Alchemy

Chapter Two: Part 2

The next morning, Gillen woke to an empty room. Mexwall's sheet was half hanging from the top bunk. Both of their study parchments were missing from the room's shared desk. Noticing, Gillen chuckled. He knew why Mex was so worried about work. Life at the college was a rat race, you stayed in as long as you could keep up.

Neophytes joined the college at the age of thirteen. For the next seven years, they would struggle through a single course named Bas. Then came Myd, which went for ten years, followed by Typ, which went for three. Each year the studies would get exponentially more complex. Mex and Gil were both in their first year of Myd and their cohort had already halved. The longer you could keep in the running, the more job opportunities would open up to you. Quite literally - It was enforced by law. Stonemasons weren' t allowed to take on an apprentice who had not at least finished the first five years of Bas. Law-houses weren't allowed to take on a trainee if they hadn't at least graduated their seventh year of Myd. If, by wild chance or bone breaking effort, one managed to complete all twenty years of Bas, Myd and Typ, they could officially call themselves an Alchemist.

Gil knew his friend held no delusions, Mex was never going to be an Alchemist. He did, however, want to at least complete his sixth year of Myd. The roles outside the college offered to sixers (as they were called) were varied and, for the most part, lucrative. It was the second likeliest year for a Neophyte to drop out, runner up to the final year of Bas (the leftovers of which called 'the purge').  As for Gil, he knew what he wanted to be. He wanted to be an alchemist.

Wrapped in bedding, Gil walked to the window to pull at the wooden slats jammed into the limestone sill. They gave way on the third tug and he had to shield his eyes against sunlight so powerful it felt solid. The room suddenly got very hot. Shaking off his sheet, Gil pulled his arms up and over his head in a shoulder stretch, his eyes slowly adjusting to scan the view outside. A veil of fog was lifting from the city, like spiderweb tearing to drift in an updraft. Directly below college hill, the city-old-town was beginning to shuffle to life. Through the haze, Gil could make out the velvety blobs of aristocrats, gliding to and fro across the courtyards of old stone, their paths occasionally interrupted by a bouncing red-topped rickshaw or sprinting messenger page. This high up, the sounds of the city mingled into a background hum, punctuated with percussive clacks and whacks of solids colliding, never loud enough to become something recognisable. Gil closed his eyes and stood there for a moment, the boundary between his skin and the warm air slowly dissolving until they were one and the same, and he was spread across the city like atmosphere, able to see it both as a whole and a collection of tiny details. Somewhere below him, amongst the hundreds of beating hearts, Morea was still alive.

A thump on the cell door pulled him so quickly back into the 'now' he almost lost his balance.

"Who is it?" he stammered, pulling the bedding up around his shoulders again.

"Gaaahreeee."

Gillen smiled, and in two strides he was across the room, inching the door open for the enormous shape on the other side.

"Come in Gary! Sorry about the mess."

A massive clay golem, twice Gil's height and three times his width, shuffled into the room. Stuck into its clay body and separated at the joints where old, time worn planks of wood, carved to resemble a knight's suit of armor. Through the thick wooden coif stared a delicate clay face, it's dainty features besmirched somewhat by a twirled pencil moustache gashed into his upper lip. In it's mammoth arms, it held a small trough of water. Gil leapt through the robes strewn across the floor, kicking them aside to make a clearing as he did.

"Set it down here Gaz!"

"Gah Rheeh."

A thud and a splosh and the tub was in the centre of the room. Gary straightened and stood motionless, revealing a leather pouch nailed into his chest. Gil reached in, pulling out a small handful of white powder. He dumped it into the water, which began to hiss and fizz. Gary would carry this bath through their entire year group before it was refilled. Without the cleansing salt, by now the water would be rank. Gil stripped and stepped in once it had stopped bubbling. When Mex was there, they'd take turns waiting outside while the other washed, however, both of them had absolutely no qualms about bathing in front of Gary. Built long ago, the Typ project of a legendary, half-forgotten alchemist, Gary was one of the world's oldest and longest running Golems. Gillen was not the first Neophyte to bathe in front of the thing, and was certainly not going to be the last.

After a minute or two, Gary began to slowly bend at the waist.

"Alright alright! I'm getting out."

"Rheeee"

Gil jumped out just as Garry began to hoist the bath back up to waist-height. Wrapping a cloth around his waist, he showed the lumbering figure out, closing the door with a "see you around, Gaz!"

"Gahahreee."

The rest of the day passed quickly. Gil had found Mex, as he had expected, in the Neophyte mess-hall, scooping the last remnants of a creamy fish sauce out of a tin bowl with the tip of a baguette. Around him were strewn Gil's now fish-flecked notes on the week's reading, which Mex was hurriedly copying down on a blank parchment with his spare hand.

"I've been formulating a plan," Gil hollered from the serving table, filling his bowl with the fish broth from a large cauldron.

"Huh?"

"Well, you're on roster for tasks tomorrow, right?" Gil, sat next to his friend, taking care not to spill any more of the sauce on his parchment. '"If we're both going to snoop the Copshouse then -"

"Gil! Please." Mex snapped, not looking up from his notes. "Honestly, Mage Phinreng is going to skin me."

Gil bit back a retort. Mex was telling the truth. Phinreng had a tripwire temper delicate enough to be set off at the slightest touch, and if Mex didn't finish the reading, it would be more like a slap.

"Alright, I'll leave you to it."

"When will you need your notes back?"

"No need," Gil tapped his forehead. "All here, pal."

Mex snorted and rolled his eyes before bundling the parchments under his arm and tramping off towards one of the common study rooms.

Gil floated through the rest of the day in a distracted trance. In his mind replayed the vision of Morea, her face a vision of Sczle induced pleasure, over and over again, examining it from every angle, trying to glean some deeper insight. Nothing was coming up. It was pointless, Gil knew. Like trying to piece together a manuscript using only the first word of each sentence, the reason was garbled without context. The more he tried to ascribe meaning, the more outlandish his hypotheses grew. Gil stopped himself when he realised he was giving himself a headache rationalising all the ridiculous implications his theoretical explanations were forming. He couldn't do anything about it. What he could do was prepare for tomorrow's trip to the Copshouse.