The Alchemist Read Free Page B

Sending up a smoke of dreams.
    And then with my ring finger, long missing all three gold rings of marriage, I touched the paste to Jiala’s forehead, between the thick dark hairs of her eyebrows. And then, pulling down her blouse, another at her sternum, at the center of her lungs. The pkana’s yellow mark pulsed on her skin, seeming wont to ignite.
    As we worked this little magic, I imagined the great majisters of Jhandpara healing crowds from their arched balconies. It was said that people came for miles to be healed. They used the stuff of magic wildly, then.
    “Papa, you mustn’t.” Jiala whispered. Another cough caught her, jerking her forward and reaching deep, squeezing her lungs as the strongman squeezes a pomegranate to watch red blood run between his fingers.
    “Of course I must,” I answered. “Now be quiet.”
    “They will catch you, though. The smell of it—”
    “Shhhh.”
    And then I read the ancient words of Majister Arun, sounding out the language that could never be recalled after it was spoken. Consonants burned my tongue as it tapped those words of power. The power of ancients. The dream of Jhandpara.
    The sulphur smell of magic filled the room, and now round vowels of healing tumbled from my lips, spinning like pin wheels, finding their targets in the yellow paste of my fingerprints.
    The magic burrowed into Jiala, and then it was gone. The pkana flower paste took on a greenish tinge as it was used up, and the room filled completely with the smoke of power unleashed. Astonishing power, all around, and only a little effort and a few words to bind it to us. Magic. The power to do anything. Destroy an empire, even.
    I cracked open the shutters, and peered out onto the black cobbled streets. No one was outside, and I fanned the room quickly, clearing the stench of magic.
    “Papa. What if they catch you?”
    “They won’t.” I smiled. “This is a small magic. Not some great bridge-building project. Not even a spell of fertility. Your lungs hold small wounds. No one will ever know. And I will perfect the balanthast soon. And then no one will ever have to hold back with these small magics ever again. All will be well.”
    “They say that the Executioner sometimes swings wild, doesn’t chop a man in half with kindness. But makes him flop instead. That the Mayor pays him extra to make an example of the people who use magic.”
    “It’s not true.”
    “I saw one.”
    “No, you didn’t.”
    “It was last week. At the gold market. Right in the square. I was with Pila. And the crowd was so thick we couldn’t leave. And Pila covered my eyes, but I could see through her fingers. And the Executioner chopped and chopped and chopped and chopped and the man yelled so loud and then he stopped, but still he didn’t do a good job. Not a clean cut at all, the pig lady said. Said she does better with her swine.”
    I made myself smile. “Well, that’s not our problem. Everyone does a little magic. No one will mind us. As long as we don’t rub anyone’s nose in it.”
    “I wouldn’t want to see you chopped and chopped and chopped.”
    “Then make sure you drink Pila’s licorice tea and stay out of the cold. It’s a hard thing to keep secrets. But secrets are best when there are only two to know.” I touched her forehead. “You and I.”
    I pulled my mustaches. “Tug for luck?”
    But she wouldn’t. And she wasn’t consoled.

    A month later, as the muddy rags of cruel spring snow turned to the sweet stink of wet warming earth, I made the last adjustments to the balanthast and set it loose on the bramble wall.
    We left the city deep in the night, making our way east over muddy roads, the balanthast bundled on my back. Jiala, Pila and I. With the embrace of darkness, the women of the bramble crews with their fire and hatchets were gone, and the children who gathered seeds behind them in careful lines had given up. There would be no witnesses to our experiment. The night was chill and