Author's Desolating Note: So. This chapter marks the end of a main part, and the beginning of the second. I advice you to read carefully; to sit back, relax, hold on tight to your teddy bear (no! and how old are you exactly!) I just wanted to say: I love this chapter too. Well, I now it looks as if I love all my chapters but: don't care don't wanna care—that's my motto (better than Memento Mori, for those who read the Austere Academy, by this dear Lemony Snicket.)

Never mind, just read and review (you know what, I always wondered why we couldn't do rhymes with the beginning instead of the end of words, I mean like: Constantine was constantly communicating to the commander about constipation—oops, this dear colonel's not gonna like this! That's not the point. Just review!)

Chapter Fourteen

Alchematoria

When he woke up the next morning, Hawkke groaned mournfully. He could know by the feel of the empty space beside him that she had gone, and he regretted it. He felt more than ever cold in his too large bed, he ached to have her again, to feel the silky touch of her shoulder, the skinny pressure of her hand against his chest, the feel of her lips, soft and reticent, beneath his. He wanted to keep her for him, and at the same time he knew he would never be able to; she had succeeded in escaping Drymarchon's fortress, she would success in escaping him always. He sighed and sat down, at the same time sad and angry.

He slipped away from the blankets and started to look for his clothes. He didn't find them, but instead find a pile of black clothes in a corner. He lifted them in the dim day light. There were her skirts, and her beautiful shirt. He grunted, and sighed, and smiled.

Arach didn't have the money to pay her passage on the Sea Demon. Or at least, she hadn't the desire to pay at all. She straightened her long coat she had stolen back from Hawkke, peered down at the breeches and boots she had found in his wardrobe, and tried to hide her too richly embroidered corset behind the black tunic that smelt unnervingly the perfume she knew all too well. Her hair was uncombed, but she didn't care about it. She stepped toward the sea merchant that was following his sailors' gestures, and stood beside him, sighing softly and looking delicately fatalist.

'It is such a beautiful ship,' she said quietly, and sighed again.

The merchant, a tall, white haired man looking very stern and strong, turned to her and frowned.

'Ye like it?' he demanded.

'Oh yes. My dream is to have a ship like that.'

It wasn't that difficult to lie, as the ship really was beautiful. It was long, and slim, with dazzling white sails swelling under the violent northern wind. The prow was long and sharp, and a long, deliciously shaped mermaid was carved gracefully under it, the same image as the very tall flag that was flapping in the wind: a white flag, with as emblem a mermaid holding up a bag of glittering gold in one hand and a balance in the other; the emblem of the sea merchants.

'Whass yer name, lass?' asked the old man.

'Rach, my lord,' answered Arach, turning her head to look curiously at two sailors who were carrying a heavy box.

'Rach,' I've never heard 'bout this name,' he said suspiciously, and added to the two sailors in a shout: 'Ye jerks, ask someone to help you! No! not him, he has something else to…Nah! Stop! The other side, the other side, you sea morons!'

'D'you need a cook?' asked Arach very matter-of-factly.

'Nay.'

Arach saw on his face that he had understand what was in her mind.

'Alright,' he finally said,' I'll take you without money, but you shall help the sailors, even if you look more like a spider that a shark or a dolphin.'

'Thanks, Lord,' said Arach brightly, bouncing to the ship.

'And I ain't a bloody lord!' he called after her, 'I am Captain Seaskull!'

'Right captain!'

The first three days of the journey, nothing very important happened. The Captain as well as his men started to feel sorry to have take Arach with them. She was the only female on board, and was a terrible pest. She cooked abominable meals just for the sake of it, threw stones to the sailors from the crow's nest, one day, she even pushed one of them overboard, just to see if he was a good swimmer, and truly, for his own sake, she explained afterwards. She was so unbearable that one day Seaskull threatened to throw her away overboard if she didn't stop, but she didn't stop, and he didn't throw her anyway. Because as annoying as she was, all the men of the boat loved her. The captain saw in her what he was when he was her age, the sailors liked to laugh at her awful anecdotes while eating her burned stews, and they all enjoyed to see her climb in the crows nest, or hang head down from the strings that were mixed with the pillars of wood and the sails. They also enjoyed when she played dirty tricks on their comrades, or when she was being told off by the Cap'ain, who often yelled his head of while she just looked at him in a perfectly innocent way. She also was excellent in sailor chess, and they admired her for her tales of how she had been with the control of two ships and an army of pirates for three hours; a tale they didn't believe the least, but liked nevertheless. It was when they entered the edges of the Misty Sea that the atmosphere started to tense. The sailors had a good laugh one night, because when she had noticed the tension, Arach had made herself to tiny and sweet that even Seaskull had laughed without being able to stop himself.

The pirates of the Wreck attacked three days later. Seaskull grew cold and tall like an ice statue, and ordered to his men to attack. Arach admired him, and in her heart he rose to a place nearly as high as Snakehiss's. She remembered the disastrous fight on Grain's ship, and admired even more the grace and perfect harmony of the sailors' movements as they formed their ranks, armed with their clean, well-kept sharp cutlasses, daggers and axes, with five archers climbed among the sails, with their sharp arrows ready to strike. Seaskull was shouting himself hoarse with orders, and when the wood of Wreck touched the Sea Demon's, a huge crash echoed on the smooth sea as the two groups collided. Again a massive fight; but this time the sailors were nearly as much skilled as the Pirates, and they were not quite loosing. Arach, as for herself, was in her element. She had seized a cutlass from the hands of a pirate she had kicked, and was now striking with great unleashed gestures, splashing blood all over her clothes and face. She enjoyed herself so much she wanted the battle to last forever, but as it had to happen, a blade touched her. It opened a short but deep cut in her valid arm, the one that was not touched by the Snake's Poison, from which the sleeve had been torn off in the battle, and she bit her lips not to cry out. She didn't want to withdraw, and went on fighting, until a blade again struck her, at the thigh, and then she had to withdraw, breathing heavily, smothering behind her teeth the screams of pain that were rising in her throat. She backed away in a dark corridor, opened a door leading to a tiny bedroom, the captain's, which was very simply furnished with a bed, a little table on which was a shuffled candle, and chest in a corner. Blood and sweat streaming in rivulets down her face like bizarre tears, Arach collapsed on the bed, curling in a tight ball, too dazed by the pain to move. Her cutlass had fallen on the floor with a cluttering noise and gone still, and she wanted to kill herself at the thought that if a pirate came in the room, he would be able to do everything without her being able to defend herself.

'Ah, here you are. My men were right. You, again. When will you learn that the sea is not the place for wenches?'

Arach, with a hissing breath, bolted straight upright, and hurt her arm even more as she tried to take back her blade from the floor.

Requin, looking enormously satisfied, was standing in the room, leaning against the door he had closed behind him. His eyes were dazzling, and his smile was as handsome as never, as he idly lowered his gaze to the pale girl.

'You ought to be fighting with your men, pirate,' she said through gritted teeth.

'They can manage without me,' he said with an amiable smile, 'so, where is this very attractive hunter of yours?'

'None of your business', she snarled.

'Has he finally taken this maidenhead of yours he wanted so much?' continued Requin fearlessly.

She hissed, and rolled over herself, crashing on the floor, and seizing the weapon with her valid arm. It was no luck, because her valid arm was the arm were Drymarchon's arrow had touched her, and it wasn't really quite healed. She had to assume too much wounds in not enough time. She gathered herself on her knees, humiliated before him.

He was going to pay, she swore to herself. He knelt down beside her, and gently twisted the weapon out of her hand. Then he hauled her on the bed, and started to examine her wound.

'It is a deep wound, girl,' he whispered, ripping a piece from her tunic to bandage it, 'You need to learn to take care of that white body of yours and stop playing the man with your cutlass.'

He tied the cloth around the wound, and wiped the blood away with a piece of his own red tunic. Then he bent over her, and kissed her in the neck. She shivered, and jerked away from him, again falling from the bed. He slipped down beside her, and, seizing her by the shoulders, he said in a breath:

'I've been thinking of you ever since the hunter took you away from me…'

Then he clasped his mouth to hers in an ardent kiss. She hated him for this, and at the same time her body ached for more. Too many men kissed her, she thought, seeing in her mind Hawkke, and then Drymarchon, and punched him in the stomach, flinging him away from her. He fell backward, but the punch had hurt her more than it had hurt him. She fell, off-balanced, on top of him. Immediately, taking advantage of her obvious weakness, he clasped her hair in both his hands, and turned sharply over, so that he was on top of her, then, with an idle movement, he let his mouth fell on hers. She sobbed, and was all too much conscious of his lean body against hers, pinning her down on the floor and molding each single of her own limbs.

'Stop fighting me,' he whispered, 'your body is made to be possessed—stop battling against your own fate…'

With rage, she wondered how she managed to make every man want her when the only thing she wanted was to live alone with her money and her crimes. He suddenly released her, and knelt, breathing heavily, looking down at her with a smile at the edge of his lips.

'You see, the job of girls is to please men,' he said nastily, 'and you are too attractive just to slip away like that.'

'Curse you,' she said.

She bit her lips, and when he kissed her again, breathlessly, her hand started to fumble in one of her pockets, until she found what she was looking for. The familiarly odd contour of a little bottle beneath her fingers made her feel exhilarated, and when she smiled unconsciously, he stuffed his tongue in her mouth. Without any thought, she bit it, hard, and he jumped back.

'Ah, of course. Now you want to make me dumb. Too bad…'

'Now, you go away from me, or I poison you,' she said, showing him the green jar she had in her hand.

His eyes suddenly narrowed, darkening with rage and exasperation.

'You won,' he said merely, glaring at her.

He pulled away from her, and sat heavily on the bed, looking at her with a look of desperate hunger.

'One last kiss,' he said hoarsely, his voice loosing its casualness.

'No,' she replied, sitting next to him.

'I'll give you anything, just a last kiss, girl.'

'Anything?' she repeated with a large smile spreading over her face despite the throbbing pain at her arm and thigh.

'Anything. I want your mouth.'

'All right. Tell your man to go away from this ship.'

'I will. Now my kiss.'

'Not yet. And, would you…'

She bit her lip and stopped.

'What?' he urged, edging toward her on the bed.

'Stay away,' she said, brandishing her poison, 'Just, if you see a ship coming there…I mean…Well, I don't want the hunter to bother me anymore, if you see what I mean.'

'I will do this. But you have asked two things,' he said hopefully, and it seemed he was getting madder and madder about her every second.

'All right, but first, call all your men out.'

When all his men had left the Sea Demon, Requin turned toward Arach who had standing next to him looking at his ship. The men behind them were busy trying to heal their wound, and nobody really noticed them. He slipped a hand around her waist and drew her hard to him.

'Who knew the shark could be softened by the spider,' she said playfully.

She grinned, and seized a handful of the black dirty hair at the back of his head, twisting it, and pulled it to her. She gave him a tiny kiss, just a peck, on the cheek, but when she tried to take him away, his threw his lips back on hers, and kissed them desperately.

'Come with me,' he whispered, hoarse with passion, 'My men like you, you will rule with me, just come. I want you…'

'You have your kiss, now go away,' she said, pushing him away.

'You'll pay, girl, I'll have you, I swear,' he said darkly, and with a last burning kiss, he left.

The end of the journey was without incident, and when they arrived at Stone ports, in the middle of the afternoon, Arach felt as good as when she had first arrived there. She immediately plunged in the birthing mist of the beginning of evening, after she had left a little kiss of Seaskull's old wrinkled cheek. The damp, cold air immediately colored her pale cheeks with a little veil of bright pink, and her eyes gleamed as she slipped through the dim crowd that was all around her. She sidled and slipped, until finally she emerged from the crowd in an empty, sinister place. Dominating it and all the houses around, the Alchematoria was standing very tall and dark in the lowering light, dim firelight and dark fumes slipping through its narrow windows. Arach had grown up in the magnificence of one of the most beautiful fortress in GreenLands, and yet al her admiration was focused on this tower; the tower of mystery, the tower of poisons and drugs, the tower from which very few came out, because when you came in, you were so bewitched by what was inside that you couldn't be bothered by what was outside anymore. Arach, smiling for herself, strode toward the door. It was a tall, carved iron door, with nothing but a tiny little lock at the left edge of the right panel. Arach stuffed a gloved hand in her hair and took it out the next second, holding between two fingers a tiny, gleaming black iron key. She slipped it in the lock, and with a little snap, the door opened silently.

She stepped in, and immediately it closed behind her. She was in the Main Hall of the First Floor, a long, high ceiled corridor, with a cold, hard dark stoned floor, and tapestries hiding each of the twenty doors that were cutting through the perfect, cold walls. One was a blue tapestry showing a mermaid brandishing a little flask; it looked like the bourse the Merchant's mermaid was carrying but it was thinner, and longer, and sparkles were escaping from the opened neck. Then there was another blue tapestry, but this time with a silver dolphin circled with seaweeds, glittering fishes and gleaming SeaStones. The next one was yet another blue one, with a tall woman dressed in a long white robe, lifting both her arms to the sky, and with water flowing all around her, and an eel coiling around both the arms. All the other's doors had blue tapestries, with each a different drawing, and Arach walked past them all, caressing their smooth, velvety surfaces, until she arrived at the far end of the corridor. A snail staircase led to another corridor, hanged with pale orange tapestries; Arach walked past them as before, on the other side, and reached another snail staircase, leading this time to a pink corridor. Gold, deep brown, shining blue, dark red, silver, violet, grey, white, black , beige, floor after floor, she climbed, the colors succeeding themselves with each time a different shade and tint, until she finally reached the finally reached the seventeenth and last floor. It was a pale and dark greens hanged corridor, with torches burning between each door, and little windows opened in the ceiling, leaving ugly pools of pale, silvery grey on the floor. Arach nearly ran to the tenth door, and stopped abruptly. The tapestry was representing a little green bottle, with bubbles bursting from it, and a skull was lying under it, with next to it three empty flasks. Her eyes shimmering like the mirrors of an insane joy, Arach pulled aside the tapestry, opened the heavy door, stepped in, and closed it behind her.

Immediately, the deep fragrances of poison struck her, and she shivered with the violent pleasure caused by the retrieval of this place she had longed to be in for so long. The corridor was smaller, narrower, darker, and the smell was richer than in the main hall. It was the poison's fragrance, a fragrance anybody would find unbearable, but that Arach had fallen in love with.

She strode towards a special door she knew well, on which was pinned a dirty, old yellowish parchment. A long chilling poem was scribbled down on it, and at the end, a long, thin name was written in the same scribbled writing: Dr Morphine.

Arach flung the door open, stepped in, yelling:

'I am back, doc!'

The room was long and narrow, with two long tables running along the two walls, surcharged with bottles, boxes, flasks, jars, vials, fires, shelves bursting with pots full of things solid or liquid, alive or death, shining and dark or pale and dull, moving or immobile, noisy or silent; piles of books were creeping down the stone floor, some opened, some thrown across the room, rolls of parchments were scattered around the place, some pinned on the wall, some making blankets of paper…

In the middle of the room were three huge fires, on which were bubbling even bigger cauldrons; and the smokes were creeping to the ceiling, from which hanged snakes, birds, herbs, onions, rabbits, garlic, foxes, fishes, bunches of feathers, bouquets of flowers, tails of unknown animals, tufts of gleaming hair, unicorn's horns, and a large variety of things even stranger and gloomier. A black cat was lazily lying on a tall chair not far from the door, gazing at Arach with its eyes shining like coins of gold fallen in a swamp. The cat suddenly got to its feet, gathered itself, and with a tiger like, graceful leap, jumped in Arach's arms. She hugged it and scratched its smooth fur under the mouth were sharp white teeth were showing. The cat started to purr and closed its eyes.

'Ah, here you are, Arach, my dear, come over here and help me to study and calculate this formulae on which I don't have a clue.'

The squeaking, amiable, busy voice of her Master lifted Arach's head. He was a small man, and looked even smaller bending in his chair over a huge fat book. His hair was white and bushy, and his eyes behind tiny spectacles were the only thing that was really beautiful on him; they were dark, and gleaming like a DarkStone, with splinters of silver edging the little irises. The eyes were vivid, and strangely lively and young in his old, wrinkled white face. He was dressed with a long white robe he was already wearing when she had first arrived in his laboratory, with a dirty leather apron tied around his waist, protecting his old chest from the dangerous drugs he was manipulating.

He didn't think to have notice Arach's absence at all, and stayed over other people's affairs as ignorant as everybody was in the Alchematoria, too busy to give a thought to others.

'Would you mind passing me some zombie powder, my darling?'

Arach, silently, threw him a little bag she had picked on the wall where a thousand of other little bags were hanging, and went to sit in her chair, still stroking the cat's silky black fur. All the rest of the day, until dark, Arach worked next to the Master, until finally she heard the dim howl of wolf that was emanating from a wolf-and-rooster clock which's noise was muffled by the other noises of the room, the squeaks and squeals of the animals, the bubbling and hissing of the cauldron the mutters of the old man, the noises of the machines on the table at the far end of the room…

When she heard the familiar cry of Night, Arach pulled the sleeping cat back on the chair, and slipped away from the room. Like a shadow, she slipped all her way down the Tower of Drugs.

When she was outside, she strode toward the Dancing tree, and the first beggar that was in her way got such a kick in the jaw that he was flung away from the ground and crushed against a tree. When she reached the inn, and stepped in, her first thing was to cry:

'Inn-keeper! Any job for me?'

'Two persons in the room seventy seven!' cried back a voice from the counter.

Arach slipped in through the crowd, and reached another room, slightly smaller than the first, but with just two peoples inside it. One was a tall grey haired man, the other a young, rich looking lord.

'I take both the jobs. The well paid tonight, the other tomorrow,' she said, sitting next to the fire, and leaning back.

'I give you one gold imperial if you kill my wife,' said the grey haired man.

'Tcha, ask somebody else. One coin's nothing,' said disdainfully Arach.

The man strode away, moodily slamming the wooden door behind him, and Arach turned to the rich young lord. He was very subtle looking, with curly dark blond hair and narrow eyes that sparkled silver.

'I hope you're not from GreenLands,' she growled threateningly.

'I am not. I am Lord Thunderion, from the Imperial City. I presume you are the famous Arach.'

She grunted, and he went on.

'I have one thousand empire gold to offer for one murder.'

She jerked upright, her eyes widening like an owl's; unbelieving, thrown off-balance.

'Who?'

'The Emperor.'

Author's Triumphant After-Note: You know what? When I finished reading this, I went downstairs—I mean I actually came out of my bedroom, and I hugged my mother, my three brothers (!), shook hand with them and kissed my baby sister. This chapter is glorious, it is supreme, exquisite, and the last two lines are totally staggering. Do review, I beg you, I need to know what you think about it all. It is so beautiful I can't believe it from myself. I am a genius!

Post-Memoris: just a quick note about names I forgot to tell you earlier:

First, I just wanted to say that the name Arach, like in Arachna, taken form the word Arachnid, is pronounced Arack and not Arash.

Then, I also wanted to tell you: requin in French means shark. So, here you go. Remember this.