It is important to take a moment to discuss ethics, though many Alchemists and Sorcerers will balk at this. 'What need for I to cover basic truisms and hackneyed moralities? There are discoveries to be made and treatises to write - and all this morality is specific to circumstance anyways!' I have heard this from more than a few Alchemists, and though this is anecdotal these are often the words uttered before a great mistake is made.

There is great power and danger in the arts of Alchemy - for to have control over life and death. But with great power comes great culpability. Imagine being the inventor of a spell that could kill eight thousand with the snap of a finger. Or to make a potion that scars the face of the matriarch. There are some perverted minds who would rejoice in this.

Though Alchemy is a great science, it does not require empathy. So for those who are less rational and more sick of mind, consider this: The results of your actions - good or bad - will some day come down on your head. Though there are other fundamental truths to our universe, but this is the Ultimate one. Your science and your knowledge have consequences - do not think you can escape. Be careful. Be smart. Be afraid. The gods are watching, and if you are not careful then they will bring their unfathomable fury down upon you.

There was one virtue to the dissolution of the Council, and that was that Taldoray could return to the art of Alchemy. But even that was taken from him, and twisted by his tyrant ex-apprentice. And now master.

Fomvin - King, now - had made himself a little court, full of whores and artists and extravagances that he felt he deserved. He beggared the kingdom to do it, of course. The poor cried out as the soldiers were equipped with Lamellar and shields of solid bronze. His honor guard was disproportionately large, and though the smiths may take solace in the profits, they were overworked and underpaid for their goods. The Kingship had turned into a tyranny, and the fine arts that once came out of Asor's City were cannibalized for this king's own vices. Taldoray had come to revile Fomvin, wondering where his erstwhile little alchemist had gone and from where this evil soldier-king had come. And of course he was more than slightly upset that his life's work - the Alchemist's Guild - had been gutted and that Taldoray's work depended on making what Fomvin wanted.

For what it was worth, Fomvin only wanted things that would increase the depth of his own lust and greed.

He wanted things to increase his prowess in the bedroom, or a stronger liquor to dull his conscience more. Taldoray had a distillation apparatus, and for what it was worth as long as he made what was necessary, he would be provided the finest materials and tools. Silver Alembics and Obsidian Retorts, a ruby-studded still so he could imbue what he distilled with strange magics. Bronze crucibles and aludels in a matching set. Even an alchemical furnace had been built from magic stones for him. Paper was brought in from the south, and tablet after tablet of ancient arcanics was brought up from the Old Queen's Palace. It was far better than any facilities he had at the old guild, and he had no reason to leave.

Not that he was permitted to.

He had been brought all his food, and what women he needed. His medicines (and the ingredients) that he requisitioned. He was even permitted two dim-witted guards, whom he could talk to as he wished. One was mute, and the other was dull, and both were the shining sentinels that kept him from leaving. He was beginning to go mad, as his chamber was but a cellar of the palace, with a door to and from the dungeon. He had been permitted four hours of sunlight a week. But he did have access to all the rarest of ingredients and test subjects, most notably of all - their livers.

The Altonitaneu was a compendium not on clay but on silver tablets - sixteen of them, in total, as it seemed Alto had been quite a rich, vain man who wanted to imbue his works with the goodness and beauty of silver - that described what aspects came from where, and had some segments on the fluids and functions of human organs. He had a bizarre and disturbing obsession with blood, and posited that it was the source of life in the body - a theory that was clearly wrong, but that was irrelevant now, for it was the Black Gall of the liver that Taldoray was concerned with.

The Liver - as everyone knew - filtered out the toxins that one ingests, meaning that it would become a repository of the deathly aspects. By the end of a man's life, it would be a morbid piece of flesh, and would release black gall into the body, causing rigor mortis. So now Taldoray was hunched over the top of a crucible, mushing the livers of men he carved up after he had spent a week with them brining in a drunken stupor.

One word echoed over and over in his head: Why?

He knew that his actions were a perversion. That they should never be done. That was the worst part. The knowing of it. The knowing that what you were doing was wrong, but it must be done. It was like holding spew in your throat, and knowing that you cannot expel it, and trying to hold it there as your body cries out for sweet relief. That was what Taldoray was feeling (both metaphorically and quite literally), as the putrid fumes of the dead men's livers squished out as they were mushed into pulp. His bronze crucible was ruined, and he knew he would not get another.

But at least now he had a barrel of the death-pulp.

As he began to distill it - adding the herbs and spices of death and flavor-masking, he could remember the men he had butchered for them. He could not tell what was more horrific. Was it the screams of the men he cut open alive as he harvested the liver before it could discharge the gall into the body, or was it the disquieting, vague smiles and giggles of men who were too drunk to notice, but still began to cry? Every cut he made felt like a cut into his own abdomen, and more than once he was tempted to throw his own liver in there for good measure. But someone had to poison their mad king, so that meant that Taldoray had to force himself forward for the good of the people.

Liquid death was brewing, and it made Taldoray want to gag. He found the skin he was to pour it in - a tin chalice, polished to be disguised as silver. He had spent quite a while shining it, polishing it on his own, to keep King Fomvin from knowing. A true silver chalice would seep out the toxin and lose some of its beauty. Taldoray feared that by polishing it so much the poison would lose some potency. He also feared that the taste of the brew would tip off the mad king, but having tasted some of the spirits he made he consoled himself on the fact that those tasted like poison anyways.

The bubbling had finished, and the still pissed out the toxin. Taldoray wondered how a snake makes its venom, and told himself that he was to dissect a snake to look for any miniaturized still. But he let the chalice sit in the antifurnace, and loaded it up with the ice that the king had stored in the deep cellar - harvested from the mountains at great expense. Expense that could have fed the poor, in another life. He was hoping he did the work of the goddess.

At last the moment of truth. Taldoray had a long history in alchemy. He was nearing eighty years of age, which meant seventy-three years of practice. Of all alchemists, he was the most venerable. But these next moments would still be the most important even if his life and career were four hundred times as long.

King Fomvin sent for him, and some spirits. He had been planning a banquet and a parade in his own honor. His own ego needed stroking, among other things. And to be properly stroked, he needed his drink. And Taldoray had a fresh drink for him, that he assured the king would be the best of his life.

He was not permitted to see the madman, of course. His place was in his workshop. Instead a servant came for the chilled liquor, which had turned a peculiar shade of maroon. The 'silver' cup had turned frosty, and the servant winced as he took it off. Taldoray wished he could deliver it himself. He knew it would take some time to work and ingest, so no taster could save the king. All he could do was lie awake in bed, and pray to whatever gods he had spent his eighty years ignoring that they would help him, save him, just this once as he drifted off into a nightmarish sleep.

He did not notice as his two guards seized him, snatched him down, and hacked out his throat. A haggard version of his king watched, and branded the remains of his tongue, as he was chained up in the dungeon.

It was many days before the king had returned. Taldoray had tried screaming before, but his throat was not moist enough. He was on the brink of dying of thirst, and his guards gave him but a trickle every day. The King's eyes were sunken, and his face was twisted.

"How are you, old friend?"

Taldoray did not response.

"Ah yes, I am sorry for reminding you," said the King.

A grunt.

"Honestly, I must thank you for betraying me, in a way. Your betrayal coaxed the daggers of many out of the shadows. They tried to flee."

Did they? thought Taldoray. He was dimly amused.

"Foreign armies are marching on this city, you know. The Asitariyans. I knew they would come, of course, but I did not know they had agents within my city. The advisatory council, you know. They sent a messenger, begging them to bring down the city. Telling them of backdoor passages. They are being investigated as we speak."

"I do have some use for them, of course. The traitors to the city, they have been used, for divine protection."

"I have been doing some reading of your notes, mind you. They will make a fine work, the Taldoritaneu..."

Crush my dreams too, why don't you.

"But, among the many things you have been wrong about that I have found, the nature of Blood is among them. Blood may not be life essence, but it is worthwhile. It is energy, and protection, is it not?"

No.

"The blood of the traitors... I've been giving it to the gods, old master. It's an alchemical ritual, and it's all your work."

Oh.

"It's your turn, old friend. I would have had you drink the very poison you tried to kill me with, so you could feel as it ate at my stomach and my spleen. It made for quite a sight in the middle of my war council, I am told, by what commanders tried to save me. By the by, you know, thank you for telling me which commanders were not loyal. Those traitors were burned too."

I'm next...

"You taught me never to waste, Master Taldoray," said the King, as the guards unshackled the old man, "And hey, at least you get to see the sun and stars one last time," he continued as they walked off. It was sunset. The sun was visible, and both moons were whole. The stars were judging him. The stars had cursed him. He had done a terrible deed and perverted his own studies.

All for nothing.

And as the king took out the dagger, and brought it down, Taldoray then learned what a stab to the liver truly felt like.