaneously stretched and compressed to him. Cycles, rhythms, and temporal associations forcefully intruded upon his mind, body, and soul that hadn’t been ready to accept such power. All at once, everything that even had the slightest association to time had flared brightly to him.
That glimpse had only lasted for 0.138 seconds.
If he had any more mercury on hand at that time, Ascion was certain he would have been driven insane. Such was the complexity of the fabric of reality. It had taken months of experimenting on his own to even begin to get a grip on his newfound power, all while avoiding drawing attention of the Dogs of the Empire who took all First-Generation alchemists to the Camps.
Now, though, the world was once again fully incomprehensible.
Mercury had been drained dry at some point during his desperate attempt at escape, but abruptly, the Net flared into view all around him. Threads extended in all directions, from places he’d never seen the Net work its way into before. They came from his arms and legs, from the centre of his abdomen, extending out of his mouth and nostrils, and more than a few went completely through him as they passed toward Ventus.
But far from the thin, intangible threads he was used to dealing with concerning himself, these were all a pitch black, with uneven thickness that stretched and contracted. They moved as undulating waves, blending with shadows, lines criss-crossing endlessly as sight and sound became distorted beyond recognition.
His body felt both heavy and light. Was he standing? Or had he stumbled and fallen over? He didn’t know; all proprioception was fuzzy to him. Amidst the thousands of black threads all around him, a single string glowed a brilliant blue as it extended out from his abdomen, releasing a sensation of calm that he hadn’t ever associated with the fabric. It joined into the wall, but though he reflexively tugged on it with his thoughts, nothing came of it. From a position behind the wall, thousands of lines extended in all directions outward, crossing through walls, two of them passing toward him and Ventus.
Unlike his first experience with the Net, the only thing that made sense to him now was time.
Amidst the chaos of an unfathomable reality, time ticked on.
Half a second. One second. One and a half. Two. His mind, morphed by three years of mercury usage as a Chronologist, had made him a perfect metronome.
“Spontaneous putrefaction…”
He could only just barely make out the words said by Ventus, muddled as his hearing was. He tried to move, but his body resisted. Still, though, he could think, with his thoughts not clouded as they had been under Ventus’ previous influence.
Putrefaction. He knew the word, but not the exact meaning.
It was one of the twelve fundamental alchemical processes. In various combinations, they were supposed to allow transformation of the alchemist’s primal soul into the philosopher’s stone of legend. Nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, rubedo.
If whatever insanity was occurring to him now was putrefaction, then was he entering the transition from prima to nigredo? Was that how it worked?
More importantly, how could he use that knowledge to get him the hell out of here?
Just as suddenly as they appeared, the lines thinned out, black threads giving way to the full spectrum of colour, becoming impossibly fine, before vanishing altogether.
Finally, he could move. He pushed himself off the ground – it seemed he had stumbled after all – trying to get up to his feet, but his body felt wrong.
“Interesting,” Ventus spoke, and even though his words were clearer than before, they still seemed distorted. His figure was morphing and shifting endlessly in Ascion’s sight. He couldn’t clearly see the Willsapper’s face, but there was no mistaking the amusement in his voice. “An undiscovered Spinner ability… and a self-trained nigredo, at that.”
No mercury. Ascion couldn’t mess with his target’s time perception. All he had were his decoy bags of sulfur and salt –
Weaver. Shaper. As a prima, he’d only been able to access mercury’s power before, but as Ventus had shown, those who entered the Stages had the potential to use all the three primordial substances beyond what they were initially limited to. He didn’t know exactly how such a feat was possible, but given what he had already experienced, it wasn’t too farfetched to think that he now had access to a fraction of those alchemical powers.
Could it be? Would it work?
A quarter of a second passed. He didn’t have any other options.
Gritting his teeth, he reached into his cloak. Sulfur clung to his exposed hand, sinking into his skin in the way that mercury had done since the day he became aware of the prima materia of mind, body, and soul.
The lines flared into being once more, but this time, he didn’t see the threads that bound minds together. From within himself, thousands came out from his abdomen, as they did from Ventus’. Blues of various shades, calm, and yet awaiting to be called upon. Reds, a raging fire. A playful white. A stoic brown.
Four colours.
Four Prime Metals.
He dashed to the side, his hands closing around the iron of the doorknob, simultaneously pulling mentally on the red thread linking himself to the object. Heat flared, reds burning bright. The doorknob began to disintegrate, its essence transforming into primal heat. The newfound energy granted by sulfur coursed through him, diminishing as he tugged with his very soul, and –
Out came a pathetic gush of flame, from what had been an entire bag’s worth of sulfur. Ventus didn’t even speak, raising a single eyebrow, as a spear of ice shot forth from him froze fire itself.
Fuck. He tried to run past Ventus, odds of success be damned, but the mental equivalent of a speeding carriage slammed right into him. Unprepared, with no mercury he could use to raise even a feeble attempt to fend off the attack, his thoughts became utterly incoherent.
“Good instincts,” Ventus said, although his tone conveyed no praise. This was a predator before his kill. “To make use of newfound power so soon after putrefaction… how long have you slipped us by, I wonder?”
He couldn’t move. His body and soul urged him to run, but his mind resisted, turned into jelly by the Willsapper’s overwhelming might. Every command was overridden, his mind dancing to the tune of Ventus’ own.
And all he received was a simple order.
Obey.
“What is your Gift, boy?”
He tried to resist. He could sense his thoughts being meddled with. If they knew what ability he possessed, all hope of freedom would be lost. He fought valiantly, but the mental assault only intensified.
“Chronologist,” he said, utterly monotonous, at complete odds with his inner mounting frustration and the pressure his mind was under. “I’m a Spinner. I control rhythms.”
“Rhythms, hmm? I see…” Ventus mused, but despite his calm demeanour, there was no lifting of the mental vice around Ascion’s mind. Before the Hound, and without mercury, he was nothing. Ventus shrugged. “Well, nothing more to it, I suppose. Polinas has been grumbling about having an empty position.”
There were reasons why Willsappers inspired more fear than even Torturers. The latter could activate parts of the mind that processed pain, breaking their targets into obedient pawns. Willsappers could circumvent even that step, turning their victims into loyal puppets as their body and soul protested.
“The Azenar Empire looks forward to welcoming your service, boy.”
With that single parting phrase from Ventus, the pressure intensified tenfold, and he couldn’t even begin to resist. His limbs grew slack, obeying Ventus’ every command. He was fully aware of himself being bound by chains, and what sulfur and salt he had left on him was disposed aside. Even emptied flasks of mercury weren’t spared; Ventus wasn’t taking any chances.
All throughout, the seconds ticked by, kept in perfect cadence through his mercury-addled inner metronome. He knew that he was being marched off to be sent to the Camps. He knew that he should raise a fight. He knew that once his training was completed in the Camps, he would be promptly sent off to the front lines of the war. Call him a coward, but Ascion had no desire to die.
Under the Willsapper’s constant influence over action and motivation, without even a single drop of mercury to draw on… he just didn’t care.
Why even try to fight back?