The Alchemist's Shop

This is a little 'what if' story I dreamed up and set twenty years in the future. Its characters are Adrian (the son of Valerias and Eothan who's currently a wee baby) and Belle (Ledgic's daughter, currently a whole two years old). Written in a flight of fancy, but I had fun imagining how these characters might grow up and be influenced by their parents.

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'The Alchemist's Shop'

A young man strode along the canals some time past sunset, when all the golden light had gone and the western horizon was the dull purple colour of a day-old bruise. He had his hands in his pockets, and seemed to be going nowhere very particular, save that every now and then he cast a glance over his shoulder as he walked.

He was a handsome young man: tall, and fine featured without being delicate. A suit of new cloth hung from his shoulders with the assurance that he was a gentleman to his arrogant fingertips. And these things were strange, because the district into which his sauntering was taking him was one of the city's least prosperous. It was said that a man might be murdered here for less than his pocketwatch.

Fortunately, Adrian Caan never wore a pocketwatch.

As he rounded a corner into the district, any rascal or ruffian who might have been creeping after the young gentleman was left with nothing to follow but leaves in the wind.

Adrian paused at last before a shop-front and shook a slim stiletto from his sleeve, listening for sound beyond the fitful gusts of autumn wind catching the old wooden sign above the alchemist's door. 'Come at night,' Isaac had said, 'and don't let anyone see you.'

Well, he was confident in his abilities to approach without attracting notice, but there had been something in Isaac's voice last time they had spoken, something unsettling...

Adrian rapped his knuckles against the door in the pattern they had agreed upon, but the only reply was the blustering wind. He knocked again, hunching his shoulders beneath the immaculate cloth of his new suit, and waited.

Nothing. He had come prepared for danger: danger was a living thing that he could almost touch beneath the whorls of his fingertips. He had not come prepared for silence.

A half-moon showed itself above the slanted roof-tiles, pale and unwelcoming. Growling softly, Adrian opened the door. A pale shaft followed him inside as the heavy wood creaked inward, revealing the strange, dusty shapes of the alchemist's shop: scales, weights and measures, jars and vials, all silhouetted against the faint moonlight that passed over the opposite wall. The scent of herbs and mixtures lay heavily in the air.

Adrian stepped through the doorway, the musty floorboards creaking underneath his boots. 'Isaac?' he muttered, holding the stiletto close against his palm. And still there was nothing. If Isaac, one of his better contacts, had betrayed him– or if Isaac were dead–

He pushed the protesting door halfway closed behind him and raised his left hand. As he curled his fingers, a sudden flickering of violet flame leaped from his palm as if a spark had set alight tinder. The flame rose and steadied, and in its familiar light his gaze moved across the cluttered workshop.

That was when he heard the air stir, and for a moment the moonlight from the doorway was erased as a shadow blurred across its path, and before Adrian could take a breath he was hurtling to the floor with something heavy pressing on his chest.

He gasped as he crashed to the floor, sucking in air to regain his wind. And then, as the violet flame in his hand still flared faintly, he tried to sit up and felt the prick of steel against his throat. In the wavering and uncertain light, Adrian saw the slim outline of the figure above him; the close-fitting leather, the wild hair pinned behind her head – for it was a she – and the long slender dirk that she held to his throat, a faint flash of red glinting from the pommel-stone.

'Belle...?' He squinted at the silhouette above him, trying to catch a glimpse of her face.

With a quick curse, his assailant rolled off of him, hurrying to strike a match and then holding it up almost under his nose. 'Adrian?' the woman yelped, stealth momentarily forgotten. 'You... you!'

She lunged forward with the dirk toward his throat again, and before the match went out, its brief orange light illuminated her brown face and furious eyes.

Adrian reached upward to take hold of her wrist, catching his breath at last, as her blade-tip hung a few centimetres from his throat. 'Belle... what... are you doing?'

'I... ' The small woman slowly lowered the blade from his throat, blinking at him. 'I didn' expect ye.'

Leaning over him to inspect him in the light of his own shadowflame, she frowned, deepening lines that seemed to have been creased there too long already. 'Isaac's been worried. I was 'ere t'find ou'... but I didn' expect ye.'

Adrian lifted his head to look at all the crates piled against the wall, and then at the front of the counter. At least there was no lingering smell of blood, no signs of struggle apart from their own. He looked up at the woman leaning over him. 'Belle, I'm not trying to kill anyone. Well... not anyone connected to Isaac. I work with him.' He chuckled briefly.

'Well...' Her face narrowed into another frown.

Belle wasn't easy to pacify; he knew that even though he'd never before chanced to meet her at the end of a knife. Belle Caan: she was a handful, with a nose for both business and trouble, always–

'Adrian!' She slapped her palm against the side of his face and he groaned. Always hitting someone, he thought.

'I need your help,' she said, lowering herself again to the floor beside him.

Immediately he sat up, sliding a tailored sleeve around the young woman's back. She was much dirtier than she had been when he last saw her, and looked wearier. 'Belle,' he said after a moment, as the darkness of the shop gathered like a cloak around them, 'What is it?'

She bent her head, almost accepting the sympathy, before jerking her chin upward, showing the same narrow frown that he knew so well. 'Someone's been after Isaac. ''E's plenty worried, an' I...'

She broke off, abruptly pulling herself away from him. The shadowflame in his hand steadied again as he sat up fully, reaching for his dropped stiletto and holding it idly across his palm. This was the same Belle, of course, but more than years had pinched her face and brought that unusual hesitation to her voice.

'It's something to do with you, isn't it?' he murmured. She didn't look at him, and began to polish her dirk with her threadbare sleeve.

'Like I were sayin'... I coul' use yer 'elp,' she said after a moment, and then at last threw back her head, looking at him amongst the strange smells and shadows of the deserted shop as if they were merely meeting on a street in daylight.

Adrian nodded, rising to his feet and stretching out a hand to her. After giving him a narrow look, she took it, hauling herself up and swiping a hand across her dusty trousers. For a woman who went around wielding a dirk she was still well worth looking at, he though briefly, and a quick smile crossed his face.

'Well then, perhaps we should discuss this somewhere else? I have a few safe places arranged around the city.' He smiled wryly as he looked at her, their hands still clasped.

'I'd appreciate tha',' Belle said stiffly, pulling her hand away from his.

'Well I thought....' Adrian slipped the stiletto back into its casing beneath his sleeve, lifting an open hand. 'I thought perhaps we could discuss it over a glass of wine.'

Ruffling a hand through her soft hair, the woman looked up at him with a sudden smirk. 'Adrian Caan, are ye askin' me on a date?'

'Would it make a difference if I were?' Adrian grinned, turning to face her.

'Well yeh, it would.' She looked up at him, the smirk still apparent. 'I'd ne'er turn down a drink but we got t'talk business.'

'Of course.' He leaned down slightly, moving an arm around her. 'But who says we can't mix the two?'

And then suddenly he felt something sharp digging into his ribs and he groaned.

'Adrian, luv. Get yer 'and off me arse righ' now. I'm fair 'andy with this 'ere knife.' She looked up at him with an almost cheerful smirk.

Adrian stepped back, rubbing his side in an exaggerated fashion. 'All right, all right, a simple drink it is. You really are your father's daughter, did you know that?'

Belle grinned, sticking the dirk back into her belt. 'Oh aye. An' yer yer mother's son.'

They exchanged a smirk, and when Adrian offered her his arm, she slapped it away in the easy manner of old friends. Together, they slipped out of the Isaac the alchemist's shop and out into the deserted alley. And behind them, the old wooden sign creaked and swayed at the mercy of the fitful autumn wind.