Fifteenth day of the fourth month, year 1021 (present day).
Princess Calandra Alpin strode through the courtyard in her castle at Avalonesse, the capital of her kingdom, Vallin. Everywhere around her was dewy and green. It was mid-spring, and the birds were overjoyed because winter had already begun its slumber. Vallin tended to be damp, cold, and windy in the winter, although not as drastic as the winters of their northern neighbors. Besides the chilly winter months, the weather was mostly temperate. They had four distinctive seasons, but it never got too hot nor too cold. Vallin was a green kingdom, from the willowy green riverside in the north to the moor and swamp in the south.
She celebrated twenty years since her birth two weeks earlier at the beginning of the fourth month. Her look was regal and solemn and never was it said that she smiled, although she never frowned either. Even though she had a somewhat serious demeanor, this did not translate to apathy. In fact, she had many interests and concerns, and most of these involved the plight of her kingdom.
As for her beauty, it was well known, and not just in Vallin. Her face was small and oval-shaped with a button nose, large inquisitive eyes, and blossom-shaped lips. She had pale green eyes, even paler porcelain skin, and golden brown hair with bangs that framed her face. It did not take long for her father, the king, and her stepmother, the queen, to find her a prince to wed. However, she did not take kindly to this proposition and the reason why was what led her to walk across the courtyard gardens this mid-spring morning so she could take the door that led to the highest tower of the castle.
The crisp, clean air from the gardens turned into a different smell, that of burning ash and acrid smoke, the higher she climbed up the spiraling stone stairs. She loved these smells. Surely, most people would think the opposite, but for Calandra, they represented discovery and freedom.
She opened the doors to the laboratory at the top of the tower. It was circular and spacious with arched windows that let in muted light. To the back there was a large and impressive furnace, and along the walls, raw materials were categorized neatly into glass paned cabinets or in labeled bottles stacked on multitiered shelves, and in the middle sat two parallel rows of tables full of the tools the alchemists could readily use such as bulbous glass beakers, mortars and pestles to grind the raw materials, copper alembics for distillation, and charts posted with all the alchemical symbols for reference.
Alchemists worked at different stations or gave lessons to their apprentices.
The sulfurous smell coming from the furnace meant a new apprentice was trying to transmute lead into gold. Amateur, they'd learn soon enough. At one workstation, an alchemist dipped a piece of parchment into a vat of what he called "potash alum." Then, he set the parchment on fire and showed his assistants the result after putting it out. There were no burns, and the parchment remained undamaged. "We can use this on the codices in the library to preserve our knowledge, saving them from fires," the alchemist told his assistants.
These were all fascinating projects, but what took her primary attention was Court Alchemist Nicoli Flamelli with his three researchers in the back, where the materials were kept, discussing two specimens. One was a quite peculiar potted plant because half of it had turned black and its leaves drooped downward, yet the other half remained a healthy green color and still flourished as it craned its leaves upward toward the sunlight that came in through the blue paned windows.
The other was a rat completely covered in black down to its whiskers. It was unresponsive and showed no signs of life.
"Black rot" was a curse first identified in the kingdom of Vallin almost two decades ago. Sightings were scarce at that time as people had not caught on to its dangers and horrors yet, but recently, cases were becoming more widespread than before. The black rot curse could happen anywhere to anything or anyone and could not be predicted. Black rot did not spread through touch and could not be contracted as an illness. No one knew where it came from or how to get rid of it. It simply occurred in some plants, animals, and, as ghastly as it sounds, humans. It would start as a simple black patch, but a black so dark it seemed to absorb all light. The black rot grew until it encompassed every part of its unfortunate victim, and everything down to eyes, hair, nails, leaf, root, snout, and tooth turned a black color devoid of light.
The name "black rot" did not come from the actual death of the subject but because there was no other way for people to describe the phenomenon. Black rot was not death because the subject would not decay and wither away, as was the natural cycle of life. They could not be considered alive either, as all subjects proved unresponsive to external or internal stimuli. No one knew where the curse came from or who or what inflicted it upon the kingdom of Vallin, but cases were still rare, and the people were largely indifferent as they went about their daily lives unconcerned with its threat. For now, it remained merely a curiosity for the alchemists.
"As you can plainly see here. The plant is still healthy and growing on the non-cursed side because the black rot has not completely overtaken it. Yet in the rat, the black rot has finished spreading throughout the organism." Court Alchemist Flamelli showed the specimens to his researchers, some of them newly appointed thanks to the former queen's decree that every two years a grant be given to her court of alchemical research, even after her death, ad infinitum.
"The black rot spreads until it fully overtakes the specimen. And although the victims do not die, they cannot grow or act on their own." The alchemist paused for a moment and then said, "Think of it like a blink in time. Those cursed are frozen as if stuck in stasis."
"How long does it take?" a newly appointed researcher asked, sounding a bit nervous.
"It depends," said another researcher in a haughty voice because he had been there since the last grant and was hoping to make it to apprentice. "For some, like this rat, only a few days. But we have been observing the change in this plant for weeks and the black rot progress has been much slower."
"If you can come closer." Court Alchemist Flamelli drew the researchers in. "If you please." He handed a small scalpel to the researcher with more experience.
The researcher who hoped to make it to apprentice this year seemed very pleased with himself and proceeded to cut open the rat's stomach. Expecting to see red, they were met with black. Everything was black, the organs, and blood, and it hadn't coagulated, meaning the rat was not dead yet, but at the same time, the blood was not flowing, nor was the heart beating.
"Is the rat still alive?" the nervous researcher from before asked. He then looked at the contents of the rat's insides on the table and added, "Or was alive?"
"That we don't know," Court Alchemist Flamelli answered, cleaning his hands even though he did not touch anything. "All we can say is that those afflicted with the curse are not dead, yet not alive. They exist as a sort of absence."
"But that's a contradiction," another newly appointed researcher claimed.
"Yes," Court Alchemist Flamelli responded again. "That it is, but that is the very nature of the black rot, and one we must work hard to understand and eventually find a cure for."
"We need prima materia and the Philosopher's Stone. Without these, I fear our work will never be done." Court Alchemist Flamelli said this to the others, but loud enough for the princess to hear, and perhaps for her to hear.
"But surely they are myth!" the princess exclaimed, now joining in on the conversation she had been spying on before.
He turned his attention to her. "No, they exist as much as life itself. For they are the very essence and soul of life."
"I don't understand." The princess walked with the alchemist to a quiet corner of the laboratory. The alchemist's assistants dispersed and went about their work.
"The prima materia is pure life in its essence. It comes from the void from which all of creation was made. It was born from nothing and to nothing it will return," the alchemist who had made potash alum earlier chimed in. He had been listening to their conversation. No corner of the laboratory was that quiet.
Court Alchemist Flamelli smiled. It was a famous lesson from the greatest work of alchemy ever written on the prima materia. Every alchemist had studied this work, searched for meaning within its convoluted text, and yearned for divine revelation to give an answer to it all. "And the Philosopher's Stone was a gift from the all-creator; a conduit for mortals to channel the divine."
"How can such things ever be found?" Calandra asked. These were myths at best, right?
"They have been found and even used before."
Princess Calandra stared at him in disbelief. She could not believe such things existed, but she wanted to. She had to believe in them for the survival of her kingdom.
Court Alchemist Flamelli took the princess aside to speak in hushed voices so as not to be overheard this time. "Princess, I have heard distressing news, and I am not absolute of its validity or not, but very recently, there have been rumors of more cases of black rot spreading throughout the towns and villages. You no doubt remember Lucy."
Calandra shuddered. Of course, she remembered Lucy. How could she forget?
Her nanny went missing when she was eight years old. She asked around for her, but was told Lucy had gone back home to live with her family. Calandra knew Lucy was unwed and her parents were long since deceased, so even as a young child, she questioned this. Shortly after her eighteenth birthday, after she had begun her alchemy studies in earnest, Court Alchemist Flamelli took her to the dungeons. She had to promise him to keep what she saw there a secret.
In a dark area of the dungeons, concealed in a nameless cell, lying motionless in a glass coffin, was the body of a woman covered in black rot. It was like looking into an abyss, dark and empty, but it took the shape of a young woman, just as Calandra had remembered her. All this time, she had been there, frozen in that glass coffin. For ten years. The thought of how lonely that must be caused a tight feeling in her chest, and sometimes, when she would lie awake at night and couldn't sleep, it was because she thought of the woman she once knew to be vibrant and kind, hidden forever in that cold coffin, forgotten to the world.
"The same could be happening in villages and towns all over Vallin," Court Alchemist Flamelli told her. "Yet we are kept in the dark here at the castle."
True. Calandra had not heard of widespread cases of black rot. News that huge must surely have reached the castle, right? As she thought this, though, doubt crept into her heart.
Court Alchemist Flamelli continued his plea to the princess with insistence. "We need to find the Philosopher's Stone and prima materia to make a panacea to combat the growing spread of the curse, but we can't do it alone. You must find the one they call "The Hermit" because without him, we are lost. I fear he knows more about the Philosopher's Stone and prima materia than anyone else here, and he is the only hope we have left."
"The Hermit? I've never heard of him before."
The alchemist explained to her, "Magnus was his name when he was here at the castle."
"The former Court Alchemist Magnus?" Princess Calandra knew this name well. He was there the night her mother died, and he was also the one banished afterward. "He wasn't the one responsible for my mother's death?" she questioned the alchemist with uncertainty. She didn't want to have anything to do with her mother's potential killer.
Her father blamed Magnus, banishment being the most lenient punishment. No one had caught her mother's killer or knew if she had been killed in the first place. She might have died during childbirth. No one knew. The whole thing was a mystery, with its exact details kept secret from her. Her father never spoke of it. Bringing her mother's death up would always turn his mood sour, and Calandra learned as she grew older and more mature that some subjects should not always be poked and prodded at by others.
"I was just an apprentice at that time, but there was no way he was responsible for her death. Magnus loved your mother, as we all did." Court Alchemist Flamelli spoke honestly, and because he was also an older, wiser man whom she respected, this gave Calandra pause.
"I wish I could have known my mother." It's true, Calandra did not know anything about her mother except that she looked just like her, and they both shared a passion for alchemy.
"Bless her kind soul. Your mother was the biggest patron to alchemy the kingdom nay Myrrh has ever seen. If she were still here, we would already have a panacea for this cursed rot."
"Yes," Princess Calandra responded sadly. Her mother was her greatest inspiration and what turned her to alchemy. "As do we all wish she were still here. But she is gone, and I must take her place. I will find this hermit for you. Where is he?"
"It's said that he lives in the swamp to the southeast. It is difficult to navigate a passage through, and the journey will be dangerous. You should entrust a few knights to this task."
"No, I will go alone, and I mustn't let anyone know I am leaving."
"But Princess!"
"Pardon me, my lady. The queen requests your presence." A messenger arrived and interrupted their conversation.
Princess Calandra made a subtle gesture for the alchemist to stop talking. Of course, the queen knew to find her here, and just in the middle of an important conversation. The queen had many spies in the castle, so Calandra could never be careful enough with who she let privy to her secrets.
"Lead the way," she answered with reluctance. She turned to Court Alchemist Flamelli and whispered, "I will find you tonight and we will talk more about this."
The alchemist made a nod of acceptance and went back to his work.