The apothecary, a middle-aged man with blonde hair and a perpetually bored expression on his face, snorted in amus.e.m.e.nt when Defi told him what he wanted. He was wearing an exceedingly loud red coat with large purple stripes. The sleeves of the coat, only reaching to below his elbow, looked like the lower part had been hacked off and what was left badly re-sewn."Savras?" he drawled, as he stretched from the recliner he"d been half-asleep on when Defi came in. "I suppose I have nothing else to do."
He accepted the two sample bottles, flicked the piece of paper label on the first to see it marked "Zav" and shook his head. He uncorked the bottle and poured some of the contents into the hollow of his palm. He tilted his palm this way and that.
A curious light lit up in the formerly uninterested eyes. "You did say it was savras?"
"Savras and zaziphos." Defi glanced toward the apothecary from where he was looking through several of the fresh ingredients displayed in preservation boxes.
"Savras is barely a mystic plant; you diluted it more? The efficacy of this…" The man huffed. Then his voice grew lower. "But how did it become so clear?"
Not really so clear, Defi thought. Compared to the slime vinegars, the extract from the savras-fed slimes was tinged with a dark green, making the liquid look like the clear greenish gla.s.s Ontrea used for mirrors and statues.
The apothecary rubbed the liquid between the pads of his fingers, then clapped his hands together and rubbed his palms as if warding away the cold. A faint hint of gra.s.s and zaziphos spread around him as his actions heated the liquid between his hands.
Not satisfied, he brought his cupped hands to his nose and inhaled. He sighed, brought out a strange tablet. "It certainly smells better than any savras extract I ever encountered."
It did not sound like a compliment, so Defi ignored it and focused on the tablet. He doubted the man was actually testing the smell anyway.
It looked like the summon-tablet Defi had used to summon Turq actually, except it was larger and the etched symbols on the slab of rock looked more intricate and elaborate.
The tablet"s designs were focused around a central hollow inscribed with glyphs.
The man brushed his wet hands over the bare skin of his inner arms, holding them up to his gaze, to Defi"s confusion. Then the "Zav" sample was poured into the tablet. The apothecary tapped his finger to one of the glyphs, and the slime extract in the central bowl-shaped cavity moved, climbing up the inscriptions and filling the channels of the engraved designs.
"How curious. A new variety of savras? But then I would have heard of it." His eyes were not so dull anymore, a spark lighting up behind his apathy. "But the scent…"
He tapped another glyph and the liquid drained out of a spout at the side of the tablet. The man caught the drain in the sample bottle. He flushed the tablet apparatus and wiped it dry.
Quickly, the second sample was poured in and the process repeated.
"Hm, hm, excellent." He turned to Defi. "How did you retain the efficacy of the savras with this much adulterant? Is this the result of a decoction? A distillation?"
"I am not the one who made these," Defi said, entirely truthful. "I only wanted to know what they were."
"And the maker? A name, a face, what can you tell me?" The apothecary looked at him so keenly expectant, no trace of boredom lingering, that Defi was a little sorry to disappoint him.
"The names were foreign, and the face – I am afraid the faces defied human description."
"There were two?"
Defi pointed wordlessly at the tags on the sample bottles, which were in fact recycled condiment bottles.
"Ziv? Zav? This tells me nothing!"
"They are effective then?"
"Effective?" The man scoffed. "No more effective than the common tincture of savras. But this clarity, this method of creation, I have never seen it before! Young man, if I knew how to do this, do you know how many other things I could make?! This method, this process, wasted to make savras taste like fruit, of all things!"
Defi smiled at him. "Thank you, sir. Your a.s.sistance has eased my worries greatly. If there is anything…?"
The man pointed immediately at the slime extract samples. "May I have these?"
Defi wavered.
"I must test further!"
Defi did not know how the bodies of slimes worked to produce the extract. Perhaps a purification, or something similar. But recreating the substance without the slimes would be desirable. It was best if the extract did not stand out too much or come from only one source.
So he agreed to leave the samples.
"Of course, of course, you should not give up secrets of the trade so easil—" The man whirled. "What, I can have them?"
The enthusiastic man in front of him was such a departure from his recent experience of the apothecary that if Defi didn"t know better he"d have said it was a different man.
"My name is Karlant. If you have any more substances to test, don"t hesitate to bring them here."
Defi nodded, made his goodbyes and left. The apothecary Karlant immediately closed his shop and disappeared into the back, the sample bottles held close to his chest.
Defi hoped he succeeded.
Sarel had already praised him for having managed to dilute the thick vinegar somehow. It was a little strange to be praised for having failed, in fact.
He was still hoping to recreate Jar"s vinegar quality.
He sighed. Shouldn"t older people challenge the younger generation to greater heights or something?
This Lowpool was truly strange.
He could not stop the small smile that curled his lips.
Strange enough to hide all sorts of people. Enough to have him wondering, what story did that apothecary have? Wouldn"t research opportunities be more plentiful in the university cities? He thought about all the people he met unexpectedly. Was the man a hidden savant as well?
He shook the questions away. He was not one to go digging in other people"s pasts.
"Well. If it isn"t Sarel"s little errand boy."
Defi glanced at the speaker, a man in his twenties, hair a rather arresting dark blue. Or maybe black with blue highlights, he could not tell.
"Lemat," he greeted. The man was a farmer who had helped Aire concoct the sleepbombs used in the smuggler incident. "Have you been well?"
"Augh, so polite. It brings up bad memories, don"t do it. I once met a man who determinedly clung to propriety even as he was poisoned to death. He wouldn"t even scream. I hated him."
Defi processed the implications of those statements, then deftly put them in a box at the back of his mind and ignored them as not relevant to the present.
"Why are you accosting me?"
"Can"t I not be curious about the person a friend is spending time with?" Lemat shrugged. Then he eyed the slime on Defi"s shoulder. "That is not your usual companion. Or have the three kids you adopted taken that one as their own?"
"There"s been no adoption."
"You brought them to the orphanage, yes? A good thing you had the gold to sponsor them. I don"t think Aire and Lergen could have afforded more."
Defi hadn"t thought of that, in fact. He"d just wanted to keep the crab away from the one who thought to extort a child. Aire and Lergen"s circ.u.mstances had not touched his consideration then.
He frowned.
"I need a drink."