Chantress Alchemy (27 page)

I hesitated, remembering the fumes from Lord Gabriel’s experiment.

Penebrygg gave me a reassuring smile over his spectacles. “Never fear, my dear. Just put it in, and we’ll pull you back ourselves if need be.”

Bracing myself, I poured the acid. It fizzed when it hit the copper, and a putrid green cloud funneled upward. I ducked back, nearly bumping into the King.

“Cover your face,” Penebrygg said, raising his sleeve. “Don’t breathe the smoke in.”

The others covered their faces too, except for Sir Isaac, who took the empty beaker from my hand. “Sir Samuel, are you ready?”

Cloaking his nose, Sir Samuel tossed something into the crucible that immediately lessened the smoke.

“Now for your part, Lord Gabriel,” Sir Isaac ordered. “Bring the crucible to the fire.”

With a heavy set of tongs, Lord Gabriel placed the vessel in the furnace. The smoke thickened for a few moments, then died out.

“One minute,” Sir Isaac counted, timing the operation with his pocket watch. “Two . . . three . . . four . . . Now take it out!”

Gabriel yanked the crucible from the fire and secured it in an iron stand—not an easy task, when done with tongs. The other alchemists crowded round the table. When I joined them, I saw a coal-black powder at the bottom of the crucible.

“The Black Crow,” Penebrygg said in satisfaction.

“Black as night.” Sir Samuel smoothed his apprentice’s apron as if it were fine silk.

“Yes, we have accomplished the first stage.” Sir Isaac glanced back at the furnace. “But there is much more to do. We must move quickly. Sir Samuel, will you add the powder?”

This next stage was like the first, in that I was asked to add all the liquids to the crucible, while the men added the other compounds. This time, however, there was no terrible smoke at the end. Instead, after a short wait, we witnessed an almost miraculous transformation, as the black powder turned white.

“The White Swan,” Sir Samuel breathed.

“White as snow,” the King said, astonished.

“On to the next stage,” Sir Isaac urged. “Citrinitas, the yellowing.”

More liquids and powders, another firing, a distillation, and yet more mixing . . . and the contents of the crucible became thick and yellow, like a bowl of beaten egg yolks.

“The Golden Sun,” Gabriel exulted.

Penebrygg blinked down at the bowl as if dazzled. “We are getting very close now.”

You could feel the excitement rising in the room. Indeed, I felt it rising in me. The work was so captivating that I had almost forgotten my fear.

You must be the first to touch it
, I reminded myself.
You must be the first to touch the Stone.
But surely that would be easy enough, if I were the one holding the crucible?

“Now for the fourth and last stage.” So far, Sir Isaac had been the most dispassionate of all of us, but now his voice trembled with emotion. “Chantress, you must hold the Golden Crucible. Lift it up firmly with both hands. Lord Gabriel, you must pour the yellow fluid into it.”

The crucible was heavier than it looked. I spread my hands wide, cupping it as best I could, but its smooth sides made it surprisingly difficult to hold. I began to worry again that I would ruin the experiment with a simple slip of the fingers. Gripping the crucible more firmly, I worked hard to keep it steady as Gabriel poured.

“There,” Sir Isaac said, his voice still quivering slightly. “Dr. Penebrygg, will you add the contents of that green flask? Sir Samuel, if you will be so good as to stir?”

I held on to the crucible so tightly that my fingers ached. Soon, however, I was distracted from the pain by the magic of what was happening inside the crucible: the yellow liquid thinned out and turned a rich orange. As Penebrygg brought the candle close, I saw flashes of shimmering blue-green spread across the surface.

“The Peacock’s Tail,” Gabriel said in wonder.

“Amazing!” Penebrygg, too, was filled with awe. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

We stood around the crucible for several minutes, completely engrossed. Then Sir Isaac pulled back, his long face furrowing.

“Is something wrong?” I was hoping the answer was
no
, and that Sir Isaac would say that our work was almost done, for the ache in my hands was creeping upward now, into my arms and neck.

“The transformation is not complete.” Sir Isaac’s frown deepened. “The color ought to be changing again.”

“Yes, to a deep and most perfect red.” Gabriel watched the liquid closely.

The King, too, stared into the crucible. “I don’t see any red myself. Only orange and blue and green.”

“Did we make a mistake?” Penebrygg wondered aloud. “Perhaps we mistimed things?”

Sir Isaac consulted his pocket watch and shook his head. “The timing is perfect.”

“The ingredients, then,” Penebrygg said. “Perhaps we measured out the wrong ones?”

Again Sir Isaac shook his head. “All the ingredients were
checked and double-checked. They are exactly what Flamel called for.”

“Well, we must have done
something
wrong,” Sir Samuel said. “Because nothing is happening.”

“It might be the auras,” Sir Isaac said slowly. “An imperfection or imbalance in the qualities each of us brings to the work.”

Could it be me? Was it my weakness that was holding back the Great Work? The mere thought was paralyzing, and the crucible slipped down in my hands.

“Careful there!” Sir Isaac warned as I regained my purchase on the crucible.

“She’s tiring,” Gabriel said.

“Yes.” Sir Isaac scrutinized me for a moment. My cheeks flamed, and not from the furnace. Did he suspect that I was the weak link?

Apparently not, for he turned to the others and said, “Your Majesty, gentlemen—you must leave the room.”

The King’s shoulders went back. “Leave the room? Why?”

“Are you suggesting we are at fault?” Gabriel said angrily.

“No, no,” Sir Isaac said. “You must not take offense. It is merely a matter of balance, as I said. Flamel, you see, calls only for an alchemist and an assistant—a man and a woman—to finish the work. I thought it wouldn’t matter if there were more people, but perhaps it does. Perhaps the energies are skewed with so many extra men in the room.”

“I don’t see why it should matter,” Gabriel began, but he stopped when the King held up his hand.

“If you think it would help,” the King said with dignity, “then of course we will leave.”

“You needn’t go far,” Sir Isaac said. “If you could just wait on the other side of the door with the guard, that will be sufficient.”

With the King leading the way, the others followed without further objection, though frustration was writ large on Gabriel’s face. As they walked out the door, I felt a faint surge of strength, and with it a leap of hope. Could Sir Isaac be right? Was the fault not with me, but with the balance in the room?

After the men passed through the door, Sir Isaac closed it behind them, then bolted it shut and set the dead bar across it.

“Just in case they are tempted to peek,” he said, answering my look of surprise. “In their place, I would find it hard to resist, but an interruption at the wrong moment could be fatal for the enterprise.”

He crossed back over to me and gazed into the crucible. “Ah, I see something is happening—excellent!”

Something was indeed happening—and I could not only see it, but also feel it as well. The weight of the crucible lightened ever so slightly, and inside its bowl, the liquid began to swirl and then give off a very light steam, like mist.

“It looks like the ocean,” I said, for beneath the mist, the liquid had turned a deep blue-green.

“Indeed.” Sir Isaac seemed enraptured by the sight.

“But wasn’t it supposed to turn red?” The more I stared at the liquid, the dizzier I felt.

“Give it time,” Sir Isaac murmured. “Give it time.”

I nodded, but the dizzy feeling was growing worse by the moment. Was it the smell of the mist that was doing this to me? Or the power of the Great Work itself? Or was it just exhaustion?

Whatever you do, don’t let go of the crucible
, I told myself. But then the dizziness worsened into outright nausea, and I lurched forward.

“Don’t drop it!” Sir Isaac shouted. His hands shot out to cover mine, pressing them against the crucible.

Perhaps they heard his shout outside, for there was some commotion behind the door. I could not make out exactly what it was, though; it was too muffled for that, and I was too sick. My head was spinning, and the crucible would have fallen if Sir Isaac hadn’t been standing across from me, supporting my hands with his own.

“Not much longer now.” As Sir Isaac spoke, a tremor ran through him, but his fingers remained strong as wire against mine. “The change has begun.”

Could I hold out till the Great Work was done? Through the high windows above us, the sky was dimming from black to deep blue; dawn was near. I looked down into the bowl, hoping to see at least a touch of crimson this time. But the liquid was still the same blue-green, and the steam above it was thickening, like a sea mist on a stormy day . . .

. . . and then all at once the steam swirled like the sea itself, and I was falling down into it with my mind, deeper and deeper, the fall I now associated with scrying. I tried to pull back, but
I couldn’t. Indeed, the dizziness only made me fall faster and harder.

What’s wrong?

I didn’t ask the question out loud, but it resounded inside me like a tolling bell:
What’s wrong?

As if in answer, a picture formed in the shimmering liquid. I almost groaned to see it, for it was the same one I’d seen twice before: the bloodthirsty king and queen, choking each other in all their finery. Only this time, as I stared at them, their blue faces shifted into something horribly recognizable: the king had Sir Isaac’s face, and the queen, my own. As I watched in sick shock, the tiny Sir Isaac quenched the life out of me and hacked off my coronet with a knife. My blood spurted over his pearl-bedecked hand.

The liquid sloshed in the crucible.

“Take care!” Sir Isaac shouted.

My head snapped up. “You,” I said, still in the grip of what I’d seen. “You’re what’s wrong. You’re doing something to me. Something awful.”

Sir Isaac’s face was all puzzlement. “My dear Chantress, you’re not making any sense.”

A small snake of doubt crept through me. But the picture had been so clear. I couldn’t ignore it.

“Something’s wrong,” I said. “I want to stop.”

The moment I tried to pull away, Sir Isaac’s mask of puzzlement vanished. For that’s all it had been—a mask. Beneath it, he had the blood-maddened look of the murderous king of my visions.

“Oh no.” He tightened his hands like a vise, flattening my fingers against the crucible. “You’re not stopping now. Not until we’re done. There, look! It’s changing now. We’ve done it!”

The liquid had indeed changed: it was now a bright, pure blue.

“It’s not red,” I said. “It’s not the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“No,” Sir Isaac said. “It’s something far more precious: a Chantress Elixir.”

“What?”

As I stared at him, dumbfounded, he seized the crucible for himself. Cradling it in one arm, he pulled an astonishingly luminous pearl out of his coat. Before I could duck away, he touched my hand with it. My head swam, and my muscles flagged. I sank toward the floor.

“You have done such an excellent job convincing everyone that you can still do magic,” Sir Isaac said softly. “But I know the truth. This talisman makes it impossible for you to hear music clearly; it confuses your senses. And when I hold it to your skin, it weakens you fatally. You cannot oppose me.”

Horrified, I tried to roll away from him. Waves of nausea pulsed through me.

“Look at you, cowering there on the floor.” He nestled the crucible closer to his chest. “You did not know the talisman existed, did you? Wrexham had the stone for years, you know; he told no one about it, but eventually I recognized it for what it was. A very rare object, indeed, though he did not know a tenth of what it could do.”

“You and Wrexham?” I gasped. “You plotted against me?”

“I, plot with that clod?” Sir Isaac spoke with disdain. “I should think not. I gave him a sleeping draught a fortnight ago and took the stone. He believes the talisman is still on his finger; I put an ordinary pearl in its place, and he never noticed the difference. And he never guessed that his talisman’s powers could be augmented through alchemy. Solely by a true adept, of course—and even then I only achieved my end a week ago.” He loomed over me with a superior smile, holding the pearl high. “And you were ignorant all the while. You never even heard the drone.”

The drone? The sound I’d heard by the sea in Norfolk, and in the river by the King’s hunting lodge—that was the talisman?

“I heard it,” I choked out.

“You did?” He looked faintly surprised. “Well, well. The process of creating the talisman is long and arduous, and it greatly disturbs the elements; the effects can ripple out for hundreds of miles. When the process is done, a Chantress will be deafened to it, but while it is happening, she may occasionally hear a drone, as you did. If so, it ought to serve as a warning to her.”

I wish it had
, I thought groggily, trying to push myself up from the floor.

He leered down at me. “But you didn’t know what to do about it, did you? Clear proof that a foolish girl like you does not deserve magic. Much better that it should be in the hands of a man like me, a man with judgment and discernment and wisdom. After all, I am the genius of my age; men everywhere acknowledge it.” He gave me a manic smile. “Genius and magic—what a combination it will be!”

Was he mad? I hoped so. But dimly, I remembered something Sybil had said once, about there being a way of transferring Chantress powers to a man. The way had been lost, she had said. . . .

“You know how to do it,” I said, feeling sick again. “How to claim a Chantress’s magic.”

“I do,” Sir Isaac acknowledged, with a touch of boastfulness. “The papers put me on to it. There were several pages that made no sense, at least not at first. But gradually I began to piece it together, step by step. It was so obscure I doubt anyone else could have decoded it; yet everything was there. Of course, the transfer of powers cannot succeed unless the man in question has Chantress blood, however faint. But fortunately, I do.”