The Alchemists' Council, page 28
“You risk erasure with that statement.”
“Kalina was erased, yet she survived with the rebels.”
“Yes, she did. But did she tell you how she found them? Or, more pertinently, did she tell you how to find them from the outside world?”
Jaden did not respond. Cedar laughed — one definitive syllable that Jaden mistook for triumph.
“Kalina had a fragment of the Dragonblood Stone and extensive knowledge that allowed her to access the Rebel Branch once she had been returned to the outside world. You will not have such a fragment, Jaden.”
Jaden clasped her pendant, realizing with sudden panic that her pendant would be confiscated if she were to be erased. She would have to search for the rebels.
“You cannot find them without a fragment of the Dragonblood Stone, Jaden. Do you think the Rebel Branch would allow its dimension to be found by an outsider? The Council has been searching for years — hundreds upon hundreds of years. The only members of the Alchemists’ Council who know how to access the rebel dimension are those whom the rebels themselves contacted and presented with a Dragonblood fragment. For generations, the rebels have sought their own Initiates. They do not wait to be found, nor do they risk discovery. They reach out to those from the Council they believe destined to join them. Are you telling me, Jaden, that you believe yourself destined to join them? Do you believe if you are erased from Council dimension that the rebels will contact you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you leave me no choice.”
Jaden grasped the arms of the chair and pushed herself up, expecting to accompany Cedar to the nearest portal chamber. She had only two regrets: first, that she had not been able to speak in detail with Arjan prior to her departure and second, that she did not possess a Dragonblood fragment separate from the absence within her Lapidarian pendant, which seemed about to be confiscated.
Cedar walked to Jaden and reached for her pendant.
“No!”
“I am not going to take your pendant, Jaden. I merely want to look at it.”
“You are not touching my pendant!”
“Listen to yourself, Jaden. And look at everything that has happened to you since your arrival here. Then look at it again from the other perspective.”
“What other perspective?”
“Mine.”
Jaden felt Cedar’s breath against her neck, her lips against her ear, whispering, “My sweet, dear Jaden, you do not need to seek the Rebel Branch. We have already found you.”
viii
current day
Jaden panicked. She leapt out of the reach of Cedar’s touch. Surely Cedar was lying to her — testing her, enticing her to say something she would regret, to reveal what she knew about Dracaen or Kalina, about the Dragonblood fragments, about her visit to the dimension that housed the Flaw in the Stone. She stood by the door clenching her pendant in one hand, the other hand outstretched as if to push Cedar away if she dared to come closer.
“I am not lying to you, Jaden.”
“Stop! What are you doing? How are you doing it? How do you know my thoughts?”
“Let go of your pendant.”
“No!”
“Let go of your pendant, and I will no longer be able to read your thoughts.”
Jaden hesitated. If Cedar was lying and Jaden were to let go of her pendant, Cedar might physically confiscate it from her. But if she were telling the truth, then letting go of her pendant would free her from Cedar’s intrusion of her mind.
“Explain!” demanded Jaden, holding up the hand with which she still clenched her pendant. “Explain!”
Instead of speaking, Cedar grabbed her own pendant, gripping it as tightly as Jaden did her own. And within seconds, Jaden understood. She could hear Cedar’s voice within her own thoughts as clearly as if Cedar were speaking aloud.
You hold in your hand a pendant infused with both Lapis and Flaw. As do I. You already know the powers of the Lapidarian pendant — the empathy of proximity, the ability of one alchemist to read another’s pendant by holding it in one’s hand or to one’s forehead. The conjunction of Lapis and Flaw within a single pendant increases such powers exponentially. By merely holding such a pendant in one’s own hand, the person opens his or her thoughts to anyone else who also possesses such a pendant within physical proximity. I hold such a pendant now, Jaden. I too possess a pendant conjoining both Lapis and Flaw. If I let go of my pendant, you will no longer hear my thoughts. If you let go, I will no longer hear yours.
Jaden did not know in that moment whether to keep the connection open or to sever it by letting go of her pendant. With Cedar holding her own pendant, Jaden possessed a power she could never before have imagined. She could, with enough time, know all the truths Cedar had concealed since the day they had met.
Such knowledge all at once might be too much for you to bear. Power comes with a price, especially for someone so new to it.
She released her pendant, and Cedar followed suit. Jaden thought back to her experience reading Sadira’s pendant — to the overwhelming sensation of being unable to sustain an influx of unmitigated thoughts. Jaden stood still, exhausted. She still wanted — needed — answers.
“If you have been with the rebels all along, why did you not help me? Why did you send Kalina away? Why was she erased? Why did you not just tell me the truth from the beginning? Why did you not bring me as an Initiate to the Rebel Branch? Why have you tortured me in this way?”
Cedar laughed. “You were being tested, Jaden. You are an Initiate. You were being initiated. You were being recruited, not tortured. Dracaen and I needed you to make the choice to align with the Rebel Branch of your own free will. We could not risk that you would reject us and inform the Azoths that one of their Novillian Scribes had rebel sympathies! From your perspective, our apparent lack of assistance may have seemed torturous. But, rest assured, you were being helped every step of the way and, more importantly, practising for your future with both the Council and the Rebel Branch. The lessons you have learned, the skills you have gained, you will rely upon repeatedly in your future.”
Jaden moved away from the door and sat in a large, lush velvet chair by a window looking out over the courtyard. Cedar took an adjacent seat and offered Jaden some tea.
“How did you help me?”
“Let me count the ways. By creating various manuscript lacunae to obscure passages that otherwise would have led the other Scribes away from choosing you as the new Initiate; by agreeing to Kalina’s erasure so that she could work unencumbered among the rebels to increase the Flaw in the Stone; by providing Jinjing with the Dragonblood fragment to give to you in Qingdao so that you would remember Kalina. Shall I go on?”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, you do not understand. You do not understand because you are a Junior Initiate, and you have much to learn before you can make your choice.”
“Then teach me something right now to help me understand, to help me choose. How are you a rebel? How long have you been a rebel? How do you even know the rebels?”
“All Elders know the rebels, Jaden. All Elders work with the rebels.”
“What? All the Elders are rebels?”
“No. Of course not. Do you seriously believe that Ruis or Obeche would align themselves with the Rebel Branch?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“When I said that the Elders all work with the rebels, I was referring to manuscript work. The Elder Council must work with the rebels in order to seal an erasure.”
Jaden did not respond. But somewhere, somehow, she sensed a glimmer of understanding: erasure, absence, nothing, the Flaw. Of course.
“The absolute nothing of the Flaw ensures the absolute negation of memory. Our Scribes begin the process of erasure in Council dimension — the process of physically erasing ink in relevant sections of Lapidarian manuscripts. However, only within the Flaw, only within the dimension that houses the Flaw, can the unknowing of erasure be completed. After the work in Council dimension is completed, one Council Elder meets with one Rebel Branch Elder in the outside world. A Scroll of Erasure changes hands and is taken to the Flaw dimension by the rebel. Once officially sealed, it is returned to the Council Elder who returns it to the archives in Council dimension. Ironically, the rebels themselves must aid in the erasure of rebels. The process is alchemical — a combination of Lapis and Flaw that began with the Prima Materia of the Calculus Macula.”
“Then why are we taught that the rebels are the enemy?” asked Jaden.
“In my opinion, they are not the enemy. But in the official opinion of the Council, rebel desire to increase the Flaw is a rebellious act that must be resisted. Though tolerated as a necessary evil, the Council cannot allow the Rebel Branch to attain dominance, which, of course, would have repercussions, both in Council dimension and in the outside world. When I became a Novillian Scribe, when I first worked with the rebels on an erasure, Dracaen convinced me of his position. Even before then, Jinjing had spoken with me about her connection to him. Together they convinced me of the necessity of preserving, and even of increasing, the Flaw in order to maintain the rebels and the Council, the Flaw and the Lapis. Herein lies the alchemical paradox: without one, the other could not exist.”
“So I now know the secret of the Elders. Aren’t you afraid I will tell others — Arjan, Ritha, perhaps even Laurel? Aren’t you afraid your secret will spread well beyond the Elder Council?”
“Given that I am aligned with those who hold the ultimate power of erasure, your memory of what I have told you will last only as long as I permit.”
“Then how can I ever trust you?”
“You must trust that I have your best interest at heart.”
“Why?”
“I need you.”
“Why? Why me? Have I been groomed to replace Sadira?”
“Here I must admit something to you that will leave me even more vulnerable: my weakness. I have been so blinded by my desire to attain allies against Ruis’s efforts to perfect the Lapis that I failed to notice that the person I trusted the most had her own desires.”
“What do you mean?”
“I trusted Sadira. I loved her. But she has betrayed me, as Arjan has confirmed.”
“Arjan?”
“I know of your feelings for him, Jaden.”
Jaden blushed.
“But I ask that you think carefully through the consequences of basing your actions on emotional ties — a lesson I learned far too late.”
“What has he done?”
“He has colluded with Sadira, who has been allowing Ilex and Melia access to the manuscripts. They are responsible for the bees disappearing.”
“I know.”
“You know? How? What do you know?”
“Obeche took me to the Lapidarian apiary.”
“What?”
Finally Jaden had information that Cedar didn’t.
“He wants me to convince Arjan to convince Ilex and Melia to stop erasing the Lapidarian bees.”
“Yes! You must do so! Arjan will listen to you!”
“What are you saying, Cedar? You agree with Obeche? You never agree with Obeche! Yet you agree with him now?”
“Yes. For now I agree with Scribe Obeche.”
“I don’t understand. You are aligned with the rebels. You say you have been helping me in a way that would encourage me to align with the rebels. The rebels want to increase the Flaw in the Stone. An increase in the Flaw increases negative space. An increase in negative space increases the possibility of a rebel breach, which in turn allows the possibility of additional manuscript lacunae, which in turn allows for additional erasure of bees. Yet you want me to try to stop the bees from being erased. You want, I presume, to release the Lapidarian bees into the outside world? I don’t understand. Which side are you on, Cedar?”
“I am aligned with the rebels, but I am also working to maintain elemental balance of the outside world as I vowed to do as a member of the Alchemists’ Council. We — all of us, the entire Council, regardless of varying opinion on the matter — required an increase in the Flaw in order to continue our role in maintaining that balance.”
“Why? The Council has been doing this for thousands of years! What is the difference now?”
“It is complicated, Jaden.”
“Yes! I gather it’s complicated! But how can you or Obeche or Arjan or Kalina or anyone expect me to make a choice — a choice whether to help the rebels or the Council or both — if you do not explain these complications to me? You claim Sadira has betrayed you, but I feel now as if you have betrayed me. Tell me the truth, Cedar!”
“Which truth, Jaden? What I tell you may be different from what Obeche or Arjan or Kalina tells you.”
“Then tell me your truth, and I can decide whether or not to believe you — whether or not to trust you.”
“Why did you trust Kalina when she first came to you?”
Jaden hesitated briefly.
“I don’t know. She seemed sincere. And I was curious. She showed me another possibility, another perspective. She offered me a choice, where the Council did not. And then the choice was taken from me when she and my memories of her were erased. And all I knew then was that there was something I needed to remember, something I needed to know.”
“You needed to know what you did not know, what was unknown, the knowledge that had been taken from you. You needed to have that knowledge in order to make a choice. You were given that knowledge when you were given a fragment of the Dragonblood Stone.”
“The first fragment was taken away.”
“Another to be provided when you showed me that, given free will, you would choose to look for that which was absent.”
“Stop speaking to me in philosophical riddles!”
“Jaden, the Flaw in the Stone allows alchemists to choose. It allows the Council to fulfill its intention — to, among our other tasks, maintain the elemental balance of the outside world. Without the Flaw, the Lapis would be perfected, and we would be unified as One. Official Council doctrine lauds this act as our ultimate goal: attaining absolute perfection for the Lapis and thus achieving ultimate Final Ascension for all, eternal life as One for everyone from all three dimensions. But if we were to be unified as One, we would lose our individuality. We would no longer be able to choose. We would no longer fulfill our chosen intentions. For years, perfecting the Lapis was no more than a mythical ideal. But then it happened — albeit for only three days — during the Vulknut Eclipse of the Third Rebellion. And the outside world suffered the consequences.”
“What consequences? What suffering? You just said all would be One.”
“After the ultimate Final Ascension, all would become One. In the meantime, the entire Alchemists’ Council worked towards preparing for the Ritual of Ascension, which would have taken place on the fourth day if not for rebel interference. Without intention beyond preparation for the ritual, the Alchemists’ Council neglected its duties, preparing en masse for Final — the absolute final — Ascension. During those three days, for the first time in centuries upon centuries, the people of the outside world were free from our influence — completely free to make their own choices regarding their world and its people without our influence or assistance or, as some claim, interference. Though the rebels ensured the Flaw in the Stone was returned before the Ritual of Ascension, and though Council dimension itself suffered no lasting damage, in those few days certain individuals of the outside world made choices that, over the next few years, resulted in the deaths of millions. And although the Vulknut Eclipse lasted only three days, the results of the choices made during that period — choices over which we had no influence — have rippled throughout the years to the crises we now face. The only viable solution to mitigate damages that we caused to the outside world in our pursuit of perfection is a mass influx of Lapidarian bees.”
“Without which the majority of the population of the outside world will perish within a generation,” said Jaden, echoing Obeche while attempting to find logic within the chaos of Cedar’s revelations. She stared at the ceiling momentarily and then suddenly and icily at Cedar as she realized the implications. “Do I understand you correctly, Cedar? Are you saying the only time the people of the outside world had complete control over their choices, the only time their choices extensively and negatively affected the elemental balance of the world, the only time the people of the outside world enjoyed complete freedom from influence of the Alchemists’ Council, the only time the people of the outside world truly — really and truly — enacted absolute free will, occurred when the Council was preparing to eradicate free will for eternity?”
“I am saying that the people of the outside world need us to assist them in the aftermath of the exploitation of their free will, which began during a three-day period a century ago and has wreaked havoc ever since.”
“I’m beginning to understand. You used the rebels. You used them to ensure an increase to the Flaw so that you, and all members of the Alchemists’ Council, would maintain not only free will for yourselves, but power over the free will of others. Having accomplished that feat, you now want the bees released to ensure that power over the outside world remains with the Council, to ensure the choices — the apparent free will — of the people of the outside world have no lasting effects whatsoever on elemental balance. You keep for yourself and the Alchemists’ Council what you take away from others. You are a hypocrite, Cedar.”
“And you are naïve, Jaden. What is it that you thought you were learning in your Initiate classes? You have known all along of the Council’s duty to maintain elemental balance of the outside world. How is it that you think we can accomplish this without power over, as you say? Or were you too distracted from the truth by the beauty of this dimension, by the splendour of this world that you chose to inhabit when offered that choice, this world with its blue mist at dawn and verdant grounds and copper channels flowing — until recently — with crystal clear waters. Or perhaps you were distracted by the mysteries it opened to you — by Kalina and Dracaen and the possibilities offered by potential rebellion. Or perhaps you were distracted by your own desire — for Arjan or Sadira or any number of physical temptations available to you for a virtual eternity. How is it that you have enjoyed the pleasures accessible to you through the Alchemists’ Council without thinking through the repercussions of that very enjoyment?”
