252 - The Deal

The Alchemist smiled at Aiden’s request, clearly pleased. His seat swept back automatically, and he held up his finger as he stood. 

“One more thing to note,” he said. “By showing you the future and letting you leave here with that knowledge, I am fundamentally changing it. There’s no way to know exactly how it will change, but we can mitigate that later by altering your memories. Not to mention, with our contract, we can ensure that no matter how things change, your daughter will be safe."

His voice seemed to grow louder in the hollow room. Aiden didn't trust a single word the other man was saying, though.

He felt extremely uncomfortable, like his insides were trying to crawl out of his skin as the Alchemist shifted closer, bringing the whispering dark blobs along with him.

Aiden knew what they were. Liquified chaos.

He’d seen it before, but never this much surrounding everything, bleeding from everywhere. 

"Deal?" The Alchemist held his hand out, and Aiden was tentative to take it.

“If I wanted to kill you, there are far easier ways than by shaking your hand,” the Alchemist pointed out.

Aiden knew that was true, but irrationally, he still didn’t want to take the sweaty, callused hand that the Alchemist offered.

“How do I know that whatever you show me is going to be real?” Aiden asked.

“Certified by soul contract,” he said. “If the visions are not true, then whatever contract we sign here is automatically voided. I would take you to see the source of the visions myself if I could, but I do not have access. The only thing I have is what he sees.”

“He means…Vulcan?”

“Yes. Those are the terms of our contract. I help him, and he gives me access to his visions.”

“And what does he want? Why does he want to kill my daughter?”

“To be the last Chosen standing, I'm assuming,” he said. “But I personally think it's more than that. I think his problem with your daughter is a more personal matter than just winning the game. She’s a challenge he’s never been able to crack.”

Just hearing Lexie referred to as something to 'crack' made Aiden want to kill someone.

The Alchemist saw that and his nose twitched like a rat. “I do want to point out, though, that I do not want your daughter dead. I find her to be very fascinating, and I will be very eager to work with her in the future.”

“I don’t want you to work with her,” Aiden said. “I want you to help her.”

“Of course. In any case, I do not want your daughter to die. I do want your support. So I will save her if you help me."

“How can you agree to that, when it goes against your prior contract with Vulcan?" Aiden narrowed his eyes. "You’re going to double-cross him? And you expect me to trust you?”

“No. There is no trust between thieves, as there is no trust between me and you, or me and Vulcan, for that matter. That is why everything must be in writing." He gestured as he began to circle Aiden, the darkness staining the path. "Vulcan's use to me is coming to an end. Yours is only just beginning. And I feel like we understand each other, fundamentally. More than he and I do." He cocked his head. “Besides, it doesn’t look like you have a choice. I’m the only one who can help you with your little problem, otherwise you would not be here."

Aiden bit his lip. It was true. He was stuck with the Alchemist. He had gone over it again and again in his head, wondering who he could ask for help. Naem kept insisting that there was nothing he could do to stop Lexie’s Eldritch side from growing ultimately. They could control it to an extent, but it was still growing faster than they could predict.

No one else even knew about it, and all Aiden's research only led him here.

The Alchemist was the only one who had experience merging chaos into their soul.

Aiden clenched his jaw. His hand felt itchy as he let it move, up and out.

By the time the Alchemist came around to see it, he grinned. Then he clasped it in his palm.

His brain was instantly flooded with images.

He saw into the Alchemist's mind, the pure chaos of it all. He saw images of Lexie, screaming, in pain. He saw her death several times. At several ages.

None of the visions showed her making it into adulthood.

Lexie was getting trapped in a dungeon. Lexie with a sword in her chest. Lexie was engulfed in fire. Lexie was being dragged to the Eldritch Realm. Lexie stabbed by an unknown assailant.

Aiden ripped his hand away, unable to bear it anymore, his heart beating like a runaway train. 

“No,” he commanded. “No!”

“Mhmm.” The Alchemist nodded with sounds of sympathy. “It does not end well for her, especially given Vulcan's insistence. Even if you get rid of us right now, Dominic Vacek will not allow your daughter to ever have her happy ending.”

“Vacek?” 

“I'm sure you've already noticed. He has her in mind for missions. He wants her to take the place of her mother, and eventually, he will lead her into disaster and leave her there just like he did with Lara.”

“I don’t…” Aiden shook his head. He needed to think straight. This was probably some kind of trick, but he was too shaken by thoughts of Lexie getting hurt that his brain wasn't figuring out the trick fast enough.

Unless there was no trick andeverything the Alchemist was saying was true.

“What do you want from me?” Aiden asked, hoarsely.

"Simple. I want you to retrieve the key from the Dark Tower.”

“The Key.”

“You know it, yes?”

“Vaguely.” It was a thing of fable, given to the Guardian Janus to allow him to access a different world. 

“You will help me retrieve it. Such a key can even turn back time and save your daughter fro whatever fate befalls her.”

Aiden swallowed. "That's all you want."

“Yes. The second condition is that you kill Dominic Vacek.”

Aiden blinked. “I don’t–”

“Yes, yes, I know what’s coming. Your conscience won’t allow you to kill a man in cold blood and all that, but consider what will happen if you leave him alive. Consider what will happen to your daughter and the world at large.”

“I don’t understand.”

The Alchemist made a sound of frustration. “Dominic Vacek thinks he’s so clever, but he’s one of the blindest men I’ve ever met. He thinks that by keeping everything in balance, the world will become a 'fairer' place, and he can keep the Fae at bay. But Chaos is our natural order. The Fae know this, and they are coming for us no matter what. We do not beat them by trying to be like them. We beat them by being the best versions of ourselves." He continued his pacing, his eyes showing that he was lost in thought. "The Fae have discovered about eighty inhabited planets so far, and have colonized seventy-five of them. We’re currently one of the only planets that is not a Fae protectorate. Why do you think they've allowed the unstable dungeons to go on for so long? Do you think it was an accident that they overlooked all that we were doing? No. It's a feature. They're waiting for us to destroy ourselves so they have an excuse to enslave us."

"In which case, you're giving it to them on a silver platter."

"Am I?" he cocked his head. "Have you ever asked yourself, Archmage, why the Fae want a monopoly on magic? Why do they want to steal our magic and incorporate us into their larger ecosystem? It's easy. It's because we're the last frontier for the bigger war that’s coming.”

Aiden stared at him. The Alchemist was a madman who often said and did nonsense in the name of advancing human development. He was characterized by his greed for knowledge and his general disregard for human life. 

But Aiden now wondered if he himself was going crazy for the Alchemist's speech to start making sense to him.

“So you’re trying to convince me that everything you’ve done is for the good of humanity?” he asked.

"I don’t have to convince you. You will see it soon enough, but by the time you see it, it will be too late.”

“If the Fae were planning something like that, Vacek would know. I would know.” Naem would tell him. 

“The ones you speak of are also under the very same bonds the Fae try to tie humanity into. You know that. There is only one who is free enough to speak about such things.”

"Neqal?"

"The constant."

Aiden didn’t know what that meant, but the Alchemist clapped, and it reverberated as the room came to life. The dolls began to move, and the walls shifted.

Aiden started backing up, and the Alchemist said, “Relax. As I said, there are easier ways to kill you, but I do not want you dead, Archmage. What I want to do is to use you. I can’t do that with your current form as weak as you are, so I will need a new one.”

It took a while for it to make sense of that. “You want to create a golem of me?”

“Eventually, but you will not return as a golem. I'm a skilled crafter, but I do not think I'm skilled enough to deceive Dominic Vacek with another golem, especially now that he knows to look for it. He will instantly suspect you of it and will have you scanned at any moment.  You will not be replaced by a golem, Aiden. But you will be attached to one.

“Why?"

“It is for the storage of your memories and for me to gain access to your insights and help you along your journey. I want to see what you see.”

“No.”

“Relax. There will be no mind-control involved. As you know, that’s not how golems work. They can only be controlled by the ones whose DNA resides in them."

“For now. Who knows what you've trained yourself to do with them?”

He smiled secretively. “I don’t expect to build your trust in the small time we have together. This is where the contract comes into play. It will have all the stipulations you need, and if even one of those stipulations is broken, the contract dissolves. The first stipulation is that your daughter will be in grave danger of losing her humanity or her life. That will activate the contract. The contract will also only continue for as long as she stays alive. If she dies, the contract is ended. The third stipulation is that I will not attempt to control your mind. I will only take out memories of this night, and even then it will be an imperfect extraction as you will still be left with impressions from what we discussed. This is important to lead you in the right direction. I will not personally hold onto the memory, and while I gain insights, I will not use them to harm you or your daughter.  They will be held by your golem and be given back to you at any turn. If I go back on this, the contract is over."

Aiden was silent, watching the man.

"As I said, we can craft it together and include everything there is to include."

"What makes you think I have the power to do all that? Retrieve the key and kill Vacek."

"Your power isn't something I've ever doubted, Archmage. Both mentally, physically, and magically, you have always been one of the most impressive individuals I've ever met. Under immense pressure, you were able to break your Tilling bands and awaken Alchemy. Ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of people in your shoes could never have done that."

"Still, I’m not strong enough yet.”

"Yes, you are. You're simply accessing that strength wrongly. Still thinking like a mage."

Aiden frowned, and the Alchemist smiled. "It's okay. Time moves much more slowly in here and, well, we have all night to learn."

And that they did.

Not only did the Alchemist show Aiden how to access his powers and put him to battle and put him to power against golems, but he also boosted it using dungeons.

That was why Aiden had never run out of magic. Because he was powerful now, even without his human reserves. 

But now came the most important part of their deal. He'd only fulfilled half of his end of the bargain. It was time for him to fulfil the other half.

He sighed, feeling the obligations weigh heavily on him. There was no time for regret now.

He'd done what needed to be done, and in doing so, he'd saved his daughter. Even if it made him a monster, he couldn't regret it.

And he wouldn't let himself get caught.

He had to go and see the Alchemist before the Fae came. 

***

"..and then we left the association headquarters and came home," Lexie finished up her long tale. "So that’s basically everything that happened this morning.”

“Wow,” Tate said. They were sitting on the train, watching the world amble by. Despite her promise to Aiden, Lexie had once again offered to teleporth them to their destination, but Tate had insisted that he liked this mode of transport better.

In his exact words: "Trains are relaxing and don't make me feel like I was just flung through the bowels of reality."

Which worked, because she did need some rest. 

She closed her eyes, expecting to nap, but Tate spoke again.

“So why were those people bowing to you again?” Tate asked.

Lexie shrugged. “I heard Stella say something about them thinking I was their Champion. And Groundsmage mentioned they thought I was their Guardian. Isn't that crazy?”

Tate didn’t say anything. Lexie opened one eye to see that he was regarding her thoughtfully as well.

“Tate?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?"

“Just thinking…”

“Thinking what?”

“That it might not be as crazy as you think.”

Lexie scoffed. “Are you serious, or are you buttering me up for something? Because I have an ego and everything, but even I think calling me a god at this point is premature."

"They didn't think so."

"Well, they're fighting an unwinnable war, so maybe thinking isn't their strong suit."

He smirked.

She also noticed that he looked paler than before. She put out a hand and touched his forehead, making him recoil like she'd stabbed him.

“What the hell?" he exclaimed.

"What?"

"You don’t just touch people."

"I barely touched you. You're just way too sensitive."

"It's called respecting personal space. You should try it."

"I don't have to. I'm a god, remember?"

He raised an eyebrow, and Lexie stuck out her tongue at him.

Lexie thought she noticed people staring at her. It had happened after they crossed Thornwall, before she and Tate started messing around, but now it was super intense. Someone even had an orb tucked somewhere in their thumb and was taking a video of her surreptitiously. 

What the heck? 

“Is that man filming me?" She asked Tate.

Tate whipped his head around and saw the man in question, who was avoiding looking at them.

Tate's eyes narrowed into a glare. 

“I’ll go take care of it,” he said and got up, but Lexie grabbed his wrist, dragging him back into the seat. 

“Easy tiger. Don’t worry about it.” She targeted a small ball of VOID at the center of the orb, and it ate it up and almost ate the man's thumb along with it.

He yelped and jerked up when it happened, and Lexie offered him a polite finger wave.

He paled and swiftly moved away, switching carriages. 

"Creep," Tate muttered after him.

“Yeah, but to be fair, people have been staring at us. The closer we get to Arcadia, the worse it gets."

“Really?”

"Yeah."

"God. How did they even know you were here?"

Lexie shrugged.

"There might be reporters waiting at the train station," Tate said.

"Probably."

He glanced out the window. "If it were foggier, I would have been able to cloak us with mist."

"But it's not. So what do we do?"

He bit his lip and gave her a sigh of resignation. "Teleport."

She nodded and took his hand.

A few seconds later, they were in the dojo.

It was empty. The kind of emptiness that suggested that no one had been there in at least twenty-four hours.

"Where is everyone?" Lexie wondered.

"Probably at the official training center," Tate said. "Shit, I forgot. They might be having team evals today. We can walk there." He said the last part hopefully.

"How far away is it?" Lexie asked.

"Like fifteen minutes. It's by the coffee shop near that elementary school that got hit by a bomb."

"That was my elementary school."

"For real?"

She nodded.

"Okay. I'll get us close," Lexie said

Tate sighed again before they disappeared.

The AFC evaluations are held at the Concord Hall, which was a multi-story concrete building with reflective windows that always had some kind of paps handing outside it, just for a glimpse of one of the bigshots.

Luckily, they didn't recognize Lexie on her way in, at least not fast enough.

The security guy did, though. He stared at her for a full minute after Tate gave him his information, until Tate had to basically snap his fingers in his face.

"Oh, sorry," The man said as he handed over the visitor's passes. "Big fan."

"Thanks," Lexie said as they walked past.

"I'm not really sure where they are," Tate said. "I tried calling, but no one's picking up. We should split up and–"

Lexie's ears picked up something while Tate was still talking. It sounded like it was coming from the end of the hallway, heavy labored gasps.

Lexie frowned and followed the sound, walking briskly and ignoring Tate's call behind her.

When she turned the corner, she saw it was Torin Firebringer, and he looked like he was fighting for breath.