Fragments of Alchemy: The Code Keeper

The Amalgamation Conversion

“Aunt Fanella?” Thea asked as she followed her aunt off in the direction of the woods surrounding the Presten ranch. Thea’s parents followed closely behind them, watching the sky and looking all around them. Thea assumed they were keeping watch to protect her, and it made her very nervous. That rogue Chimaera put everyone on edge.

Fanella turned to look back at her niece.

“What Chimaera am I going to make?” Thea asked, unable to go a moment longer without knowing.

“My dear niece, you are going to make a noctos,” she said with a gentle smile.

“What’s a noctos?” Thea asked. Overcome with excitement, she followed close behind as they entered the shadows of the trees. Up ahead, a chipmunk scurried around a tall maple tree and disappeared.

“A winged horse,” Thea’s father said as he and Thea’s mother trailed along behind them with Cecelia in tow. “Picture Pegasus. He was a very famous noctos.”

Thea smiled, imagining her horse Cecelia with wings.

Twitchet flew after Aunt Fanella and landed on her shoulder. They walked a path through the woods, where Aunt Fanella found a fallen log covered in moss, and she sat down.

Aunt Fanella asked Thea to lie down, and she took out a wooden pendulum from one of her pockets. After Thea sprawled out in the cool grass, Aunt Fanella cupped the pendulum in her hands and held it up to her forehead with her eyes closed. Everyone watched silently.

“What is she doing?” Thea asked finally, unable to watch silently any longer.

“I am clearing my mind and opening my heart to my Higher Self and my Spirit Guide,” Aunt Fanella said. “And I shall have to start again now, so shush please.”

Thea’s parents both gave her reassuring smiles.

Thea automatically wanted to ask what a Higher Self is, and she desperately wanted to know more about a Spirit Guide, but she bit her lower lip to keep from asking any more curious questions.

Aunt Fanella opened her eyes and extended her hands, one over the other. She let out the chain of her pendulum. Thea watched the droplet of wood swing slowly right above her.

“Close your eyes now, Thea, and begin Pranayama,” Thea’s mother said in a soft voice. “Breathe deeply and calmly.”

Ever since Thea could remember, at the end of the day, her mother would ask her to sit with her, contemplate the day, and practice meditation. Thea closed her eyes and immediately began to take slow breaths. She was used to sitting in Arda Padmasana or Sukhasana for this, instead of lying in Shavasana, but she did the best she could to focus on her breath and to reflect on the overall feeling of the day.

Try as she might, Thea could not calm herself, and a tingling excitement began to take hold deep inside her, which made it very hard to clear her mind or focus on her breath. The world had more people like her parents, and she would go to school with them. She would make a Chimaera and make new friends and learn to be an Alchemist. Thea’s birthday had turned out better than she’d ever hoped it could be.

“Okay, Allie, you can open your eyes now,” her father said after some time had passed.

Thea immediately noticed a distinct hint of apprehension in his voice. She opened her eyes to see a very peculiar look on her mother’s face.

“Perhaps it’s your pendulum, Fanella,” she said with an urgent fervor that shocked Thea. “My results are much different with my crystal pendulum.”

Aunt Fanella shook her head. “Stone pendulums allow too much of your own Spiritual Energy through. You were probably reading your own Chakra Energies.” She sounded sad when she said it, but she spoke with a firm conviction.

A deep silence passed over them.

“What happened?” Thea asked, her voice just above a whisper.

The adults all exchanged glances. Finally Thea’s father leaned forward. “Your Chakras are all but closed.”

Thea stared at him, uncomprehending. She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest.

“Why don’t you explain it to her, Owen,” Aunt Fanella said as Twitchet scampered down her arm and sat on the log beside her.

Thea’s father cleared his throat. “Everyone has Seven main Chakras. Each one corresponds with a Fragment of Alchemy. Recreants can sometimes learn to open their Chakras, which they call unlocking, but only Alchemists can tap into the Spiritual Power of the Chakras. We call this Spiritual Power Kundalini, and it resides in the Root Chakra.”

“And my Chakras are …” Thea said slowly.

“Nearly closed,” Aunt Fanella said.

“Meaning?” Thea looked back at her dad.

“Our Chakras take in Energy from our surroundings,” he said. “Chakras can have too little Energy or too much. We must always work to keep our Spiritual Energies in balance. In your case, all your Chakras are almost closed.”

A shocked silence fell over them. After all the excitement, this terrible news left Thea numb. Not only was she different from every other Alchemist, but there was something wrong with her.

Thea reached out and grabbed Twitchet, pulled her close, and hugged her gently. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked. Twitchet’s stubby tail twitched, and she purred softly.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Aunt Fanella assured her. “You’ve had no formal training. Perhaps your Root Chakra is weak because you have lived away from home your whole life. An imbalance in your Root Chakra can easily spread to your other Chakras—”

Thea’s anger suddenly flared up. “The ranch is my home!” she insisted. “I’ve lived here my entire life.”

“Allie,” her father said. “You were born in Norway. That’s where you’re really from.”

“Okay, I guess.” Thea mumbled. “You never told me, so I always thought…” She dropped Twitchet and crossed her arms. Twitchet came back to Thea’s side and touched her hand with her soft wet nose. Thea tried to ignore her, but the tiny Chimaera put her paw on Thea’s arm, and she couldn’t help but take the tiny Chimaera back into her embrace. She hugged Twitchet to her face and blinked at her, while Twitchet’s whiskers tickled her nose; the Chimaera started to purr again, and Thea couldn’t help but smile.

“In any case, the good news is that all but one of your Chakras are open,” Aunt Fanella said. “Balancing an open Chakra is much more manageable than opening a closed Chakra.” Aunt Fanella softly pressed her hand to the very top of Thea’s head. “It’s very troubling for your Chakras to have so little Energy, but it hardly means there’s anything really wrong with you. After all, we have already seen what you’re capable of without any training whatsoever.”

Thea breathed a sigh of relief at the news that she could balance her Chakras. “How do I fix my Chakras?”

“The best way is with a Guru,” Aunt Fanella answered. “And sadly, I am no Guru.”

“What’s a Guru?” Thea asked.

“Someone who trains Alchemists to tap into their Spiritual Essence.”

“Well, when can I see a Guru?” Thea asked.

“Maybe as soon as a day or so. Once we leave for Blackthorn and Burtree.”

“We’re leaving that soon?” Thea’s body went cold.

“Calm down, Thea,” Aunt Fanella said. “If you get riled up, it’ll only make it worse. Right now you just need to focus on staying calm. We have already seen you do some amazing things with your Spiritual Essence. There’s absolutely no reason to worry.”

“Then I can still make my Chimaera?” Thea asked.

“Of course,” Aunt Fanella said.

Thea nodded with a sigh of relief.

Aunt Fanella pulled a knife out of one of her many pockets and meticulously carved a Symbol into the log upon which she sat. Then she fumbled through all her pockets until she found what she was looking for—a feather. She held the feather beside the carved Symbol on the log and shouted, “Belua!” and the Symbol turned blue.

At first nothing happened, and Thea wondered if Aunt Fanella had made a mistake. Maybe she was still really tired from all the Conversions she’d performed. But then Thea heard the softest of sounds, and she whirled around just in time to see a Great Gray Owl glide through the air. The owl landed right on the Symbol carved into the log, just as calmly as a domesticated pigeon.

“Wow,” Thea muttered under her breath.

“You have to be the one to do the Conversion, or the Chimaera won’t bond to you,” Aunt Fanella said.

“What do I need to do?” Thea cautiously approached, worried that she might scare the owl away, but the giant bird paid no attention to her. The animal was engrossed with the Symbol carved in the wood, which looked like a sideways triangle inside an elaborate sphere.

“You need to draw a Unification Symbol with your own blood.”

“I need to what?” Thea looked at her aunt with wide eyes.

“Give me your hand.” Aunt Fanella reached out. Hesitantly, Thea let her take her hand, and she pulled her down to the ground and made her draw a symbol in the soft dirt.

First, they traced an outer circle. Inside this, they drew three more circles that overlapped in the center, with yet another ring encircling the overlapping section of the circles. Inside the very center, they drew an elaborate Symbol.

When they were finished, the entire Circle covered about four square feet. “Now you need to fill the lines in the earth with your own blood.” Aunt Fanella pulled a new knife from another one of her pockets and held it out for Thea.

“Alchemy has blood magic?” Thea whispered.

“There is a big difference between Alchemy that sacrifices the living, that which we call the Forbidden Occult, and using your own blood to perform a Conversion,” Aunt Fanella explained. “This Conversion is not forbidden, nor is it innately evil.”

Thea swallowed hard and took the knife. She had no idea how she could possibly bleed enough to fill all the lines she had just drawn in the dirt. The thought made her heart pound.

“You can do it, Thea,” her mother said.

Thea inhaled, set her jaw, and pressed the knife against the palm of her hand. Before she could change her mind, Thea sliced her hand open and cringed at the pain. The blood pooled into her palm.

Before she wasted an ounce of blood, Thea clenched her fist and held it over the symbol drawn in the earth. The blood dripped down, slowly coloring the lines crimson. Her arm began to shake as she reached out to fill all the lines of the Insignia with her blood. When the symbol was finally complete, she felt so light-headed she started to fall forward onto the Circle she had created.

Aunt Fanella caught Thea and immediately drew the healing symbol on her wrist and spoke the Word to close the wound on Thea’s hand. For a moment, Thea stared in amazement at her smooth palm which had been sliced open and bleeding freely only a second ago.

“Now what?” Thea huffed.

“We put the animals in position, and you speak the Word, and just like that, you’ve got yourself a Chimaera,” Aunt Fanella said.

“I don’t know,” Thea’s mother said. “Should this really be Thea’s first Conversion? There is a fairly high failure rate.”

“What happens if it fails?” Thea asked.

“Sometimes nothing, but sometimes the animals fuse incorrectly,” her mother said. “There’s nothing worse than being bound to a malformed Chimaera. You’d have to destroy it, and Ceil would be gone.”

Thea hesitated and looked at her horse; she swished her tail at a fly, oblivious of what was about to happen to her. “I don’t want that to happen!”

Aunt Fanella smiled. “Beginner’s tip number one. When you feel your Kundalini rise through your Chakras, you have to let the power flow through you instead of resisting; make sure you open up instead of holding back.”

Thea recalled the uncomfortable sensation when she had attempted to heal Cecelia. “How?”

“We’d better practice that.” Aunt Fanella fetched the feather from the nearby fallen tree and held it out to Thea, who suddenly couldn’t take her eyes off the beautiful bird perched there on the log. “Call her to you,” Aunt Fanella suggested.

Thea closed her eyes and pictured the Sigil Aunt Fanella had carved in the log. She remembered the inner Symbol, and she used the tip of the feather to draw it in the earth beside the larger blood-Insignia. Then she closed her eyes again and pictured the carved Insignia. After a moment, Thea drew the outer Circle to complete the Insignia.

Aunt Fanella whistled in amazement.

Thea furrowed her brow at the owl and remembered the Word her aunt had used to call the bird. “Belua,” she said, and she doubled over as a warm breeze surged around her body. She needed to channel her Power into the Insignia, so she focused on the Circle, but it was already too late. The rush of the Alchemy disappeared, and nothing happened.

Thea tried again; she spoke louder this time. Again, on instinct she fought the surge of power that coursed around her, but she managed to open up in time to feel her consciousness start to fade away. Thea gave up and blinked in surprise as her Kundalini swirled around her head and caressed her face like a soft feather.

“I can’t get it to work.”

“Try again,” Aunt Fanella said. “Focus on the Insignia.” She pointed to the last line Thea had traced in the earth. “This is called the Ostium, the point where your Kundalini will enter the Insignia.”

Thea nodded and inhaled a deep breath. Before she spoke the Word again, Thea focused on the swirl of power around herself. She imagined herself reaching out to take hold of the Energy and pull it to the Insignia. Then she thought about what she was about to do, and she realized something. Just an hour or so ago, Thea had called a wild bird to her side while she sat up in her favorite oak tree. Was this any different? Besides the Word, the Circle, and the feather, she felt that it was the same. She knew she could do it.

Thea felt her Energy stir in a more natural way, and she breathed calmly. Finally, she spoke the Word, “Belua!” Her Kundalini swirled around her head. The power built up until Thea shook with giddiness. Then she remembered the Circle in front of her, and she looked down at the Symbol. With a shiver, Thea felt the warmth of her Kundalini rush down her hand.

The Insignia began to fill up with a blue light. Thea allowed herself to smile in wonder as the Insignia began to glow and the blue light coiled up from the center of the Insignia and drifted up through the air to the gray owl. The animal stretched its wings and took flight.

As docile as a kitten, the owl alighted in front of Thea. The blue light gathered over Thea’s head, and she felt the tingling warmth and shivery chill stir her long curly hair. Then she immediately understood why her aunt had meditated after she had saved her from the rogue lupitris. She felt exhausted.

Thea’s mother called for a mandatory fifteen minute break, while her father and aunt discussed the exact proportions necessary to shrink Cecelia so that when she combined with the owl, her new wings would be large enough to carry her in flight. The thought of shrinking her horse concerned Thea until she remembered that Twitchet was the size of a kitten one moment and the size of a jaguar the next. She watched in awe as her father started to shrink Cecelia down to the size of a foal, and then continued to shrink her until she was smaller than a miniature pony, and Thea started to wonder just how small would be too small. When he finally ended the Conversion, Cecelia was barely more than a foot tall.

“Okay, Thea,” he said as he came back with a single hair from Cecelia’s tail. “Use that Sigil again to call Ceil this time.”

Thea gave the feather back to Aunt Fanella and took the hair from her father. “Belua,” she said with her eyes on the Ostium of the Beast Insignia. Her Kundalini responded more quickly this time, though it was still a challenge to get her Energy to channel into the Circle.

The Sigil glowed blue, and Cecelia trotted over. Thea stared at her miniature horse and thought about all the times she had called her to her side with only a mental touch. This time, it had been very different, almost as if she had made the horse move, while the horse had always chosen to come before.

“You really catch on quickly,” Aunt Fanella marveled. “Plus your Kundalini seems to be strong enough. The Amalgamation Conversion will take more power to respond though, so remember to open yourself up and focus on the Ostium of your Insignia while you channel your Kundalini. Don’t be afraid to chant the Code Word.” She knelt down and whispered the Unification Code Word into Thea’s ear.

Finally, with Cecelia positioned over the Insignia and the owl placed on the miniature horse’s back, it was time to perform the Amalgamation Conversion, and Thea took a big quivering breath and said, “Unesco!”