Aether Spark Read online

  Chance smiled as he watched her struggle with it. They’d never named her. They’d taken to calling her Mutt, and Mutt she remained. Yet, despite her lack of a name, she’d come to be one of them.

  Chance rummaged through the cupboards for something to eat. The room had been a breezeway before, but Ashworth had converted it to a kitchen shortly after Rhett’s arrival to make room for another workspace. Retrieving a half-loaf of bread and the clay jar where they kept the butter, he joined Ashworth at the table.

  “Good afternoon, Ashworth.”

  “Evening, you mean,” Ashworth corrected, nodding to the clock on the wall. “Though I trust that the afternoon was, indeed, a good one. How did that mixing go?”

  “To be honest, not well,” Chance admitted. “Let’s just say we won’t be needing any grease for these cabinet hinges for a while.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Ashworth rested his paper in his lap. “But, you know that a setback isn’t such an uncommon thing. You can’t expect things to go flawlessly every time. You’ll just have to learn from your mistake and give it another go—but I’m certain you’re already doing that.”

  Chance nodded.

  “Fortunate this was only a simple mixture, and you weren’t working with anything irreplaceable.”

  Chance swallowed hard. The knot in his stomach was tightening.

  “About that...” he began.

  “Oh dear, here we go,” Ashworth sighed.

  “I took some calcinated hartshorn from your workshop the other day. I meant to replace it with what money I made off this batch, but—”

  “Chance,” Ashworth frowned. He tossed the paper down on the table. “How much did you take?”

  “Twelve measures. It would have been replaced by tomorrow, I swear!”

  “Is something gone?” Rhett asked, entering the room. He carried a bundle of herbs haphazardly in his arms, pieces of loose dirt falling to the floor as he walked. He looked curiously from Chance to Ashworth.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Chance said, slumping down in his chair. He stabbed at his bread with his knife, the dry crust flaking as the blade pierced its hardened shell.

  “Are you just now finishing in the garden?” Ashworth asked Rhett.

  “Um… yes?”

  “I expect those to be cleaned and hung to dry before you turn in tonight. They should have been hung hours ago. I hate to think what else you didn’t get to if you’re only coming in now with those. What about the rats?”

  “I couldn’t find any,” Rhett shrugged.

  “None?” Ashworth’s pursed his lips. “What is it you’ve been doing all day?”

  Rhett’s head sank even lower. Honestly, sometimes Chance couldn’t tell if the boy had a neck.

  “You see, this is exactly where your problem lies,” Ashworth continued, turning to include Chance in the lecture. “Somehow you two have the notion trapped in your heads that you’ve got everything under control. That you’ll have enough time, enough money, or just enough dumb luck to do whatever it is that weasels its way into those minds of yours when the truth is that there are dozens of variables beyond your control and not one of us can account for them all.

  “If there’s one lesson you ought to learn as an apprentice it’s that you can’t count on any given outcome. Not in alchemy. Not in life. We work with the volatile! The less you fool yourself into believing you govern the outcome and the more you focus on the tasks at hand then the more likely you’ll be to accomplish something despite that unforgiving fact.”

  Chance felt his own neck sinking into his shoulders, and he tried to straighten up to preserve some of his dignity.

  Ashworth sighed and pulled at his chin.

  “Alchemy is a profession based on respect,” he emphasized. “Respect for the elements and respect for fate. And, most of all, a respect for those who’ve gone before you. Have you ever thought that I might have made some of these same poor decisions myself and am trying to guard you from doing the same?

  “But, I suppose you have a right to learn for yourselves firsthand,” Ashworth concluded. “Go ahead. Do what you will. I’ve had enough for tonight.” He opened his paper again as though it were a shield from any further conversation.

  Rhett seized the opportunity and vanished through the open door leaving Chance to bear the brunt of Ashworth’s silence alone.

  Chance’s face grew hot. He wanted to argue. He wanted to tell Ashworth how close he’d come. He was even tempted to point out Rhett’s neglect to refill his components, but he refrained. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway. Rhett didn’t deserve more trouble than he already caused for himself.

  “Had things gone better, we’d have had enough money to restock our components for a month,” Chance grumbled when he couldn’t bear the silence anymore.

  “Yes, well, in the craft of alchemy how many good intentions have gone up in flames before yours?”

  The frustration in Ashworth’s voice had dissipated some. He leaned forward and spoke with a voice of sincere concern.

  “Chance, I can’t have my personal stores going missing. When that happens, it puts me in a poor position. A poor position indeed. What would happen if a concoction called for hartshorn, and I discovered too late that it was gone? Unlike you, I work with time sensitive components. They can turn on you in a moment.”

  Chance sat buttering his bread quietly. He understood that problem better than Ashworth knew.

  “Oh well,” Ashworth said. “No sense crying over past mistakes. Septigonee knows there’s enough misfortune coming tomorrow not to carry today’s along with us. Best to learn and let it lie. There’s some money in the coffee tin inside the pantry. Tomorrow morning, you and Rhett run down to the Exchange and buy what we need to resupply. You can start again in the morning. I don’t have the energy to deal with this tonight anyway.”

  Chance nodded. He wanted to protest the idea of using Ashworth’s money for the purchases, but there was no way he could afford it alone. He ate his bread quietly, glancing at the headlines on the back of Ashworth’s paper.

  It was Ashworth’s daily ritual, reading the news. Three separate papers were delivered to the house every day, one of them both a morning and evening edition. Chance didn’t understand what he found so fascinating. It seemed to him that anything that happened in Hatteras was either too dull to be of interest, or else about the meritocracy and therefore of little consequence to those who lived in the Basin.

  Ashworth had explained once that he found it diverting to find the inconsistencies between papers—like it was some secret game. Chance thought the practice rather mind-numbing.

  Tonight, however, Ashworth wasn’t leafing through as he usually did. He seemed to be hung up on one particular article. After a long moment, he set the paper down and stared off at the wall, his brow creasing and his fingers interlocked.

  “Something wrong?” Chance asked.

  “A familiar name in the obituaries,” Ashworth said. “An old friend passed away earlier this morning.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Captain Willard Harper. A comrade of mine from years back. About the time of the Great War.”

  “A soldier?” Chance asked, giving Ashworth a queer look. “I didn’t know you fought in the war.” Chance had long before accepted there were things about his mentor he didn’t know, yet something in his mind’s eye made it difficult to picture Ashworth in uniform wielding a flintlock and saber.

  “Goodness, no,” Ashworth corrected. “Even back then, I was just a simple alchemist. Perhaps comrade was the wrong word. He was a good friend, and a fine soldier. He returned with quite a few distinctions for his bravery overseas, though they cost him dearly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, like most of the men who were sent to fight, he was injured. An explosive, and a primitive one at that, wounded him just months before the conflict was over. Nearly tore him apart. I don’t believe many thought he’d make it. But Willard, he wasn’t the
type to go peaceably down to Septigonee’s Well. He held on long enough for them to fly him back to Hatteras to undergo more... drastic procedures.

  “Even on what we all considered his deathbed he was a fighter,” Ashworth mused, sipping his broth. Chance suspected it had already gone cold.

  “Seems like a lot of effort to keep just one soldier alive.”

  “Not just a soldier,” Ashworth explained. “A war hero. He’d become something of a symbol of everything Hatteras was fighting for across the sea—the embodiment of its independent spirit. They called him ‘the good captain’.

  “The people were too invested in breaking from Selaria to let their symbol of resistance die. They worked on him for days, bringing in doctors, alchemists, and even a few mechanists to try and save him. Clockwork mechanics were not as advanced then as they are now, but the mechanists managed to reconstruct his shoulder and build an artificial support to his heart and lung—all while we alchemists did our best to sustain him throughout the procedure.”

  “You worked on him?”

  “I did.”

  Chance shuddered. He had seen wounded veterans in the streets on occasion, with their lifeless mechanical prosthetics. The sight of metal merging with bone and tissue unnerved him, and the thought set a hook in the back of his throat.

  “That sounds horrible.”

  “It wasn’t pleasant,” Ashworth agreed. “But, it did preserve his life.”

  “What did he look like? After his recovery? It must have been horrifying.”

  “I’m not sure exactly. We weren’t on speaking terms once the war began, and he made no effort to see me when it was all over. I only heard about his recovery through the papers. He went on to be quite the figure among the new meritocracy, as I read. The city is what it is today in part because of him. But what it must have been like to live out his life with that twisted mess we built of him...”

  “I would rather they’d let me die,” Chance said, “rather than having to lug about a hunk of dead-weight like that.”

  “But it wasn’t dead weight!” Ashworth’s eyes lit up. “It was one of the most remarkable feats of medicine and mechanism that I’ve beheld to this day. You see, the mechanism they built for him was so piecemeal—they’d built it into him in such a way that it was difficult to tell exactly where he began and the mechanism ended.

  “And then, somewhere in the process of it all, something... took. It was as if the mechanism itself became a part of him.” He leaned closer to Chance and whispered in a low voice. “He moved the arm.”

  Chance stared at Ashworth.

  “He moved it,” he said again, when Chance failed to react. “Goodness, boy. The arm! He moved the arm as if it were his own!”

  “But,” Chance struggled to wrap his head around the thought. “How is that possible?”

  “We hadn’t the slightest idea!” Ashworth let out a humored laughed. “It baffled everyone who witnessed it. But regardless, something about that operation connected the two, and he could move the mechanism as if it had always been a part of him.

  “We’d never done anything like it before, and it’s never been repeated. They never could go back to work on it for fear of undoing what they’d done. It would have been too risky. But,” Ashworth’s eyes grew wide as he considered it, “what a feat to behold—the merging of man and machine. Never had I seen anything like it. Nor likely will again.”

  “Sounds unnatural to me,” Chance said.

  “I agree. Natural is certainly not the word I would use—though the prosthetic functioned nearly as naturally as the limb it replaced.”

  “I suppose mechanists are good at what they do.”

  “You know, I may have kept some of my notes from that surgery,” Ashworth said. “Some of my thoughts and observations. Perhaps I could dig them up for you? You might find it interesting.”

  “No thanks,” Chance said. “I don’t make it a habit to spend my time worrying about what mechanists do with theirs. I’ve got my own work to worry about.”

  “A mechanist’s work and ours isn’t so different. Might do you some good to stretch your mind a little. Perhaps it will help you come at your own work from another angle. I’m sure Welch would be happy to explain some of it to you. You’d be surprised what our crafts have in common.”

  Chance couldn’t keep his eyes from rolling. “The last thing I’d want is to work with Welch. Besides, he’s not a real mechanist; he’s just a tinkerer.”

  “Gleaning a little knowledge from other fields isn’t a poor use of time,” Ashworth insisted. “Often it’s the little clues we pick up along the way that help unlock the real mysteries.”

  “Maybe,” Chance shrugged.

  They sat in silence again. Chance nibbled at his bread while Ashworth sipped his broth. Chance mind wandered as he thought of what it might be like to live with a prosthetic. To have a portion of yourself made of brass gears and copper plating. It was a strange thought.

  “So, what killed him?” Chance finally asked. “In the end?”

  “What we’d all expected from the beginning.” Ashworth pushed the column to Chance. “It was only a matter of time; the prosthetic was built too haphazardly to last. They were trying to replace it when he died th—”

  Ashworth had a sudden fit of coughing.

  “Are you alright?” Chance asked, but Ashworth waved his hand dismissively. It was a moment before he caught his breath again.

  “—this morning,” he finished. He stood and fetched some water from the pump.

  “You sure you’re alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Ashworth said, wiping his eyes.

  Chance glanced over the article. “When did you last speak to him?”

  “Twenty-five years ago,” Ashworth sighed. “It sounds so long when I say it. I did try to contact him a few years back, but he wouldn’t see me. He’s become something of a hermit these days. I felt like I owed it to him to try though.”

  He took his seat again and leaned back with a heavy look. “And now he’s gone,” he said.

  “So, you were never able to fix things with him?”

  “It’s my greatest regret,” Ashworth confided. “We may have had our falling out, but I still considered him a good friend. The war was a shame, but the way it divided Hatteras was, I believe, the greatest ill that came of it. It would have meant a great deal to me to speak to him again and set things right between us.”

  “I’m sure he understands,” Chance assured. He didn’t really buy what he was implying, but it seemed like the right thing to say at a time like this. Either way, the conversation was making him uncomfortable.

  “I still couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live with a prosthetic,” he said. “Can you imagine trying to write a letter with a mechanical hand? Or use the john? It’s hard enough to aim with a good hand.”

  Ashworth frowned. The joke hadn’t had the desired effect.

  “Sorry,” Chance said. “I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

  “It’s alright,” Ashworth said. “I’m not much in a mood to laugh. Though I didn’t mean to infect you with my melancholy either. I think... I think I could use a walk.” He rose from the table.

  “But it’s getting late.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” Ashworth fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a few loose coins, handing them to Chance. “In case there isn’t enough in the tin to replace what you lost.”

  “We should have enough.”

  “Good. Be sure you clean up whatever mess you’ve left in the lab before you turn in, and keep an eye on Rhett. Perhaps give him a hand? I don’t want to think of what else he might have neglected to do today.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Umm… nowhere, I suppose,” Ashworth said. “I’ve just got things on my mind. Some air might do me good.” He pushed the cold broth over to Chance. “You can finish this if you’d like.”

  Ashworth retrieved his coat from where it hung on a knob
by the back door and popped into his workroom. A few minutes later, Chance heard the latch on the front door as it opened and closed.

  Chance looked over the captain’s obituary, gleaning a few more details about his life and service. He’d never seen so many honors in one paragraph. His mind turned to his old friend Ringgold. He was probably off building his own collection of medals in some colony somewhere.

  An itch tugged at the back of his throat. His conversation with Ashworth had surfaced the memory without him realizing it. Swallowing hard, Chance pushed the thought of his once friend to the recesses of his mind.

  “Is he still mad?” Rhett asked, poking his head through the door.

  “Not at you,” Chance said. “He’s just having a rough day.”

  Rhett nodded, as if he’d been there the whole time—which he probably had—and sat on the edge of the countertop.

  “So why did you lie to him?” Chance asked.

  Rhett’s face turned red, and he folded his arms over his stomach. “I didn’t lie.”

  “About not having a rat?”

  Rhett looked up fearfully.

  “You’re alright, Rhett,” Chance assured him. “I won’t tell Ashworth.”

  “You promise?”

  Rhett’s eyes nearly broke Chance’s heart. There may not have been much backbone in the boy, but Chance admired his measure of heart. He nodded, and Rhett smiled with relief.

  Reaching into his shirt, Rhett pulled out a stout brown rat and deposited it on the table. Its hair was matted and its tail had a few nicks cut out of it. The rodent tried to scurry off the table, but Rhett built a barrier around it with his arms.

  “Did you name him?” Chance asked.

  “No.”

  “How are you going to tell him from the others without a name?”

  “He knows who I am. He comes when I talk to him,” Rhett explained. He put a bit of butter on the tip of his finger and let the rat lick it off.

  “We really need to work on our naming things. People will think we’re lazy.” Chance took the rest of his bread and threw it to the mutt, who’d curled up on a loose blanket in the corner. She snapped the crumbs midair.