I always enjoy writing villains. 

This is a scene from my “novel sketch” in which the main villain, an Alchemist with no moral compass, is introduced.  His past is vaguely hinted at through the use of flashback and dialogue.  What the reader should see in this is someone who is completely without conscience…someone who is concerned only with his own rise to power.

I am interested in reader reactions to this section, so please, post comments in the appropriate place!

Six – Tobias 

Tobias looked around his cell, so similar to the ones in which he had performed his life’s work over the past few years.  The flickering, yellow glow of torches, the dank smell of moisture, the cries of despair, the white streaks of nitre, and the faint sewer odor of used chamber pots was so familiar.  All that was missing was his instrumentation and his journals.  There were no windows, only a heavy gate of iron bars welded securely and driven into the stone of the dungeon with bolts as thick as his forearm.  A small charcoal brazier stood beside the door, but its heat did little to warm the entire confines of the space.

“Excuse me, young man,” Tobias said, as a guard walked by.  “I say, excuse me.”

The guard stopped and regarded him warily, but said nothing.

“I wonder if you could be troubled to fetch me some of my medicine.”  Tobias held a hand over his stomach. “It seems my digestion is not what it could be in the damp.”

The guard said nothing, and continued his patrol.  Tobias shrugged to himself, and picked up his wooden bowl and spoon and began inspecting the walls of his cell.  The dungeon was ancient, having been underground for nearly a thousand years.  White nitre deposits crept down the walls, following the faint path of condensing moisture.  Carefully, Tobias stood on tiptoe and began scraping the white powder into his bowl with the spoon, working his way around the cell until he had nearly half of his bowl full.  With a grunt, he tore a strip of fabric from his robe and carefully bound the powder in it, cleaning his bowl carefully with his fingers.  He frowned at the condition of his spoon, now showing splinters on both sides.  It would be uncomfortable to eat with, but that couldn’t be helped.  He hid the cloth bundle in his blankets.

He paced back and forth in thought.  Closing his eyes, he remembered the sound of a gauntleted fist striking wood.  He had been writing notes from his latest experiment into a book bound with fine, ivory leather.  Puzzled, he stood and walked through the empty halls of his keep, moving from the library to the front door.  He kept only one servant, an old crone from the village below, to cook and to clean for him.  In the evenings, he sent her home so that he would be free to conduct his work.  He opened the door himself, surprised to see a squad of the Emperor’s guard.

“May I help you?” he asked politely.

“Are you Tobias Cressen, bound by fealty to the Thoreandors?”  The guard asked, as if he were reading from a parchment.

“I am,” Tobias replied.

The guard made a gesture.  “You are hereby charged with the kidnapping and murder of four women.  We are directed to take you into custody on behalf of the Order of Alchemists and hold you for trial.”

Tobias was genuinely shocked.  “I have not murdered anyone.  This is insulting!”  He tried to shut the door, but the guard interposed himself.  The heavy door rebounded off of his chain mail hauberk.

The guard placed a hand on the door.  “Please come quietly, my lord, for come you will.”  There was quiet menace to his voice.

Tobias bowed his head and released his grip on the door.  “At least allow me to collect my things.”

The guard shook his head.  “I’m afraid we can’t allow that.”  Guards moved on either side of him, seizing him by his upper arms and marching him out of the keep. 

Tobias struggled briefly as they shoved him bodily down the cobblestone pathway away from his keep.  After a moment of futile struggle, he relaxed and began to walk with a purposeful stride.  “I wonder if any of you would be interested in helping me with an experiment or two, hmm?”

He shook his head to clear the memory.   He had been in this cell for nearly a week, away from his work, away from the mysteries that drove him.  His hands itched for the thin blade he used to make cuts, or the fluted glassware where he purified and distilled his chemicals.  He wanted to feel the thrill of discovery, as one of his experiments opened new thresholds of knowledge and awareness.

There was a shuffle of booted feet and a swish of robes from the corridor outside of his cell.  The sound of it snapped him out of his reverie. “Tobias,” a voice said imperiously.  It was just outside of the shadow of torch light, coming from the passage way.

“Ah.  That would be Christopher, would it not?”  Tobias gestured expansively around him.  “Welcome to my humble abode!”

“Indeed,” the voice replied, and stepped into the torch light.  The shape resolved itself to a rail-thin man with a crown of graying hair, a beak nose set in a craggy face, and hard, brown eyes.  He wore the robes of a Master Alchemist, with a thread-of-gold emblem sewn over his heart.  “It seems you’ve fallen on hard times, Tobias.”  The grey of his robes shimmered in the torch light.

“No matter,” Tobias replied.  “I don’t intend to be here overlong.”

Christopher laughed, the harsh, gravelly sound echoing off of the stone of the dungeon.  “And how, pray you, do you expect to escape, Tobias?  The last I heard, you were an alchemist…not a magician.”  The laughter stopped abruptly.  “Although if I have my way, you’ll not be an alchemist for much longer.”

“You never did grasp my work, Christopher.”  He sighed heavily.  “I don’t suppose there is anyone in this cursed Empire who does.”  Tobias made a show of exasperation. 

“I think we understand your work well enough, Tobias.”  Christopher gazed intently at him through the iron bars.  “How many were there in your dungeons after the Guard escorted you here?  Twelve?  Thirteen?  How many more were buried in the swamps outside of your keep?”

Tobias was nonplussed.  “They were all volunteers, selflessly giving themselves to further the knowledge of alchemy in this world.”  He inspected his fingernails.  “How much more do we know about the working of the human body, Christopher, as a result of my research?”

Christopher’s voice was cold.  “How many of them were girls between twelve and sixteen?  All of them?”  His face wrinkled in a grimace of distaste.  “I doubt they volunteered for your work, of if they did, they knew nothing of what it would entail.”  He gripped the bars.  “But that is something for the Masters to decide.”

“Ah, yes.  The Masters.”  Tobias’ voice dripped scorn.  “Over the past one hundred years we’ve made discoveries that have shaken the Empire, and yet those discoveries are hoarded like gold by old women in robes just like yours.”  Tobias gripped the bars slightly below Christopher.  “We have a unique opportunity to mold the Empire in our image, Christopher.  We have the means to secure a steady stream of labor for our work.  Imagine the progress we would make!”  A fierce light had kindled in his eyes.  “We need not serve the bureaucrats and the nobles in their petty intrigues.”

Christopher cocked his head.  “You know why we don’t seek power.  Knowledge is an end in and of itself, not a means to an end.  You would have us ruling through our knowledge, rather than serving.”

“Why should we serve?  Why should we ask for what we need, when it is ours for the taking?”

Shaking his head, Christopher sighed.  “You condemn yourself with your words, Tobias.  I had hoped that you could still be reasoned with.” He turned to leave.

“Christopher!”  Tobias called.  At the edge of the torchlight, the figure of the Master Alchemist stopped.  His shape was indistinct in the flickering light.  “How many of our brothers use the knowledge I gained in treating illnesses?  How many lives have been saved due to results from my experiments?  Doesn’t the Emperor himself owe his life to me?  Does it matter how the knowledge was gained?”

Christopher rushed to the bars, his face a tightly controlled mask.  “How many little girls did you use for your experiments, Tobias?”  Barely suppressed rage colored his voice.  “How many bodies are hidden in that Godforsaken swamp of yours?  If I had the power, I would trade every bit of knowledge you gained for the life of one of your victims.  Don’t call them volunteers, or by God, I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Tobias smiled.  “You answer my questions with questions of your own.  Truly you are well trained in the seeking of knowledge.”  Mockery tinged his tone.  He stroked the iron bars idly, his voice soft.  “Do you know what makes my work so delicious, Christopher?  Do you know the thing that drives me forward more than the lure of power and scientific progress?”  Stony silence met his question.  “It is the screams of the innocent that truly fuels my soul.  There is something…pure; something…sweet in the cry of a human in distress, when they realize that their situation is beyond hope.  The cries of those in my care fuel me to solve all the riddles of physiology, just so I can taste their fear and despair, again and again.”

Christopher turned from the bars and faded into the dark, walking stiffly.  “Where are you going, Master Alchemist?”  Tobias’ voice was a soft caress.  “Will you burn my journals and my correspondence?”  The voice turned sly.  “Will you take away the gift of life from the Emperor?”  Tobias shook the bars, rattling them as much as they would in their sturdy mounting.  “What would he say?  Would the Emperor choose to die just so a group of ratty peasant girls might live?”  His voice became a hoarse yell.  “Will you deny me my due as the foremost alchemist in the Empire?”

The guard came forward and handed him a small, tightly wrapped cloth package.  “Your medicine, milord,” he said.  He turned away and wiped his hand on his tabard, as if coming in close contact with Tobias poisoned him.

Tobias watched carefully until the guard vanished into the shadows.  Carefully opening the packet, he was pleased to see the gleam of sulfur within.  He placed it with the white powder in his blankets, his soft laughter echoing in the dungeons, a bizarre counter melody to the whimpers of anguish around him. 

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