CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
*~~~**~~~*
Iris Everton
*~~~**~~~*
Apria, 927 PC
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Iris slammed the surgical knife down on the table. “I can’t do it with one hand!” She tugged at the brace around her wrist, shoved her finger deep inside to scratch an itch for the hundredth time this morning. Between the pain and mood swings of pregnancy and the frustration of not being at her peak ability for weeks now, her outbursts were anything but a surprise. Still, they always filled the room with uncomfortable tension that became more difficult to scrape off the walls each time.
Master Rellin stared at her from the other side of the workbench, his fatherly eyes wishing he could do something for her. Don’t you dare say you’ll do it for me. Don’t you dare. “Here, let me-”
“No!” She picked the knife up and stabbed it into the corpse’s stomach, yanking upward toward his sternum. “There! Tear him open. Tear another corpse to pieces. Maybe this one will be different! Maybe this one will have its soul still in it!” She threw the knife across the room. It clinked and clanked as it tumbled then slid to a stop at Urman’s feet who sat by the ovens. He didn’t even open his eyes. “I’m telling you, they have to be alive. We’re never going to find a soul in a dead body! The Rubach is a waste if we can’t use it!” She pounded her good hand down on the table near the corpse’s head. It hardly noticed.
“Iris. Settle down. Please.” He’d taken to using a softer tone with her in times like these, coddling her childish behavior, practically insisting that it continue.
Settle down? Settle down?! He doesn’t think I’ve tried to settle down… That’s all she’d been trying to do for months, years at this point. Ever since Candice had died! But now she lived in Master Rellin’s fucking laboratory again because living alone was too dangerous. Another wonderful aspect of knowing Jameson, being linked to a horrible excuse of a man. Some new couple lived in the apartment she’d owned for all of two months. Two months!
“It’s going to be alright,” he said.
“I know that. But I want things to be better now.”
He frowned sympathetically. “Life has a way of taking the bumpiest roads but stay the course and you’ll get where you’re going.”
“We need a living subject.” She’d banged this drum time and time again but he’d refused to cross the line.
“We are alchemists, not torturers.” Willing to kill a man to bind another to a task he didn’t want but refuses to tarnish the integrity of alchemy.
“We are not alchemists anymore. We are innovators. Groundbreakers. The only people in the world that can justify pushing these boundaries. Lay this mantle down and who knows who picks it up. Can we trust whoever does to remain as moral as we will? I think not.” She paused. “And neither do you.”A moment of careful consideration. Then another, in which he looked like he might have a rebuttal. “Magic. At your fingertips. Imagine what we will achieve.”
“You’re right,” he said, finally marching to the beat of her drum. “Urman!” The brute’s eyes shot open. He seldom spoke to Master Rellin, using grunts and snarls instead. He used a particularly throaty grunt now to ask what the alchemist wanted. “Could you join us?”
Urman gingerly climbed out of the chair she’d brought from her apartment, still nursing the stab wound in his lower back. What a night that had been. Urman lost enough blood to kill two men, but somehow he’d made it through. The apothecary had called him a medical mystery more times than she could count during the week they spent there. Master Rellin tried for days before he finally convinced the woman that they’d be better off in the care of the university. A small friendship had been forged between her and Urman during that time. Too small to have survived her return to the laboratory though. There were hints of Urman’s interest in her once in a while but mostly he scowled at her just as much as Master Rellin now. She regularly thought about what Candice would say if she knew how she was treating Urman. How ashamed she’d be of her for disregarding someone who had shown her nothing but courtesy. But there was no room for new friendships anymore. No room for that childish mentality. All she cared about was changing the world. To get back at Jameson… And Barik.
When Urman finally made it to them, he stood at the end of the workbench, staring silently at the corpse. The digust on his face made it clear he didn’t want to be involved with what they were doing but knew he was about to be.
“Urman,” Master Rellin said.
An annoyed grunt.
“We’ll be needing your services again, my friend.”
A snarl. “I ain’t your friend.”
“Be that as it may, you’re still a valued part of this project and we need your services.”
A grunt.
“We’ll need you to secure our next test subject for us.”
A growl.
“Lords, Urman. Use your words. You’re not an animal.”
“Fine. But then I get Harlow back.”
“Of course.”
“No fuckin’ games this time. I dug around in the dirt for ya and I kept her safe.” He paused, glancing at Iris. “Mostly. If I do this, I want him back and then I’m done.” Iris wished she could simply bargain with The Creator like this to get Candice’s life back. Suppose she had, but it didn’t work. Something told her it wouldn’t work for Urman either.
Master Rellin walked away, choosing not to make an agreement too firm with a handshake. He pulled a jingling key chain from his waist and used one of the several keys to open a cabinet on the wall. One she’d never seen opened before. Pouches upon pouches lay atop one another, dark brown with lighter brown cords. The one he chose scraped and jingled similarly to how his keys had. As he returned to them he tossed it on the workbench in front of Urman. “Bring me Garrard Danner.”
“Who?” Urman asked.
“He’s an elderly man that works at the bakery. He shouldn’t be too much trouble, even in your current state. But if he is, use the Leos.” He nodded at the pouch. “Loves money more than life, that man. He’d follow you into the three hells if there was a trail of coins to be had.”
“What’d he do to ya?”
Master Rellin shrugged. “Nothing. Just the first name to come to mind. But I daresay the quality of his pastries have declined. We’ll be doing the city a service by insisting they get a new baker.”
*~~~**~~~*
Not eight hours laters Garrard Danner was lying on the workbench in Master Rellin’s lab. Wrists and ankles strapped down tight, mouth stuffed with rags and held by rope. His eyes darted around in a panic; from Master Rellin to Iris to Urman to the walls to the glass instruments. Knew the place as well as she did within minutes. He tried to speak through his gag but all that came out were grunts and slurps. She expected Urman to translate given his affinity for the primitive language but all he did was stare at the hostage, second guessing his decision to kidnap him.
Iris reached for a black cloth on the counter nearby and laid it over Garrard’s face. “That’s better,” she whispered, frowning at the men uncomfortably. She’d thought she had turned her sympathy to stone and tossed it into the swamp. She’d thought a live body wouldn’t be so drastically different than a corpse. How terribly wrong she’d been.
“What are ya gonna do to him?” Urman asked. A question he may have considered asking that morning.
“Crack him open like an oyster,” Master Rellin said, giving what was left in the pouch of Leos to Urman. Which from the sound of it was quite a lot. “You earned this.” He walked toward the cabinets. “See, Urman. We all have a pearl sitting in our chests. Some are more valuable than others, of course, but we all have one. Iris and I intend to harvest a few. For research.”
Urman glanced at her. He looked older than he had before Jameson stabbed him. Like he’d spent years walking the road home just to change his mind and come back. “You’re gonna cut him open?”
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Garrard grunted and squirmed. She saw Urman’s fists clench, start to move for the straps. Her hand met his. His eyes met hers. She shook her head. “I need this,” she whispered. “For my sister.” He bared his teeth. Not long ago they’d scared her, keeping her on the other side of Master Rellin’s study. Now, she barely noticed them as she stared him in the eye. Pleading, not threatening. Only a fool would threaten Urman Gant. He pulled his hand back and walked away.
“Alright, I brought you your damn oyster… Now, where’s Harlow?”
Master Rellin walked toward them, arms full of glass instruments. “You know, Urman, you shouldn’t be in such a rush to bring him back. He’s eating better than all of us and sleeping on a finer bed than King Akra.” He passed Urman like he wasn’t there, staring at Iris. “We’ll need to recreate the stabilizer. Can you do that correctly?’ He’d started making the occasional snide remark about her quality of work after the Red Venom had failed to kill Harlow.
“I can handle it,” she said bluntly, taking several items from his arms.
“Numbing agent for the pain receptors, freezing agent for the organs.”
“I know,” she said.
He turned to his lackey. “Look. I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Urman. So, let’s set the record straight.” He put one of his thick hands on the man’s shoulder. “You’ll get your brother back when Iris and I no longer need your services. Until then, why don’t you just get used to the idea that you work for us now. I will keep food in your belly and money in your pocket unless you choose to disobey. Do you understand?”
Urman grabbed Master Rellin’s wrist with remarkable speed for a commoner, snarling through the agony in his back. “I want him back now. Do ya understand that?” His eye’s flickered toward Iris wildly. “I’m sure your little pet knows where he is.” He glanced at her stomach. “She has some negotiatin’ she could do too.” Now, it was quite clear she’d hurt Urman’s feelings by ignoring the fire they’d kindled in the apothecary’s home.
“Go ahead.” Iris stepped back, holding her stomach as if there was anything she could do to stop a man like Urman. “But I can assure you, Iris has no idea where your brother is.” Master Rellin licked his dry lips. “If you’re willing to take that risk then by all means. Go ahead. Of course, Harlow will starve to death and you’ll have that on your conscience the rest of your life. But I guess a little cooperation is just too much to keep your brother breathing.”
Urman shoved him away.
Master Rellin’s lips curled, his teeth beaming white. “Besides, I couldn’t give him back to you right now if I wanted to.”Urman’s face went pale. “Do you really think I would keep Harlow anywhere in Locke when we both know you are as well-connected as anyone in the city?”
“Where is he?!”
Master Rellin shrugged.
It didn’t seem like something worth fighting over, but something snapped in Urman. Instruments sprawled across the workbench as the two men went flying up and onto Garrard. The captive grunted something terrible into his gag. Urman fell to the floor first, hissing in pain. Face contorted so hideously he looked possessed. Master Rellin fell on top of him, got to all fours, hovering over Urman, as quickly as he could. The older man wasn’t much of a skilled fighter but he was wise enough to start slamming his knee into the area around Urman’s stab wound. Once, twice, three times before Urman’s elbow caught him across the jaw. He toppled onto his side. Urman rolled, practically growling like a dog as he lifted himself up through the discomfort. He was halfway to his feet when he collapsed back to the ground, facedown, head bloody, glass sprinkled around in his hair and on the floor.
Master Rellin looked at her, rubbing his jaw and spitting blood on the stone floor. “Thank you.”
“Tie him up. Quickly.”
*~~~**~~~*
“You’re both sick bastards,” Urman said from near the ovens. He hadn’t stopped berating them since he’d woken up. Master Rellin had wanted to slit his throat while he was out but she wouldn’t let him, bringing herself to even with Urman in her mind. She’d wrapped his head in bandages and they’d dragged him over to the ovens where they tied him to a pole.
“Ignore him,” she said when she saw Master Rellin’s knuckles turn white as he squeezed the edge of the table. His lip was busted and swollen above his beard. For some reason she enjoyed that.
He took a deep breath. “Carry on.”
The vein had puffed up nice and big after she’d tied a cord around Garrard’s upper arm. She slid the needle in slowly at an angle and pressed the wooden knob down until the entire numbing agent was coursing through the man’s veins. “The freezing agent.” She put her hand out for the next injector.
“Slowly now.”
“I know.”
“It’s like you smart ones to think you’re wiser than The Creator. Can’t be content with the lot ya was given. Always lookin’ for somethin’ more,” Urman shouted, yanking at his restraints.
The wooden knob bumped against the glass tube as the last of the freezing agent dripped into Garrard’s veins. “Quickly,’ she said.
Master Rellin rushed across the lab floor toward the ovens to do the job she had been meant to do herself if she had two good hands.
“Fuck you!” Urman shouted at him. “Have to pick on people twice your age!” An angry dog that had gotten off its leash wouldn’t be as intimidating.
Master Rellin grabbed a long metal pole from where it hung on the wall and yanked open the oven door. The tong-like end disappeared into the raging flames briefly before he pulled out a sphere of iron containing as much Rubach as necessary to create a spherical shape. He completely submerged the steel mold into a large vat of ice cold water in order to solidify the alchemical.
“He’s ready,” she said. Garrard’s skin was frigid to the touch. She slid her leather gloves back on, reinforced half a dozen times to be safe.
“One moment, one moment!”
“Sick bastards! The Creator will send you both to the three hells for this!” A thought that had run through her mind frequently.
A splash as the mold came bursting out of the ice and water. “Coming!” Master Rellin shouted. He moved with as much grace as a baby deer but he got the job done, dropping the sphere into the round stand on the workbench at Garrard’s feet.
Iris grabbed the top half and twisted it off. A narrow cylinder slid out of the Rubach sphere inside, leaving a corridor for fluid to flow through. “Perfect!” She tossed the iron lid on the floor and grabbed the Rubach orb, holding it to the torchlight and admiring it. “It’s perfect.”
Urman was shouting in the background but she couldn’t be bothered by his griping. She sat the orb back down in a hurry and grabbed the test tube full of the identifier they’d concocted in order to find Garrard’s soul. Hopefully.
Master Rellin had already started cutting into the man’s chest. The captive didn’t make a sound. We’re so close. So very close. The hammer rose, came down hard on the chisel-like tool pressed against Garrard’s sternum. Crack! He’d gotten good in recent months. Seldom needing more than a few swings now. Crack! He tossed the tools aside and dug his fingers into the cavern before yanking in both directions. Crack! Crunch! Bones shattered and snapped. “Now!”
She dumped the identifier into the cavity in the man’s chest and froze. Both watched intently as the blue substance poured over the bloody organs. As it mixed with the blood the whole cavity turned dark purple. Then, one area, about the size of a hefty apple, began to glow a bright orange.
“There!” she screamed with excitement. She darted to the end of the bench to grab the Rubach orb. When she turned around Master Rellin was frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s dead.”
She peered into the bloody mess. The bright orange ball was gone.
“Ha! Serves ya right, ya fuckin’ cunts!”
*~~~**~~~*
Master Rellin had not missed Urman’s reference to what was in her stomach. He’d simply waited until the shine of their failed attempt with Garrard had worn off to lecture her on trust and good choices for two hours straight. Eventually, once she knew he had no intention of stripping her of her apprenticeship, she stood up and walked out of his study with him still shouting at her. She’d walked the corridors of the university until the desire to escape the cage Jameson had put her in became too overwhelming. She’d walked the streets of Locke for almost an hour with no protection but her dagger and the street lights until it dawned on her that the university was a cage within a cage. She hadn’t once left the city walls since coming to Locke. A desire to feel free of the stress that had come with all that had happened in the last year all but pulled her into the fields outside the city. She’d only wandered for a few moments until she thought of exactly where she needed to go.
She’d found the lake Jameson had mentioned a time or two half an hour later. Walked right up to the edge of the water, her feet sinking into the mud deeper and deeper with each step.
She still stood there now, admiring the moonlit nature all around the lake. Tall, black outlines of fir trees standing in front of dark hills, a quiet cabin sleeping on the other side of the lake, a lonely windmill standing at the edge of the field, and most importantly, the hundreds of lotus that sat on top of the water. Each one reminded her of a different night with Candice and her father. She was all smiles until she thought about the night Candice had clutched at her chest. Then she found herself in the bedroom. Barik appeared. She could hear his heartless tone as he called her father a liar and took his precious magic with him.
Suddenly, she found herself walking into the water, the cold bite on her legs climbing higher and higher. She stopped when one of the flowers sat in front of her thighs. “I’m not proud of what I’m doing in the laboratory.” A weight fell off her shoulders and sunk to the bottom of the lake. “I’m not proud of what I’ve become. But you told me we’d triumph against all odds. But you didn’t. And it’s my fault. I let you down, Can-can. I should have tried harder to change your circumstances. I should have found the cure sooner. I should have saved you.” The ripples from her tears dropping into the water wandered away quietly, hiding from the sadness she’d brought to the lake. “I won’t fail again. I will change the world. I’m close already and I know I can do it. For you. Everything I do is for you.” She gripped the dagger in her pocket, keeping it there like she might be able to hide it from Candice. “But you have to understand that sometimes that requires me to do things I don’t want to do. Things father wouldn’t approve of. That you wouldn’t approve of. There’s no other way to fix what I let happen though.” She could hear Candice’s sweet voice telling her to toss the weapon in the water. And for a moment, she considered doing so. “No. I love you Candice, but this is the way it has to be. You don’t understand what they’re like. They’re awful, awful people. I have a child to protect now and I’ll be damned if I let them do to it what they did to you. I will rid the world of them.”