Raw Materials

27th Jan 2022

In my shop I keep a jar of unwanted genders by the door; the lid unscrews easily, as I open it often - it seems every week I see someone looking for a new one, or to sell. The barrel of ennui under the counter (heavy, viscous and difficult to move) gets aired less but it's no less a selling point; a little while ago a customer came all the way from Ila Flora for some. She said she'd heard a testimony from a relative in Arnham and it turned out she was Letis Phreason's cousin. I suspect Letis didn't tell her the whole truth about what she'd come for; customers who make me fetch out the little box with the half-cooled nuggets of shame inside usually don't.

It's a myth what they say about apothecares being mercenary, money-minded people who'll strip your hopes and dreams for a schilling. I've met some incompetents over the years, of course, who'd confuse the addictions with the allergies, or get the dose wrong by a factor of ten; but none that didn't understand intuitively the weight of what we do. The central body of our profession, the Societie des Apoteker, regulates almost every aspect of the work. It standardises the training of new apothecares with exactness, and requires a wealth of professional support before it will issue you a licence. You don't get rogues nearly as often as you might think, either. Our methods are highly specialised and you just can't perform even the most ordinary, low-risk procedures without access to highly regulated materials. When I first trained I was suspicious of the degree of control the Societie exerts - a monopoly which benefits only the privileged, who wouldn't be suspicious? But I've become more understanding of the restrictions with time. I keep my suspicions in a small jar between the envies and the guilt, safe, in case I ever need them.

The raw materials I deal with are dangerous in a whole variety of ways, and like all dangerous things are useful only if you respect them. For each phobia I pull out of a person it takes nearly a week of careful distillation before it's even stable enough to bottle. During that time a phobia might decohere and cause any amount of property damage, not to mention what would happen if it found someone to latch on to. But once that week is up, the phobia resembles nothing so harmful as a cloying grey-green mess on the inside of a flask. I sell them to masons, who use it in cement; it clings and dries very hard but not brittle.

Grudges and vendettas are similarly unstable for a short time, but can be titrated into a heavy, deeply caustic substance that's very good for unblocking drains. I sold a vial of concentrated rumourmongering to a surgeon recently who used it as antiseptic on a patient who couldn't have alcohol. Unrequited desire and nymphomania have obvious uses, which is why I tend not to deal in them overmuch - I knew an apothecare in Bledd who became so well-known for her remedies of the heart and the sex that she found she couldn't sell anything else. I do a roaring trade in obsessions and addictions though - they make excellent glues if taken fresh. I've heard uses as varied as frayed rope, cracked porcelain, even flesh wounds.

Tics and obsessions are useful as they tend to run themselves for a long time after extraction. I once saw a patient who bit his nails so much he drew blood, couldn't write. I drew it out of him in a long, exhausting session, and when we were done I tied it in a knot, threw it in a biscuit tin and strapped it shut with a shoelace. It chittered around all night. I eventually set it on a scrubbing brush and got it to clear the shop. People came from all over town just to see it skitter around the corners; I couldn't have advertised better if I'd hung a banner with my face on it from the Korak Bridge. In the end it ran for nearly six months before petering out under the windowsill and clattering to a halt. A little later there was a story in the trade journal about an apothecare getting into trouble for selling a compulsion to a cabbie who'd yoked it to his car; it had driven him and his fare off the road and someone had died. Erratic, you see. Since that I haven't sold any to customers, though I still take payment for extracting them from time to time.

Yes, these things are toxic, and yes they'll blow up in your face if you aren't careful; that's why I am careful. Sometimes I get a customer who I can see in their face that whatever I tell them about safety measures is about to get ignored. Those are the customers I give the blackberry vinegar and the garlic salt and maintain eye contact until they've left and I can get the dangerous stuff back from under the counter. Or sometimes, if I think it might shame them into changing their behaviour, I ask them to leave.

Anyway, the reason you came here: if you run your eyes along the top shelf you can see the disappointments, the self-image issues, the neuroses, the vulnerabilities; the humilities and the introspections, the griefs - careful with those! they're sharp - and the bad faith. And you see that little black phial between the tempers and the bad habits. It isn't heavy - if you lift it (please don't) you might think it's empty, until you realise it's too light, it almost lifts itself away in your fingers. And though it's cool to the touch, it gives - I can't quite explain it - the impression of heat. Like if you set it next to your cheek you'd come away sunburned.

In that phial is a tune. I fished it out of the head of a traveller from Eo, who claimed he'd heard it being whistled on the road, or in a crowded room, or somewhere, he couldn't remember but he wanted it gone. I think now, as you do, that he lied. Something that dangerous does not exchange hands by accident. Will you help?

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