The Arkanist

Chapter Eleven: Root and Flower

Chapter Eleven: Root and Flower

The next day, fourth bell rung and Aryl and I had our lesson as if nothing had happened, as if the events of the previous day were wiped clean from memory. His expression was impassive and unperturbed, letting my mistake drift on the wayside, allowing me time to reflect and think on what I'd done. That was Aryl's way. Give a person space, time to think, and they'll understand themselves. Crowd a person out, suffocate them in their failures, and they will never understand themselves. He was a wise man, Aryl, no doubt. I have never met someone quite like him...

            Weeks went on like this, smooth, and swift, and filled with learning. Not once did I miss a lesson. I didn't want to find out what would happen, I didn't want to see the look Aryl would give me. His anger, his fury was distributed through his eyes, those terrible green eyes, and more than anything else, the day I had missed our lesson, they had stalked me with a fierce disappointment, and that is worse than fury. Scared and fearful, I retained our schedule, and I am glad for it.

            Afterwards, I would often retreat into the confines of the library's alcoves, large, dark, quiet places, made for reading, and labor over Amoir Vientos Eleywn, my father's half-translated project, unfinished and unknown. Alace helped me with some things, but even she found difficulty with the text, as it was neither common Old Lentish nor Emic, the ancient language of the great empire and Aylar.

            The book, much like my father's suicide, held little definitive answers, which disappointed me. I don't know why I thought it would. Nothing ever does what you want it to. Especially the things you want most in life. At least I found that out sooner rather than later, looking back.

***

Aryl handed me a note, handwritten in his own scribbling hand as the bells rung throughout the morning sky. I looked it over quickly before he spoke.

            "He probably won't have this in stock," he said, pointing to a word on the page. It was a strange herb, not found anywhere close, I guessed, with a strange spelling. I had never heard of it, never heard him speak of it, and never seen it. I wondered what he needed it for. "Otherwise, I'll expect all of them on your return."

            He paused and stoked the fire back to life. Outside, the air was cold and wet. Winter had passed, but only just, for the chill had lingered in the air, and the first draught of spring had yet to fall.

            "You remember his shop?" he asked, rising from his knees, the fire stirred back to life.

            "Never forgot it," I said, sure of myself.

            He looked me up and down. "Good. Be swift, Kaedn, and at the latest, return to me at fifth bell. After that, you'll be locked out."

            I nodded, tucked the note inside my cloak, and set off, out of the tower, and into Highgate, passing through the cemetery and the library, passed the lord's estates and onwards. This was a common theme, of late, and a common route. Aryl would devise a sort of list, chores, more or less, and I would run into town in an attempt to complete his assigned task. This time around, I was in the business of buying alchemical supplies from the apothecary. It was not my first time either.

            You should first know, however, that there are two kinds of apothecaries. They are not all the same, just like not all stones are the same. Many people make this mistake, I among them. There are the strange, dark, evil ones told in the old stories, who use elemental powers to incarcerate their buyers in a an almost spectral imprisonment, and there are the ones who simply give you what you ask for, like a normal human being. Thankfully, Highgate's apothecary was somewhat civilized. Most are.