The Gorgon's Blood Solution (22 page)

Marco stood over the pair of robbers, taking a step forward and holding the point of his sword down so that it hovered over the fearful faces of the two thugs.

“Take your hands off your knives, and let the blades rest on the paving stones,” Marco ordered the two men.

They both instantly complied.

“Do you want me to take the knives?” Mirra asked.

“Yes, pick them up,” Marco responded, and watched as the girl quickly darted in and picked the two knives away from the unsuccessful assailants.  She paused as she bent low to pick up their weapons.

“You should kill them,” she hissed vehemently, startling Marco.

“I can’t just kill them in cold blood,” he said quietly as Mirra stood up and stepped back beside him.

“They work for Greystone,” she told him in a flat voice.  “They’re the ones that grabbed me and took me to him,” her words stopped abruptly.

Marco understood, without realizing what he was doing, he let his hand sweep his sword tip across the faces of the two men, leaving a bloody red gash across their cheeks and noses, making them cry aloud.

“Let’s go,” Marco said, grabbing Mirra’s arm and leading her to step over the two wounded men in the street.  “Which way is your home?” he asked after they had walked a few steps in silence.

“It’s down that street,” she said emotionlessly as she pointed with one of the knives she held, and they walked silently down the road, both shaken by the encounter with the criminals.

They reached a doorway in front of a narrow dark staircase.

“I live up there,” she said.

“Thank you Marco, this was a wonderful night except for those awful men, and you handled that perfectly,” she said.  “At least now I know it’s not a dream – I never would have included them in a dream!” she tried to jest.

“Mirra,” he said to silence her.  He bent down to kiss her gently.  “Everything is fine.  I’ll see you in the morning – not too long from now.”

They both heard a squalling child suddenly cry.  “That must be Sybele; I haven’t fed her in hours.  We’ll both feel better when I start,” she said.  “Oh!  I shouldn’t have said that to a boy!” she said.  “I’m too comfortable with you already.

“Good night, Marco,” she said, then turned and fled rapidly up the stairs.

Marco stood in bemused wonder until he heard a door open and close, and within seconds the baby stopped crying.  He slowly turned from the doorway and walked back down the street and made his way back to Gabrielle’s house within minutes, where he climbed up to his room, undressed, then went to sleep on the roof, wondering if he had been in Mirra’s dream, or if she had been in his, or if they both were only participants in someone else’s imagination.

Chapter 15 – The Plague Begins

Marco awoke the next morning, and immediately realized that the sun was higher in the sky than usual.  Mirra was stroking the hair off his forehead.

“Time to wake up, sleepyhead,” she smiled as she spoke.  “I really had a wonderful time last night, Marco.  I told Glaze about meeting mother last night, and he’s interested in going to visit with her.  He’s going to bring Sybele and meet me here after breakfast.”

“And Sybele was happy to see you last night too?” he grinned as he sat up.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned that!” she slapped his shoulder lightly.

“Breakfast is ready and Gabrielle is sitting downstairs,” she told him, then scrambled back through the window and downstairs.

Marco followed her seconds later, then got dressed and cleaned in his room before he went downstairs, still combing his hair with his fingers as he walked through the kitchen doorway.

“Did the two of you have a nice time last night?” Gabrielle asked as Marco sat down with her.

“It was very nice.  I was the envy of every man there for having such a beautiful girl with me at dinner,” Marco answered promptly.

“Marco!  That’s silly,” Mirra’s voice carried from the stove.

“I got to meet Mirra’s mother,” Marco added.  “She seems nice.”

Gabrielle raised her eyebrows.

“She works at the inn we ate at – she’s the cook,” he explained.

“I’m going to go meet her now, as a matter of fact,” Mirra said, removing the apron she wore.  “I’ll come back to clean the dishes later, Gabrielle.  Good bye, Marco,” she called, and was then out the kitchen door.

Later that morning, Marco was in the shop with Gabrielle when they both noticed several men walking towards the alchemy shop.  Greystone and Allied were accompanied by three men wearing formal robes – one black, one red, and one yellow.  There were two officers of the law along as well.

“What does that mean?” Marco immediately asked Gabrielle.

“I don’t know, child,” she said softly.

The men all shuffled into the front of the shop together, Greystone next to the three robed men in front.

“Are you Marco, the self-proclaimed alchemist?” the man in the black robe asked.

“I am Marco,” he answered carefully, certain that something unpleasant was in the offing.

“You are charged with impersonating a master craftsman, and dispersing alchemical formulae to unlawfully collect payments for services improperly rendered,” the official proclaimed.

The charges were serious, Marco knew.  They could involve heavy fines and possible jail time, from what he had seen among the artisans of the Lion City; Algornia himself had been involved in investigating charges against people he termed “charlatans”.  Marco thought he saw a flaw in the charges however.

“Who claims I’ve charged them for alchemy services?” Marco asked.

“We have this citizen as a witness with a claim of improper services,” the man in the yellow robe spoke up, gesturing towards Greystone.

“How much does he claim I charged him for services?” Marco asked.  “I have not charged this man for any alchemist services.”

“He gave me a love philter that didn’t work!” Greystone shouted.  “And now the girl ignores me no matter what.”

“You paid money for a love philter here?  How much?” Marco asked.

“This is not a trial,” the official in the black robe interjected.

“How much?  If there have been no coins given, then no services have been sold,” Marco stolidly said.

“I didn’t pay anything.  It didn’t work,” Greystone said.

“See, the man admits that there were no coins paid for alchemistry in this shop,” Marco jumped on the opening.  “You’ll have to dismiss the charges.”

“It doesn’t matter if he paid for it or not,” Allied jumped in.

“You might think that, since you didn’t pay fair value for all the elements you stole from Marches’s shop since he passed away,” Marco hotly spoke.

“That’s libel!” Allied said.  “He can’t libel me!”

“If Greystone admits that I didn’t sell him anything, then you can’t accuse me of selling him anything!” Marco shouted.

The man in the black robe looked uncertain.  “The guild masters will take this case under advisement,” he said after a considered pause.

“In the meantime, you will not sell any alchemy to any member of the public, nor perform any related service for one month, or until this matter is resolved,” he ordered Marco.  “We will move on to our next hearing,” he said, and he quickly ushered the whole group out of the shop, many of them looking sheepish as they passed out of the door.

“You may have won that round dear,” but I suspect that Allied and Greystone are going to find a way to get you sooner or later,” Gabrielle said once the theater in the shop had come to an end.

“I’m not hurting anyone,” Marco said.  “I’m trying to help people.”

“I know, I agree,” she said soothingly.  “I’ve seen nothing but good in your work, and you’ve been especially kind to the poor and women – I have a great deal of respect for your compassion and your ability, Marco.  They are rare in anyone, and they are extraordinary in one so young.

“But these others, they want to be on top, and you seem to stand in their way, so be careful,” she said.  “We’ll get by without all your sales for a while.”

Marco wandered back to his workshop, where he sat down heavily on his stool, and tried to consider what he should do.  He could run away; that would put him on the road back towards the Lion City, something that he intended to do.  It would put an end to the potential prosecution of charges against him, and it would leave Gabrielle free from any problems associated with him.

It would also put an end to his friendship or relationship or whatever the name was for his involvement with Mirra.  Running away from that was not something that appealed to him.  He thought of her as his closest friend – his only friend with legs, he ruefully shook his head – in Barcelon.  She had been very kind to him, always awakening him in a cheerful manner.  Yet he really knew very little about her, he realized as he reflected.  He wasn’t completely sure what his intentions were towards her, but he had no appetite for leaving her at the moment.

There was another option as well, he realized.  He could continue to do his work as an apprentice if he was overseen by a master alchemist.  Clearly, Applied would not be willing to pretend to be his overseeing master, but perhaps another alchemist in the city would.  There was another shop on the square, the shop he had visited the very first day he had arrived; he would go visit that alchemist, and if he didn’t agree to help, perhaps Marco could find another alchemist with the proper credentials to give legitimacy to Marco’s work.

That afternoon he crossed the square and visited Linea in the alchemist’s shop across the square.

“I’ve heard about your problem,” Linea said.  “Applied came and asked me to join his petition against you – I said ‘no’.

“You’ve cost me some business, no doubt,” the thin man said.  “But I’ve not heard a single complaint about the products you’ve sold – heard some pretty positive c
omments as a matter of fact.   I’m not against you but I’m not for you either,” he told Marco.  “I’m just going to stay out of the whole mess.”

Turned down, Marco went back to Gabrielle and asked her where there might be other alchemists he could go seek help from.

“Don’t bother dear,” Gabrielle advised him.  “There’re only two others in the city, and Applied will have them in his pocket.  Just sit and wait patiently and something good will come along.”

He went that night to swim with Kieweeooee.   “Could you take me away from here?  Far away?” he asked his friend as they swam.

“Are you and the mate with legs unhappy?” the dolphin asked.

“We are not mates,” Marco retorted.  “No, there are other men with legs who are being mean to me.  I may have to leave this place of men to find a different place to live.”

“Do you wish to go to the place of the mermen?  Should we go fetch your friend Kreewhite?” she asked, serious now, and no longer teasing him about Mirra.

“Maybe,” Marco said, not having considered that possibility.  “But I think I want to go to a different city of men with legs, one that is far away,” he told her.

“I will ask my pod if they wish to accompany us on a long journey,” Kieweeooee assured him.  “I would feel more comfortable with other friends to help us go a long way.”

Marco went to bed that night hopeful that he had an escape plan being hatched.

“She loved Sybele,” Mirra awoke him the next morning by telling him.  He was inside on his bed, spooked from the roof by a smattering of rain drops the night before.  Mirra had come and thrown herself down on the bed next to him and immediately began to talk as soon as he opened his eyes.  “Mother held Sybele and declared her the most beautiful baby she had ever seen,” Mirra told him.  “And she and Glaze were polite to one another.  I don’t think I can ever remember the two of them spending that much time together without fighting!” she said enthusiastically.  “It was a wonderful morning yesterday!”

Marco smiled at the girl’s happiness, providing such a contract to his own troubled morning the previous day.  His head was on his pillow, and he looked up at her smile above him.

“You are so beautiful this morning,” he told her.  “I’m glad to see you so happy.”

Her face turned crimson as she blushed.  “I’m happy because of you.  Thank you Marco,” she hovered above him, and their eyes explored each other, each daring the other, and hoping that the other would make some move forward.

Marco?” he heard Gabrielle’s voice weakly call up the staircase from two floors below.  They both sat up, and Marco threw off his blanket as Mirra stood up, then hastily pulled the cover back over.

“After that skinny-dipping adventure the other night, you really don’t have much to hide,” she told him with a smile.  “I’ll go see what the problem is,” she said as she left the room.

Marco was down the stairs a minute later.

“I’m sorry to call dear,” Gabrielle said.  “But there are some people in the front shop already this morning.”

That morning was the start of Marco’s awareness of the plague.  Three people were waiting at the shop door before breakfast, seeking cures from Marco to help treat loved ones who were coughing up blood and passing bloody urine.

“I’m not allowed to help you,” Marco told them, as he felt genuine anguish at his words.  “The Crafts Guild has prohibited me from making anything.”

“My sister is going to die,” a woman pleaded in tears.

“Have you talked to the other alchemists?” Marco asked.

“They charge too much.  The doctor has already charged us and all he did for lance her arm and drain away more of her blood.  She’s so pale,” the woman pleaded.

“Wait to see if the doctor’s work helps.  Come back tomorrow and tell me how she is,” Marco equivocated.

The woman left in tears, sure that her sister would not live through the day, and the other customers left, disappointed as well.

It was a quiet and gloomy morning at the breakfast table, as the three people in the kitchen pondered the scene in the front of the shop.

“Why can’t you help those people?” Mirra asked when she served food to Marco, who then briefly explained.

Mirra grew so angry her face went pale.  “That Greystone is disgusting, terrible,” she spat out the words, then said no more.

The following day the lady did not return to seek help for her sister, but four other people were there, and more were there the third morning.  By then the city was awakening to the problem it faced.  The members of the noble class began to rapidly flee the city for homes up in the hills and valleys outside the city.  The merchant leaders of the city remained behind to watch their businesses, but sent their own families away as well.

And the poor and working people began to suffer and die in large numbers.

On the fourth day that people were begging Marco to help them, or cursing him for doing nothing, he went back to his workshop and sat down.  He had no clearly memorized cure that was intended to deal with all the symptoms that this strange new plague had brought into the city.  He sat and tried to analyze what potions he could make that would most effectively help those who caught the disease.  All afternoon he tried mixing different combinations of ingredients together, watching carefully to see how they reacted with each other.

That night he left the shop to go see his friend in the harbor.  The journey through the city streets was disheartening.  He could hear moans and cries of pain coming from windows of homes all along the streets.   There we
re even some dead bodies left along the street in front of a few houses; the bodies were wrapped in heavy cloth and set out to be picked up by the plague-carts that were regularly patrolling the city streets.  The city had a faint reek of death hanging in some streets even, and Marco was glad to get through the worst sections and arrive at the harbor.  He went out to the pier and called for Kieweeooee, after having failed to visit the two previous nights.