The King Of Birds

By Ross Dupree

A Tales Of Correndrum Novelette (16,700 words)

Cassian is the most promising alchemist's apprentice in Correndrum, but his daily routine of scrubbing flasks and drying herbs is not the adventure he had in mind when he began his studies.

When Master Linus sends him out to find the rare ingredients needed for a grand experiment, Cassian leaps at the chance to get out of the lab. He enlists the beautiful harvester Sera as his guide to a remote mountain forest.

Cassian soon learns that there is much more to Sera than he suspected, and she shows him the secrets and the beauty of the world outside the city.

The two encounter a wandering magician deep in the woods, out on a quest of his own. The strange old man gives them a rare magical gift that leads to a greater adventure than either of them had expected!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ross Dupree
• Release date: May 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301250349

Book preview

The King Of Birds

By Ross Dupree

Copyright 2013 Ross Dupree

Smashwords Edition

Cassian always liked the city at this time of day. Early morning, the golden-orange light of dawn. Streets nearly empty, at least in this part of town. Those few who were out were intent on the tasks at hand, their attentions largely turned inwards. No one out merely to be seen, no one prowling about looking for an easy mark. People with purpose.

Correndrum was the capital city of the nation of the same name, and served as home to King Viron and his court. An important city, full of important people. Cassian liked the sense of belonging in a place where decisions were made and goals were accomplished, but he did welcome the chance to be free of those who were perhaps overly aware of their own importance.

Cassian saw another apprentice departing on his market day errands and nodded in greeting. Those who did the real work had to get early starts.

He turned onto Ascension Street, which was lined with luxurious and fashionable shops. He passed Jasmin's, candlemaker to the nobility and to those with pretensions to the same. The smell of exotically-scented waxes filled the damp morning air. In a way, the chandlery was in competition with Cassian's employer, Master Linus. Linus's laboratory provided all manner of incense, carefully crafted to provide Correndrum's upper-class homes with pleasant atmospheres. In fact, the income from such sales provided much of the funding for Linus's more esoteric experiments.

Like many of the shops in the Empyrean Park district, the family who owned the chandlery also ran a shop on the Promenade, in Barrowgate, a more common area of the city. That shop was a much noisier and more crowded affair, with fewer expensive scents in evidence. Truth be told, of course, Cassian suspected many of the candles sold here were made there. Not that either the sellers or the buyers would ever admit to knowing that. Appearances meant much here. Cassian sighed.

He'd be headed to the Promenade later, to obtain the more prosaic supplies needed for the laboratory. First, though, the market. Get there early and take his pick of the various herbs and other substances Master Linus needed for his work.

A lone morning patrolman walked his route in the cobblestone plaza around Coronation Fountain, the taverns surrounding the square shuttered and silent. Not that Cassian had time to visit them when they were open, not these last several months. Master Linus had kept him busy with his grand project. Wash these flasks, crush those minerals, mix these concoctions. Drudgework. Necessary for the experiments, but drudgework nonetheless.

Cassian was learning the alchemical arts by fits and starts. A process for distilling impurities here, a method of obtaining reactions there. He was quite quick on the uptake, but Master Linus never explained more than was required to complete the next step.

An alchemist trained himself, the Master simply provided a framework. It was left to Cassian to pore over the shelves of books in the Master's library and to try to grasp the grander plan using his own resources. Cassian had often been told he was the most promising apprentice in the kingdom, but his progress towards mastery was slower than he liked. He could only study outside the actual laboratory since Linus made certain that the books stayed as far from the chemicals as possible. These books are very old, Cassian, and they got that way by staying away from flames and clumsy hands holding bottles of corrosive liquids.

Cassian left the Empyrean Park district, crossing the broad canal that separated it from the city's main market square. Even at this early hour, the market was full of the sights and smells from the city's farmlands, the surrounding countryside, and from much further afield. The variety available in the market was a testament to the wealth and power of Correndrum and the flow of goods that passed through it.

Today, though, Cassian was focused on items from the nearby forests, the plants Master Linus had requested. A veteran of many market days, he knew who was most likely to have which items, so he headed first to the stall where the harvester Sera usually set up.

Sera wasn't one to crowd onto the main rows of the market. She liked to have her bushels and baskets and pouches spread across several tables where she'd have more room to display them to their full benefit. The freshness of her harvests was the reason she was sought after by those who appreciated such qualities. Traffic was lower in the back of the square, but her customers knew where to find her, and besides, fewer passersby meant less damage to the plants. And fewer that would disappear as well. Market days were always a little chaotic, and there were always a few out to help themselves to a few select