receive payment in full.'
Alodar gripped the formula tighter as he saw Eldan's face finally twitch. He coughed again from the lingering smell of the oil of honeysuckle and wiped another tear from his eye. He looked at the manacles on Eldan's wrists and a cold chill ran down his spine.
'I will have to think about it,' he said finally and turned for the door to the street. Even outside, he could hear Basil's deep laugh echoing after.
The air suddenly crackled, and Alodar leaped up onto the counter as a glowing blue globe bounced through the doorway. With a swiftness the eye could hardly follow, it darted to and fro, careening off the walls, floor, and ceiling. It sped by his face and, as he pulled back, he felt the hair rise from his head and stand on end, tracking the passage.
'By the laws,' a high voice sounded from the room beyond, 'you would think not an amulet in this place worked. What rotten luck. Nine batches in a row, and every one of them producing ball lightning instead of the elixir. Well, this is the last of the baneberry. It had better work, Saxton, old boy, or it's a diet of caraway for quite a spell.'
Alodar watched the dancing ball slowly shrink in size and activity, and then finally expire among the dusty glassware of the alembic in the far corner. He swung down on the other side of the counter, advanced to the doorway, and peered into the workroom behind.
Light from the setting sun cascaded through highset windows down upon a massive disarray. The wall on the left was shelved floor to ceiling, and all available space was crammed with row upon row of bottles and vials of many shapes. Most were empty and uncorked, long cobwebs linking them together and filling their interiors with ladders of dust. But here and there, neat little collections sparkled with deeply colored liquids or glowing powders.
The wall on the right was also shelved, but stacked with a tumble of small boxes. Alodar could see a label on each, but in a script that he did not recognize. Most of the containers were of rough-hewn wood, but an occasional one had sides of shiny steel, clasped shut with a strong lock and chained to a nearby support. Crucibles, aludels, and curcubits competed for space on the floor, leaving only a small winding path from where Alodar stood to a workbench on the far wall. There, beneath a bookshelf sagging with almanacs and grimoires, huddled a robed figure intent upon his task. The fiery heat of an anthanor colored his plump cheeks red, and large beads of sweat formed upon the folds of his neck. He stoked the furnace and pumped the bellows, oblivious to Alodar's presence.
'Alchemist Saxton?' Alodar called to the man. 'Are you alchemist Saxton, the one with the powder of deep sleep?'
Saxton turned to look briefly at the interruption, waving his hand back towards the doorway. 'In the outer room, the second display case. It is ten coppers a vial; leave it on the counter.'
'No, no. I have come to see you about another matter,' Alodar said. 'I understand from the street that you work independent of the factories and need a novice to help you in your craft.'
'Yes, that I do,' Saxton answered without looking up from the anthanor. 'One with enough stomach to stand by his job once I have taught him. But leave me for a moment, I have a formula to complete.'
Alodar watched as the alchemist withdrew a crucible glowing red hot from the furnace door and set it down to sizzle on the workbench.
'Well, no lightning this time,' Saxton said, running one hand across his bald pate and then wiping it against his robe. His smile split his round face like a wedge removed from an orange, and his small, close-set eyes nearly disappeared into the folds of his cheek.
'One more step,' he said, 'and we may yet line our purse this month.' He waddled down the workbench, withdrew one of the grimoires from the shelf overhead, and rapidly thumbed to the desired page.
'Bloodroot,' he mumbled and ambled around the clutter on the floor to face the wall of boxes. After staring for several moments, he reached on tiptoe and pulled one container from its resting place. He extracted a large red bulb and returned to the workbench, placing it in the middle of a stack of clean parchment.
'And now the activation,' he said as he withdrew a quill from a nearby bottle and deftly drew a complex symbol on the sheet beneath the root. As the ink dried, he stared at the strange glyph and grunted satisfaction.
'About the novice,' Alodar interjected.
Saxton's eyebrows jumped and he turned to look at his intruder. 'Still here? Then you are either brave or foolhardy. This last step could make the dancing ball look like a toy, and it only has six chances in ten of going right.'
'I wish to learn of alchemy,' Alodar replied, 'but do not care for the way a factory offers to teach it. I have heard that there are risks and am willing to accept them.'
'Very well, then, we will see the fiber of which you are made.' Saxton shrugged, returned to the bench, diced the bloodroot into a fine powder, and added it to the crucible now already cool. He looked warily back at Alodar and threw the inscribed parchment into the anthanor.
'All is ready for the final formula,' he said as he began to write upon the next page in the stack. His pen rapidly flicked out line after line of intricate symbols, pausing only occasionally to dart back to the well for more ink. In an instant, the page was covered, and Saxton set it aside to begin a second. He filled half of another and then paused a moment with his pen poised high.
'The last symbol,' he said as he glanced at the crucible. With a flourish, he added a few more scratches to the paper. Alodar heard a sudden bubbling and turned to watch a thick froth come over the top of the little stone dish and descend to add its stain to the richly covered bench.
'By the signatures,' Saxton exclaimed. 'Chance is with us today. No explosion to test you with. Instead, more than two whole gills of the finest nerve elixir north of the isthmus.'
Before Alodar could interrupt again, the alchemist scurried to the wall on the left and removed a rack of small corked vials, covered with dust like the rest.
'Here, if you want to be a novice, make yourself useful. Dust them off and label and fill them properly. And when you are done, place a sign on the door that we have nerve elixir here, freshly brewed and only two gold brandels at that. The factories may be able to undercut us on the sweetbalm, itching powders, and the like, but they would never risk trying for nerve elixir.'
The alchemist set the vials down, ran his hands across his smooth brow, and began a small shuffling dance among the paraphernalia around the workbench. He kicked up the dust with several energetic stomps and then suddenly stopped and looked Alodar squarely in the face.
'You are too old to seek seriously the robe of a beginning novice,' he said with a frown. He pursed his lips and stood a moment in thought.
'And so, let us see this wonderful formula then.' He smiled at last. 'Though I warn you, some deluded soul comes here with such a tale fortnightly, and I have yet to see one worth the effort to look upon it'
'You do not speak of fees,' Alodar said.
'No, no, that is not my way,' Saxton answered. 'If you have spent your good money on a hastily scrawled piece of nonsense, I will tell you so.'
Alodar hesitated a moment, then removed the old scraps from his cape and handed the first across to Saxton's outstretched hand. 'I come to you, alchemist Saxton, because I have inquired carefully and the street gives you the reputation of an honest man. Nevertheless, my first efforts at bargaining have filled my thoughts with caution. Permit me to reveal only the first part of the formula for my own protection.'
'Oh, a powder for the street talk. Here, let me see it,' Saxton said, ripping the scrap from Alodar's grasp. 'Know that I could have been as the rest. Only the safe formulas, high yield potions of low potency. The long lines of pipes and valves and the endless belts of the pretty bottles that the ladies like so much. But what does that get you? A steady and frugal return and a chain to your workbench for all of your days. Ah, I could have been that but I am not. A fetish for all such bookwork. I have more daring and will stake my whole stock on the one chance for a truly remarkable philtre. If it goes awry and burns me to a crisp, what of it? If it produces only skinrot, I can start again. But my lad, oh ho, suppose I succeed. What then of those who stand in their neat stalls, performing the same step as each identical vial comes down the line? Why, with the right potion, one could be rich for life, selling drops here and there for a baron's ransom when the need struck.'
Saxton stopped as the glyphs on Alodar's scrap finally penetrated his consciousness. 'Great amulets, my lad,
