Avram Davidson - The Scarlet Fig - Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone, Book Three of the Vergil Magus Series

I had him, I could tell that I had him, not the Doge, no: Tynus. He had forgotten even to pretend that he was not intent on what I was saying. “Now, Dux,” I went on, “ ‘ the host ,’ is that not perhaps the Philosophers’ Stone? The image of the gold ‘gathering’ in the upper section of the bath like butter gathering in the churn is an infinitely intriguing one, of course all alchymical images are intriguing, but that of course hardly means that they are all true.” I sighed.

All the while I had been giving this succinct exegesis of the mysterious text, just as the interest of the metal-worker Tynus had increased, so the light of wit had been dying out of the Doge’s eyes, being replaced by a sort of glaze. He plucked at his red, red robe.

“Mad,” muttered the Doge. “All mages? Mad.”

But the Doge did not sound quite utterly convinced of this. He turned his head a bit, and gazed at me out of the corners of his eyes.

And the secrets of that Eastern King of Cappadoce? One does not know. They must have been of much worth. His knowledge of alchymy was fabulous. Yet he died poor. He died in exile and he died poor. He died old, too. Very old, violently, by murder. So one hears.

Later, in the deeps of that night, he heard that sound which was the sound … along with the lionel’s roar … preeminently the sound of Africa: the voice of an oliphaunt, baying on the beach. — the beach ? surely he had not become entirely disoriented in the darkness? (the lamp had quite expired and not even a glowing coal marked where it had burned, supported on the tripod of three ithyphallic satyrs) … and, surely, the beach — where still lay the ship, its sides now scraped and caulked and painted, still slowly being laded full of dried dates which would grow dryer yet before ever they reached their final market (and who knew where or when that would be); dates and salts, and jars of some strange oils, and more: he knew not what more: surely the beach did not lie in the direction whence came that great sound of baying and that clash of tushes? No. It did not; he was able to orient himself by something as simple as the head of the bed; the sound grew louder. What ailed the beast? for this was no mere adventitious cry of warning or of menace; perhaps the beast was in rut … perhaps it was in pain …

Sound of anguished (he soon decided) baying, cries of alarm from the awakening household, sight of torches and of the smoke of torches and of little flecks of fire floating off the torches: hastily Vergil donned a garment and a pair of sandals, and gat him down to the scene.

Heard, as he went, Huldah’s voice. Also anguished.

Huldah was no cossetted nor dandled woman-child, feeding pulse or poppy-seed out of her palm to the pea-hens; Huldah would smite the wild sow and her sounder, did they come to root in the plantings so carefully planted. “You have your mast in the woods!” would she say as she smote them; “Get hence!” Thee and me, the wild sow and her speckled weans would slay and eat: from Huldah they turned with a snuffle and a squeal or two. And they got them hence.

“Very well,” said she, breaking into the silence which she had maintained throughout his telling of his tale; “I asked, You answered. Now I know of at least one king and occymy … But a thing you forgot to say. In the matter of his, whatever-it-was, buried deep in the steadily fermenting flameless fire and heat of the dung-heaps of his midden …”

“Yes?” he asked.

“ Was he fond of cheese? ”

He scanned her face for any sign of laughter; none was there: but then he scanned her eyes. “The Court will sentence you to six taps with a wet bullrush if—”

Again she begged mercy from the court: what patience, what relish of strange things and odd, what had those agate eyes seen ? not but yesterday she had told him of having sailed round the farthest shores of Lybya (so far away that scarce the name of Africa still clung to it) in the farthest south [7] see Appendix III , until one day the sun rose from a quite contrary corner of the sky. When he, after a moment of astonishment, “Then you have made the circumnavigation as Hanno of Carthage, and the Herodotus has been wrong to doubt it!” And she: “Yes.” No more. “Yes.”

Rather, he felt himself like some pedagogue, stuffy lecturer in the furred and hooded academic gown, droning on at great length about the need to refresh that heat-producing dung-heap with new-made dung: as though she had never observed such things for herself, as though there were no dung-heaps in the lands along and behind her coasts: as though, in fact, the milk served them twice and thrice daily had been milked from trees.

He hasted to the conclusion of his discourse — already, he feared, over-long delayed. The occymist was obliged, eventually, by necessity to teach his apprentice to follow his the master’s secret notes … but so very often the master could not bring himself to disclose his greatest secrets: and in such a case (it was the very common case) he taught him to read a special and simpler cypher in which the most simple notes disclosed only the most simple knowledge: boil this, thrice … let this cool … for such and such a space of time … place such and such a substance in the pelican and add such and such an amount of water … or whatever the liquid medium was …

And so on.

In which case, should the apprentice take it into his mind to run off to another occymist, he had not taken with him the knowledge the most valuable.

Very often, of course, the apprentice, made sullen by the fairly useless passing of the years and himself so very insufficiently instructed, did run off. And very often he ran off to yet another occymist (where else?) whose long-time apprentice had also run off … and for the same reason. Ignorance was thus exchanged. Imagine a twain conversations about that time.

“What is this?”

“Master. An Alembic.”

“What do you do with it?”

“Master. Whatever I am told to.”

A sound as of steam. “No….” the word fool unspoken, but hanging in the air; “No … what had he have you do with it?”

The man searching his mind and keeping wise his face. “ Well … Master …”

And, at more or less the same time. “Tell me,” a wave of a hand much-stained with the acids of the elaboratory; “tell me what you recognize?”

“Master. — This is an athanor. And this … I had not seen before. It does look like a threble pelican.”

Master purses his lips, neither very favorably nor very unfavorably impressed. “At least you can adduce from minor to major. Well. And this ?”

Time for a quick change of subject. While the new applicant searched his memory. “Master. I did see the Peacock in the Vase of Hermes —”

A look of pleasure, at once quelled. “Did, eh? Tell me about it. ”

Time for frankness. “ ‘Tell’? I can tell nought. But, if I am allowed colors and a surface to limn upon, I could show you, my ser.”

“The colors are over here. And here is clean papyrus and a brush. So —”

Time for further frankness. “What terms does the master propose?”

See anger play with caution on the master’s face.

Time enough to divulge … later … that the new candidate had seen it … once … the day that he arrived.

Ignorance not merely exchanged, but compounded.

And did not many and many an adept die leaving many and many a privy greatbook behind, which no one was ever able to decipher? Many. And many.