Chapter 28: Heart of Darkness
"Are you all right, lad?"
Roy looked up from the lichen sample at which he had been staring for the last few minutes. He was startled to discover that Alexander Lane, the elderly geologist who was one of the only – no, the only – person on the site who had the courage to stand up to Major Kimbley.
"Just fine," he said, curling his lips into a broad grin. "Though I admit that the dearth of women—"
Lane chuckled ruefully. "You can't fool me, you know," he said in a stage whisper. "You're all bluster and bravado in that department. But that's all right." His voice normalized and he bumped his knuckles affably against Roy's upper arm. "It's an important part of the game at your age. I remember." He ran a nostalgic hand through his wiry slate-coloured curls.
Roy was unsure how he was expected to reply, so he smirked. "I dunno if you were ever my age," he said with good-natured scepticism.
"Not the age you were when you arrived here, maybe," said Lane obliquely. There was a beat of silence. "Why don't you say what's on your mind? Sometimes it helps to talk it out."
There was only one thing on Roy Mustang's mind, and since the encounter with Kimbley at the blast site, that was exactly how he had been careful to keep it. It was a big enough problem on its own anyway.
"My practicum was supposed to terminate two days early," he said, closing his eyes and leaning back so that the front legs of his chair tipped up off the ground. It was his intention to make it look like he was more annoyed than frantic, and he brought it off very well.
"I know," said the older man. In the wake of the last few days, Roy had almost forgotten that the elderly geologist had witnessed that exchange. "You want to sit the State Alchemist exam."
"No." The chair snapped sharply down to earth. "No, I have to!"
Lane jumped a little at the suddenness of the outburst, but he recovered very quickly. "Come on, my boy," he reasoned. "There's always next year."
Roy shook his head. "I'll never raise the money in time," he said. "It took me almost five years to get the fee together for this one. But it's not just that. I'm not the only one with a vested interest in the results of the exam."
"Ah." The geologist nodded sagely. "A word of advice. Don't worry about disappointing your parents. They're far more interested in your contentment than they'll ever be in your success. Too many young people destroy themselves trying to live up to imaginary expectations."
"It's not like that," Roy protested softly.
"I know, I know: your parents are different."
Roy curled his lip. "Sure," he said dryly. "Except it's not like that, either."
Lane chuckled appreciatively, and drew a little steel flask from his pocket. He unscrewed the cap and offered it to Roy. The cadet hesitated for a moment, but then took the vessel and kicked back a mouthful of the fluid within. It was whiskey, quite high-quality stuff. It warmed his gullet and did a great deal to bolster his spirits. For the first time since... since his preceptor had threatened him with death, he felt like his new self again. He grinned at the elderly scientist. "Cheers," he said appreciatively.
"Don't mention it." Lane took the flask and savoured a swallow. "Let's just keep it our little secret, eh?" Roy nodded his assent. "And as for the exam... if it's so important, why don't you just go?"
"I can't: the Major would never allow it," Roy said. "My only hope is to stay in his good graces and hope that—"
Lane clicked his tongue. "He hasn't got good graces. You ought to have that figured out by now."
He knew, Roy realized with a grinding dread. Alexander Lane knew that Kimbley was... mad? Crazed? Those words weren't quite right, because of course the man was a State Alchemist, and had obviously met all the psychological criteria. Wicked, then? Or just... different?
Roy wasn't sure. Maybe it was all in his head. Part of him hoped so.
"He has to change his mind," he said resolutely. "I have special permission."
"Aye, you do, but you might have noticed that he doesn't have much regard for the higher-ups," Lane said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he withheld permission just to torment you."
He held out the flask again, and Roy, whose hands wanted very much to tremble, accepted it gladly. It was a good minute before he trusted himself to speak.
"I'm trapped, then," he said quietly.
"Of course, there's another option," Lane said. "You could just go."
"Without permission?" Roy gawked. Kimbley wasn't normal, but he was still a major, and therefore a senior officer and Roy's immediate superior. Three years at the Academy had instilled the young alchemist with an ironclad sense of duty to those above him. To leave without permission, to disobey a direct order, to abscond like a... like a deserter... it was unthinkable.
"You have permission," the scientist pointed out. "From that Lieutenant Colonel of yours. He'll be expecting you back in Central. So go."
It made sense. Put that way, it almost sounded congruous, appropriate. A cadet's first duty was, after all, to his instructors, and from a purely utilitarian standpoint, Mustang would be more useful to the country if he were a fully-licensed State Alchemist. There was just one problem.
"I can't." Roy grimaced. This made a grand total of three ways in which he was terrified of Kimbley, and he resented that. With fear came powerlessness, and he hated to feel powerless. He wanted so much to be in control of his own life and destiny, but he really wasn't having much luck. "If I do, then the Major will give me a poor report, and I might even fail the rotation. Then I'd wash out of the Academy and my career would be over."
"You're right," Lane said. "I'm sorry, that was my mistake. Naturally after you pass your State Alchemist exam and get your licence, you'll go on to become the first major in the history of Amestris to enrol as a fourth-year cadet at the National Academy."
He corked his flask, pocketed it, and strode away with his peculiar arthritic gait.
discidium
Indistinct raised voices could be heard from the mess tables. No words could be discerned, but there was not a man present who did not know who was shouting. They all seemed to think it was hilarious. Roy disagreed, but he said nothing. He sat in silence, eating methodically while the banter roiled around him.
"Knew she was a shrew," said Sergeant Daniel Clemens. "No tits. Women always compensate with obnoxious personalities."
"I beg to differ," argued the quartermaster. "It's not the tits, it's the uniform. I've never met a girl yet who the military didn't spoil."
"You haven't met a girl yet, full stop!" chortled McClelland. "Anyway, if you ask me, he's giving her the push and she doesn't like it."
"She's a fool if she thinks he loves her," commented a reedy-looking corporal. "He's never loved anybody but himself."
"Hasn't got a heart to love with."
"He blew it up long ago!"
"I'm serious," the corporal said. "He's in love with himself. That's why he likes shacking up with her: it's the next best thing to sleeping with himself."
Roy wasn't feeling very hungry anymore, but he kept his fork moving. He didn't understand the need that these men felt to discuss the... relationship between the two senior officers. He certainly couldn't bear to think about it, and he wished he didn't have to hear it, either. For the first time in his life, he thought inanely, he understood how Maes Hughes felt about hearing the details of his brother's escapades.
God, he wished Maes were here. Maes had a knack for making the ugliest situations more bearable.
"I heard he's bored of her," said Nisbitt. "He's been trying... different things. Different... p-positions and things..."
"She's on the back burner, all right. Not good enough anymore."
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned..."
"If she had any sense, she'd run in the other direction. He's probably waiting for the perfect opportunity to blow her sky-high."
"Aw, c'mon. He's a State Alchemist."
"He's a sick, creepy bastard."
"He blows up chickens!"
The tent on the far end of the encampment now stood silent. Bathory was obviously finished saying her piece – or she had been cut off by an advance by those long, deadly hands, Roy thought bleakly. It was an effective threat, especially if she had ever seen her lover at work.
He closed his eyes, involuntarily reliving the explosion he had witnessed. From a purely alchemical standpoint, it was one of the most impressive things he had ever seen. But in retrospect, he understood how the poor old badger had felt: terrified, cornered, powerless to stop its life from collapsing in ruins.
He understood, but he wasn't a woodland creature. He was Roy Mustang, Cadet Second Class. He was Roy Mustang, pupil of Mordred Hawkeye. Roy Mustang, sole practitioner of flame alchemy. He was Roy Mustang, and no matter what happened, no matter what was done to him, no matter what nightmares visited him in the dead hours before dawn, he could take control of his life. He could and he would.
He wasn't like these other saps, trapped here by duty or fear or a morbid curiosity. He had seen all he wanted to of the Crimson Lotus Alchemist. He had experienced all he could bear of life under the command of Zolf J. Kimbley. He had learned little about alchemy, but more about himself. And he'd had a placement experience that he was willing to bet most of his classmates could never imagine, but he was finished with it. He had to get the hell out of here.
discidium
There was a florid bruise on Captain Bathory's left cheekbone. All day she had been storming around the encampment, vengeance incarnate, swooping down upon anyone who strayed into her path. From his vantage point under the canvas pavilion, Roy had seen her chewing out corporals, bullying convicts, and even tearing a strip off of elderly Alexander Lane for absent-mindedly leaving his shirt untucked.
She was not at all her usual military self. Her hair was uncombed, pulled untidily back from her face with a length of twine. Her boots had not been polished the previous evening, and there was a smear of blood on one of her jacket buttons. It was the sudden abandonment of decorum and protocol that upset Roy, more so than her sudden wroth or last night's telltale noises. He understood firsthand how important the military niceties were, and he could not help thinking that they were the last thing to go before one lost one's grip on reality entirely.
He cornered her behind the payroll bunker, whence she had gone to wash her hands once again.
"Captain?" Mustang said quietly.
She startled, spinning around and pressing her back against the rough wall, her hands dripping into the dust. "You..." she exhaled harshly. "What the hell do you want?"
Her hands were chapped from over-scrubbing, and the skin on her knuckles was cracked, dried-out fissures oozing tiny black trails of blood.
"Are you all right, sir?" Roy asked. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Help? Help? Haven't you done enough damage?" She looked half-crazed. "Everything was fine, fine, before you came. You've... he wants to... he wants..."
She flexed her sore fingers impotently, unable to articulate what it was that "he" wanted. Roy understood: the jerky motions were a clumsy parody of the way that Major Kimbley moved his hands when he was pondering the pleasure of detonation something. Someone.
"He's threatened you, hasn't he?" he asked, trying to sound empathetic. Empathy wasn't his strong suit, but in this case he wasn't having any trouble at all putting himself into Bathory's position, unfortunately. "He's threatened to use you as..." He tried to grope for a less barbaric word than the ones that sprung immediately to mind. "... material."
She might have been trying to nod, but it came off as paranoid, spastic jerking of her neck and chin. "I could stand the rest of it." She forced out a hoarse stage whisper, her eyes vacant and haunted. "Never satisfied, wanting more, wanting to recapture – something... and the perversions, I could put up with that, but I'm not going to let him... I can't let him..."
Again her fingers twitched and flexed. For a moment, Roy could almost see the dark transmutation circles tattooed onto her long, thin palms. No wonder the NCOs made cracks about the Major sleeping with himself.
Bathory fixed her eyes upon Roy's face, pale orbs wide and wet with despair. "He says if I love him I'll d—do it..."
"You can't seriously mean that you love him!" Roy scoffed, the words bursting out before he could censor them. "He's not... normal," he ended lamely. "S-sir."
The honorific seemed to have an effect on Bathory. She stiffened. Then her fingers tugged at her rumpled jacket. "Dismissed, Cadet!" she snapped. "Get back to work, or I'll put you on latrine duty."
discidium
There was no point in applying himself to his assigned work: Kimbley didn't give a flying damn whether it was finished or not, and it had no value to anyone else on the project. Captain Bathory had not been herself for the better part of a week, and she was no longer even checking up on Roy. She hardly seemed able to look at him.
So Mustang brushed off the analyses and the cataloguing, and applied himself to a much more important task. He studied.
He had brought several of his more advanced alchemical texts with him for just this purpose, and though for a while he had lost sight of that goal in an effort to deport himself well in his practicum, now he revised with great vigour. He wasn't worried about the practical portion of the test: he knew that he would give them a display they would not soon to forget. The psychological test would be a breeze: if Kimbley could pass it, then anyone could. But he was terrified of the written portion.
He read. He memorized. He covered reams of paper with clumsy copywork, training his hands to spell the names of the elements correctly, even if he didn't hold out much hope for teaching his brain. He composed functional though certainly not lyrical essay responses. He must have re-written the practice exam fifteen times.
The days were slipping by. May fifteen was gone. May sixteenth.
Then on May seventeenth, two days before Roy was supposed to return to Central and four days before the official end of his internship, the accident happened.
discidium
It was after sundown, and the men were gathered around their campfires, swapping service stories and lewd limericks. A typical night, in all, and Roy was forcing himself to enjoy it. The desperate need to fit in had haunted him since childhood, but these days, even given the underlying circumstances that were making this a very uncomfortable assignment, the act of blending with those around him was almost natural. Almost, because he didn't take quite the same simple pleasure that the others did in these soldierly rituals. It was fun, but he always felt that he had some ulterior motive that the others lacked.
A couple of sergeants, rather tipsy from the contraband beer they were drinking, were reciting a rather raunchy poem entitled, so they claimed, "The Ballad of Mimsey McGee". Roy had never heard it before, but evidently the crowd had: they were warming into the recitation and just starting to join in when the creaking of a handcart interrupted them. Up the rails from the direction of the work-site came Major Kimbley, lazily pumping the handle of the cart. He did not stop it at the edge of the camp where the vehicles were usually left, but pushed onward, letting the cart roll to a stop like a mobile stage, right in front of the gathered soldiers.
"Good evening," he said, smiling enormously. His smooth incisors gleamed red in the firelight, giving him an oddly demoniacal air.
The men weren't sure how to respond: usually the alchemist had few dealings with them. The silence did not please Kimbley: it was plain that he wanted an audience.
"I said good evening. Mustang! Where are your manners?"
"Good evening, sir," Roy said. He knew better than to resist, though he still wished he had learned that lesson the easy way.
"Doesn't anybody want to know how my day was?" Kimbley asked. "Come on: are you all too stupid to make small talk or something?"
He was angling for something. Roy had no idea what, but he was very uncomfortable. The rails were just out of the circular glow of the fire, but when he squinted he could make out something at the alchemist's feet: a large, hefty-looking bundle wrapped in oilcloth.
"H-how was your day, sir?" stammered Corporal Nisbitt.
"Very productive, thank you," Kimbley said earnestly. "I blasted another twenty feet of tunnel, and I didn't even break a sweat. Aren't you pleased, Master Sergeant Vernon?"
"Very," the engineer said tersely. He didn't think much of Kimbley or his methods, and Roy suspected that he, too, had often wondered why the hell the military hadn't just sent a demolition crew with a few cases of dynamite.
"Of course, there was a slight... hiccough." Kimbley squatted, hoisting the bundle into his arms and rising slowly back to a standing position.
"I don't know what's wrong with people these days," he said amicably. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "They seem to ignore the simplest safety measures. They have so little regard for their personal safety. It saddens me, it really does."
"What the hell is this?" Vernon snapped, getting to his feet. Clearly Roy wasn't the only one who sensed that there was something terribly wrong here. "What are you trying to say."
"It's tragic," Kimbley said, but his voice dripped insincerity, and there was an undertone of elated glee. "She wandered into the blast site. By the time I realized... it was too late."
He threw down the bundle. As it fell, the weight inside rolled free of the oil cloth. Several of the NCOs screamed as the men scrambled to their feet and away from the cylindrical object that tumbled towards them. It came to a halt just short of the fire, near Roy Mustang's left boot. The cadet stared in consternated disbelief.
It was the charred remains of a human torso, wrapped in what was left of a military jacket. One button clung on by a snag its shank had made in the fire-retardant wool. On it could still be seen a black smear of blood.
discidium
At dawn, Master Sergeant Vernon's men were up at the tunnel, trying to work out what had happened. They weren't forensic investigators, of course, and by noon they were back in the camp, unable to refute Major Kimbley's blithe assertion that Captain Bathory had wandered into his work area seconds before the material detonated. There would be an inquest, of course – eventually. It would take time for Investigations to get someone out to the remote encampment. In the meantime, there was nothing to be done.
Roy knew better. Abandoning all reason, he went storming from the pavilion, where the remains of the woman's body were laid out under the same piece of oilcloth in which she had been unceremoniously hauled back to camp, and burst uninvited into the Major's tent.
Kimbley was cleaning his nails with a piece of flint. He looked up in mild surprise.
"It's the little baby alchemist!" he said sweetly. "I knew you couldn't stay away forever: I always leave 'em wanting more."
Roy was too angry even to feel his fear. "You killed her!" he seethed.
"Marissa?" Kimbley clarified. "It certainly looks that way. Though of course, I could hardly be held responsible. Certainly it was my handiwork that was the direct cause of her death, but it's not my fault that she wandered into a restricted area unannounced. Really, you're lucky that the same thing didn't happen to you."
"That's a lie," Mustang said, taking two menacing steps forward. "She wasn't killed in the blast, she was the blast! You said yourself that you wanted to use something larger. And you told her if she cared about you she'd agree to let you use her!"
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." Kimbley batted his eyelashes and used his thumb to buff his left ring fingernail.
"You used her as your biological material!"
"That's an interesting hypothesis," Kimbley said. "Unfortunately the post-mortem won't bear you out. That's even assuming the plods from Central get here in time for a proper post-mortem. Bodies decay so very quickly. The worms crawl in. The worms crawl out. The worms play pinochle on your snout."
"I'll tell them," Roy said as stoutly as he could, though oddly enough the scrap of doggerel had disarmed him, and he could feel his courage ebbing away. "Between what you said to me, and what Captain Bathory told me—"
Kimbley's mouth curled into an enormous smile. "Your word against mine, Cadet," he sang gleefully. "And who do you really think they'll believe?"
He tossed the bit of flint aside and flexed his hands so that the tattoos on his palms rippled. He sat up, leaning forward as if he were preparing to rise.
Roy didn't wait to see it happen. He retreated from the tent, his thoughts racing and his heart hammering in his chest. He didn't care anymore: his career, his future at the Academy, it wasn't important. And Mr. Lane was right: if he passed the State exam, he wouldn't have to worry about a poor review on his practical rotation. More importantly, he didn't want to die out here, overtaken by a long-fingered madman unstable enough to use his own – moll? Whore? What was the right word? – as blasting fodder.
He crossed the encampment and ducked into his own small tent. Frenetically, he threw himself into the task of packing his kit bag.
discidium
When the camp was fast asleep, Roy crept out into the darkness. He glanced over his shoulder towards the large tent at the edge of the compound. Through the canvas, he could see a candle flickering: Kimbley was still awake.
That thought made him move more quickly. He wouldn't have much of a chance to get away. It was six hours 'til dawn. It would be noticed when he did not appear at breakfast. And Master Sergeant Vernon was no slouch: after what happened to Bathory he would be wary of any disappearances. But would they send someone after him? He didn't know. He had to be back in Lesser Marlburg – preferably on a train headed back towards Central – before sunrise.
This meant, of course, that he would have to steal a handcart. He tried to placate his conscience: he wasn't stealing it, was he? After all, he wouldn't be removing it from the rails, just riding it back to the last station on the line. Surely that wasn't an offence worthy of a court-martial. He hoped not. Bad enough that he was destroying any chance of a backup plan: by leaving without the permission of his preceptor, he ran a very real risk of expulsion from the Academy. If he failed the State Alchemist exam...
He'd cross that bridge when he came to it. If he didn't get out of here, he probably wouldn't live to sit the exam. While Kimbley was right and the testimony of a disgruntled cadet wouldn't carry much weight with Investigations, it would be so much safer just to do away with him to cover up what had been done to Bathory.
"Going so soon?"
Roy's heart stopped. The voice was coming from behind him, a low whisper tainted with wry amusement.
"You're not meant to leave until the day after tomorrow."
Relief flooded Mustang's body, and suddenly he was trembling. It was only Alexander Lane, the old geologist. He turned, and in the dim light of the moon he could make out the man's wizened features.
"I have to," he hissed. "It wasn't an accident. He killed her, and if I stay here he'll probably kill me, too. I was... he..."
Lane held up his hand, mercifully sparing Mustang from the words he couldn't utter. "Don't say it. Just go. You'll be taking one of the carts?"
Roy nodded. "Come with me," he said hastily. "It's not safe here. He's mad, and they're all mad to look the other way. Can't they see he's lost his mind?"
"Some of them, yes," Lane said. "But what are they supposed to do about it? The man's a State Alchemist. He's a major in the military. They're scared stiff of him and what he stands to do to their careers." He shuffled forward: he was wearing a striped nightgown and blue flannel bedroom slippers. "You go on. I'll be fine."
"But—"
The scientist shook his head. "I can't stand those carts. And anyway, the Major would never kill me. Ester wouldn't stand for it, and there's not a force in nature more fearsome than my wife. Go. Write your exam. And let me tell you, boy, if you don't pass it you had better leave the military and take up sheep farming. Somewhere that man can never find you again."
He didn't need to tell Roy that. The cadet nodded. "Listen, if you could..."
Lane bobbed his head in understanding. "I'll keep Vernon from raising the alarm. Who knows: maybe no one else will even notice you're gone." He reached into the pocket of his nightshirt and drew out the steel flask. "Here, take it with you: you might need something warm inside you. It's a cold night."
Roy tried to thank him, but Lane only urged him to hurry. It was a simple enough matter to get the cart moving. Roy pumped very slowly at first, fearful lest the handle or the wheels should squeak, but the vehicle was well oiled. One mile marker slipped past, then two. His arms were burning and his back ached already, but he was leaving the camp far behind. As the rails rushed beneath him and the stars rolled slowly by overhead, Roy could not help hoping that, pass or fail the State Alchemist exam, he would never see Zolf J. Kimbley again either way.
