The Alchemist

The Alchemist


Published in Spellbound Magazine
Copyright 1990, Charles S. Fallis


     The old man straightened from his stooped posture and eased his aching back.  He had spent many long hours bent over the wooden bench before him.  The top of the workbench was cluttered with moldering manuscripts and a wild profusion of jars and bottles whose noisome contents were revealed by the flickering light of a single greasy candle.
     The alchemist, for such was the old man's profession, sighed and bent once again.  Taking up a small iron spatula, he returned to his labor, coating a large lump of coal with the sticky yellow paste he had worked so long to produce.  This task completed, he sat back and composed himself to wait, gazing intently at the slimy black and yellow lump.  
     But his concentration was interrupted by the faint clatter of hooves on cobblestones.  The old man rummaged among the clutter of the workbench for a moment.  With a grunt of satisfaction, he withdrew from the litter that which he sought.  The object he held ready in his hand resembled a fine hourglass, the frame of which was covered in finely wrought silver filigree, but which was meant to measure a much shorter period of time, as was evident from its small size. From far below came the scream of rusty hinges.  When the sound came again, the old man inverted the glass and composed himself to receive a visitor.
     On the ground floor of the old tower a young squire, sheathed in armor of bronze and steel, cursed the squealing hinges and drew his sword.  The old tower had looked decrepit enough, he thought, from the outside; the inside was infinitely worse.  An inch thick layer of dust covered the filthy floor, and cobwebs shrouded every possible surface.  If he had not seen the flickering and fitful light of a candle in the towers topmost room, he would have assumed the moldering structure to be long deserted and he would have reluctantly abandoned this night's larcenous mission.  Having seen the light though, he stole across the empty room as silently as he could manage in his clinking armor and came to a door of heavy oaken planks bound in straps of rusting iron.
     He spat repeatedly on the door's ancient hinges in a vain effort to lessen their shrieking and slowly eased it open.  A thick layer of dust was dislodged from the door's upper edge, and he suppressed a nearly irresistible urge to sneeze as it sifted over him.  An ancient stone stairway gradually came into view as the air cleared.
     The young squire, wary of traps, crept quietly up the crumbling stone stairway to the top of the old tower, where he found yet another door.  Through the fissures in the cracked and warped boards of this door a wan light was visible.  The squire took a fresh grip on his sword, drew a deep breath, and kicked the door from its ill-fitting frame.  He entered the room in a rush and spun about frantically, seeking enemies.  He seemed astounded to be confronted only by the tower's one ancient and unarmed occupant.
     The old man, seeing that his young visitor had at last ceased trying to look over both shoulders at once, bowed in greeting and made welcoming gestures.  This had the effect of compounding the young man's confusion, for he had been expecting any reaction but this.  After one last suspicious visual inspection of the room however, the young squire quelled his misgivings and addressed the old man.
     "Are you the black mage, Albertus, whose tower this is said to be?" he asked, thinking that there must be some mistake.
     "No," replied the old man.  "I am Albertus but I am no mage, neither black nor white.  By trade, I am a humble alchemist.  Now what, if I may presume to ask, is your name, young man, and why have you come to visit me in such a violent manner on such a dark night?"
     "While I hope that you are telling the truth, old man, know that if you are not I am prepared to do battle with anything which you might summon against me, for this good sword has been blessed by a bishop of the church!"
     "I give you my word," Albertus said, suppressing a smile, "that I have given my allegiance to neither power and so can summon neither demons nor angels to my aid.  You have nothing to fear on that score.  Now tell me, what is it that brings you here and why do you keep waving that sword about?"
     "My name," replied the squire, "I shall keep to myself.  And what brings me here is poverty.  My father sired four sons and I am the youngest.  I, of course, inherited nothing on my father's death, but found myself cast adrift with naught to sustain me except my horse, my armor, my strong right arm and my wits.
     "They speak of you in the villages hereabout, old man.  They say that you know the secret of turning base metals into gold.  I have come to wrest this secret from you.  Will you yield it willingly or must I force it from you?"
     "Alas," Albertus chuckled, "I have no such secret, as you can readily see merely by looking about.  If I could make gold so easily, do you really think I would be living in such a place?  Nay, if I possessed such a secret, you would surely find me dwelling in a palace."
      "What you say makes sense, and I begin to believe you," said the squire reluctantly. "But I must nevertheless put you to the question for certainty's sake."  He sheathed his sword and began pulling a knuckled steel gauntlet over his hand.
     "Wait a moment," begged Albertus, retreating before the younger man's slow and relentless approach.  "If you will give me but a few moments I can explain just why it is that what you ask is impossible."
      The young man hesitated a moment and slowly lowered his steel clad fist, with which he had been preparing to strike.  "It had best be a convincing explanation," he replied.
      "In both alchemy and in nature there exist immutable laws," Albertus began.  "Neither set of laws may be broken without, perhaps, supernatural aid.  In addition, the laws of neither may break the laws of the other.  That is to say that unless the laws of alchemy are augmented by supernatural powers, either by those of darkness or by those of light, they cannot violate the laws of nature.  On the other hand, the laws of nature may sometimes be bent, but there are limits. Thus although it would be possible with the aid of my potions and philters to cause a withered tree to flower and bear fruit, or to restore an item made of steel that has been rusted entirely away, these things may be done only because they are not fundamentally opposed to natural laws.  There is nothing unnatural about a tree bearing fruit and steel is made from a substance that is similar to rust.
     "The transmutation of lead to gold though, is opposed to natural law, for no matter how much time passes and no matter what forces it is subjected to, a bar of lead will not ever naturally turn into gold.  Because this sort of thing is entirely opposed to natural law, and because I cannot invoke supernatural aid, what you ask of me is impossible."
     The young man gestured to the cluttered workbench.  "What is all this for then, old man?  Do you take me for a fool?"
     "These are the ingredients of my philters and compounds.  I use them to encourage and stimulate the course of natural events and effects.  I cannot use them to circumvent natural laws."
     "I believe that you are lying, old man," said the youth.  I have endured enough of your meaningless prattle.  All men know that wizards and such may overturn natural laws.  It is why they become wizards in the first place.  The rewards of wizardry must be great, for if there were no such reward, there would be no wizards.  Who would damn his soul for a tree of fruit?
     "Old man, I give you one final chance.  I do not enjoy this.  It makes an awful mess.  Will you yield your secret willingly or must things become unpleasant?"
     "That would be pointless," said Albertus.  "I swear to you that I do not possess the secret that you seek."
     "Then you are about to suffer a great deal of pain to no purpose," replied the young man, raising his armored fist.
     Suddenly the squire stumbled and fell to the floor.  He dragged off his gauntlet and looked in horror at his hand.  "What have you done to me, you fiend?"  As he watched, the flesh of his hand began to turn a sickly grey-green and to sag on the bone.  When he attempted to draw his sword, he screamed as even this small effort tore the tendons of his arm from their roots.
     "Allow me to explain," answered Albertus.  "When you entered the stairway from the room below, you no doubt encountered a great deal of dust.  I can see traces of it on your clothing and armor.  The substance that fell upon you from the top of the door though, was not mere dust.  I know, for I compounded it and placed it there as a precaution against just such young miscreants as yourself.  Did you truly think that you were the first to have thought of this, young man?  Well, as I said earlier, turning lead into gold is opposed to natural law and so is impossible.  But to turn living flesh into the slime of the grave is an entirely different matter."
     On Albertus' workbench, as the last few grains of sand trickled through the glass and his visitor collapsed and began to ooze across the floor, there was a puff of steam.  In the space formerly occupied by the slime-encrusted lump of coal glittered a diamond.