Weighed & Measured

Peres divided the roasted berries from darkest to lightest in a tray that had twelve wells. Darkness pressed to the windows, all fowl and forest creatures slept. Peres had done this for thousands of hours before and would continue to until he stopped practicing alchemy. Bifocals rested on the end of his nose, he held in his hands two metal knives that were dull. Their grip was a comfortable for the task, some kind of burled dark wood with curls of white in it. A white gas lamp lit his work. When he was young, the master he learned under insisted this work be done in daylight, but candlelight was inconsistent and you’d often find that the divisions of the berries were wrong. It would be mostly right, but you’d have to check any work done by candlelight twice and sometimes, depending on how rested you were, time was better spent doing other things.

But that was a lifetime ago, now Peres was on the chamber of guildmasters. He had trained a dozen alchemists. The better sort of alchemy, if the other guild could be called alchemy at all. Commoners called both magics alchemy, but that was calling water and blood the same, or gold and lead. Were they both heavy? Yes, but lead was used for the meanest purpose and the other was a prize that monarchs sought.

Peres would never deny that leaves had power, he had seen it himself. Seen the dreams, but he knew that it was wrong in his heart. Mixing sleep and flow was too close to the firmament that held the waters back. If that barrier broke, who knew, the next age? Or would all be lost.

The orders he had would do for the lightest roast of the berries and then a drop of liquor at the end. Young alchemists often adulterated the drinks orders of magnitude wrong. They could follow prescribed recipes but they had no patience for research, nor the stomach for failed recipes. Flow had stolen weeks and two months once, from Peres but then he came back to himself, and wrote down his experiences. The guild benefited from his experiment an inestimable value, alchemy required not lack of fear, but the willingness to go into that unknown. To be consumed by the water and believe you would eventually come back up.

“Instructor Peres?” A young woman softly knocked on the door and poked her head through the open door. “Yes, Syntyche, what is it?” “The Chamber is meeting, they bid me fetch you.” “Is it that time?” Peres said more to himself than her.

He stood and slowly put each group of berries into a sealed container. If it hadn’t been Syntyche they sent, they would have offered to do this for him while he went to the Chamber. Instead, she grabbed jars and the rest so that he could finish his task. No sense in leaving it undone for another time, either tomorrow or even later tonight.

“I’ve heard your summons child, I will be with the Chamber in my own time.” “I cannot leave,” she spoke clearly, carefully. Her voice was slightly deeper for a woman. Peres didn’t struggle understanding it as he did some of the others. Peres harumphed and said, “Number the jars then and mind you write legibly.” “Yes Instructor.”

He brought the lightest colored berries with him as she walked down the halls, matching his pace. They tinkled in the jar with each step. He grabbed his dark brown robe that showed his seniority, Syntyche’s was the green that showed she had just become an alchemist. Not new by any means, no longer needed to practice under a master but didn’t chafe at still being called a child. Peres knew better but didn’t care, she had been his apprentice and would be a child to him until he died.

He could feel the cold of the stone floors through his slippers, the cold trying to get through the walls. It was more a tomb than a home, but it had been home for so long and would continue to be during and after his life.

“Peres, nice of you to join us,” Jachin said as he walked through, “though you dawddled.” “I do not run to summons,” he felt like an old bear with cubs around him, “why was I summoned?” “We needed a quorom.” “There were enough before me.” “Not for this,” Jachin said, “will you change your mind about joining the guilds?” “Why have you brought me down for this? My mind will never change on this, it is blasphemy. It is foolish” Peres said and looked around, “has he persuaded any of you?” For the first time Peres realized he didn’t recognize almost any of the Chamber. He didn’t know any of them. And then he noticed tears were in Syntyche’s eyes.

“All in favor of rescinding Instructor Peres’s status in the Chamber.”

Only three of the two dozen abstained and they did not support his keeping his position.

“As you said, you would never change your mind. Your position of instructor is not revoked, you are still the best research–”

He spoke slowly and quietly, but his voice carried, “Child, you have gone too far. If you think that my obstinancy is for some reason of pride you are mistaken. If the guilds join, you will plunge us into darkness. Light and darkness cannot bear one another. I will have no part of this.”

“You have no choice,” Jachin said.

Peres took three deep breaths, it was one thing to consider jumping a cliff and another to step off the ledge.

“I do,” he took off his ring that signified his membership in the guild and dropped it, and then removed his cloak and dropped that on top and turned on his heel to walk.

“Peres,” said behind his back, but then someone else said “just leave it.” And he left the way he had come.