The Alchemist's Bride

It was a night of black and white.

There were no stars in the sky. The moon's face was blocked by thick, roiling storm clouds, leaving not even a soft halo to show where it had gone. You couldn't even see the clouds, really—in fact, gazing up into the sky, you could easily imagine that there was nothing at all beyond. Nothing but oppressive, endless void.

And then white fire would sear your eyes, cut across the sky like a crack in reality, and light would briefly flood the world to illuminate a strange and disturbing scene before you.

A man clad in the dark suit and high collar of a necromancer, wearing the violet boater cap traditionally associated with members of the prestigious Teeth Tower Alchemist's Society, paced around the opening of a rather ordinary-looking well. His skin was pale, his green eyes bloodshot from exhaustion. His fingers wrung knots in a cord, tying them far tighter than they needed to be. As the lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, you would see his shoulder-length curly locks, currently drenched in the downpour, and you would see that he was surprisingly young and quite handsome, albeit plainly worn-down.

And you would see in the flash a gleaming, gigantic copper construction, resembling a massive pot or pail. The copper pot was etched with thousands of markings, streaked with brilliant greens and silvers from what must have been endless hours of deliberate staining and acid washing. It appeared to be a mastercraft of sigilmancy, necromancy, and something else—something that this man knew was more powerful still.

Alchemy.

Pure, devout belief. Dreams given form.

Nothing else, you would know, could sustain a man like this. Nothing else could drive someone to attempt a magical experiment of this magnitude upon a ley well.

~ ~ ~ ~

Dr. Byron sucked in a deep breath through his teeth, smelling and tasting the ozone. He gave a nervous smile.

This was it. He ran his fingers over the Harness, admiring the inscriptions. This was the moment of truth. For too long the other mages of the Teeth Tower had mocked him, derided his experiments, suggested he was seriously unfit to practice alchemy, necromancy, or genuinely any form of magic at all due to his constant, barely-kept-in-check rage. They had said he was too ahead of his time. Too radical. Always on the delicate verge of losing his thin temper and shouting a colleague down.

They had called him angry. ANGRY! He laughed out loud, then bit his lip as his giddy excitement threatened to turn it into a villainous cackle.

Well, who's angry now? he thought, maniacally wringing his palms. I'll show them. I'll show them all! They'll see! They'll see how wrong they were! This night will live on in—

"Master!" rasped a voice, and he heard clanking and clattering sounds coming up the hillside. "Master! It's too dangerous!"

Dr. Byron turned back with a sly grin to see his buxom little goblin maid assistant, hunched under the weight of her three backpacks, come racing up the narrow stone path. Her ebony hair was drenched into little ringlets beneath an equally drenched hooded poncho, and she carried two large, steaming pots stacked on one another, nearly half her height. She handled the load well, but her long, knifelike ears, as green as the rest of her, drooped with fright.

"Jelli," he said, clasping his hands together, "so kind of you to join me in my moment of triumph. I fear not even you can stop me, however—" He turned back to the Harness, admiring its size, and the vision it took to craft it. "—for nothing can, now. No demon, fey, or mortal can stand between me and my moment of greatness. Not even you, Jelli. Not even you."

"Huh?" He glanced back. Jelli was tilting her head to the side, ears askew in that way goblins had of showing confusion. "No, Master, I mean it's not safe to be up here with that dribbled lightning rod!" She pointed to his staff.

"Oh." Dr. Byron blinked. "O-Oh." He felt his face blushing bright red, and he self-consciously handed her the staff—and didn't even have the heart to object when she simply threw the steel device down the hillside. "Right. Yes. Of course."

"Honest-to-weddings, Master." She rolled her eyes, setting down both pots on the ground. "Have I gotta handle everything for you?"

Dr. Byron managed to scowl at that. "Watch it, Jelli. So, you have it, then?"

"Sure as rain!" She smiled, opening the first pot. A gust of hot steam burst out. "Delicious chickpea-and-tomato soup! Mum's recipe." She reached into her second backpack and began fishing out a bowl and spoon. "It'll help warm you right up!"

"... chickpea soup?" Dr. Byron felt his scowl deepening. "I thought I asked for—I made it plain, minion, that I desired a well-done steak and roasted potatoes! Did your mother not have a recipe for that?"

"Yes, well..." Jelli doled out a generous helping of the soup into the bowl and plopped a spoon inside, smiling as she smelled her handiwork. "Chickpea soup is a heck of a helping healthier, Master, and when it's cooked proper—and my mum cooked proper, let me tell you—it's a lot tastier than some overcooked steak and greasy earth apples."

"But I asked for—" Dr. Byron gave up as she handed him the bowl, even though his gut roiled—less with disgust at the soup than at his inability to control the one minion he could afford. Jelli worked cheap and did essentially all the work around the lair except for the laundry and groceries (which they traded off on), but she was also constantly ignoring his authority. "Did you at least use the Channel?"

"That funny stove thingammerhuh you built for me? The one that always sparks and hums fiendtongue chants when I try an' turn any knobs? Um..." Jelli bit her lip, avoiding his eye contact. "Sure! It worked great! Sure as rain, even."

Goblin maids were generally good liars, but Jelli was the exception to prove the rule.

Dr. Byron sighed and waved a hand dismissively. "Fine. Whatever."

"Aw, Master, relax a li'l!" Jelli giggled, bouncing up to the other side of the Harness, helping to tie the other cord tightly. "You really oughtn't eat meat, anyways. Red meat's just awful for you, and besides, it's really very cruel."

"Did you acquire the cat cadavers?"

"Oh! Yes, I almost forgot!" Jelli hurried back to the second pot, opened the lid, and tossed the carcasses into the Harness. "Hard to find, they were, and the kitchen might be a bit wet 'cause I had to open all the windows to let out the stink of boiled beast. Plus, I had to break down the gate to a pet cemetery to get the last one, and I reckon the kid who tends it might've caught a glimpse of me on the way out, so if her parents come by asking questions—"

She continued to drone on. Dr. Byron tuned it out, as he had learnt to over the years, and watched her struggle with the knots. Like most goblins, Jelli had a way of jiggling and wiggling even when she probably didn't mean to, and though her backpacks and poncho largely concealed her large, luscious ass, every now and then a gust of wind would blow the poncho up just right...

He couldn't help it. In preparation for tonight, he had not masturbated in weeks. It wasn't as if he'd chosen Jelli for her looks. They were just... a bonus. With her plump lips and husky voice, her spoon-shaped hips, her bright scarlet eyes and cute white freckles to compliment her prominent dimples...

... it really was a shame he had no interest in her. Romantically, anyways. Jelli was too bossy. Too keen on making him do as she wanted. His own assistant pushed him around like she was the boss—and she was the closest thing in this whole town, this whole world, that he had to a friend. But really, very deeply unsuitable as a romantic partner. Even if Jelli didn't already have too much going on with her own projects. To say nothing of how far below his level she was—he, an accomplished ex-member of the Teeth Tower Alchemist's Society!

"Master, it's going to get cold," Jelli chided him, turning back from the knots to regard him with a chiding pout.

Dr. Byron sighed. "Yes, Jelli." And he began to eat.

But he gazed longingly at the Harness as he took his supper.

Soon, things were going to change.

~ ~ ~ ~

The night stretched on, as did the thunderstorm. Occasionally the moon managed to peek through, giving a view of the sleepy village down below. For the most part, though, things were as dark as they were noisy.

"You know, Master," Jelli said, as she hopped up onto her little stepladder (as a goblin maid of average height, the tip of her ears barely reached his chest), "I really wish you'd told me how all of this was going to work. Surely we could've just, you know, set the pail—"

"Harness." Byron gritted his teeth. He leaned over the edge of the pa—the Harness, offering the other end of the ship's helm-shaped glass bottle to her.

"The Harness," Jelli said, enunciating the word with the air of indulging him, "up ahead of time, so you wouldn't have to spend so long out in the rain. You'll catch your death, you know!"

"Of what?" Dr. Byron muttered. "Of pestering?"

"What was that, Master?" Jelli raised an eyebrow, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Nothing!" he said hastily. "Would you take the other end already?"

"Oh, sure!" Jelli laughed and took hold. "Sorry, Master, I forgot you were waiting for me. You know, it's awfully hard to hear you over this—"

Lightning flashed. Thunder roared and pounded the heavens above.

"You know what to do?" he shouted, as the wind swept his hat away, and his hair billowed into his eyes.

"Of course, Master!" Jelli shouted back.

"I'm going to count to three! One—"

"On three, or after three?"

Byron blinked. "What?"

Jelli rolled her eyes with a slight smirk. "You need to clarify things like that, Master!"

Byron was so cold and so frustrated, his lips fumbled for a moment to put words together. "I don't—you don't—I—on three! Of course!"

"Okay!" She beamed. "On three! One!"

"Wait, I was going to—"

"Two!" Jelly and Dr. Byron began to swing the glass wheel device back and forth, slowly, carefully. Byron had to abandon the point to focus. Everything counted in the next ten seconds, more than anything had in his entire life up to this point.

"Three!"

And with a simultaneous twirl of the wheel, they both let it drop. It went spinning down, moving with surprising slowness. Or maybe that was just Byron's panic and adrenaline seeming to slow everything around him down.

Not waiting to watch, Byron ducked down, grabbed the knife from where it was impaled on the ground, and frantically sawed through the last strands of the cord on his end.

"Got it!" he and his assistant said at once, as both remaining cords holding the pail—the Harness—over the ley well snapped.

At the same time, the Catalyst crashed against the basin of the copper pot, and the hissing of multiple gases escaping rose to a barely-perceptible level in Byron's ear.

Then the Harness dropped away and out of sight, deep into the well, and all that remained were the faint trailings of the vapors as they streamed down after it.

That and the silver cable still hooked onto the Harness and attached up above—above the little adobe roof of the well—to a winch made of solid green glass.

Dr. Byron was looking right at that winch as the lightning struck it. He watched the glass pulsate, visibly struggling to contain the charge. He watched the silver glow and flicker as the electricity infused it and shot down the line.

That lightning strike would be burned into his retinas for a long time. But so would the thought, expressed in a scream, a scream of pure belief—for without his belief, without his dream, alchemy would be nothing but superstition, nothing but a bunch of dead cats and seashells and semen and diamond dust in a copper pail—that he filled the air with, filled his mind with, the thought of what he had just done. What he had just created.

"It's," he screamed into the light, as the thunder roared around him, as he and Jelli were both sent flying away from the well by a pulse of force like nothing he had ever experienced, "a WIIIIFE!"

Then he hit his head on a metal staff someone had thrown on the ground, and the night sky was filled with stars.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Master! Master!"

Byron's eyes shot open. He found himself staring up into the eyes of Jelli, who was looking down at him with an expression like...

... like...

Wait, how could he see her? Why was it suddenly so light out?

Dr. Byron shot upright, nearly headbutting the goblin maid, and looked around in panic at the starry night sky, the beautiful moonlit hills. There was not a cloud in the sky. "How long was I out?" he demanded.

"Oh, good, you're okay!" Jelli smiled, reaching down to help him to his feet. "I thought I'd let you sleep a little while, but then I noticed you somehow managed to find, erm, something hard to hit your head on, so I was wondering if you might've—"

"You let me sleep?" He whirled on her, staring down at the goblin maid as she smiled innocently up at him. "In the middle of—"

"Oh, hush, Master." She rolled his eyes. "Honestly, it was just, like, a few minutes. Ten or so. Half an hour, tops. You needed a break."

"I'll tell you when I need to sleep! I can sleep when my work is complete!" Dr. Byron wanted to project fury into his voice, but he just sounded petulant. It didn't help that he yawned partway through.

As she blinked slowly, pouting, he turned away—wincing at how his head ached with fast turns—and rushed up the hill. His heart was pounding. The storm had stopped. Had he thought clearly enough? Had the lighting been enough to permit the conduit?

He scrambled up the ladder and leaped onto the well roof, ignoring how the tiles clattered and broke and slid away under his fumbling feet. He began winding up the winch, working as quickly as he could.

Unfortunately, the weight of the Harness was immense, and Dr. Byron was not exactly living at his best. He panted, cranking the winch slower and slower on every round. "J-Jelli," he managed, "Is it... can you see..."

"Master, stop that. You'll make the headache worse." Jelli folded her arms at the base of the well, frowning up at him.

"I have no time for your warnings! What's in the Harness?"

Jelli giggled, glancing down. "You mean thepail?" she chirped.

"Jelli, I command you! I am your Master! You are my minion! You will—" Byron's words broke like a deflating balloon as he lost the energy to shout and had to pour all he had into breathing in and out and pumping the winch.

"Maybe you should try lifting with your legs."

Dr. Byron gritted his teeth, but he couldn't deny Jelli's words. He had no energy to argue with her. So he just did as he was told, and channeled all his frustration at being expected to follow his mere assistant's instructions.

"That's it, Master!" Jelli declared. "It's up!"

Dr. Byron broke off, gasping for breath, and practically threw himself off the roof in his haste to lay himself down in the muddy grass. His suit was a mess. His hat was long gone. His face, he knew, had to be as red as a bag of turnips.

"Come on, Master." Jelli sighed and helped him, again, to his feet. He could only nod weakly as she guided him to the Harness.

"Is it... is she..." Dr. Byron stared longingly at the copper pail. The electro-etheric charge had fried most of the designs off of the Harness, and there were places where the metal was blackened.

His gut went cold. In trying to make the Harness as conductive as possible, had he allowed it to be destroyed?

Would he have to start over? Wait for another lightning storm? Find another three dead cats? Go through all of this torment again?

In the face of fear and despair, impotent fury welled in him. This was Jelli's fault. This was the Teeth Tower's fault. Someone had to be to blame. It couldn't be his fault. And it couldn't be no one's fault! There was always someone at fault! There had to be!

He was peeking over the edge of the pail—and seeing that no one appeared to be inside it, that he had failed utterly and completely—when a nimble shape sprang up from the side of the Harness he couldn't see yet—bounced right over the edge and onto the grass before him.

Byron and Jelli both jumped, Jelli shouting a yelp of fright, Byron's legs nearly giving out beneath him as he whirled to face this new...

... vision.

And the heart of Doctor Eveni Byron stopped. After a moment, it began to race.

The first things he noticed were her brilliant eyes—the left an almost neon green, the right an electric blue. They were unnaturally bright, curtained by thick, dark lashes, and were currently widened in excitement. Her eyes were beautiful, and as they met Dr. Byron's, the eyelashes fluttered. Her luscious cyan lips curved upwards in delight. She gazed at him in liquid adoration. He stared back, head spinning slightly from exhaustion, injury, and pure shock.

No one had ever looked at him with an expression so full of... love. Devotion, even. Almost worship.

The second thing he noticed was her form. Clad in a lacy pink dress that matched her fiery red hair like the sweetest of valentines, her outfit only served to accentuate her lush curves—her simply massive breasts, barely contained, with visible cleavage vast enough to get lost in. Her tits jiggled and bounced from her landing, and he could instantly tell from the way they moved and squished together that they were softer than the softest swan-down pillows, smoother than silken blankets, warmer than a nice, cozy bed right next to the crackling fireplace...

The dress hugged those breasts tight as it stroked down the rest of her body, caressing her little waist and spilling easily over wide, generous hips that put even Jelli's to shame.

She was slightly shorter than him, but as she beamed up at Doctor Byron, he found himself feeling strangely small. Powerless. Her odd eyes flickered. His tongue fumbled over words, and if anything, her smile seemed to widen as he mouthed something he could not quite muster sound for.

And just when he felt sure he was about to muster a meekhello, she rushed forward with a squeal of glee and seized him in a tight hug. "My love!"

"I—" Byron was cut off as she kissed him, and his words gave way to a startled moan. She was so soft. Her dress did nothing to keep her breasts from squishing against his chest, her sweet peppermint scent filling his lungs. As her hot body pressed against him, the breath slipped from him, and it felt like he was suddenly drifting in clouds. As her warmth pressed against his clad cock, he felt intense arousal firing to life inside him.

And she was a wonderful, perfect kisser, too. He felt his eyes closing in mere moments as her sweet lips smacked hungrily against him. Her moans filled his head. Her tongue slipped into his mouth and wrestled playfully with his own. Her lips were so plump and pouty, so clearly meant to kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him...

She pulled back with a giggle, and Byron found himself leaning after her without even thinking. He wanted more. More taste. More touch. But she was already gone, bouncing in place, licking and smacking her lips as though in satisfaction. Her hand had taken his, though, and her fingers were clasped with his without him really noticing. He stared at her, feeling strangely foggy. "W-Wha..."

"I'm Meiri!" she bubbled. She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it chivalrously, with an extra loud, wet, "Mwah!" She clapped his hand to her chest, her eyes shimmering with such radiant joy he half-expected to see hearts swirling in those eyes.

Actually, he did.