Halo 06: The Impossible Alchemy

"This is the place?"

"It's a rather delightful hole-in-the-wall I frequent when I'm in the area. Come on; don't tell me that you don't get out more often. This is popular with the kids your age."

Folken looked at the restaurant nudged into the lower floors of the Astorian town's working class district. The district was entirely mud-brick and alleyways, every building being surmounted by a tin chimney spouting white or soot smoke, the latter of which carbon-flashed the walls to contrast with the lower swaths of clay close to the road.

It was a hell of a lot more pleasant than the Vione, at any rate.

"I seldom have time on my hands."

A ball rolled into Folken's boot and bounced off gently, followed soon by a scampering girl in a torn dress and braids. The girl stooped to get her ball, stopped, and looked up in something bordering awe and fear.

Folken felt a twinge in his stomach. These are the sorts of people whose lives I want to fix, more or less. I don't blame her for being scared.

The girl backed off a little bit and waited patiently for the man to either send her scampering or offer her the ball.

"Hey, come on!" called Garufo from within the restaurant entryway.

Folken knelt down, dragging his cloak even further in the dust, and offered the girl her ball with his living hand. The girl looked up and twirled her foot on its toe's axis behind her.

"Here." Do you have dreams you will never have fulfilled, little one? I wish I was your age once again…

…Van…

The girl snatched the ball, waited for a shy moment, and then ran off to join her waiting play party. Folken watched her numbly, lost in random thoughts, until Garufo pulled his shoulder.

"I can't leave you alone for a second. The second you go off duty your head launches back into the clouds. Come on, come on…"
Garufo lead Folken into the dark, grease-aired tavern and settled into a corner table. There was a window filled with a cut of yellowish, thick glass, though it was so discolored by years of smoke and grime that it provided only light and not view of the outside.

"This is the stuff that makes you have heart attacks by the time you're thirty. Entirely fat and grease, though I have to stick to a herbavoric diet most of the time. Don't take your youth for granted. Someday you'll wish you could eat like a university student every day."

"Hm."

"Oh, come on, some day you'll be a pot-bellied old man; you might as well eat up while you can. You're too flat-stomached as it is anyway."

"I don't particularly like the former idea."

"Oh, I know. Nobody does. Rather depressing."

"You will say that I am petite next, I assume."

"I am not going that far. Evening, Annie."

Garufo commenced into relaxed salutations with the waitress, who appeared to be of university age and had a mass of red, curly hair tied back from her face. Folken interlaced his fingers in front of his mouth and rested his chin on his thumbs, noting the waitresses' expression upon seeing his metal claws and her smooth gloss over the momentary shock, moving her eyes from his hands and back to Garufo.

She must be used to this sort of thing in here. Quite a mixed crowd.

Annie left. Garufo pulled his cigarette case out of his shirt pocket and opened the tin, selecting a new tube and lighting it with the large candle set on the tabletop. It was the sort of candle that people made and displayed as novelties: a huge affair lodged into an old bottle over which copious amounts of wax had flowed and molded. The Sorcerer was wearing civilian clothes of a blue tunic with the characteristic Zaibachian / Mandarin collar and leather breeches, keeping his various necessary implements of trade hooked on a heavy belt around his thin hips.

At the moment, he was the Gaean equivalent of a doctor in golf clothes.

Folken was still fully dressed in his uniform.

"You're crazy," said Garufo, taking a deep drag of his cigarette. "Off duty and you're still wearing that infernal vinyl nonsense. Aren't you burning up under there?"

"You read my mind."

"Well, if you're hot, take off your cloak. Nobody's going to care about your arm. You don't need to hide it from the world. It makes a great story. Just a medical accident; no need for any shame."

"No; I was speaking of the fact that I was thinking about our relative states of attire."

"That too. Synchronicity, or is that telepathic sub-communication, do you think? The best examples crop up in everyday exchange. Or maybe your eyes were just roving in the right spots over my clothes."

"Perhaps you should start a course at the university."

"Yeah, sit around and chat about everything and nothing. Sounds like a great way to dissect the world. None of this artificial theory and a choked lab environment in which we can't say what's right in front of our noses without a million proofs and a formal data chart."

Folken smiled. Garufo blew out smoke at a respectful angle away from Folken's face and chuckled. "See, it doesn't hurt you at all to lighten up a little bit. You're not a common fool all of a sudden. All of that knowledge crammed into that head didn't fly out through your pores as soon as those muscles for smiling tightened."

"Are you so sure about that?"

"Who knows? We'll postulate. Write a theory."

Garufo laughed. Annie walked over briskly and set two tankards on the tabletop, stopping momentarily to catch Folken's eye and smile at him before pivoting around a palm rested on the table and walking off.

Folken blinked.

Did… did she just make a pass at me?

"Well, well…" Garufo watched Annie disappear behind saloon doors into the kitchen and blew a stream of smoke into the air, sitting at such a sidesaddle angle that his back was to the wall. "I think somebody has taken a small fancy to you."

Folken slunk behind his hands until his forehead rested on the sides of his curled fingers and sighed. "She has poor taste."

"Nonsense. You wouldn't look half bad if you would wash that ridiculous makeup off of your face and stop using half a can of gel to make your hair stand on end. Smiles do wonders as well. So do civilian clothes. This isn't the sort of uniform women die for, you know. You wouldn't look half bad in a shirt and pants for once in your life."

"I have a rather limited wardrobe." Gods, is he actually giving me advice about this sort of thing?

"Nah, go shopping. Men's clothes don't cost much, as long as you do not shop in Astoria. Just a tunic and pants is all you need. No need for makeup and bobbles, though you seem to enjoy adorning yourself like a woman. I remember when you came back with those things in your ears and that thing on your face. Infection for a week. That's what you get for going to some parlor in downtown Synheim."

"Hey."

"I meant no offence by it. I don't think even women need that stuff to look beautiful. It's needless adulteration to an already beautiful thing."

"This is based on a very beautiful and antique gothic style."

"Yeah, it's a bunch of kids getting depressed, if you ask me. Never changes. Are you going to drink that?"

Folken looked at the tankard in front of him. "…is this ale?"

"No, beer. Come on; you're a grown man. Drink up. A little bit of the stuff doesn't harm you at all. Just don't do what every other lackwit student does and drown in the stuff. Didn't change even after I showed them the liver videos."

"A little bit doesn't harm you in the same way that smoking benefits your health?"

"You're going to get on my case as well?"

"I'm surprised that such an educated man would voluntarily begin smoking after seeing the copious amounts of research on the subject. Or do black lungs attract women as well?"

"Don't get cocky." Garufo sighed and extinguished the cigarette in a porcelain ashtray that was assumed to be, at one point, white beneath the ashes and burnt surface. "I know I'm going straight to hell one way or another for what I've done. Some go later, some sooner. There's not much more in this life I care to see that I haven't seen or perverted in some manner. So let me have my smoke, all right? Let me be ignorant and do something because it feels good for once. Sorcerers or no, men are still men."

Folken watched the change on Garufo's face. It was not proportional to his sudden change in attitude; contrary, it did not appear to change at all. The younger sorcerer took a small sip of his flagon and rolled the fluid on his tongue. This was not his first time to taste alcohol, but it had always been in the form of wine.

Twenty-five years old and you haven't ever tasted beer. You really are out of touch. Perspective is a real problem area.

Folken shook his head for slipping into the mode that convinced him that he needed to compare his status to that of the rest of the world and returned to his automaton state-of-mind. He was an independent variable in a world that formatted to equations; what they did he did not have to balance out socially. He just needed to manipulate them.

Folken swallowed.

"Jaded?"

"I'm old enough to be jaded. You definitely are not."

Garufo took a deep drink of his beer and thumped the flagon down. He sat back and regarded Folken with the casual calculation that comes becomes fluid and mechanically subconscious with years of use.

"How old are you? Twenty-four?"

"Twenty-five."

"Twenty-five. You're still a kid to me."

Folken smirked into his drink. "And Foruma."

"Yeah, all of us old has-beens in the circle. You're three-fourths the age of the youngest of us, and you were initiated when you were one quarter less again that age. Lad, you're too young to be jaded and out. You should still be blazing with passion and tilting at windmills, and be taking pride in the fact that you are. There will be plenty of time to be jaded when you get old. I think it is rather healthy to get this post-adolescent depression nonsense out of the way before you see, over years, that there really is something to be depressed about. What you are feeling now is an immeasurable void of knowledge."

"…pardon?"

"Never mind."

"Hm." Folken took another sip. "Despite outward appearances, I am a deeply emotional person who is inclined to tilt at windmills."

"Oh, it's written all over your face. Literally." Garufo smiled. "At least you're wise enough to recognize that in yourself, eh? Come on, you don't sip a beer. You quaff it."

"I have a virgin stomach in this area."

"And a virgin liver to clean it all out."

"I would prefer to keep it that way."

"One drink won't push you over into that land, and you know it. You just don't want to get drunk and speak with a fluidity of discourse that you will come to regret."

"…and?"

"I am just saying. You need to get stuff off of your chest like every other man alive."

Annie set the house's nightly entrée of half-fat-half-meat steaks and potatoes in front of the sorcerers and once again gave Folken an enticing smile. Folken avoided eye contact and feigned interest in the window, muttering 'Thank you'.

After Annie had walked away, Garufo hit Folken on his living arm.

"Ow."

"What's wrong with you? Not interested in women?"

"It is not that."

"She's a great girl, you know. She's working her way through a local university on an art major. Sharp as a tack. Besides, any woman who'll put up with you when you're still in work clothes and looking like a suicidal clown is a keeper in my book."

"That was uncalled for."

"It was truth. If this is one of your shyness issues, I'd be happy to introduce you."

"I would appreciate it if you didn't."

"You're too reserved. You need to get to know people." Garufo cut into his steak. "If you are so inclined upon saving the very wishes of every member of the human race you might want to get to know some on an intimate level. Just as friends, even."

"I am so inclined to aid every member of the race of conscious beings."

"Yes, you are right. Forgive me. You've made friends with doppelgangers and cat hybrids in ways that most humans cannot."

Folken poked at the potatoes and smirked to himself. "Perhaps it truly is not a job for a human."

"Stop that nonsense. Regardless of your lineage you are as much a human in my eyes as the next one."

"The next one of me or the next human?"

"Well, as much as me or—"

"Dilandau Albatou?"

Garufo sighed. "Folken, I am trying to be civil. Let's please not start that again here. The past is past and over. Nothing can be done to alter it."

"I am well aware of this."

"Oh, don't start. You were so positive earlier. Let's go back to that state."

Folken sighed and ate silently. Garufo watched him for a moment and set his utensils down.

"But now that we are on the note of business, I might as well approach the secondary reason I have you here."

"…secondary."

"The primary reason you are out here is so that I can have a talk with my brightest student, whose place ironically I now occupy in stead of his resignation. Example of high irony, isn't it? I worry about you, Folken. But the other issue I must address is that regarding the captive from the Mystic Moon. Don't smirk at me. You knew this was coming all along."

"Yes, I did."

"You don't need him for your fate alteration project, Folken. We have need of him for our own purposes."

"I have seen what you do with captives for your own 'purposes'."

"I would like to remind you that I was not a member of the organization when that mess was started, as you were not. We have moved to other areas of experimentation."

"I see."

"And what use do you have for the captive, might I enquire?"

Folken set his fork down and paused, looking down at his food though maintaining perfect posture.

"…I am not inclined to disclose that information at this time."

He had no use for the captive as of yet, and he knew it damn well. Sheltering the poor thing was a better option than handing him over to the Sorcerers; that was the only humane thing to do. He trusted only himself to experiment with live subjects anymore, for he, like every other exacting scientist who has ever entered a lab with collogues, has learned the most important rule insofar as experimentation is concerned: if you want something done correctly, you will do it yourself.

"Always the control freak. Every aspect of your life and the lives of everything around you, you feel that you must control. It's going to break you someday." Garufo stared at Folken. "When are you going to start considering your own happiness?"

"My happiness will result directly from the achievement of—"

"Bullshit."

Folken looked up sharply and caught Garufo's stare. He furrowed his eyebrows.

What?
"And before you even start, I know fully well the details of what you plan to implement. From the beginning of time, particles on a predestined course, mechanical universe you want to wrench around. I used to believe in all of that nonsense. I've seen things that prove to me that the only thing that governs this universe is chaos."

"…"

"Yes, there are things that can be predetermined; yes, Dornkirk's theories are sound and almost immaculate. Almost. The flaws are inherent. Don't tell me that you haven't seen them. They are small, but they glare."

"I have."

"And within those glaring flaws lie the answers to everything you ponder."

"If you are so sure of this, why don't you tell me yourself?"

"Because it is something that cannot be explained as well as the intuition itself tells."

Folken stared at Garufo a moment longer and returned to his food. The inner fears and awareness of the unknown, the variables that made the 'mechanical universe' model inept resurfaced and pricked at his mind with refreshed intensity. They were always there, though sometimes more active than not.

Folken swallowed and set down his fork. He smirked mirthlessly at the table, not seeing the objects in front of him so much as his small corner of the universe.

"I truly am a control freak."

"Yes, you are, son."

"Before you begin, I have been well aware of this for years on end. I cannot stand the idea of chaotic variables in an equation that can wreck such havoc on lives. My aim, with all of these inherent flaws in Dornkirk's theory centered in mind, is to control these chaotic variables as well as I will control those which follow the mechanical model."

Folken's voice was rising passionately with proportionate upward tilting of his face until he was leaning over the table in a position that was almost aggressive. Garufo watched with unreadable impassiveness.

"I will take those unexplainable phenomena—emotions, love, consciousness, sadness, happiness, magic—I will prove their properties, build the bridge between the mind and matter, and manipulate it so as to bring changes to both sides of things. I will fulfill that which is part of the abstract, one of those glaring 'errors'—wish. Hope."

The older sorcerer pulled his cigarette tin out once again and lit a roll.

"…it can't be done, son."

"Yes, it can."

Garufo shook his head as he flicked his lighter off and took a puff of the cigarette, looking down at the table in thought, trying to formulate words to match his mental response. He blew a thin stream of smoke into the table.

"It's been tried before; it's impossible. And even if it was, that is one thing even I wouldn't be fool enough to touch. Can you not see the consequences? How blind can you be, lad?"

Folken relaxed into his seat and cleared his face of the emotion that had flushed the cadaverous mask. "Maybe I am a fool."

"Yes, you're the biggest fool I've ever seen in my life. That's what scares me, Folken. Fools do the impossible because they don't listen to common sense and see the limits. If you achieve your goal, there will be nothing but chaos and sorrow."

"I will make it work."

Garufo laughed mirthlessly and sat back in his chair. He dragged on the cigarette thoughtfully. "You know what? Do you want to do some really impossible alchemy? Figure out women for me. No intellectual analysis or laws of science can explain them."

"I think to 'figure out' conscious beings in general is impossible alchemy."

"True to that, but you might as well start out with what perplexes me the most and go from there."

Folken smirked. "And since I am a fool, this should be possible?"

"Theoretically, yes, but as well you know theory often changes when exposed to practical application." Garufo thought for a moment. "This is what I mean by those glaring errors. There are things that exist that we can't explain. Real idiots, not fools, discount it as 'magic' or a trick of illusion if they can't explain it. They turn blind eyes to it and denounce its existence so as to confirm their theories. Theories should be twisted to suit facts, not facts to suit theories."

Folken watched Garufo for a moment. The older sorcerer was leaning sidesaddle in his chair against the wall, one ankle on the other knee, staring along a linear path as if cultivating knowledge bred from years of seeing passionate foolishness run afoul in the very same patterns.

This was jadedness.

"I have a question for you."

"Yes?"

"If you take such a practical view of things, why did you become a Sorcerer?"

Garufo laughed and shook his head, pressing his cigarette into the basin of the ashtray until it bent and the fire extinguished. To the casual observer, he would appear almost mirthful.

"I ask myself the same question every damn day, son. Every damn day. I would just as well have gone on and stared a bait shop along the coast, reading my life away on the beach while catering to tourists with their families. Life just kicks you in the teeth like that, doesn't it?"

"You kicked yourself in the teeth."

"Yes, yes. Damn, you're right." Garufo sat up straight and finished his food, the rest of the meal passing in relative silence broken only by intermittent self-reflexive chuckles from Garufo and the fluctuating boisterousness of the surrounding tables. The two sorcerers stood and, after giving Annie her good-byes and with Folken making a point not to look her in the eyes, Folken slipped an additional tip alongside Garufo's already generous amount left under his plate.

"Go create something beautiful."