Page 18 of Forever Bound

Tears flow now, and all the pain I've been holding unleashes like a flood from me. Ivan pulls me into his arms and holds me close, his strong, muscular body providing strength and safety as I release the pain that's been festering in me since the accident. "You don't think I'm a monster?" I ask.

"No, Love. I know you are not. I have met monsters before. I know what they look like. You are not one."

I pull back when I feel his emotions crash through me. Pain, sorrow, guilt. All mirrors of my own.

"Tell me," I whisper. "Tell me your story, Ivan."

He looks up at my use of his name, and I feel another wave of emotion, this time of love, of gratitude. He's been alone so long. Protecting a village that shuns him. Cut off from humanity, from his own humanity even. A monster in a cave, but that's not who he is.

"To tell you my story, I must tell you another story. The story of the Alchemist and the Apprentice," he says, then fills his glass with more vodka and begins his tale.

* * *

Long ago therelived an orphaned boy whose parents had died of the plague. He had no siblings, nor any other relatives, and when the village elder asked if anyone wished to take the boy in, no one did. Perhaps because the boy was small and pale and weak. Perhaps because everyone already had enough mouths to feed. Perhaps because the plague had decimated their small village, and there were none left to care for the fate of one such as him.

The boy’s home, little more than a shack, was confiscated by the village council, and the boy was given the choice to live in the streets or be banished to the woods. Even at such a tender age, he knew he wouldn’t last long in the woods, so he chose the streets.

He made a home on the rooftop of the old church with a bed of dirty straw someone left outside their barn. It stank and grew mildew, but it was the best he could manage. At night, he slept under the stars, giving each of them names, and praying it didn’t rain. By day, he went down to the marketplace in his ragged clothing and asked those who passed by for food, but they had none to give. He went hungry for a day. Then two. On the third day, he tried to swipe an apple from a trader’s cart, but he was caught, and would have lost his good hand if he hadn’t quickly run into the woods where only hunters and soldiers dared to go.

His mother had told him stories about the forest. Stories of wolves and stories of witches that live in moving houses. The boy saw none of these things, but he did find a cherry tree and proceeded to fill his belly. He ate faster and longer than he ever had before. He ate even when it began to rain. When the boy was finished, he turned around and realized he could not remember which way it was back to the village. He tried to look for his footsteps, but the water had washed them all away.

The boy wandered for half a day. He had still not found his way back when the sun began to set. He had found no more food, save for a red mushroom sprinkled with white dots, and his mother warned him not to eat those.

When it became too dark to make his way through the forest—and with a moonless night providing no light—the boy found the softest spot he could and lay down to sleep. He knew he was in danger, staying alone in the woods at night, but he had no other choice.

He woke in the early morning, before the sun had begun to rise, to the sound of a strange and scary beast growling in the shadows. The boy hardly had time to react when a man's shape came forward, slaying the beast with a long spear as easily as the boy might squash a bug.

The boy became instantly enamored with the man, and insisted on following him home, back to the elaborate caves that were spoken of only in hushed whispers in town.

The boy felt sure he would finally see a witch, or magic, or something equally amazing. What he found was something far more significant, though much more work than he expected.

For the man was an alchemist, and he agreed to take the boy on as an apprentice. The boy worked hard. He cleaned, cooked, mended, dried herbs, memorized ingredients and recipes, and studied hard. He had never been taught to read, but he learned fast, and over the years he became an accomplished alchemist in his own right.

The man viewed the boy as his son and took pride in the boy's talents and accomplishments. But one day, the boy came home excited about a new scroll he'd acquired that promised immortality. The man knew of such tales but was wise enough to never dabble in such dark magic. Those spells were for evil casters and witches, not alchemists. But the boy persisted, and after many years, finally brewed the potion that would make him immortal.

The man and the boy had their first true argument, and the man banished the boy from his home if he persisted in such evil enterprises.

The boy left, vowing to complete what he started.

It was a fortnight before the man saw the boy again, but he was no longer a boy. He now had the form of pure evil. His skeletal, monstrous body protruded with oozing sores and he stank of death and evil.

"Master, I have returned, more powerful than you can imagine," the creature said.

"Be gone with you," the Master replied in disgust. "You have tainted our craft with your needless ambitions. You do not deserve to call yourself an alchemist!"

The creature roared and screamed, filling the lands with an agonizing cry that would resonate in the nightmares of the people for many lives. "I will show you just how powerful I am!"

That night, under the glow of the full moon, the monster used his power for one last potion, and with it cast a dark curse on his home village. None shall leave who enter, and those who stay shall sate his hunger.

From that night forward, the creature terrorized the village, killing at will.

"Why do you do this?" the Master asked.

"They did the same to me, did they not? They cast me out when I was a child, cold and hungry and grieving the death of my family. They deserve to pay."

And so the Master did the only thing he could. He killed his apprentice, and that night he sobbed for hours at the evil he had done.

But the next night, the monster returned, gloating in his power. "I have proven to you I am the greatest alchemist the world has ever seen," the creature said. "I cannot be killed."

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