🚀 go-pugleaf

     In his heart, All Chemist truly hated the unknown. Usually this
manifested as a friendly hatred which drove him to push forward the
boundaries of knowledge to uncover what was not known. This night however,
as he mixed together chemicals, powders and spirits - guiding them towards
their final form - he realised that the antagonism could no longer be just
a motivator. With his son's life at stake, Nathaniel Wynn's rage at the
unseen was directed toward the man who threatened it. With methodical hands
All Chemist set aside another stoppered vial filled with his particular
handiwork. Surveying it and the dangerous new chemicals that sat inside the
man nodded, satisfied. A struggle between life and death had placed his
son's life in the balance; All Chemist did not pretend to understand the
deeper significance of this battle, knowing only that he was now a part of
it. Placing the small bottle in his belt, All Chemist also placed himself
between the two polarities, knowing only one thing: it was time to save his
son.

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              Frobozz Magic Productions Presents

                     Spotlight On...#29

                All Chemist, Mystica, Jack Wynn

                      A Tale of the Past

                         "Black Ice"

                       Part Two of Two

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     Mystica sat in her chair by Jack's bed, keeping vigil over her
sleeping son. At her husband's entrance she rose, turning to look at him
with quiet determination. All Chemist thought that there was some hope
mixed in as well, and wished that he could promise to justify that hope.
     "Did you find anything?" he asked, taking his wife in his arms.
     "Precious little," she replied sadly.
     "Let's hear it anyway. Maybe we can put something together from it all."
     Mystica nodded slightly, chewing reflectively on her lip. "The
companion crystal to the one that's draining Jack is somewhere on Earth. It
has to be for this spell to work. The crystal collects energy like a sponge
- any kind of energy - and redirects or reshapes it as the user of the
crystal chooses. When all of Jack's magic potential is gone..."
     "Yes?" asked All Chemist, feeling a chill run down his spine as he
predicted what the answer would be.
     "It will... take his life energy too..."
     "We won't let this happen," whispered All Chemist. "We won't. We've
been through too much to let the bad guy win this time. We're going to make
Randolph sorry that he ever even looked at Jack in the first place."
     "Maybe he's right, though," whispered Mystica.
     "What?"
     "All life dies... give in to death... maybe it's just my time too."
     "No," muttered All Chemist, shaking his head emphatically.
     "If I gave in... bowed... he might spare Jack."
     "And he might not... Sharon, you're life. That what you've told me and
that's what I believe in. Yeah, all life dies but first it _lives_. That's
part of the equation too. Death gets everything but only after life is
finished with it. We're not finished yet."
     "Maybe," said Mystica, unconvinced. All Chemist sighed and hugged his
wife tightly for a moment before looking her in the eye.
     "Sharon, are you sure there's no way to bug that second crystal and
find out where it is?"
     Mystica shook her head. "No. I can't do that. I don't know how it works."
     "Then you said something about auras. Can you look for Randolph's on
the world?"
     Again Mystica shook her head. "I can't do that either," she said.
"He'd have masked himself by now and he's strong enough to keep his secrets
safe from me. Only his spells would still have his unaltered aura and I'd
need to assense one while he was casting to find it over such a long range
as the Earth."
     "What about if it started up again, like an emergency generator
kicking on from standby?" asked All Chemist. "One of his spells, I mean.
Would that let you find it?"
     Mystica thought that over for a moment before nodding slightly.
     "Sharon," continued the hero, straining to think of what to do and
hoping that he could overcome his ignorance of magic just this once. "Tell
me about what the crystal's doing. You said it wasn't active, what's it
doing now?"
     "It's letting a tiny trickle of Jack's energy flow through it," said
Mystica, eyes widening as she saw the wisdom behind her husband's question.
"It's keeping the link open that way, by using that tiny fraction of power
to sustain the spell. Without it, one of the crystals would have to
activate and power the resonance link themselves."
     "Can you block Jack's power, Sharon?" asked All Chemist, feeling his
excitement rise. Was the solution within his grasp?
     "Only for a few moments," replied Mystica. "After that, the feedback
would hurt Jack..."
     "Is there any way to make sure that it's the other crystal that takes
up the slack?"
     Mystica nodded. "It's positively ensured. This crystal is only
magically prepared, not actually carrier of a spell. The other crystal
would have to take over."
     "Then that's what we have to do, isn't it?" asked All Chemist, a look
of hope materialising on his face. "Block his power and then trace the
other crystal when it goes active!"
     "I can't," replied Mystica, quietly, shaking her head in quiet despair.
     "Why not, Sharon?"
     Mystica looked away for a moment, then back. "The incantation to trace
the crystal would take all of my concentration. I'd have none left over
with which to block Jack's energy."
     All Chemist sighed and wandered about the room, letting his gaze float
over its every detail. "There's nothing else we can do?"
     "Unless you can block him, nothing."
     All Chemist looked up and nodded. "I'll give it a shot."
     Mystica's mouth opened and she drew in breath to protest.
     "I know, you didn't expect me to take you that seriously," said All
Chemist, raising a hand. "But think about it, Sharon. Maybe just this once,
chemistry can do what magic can't. Maybe."
     "Maybe," said Mystica, unconvinced. "What will you need?"
     "Beats me," replied All Chemist, "My lab... time... that's all I can
think of."
     Mystica nodded, doubt showing on her face. "I'll get Jack ready to be
moved."
     "Thanks," replied All Chemist, kissing his wife gently on the cheek.
"I'm going to warm up my spirit burner."
     "Good luck," said Mystica, raising her hand.
     "Thanks," repeated All Chemist, but Mystica shook her head slightly.
     "This isn't casual, Nathan," she said, closing her eyes and tracing
sigils in the air, words of silver slipping from her tongue as she incanted
her plea. "I call upon you the luck of the innocent, the fortune of the
pure and the favour of that which guides us all. In Jack's name and for his
sake I plead your cause to sister Earth, to mother Life and to father
Death. Travel the dark path in light, Nathaniel Jonathan Wynn."
     All Chemist stood and watched the display in rapt wonder as teardrops
of silver reached out to brush him lightly, then faded into nothing.
Mystica lowered her hand. "It is done."
     "Then I have to start," he said, turning to walk to his laboratory.
***
     Dreams... mists... thoughts...
     They're swirling... in front of me.
     (Silly, dreams aren't real.)
     They're so beautiful, it hurts to see them go away...
     Bye...
     Another one gone... where do they go?
     Away from me.
     I want them to stay... they're part of me.
     They won't. I can't make them. I'll watch them.
     Maybe I can remember them.
     I still cry, the next one goes.
     (Maybe they don't like me anymore.)
     Where's mommy... she'd know how to stop them.
     Unless they didn't want to stop...
     (What do I do when I run out of dreams?)
***
     All Chemist's fist shook his workbench as it thumped down in anger.
Racks of chemicals trembled and shook, singing in cacophonous chorus. The
delicate mixture in his tube was inert and had no words for him. Closing
his eyes long enough to relax his knotted mind, All Chemist flushed the
mixture out of the tube and rinsed it for the fourth? fifth? time.
     "Sorry Jack," he apologised, as he extracted another sample of his
son's blood with a sterilised syringe. "But this is for you. I'll get you a
lollipop when this is all over."
     All Chemist smeared a bit of blood onto a petrie dish and closed his
eyes once more, opening his mind. Blood... with a good deal of effort, it
could be treated as just another chemical or set of chemicals. It could be
made to speak faintly, very faintly to the back of the man's mind. All
Chemist had no guarantee that Jack's blood carried any information at all
on the magic that his wife said was within him. He knew that he had no
other choice but to trust to luck and fate that there would be some key
within the body's life-river.
     Sulphur... All Chemist's hand reached automatically for the substance,
pouring a precise amount into a beaker.. Another hand reached over to place
a drop of carbolic acid in a test tube, following it with a dash of lye.
Then his hands reached for more exotic chemicals... driven by the mind
which negotiated with the slick red liquid sitting before him. Compounds
formed while liquids reacted over low heat. Gasses were trapped and
sublimated. A confusion of compound, chemical, acid and base covered the
table, then slowly collapsed in on itself until there only remained a
simmering beaker and the petrie dish. With hands that should have been by
rights shaking, All Chemist scraped a few flecks of the blood into the
beaker and waited for the mix within to announce its birth to the world, or
else emerge stillborn.
     The waiting was intolerable, but there was no way to speed up the
process. No birthing cry of a successful mixture. No moment of delicate
recognition as his mind's eye opened wide to see what hands had wrought.
Nothing.
     And then... a faint murmur. Quieter than it had ever been before, in a
voice unfamiliar to All Chemist's mind. He could not make out its words and
in that he knew that he had succeeded. For only magic was beyond his
knowledge in the realm of the chemical.
     The alchemist laughed in triumph and in irony. Twice now he had helped
father something born of mundane and magic, and one would save the other -
he prayed.
     All Chemist rose to fetch his wife.
***
     Cold, beautiful crystal containing warm, breathtaking life. How
utterly perfect.
     A small, cold smile twisted the man's lips as he gazed into a small
diamond that rested on his palm. Deep in the centre, visible to his sight
alone was the woman whom he desired in so many things.
     Sharon. Mystica. Incantantrix Vitae. Incanter of Life. She had so many
names. So many lovely names. So much life.
     So much to give to him. So much to feed to death.
     Watching the diamond shatter, and with it Mystica's image, brought
little satisfaction to the man's soul. But soon he knew that his appetites
would be well satiated.
     Mystica turned her head sharply at the sound of an icicle outside her
window exploding into fragments. She turned back to her studies and
continued to contemplate a spell.
***
     "This is the blocking agent," said All Chemist, holding a test tube to
the light. Mystica looked at it with amazed eyes which she turned towards
her husband.
     "There's magic within... how?"
     All Chemist shook his head. "I don't know, Sharon. It happened. I
didn't use anything except ordinary scientific chemicals... but the end
result was this."
     Mystica smiled gently, brushing a finger along All Chemist's face.
"There's less difference between what we do than we'd thought," she said,
stroking for a moment before touching the finger to the glass tube. "I
sense that it will block Jack's potential... use no more than a drop,
Nathan. More than that would cause him irreparable harm."
     All Chemist nodded grimly, looking around his well cared-for
laboratory, then down to his sleeping son. Mystica followed his gaze down
and smiled slightly, drawing strength from the sight of the one for whom
they were performing their ritual. She murmured in the language of life's
magic, crossing her arms and putting hands to shoulders as she spoke. For a
spell like this, only the spoken word was needed... and the attention of
all things that lived. In her spell she built up a web which she would cast
over all of Earth's living things for a moment, begging their help for a
moment in locating exactly what she sought. Each soul, be they the spirit
of animal, plant or human, could accept or decline as they saw fit, though
most would never even know that a choice had been made. Invariably, those
that loved life and saw it as a gift would allow themselves to be added to
a web which they would not perceive, while those who saw it as something to
be endured or scorned would refuse. It was Mystica's right alone as the
Incanter of Life to make this request and as as she did so, she felt the
wonder of life joining to life synergistically, reinforcing and covering
each other while preventing each from stumbling and falling. Enraptured by
the spectacle, the plan nearly failed before it could begin as Mystica was
almost too taken by the wonder of the soul to nod to her husband. Almost,
but fortunately not quite. At her tiny nod, All Chemist reached forward and
poured a single drop of his elixir onto Jack's tongue, causing the boy to
shudder and convulse for a moment. The man steadied his son's head until
the trembling had passed, while Mystica began to chant again, speaking a
request across the life of Earth, searching for a single spell that was
sure to activate.
     Suddenly, both chemist and mage were dragged from their search by a
cool voice which sounded from the other side of the room. The voice was
rational, filled with dark humour and sounded  like the most bitter of the
winter's winds.
     "I see no reason why I should put myself at a disadvantage by letting
you trace me to my home," said Randolph, stepping through the workshop door
and smiling at the two shocked figures within. "So I have brought myself,
and the gem that you've so industriously tried to locate, here where you
can look at it to your heart's content." Randolph held a small crystal
between his thumb and forefinger, turning it so that every perfect facet
was revealed.
     "How..." began Mystica, her eyes wide. The man in front of her was a
horror in her mind and in abstract terms he was a horror who frightened her
beyond words, but was ultimately possible to deal with. Standing before
her, here in her own home where she should by all rights be safe, Randolph
took on the appearance of a demon or a god of death. He chuckled, stepping
fully into the room and closing the door behind him, forcing Mystica to
take a step back, her heart's pounding audible in her ears.
      "Oh my dear, sweet Sharon," he said, shaking his head in wry
bemusement. "You ward your house so well, don't you? You lace it with your
magic and pray that life's magic will keep you safe. But it's winter, my
dear, the time of the living's long slumber. Persephone has made her
journey down to Hades and Demeter is weeping. The world is asleep, lovely,
living Sharon's power with it and lifelessness is in ascension." He smiled
and took another step towards Mystica as All Chemist slowly moved forward
to intercept. "You can't defeat me on death's home ground, can you now? All
you can do is surrender gracefully and spare your husband and son
unnecessary grief."
     "What do you want here, Randolph?" growled All Chemist, moving fully
between the man and his wife. He had never seen Randolph before in his life
but there was no doubt from the way that he spoke that this was the mage
whose fetish was death.
     "It should be obvious, even to a man of your limited imagination,"
smiled Randolph, unconcerned by the man's closing presence. "I'm here for
your wife, of course. She will come with me and together we will reenact
the dance of life and death, as the latter conquers and the former
submits."
     "And if she doesn't want to go?"
     "Death is not required to give life a choice in the matter. These
things are dictated by what is right and natural, not by want or need."
     "Stop it!" cried Mystica, feeling herself on the edge of hysteria and
desperately trying to calm her tattered emotions. Memories of her time with
Randolph - times of shame and fear - sprang back to her mind unbidden. She
could not return to that life, she told herself. For the first time, she
realised that she would rather embrace the true death than follow any
lifepath that Randolph offered. "Just stop it! Stop posturing, stop
threatening, stop everything!"
     "I intend to," replied Randolph, with a predatory smile at Mystica,
causing All Chemist to bunch up a fist.
     "Damn it, that's what I mean," cried Mystica, through trembling lips.
"You aren't death! You aren't the mage of death! You aren't even a
necromancer! You're nothing but a sad man with delusions and a fixation on
me!" The words came tumbling out, and there was nothing which could stop
them. Words that Mystica had wanted so much to say years ago finally
slipped their lead and jumped for a soft and tender throat. They found
their mark, as evidenced by Randolph's stepping backwards, eyes blazing and
face flushed in anger.
     "I am whosoever I choose to be," he said with a quiet rage, recovering
his mark and stepping forward again.
     "Then let me be who I choose to be too!" shouted Mystica, a tear
rolling unbidden down her cheek. "Stop trying to make and remake me! I'm
not a part of your insanity, Randolph, let my family and me out of the
prison of your madness!"
     "But you can't be whomsoever you choose to be, Sharon," he replied quietly.
     "Why not?" demanded Mystica, balling her fists and feeling her arms
tremble with the action.
     "Because who you are was given you by the stars long ago, at the
moment that you drew life-giving breath into newborn lungs and cried
piteously at the cold world to be returned to the comforting darkness of
your mother's womb. You claim that I am not death but I say that you are
life and so are outside of choice. I have a universe defending my position,
Sharon and you... you have nothing but an oaf of a husband and an insensate
boy who learned the lessons that I taught far too early." He took another
step forward. "I believe I trump you."

[Continued In Part Two, Immediately Following]