A cold wind blew between planks in a bottom of a cart and touched a thin layer of straw. The nasty rain began to fall harder. The wind picked up, pushed through the straw, and met someone's naked ass.
Cyril groaned involuntarily, snatched from a short sleep.
'It's so fucking disgusting.' He thought as he squirmed to keep warm. 'My body is almost invulnerable, but I still get cold.'
"How long is it to go?" He asked Kalim.
The alchemist sat in front, one meter away from Cyril. He crouched with his legs tucked under him and hid in his hood. The woolen fabric of his robe was thickly lined to protect him from the rain and wind.
"Don't you know the way?" The alchemist wondered from under his hood.
Kalim did not turn his head and only changed his frozen hand. He held the reins with one hand while the other warmed itself in the folds of his robe. If one hand started to get cold, he just changed them.
"I was asleep last time." Cyril said, trying to pull the blanket closer around him. "And I have no idea where we are. Do you have a map?"
"I don't need a map." Kalim shaked his head. "With donkey like this, we have an hour and a half to go."
Under the hood and in the dimness of the night, his gesture was invisible, but his voice spoke for itself.
Thick clouds covered the sky. Only occasional streetlamps near the houses and a light from windows illuminated the street. Cyril extinguished the oil lamp left by Dyck to conserve it's fuel. He reasoned that when they got into the shed, they would need the light.
"It won't take much longer to walk." Kalim added. "But at least we won't get tired."
"Speak for yourself." Cyril growled, and tried to tuck the blanket under his bare ass.
The blanket was no longer long enough to cover his shoulders. He could bend over a little more, so that he could even hide his head, but it tortured his back.
"Is there any way to speed up the donkey?" He asked, deciding to hide his head from the rain at the cost of his bare waist.
"The only way to speed up a donkey is to make a horse out of it." Kalim said, and replaced his frozen hand.
"Can you?" Cyril asked.
A mournful chuckle came from under the hood. It perfectly echoed the foul weather and the hiss of the rare streetlamps.
On a rainy night like this, the usually busy city seemed dead. Only the light of candles in the windows of houses and the neighing of horses in the dark alleys where stalls sometimes hid, reminded that people lived here.
"I am an alchemist, not a wizard." Kalim said.
A lazy donkey was slowly pulling a creaking cart. Laughter and the clatter of wooden mugs came from aside. Unlike the tavern where Cyril had taken up residence, this one had double doors that reached to the ceiling. The door light illuminated a sign and a bouncer's bald head.
Cyril turned away from the tavern and looked at Kalim's bent back.
"What's the difference?" He asked. "You're making a resurrection potion. I think it's fucking great magic."
Kalim threw back his hood and turned to Cyril. The light from the wall lamp reflected genuine bewilderment in his eyes.
"An alchemist doesn't take things from nowhere, Cyril." He said firmly. Cold rain hastened to dampen his short blond hair. "Alchemists use elements of nature, but they always give something in return."
As if offended by Cyril's stupidity, he turned away and hid his head again. The donkey's hooves beat steadily. Curil became curious.
"And what will you give for a life?"
Cyril had never thought of such things, but potions seemed to be destiny of witches, while alchemists mined the philosopher's stone. Cyril remembered that it was the alchemist who first evaporated his own urine to detect phosphorus.
"In return, I will give the lives of other creatures. In particular, rare herbs and small rodents." Kalim replied. "Their unlived lives remain in the chemical composition of their bodies."
"How long do your herbs live here?"
He was putting himself in danger in the woods, and he wanted to know if it was justified. Or rather, Cyril just wanted to distract himself, because he was cold and couldn't sleep.
'Come on, what's the danger?' He chuckled to himself and remembered his own victim. 'Those poor bears could live for a long time.'
The alchemist took out his other hand to steer the donkey into a left turn. They were leaving the Butcher district. Here, the houses were quite shabby, and there was much less of the streetlights.
"No, the herbs don't last long." The alchemist replied as soon as the donkey took a new course. "But they contain rare elements, and I will extract them."
'The phosphorus in the body of a frog is the same phosphorus as in the blood of a human.' Cyril nodded to himself.
The idea of replaceable elements was clear to him. What Cyril couldn't understand was why he was cold as a dog while the well-fed alchemist kept warmed.
"What about years of life? How do you count them?" He asked. "Can you take one baby for a hundred unlived years, or do you need a hundred babies to give yourself one year?"
The alchemist turned in horror.
"Why do you take babies?" He threw off his hood.
"Well, a mutual exchange." Cyril shrugged.
He was tired of being cold in the soaking blanket and began to shiver.
"Cyril, I am not a villain or a maniac." The herbalist replied gravely, flashing in the light of a lantern. "Alchemy is almost forbidden as it is, but if we start killing children, we'll all be executed."
"All of you?" Cyril was interested. "How many of you are there?"
The alchemist turned away again, peering into the darkness. The cart rattled on the pavement and thumped harder against Cyril's frozen ass.
"There are three of us in the capital, and no more than a hundred in the entire Kingdom." Kalim replied coldly. "My science is more complex than magic."
"Why?" Cyril asked.
Now Kalim smiled haughtily.
"Mages feed on magical energy." He began. "It's called mana. Magicians do not demand anything in return for magic, because everything that the world gives remains here. As with life, form is not important to energy. The main thing is to be able to pass this mana through yourself."
"An alchemist can't do that?"
"Alchemy is practiced by those who cannot do magic because they cannot perceive mana." Kalim replied.
"So you're a flawed mage?" Cyril guessed.
Kalim pulled back his hood.
"Stop insulting me!" He shouted. "First you call me herbalist, now this. I'm a scientist!"
'Hit a nerve?' Cyril thought.
The rain was getting stronger. His teeth were chattering, and the straw wasn't helping. The rain-soaked straw mat squelched viciously at the slightest movement. An interesting conversation helped to distract, but could not relieve the feeling of cold.
"You asked me to collect herbs, so you're an herbalist." Cyril shrugged.
'Maybe I should treat him easy.' Cyril thought. 'He's freaking out of the blue.'
"Explain." He said quietly.
The alchemist chuckled, as if forced to explain basic truths to a stupid child.
"I could have asked you to collect some bats." Kalim grumbled.
"I'd call you Batman." Cyril said immediately.
"Who is this?" The alchemist turned his head again.
"Well." Cyril waved a hand. "A myth form not here."
Kalim nodded, as if he understood something, and changed his frozen hand. They were driving past the Prison district, and the area was mostly slums. Not far from here was Kalim's nondescript house, where he practiced alchemy in the basement.
"An alchemist should be able to do math." He said proudly. "An alchemist can count and weigh the consequences. You said it right. You need to know how many years a rat lives to collect the right amount. But mages do what they want. They are like children with great power."
"And without understanding the consequences," Cyril guessed. "this force is dangerous to themselves."
"True." Kalim agreed. "Therefore, mages are controlled by the laws of nature, their ability to accumulate and use mana is limited. But the alchemist must also observe and understand these laws in order to control the essence of things."
"Fucking great." Cyril nodded and shivered from the cold. "I respect you, herbalist."
"Stop calling me herbalist!" Kalim raged, and suddenly rose to his feet.
The cold rain and the jolting of the road were wearing out the old cart. The alchemist's sudden movement caused the already rickety cart to lurch. The wheel mount cracked.
'Sit down, you idiot!' Curil wanted to shout, but didn't have time.
The cart jolted on the uneven road, and the left wheel flew off the axle. With angry shouts of the donkey both men fell in the mud.