Star Winds

Chapter ELEVEN

After a long sleep between linen sheets, Rachad was awakened by a maid-servant who brought him a breakfast of fruit and crumbly flavored bread. Shortly, when he had washed and dressed himself, a footman arrived and escorted him to a part of the Aegis he had not seen before. The sumptuous luxury with which the walls were normally draped gave way once more to gray adamant, bare and metallic.

The Duke of Koss, clasping the lead-bound pages of The Root of Transformations, waited for him at the entrance to a featureless corridor. He smiled, and seemed refreshed.

“Good morning, young Caban. You slept well, I trust?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Rachad answered, addressing the duke as etiquette would elsewhere have required, though in the Aegis it scarcely seemed necessary.

“I, too. Our evening meal was delightful, when experienced for the second time.”

The duke pointed into the corridor. “At the heart of the Aegis there lies a second stronghold, protected by an adamant maze of great intricacy and cunning. It is, almost, an aegis within an aegis—there is machinery by which its structure can be rearranged, so that even if an intruder knows his way through the person it protects can render this knowledge useless. If the maze shifted around him in mid-journey, in fact, he would be trapped.”

He tightened his robe about him. “I installed Amschel’s laboratory there, to save him from meddlesome curiosity-seekers. We will go to him now.”

“We can get through safely, I take it?” Rachad asked, staring down the corridor.

“Oh, indeed. One needs but to memorize a certain sequence of numbers, which I have done by means of a mnemonic system.” Again the duke smiled, sardonically this time. “Of course, if Master Amschel takes it into his head to alter the maze, we will be lost.”

They set forth, walking side by side. “What’s the reason for this inner fortress?” Rachad asked as they went “Is it in case the Aegis itself is breached?”

The duke shook his head. “No—such a possibility was never admitted by the alien beast who constructed the Aegis, which is specified to be invulnerable. Ostensibly he included it so as to offer a place of shelter should warfare break out within the Aegis.”

Rachad kept silence as the duke threaded his way through the maze, muttering to himself and hesitating only occasionally. The maze was, as he had said, extremely complicated. They moved not only through a labyrinth of corridors but also up and down winding ramps and steep staircases. Their route twisted and turned at such a rate that it was impossible to estimate the size of the maze in terms of space, and Rachad lost all sense of direction.

Always there seemed to be at least half a dozen possible directions to take. Once the duke stopped, and gestured to Rachad, pointing to a passage ahead of them.

“Walk down there,” he ordered.

Rachad attempted to obey, but came up against an invisible wall of what felt like glass.

The duke laughed softly. “You have just walked into a mirror.”

“But I am not reflected in it!” Rachad protested. “And neither are you!” Bewildered, he glanced behind him. “In fact it doesn’t reflect our surroundings at all.”

“True—it’s a trick mirror. The image is conveyed from elsewhere by means of lenses and visual conduits. Just one more means to confuse the wanderer in the maze. He never knows whether what he sees is real or not.”

Rachad thought of the viewscreen aboard the Bucentaur. They passed on, and presently came to what he took to be the maze’s indwelling secret, emerging into a small wood of stunted trees, the uneven floor being carpeted with moss. The overhead glow-globes were dim; the wood seemed to be cast in dusk.

Sitting in a hillock was a small, round-shouldered old man with silky hair which fell to his shoulders, and who turned at the sound of their footsteps. His age, Rachad guessed, was close to Gebeth’s, or he could have been even older. At first glance his face was monkey-like and melancholy, but this impression faded quickly. The brown eyes did, indeed, seem more introspective than was usual, but their steadfastness, and the general air of collectedness that surrounded him, dispelled any resemblance to a dodderer. One hand on his knee, he watched as the two visitors approached.

The duke bowed respectfully. “Master Amschel, I bring what was promised—the missing sections of the book. In addition, may I introduce its bearer, Master Rachad Caban, also an aspirant in the Great Work.”

Rachad felt Amschel inspecting him without visible change of expression. “Master Caban has named a price for his donation of the text,” the duke continued. “He wishes to join you in the preparation of the stone. I find,” he added, in a sterner tone which showed he expected no opposition, “the request to be a reasonable one.”

“Indeed,” the artifex replied in a mild voice. He reached out and accepted the tome. Opening its lead covers, he spent what seemed like a long time poring over the pages.

Then he looked up at Rachad. “And what stage have you reached in the preparation of the stone?”

Rachad faltered, and swallowed. “No stage at all,” he admitted timidly, intimidated by the alchemist’s air of self-assurance. “I am here on behalf of my own teacher, Master Gebeth of the planet Earth, who has spent a life-time striving for success.”

The brown eyes lingered on him.

“Are the chapters all they should be, Master Alchemist?” asked the duke eagerly.

“They appear to be authentic. The book is complete. We may resume work.”

“And how long before the stone is ours?”

Amschel rose to his feet. He barely reached up to Rachad’s shoulder.

“If we use the lightning method, the operation itself is almost instantaneous. But the preparation of the primus agens may take a good deal of time, as will the construction of the necessary apparatus.”

“Then I will bid you good day, and I wish you success,” the duke said distantly. Without another word he strolled off the way he had come, leaving Rachad alone with Amschel.

The alchemist beckoned to him. Together they walked through the silent wood, between gnarled, twisted trees, until an adamant wall loomed up ahead of them.

A square portal slid open. Amschel led Rachad through it. Behind his back the door closed with a loud, decisive clang.

“This,” said Amschel, “is my laboratory.”

The air was charged with pungent, penetrating smells. Rachad recognized the bite of acids, the stink of heated metals, and the acerbic odor of the energy known as infusoration.

He could not immediately see how extensive the laboratory was. It resembled a crypt, consisting of vault-ceilinged chambers connected by arched openings, and these seemed to go on and on. But already the variety and scope of the apparatus bewildered him, used as he was to Gebeth’s back room. He could see not only the usual array of furnaces, descensories, sublimatories, crucibles and flasks, but also devices whose purpose he could not remotely guess at, tended by up to a dozen white-smocked workers.

Amschel, however, directed Rachad to a chair, and sat opposite him, knee to knee, The Root of Transformations on his lap.

“So, let’s find out about you. Ask me a question.”

“What?”

“It’s to discover your level of knowledge. Ask me something you, or your master, would like to know but haven’t been able to find out. Something specific.”

Rachad thought for a moment or two, then nodded. “There is something,” he said. “What is the correct sulphur-mercury ratio for gold? We know that all metals are composed of sulphur and mercury, and can be converted into one another by altering the ratio between the two. But Gebeth could never discover what the various ratios are.”

“Well, that tells me roughly your level of competence,” Amschel said wryly. “The sulphur-mercury theory of metals is wrong, and any efforts made in that direction are a waste of time. Never mind. Tell me more about your master.”

Nonplussed to learn that his ignorance was even deeper than he had believed, Rachad began, haltingly at first, to speak of Gebeth, describing what he could of his methods. But he dissembled when it came to relating how he had left Earth, implying that Gebeth himself had given him his part of the book, and making no mention of Baron Matello. Amschel, however, gave no sign that he suspected duplicity and only asked where Gebeth had obtained the book. Rachad said that it had come from the last surviving priest of an ancient temple, at which he seemed satisfied.

Finally Amschel leaned back with a sigh, eyeing Rachad. “It strikes me you are a rash and impulsive young man,” he said. “Such qualities can be useful, even in the Work, in which caution is a handicap. Of greater use, however, are patience and the capacity for long, careful thought—these I believe you lack. Nevertheless you may join my staff and I will teach you what I can. Does that suit you?”

Rachad nodded. “I have one further question, Master Amschel,” he said.

“What is that?”

Rachad hesitated. “On Earth, where I come from, gold is precious. But here in Maralia it is common. Why, then, do men such as yourself still wish to manufacture it? It seems to me that the aim of the art is redundant.”

Amschel smiled. He, too, hesitated. Then he seemed to make up his mind to speak.

“We are in a secret place,” he said. “The Aegis is secret, and this, the center of the inner maze, is a secret within a secret. So now I will tell you a secret within a secret within a secret—the making of gold is not the object of the Hermetic Art. That was a screen, erected for the gullible in the distant past—though to be sure, it has often happened that men who in the beginning were motivated by greed for gold have found in the end that the Art has worked an inner alchemy upon them, and their greed is transmuted into desire for knowledge, for its own sake.”

“I don’t understand, Master Amschel,” Rachad said, bewildered. “If not gold—then what?”

“The goal is the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone, also known as the Tincture, or the Elixir, an ultimate state of matter which can accomplish much more than the mere transmuting of lead into gold—though if need be, it can achieve that too. For that reason the making of gold is a symbol, or by-product, of the alchemical goal. But we will speak of the Stone later.”

Amschel rose. “For today I will show you some of our simpler apparatus. The more difficult equipment can wait until you have a better appreciation of our work.”

Laying aside the book, he stepped through the nearest opening. In the adjoining chamber Rachad saw a huge brick structure that reached almost from floor to ceiling.

“This furnace can deliver three hundred and eighty different temperatures at one and the same time,” Amschel said. “I designed it myself. It greatly reduces the time that need be spent on routine operations.”

In another chamber stood ten smaller furnaces. These were cylindrical and high-necked, and smoked slightly. “These sublimatories supply a variety of unusual substances,” Amschel explained. “They are in constant use.”

“What happens to the fumes?” Rachad asked.

“They are carried out of the Aegis by a system of flues. We can also admit starlight by opening other small shafts. The light of certain stars can exert a subtle influence on some specially delicate operations, as can planetary configurations.”

They moved on. “I have taken a particular interest in etheric compounds,” the artifex said. “Prominent among these, as you may know, is light. Here is something intriguing.”

They had come to a bench neatly laid out with labeled bottles and sample boxes. From a felt-lined tray Amschel picked up a stony blue pellet, or possibly a semiprecious gemstone. “These are found on the planet Aggryxa. Watch.”

Fixing the stone in a nearby bracket, he gestured to the assistant who had been following them, and who took from a cupboard a peculiar-looking lamp which was backed by a concave mirror, presumably to focus its light in one direction.

The attendant lit the wick, and directed the ensuing flame’s bright glow onto the stone. For nearly a minute nothing happened, and Rachad began to grow impatient. Then, without warning, a dazzling shaft of blue light shot from the pellet and struck the adamant wall opposite, scattering in all directions in a coruscating display.

In seconds the emission ceased. The assistant blew out the lamp and put it back in the cupboard.

“The light projected by this gem has special properties,” Amschel informed Rachad. “A beam of it will travel endlessly without spreading. If focused through a lens, it is able to slice even diamond. I believe the material of the gem achieves this by storing and modifying the light of the lamp in some way. I have tried to duplicate the effect artificially, and have manufactured an inferior variety of Aggryxa gems by impregnating ruby with metallic sublimates.”

Rachad’s eyes smarted from the explosion of blueness. “Can anything else be achieved with it?” he asked.

“Very little, owing to its fleetness,” Amschel said. “As you probably know, visible light combines ether and fire, with ether predominating. There are other radiations composed of ether and air, but these are just as fleet and also are invisible, since the sense of sight responds to fire alone. For practical work I prefer compounds in which ether plays a lesser role, and which are therefore slower and more manipulatable. In infusoration, for instance, ether and fire are nearly equally balanced and mingled with about one-twentieth part water. Do you know it? Some call it galvanism, others the electric fluid. It will flow easily through solid iron or copper.”

“Master Gebeth has an infusorator using zinc, lead, copper and acids.”

“He would be interested to see my own facilities, which I boast are unexampled in the entire galaxy. I have developed new types of infusorator capable of delivering the substance with unprecedented intensity. And yet—it is still not enough.” His voice fell to a mutter. “Still not enough.”

Speaking in a low tone, he unscrewed the gemstone and replaced it in its box. “For fifty years I have studied and worked. But one lifetime is not enough. Given another fifty years, perhaps I could solve all remaining problems and produce the Stone unaided.”

“Have you always worked in the Aegis?”

“For many years I traveled extensively and worked with other adepts, including non-human philosophers. Ten years ago the Duke of Koss sent word that he had a part of The Root of Transformations in his possession, a book thought lost forever. He promised to search for the rest of the text and offered me unlimited resources. So I came into the Aegis.”

“It amazes me that the secret is so inaccessible,” Rachad remarked. “Does no one know it?”

“You would not be amazed if you knew what is entailed,” Amschel replied. “It is the most difficult of all works, the greatest of all treasures.”

“Someone must know,” Rachad fretted. He brightened.

“What about the alien creature who built the Aegis? He must know all about the transformations of matter. He can make adamant.”

“Oh, I too can make adamant, in small quantities,” Amschel chuckled. “Still, I am glad to see that you have a lively mind. Let me explain adamant to you. It is simply elemental earth, purged of all trace of other elements. Being so purged, and pure, it is impervious to all assaults—impervious even to the alkahest.”

Rachad listened with interest to this new information. “That’s what I don’t understand. Isn’t the alkahest a solvent for everything?”

“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.”