Jeri Westerson - Shadow of the Alchemist

The conversation was sobering him by the moment. He glanced at the man’s untouched wine bowl with a bit of longing.

Jack leaned forward. “Should we not go looking for her first, Master Crispin?”

Crispin rested an elbow on the table, twisted his head, and glared at his impetuous assistant. Jack gazed mildly back at him, clenching his hands and holding his own at first. But as Crispin continued to meet his gaze, the youth seemed to back down and he soon looked quickly away.

“Yes, yes,” Flamel insisted, oblivious to the silent war going on before him. “We must find her. I … I will gladly take her back.”

“Are you certain?” said Crispin with a glance back at Jack, daring him to interfere. “Once she is-” Tainted goods, he was going to say, but even his sluggish mind thought better of it. “Once she has been gone from you for an amount of time, might it be best to simply … er…”

“No! No, our work, you understand? We are very close. Close to a breakthrough. I need her. Not simply because she is my wife and belongs to me. But because our work is so important. She is more than my wife. She has been my work assistant for many years. I believed we worked in tandem, heart, soul, and mind. But perhaps-” His voice cracked at last. “Perhaps I have been mistaken.”

Crispin pushed himself upright again. “And perhaps you are making more of this than there is. How long has she been gone?”

“Since this morning-”

“What?” Damn these timid men! “It is midafternoon. You waste my time for the absence of a few hours? Perhaps she has a lengthy shopping list, nothing more than that.”

“But my assistant is gone as well-”

“And he’s carrying the baggage. Good God, man. You’re making a fool of yourself.”

“I tell you it is more than that. I know it is!”

“Was there a note, anything telltale, like a sum of funds missing?”

“No, nothing as that.”

“No? If she intended to run away, then surely she would need the funds to do so. Master Flamel, I believe you are worrying needlessly.” He rose and lurched around the table. He lifted the man by the elbow and steered him toward the door. “Go home. I’m certain they are both there waiting for you.”

With sudden vehemence, he shook Crispin off. “No! I know what I know, Maître . The alchemical sciences breach the world that we know with that of another far from our imaginings. It is not Heaven nor is it Hell but somewhere in between in the ether. I have crossed the paths between, Maître, and it has given me an insight that I cannot easily explain.”

Crispin recoiled. “What you speak of, sir, is sorcery.”

“No, I assure you. I work within God’s good grace. Come with me and I will show you. I’ll prove it to you.”

Crispin sighed again and caught Jack’s glance. The knave was making motions that seemed to express “It couldn’t hurt to try.”

“Very well,” he huffed. He moved toward the peg on the wall to retrieve his cloak but noticed that he was still wearing it. Jack pulled his own from the peg and buttoned it up.

“Shall we go, then?” Crispin gestured to the door. Flamel went first and Crispin went after, followed by Jack, whom he trusted to lock the door. At least the boy could act like an apprentice.

They trudged over the mud and stomped through icy puddles toward the Fleet Ditch. Skirting down a narrow alley beside a dung cart, Crispin held his nose, recalling the days when he was first cast from court-years ago now, thankfully-and was forced into pushing one of those carts and mucking out the privies along the Thames, one of many disagreeable positions that forced him to come up with something better.

The mud was churned so badly at the “T” of the road that it nearly sucked in Crispin’s boots. He grasped Jack’s shoulder before he fell over, and Jack’s strong arm pulled him free. The lad continued to grasp his upper arm and helped Crispin along, as he was still a bit unsteady on his feet.

Flamel led them down darker and dimmer streets, streets of less repute than even the Shambles. Were they mistaken about the alchemist? Were his clothes not fine? Did the man have money or not? Or was it some sort of ruse to get Crispin into a situation he could not get out of?

He pulled back on Jack’s steadying arm and the boy looked him in the eye questioningly. “Where are you taking us?” he asked, directing his scowl to the alchemist.

The man stopped and turned to Crispin, eyeing first him and then Jack. “It is just this way,” he said, gesturing.

“What is this? Some French trap?”

His look of shock seemed genuine. “ Sainte Mère! Of course not!”

Crispin stepped forward and glared nose to nose. “I’m warning you. If this is a trap, you will find yourself extremely repentant.”

“On my honor, Maître Guest. I swear by the Virgin’s heart. It is simply that I must live in these humble surroundings so as not to bring spies upon me. In this way I stay hidden and so do my secrets.”

“What is so secret in an alchemist’s lair that he must hide in such filthy surrounds?”

He tilted his head, staring off to the side. “I … I cannot say, Maître Guest. My livelihood depends on these secrets. I am sure you are a man who understands.”

Crispin stepped back with a huff and straightened his coat. “Very well. Is it much farther?”

“No. Only this way.”

At last, Flamel led them to a mud-spattered door under an overhanging eave that sagged in the middle. The man took a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the door. Crispin noted that the lock was new.

The man pushed through and let out a gasp.

Instinct propelled Crispin forward and he pushed Flamel aside to enter under the low lintel and into the dim surrounds.

The first thing that caught Crispin’s attention was the gleam of brass above his head. He sucked in a breath as he beheld the huge spheres slowly encircling one another, all balancing on metal arms. Around and around they went, revolving, spinning. One sphere had rays emanating from it, and Crispin suddenly realized that this was the sun and the rest must be the planets orbiting the central globe, the Earth, in a monstrous display of brass and wire. It was indiscernible what made it move. Possibly the wind. He blinked in amazement.

An elbow to his gut made him turn to Tucker. The boy cocked his head toward the room, and Crispin tore his attention away from the astronomical display long enough to realize that this was not what he was supposed to be paying attention to. The room itself was in utter chaos. Glass flasks were shattered upon the floor. Clay jars, oozing strange substances, had been tossed about. Furniture overturned and broken. Parchment flung everywhere and fragments were stuck to the plank floor on puddles of some spilled sludge from a pot or canister.

He turned back to look at Flamel. “Was this how you left it?”

The man shook his head. It was plain that he was holding himself together by a thread. Something clearly was not right.

A sound.

Crispin pulled his dagger. All his attention directed to the far corner behind a disrupted pile of books and stools. A shadow, and then a figure emerged.

She looked like a waif, thin arms and a long, slim neck on which perched a faery face of wide blue eyes and a long cascade of silvery blond hair caught in a long braid snaking down her back. She stared at Crispin with incomprehension, until those eyes settled on Flamel.

“Oh, ma chère !” he said, and rushed to her.

Crispin lowered his knife. “Well. That’s settled, then.”

“Do not be a fool,” said Flamel, drawing the woman into the light from the doorway. “She is not my wife. This is my servant, Avelyn.”