The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice) (31 page)

“I’m trying to decide,” he answered pensively.  There seemed to be no harm that could come to the girl from the change in the ingredient, and the two items had many similarities, but his intuition didn’t tell him the decision was clea
rcut.

“Okay, we’ll try it,” he decided, then mixed the pinch of dried salamander eggs in and crushed the dry items all together.  He had to make do as best he could with the limited items he had available, he told himself, then he sat on the mattress next to Pesino to apply it.

“We’ll need to keep it applied to your eyes for a few hours at least,” Marco told the lovely girl as he dabbed the mixture upon her eyelids.  “I’m going to wrap a blindfold around your eyes to hold it in place,” he explained, then he removed his extra shirt from his pack and ripped a band of cloth off the bottom.

Marco had just finished tying the blindfold in place when there was another knock at the door.

“Who is it now?” Pesino asked in exasperation.  “Is it my dinner?’ she suddenly asked in a happier tone.  “Did you order our meal to be delivered to us, my lord?” she asked, as Marco headed to the door.

“My lord, are you Marco the Alchemist, Marquis of Sant Jeroni?” a man in elegant livery, the same livery the earlier messenger had worn, asked upon Marco opening the door.

Marco blinked in surprise.  “I am,” he acknowledged after two seconds.

“There is a palace carriage awaiting you and any companions you wish to accompany you to the palace.  My lord, the Grand Duke wishes you to know that the wardrobes of the palace are at your disposal upon your arrival.   He understands the travails of your journey in the winter must have been severe,” the messenger said.

“Thank you,” Marco stuttered.  “I’ll alert my friends and we’ll be down shortly,” he told the man, then gently shut the door.

“You need to get out of bed and get dressed,” he told Pesino as he returned to the bed and pulled the covers back.  “Our carriage to take us to the palace awaits!”

Marco quickly helped Pesino into her clothes, promising her that she would be able to change into elegant clothes at the palace.  “But I won’t be able to see myself!” she moaned.

Together, the pair of them walked down to Cassius and Kate’s room.

“What?” Kate exploded, as she lay on her bed, covered by a blanket, snacking on food from her pack.  “The palace sent a carriage for us?”

“And their wardrobes are at our disposal,” Marco repeated for her.

Minutes later the four of them went down the stairs, and past the desk clerk and two maids.  The clerk bowed deeply, as the maids curtsied while the travelers looked at the carriage that was parked in the street immediately outside the inn.

Ten minutes later, the carriage rolled through the elegant, guarded gates of the palace, and pulled up at a porte cochere, where a doorman immediately opened the door and helped them disembark from their vehicle.

“Does your lady need medical attention for her eyes?” the butler inside the doors of the palace asked first, when they stepped into a large entry hall.

“No thank you,” Marco replied.  “She has a poultice on them right now.  Just let me take her to the wardrobes where she can change into something suitable for the palace.”

They all were led to rooms on the ground floor.  “What should I wear, Marco?” Pesino asked.

“You’ll look lovely in anything,” Marco said reassuringly.  She had sounded nervous to his ears.  He bent to kiss her cheek, both to comfort her, and to keep up appearances, since he wore the golden torq from his marriage ceremony to her.

His fingers absently touched his torq as he watched a seamstress lead Pesino into a room.  He hadn’t noticed the metal ring around his neck in a long time, but as he thought about it now, he was conscious of the weight of the cold metal.

“This way, my lord,” the butler was leading Marco and Cassius together to a room further down the hall.  Inside they found racks of clothes and a tailor who stood ready to help.  Cassius went first and selected a bright yellow jacket and trousers, with a shirt of deepest black.  He added shiny brown boots, and asked Marco what he thought of the outfit.

Marco was looking at a long green robe, reminiscent of the garments he had seen Master Algornia wear on formal occasions.  “I don’t know the local fashions,” Marco told his friend, “but you’ll stand out noticeably in that outfit.”   He looked at the tailor who was with them, who shook his head discreetly.  “Perhaps something less bright would be better,” he suggested. 

Cassius momentarily drew a woeful face, then stripped off the bright jacket, and selected a calm shade of blue.  “It reminds me of the sea, a little,” he told his friend.  “How does it look?”

Both Marco and the tailor praised the new outfit, and the two men walked back out to the hallway.  The women had not emerged from their rooms, leaving Marco and Cassius to stand and wait for several minutes, before Kate came out, wearing a blue gown that nearly matched Cassius’s suit perfectly.

The two men were admiring Kate’s appearance, looking tall and slender and sophisticated in the simple gown, when the door to Pesino’s room opened, and a seamstress came through the door, her arm extended behind her as she led Pesino out into the hallway.

“I had to trust Brielle’s judgment,” Pesino said as they all looked at her.  “Do you like it?”

Marco stood, speechless.  Even without her alluring siren abilities in play, and even with a blindfold across her face, Pesino looked spectacular.  She wore a gown that exposed her shoulders, a shimmering material that was sea green in color, and she wore a new blindfold that matched the gown in color.  To Marco she nearly looked like a mermaid again in some fashion.  And she had added a thin leather strap around her neck.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a siren, able to lure any man to his fate,” Cassius said appreciatively.

“Thank you, my friend,” Pesino said in a sweet voice.  “My lord Marco, is this acceptable?”

“You are stunning, my dear, absolutely stunning,” he answered.  He stepped forward and took Pesino’s hand from the seamstress.  “Thank you my lady,” Marco told the woman, “you’ve given her a wonderful gift with this dress selection.”

The seamstress smiled a dimpled smile, then returned to her room, and the butler led them through the halls to a small ballroom, where a dozen people were present. 

“Do you like the band?” Pesino asked, her fingers touching her neck.  “The seamstress said it would show that I am married to you.”

“And you didn’t ask for gold to match my band?” Marco asked with a grin.

“I am pleased to present,” the butler announced to the room, “the Marquis of Sant Jeroni, Marco the Alchemist, his wife, Pesino, and their companions, Cassius and Kate.”

“Welcome!” a dapper man more than twice Marco’s age approached them.  “I am Franz, the Grand Duke of the Northern Shore.  Welcome to my city, and thank you for agreeing to come visit,” the grand Duke said.  “I was sorry to think that you might have tried to sneak through without announcing your presence to us all.”

“Which of these ladies has placed such an impressive ornament around your neck?” the Grand Duke asked.

“Let me introduce my wife, Pesino,” Marco gently pulled his companion forward.

“Such a vision of beauty,” the host said.  “Please allow me to introduce my own wife, Kiploon, who is cousin to your own sovereign, Duke Siplin.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady,” Marco said as he bowed over her hand.

“And a pleasure to meet the exalted hero of my homeland,” she answered.  “Siplin has described such tremendous services you have provided to Barcelon.  I’m surprised to see you here, so far north, especially in this season.

“He described your fiancée as a great beauty, but I hadn’t realized she came from Fortburg, from the looks of the wedding collars you wear,” Kiploon added.

There was an embarrassed moment of silence as Marco blushed and froze, trying to figure out how to reconcile the inadvertent false relationship he had been caught in.

“My lord accepted this guise to protect me,” Pesino spoke into the silence.  “I was traveling with his party, and to protect my reputation, we accepted the torqs in Fortburg.  He has remained faithful to Mirra, the woman who awaits him in Barcelon,” she said simply.

“If he has remained faithful while traveling with a woman like that, he may be no man!” an anonymous voice spoke in the small crowd behind the Grand Duke, causing a murmur of laughter.

“Let me introduce my other companions,” Marco hastily spoke, then introduced Cassius and Kate.  Duke Franz introduced the members of his party as well, his son and several members of the court.

“What brings such an attractive party to Canalport in the depths of winter?” the Duchess asked.

“I was assigned to take on a quest, and these companions have chosen to accompany me,” Marco answered.

“A quest?!” a younger member of the noble crowd exclaimed.  “What quest are you on?”

“I have been sent to collect a scale from the
Echidna,” Marco answered calmly.

The room was totally silent, until a servant spoke.  “Dinner is ready, my lords and ladies.”

“The Echidna?” Marco heard a voice softly speak behind him.  “This is the last time we’ll ever see him in Canalport.”

They were seated at the table.  Marco sat next to a dowager noble lady on one side, and Duchess Kiploon on the other.  He saw that Pesino had the Duke’s son on one side of her and another man on her other side, with a maid assigned to feed her, while Cassius and Kate were not far down the table.

“There were stories of the Echidna when I was a child,” the dowager told him.  “My father had a servant who had come from Arima, fled from the catastrophes the monster caused.

“The
Echidna is half woman, half snake, and is as large as a house.  It’s a terrible monster, the mother of all monsters in many ways more than just literally,” the dowager said.  “She has the strength of a hundred men, but she also can trick and lure her victims with her words.

“She lives in a cave in a great volcano up in the north of the land,” the lady confirmed what Marco’s group had learned in Clovis.  “But when she comes out to hunt, she travels far to the south where the people of Arima live.”

“Does their king put up castles to protect them?” Marco asked.

“There is no king in Arima,” Kiploon replied from Marco’s left.  “No one can be a king in such a forsaken land.  The people live in villages and live as best they can.  There are miners and trappers and farmers and shepherds scattered about the land, living a decent life as long as the monsters don’t come to their village.”

“It sounds like a terrible life,” Marco observed, sickened by the thought of living under such a cloud of fear.  “I know how terrifying it was to have the Corsairs raid our cities.  It would steal all the joy from life to have to worry about something like that all the time.”

“That’s why my father’s servant left the land.  He wanted to raise a family without all that fear,” the dowager said.

“Perhaps you will defeat the Echidna, just as you defeated the Corsairs, and the plague, and the evil power in Barcelon,” Kiploon said on his other side.  “Siplin said he wasn’t sure he’d still have a duchy to rule if you hadn’t been so extraordinary.”

Chapter 21 – A Different Vision

The dinner at the palace was a tremendous experience for Marco and his friends.  The Grand Duke’s carriage dropped them off at their inn very late that evening, still dressed in the luxurious clothes they had acquired at the palace, and they carried their traveling clothes with them, astonishing the staff of the inn with the transformation in their appearance.

“Marco, can you remove my blindfold now?” Pesino asked as soon as the two of them were alone in their room.

“I think you’ve worn the poultice long enough,” Marco agreed.   He shuttered the lantern they carried to dim the room as much as possible, then removed the blindfold, and wiped her eyes with a damp cloth.  As his fingertips rubbed across her lids, he tried to focus the energy in his hand into a feeling of gentle health, hoping that his power could do something to augment the healing of her vision.  There was a split second in which he thought he saw a warm glow, but the phenomenon occurred so quickly he wasn’t sure he knew whether he had really seen anything or not.

“Now open your eyes,” he directed.

“It’s dark still, black,” Pesino said, then exclaimed “Oh!” as Marco removed the hand he had held as a shield directly in front of her eyes.

“There you are,” her fingers reached out and touched his face.  “Is it very dark in here?” she asked.

“Yes,” Marco affirmed.  “Let me open the lantern,” he said as he folded open the shutters on the sides of the small box, revealing the candle within, and adding light to the room.

“Oh Marco, you look so handsome!” she told him.  “But there’s something about you, something a little different.”

“Here, come in here and look in this mirror,” he told her, still leading her by the hand, though she no longer needed to be led, and they entered the bath to look at the mirror there.

“Oh, this is so beautiful!” she said, staring at her gown.  “I wish I could have seen the palace; was it beautiful inside?” she asked.

“It was,” Marco reported.  He looked at the expression of blissful happiness on her face, and thought about how lovely she looked. She had grown to be less of the siren, and more of a woman who was finding her own identity; she had been maturing throughout the journey, he realized.  She had faced the dual crises of surviving a difficult journey while also coming to terms with changing from a mermaid to a human woman, and he realized that she was now, finally, incorporating her experiences into her personality, and emerging as a different person, one who he found extraordinarily appealing.

She glanced at him in the mirror, her eyes looking from her own reflection to his, and she suddenly blushed.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

Marco closed his eyes, desperate to hide the truth of his thoughts.

“Were you thinking about me?  Do you, do you care for me, Marco?” Pesino asked.  She turned to face him.

“I was – I am thinking about you, Pesino.  You’ve become such a good person, not just beautiful on the outside,” he admitted, startled by the perceptive nature of her question.

“I could see it.  I can see something more about you than I did before.  What was in that poultice?” she asked.  “It seemed like there was something about you that showed me your feelings.”

Marco took a step back, stunned by her statement.  “I am sorry if my feelings are improper.  I know they are,” he apologized.  “And I’m sorry my remedy may have harmed you.”

“You owe me no apology for either,” Pesino stepped over to him and took his hands in hers.  “I’ve seen that you have struggled to remain completely faithful to Mirra in your heart, and you’ve done so well.  Now I just seem to see something that shows it even more.  It doesn’t hurt me to see that about you.  It just confirms what I knew – you are a good man, in a world that doesn’t always reward the good men.”

“Let me,” she paused, “may we go see Kate and Cassius?  I’d like to see their clothes, and see if I can perceive their hearts the way I see yours.”

Marco felt an inward shudder at the thought that Pesino might see some manifestation of his heart.  He was uncomfortable with the notion that his dark moments, his doubts, and weaknesses and lusts might be so easily visible to the one person he spent more time with than anyone else.

“Do you want to see them in that way?” he asked quietly.

She paused and looked into his eyes.

“This scares you, doesn’t it?” she asked.

He nodded silently.

“I see.  I do see,” she said.  “You’re torn.  Well Marco, I can only say that I’m happy – you always seemed so noble; I’m glad to know you have the same contradictions that other people and merpeople have.  If anything, I appreciate you even more now.  And you should understand, this isn’t a weapon,” she explained.

“But it could be.  If not a weapon, at least a tool,” he replied.

“A shell can be used to dip water, or it can be used as a cutting edge.  It’s all in the way the possessor uses it,” Pesino said intently.

And with that, Marco felt relief.  He had just moments earlier arrived at the conclusion that Pesino had changed and grown as a person.  He knew she was his friend, and he would trust her, he decided.

“Thank you,” she said in response, sensing his change in feelings.  She reached out and hugged him, and he hugged her back with a fierce strength.  He would accept that his friend had gone through a great change.  He had to be fair, he reminded himself.  Mirra had accepted him as he had changed; he would be a hypocrite to not accept a similar evolution in Pesino.

“Shall we go see the others?” he asked.

“Will they be as frightened as you are?” she asked.

“Possibly,” he conceded.

“Should I keep this secret?  Is it better to not tell people what I’m seeing?” she asked.

Marco held her at arm’s length.  “Let’s wait until morning.  As much time as they’ve had in their room, I suspect you wouldn’t see them in their finery now anyway.”

“And you want to think about what is best to tell them?” Pesino asked.

“And I would like to think about it,” Marco agreed.  “There’s no easy answer.

“Then what do you suggest we do, if we’re not going to go see them?” the girl probed.

“Let’s go to bed.  It’s late, and it’s been a long day.  We’ll get to sleep in a nice, soft bed, and sleep in as late as you want!” Marco grinned at her.

“Then you have to help me take this off without ripping it!” Pesino told him.  “I couldn’t see when they put it on me and I don’t know how to take it off!”

Minutes later they were in the expansive bed, each on one side, each laying quietly thinking about what had just happened, when there was a sudden glow, and Gawail came squirting into the room, squeezing through the opening between the door and the floor.

“Good night!” he said without comment, and flew into the bathroom, where his glow dimmed.  Marco smiled at the incident, then rolled on his side and fell soundly asleep.