Chapter 11 Truth #3
Kraghtol stopped the train of thought with force.
He was tired, and in danger, and didn’t have time for that.
The quay was only a few dozen meters in front of him now, but something else had caught his attention.
He knew this place on the docks. It was right where he first set foot in the city, and the ferrywoman who had brought him here was leaning on her boat, eating an apple without a care in the world.
Valir was still arguing with the orderkeepers, and he heard him point out his family name so loudly half the plaza could follow the conversation. He had that moment. Not thinking twice, he quickly made his way to the boat and deliberately looked the ferrywoman in the eyes.
“Oh. You again. Need a ride?” She asked between bites.
The one good thing about his appearance was that he rarely needed to introduce himself.
“No. At least not in the usual way. I need a favor.”
Now he had her full attention.
“Depends. You helped me with that cough, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be doing anything inappropriate for you.”
The way she pronounced the word ‘inappropriate’ made Kraghtol flinch.
“What? No! Nothing like that. I just need you to take —”
He looked around before finding what he was looking for.
“A crate. Like that one, put a blanket over it and bring it to the other side of the river. And if anyone, really anyone, asks you, you just have to tell them you ferried me over. Can you do that for me?”
“Oh,” the ferrywoman sounded disappointed, as if she had wanted Kraghtol to demand something ‘inappropriate’.
“I’ll pay you,” he added hastily, and fished a few silver coins, which made up much of his money, out of his purse.
“Alright, lad. I’ll do it since you asked so nicely. But I don’t want to hear one more word. I’m not getting involved in whatever you’ve got yourself into.”
She took the coins nevertheless and began hauling the crate onto her boat while Kraghtol proceeded to the river ship.
Thankfully, Calder had not betrayed him, and the mention of his name was enough for a bearded captain to escort him discreetly into a small compartment under deck, barely high enough for Kraghtol to stand and wide enough for him to lie down on the wood.
Only dim light coming through cracks in the wood illuminated the space, which was empty except for two buckets: one full of water, and the other empty.
The smuggler had not been kidding. This would not be comfortable in the least. But at this very moment, Kraghtol wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for the entire journey.
It was dark, but safe. The sounds of the swamp — the crickets and toads — were outside, barely audible in here, and a calm happiness rose within him. He had found what he had been looking for. Finally.
“They have lied to you.”
The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, resonating within Kraghtol in a way he had never experienced before.
Yet, it was hard to decide anything about it.
He didn’t know if he liked the voice or not, if it was old or young, or if it was a man’s or a woman’s voice, although he was leaning towards the latter in the last question.
The darkness was inky and impenetrable as he tried to see who was talking.
“Who?” he asked, even though he had meant to continue with “are you”.
“Your teachers,” the voice explained. “And the guild. Let me show you.”
Suddenly, light flared up from a column of pure red-hot fire in front of him.
At the same time, a storm of wind erupted to his right.
A pillar of solid ore manifested to his left, and he heard the splashing of a magnificent waterfall from behind.
The light illuminated his surroundings — an ancient-looking stone hall — but the elemental manifestations dominated all his senses.
“This is what they told you, Kraghtol, bastard of the beast. The elements, as they call it. But it is not they who lie at the bottom of the well called alchemy. They’re nothing but an illusion, a lie to distract you from the true foundation of the world. Do you dare to look beyond?”
He knew he should be afraid. Nothing that was happening was normal. And yet, all the impressions caressed every sense of his, all at once, and he felt his mind relax. A word bubbled up in his subconscious, a word he had heard from Marla Hawke, spoken by mistake.
“The Principles?”
The word meant nothing to him; it was empty, waiting to be filled with sense. And the answer was encouraging.
“Yes. See. Taste. Feel. Understand.”
Unsure where to start, he approached the pillar of earth and reached out his hand.
The stone was firm. And solid. The touch reminded him of all there was.
Existence was stable and real. Matter made up all he could touch.
It was the Principle behind the stone, governing all that he could touch. Matter.
But there was more hidden in the rock. The tendency to contain, to stay together.
A claustrophobic feeling turned into a pressure in his ears that tickled his mind just right.
The idea of a core. Safety. It was hard to find a word to describe the feeling at first until he realized he knew it all along: Within.
Kraghtol stumbled back a few steps.
“Is that… Alchemy? What it really is like?”
He knew this was a dream, but it was unlike any dream he had ever experienced. He already felt he had learned more than from all his teachers combined in the half year he had been at the school. Since the voice didn’t answer, Kraghtol turned around and reached out his hand to the gust of wind.
The wind ruffled through the tiny hairs on the back of his hand, but even that touch was not what the truth behind it stood for.
It wasn’t about the wind at all, but about something even finer, something defying the material world entirely.
There was more to the world than just matter, something he couldn’t touch or smell or sense in any way but with his mind.
It gave purpose and sense but also filled and connected every living mind. Spirit.
More was mixed into the image of the wind that didn’t belong there.
He felt dizzy as his focus shifted up, away from all constraints, into the sky and towards the stars.
Nothing could hold him, and he felt as if he were expanding beyond every limit.
Without, the principle opposing and complementing the Within.
“I think I’m beginning to understand. The Principles and the elements… It’s a lie, but a clever one. There is enough similarity that some things kind of work, even if you don’t know the truth. But it doesn’t really fit, not entirely, right?”
Still no answer. Kraghtol wondered if the mysterious voice was still with him. But he couldn’t hold his curiosity now. He needed to know the rest, too. To his right was the waterfall.
Whatever he had expected was not what he felt when touching the water.
It was icy cold to the touch, and his finger ached from the sudden chill.
He tried to see, but found a bottomless pit of blackness waiting for him, plunging his soul into the deepest night.
It was total Darkness, the absence of any light or heat.
And as expected by now, there was another Principle in it, too, and it made clear in an instant why all his experiments had been bound to fail.
Water carried with it not the potential of change, but stability.
Structure and organization. Neat geometric ice cubes and reliable canals.
Boredom and bureaucracy. This Principle touched something primal inside of Kraghtol.
It was something he longed for, and something he hated at the same time.
The intensity of those two emotions surprised him, but both were equally true.
And it was certainly something entirely different from the other Principles he had touched before. This one was Order.
The feeling lingered for a moment even after he had stopped touching the water. With no further hesitation, he turned around to the fiery column. He had to know the whole truth.
The pain was intense. Piercing brightness and searing heat threatened to burn him.
The Principle was powerful and clear, permeating even closed eyelids and burning through the thickest leather gloves.
Where Darkness had been the absence of any kind of energy, Light was the overabundance.
No wonder the glowing paste had been so easy to produce.
But his mind had already latched onto the last of the eight, a part of him resonating perfectly with it.
The absence of rules. The destruction of order.
Every impression, all at once. A symphony of multicolored notes running all over each other.
It felt familiar and easy. It was like looking into a mirror, showing his own mind.
Or at least the parts he used to hate. Again, conflicting emotions surged up in his soul. Chaos.
And finally, the voice spoke again, carrying with it a sense of satisfaction.
“Light and Darkness. Chaos and Order. Matter and Spirit. Within and Without. These are the eight Principles of alchemy. Remember them well, for they are the foundation.”
Kraghtol couldn’t have forgotten what he had just experienced even if he had wanted to. As darkness returned to the hall he was in, a million questions rushed through his mind.
“Wait! What —”
With a gasp, Kraghtol woke up. The ship was already in motion, meaning he had slept over the departure and had now indeed fled the city before getting caught.
The strange dream was still present, clear as day, and every single muscle in his body was aching from both the ordeal of the previous hours and the hard wood he had slept on.
His rumbling stomach didn’t make the situation any better.