r.a.
rust

A moonless sky enveloped the philosopher’s home, filling it with the same darkness as the hurt in his heart. The fire in the hearth crackled in chorus with the rain against the leaky roof. He looked to his son, sleeping in their only bed. The boy’s eyes would occasionally shut tighter. His body would tense. Whimpers would whisper from his chapped lips. What horrors he must have been dreaming. What pain that wrought him. 

A knock at the door.

The philosopher ambled to the entrance and peered through a lattice window to see a foreboding cloaked figure outside. The hinges creaked as he cracked the door open. Upon being given this inch, the man outside took a mile, pushing the door open entirely and forcing his way inside. He was carrying a leather satchel in his left hand and a wand in his right. A spell trailed lazily from the wand as the philosopher pushed the door closed behind him, the magic drying the rain from the man’s dark robes and cloak. He spoke sternly, his voice silken and haunting: “Mr. Lissier, it’s time to start taking the threat against your son’s life seriously.”

 
He sighed and dropped himself into one of the chairs around his cluttered dining table. 

The abbot was old, and the wrinkles on his face did him no good in hiding the sick smile he had upon seeing the state of the half-dead child. He tilted his head upward and steepled his fingers beneath his clean-shaven chin. The way the fire seemed reluctant to cast its light upon him thrust so much of him in darkness it was almost as if the fire was not lit at all. 

They eyed each other for a moment, the clergyman with a predatory smile, and Mr. Lissier with his dark brown hair as frazzled as his mental state. “If you don’t mind, abbot,” said the philosopher after some tense quiet and with venom in the back of his throat, “we will ask Hindel what he wants and not thrust upon him a decision as final as this.”

The abbot’s smile turned somehow wickeder as his deep voice cooed, “Very well.” He gestured gently toward the sleeping child, and the way he shifted cast new light in his eyes. They turned orange and red and deadly with sick madness and palpable malice, but it was a nigh imperceptible flash before he lowered his gaze to his wrinkled hands. He opened his satchel and retrieved a roll of black canvas with a variety of pointed gemstones inside. Stopping near the bed but not close enough to touch, he sat on the edge of an uncomfortable bench and rolled his canvas of crystals across the coffee table before him.

Mr. Lissier’s gaze lingered on the old man for a while, but he eventually left the table to approach the cot and shake the boy’s arm gingerly. “Hindel,” he whispered, “Wake up, please, my boy.” 

Hindels big brown eyes fluttered open, and he smiled weakly at his father. “Papa, is it breakfast time already?” His voice was so hoarse it might as well have been silent. 

“Not quite breakfast yet, son. It’s still the wee hours, but the abbot has something important to ask you.” 

Hindel pushed himself up onto his wobbly elbows to better see the abbot and whatever he had on the table in front of him. Once he had a good look at the clergyman, he rested back into the bed and asked, “I don’t know if I can make it to the table, Pop.” It was no more than two metres from him.

Mr. Lissier brushed the hair out of his son’s face and smiled sadly. “Oh, son, don’t you worry about that. He can come to you.” 

Hearing this, the abbot stood, scooping his canvas back into his haggard old hands, and approached the boy’s bedside. The way his dark robes and tall frame seemed to block out all the light in the room like an eclipse sent a chill down the child’s spine. The old man’s face was hardly comprehensible at such a distance and through his aching blurry vision. He thought of him less as a person and more as some angel of death, which was a thought only bolstered by the haunting tone of his voice when he said, “Good morning, Mr. Hindel. I understand you’re quite ill.”

Hindel swallowed his fear and nodded. “Aye, sir, abbot, sir.”

“I’ve also heard so much of your great prowess in alchemy.” 

Mr. Lissier glared at the abbot, but the old priest’s eyes were locked firmly with the child’s. 

Hindel coughed and managed a smile. “Aye, sir. Papa says I’m the best in the world. I was able to make actual real gold! And all it took was some pocket lint.” He laughed once to punctuate the sentence, but it sent him into a violent coughing fit.

 
The air about the abbot was wet with excitement at such a claim. “So I’ve heard,” he lilted, “and, Mr. Hindel, have you any idea the properties of a soulstone?” 

When he was finished coughing he shook his head. 

The philosopher  hardened his gaze on the abbot but remained quiet. 

“What if I were to tell you, young man, about a magic strong enough to share your gift with the entire realm?” 

The boy smiled. “Really?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, a soulstone is a crystal, any crystal you like, that holds in it all of the knowledge and skill of the soul inside of it.”

His smile turned. “And how does a soul get inside of it, Mr. Abbot, sir?”

A dark chuckle. “Oh, it is of no concern to you how it is harvested, child. I am merely here to ask you if you would like your gift to be shared with the world or if you would see it die alongside you.” 

Mr. Lissier stood and struck the abbot across the face. “That is quite enough out of you! I have the finest healers in the country on their way to this cottage right this very second, and I do not appreciate you implying that my son’s life is already lost. Now, leave my home at once, lest I sic my beasts upon you.”

He rubbed his cheek and swallowed some blood, but there was still a red tint to his teeth when he smiled and said, “A philosopher like you? Surely, you are interested in these gems— in souls and the nature of death— in preserving your son’s essence for aye… Are you not?” Mr. Lissier rared to strike him again, but the abbot’s haunting voice was loud and firm and paralyzed him magically as he stated, “I must remind you, Mr. Lissier, that it is the disease the boy contracted under your supervision that is killing him, not me. Whether he lives through this or not, he will die at some point, and when he does, I am asking him if he would see his gift lost forever.”

Before the philosopher could escape whatever magic was holding him, the boy spoke up: “You can put my soul in a crystal if I die, Mr. Abbot, sir, but when you do I want Father to keep it.” Immediately after saying this, his father was released from his magic hold not by the priest but by a whispered counterspell from the child.

The clergyman’s brow furrowed and face reddened, but it was as quick a flash as lightning. Mr. Lissier’s shocked expression was giving the abbot some sort of sadistic delight, evident in the way he flicked his mad gaze toward him before returning his attention entirely to the powerful young sorcerer. With a wicked smile, he showed the child his crystals and said, “A truly selfless and generous decision, boy. Now… which one would you like?”

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