AKI:
The mixture bubbled. Boiling water broke down the plant matter, absorbing its color and properties. The less alive the medium, the easier it is to perform an Alchemical extraction. I poured the green water into a beaker I’d prepared, one more suitable for extraction—conical flasks were good at keeping air flowing without too much loss, while cubed cups were more in line with the shape of most Alchemy Matrixes. The lines of my matrix sprung up around the beaker, parts interacting with its content, parts with the glass beaker itself, and parts hovering over the surfaces. This was a four-weave matrix: One extracted, one filtered the extraction, one protected the integrity of the beaker, and one contained the process. Many in my class had not even tried to attempt a three-weave yet. Only Malorey had dared. Well, ‘dared’ isn't quite the right word; she was already pushing for five, and her four-weave matrixes had put mine to shame. I did, however, have her soundly beat in matters of speed.
The vapor of my extraction flowed up and into a prepared container. I sealed and placed it among the fifty or so others I’d made and put aside.
“Another one,” Royce said. He stood behind me, watching me work.
“Survival is more important than progress, Sir,” I said.
“So it is. Tell me again why you are using such mundane ingredients. The better the components, the more taxing the extraction, the better it is for improving your skill, and that is to say nothing of the exponential increase in price.”
“Survival, Master. The inaccuracies of my matrixes would waste the efficacy of better materials. Hew-grown plants are free and aplenty in the Alchemy district.”
“Then why is it you refuse to take my advice?”
“Because my sensus does.” I looked back to see him nodding.
“Listening to your sensus is always advisable,” he said.
“Then why insist otherwise?”
“Because convincing you might convince your sensus.”
Malorey leaned in from the workstation beside mine, done with a half-successful five-weave brew she’d been concocting. “You know, I envy you sometimes.”
“No, you don’t.” I laughed a little. Malorey was awful at lying. Odd, considering she could spot a drop of falsehood in a hailstorm of half-truths.
She smiled back at me. “You’re right, I don’t. An Alchemist does best with preparation. Accuracy is our greatest tool, not speed.”
“Just think, my young Aki,” Royce said, “given how accurate you can make your matrixes in but a few heartbeats, how accurate would they be if you took your time?”
I shrugged. “We’ll likely never know.”
A quarter turn and a handful more extract later, somewhere around noon, many of the students and Masters left to enjoy a midday meal or otherwise take a break from their Alchemical work. I picked up my bag and stored the vialed extracts I’d made for the day. Fifty-six, all told.
“Lunch?” Malorey asked.
“Not today.”
“You can eat off my plate.”
“Are you waving your riches at me?” I joked. She’d already amassed what many of the students would consider a fortune. “But no, I’d rather not risk it. Besides, I have other plans I wish to attend to.”
“You’re off to sell those extracts? What poor fool is so desperate as to need such substandard goods?”
The answer stole the smile from my face. “More than you know.”
I put on the winter cloak I’d found in my chest the first day of winter, pulled the strap of my bag over my head and onto my shoulder, and left.
I approached one of the many horse-drawn carriages waiting for students by the large, circular cul-de-sac leading up to The Academy’s entrance. The driver pursed his lips when I told him where I was heading. Not many cared to find themselves there without a good cause, and he must’ve deemed the coin he'd earn barely sufficient because he grumbled his dissatisfaction all the way there.
The drive cost me all I had left. Traveling the breadth of the entire city wasn’t expensive, per se, but nor was it cheap, especially given my cavernous purse.
Eventually, we’d left behind homes and buildings of stone for those made of wood. Further yet, wood gave way to wattle and daub. Yet still, the houses grew smaller and smaller until we came upon a region almost exclusively filled with small huts barely big enough to fit a lone man. By now, the air was thick with smells I did not care to think about, the sky dark despite the hour and clear skies, and the new winter chill more pervasive. Spend enough time in a place so abundant with matrixes like The Academy, and you begin to consider all the luxuries as commonplace.
I got off the carriage, slipped the irate driver his payment, and went about finding Zo’s place. My worries about getting lost were misplaced; her place was the largest building in the area by a factor of ten. It had to be. And more. The structure of hardened clay mixed with straw and mud sat crooked, the winds and rains of Evergreen having slowly pushed it off kilter. On the side of the building was a minor extension, a stand where Zo had set up a dispensary of sorts. Ailing Muds—those too healthy to be housed in the main infirmary—queued around the building, waiting for the only treatment Zo could afford. Before we’d met, she’d given them one-weave tonics that took the edge off their pain and hunger. Many still subsisted on this; my two-weave creations—the third and fourth functions did not add to the alchemical properties—were reserved for the most poorly of her visitors, most of whom resided in the infirmary.
“How many?” Zo asked from behind the counter as she dispensed her treatments, one stained leather glove eagerly reaching for the bag I carried.
“Fifty-six.”
Zo’s hand froze. “I can’t afford that many. Not so soon after my last purchase.”
I sighed. I had hoped to earn this month’s fee in one transaction. A place in the dorms and two daily meals cost me a gold per month. Celestial gold, that is. Evergreen’s currency was not so ordinary as mere metal. If so, Telums would’ve flooded the market and rendered them useless. No, celestial coins contained a small emerald orb in the center with vein-like stems sprouting outward. Grono’s doing. None could replicate the feat. No one even knew what the sphere was made from.
“How much do you have?” I asked.
“At two coppers a piece?” Zo reached into the pocket of her dirty apron, pulled out a coin purse, loosened the drawstrings, and upended the thing. Seven coins spilled onto her open hand, six grey and one brown. “Thirty. And a half if you can manage splitting one.” She looked up at me, pleading, the sadness of her hopeful smile the greatest of her weapons. “Every little helps.”
I held out my hand. Zo gave me the coins. I placed the bag onto the counter and removed all fifty-six tonics I’d slaved over.
“I’ll be wanting the vials back,” I said.
With an open-mouthed smile, Zo snatched at my offering. “Of course.”
I looked behind me at the long queue of limping, bleeding, slouching, mud-covered men, women, and children. Against my will, I remembered the many times Diloni treated my wounds, the pain, the humiliation, the seething anger at the injustice of it all. I had suffered over the years, but I had never taken a moment to appreciate I was not alone in my misery. Diloni treated that, too, with education and hope and the promise of a better future if only I were willing to endure. Each of those memories came to mind with sickening clarity. There were times I hated my mind’s ability to recall the past. I understood Diloni better now. But my soul was not feeding me these memories because of Diloni. My last conversation with her came to mind with a pang of regret. I did understand her better, and in some ways, in some very few ways, I was beginning to do more than understand. My experience with my sensus played a big part; it had taught me that sometimes, as Merkusian had said, ‘it is up to the strong to buy freedom for the weak, for strength may elude them regardless of an iron will and an inordinate effort.’ I decided that he spoke of the freedom to try, to be as unobstructed by the evils and biases of others as possible.
“Do you need any help?” I asked, my eyes scanning the crowd.
“With what?” Zo was too busy to lend me anything but her ear as she assessed patient after patient, carefully but promptly deciding which of them warranted one of the few available healing tonics and which had to make do with a kind word and whatever advice she could offer.
“I’m a Pondus.” A half-truth meant to convey how I might help.
“Nothing needs moving.”
“Many need healing.”
Zo’s head whipped to face me. “You’re a Surgeon?”
“I dabble.”
She smiled. “You’re a fountain of good news today, boy.”
My first patient was a boy no older than five cycles. His mother tried to run from me with him in her arms. Everyone had kept a healthy distance since I’d arrived. Some had left altogether. The rest had deemed the chance of death my complexion warned of more acceptable than the certainty leaving brought about. I chased the woman down. An easy task I managed in three brisk steps. She fell. I treated him as she sat on the ground, her eyes shut and body trembling, her fear of me doing nothing to stop her from clutching her son to her chest, a promise she would not let him die alone. An invisible force stung my heart. I breathed in deeply and ignored the phantom pain.
I had not put much effort into training Surgeon Arts. Thankfully, Dako had shown me the basics, and the application was much the same as Reaper Arts. There was little resistance when the ready matrix suffused throughout the boy’s body. From there, a simple all-purpose healing matrix sped up his natural healing using my sensus as fuel. Color returned to him, and his eyes flicked open. He looked up at me as I worked. The pain in his expression forced my gaze away. The Muds back home was filled with his like, I knew, yet I’d never seen them. Why? Lorail, I thought, answering my own question. How far had her meddling delved? How much of who I’d become was her doing? The thoughts thundered into me. My sensus faltered. The boy whimpered. I took a deep breath to retrieve my concentration and continued my work.
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I did not spend long with the boy. Too many required my help. His mother kissed me a hundred times, her fear displaced by gratefulness. Not an inch of my face escaped the blessing of her rough, dry lips. I spent more effort getting her off of me than I did getting her to let me treat her son.
My actions brought me tentative trust with the other Muds, and my second patient did little to hinder the aid I offered. He was a lone man a few years my senior. Death was at his door, knocking hard and loud. A broken rib had punctured a lung. His left arm hung awkwardly. Some of his insides were bleeding into the empty cavities between his organs. I did enough to send him away for the night. He would die before tomorrow ended; all I managed was to make sure he died oblivious to the agony of his failing body.
My third was a young girl on the cusp of adulthood, pretty but for the signs of her poverty. Bruises covered her. Her father scowled at me even as he brought her into my care, and I knew a godling was to blame for her injuries.
On my seventh patient, I noticed the change in my Surgeon Art.
A boy, five, maybe six, wailed, a mix of pain and anguish no child should know pulsing from his soul. His mother hugged him and refused to let go. Her other son—older, around my age, though a lack of health might’ve put years he didn’t own on him—pulled him from her arms and onto my lap. He had been crying, too, though the tears had dried into tracks of cleaner skin. He looked at me like the father of the girl I’d treated earlier. Wetness spread over my lap. I picked the boy up and saw the blood-soaked back of his loose breeches. I froze, but only for a moment. Only for long enough to remember and forcefully forget the pain this boy suffered. I planted my ready matrix. It came like never before. It was, as usual, chaotic and fast, but something else was there, another aspect.
The boy gained weight, the browns of his teeth vanished, and his hair grew long, thick, and robust. His cries ceased, some weight or injury lifting from his soul.
I did not spend long to move on to the next victim. That’s what they all were. Victims. And so the day passed, hour after hour of healing, until night came, and I was spent. Stumbling, I got to my feet. Many remained, hoping to be next. Where once they kept their distance, now they fought to be closer. They huddled around me with reaching arms and pleading shouts. Zo held them back with one arm and led me away with the other.
“I can’t leave,” she said. “I wish I could help you back to The Academy, but I can’t—there is still much to do, and as sad as it is true, you are far down the list of those who need me the most. I’m afraid you’ll have to make your way back alone.”
I nodded and lurched forward, only half listening. One step. Another.
“And Aki,” she called. I turned back to her, eyes half-closed. “Thank you.”
I resumed my stumble. Tired, empty of energy and sensus, and far from my comfortable bed, I staggered into the night, smiling. Tears rolled over my lips for the truths I’d confronted and the horrid memories of my past they provoked, but I was smiling.
Near the end of my endurance, I ventured into an area with cobbled streets. The distant sounds of laughter and shouts pulled me onto a main road. Mundane lanterns over taverns and brothels and inns, and those hanging from tall poles set evenly along the populated sidewalks, faded the light of the stars and moon. Finally, arms flailing, I found a carriage and hailed the driver.
***
Someone shook me awake. Dako stood over me. My back hurt; carriage seats do not make for a comfortable bed, and I had grown used to comfort. Dako paid the driver and helped me climb down.
“Did you find a bosom so sweet as to risk wandering home in the dark alone?” he asked. There was no humor in his smile, only relief.
“Aki and a night of debauchery?” Sil’s smile was a prettier version of Dako’s, both for the humor she managed and because any expression of hers was prettier than Dako’s regardless. “Look, he’s gone red. If he’d lain with a lady of the night, no way she’d have left so much of his innocence intact.”
Sensing my mood and fatigue, my friends walked with me in silence. Neither of them commented on the dry blood staining my clothes, though Dako had taken a moment to check none of it was mine. They kept me company as I ate a simple meal. Then we’d left the refectory and climbed the stairs to our common room, all without a word. As we separated and approached our respective quarters, Dako spoke up.
“Another attack?” he asked
I shook my head. “Worse.”
He frowned. “A visit from…”
I shook my head again, the move stunning me with a stab of pain and vertigo. “Not that bad. An ugly truth is all.”
“The Muds? Malorey had said you’d gone to visit Zo’el.”
“I did.” I stepped into my room and readied to close the door. “It has been a long night. I’ll see you both in the morning.”
I fell onto my bed. Nightmares filled my sleep.
***
Fuller sat before me. About the large and unfurnished Augur hall, small crowds of students clustered around the score of Masters and Fifths who were there to provide instruction. Roots who showed talent for the Art inevitably chose to pursue the path if only to learn more adequate methods to protect themselves from true Augers, unable as they were to rely on a greater harmony. All the Roots sat before Fifths. As did many of the Triplers who weren’t from House Lorail—Masters only attended to the more promising students. I was the only student Fuller attended to. He’d not worded his refusal for others to join, but the eight senseless students lying around us exhibited his intent and deterred others from coming too close.
“Now that we’ve dealt with that,” Fuller said, “do you mind telling me why you’ve avoided attending Auger classes?”
“Auger Arts aren’t the most profitable.”
“Trust me, they are.”
“Well, not in any way I find financially tenable.”
“I assume you’ve dealt with this month’s fees, then?”
“I have.” Following Royce’s advice, I spent my earned coins on better material. By the time I’d succeeded in concocting a salve for toughening skin from the carcass of a newly evolved tortoise, there was only enough material left for one more try. Thankfully, Royce offered me a favorable price, earning me a gold and four silvers.
“Good. Then let’s proceed with your training. From what I hear, your Tunnels, though effective, are disgustingly crude.”
“This is the mental shield class, is it not?”
“It is, but that is of little concern to us.” One of the students lying unconscious woke from his stupor. Fuller took a moment to chase him off with a glare. “I’ll be teaching you in every Auger class you attend and will be doing so in an orderly fashion. No skewing your training towards particular subjects, no learning techniques in the wrong order, and most definitely no taking instruction from the substandard Fifths apprenticed to those less capable colleagues of mine who dare call themselves Masters.”
Fuller ran through everything he’d taught us in the first cycle, assessing if and where I lacked knowledge. The tests came and went without comment.
“Given your tight grip over your memories, I thought it best to teach you all the theory I know before we move onto practical applications,” he said.
I nodded my assent.
Blue lines flared to life. Fuller drew the matrixes with Painter Arts without a gesture. I recognized the individual parts and intuited the overall function.
“Why not the actual matrix?” I asked.
“It is easier to draw the perfect version of the matrix visually. Tell me why.”
“The flow.”
Fuller gestured for me to continue.
“It is easier to control your imagination than your sensus,” I said.
Fuller nodded at my answer and then at the matrix he’d drawn. “Any idea?”
“A truth bridge.”
“Correct. And it’s function?”
“To bridge thought and speech, circumventing creativity and thus the ability to lie.”
“Parts?”
“One to locate surface thoughts, one to link to the mind’s speech vectors, and the last to isolate the connection.”
“Correct again.”
Another matrix followed. Then more. We reached the fifth-order matrixes before my first unsatisfactory answer. Fuller explained each function, how they were connected, why they were connected the way they were, and any weaknesses one might use to exploit. Then came the next. Every once in a while, he’d redraw one of the earlier matrixes I’d not known. He did that less and less often—no one who questioned my memory questioned it for long.
Halfway through, he dragged his Painted chair closer, the scraping of wood on marble all too realistic. I scooted back and out of his reach.
“Pff,” Fuller exhaled, sulking. “I’m not so crass as to publically court you.”
“Nevertheless,” I said.
“Aki, I need physical contact.”
“Need? Now, I’m sure I’ve acted wisely.”
Fuller grinned. “You were unsure before?”
“I was—I’ve just reached a level of certainty I’d never before achieved.”
Fuller’s lips curved, emoting his dejection. “You wound me. But no, the need is not born out of my… desire. I need to Tunnel a Painting directly to you. You might not be aware, but tuition only covers some of the knowledge available here at The Academy.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Have you not wondered why the Fifths have chosen to stay?”
I shrugged my uncertainty. “Because they thought they had more to learn.”
“Everyone has more to learn. Why do you think Grono and Silas spend so much time experimenting?”
“I meant from their respective Masters.”
“Yes, but that is only part of the answer. The gifted are often sponsored by the powerful,” Fuller explained. “They ensure their investments receive all the knowledge and training they can handle from the Assessors.”
“I see,” I said. And I did. This was but another reason Roots fell into submission. “I take it knowledge is kept locked unless such a sponsor provides a key.”
Fuller nodded. “Many Master’s require something for their troubles.”
“Master Royce doesn’t. Or Ackhart. They’ve long ago shown me complex matrixes.”
“Some don’t. Though you should’ve realized the matrixes they give freely are almost all flawed and as generic as can be. Better, more efficient, and more powerful matrixes are not so freely given, mostly because the way the weaves have been connected is utterly elementary. Talent decides how much the sponsor is willing to provide. Fifths are those who were talented enough to secure some knowledge but stayed to serve those they wished to learn from in the hopes of earning more. But worry not; you will not want for anything.”
We continued. Neither of us took a break. Despite my recent monetary gains, I could not afford a midday meal. I also didn’t care to prey on my friends’ generosity nor deal with all the dangers that entailed, both from within and without. As for Fuller, I was sure he was beyond the need for mundane sustenance.
“That was quick,” Fuller said an hour before sunset.
“We’re done?” I asked.
“I’m not sure you noticed, but we’ve reviewed all the standard Tunneller matrixes.”
“Standard?”
“Everything but recipient-specific and the more niche matrixes require extensive research or the ability to inject Meaning.” The chair he’d Painted into existence faded as he stood and stretched. “We can cover Painter matrixes next time. After that, all that remains is to master execution.”
***
I found him on the bed—a bloodless, half-mummified corpse, his severed parts unnaturally well-maintained and organized with gruesome and anatomical precision. That Vignil had gotten him there without anyone the wiser frightened me far more than the butchered body.
My sharp and admittedly high-pitched inhale of surprise called my friends to me. All three crashed into my room. Only Dako did not share my reaction.
“Vignil,” he said. “A message.”
“A reminder.” My eyes did not stray from the face. Pain had added to the deep lines of his advanced age.
“Surgeon torture,” Dako added. “He died slow and hard.”
Wiltos stepped back, hand over his mouth, his face turned away from the grisly sight. “Fucking godlings,” he barked, his voice muffled. He ran out, cheeks bloated.
Sil approached and leaned over the dead body. “He sure is meticulous.” She picked up what was once our mundane master’s left hand—the dead own nothing, not even the bodies they once wore. She turned it over, inspecting the clinical cut. The lack of blood had turned the flesh into a pale pink. Thin bones, brittle though they must’ve been, were undamaged except where whatever Vignil had used to sever the limb had passed, leaving behind a perfectly flat cross-section.
“He has a talent for Surgeon Arts,” Dako said, surprising me—I had assumed Vignil was primarily a Reaper. “The Muds we…”
Sil and I turned to him, distracted by the hitch in his voice. A chill crept into me in anticipation of what horrendous memory he was having trouble sharing.
“The Muds,” he continued, “the ones they brought for us to practice on. His subjects screamed the loudest. The longest. The day after we… fell out, I’d watched him dissect a girl for five days. He’d kept her alive for five whole days. They forced us to watch, to see what they expected from us. She screamed so loud, so hard, and for so long… I never knew someone could cough out their lungs.”
Sil slipped her arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder. I ignored my jolt of jealousy.
“What happens if I kill him?” I asked, redirecting my negative thoughts. Healing the Muds had taught me a few lessons. Dismissing or burying my emotions, whatever they were, did me more harm than good. My sensus demanded I stop constraining myself. The poor Mud boy I’d treated showed me that—memories of my greatest pain had healed his.
“Kill who?” Sil asked.
“Vignil.”
“Only if you surprise him and lay bare all your tricks,” Dako said. “And even then, I cannot say for sure.”
“I don’t need you to calculate my chances.” I held up my fist to him. “I just need to know you’ll not think ill of me for taking his life. Scum that he is, he is still your brother.”
Dako smiled at my open show of pride. “I don’t think family means much to any of us.”
“Don’t you fear your family will retaliate?” Sil asked.
Dako shook his head. “Vignil is a Fiora—Bainan is more likely to thank Aki for culling his herd than to punish him for killing his son.”
“Exactly why our families mean less than nothing to us,” I said.
Dako’s fist bumped against mine. “Your contest has been certain for some time. I knew then his defeat would mean his death. Just promise you’ll not face him until there is no other choice.”
I nodded at my friend. “You have my word.”