Acquaintances With Reality
"Oh? Pray, do tell, why doth thou ask this? Doth thou not know even this?" Edgar inquired, with a hint of polite confusion in his voice.
"No, no. I was just a bit, a bit……" Artemis faltered then, still unsure of what to say.
"Hath thou forgotten?" He pressed, the nonplussed tone becoming infused with true concern.
"Not at all, not at all like that! I was just in a bit of a daze then." Artemis quickly covered up any cause for suspicion. Edgar, with a swish of fabric and muffled thumps
strode over to Artemis's side of the room, "Ah, I see thou is a bit befuddled, no matter, Master will know what to do when he comes back.
Now that Edgar had come closer, Artemis could see him clearly, he was around sixteen, with a clear, pale countenance and sharp, distinct features on an oval face reminiscent of a Medieval Era portrait of an unknown subject he had once seen and tried to steal (unsuccessfully) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His walnut brown hair was cut in a neat pageboy haircut and his grey eyes, so much like the calm, softly glimmering lake outside Fowl Manor when shone upon by the gloriously ethereal moonrise, betrayed an intellect and wisdom far beyond the counting of mortal years which lay shrouded behind this mask of innocent youth, now reflected a ponderous look of confoundedness. Then he sighed after scrutinizing Artemis for a moment, which, to the latter, seemed to last an eternity, then sighed heavily and sat down on the table next to the bed, after which the both of them waited in silence, each lost in his own thoughts for The Alchemist to come home.
It was getting dark outside, the clouds which had been painted countless hues of crimson and heliotrope, vermillion and violet, ruby and lavender had been washed away with the eventual fading of the evening sun. The beatific afterglow was gone, as memories of the past are often apt to be and the shadows had covered the once gold-gilded empyrean. The full moon was rising, glowing in all her luminous mercury pallidity in her monthly ritual ,so immeasurably mysterious.
'The sun will rise yet again upon the morrow, yet this day that hath passed creation by, no man shall evermore bear witness.' The Alchemist thought, contemplating the blue that lay above. The Alchemist was not a man held in very high opinion by fellow villagers, he lived at the very end of the long line of houses, keeping to himself, not even encouraging his apprentice to socialize with the villagers. In fact, Edgar became his apprentice only by chance when the hands of Fate, an unutterably unpredictable player in the lives mortals, had dealt them corresponding cards, coming to him some twelve years ago, a stranger, an orphan whom no one else would accept, and that, made Alaric Morlan, the last of the men whom had yet retained the fairy's knowledge of Alchemy, all the odder.
He stepped briskly up the dusty path to the house of wood and stone, opened the door and entered with a rustling of his long traveling cloak.
"Master, forgive me for my rashness, if any, this afternoon I found a stranger lying along the roadside while I was fetching water and I----"
The Alchemist held up his hand, stemming the flow of conversation from his apprentice, Edgar had said enough, "Where is thy stranger thou speaks of?"
"Up in the attic on my bed Master, I apologise if I have done wrong." Edgar said hastily, beginning to look rather alarmed.
"No, no wrong hath been done, I want to attend to him." The Alchemist said, climbing up the ladder leading to the loft.
Artemis could hear both Edgar's light, quick footfalls accompanying the Alchemist's steady, surer and more decided footsteps up to where he lay, still dizzy, disorientated and tensed into a what he thought must have been a good position to jump up and bolt straight out, whatever he knew of Medieval England did not paint a terribly cosy picture of the –people.
Slowly, Artemis could see Edgar's dark-haired head emerge, out from the square hole in the attic floor, then the Alchemist's goldenrod hued one, both casting large, round, grey shadows on the dim wall of the loft by the faint, flickering flame which sprouted like a flower of a pale, blazing quality from the slim, white candle Edgar held.
"Thou art not unwell, my good guest?" The Alchemist called as he stepped up gracefully, panther-like as his apprentice, still holding the candle, clambered in as well as he could.
Artemis thought for awhile first, then answered, "Yes, I am suitably rested, thanks be to your competent apprentice."
He could see the Alchemist's wise, noble features raise in a twinkling smile of amusement. "This clumsy fool of a boy here? Competent, thou doth say, aye, I never came to know of this."
Artemis could hear a hint of laughter in his voice, not mean, but in fact brimming with affection towards his 'clumsy fool' of an apprentice, and relaxed.
"Hath thou a place to stay? I can offer thou lodging if thou hath not a place to go, that is how Edgar here and I crossed paths." The Alchemist smiled to himself, Fate had left him yet another lesson.
"No sir. My thanks to you, for your kindness… …" But the Alchemist had already left the room, following him, Edgar.