they belong to me, the queen, or some other, Yet we do not squabble over what is found there. It is just reward for anyone who has the fortitude to brave the heat and return with a prize. Of course, if they depart and return by way of the passageways which are clearly mine, then I receive my fair share.
'But of your visit, tell me more. Despite the nonsense about the imps, I feel quite generous today since my other endeavors go well. Look at my waist and what do you see? Yes, it is no less than a magic dagger, the same that is strutted about the royal court. The nobles are not the only ones with sufficient wealth to own such blades. I have no less than eleven more; an even dozen purchased from Lectonil, the master magician of the Cycloid Guild. An even dozen free and clear. He was anxious to sell and gave better terms the more I would take. The profit I will make from resale of the rest will more than pay for the one I wear here. So tell me of your desires and with a light heart I will listen.'
'We need more ingredients,' Alodar said, 'and wish to barter for time and terms.'
'Most aggressive for a novice,' Basil said. 'Especially for one who is bound by the agreement as well. But is this correct, Saxton?' He rubbed his hands together and broadened his smile. 'Do you need more, when I am yet to receive payment for the first?'
'It is as Alodar says,' Saxton replied. 'We work his formula and need additional ingredients. Dead-man's candle, midnight dew, peat tar and the rest. I have a list of it here.'
Basil took the offered piece of parchment and then looked for the first time in Alodar's direction. 'You saw me in my factory in Ambrosia some time ago,' he said. He glanced at the list and then furrowed his brow in thought.
'I find this hard to believe of you, Saxton,' he said at last, 'You have eluded me the longest because you have been so careful with your agreements, I cannot see one of your training swept up in the hopeless dreams which blow in from the Street.'
'Look at the list,' Saxton persisted. 'What I choose to blend is no concern of the apothecary. State your terms and let us be done.'
Basil's frown deepened and he rubbed his chin. 'You have not yet worked off your existing debt,' he said. 'Yet, for the first time, you are willing to borrow even more and for a formula not of your own making. Tell me what you are about, Saxton, and then once I understand, perhaps the arrangement will be easier.'
'Your terms,' Saxton said, and Alodar felt the alchemist sag his other hand on his shoulder as well.
'But these are not inexpensive ingredients,' Basil said. 'Why for the shrieking mandrake alone, to root them out I must use trained dogs with wax plugging their ears. And the peat tar is dug underneath light-tight sheds. The sparkle of a single star would destroy it all.'
'Terms, your terms,' Saxton said as he collapsed his full weight down upon Alodar's support.
'Very well,' Basil replied with a sudden edge to his voice. 'Keep your petty secrets, but remember well when you crawl back in less than a month's time that it was not I who was inflexible on alternatives.' He stopped and twisted his face in thought. 'Twenty years of service for both you and the novice against three hundred brandels on our agreed upon date,' he said at last. 'Is your formula so precious that you will risk terms such as those?'
'Twenty years is not a fair price,' Saxton said. 'It should be five at the most and we would agree to that most reluctantly.'
'I care not to waste my time in bargaining. Twenty years is the only price,' Basil snapped back. 'I have waited too long for this opportunity.'
'Then perhaps, Alodar, we can reconsider,' Saxton said. 'It is not the first time I have abandoned a formula before completion. You have taken to the craft well and there will be more opportunity to make our fortune.'
'Accepted,' Alodar said, ignoring the alchemist's argument. 'I would rather deal with this apothecary no further, but if this is our only choice, then we will take it. If we succeed with the formula, the cost for the peat tar and the rest will be unimportant.'
'You accept?' Basil said. 'Twenty years and less than a month's time?'
For a moment there was silence and Alodar looked over his shoulder at the alchemist. 'Accepted,' Saxton said weakly with a wave of his hand. 'It is as the novice states. If we succeed, then it will not matter.'
'To the shed on the mountainside then,' Basil said slowly as his frown of puzzlement returned. 'We will seal the agreement there and arrange the details for the delivery of the ingredients to your shop.'
Basil turned and headed upwards. Saxton shuffled by Alodar to follow. 'Twenty years,' the alchemist muttered as he passed. 'Would we fare even as well as Eldan in such a time?'
'We quest, do we not?' Alodar replied. 'The potential of such adversity spurs us onwards to our goal.'
'Yes,' Saxton said, 'but the next step could fail all sixty-three times, regardless of our motivation.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Random Factors Align
ALODAR dumped a bucket of oily water into the gutter and slumped to the planked curbing. He kneaded the tired muscles in his neck and looked up into the early evening sky. It seems bright enough now, he thought as he saw the disk of the moon balanced like a platter above the roof-line across the street. He hoped Saxton's decision to wait three days until it was full was the right one. Even foregoing all time at Cedric's and spending two full weeks working the formula, there was little time to spare.
Alodar stretched his arms over his head and frowned. It was well enough for Saxton to propose a few days rest to uncoil his knotted muscles in some tavern, but it had only given Alodar pause for the first time in months to consider deeply the path he had chosen.
All of this effort for only four samples. Four small vials, filled with what looked like motley collections of tiny colored beads. But when held to the eye, each globule was a many-faceted crystal, able to withstand great stresses without breaking, stresses from grinding forces or searing heat. Surely one tube would produce the ointment for which they had struggled. Four chances to soften the crystals into a thick gel; then for each that succeeded, one additional procedure to make the ointment safe for contact with bare skin. With four vials, they could expect the contents of two to transmute properly, and then one of them to be rendered harmless as well.
Two steps but with only four samples remaining. Alodar pursed his lips and shook his head. When they had six stages to go and sixty-three chances, Saxton's caution in the mines had seemed hard to understand. But now the outcomes could be enumerated on one's fingers and the boldness of their pledge seemed a much greater folly.
Each result was random. If the last step failed on the first attempt, then there would be one chance in two that all this work would have gone for nothing. Or if none of the four vials liquified in the way they wished, then Basil's factory, not wealth and glory, would be the final reality.
Alodar closed his eyes and tried to recall Vendora's beauty, to taste again his anger at Feston's ridicule, to feel the prickly bitterness at Festil's blind rejection. But the images of half a year ago were blurred and fuzzy, the hunger and pain at Iron Fist buried far beneath the numbness that rode on top of his thoughts.
Was it so important, he puzzled. Could he not instead steal away in the night, perhaps to the kingdoms to the south or even to Arcadia across the sea? Cedric did not seem to value greatly the opinion of those who buzzed about the royal court. Was such respect worth the risk be ran to gain it?
Alodar breathed deeply and then let the air out through his nostrils. No, there was first the question of honor. Saxton was enmeshed in this as deeply as he, and they must share the peril as well as the potential for great gain.
A sudden crash from the interior of the shop broke Alodar out of his reverie and he sprang to his feet. For a moment there was silence, and then he heard the crunch of glass grinding underfoot. He kicked the bucket out of his way and dashed into the storefront, looking for the sword and shield Cedric had lent him for practice. As he stooped and thrust his hand through the enarmes, a massive figure loomed in the workroom doorway.
'Rendrac!' Alodar shouted as the form came forward into the candlelight. 'What cause have you to be in the confines of Saxton's shop?'
'No bar did you have on the workroom rear door and Basil is most curious about your formula,' Rendrac said. 'He will reward me well when I tell him something of it.'
