the hammers and groan of the presses bounced off the ceilings and walls, producing mushy echoes that masked all but the sharpest of sound.
Alodar followed the track around the entire periphery of the building, down the windowless rear wall, across the row of silos that formed the western facade, back along the front with its many doors, and finally overhead as it merged into a complex of switches which fed the seven rows of waiting containers. As the first worker reached the end, Alodar saw a second pull his vat onto the same track and begin to drop measured doses of a coarse gray powder into the simmering crucibles. One row over, a third lifted a beaker from its tripod and held it up to the light cascading from the high windows in the east. He shook his head and poured the milky contents into a trough running the length of the bench, then moved on to the next,
'That last one was clouded only the slightest,' a voice behind Alodar suddenly yelled out as the inspection continued. 'How can I show a profit if you dump every flask just because it isn't crystal clear?'
The man replaced an empty beaker on its tripod and looked in Alodar's direction. 'I fear I am too liberal as it is, Basil,' he called back. 'With only the merest trace, the chance of skunkwater is most high. We are lucky you have not contaminated half of the work cubicles from what we have processed already this morning.'
'I have given it only to the old ones,' Basil shot back. 'The way they dawdle, it would be a small loss in any event. Now see that the yield is greater; if the light shines through, however faint, then it is worth the risk. We must have one of three if any volume is to result when we are done.'
Alodar turned to face the speaker and looked into large eyes, wide-set on a smooth round face. Heavy cheeks sagged on either side of a slash of a mouth; thick lips pulled down at the corners into a perpetual look of disapproval. Shoulder-length hair, held stiffly in place by an aromatic pomade, brushed against a flared silk collar of deep purple. The rest of the tunic shimmered golden-yellow, embroidered with intricate designs and hanging free on a stocky form. Alodar looked down to see stumpy calves dropping into fur-lined boots trimmed with silver.
'Are you the proprietor?' he asked. 'I have come in from the street and wish to discuss a proposition to our mutual benefit.'
Basil quickly ran his eyes up and down Alodar's roughly clothed form. 'Another one with a formula, are you?' he said. 'It seems a grimoire lay hidden under every rock in the countryside, just awaiting yesterday's dawn for discovery. Ever since the rumor of the royal shop tooling up for a new run hit the street, there has been no end of it. But no matter, I will watch your demonstration for the usual fees.'
Basil turned back towards the cubicles and motioned for Alodar to follow. 'What will you need?' he continued. 'Anthanors and the rest go by the time, the ingredients by what is consumed.'
Alodar matched the short man's stride and tightened his grip on the parchment scrap in the pocket of his new cape. The lack of his thaumaturgical gear made it feel strangely light, and he was continually glancing down at its brown plainness to see that his shoulders were still covered.
'Tell me more of these fees,' he said as they reached the cubicles and began to wind their way into their midst. 'I am from the outlands to the west and unfamiliar with the practices of alchemy in Ambrosia.'
'From the west!' Basil said in mock surprise. 'It makes the story so much more plausible. If the queen found her fortune in the fall of Iron Fist, why not a common craftsman as well? But to your question, I am a merchant and it is only fair that I receive just payment for use of what is mine. You wish to show me some alchemy. Very well, do so as your formula directs. But be prepared to render in double proportion for what is consumed in the process.'
'Double proportion,' Alodar said. 'Why should there be any cost at all? I propose to share with you whatever my formula might bring. That will be your compensation, not a few pieces of copper for a single execution.'
'Yes, double proportion,' Basil said with a wave of his arm. 'I manage a profit only because, like the rest, I perform my formulas on the largest of scales. A hundred times I boil the murky muds of mangrove swamps with the gray clays from the barbaric north, so that I may get fifty crucibles filled with syrup of extraction. And to those fifty I add the fleshy skin of the cactus, so the sweetness may be pulled away in seventeen, leaving clear liquid to be decanted here.'
Alodar followed Basil's arm to the nearest workbench and saw a figure huddling under a cape studded with the inverted triangle logo of the alchemist. A bony hand reached out from the folds and carefully poured the liquid from a beaker into a funnel filled with what looked like coral-red flower petals. With a scratchy pen, the alchemist slowly copied strange glyphs from an open grimoire on a clean sheet of paper and then crumpled and cast it into a flame when he was done. For a moment the liquid seemed lost in the crevasses between the petals, but then a drop of light pink formed at the bottom of the funnel's stem and fell into a flask below. Several more drops followed the first, and then a small stream of color trickled free. Almost as quickly, a smell of stifling sweetness filled Alodar's lungs, and he coughed violently in surprise.
'It is always that way when it is fresh,' Basil said. 'Diluted and aged, you do not notice. But I am lucky at that. Out of seventeen, I expect maybe three flasks of honeysuckle oil. Three flasks out of a hundred for spices, perfumes, and as ingredient for a dozen formulas more. Can you not imagine the waste and expense if I tried the steps one at a time all the way through? No, the only way is to perform all the identical operations at once with a minimum of effort. A demonstration is the epitome of extravagance. Double the cost for disrupting the production line is only fair; be thankful triple is not the rate instead.'
'But why a charge at all?' Alodar persisted. 'As I have said, I am prepared to share in whatever gain might accrue.'
'So say they all,' Basil responded. 'And after the formula fails four times running, what have I then? Only pleading for one more try for which the random factors will surely align. And if not, then for the next. No, I insist that the demonstration pay for itself.'
'And if one does not have the payment,' Alodar asked, 'how then do you ever find new formulas of merit?'
Basil's eyes widened and his lips curved upwards into a toothy smile, 'Why you agree as did the last two yesterday,' he said, 'the ones now pulping up on the platform to the right. All they had to offer was their labor, which I accepted. In six months they will have paid in full for their little fantasy and be able to leave free men. Is not that right, Eldan?' Basil turned and pounded the back of the alchemist watching the last of the pink liquid fall from the petals, now bleached white.
The craftsman slowly removed the funnel from the neck of the flask and dropped its contents into a bin at his side. Without saying a word he pivoted and held the flask out for Basil's inspection. As his cape fell away, Alodar saw wrists cuffed in iron and held rigidly apart by a two-foot length of dark black bar. The alchemist's eyes stared straight ahead, unblinking. The left side of his face was splotched a deep green, and the flesh of his nose hung limp like a deflated balloon on the plane of his cheeks.
'Now, Eldan here,' Basil continued as he accepted the flask, 'could have fared better. I offered him a regular wage. But he preferred to be independent, tinkering in his own shop down the street, taking risks beyond the call of prudence. There are others like him still out there, obtaining loans from me to purchase ingredients for wilder and more unproven schemes. And finally when they can borrow no more on their names, they offer their labor instead as payment.
'For Eldan,' Basil said as he pounded the alchemist a second time, 'it is ten years served and only ten more to go. Of course, the splash of dye and the cartilage rot are to be expected. And we have had to add a few restraints to ensure he keeps to his work cubicle.'
Basil passed his hand in front of Eldan's eyes and then snapped his fingers. A long moment passed and then the alchemist jerked his head and blinked. 'Finally the honeysuckle does slow one down,' Basil said. 'In a year or so more he will be good enough only to pull the vats around the circle.'
Basil paused and his smile was smug. 'I own this factory outright, have part interest in two more, and even mine one of the richest veins left in the Fumus Mountains. It is not bad progress for a humble apothecary who once carried blocks of peat from the bogs for a few coppers. I used to jump to the alchemists' beck and call; now they jump to mine.'
Basil snapped his fingers again and Alodar waited for the delayed reaction. 'Well,' Basil said, 'let us see what you need and strike a bargain. There is no point in trying any of the others. The rates the length of the street are all the same.'
'I have no gold,' Alodar said.
'Then your labor,' Basil replied. 'Fear not that you may later reconsider. I have the means to ensure that I
