Star Winds

“It will dissolve all naturally occurring substances,” Amschel corrected. “But that is because the alkahest is simply water—elemental water, purged and pure, as adamant is, and just as difficult to obtain as adamant is. You see, any natural substance contains all five elements to some extent, though only the major constituents are generally taken into account and the rest are present in negligible quantity. The alkahest, however, will immediately find and blend with whatever water is present, however negligible. It will flood into the substance, overpower it and disperse the other elements. For this reason elemental water is said to carry the qualities of universal dissolution and of like finding like. But it cannot enter adamant, because adamant is the only solid body to contain not the slightest trace of water.”

“I wonder what pure air would be like?” Rachad wondered. “Or pure fire?”

“That I cannot tell you. But perhaps you would like to handle pure earth.” Amschel turned and spoke to the assistant, who then moved to a cupboard, opened it and drew out a small trolley, which he wheeled forward with an effort disproportionate to its size.

The interior of the trolley was yet another felt-lined sample case. In it, Rachad saw a glistening gray brick or slab about four inches by three.

“Flammarion’s secret is that he knows how to make adamant in vast quantities,” Amschel said. “Here is a sample I prepared myself. Pick it up.”

Rachad bent and took the tiny slab in his fingers, but it seemed to be stuck. He pulled harder, then, squatting on his haunches and using both hands, he managed to raise it an inch or two by using the strength of his legs.

Panting, he dropped the brick, then stood up. “How could anything be so heavy?” he asked.

“Ultimate hardness, ultimate rigidity, and extreme weight—those are the qualities of earth, when unmodified by combination.”

“Hmm.” Rachad pondered, then laughed lightly. “I suppose this answers the old riddle of what kind of vessel one would keep the universal solvent in.”

“That’s right. The alkahest must be kept in a vessel made of adamant. Any other vessel it will dissolve.” Amschel pointed to an arched opening. “Come, I will show you to your sleeping quarters. Then we will see how you may best be fitted into our work.”

Chapter TWELVE

For the next month Rachad saw little of Amschel, who withdrew into his study with the new knowledge Rachad had brought him. Instead, he began a period of training in the laboratory, at first learning to tend the sublimatories and other furnaces, and later going on to the operations of distillation, congelation and projection—at which Amschel’s assistants were incomparably more learned than Gebeth, even though most of them were but borrowed liegemen of the duke’s.

Every day Amschel would issue fresh orders for the preparation of some strange-sounding substance or other. Even without such instructions there was plenty of work for the laboratory, for there were a number of long-standing operations to attend to—operations which, Rachad was assured, had been in progress for a number of years.

There was, for instance, an hermetically sealed crystal vessel which had been subjected to the gradually increasing heat of an athanor for over five years, and whose contents were inspected daily for the expected color changes. In a complicated pelican, a type of double-reflux alembic, a substance had undergone cohobation—repeatedly recycled distillation—for even longer. And there were other operations, less easy to understand, all pursuant to the alchemical theory that new properties would evolve in a material if a process were continued for long enough.

In this way he learned a great deal he had not known before of practical alchemy. He also had access to the library, where he found hundreds of books and manuscripts, ranging from very ancient tracts such as The Sophic Hydrolith and The Visions of Zosimos—as well, of course, as the Asch Mezareph—to somewhat later works, among them The Secret Art of Plasmas and The Etheric Chariot. Of their texts he could grasp little, but he found great pleasure in poring over their numinous illustrations, especially those which depicted the interior of a flask as a little world, sometimes complete with landscape, in which strange, beguiling acts were taking place.

But eventually Rachad’s interest waned, as had happened under Gebeth’s tutelage on Earth, and he began to think how he might carry out his secret mission.

Luckily his movements were not restricted. He had been taught the number code which enabled him to find his way through the maze, and he had the freedom of the Aegis. Flammarion had also given him a rough idea of its layout, and he had little trouble in reconnoitering the approaches both to the main gate and the smaller side entrance.