Star Winds

Some passages were more or less intelligible. Such as: “When the artifex depicts colored flowers, surrounded by griffins and dragons, he indicates the sublimation of sulphur accomplished by means of an athanor of infusoration, or in other words by fulmination; for if this operation is carried out with sufficient intensity and duration the flowers will be seen. Likewise, when the reverse of the fifth page shows the blood of young children gathered together and giving forth serpents, the artifex indicates the intensive fulmination of quicksilver …”

To impress the baron with his alchemical training, Rachad had been explaining the terms in this passage. “Chiefly, of course, the book speaks of the primus agens, the materials with which one must start,” he said airily, parroting Gebeth. “Ordinarily alchemical treatises never clearly reveal that. It is the essential secret.”

“Little would it avail you to know this secret, locked away on Earth,” the baron retorted. “Your Earth metals are of no use for transformation, even I know that. It’s celestial metals that are needed—metals with special properties found only among the stars.”

He drained a goblet and stuffed more bread and chicken into his mouth. Taken aback, Rachad pondered this revelation. It was an aspect he had never thought of before—though of course the baron’s words could not be relied on. It was likely that he was simply repeating something he had heard.

Rachad’s sudden discomfiture must have shown, for the baron laughed. Rachad allowed his gaze to wander down the long table, where there sat a comely young girl who for some time had been drawing his glances. Her name, he had heard, was Elissea; she was Matello’s niece.

She smiled. He smiled. Shyly, he closed the book and resumed eating.

The baron had given him a favored place at the table, being curious—though it seemed to Rachad in a halfhearted way—to know what he could tell him of the book. The Bucentaur remained in orbit; but Rachad could not help but marvel at how well the comforts of the dining table were adapted to the state of free-fall. Cling-slippers, together with garments that clung almost as effectively to the special plush of the chairs, made the lack of gravity close to irrelevant. The diners drank from closed goblets punctured with tiny holes as in a pepperbox. The food, all solid—bread, meat, cheeses, confections and fruit, pastries and pies—was wrapped in paper napkins and, so that it did not float away, was spitted with skewers which were stuck into cork boards. Apparently the cooks were not discommoded by this restriction, for the repast was delicious.

Belching with satisfaction, the baron rose to his feet. “In two hours we depart for Maralia,” he announced. “But first, I honor my pledge. Bring them on!”

At these words Matello’s private secretary seized the alchemical book from under Rachad’s nose and made off with it. All those at table—mostly the baron’s senior officers—hurriedly rose also, whether or not they had finished their meal. Serving girls and footmen unfastened the clasps that locked chairs and tables to the floor, steering the now floating furniture to the sides of the hall.

Baron Matello seated himself on a throne-like chair farther back in the banqueting hall. The main doors opened. Through them came Captain Zhorga and his crewmen, looking about themselves nervously.

Mingling with the others, Rachad sidled toward the door. He knew what was coming; perhaps if he could slip away, he thought, his defection from the proceedings would pass unnoticed.

It was not to be. Near the door he came face to face with Elissea, and stopped, entranced by her pert face and smiling eyes. “You came on that ship from Earth, didn’t you?” she said. “Uncle says it was very brave of you.”

He laughed jauntily, and could not resist lingering. Soon he found himself boasting of his experiences, while in the background he heard, like a continuous murmuring, the voices first of Zhorga and then of the others as one by one they took the fealty oath. Eventually he reminded himself that he should leave; but suddenly Matello’s voice rang out.

“And where is the lad who was apprenticed to the alchemist? We mustn’t leave him out; I need him on my staff.”

Rachad felt himself pushed forward, reluctantly.