“I was thinking we could ask to stay in the guildhouse,” Tarquin said. The late afternoon sun shone down on the city, almost chasing away the chill in the air. Almost.

Athera hesitated. It would certainly save them money, something they were starting to run painfully low on. “Do you think you could stand being that close to the city center?” she asked tentatively.

“It’s not ideal,” Tarquin admitted. “I’m also not convinced Miriam sleeps, let alone the other alchemists, so we might not get much rest.” From his shoulder Soot made one of his strange sounds. Athera had anticipated him sounding like the birds she knew, or even the griffins, but this creature’s cries ranged from the normal bird sounds, to some very disconcerting human sounding ones.

“We could probably stay on the pirate ship. We’d be closer to the griffins.”

Tarquin grimaced. “And we’d be closer to the pirates. Way too close.”

“They’re not that bad. Besides, half of them stay here in the city anyway.”

“They ransacked our village!” Tarquin quieted as a curious woman glanced in their direction. “They could be worse…but we should still be careful around them.”

Athera nodded, trying to come up with a better rebuttal. Before she could form any words, Soot started screeching.

Tarquin cursed and pulled the bird from his shoulder. The poor thing’s feathers were fluffed and he bit Tarquin’s finger.

“Ow! Athera, what’s wrong with him?” He desperately held the bird out to her.

“How would I know?” Still, she gently took Soot from him. He beat his wings against her, and it took her a second to get a grip that was safe for the both of them. He seemed to stare at her in that moment, his wide, unblinking eyes boring a hole into her soul.

“You are one very strange animal,” she told the bird. It chirped weakly in response.

“Is he better?” Tarquin asked.

Athera frowned. “I keep griffins, not…whatever he is.” She glanced around them. What had happened to spook the bird? The bright copper seemed to glare down at them, but he had been exposed to that for weeks and hadn’t had an issue with it. Was there a cat around?

“It’s not just Soot.” Tarquin gestured at a young boy who was consoling a very large and fluffy dog. The creature’s hackles were fully raised and it was stiff despite the boy hugging it.

The back of her neck seemed to prickle. For multiple animals to be acting like this…

“Come on.” She took off for one of the nearby alleyways, praying that her instincts were right. Soot seemed to grow stiffer as she drew nearer, but she didn’t have time to console the poor bird.

She was barely two steps in when Soot pecked at her hands, but she couldn’t muster the presence of mind to react.

The ground was glowing a pale blue. It was dim in the afternoon light, but where there should’ve been shadow, there was instead luminescent stone.

She heard Tarquin’s breath catch behind her. “Is that?” he asked.

The stone flashed once and then faded, turning back to solid cobbles. Except not quite. It was muted--almost dusty. If she had seen it in isolation, she would never have spared it a second glance, but right next to the unaffected stone there was something off--as though someone had painted a portion of the alleyway.

Tarquin slowly bent down and picked up a pebble. It crumbled effortlessly in his hand.

“This…this is good,” he said, sounding shaken. “We’ve never caught one in action before.”

“Yeah,” Athera said faintly. They had been searching for this very thing for weeks, but that couldn’t shake one very important missing detail.

“Tarquin,” she said slowly as he bent down to scoop some of the transmuted pebbles into one of the glass vials they both carried. He straightened, head tilted in a silent question.

“Where was the alchemist? We should have seen someone doing that, shouldn’t we?” Putting words to the thoughts in the back of her mind had not held the soothing effect she had been hoping for. If anything, her stomach churned even more as she said them.

Tarquin glanced down at the stone once more. “I don’t know…” he forced a smile across his face. “But we know more than we did. The guild might have some ideas that we don’t.” He reached for her hand and led them both from the alleyway.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

They were silent for the remainder of their walk to the guildhouse. All around them, people went about their lives, shopping and selling various items. Only a couple of pets being soothed by worried owners gave any indication to the unnatural happenings in the city.

They came to the guildhouse one flight of stairs later. Where there would have been several alchemists on a normal day milling around the common area, right then there was only a pair of women comparing notes and an elderly man napping next to the fire. She didn’t recognize any of the alchemists, but that hardly mattered.

Alaric was settled next to a window pouring over a book with yellowed, delicate pages. “Athera, Tarquin,” he said after glancing up at them. “I didn’t expect you until this evening.”

“We saw a transmutation.” Athera’s words felt rushed and woefully inadequate.

Alaric stared at them appraisingly. His hair was tousled and thin purple shadows had formed under his eyes. “Well, I suppose we can start testing the samples,” he yawned.

“No, Alaric. We saw a transmutation happen. We were there.” Tarquin held out the vial that held the transmuted pebbles.

Alaric blinked and Athera watched as understanding flooded his eyes. “You saw? You saw the alchemist?”

Something inside Athera squirmed as she realized she was about to squash that spark she saw in him. “No…we watched the reaction happen, but nobody was there.”

“Oh.” The alchemist looked down and rubbed his eyes.

Athera frowned, shouldn’t this be earth-shattering for him? Or at least elicit more of a reaction than a tired yawn? Then again, he looked like he could barely hold his eyes open.

“What have you been researching?” she asked.

“Energy quotients,” he said around another yawn.

“And you’ve been researching those all night?” Tarquin asked incredulously.

Alaric gave them a tired smile and stood. “Come, I’ll show you.” He led them up another flight of stairs and to one of the rooms Athera had been told was used for storage.

Storage apparently was one crudely formed statue. It sat in the middle of the room, its height and shape reminiscent of a man, but the limbs too thick and the head faceless.

“Taking up a new hobby?” Tarquin asked.

“I think just looking at him should tell you everything you need to know about that.” Alaric strode over to the statue and frowned. “This is a gollum.” He said as though they should know exactly what that was.

“Why is it here?” Tarquin asked. He was staring at the thing almost warily. “Does it work?”

“That’s our problem.” Alaric ran his hand along the back of the statue. “Do you know how common raids are along the coasts?”

Athera shook her head slowly.

“Try asking some of the sea traders. The sky pirates are a scourge upon Ignis, but sea pirates are far worse. We’ve been trying to find a solution.” He took a small knife from his pocket and pricked his finger. The resulting wound was pressed against the statue.

A blip of red light filled the room that quickly gave way to a soft yellow. Twin lights where the statue’s eyes would have been had it had any. “What--” Athera cut herself off as it moved its arm.

Alaric took a step back and the gollum did the same. He crossed his arms and it followed his motion exactly, down to the way he positioned all his weight on one leg. “It’s not alive,” he said, seemingly guessing what she was wondering. “Think of it as a puppet, it can only do what I do.”

“You want to sell them,” Tarquin said slowly.

The yellow eyes blinked out as Alaric rubbed his own. “Eventually. Imagine, a human controller would be able to serve without fear. It would practically erase the dangers of living near our borders.”

Athera looked back at the gollum and its thick stone limbs, now folded across its chest in a perfect imitation of how Alaric had been standing. Would something like it really make the village safer? The outer cities would leap at the chance to have stronger soldiers.

“What’s wrong with it then?” she asked.

“Many things,” the alchemist said around another yawn. Were the shadows under his eyes darker? “We were hoping for one man to be able to control up to three, but that hasn’t seemed possible in testing, and--”

“The connection drains you,” Athera realized.

Alaric nodded wearily. “And that little problem. We found a way to transfer the user’s energy to the gollum, but it takes more than it should. In the meantime, only one gollum can be operated per user.”

“How does it work?”

He beckoned them to the back of the statue where a tiny glistening red crystal was affixed to the back of its spine. “It’s a weak catalyst,” Alaric explained. “Normally it would shatter under the amount of work we’re asking for it to do, but if it can borrow some energy from the host, it can hold together a little longer.”

“It steals energy?” Tarquin asked, recoiling from the gollum.

“It takes what’s given. It can’t take anything without an active connection to a host. This was the last thing I worked on with your parents,” he nodded to Athera. “We wanted to find a way to lengthen the life of catalysts used in hospitals. They still have to be swapped out every month or so and it gets…expensive.”

“Alaric,” a familiar voice called before Athera could react. Miriam appeared in the doorway. “Introducing them to Victor?” she asked. Her usual haughty tone seemed strained, as though she were trying to force the words through the tone instead of letting them swell with it as she usually did. Like Alaric, she looked exhausted, her bun starting to fall out and the dark shadows under her eyes ever present.

“They’ve worked with us for long enough, I figured it was time.” Alaric gave her a smile.

“Of course,” Miriam shot them a quick look. “Alaric, there is some rather urgent guild business that needs your attention.”

Alaric yawned and looked on the verge of refusing, but then he sighed and nodded. “Perhaps we can meet back here in the evening?”

Athera slowly nodded and the pair headed off, leaving her and Tarquin standing alone with the statue. She turned to face it, staring into absent eyes that saw nothing. On the edges of her vision, the tiny ruby catalyst seemed to catch the light, glittering in the fading sun.