Alchemy

 You could tell he was an alchemist by the lack of eyebrows and a slightly scarred look around the temples. You could tell he was an unusual alchemist by the fact that he didn't scream or hide under the table when the door crashed open and Alric rushed in. Of course, a steady hand while pouring volatile liquids is also a common trait amongst alchemists, or rather amongst those who have remained alchemists (as opposed to, say, a loud noise, a fireworks display, or a rather interesting stain upon the ceiling), but a tendency to dive for cover when the nitroglycerin begins to pop is just as much of a survival trait. Viktor's lack of reaction was therefore, if not unheard of, certainly unexpected. Most alchemists in his position would look like an exercise in strictly controlled terror; Viktor looked like a man who simply hadn't noticed.

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Viktor was an alchemist at the Guild for Transformative and Material Science. Or, to be accurate, a student alchemist, having not yet completed the final exam that would grant him full guild membership. Alric was his friend, in as much as Viktor had friends, having assumed that the purpose of attending the guild was, in fact, to study, rather than, as Alric put it, 'party till you puke, and then hope you can scrape a Richard at the end of it. They couldn't have been more different. For a start, given the lack of eyebrows, Viktor was surprisingly good looking. Somehow, the lack of sunlight and outdoor exercise that treated other alchemists so badly had left Viktor with a pale complexion and slender frame more akin to a Byronic poet than a scientist. Alric, on the other hand, looked like a scarecrow in a lightning storm. His hair stood out at odd angles to his head, while his mismatched clothes betrayed an obvious attempt at fashion without any underlying knowledge of what fashion was. It was as though he had been dressed by an insane magpie ... in the dark ... at a jumble sale. In fact, this was not so different to the actual sequence of events, since his desire for the latest fashions, and therefore frequent shopping trips, was severely tempered by his lack of funds, his inability to distinguish flamboyant from gaudy, and his tendency to get up after a heavy night, stagger to the wardrobe and throw on whatever first came to hand. At present, he was wearing a scarlet waistcoat, green trousers, a checkered shirt and a pair of shoes made from dark, crushed, blue velvet. He surveyed the crowded workshop where Viktor was plying his trade and came to a conclusion.

"You're still working aren't you. What the hell do you think you're doing? The exam finished hours ago."

Viktor looked up. Around him lay a sea of glass and flames, a great shining edifice to an unknown god, with spiral towers and swooping condensers and quietly suffering round bottomed flasks, whose posteriors were glowing orange in the sacrificial Bunsen fires. Viktor was impassive in the middle, giving polite attention to Alric, but clearly more interested in the darkly bubbling liquids around him. Occasionally something went gloop.

“I got distracted,” he said finally. “I wanted to finish the question.” Alric raised an eyebrow, which was probably showing off in the circumstances.

"You do realise you can't get extra credit. When they take your paper off you, that's it," he pointed out, with the fervour of a man who'd been sprinting for the door at the instant he heard the words 'quills down'.

"I'm not interested in extra credit," said Viktor. "It's just I was nearly there with that last one, and I figured that it'd be nice to get to the end."

"The last one?" said Alric, who had got about halfway through the paper and then spent the last ten minutes thumbing through the remaining questions and writing down random answers in the hope that the way to distill an alembic bezoar was, in fact, to 'crack an egg in it and stir till thickened'. He thought for a moment and then light dawned. "Oh my god, you don't mean the philosopher's stone question?"

Viktor nodded.

"But that's in every paper, even the mocks. It's a joke. An impossibility. It's supposed to represent acceptance of humility or something. One question with no answer, so that no one can ever complete the question with 100%."