Avram Davidson: The Phoenix and the Mirror

The magus held up his hand. In the silence of the room there was only the ringing in their ears to hear, at first. Then there was a soft, steady hissing sound. And then the tiny drip… drip… drip of falling water. Vergil pointed his hand to the right. Clemens followed the gesture. There stood a statue of Niobe, surrounded by several of her children. As they watched a single drop of water welled up slowly in one of Niobe’s eyes, then in the other. First one tear and then a second welled, swelled, strained at the meniscus, broke, and fell into the pool at her feet.

As the last ripple died away the pool became agitated. Bubbles arose and broke at the surface… one… two… three… five… seven of them. The pool emptied. And one of the children sank from sight into the pedestal.

It seemed that they could hear a faint cry, as if from grief.

Vergil’s hand moved slowly in the air, pointed to the left. A tall column, enchased with figures emblematic of the hours, stood where his finger indicated. A mask of Boreas was set into the top; above and facing it, one of Zephyr. And, as they gazed, a puff of steam emerged from the mouth of the face below, grew into a spume. A metal ball shot up in the steam, struck the face above and rang out like the silvery note of a small gong, and did so again and again and — “What is all this miming and mumming?” Clemens demanded, staring. “Either the water clock is faster than the steam horlogue, or the other way around. Easy enough to determine which is correct when the sun’s at high meridian. Why the posturing and posing?”

Vergil’s countenance remained grave and set, his hand with its outstretched finger stayed still; then once again described its arc and came to rest pointing at Clemens. The alchemist made rude noises, originating around that eye said to lie behind his navel; tutted and tittered, then grew uneasy, fidgeting in his chair of Mauretanian leather; finally started convulsively and twisted to look behind him.

Where there was nothing.

Vergil burst out into a laugh of pure good humor which ended almost at once. Sheepishly, his friend settled back again, smiling. Then his laugh followed Vergil’s, he not noticing how abruptly the latter’s humor had ceased.

“Come, now,” the magus said, a twisted smile trembling slightly on his lips. “Am I not, with you and with one other, all that remains of wisdom in this brute and bawdy age when decadence and barbarism contend for bay leaves, staff, fasces, crown and curile stool?”

Clemens considered, a short moment. “‘One other…’ Appolonus of Tyana, that would be.… True, sir. True. Then…”

“Then allow me my tiny joke. If I dared take my position seriously the whole day long, I would go mad… or agree to make Cornelia her speculum.”

The other got lazily to his feet, half-heartedly tugged at his robe to straighten it. “What did she say when you refused?”

Said Vergil, “I didn’t refuse.”

“Ingots… I mean, without even any regard to the question of making the speculum — which is a labor only somewhat less slight than making an aqueduct — there is the question of getting the materials. Very well… ingots of tin, to start with. To start our discussion with, that is. Of course you can’t start the work of the speculum with ingots.”

Book after book lay open on the long library table at which they were seated, one on each side. Clemens held his finger in the codex of the Manual of Mary of Egypt, in which the woman, the greatest alchemist of the period, had put down the observations of a long life devoted not merely to theorizing but to actual research and work. Alongside were commentaries made by her scholars. Vergil gazed into the scroll that contained the fifth book of the learned Syrian, Theopompus BinHaddad, On the Affinities and the Sympathies , a treatise devoted to the philosophy of the psyche and its multiple counterparts. His chin rested in one hand so that his index finger pushed up his lower lip.

No, one could not start the work of the speculum with ingots. Not a major speculum. The entire foundation of the work lay in the principle of creating a virgin article; the ordinary, or minor, speculum was merely a bronze mirror, fitted with a cover that opened on hinges, rather like a large locket. There were rumors, legends, that somewhere there existed — or had at one time existed — mirrors made, somehow, of glass. But in no work on the subject did anyone claim to have seen a mirror of this sort, let alone give directions for making one.

But directions of the artificing of the sort which they now sought, though not copious, were explicit enough. Mary recorded having fashioned one for the Imperial Advocate in Alexandria. The anonymous genius who was known only as the Craftsman of Cos described how he had made no fewer than three, of which two had been successful. There were further accounts in the Chalcheoticon of Theodorus and in the Text-Book of Rufo.

“We might conjecture a theory,” said Vergil — breaking his silence and announcing his descent from the clouds of thought by a slight humming sound — “to this effect. The atoms which comprise the viewing surface of a speculum are not merely passive, reflecting without receiving. To assume that is to assume that a look is completely intangible, and this we cannot assume, for we have all seen a person obliged to turn around because he has become somehow aware that he is being looked at.”

Clemens judiciously, said, “Granted.”

“If any surface,” Vergil continued, formulating his thoughts aloud, in an academic drone which numbed his emotions but left part of his mind untouched, “received an impression which was tangible, some imprint of this impression had to be left upon the surface. Hence,” he said, “a speculum which has been in use, however briefly, has become as it were clouded, however imperceptibly, with the accumulated impressions it has received. Nor will it suffice simply to fashion a new speculum. It is essential that the very atoms of the metals involved have received as little disturbance as possible. The ordinary craftsman works with scraps of old bronze. A somewhat superior craftsman uses bronze which has not been worked before — as bronze.”

But bronze itself was not a pure metal, it was a fusion of copper and tin. The smith who made bronze made it out of ingots of tin and — usually — ingots of copper; although copper was sometimes available in sheets formed in the shape of an oxhide. The smith, therefore, could not forge a virgin bronze because he was not working up virgin tin and virgin copper. Only the pure ores themselves, which had never been shaped by the hand of man, could be used to form the virgin bronze for a virgin speculum. And then…

“You annoy me with your tedious recapitulation of details known to every apprentice, let alone an adept,” Clemens interrupted testily. “Somewhere on your shelves are works on the music of the Upper Orient, by masters who arranged the compositions played at the courts of the kings Chandraguptas and Asokas — you know that I would dearly love to see them. But every time I come here — every time that I am not myself engaged in other research, that is — you distract my attention, you occupy me with matters not to my tastes, and so the time goes, and it is always later than you think. Enough.” He rose to go.

Vergil raised his hand. “Stay a moment,” he said.

Clemens paused, fretting and muttering, while his friend returned to his thoughts. Then Vergil smiled — a rather painful and weary smile.

“Help me with this concern,” he said, “and you will be able to consult the works of the music masters of Chandraguptas and Asokas as often and as long as you like. I will give them to you.”