Page 130 of Quicksilver
“What does it look like?” The beaker I lobbed this time didn't go as high up the rock face, but it still exploded into an impressive shower of broken glass.
“Can I join in?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Great.” Gripping his cigarillo between his teeth, Carrion chose a fat, round-bottomed flask from the crate I'd dragged out here. He hurled the thing with all his might, and it arced pretty well before sailing down and exploding against the rocks. The resulting crash was one of the best ones yet. “Well, that felt pretty good,” he said, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke. “Wanna tell mewhywe're doing this?”
“Destruction,” I replied.
Carrion nodded, bobbing his head from side to side. “As good a reason as any. I like it.”
I grabbed the two smaller glass bulbs from an old alembic still and shoved one into Carrion's chest. “Shut up and throw.”
He laughed but obliged me, sending the glass hurtling through the air. I threw mine at the same time, and the two bulbs detonated against the rock with a thunderous smash.
“I take it you haven't had any luck with your trials today?” Carrion said.
Gods, couldn't he take a hint? I wasn't in the mood to discuss my failures. I'd also burned my arm earlier, which wasn't helping matters. “Evidently not. And thatfuckingquicksilver…”
“Having trouble making it do its liquidy, rolling around thing?”
“No. I can alter its state just fine now. I barely even have to think about that. I just tell it to be a liquid, and it becomes a liquid. The problem is that it's fucking mocking me.”
Carrion snorted. “Mockingyou?”
“Yes! It laughs every time I attempt to combine something new with it. It'll take the pure silver, but the moment I tipanything else in there, it burns up before it even touches the metals. And it fuckinglaughs!”
“It can't be sentient,” he said dubiously.
“Oh, ho, ho, it is. You wouldn't be saying that if you could hear what I can hear.”
Carrion nodded, pulling on the cigarillo, the bright cherry flaring at its end. “Have you considered the possibility that you might be mad?”
“Yes, I have,actually,” I answered tartly. “But Fisher's books back at Cahlish said it was common for Alchemists to report that they could hear the quicksilver.”
“Then maybeallAlchemists are mad. Maybe having a screw loose is just a prerequisite for working with this stuff.”
I snatched another flask from the box and threw it, growling under my breath. “Look, if you're not going to be helpful, then I'm kind of busy here.”
“Oh, sure, absolutely. I can seethat.”
I spun quickly, a fresh flask held over my head, ready to throw it at him, but he held up his hands in surrender. “All right, all right. Sorry. I admit, I didn't come here with the purpose of trying to be helpful, but...you say you don't have any problems getting to shift the quicksilver from one state to the other anymore? Because you ask it to change. Right?”
“Right.”
“Then, have you thought about justaskingit to meld with the pure silver?”
“Psshhh! Don't...don't be ridiculous. Of course I haven't!”
“Why not?”
“That'd be too simple, Carrion. I can't justaskit to become a relic.”
“Seems to me that if you can ask to be a liquid or a solid, you could ask it to be all kinds of things,” he said, popping the collar of his coat.
I glared at him, my annoyance levels rising fast. Not Carrion Swift. He wouldnotbe the reason why I figured out how to accomplish this task. He'd never let me live it down. It was infuriating that I hadn't considered this for myself, though.
“Are you gonna try it?” he asked, standing up a little straighter. “Can I watch?”
