Star Winds

Eventually he opened his eyes again and began to crawl back to his only shelter, the dugout. He had to admit that considering his injuries it was amazing how well he felt. The medicine Amschel had given him seemed to be glowing in every vein.

Was it really the true elixir, as Amschel had called it, or was that by way of being an apothecary’s exaggeration?

Seeing Amschel again had put a different complexion on everything. Had what had seemed a dreadful accident in the infusoratory laboratory been misinterpreted? Had Amschel, in spite of such destruction—perhaps by means of such destruction—actually produced the Stone?

The question was already academic. The Stone, if indeed Amschel had possessed it, was at this moment accompanying him to the bottom of the marsh.

With a grunt and a sigh Rachad rolled into the dugout, where he fell once again into a deep sleep.

***

Olam was a quiet place these days. With the sea trade taking so much of commerce, with flying ships being grounded one by one for lack of silk, the time had come when the whine of ether whistle, or the billowing of blue sail over the rooftops, was unusual enough to make the townspeople stand and gaze nostalgically, knowing that before long such visions would be gone forever.

The Street of the Alchemists had also sunk into quietude as the town’s fortunes declined, and fewer and fewer feet trod its sand-covered way. Master Gebeth was therefore surprised, late one winter evening, to hear a knock on his door. He opened it to see a small man, wearing a brown woolen cloak, and who addressed him by name in an accent he could not place.

The stranger introduced himself as a fellow practitioner, adding that he had been given Gebeth’s address while living in foreign parts, and said that he would be glad to discuss the Spagyric art with one who had also sought the universal medicine. Gebeth, who had come to accept his loneliness along with his failure, nevertheless invited the fellow into his living room, and for an hour or so they conversed.

The visitor spoke with a strange confidence, as though the Hermetic goal were attained fact rather than something much sought after, and Gebeth, who knew all too well the difficulties involved, grew irritated with what he took to be a pretended knowledge. He asked his guest if he could tell him what was the menstruum, or solvent by which the mineral spirit could be extracted from metals. The other replied, with a smile, that it was a heavenly salt known only to the wise, an answer that Gebeth could as well have given himself.

Suddenly the despondency he had felt for so long surfaced, and he threw up his hands. “What’s the use of talking?” he declared. “You are wasting your time here. I no longer believe in the transmutation of metals.”

He lowered his head while the other stared at him with some seriousness. In a low voice he unburdened himself further. “A year ago I ceased all alchemical strivings. The Philosopher’s Stone is but a figment. Only fools and charlatans speak of it.”

There was silence for a while. Gebeth stared at the floor. It was not just the disappointment, the never-ended failure, that had brought on his despair. There was also guilt. He could not forget young Rachad Caban, whom years ago he had allowed to embark on a mad adventure. The Wandering Queen had not been heard of to this day. It was certain that she had come to grief in the trackless wastes of space.

The stranger’s expression grew stern, and he spoke insistently, but softly. “You do not believe in the Stone of the Philosophers? In the Tincture that perfects metals, and that transforms man? Your experiences must have been disheartening indeed.”

With careful movements he reached into his jerkin and pulled out a small box of carved ivory about the size of a snuffbox. From this he took out a yet smaller box folded from waxed paper, which he opened out and laid on the flat of his hand.

Gebeth bent to inspect its contents: a sparkling red powder. For long moments he stared at this powder, which was not like any substance he had seen before. It scintillated with a life of its own, as if light were ceaselessly emerging and dissolving within it. It defied the eyes; one seemed to be looking at the jostling lights of a distant gorgeous city.

“All I require,” his guest said firmly, “is a crucible, a fire, and half a pound of lead.”

Gebeth looked up into the face, with its steady brown eyes and frame of silky hair, of his mysterious visitor. He blinked, not knowing what to say.

Then he nodded, rose, and led the way into his back room. It took but a little time to kindle a fire. Gebeth worked the bellows until the furnace roared, then set a crucible over the heat, putting a slab of lead into it as he was directed. Silently they waited, while the lead slowly melted, and at last was a gleaming pool.

His visitor produced a knife, and took up but a pinch of the powder on its tip, then scattered it over the molten mass.