“By how?” The will-o’-the-wisp was totally at a loss.
“By constructing logical generalizations encompassing ever more natural and supernatural phenomena.”
“If you say so.” But the will-o’-the-wisp sounded doubtful. “You sure you’re safe here, though?”
“Oh, yes,” Amer murmured. “Quite safe.”
For Amer had done more than merely rebuild. He had set an elaborate network of traps and warning devices around his cottage in a wide circle, for it was highly possible that the good colonists would not rest until they had hunted him down and burned him at the stake.
“It is possible,” he told Willow, “that the Salem folk may still be pursuing me. I’m quite certain that Samona, at least, will not rest until she has settled with me.”
“But who is this Samona? And why’d she say you’re a whosiwhatsis if you’re not?”
“Samona,” said Amer, “is a very beautiful young witch who lives in Salem—only they don’t know she’s a witch. And she told them I was a warlock because she hates me.”
“Hates you?” Willow demanded, incredulous.
“Hates me,” Amer confirmed. Not that he had ever done anything to Samona that should cause her to hate him; indeed, he was supremely indifferent to any being that walked on two feet, and especially so to those who wore skirts. Samona despised him for this; but then, she held the whole colony in contempt for similar reasons.
And this Amer could never understand, for though Samona loathed the Puritans for their reserve, she was herself extremely reticent, so much so that more than a few of the stern young men still bore the scars of her fingernails for their boyhood audacity in paying her a courtly compliment.
“Why does she hate you, Master?”
Amer made a guess. “Because she hates all men.”
“Well—yeah, I can understand that. But why you especially?”
“Because my magic is just as powerful as hers.”
“But that’s no reason to hate you!”
“That’s just the way women are. Willow.” Amer sighed.
“Aw, it is not!’; willow said stoutly. “I’m not and I’m a woman!”
“That’s different,” Amer explained. “You’ re a will-o’-the-wisp.”
“What woman isn’t?” Willow returned. “There’s gotta be another reason why she hates you, Master.”
“Well, there is, really. You see, she sold her soul to the Devil, and I didn’t.”
Notwithstanding his refusal to sell his soul, Amer had garnered more knowledge of magic through his experiments than Samona had gained through her pact with Satan. “I think we were both born with the ability to work magic, actually—it was just a matter of learning how. She thought she paid a much lower tuition than I, but she’s begun to realize that the bill will come due eventually, and will be rather exorbitant. Mine took longer, but is paid in full as it goes.”
“Oh.” That gave the will-o’-the-wisp pause. “No wonder she hates you.”
Amer looked up, surprised. “I don’t see any logic in it….”
“That’s all right, Master,” Willow assured him. “There isn’t any.”
“Then it is absolutely necessary that I keep an eye on her.” Amer put down the tiny bone and went back to the hearth. He placed the new glassware on a tray and took it over to a keg-spigot he had hammered into one of the logs that formed the wall. He twisted the handle, and clear, sparkling water gushed out, though the spigot met only solid wood within the log. It was fed by a clear mountain stream, a mile away; the alchemist had learned well from his research.
He washed the new glassware with water and sand, then set it up on metal stands on a bench that ran the full length of the wall. He lost no time in setting an alembic bubbling merrily into a cooling tube with a beaker at its end, to collect the distillate.
While he waited for the beaker to fill, he turned to another workbench, one that bore racks of vials, another alembic, several glass tubes, and a small crucible. It was backed by shelves of jars and boxes, each carefully labeled. Amer took another, larger beaker, filled it with water, and set it over an elaborately carved alcohol lamp. Then the alchemist began to ladle powders into a beaker. “Let’s see . . . green pepper. . .sugar. . .cinnamon . . .”
“Sounds good, Master.”
“. . .powdered batwings. . .”
“Gaaaaaack!”
“Oil of ambergris. . .”
“Uh, Master . . .”
“Eye of eagle . . .”
“Master . . .”
“Monosodium glutamate . . .”
“M-A-A-A-A-STER!”
“Oh.” Amer looked up, blinking. “Yes, Willow?”
“Wha’cha makin’ !?!”
“Making?” Amer looked down at the frothy liquid in his beaker. “A far-sight potion, Willow.”
“A what?”
“A far-sight potion. So I can watch Samona, wherever she is.”
Willow gasped. “You’re a peepin’ Tom?”
“Willow!” Amer remonstrated, scandalized. “I am merely performing a vital mission of strategic reconnaissance.”
“That’s what I said. Wha’cha wanna look at her for, anyway?”
“I’m afraid it’s necessary,” Amer said, thin-lipped. He peered into the beaker. “You see, she’s always trying to find some way to enslave me.”
“Enslave you? What’s she want to do that for?”
“Because she’s a woman.”
“That’s no reason,” Willow maintained.
“Samona thinks it is,” Amer explained. “As I’ve said, she hates all men.”
“And you most of all, ’cause you’re not a warlock?”
“For that,” Amer said judiciously, “and because I’m the only man she can’t enslave with her magic.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’ve got magic, too.”
Willow sounded puzzled. “I thought you said you weren’t a witch.”
“Warlock,” Amer corrected absently. “That’s the male equivalent. And no, I’m not. I’m an alchemist.”
“Same thing.”
“Not at all.” Amer sighed, striving for patience and trying to find a slightly different way to explain something he’d already explicated. “A witch gets her power from the Devil. But an alchemist gets his magic by working experiments.”
“Gotta get this down,” Willow muttered. “Chapter Four: Magic, Male and Female… Now—you’re an alchemist?”
“That’s right.”
“And she’s a witch?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And that’s why she hates you?”
Amer looked up, startled. “You know, Willow, you may have something there. If I got my magic from the Devil, she probably wouldn’t even notice me.”
“Why not?” The will-o’-the-wisp was totally perplexed.
“That, my dear,” said Amer, “is one of the peculiarities of the female mind.”
“You mean,” said Willow, “you don’t know.”
“Precisely.”
A gentle bubbling announced that the beaker was ready.
Amer recited an incantation and peered into the fluid. “Now let me see. . .” He found it filled with a swirling of unearthly colors. He sighed patiently and muttered a refinement of the earlier spell—with no results. He tried a second and a third spell, and then, losing patience, slapped the side of the beaker. Instantly the colors swirled together, stretched and wriggled; and snapped into focus in the form of Samona.
She was dressed in a low-cut, red velvet gown with a high Elizabethan collar that framed her head in a scarlet halo. The bodice was molded to her as though it had been born on her and had grown as she had grown, narrowing as her waist had narrowed and flaring out into the skirt as her hips had become wider and fuller, curving softly, and then sweeping up in a futile attempt to hide her high, swelling breasts. But where cloth had failed, long shimmering hair had succeeded, flowing down to hide her in soft, luxuriant black waves. Her face was smooth, gently tinted, with slanting black eyes and wide, full, blood-red lips.