Star Winds Read online

  Gebeth kept silent while Rachad pored over the pages.

  “An interesting story accompanies this volume,” he said when the younger man had closed the end cover. “The book is known to have existed nearly four thousand years ago when by chance it came into the hands of one Nicolas Flamel and his wife Perrenelle, who lived in a country then called France. For twenty-one years Flamel tried to carry out the instructions in the book, but could not decipher the symbols for the First Agents, which as you see are very cryptic, and the advice of learned men in this respect only led him astray. Finally he journeyed to another country called Spain, where he found a man able to understand the symbols and explain the text. Unfortunately this man died before explaining everything, but by now Flamel had learned enough to be able to discover the rest for himself, and after a further five years of research he completed the tincture. By projecting it onto mercury he was able to make both silver and gold better than that from the mine.”

  “Do you believe this story?” Rachad asked, running his fingertips lightly over the copper binding of the book.

  Gebeth nodded. “For one who has studied the book it has the ring of truth. I have applied myself to it for four years now, and like Flamel know that I shall never comprehend it without help. Yet I am convinced that here is the secret of the preparation of the Tincture.”

  “And you are going to give up?” Rachad said incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “But here it is,” breathed Rachad. He held the book In his hands reverently, his eyes darting here and there over the engraved surface. “All we have to do is find someone who understands it.”

  “That is just the point. There is no one on Earth who understands it. That I have already ascertained insofar as I am able. Yet recently I heard where the necessary explanations may be found.”

  “Where?” demanded Rachad, his eyes flashing. “Tell me where and I shall bring them to you—that I swear!”

  “You are too rash, my friend, far too rash,” Gebeth said with a smile. “Three days ago I was visited by an itinerant scholar, one of those strange people who wander about the world gathering knowledge here, there and everywhere. His conversation proved him to be knowledgeable in alchemical matters—indeed in all sciences. After some deliberation I spoke of the book to him. He already knew of it, and was greatly interested as he had never seen a copy and asked me if I could obtain this book. So eventually I showed it to him and he studied it for two hours. He then said that, to save me from further decades of fruitless toil, he would tell me a secret known to very few, which he had learned from the high priest of the Temple of the Holy Ciborium, a religious order dwelling in the city of Kalek-Tepek. This order itself sprang from alchemical origins many centuries ago, though it no longer practices the art. At any rate, it was disclosed to my visitor that there exists a second book, written by one coming long after Nicholas Flamel—something like two thousand years after. This book explains the hidden meanings in the first book, supplying the missing signs and containing much else besides. Furthermore, it is explicit enough to be deciphered by one well versed in the field. But only one copy exists, and it will never be found. It is in a secret hiding place in the Temple of Hermes Trismegistus, which is in Kars, a city in Syrtis Major.”

  “Syrtis Major?”

  “A region of Mars.”

  Rachad looked stricken. “Mars!”

  Gebeth nodded. “A planet at one time famous as a center of alchemical researches, even more so than Earth. Many are the tales of marvelous transmutations accomplished there. But do you see the irony? The one possibility of achieving our aim lies far, far beyond our reach.”

  In imparting this precious information Gebeth had a definite aim. He wished to persuade the boy once and for all of the hopelessness of seeking alchemical gold, before his ambitions gelled in that direction. Gebeth knew from personal experience what happened once that fever took hold. He thought of his past labors and fell to dreaming once more, his eyes glazed. Calcination, sublimation, solution, putrefaction, distillation, coagulation … he had mastered all these main operations, as well as the adjunctive ones—congelation, fixation, ceration, projection, infusoration, and so on. He had spent much money on obtaining the textbooks of this numinous work and had a library of which he was proud.

  One needed to be an artist, too, to comprehend these texts. How else would one know that the silvery water, the divine water, the ever-fugitive, the seed of the dragon, the water of the moon, the milk of the black cow, were all names of mercury, or quicksilver?

  A fragment of a poem from one of his manuals drifted through his mind:

  … A dragon springs therefrom, which when exposed to heat,

  Devours his tail till naught thereof remains.

  This dragon, whom they Ouroborous or Tail-Biter call,

  Is white in looks and spotted in his skin,

  And has a form and shape most strange to see.

  What layman, by following this poem, would be able to alloy copper and silver, heating them in the presence of mercury which bound them into a single white amalgam?

  Gebeth had tried hundreds of recipes for the making of gold, generally useless and even fraudulent, which could be obtained from spurious books or from “alchemists” who were little more than tricksters. He had learned the hard way how to distinguish those works which were genuine and imparted real knowledge. Among these were The Sophic Hydrolith and The Chariot of Antimony. He well remembered how, by following these and other authenticated works, he had embarked upon a detailed procedure for preparing the Tincture. In the course of a process lasting several months he had observed with excitement the predicted color changes, first to the deep black known as the Raven’s Head, then going through a reddish phase, then from the Peacock’s Tail with its white, green and yellow spots, to the deep red Blood of the Dragon. Then, sealed in a transparent receptacle of rock crystal, the preparation had been subjected to the most intense heat At last it had transformed itself into the Raven’s Wing—a semi-gaseous, semi-liquid haze of glorious purple color that swirled and raved, the penultimate step, so the books said, in the creation of the Tincture. Yet try as he might Gebeth had not, after cooling and breaking open the receptacle, been able to accomplish the final stage. Several times he had started anew and repeated the whole procedure, believing that his ingredients had not been purified enough—and once wrecking his laboratory when the crystal vessel exploded—before admitting failure and immersing himself in yet more study.

  On the other hand his career had not been without its Joyous moments. He had, for instance, isolated the essence of animal vitality. This he had done by boiling off large quantities of urine until a residue remained. Upon his opening the vessel and exposing it to the air this residue had instantly flared up to flood the entire room with a vivid white glow eerie to behold, which had caused him much wonderment. The manual he had consulted for the experiment called this unstable substance phosphorus, explaining that it was almost unique among the compounds of earth and fire in being earth in which was mixed enormous amounts of fire in its purest state. So easily did this fire flee its corporeal prison that phosphorous constituted the natural essence for animating the body; it was responsible even for bodily warmth. Needless to say, Gebeth had been immensely impressed by this example of how subtle and variegated were the admixtures between the five elements earth, water, air, fire and ether.

  Rachad was staring blankly at the tabletop. “Well, isn’t that real hard luck, sir? To learn a thing like that and not be able to do anything about it.”

  “I imagine I would never have received the information if it had been at all possible to act on it,” Gebeth said resignedly. “The high priest of the Holy Ciborium would not have disclosed the tale, nor would my itinerant visitor have disclosed it to me, were not the Temple of Hermes Trismegistus wholly inaccessible. Only worthless knowledge is gained so easily.”

  Gebeth smiled. Rachad’s chief interest in the business was plain to see, of course. H
e lusted after gold. That was the reason why he had so eagerly apprenticed himself to Gebeth.

  And at the beginning, Gebeth reminded himself, he too had been driven by that hunger, almost to the exclusion of everything else. But time and decades of work had somehow wrought a change. He sought the stone by this time not merely for the wealth it would bring—he was old, now, and how much good could that wealth do him?—but for the glory of succeeding in the Great Work, for the sake of verifying with his own eyes that base metal could be transmuted into gold, and for the joy of seeing the secret operations of nature laid bare in his very own vessels. He could not say just when this change had come about. It had emerged gradually over the years.

  “Mars!” exclaimed Rachad in a savage tone, thumping the table with frustration.

  Outside the shuttered room, the sun sank slowly in the west.

  Chapter TWO

  Captain Zebandar Zhorga came out of the Portmaster’s office wearing a glum face. He muttered a few curses for the man, glancing back at the office’s lighted windows, then padded with his lumbering gait across the beaten earth of the field.

  Captain Zhorga was a man whose qualities could all be summed up in one word: bluntness. His approach to problems was always direct, often clumsily so. His weather-beaten face showed this, with its heavy-lidded, slightly bulging eyes and powerful nose that was corrugated through having been broken twice. The hairs of his beard were like stiff black wires, though fringed with gray.

  He had always been an air sailor. In his time he had been a fighting man, an armed midshipman in the world’s last flying navy. But that was all in the past now. As he would put it, “The world hasn’t got the guts for a decent war any more.” Fighting with ether sail was no longer a going proposition, all available silk having been pressed into commerce. So he had become a merchant, and in time had bought his own ship, though it had nearly broken his back paying off the installments.

  The panorama of the ship-strewn field was still visible in the dusk, which was enlivened by the light of numerous lamps. From the decks of craft of all kinds—galleons, clippers, chebecs, cogs—a forest of topmasts raked the darkening sky. There was even a schooner, a relatively rare type of vessel whose highly skilled crews made use of the “ground currents” that raced along close to the Earth’s surface during the hours of daylight Over one or two hulls repairmen swarmed with much hammering and calling, while from others rose the merry sound of pipes and of singing. Most, however, were silent and dark, guarded by ground watches.

  And on the margin of the vast field the rotting hulks of boomers and jammers, giant ships of bygone times, loomed against the fading sky. There was no ship owner alive who could gather together enough sail to loft one of those great hulls now. Indeed, were an air sailor of an earlier generation able to inspect some of the craft on which the world’s trade depended these days, he would probably have shaken his head with dismay.

  The crudest type of ether rig was the balloon jib, which was used by the comparatively primitive cogs, many of which were mastless. Consisting of a single square (or sometimes triangular) sail set before the bow, the balloon jib simply dragged its load along behind it. The principle was somewhat further elaborated in the three-masted barquentine. Here the balloon jib, still carried before the bow, was raised on the foremast, the foot being lashed to radiating hullsprits, while mid and aft masts carried fore-and-aft canvas sail—a neat combination of wind and ether which greatly increased maneuverability.

  But it was in ships like the galleon and the clipper that the science of sail really came into its own. Permanent masts on top, shipable sprits and booms below and around, these ships could so completely shroud themselves in sail that they resembled scudding clouds. Except in the chebec, which boasted upright masts and elegant lateens, topmasts were always raked. Mounted on movable block-and-beam arrangements, they could take up any angle of slant—for flying a sailship was a delicate matter of balance and the ship behaved aerodynamically like a free-flying kite. Yards could carry either silk or canvas, or both together in any combination. A ship could “keel” herself on the wind and tack against the ether, or vice versa. More simply, she could play wind against ether to move in practically any third direction, aided by a large rudder made of laminated wood or metal wrapped in ether silk.

  There were other complications, of course. Since ship fields were invariably located on the outskirts of large towns, landing and takeoff presented the nuisance of ether whistle. Landing was less of a problem, since any crew worth its salt could put a ship safely on the ground using canvas alone, furling all ether sail just before entering the land-ether interference band. Takeoff, though, clearly could not be accomplished with canvas. One answer was to loft ships by means of huge gas or hot-air balloons, and only then to spread their silk. The simpler recourse adopted here in Olam was to restrict departure to a certain time of day (dawn in this case) when ships could gain altitude quickly without having to pass over the town. During that period, of course, everyone in the immediate vicinity wore earplugs.

  Zhorga paused in front of his own ship, the Wandering Queen. Her timbers were in fairly good shape, but little else could be said for her. As on most other ships these days, her ether sails—what there was of them—were a mass of patches and sewn-up rents. For some time Zhorga had been flying overburdened and now, as he was forced to recognize, he had hit rock-bottom.

  He hesitated, his mind half made up to go aboard, but instead he raised his gaze to the sky. In the clear night air the stars were strengthening; low over the horizon, visible even through the light of the lamps, shone a glowering red spot. Zhorga stared at the red planet, a reckless idea forming in his mind.

  Then he began to curse again, the oaths becoming a monotonous grumble in his throat, and at length, an expression of disgust on his face, he turned and trudged away.

  On the town side of the field, half a mile away, he approached a lone building outlined against the dusk. The building’s narrow windows glowed from the light within, and were composed of strips of colored glass. A painted signboard picturing a clipper hung outside the door. The tavern was named, appropriately enough, The Ship.

  Zhorga pushed open the door and let the comforting noise and confusion of the taproom sweep over him. The lamplight gleamed on burnished oak ceiling beams, pewter tankards and teak tables. Many of his crew were already there, including his first mate, Clabert. He ignored them and shouldered his way to the counter.

  “Give me a bottle of ombril.”

  Clutching the bottle of pale orange spirit he moved to a table where other air captains sat in a huddle. Zhorga had some esteem among them; few owned their own ships as he did, but captained the vessels of merchants. He sat down grumpily, answering their greetings with grunts. The ombril, with its bitter, fiery taste, slid down his throat and warmed his stomach, sending heady fumes to his brain.

  The talk was of the increasing tribulations facing the air trade, and more specifically, of piracy. There had always been such depredations, of course, but latterly it had a different object. Pirates sought to rob ships, not of the cargoes they carried, but primarily of the ether sail on their masts.

  “I heard that Ringebass was forced down in the Sanaman Desert, and every scrap of silk taken from him,” said Hindemage, a scrawny and uncommonly ugly individual with a glaucomatous left eye and a dirty red bandanna under his captain’s hat. “He and his men would have died of thirst if a camel caravan hadn’t come upon them.”

  This information prompted Zhorga to join in. “That’s terrible. Something ought to be done,” he said, choosing to forget that not too long ago, espying a small bark when on the other side of the world, he had done the same thing himself for what bit of ether silk was bent to her yard.

  Everyone knew of his escapade over Olam that afternoon, and that he had been called to the Portmaster. But when asked about it Zhorga merely scowled and refused to speak, until he started on his second bottle of ombril, by which time drink had loosened his t
ongue.

  “Business is all over,” he said in a heavily laden voice. “I haven’t got enough sail to carry a decent cargo any more. We damn near came down in the ocean a few days ago. Had to throw part of my freight overboard.” To sink in the sea, now, that would be a disgrace. As it was the trip had left him without a penny of profit.

  “What’s the Portmaster have to say?” asked Hindemage, repeating someone else’s question.

  “Wasn’t my fault,” announced Zhorga grudgingly. “I’m short on good sail, that’s all. I don’t have a single piece that’s without holes in it.” In fact the Portmaster had imposed a swingeing return fine, which meant that next time Zhorga landed at Olam he would either have to pay it or have his ship impounded.

  The others turned from him in that slightly awkward manner of those who see a defeated man in their midst. This tweaked Zhorga’s pride, and it was for this reason, perhaps, that he blurted out his next words so impulsively.

  “There’s only one thing wrong, and that’s that there’s no silk to be had. The solution’s obvious. All we have to do is get fresh silk.”

  “Oh yes, that’s all.” Everyone smiled and turned to new topics.