Аврам Дэвидсон: The Cealess Stone

Well, obscure, and typically obscure, as all this was, there was anyway no obscurity in the guess which he had formed about the free lynx of the South. Considering that the Boy had certainly never in his life heard of Basil Valentine. Or of any of his works.

Or of his Work.

On a sudden impulse, Eszterhazy carefully took the volume and shook it, gently, gently, for it was, though sturdy in appearance, still, quite old. A slip of paper dropped out of the back pages, and, although hastily he set down the volume, almost it escaped him. Almost. It was half of a form of appHcation for books, neatly torn in two; and on the back of it, which side was facing him as he took it up, Eszterhazy saw, in a neat school-masterish hand, the words Ora Lege Lege Lege Relege Labora et Invienes.

Pray, Read, Read, Read, Read Again; Toil and Thou Shalt Find.

Thoughtfully, he turned the slip over. What was left of the original apphcation were the words:

au, K.-Heyndrik

The Annual Directory of Loyal Subjects Resident in the Imperial Capital and Registered According to Law, etc., had certainly been up-to-date . . . once. However, Master Karrol-Heyndrik Mumau had not moved since its last publication. That is, his name was known to the porteress in the shabby-genteel block of flats.

"Yes, the Master do live here, but he have a workshop at th' old Spanish Bakery, where he be now, I expect. Thanks 'ee, sir."

Once there had been an Emperor who had wedded an Infanta of

Castille. That was long, long ago. And it had been long, long, since any farduelos or other Hispanic pastries had been produced from the oven at the Spanish Bakery. Had he not known what the letters were supposed to intend, it is doubtful that Eszterhazy could have made them out. The windows were curtained and dusty, and dust lay so heavily in the comers of the front door that it was doubtful anyone had used it for decades, perhaps. However, there is always a "round the back." Thither he went, and there, upon the door in the faded russet brick wall, he knocked.

The door opened fairly soon.

"My dear Master Mumau," Eszterhazy said, gently, "you mustn't make gold any more, you know. You really, really mustn't. It is forbidden according to law."

"Will they put me in the galleys?" the man whispered.

Til see to it that they won't," Eszterhazy said. He had never made a promise he felt safer of keeping.

"I was about to stop, anyway," the man said. His manner was that of a schoolboy who has been caught roasting apples at the Bimsen burner. For a moment he stood there, irresolute. Then he said, "Would you like to come in ... ? You would? Really? Please door.

Everything that one might have expected to find there was there: the furnace, the crucible, the athanor, alembic, pelican. It was all there. One thing more was there, which Eszterhazy did not recognize. He turned away, urging himself to forget its very outlines. "That . . . piece of equipment," he said, gesturing. "That one. Break it at once."

The man made a huffling sound, clicked his tongue, sighed. At length there was a smash. "Oh well. I said I wouldn't make any more, didn't I? Well, I meant it. So I don't need it."

"And you are not to make another one like it."

He turned back and looked around once again. Yes, a bakery was a very good place to have chosen. God only knew what they would do, there at the Mint, and at the Treasury, if they knew what had been baked here recently.

"I used to be chemistry master at the Old Senior School, you know," Mumau said. "And I was a very good one, too. Till I got sick. Father Rector was very kind to me, 'Master Henk,' he said, 'we've agreed to give you a nice pension, so just take it easy, and don't you read any more of them big thick books, do you hear?'

And I said, 1 won't, Father Rector.' But of course I did. And so of course I have to confess it. 'Father, I've been reading those big thick books again, that I'm not supposed to,' I tell the priest. It's not Father Rector, just the parish priest, and he says, he always says, 'Say three Our Fathers and a Hail Mary and don't play with yourself.'"

Eszterhazy had taken off his hat and was fanning his face with it. "But why did you sell the rings?" he asked. "Why?'

Master Mumau looked at him. "Because I needed the money for my real project," he said.

"I don't care about the gold, puff-puff with the bellows, oh what a nuisance! I just needed more money because the pension couldn't stretch that far, and I needed fifty ducats and so I had to make enough to sell a hundred rings. Well, now I've got the fifty ducats." His face lit up with an expression of glee such as Eszterhazy had almost never seen in his Iffe before.

"—and now I can work on my real project!"

Eszterhazy nodded. "The elixir of Life," he said, wearily.

"Of course, the elixir of Life!"

For once, Doctor Eszterhazy could think of nothing to say. He racked his brains. Finally he murmured, "Keep me posted."

Later, he said to Lobats, "You may consider the case as closed."

"You mean that? You do. Well. Very well. But ... at least tell me. Where did he get it”

And Eszterhazy said, in a way perfectly truthfully, 'It was dragon gold."

He was never sure, afterwards, that Lobats ever forgave him for that.