Free The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi

robes.
    “Magic brings bramble,” he said. “And even you, alchemist, hungered to use it.”
    “Only a little. To save my daughter.”
    “Every spell maker has a reasonable excuse. If we grant individual mercies, we commit collective suicide. A pretty puzzle for an ethical man like you.”
    “You think we’re the same, then?”
    “Magic is magic. Bramble is bramble. I couldn’t care less what hairs a philosopher splits. Now, every night, I sleep knowing that bramble will no longer encroach. So I sleep very well indeed.” He stood. Nodded at my new balanthast. “Hurry with your new device, alchemist. As always, your daughter’s well-being depends upon it.”
    “Why not let me go?”
    “Why would I do such a thing? Then you might go and carry this knowledge of balanthasts to some other city. Perhaps give others the illusion that discipline is no longer needed.” He shook his head. “No. That would not do at all.”
    “Khaim is my home,” I said. “I have no wish to leave. I could construct balanthasts. You say you want to cut back the bramble now. At last, our goals align.”
    “Our goals already align, alchemist.” Scacz turned away. “Hurry with your tools. I have fiefs I wish to disburse.”
    “And if I refuse?”
    Scacz turned back. “Then I simply will stop caring whether your daughter coughs up that river of blood of hers. The choice is yours. It always has been.”
    “You’ll never let me go.”
    Scacz laughed. “I can’t think why I would. You’re far too useful.”

    That night I lay in my bed, surrounded by the weirdly comfortable smells and drips of my prison workshop, turning the problem of the Majister over in my head. I could not bargain with the dragon mind of Scacz. And despite his words, I suspected my time was running out.
    Building balanthasts to create bramble fiefdoms was not the green grass of a new beginning, but the signal smoke of a bitter end. Once a brigade of balanthasts was prepared, there would be no more need of me.
    I lay listening to the night guard’s snores, and began to plan. Assembling pieces and components into a larger whole. Not a plan fully realized, but still… an intrigue. A tangle of misdirection, and at the end of its winding way, a path, perhaps, out of my Halizakian box. I considered the alleys and angles, testing chinks in the armor of my logic.
    If I was honest, there were many.
    But Pima, Jiala and I had already lived too long in the center of Khaim’s bloody vortex. The storm would eventually tear us to pieces as well. Scacz might be a man of his word, but he was not a man of charity. The Mayor and Scacz thought in terms of trade, and when I had nothing left to offer, they would do away with me.
    In the morning, I was up and constructing.
    “Jaiska,” I said. “Go find Scacz. Tell him I’ve had an inspiration.”
    When Scacz appeared, I made my proposal. “If you let me walk outside occasionally, I will make your detectors more powerful. I can extend their reach considerably, I think. And build them so that a man need not even handle them. They could run continuously, in market squares, all along the thoroughfares, at city gates.”
    Scacz looked at me suspiciously. “Why so amenable all of a sudden?”
    “I want to live well. I want to see the sun and the sky, and I’m willing to bargain.”
    “You think to escape.”
    “From a great majister like you?” I shook my head. “I have no illusions. But I cannot live forever without fresh air.” I held up an arm. “Look at me. I’m wasting away. Look how pale I become. Shackle me how you like, but I would breathe fresh air.”
    “How will you improve your design?”
    “Here.” I rolled out parchment and dipped my quill. Scratched out the bones of a design. “It would be a bit like a torch, standing. A sentry. It would issue a slow smoke from its boiler. Anyone who walked near would be caught.” I pushed the rough sketch through the bars.
    “You’ve been holding this back.”
    I