Fragments of Alchemy: The Code Keeper
Chapter Twenty-One

The First Alchemist

“What’s Elemental Sparring?” Thea asked as she hurried to keep up with Todd.

“Only the best part about Alchemy,” Todd replied with a backward smile at Thea. “Come on; you’ll see.” Todd led Thea out of the Cardinal Corridor and back to the large main hallway.

They walked up the main hall passed the seven halls, each one colored to match the seven Fragments. While they walked, Todd rambled on and on about Elemental Sparring.

“The best part about Elemental Sparring is that you get a Cohort, and all of you have to work together. Once all of you are Bursars, you have a solo Trial, but after that, you have a Cohort Trial, so you have to get really good at working together as a group.”

“How many people are in a Cohort?” Thea asked.

“Fourteen, seven Chemists and seven Chimaeras. They try to put one of each Elemental Affinity in each Cohort.”

“That’s neat.”

“It’s a tactic; you protect the teammate whose weakness matches your Affinity. Another teammate protects you. If you stand in certain formations, then you can protect each other better.”

That reminded Thea that she no longer had her parents to protect her. She wanted to forget all about the purple scroll, but every now and then, moments like this still reminded her. Would she ever feel safe in Blackthorn and Burtree? She eyed all the Chemists and Alchemists walking by her and wondered if something would happen to her. She needed to speak with the Keeper and ask him why he manipulated her. Was he still manipulating her, even now? The thought made her heart race.

They finally arrived at the end of the wide main hall, where it opened up to the Crowning Chamber, where Thea and Tajana had gone yesterday. The reminder made her long to see her new friend. If only she didn’t have a private meditation lesson at one o’clock!

“This is the Crowning Chamber,” Todd explained as he pointed. “The dojo is on the right, and the library is on the left.”

Thea looked to the left at the magnificent shelves of books, and she noticed the wooden tables and chairs arranged around the library’s wooden floors. During meditation, they had all been put away somewhere, but now Chemists and Alchemists could use the tables to study. The tables had different Insignias carved into the tabletops. Each table had a floating orb nearby to offer light for studying Chemists and Alchemists to make their reading easier.

They turned to one of the right staircases into the dojo. Unlike the library’s shiny wooden floors, the dojo had tatami reed mats covering the floor. Instead of walls lined with bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling, the dojo had oriental wood paneling interposed by wooden pillars. The ceiling caught her eye, and Thea looked up to see a large skylight made of rows of panels of white translucent glass that let in the bright sunlight.

To the left and right, Chemist vests hung on hooks with boots lined up on the floor below. On the far wall, weapons of every kind had been mounted or propped up. And around the room, several groups of Chemists met for various martial arts lessons.

Groups of Chemists had gathered around three large raised platforms in the spacious dojo. On each dais, two Chemists seemed to be facing off against each other. Something struck Thea as very odd. She stopped walking and watched all the activity in the room: the groups of martial arts lessons, the Chemists fighting each other, and the crowds of Chemists cheering the fighters on. Then she realized she couldn’t hear a sound from the room.

Todd left her behind as he descended the stairs into the dojo, and Thea hurried after him. She started down the stairs, and the moment her foot hit the first step, the sounds of weapons striking and people shouting assaulted her ears. A sound barrier of some kind must have been set up to keep the sounds of all the fighting from disturbing the Alchemists and Chemists studying in the library.

Thea caught up to Todd and watched the Chemists on the center dais: one with a red vest and another in blue, both young men maybe a year or two older than Thea with vests even longer than Todd’s. Thea realized they must be a level above Todd. That would make them Bursars, Thea realized. The red Bursar held a quarter staff in both hands, and the blue Bursar wielded a long wooden sword.

The two Chemists began circling the dais. Finally, red advanced and began swinging his staff. He struck from the right, and blue parried with the sword and stepped toward his opponent. He performed a quick spinning attack which red blocked with the butt end of his staff. Blue retreated as he parried another strike from red.

The fight quickly intensified until Thea had trouble discerning who was attacking and who was defending. Red charged in and then quickly retreated while pulling something from a pocket. He called out “Ignis Infundo!” and his staff suddenly erupted with red flames. Blue jumped backward out of range and called out, “Aqua Permuto!” Slowly, his sword took on a wavering fluid appearance. Thea realized the fighters had somehow infused their weapons with elements.

The fight continued. Blue began using his offhand to conjure water and block red’s staff, so he could parry and attack more fluidly. Finally, after a flurry of attacks and parries from both sides, red landed an attack on blue’s torso, and a bright flash of light appeared. Red’s attack backlashed and sent the blue Bursar tumbling and the red Bursar sliding back a few paces. The match clearly ended then, as many spectating Chemists clapped and cheered for the victor or encouraged the loser.

“Wow!” Thea sighed. “That was amazing!”

Todd smiled back at Thea. “Told you it’s the best!”

“What was that flash of light?” Thea asked.

“The instructor’s Chimaera is a felipus,” Todd explained, pointing as the blue Chemist pulled a tiny cat-rabbit out of his chest pocket and handed it to the teacher who stepped up on the platform. “It’s part cat, part rabbit; since both animals are crepuscular, the resulting Chimaera’s affinity is light, which can block all elements, making it safe for students to spar without fear of hurting each other.”

Thea blinked in wonder. “That’s fascinating.”

“The other instructor’s Chimaera is a macromus,” Todd added. “Made from a mouse and red kangaroo, which are both nocturnal.”

“Oh, let me guess,” Thea interrupted. “Nocturnal animals make a Chimaera with shadow affinities that can block all elements too?”

Todd nodded with a smile. “You’re quick, you are!” he said.

Thea looked back up at the dais in time to see the red Chandler hand over a tiny mouse with long kangaroo ears, tail, and legs, complete with a tuft of fur at the end of its long tail. The tiny macromus returned to the instructor’s breast pocket with a graceful hop, and Thea thought of the African jerboa, which she had researched for a science report last year. She couldn’t help but smile.

“Do all students spar with a weapon?” Thea asked, thinking about the kung fu she had started studying with her father when she turned five. In the last three years, Thea had added bo staff to her hand-to-hand skills, but she still preferred her bare hands.

Todd shook his head. “That’s advanced training. We won’t get to use weapons until we have mastered basic conjuring, elemental absorbing and blocking, and hand-to-hand combat.”

Thea nodded. “Do you get to start today?” she asked with a rush of excitement.

“I’ve been sparring since I passed my Joint Trial last week.”

“You’re learning how to wield air in combat,” Thea said, remembering what Todd had told her during their first lesson, before her Trial.

Todd nodded. “I’d like to show you, but I’m sure by the time I get a go, you’ll be busy with another lesson.” Todd shrugged.

Thea pulled her schedule out of her pocket to check the time and location of her next lesson. She still had plenty of time. After putting the roll of parchment back in her pocket, she looked at Todd and said, “I wish I could spar with you.”

Todd scoffed. “You’re an Initium. You can’t start until you’re a Chandler, so you might as well get used to watching. Let’s check out the basic Sparring Matches over here,” Todd said, leading Thea to the left dais, where the younger Chandlers each took turns trying their hand at long-range elemental attacks.

The Pair stood and watched several sparring partners take turns hurling wind, fire, water, and earth attacks at each other, most of them dwindling before they could reach their targets, though a few attacks sent an opponent tumbling to the ground with a burst of white or black Energy as the instructor’s Chimaera’s blocked the elements before they could do any harm.

Thea watched in amazement as a Chandler in a yellow tunic shouted, “Transvoro!” and reached out as a ball of flame slowly flew at his head. Instead of getting knocked back, the Chandler caught the fire, and it dwindled with a puff of smoke.

“Wow!” Thea said. “How’d he do that?”

“He must have an affinity to fire,” Todd explained. “So he could absorb the flames.”

With a rush of excitement, Thea noticed another Chemist studying the Imitation Conversion. She had the claws, fangs, tail, and ears of a wolf. Thea watched her fight with claws and fangs like sharp blades. She felt so excited about it that she wondered if she should study the Imitation Conversion, too. What animal would she imitate, though? Imitating a noctos hardly seemed like a good idea.

Thea decided she had better get going, and she said goodbye to Todd. Her Mentor barely looked away from the dais to bid Thea farewell, and as Thea turned to go, she couldn’t help but wish that she could stay and participate in the Elemental Sparring lessons, too.

As Thea turned to leave the dojo, she pulled out her schedule and unrolled the parchment. With a heavy sigh, she glanced down the list and imagined what the rest of her day would be like. Maybe Maleficus Arkose and Todd were right about giving up on the Spectrum. She certainly would have more free time if she only had to worry about one Fragment instead of all Seven. Then maybe she would be able to continue to go with Tajana to the city and see the sky at least once a day.

But Thea guessed that dropping the Spectrum wouldn’t take the one o’clock meditation lesson off her schedule. And at the top of her schedule, it warned that she must attend meditation every day. She wondered what the consequence of skipping a lesson would be. Of course, Thea didn’t want to lose the Spectrum Scholar Vestments she’d worked so hard to gain. Though it seemed she would have to continue working hard.

Thea went back to her dorm to check the time. She glanced at the miniature sundial on her desk and noticed that she had fifteen minutes until her next lesson would start. As soon as she was behind closed doors, she let C.C. out of her pocket hiding place. She had been fidgeting, and Thea worried someone would notice the front pocket of her vest twitching.

Of course, she still hadn’t learned how to communicate this to her little noctos so that she would understand she needed to stay still. C.C. flew across the small dorm room and onto Thea’s bed, where she began to prance around like the proper pony that she used to be before Thea combined her with an owl. Thea followed her over and stared at her hard, trying to figure out a way to convey her thoughts.

When the tiny Chimaera continued to prance around, oblivious to the failed communication attempt, Thea gave up and walked away. She tried to imagine what it would be like to hide in a pocket all day and decided C.C. could fidget as much as she wanted as long as she stayed hidden in the pocket. She at least seemed to understand that she shouldn’t burst out of the pocket and let everyone see her.

She sat at her table and quickly wrote her notes from the morning lesson in the brand new notebook her parents had given her yesterday. The notebook had a thick cover, a band to hold the pages shut, seven colored ribbons to mark her place, and best of all, the pages looked like parchment without any lines for writing, which made it easier to draw the Conversion Circles. The thought of using the notebook to keep all her Alchemy notes excited her. Though the notebook reminded her of her parents and their betrayal. She clenched her jaw at the reminder. Would she ever be able to forgive them for allowing the Keeper to manipulate her?

She finished her notes on the Cardinal Fragment in time to leave for her next lesson. Thea slipped her quill into a pocket and jumped to her feet, glancing about the small room for her Chimaera. C.C. must have sensed that it was time to go, because she came zooming through the air and circled Thea’s head a few times before Thea held her hand out, and C.C. landed and folded her wings back. Thea gently tucked the Chimaera back into her pocket.

Then she went for the door as she checked her schedule. It said to meet Veneficus Charu back in the Cardinal Rotunda. She hurried on her way.

When Thea arrived, she found the giant circular room even more crowded than the first time. Around the room, several Alchemists were teaching small groups of Chemists or giving instructions to Chemists who sat in front of their desks arranged in a crescent around the circular room. Thea stood for a while, unsure of how to replace her tutor. Finally, she walked toward the Alchemists’ desks, where she noticed the nameplates for each teacher. She sighed with relief when she realized she didn’t have to ask anyone to help her replace her tutor.

She finally found her teacher: a tall Indian man in deep red robes that nearly touched the floor. Conversion Circle tattoos literally covered his face. Beautiful colored beads lined his pockets. He wore a large turban of the same red silk, with similar blue and yellow beads. A silver Fortification Insignia hung from the turban and dangled over the man’s forehead. “Althea Presten?” he said in a thick accent.

“Yes.” Thea wasn’t sure exactly how to address her teacher. She lost her chance to decide what to call him, however, because the strange man jumped into a long tirade.

“They give me a half hour to teach what should be taught in a whole hour. How is this to be done?” The man jabbed his finger at Thea. “Don’t stand gawking. We must begin right away if you will learn a thing.”

Thea hurried to sit in the chair in front of the instructor’s desk. She opened her notebook to the second page, ready to take notes. “Yes, sir!”

“I am no knight! Call me Veneficus Charu or professor, but never sir!”

Thea’s heart jumped. “Yes s—Charu … uh, Professor Charu, Maleficus Charu,” she stammered.

“Veneficus,” Charu said, his face rather red.

“Veneficus Charu!” Thea squeaked quickly, realizing that she had to learn all her tutors’ names and titles on top of all the Alchemy they would be teaching her. Thea’s head spun as she realized that she would study Seven Fragments, and each Fragment had several tutors. Even with her marvelous memory, she worried she wouldn’t be able to keep them all straight.

The Indian man leaned forward over his desk. “Here is an idea for you. Say we skip the history lesson and go straight to the Alchemy, so we finish in time?”

Thea blinked, unsure of what to say. The Alchemy definitely sounded more interesting than a history lesson, but she wondered what she’d be missing. Thea hesitated just long enough for Charu to decide for her, and he sprang into the lesson.

Charu reminded Thea that the Cardinal Fragment had six Insignias: Solidification, Evaporation, Deposition, Dispersion, Condensation, and Infusion. Thea thought this meant more freezing and melting water, so she was surprised when Charu gave her a pocket-sized cloth bag filled with dust. “Very important lesson, Althea Presten,” Charu said, pronouncing her name al-thay-ah. “With this dust, you can use the Condensation Conversion to make a cloud that will carry you through our halls. No more walking for you.” Charu smiled, revealing small yellow teeth.

“Way cool!” Thea said with a grin.

“Evaporo,” Charu said, and Thea’s mouth dropped open as a small white wisp left Charu’s mouth, mingled with the dust on his palm, and began to condense into a gray cloud about the size of a pillow. Simultaneously, a tattoo on Charu’s forehead began to glow bright red, and Thea recognized it as the Evaporation Conversion.

“Solidum,” Charu said, and the gray cloud solidified. Another tattoo flashed red on Charu’s cheek, and Thea saw the symbol in the center of the Conversion Circle before the Conversion ended. It looked like a horizontal line drawn through an upside-down triangle.

She quickly sketched this new Insignia in her notebook, complete with the Cardinal Fragment’s outer Sigil, an inverted triangle inside a square, which touched the outer circle on all four corners.

“Wonderful,” Charu said as he scrutinized Thea’s sketch. He stuck his tongue out and made a face. “The Conversion leaves a dry taste in the mouth, but it beats walking.” Then he stood and stepped up onto his little cloud. Thea couldn’t help but smile as the man sat and crossed his legs on the cloud, not unlike Aladdin on his flying carpet.

“How do you get it to move?” Thea asked excitedly.

“That is very tricky.” Charu made a stern face, and his cloud floated higher and higher until Thea looked up, and Charu’s head nearly thumped the high rounded ceiling in the huge room. “Think hard, and it will move, but you must pay attention, or your little ride could tip and drop you.” Charu floated back down to the ground and stepped off his cloud. He waved his hand dismissively, and the cloud dispersed in a puff of white. “I’ll get water, you try,” said the tall Indian man, and he snatched a flask of water from his desk; he started to gargle loudly.

Thea cleared her throat, stared at the Evaporation Insignia she had already drawn in her notebook, opened herself up for the Conversion and said, “Evaporo.”

Her mouth instantly went dry, and Thea watched in amazement as a small wisp left her mouth and danced around in the air. She had no dust in her hand, however, and the tiny wisp dwindled out. Thea clenched her jaw as she took out a pinch of dust from the small bag and bit into her tongue just enough to get her mouth to water. She held the dust in her palm and stared at the Insignia in her notebook. “Evaporo!” A tiny wisp left Thea’s mouth and mingled with the dust to make a gray cloud.

Thea instantly felt parched, but instead of complaining, she finished the Conversion. “Solidum!” Her newest Insignia glowed bright red in her notebook. The gray cloud turned into a solid gray mass, and Thea stood up and put one foot on her cloud. It held! She stepped up with her second foot and turned to smile at Charu.

The Indian man nodded, obviously pleased, but not impressed. “You learn quickly for someone I do not hear of until this morning. American, right?”

Thea nodded, suddenly uncomfortable.

“A young girl of the Spectrum, I imagine you would be more famous. Why is it that nobody knows who you are?”

Thea shrugged, unsure what to say.

“Presten, Presten …” Charu began to pace. “Yes! I remember, Owen Presten has served the Keeper for years and years. I did not know he returned to Blackthorn and Burtree. I did not know he had a daughter. Have you been returned for long?”

Thea shook her head, unable to ignore her fluttering heart. C.C. only made it worse, sending her waves of psychic Energy that made Thea feel lightheaded. She immediately stepped off her cloud and staggered into the chair.

“What, done already? Don’t you want to practice moving it about?” Charu smiled again, but Thea had had enough of the man’s disturbing grin with his tiny yellowing teeth.

“I’m a little dizzy,” Thea said. “Six Conversions already today. It makes me lightheaded.”

“You will Convert many more before the day is done. Best to rest then,” Charu said, and Thea sighed with relief. “How about that history lesson?”

Thea nodded, and Charu told Thea about the first Alchemist, a man who lived many, many years before the birth of Buddha. Some even said he roamed the earth before Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden. It was unclear exactly where he came from, and there were many different theories. Some said he was the incarnation of God on earth, while others screamed blasphemy and insisted the first Alchemist was a son of Adam and Eve. Still others believed that the first Alchemist was a time traveler from the end of the world, come back in time to ensure that the world would know Alchemy. Whatever the individual Alchemist chose to believe, all knew that the first Alchemist fractured the world, and he gave us the Trinitas in order to hold the world together.

“What’s the Trinitas?” Thea blurted, so engrossed with the story that she forgot she was in fact learning a history lesson.

“Rude to interrupt, Presten,” Charu said. “The Trinitas is the ruling force in Alchemy. The Code Keeper, the Code Giver, and the Code Breaker, and their followers, make up the Trinitas. Without the three factions, our world would have surely crumbled into oblivion. You see, our world was fragmented when Alchemy was born; just as Alchemy has Seven Fragments, so too does our world. It is up to the Trinitas to hold the world together.”

“Who was the first Alchemist?” Thea asked.

Charu made a face, and Thea realized she had interrupted again, but it was a good question, so Charu said, “The first Alchemist was named Hermes Trismegistus.”

Thea’s jaw dropped. “No way!” she said, all politeness completely forgotten, for her tutor had just claimed that the first Alchemist was a character from one of Thea’s stories.