Herb-Witch (Lord Alchemist Duology) (31 page)

"There
should be no reason why you should ever be taken back there."
His words had the intensity of a vow.

A
gilded cage is still a cage,
she wanted to say. But that returned
to matters of heirs and marriage, threats of what a man might do to
his wife, and thoughts of what the Crimson Birch offered. Nothing she
wanted to speak of, alone with him in a carriage.

He
wordlessly offered her a roll, already split and fitted back together
with jam and butter. She took it with a murmured thanks, and wished
he were real. Even with his wretched brother . . . But
if one brother were wretched, might they share the blight? Kessa
couldn't let her hopes blind her, or she'd be even more trapped than
if she'd stayed with the Shadow Guild.
Can I have the household,
without him?

Probably
not, though she idly contemplated ways to evade paranoid dramsmen and
rid herself of an inconvenient suitor – or husband, if she
wanted to keep the household. First, she'd have to evade
other
paranoid dramsmen and get rid of the brother, though.

The
puzzle occupied her quietly, and Kymus didn't distract her. Kessa
only lifted her head when Dayn opened the door in front of the guild
offices. She stepped out and risked a look up – she'd been too
distracted to see much, when she'd first been there.

It
was a towering three stories high, not counting the promised
basement, with glass windows on every level and a peaked roof that
probably included moon-steeping attics behind the dormer windows and
skylights. The bricks started as a shiny-glazed red at the base, much
like nearby buildings, but by the second level, they were in abstract
patterns of red, orange, yellow, and green. The third story included
blue and purple.

Behind
her, Kymus explained, "The various masters – or, more
likely, their apprentices and journeymen – were tasked to
provide bricks sturdy enough to weather the ages and shame the
centuries-old buildings in the old empire. Naturally, the additives
developed more interesting coloration, and the masons took advantage.
There's a wall in the basement . . . Well, you'll
see."

"Oh."
She dropped her eyes, lest he chance to look. At least she couldn't
be expected to take his arm, with her cloak swinging past her hips.

He
put a hand at her back to guide her, instead. She muttered, "I
could follow you."

"You'd
glare at my back."

"I'd
study
it," Kessa hissed as she opened the door, stealing
the last word. She stepped inside, breathing in cedar, and was
promptly tackled in a hug.

The
light brown hair and happy voice belonged to a bouncing, energetic
Nicia. "You came! I'm so glad!"

"Said
I would," Kessa managed, awkwardly patting the girl's back with
one hand as she rubbed her nose with the other.

"Mother
said you were sick!"

"Moon-flows."
Kessa grimaced. She smoothed the expression when Nicia's hands
twitched a little on her shoulders. She was too close not to glimpse
Kessa's eyes. "Sorry."

"Oh,
there's
got
to be something we can do. Perhaps we'll learn
that recipe?"

"I'm
sure there're more important ones. Our teacher's stuck behind me, you
know."

"Eep!"
Nicia skipped to the side.

Kymus
entered with hands-behind-the-back dignity. "Miss Nicia. You're
early."

"I
came over with Mother, Master Kymus." Nicia bobbed a curtsey.
"I'm sorry I didn't see you!"

He
waved a hand. "It's neither raining nor snowing. Shall we go to
the workroom?"

"As
you wish, Master Kymus," Kessa said, with Nicia's "Of
course!" following.

Cloaks
and coats were loaded into Dayn's arms. "Thank you, Dayn,"
Kymus said. "This way, herb-witches."

Kessa
glanced around as they went. Walls were either wood-paneled or brick,
without plaster or wallpaper. Doors were solid, rich woods,
undoubtedly treated with alchemy that made them beautiful and sturdy.
The floor was covered by tight-woven rugs with pale gold wood showing
at the edges. The cedar scent faded, replaced by swirls of herbal
odors and metal-salt whiffs; occasionally a breath coated the back of
her throat with a thin layer of bittersweet. Going into the basement
added old traces of burned brews, and Kessa couldn't decide if it was
like stepping back into Maila's workroom, or walking into a complete
unknown.

Like
the hospice's basement, glowing Incandescens Stones provided light.
However, these walls were not uniformly pale: the entire right side
was an iridescent blue, shining like a bird's wing or the River Eath
beyond the city, where ships came up from Portguard and the barges
continued to Cym. Kessa peered at the bricks as they walked down,
brushing their smoothness with her fingers.

Without
even looking, Kymus gestured at the wall. "There's a recipe for
making these – and the mortar as well – but the number
of pigeon feathers required is . . . prohibitive.
Imagine, dozens of apprentices, set loose in the city to
catch
birds
."

Nicia
giggled. Kessa bit her lip on
So pay the roof-rats to collect
feathers.

Kymus
was in his element as he led them across the stone floor to a smaller
workroom; its table was nigh-cluttered with equipment, including a
geometry analyzer with its clockwork gears and rotating hoops, and
the table's size made the room cozy for three people. One wall was
covered by a chalk-board, another held books on a ledge, and the last
was stacked with shelving. The door's wall only had hooks for
protective aprons and gloves.

The
Guild Master walked to one side of the table and put his hands on it,
firmly. "Today, I'll ask a great many questions in an attempt to
determine what you do and don't know about alchemy. If you're not
sure, pretend you don't know. It's safer to repeat a lesson than to
explode something with waterflame salts later. After that, presuming
we've time, I'll desert you while you work from a written recipe.
It's tricky, very easy to sabotage or get wrong, but should take no
more than an hour's brewing. Then I'll overload you both with a thick
book and claim I expect you to read it all – despite one
keeping a shop and the other apprenticing at the hospice – by
the next lesson. Are there any questions?"

Do
I get to taste things later?
Probably not. A drawback to not
telling Nicia. Kessa asked, "How much do you expect us to know?"

"I
expect to be surprised. Anything else?"

Nicia
said, "No, Master Kymus." Kessa just shook her head.

"All
right. First question . . . No. One more thing.
Kessa."

She
tipped her head up a little. "Mm?"

"Don't
spare my sensibilities if you need to watch what's going on. While
I'm teaching you, my reactions are
my
problem, not yours."

Kessa
looked up, half in shock and half in challenge, and though he
frowned . . . She looked away, blinking, hand over her
mouth. His gaze had held, and she wasn't sure how she felt.

There
was a light touch on her elbow. She looked sidelong through her hair,
making out enough of Nicia's expression to decipher
concern
.
Kessa whispered, "I'm fine."

It
was Kymus who said, "Good. Now, first question. Do either of you
know how to operate a geometry analyzer?"

Kessa
kept her hands down; she could recognize one, but that was all. Nicia
ventured, "Sort of."

"All
right, both of you watch. The first and most basic salt is, ha,
brine-salt." His hands moved the shining wheels and gears,
configuring the machine until it showed an empty space parallel to
the table. "Each salt has three basic forms. Earth-cut is
parallel to the ground, thus. Sky-cut . . ." He
adjusted the analyzer until the empty space showed the wall through
it. ". . . is thus, up and down, facing you. The
last is bisection, thusly, with the form of the salt only visible
when you look to the side, with this band of the device in front of
you."

Kessa
eyed the thing warily, though Nicia nodded as if she understood it.
Kymus went on to point out the symbols on one of the bands, the
numbers at various places on several of the gears and bands, and had
Nicia try to set up the forms of brine-salt for herself. When Kessa's
turn came, she poked at it gingerly enough that Nicia said, "It
won't bite!"

"So
you
say
, apprentice alchemist." Kessa nudged it. At least
all its numbers were zeros, and she only had to remember one symbol.
"What's the point of this thing?"

Nicia
recited, "When one knows the shapes of a salt, one can determine
how it'll mix with another salt, and the forms the result should
take, and thus make informed speculation as to the effect of a potion
containing those."

"It
lets people feel better about their guesses?" Kessa said.

Kymus
tapped a dial Kessa'd lost track of. "Not everyone can taste a
potion and see if it's quickened. Now, as we've this terribly useful
chalkboard taking up most of the wall, if you'd draw the forms upon
it? Leave room for at least three more sets."

Kessa
snorted and went to sketch the shapes while Nicia returned to the
analyzer to refresh her memory.

After
that, Kymus had them sketch three other salt-form sets (Nicia
operating the machine, and Kessa drawing until he switched them
around) and brought out different colors of chalk for himself. After
a bit of sketching, the earth-cut of one salt was matched with
sky-cut of another, and the bisection of the third. "And what is
that
form?" he asked.

Kessa
frowned at it. "Danger?" she guessed.

"More
precisely . . . Nicia?"

"Er,
flame?"

"Closer.
Exploding flame, to be precise. Whenever forms mesh like this, it
blows up. Inevitably. Sometimes it takes a few minutes and smokes
alarmingly first. Sometimes it takes the hand off the unwary mixer.
So while the analyzer is only suggestive when researching new, useful
combinations, it excels at finding combinations to
avoid
."

Kessa
eyed the analyzer with more respect, and Kymus went on with his
questions.

At
the end, Kessa'd nearly forgotten to "not know" the uses of
a few salts, and Nicia'd established that her grounding in alchemy
was far better than Kessa's. Kymus pondered them, muttering to
himself, and finally said, "All right, you've probably enough
between you to manage this. So, before I abandon you with a recipe –
with which I trust you'll not blow yourselves up – are there
any questions?"

"Is
there a chamberpot about?" Kessa asked.

Kymus
gestured without pause. "Water-closet at the end of the hall
down here; it's piped water, so don't drop in anything you don't want
in the harbor. This
definitely
includes potions. The
hand-basin pumps from a clae-water reservoir, and feeds into the
waste-pipe. I've
no
idea what Herbmaster Keli or Nicia here do
in . . . similar circumstances." His voice
finally faltered.

Kessa
snickered. "Thank you, Master Kymus."

"Women.
I suppose it was only a matter of time. If either of you have
suggestions for improving the basement facilities, I'll hear them
later. Now . . ." He pulled a book from the
shelf, flipped to a ribbon-marked place, and set it on the table.
"Sadly, this is a common prank potion that will, if prepared
properly, smoke violently for some time and
not
explode. Also
sadly, this isn't the best copy. Don't blow up the workroom.
Materials should be on the shelves. I'll be in my office, and return
in about an hour and a half." And – despite Kessa staring
at him in something between outrage and reluctant admiration –
he smiled at them, gave a little wave, and slipped out.

"Why,
that blighted bastard," Kessa remarked after a breath.

"Oh,
dear." Nicia peered at the book. "It's all . . .
skipping steps and using ambiguous abbreviations."

"Earth's
own justice will catch up with him again." Kessa peered at the
book.

"Is
that what happened to his face?"

"According
to him, a cut-purse fell out a window onto him. Don't share that
around. I gather he's embarrassed." Though considering how free
he was with
Kessa's
secret, perhaps it'd be rain's justice to
let the story flow like water.

"A
cut-purse
?"

"Ask
him
. It's his story. Better, ask him when I'm in the
water-closet, and we can compare notes after." Kessa grinned.

"Oh,
that's a good idea . . . Kessa! He's the
Guild
Master
. How can we ask him things like that?"

"It's
easy. Just say, 'Master Kymus, what happened to your poor face?'"
She shrugged. "So . . . you read the ingredients
and I fetch them off the shelves, and we try . . .
Wait, wait. We do the blighted
forms
first, and see which of
the abbreviations are right. That's the trick, I wager."

"That
must be it!" Nicia went to the geometry analyzer. "You read
them off?"