Chapter 9 The Alchemist (Need some feedback please)

VladJunior · September 24, 2015

Any feedback on this chapter would be helpful. It feels like it stalls out in the middle, but I am trying to foreshadow several things, but maybe I am trying to put too much into one event. Thanks!

Chapter 9

At the end of the first week at the abbey I was getting used to the drills, the rough treatment and even the food. Despite my earnest desire to do well as an Alchemist, I couldn't help but think I was failing. All of the new recruits probably thought the same, considering the way the sisters treated us. But I especially had it hard.

Maribel was still a thorn in my side. Not one to let rules stand in her way she constantly berated me and played cruel jokes, like at meal times. We were all supposed to sit together in the mess hall with our cadet platoons. Not missing an opportunity to exclude me, Maribel made sure that the other members of our platoon filled up the table so I had to eat on the floor (all of the other tables were full, as well).

Once, on the second night, she somehow snuck a frog into my bed. My panicked shriek at the unpleasant discovery earned me dishwashing duty the next day. Needless to say, Maribel somehow capitalized on this punishment by getting a whole different platoon to finish their meals and then hand in plates with horse manure on them.

While the smell and experience were not pleasant, I was somewhat impressed that she was clever enough to pull that one off in front of the Sister Sergeants who ate with us. Not that the Chef was amused. She blamed me for some reason, as though I had been the one to bring horse crap into her kitchen. So the next day I got to peel potatoes before morning PT. Who needs sleep anyway?

Suffice it to say, I was ready for the first week to be over so I could get a break and start working on the mystery of Branthos' journal, in secret of course.

So it was with great weariness that I fell into morning PT that fifth day only to be shocked awake by one of the drill instructors who demanded that I step out of line and come with her.

"Cadets Natalie Granthum, Maribel Lavinia and Amelia Vasquez! Step forward and fall in." It was Sister Gaylene the senior drill instructor. She was older than the other Sergeants, and even appeared to have some wrinkles and lines around her eyes. Although it could have been natural aging, I took it as a sign of stress. She looked tense all the time. In the week I had been there, I had yet to see her smile.

As the three of us stepped out of line to stand in front of her, Gaylene examined us with her cold blue eyes. That stare could freeze a volcano, it was so cold. I felt like I was being measured and found wanting. "You have been assigned cleansing duty today. Follow me in single file. This way!" Before we could blink, she started off toward the north. We had no choice but to hurry to catch up with her.

Sergeant Gaylene took us from the training field to the other side of the abbey. We marched past the barracks, the mess hall, and the chapel. When we didn't stop at the end of the abbey grounds, but kept walking out the back gate and into the forest, I started to worry. Nobody spoke. Nobody knew where or why she was taking the three of us. I had never heard of "cleansing duty." Judging by the looks Natalie gave me, she hadn't either. Even Maribel looked afraid. She kept glancing back at the abbey grounds as though in the hopes that someone would fetch her and say it was all a mistake and she could come back now.

Gaylene followed an old dirt path through the woods for at least thirty minutes. It was then that I started to rethink my negative opinion of the cadet uniform. The utility of the pants kept me from getting snagged on twigs and branches. And I could see now why we had to wear work boots, as the long walk on the uneven ground would have been uncomfortable in dress slippers. Still, for all the utility, it was quite exhausting, as Gaylene kept walking past forest after forest, deeper and deeper into the woods. We had to be a couple of miles from the abbey by then. No sounds came from the forest; no birds chirping, no leaves rustling, no animals scurrying about. There were no smells either; no fresh pine scent, no fragrance of holly. It was as if the life of the woods was bottled up and holding its breath.

The farther along the path we went, the more the trees started to look ancient and decrepit. The giant canopy above blocked the early morning sun, casting strange shadows on the forest path. It was terrifying enough during the day, and yet my imagination wouldn’t stop me from asking how much more horrible it would have been to walk this path at night?

Sister Gaylene never said a word to any of us, never disturbing the utter silence. She just kept walking, leading us through the woods. The whole experience was foreboding.

At last we came to a giant clearing where the forest seemed to end abruptly. As I exited into the morning sunshine I could see past Maribel to survey our would-be destination. The clearing was oval shaped, flat and devoid of any grass, shrub, bush or tree. It looked like a big dirt box had been planted in the middle of the forest. And it smelled like death.

At the center were five round, stone altars. I say altar because that is what they were called by the sisters. The reality is that they were crude tables built hundreds of years ago by the first Church clergy. Why they should build altars this far away from the abbey soon became clear as we approached another sister who stood near the closest one. On the ground at her feet was a box of grayish colored metal bars about the size of her hand.

Sister Gaylene paused next to the box and gave a salute to the waiting Sister. Her glare in our direction let us know we were to follow her lead. So the three of us saluted the unknown Sister who wore no uniform or signs of rank. She was dressed in a long sleeved blue cloth blouse underneath a vest of steel plate armor. Her pants were black jeans that hugged tightly to her legs and which had metal plates sown into the thighs. On her feet were tall leather riding boots. On her hands were steel-backed leather gloves. She looked as though she was twenty-five or so, with a black pony-tail tied with a leather strap that hung loose down her back. Her brown eyes were neither warm nor inviting. Though her appearance was slightly different, I recognized her as the mystery lady from the first test a week ago.

Without a word Sister Gaylene began scooping up pieces of metal from the box and placing them on the stone tables. We stood still waiting for instructions. None came for several minutes. The silence was starting to freak me out. I never could be patient long enough to reap any fruit from it. All the waiting was making my palms sweat.

After Gaylene finished stacking one bar a piece on the tables, she returned to stand behind the first table, where she nodded at the Sister who obviously was in charge.

"I am Colonel Julia Branthos. Your normal training is suspended temporarily. Today, you work for me. Understood?"

In my excitement at hearing her name it is not surprising that I was the first to reply, "Yes, ma'am." I probably sounded eager to please, but I was really just excited to meet her. Branthos?! Could she be related to J.A. Branthos? Maybe she could provide some answers about the strange writing in the journal. Then, in that moment of clarity you get when you realize you left out an important fact, I remembered that Branthos had been dead for over a hundred years. Even if Col. Branthos was related she would have to be four or five generations removed.

Fortunately, my eagerness didn’t get me into trouble this time. Instead, it earned me a slight nod from Sister Gaylene, who stood behind Col. Branthos. She also gave a glare to the others who quickly amended their slow-wittedness by responding affirmatively.

"The three of you were selected from the new cadets because you have demonstrated superior potential in Alchemy. Therefore, we are accelerating your training. You are hereby promoted to Ensign Cadet and you will be given a new rank insignia when we return to the abbey.”

Col. Branthos paused to note the shocked look on all of our faces. She didn’t smile, though, which should have been a sign. “You will have additional lessons on top of your normal curriculum. Do not think this means you can slack off on any portion of the program. With talent comes responsibility. You are here to learn Alchemy and to be made useful. Make no mistake; I intend to push you harder than the others because of your perceived potential skill.”

Branthos gestured to her side at Sergeant Gaylene, and added, “For your first accelerated lesson, Sister Gaylene and I will instruct you in the art of “cleansing.” It is an important process that you will undertake each week during training. Alchemy is a subtle power that requires purification, according to the Tome of Augustus. Purification must be practiced with care, lest you injure yourself or others. That is why we perform the cleansing at the Altars of Climonidus." Col. Branthos gestured with her right arm to take in the five altars that stood starkly on their own in the middle of the clearing.

Without knowing what she was talking about, my first reaction was a sense of relief. After the long trek through the woods, my mind had come to several nasty conclusions about what was going to happen to the three of us all alone out here in the middle of the woods. It was no wonder that by the time we reached the clearing I had concluded that we were being singled out for expulsion. It happened occasionally when Alchemists were unable to control their powers. While Alchemists are rare and valuable citizens, Nostria cannot afford to let wild Alchemists run around aging things with their powers.

One of the first lessons Sergeant Gaylene taught us on our first day at the abbey was that we could expect to be expelled if we were unable to control our powers. When one of the girls had commented that she might want to be expelled so she could return to her family, Gaylene explained that expulsion meant immediate execution. Nobody mentioned expulsion after that. We all knew that we were bound to the abbey for life.

Upon hearing our assignment, my mood had gone from anxiety to relief at the revelation that I was not going to be expelled. In fact, the thought of training with a Branthos descendant brought a smile to my face. It would soon be wiped away as Col. Branthos described exactly what “cleansing” involved.

“Each of you will take a block of platinum and manipulate it by adding energy to it. You must be careful to control your energy transfer and to keep one hand on the stone altar at all times. Build up the energy slowly, as you will need to transfer a large amount into the platinum to get the cleansing to work. Remember, the more energy you draw, the harder it is to hold, so be mindful. Sergeant, please demonstrate for the cadets.”

Without pause, Gaylene stepped in front of the first altar and picked up the small bar of platinum in her right hand. Her left hand lay flat on the top surface of the altar, but her gaze and concentration was focused on the platinum bar. I was so curious about what we would see her do, that I almost took a step towards her before I caught myself. From the look on her face, Gaylene was drawing energy from the air around her right hand.

Gaylene stood there for over five minutes, constantly adding energy. I could see a haze around her right hand that held the bar, leaving the impression of a furnace venting enormous heat. Sweat dripped down Gaylene’s brow, and her look of concentration was intense.

Even so, she began speaking breathlessly of how to “cleanse” the platinum. “As you inject the energy into the bar, you need to be careful to control the rate and keep it forceful but steady. It will want to spiral if you lose concentration. Just keep a low burn on it until you feel a peak in the tension from the bar. Then, all you need to do is give it a strong push…”

Suddenly, the bar started to change color from shiny grey to a yellow tint. The transformation spread quickly from the bottom of the bar to the top. After the entire bar glistened in a new yellowish hue, Gaylene focused on the altar for a few moments before setting the bar down on top of it and stepping away. She was dripping in sweat, and looked exhausted. Despite her distressed physical condition, and to her credit, she fell back into stance beside the box of platinum bars and resumed her usual mask of indifference.

Col. Branthos nodded her head and seemed pleased. “Well done, Sergeant. Now cadets, it is your turn. Pick an altar to stand by and proceed as instructed. You will hold the platinum in one hand while keeping contact with the Altar in the other. Build energy around the bar until you feel it peak, then transfer it to the platinum with a strong push. Keep pushing until it changes completely. Before setting the bar back down on the altar, make sure you drain any excess energy into the stone. This is very important. I don’t want to drag your burnt body back through the woods today.”

Without another word, or a check to see if we had any questions, Col. Branthos turned away and led Sergeant Gaylene away from the altars and towards a stand of trees at the edge of the clearing. There were two chairs and a table set up in the shade. I hadn’t noticed those before. With the sun climbing in the sky, and no shade in the clearing, it was going to be a hot day. But I didn’t mind, I preferred heat to cold, unlike most Nostrians who reveled in the mild climate of the isles.

As I moved towards the first altar where Gaylene had demonstrated the technique for “cleansing,” Maribel grabbed my arm and held me fast. With a harsh whisper that only Natalie and I could hear, she made it clear her intentions, “Where do you think you’re going, ‘Melia!? The altar for foreigners is over there.” She pointed to the altar at the far end of the clearing.

I shook my arm from her grasp and frowned. Maribel was insufferable, but with the instructors walking away and the need to make a good impression, I just shook my head and started walking toward the altar on the far end. For the sake of the day and the fact that we didn’t have to do any PT, I was content to let it go. Maribel, however, had no intention of stopping there and added a final barb as I started to walk past her: “Too bad they didn’t make an altar of dung. I hear horse crap makes a good conductor and it would remind you of your home, which I know you miss so much.”

I had to pause to turn and face her. I was too stunned by her cruelty to come up with a retort. Not that I would say it anyway. But something had changed about Maribel this morning. I could see on her face that the casual teasing and annoyance were gone. Maribel truly loathed me now. It was clear that my promotion in rank was threatening her. The implication was clear: we were equals here. And she didn’t like that at all.

With a haughty smile and a spring in her step, Maribel stepped beside the first altar and picked up another platinum bar from the basket that lay on the ground before it. I started towards her, but Natalie grabbed my arm and led me to the far end of the row.

In a hushed voice, Natalie attempted to re-direct me. “Don’t listen to her! I can see how angry you get when she teases you. You need to ignore it.” Natalie was trying to be kind, but the truth was that I didn’t want to ignore it. I was fed up with it. I thought that all of the teasing would end, once I was an Alchemist. After all, my station in life was now equal to everyone else in the abbey. The only way to elevate in rank now was to excel at Alchemy. So why couldn’t I be esteemed for my skill like any other cadet? Why did it always have to come back to my blood line as a half-noble, as Maribel saw me?

Before I could say anything, Natalie just shook her head and whispered, “Drop it, Amelia! You aren’t going to win an insult contest with Lady Maribel while the Colonel watches us. Just focus on what we are doing. I, for one, don’t want to be sizzled if you lose concentration, which is exactly what Lady Maribel wants.”

Stopping in front of the last altar, I considered Natalie’s warning. She was right. I was being petty and stupid by letting Maribel get to me. It was probably an attempt to get me angry so I would lose control and hurt myself. By placing me on the far side of the field, Maribel lowered her chances of being hurt in the fall out, as well. Oh she was a crafty witch, Maribel. I’ll give her that.

With a sigh, I replied to Natalie, “You’re right. Thanks for helping me re-focus. I’ll ignore it,… for now.” Natalie smiled and took up her position at the altar next to mine. I spared one final glance at Maribel, before turning to the task at hand.

I reached down and picked up the platinum bar. It was heavier than I thought it would be; maybe fifteen pounds or so. I could tell that holding it above the altar for five minutes would be a test of physical strength on top of the already difficult task of performing Alchemy. So I set it back down carefully to prepare myself for the challenge.

While setting the bar back down, I could hear and feel a hollow sound to the altar. The altar must not be stone throughout. It felt solid on the sides, but the middle had spots where there could have been holes underneath the top. Curious, I tapped the altar and discovered that it had five separate hollow spots, four in the corners and one right in the middle. The middle is where Gaylene had held her hand while performing her “cleansing.” Could the altar be a focusing mechanism? Maybe the stored energy in the altars could be used to manipulate the platinum bar faster than pulling the energy from the air?

As I thought about these possibilities and how the altar was constructed I glanced over at Natalie and noticed that both she and Maribel had already begun the process of trying to draw energy and push it into their platinum bars. The expressions on their faces gave the impression of intense concentration, as though they could will the energy into existence. Honestly, they both looked ridiculous.

“Obedience before rational thought,” I thought to myself. “Isn’t anyone curious to know why we do what they ask us to do?”

Both Natalie and Maribel were staring at their right hands, platinum bar raised above the face of their altars, as they tried to gather energy before pushing it into the platinum. For all their effort, I couldn’t see any evidence that they were successful at it, yet.

Distractedly, I looked beyond my classmates and saw Gaylene and Col. Branthos watching from the far end of the clearing. I was too far away, but I thought I could see Gaylene frown at me; time to figure this out. It isn’t that I wanted to please Gaylene so much as I didn’t want Maribel to finish first. That would just add insult to injury… or maybe injury to insult.

Returning my attention to the altar and the platinum bar, I thought about the implication of how each altar stored excess energy. The stone wouldn’t be ideal for this, as the different trace metals in the stone would vary the storage and provide instability over time. I had already deduced from our first lesson that the type of conductor makes a big difference in the straining of excess energy, as I liked to think of it. Kind of like a vegetable strainer drains excess water, a conductor sifts the energy from the air and the Alchemist. That energy can either be stored in the conductor or grounded into the earth, like an electrical power line.

The altars appeared to be grounded, and Col. Branthos had hinted as much by admonishing us to drain excess energy into the altar, presumably so that the energy could dissipate into the earth. But what if the altars weren’t grounded? What if they had hollow pieces with conductive metal in them? That would work better for storing any energy build up, because the metal would be consistently more stable than the exposed stone. The altar appeared to be at least a few hundred years old, judging by the weathering on the surface. So chances were good that the original construction would have been before electricity was discovered. This meant if the altar was grounded, then it wasn’t because the builder intended to do so. More likely the altar was hollow with a metal interior that could be used as an energy storage device. Pretty handy, if you think about those pre-electricity days; like an ancient battery.

Having deduced that I had access to a large reserve of Alchemical energy, I needed to figure out how to push the pent up energy into the bar without losing any heat around it. I remembered that brief snippet from Branthos' journal about pulling and pushing on the latent energy, and how you could achieve different results using both. But he had warned about calculating how much to use. Apparently it was not just an intuitive skill fraught with guess work, but it needed to be mathematically determined in order to avoid using too much energy and causing more "aging," or worse.

It seemed like I should be able to figure out how much energy it would take to manipulate the bar without needing to drain any back into the altar by using the length of time Gaylene built up her reserve compared to the size of the bar. I quickly deduced that there was a huge caveat to my thinking: the excess energy stored in the altar after five hundred years of weekly cleansings had to be vastly larger than the amount needed to change the platinum into,… well, whatever it is that Gaylene had done to it.

Speaking of which, what did Gaylene turn the platinum into, because it sure wasn’t platinum after her “cleansing.” The yellowish color of the cleansed bar seemed to look similar to gold. Maybe that’s what it was supposed to be? I knew from school that gold was one elemental number higher than platinum. Maybe Gaylene somehow fused a new proton into each atom of the platinum to turn it into gold? So pushing the energy would require compressing it as well.

From what I remembered in my science classes back at the Royal Academy in Silvia, that was the kind of compression many scholars believe happens on the sun to generate heat and light. So I needed to be ready for a fallout of immense heat if I used too much Alchemical energy, which is probably why we were told to ‘ground’ ourselves to the altar in order to dissipate the left over energy. Of course, we were supposed to draw the energy from the air around our hands, not use the vast amount stored in the altar battery, so the risk of having a large excess was extremely small.

With it all thought out and carefully considered, I decided to go for it. What is the worst that could happen if I tried to draw the energy stored in the altar? Either it won’t be there, or I will have enough to push into the platinum right away, without having to build up a large reserve first. In that case, I would beat Maribel and prove that I belonged just as much as she did. And if the alchemical energy builds too quickly, I could just push it back into the altar, right? Scoop of pudding!

As you can tell, the dumbest decisions I have ever made have been because I am so clever.

I picked up the platinum bar in my right hand and placed my left hand on the middle of the altar. Rather than draw energy from the air around my right hand, I pulled on the energy I thought was stored in the altar, similar to how I must have pulled the energy out of the Exam Book all those days ago,… which was only last week but felt like a lifetime.

At first, I couldn’t feel anything. My fingers and mind weren’t sensitive yet to the subtle signs of power. But soon enough, I felt a tingle. And then the tingle felt like a buzz. The buzz grew to a shake. The entire altar was shaking! I could feel an enormous bloom of heat building under the stone top piece. It was working!

“Stop! Reverse your pull! Quickly!”

I glanced over my left shoulder to see Col. Branthos sprinting across the clearing, dirt kicking up as she ran. The look on her face should have warned me. It was the look of pure terror.

Never one to obey quickly, I figured that I already had my feet in the water so I might as well dive straight in. Instead of reversing my pull, I turned my attention back to the altar and, focusing on the amount that I thought Gaylene must have stored in the five minutes of her demonstration, I pushed on the platinum bar from the well of energy in the altar. Push is a poor choice of words. It felt more like damming a giant river and letting a small amount siphon through my body to the bar. Yet even that tiny fraction of energy from the altar was enough to cause a giant flash in my hand. Luckily I was not looking directly at the bar when I did this, or I might have blinded myself.

Instantly, the bar changed from platinum to gold! Blessedly, there was only a small amount of residual heat warming the palm of my hand. But I wasn’t done yet. Rather than releasing my pull on the altar, I thought of pushing on the energy instead.

I was dumb, but not stupid. I knew what Col. Branthos meant by “reverse your pull.” If I had simply released the energy, it would have been like unstopping the dam. We would have all been melted in a blast of heat the temperature of the sun. So with great concentration I forced the pent up energy back down the hidden altar container, and somehow felt a threshold a few seconds later when the tingling in my left hand stopped.

Taking a deep gasp of air, I set the newly transformed bar of gold down on the quiet altar and stepped back. I must have held my breath the entire time, even if it was only a few seconds. While catching my breath, I wiped my forehead with the back of my sleeve, as I was sweating profusely. Whoever said, ‘women perspire, they don’t sweat,’ never saw me in the clearing that day. I felt like I had just run ten miles, uphill, in the mud.

Colonel Branthos finally reached me and promptly tackled me to the ground. Because I had not planned on being accosted for being so brilliant, I hit the ground hard. If I was out of breath before, I was sucking gulps of air now. Col. Branthos had to weigh 180 pounds and was as solid as the gold bar resting on the altar; of course it could have been her plate armor too.

"Stay down! Don't move!"

Don't move?! I wouldn't think of doing that! I mean, how could I move when I couldn't even feel my ribs from being crushed by a moving tin can! These were just thoughts spinning in my head, along with that voice that kept saying "crap, crap, crap, that hurts!"

Branthos got up and rushed over to the altar, as though to inspect it. She was careful not to touch it, though. As I tried to regain my composure I noticed that both Natalie and Maribel had abandoned their altars and bars of platinum. They stood huddled with Gaylene at the edge of the clearing. I couldn't tell, but it looked like Gaylene had to restrain Maribel from running deeper into the woods.

I finally caught my breath enough to sit up on my elbows so I could see what the Colonel was doing to the altar. Curiosity, remember.

I will never forget my first glimpse of her. Julia Branthos had her hand stretched over the stone top, a few inches from the newly formed gold bar. Her face no longer held a look of terror. Instead, she stood slack jawed, open mouthed and frozen as though in disbelief. In a whisper I know she never intended for me to hear she said, "That can't be possible! How? How?!"

A second later, Branthos regained her composure and stood up straight. After a brief hesitation, she picked up the gold bar and let out a gasp.

"What?! Is the gold hot?" I didn't know what to ask or how to be useful, but her reaction caused me to reach out to help her. Another breach of protocol at which my mother would have tisked and my father would have smiled.

Much more calmly than she looked the Colonel answered as she turned to show me the bar, "It is not hot. It's quite cool. And this is not gold."

Quiver · September 25, 2015

I'll have a look over it when I have a bit more time... but would it be possible for you to change the formatting a little?

I realize that that's probably the "right" font and presentation for books... but I have to admit, on a computer screen, it's a little difficult to read. Adding a space between paragraphs, if nothing else, would make things a little easier...

VladJunior · September 25, 2015

Here you go in Times New Roman with paragraph spacing (I didn't realize the paragraphs were missing until after I had posted it).