Arbiter's Word (Alchemist's Fire Book 1) Read online

  Arbiter's Word

  Alchemist's Fire, book one

  by Ogden Fairfax

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedications

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  About the Author

  Dedications

  To my wife, Lisa, for being my brightest muse, fiercest defender, and most cuddly critic. Somewhere, there is a choir of flippy-floppy weasels singing your praises.

  To all my friends for encouraging me to always aspire to greater forms of silliness.

  And to my family, for teaching me that even if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, that trees can still grow on hills where the odd fruit might roll off and start its own orchard. Thank you for the gift of pride in my roots, no matter how far from home I grow.

  1

  “Small polished stones are there in the middle of the store. Larger pieces like geodes, bookends, and so on are on that wall.” The bored-looking college girl behind the counter at Aggie's Agates, Geodes, and Gems directed me around the storefront with a quick wave of her hand. She wore a pair of thick glasses that seemed to be so convex that her brown eyes nearly filled each lens. Not wanting to be rude and stare, I nodded my thanks and broke eye contact, but took a moment to look at the tiny cut gemstones in the illuminated glass counter between us.

  She must have been a little surprised that a guy dressed in a Wisconsin Badgers hoodie and old jeans didn't immediately move toward the section with fifty-cent stone marbles and those little shiny magnetic rocks that seemed more likely to be in my price range. I tried not to care, since looking at cool crystal formations had been something I'd enjoyed since grade-school, but hadn't gotten to indulge in for a while. There was a set of four rings that were each made of different metals, and each had a different gem stone that seemed to compliment it. There was a gold one engraved with flames and sporting a ruby. The silver one bore an emerald and had a faint fractal pattern that reminded me of leaves or snowflakes. Another one seemed to be made of three different gold-colored metals woven into a braid. The last one looked like a small rope coiled around a pink diamond in the center.

  After a minute of me looking at a piece of emerald in a clear plastic box the size of a postage stamp, she began to impatiently tap her painted fingernails on the glass counter top. When I looked at the noise, I saw they'd been painstakingly decorated with a multi-colored design that matched the half-dollar-sized bismuth crystal in a disc of clear resin on a leather cord around her neck.

  “Was there something else I could help you with, sir?” she said, her retail courtesy tone starting to slip more toward annoyance. She crossed her arms defensively, and I realized that me looking at her necklace probably looked more like I was staring at her chest.

  “Oh, sorry. Nice necklace. You sell those here?” I asked, moving to a table with plastic baggies of polished rocks. I wanted to give the girl some space and hide my embarrassed expression. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. Even with the large glasses, she was still pretty. Her copper-colored hair complimented her fair skin tone, and the gray University of Wisconsin shirt she wore still managed to seem flattering.

  “Oh, this? Uh, no. I made this myself.” Out of the corner of my eye she grasped the circular pendant protectively. She definitely seemed to think I was up to no good. After a pause, she added, “But we do sell bits of Bismuth here if you're interested. They're in those drawers next to the big rock-salt lamps.” Once again, she waved her rainbow-painted nails in the direction she indicated.

  “Cool,” I said, but kept looking at the small pieces in front of me. There were little quartz crystals, stone rings, tiny carvings of various animals, and a large ceramic vase full of mixed beads. On top of the display was a rose-quartz sculpture that looked like it came off a unicorn so obese that even its horn had a plump shape to it. I caught myself smiling like an idiot as I stared at it and thought of the adventures of Lenny the fat unicorn, who talked like a lazy cartoon character and was proportioned like a corgi.

  The front door opened as the only other customer left, and the sound of the small string of jingle bells on the doorknob reminded me of why I was here in the first place.

  “Actually, I was wondering if you could help me pick something out. I'm looking for stocking stuffers for about a dozen coworkers.” I shrugged. “I was thinking of getting everyone a little stone coaster for their desks or something.”

  “Well, we do have some coasters made out of rose quartz, but each one's about twenty bucks.” She must have seen how long I'd stared at the sculpture and thought that was what I was really interested in.

  “Yikes,” I said. “Twenty bucks is a bit over my budget. Any other ideas?”

  “Yeah. You could try to use geode slices, but they're a bit thin and delicate.” She said, and her expression turned a bit pensive as she looked at the other stuff around the store.

  “Oh, here we go.” I said as I reached for a basket labeled “worry stones.” In it were various oval-shaped rocks about as thick as a pencil with a slight indentation on one side. “These will work,” I counted out twelve of the smooth pieces and set them on the glass counter top as gently as I could. Each one was only two bucks, so I was happy I'd found an easy fix for the gift exchange. I pulled out my wallet as the girl started to ring up my total on the ancient-looking cash register. When I noticed a plastic bucket with individually-wrapped lumps of coal, I snagged one and added it to the pile.

  “My manager is an asshole.” I said when she paused to look at me, then grinned when she smiled and let out a single small 'ha.' I could tell she was trying to be polite, so I couldn't mentally give myself points to balance out my earlier awkwardness.

  “Anything else?” she asked, painted fingernail hovering over the last button.

  “Um,” I said, looking around the store one last time for anything that caught my eye. I spotted a rounded square tablet the size of a dinner plate on one of those decorative dish stands on a shelf behind the counter. It had a cool circular fractal design in gold leaf on its glossy surface. It was probably hundreds of bucks, but I pointed at it and asked “How much for that?”

  She turned and looked up at it then back at me. “The black platter thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don't know. Hang on.” She turned and pulled a short wooden stepping stool over to the shelf, and carefully climbed up to peer at the tiny price sticker on the corner of the tablet.

  “Says here it's fifty grand.” she said.

  “Oh, well never mind.” I said, feeling my guts turn cold at the high price for what looked like a fancy sushi plate.

  “I'm kidding. It's eighty bucks.” she said, stepping down and showing me the sticker. “Black granite with bronze inlay, according to the little card on the stand.”

  As I thought about whether to buy it or not, I remembered how my holiday season went last year. That fall, I'd moved away from family I barely talked to, gotten a job at an office full of extroverted caffeine-o-holics, and got dumped by my girlfriend because s
he didn't want to do a “long distance relationship” with a me. Even though I lived ten minutes' drive away. Last year's stocking stuffer gift exchange had been something I'd hoped would help me make new friends at work, but everyone just passed out candy bars or office supplies or packets of off-brand instant hot cocoa, and the guy in the cubicle next to me had even spelled my name wrong on the five-dollar gift certificate to the local 24-hour retail store. How hard is it to spell Chance? Anyway, I realized that if I didn't do something nice for myself this year, nobody would, So, with all the confidence I could muster, I set my card on the counter, looked the girl right in the over-magnified eyes, and said “I'll take it.”

  2

  When I got to my apartment, I went through the usual motions. My keys hit my kitchen table and slid off onto the linoleum floor, my shoes got kicked off to land halfway on the rubberized mud mat near my door, and my reflection from the mirror through my open bathroom door made me double-check to make sure there wasn't a psycho ax-murderer using my sink. Since I had awful electric heating, I kept the hoodie on and just stepped into a pair of over-sized slipper-boot things that reminded me like the sort of goofy foot-gear a character from a fantasy game might wear. Then, after a moment, I decided it was better to shower and get into some fresh clothes. It was the weekend, and I had just resolved to pamper myself just a little.

  My paper bag of stones from the gem shop crinkled against the old couch as I passed it and my tiny living room toward my bathroom. I'd just pulled off my hoodie and t-shirt and had almost pulled my pants off when I heard a knock at my door. I cursed the gods of inopportune timing and frantically pulled my jeans back up before moving to look through the peep-hole to see who it was.

  Through the little portal, distorted by that fish-eye effect you'd usually expect, I saw Grace, my landlady's granddaughter. She had her laptop balanced on one arm and was typing with the other hand, her curly dark hair framing her caramel-colored complexion. I threw on my bathrobe and opened the door.

  “Grace, hey. Need something?”

  “Can I borrow your WI-fi? Grandma's is slow as shit and I need to finish studying for my chemistry final.” Her eyes never left her computer screen.

  “Uh, actually, I was just about to take a shower.” I said.

  “Cool, thanks. What's the password?” Grace moved past me and sat at my kitchen table, missing the part where I implied now was not the best time.

  “Lugubrious cheese.” I said, giving up any attempt at convincing her to leave. Grace and I had been neighbors as kids, her being only a few years younger than me. Her mom named her after a hurricane that happened in the early nineties, and Hurricane Grace Jones lived up to her title. Even from a young age, she'd been one of those unstoppable over-achievers with enough talent to make you wonder if you're just a background character in the story where they find out they're the “chosen one.” She was incredibly smart, and I knew she could kick my ass since she'd studied every martial art she could convince her mom to drive her to. I was fairly certain the chemistry final she'd mentioned was an online college course, too. She'd moved away when she was in middle school, and her grandma was one of the only people who rented an apartment I could afford after college. Since her mom and mine had been friends before her parents had divorced, it was nice to have at least one person who was friendly to me.

  The main problem we faced since I started renting from her Grandma was that both of us had grown up quite a bit in the time we lived far apart. Grace was...gorgeous. I'd always thought she'd been cute, but she'd grown up from being my best friend and neighbor to the pretty girl next door. I wasn't sure how I felt at that point, and of course between my anxiety and the fact that she was just a little intimidating, I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to talk about it with her. Especially since she didn't seem too keen to discuss anything she deemed crucial to accomplishing her next goal.

  Grace typed in the password and gave me a thumbs-up a moment later, still staring at her screen. I rolled my eyes and walked back into my bathroom, then back out again when I realized I'd have to bring my fresh clothes in there if I didn't want to walk past Grace again wearing only a towel or my robe. By the time I was in the shower, I'd gotten so worked up about every little mishap and clumsy move I'd made today that the shower was barely able to relax me at all. Especially when I remembered that I'd accidentally thrown out that fancy soap a week ago.

  When I was done, I took a minute to enjoy the steamy room before turning on the vent fan. After wiping the fog off the mirror, I took a second to contemplate whether to finally shave my beard off. I'd grown it over the course of November, since three other co-workers wanted to do the same and we'd gotten the okay from our manager, Pat, and I was secretly a little proud of how it turned out. With a little grooming and some lucky genetics, I'd been able to grow a decent start on a full-on majestic viking beard. I couldn't decide whether getting a fancy shaving kit or a fancy beard-grooming kit was my next self-gift. For now, I decided, it could stay.

  Grace was still at my kitchen table when I emerged in my new clothes, so I made peace with the fact that I had a guest and tried to tidy up my place a bit. Once I'd done the three dishes in my sink, I started to clear off my kitchen table to give Grace more room to work. When I reached for a beer bottle I thought was an empty from last weekend that I'd forgotten about, I realized it was mostly full and still cold from my fridge. Grace's hand pressed down on my wrist, gently making me put the beer back on the table's surface.

  “Uh, aren't you underage?” I asked

  “Don't tell my grandma I had a beer, and I won't tell her where you keep your weed.” she said.

  “Joke's on you, I don't smoke.”

  “Really? I guess I just assumed from the hippie beard.” she grinned and took a sip from the bottle.

  “Do you honestly think I'd still have as many anxiety problems if I did? Also I like my beard.”

  “Point taken. You going to tell her?”

  “No, but don't steal my beer. Ask next time so I can at least try to say no like a responsible adult.”

  “Fine, but I'm finishing this one.” She reached for the bottle one more time. She'd placed it far enough from her computer that I was actually able to grab it again before she could. Knowing I'd only have a split second before she pulled some Jedi-ninja trick to make me hand it back, I did the first thing that came to mind to disuade her from wanting it. I licked the mouth of the bottle.

  “That's very mature.” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “I said responsible, not mature.” I shot back before taking a victory sip.

  Grace went back to her schoolwork and I sat at my desk and turned on my own computer. I must have nudged the bag from the gem shop or the couch when I'd gone past, because it suddenly tipped over, spilling the black tablet onto the floor, face down on the carpet. Grace looked at the source of the noise, and raised an eyebrow.

  “Sorry, I'll get it.” I said, standing up to pick the stone off the floor and putting the two little ones back into the bag. I carried the tablet with me over to my computer chair and sat back down. It was decently heavy, and the design on the front still shined even in my poorly-lit office corner. Grace's tapping on her keyboard faded into the background noise as I rand my hands over its surface. I tried to feel any seams between where the stone ended and the bronze wire in the tablet, but I couldn't. I guessed that whoever had made this had been very meticulous to make that happen. What I did find is that the center of the circular design had a shallow indentation about as big around as a coffee cup.

  I sat a moment and tried to think of what to do with this slab. It was nice enough as an art piece on its own, but I hadn't gotten the little stand it had been on. I wasn't allowed to put nails in the walls, and I didn't think I had anything that could mount this heavy rock to the wall securely. After a bit, I came up with an idea. I was going to use it as a desk decoration.

  I opened my computer desk drawer and found an old USB cord. I found one that had gone to an o
ld phone that had used its own weird charging port. Since that phone was long gone, I took a pair of sturdy scissors and snipped off most of the end that would have gone into the phone, leaving that cone-shaped bit that's supposed to keep the cord from bending too much in that spot. I looked all over the tablet and found that the bottom side was a bit rougher, and even had a few small holes. With a bit of superglue, I carefully stuck the cord onto that side of the tablet, sticking the cord in one of the little holes and using enough glue that it both looked natural and would stay in place pretty well.

  “Having fun?” Grace asked when I let out a soft, self-satisfied chuckle at my completed work.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. Just making a dumb decoration for my desk at work.” I said, holding up the tablet so she could see the design. I let the cord dangle off the side. “What do you think?”

  “Is that a USB cord?” she asked, raising that same eyebrow and looking only slightly amused.

  “Yep. It's a USB pet rock. Doubles as a coaster.” I set the stone on my lap and grabbed the coffee cup full of pens off my desk and put it in the indentation. “See?”

  “You're such a nerd.” She muttered, turning back to her work.

  “She's just jealous, right Slabby?” I said, stroking the smooth surface of the tablet affectionately.

  “And that's my crazy person quota for the day.” She said, standing and picking up her laptop. “Thanks for the WI-fi. I'll see you around, Chance.”

  I smiled and waved as she left my apartment and shut the door behind her.

  3

  As the sounds of Grace's footsteps down the hallway outside my apartment faded, I spent a little while messing around on my computer. After closing a little web browser game that failed to hold my attention, I checked a news website and saw a headline that got my attention.

  CEO OF MOBIUS INDUSTRIES FOUND DEAD IN OFFICE