The Edict of Alchemy
The three of them stood far beneath the shadow of the blazing temple Hearth, like vermin seeking respite from the Sun. The large shadow shrouded the temple’s main room—a large octagonal chamber with a looming dais at its center—in a pervasive gloom. Save for the jumbled candelabra scattered around the platform they stood upon, it was hard to see much of anything. A dark island among a sea of dimmed stars.Prologue
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The Judge
“The use of Alchemy is irrefutably immoral: a crime against order and the Empire’s prosperity. Anyone caught partaking in its practice from this point forward consents to the Ablation Trial. May the Eternal Flame make the final judgment.”
The Edict of Alchemy, Proclaimed by the Prophet Emperor Rashaal, 872 V.E.Enforcer Tarīk held his meager oil lamp closer to the page, wishing he had brought a Flame Flask instead. A blasphemous thought, perhaps, but what would it take for the magistrate to shed a little more light in here? “Onto your more serious charges: we have conspiracy to smuggle alchemists, resisting arrest, and . . . knocking an imperial officer unconscious?” He looked up from the log book he was reading from, surprised.
When Neema had been brought to Tarīk to stand trial, he had initially assumed his subordinates made a mistake. The charges he presented to her now made it seem even more so.
The small and unassuming woman huffed, struggling to remove the long dark braids that had fallen over her eyes. With her hands bound behind her, she didn’t make much progress. “Well when your enforcers attacked me, they weren’t in uniform! I thought they were bandits! They’re common on those mountain roads, and a little lady like me needs to know how to defend herself.”
“But . . . but you?” Tarīk said, before realizing the Imperial Magistrate was glaring at him again. Before she could scold him for wasting more of her precious time, Tarīk cleared his throat and continued. “Regardless of the circumstance, these are imperial offenses and carry a large penalty. Imprisonment, at the very least. Execution at the worst.”
“By the Eternal Sun! Even if I did know they were alchemists—and I will reiterate again, that I did not—transporting someone to another location isn’t a crime. I’m a hired carriage, it is my entire job to move people! What do you suggest I do, interrogate every potential customer about their history, their occupation? Who would hire someone who does that?”
Tarīk stared at Neema as she rambled her defense, a frown spread across his mouth. This was supposed to be the case that proved his worth to Emperor Rashaal’s circle: one of the crowning achievements of his career in investigating and prosecuting violations of the Order’s—and now the Prophet’s—sacred decrees. But with plainclothes enforcers who clearly broke protocol and no hard proof she knowingly harbored fugitives, her involvement in any federal crime was largely circumstantial. Fires, it seemed unlikely this girl could resist arrest even if she wanted to, despite what had been reported. In any fair court of law, the jury would have rightfully ordered her to be released.
And yet, as he glanced at Magistrate Halime, a darker fear began to wriggle into the back of his mind. This was no court of law. There was no jury. Here, in the Temple of the Sun, there was only the judge: the Flame and its keeper.
“Tell me, miss Neema, why did you choose the route from Slevak to Tleivich?” Halime asked gently. “I found nothing in your documents about having ties to that town. I hadn’t even heard of it before your arrest.”
Neema shrugged, seeming relieved that her interrogation had taken a more innocuous turn. “It paid better than other rural routes from the capital. Can’t say why, though I suspect Tleivich was going through a boom of some sort. Saw lots of new faces each time I made the trip.” “But you took trips there every other week.”
“Like I said, I think there was a boom. Maybe a new copper deposit was discovered.”
“Or something much more valuable than one,” Halime muttered under her breath. “You still haven’t clarified this exactly . . . how did you become acquainted with the village of Tleivich; with this specific route?”
Even in the dark, Tarīk could see Neema stiffening. “I had a relative that married into a family there. She tipped me off.”
Halime walked over to the edge of the dais, towards the metal crank that raised and lowered the Hearth that was still burning hundreds of feet above them: the eternal beacon that bathed Vleilaas’ capital city in sacred light even on the darkest of nights. She put her gloves on, then began turning the mechanism to lower the massive granite brazier. It was a motion she must have been familiar with from her days as a Sun Order priestess. Each efficient cycle brought the light deeper into the cold stone room. “Describe the exact nature of this relationship?”
“We . . . we’re step-sisters, sort of. All but on paper,” Neema said, eyeing the slowly descending vessel of Sunlight. She swallowed. “I’m sorry, what does this have to do with my supposed crimes?”
As the jangle of heavy chains filled the temple, Tarīk bit his lip. Never had he so dreaded an approaching light, but there could be only one reason for Halime to bring the Sun down at this time of night. And it wasn’t to tend to the Flame.
“Oh, just some idle chatter to relieve tension. I know how stressful interrogations can be.” Halime paused her work, offering Neema a sweet smile. “Are you two close?”
“Very. We always have been.” For a brief moment, Tarīk thought he felt Halime eyeing him. She wanted him to speak, to prove himself. That’s why he had summoned her here, after all . . . and he knew well before today that becoming her right hand man was not for the faint of heart. “If you two have always been close,” he said, trying to sound as confident yet nonchalant as she always did during these kinds of proceedings, “how come you just started taking trips out there?”
“What do you mean?”
“Every road to Tleivich has a tollhouse. Their collective records indicate you only started traveling there this past year. After the edict.” Tarīk glanced at the magistrate, seeing a brief glint of approval in her cold silver eyes before she continued lowering the Hearth. While it was rumored Neema’s route had only started in the past year, they had no such records to prove it. But if Tarīk had learned anything during his apprenticeship under Halime, it was that she appreciated the occasional calculated risk.
The Hearth’s ever approaching light highlighted the dread creeping across Neema’s features. The sweat beading on her brow. Her voice was suddenly desperate. “Please . . . He approached me! He said I only needed to make a few shipments and to keep quiet about it. I didn’t know what he was asking me to do until I was arrested by your officers. I needed the money, I didn’t want to ask any questions!”
The heavy brazier slotted into the stone altar beside them, its boom echoing through the temple many times over. Neema flinched.
“Who?” Tarīk bellowed over the jarring sound, making the prisoner cower even more. The voice was demanding, cruel. It did not feel like his own.
“I-I don’t know! I never heard his name. I never saw his face!”
Wary the magistrate was watching, Tarīk lifted Neema’s head up by her chin. She wouldn’t look at him. “Isn’t there anything you can tell us? He must have contacted you frequently for you to make the number of trips you did. How can you honestly say you know nothing about him?”
There was a long pause as the echos faded into silence. When the girl maintained her silence, Halime sighed. “Ready her for the Ablation Trial, Master Tarīk. If she won’t talk, the Flame will determine her guilt for us.”
“Wait! Please!” Neema shrieked before Tarīk could do the magistrate’s bidding. Whatever inspired his earlier confidence had now departed, and he stepped away from the Hearth, wiping the dampness from his palms. Despite his years of service to the Sun Order and the empire, he had never witnessed an Ablation Trial: the divine punishment reserved for only the worst of criminals. Some heretical part of him still hoped he never would.
“After our first meeting,” Neema panted, “he only communicated by letter. He gave me a pickup point and a time, and I would go. When I returned to Slevak, my payment was left for me in a predetermined spot. The exact amount every time.”
“Do you still have these letters?” Halime asked in her characteristic soothing tone, even while she readied the restraining device that was to hang over the Hearth. By now, the heat from the thing was oppressive, even from the very edge of the dais where Tarīk stood. Even in the dead of winter, when the strength of the Sun was almost at its weakest. “Or do you remember anything significant about them? Something we could use to identify the sender?”
“No. His letters were ordinary in every sense. He instructed me to burn them immediately after I read them. And I . . . I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to know anything about him or what he was trying to do with these shipments. He paid me well, and I did as he asked without question. Always.”
“And what exactly did he ask you to ship? In his words?”
Neema sputtered for a moment, shaking her head. “People. People of all kinds: women, children, men, elderly; poor and rich. Sometimes there would be barrels and crates to ship. Sometimes there would be animals too, smaller livestock or pets. But there were always people. None of them ever seemed like criminals. They were always . . . grateful.” She looked back at Halime who was reaching for the Hearth’s poker now. “Y-you have to believe me! I would never violate any edict of our emperor’s intentionally. I love him! I love him as much as any imperial!”
Halime ignored the zeal in Neema’s voice as she stoked the Sun Drops inside the vessel: the tear-shaped slivers of Sunlight that had fallen from the sky at the beginning of time. Fragments of their eternal god. “And you may prove your innocence soon. Not to me with your words . . . but to the Judge.”
Tarīk struggled to grasp what happened next. It was like his mind was being torn from his body, trying to distance itself from the actions he was commanded to commit. His hands fastened the fittings and chains to the woman, heedless to her begging. His arms hoisted her up and above the brazier by about twenty feet, securing her with a strength and determination that he swore was not his own. Then the magistrate began turning a different crank.
“Please! I’ve told you everything I know! I’ll do whatever you want!” Neema screamed as she was lowered towards the flames. When she dangled just above its tendrils, her clothes finally ignited. She thrashed, still screeching about her innocence and willingness to serve the empire until her words became unintelligible. A horrible stench filled the air, of black and char.
Tarīk shuddered. This sight, these sickening smells . . . they made his knees shake. He turned away, but he wasn’t sure what he was more ashamed of: this flicker of doubt in the magistrate and the will of his god, or what he had done to this woman. At some point, he realized Neema had stopped screaming. The fire crackled softly now, licking and devouring the rest of the offering it was presented with in a satisfied silence.
“I always hate when I learn they are guilty. And somehow, they always are.” Halime sighed, rising wearily from the stool she’d been watching from. “But I’m afraid that you are ill equipped to assist from here, Master Tarīk.”
“What?” Tarīk croaked, his voice hoarse from breathing in smoke and fumes.
“You did as I asked, yes, but I sensed a . . . reluctance. Uncertainty is not something that the Sun’s Chosen desires in its ranks. Especially not in a leader.”
The way she spoke made him worry he’d face the Flame next. He tried to keep himself from panicking. “I have served the Chosen for almost a decade. I assisted you in this trial! How does that speak of uncertainty?”
“You know exactly what I speak of, Master Tarīk.” Tarīk said nothing as the magistrate studied him, her gaze . . . all-knowing. He turned away. “But true devotion can be kindled under the right conditions. Maybe someday, your heart will burn as brightly as she did.” The magistrate nodded towards what was left of Neema: a charred mound of twisted bones and ash. “Now clean up that mess. It’s a disgrace to the Flame.”
“And . . . and what will you do?” Tarīk said, swallowing. He almost wished he hadn’t asked the question because he already knew the answer.
The magistrate smiled slightly. “I need to pay a visit to Tleivich—without your accompaniment, of course. And once I’m there, I’ll do what I know you cannot.”
JJ Anderson 