The Phoenix and the Mirror

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BUT THERE WERE no great tidings awaiting them as they made their last landfall, although from the once again increasing tenseness of the Red Man, who might have thought he expected such. No visible disappointment showed in his ruddy face, however, and Vergil — after reflecting briefly that, did he but know the Phoenician’s worry… did the latter but know his… it might well be that neither of them would exchange — saw only the well-remembered beauty of the Bay, Vesuvio’s white plume and Capri’s purple rock, ancient and teeming Neapolis climbing her steepy hills above the harbors thick with shipping. In order that they should not be seen together on ship in Naples, they set a course for Pompeii, where Vergil was to go ashore.

A breeze touched their faces. “And I smell the rotting garbage and the man-stale in the streets,” he said.

“This, too, is life,” said Vergil, after a slight pause.

The reaction astonished him. An-Thon Ebbed-Saphir’s face twisted and suddenly he seemed a thousand years old. “Oh, Melcarth!” he groaned. “Oh, Tyrian Hercules! Life! Life!” He gazed inland, mouth open on silent pain, as if seeking an answer. But none came; nothing and no one came — save only the harbor master’s clerk, seeking the manifest of the vessel, a possible bribe, and a probable free meal and at least a glass of wine.

“What is this?” the clerk exclaimed, surprised. “You left in ballast and you return in ballast? No cargo? No cargo? What kind of business — ”

Vergil flicked the corner of his cape, showing briefly the purple silk pouch with the monogram. “Imperial business…”

“Pardon, pardon, pardon…” The man’s voice died away as he stepped back, raising his hands and his eyes. But he was a true son of the city, and genuine reproach was in his voice as he said, “You might at least have brought a few women…”

All that Captain Ebbed-Saphir said as he and Vergil parted, was “We shall see each other again.”

And, “We must see each other again,” with a slight emphasis on the second word, Vergil answered; adding only that payment was ready at any time in the House of the Brazen Head. The curt, bother-me-not nod he received put him in mind at once of the Phoenician captain’s comments, when they were becalmed, of time and the payment therefore not being always tellable in money.

When he was in his own familiar street again, at his own house, “Watcher, what news?” he asked the guardian Head.

Whose eyes and mouth opened, moved, focused, spoke, saying, “Master, news from Tartis.”

This was confirmed soon enough by Clemens himself. The alchemist was seated in his favored corner of Vergil’s favored room, his leg crossed at an angle which put his left foot almost under his right ear, and he hummed and tutted to himself contentedly as he read from a small book. Looking up brightly at his friend’s entrance, he sang out, “What say you, Vergil, shall we attempt to employ ash of basilisk in this process? Ah… before you answer and before I forget… it’s come. What was sent to Tinland for. Now… ash of basilisk…”

But Vergil was not yet ready to discuss ash of basilisk. He sank into his chair with ineffable relief. “The bird of gold, the messenger bird, it’s returned?” Clemens slowly revolved his massy, maned head. A touch of cold was felt on Vergil’s heart. Had he now, having after all obtained the copper by going himself to Cyprus, to attempt himself the more than fabulous journey to Tinland? “But you said — ”

“I said not ‘What was sent to Tinland,’ but, ‘What was sent to Tinland for.’ That is, the tin itself. No, sadly, that curious and so useful creature never returned, and only one of the guardian falcon-eaglets… sadly battered, sadly torn, but bearing a purse of ore. The Tartisman called the Master of the Air was sadly bitter, I’m afraid. Now, concerning ash of basilisk…”

Concerning this substance, the great authority Roger of Tayfield felt it necessary carefully to distinguish between cockatrices and basilisks. The former hatch from the tiny eggs laid by old cocks on rare occasions, and are merely venomous, their ashes being antidotes to poison: but being thus dangerous — that if no poison were actually present to be counteracted, the patient might die instead from the poison of the cockatrice ash. Basilisks, however, were hatched from the eggs of certain hens, which, not withstanding they be so old that the cocks no longer tread them, in their unnatural lust seek out and gender with toads. That these unions are approved by the King of Hell — says Roger — is shown by the chicks having a tiny crest in the shape of a crown, whence their name from Basil, king. However, as the gaze of the living creatures causes almost instant calcification or petrification, it is customary to put them into opaque containers just before they hatch… else it is necessary to approach them from behind, walking backward… looking into a mirror… If these basilisks are burned to ashes they are of great effect in the making of gold and in other great work among metals. Thus, Roger.

“No,” Vergil said, bitterly, “I think not. The whole thing is far too chancy and uncertain. There is so much which must be done. Concerning which, my Clemens — ”

The alchemist, who had been nodding assent, lips pursed, now lowered his leg and sat up straight, rubbing his hands. “I think you will be well pleased with the preparations. We have, first, enclosed the larger portion of the yard and thus created a new workroom, untainted by the residues of any previous works. I have had windows installed of thin panes of alabaster which will admit a light clear and yet not harsh. Lamps have been hung and new ones, too, also chimneys of the same alabaster. The furnace is prepared, the hearth, the wood and charcoal, the kiln, the tools and implements, anvil and forge, sand and clay and wax, benches and wheels and iron. We have gotten ready, also, vessels of the finest earth, almost like glass, but less fragile. There are liquors of lye and potash, and pickles of aquafortis or oil of vitriol, as you may prefer, even sawdust of boxwood.”

Softly, Vergil said, “Good… good…”

Stroking his huge beard with his huge hand, Clemens said, cheerfully, “I shall think the less of you if you do not check every item as carefully as if I had never seen to it, and you may think the less of me if you find anything not just as you would have it.”

Vergil nodded. His pain had now reached a level at which it almost acted as its own anesthetic. Even more softly, he asked, “Any other news?”

Clemens reflected. No. No, no other news. Cornelia had been poking about once or twice, with Tullio, the latter looking ready to order all hands flayed and flogged at the slightest excuse. But the fact that preparations were always and obviously going on helped allay her impatience and his wrath.

“Oh.” He suddenly looked blank. Vergil raised his eyebrows in inquiry. “You’re back. By Poseidon’s codpiece! How silly of me to have forgotten that you’d gone somewhere farther away than, say, Elba or Ischia. Welcome, then, Vergil, and praise be to the Fair White Matron and her Consort, the Ruddy Man, for having obviously protected you in your journeying.”

Something tugged at Vergil’s mind. Surely he knew well enough that phrase, expressive in the ornate symbology of alchemy of the Moon and the Sun, Silver and Gold, and of their supposed “wedding” in the alloy electrum and elsewhere; then why…

But Clemens was speaking again. “Forgive my babbling on, and begin to tell me of everything that happened.”

Vergil smiled faintly, “It is here, as in most tales, that I should say to you that I am tired, and that my account must wait upon tomorrow. It is true that I am somewhat tired, but tomorrow will not find me less so, and, besides, tomorrow must see the beginning of a long and intensely careful unceasing toil. I had better tell you now. Yes… let us have in some flask or two of that fifth essence of wine engendered in your alembic, and I shall tell you now.”

Old Tynus nodded his snowy head. “True, master, some have always said that Friday is unlucky, but I cannot either see that this would hold true of our work here… if it ever held true of anything. For Friday is the Day of Venus, and Venus is not only a benefic — as is Jupiter — but she rules copper, brass, and bronze. Therefore today is an auspicious day to begin the work. Moreover, and mayhap most significant of all, as you point out, the sign of Venus is the sign of her mirror…” He scratched it with his staff on the cleanly sanded floor:

“The sign of lesser fortune, yes, but the sign of fortune nonetheless. From lesser fortune, appropriate to the beginning of a work, we shall ascend to greater fortune as we progress. The sun can only be seen in its own light, ‘By light, light,’ therefore… and, by mirror, mirror.” He stroked his long white beard. “Venus ruling copper, brass, and bronze, Saturn ruling ‘form’ and timing, also lead, of which copper ore will contain somewhat, and Mars ruling molten things.… Yes, master, you have chosen well and rightly, with Mars, Venus, Saturn, and also the Moon, all making good aspect to each other in the Heavens. Because of the various rulerships involved here, the question then, of course, becomes one of which hour — Moon hours? Venus hours? Mars hours? Or even Saturn hours.… But your decision is a quite proper one, for in horary-electional astrology, reading the augury of a given moment, it is the Moon which is, as we say, Significator of Change, and thus a Moon hour is preferred. Mars and Saturn conjoined in the mystical sign Pisces, well-appointed by Venus in the magic sign of Scorpio, a most creative relationship indeed, and none retrograde in motion, but all well-disposed toward the Moon in her own demesne of Cancer, and she translating the light of Venus unto Mars and Saturn — thus favoring secrecy of workmanship and the power of prophecy.…”

His voice died down and he murmured of Planetary Hours, and of Day and Night hours and rulerships; then he fell quite silent. All present seemed to breathe more lightly. And in this silence the slow, measured drip… drip… drip of the water clock was heard, its seconds melting away into minutes. Vergil raised his white wand, everyone ceased to draw breath, the hollow ball in the basin of of the clepsydra touched bottom with a clear, faint chime; he whipped the wand downward in signal; a dull, heavy, thudding blow followed immediately, no less startling for having been quite expected. The work of crushing the copper ore in the mill had begun. Up and down the Street of the Horse-Jewelers the deliberate sound penetrated, and, as the recurrent sensation, felt as well as heard, drew their attention, the people paused and looked at one another. Many things might have been read in their expressions, but fear was not among them. The owner of the House of the Brazen Head gave them no cause for uneasiness.

The green copper stone was hard, but gradually it yielded to the importunities of the huge, pounding pestle, like a vertical battering ram. This first treatment was intended only to reduce the pieces of its mass in size. Stant quatuor lapides in modum crucis, four stones are set up in the form of a cross: So began the ancient direction for the construction of a furnace; this had been done during Vergil’s absence under Clemens’ direction, and on this foundation the work erected immediately afterward of iron rods crisscrossed in squares. Over these a hearth was laid of Babylonian clay well-kneaded with horse dung, three fingers thick, in a circle, punctured with holes by a round stick, and left to dry. Around and up from this hearth, of the same clay and of small stones, a wall was built up in modum ollae, in the form of a pot.

“Narrower from the middle upward, you will observe,” Clemens pointed out for perhaps the tenth time, “and higher than wide. So I have always built my furnaces, and so I built yours. The clay was macerated and triturated and washed and strained, believe me, fully an hundred times. The horses were all maiden mares, pure white in color, fed upon mallows and apples and grass plucked — plucked, mind you, not cut — from rocky hilltops such as we might be perfectly sure had never been tilled, for three days, after which we might be certain that they had thoroughly passed all gross fodder. As for the four iron bands binding the outside of the furnace, they were, needless to say, newly forged. For tempering them, I obtained an oxhorn from one of the sacrificial animals and burned it on a fire of lignum vitae, scraped it, mixed it with the purest salt I had in my elaboratory a third part, and ground them vigorously together. I put the irons in the same fire till they were white hot, sprinkled the preparations over it on every which side, opened out the coals and quickly blew all over, but seeing that the tempering did not fall off. Immediately I withdrew the bands and quenched them evenly in water, took them from there, and dried all gently over a fire.”

“As for the water, ha ha!” — he chuckled and he rubbed his hands together — “I did not use ordinary water, all corrupted with gross earths and impure salts and what-have-you, no. Instead, I procured a three-year-old goat and tied it up indoors for three days without food. On the fourth I gave it fern to eat and nothing else for two days. Then I enclosed it in a cask perforated underneath and under the holes I placed a separate water-tight container and for two days and three nights I collected its urine. With this same water I also tempered all the tools of steel and iron.”

Vergil said that this was well done. He hearkened a moment to the pounding of the mill, then added, gravely, “It is fortunate that there was fern.”

Promptly, Clemens said, “Had there not been, I should have tempered with the urine of a small boy.”

Small Morlinus, who had been listening at odd moments, looked up expectantly at this; but Clemens, who had not observed him, amended, “A small, red-haired boy,” and the face of Morlinus, who was dark, fell.

Vergil raised his wand and the mill fell silent. The green ore was removed and piled in a heap and burned like lime. It did not lose color, but it lost much of its hardness; after which it was cooled, returned to the mill, and broken up small. It was then ready for the furnace.

Vergil addressed his adepts and their helpers. “We are now approaching the more delicate parts of the work,” he reminded them, “although the casting and founding will be, of course, next to the burnishing, the most delicate parts of all. You have all bathed and prayed and sacrificed. More than a willingness to work together is required. Any degree of impatience, any loss of temper, might, at a crucial moment, result in irreparable damage. Are all things well with all of you at home? Reflect, and, if not, then withdraw. Your wages shall in any case continue, and there are other works you can engage in until this one is complete.”

He paused. There was silence. No one withdrew.

His voice was very low but very distinct. He looked at each in turn with his clear, gray-green eyes. “We have now to go on with our task of making a virgin mirror. It is important to the honor of this house that we do not fail. And it is important to me in another particular as well. I know it is not necessary that you should know how or why, that your merely knowing it is so will be sufficient for you. If I have offended any of you at any time, forgive me. If any of you have offended me at any time, forgive you I freely do. And if any of you have offended against each other, will you not declare it now? — if any of you feel that another has given you cause for grievance, will you not reveal it now? — so that we may proceed in perfect purity and amity and confidence of heart.”

There was another silence. Then followed a few low-voiced conversations, several shook hands and returned to their places. Vergil had half turned his head as if to give directions, when the thin, piping treble of Morlinus was heard. “Iohan, when the Master told you to take me and instruct me and you said that you would beat me if I learned ill and I said that I gave you leave — ”

Iohan, in some surprise, nodded.

“So I had no right to curse at you when you did beat me because I smudged my letters or wrote them backward or drew pictures instead. And I ask your forgiveness for cursing at you when you couldn’t hear me and for calling you a bear with a sore cod and a son of a whore and a dirty old fig-polucker and a blind bawd’s pimp and a hussy-hopper and…”

His vocabulary was both remarkable and extended. Iohan’s face beneath his bristly beard grew red as wine, and his thick and hairy fingers began to twitch. At length when the boy drew a breath, and began anew with, “Also, I ask your forgiveness for having said about you and your wife — ” Iohan, his vast chest heaved up and his nostrils round with rage, bawled out at the top of his voice. “Enough, enough! I forgive you for everything you said and you don’t have to say any of it all over again!”

Then, as if suddenly aware of the echo, he repeated, in a small, abashed tone, “I forgive you, boy.…”

Red-hot coals were now placed in the furnace and small pieces of ore spread out on top, then more coals, then the ore again, and so on until the furnace was filled. All was swift, sure, silent; no foot slipped upon the carefully sanded floor. Some time passed and Vergil drew Clemens’ attention to a vessel placed some way below and apart, where unto a flow of metal was directed by channels graved for the purpose. An iridescent sheen was on its thick and scummy surface.

“Now the lead begins to separate,” he said.

“Some will still remain, unless — ”

“Some should remain, to serve to hold the tin and copper together well, and to help give the bronze a good polish.”

The bellows were not now needed, for the wind, entering into the opening below, drew the flames well. Clemens said, “This should now remain heating a very long time, and although we have a proverb: ‘The eye of the Master melts the metal,’ still, the Master’s eye is not needed at the moment. Come and sit down and let me read something to you.”

A divan had been set up against the wall and spread with carpets and cushions and fleeces. The colors clashed, Vergil noted abstractly. A woman would have seen to it that they didn’t, but it had been long since there was — except for brief visits — a woman in the House of the Brazen Head. He seated himself and, catching the eye of Morlinus, he beckoned him.

“Yes, lo… yes, master?”

“Tell them in the house to prepare me a small bowl of hot pease soup with thin dry bread grated on the top, and a slice of fried sausage.… Now, Ser Clemens, what is this that you have to read to me?”

“You sound like a pregnant woman, with your sudden and specific urge for a snack.”

“Yes, I daresay I do. I suppose in some way I am.”

Clemens shrugged. “God send thee a good delivery, then. What I have to read to you?” He held up the little book which he had been engaged in reading on Vergil’s return. “This I found in my own library. It is called On Cathayan Bronze, and it is as full of good things as an egg is of meat. Let me read you the chapter I have marked.

“Concerning Mirrors. Sorcery works against Nature, magic works with it. Of all the means of magic, the most important are the sword and the mirror, the ordinary uses to which warriors and women put these objects being of little significance to the Superior Man. Concerning swords and their power to compel daemons, we will speak in another chapter. The learned Covuvonius sayeth, ‘When you look at yourself in a mirror, you observe only your own appearance; your fortune or misfortune can be read by seeing yourself reflected in other.’ This reminds us that mirrors ought not to be used for such foolish purposes as merely looking at one’s self, but rather for the Eight Essential Functions, and these are they: To ward off evil influences, confuse daemons, assist physicians by reflecting the interior of the patient’s body, protect the dead by giving light to the graves in which they are placed, to assimilate and simulate the brightness and power of the Sun and the Moon, reflect inner thoughts and moods and elevate them to happier ends, for divination, for reflecting in visible form the shapes of invisible spirits haunting the earth; and similar works of moment and magnitude. Emperor Hisuanuanius —

“A curious tongue,” said Clemens, leaving off and looking up. A sharp hot smell was in the air. “Like the hissing of serpents.” He sniffed. “It comes along all we now.”

“Serpents mean wisdom,” Virgil pointed out. “Furthermore, in the Hebrew tongue the word nachash, which is ‘serpent,’ also means ‘copper’ or ‘bronze’… also ‘magic’ — or” he asked himself thoughtfully, “is it ‘sorcery’? Pray, read on.”

“Emperor Hisuanuanius had thirteen mirrors, one for each month of the regular year and one for the intercalary month of leap years, the particular month of each being indicated by the zodiacal animal thereon and the asterism to which it corresponded; and each successive mirror after that of the first month was increased in diameter by one inch.”

Clemens interrupted himself to comment that this was mere artsy trickery, for, after all, no one month was more or less important than any other month.

“On the back of each was graven the Four quadrants of the Uranoscope, thus: the Sombre Warrior in the north, the Vermilion Phoenix in the south, in the east the Azure Dragon, and in the west the Milk-white Tiger.” [“Now, that idea, I rather like,” Clemens said. Vergil nodded.] “(Others say that locusts were also shewn, the winged locusts meriting a numerous posterity because they live in harmonious clusters.) “All magic mirrors must reflect the Six Limits of Space, comprising the four cardinal points plus zenith and nadir. They must be round as the heavens and yet square as the earth, and he who makes one must conjure it, Be thou like the Sun, like the Moon, like Water, and like Gold, clear and bright and reflecting what is in thy heart. Some authorities further distinguish between sunlight and moonlight mirrors. We will now explain the art by which the design on the back of a magic mirror is cast upon a wall or screen when a light strikes its front or reflecting surface…

“If you would safely capture tiger cubs, you must carry with you a large mirror and place it in the path to be followed by the tigress, for, great as is her rage and grief, on perceiving her reflection, she is sure to forget all else and linger to admire it till the fall of night.… “The best alloy for mirror bronze [“What?” asked Vergil. “No more tigresses?”]… will consist in seventeen parts of copper to eight parts of tin [“This is rather less tin than we in Europe are accustomed to use for ordinary mirrors, but it approximates Egyptian usage quite closely, as well as our bell-metal.”]… Moonlight may be obtained by hanging a well-prepared mirror on a tree during the full of the moon and then distilling the dew which forms on its face. If this is done properly, a translucent container of it will give bright light in the darkness at any time; but if not, it will only shine according to the phases of the moon itself.

“Solar fire for kindling the sacrificial flames may be caught in a concave mirror cast at high noon exactly on the solstice.

“And now we will speak of molds and wax and stamps and clay and potter’s wheels to shape the curvèd surfaces.…

“The bronzefounder borrows from the sculptor and the woodcarver borrows from both, the potter imitating the bronze-founder and in turn being imitated by the lapidary who influences the sculptor; thus turns the wheel, bringing up water to quicken all the fields and furrows… Suquas sayeth that, in casting mirrors, the ancients would give the large mirrors a plane surface and the small ones a convex surface; for all mirrors will relfect a man’s face large if they are concave and small if they are convex; and by reflecting the human face in reduced size, a mirror may be small and yet take in a man’s face complete, though the reflected image will correspond in size to the size of the mirror.”

Clemens looked up from his reading. “This is an important passage,” he said.

Vergil’s small bowl of pease soup had just arrived, he took a mouthful of it. “Yes, most important,” he said, rising and starting across the room toward the furnace.

“Surely it is cool by now,” he said, with a curious air, to his inquiring friend.

Clemens took hold of him by the sleeve and drew him to a halt. “Cool by now? What ails you? You look strange and fevery. It is not even sufficiently heated by now… Or do you mistake the soup for the ore? First the copper must be baked, then smelted, there are the crucibles to make, the residual leads must be further purified, the molds have yet to be designed, let alone made… This is for the moment enough, surely — ”

“Enough…” Vergil repeated the word with a sick look and a low sigh. But, Clemens representing to him the bad effect that any display of impatience would have upon the adepts and the workmen, he returned to his seat, and to a discussion of the little book On Cathayan Bronze; a copy of which he presently directed his scribe to make.

Thus, with due precautions both mechanical and astrological, with attentions alchemical and metallurgical, the work slowly proceeded. The crucibles were made, of two parts of raw clay and three of fired clay, kneaded in warm water with hammers and hands to the sound of a rhythmic old Etruscan chant, on the principle that “the voice is good for the mixture”; and the clay molded on wood, covered with dry ashes, and placed near the fire. Meanwhile, the tin was being attended to in accordance with its own peculiar needs. Copper and coals were next put in crucibles and set upon the furnace-hearth, stirred carefully with the wooden-handled long and thin and curved rod. From time to time each crucible was lifted with long tongs and moved a little to prevent its sticking to the hearth, and, by and by all the copper melted and was poured off into the trenches.

“Observe, adepts and workmen,” Clemens pointed out, in a deep, moved voice, “the lesson philosophical which this process teaches us. The metal must die in order to live. It must be destroyed in order for it to be created. Burned in the fire which utterly annuls all manner of form and life, in order for it to be given new form and new life. Where else do we see anything like this? Why, in that seed which is cast into the very earth itself, there to die and there to rot, and there nevertheless to quicken with life again, to grow and to come forth and to flourish. Don’t think, then, when it comes your time to be given to the flames or to the earth, that you will remain ashes or earth forever, for nature and philosophy alike combine to teach you better…”

Vergil listened as carefully and as humbly as the forgeboy seemed to, and for all his attention yet something stirred in a corner of his mind and he could neither focus on it nor hear what it had to say. Clemens went on to declare that to alchemy there was no distinction between organic and inorganic life, that the ore which came from the earth and the seed which came from the earth were but brother and sister; so, listening, Vergil gradually allowed the oddly summoning thought to vanish once again.

The speculum proper consisted of two parts: the actual reflecting surface and the cover, fastened to the surface with screws and studs and clasps and catches; the entire product rather resembling a large locket. Some of these smaller pieces would be wrought by hand, some cast in molds like the larger pieces. In preparation for making the molds they now began the refining of the wax. Tallow, coarse and stinking, would not do; nothing but pure wax of bees would do. In many matters concerning the artificing of a major speculum, The Text-book of Rufo, the Chalceocicon of Theodorus, and The Manual of Mary of Egypt differed, but in this one point they were unanimous: the wax must be gathered from the combs of bees that had fed on Mount Caucasus — and nowhere else. Certain vertue hath the soil of this Great Mount, Mary had written. Great is that vertue, and is passed along to all plants and herbs nurtured in that soil, and from nectars of said plants passed on to the wax of bees feeding thereon, and thence to all things molded therewith. Rufo said that certain substances derived from the mineral content of the mountain passed into the clay molded around the wax at the time that the wax itself melted in the fiery heat of the kiln, and were in turn passed on to the metal founded in the clay molds when the heat of the founding activated these residues once again. Theodorus attempted to connect the matter with the blood of Prometheus, shed upon the crag of Caucasus when the eagles tore at his liver for his presumption in bringing fire hid in fennel stalks to the children of men — the flowers thus fructified by this blood forever after retaining what Mary called vertue. And certain it is, he concluded, that no other fire but that of fennel will do for working this wax if it is to be of most effect.

Now, if the only use of such Caucasian beeswax was to be employed as “lost wax” in casting virgin mirrors, it might have remained forever among the mountaineers — except when some rare, infinitely rare, artisan chose to engage upon the work of such a speculum. But it happened that wax of Caucasus had other employment as well… for example, in making a supporting medium for the fashioning of those silvern cups which in an instant turn black when any poisoned drink is poured into them… or for waxing the ends of threads (the better to pass them through a needle’s eye without fraying) used to sew cerements intended to preserve bodies from corruption… and sundry, and costly other uses.

There was, accordingly, a certain trade in it, and this trade in Naples was in the hands of one Onofrio, an apothecary, whose combination ware- and counting-house seemed more like some strange and odorous cave than any place of business. “We have it,” he told Vergil, winking and nodding. “We haven’t much of it, of course. Our wife was saying to us not a week ago, ‘Onofrio, put Caucasus on the list, it’s running low.’ So we did, we’re sending out work, there’ll be a bit more by and by. A year. Or two. Or three. Eh?” another wink. And, “How much? Hmm. Mmm. A lump the size of a man’s head. Don’t know its present weight, been scraping at it here and there and now and then as the need arises. Why? How much d’ye need, Dr. Vergil? What? All of it? Impossible. Impossible. Impossible. Impossible. Can’t be entirely without, no, we can’t.”

In this he was certainly sincere. When, however, it was represented to him that part of it could be recovered and returned, it suddenly became no more priceless — but its price was considerable — and not to be calculated in gold alone. There were certain things which Onofrio wanted to know and which Vergil could tell; and certain things which Onofrio wanted done… and which Vergil… only Vergil… could do. Fortunately, the apothecary, though desirous, was not covetous. He drove a hard bargain, but he did not insist on payment in advance; the precise degree and amount of payment would, it was mutually agreed, depend on the amount of wax returned. Vergil followed him past towering cabinets containing ambergris, musks, storax, balsams, jujubes, attars, essences and elixirs, azoth, ointments, theriacs and talequales, unicorn, ostrich shell, toads and toadstools, bats’ blood and bats, vipers in treacle and vipers’ blood and dried vipers, fewmets of griffins, mummy and mandgagora and mercury; scents and stenches and smells and odors; to where the essential wax was stored, locked up in an iron cage guarded by a dog who had not seen the sun, poor creature, since he was whelped.

The wax was dark, darker than common beeswax, almost black, but of no common blackness; shot through with tints of amber and red, did the light strike it a certain way. It was of a rich and overpowering odor, spicy and strong, and it felt unctuous and potent to the finger.

“We must have as much of it back as can be saved, Dr. Vergil,” the muskmonger said. “We can’t spare a scruple of it to feed the fires wastefully, no, not a drachm. Those other items we’ve spoke of to you, we value them, we’d gladly pay for them in gold or goods or any way… we’re prepared to pay in wax, yes, if we must… but” — he ran his old, sere finger, like one of his own medicinal roots, over the great lump of Caucasus wax, lovingly and regretfully — “but, we beg of you nonetheless, Doctor, don’t waste it. Not any of it.”

The wax was melted slowly over a fire of fennel (and no small task to gather and dry enough fennel: fire to feed fire, tongs to make tongs, cycle upon cycle, wheels within wheels) and strained; washed with water, and again strained; purified and strained; refined and strained; ever with a cloth of an increasing fineness — these cloths, by direction of Master Workman Perrin, saved to be boiled to retrieve the residual wax. Vergil himself had neither thought nor patience for this — and the process repeated over and over and over. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly.

And the other tasks proceeded. Slowly, slowly, slowly.

Finally the wax was pure enough, pale enough, fine enough.

Page after page of parchment, and ink from entire schools of squid and forests of hawthorn trees and oaks, were employed in the ever-continuing work of casting the horoscopes. The question of the Moon’s nodes was a particularly important one, the points at which the Moon’s orbits cross the ecliptic, the north node being known as the caput draconis, or Dragon’s Head, and the south one called the cauda draconis, or Dragon’s Tail. Caput was fortunate, cauda was misfortunate.

“There you have it!” Vergil cried, despairingly, throwing down a pen. “I should draw the entire nativity of the princess — cast it myself — not depend on the one Cornelia supplies — when was she carried off? Was her ruler of life conjoined with cauda? Should we wait six months for Venus to go around the zodiac to be conjoined with caput as an auspicious moment for the dragon to spew her forth?” Seizing the pen, he hastily sketched a diagram, only to have it arouse a host of speculations, many of them far from apropos, such as the resemblance and semblance of the dragon with caput at cauda to the Midgard Serpent and the Worm Ourobouros and Great Leviathan and the River Oceanos engirdling all the world. “The chart of the Eight Houses,” he murmured. “Saturn-adverse-Venus… disappointment almost certain… What is astrology but the study of cycles in time? Are our planets truly globes of light? Or are they, for our purposes, our present, particular purposes — are they instincts whose interrelationships is that which causes destiny?

“Let me erect the horary chart again,” he said, more calmly this time. He had lost weight, color, tone, in all this great work and worry.

He took fresh parchment, pen, ink. The shapes took on form. Here was the First House, showing the questioner; here, the opposite, the Seventh House, showing the problem or the (unknown) person causing it. Supposing Cornelia to be asking the question, this would have her represented by the First House, and Laura by the Fifth; thus Laura’s problem was represented by the plane in the Eleventh House, which was opposite her own… “Let me see, let me see,” he muttered, bending close. “Jupiter is royalty, rules Sagittarius, so the chart for the moment is with Sagittarius rising… Sun in Sagittarius, First House denotes Queen… Sun rules rulers… sign of Leo, First House could be Leo, then the Fifth House would be Scorpio — Venus beseiged! Surely! Venus ruling love and beauty — the Princess Laura Now — interception of the sign, thus is with Taurus on its cusp, Venus ruling Taurus. And so the Seventh House, containing the problem and its causer, thus would be Gemini on cusp, or Mercury ruled. Saturn — no, no, Saturn will not do, will not go where I want him… Venus conjuncts Mercury in the Eleventh House… the Eleventh Cusp is Scorpio… what is Scorpio? So, sign of magic, profundity, intensity, eagle, serpent, and phoenix…” He repeated his words, drawn by a sudden conviction of a connection both present and invisible. What was it?

Eagle? The Empire? The Imperial House? Prometheus bound on Mount Caucasus? Serpent? This opened the way, surely, for whole torrents of possibilities: wisdom, witchcraft, copper and bronze, the cycle of Venus through the zodiac from Dragon Tail to Dragon Head, cycles, circles, rings, rings… He paused, pressed his hands to his aching head. There was a ring there, somewhere. But it would not come up where he could see it. Eagle, serpent, phoenix… Scorpio — sign of regeneration — the Eleventh Cusp, Venus conjuncts Mercury in the Eleventh House. The princess and the causer of the problem. Mercury, ruler of the Seventh Cusp on the horary chart. Seventh House rules enemies and world conditions. Afflicting. Bad aspects…

No, no. It was still impossible. The chart would not work out. Too much was lacking, too much contradictory. It was best to waste no more time on it, and on other things.

Still… it was certainly very curious. “The sign of regeneration… Eagle, serpent, phoenix…”

They purified the copper further with three ranges of bellows working at the forge by night and day, night after night and day after day, and poured it finally into ingot molds. Before it was cooled and while it was still red-hot, they held it with tongs upon the anvil and struck it with the largest hammer. It cracked. They melted it once again, repeating the long process, drew it forth again, struck it again. This time it did not crack.

Vergil bared his arm, Clemens bound it. Clemens bared his arm. Vergil bound it. Iohan, Tynus, Perrin, and all those engaged in the work did the same. The veins swelled. The lancet passed between the mage and his friend. The blood spurted forth was caught in the vessel. Each gave, none withheld. And then the vessel was full, and then they plunged the glowing ingots into it, and thus they cooled them and completed the work of the smelting.

It was that night that Vergil saw himself again “pass through the Door,” and part of his mind shrieked in silent terror at the sight, knowing it had not been his intention to do this… knowing too, the danger involved in this implied loss of control. But another part of his mind counseled calm and acceptance, and this implied that the loss of control was perhaps apparent only, and not actual.

He was in Cornelia’s chamber. She sat at a writing desk, a branch of lamps beside her. She did not look up, but he could tell that she knew someone was there.

“I must cast a proper nativity,” he said — and her entire body recognized his voice, and — strange, strange, exceedingly strange — this intelligence quite dispelled the fear in her. Taut tendons relaxed in her neck; she let out her breath with a sigh.

“Of course,” she said, softly. “Of course.”

“Write down the precise moment of her birth,” he directed, “and the exact or even approximate latitude, if you know it.” She wrote. “Now the nearest moment as you can recall it to the time you heard of her disappearance… Now get up and leave me quite alone.” He watched her gliding step as she went from the room, the drapery at the door rustling yet another moment, then lying still.

He stared at the wax tablet and what was written thereon, committing it to memory. He wondered who it could have been that she had so much feared to find behind her. Then he seated himself and began to work. The natal chart took rapid shape beneath his fingers, he needed no ephemeris, all information welling up in his mind as he thought for it. He saw the type of danger likely to threaten in her life chart, and the direction from which it would come; even the probable time was there… yes… it fitted… the Progressions fitted… advancing the birth planets roughly one degree for one year on the principle of A Year Shall Be as a Day, events of the age of twenty were indicated by the thus-progressed planets twenty-one days after her birth, the first day not being counted as it equaled the birth year.

“Sometime during this week” — his finger pointed as he calculated aloud — “and possibly on this day — she would be in grave danger from dark forces emanating from the north as shown by Saturn at her birth at the nadir of the chart, adversely affecting her Venus-at-birth by Progression when she reaches that age, but” — he scowled, calculated, smiled, became totally abstract — “her Venus-of-birth being trined by benefic Jupiter posited in the zodiacal sign Scorpio, help would come to her through a wise man, philosopher, mage…”

Yes… it did fit… it was almost uncanny how it fitted. Scorpio, sign of regeneration, and, hence, naturally, of eagle, serpent, phoenix. Besides its other obvious possibilities, was not the eagle, with its uncanny keenness of vision, sighting its prey from leagues afar, a clear symbol of the magic mirror? And did the eagle not, when age had dimmed its eyes and heavied its wings, seek out the fountain of youth whose location was known only to its kind, soar over it until, “within the circle of the Sun,” a potent beam or ray from the as yet undiminished Source of Light burned away the dimness? And, thence, diving from on high, deep, deep into that fountain, new its youth for lustrums more. Then, lastly, if one could so speak of lastly, there was the falcon-eagle, which had at peril and to its great cost borne from distant, distant Tinland the purse of that essential ore. And how had Clemens managed to miss the exemplum of the serpent in his little philosophical address? — the serpent which annually casts off its skin as the ore casts off its dross, serpent seemingly almost at the point of death, dull, dazed, struggling; serpent, finally, alive and quick; renewed. Last of the three was phoenix, that rare among birds, unique for its life-span and life cycle, enduring for five hundred or a thousand years, then building its nest and making its “egg” fanning with its wings the fire which converts nest into pyre; fire consuming phoenix, fire hatching egg, out of the egg a worm, out of the worm the phoenix.

Out of the fire, the phoenix.

Models for the double discs had been carved of ordinary wax, studied, corrected, approved; then copied in the wax of Caucasus for the final model, copied so carefully and with such exquisite, agonizing care as to make mere painstaking seem slovenly: stroke by stroke and flake by flake and quarter inch by quarter inch. The wax must not be too warm, the wax must not be too cold; it must not melt, it must not sag nor slip, it must not grow brittle and chip. And everything in this doing was done in accordance with the celestial confluences. A separate horoscope was cast even for so pragmatic a matter as placing the waxen sprues. Finally, omens having been taken on the thunder chart, the entire modelings, save for the tops of the prues, were coated with the specially prepared clay; allowed to dry… and dry… and dry… coated again… dried… coated a third time. When the hour auspicious and appropriate arrived, a fire was built, aspersed and censed with appropriate herbs, and the molds placed adjacent to it, over vessels of water to collect the precious wax, which, after it had melted and left its impression on the clay, was poured out through the sprue channels. Then, when a Sun Hour arrived, suitable for workings with fire, coinciding with a time acceptable to the chthonic Presences having jurisdictions over earth and things made with earth, Vergil and Clemens and adepts and workmen, chanting the strange, discordant Etruscan litany, reversed the molds and now placed them carefully in the fire with the sprue holes pointing downward. And in that position they remained until the clay was turned as red as Mars ruling molten things, as red as the fire itself… as red as the red robes of the sun… as red as the earth.

On a Thursday, fortunate period of benefic Jupiter ruling prophecy and things at long distance and beyond the veil, the Street of the Horse-Jewelers was laid end to end ankle-deep in tanbark to muffle sounds and concussions. The molds had been heating with a low fire kept in, and this was now increased, and the crucibles got ready. The bellows were fixed, with two strong men to each one. All now had to go with speed and precision. Fresh coals were arranged in the furnace for the molds and the molds set on them, supported roundabout with hard stones such as could not break with the heat of the fire, lapidem super lapident, stone upon stone and with sufficient interstices until they were half a foot higher than the molds; and burning coals around them, and fresh coals over them to the top. They burned, they sank, were replenished, burned, sank; and again, till three times.

Vergil lifted the cover to peer inside, but the heat drove him back. Clemens, more used to it, peered quickly within, and the heat crisped and singed his beard. “It is red-hot,” he said. Vergil hastened with deliberate steps to the crucible where the copper was waiting, and had it put inside and mixed with coals. At his gesture, the bellows began to work again, primo mediocriter, deinde magis ac magis. A green flame arose from the crucible. The copper had begun to melt. Immediately Vergil signaled for more coals to be added, ran to the mold furnace and oversaw the work of removing the stones and the fire and replacing it with earth. He ran back to the other fire, stirred the copper with a long charred stick.

“Now!” he said. And he threw in the copper fibula Cornelia had given him.

The tin was added, and carefully stirred and stirred until it, too, was all molten and all mixed, and meanwhile the crucible was with infinite care turned around from side to side in order to maintain an even temperature. Then it was removed from its own fire and carried to the molds, skimmed of coal and ash, and a straining cloth placed over the opening in the mold of the first half. Vergil threw himself down on the floor as near to the mold as he could stand the heat, his ear to the ground.

“Pour!” he said.

They poured, slowly, slowly, and he listened. He gestured them to pause. He listened. All was well, nothing murmured, nothing grumbled, nothing groaned. He gestured, he listened, and they poured. At length Iohan said, “Master, it is done.” Vergil said nothing. They waited and they watched. It was quite some while before they realized that he was not still listening, and then, but silently and gently for the sake of the molten mass within, they lifted him from where he lay, insensible, and so they carried him to his upper chamber.

But Clemens remained below and directed the casting of the second half.

Presently, when Vergil had recovered from his exhaustion of body and spirit, they broke open the well-cooled molds and removed the two parts of the speculum. He then had them boiled in a strong liquor of potash until all residual dirt was removed, and rinsed in hot water and dried. The discs were then annealed in fire until red-hot, the utmost care being taken that they were not made white-hot. Should any dirt or impurities have remained, they were now gone, and the metal made softer and fit for the burnisher — but it was not yet his time. The bronzes were cooled and then placed in a pickle of one part of oil of vitriol and three parts of water. “I prefer aquafortis,” Clemens said.

“Ordinarily, so should I,” Vergil said. “But you wouldn’t use ‘new’ acid for this, and that which makes ‘old’ acid desirable, namely the presence of much metal in solution, obviously disqualifies it for our present purpose. The entire status of this bronze as virgin bronze would be annulled.”

The pieces remained awhile in the solution, then were removed and rinsed in clean, cold water, thoroughly scoured with clean, wet sand, and then placed in a wooden pail of water. Thence they were removed for further dippings in strong solution and rinsings in water, and now care equal to that employed on behalf of the bronze had to be maintained on behalf of the workmen. The dipping was done in the open air, their clothes were covered with special, thick aprons, three, of carpeting; and while some dipped and quickly rinsed, others stood by with vessels of asses’ milk — to drink, if the fumes affested the lungs, to pour on the skin, lest the acid at least stain it and at worse remove it, to dash instantly into the eyes to “kill” any stray splash. But these precautions, perhaps because they had been taken, proved unnecessary. After the last dip and rinse in cold water, the bronzes were next washed finally with boiling water and then dried with dust of sawed boxwood, and then — care being taken that they at no time be touched with naked fingers, they were covered and wrapped in the softest of chamois leathers.

And now came the time of the burnishers.

Isacco and Lionelo were their names. Isacco was stooped in age, but blindness had come on him gradually over the course of many years, and he had gradually adapted to it. Lionelo was still in his time of vigor, and his sight had been lost to him suddenly by the kick of a runaway horse whose frenzied rush he had no time to avoid. Each had been a burnisher and each had been fortunate to work for good masters who had allowed him to continue in his craft; their touch was knowing, and — so the master burnishers had reasoned — others could always look and say where sightlessness had left some spot for further care. As the years went on, though, this outer vision was needed less and less. Lionelo said that he could tell by tapping and smelling, Isacco offered no explanation: he knew without knowing how he knew.

“I have hired your time from your own masters,” Vergil told them, “but I shall pay you double for your work. A room has been fitted up for it, and I think it lacks nothing — benches and brushes and boxes, lathes and wheels and water and soap, hook, spear, round, and long burnishers, buff leather and chamois leather, crocus powder and dilute beer, vises and poles and sawdust and vinegar — ”

“Ox gall, master? Is there… ?”

“No, Lionelo, the work is, I think, too delicate to risk the strong stench of ox gall.”

Isacco said, “Vinegar will do, it will do prime, and so will beer. Is there a good small fire, master, and pots with handles?”

“All that. We are not yet ready to commence burnishing the prime pieces, and in the meanwhile I want you to familiarize yourselves with the layout of the workroom. We will rearrange it any way you wish, and then there are items of lesser importance which you may begin with to try your hands, so to speak. I need give you no specific further directions, except this — and this is most important. The door will open only from the inside and you are not to open it when the bronze is exposed. You must cover the bronze first. And also note that the stove is set in a sort of cabinet or closet by itself — this, too, must be closed whenever the bronzes are uncovered. You must polish them from behind. No one can be here to check on you. I must — and I do — rely upon you utterly.”

They nodded. At first they groped, then they moved with confidence, later with absolute unthinking familiarity. Finally, when the Moon began to pass through Scorpio and Pisces, the discs and all of their smaller fittings (made from the superfluous bronze that had filled the sprue channels during casting), carefully wrapped and boxed, were handed over to the two blind burnishers and the door closed upon them… and upon the light. There, within, the opaque surface of the mirror would gradually become fit for reflecting. But it would reflect nothing, and, even if by rare happenstance it did, no one there could see it. And there in the blackness the lid was fitted on and all the clasps and fastenings put in place. And so wrapped again, and boxed again, and returned to the world outside again.

Vergil placed around the box a series of knotted scarlet silken cords alike to those which bound the perestupe or mandrake. “Pull” he invited Clemens. “Try your strength.”

The alchemist shook his head. “I thank you, no. I am an alchemist and not a magician… Ah. What I desired to show you before I go — evidently there was a loose leaf in my copy of the tractate On Cathayan Bronze, as I found it last night in my library, it will not appear in your transcript. Listen:

Inscription on a Mirror

Round, round precious mirror,

Bright, bright on the high altar;

The phoenix looking at the mirror dances to its own reflection,

Reflecting the moon, the blossoming flower.

Over a pond, shining like the moon,

It appears to the beautiful one, to her.

“Lovely, isn’t it? I wonder what it might mean… Well! I have a multitude of things to attend to at home, but of course I will be on hand at the viewing, though Father Vesuvio himself intervene to prevent me. Absit omen.”

Again the phoenix, and once again the phoenix! It was night and Vergil walked out on his balcony, thinking to try a sortilogy from whatever stray utterance of old Allegra’s might come to hand. And her remark, crooned as she bedded down her cats and herself, was cryptic enough. “On the sea, my lord, walk without water if you would find her… ” The Woman of Delphi herself would have been satisfied. But, riddle it as he would, clear as its obvious meaning was, Vergil could read in it nothing about the phoenix.

There was a belvedere set into the upper part of one of the upper rooms in the House of the Brazen Head, with twelve windows, through each of which, during its proper month, the sun at its meridian cast a beam of light; and the tessellated pavement below was further marked off with annotated areas, some of them overlapping, for day and by day; so that the chamber formed one great sundial. Vergil had been at work with his astrolabe, checking and rechecking and setting and resetting his horlogues. His face was yellow and sunken and he did not even look up as Cornelia entered; then, suddenly, he did. It was their real meeting since his return, and one might have admired the restraint she showed in not vexing him with the frequent visitations she must dearly have desired to make. Their eyes met now. It was she who, almost instantly, withdrew and broke the gaze. Almost, her look pitied him. Almost, she did not see him. Silently she approached the box and looked at it, extended her hand, hastily and almost fearfully drew it back. She was very pale, and the skin about her eyes was dark violet. She sighed, compressed her lips, clasped her hands, Vergil took hold of the clew and gave the silk cord the slightest of tugs, murmuring a word as he did so. All the elaborate cordings and knottings fell open and slack, the sides of the box parted slowly and settled back onto the table.

And the speculum was revealed.

Like a great locket, it rested there, shining and brightening. As if at an agreed signal, all began to walk around it. Its back was ornately and beautifully designed and inscribed, but no one lingered to examine or to decipher; all walked with eyes awestruck and unfocused. And, as they did so, an horlogue began to sound the twelfth hour and as it did the room began to darken, until at eleven it was almost black. Then came the stroke of twelve, Vergil reached out and snapped back the lid, and the bronze, resounding like a bell, encompassed and occluded the stroke of noon. Simultaneously the the darkness was pierced by a broad shaft of sunlight and Cornelia pulled from the bosom of her robe a long golden pin and thrust it at the blank but luminous face of the mirror’s disc. The pin touched, the surface of the disc went into flux like oil resting upon the surface of water when disturbed. The disorder became a whirlpool, round and round, drawing everything toward it and everything into it.

“Laura!”

And there she was, pacing slowly on great Cyclopean steps; near her, always near her, but never quite in clear range of vision, was something ugly and dreadful. Whose voice had cried her name, Vergil did not know, but it was Cornelia’s voice which cried out now, cried no name, cried out. The whirlpool swirled reversewise, closed in, the scene vanished, and the last vanishing echoes of the stroke of twelve were heard. The mirror was a mirror now, and nothing more. Vergil, Clemen, Cornelia saw their own faces, but Vergil now saw what he had already felt: it was his own face, his true face, his face complete. His missing soul had returned to him. Cornelia — she who now stood staring, staring, staring — had kept her word.

To her it had been plain magic. To Clemens, a living metal had revealed a living truth. To Vergil, a focus had been provided to reveal in presently visible terms an event occurring elsewhere and at that moment impressed upon the universal ether, from which the virgin speculum (virgin now no longer) had received and revealed it upon its virgin surface. Vergil reached out his hand towards Cornelia.

Cornelia spoke. She did not speak, she was pointing at the wall, her face worked, her lips moved, her throat moved, a harsh and fearful cry came from her mouth. There on the wall in a luminous circle was the design of the four figures of the four quadrants of the uranoscope; around the rim, both clockwise and counterclockwise, the inscription in the curious and impressive letters of the Umbrian alphabet, so often written mirror-fashion, Widdershins.

Vergil seized her hand. “Lady Cornelia, don’t be afraid,” he said urgently. “This is the so-called magic mirror effect, yet it is no true magic but an effect derived from purely natural causes. Come and see, come and see… .” He showed her the design, now reflected on the wall, on the back of the surface of the speculum, whence (he explained) by a seemingly inexplicable effect caused by atomical disturbances, it was cast upon another surface and thus gave the impression that the solid bronze was transparent as glass. “I do not wonder at your surprise,” he said. “No doubt you failed to observe, while looking at the reverse of the disc before, that it showed the heavenly configurations… the Somber Warrior in the north, and in the south, the Vermilion Phoenix.”

She tore her hand loose from his grasp. Fear now partially retreated and was replaced by rage, but did not vanish utterly; and outrage and hatred and despair struggled with them both. She turned upon her heel and left the room.

Softly, Clemens said, “It is done.”

But Vergil knew that it was not done, that only a phase of it was done. The girl in the mirror, the first woman he had really seen in months — and he had fallen in love with her.

And now he had to find her.