Sigil and Seal

 Arthur wandered through the city of Galveston in search of fire.

He had put it off, and put it off, never feeling the right time - but his alchemical testing was tomorrow, and he had every element except for fire.

It couldn’t be just anything, either. The prime elements in the pouch around his neck were totems he would use throughout his life. They gave a base for the workings of his alchemy, and as such needed to be suited to him, and he to them. He had just about given up and settled for a candle from the family storehouse, but the faintest tickle in the back of his mind sent him out into the city instead.

He passed by the training grounds, a wide packed-dirt yard with the soldiers’ barracks at one side and the local lord’s| house on the other. A dozen apprentices were practicing swordplay with each other, wooden swords clacking and thwacking. Arthur paused by the wooden fence to watch for a moment, feeling a brief stab of envy - theirs was a strength simple and visible, no whispering hints of magic there and gone by turns.

Arthur watched as the trainees sparred, one by one taking their falls and moving out of the field of battle, most nursing bruises and sprains. Until the fight was down to three, two dark-haired boys fighting a blond haired, deeply tanned apprentice. Even Arthur, who knew little of swords, could tell that he was exceptional. He spun and parried, dodged and struck, wooden blade moving like a live thing - and then the two were on the ground, and he stood victor.

But Arthur had a task, and the whisper of magic within him, though faint, was insistent. He followed the tugging and it led him into the market, then went quiet.

Figured.

He wandered for awhile, hoping it would return to guide him, but the magic remained stubbornly silent and so he decided to use his own wits. He headed for the smithy, and lingered for a while watching as the smith - a huge, burly man with burn weals on his arms - hammered at glowing iron with ringing strokes. Flames danced and flared hot from the forge, and Arthur wondered - was this it? Was this the place for his fire? Perhaps he could ask for a bit of the iron, or a lump of coal.

But just as he opened his mouth to call the smith’s attention, something barreled into him and he went sprawling in the dirt.

Everything was a confusion of arms and legs, not all of them his own, and just as he struggled free of the someone who’d run into him, that someone was pulling them both to their feet.

“It’s you!” said a high, excited voice. “You were the seeking!”

Arthur just stared. It was a girl, barefoot and wild, with brown hair messily pulled back, and wearing a tunic and trousers patched with bright cloth and a battered leather jerkin. Her eyes were bright, too, blue and fixed on his face expectantly.

“Hello?” he tried.

Her eyes crinkled up a little. “You were seeking,” she said, “And I sought your seeking and so found you. What were you in search of, bright-eyed boy?”

This was madness, but Arthur answered anyway. “I need to find my fire,” he said.

“Ah!” She reached into a pouch at her waist, and thrust something into his hands.

He saw it was a flint and steel, and the rightness of it in his hands warmed the place in his chest where he felt magic grow. He knew better than to take things from strangers, but he also knew there was no way he was giving it back. He curled his fingers around it, and asked, “Who are you?”

“I am Ellie!” she said happily, “And I found you. Who are you?”

“I’m Arthur,” he said. “Arthur Levell.”

And as if by speaking he had summoned him, he heard his father’s voice echo through the market. “Arthur!”

Arthur hastily shoved the flint and steel into the pouch around his neck, and a warm glow spread through him at the completion of the elements. The girl - Ellie - stood her ground, and then Arthur’s father was there.

Eustace Levell was of average height and average size, and that was about all that was average about him. His hair was a dark gray, his face lined from years and study, his green eyes sharp yet wise. He was an alchemist of high rank, an advisor to the king, and (Arthur knew well) a stern yet loving father.

“And who might this be, Arthur?” Eustace asked.

Arthur had no idea. He gave the best answer he could. “Ellie,” he said.

Eustace sized up the girl, who looked at her dirty toes, took a deep breath, and then looked up to meet his eyes.

“Eleanor, apprentice to Rakari?”

She nodded, and then she was looking at her toes again.

“Return to your home, child,” Eustace said, “This town is no place for you. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” she said softly, then looked up with a smile almost too happy for mischief. “But I will be seeing more of you, bright-eyed boy.”

She ran for the east gate, leaving Eustace and Arthur standing bemused and confused, respectively. Eustace turned to Arthur.

“That child is a mage,” Eustace said. “Mages are chaotic at best, and untrained ones downright dangerous. Stay away from her, Arthur.”

“Of course, Father,” Arthur replied. But inside he remembered her eyes.

*****

That night in his chambers, Arthur settled in at his desk, set his mug precisely four inches from the edge, lay his books in the very center, and kindled his reading lamp with a gesture and a spoken word. Technically, he was not permitted to practice alchemy without a guide present, not until he (hopefully) passed his test - but no one paid much attention to minor bendings of said rule. Sleep was far from him, his head buzzing with possible tests he could be asked to perform for the audience of elders.

He did not show well for an audience.

He opened the book before him and settled in for a long session of re-reading. He’d been through both – Fundamentals of Alchemical Principles and Beyond the Bounds of Accepted Reality – so many times he could repeat sections by heart, but they were comforting, familiar.

*Thok*

He blinked. Had a moth flown against the window? No matter.

*Thok*

That sounded larger than a moth. A bat? A bird, lost and flying by night?

*Thok. Thok.*

Frowning, Arthur set his bookmark neatly in place and went to the window. He released the catch, opened it, leaned out to see – and was promptly struck in the forehead by a small, round object.

“Sorry!” came a voice, high and merry and poorly attempting a whisper.

Arthur rubbed his forehead and saw, perched high in the branches of the oak tree nearest his window and holding a handful of freshly plucked acorns, the girl from the market. She paused, considered, then lobbed another acorn.

It hit the same spot on his forehead. “Hey!” he cried out, and raised his hands defensively.

“That one was on purpose,” she said, with a barely suppressed giggle.

“I guessed that,” he whispered fiercely. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you,” she said, her tone adding, *obviously*.

“Look, just – just come inside before you get both of us in trouble,” Arthur hissed.

“Okay,” she said, and before he could even yelp in alarm she had launched from the branch, caught hold of the windowsill, and hauled herself inside.

“Why are you following me?!” Arthur demanded as she straightened up, not even bothering to brush off the bits of bark and leaves.

“It is what must be,” she said. “As magic lives and leads, so we follow and find. I have found you, and I won’t lose you. Even an alchemist should know as much.”

“I know you are insane,” Arthur retorted.

A shadow of inevitability drew lines on her young face like time’s sudden passing. “Do you? And do you know the whispered words of the wind through the trees? Do you know the seven secrets guarding a dragons heart? Will you speak to me of what you do know, Arthur Levell?”

“That’s absurd,” Arthur said flatly. “Trees don’t speak, and a dragon’s heart is encased in four layers of protective scaling, underneath a breastbone harder than folded steel. And magic is no more alive than –” his heart twinged sharply, suddenly, and he faltered into silence.

She looked at him a long moment, and he had the curious and inexplicable feeling that he had embarrassed himself, though he knew not how. But the age faded from her face, which grew bright again, and she poked him in the chest with one strong finger.

“I like you, Arthur Levell,” she said. “We will be good friends.”

Arthur stepped back, flustered. “What? I can’t be your friend.”

The shadow darkened the edges of her countenance. “Because I am a mage,” she said softly, and ran her fingers along the books on the desk.

“No!” he protested, and grabbed the books to clutch them tight. They seemed to give him strength. “I face my first test of alchemical skill tomorrow,” he explained. “If I pass, I will become an alchemist, and leave to begin my studies in the libraries of our cousin-families across the land.”

“Will you pass?” she asked.

He looked at the lit lamp and said, softly, “My father says I show great talent.”

She nodded soberly, and the smile that lit then on her face glowed like warm sunshine. “Then I will go with you,” she said.

He stared at her. Was she simple-minded? All he’d read of mages – and admittedly there was not much in the Levell library – said that they were clever and brilliant, though unschooled and chaotic. But this one seemed to have no sense at all.

“I have to sleep,” he said abruptly, laying his books neatly on his desk.

“Okay,” she said cheerfully.

Baffled, frustrated, he looked at her, and if she registered that look at all she gave no sign of it. “That means you need to leave,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, face falling, then continued brightly, “May I come see your test tomorrow?”

“They won’t let you,” he said. “Only the Elders will be there, and my father as witness. No one else is allowed in.”

“But if I can get in,” she said, a sly smile quirking her lips, “do you permit me to see your test?”

“Do as you like,” Arthur sighed, “But do it somewhere else, please.”

“All right,” she said easily, and brought her hands up to her face. He felt the tingle on his skin and the tart ache at the back of his throat of gathering magic.

“Aren’t you going out the window?” he asked.

She smiled. “Going someplace new is difficult. Going home is just about the easiest magic there is.”

Then her form glowed bright, bright, and was gone. Arthur blinked the light from his eyes, stared at the spot for a moment, and then crawled fully-dressed into bed – where he lay for a long time wakeful and puzzling over what had just happened.

*****

Arthur woke the next morning, still puzzled, and with a churning mix of excitement and trepidation in his stomach. He changed into fresh clothes, and took his books back to the family library, where he found his father already seated at a desk with books and notes laid out before him.

“Studying all night, I see,” Eustace said warmly. “As expected.”

“I did sleep, Father,” Arthur replied.

“Good. You will need your wits sharp for the test. It is early still – have you eaten?”

“Not yet.”

Arthur replaced his books in their places, and he and his father breakfasted in the small dining hall. Afterwards they left the house and walked through the still-empty streets to the city courthouse, loaned to the alchemists for testing under the strict understanding that any incidental damage be immediately repaired.

The Elders were already there, seated at the high table where the judge held court. The chairs and benches had been cleared away to the sides of the room, leaving a wide space in the middle of the room for Arthur to stand. Eustace stood several paces back, near the door, arms folded over his chest. Of Ellie there was no sign, of course, and Arthur could not explain the little pang that gave him. He had known full well she could not be there.

There were three Elders, attired in formal robes of no standard design, patterned with intricate silver and gold embroidery. The one on the left wore blue, the right red, the middle white. Their hair was white, and sparse, their faces lined with decades of knowledge and wisdom. The one in the middle spoke first.

“Arthur Levell, son of Eustace Levell. I am Archibald Orren, and beside me sit Thaddeus Mortenson and Hortensia Filius.” He gestured left, then right, then continued. “You stand before us now to demonstrate your knowledge of the first principles of alchemy, and to show your skill in controlling this magic. Do you stand ready?”

“Yes, sir,” Arthur replied, voice cracking only slightly from the dryness of his throat.

“You may begin.”

Arthur recited the elements of alchemy, the basic combinations, the structure of the circle and the spiral and the proper uses of each, and demonstrated his knowledge of the Elder Tongue in which complex spells were written.

Their faces were expressionless as he spoke, and a twist of anxious nausea wormed through his gut, growing steadily stronger. But when they instructed him to create a thunderstorm within the room, he felt it ease. It was meant to be a challenge, he knew, combining four elements and containing their power, but he drew his circle on the floor and inscribed it carefully. He clutched the pouch around his neck and placed his hand on the circle, and felt the surge of joyous energy pulse from his heart.

Nothing happened for one heart-stopping moment, and then motes of air clustered together, darkened, formed droplets of moisture to fall pattering on the circle. A tiny bolt of lightning shot from the center of the little cloud, and sizzled against the stone floor.

He looked up, elated at his success, and saw Hortensia nodding thoughtfully and Archibald leaning back in his chair. Thaddeus had his fingers steepled on the long bench before them.

“Can you modify your working? Expand it?” Thaddeus asked.

Arthur concentrated, feeling the magic within and without, one hand laid lightly over the pouch on his chest, the other stretched out toward the tiny thunderstorm. The energy surged through him and the storm grew, grew, till wind whipped their hair and rain splashed their faces and a little white bird nesting in the eaves squawked and flew in terrified circles.

“Enough!” Archibald said, “Control your working!”

Arthur did, drawing the magic back and down, safely contained in himself and the circle, which he erased with a few swipes of his hand.

“Well done,” murmured Eustace from behind him. He had stood still as stone through the whole test.

“Thank you, Father,” Arthur murmured in response, but his attention stayed on the seated Elders, who were conversing in voices too low for him to hear. They reached agreement and settled back in their seats. “You have proved yourself an alchemist,” Archibald said. “Your name will be entered in the ledgers and record will be kept of your skill. The libraries of the alchemical families are open to you now, as you continue your studies.” Archibald looked at Eustace. “Would you like to place his sigil?”

Eustace inclined his head. “I thank you, yes.”

He moved to stand in front of Arthur.

“Open your tunic,” Eustace said, and Arthur complied. Eustace placed one hand carefully over Arthur’s heart, supporting his shoulder with the other.

For a long moment nothing happened, and then Arthur felt a dizzying surge of magic within meeting magic without. There was a prickling, and a growing warmth that flared into white heat, burning into his chest. He did not cry out, but he stumbled, and was glad of his father’s hand on his shoulder keeping him upright. 

Just when he thought he must scream or die, the heat lessened, dissipated, leaving him sore and exhausted. Eustace stepped back, and they all saw an alchemist’s sigil in raised red lines on the flesh above his heart, a complex star of connected lines bound by a circle.

“Eight points,” Hortensia said softly. “Never have I seen the like.”

“What does that mean?” Arthur asked, forgetting manners entirely in lingering pain and uncertainty.

“I think it means that we can expect great things from you, young Arthur,” Thaddeus said. “Great things.”

“Indeed,” Archibald said thoughtfully. “May you grow in knowledge and wisdom, Arthur.”

“And may your workings never fail,” Arthur responded automatically. It was a dismissal, though polite, and he and Eustace made their way out the door, leaving the Elders in hushed conversation behind them. 

“Well done,” Eustace said again, and clapped him on the shoulder. Then, a little wryly, “As expected.”

Arthur beamed a smile, the dull ache in his chest forgotten, and overhead the little white bird swooped out into the open air, done with this crazy building that could house storm clouds inside.