Equivalent Trade
[drabble challenge for Siadea]
You cannot gain anything without giving something of equal value in return. That is the principle of equivalent trade, by which so many alchemists live their lives.
However, nothing dictates the form of what must be sacrificed. He has poured over the strange book so many times, trying to make some kind of sense out of it. The language is stilted, strange, archaic; he often despairs of making a readable translation.
But he has read enough to understand, he thinks. If his research is meant to be passed on repeated, then it shall be: he is a scientist, of course, but he is also a religious man. Sometimes, he still weeps for memory of the angel's beauty, the untouchable serenity of its face.
Everything is ready. He has made the necessary preparations, in case things go wrong; his wife and their shop will be cared for. The last lines of his complete array are drawn, and he kneels in the center of the room -- the materials and the sacrifice.
Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he leans forward.
Under his hands, the lines are warm. Power shocks through him, and for a moment, he thinks the world is fragmenting around him; what starts as pain transmutes into something else, which burns on his tongue, in his throat, reaches past the flesh and blood of him down to his soul itself.
With effort, he cracks his eyes open, watching as energy gathers and crackles in the air. From his will, the initial spark forms in the array under his hands, is transferred out to the two immediately linked to it, splits further and amplifies as it goes. No man has ever drawn something this complex before, and unless the angel decrees, it shall never happen again. It his duty, then, to watch this unfold.
Energy crackles up the walls, along the ceiling, and soon it will be too bright to see anything; when he closes his eyes, the backs of his eyelids are bright red, lit from without. The air smells of pure ozone, and he thinks he can feel pieces of himself flaking away, pieces of his self and soul handed willingly over to the array.
For a moment, he wants to tear himself away, to reach for escape before too much of him is handed over. It's too much, and he thinks of his wife weeping at his funeral and fears.
And then, warmth, spreading through him in a slow thick wave, like the stroke of a mother's hand through his hair. He tilts his face upwards, or feels he does, and sees the angel smiling at him. The light that fills the room perfectly accents the angel's radiance, and his fears dissolve away so very easily.
The angel holds something out to him. It takes him a moment to realize he must reach out, and that means taking his hands from the array and suffering whatever rebound occurs. But without fear, he moves, cupping his palms and extending them. Without touching him, the angel places the object in his hands; he sees a brilliant scarlet flash, and feels its weight like a world dropped into his hands.
So much of him is gone now, he thinks; gaping brilliant holes have been left with his soul, filled up again by the light of the angel, of the reaction. He finds himself moved to tears.
Then -- nothing.
He comes to himself with a start, and finds himself lying face-down on the floor, his nose and chin pressed to the thick dark lines of one of his larger arrays. The room is cold and dark, and when he props himself up on his elbows, despair crowds thick in his throat. More than failure, this, and it tastes colder and more bitter than fear. When he moves, he can feel the missing pieces of himself: his body is intact, but oh, what he's given up for this mistake ...
Then he sits up, and a bright red light fills the room. Instinctively, he shields his eyes with one hand, and looks down.
It is not a perfect circle, nor does it appear entirely solid. It looks like a chunk of ruby, like unpolished beryl, like every single precious stone he has seen in his life, and still more. Deep within its depths, its own inner light pulses gently, like a heartbeat.
Oh, he thinks, and takes it into his hands; it is hot, it is cold, it weighs nothing and everything. Oh.
Footsteps startle him, and instinctively he jerks away as the door opens.
Pernelle stands there, wrapped in her dressing gown, and her dark eyes are worried. She only has eyes for him, not the arrays that cover every inch of the room, or the glowing thing he holds in his hands. "Nicholas," she says, "it's late. Come to bed."
He blinks at her, takes in the familiar dear lines of her face, then nods slowly and gets to his feet. "Yes, dear," he says, still with his hands cupped over his prize; it continues to glow, a broad red circle through the backs of his hands. Pernelle covers them with her own, never looking down.
"Come on, now," she says, and leads him away.
--end--