Star Winds

“That you opened the Aegis to the duke’s enemies? Yes … but the fastness of the Aegis is not, after all, Master Amschel’s concern. His work nears culmination. He reminds you of his promise.”

“Promise?”

“He made a bargain with you.”

“Oh. Yes.” A note of suspicious belligerency entered Rachad’s voice. “Well, what if I refuse to come with you?”

Wolo lowered his head, as if understanding something. “I see … Then I will bid you good night, Master Rachad. I will inform the master that you have no interest in the Stone of the Philosophers.”

“Wait!” Rachad said as the other turned to go. “I’ll come.”

Quickly he dressed. Having come this far in pursuit of Gebeth’s goal, he might as well see the business through, he thought. At least it would provide a temporary diversion in what promised to be a lifetime of tedium.

Wolo led him calmly and confidently toward the maze. The Aegis seemed to be sleeping. Once they heard the sound of carousing, as some of Matello’s troops, in defiance of King Lutheron’s orders, disported with the Duke of Koss’s former courtesans. Then they were in the maze, and a distracted look came over Wolo as he repeated the sequence of numbers he had learned, guiding Rachad through into the dim wood.

In the laboratory, Amschel was waiting, wearing a colorful smock on which were woven patterns of star clusters. He sat at a table on which lay The Root of Transformations, the two halves bound together now in lead covers. Beside it was a thick pile of loose papers.

“Good evening, Rachad,” he greeted genially. “Your intrusion into our lives was not, it seems, entirely from honest motives.”

Rachad reddened, and felt sufficiently stung to retort angrily. “What I said was true—I did come to Maralia to obtain the secret of the Stone, though originally I had expected to look no farther than Mars. As for the other thing—yes, I admit it. Baron Matello sent me in here, to open the Aegis and unseat the duke. And for good reason!” Rachad’s voice became more heated. “Don’t you know what’s going on outside? Humanity is being invaded! Koss’s estates could have helped in the war—but now it’s too late!”

“Oh, I am aware of what is happening,” Amschel said quietly. “Did I not tell you that I am a much-traveled man? At a time when Matello and his ilk took cognizance only of their own private quarrels, I already knew how scant mankind’s chances were of prevailing against the Kerek.”

“And so you hid yourself in here and studied philosophy!” Rachad accused. “Why didn’t you invent new alchemical weapons to fight the Kerek, instead? That’s all alchemy is good for anyway, Baron Matello says.”

“Weapons alone will not prevail. The Kerek are too numerous, too ferocious, too resourceful. They will swallow Maralia, then Wenchlas, as they have swallowed others. As they go their numbers increase by reason of their control over captured populations. A large part of the galaxy, if not all the galaxy, may one day comprise the Kerek empire.”

“How readily you seem to accept it,” Rachad muttered.

“I fight the Kerek in my own way,” Amschel told him. “At last I have made azoth. I have impregnated it with all five elements in equal measure. Now only the last two operations remain to be performed: reduction to prima materia, and the creation from that of the Stone. I believe I now have sufficient information to carry these operations through to completion.” He gestured to the book and file on the table. “There is The Root of Transformations, together with a set of my explanatory notes. Together they form an extremely valuable corpus of knowledge. You may take them, in fulfillment of my promise.”

“Why are you giving them to me now? Why not after you have made the Stone?”

“Immense energies are involved in the final operation,” Amschel explained. “The process could go wrong, the laboratory could be destroyed. Then this knowledge would also be destroyed.”

“I see … But how will the Stone help you fight the Kerek? Is it some sort of weapon, then?”

Amschel smiled. “No, the Stone is not a weapon. The true secret of Kerek strength is not, in fact, in their fighting ability but in the factor known as the Kerek Power. I have visited a Kerek planet, and I have seen how this power works. It is a mental force that takes command of cogitation. When under the Kerek Power a man’s thoughts are not his own—they are given him by the Power, and he is unable to generate thoughts from his own consciousness. This force is such that the human mind is unable to withstand it, and that is why the galaxy may, in time, be dominated by a single mentality, a single thought.”