Jeri Westerson - Shadow of the Alchemist

“It looks very much like witchcraft to me.”

Flamel scowled. “Oh? And you are very much acquainted with witchcraft, are you?” He raised his hand before Crispin could speak. “As acquainted as you are with alchemy, no doubt. I assure you, Maître, it is not sorcery or witchcraft! It has been a full day and I have received no more messages and no one has ever approached the statue of Saint Paul.”

“We must put our heads together and think on it, Master Flamel. Not delve into these … dubious methods.” He interrupted what were to be the alchemist’s indignant protests. “No more distractions. No more detours.” He sat and settled beside the alchemist. “There are symbols etched on the walls of the city,” Crispin explained. He pointed to the chalked sigils on the table. “And they look like these. What do they mean? A preacher called them the work of the Devil, for indeed, they are mysterious and strange.” He eyed Flamel’s glyphs with suspicion. “But he also seemed to know about your dead apprentice, and he looked directly at me when he said it, thinking that I was an alchemist. I have reason to believe they are connected with these crimes, and I want you, Master Flamel, to come with us.”

“Now? It is the fall of night and my work-”

“Night is better. We will go unnoticed. Fetch a lantern.”

Avelyn fixed a small candle in a conical metal lantern and held it aloft by its ring.

“We must be cautious of the Watch,” he told them.

Quietly, they filtered out of the shop. Under the small glow of Avelyn’s lantern, they moved quickly through the street. She showed the alchemist the signs and he made a small gasp. “Oh! Alchemical symbols.”

“If these are signs an alchemist would recognize, then why would an alchemist fear them?”

“We do not leave our marks for just anyone to see them. They are easily misconstrued as a sorcerer’s writings.” He narrowed his eyes at Crispin.

“Then is it safe to say that the person who made these marks is an alchemist?”

“That very well may be true,” Flamel said reluctantly. “On the other hand, these symbols mean nothing. They are random, as if merely using the symbols, like a child who makes letters but cannot read them.”

“Then what you are saying is that this miscreant may not be an alchemist?”

Flamel shrugged. “They are … very random.”

Crispin pointed to the strange glyphs. “There is Hebrew there. Perhaps a Jew wrote this.”

Flamel gave Crispin a measuring gaze. “How did you know it is Hebrew?”

“Another investigation from some years ago.”

He nodded. “As it happens, I do have an acquaintance with the language of the Old Testament. Alchemy has close ties to the Jewish scriptures and to their magical writings, as well as numerology. Are you familiar with the Kabbalah?”

A shiver passed up his spine. “Intimately.”

“Well … the Hebrew glyphs are used along with the sigils found in the Kabbalah for our special writings on alchemy. Alchemists have used this language since ancient times, even before Christianity. They are considered suspicious by the Church, and so we must be cautious … but why are they here? What does this have to do with Perenelle?”

“Your servant seems to think they are important.”

He looked at Avelyn and she looked back at her master earnestly. “Take us to the next one,” he told her.

By lantern light, they moved deeper into London.

The four of them spent hours traipsing through the icy lanes. On two occasions they nearly ran into the Watch, but Crispin carefully directed them down what looked like a dead end but what he knew better to be merely a narrow close.

Crispin watched the old alchemist squint at the symbols, whether scratched out or not, but each time the man shook his head. They were random, he told him. They made no sense and offered no further clues. Crispin was beginning to think that someone was playing an elaborate prank. But why would they take the time?

With Flamel weary and distracted, Crispin called a halt to their investigation and they all returned to the alchemist’s shop in the early hours of the morning.

It was still dark when they turned the corner and the little candle in Avelyn’s lantern was nearly spent, but she suddenly sprinted for the door without them, leaving them alone in the dense gloom.

“Sarding woman,” grunted Jack.

Crispin was about to mouth the same sentiments when he saw it. Her lantern’s light glinted off the dagger stuck into the wood, and Crispin ran forward. He heard Jack’s steps behind him and they both stopped in front of the door.

The dagger held a parchment fragment in place. Crispin grasped the dagger just as Flamel jogged forward, huffing and wheezing. “What is it? What is it? My Perenelle!”

“Hush, man. Do you wish to wake the whole parish?” As it was, Crispin spied a shutter across the way open and a curious shadow move across the candlelight within.

Crispin quickly pulled out the dagger, grabbed the note, and ushered the others inside.

He crossed to the fire beside Avelyn, who stoked it roughly with an iron poker. They crowded round him. In Latin again. He translated it aloud:

“‘You shall never see her return unless you play fairly. You had best begin at the beginning.’”

Flamel tore the cap from his head and heaved it to the floor. “What are we to do? What is it he is doing to us, to her!”

“Calm yourself, Master Flamel. This is a good sign. It proves he is still interested, still in the game.”

“It is not a game!” he insisted. Spittle flecked his beard.

“It is to him. What does he mean by ‘begin at the beginning’?”

Jack shrugged. “Sunrise? Matins? Should we be at a church?”

“At St. Paul’s,” offered the alchemist. “Should I leave the ransom there again?”

“He was more straightforward before about placing the ransom where and when. Why not simply pick another place and tell us so? What has changed?”

“He saw us trying to deceive him,” said Jack.

Crispin nodded. “He must be watching us as much as we are watching for him.” And he suddenly remembered the men in the shadows following him and Jack. Should he see them again, he would leave little left for subtlety.

“So what does it mean, sir?”

“Jack, I wish I knew.”

Exhausted, Flamel moved to a chair before the hearth. Crispin followed suit, the momentary excitement from the discovery of the new parchment fading, making him feel how tired he was. He edged his chair away from the chalked symbols and settled. No one spoke. Flamel stared into the flames. Crispin clutched the parchment and followed his example, hoping to find enlightenment within the leaping fire, while Avelyn scrambled about, seemingly as energetic as ever, heating wine and serving them hunks of bread and cheese on a wooden platter.

Crispin ate absently, just to fill the hollowness in his belly. The wine warmed him and the fire thawed his cold feet. He picked up the parchment from time to time, just to feel that it was real. After their night of scrambling after these alchemical symbols, Crispin wondered for the hundredth time if the abductor was referring to those signs. With a shake of his head, he realized he was becoming more and more obsessed with the symbols. They couldn’t be random, as Flamel suggested. They had to mean something. “It’s as if he’s playing some sort of game with us,” he murmured.

Crispin folded his arms over his chest. But then again, why did they have to mean anything at all? Flamel said as much, said that the symbols meant nothing. Was he relying too much on the ramblings of this preacher, whom neither he nor Jack had been able to confront?