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“Ending the world sounds bad,” Wilamos said.
Ctimene laughed. “I’m not going to end the world. I’m going to the end. Beyond it.”
“Void,” Tauros said. “Why.”
“Why go? To continue my research away from the prying eyes of the Magisterium. They can be so… narrow-minded about certain things.”
Helena picked up her bow again. “‘Certain things’? You’ll need to be more specific.”
“So threatening, child.” Ctimene said. “Yes, magic things.”
“Such as?”
“Are you asking for an alchemical lecture? Your understanding of magic would barely suffice to understand a parlor trick,” she said. “But fine, I can do parlor tricks.”
Ctimene pulled a strap out from under her robe. Attached to it were a half dozen glass tubes, filled with liquids in various shades of red from pastel pink to crimson. “Hold this,” she said, handing it to Helena and turning it so the tubes pointed upward. One by one, she uncorked them. Then, she held her left hand over the tubes, pulled out a dagger, and slit her palm.
As the blood dripped from her hand, it twisted around itself, pulling apart. Separated, the individual components snaked towards matching tubes.
“A metallic humor,” she said, gesturing at the crimson tube, “suitable for potions to resist fire. A pale humor, for disease,” she said, pointing at another. She pointed at each of them in turn: “Energetic, aqueous, vitreous, lethargic, separated according to their weight. Every reagent an alchemist could want, in ready supply from the human body.”
Ctimene withdrew her hand and wiped the blood off on her robe, the stain barely visible on the red fabric.
(continued in The Viper)
This post has been edited by Pallas Athene: 01 January 2017 - 10:49 PM
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