They unbolted and unchained the door, and finally it gave a little. Through the crack, light leaked out, along with the pungent smell of chemicals. Elysia pushed open the door, despite the alchemist's resistance, and she made her way inside, where she was surprised to find Greta standing at the other exit from the room. It was obvious that she had hidden in the adjoining outbuildings.
"Come in, Miss Elysia," the alchemist said in a prickly tone as he stepped aside to let Frey enter.
"Wolf is looking for you" the catgirl commented to the Kitsune, who seemed too scared to speak. "Why?"
"Leave her alone, young lady," Kryptan interjected. "Don't you realize that she's terrified? She suffered quite a horrible shock at the hands of your friend Ladmer."
Quickly, Kryptan filled him in on what Greta had seen when she'd ventured into the merchant's son's quarters the night before, and though he was discreet as to why she'd come there, he mentioned the demonic symbol she'd witnessed.
"I was already afraid of it. I should have known when he asked me to add manastone to his dream root. I guess that was when he started to develop the Demonic Mark."
"Did you add manastone to his dream root? Mana stone?"
"There is no need to make such a shocked face, young lady. Its use is not so unusual in certain alchemical operations, and many respectable seekers of my art make use of it in small doses. My old tutor at the academy in Archheim, the great Litzen himself, used to say that...
"I heard that Litzen was expelled from the imperial magic academy because of his experiments, and that the ministry of magic withdrew his license. It was quite a scandal. In fact, the last I heard from him was that he had become an outlaw."
"There is always malice among academics. Litzen is nothing but a man who is ahead of his time. I mean… Look how long it took for Eisenstern's theory that the sun revolves around the earth to be accepted. When he made it public, the inquisition had him burned at the stake."
"Regardless of the philosophical merits of your argument, Lord Kryptan, manastone is an entirely illegal and highly dangerous substance. If any prosecutor in the realm of Lothal ever finds out...
Hearing this last, Kryptan flinched before cutting him off.
"That's exactly what Wolf Ladmer told me… although I don't know how he came to know about my experiments. I buy the... substance in a very small and discreet emporium in Bergheim, in Van Niek's bookstore. I told him that he did not intend to do anything illegal with the substance, that all he wanted was to learn how to transmute lead into gold… and the manastone is the very essence of magic.
"That's what Wolf is about to find out, it seems."
Try as she might, Elysia couldn't keep an unseemly note of delight from creeping into her voice. It was perfect, since she could expose this decadent pig as a mutant before the entire population. She would thus pay for the beating she had received, and also for what she had done to Greta, of course.
"You won't report me to the authorities, will you, young lady? After all, I treated your wounds. I promise you that if you don't report me, I will never do anything with the mana stone again."
Felix looked at the startled alchemist; she had nothing against him, and it was very likely that Kryptan had learned a lesson about using illegal substances. Though there was still the problem of what to do with the wealthy young man's bodyguards, he had the answer for Kryptan.
"Lord Kryptan, if you can heal my mate, I assure you that I will forget everything you have done."
♦ ♦ ♦
Elysia idly played with the mortar and pestle, while Kryptan continued with the work. The laboratory was full of emanations that rose from the pot in which the alchemist had reduced the sunflowers to yellow paste.
The cold stone of the mortar had something reassuring about it, and the perfume of the flowers reached him even though his nose was stuffed up. She had taken two more pills than the ones Kryptan had given her, and she felt a bit detached from everything that was going on around her. She wished her head would clear up and all her pain would go away.
"Elyssia?" said a soft voice that brought her back to reality.
"What, Greta?"
She was still irritable. Her human touch shortened the distance between her and the world, broke down the barriers Kryptan medicine had surrounded him with to protect him from pain, and brought her anger back.
"What will Wolf's men do if they find me here?"
"Don't worry about that, soon Wolf will have more than enough worries of his own."
"I hope so. Luthor has been very good at hiding me here. You run a terrible risk. You know how Wolf's bodyguards can be."
Deep down, Elysia thought that the alchemist had hidden the girl for the sole purpose of mortifying Wolf, since she had no reason to be attached to him. Or maybe it was because of her guilt for giving him the mana stone that had caused the change. "Has he always been a sadistic monster?" Elysia wondered. "Or has that transformation only occurred recently, after the appearance of the Demonic Mark?"
Other questions ran through her dull mind. Why had her enemy felt the need to consume manastone in the first place? And what of the sinister rumors she Greta claimed to have heard about him? She pushed those topics aside, since she would probably never know the answers. However, one thing was clear: by eliminating that guy she would do a tremendous favor to all the inhabitants of the city.
"Nope! Leave that. It's acid!" Kryptan suddenly yelled at Frey.
Frey stopped poking around the flasks and test tubes on the alchemist's workbench. He gave the impression that he had been about to drink something from a large silver flask, but he shuffled his feet and returned it to his place.
Elysia looked around the lab. She had never been in such a place before, and everything seemed very arcane and incomprehensible to her. The workbenches were laden with intricate structures, made of tubes and test tubes. Distillation equipment covered almost half a table, and against one wall were several rows of stoppered test tubes; they contained cobalt-blue, lime-green, or blood-red liquids, and in some there were several layers of multi-colored sediment. She recognized the symbol of the imperial magic academy in Archheim, famous throughout the region for its faculties in magic, alchemy, and other magical sciences.
Charcoal burners heated jars and pots containing various substances, and Kryptan moved briskly from one to another, stirring the contents, adjusting the temperature, and occasionally tasting what was inside with a long glass spoon. He opened a large cupboard and pulled out a huge, white padded glove full of burns, slipping in his right hand.
"It won't be long now" he announced at the same time that he took one of the jars that were heating up and poured the content into the central pot.
The mixture bubbled and hissed as the alchemist put a stopper on the second vial and shook it before pouring it into the mixture. A great cloud of acrid green smoke spread throughout the room, and Elysia coughed, and heard Greta do the same; she seemed to have her more sensitive than human senses of smell working against her.
As the smoke cleared, she watched as Kryptan carefully emptied the contents of the third alembic into the mixture, each drop rising a tiny cloud of smoke of a different color. The first was red, the second blue, the third yellow. Each rose like a tiny mushroom of steam, expanding to the ceiling.
The alchemist left the alembic and regulated the flame that heated the pot; then he took a small hourglass and inverted it.
"Two minutes," she said.
Elysia was filled with a sense of triumph, for soon Frey would be healed and together they would pay a visit to The Sleeping Dragon, where he would unload on Wolf Ladmer the many tribulations he had suffered.
As soon as the last grain of sand slipped down the neck of the clock, Kryptan removed the pot from the fire.
"It is done!"
He beckoned Frey over, then poured a portion into a small ceramic bowl, which the catgirl could see had the inner rim decorated with red circles corresponding to astrological signs. She guessed that they pointed out the different dosages, and she was relieved to see the alchemist fill it up to the top mark before handing it to Frey.
"Drink it all, now."
Frey gulped it down in one gulp.
"Yuck!" he said he. They stood there and waited. And they waited. And they waited.
"How long does it take to take effect?" Elysia finally asked.
"Uh…, not much else!"
"You said that an hour ago, Kryptan. How much exactly?" The knuckles of the catgirl's hand turned white as she gripped the pestle very tightly.
"I already told you that the process was, well, uncertain; that there were some risks involved in it. Perhaps the mountain sunflower was not in the best condition. Are you sure you picked it up exactly at the end of the day?"
"How long?" Elysia spoke both words clearly and slowly as she let the irritation she felt show in her voice.
"Well, I… The truth is that it should have worked almost instantly, the moment the neural modules and bodily humors had returned to their previous configuration."
Elysia looked at Frey, who looked exactly the same as when they entered the lab.
"How do you feel? Ready to meet your destiny? she asked her in a very soft voice.
"And what destiny is that?" Frei replied.
"Maybe we should try another dose, Elysia?"
Elysia let out an inarticulate bellow of anger and pain. That was not going to tolerate it. She had endured a severe beating from Wolf's men. He had climbed that mountain by paths unspeakably difficult. He had narrowly escaped death at the hands of a horde of bloodthirsty mutants. She was tired, hurt, bruised and hungry. And what was even worse, she was about to fall ill with some pestilential disease. Her clothes were torn and she desperately needed a bath. And all of that was the alchemist's fault.
"Calm down, Miss Elysia. You don't need to bellow like that."
"Oh, it's not, is it?" Elysia growled.
Kryptan had sent her to fetch the flowers. Kryptan had promised to heal Frey. Kryptan had spoiled his glorious plans for revenge. She had been through hell for nothing following the stupid instructions of a stupid old man who didn't know her stupid profession!
"Maybe she could make you a nice soporific potion to calm your nerves. Things will look much better after a good night's sleep."
"I could have died from picking those flowers."
"You are upset; It is very understandable, everything must be said... but violence will not solve anything."
"It would make me feel so much better, and you'll feel so much worse."
Elysia hurled the pestle at the alchemist, but Kryptan jumped aside, and the pestle slammed into Frey's head with a huge crack. Frey collapsed.
"Quick, Greta! Send for the guard!" the alchemist spluttered. "Miss Elysia has gone mad! Help! Help!"
Elysia ran after Kryptan around the workbench, knocking it down after lunging at it. Putting her fingers around the alchemist's neck gave him great satisfaction, and she began to squeeze his throat as she smiled. She felt Greta trying to pull her away from Kryptan, the girl's fingers gripping her hair, and she tried to shake her off of her as the alchemist's face began to take on an interesting shade of purple.
"Not that I have anything against senseless violence, cat girl, but why are you strangling that old man?"
Her voice, hard as granite, was rough, cracked, and held a hushed note of sheer cold menace; It took Elysia a second to fully realize who she had spoken to. Then, she let go of Kryptan's neck.
"And who is that? And where are we? And why does my head hurt?
"The blow from the pestle must have brought him to his senses," Greta commented quietly.
"I…uh…prefer to think it was the delayed effect of my potion," Kryptan gasped. "I already told you it would work."
"What reason? What potion? What are you talking about, you old lunatic? Also, why are you wearing my armor, Elysia?"
Elysia got up from the ground and dusted off her armor. She then helped Kryptan to his feet, picked up the alchemist's pince-nez and handed them to him. Lastly, she turned around, to look at Frey.
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"The attack of the mutants, of course, cat girl. Some of those boogers hit me in the head with a rock. Tell me, how did I get here? What magic is this? Frey was looking at her with a majestic frown.
"All that will require many explanations" replied his partner. "So first let's go get a beer. I know a very cozy little tavern just around the corner."
Elysia smiled malevolently to herself, and the two headed towards The Sleeping Dragon; but before heading to the tavern, Elysia returned the armor to Frey.
As they left the lab, Elysia uttered, "Now I understand why you always wear the Helm."