The Heart of Alchemy by James Wisher (e book reading free TXT) 📕

Jet grabbed his arm and tugged. “What are you doing? We can’t stay here.”

“We can’t escape either.” Otto drew his sword. “Better to face whatever’s coming now than when we’ve run ourselves to exhaustion.”

Jet pulled her own dagger, her knuckles white on the hilt. While he appreciated the gesture, Otto expected little in the way of help from his companion.

The screaming was nearly deafening when the creature burst into the light at a full sprint.

Otto didn’t hesitate.

A spear of ten fused threads lashed out, reducing the creature’s head to pulp, sending it crashing to the ground, and putting an end to its screaming. After all that noise, he’d expected more of a battle.

Otto walked over and looked down at the remains. It had clearly been a woman once. Her clothes were torn and ragged and her feet bare. Her body had been twisted and distorted. Fingers were transformed into claws, teeth into fangs, and her skin was now rough and gray like stone.

In the distance more screams filled the night.

“What is it?” he asked.

“They’re called Screamers, for obvious reasons,” Jet said. “I read about them in one of Astaroth’s holy books. They serve as shock troops in his army. Running ahead of the main force and slaughtering all that oppose them. I got the impression they were supposed to be tougher.”

“Don’t let this battle fool you. Against my magic, this one stood no chance, but against an ordinary soldier, I shudder to think what it might have done. Anyway, let’s get going. I’d just as soon avoid any more of them if possible.”

It ended up not being possible. Otto was forced to kill two more of the Screamers before they reached the alley where his thread ended. Across the way, the Forbidden Garden glowed a dull yellow in the dark.

“With all the undead running around the city,” Jet said. “Maybe the garden won’t be so bad.”

“What do you want to bet?”

Her laugh sounded nervous and brittle which perfectly described Otto’s nerves. After the long journey here, crossing the border, running and hiding, it was finally time.

Otto conjured a platform beneath them and they rose slowly toward the palace wall. No shouts of alarm rang out and no guards came running. A quick look revealed that all the guards were clustered around the main gate.

Perfect. Just as he’d hoped, Marius’s uprising served his needs well. They landed on the battlements and looked down into the garden. Or they tried to. The thick canopy blocked Otto’s view. They ended up having to walk a third of the way down the wall until what looked like an entrance, really just an arch made up of bent saplings, became visible.

He lowered them down to the ground and they walked slowly toward the arch. There was no barrier beyond the thick growth, yet for all appearances, no gap wide enough to admit a person existed.

Otto stopped and took a deep breath. A shield of ether formed around him. If Jet decided to follow, she was on her own.

Steeling himself, he stepped across the threshold into the garden.

Ten strides past the entrance and Otto already knew he was dealing with something beyond even his wildest imaginings. It felt like a million eyes were watching, but when he looked around, he saw nothing save trees. Even the sky was blocked out by the sprawling branches. No bird or squirrel, not even a bug broke the perfect stillness. An odd scent filled the air, faint, like distant perfume. It was floral, but unlike anything he’d smelled before.

“Where do you think the Heart is?” Jet asked.

It seemed she’d decided to join him. Otto had been so focused on what was around him that he hadn’t even noticed her.

“If Lord Cheng was anything like the other Arcane Lords, I suspect it will be in the center of the garden. Probably on a glowing pedestal surrounded by lethal traps and monsters.”

He looked back at Jet then past her, over her right shoulder. The garden entrance was gone.

“No going back now.”

Jet turned then snapped her gaze back to his, panic clear in her eyes. “How?”

That was always the question with Arcane Lords and far too often the answer was the same. “I have no idea. It seems down the path is our only option.”

Jet had her dagger out and her head jerked left and right as if trying to watch every direction at once. Otto didn’t bother telling her it was a waste of time and that ordinary steel would probably do her no good.

“Try to relax. Your anxiety is stressing me out. Whatever is going to happen will happen no matter how ready we are. All you’re going to do is exhaust yourself.”

“Easy for you to say. You have magic and mithril to protect you.”

“You were free to wait outside.”

“For Marius and his undead to show up? No, thank you. I’ll take my chances in here. At least the trees don’t want to eat me.”

Otto wasn’t entirely sure that was true. He sensed no malevolence from the garden, but there was definitely something, some presence, that was aware of them. Its nature and purpose eluded Otto, but he would never assume good intentions.

The path made it clear where they were meant to go. Hopefully not directly into a trap. As they walked on, he shifted his focus constantly between the ether and the physical world. Not that there was much difference. Everything in the garden seemed infused with massive amounts of ether. The amount of power in a single tree was more than he could have channeled in a year.

He tried to think how Lord Cheng might have created such things and immediately gave up. Trying to think like an Arcane Lord was still as far beyond him as long division was a mosquito.

Much like being underground, the constant, unchanging glow made it hard to tell how long they’d been wandering around. Far longer, it seemed to Otto, than it should have taken