Avram Davidson - The Phoenix and the Mirror

In this he was certainly sincere. When, however, it was represented to him that part of it could be recovered and returned, it suddenly became no more priceless — but its price was considerable — and not to be calculated in gold alone. There were certain things which Onofrio wanted to know and which Vergil could tell; and certain things which Onofrio wanted done… and which Vergil… only Vergil… could do. Fortunately, the apothecary, though desirous, was not covetous. He drove a hard bargain, but he did not insist on payment in advance; the precise degree and amount of payment would, it was mutually agreed, depend on the amount of wax returned. Vergil followed him past towering cabinets containing ambergris, musks, storax, balsams, jujubes, attars, essences and elixirs, azoth, ointments, theriacs and talequales, unicorn, ostrich shell, toads and toadstools, bats’ blood and bats, vipers in treacle and vipers’ blood and dried vipers, fewmets of griffins, mummy and mandgagora and mercury; scents and stenches and smells and odors; to where the essential wax was stored, locked up in an iron cage guarded by a dog who had not seen the sun, poor creature, since he was whelped.

The wax was dark, darker than common beeswax, almost black, but of no common blackness; shot through with tints of amber and red, did the light strike it a certain way. It was of a rich and overpowering odor, spicy and strong, and it felt unctuous and potent to the finger.

“We must have as much of it back as can be saved, Dr. Vergil,” the muskmonger said. “We can’t spare a scruple of it to feed the fires wastefully, no, not a drachm. Those other items we’ve spoke of to you, we value them, we’d gladly pay for them in gold or goods or any way… we’re prepared to pay in wax, yes, if we must… but” — he ran his old, sere finger, like one of his own medicinal roots, over the great lump of Caucasus wax, lovingly and regretfully — “but, we beg of you nonetheless, Doctor, don’t waste it. Not any of it.”

The wax was melted slowly over a fire of fennel (and no small task to gather and dry enough fennel: fire to feed fire, tongs to make tongs, cycle upon cycle, wheels within wheels) and strained; washed with water, and again strained; purified and strained; refined and strained; ever with a cloth of an increasing fineness — these cloths, by direction of Master Workman Perrin, saved to be boiled to retrieve the residual wax. Vergil himself had neither thought nor patience for this — and the process repeated over and over and over. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly.

And the other tasks proceeded. Slowly, slowly, slowly.

Finally the wax was pure enough, pale enough, fine enough.

Page after page of parchment, and ink from entire schools of squid and forests of hawthorn trees and oaks, were employed in the ever-continuing work of casting the horoscopes. The question of the Moon’s nodes was a particularly important one, the points at which the Moon’s orbits cross the ecliptic, the north node being known as the caput draconis, or Dragon’s Head, and the south one called the cauda draconis, or Dragon’s Tail. Caput was fortunate, cauda was misfortunate.

“There you have it!” Vergil cried, despairingly, throwing down a pen. “I should draw the entire nativity of the princess — cast it myself — not depend on the one Cornelia supplies — when was she carried off? Was her ruler of life conjoined with cauda ? Should we wait six months for Venus to go around the zodiac to be conjoined with caput as an auspicious moment for the dragon to spew her forth?” Seizing the pen, he hastily sketched a diagram, only to have it arouse a host of speculations, many of them far from apropos, such as the resemblance and semblance of the dragon with caput at cauda to the Midgard Serpent and the Worm Ourobouros and Great Leviathan and the River Oceanos engirdling all the world. “The chart of the Eight Houses,” he murmured. “Saturn-adverse-Venus… disappointment almost certain… What is astrology but the study of cycles in time? Are our planets truly globes of light? Or are they, for our purposes, our present, particular purposes — are they instincts whose interrelationships is that which causes destiny?

“Let me erect the horary chart again,” he said, more calmly this time. He had lost weight, color, tone, in all this great work and worry.

He took fresh parchment, pen, ink. The shapes took on form. Here was the First House, showing the questioner; here, the opposite, the Seventh House, showing the problem or the (unknown) person causing it. Supposing Cornelia to be asking the question, this would have her represented by the First House, and Laura by the Fifth; thus Laura’s problem was represented by the plane in the Eleventh House, which was opposite her own… “Let me see, let me see,” he muttered, bending close. “Jupiter is royalty, rules Sagittarius, so the chart for the moment is with Sagittarius rising… Sun in Sagittarius, First House denotes Queen… Sun rules rulers… sign of Leo, First House could be Leo, then the Fifth House would be Scorpio — Venus beseiged! Surely! Venus ruling love and beauty — the Princess Laura Now — interception of the sign, thus is with Taurus on its cusp, Venus ruling Taurus. And so the Seventh House, containing the problem and its causer, thus would be Gemini on cusp, or Mercury ruled. Saturn — no, no, Saturn will not do, will not go where I want him… Venus conjuncts Mercury in the Eleventh House… the Eleventh Cusp is Scorpio… what is Scorpio? So, sign of magic, profundity, intensity, eagle, serpent, and phoenix…” He repeated his words, drawn by a sudden conviction of a connection both present and invisible. What was it?

Eagle? The Empire? The Imperial House? Prometheus bound on Mount Caucasus? Serpent? This opened the way, surely, for whole torrents of possibilities: wisdom, witchcraft, copper and bronze, the cycle of Venus through the zodiac from Dragon Tail to Dragon Head, cycles, circles, rings, rings… He paused, pressed his hands to his aching head. There was a ring there, somewhere. But it would not come up where he could see it. Eagle, serpent, phoenix … Scorpio — sign of regeneration — the Eleventh Cusp, Venus conjuncts Mercury in the Eleventh House. The princess and the causer of the problem. Mercury, ruler of the Seventh Cusp on the horary chart. Seventh House rules enemies and world conditions. Afflicting. Bad aspects…

No, no. It was still impossible. The chart would not work out. Too much was lacking, too much contradictory. It was best to waste no more time on it, and on other things.

Still… it was certainly very curious. “The sign of regeneration… Eagle, serpent, phoenix… ”

They purified the copper further with three ranges of bellows working at the forge by night and day, night after night and day after day, and poured it finally into ingot molds. Before it was cooled and while it was still red-hot, they held it with tongs upon the anvil and struck it with the largest hammer. It cracked. They melted it once again, repeating the long process, drew it forth again, struck it again. This time it did not crack.

Vergil bared his arm, Clemens bound it. Clemens bared his arm. Vergil bound it. Iohan, Tynus, Perrin, and all those engaged in the work did the same. The veins swelled. The lancet passed between the mage and his friend. The blood spurted forth was caught in the vessel. Each gave, none withheld. And then the vessel was full, and then they plunged the glowing ingots into it, and thus they cooled them and completed the work of the smelting.

It was that night that Vergil saw himself again “pass through the Door,” and part of his mind shrieked in silent terror at the sight, knowing it had not been his intention to do this… knowing too, the danger involved in this implied loss of control. But another part of his mind counseled calm and acceptance, and this implied that the loss of control was perhaps apparent only, and not actual.