Fragments of Alchemy: The Code Keeper

Desperate Measures

“Thea? … Are you awake?”

Thea opened her eyes and found herself face to face with Tajana. “She’s awake,” Tajana said to the others, who were outside of Thea’s field of vision. “How do you feel?” she asked.

Thea tried to talk and her breath caught in her throat as her Kundalini roiled up and down her spine. Her vision flashed with more hallucinations: her frowning mother, her father, hunched over and crying, and her horse Cecelia toppled over on her side and bleeding to death. She realized she was shaking, covered in sweat, and clammy with fever. She hiccupped for air.

“Shh,” Tajana said. “No more moving or talking. Just focus on breathing.” She put one hand on Thea’s forehead and the other on her own shoulder and said, “Tactus.” A tattoo glowed green on her arm, and Thea felt the pain melt away. “There, at least I can numb the pain,” Tajana said with a grimace.

“Thank … you,” Thea managed between hiccups for air.

“No talking, I said,” she replied in a motherly voice. “Now get some rest.”

Thea nodded and realized that her head was cushioned with a makeshift pillow. Then she got a glimpse past Tajana and saw that both Chadwick and Todd had removed their tunics to make Thea a pillow. The boys had several Conversion Circles tattooed on their torsos. They were sitting close together, talking quietly, their eyes on Thea. Close by, Quentin sat hugging his knees to his chest, watching Thea with wide eyes.

Finally, Chadwick got up and stepped across the room, then knelt down near Thea. “I thought you said you were fine, Al,” he said with a half-smile.

Thea tried to smile. “Guess … I lied.”

“I can see that.” He touched Thea’s shoulder. “We can’t figure a way out of here. Tajana says if you don’t get some help, your Chakras will get permanently damaged.”

Todd finally came over and sat cross legged by Thea. “I promise I won’t let that happen,” he said. “We’re gonna figure this out.”

Thea took a slow breath and winced. Another vision flashed before her eyes, this time of the Keeper. He looked right at Thea with his dark chocolate eyes and said, “It looks like I was wrong about you.”

“I … need my … Chimaera,” Thea managed to say.

“You have a Chimaera?” Tajana asked with surprise.

“I knew that noctos was yours,” Todd said. “You’re breaking a serious rule, Althea.”

Chadwick scoffed. “Cut the Spectrum Scholar some slack, Talder.”

“Don’t call me Talder!” Todd snapped. “Of course you would think it’s okay for Spectrum Scholars to break the rules!”

Chadwick pursed his lips and tilted his head. “I only meant she could use some compassion right now. She’s on the bloody floor, fighting for her life, in case you forgot.”

Thea held her breath against another surge of heat that coursed up her arms and heated her hands up. She reached out to burn Todd’s face with her hot hands, and she felt herself smile.

“No!” Thea cried out, her body shaking and her breathing fast and shallow, and then she realized it had only been another hallucination. She hadn’t burned her Mentor after all. “Please!” she said through clenched jaws.

Chadwick got up. He took two fast steps toward the bookshelf. Quickly, he pulled a shelf out of the bookcase, making Quentin jerk with surprise. Everyone watched Chadwick carry the shelf to the door, which was rippling with red surges of power.

“Chadwick,” Tajana said, a warning. But he didn’t stop. He took a big breath and drew the shelf back, then took a step and swung the bookshelf as hard as he could at the door.

The walls and ceiling of the room flared red with a loud explosion as the wood splintered into smoldering pieces. The blast blew Chadwick backward several feet, where he landed on his back and smacked his head hard on the floor.

“Chadwick!” Tajana rushed over to him. He didn’t move, and Thea saw that his hands were scorched black and red with soot and blood.

Tajana cried and shook him. “Chadwick!” she shouted, shaking his shoulder roughly. “Answer me!”

“Stop,” Chadwick managed to get out, his voice strained and cracking. “That … hurts.” His eyes were still shut, but he was awake.

Tajana sighed and wiped tears out of her eyes. “Why do you always have to be so reckless?” she demanded. She examined each of his hands, and tisked quietly as she used his blood to draw a Conversion Circle on his wrist. While she drew the complicated Sigil, everyone watched in awkward silence. “Confervo,” she said with her hands on his hands. The wounds on his hands healed, but he didn’t sit up. “The Nightmare warned you not to touch the walls. What were you thinking?”

“Desperate measures.” He smiled painfully up at Tajana and then shut his eyes again. “I figured I’d make a ruckus so our captors would come check on us, and I think it worked.”

He was right. Thea could hear the sound of people running down the hallway outside the door. Then the red glow dissipated, and the Nightmare opened the door and looked in.

“No sudden moves!” he roared as he walked through the door. “What’s the meaning of this?” he asked as he looked around the room at the pieces of smoldering wooden shelf strewn about. The Nightmare eyed Chadwick and Thea closely.

“We needed to talk,” Todd said, standing bravely. “Althea’s Kundalini Syndrome is worsening. She needs her Chimaera. Now.”

As if on cue, Thea’s Kundalini rushed up and down her body with a blast of freezing cold that made her shiver violently and gasp for air. She had another hallucination of herself walking up to the tree on her parents’ ranch. With an evil grin, she snapped her fingers, and the tree burst into flames. Thea felt hot tears stream down her face, and she blinked the hallucination away and looked at the Shadow.

The man watched Thea for a moment and then spoke to someone out in the hallway. “You heard him. Bring her Chimaera here.”

After a tense moment with the Nightmare watching over them while Thea writhed in pain on the floor, another Shadow entered the room with the tiny noctos in his hands. C.C. tried to fly to Thea as soon as she entered the room, but the Shadow held the tiny Chimaera tightly.

“Everyone get back and stay still,” the Nightmare said, and Todd backed up to the bookshelf where Quentin was sitting. Chadwick didn’t sit up, and Tajana knelt next to him protectively. The Shadow brought the noctos to Thea while the Nightmare kept his eyes on the young Chemists, a Component at the ready just in case. But everyone stayed still.

Thea felt C.C. in her hand, and she breathed a sigh of relief as the Chimaera calmed the storm inside her. Thea’s Kundalini traveled up her spine and left her body to gather in her hand like a gentle breeze. Thea’s spine continued to throb with pain, but her Kundalini was no longer burning and freezing her from the inside out. Thea blinked at the ceiling, wishing her Kundalini would just stay in her hand. But of course, only a moment passed before her Spiritual Energy started to return to her body.

At last, when Thea’s Kundalini was resting at the base of her spine, she looked at the Nightmare standing over her. The man stared back, his blue eyes a bright contrast to the dark mask covering his face. Around his hood, Thea could see he had blond hair.

“Why did you bring us here?” Thea asked.

Wordlessly, the Nightmare knelt down and took C.C. away. The Shadow followed the Nightmare out of the library and shut the door behind them.

“We could really use some stultify stones, please!” Chadwick called out.

The walls flared deep red, and Chadwick mumbled, “That’s the last time I say please to a Shadow.”

Thea stood up and joined the others near the bookshelf.

“Wow, that really worked,” Tajana said.

“C.C. keeps my Kundalini in check,” Thea said. “But it only lasts for a while.”

“It’s because she’s connected to you by your Kundalini,” Tajana explained. “I should have thought of that.”

“You can’t always be the one who knows everything,” Chadwick said with a painful smile at Tajana.

“Are you okay?” Thea asked as she knelt by him.

He grit his teeth and forced himself to a sitting position. “Never … better,” he grunted.

“What’s a stultify stone?” Thea asked.

Chadwick smirked at her. “The best way to describe it is basically a pain killer. It makes you numb to the point that you can’t feel a thing. I’m sure you would agree it would be really helpful right about now.”

Thea nodded.

“Well, we’re not likely to get any, now are we?” Todd said with a glare at Chadwick. “So let’s just focus on our current problem. What do we do now?”

“Now we come up with a plan to get us out of here,” Tajana said.

And so the Chemists put their heads together. Todd thought they might be able to use the rest of the wooden shelves in the bookcases, and Thea noticed the glass ceiling fixtures which were covered in the red Protection Conversion. Tajana pointed out that the Shadows were bound to come back and check on Thea again. Chad said this meant they’d have to deactivate the red Protection Conversion to get back in the library. It was Quentin who pointed out all the mud that they had tracked into the room on their boots.

“So we’ve got wood, earth, and glass,” Tajana said.

“Plus we can make a fire with the Protection Conversion,” Todd added.

“I know how to get out of here!” Thea said, and she told them her idea, one step at a time. Every now and then, Tajana piped up with an idea. Todd started nodding, and even Chadwick looked hopeful. “It’s going to take a while, but it’ll work, I’m sure of it,” Thea said. “We need to gather all the earth together.”

Todd and Tajana stood up to do as Thea ordered, but Chadwick said, “Hang on … Who made Al the boss?”

“You can’t always be the one who tells everyone what to do,” Tajana said in a mocking tone. When Chadwick scoffed at her, Tajana gestured to his muddy boots. “It’s time to scrape the mud off those boots, Chadwick.”

To Thea’s surprise, he smirked at Tajana and did as he was told.

About half an hour later, when Thea’s Kundalini was starting to bother her again, she decided to sit down with Quentin and try to relax. Now that everyone had a goal, they all seemed in higher spirits, but Quentin was still terrified. Thea decided to try and cheer him up and take his mind off the Shadows.

“Hey, wanna play our Chimaera guessing game?” Thea asked.

He shrugged. “How can we? We don’t have any Chimaera toys.”

“We can still play,” Thea insisted. “I’ll draw the Chimaera on the floor, and you name it.” Thea took up her Endless Ink Quill.

Quentin nodded, and they moved behind the bookshelf where the Shadows wouldn’t see the drawings. Thea took her time drawing a centaur, a horse with the torso of a human in place of the horse’s head. Thea had a theory that it wasn’t actually a Chimaera, but she wanted to be sure. The quill drew on the linoleum as if it were a fine-tipped permanent marker.

“Wow, you’re a good drawer,” Quentin said.

“Thanks. Do you know what this one is? Recreants call it a centaur.”

“Centaur?” Quentin tried out the word and smiled hesitantly, and Thea smiled back. “Is that a human body?”

Thea cocked her head. “A horse body and a human torso and head, yeah,” she said. “It’s not a Chimaera, is it?”

Quentin almost laughed. “Animals only, silly!” he said, and Thea laughed sheepishly, even more curious about the origins of the centaur.

“What do you think this is then? It’s a fairly well-known mythical creature.”

Quentin cocked his head to the side. “Hmm … I guess it could be Alchemists using the Imitation Conversion. If they got good enough at Imitating a horse, they could maybe look like that. But it could also be another Chimaera that ancient Shadow Alchemists created with a human and a horse.”

“Wow,” Thea breathed. “I think I prefer the Imitation Conversion over an evil horse-human Chimaera.”

“Me too,” Quentin said with a shudder. “Try again,” he urged her.

“How about we do one of my favorites?” She gave him a wink and drew an Asian dragon as best as she could. “Recreants call this one Loong. It’s an Eastern Dragon basically.”

“Hmm…” Quentin tilted his head to the side. “I bet that’s a serpensator!”

Thea thought about the Latin word serpens and said, “Part snake right?”

Quentin smiled and nodded.

Thea furrowed her brow and tried hard, but she was stumped. What could the other animal be?

Quentin put his hands over his mouth. “Guess!” he said around his hands with a laugh.

“I don’t know. I give up!”

“Alligator!” Quentin said.

Thea rolled her eyes up to the red rippling ceiling. Of course the ancient Chinese and Japanese dragons were made from alligators and snakes. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t guessed that one.

“This is fun. Let’s do another one,” he said, and she smiled at the thought that she had calmed her cousin down.

“Have you heard of a cockatrice?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Draw it!”

“Okay.” She started drawing the sketch on a new floor tile. She made sure to draw the serpent-like long tail on the body of a rooster.

“Serpallus,” he said right away.

“Part snake,” she said right away and he nodded. She thought of the Latin word gallus for rooster, and she said, “Part rooster!”

“Yup! It has snake eyes and venomous fangs,” Quentin explained.

“Does the serpallus really have a petrifying stare?” Thea asked.

“What? That’s silly,” Quentin said with a laugh.

“I guess Recreants are silly too, then,” Thea said. She tried to smile, but her Kundalini Syndrome suddenly flared up, and she winced instead.

“Is it your Kundalini again?” Quentin asked.

Thea nodded. She tried to be brave, but she was worried she would have another hallucination, or that this time the Shadows wouldn’t bring C.C. to her, or that the plan wasn’t going to work, and someone was going to get hurt. With all these worries, she just couldn’t manage to calm down, and the heat and cold of her Kundalini grew more and more intense until she was blinking tears out of her eyes.

“Thea needs her noctos,” Quentin called anxiously.

Tajana and Todd hurried over and helped Thea to her feet. Slowly, they walked around the bookshelf to the side facing the door, and Thea sank back down to the floor with Quentin right there beside her.

“Alright listen up,” Tajana said. “It’s time for phase one of the plan. Todd, get your shelf ready. Chadwick, do you have the pen to draw the Air Conjuration Conversion?”

Chadwick snatched the pen from Thea in response, and Tajana nodded. “Grab all the earth and take your place in the bathroom,” she ordered. “I’m ready to heal you, Todd. Let’s do this.”

“Now Tajana is bossing us all around,” Chadwick joked as he shovelled the pile of earth into his hand and limped into the bathroom. He stepped up on the toilet, his head just a foot away from the glowing red ceiling.

In just a moment, Todd would use the shelf to disrupt the Protection Conversion, so the Shadows would hear them and know they needed to bring Thea her Chimaera. The Shadows would cancel the Protection Conversion, and then Chadwick would have mere minutes to draw a Conversion Circle on the light fixture and perform an Air Conjuration Conversion to erode the glass into sand. This time, both Todd and Chadwick were taking risks, and Thea was worried about what might happen to Todd, or what the Nightmare might do to Chadwick if he caught him performing a Conversion in the bathroom.

There was no doubt about it. They were all about to risk their lives.