The Tower's Alchemist

259 Pages·2011·1.03 MB·English

by  Escobar Alesha

THE TOWER’S ALCHEMIST
The Gray Tower Trilogy #1

Alesha L. Escobar
Copyright 2012 by Alesha L. Escobar Published by Alesha L. Escobar at
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places and incidents
either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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http://www.aleshaescobar.com
DEDICATION
To all those who have inspired me. Thank you.
CHAPTER ONE

I never imagined my first trip to Denmark would include crouching in a forest
in the dark of night, but at least the beech trees gave Lyder and me much needed
cover. I rose to my feet and stood over him, jerking my head to the right to
indicate that we needed to pack up and head out. When he waved me off, I shut
the transmitter case with my foot and trained my sten gun on him.
He glared at me. “I wasn’t done with my radio transmission.”
“You went over by five minutes. That means they’ll be coming.” I had little
patience for people who did things that would likely get me killed.
He pulled out a pistol and grabbed the case. “I’m ready.”
I flinched when the first gunshot rang. It took the SS little effort to pinpoint
our position. Lyder jumped to his feet and ran with me through the forest. I
breathed in through my nose and out my mouth, like I’d do when taking a jog. I
felt a cold lump in the pit of my stomach as my shoes haphazardly crushed dry
leaves and twigs beneath them. We heard voices, dogs barking, and where the
forest cleared we saw the headlights of a trekker sitting in the middle of the road.
Great, we’ve just been flanked.
With heavy breaths, we paused and pressed ourselves against the trunk of a
tree as if it were all the protection we needed.
“Any bright ideas, sergeant?” I pulled out my golden knife and began carving
repetitions of two alchemical symbols into the soft earth: Fire and Air.
“We make a stand and fight,” he said, dropping the case and pulling out
another pistol. “They’ll likely force us to surrender once they see my uniform.”
“Bad plan.” They might take an officer of the Danish army as a prisoner of
war, but if they caught a woman in civilian clothing with a machine gun aimed at
them, they’d kill me on the spot—or take me in for interrogation with a nice
dose of torture, and then kill me.
“Drop your weapons,” a voice on a loud hailer commanded first in English
and then in German. It came from the trekker. From the other side I could hear
the dogs’ howling grow louder and men’s boots trampling crisp leaves.
Lyder raised his guns and fired at one of the SS officers who had made his
way down from the trekker. It looked like he was hit in the shoulder, but he
quickly reciprocated the gunfire. I took the opposite side and aimed my gun,
hitting him with a burst of bullets. The officer grunted and fell to the ground. I
began feeding my Fire and Air symbols with energy, slowly building up the
power I needed in them. Lyder shivered and stared at me.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Saving our lives.” My right hand shook as a warning but I ignored it and
continued. I held off the effects of the spell just long enough so I could blast the
other men in range.
We moved to another tree when the men from behind sent gunfire and their
vicious dogs our way. When they were close enough, I released the symbols and
sparks began forming in the air. The sparks grew into flames, and joined by Air,
became a whirlwind of fire. I directed the firestorm toward everyone behind us,
and then confusion and panic broke out. Some of the men fell back while others
were caught in the raging flames and burned alive. Still, others ran for cover and
waited. I nudged Lyder, who simply stared at the spectacle, and urged him to
follow me.
“Emelie, why are you going toward the trekker?” he asked.
“A trekker only holds two at most. I’d rather go against one soldier than
twenty.” I felt something wet trickle down my nose and knew it was blood. I
relinquished any remaining hold I had on the firestorm, and with fear I awaited
the inevitable physical exhaustion to creep in.
We headed up the dirt embankment and saw that the trekker still had its lights
on, but no one moved there or made any further demands on the loud hailer.
Where did the second man go? Lyder suddenly shouted a warning, but it was too
late. The man we were looking for had wrapped his arm around Lyder’s neck
from behind and lifted him up against the embankment with little effort. Lyder
dropped his weapons and began kicking his legs in the air and clawing at the
man’s arm, but to no avail. His strength was simply inhuman.
“Drop your weapon,” he said, “or I’ll break his neck.”
I placed it on the ground in front of me and held my hands up in the air. “Who
are you?”
He released Lyder and made a quick blow to the back of his head to knock
him unconscious. “A rich man, once I hand you over. They like collecting Tower
Slaves.”
He jumped from the top of the embankment and landed on his feet. He wore
no uniform, only a dark sweater and trousers. I could sense the taint of dark
magic on him and I cursed at myself for wasting so much of my strength earlier.
“I’m not with the Gray Tower.” I trembled from fatigue and lowered my arms.
“Doesn’t matter.” He gave a smug smile, watching me reel from the effects of
my previous strong rush of magic.
He pulled out a pair of Czech swivel cuffs, and when I sensed the amount of
iron present in them, I lifted my wrists and allowed him to cuff me. Obviously
this warlock wasn’t an alchemist. As soon as the cuffs clicked shut, I threw my
arms up high and over his head and pulled him toward me so that the cuffs
pressed into the back of his neck and we were locked in an embrace. I
manipulated the iron, letting it do the work for me and turning it into a weapon
that would corrode and blacken his flesh. He began struggling and screeching,
unable to hit me with a spell because I was right up against him. He did put aside
the pain long enough to figure out that he could strangle me though, and
wrapped his hands around my neck and squeezed with the ferocity of
desperation.
There we were, in near silence, arms around each other and neither one
intending to let go until the other dropped dead. Tonight however, would not be
that night for me. A spray of blood hit me across the face as the corrosion from
the iron cuffs ate away into part of his neck. I fell down with the weight of his
body, and coughed and sputtered. After I managed to wriggle free, I tried to find
a key on him but his pockets turned up nothing—except a business card for a Dr.
Falk Meier, which made me shudder.
My wrists burned from the spell and my legs felt like rubber. I stumbled over
to my sten gun and picked it up before limping over to Lyder. I prodded him and
called his name a few times, and uttered a silent prayer of thanks when his eyes
blinked open. “Lyder, we have to get out of here.” I coughed again, but this time
it was due to the forest fire smoke billowing toward us.
“Where are my guns?” he asked with a groan.
“There.” I nodded over to my right and he rushed toward the weapons and
reclaimed them.
The other men who had run off were now regrouping and we could hear them
in the distance. I helped him to his feet and we dashed south alongside the road,
trying to make it back into town where my safe house stood. I was already
running out of breath and hardly managed to keep up with him.
“You couldn’t find a key?” He glanced at my wrists and then his gaze went
back to the road.
My eyes narrowed. “Yes, but then I decided that I liked wearing
Czechoslovakian handcuffs.”
I stumbled and nearly fell, but he caught me and pulled me along with him at a
quick pace. I had to give him credit—he wasn’t going to stop for anything.
When we reached town, a few resistance fighters who had been appointed as
lookouts signaled to us and guided us through back alleys until we reached the
safe house. Once inside, Lyder immediately shed his uniform jacket and grabbed
a bottle of liquor. I, on the other hand, asked my hostess Kanja if she knew how
to pick locks.
She grabbed her smallest blade from the kitchen and held it up with a grimace.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“It’s okay, I’ll walk you through it.” I sat at her kitchen table and held out my
wrists.
She sat across from me with a frightened expression. “Perhaps Sergeant Lyder
—”
“He’s busy getting drunk, thank you.”
“I'm not drunk yet,” Lyder said. “Can't you transmute those cuffs anyway?”
“Maybe one day I’ll be able to. Kanja, my wrists are badly hurt. Would you
mind?”
She sucked in a deep breath. “Then...tell me what to do.”
I guided her through each step, using encouraging words and a soothing voice.
When the cuffs clicked open I winced and gave her a pained smile. “Thank you.
You’re a very brave young woman.”
She couldn’t have been older than eighteen, but then losing one’s parents and
joining the Resistance made one grow up rather quickly. I looked up at Lyder
when he set a glass in front of me and poured me a drink. He had grown much
more subdued.
“To another day of cheating death,” he said, finishing off the rest of the bottle.
“Just remember not to go over a thirty-minute broadcast. Ever.”
“God, I’m going to have a headache in the morning,” he said, rummaging
through Kanja’s cabinets.
“I’m going to be aching all over,” I complained. I was so exhausted from the
fight that I didn’t think I had the energy to mend my wrists with magic. I
thanked Kanja once more when she went over to the sink and brought a wet
towel for me. I had forgotten that my face was bloodstained.
I wiped my forehead and cheeks clean, and as soon as I downed my drink I
felt sick. The house suddenly quaked and unnatural screeches filled the air.
People began shouting and screaming, and the sound of gunshots popped in long
bursts. I didn’t even have to look out the window to know that Black Wolves had
landed.
“Get into the closet!” I rose from my seat and shoved Kanja toward the
bedroom. Lyder was on my heels.
“What’s going on out there?” he asked, as I pulled them both inside and shut
the door.