The sun is in the house of the lion, and that is the correct time for the Perfection. The oven is ready; the silver-white substance, the antimony thrice purified, is brought out. To the aludel, then, and close the door.

This is no normal fire, no vulgar flame of destruction, but the Fire of Virtue. No common sulphur, but the Philosopher's Powder. No base salt, but salt purified.

And this quicksilver is not the vulgar metal, but the blessed promised thing, the primitive material.

It is all Perfect.

We wait in perfect anticipation. Then it is time. Lucien opens the athanor, pulls the aludel from the flames with the iron tongs.

And inside? Inside is Perfection, in the form of a little red lump of powdery metal.

Lucien beams exultantly as he holds aloft the philosopher's stone.

The time is now, and now must be the time to go to the final stage. All of the energies of the earth have converged in this place. We can feel the flames of Perfection engulfing us, binding us, annealing us into one being, one purpose. I move through the procedures, intuitively, rarely needing to be told what to do next. When he needs the alembic full of Our Water, I am there with it already. When it is time to utter the words of hope and guidance, we say them in unison. When it is time for the fire to be lit, I am already holding the smoldering punk. We smile knowingly to each other, and often, an exultant ferocity in our eyes.

A breeze blows through the window suddenly, cooling our sweating skins. Perfect. A scroll plummets from the top of a shelf, unrolls partway along the floor and comes to rest just at the edge of the pentagram, showing us the ascension of Hermes Trismegistus to perfection. The flame hisses softly below the aludel, and each hiss and sputter of the substances within is perfect. We smile knowingly, once again. We are perfect.

And at last the time has come. A cock crows just as we pull the crucible from the furnace. Inside is the crown of creation.

Inside is perfection, the perfection of metal. What once was half a pound of mercury is now seven ounces of gold.

ne does not easily refuse a God, no matter how much practice one has had, but I was surprised by how easy it was to bargain with him.

"I would gladly kill him out of hand, without your prodding. I am not fond of the man. He killed my friend." I paused, nervous.

"But," he said, "you are not ready to do it yet. Alix, you cannot delay it. Every day that he is alive he draws the world closer to disaster."

"What is it that he is doing that is so dangerous? The man is cruel and self-serving, but I am certain he does not intend overt destruction."

The god sighed impatiently. "No, actually his intentions are quite good, in a selfish way. But he does not know what he is meddling with. He has information that should never have been given to him." He stopped speaking abruptly, turning his back to me.

Should never have been given... "So that's it! Now I understand. You gave him those secrets, when you were your other self. Why don't you just go back and tell him not to use them, tell him what will happen?"

He spun and pointed a finger at me. Little fires danced across it menacingly."Do not presume to know everything, Alix! I am not here to toss around ideas with you. You think you understand this man, and I tell you that you do not even begin to comprehend. There is much that you do not know, even now. He is power-mad. He always has been. And he is nearing the end of his experiments. There is nothing that could deter him from what he thinks he is close to. He knows he has earned my enmity. He has sealed his sanctum magically against me. Not that it worked; I could enter freely. But his mind is more closed than that damned ridiculous room of his. Nothing I say now will divert him from his course. It's up to you. There is no other answer."

"And why not you? You are a God. Why can't you just point a finger and blast him from the face of the earth?" I stared nervously at the digit still leveled at me. The fire had disappeared but I was, nevertheless, ready to dive out of the way if need be.

He smiled wanly and lowered his hand. "You have the wrong concept of gods, Alix. To be a god means to be lord of your domain. But there are rules... laws actually, that govern even what we do. I have no real power over men. I can influence them, through dreams and illusion. When they cross into my realm, through sleep or death, my power over them is great, for here there are no physical laws. In the waking world, there is order that must not be disrupted. For some time now, I have threatened that border, have come very near to crossing over that line. I did not know what it was that I did. The world has hovered very close to destruction for centuries. But dream must not pollute the light of day."

"Then what about the stigmata, the scratches and wounds I took back with me--"

"They were of your own invention! I had nothing to do with them." I turned back to the window. His voice floated across the room more gently now, saying the words I did not want to hear. "You have been your own worst enemy for some time. You're very young, to have such anger tearing at you." The orange moon had diminished somewhat in size, but it still filled a large part of the sky. I stared at it for a long time, hoping he would leave, hoping for just a little time, but he had the patience of... well, of a god. When at last I answered, my voice came in a broken whisper. "I will do as you say...."

"But?"

"But... I will do it when I am ready. I must understand first."

"I have known lesser deities that were not as headstrong." I thought he sounded amused. "So be it. Go to your secret lessons. But do not wait too long, my son. For your sake, and that of those you love."

Call me a fool. I deserve that and every other abuse you may care to throw upon me. Literature is full of foolish men who did not heed the gods and paid the price. Add me to that list. But understand also: I am human. If gods can fail, can't I?

He should have just ordered me to do what He said. I may even have done it. I almost certainly would not have waited as long as I did, and disaster might have been averted.

I learned things from Lucien that I had only dreamed of. You will call me foolish again, but I tell you solemnly that we made base metals perfect. We made gold from mercury. It can be done, and as a matter of fact, we performed this thing more than once. It is no great task, once you understand the process, but this was not Lucien's main area of research. Rather, it was only a stepping stone to the one great thing that he wished to accomplish.

This he did not reveal to me, though it was understood that there was something greater that we worked toward. For Lucien loved mystery; that is, he loved to appear mysterious to others. Never have I met such an ego as that man possessed.

Whenever I could, I stole a look at his journal. Lucien had a frustrating way of writing, as, I have learned, do all alchemists. He couched things in terms that were meant to confuse all but the most knowledgeable in the science of alchemy, and he used made-up symbols to represent certain concepts and substances. Tantalizing patterns of thought would carry me to the edge of discovery, then take a sharp turn before veering off into obscurities and eccentric digressions. This was a conscious conceit, designed to misdirect all but perhaps the most accomplished alchemist. In this manner, he could leave his work to the world in a form that could not be easily corrupted by those who knew just enough to be dangerous. I found his method admirable but cursedly frustrating.

If I paid attention, and never let my mind wander, I could sometimes follow his writings perhaps a little farther than he intended. Even if the words sometimes led to dead ends, I was always able to sense the emotion behind them, something he never bothered to hide, whether it was excitement or the too-frequent depression that would send him drunk for a night or two.

Thus I knew when the culmination of our endeavors grew near. The level of excitement in Lucien's journal was echoed in the man himself. He drove himself and me mercilessly, stopping only when fatigue threatened disaster. Then, as soon as we had rested, we would be at it again, working sometimes for a full day and night, then a day again.

"You spend almost all of your time with him now. I hardly ever see you. People are very curious, Alix."

We lay naked and sweating on my tiny bed. The heat of summer had reached its peak, and it was only now, after midnight, that a breeze came to cool us.

For the last few months, Isa had come to my bed whenever I found time to sleep, or sometimes I to hers, but Lucien said nothing. In fact, he seemed to approve, as if the act bestowed some bond of complicity that would keep me under his power.

I yawned. "What people? Aguilar?"

"Yes, and people at the university have asked after you as well. I warned Phillippe that I would make his life miserable if he said anything about us. It has kept him quiet so far.

"Alix, I must have something to tell Aguilar. What is he up to?"

I was trying to fight off sleep, but I was losing. "I don't know. Go to sleep."

"Alix!" She jumped up to a kneeling position and glared down at me. In the moonlight she looked stunning, her firm, white breasts and slightly rounded belly shimmering like those of some fertility goddess. "You promised Aguilar. He trusted you!"

I reached up and stroked a nipple lazily. "I don't see that he had a lot of choices, unless he wanted to kill me. For God's sake, Isa, can't we talk about this later? I haven't slept--"

She slapped my hand away and put her own over her breast protectively. "And whose fault is that? No sympathy, Alix. You're enjoying all of this as much as he is."

So much for sleep, I thought. "Well, why not? He knows things that no one else seems to. We are very close to achieving something great. Isa, we have done things-- well, we have done things. You wouldn't understand."

That was a mistake. "Oh, I wouldn't, would I?" she said icily. "Do not take me for granted, Alix. I know a great deal more than you think. Where do you go when you sleep?"

I held my breath. What could she know? I could feel her staring at me in the darkness, waiting.

I forced a laugh. "Where do I go? What sort of question is that? I sleep here, by you."

"Yes, by God, I do know that! I hear you muttering things. Alix, I swear you are so obsessed by what he is doing that you think about it in your sleep!"

I let out a long sigh. I had been visiting the castle nightly ever since my meeting with the god, poring over the thousands of books there, trying to ascertain what it was we were trying to achieve in Lucien's laboratory. I had clues, little pieces of information here and there to go on, but no answer had yet presented itself.

"Nicolas once told me that alchemy is a fool's science. I think he may have been right." I did not know what else to do, so I pulled her down on top of me and kissed her. She resisted for only a moment, long enough to let me know that we were not finished with this discussion. Then her hand slid down my belly and she giggled seductively. In some ways, at least, Isa was predictably young.

I bounded up the stairs of the tower, torch in hand. A feeling of desperation possessed me now. Damn Isa! I had been quite convinced that I was doing the right thing, and that I would have the answer soon.

Now I was not so sure. Lucien was definitely very close to whatever it was he sought. Something of the god's urgency carried with me now. Tonight I must find out what secret loomed so near.

An oppressive silence hung everywhere, so that my blood rushed in my ears and my footfalls thudded too loudly. I was partly winded by the time I had climbed four stories to the room above.

Some new books lay open on the table. This was happening with increasing frequency. Pages were, as usual, ripped from the front. The covers were unmarked. However, they contained some of the information I had been looking for the night before. Here were references to some of the things I had found in Lucien's journal. I read a little of one, then another. I sat back in the chair after just a few minutes and rubbed my eyes.

Things so small we could not see them lived in our bodies. We were like castles under constant siege. Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost. Fascinating. Metals in the blood, like Lucien had guessed. The blood itself a living thing. A new concept of the spirit began to form in my mind. Was this evidence of the soul? Does it live in our blood? Are there red angels within our veins, fighting to ward off evil demon-diseases?

I was missing something. These books were written from some impossibly lofty perspective, where all of these things were taken for granted. I tasted new words in my mouth like some connoisseur of wine: virology, pathology, bacteria, immunity. Contagion, lymphocyte, corpuscle, plasma, mutagen.

The language of these books was difficult to understand. Some of it was an odd, choppy French. The rest was in Latin, but a truncated Latin, sparse and blunt.

Yet somewhere here was the answer. Somewhere among all of these words was the clue I needed to unravel Lucien's purpose.

I picked up one of the books and started reading again. Immunity. Contagion. Virus. Bacteria....

I had been taught to forgive my enemies. I had never believed it possible until I found that I had done it--wrongly. Some enemies ought not to be indulged so.

Lucien often looked like the devil. I had gotten used to it, really. I suppose if I had been on my guard, I would have noticed the subtle tension, the anticipation in him that made him reveal so much more the citizen of Hell he really was. Had I been more alert, not exhausted by lack of sleep and hard work, I may have seen the fatal glimmer in his eyes, smelled the death in the room.

Maybe not.

It had never occurred to me that I would outlive my usefulness; yet as soon as I had drunk it I knew that the wine was poisoned. No subtlety here. No-- just a burning, choking sensation in my throat and a fire in my gut. Then, nothing.

It was dark. Very. I lifted my hand before my eyes, moved it closer until it was touching my nose. Nothing. I could feel a moist breeze against my skin, and a night bird sang nearby. I was propped against something rough, probably a tree. Something stirred to my left and I turned my head that way. This simple motion caused a terrible throbbing in my skull.

"Alix, don't move." Isa. "Here, drink some more of this." Something warm touched my lips, and I recognized the taste as something that had already been poured down my throat earlier. It wasn't unpleasant, just odd, musty. I drank as much as I could, then turned my head away. The brew quenched the fire in my stomach somewhat.

"Isa, where are we? Why is it so dark?"

Silence. I could almost hear her holding her breath. Then, "We are safe, for now. We will have to move soon. Alix, the poison has blinded you."

It was my turn to be silent. Everything had changed too fast. Reality came flooding in on me. Betrayed. Poisoned, yes, I remembered the gloating look on Lucien's face just before I passed out. Sudden nausea overcame me and I retched horribly for several minutes while Isa held me and rubbed her hands consolingly over my back.

"This is good. I think I got most of the poison out of you before it could do its work. You are very lucky that I found you."

"Found me? But I was in the laboratory... I didn't think you ever went up there. How did you get past Lucien?"

"I didn't have to. He left right after he did this to you. Again, you are lucky. I almost decided to follow him, then decided to ask you about it instead. I found you writhing and moaning on the floor, and I knew right away what that bastard had done to you. He even left a bottle opened on the shelf. Once I knew what it was, I was able to make a remedy for you. I, too have learned from him, though it is all herbs, and none of the unholy matter he has been teaching you.

"It's not what you think..." Why did I defend him, even now? "And the laboratory? Did you always know it was there?"

"No, but well, Aguilar is, by necessity, a cautious man..."

"He had you spy on me, to make sure I was spying on Lucien."

"Yes. I'm sorry, Alix. I wanted to tell you, just get it out in the open. I hate all of this subterfuge. But then it began to appear that you were in league with him, and I didn't dare...." The way she let this trail off made it a question.

How to answer her? I felt like a hopeless wretch, blind and as helpless as a child. But the worst of it was that I had brought it upon myself. The sin of pride. How easy it had become to lay aside everything I had been taught. "Yes, I was seduced. I have been very stupid." Her hand left my arm where it had been resting, and I heard her move away. Panic suddenly overcame me. I was completely alone in my darkness. "Isa?"

"After all we told you, after what he did to your friend, when you knew, you knew! Alix, how could you? Do you think this is all some fantasy?"

I was starting to feel light-headed, and I could think of nothing to say. She was right. But some other frayed edge of a thought was nagging at me.

"Isa, did you say that Lucien left the opened bottle of poison for you to find?"

"Yes, but what does that have to do with...."

"Quickly, where are you taking me?"

"To my people, we have a sanctuary.... Alix, what is it?"

"Lucien would never leave such a thing half-done. I know him. We are doing everything he wants us to do. I wasn't meant to die yet. I am certain we are being followed." As I spoke, I rose to a standing position. Fear and adrenalin had cleared my mind somewhat, though my head still throbbed and the hot fire in my gut made me want to double over. I could feel myself swaying unsteadily.

Then several things happened at once. A crashing in the underbrush nearby, along with words in urgent, low tones told me that our conversation had been overheard. Our followers had decided to attack us rather than let us get away or mislead them. That same instant, it seemed that my sight was returning, except that everything was all wrong. It seemed that light had become dark and dark, light. To my right and before me, dim, man-shaped figures of light struggled with a dim, woman-shaped figure of light. To my left, the interior of my study in the castle appeared, just as I remembered it, not reversed like this waking world. The Valkan-Meer glowed blackly on my finger, though I could not see the rest of my hand or arm. And in the corner, point-down where I had left it, stood my sword.

Two-steps into the room and I had it, two steps back and I had closed with my first opponent. He was using a two-handed sword, a cumbersome thing. The man was apparently not skilled with this sort of weapon, and he seemed off-balance with it. Yet, were he to land a single blow, it would almost surely kill me. He made the mistake of allowing me inside his range, where he could not comfortably wield the blade. I knocked it aside with my own and drove my sword-edge into his side, just below the ribcage as he spun, trying vainly to recover. He kept moving with his own big sword's momentum and ended up on his knees, back to me and clutching at his wound. I kicked him in the back of his head and stepped over him. One of Isa's assailants had his back to me, struggling to subdue the kicking girl and get a rag into her mouth. Two others held her arms, though not easily, for she was giving them a hell of a fight. I pulled the man with the gag's dagger from its sheath at his hip and stabbed him in the neck, between two vertebrae. He was dead before his body reached the ground. That left two more, both of whom let go of Isa and moved to opposite sides of me.

Letting go of a possible hostage was foolish. Not that I minded. I did not care to repeat with Isa the experience of having a loved-one murdered. I proved their mistake to them quickly, feinting to the man on my right, throwing him on the defensive long enough to remove the sword-arm of his friend. On the backswing I slit his throat neatly, and it was over. Yes, Riothamus was a good teacher.

When I turned to regard Isa, I silently cursed my returning sight, which was almost normal now, save for an unnatural clarity in the darkness. Isa sat slumped as she had fallen. She stared at me in absolute, wide-eyed terror. I reached my hand down to her, but she started away from me, scrambling along the ground like a wounded thing. "I think we had better get moving," I said. "There may be more of them about."

She made no move to get up or take my hand. Her eyes, two black spots in a sea of white, slid from my face, down my arm to the bloodied sword in my hand, then shut tight, as if to protect themselves from the sight. She raised one shaking finger and pointed it at the weapon, as if accusing it of something. "Where..." She licked her lips, took a breath, then whispered, "Alix, where did that come from?"

"Elsewhere. There is no time." I grabbed her arm and pulled her up, then spun her in the direction of the river. I wrapped my arm around her waist and we darted toward the nearby shoreline, staying within the trees and moving quickly. As we reached the shore, Isa pulled away abruptly and charged along it, staying two or three steps ahead of me. She did not look back, and I knew she was half-running from me. For now, that was okay, because it kept her moving and occupied her mind with the task of navigating the darkness.

Tied about three hundred yards down the shore was a small boat, which, I assumed, had brought us to this place via the catacombs. Before long, we were in the mainstream and moving silently. Isa started to ask me again about the weird occurrences, but I hushed her, whispering that sound carried too well over water, and we could not afford to take chances. That was only part of the reason, of course; I needed this brief time to think, to gather my resources and try to regain my mental equilibrium. Perhaps my time would have been better spent otherwise, for most of the boat ride I spent inwardly kicking myself for being so blind... Blind. I grimaced wryly. It was almost funny how the outer world could mimic a man's inner failings. Almost, and I might even have chuckled, so reckless did I feel with the power of the Valkan-Meer upon my finger. But I restrained myself, remembering that I still would have to explain the unexplainable to Isa before this was over.

A thump brought me back to the moment. Isa had steered our little boat into the shore, and we stepped out into the shallow water. We hid the boat under a willow's low-hanging branches, just as the whinny of a horse, and another's answer, brought me to a standstill. I peered out from under the tree's foliage carefully. I recognized this place as the same one where we had met the wagon during my abduction. No wagon waited this time, but a pair of dappled horses were tied up in a little copse of trees nearby. I asked Isa if the sanctuary was near. She gave a little nod and gestured vaguely to the east. I took her hand and darted into the trees, pulling her along behind me.

"Horses are too easy to follow. I don't know why Lucien wants your people, but I don't think we want to find out the hard way. We will ride south, send the horses on without us, then double back on foot. Now come on!" I mounted and spurred my horse without waiting to see if she followed, hoping tht she would see me as the lesser evil right now. At first I heard nothing, and I was about to turn back when there came the sound of hoofbeats keeping up with my own, three or four lengths back.

We let the horses go after about a mile and a half, slapping them on the rump after turning their heads on a continuing path to the south, then we took to the woods, paralleling the road. It was slow going, for the underbrush was thick and there were a lot of small branches covering the ground. Had it not been for my unnatural night vision, we would have been forced to chance the road. It was well that we did not, for after about a quarter-hour, two horsemen tore past us, riding hard, heading south. Whether they were Lucien's, I never knew, for we did not encounter them again before we reached the sanctuary.

It was actually an abandoned convent, perhaps three centuries old. Looking out from its decaying walls, one could see where the trees had been cleared away, but they had long since been replaced by thick underbrush; the convent was placed deep inside a densely forested area, alongside a narrow and little-used track.

Aguilar was waiting at the gate, bundled in a grey cloak, though the air was not very chill. He greeted Isa warmly, me more diffidently, asking me to wait in the courtyard while he spoke to Isa. I watched them disappear into a chamber as I leaned back against the wall. In the corner of my eye, I could see the white oval of a face turned towards me. I ignored the young watchman and stared at the flawless sky. The milky way stretched overhead, peaceful and indifferent. I took mental stock of my body, looking for signs of permanent damage from the poison. Except for a kind of lethargy, I felt fine. Either Isa knew her herb-lore well, or the Valkan-Meer had somehow cleansed me. Whatever the reason, I had survived. I could even have eaten, had someone offered me any food. But no one did. I glanced around the courtyard at the three young men who stood there, but they simply stared back, suspicious.

Very well, then. I could not exactly blame them. I had surely seemed the traitor. Perhaps I was, after all. I had helped Lucien in his experiments, and had never once reported my findings back to Aguilar. What these men did not know was that I had become their most convinced ally the moment the poison touched my lips, though perhaps too late.

And this brought me round to Lucien, and the occurrences of this night. What did he want with the Cathars? Surely they could not fit into his research in any way. No, somehow he must feel threatened by them.

The door opened and candle light spilled out into the dark. Aguilar leaned out of the doorway and beckoned me. I went in.

Isa sat in the corner, near the fire, her face averted. Aguilar seated himself behind a large table and motioned me to sit opposite him. A flagon that I took to be wine sat on the table, but he offered me none.

"Isa told me about the... encounter earlier this evening." He paused and looked at me expectantly, and when I did not speak, continued. "She has told me everything, Alix. I am grateful for what you have done for her...." He shifted his eyes to the opened book on the table before him, but I knew he wasn't reading. "But we cannot allow you to stay. While we may be enemies of the established order just as you and your kind are, ours is a very different reason. We cannot afford to be consorting with those who practice witchcraft, whose aim is the gain of worldly power. That stands in direct opposition to what we believe in."

I was not surprised to hear this from the man. What else could he think? What did surprise me was the sign he was making with his hand, which I could see in his lap as I rose to go, the sign I had seen a hundred times, made by children and old women. It was the Sign of Warding, to guard against evil. He looked up to see why I had paused, and I will never forget the expression of fear in his eyes as I started to laugh.

I was not certain where I was going, but I could not stay where I was not wanted. It was nearing dawn as I strode through the gate into the forest, having been fed a meal by a shaking and somewhat worried-looking old woman, who refused to give me her name, presumably because I might use it against her somehow. Perhaps she thought I might enchant her to my bed. The only reason I was fed at all was because I demanded it of Aguilar. I wasn't sure why he acquiesced, except maybe out of fear. He had certainly not done so out of any sense of loyalty or obligation.

If I sound bitter, it is because bitterness was all that was left to me, fed, no doubt, by the conversation that Isa and I had while I consumed soup and bread before the low fire in the kitchen.

I was surprised to see her at all, after what had transpired. But I was twice as surprised when she sat down before me, eyes on the ground, and took my hand, speaking so softly that I barely heard the words: "Alix, I am carrying your child." Silence. She lifted her head, looked at me squarely while I stared back, stupefied . "If it is the child of a man, I shall love it always, but always alone. You must never try to find us. If I have ever meant anything to you, you will promise me this."

" 'If it is the child of a man?' What kind of nonsense is that, Isa? Am I not a man? Do you think I am some sort of --of-- demon or something? What if I am? What are you trying to tell me, Isa?" I hadn't meant to shout. It just came out that way. This night was fast becoming the most ridiculous of my life, and that was saying a lot.

"If you are--if it is--" perfectly serious, her face. "--I will kill it." Soft, her voice, without passion.

Her shoulders drooped, then, as she turned her eyes to the floor, she dropped my hand and curled her arms around her midriff. "Alix... I don't know what you are. You are dangerous somehow, but I don't know what that means. I had a dream..." she paused, looked at me, looked away, looked back. "I had a dream of you. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it was more, I don't know, more real somehow. You were in a room. That room. The one where you got the sword."

I started. I had not realized that she had seen me cross over into Dream.

"Oh yes," she continued, "I saw it. I saw it all. It was the same place. You are either a god, which my faith cannot let me believe, or you are a demon from Hell. Do not tell me that you are just a man." She glanced down at her belly, not yet showing any sign of the child within. "I have loved you, and I have feared your strangeness often. You have been ever like the men I have admired and hated, and you I have loved. There is a lot of Lucien in you, Alix. And there is a lot of the devil in him. The world is an evil place. I repeat to you, do not try to find us."

I thought briefly to smile, to make light of it all, but this failed before ever it reached my face. Isa watched me quietly, waited patiently for my response, and when I had none, nodded quietly and left the room. I shook my head in disbelief, waiting, half expecting her to come back, apologize, laugh at herself for being so superstitious; but though I waited for a very long time, and even asked for another bowl of soup (eliciting a look of scorn from the old woman, as though I had dared sacrilege), Isa did not return.

Before I had walked a mile, the sun had risen, and I knew what I had to do.


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