Avram Davidson - The Phoenix and the Mirror

He was in Cornelia’s chamber. She sat at a writing desk, a branch of lamps beside her. She did not look up, but he could tell that she knew someone was there.

“I must cast a proper nativity,” he said — and her entire body recognized his voice, and — strange, strange, exceedingly strange — this intelligence quite dispelled the fear in her. Taut tendons relaxed in her neck; she let out her breath with a sigh.

“Of course,” she said, softly. “Of course.”

“Write down the precise moment of her birth,” he directed, “and the exact or even approximate latitude, if you know it.” She wrote. “Now the nearest moment as you can recall it to the time you heard of her disappearance… Now get up and leave me quite alone.” He watched her gliding step as she went from the room, the drapery at the door rustling yet another moment, then lying still.

He stared at the wax tablet and what was written thereon, committing it to memory. He wondered who it could have been that she had so much feared to find behind her. Then he seated himself and began to work. The natal chart took rapid shape beneath his fingers, he needed no ephemeris, all information welling up in his mind as he thought for it. He saw the type of danger likely to threaten in her life chart, and the direction from which it would come; even the probable time was there… yes… it fitted… the Progressions fitted… advancing the birth planets roughly one degree for one year on the principle of A Year Shall Be as a Day, events of the age of twenty were indicated by the thus-progressed planets twenty-one days after her birth, the first day not being counted as it equaled the birth year.

“Sometime during this week” — his finger pointed as he calculated aloud — “and possibly on this day — she would be in grave danger from dark forces emanating from the north as shown by Saturn at her birth at the nadir of the chart, adversely affecting her Venus-at-birth by Progression when she reaches that age, but” — he scowled, calculated, smiled, became totally abstract — “her Venus-of-birth being trined by benefic Jupiter posited in the zodiacal sign Scorpio, help would come to her through a wise man, philosopher, mage…”

Yes… it did fit… it was almost uncanny how it fitted. Scorpio, sign of regeneration, and, hence, naturally, of eagle, serpent, phoenix. Besides its other obvious possibilities, was not the eagle, with its uncanny keenness of vision, sighting its prey from leagues afar, a clear symbol of the magic mirror? And did the eagle not, when age had dimmed its eyes and heavied its wings, seek out the fountain of youth whose location was known only to its kind, soar over it until, “within the circle of the Sun,” a potent beam or ray from the as yet undiminished Source of Light burned away the dimness? And, thence, diving from on high, deep, deep into that fountain, new its youth for lustrums more. Then, lastly, if one could so speak of lastly, there was the falcon-eagle, which had at peril and to its great cost borne from distant, distant Tinland the purse of that essential ore. And how had Clemens managed to miss the exemplum of the serpent in his little philosophical address? — the serpent which annually casts off its skin as the ore casts off its dross, serpent seemingly almost at the point of death, dull, dazed, struggling; serpent, finally, alive and quick; renewed. Last of the three was phoenix, that rare among birds, unique for its life-span and life cycle, enduring for five hundred or a thousand years, then building its nest and making its “egg” fanning with its wings the fire which converts nest into pyre; fire consuming phoenix, fire hatching egg, out of the egg a worm, out of the worm the phoenix.

Out of the fire, the phoenix.

Models for the double discs had been carved of ordinary wax, studied, corrected, approved; then copied in the wax of Caucasus for the final model, copied so carefully and with such exquisite, agonizing care as to make mere painstaking seem slovenly: stroke by stroke and flake by flake and quarter inch by quarter inch. The wax must not be too warm, the wax must not be too cold; it must not melt, it must not sag nor slip, it must not grow brittle and chip. And everything in this doing was done in accordance with the celestial confluences. A separate horoscope was cast even for so pragmatic a matter as placing the waxen sprues. Finally, omens having been taken on the thunder chart, the entire modelings, save for the tops of the prues, were coated with the specially prepared clay; allowed to dry… and dry… and dry… coated again… dried… coated a third time. When the hour auspicious and appropriate arrived, a fire was built, aspersed and censed with appropriate herbs, and the molds placed adjacent to it, over vessels of water to collect the precious wax, which, after it had melted and left its impression on the clay, was poured out through the sprue channels. Then, when a Sun Hour arrived, suitable for workings with fire, coinciding with a time acceptable to the chthonic Presences having jurisdictions over earth and things made with earth, Vergil and Clemens and adepts and workmen, chanting the strange, discordant Etruscan litany, reversed the molds and now placed them carefully in the fire with the sprue holes pointing downward. And in that position they remained until the clay was turned as red as Mars ruling molten things, as red as the fire itself… as red as the red robes of the sun… as red as the earth.

On a Thursday, fortunate period of benefic Jupiter ruling prophecy and things at long distance and beyond the veil, the Street of the Horse-Jewelers was laid end to end ankle-deep in tanbark to muffle sounds and concussions. The molds had been heating with a low fire kept in, and this was now increased, and the crucibles got ready. The bellows were fixed, with two strong men to each one. All now had to go with speed and precision. Fresh coals were arranged in the furnace for the molds and the molds set on them, supported roundabout with hard stones such as could not break with the heat of the fire, lapidem super lapident, stone upon stone and with sufficient interstices until they were half a foot higher than the molds; and burning coals around them, and fresh coals over them to the top. They burned, they sank, were replenished, burned, sank; and again, till three times.

Vergil lifted the cover to peer inside, but the heat drove him back. Clemens, more used to it, peered quickly within, and the heat crisped and singed his beard. “It is red-hot,” he said. Vergil hastened with deliberate steps to the crucible where the copper was waiting, and had it put inside and mixed with coals. At his gesture, the bellows began to work again, primo mediocriter, deinde magis ac magis. A green flame arose from the crucible. The copper had begun to melt. Immediately Vergil signaled for more coals to be added, ran to the mold furnace and oversaw the work of removing the stones and the fire and replacing it with earth. He ran back to the other fire, stirred the copper with a long charred stick.

“Now!” he said. And he threw in the copper fibula Cornelia had given him.

The tin was added, and carefully stirred and stirred until it, too, was all molten and all mixed, and meanwhile the crucible was with infinite care turned around from side to side in order to maintain an even temperature. Then it was removed from its own fire and carried to the molds, skimmed of coal and ash, and a straining cloth placed over the opening in the mold of the first half. Vergil threw himself down on the floor as near to the mold as he could stand the heat, his ear to the ground.

“Pour!” he said.

They poured, slowly, slowly, and he listened. He gestured them to pause. He listened. All was well, nothing murmured, nothing grumbled, nothing groaned. He gestured, he listened, and they poured. At length Iohan said, “Master, it is done.” Vergil said nothing. They waited and they watched. It was quite some while before they realized that he was not still listening, and then, but silently and gently for the sake of the molten mass within, they lifted him from where he lay, insensible, and so they carried him to his upper chamber.