The satyr was sitting at Anyan’s long trestle table that had pride of place in his gorgeous kitchen. The rest of us took positions around the table, or sitting on counters. We were almost the full gang – Iris, of course, and Grizzie, Tracy, and my dad. Amy had stuck around after hearing my good news; and Gog and Magog were in attendance. Daoud had gone back to Boston to help Camille with a problem – some local baobhan sith had gone on a bit of a bender and killed a few humans. To my surprise, Hiral had gone with him. The gywllion and the djinn had struck up a friendship, and I think Hiral was bored waiting around doing nothing with us. But even without him, we had a lot of brains to puzzle over our problem, and with a tuna melt in my belly and the Atlantic charging my powers, I felt ready for anything.
‘So, I’ve been going over the poem, after translating it myself. Then I found an article online, as I said, written in the 1920s.’ Caleb passed the article to Ryu, who passed it to me, and I had to smile at the title.
‘“The Poem of the Philosopher Theophrastus upon the Sacred Art: A Metrical Translation with Comments upon the History of Alchemy”. By C. A. Browne. Not exactly pithy, but it definitely does the job,’ I said, then felt my eyebrows rise as I read the next line of the printed-off article. ‘Wait, this was published in The Scientific Monthly?’
Caleb smiled. ‘Fascinating, is it not?’
I wanted to tell Caleb that it wasn’t fascinating – it was the universe interfering again. I wondered what happened to the scientist, Browne. Was he laughed out of his university for caring so much about alchemy and writing about dragons? Or was he humored? I couldn’t help picturing C. A. Browne as one more chess piece on a board set up by forces far beyond our control or comprehension.
‘Indubitably,’ I said, because it seemed a more appropriate response than any of my other thoughts.
‘This article has been invaluable, not least because Browne is constantly reminding his reader that alchemy was not just about the transmutation of metals but about the transmutation of the soul. I’ve printed off the relevant portions of Browne’s text. I actually prefer his translation to mine, so I’ve used his.’ Caleb sent stacks of paper around the room – one around the table and one he passed to Gog, for those who weren’t sitting with us. We each took a sheet and started reading, while Caleb spoke.
‘I’ve started with this idea of Theophrastus’s that the transmutation process had to take two steps, and that both steps are helped along by this stone he talks about. I’ll read you this first section:
The white, augmented thrice within a fire,
In three day’s time is altogether changed
To lasting yellow and this yellow then
Will give its hue to every whitened form.
This power to tinge and shape produces gold
And thus a wondrous marvel is revealed.’
Caleb looked at us as if he were waiting for comment. Everyone else in the kitchen just looked confused.
Gamely, Gog tried his hand. The gray-skinned coblynau shifted his huge frame on his booted feet as he spoke, as if he were a nervous schoolboy in class. ‘So, we have to do something to the White. Is that why you brought back them bones? And then we get a marvel? What’s the marvel?’
We all turned back to Caleb, since Gog had done a good job asking all of our questions.
‘Exactly. The marvel is the stone. That’s the next quotation on your handout,’ Caleb said, pointing to a block of text on the handout that he’d kept. Then he read.
‘The great agent of transmutation was the stone. “It is found,” said Avicenna, “in the dirt of streets and is trodden under foot by men.” The Greek alchemists were no less explicit.
“It can not be bought with gold,” said an unknown prose writer, “yet God has given it freely to beggars.” Zosimos, a Greek of Panopolis, described it as “a stone yet not a stone, a thing despised yet full of honor, of many forms yet shapeless, a thing unknown yet familiar to all, of many names yet nameless”.’
‘Huh?’ Amy asked, her pretty, surfer-girl features screwed up into a look of utter confusion. Confusion that I, for one, shared.
‘I know,’ Caleb said. ‘It’s really obscure. And Theophrastus himself is no more help in the poem your monk sent us, writing:
“Though not a stone, it yet is made a stone
From metal, having three hypostases,
For which the stone is prized and widely known;
Yet all the ignorant search everywhere
As though the prize were not close by at hand.
Deprived of honor yet the stone is found
To have within a sacred mystery,
A treasure hidden and yet free to all.”’
I considered banging my head against the table, but knew that would be bad form. My dad covered my hand in his, warning me to have patience. Iris went ahead and spoke for all of us, though, when she said, ‘Caleb, come on, this is ridiculous. What do we have to do?’
The satyr shifted in his chair, obviously uncomfortable.
‘I’m not really sure. We have to use fire, I think. Or magic. And do something to get the stone, and the White’s bones have to be involved. Other than that, I’m stumped.’
‘You can’t be stumped!’ I said, regretting my words even as I said them. ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re doing your best. But there has to be a clue in there somewhere.’
Caleb waved his handout in the air. ‘There are plenty of clues. Clues aren’t the problem. It’s what to make of those clues…’
‘Too bad we don’t speak stone,’ Gog mused, staring up at the ceiling. ‘I’m a coblynau, and I speak to earth, but that’s not really the same now, is it?’
Gog finished speaking, then looked down to find all the Rockabillian supernaturals staring at him like he’d just reinvented the wheel. He backed up a step.
‘Gog, I could kiss you right now,’ I said, causing Magog to puff up like an enraged squirrel. Ignoring her, I turned to Ryu, who was already standing.
‘I’ll go get him,’ was all the baobhan sith said as he headed out the door.
Luckily, I’d saved Gus’s life once before and our little stone-spirit owed me.
Gus’s surfaces gleamed in the light of the kitchen. He was barely tall enough to see over the table, meaning that I, sitting on the opposite side from him, had a peculiar view consisting of just a bald pate and glasses, both reflecting like the moon, hovering over the edge of the table.
Gus’s shiny head cocked one way, then the other. He reached out a tentative hand to touch the bones, then withdrew his fingers with a jerk.
‘There’s a stone in there,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t know how, but there is.’
I sat up in my chair, and everyone else took an involuntary step forward. We’d been trying not to crowd the stone spirit, but now all bets were off.
‘Can you help us get it out?’ I asked. ‘Can you talk to it?’
‘Oh, yes. It’s very loud. It’s very angry about being kept so long. And it didn’t like that bag you put it in.’
I glanced at Ryu, who gave me a curt shake of his head, warning me to keep it together. Gus’s rapport with rocks totally skeeved me out. It was like finding out that all the toys you played with as a child were really alive. And judging.
Gus’s rocks were snarky apparently, and they were everywhere. I hated the idea of being surrounded by judgmental pebbles, and tended to react with inappropriate fits of mockery.
‘Please apologize to it for the bag,’ Ryu’s smooth voice said, brokering our exchange since I was too immature to do so.
‘Okay,’ Gus said, staring at the pile of bones in a way that made me shudder.
‘Now how can we get the stone out?’ Ryu asked. ‘We’d very much like to free it.’
Gus giggled, a strange, high-pitched sound. ‘It knows you want to use it, you don’t have to pretend. But that’s okay; it wants to be used. It has a great purpose, you know.’
‘Yes,’ Ryu said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. ‘We know it has a great purpose. And we want to help it succeed. But first we need to get it—’
‘It’s easy enough,’ Gus interrupted. ‘It wants me to call, and it wants the girl’s fire.’
Gus jerked his chin at me as he said the last bit, refusing once again to fully acknowledge my presence. Despite saving both him and the boulder he called home, he’d never really cottoned to me. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him.
‘It will take a very long time. And a lot of power. Can she handle it?’ By ‘she’, I knew Gus meant me. For a second I wanted to snap something rude back at him, but then I remembered the poem. It had talked about the spell taking three days. Did I have enough power?
Do I have enough power? I asked the creature.
[We will, yes. And I will make sure you’re physically comfortable during that time. Well, not uncomfortable at least. It will be an arduous task, though, for both of us.]
And you can definitely handle it? I said. I worried about the creature. I’d always assumed it had unlimited strength, so letting me know that was not the case had been quite a shock.