Stoneblade by Chris James
The following is the first chapter of Chris James’s Stoneblade. You can leave your thoughts using the form at the bottom of this page and there is also a link to follow for more information on the author and their work. The Fantasy Book Review “First Chapter” program allows authors to showcase their work in front of thousands of fantasy fans. Please read through and leave feedback as your opinions are valuable to both the author and the website. If you would like to take part in this program then please email first.chapter@fantasybookreview.co.uk.
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Chapter 1: Beginnings
Spring in the city of Wyrmouth, in Southshire, Suthern.
Cral Oakshaken, know as Quicksilver, muttered a short prayer and let the bellows wheeze to a stop. It was now or never. They would trap him here if he stayed too long.
He wiped sweat from his forehead with a square of linen. The glowing charcoal, packed around the crucible in the forge, gave off a tremendous amount of heat. His hands were sweaty as well. He dried them, threw the linen on the floor, and took a glass phial from the pocket of his robe. No bigger than the top two joints of his little finger, it contained a clear red liquid, a distilled tincture. He pulled the cork and tipped seven drops through the hole pierced in the lid of the crucible.
Would it work again, as it had before?
He resealed the phial, slipped it into his pocket, and stepped back. The lid of the crucible rattled. He held his breath. That happened the last time, just before…
Hot air and sparks erupted from the crucible and blasted the lid across the alchematorium. It spun like a thumb-flicked coin, smacked into a wall, and shattered. A roar from within the crucible followed and a rod thin flame flashed toward the roof beams. Red, yellow, and orange it rippled and swayed, then began to rotate, slow at first then faster and faster until, with a gentle sough, it ballooned.
Fire filled the alchematorium and engulfed Quicksilver, stroked his face. He laughed, bathed in its velvet softness as a sense of contentment spread through his mind and body, likened it to how he thought a baby might feel when being suckled, replete, and loved. It was a brief moment of supreme joy stolen by a flash of white light that cracked in the air above the forge and snuffed out the fire.
He looked at his hands. The fire had not singed the hairs on the back of his fingers or scorched his robe. Nor had anything changed in the alchematorium. All was in its place. The crucible, now lidless, still sat in the charcoal. He smiled. The smile became a grin, and he laughed. He had broken through the veil of reality a second time, glimpsed a spiritual realm that lay beyond normal everyday awareness.
‘Greetings, Quicksilver.’
He spun round. “Who’s that?” He was still alone, the alchematorium locked from inside.
‘Don’t be afraid.’
He slapped his hands to his ears. “God in heaven!”
‘Don’t panic. I’ll not harm you.’
“Who are you? What are you?”
‘I’m a friend. My name is Mercurius.’
“Mercurius?”
‘Yes.’
“Are you inside my head?”
‘Yes.’
“You’re inside my head?”
‘Yes.’
Quicksilver laughed and danced a jig. “By all that’s holy!” He had not expected this. Then he paused. “Wait, wait. A voice, talking inside my head? Have I lost my wits? Would I ask that question if I had?”
‘You’re not mad.’
The door shook as someone thumped on it. “Open up, Oakshaken.”
Quicksilver stepped back a pace or two as something cold brushed the nape of his neck. The skin there prickled with goose flesh, and his buttocks clenched. Fear, he reasoned, must be kin to Stone. One chilled warm skin, the other changed lead to gold, all in the time it took a heart to beat once.
‘Who’s that?’
“It’s the Inquisition. Come to arrest me.”
A second voice, fainter than the first, had called from outside. “Why the delay, Sergeant?”
“Locked door, Eminence.”
“Then break it down, man.”
The door shook in its frame. The latch rattled and a warm draught caressed Quicksilver’s ankles. He looked down and gasped. “What in God’s name…?” He tried to step out of the ring of bright colours that had begun to spin around his feet.
‘Hold still.’
“What is it?”
‘It won’t harm you. I call it Fusing.’
Tiny sparks danced in the bands of the ring as it spiralled up and around him. It wrapped him in a rainbow-hued cocoon that sizzled and popped like a fir-cone thrown on a fire.
“Oh God, what’s happening here?”
‘I’m about to save your life.’
The coloured spiral closed over Quicksilver’s head. Embers, as fine as powder, cascaded to the ground or fizzled out in the air and a smell akin to burnt flesh hung in his nostrils. He began to change.
“No! What are you doing to me?”
The skin of his hands tautened over his knuckles and aged in an instant. Dirt appeared beneath his fingernails. His tongue probed gaps between his teeth that were not there before.
“God help me! I’ve grown old! What sorcery is this!”
He thrashed and screamed, fought the power that held him but could not break loose.
‘Rest easy, Quicksilver. It won’t hurt.’
He found that hard to believe and sucked in a breath, bit his lower lip and waited for the pain. It never came. His robe faded, became as thin as mist for a moment, then grew solid again. As the last sparks fell away, died amidst faint crackles, he found he was wearing homespun woollen trews and a washed out tan shirt.
His mind was still reeling when he moved. He walked across the alchematorium, though he had not willed it, and shouted through the door, shouted in a strange, but familiar voice. “Hold off there! I’m coming.”
Old hands reached for the bolts, hands with veins visible beneath blotched skin.
‘God in heaven! Don’t let them in!’ Quicksilver had not spoken aloud.
‘Easy now, easy. They won’t know you.’
The strange hands unbolted the door and a sergeant-at-arms rushed in, his sword drawn and ready. His men, their halberds held waist high and ready to thrust, piled in behind him. Their eyes were hard and alert beneath the wide brims of their kettle helmets. They scattered and began to search the alchematorium, probed every corner and opened every cupboard.
Quicksilver, stunned by it all, watched as his new old hands flapped in front of him. He was nought but a brain afloat in the skull of this created being. He felt the throat and tongue that was not his move, but had no control over the words they formed and uttered. A voice not his own shouted, “Whoa, Sergeant! What’s up?”
‘Rest easy, Quicksilver,’ said Mercurius. ‘Leave this to me.
“No one else here, Sergeant,” called a halberdier.
“The wizard, old man,” said the Sergeant, “where is he?”
“Wizard?”
“Oakshaken.” The Sergeant’s chin tugged at the strap of his helmet when he spoke. “Quicksilver. Where is he?”
“He’s not here…”
The Sergeant raised his sword.
“I swear on my mother’s heart, Sergeant. He’s not here.” Quicksilver heard the words, but he had not spoken them. “I was asleep in the corner until you lot hammered on the door and woke me up.”
A slow thump…thump…thump began in the corridor and drew nearer.
The Sergeant licked his lips and his halberdiers backed away.
The thump stopped and Archinquisitor Tomas Colan stood framed in the doorway. Tall, rod-thin, swarthy of skin like all Axanighans, with a trimmed grey beard and a natural tonsure, he held himself as straight as the cross he served. Draped in his usual knee-length black cloak, closed over an ankle-length black cassock, he stepped forward. His ornate staff, inlaid with silver and gold, thumped down on the floor as he walked. The fingers wrapped around the staff boasted fat gold rings set with emeralds and rubies, as did his free hand. A gold cross on a necklace of gold lay against his chest.
The churchman’s Lionlambs slipped in behind him. With swords drawn and bucklers held at the ready, they formed a four-cornered guard around him. All four wore buff leather jerkins over white shirts, and close fitting trews tucked into calfskin boots. The jerkins tapered at the waist and flared over their hips. Narrow belts carried pouch, dagger, and sword scabbard.
“Who is this, Sergeant?”
“Found him here, Eminence.”
The Archinquisitor sighed. “I know where he is, Sergeant. I wish to know who he is.”
“Barnabas, Eminence,”
Quicksilver heard the words, even felt his head bob in obeisance, and realisation bloomed in his mind. Barnabas! The voice, the gait was that of his friend. Mercurius had changed him into old Barnabas! He was a helpless spectator, watching this scene from within someone else while a third someone, the incorporeal Mercurius, moved the limbs and spoke for them. He was conscious and looking out on this scene, but not in his own flesh any longer. How was that possible?
“Tell me, Barnabas,” said the Archinquisitor, “what are you doing here?”
“I told the Sergeant, Eminence…”
“Now tell me, and tell the truth or you will burn in place of Quicksilver.”
“Burn! Me! I bend me knee every Sunday, regular like…”
“What are you doing here?”
“I help out, mix a few things.”
“Poisons? Love philtres?”
“Don’t know, Eminence. I just do as I’m told.”
“Why was the door locked?”
“I was asleep. I have a nap sometimes. Don’t tell Quicksilver though, he pays see.”
The Archinquisitor’s iron-grey gaze was sharp as a dagger. “No, you’re an Amalgamist. I shall burn you.”
“All due respect, Eminence,” said the Sergeant, “I’ve seen this man before. Not the brightest coal in the fire so I’m told.”
“Is that so?” The Archinquisitor stepped closer and looked deep into Barnabas’s eyes.
Quicksilver wanted to step away but could not. “Don’t burn me, Eminence, please,” he heard Barnabas say. “Please.”
The Archinquistor’s nostrils flared, once, twice. “All right, Sergeant, let him go.”
The Sergeant hustled Barnabas out of the alchematorium.
“Destroy this place,” shouted the Archinquisitor, “this abomination, this temple to the black arts of the Bane! Destroy it! Into the flames with those books and manuscripts. Burn all you can.”
‘No!’ Quicksilver shouted from within Barnabas. ‘My books! My manuscripts! My journals! God in heaven not my journals! My life’s work is writ there!’ No one but Mercurius heard him.
Quicksilver fought to turn Barnabas around, to no avail. He was in the grip of a strong current, a current he could neither see nor stop.
‘It’s pointless to struggle, Quicksilver. You can’t go back.’
‘Turn me back into myself. Now, damn it!’
‘No. Not until we get clear of here.’
The Sergeant shoved the false Barnabas out through the front door. The old man stumbled then forced his way through the crowd that had gathered. Mercurius walked him up the street, carried Quicksilver away inside the flesh of another.
‘By the cross, this is a living death! Turn me back into myself!’
‘Please, this is not easy for me either but I must make sure you escape.’
Quicksilver kicked and punched, or imagined he did. ‘Help me, someone. Help me!’
‘Stay calm, Quicksilver. I can fuse you back to yourself at anytime.’
Quicksilver forced open a box in his mind and thrust the panic inside, slammed the lid closed.
‘You can turn me back into myself?’
‘Yes. I call these people Fusions.’
‘And you’ll do that? Turn me back into myself?’
‘Of course. I’m a daemon, not a demon.’
‘What do you want?’
‘What do I want? You summoned me. I came.’
‘Did I?’
‘The experiment.’
‘Oh, yes, of course How will you help me?’
‘I don’t know. What do you need?’
‘Right now? To be myself again. It will set my mind at rest.’
Mercurius took them into an alley well away from the busy streets. It was no wider than a broad-shouldered man and the damp on the walls hissed and bubbled as the spiral of sparks again wove a coloured cocoon around the Fusion.
The stooped figure of Barnabas straightened as Quicksilver’s lean, pot-bellied frame began to reappear. He grew taller as his arms and legs lengthened. A tumble of black curls replaced the thin grey strands left to the old man and his robe swirled about his ankles again. Broad strong teeth sprouted in toothless gums. Lips plumped and eyebrows thickened. Last of all rheum filled brown eyes cleared and became blue. Quicksilver looked down at himself, touched his face, his nose. The latter had grown and thinned across the bridge, reverted to its familiar beak like shape. All seemed to be well. ‘Amazing. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure. Now, Quicksilver, alchemist, astrologer, heretic and outlaw, what can I do to help you?’
Quicksilver broke down, began to shake, and was sick. His journals were gone. In his mind he saw the pages curl and blacken, saw flames lick across his notes and sketches.
2009 © Chris James
Posted: June 13th, 2009
Author: Lee
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