Star Winds

He paused before continuing. “But a man who possesses the Philosopher’s Stone is proof against the Kerek Power. His thoughts are his own, his consciousness is complete and invulnerable. He can rotate the elements, he can expand his consciousness into the macrocosm.” Amschel shrugged, spreading his hands. “Perhaps, with Hermetic art, I could indeed do much to help combat the Kerek. I could create armies of semi-beings. Armed with the Stone, perhaps I could even turn Ouroborous, the great serpent of nature, against them. But still they might be victorious, and then we would have lost forever, with no man free of the Kerek Power. No, I must think centuries ahead. I shall be subtle. I shall train adepts. I shall formulate simpler paths to the Stone, paths requiring but rudimentary apparatus so that the great work may be carried out in secret. Only in this way can I ensure that others besides myself remain free of the Kerek Power—for it is a law that only he who himself prepares the Stone may possess it. A secret brotherhood of those not subject to mental slavery will come into being, albeit that the whole galaxy lies under the Kerek Power.”

“Is this the reason for your work?” Rachad asked.

“I sought the Stone for its own sake. But to save mankind—that, certainly, has increased the urgency.”

“And the duke—was it also his aim?” Rachad continued, thinking that perhaps he had wronged the haughty aesthete.

Amschel snorted softly. “The duke? No. His interests always began and ended in himself.”

Again Amschel indicated the documents on the table. “Take these, then. Wolo will take you back through the maze and stay with you. After three days you may return.”

Reluctantly Rachad picked up the volumes. “You talk of what you will do—yet none of us can even leave the Aegis!”

“As to that, we shall see.”

Wolo beckoned him. Rachad followed, then turned back to Amschel. “If Master Gebeth were to study these, could he make the Stone?”

“I think not, from what you have told me. For one thing, he would not be able to duplicate my equipment.”

“It saddens me to think that his search was hopeless from the start.”

“Nothing is ever completely hopeless,” Amschel said.

***

According to tradition there were three methods of attaining the Hermetic goal. The first was the slow method, in which the subject had to be enclosed in a sealed vessel and heated over a period of years. The second method, conducted in an open crucible, was quicker but more dangerous. And finally there was the instant or lightning method, about which tradition said very little except that the adept had first to master forces of a colossal order and that therefore it was the most dangerous of all.

The lightning method was the path Amschel had adopted. Once his assistants had helped him to make the final preparations he had sent them away for their own safety, through the inner maze to seek the protection of King Lutheron. He was now alone in the laboratory, ready to put the instructions embodied in The Root of Transformations to the test.

The infusorators, along with the accumulators and giant capacitors that accompanied them, had all been raised to their highest possible pitch; they could scarcely contain their pent-up energy. The great cucurbit Amschel had chosen to be the scene of the drama hummed loudly on low charge, the ten-foot globe’s interior almost enmeshed in the iron and silver arrays that were designed to deliver precise patterns of etheric heat into the transmutation area.

The load of azoth, impregnated with all the elements it lacked as primus agens so that it was dominated by none, had already been introduced into the vessel. It floated in the globe’s center, swirling slowly, suspended by magnetic emanations from the surrounding galvanic coils.

All that day Amschel had spent preparing himself for the ultimate moment, practicing meditation so as to clear his mind. He checked all connections for one last time, then pulled the master lever that, all at once, enlivened the apparatus within the cucurbit.

A haze of golden light filled the glass vessel. The floating ball of azoth seethed. It seemed to go through a multitude of color changes almost too fast for the eye to follow. Amschel put his hand to his eyes to shield them from the glare. Peering through his fingers, through the now white-hot grids and coils, he tried to watch what happened in the center of the cucurbit.