Avram Davidson - The Phoenix and the Mirror

Small Morlinus, who had been listening at odd moments, looked up expectantly at this; but Clemens, who had not observed him, amended, “A small, red-haired boy,” and the face of Morlinus, who was dark, fell.

Vergil raised his wand and the mill fell silent. The green ore was removed and piled in a heap and burned like lime. It did not lose color, but it lost much of its hardness; after which it was cooled, returned to the mill, and broken up small. It was then ready for the furnace.

Vergil addressed his adepts and their helpers. “We are now approaching the more delicate parts of the work,” he reminded them, “although the casting and founding will be, of course, next to the burnishing, the most delicate parts of all. You have all bathed and prayed and sacrificed. More than a willingness to work together is required. Any degree of impatience, any loss of temper, might, at a crucial moment, result in irreparable damage. Are all things well with all of you at home? Reflect, and, if not, then withdraw. Your wages shall in any case continue, and there are other works you can engage in until this one is complete.”

He paused. There was silence. No one withdrew.

His voice was very low but very distinct. He looked at each in turn with his clear, gray-green eyes. “We have now to go on with our task of making a virgin mirror. It is important to the honor of this house that we do not fail. And it is important to me in another particular as well. I know it is not necessary that you should know how or why, that your merely knowing it is so will be sufficient for you. If I have offended any of you at any time, forgive me. If any of you have offended me at any time, forgive you I freely do. And if any of you have offended against each other, will you not declare it now? — if any of you feel that another has given you cause for grievance, will you not reveal it now? — so that we may proceed in perfect purity and amity and confidence of heart.”

There was another silence. Then followed a few low-voiced conversations, several shook hands and returned to their places. Vergil had half turned his head as if to give directions, when the thin, piping treble of Morlinus was heard. “Iohan, when the Master told you to take me and instruct me and you said that you would beat me if I learned ill and I said that I gave you leave — ”

Iohan, in some surprise, nodded.

“So I had no right to curse at you when you did beat me because I smudged my letters or wrote them backward or drew pictures instead. And I ask your forgiveness for cursing at you when you couldn’t hear me and for calling you a bear with a sore cod and a son of a whore and a dirty old fig-polucker and a blind bawd’s pimp and a hussy-hopper and…”

His vocabulary was both remarkable and extended. Iohan’s face beneath his bristly beard grew red as wine, and his thick and hairy fingers began to twitch. At length when the boy drew a breath, and began anew with, “Also, I ask your forgiveness for having said about you and your wife — ” Iohan, his vast chest heaved up and his nostrils round with rage, bawled out at the top of his voice. “Enough, enough! I forgive you for everything you said and you don’t have to say any of it all over again!”

Then, as if suddenly aware of the echo, he repeated, in a small, abashed tone, “I forgive you, boy.…”

Red-hot coals were now placed in the furnace and small pieces of ore spread out on top, then more coals, then the ore again, and so on until the furnace was filled. All was swift, sure, silent; no foot slipped upon the carefully sanded floor. Some time passed and Vergil drew Clemens’ attention to a vessel placed some way below and apart, where unto a flow of metal was directed by channels graved for the purpose. An iridescent sheen was on its thick and scummy surface.

“Now the lead begins to separate,” he said.

“Some will still remain, unless — ”

“Some should remain, to serve to hold the tin and copper together well, and to help give the bronze a good polish.”

The bellows were not now needed, for the wind, entering into the opening below, drew the flames well. Clemens said, “This should now remain heating a very long time, and although we have a proverb: ‘ The eye of the Master melts the metal, ’ still, the Master’s eye is not needed at the moment. Come and sit down and let me read something to you.”

A divan had been set up against the wall and spread with carpets and cushions and fleeces. The colors clashed, Vergil noted abstractly. A woman would have seen to it that they didn’t, but it had been long since there was — except for brief visits — a woman in the House of the Brazen Head. He seated himself and, catching the eye of Morlinus, he beckoned him.

“Yes, lo… yes, master?”

“Tell them in the house to prepare me a small bowl of hot pease soup with thin dry bread grated on the top, and a slice of fried sausage.… Now, Ser Clemens, what is this that you have to read to me?”

“You sound like a pregnant woman, with your sudden and specific urge for a snack.”

“Yes, I daresay I do. I suppose in some way I am.”

Clemens shrugged. “God send thee a good delivery, then. What I have to read to you?” He held up the little book which he had been engaged in reading on Vergil’s return. “This I found in my own library. It is called On Cathayan Bronze, and it is as full of good things as an egg is of meat. Let me read you the chapter I have marked.

“ Concerning Mirrors. Sorcery works against Nature, magic works with it. Of all the means of magic, the most important are the sword and the mirror, the ordinary uses to which warriors and women put these objects being of little significance to the Superior Man. Concerning swords and their power to compel daemons, we will speak in another chapter. The learned Covuvonius sayeth, ‘ When you look at yourself in a mirror, you observe only your own appearance; your fortune or misfortune can be read by seeing yourself reflected in other.’ This reminds us that mirrors ought not to be used for such foolish purposes as merely looking at one’s self, but rather for the Eight Essential Functions, and these are they: To ward off evil influences, confuse daemons, assist physicians by reflecting the interior of the patient’s body, protect the dead by giving light to the graves in which they are placed, to assimilate and simulate the brightness and power of the Sun and the Moon, reflect inner thoughts and moods and elevate them to happier ends, for divination, for reflecting in visible form the shapes of invisible spirits haunting the earth; and similar works of moment and magnitude. Emperor Hisuanuanius —

“A curious tongue,” said Clemens, leaving off and looking up. A sharp hot smell was in the air. “Like the hissing of serpents.” He sniffed. “It comes along all we now.”

“Serpents mean wisdom,” Virgil pointed out. “Furthermore, in the Hebrew tongue the word nachash, which is ‘serpent,’ also means ‘copper’ or ‘bronze’… also ‘magic’ — or” he asked himself thoughtfully, “is it ‘sorcery’? Pray, read on.”

“Emperor Hisuanuanius had thirteen mirrors, one for each month of the regular year and one for the intercalary month of leap years, the particular month of each being indicated by the zodiacal animal thereon and the asterism to which it corresponded; and each successive mirror after that of the first month was increased in diameter by one inch.”

Clemens interrupted himself to comment that this was mere artsy trickery, for, after all, no one month was more or less important than any other month.

“On the back of each was graven the Four quadrants of the Uranoscope, thus: the Sombre Warrior in the north, the Vermilion Phoenix in the south, in the east the Azure Dragon, and in the west the Milk-white Tiger.” [“Now, that idea, I rather like,” Clemens said. Vergil nodded.] “(Others say that locusts were also shewn, the winged locusts meriting a numerous posterity because they live in harmonious clusters.) “All magic mirrors must reflect the Six Limits of Space, comprising the four cardinal points plus zenith and nadir. They must be round as the heavens and yet square as the earth, and he who makes one must conjure it, Be thou like the Sun, like the Moon, like Water, and like Gold, clear and bright and reflecting what is in thy heart. Some authorities further distinguish between sunlight and moonlight mirrors. We will now explain the art by which the design on the back of a magic mirror is cast upon a wall or screen when a light strikes its front or reflecting surface…