Three Emperors (9780062194138) (21 page)

Chapter 25

Astiza

T
en thousand years ago, mankind was taught the arts of civilization by the god Thoth and his silvery associates. So teach the adepts of Egypt. At the heart of our complex existence, Thoth explained, is simplicity. In simplicity we find purity, and in purity we achieve communion with the universe. This is the alchemist's quest. He seeks to refine, reduce, and perfect. Dross lead becomes sublime gold, and our troubled beings achieve unity and transcendence. This is the hope.

The smell of this transformation is sulfur, vinegar, urine, and smoke.

The alchemical laboratory to which Horus and I have been confined is a chamber of hell. There's a forge with chimney and a cylindrical brick furnace called an athanor, as tall as a man. Our cell vacillates between the chill of the abandoned silver mines I've been told exist beyond its rock walls and the stuffy oppression of ceaseless fire. I have at my disposal glass vessels of every size and shape, and helix loops of copper to drip and distill. From this I cook chemicals and minerals in a hunt for the Philosopher's Stone, the fabled red rock said to confer endless wealth and everlasting life. Unclear in the magical texts is whether “stone” is literal or metaphor.

My alchemical methods are evaporation, condensation, and fixation. I bake compounds in stone vessels shaped like eggs in the commonsense belief that the universe itself was hatched from an egg. I mimic the gods like little Horus mimics me. I have pots, bowls, hermetic vases, flasks, and gourds, as well as tongs, scoops, scrapers, pincers, strainers, ladles, and spoons. Auric has delivered alchemical glassware blown into fantastic shapes with fantastic names, such as Moon Vessel, Cup of Babylon, Angel Tube, Skull Cap, and Philosopher's Egg. Each condenses and drips in a slightly different way. A double boiler is called a Mary's Bath, and there is a picture of Mary above it, carrying a rose.

Powdery grit coats everything. Metals, stone, and wood are reduced to ash and then dissolved, filtered, settled, skimmed, agitated, boiled, distilled, and strained, again and again. For thousands of years we've known rock ore can yield iron and that the galena from lead ore can yield silver. Why should this progression not continue? Reduce soft lead to its core reality and the result is gold.

Or so the texts promise, in languages foreign and obscure. They are riddled with symbols and are ripe for misrepresentation and error. Some of the writings are called the Language of the Birds, because of the belief that birds sing a sacred language similar to the Enochian of angels. Only Saint Francis of Assisi fully understood them.

The dark art of alchemy is dangerous. Experiments can burn, suffocate, or explode. Moreover, a moment's mistake in a year of reduction can cause the formula to go awry. This mistake can come not just from the hands but from the heart and mind. Thoughts must be measured as carefully as tinctures. In his progression toward gold, the alchemist must make equal progress with his spirit. The wrong intent can literally spoil the broth.

It doesn't help that some alchemists were deliberate frauds and mountebanks. Notables such as Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Cardinal de Richelieu, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton all made legitimate experiments with alchemy, but the craft also drew claims of gold making that proved as ephemeral as fog. Rulers who bankrolled such experiments were not amused, and Bohemia's prisons were full of failed alchemists. Frederick of Würzburg was so incensed that he gilded his gallows. “There is your gold!” the executioners would shout as the wizards swung, strangling, the taunting color the last thing they would ever see.

Adjacent to the laboratory is a cell where Horus and I sleep, read, and pray. There I've consulted a thousand texts. There's a new book by an Englishman named John Dalton, who has revived the Greek idea of atoms, or particles so small they cannot be divided further. Dalton suggests that these atoms are the true building blocks of the universe. These new ideas are very similar to the old ones of Thoth. I combine ancient and modern in my mind.

In our crucibles we dissolve compounds with elements that can transform base metals to their purer selves. Mercury represents spirit. Sulfur is soul. Salt is body. The salt in tears is crystallized thought, and Harry and I have been weeping for endless months, yearning for release and reunion with Ethan.

Now I sense that our goal is at hand.

I dare not betray hope, lest they be suspicious. I dare not admit to failure, lest they be furious. I keep my jailers at bay with alchemical tricks they interpret as progress. Heat antimony, as Newton did, and the metal turns to crystalline stars. Newton called it the Black Dragon, and my jailers think it precious silver. I tell them it is but a step more toward gold and the Philosopher's Stone, but the last step is the most difficult. Patience, patience! I push them away. At night, when my captors aren't watching, I melt it all down to start again. Every day I delay is a day in the life of my son.

Auric looks at my boy with hideous appetite, his soul as twisted as his body.

So Harry and I pee into a special urn to allow the urine to putrefy. I'm secretly making something to free us from nightmare.

I think I finally know where to go, should we ever escape. In the moldering library where we sleep, I combed every volume of text to try to guess where Christian Rosenkreutz went with his automaton. I studied the rose until my eyes blurred. I pored over maps of Bohemia. I picked apart alchemical chants.

In a book of history about the Thirty Years' War, I came across a drawing of a burned castle that at last answered my prayers. It's the most peculiarly situated and shaped castle I've ever seen.

It's in the shape of ka, the Egyptian hieroglyph for “soul,” which I saw etched in the wall in the dungeon of Český Krumlov. Two bent arms, reaching for the sky.

This is our goal. Rosenkreutz haunts my dreams; he has become my inspiration.

Impatience has worn my captors down. They don't trust me, but they grudgingly respect my knowledge. Fulcanelli, the man who is actually Richter, even tried to discuss philosophy again before my cold hatred defeated his overtures. I haven't seen him for weeks now. But Auric came to me with his wicked grin, eyeing my son like a leg of mutton, and asked if word of my husband would spur me to new efforts.

Not word, I said, but
proof
.

Auric said he must visit Prague, and would return with proof. “I will give you evidence—if you will give me gold.”

I gave him a list of missing chemicals I said I still needed, acids and chlorides, and asked for a seed of gold to grow a hoard. “Flakes of gold will teach the metal to convert.” He cackled and danced and wouldn't give any promises, but for the first time I felt my husband was near. Our enemies had word of him.

Which means he's in danger. And that our tormentors are frustrated and afraid.

Time is running short. In the chamber where Harry and I sleep, illuminated by candles stuck in crevices and ventilated by a crack admitting air from a sky we can't see, there are mysteriously locked cabinets and trunks. Most have so far defeated my efforts at opening them, but one lock I managed to pick. It was a chest the dwarf sometimes goes to fondle, and its brass fastenings are brightly polished from his caresses.

When I lifted the lid, I pulled back a leather cover before realizing it must be human skin.

Beneath were layers of bones on trays of purple velvet, polished by the dwarf's fingers like ivory trophies.

All are the size of small children.

Chapter 26

T
he sword of Roland and the dwarf who was to repair it were equally pitted. The blade was dark and chipped, and the smith was pocked and warty. Auric Nachash's hair was tangled string, his beard wispy splotches, his leather apron spotted with stains, and his hands a scabby red. His hovel on the Golden Lane was noxious, its small forge laboring to exhaust fumes through a slumping chimney. A permanent fog hung in the room. What the waddling creature did exhibit was competent curiosity, handling Durendal with a craftsman's intensity.

“Of course I can fuse hilt to blade,” he said. “But the steel is old, oddly discolored, and warped. What happened to it?”

“It was struck by lightning.”

He laughed, or rather cackled, nervously jiggling from leg to leg. “Tempered by a thunderbolt? Was that God's wrath or God's favor? And where did you get the hilt?”

“That's none of your concern. Where did you learn to smith?”

“That's none of
your
concern. I'm an unusual man, who required unusual teachers for unusual tastes.” He looked at me over the rim of the blade, eyes sharp as pins. They seemed to crawl over my features with the alacrity of spiders. “I instill magic in my steel, Monsieur . . .”

“Franklin. Hieronymus Franklin.”

It seemed cautious to use my false name. Aaron had made inquiries and was told that this ugly artisan was rumored to practice dark magic and petty crime. However, there was no one in all of Prague more skilled at metallurgy. Since experience with women convinced me that there was little correlation between appearance and character, I was willing to give the midget magician a chance. Could he know the source of my son's marble? And what monstrous luck if he did!

As precaution, we'd found a hiding place for Gideon in a bell tower that overlooked the Golden Lane. The street itself had a presumptuous name for a gutter gathering of frauds, strumpets, beggars, moneylenders, and magicians. Every old city has a place like that, but I was especially wary in this alley. The street was tight, the hovel odd, and its occupant odder still. He smacked his lips and licked with his tongue when thinking, not noticing the strange sounds he made. His home had bubbling chemicals, jars of dead and aborted animals, and hanks of weed, herbs, and garlic hanging from joists like witches' hair. There was a rude bed, sagging cupboards, and blackened cauldrons.

Adding to my disquiet was the fact that Auric seemed more interested in me than in my weapon, eyeing me like a vintner deciding when to time the crush. I didn't care for the look, and sensed that he didn't care that I didn't care. The dwarf had no doubt gotten plenty of peculiar looks himself.

Best to keep things brisk and businesslike. “Can its strength be restored?”

His gaze swung from me to calculating appraisal. The broken hilt fit the sword blade at the break perfectly.

“Why would you care, Monsieur Franklin? Are you a medieval knight?”

“An expert in antiquities. Even to a collector, what good is a fragile sword?”

“In an age of artillery, what good is a sword at all?”

“Of use when your enemies get close.” Best to remind him I wasn't helpless. “And people think this relic is still important.”

He fingered the metal like flesh. “Which people?”

“None of your concern, again. Inspired by old legends. Which must exist for a reason.”

“Ah, reason.” The dwarf nodded, waddling to his anvil. “Reason that I am small and twisted, reason that you are alone and poor, reason that bloodthirsty generals are elevated to lords, and reason that alchemists are mistrusted for nonsense and superstition. We live in an age of reason, where everything is known and nothing understood.” He stared back at me. “Do you believe in the unity of all things, pilgrim?”

I thought of Astiza and Harry. “I long for it.”

“Belief is part of healing, be it body or steel. I see you favoring a shoulder.”

“I was wounded at Austerlitz.”

“Serving which side?”

“My own.”

He approved of my answer. “Believe in your own recovery. You must not just hope but
know
that restoration is possible. Birth played a trick on me, so I pursue alchemy to repair myself. Dross can become silver. Ugly ducklings can become swans. Enduring pain teaches us to tolerate pain. Inflicting pain relieves pain. I heal myself.”

It didn't seem to be working, given that he looked as though his profession was poisoning him. But I've met my share of unfortunates. Some are ennobled by their troubles, and others corrupted. We don't control fate, but we control our reaction to it. Was this little smith tempered, or bent? “I just want to heal the sword.”

“You must envision the completed blade in order to restore it. Many an alchemical experiment has gone awry because of a single wisp of doubt. I know a seeker right now who seems troubled. So I put it to you again, traveler: Do you believe in unity?”

I thought of the strange things I'd seen in the bowels of the pyramids, the tombs of the ancients, the sacred tree of the Dakotas, and the voodoo swamps of Haiti. Aye, there's more to existence than we admit. “I don't just believe, blacksmith—I've
experienced
unity. All are aspects of one. I've had exhilarating glimpses of the secret order of the universe. Terrifying ones. Hopeful ones.”

“Then you could have answered your own question about the sword's repair.” He fingered the blade. “I can tell that this was truly a hero's sword, forged with magic, annealed in holy water, and consecrated in blood. Steel like fiber, woven in the loom of the forge. A hilt as sturdy as a root. A shape to sing as it cuts the air. Sharp as dawn at one time, and indestructible as the stars. It's Durendal, is it not?”

How could he possibly know that?

Auric cackled at my surprise. “Yes, Rudolf was rumored to have put this stub of rust in that peculiar palace—Star Summer, they called it. You have stolen it?”

“Retrieved it.”

He held the blade high. “Durendal, Durendal! Even the name is poetry! Seekers have searched for it. And now, to have it on my forge? Oh, yes, I'll restore it. It will whisper its past as I work to create it anew.” He held it to his ear. “Once more it will strip skin from muscle, meat from bone, and stir the finest soups. Durendal!”

The dwarf was clearly balmy, while I was clearly desperate.

“How do you know its name?”

“All Prague knows it. And this blade hums to me.”

Perhaps the sword truly was a talisman to finding the trail of Rosenkreutz and the Brazen Head. When I did that, I'd find my family, too, or so I hoped. No,
believed
, I corrected myself.

“Then repair it.” I deliberately used a tone of impatient authority to keep the lunatic under control.

“For a gold coin, master.”

“Agreed.” I had the last of Richter's purse.

“I'll have to overlap and weld the two parts. The finished product will be a few inches shorter.”

“A shortened sword is better than a broken one.”

“The philosopher offers a maxim!”

The little smith bent to his task, using coal to make a hotter fire. At his demand I pumped the bellows, baking myself to a fine sheen. Auric inserted the two broken ends in the coals until they glowed, set them on his anvil and had me hold a chisel at the break while he gave a smart swing with a hammer. We cut two lengthwise slits, one on the long blade and the other on the stub. Then the two pieces were reheated, twisted, and shoved together.

“Not very elegant-looking,” I remarked.

“Neither is procreation at its most awkward moments. Patience.”

The sword was heated again, brought out white at the joint, laid flat on the anvil, and beaten flat by my squat Vulcan, sparks flying. He doused, reheated, and hammered over and over again, working with sure swiftness. There was a final quenching with an explosive hiss, and then he sighted along the blade and began to smooth and sharpen with file, grindstone, and pumice. Durendal was beginning to look fit for a Roland.

“Satisfied, philosopher?”

I hefted it with my right arm, and then my aching left, before handing it back. I could now suspend such weight. “Impressed.”

“Yes, and now the rest of your lesson. You'll need a scabbard. Go to my cupboard for leather and thread and a tape to measure, while I finish sharpening.”

I rummaged for supplies and stopped.

In the cupboard was a plain clay bowl. In the bowl was a silver necklace. And on the necklace were two pendants, an Egyptian ankh and an Eye of Horus, a decorative piece inspired by the eye of the Egyptian hawk god.

First the marble, and now this. It was as if Astiza and Harry had inscribed their names. Why had I been led to a dwarf with trinkets from my wife?

I grasped them and turned. “Why do you have relics of my family?”

But I discovered that the newly annealed sword was now pointed at my chest, the dwarf's gaze grim with warning. “Do not move, gambler.”

“Why do you call me a gambler?”

“I know everything about you, Ethan Gage. I know you're an impostor, a liar, and I know more about you than you know yourself.”

So he'd known my identity from the beginning.

“You're no Franklin man, and no philosopher. You're a spy, an adventurer, a dilettante, a rake, a sycophant to the powerful, a heretic, a treasure hunter, a conspirator, and a libertine.”

“And famous, apparently.” His list reminded me to create my own.

“I know your wife, I know your child, and I know your real purpose in Bohemia. You're here as a thief, to find and steal another relic.”

“You're mistaken.”

“You seek the Brazen Head.” The sword tip wavered a foot from my chest. I could grab it, but not without slicing my hand and risking a plunge to my heart.

It seemed useless to deny. “How can I steal what was stolen from the French two hundred years ago?” I eyed the sword's point. “Or do you mean Roland's sword, another French relic carried off to Bohemia?” I could overpower this Auric if I could get past the blade, but the cell we in worked was small, giving me no room to maneuver. “And how do you know about my wife?”

“She was here.”

At last! Blood pounded so fast that I was dizzy. “Is she alive?”

“Only for so long as you cooperate, Monsieur Gage,” a new voice said from behind me, its injured lisp all too familiar. “Your son did not, spoiling my appearance.”

I turned with dread and resignation. Baron Wolf Richter held two pistols aimed squarely at my torso. Because I had already been shot once, their muzzles looked even more gigantic to me than usual. Richter himself seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, just like the stranger Aaron had encountered in the Lane. It's an odd trick, becoming invisible, and almost as useful as being dead. In this case he wore dun-colored clothes that blended with burlap curtains I'd assumed screened a pantry. He'd been watching us, still as stone, the whole time.

“So you're in league with Catherine Marceau,” I said.

“Hardly. Rabbi Abraham Stern betrayed us by deciding to cooperate with the agents of Talleyrand. We're Czech patriots who believe our heritage belongs to Prague, not Paris. Aren't we, Auric?”

“We're the rightful caretakers of the automaton, if it exists.”

“Then you don't support the aspirations of the Jews?”

“The Jews are doing quite well. They don't need Napoleon—or you.”

“Where are my wife and son?”

“You can join them, if you wish.” The pistols had not wavered, and Durendal was still pointed as well.

I stalled for opportunity. “You really should do something about your complexion, Baron.” I hadn't had time to study the full scale of his disfigurement in Venice, but it looked as if someone had dipped the lower half of his face in boiling acid. By thunder, these two were the ugliest pair of poltroons I'd ever encountered, and that's saying something.

“Your son did this to me, Gage. I've yet to take my full revenge on him.”

I was sweating, and from more than the heat. “Harry? My boy is friendly to everything but rabid dogs.”

“He's not seen the sun since he scarred me, and never will again unless you cooperate. His sin I can attribute to youth. Your sins to greed and pride. And your wife's . . . I sought you out in Venice out of curiosity and revenge, and you dared steal from me. But I'm much less impulsive than you are. I handle cards better, too.” An amused smile, if it hadn't been so twisted by chemicals.

“Harry wouldn't have hurt you if you didn't deserve it. What were you doing to him?”

“I barely struck the hellion. It was a misunderstanding with his mother.”

My rage was swelling. “You assaulted her?”

“How could I, when she'd fallen in love with me?”

“What?”

“Ask her yourself. It's quite a tragedy, the three of us. So—do you want to see them alive? Do you want help in finding the Brazen Head? Or will you condemn them by doing something heroic and foolish, ending your life and theirs?”

The door opened. Two more caped men stepped through it, these holding wide-bore muskets. Auric let the heavy sword point drop. Did it give me a chance? No.

“Bind him,” Richter ordered. “Wrists to belt, so his captivity won't be too conspicuous when we leave. We don't want trouble in the Lane.”

“What do you want? Why don't you leave us alone?”

“Your wife has made some progress on alchemical experiments but is asking for chemicals to complete her concoctions. One is a seed of gold. Do you still have my winnings?”

“They're mine, since you cheated, and no.” I wasn't about to give him the last of my meager traveling fund, and, judging from his Venetian palace, he didn't need it.

“Then, alas, she will fail, and it will be cheaper to simply kill your family.”