Vittorio thought carefully, as if respecting the tumult in Sebastian’s heart. At last he said, “I am unable to tell you the particulars unless you enlist, but I will say that the empire as we know it is in grave danger, and the empress believes that it is promising young people like you who will see us safely through this terrible time. I do not exaggerate when I say that, should you heed the empress’s call, you might save millions of lives. Will you help her and all the citizens of the empire in their time of most desperate need?”
When put like that, Sebastian found there was only one answer within him. Even his father would have agreed that helping those in need was a man’s most paramount responsibility.
“Yes, Commander.” His voice was firm and unwavering now. “I would be honored.”
5
Jorge Elhuyar decided that Izmoroz was by far the coldest, most unforgiving place he had ever been.
When he’d set off that morning from Gogoleth to pick foxtail for his master, he’d had a somewhat different opinion. In fact, as he’d hiked along the side of the trade road with the sun gleaming across the snowy fields, he’d been rather taken by its rugged beauty. The barren tree branches were encased in ice so that they glittered like crystal, and solemn black stone peaks jutted majestically above the powdery white landscape in the distance.
The odd hodgepodge of wool, leather, and fur clothing that the locals favored had seemed to be sufficient protection at the outset of his journey. But now the sun was sinking back toward the horizon, taking its meager warmth with it, and he was chilled to the bone. Even worse, a snowstorm had suddenly descended. The snowflakes that had once seemed a peace-inducing blanket upon the world now swirled around him like a cloud of angry stinging insects that found their way into every exposed crevice in his clothing—clothing that now seemed barely able to protect him from the cold, despite being uncomfortably bulky.
As Jorge trudged through the narrow valley between two craggy rock formations known as Bear Shoulder Pass, he wondered, not for the first time, how the Izmorozian people thrived in such low temperatures. But of course one of the reasons he had journeyed the long distance north was to answer that very question. Was it simply conditioning from a lifetime of living in this frozen tundra? Or was there something inborn in the Izmorozian people that allowed them to more easily tolerate the cold? In either case, could the trait be replicated in other people, at least temporarily, with a potion or tincture? Furthermore, if such a thing could be replicated, could the opposite effect be achieved? Could a potion or tincture be created that would allow someone to tolerate the heat as readily as the people in Jorge’s homeland of Raíz? This had been the line of inquiry he presented in his application to the Imperial College of Apothecary in Gogoleth, and combined with the evidence he provided to support his theory, it had been met with such enthusiasm that he had not only been accepted into the college (the first Raízian to be given such an honor) but he had also landed an apprenticeship with one of the most renowned potion masters in the Aureumian Empire, Anton Semenovich Velikhov.
This morning, Master Velikhov had needed fresh-picked foxtail for his work, and so it had been Jorge’s duty, as the apprentice, to find those ingredients for his master. But now, as he stumbled through Bear Shoulder Pass in a blinding flurry of white, he worried that not only might he fail in delivering the foxtail, he might fail to return at all.
The bag of foxtails was much heavier than he’d expected. Jorge was not a hardy person, so his arms ached from the weight of the sack, and his legs ached from the weight of his snow-caked fur boots. He began to wonder in an abstract sort of way how long it would take someone to discover his frozen corpse. Probably not until spring thaw. After all, he’d hardly seen anyone along the road that day. He was utterly alone out here in this frozen and cruelly indifferent land.
“Stop right there,” came a gruff voice somewhere high up on the rocky slope to his right.
Jorge’s heart rose. He wasn’t alone after all and might not have to freeze to death.
“Hello?” he called, squinting his eyes against the snow as he tried to pinpoint where the voice came from.
“Well, you’re a friendly one,” came the voice. “And since you’re being so friendly, why don’t you save us some trouble and drop all your valuables so we don’t have to fill you full of arrows and strip them from your corpse.”
Jorge’s heart sank as he dutifully dropped the sack of foxtail on the road and raised his wool mittens in surrender. Maybe being alone hadn’t been so bad after all.
“My friends.” He strove to keep his voice amiable. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have no valuables. I am only a humble apothecary apprentice who is out gathering ingredients that you could easily find yourselves not an hour’s walk from here.”
“Apothecary student, huh?” asked the voice. “Like a potion maker?”
“Yes, that’s it exactly, my friend!” said Jorge.
“What’s that accent of his?” came a second voice up on the left side of the pass. “And he’s got brown skin. Find out where he’s from.”
“Where you from, potion maker?” asked the first voice.
By then Jorge was able to at least make out a silhouette of the man. Broad shoulders and what seemed likely to be a drawn bow aimed at him.
“I am from Raíz, my friend, which is located in the southernmost region of our great and bounteous empire. My name is Jorge Elhuyar, and I have come to the nearby city of Gogoleth to learn at the feet of the finest apothecaries in the world.”
“Huh,” said the bandit. “You got any potions on you?”
“I’m afraid not, my friend. I was only out to gather foxtails for my master to make his potions. You are of course welcome to search me if you like.” He smiled as he squinted up at the silhouette, still clinging to the hope that they might let him go without further incident.
“You know, Nikolai…,” said a third voice that was near the first. “We could use ourselves a potion maker.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” mused the first voice, who Jorge presumed was Nikolai. “Hey, Alexi, you still got that itchy foot problem?”
“Damn right!” said the voice on the left. “Smells terrible, too!”
“And, Vasily, ain’t you having trouble taking a shit?” asked Nikolai.
“It’s been a week since I dropped a load!” called a fourth voice from much higher up the slope. “I’m ready to burst!”
“You hear that, potion maker?” asked Nikolai. “I sure hope you can fix these problems for us.”
“Well, I—”
“Because if you can’t, we might as well just kill you.”
Jorge could not keep the anxious fear from creeping into his voice. “Ah yes… Then, I would, eh, be happy to assist. In whatever way I can.”
“That’s the spirit,” Nikolai said cheerfully. “Pytor, go bring up our new potion maker.”
A few moments later, a large, hairy man suddenly appeared next to Jorge in the snowy haze. The Raízians were a worldly and open-minded people, but there had always been stories… more like tall tales, really, of the savage, hairy barbarians, more ogre than man, who ranged lawless and half-wild across the icy tundras of Izmoroz. The man who now stood before Jorge looked and smelled very much like the subject of those tales. He had no need of hat or scarf, since his lion’s mane of yellow hair and beard provided more than enough warmth. He reached out with a thick hand encased in a glove of what smelled like imperfectly cured hide and took hold of Jorge’s shoulder.