While the meal progressed he turned the pages of The Root of Transformations, commenting lengthily on the text and pointing out significances in the illustrations, even in fine details, which were entirely novel to Rachad, and which he suspected would have been so even to Gebeth. Closing the book, the duke continued, in the vague and faltering voice that clearly belied a keen intellect, to talk of alchemical principles in general. He spoke of the fusion of positive and negative, of the alchemical marriage which must always take place within a sealed vessel, of the joust of the red and black knights, and so on. Going on from that, he gave Rachad the first clear account he had ever heard of the three primordial forces of sulphur, quicksilver and salt.
To this one-sided discourse Rachad added little, firstly because he knew little, but also because the duke’s table habits left him stupefied. His own food was familiar and appetizing, but to the duke there was served dish after dish of different foods altogether—unrecognizable stuffs which gave off bizarre aromas. The flavors, it seemed, were equally strange, a combination of the delicious and nauseous so overpowering that several times the duke lost control and turned to vomit into an urn placed near his chair.
Nor were his table pleasures limited to this stretching of the range of the palate. Rachad’s eyes bulged as, at intervals, young women, youths, even children, came forward from the sides of the hall and, in full view of everyone present, performed lascivious and perverted acts upon the duke’s person. In mid-sentence the duke would pause to grunt and moan, turning up his eyes in ecstasy. Then, giving Rachad a friendly leer, he would continue the talk where he had left off.
Finally he pushed away the latest offering, a plate of odious-smelling pale fruit, and gestured to the retainer to indicate that he was satisfied. Rachad looked around the hall. The other diners, who talked little, and came and went as they pleased, had noticed nothing unusual. The denizens of the Aegis were individualistic, little given to formality, and mostly pursued private interests.
The duke leaned close. “One thing is plain, young man—you know little of alchemy. Do not prevaricate, now.”
Rachad grimaced ruefully. “I am only an apprentice,” he admitted. “My hope is to become Master Amschel’s assistant in the completion of the work. Then I will return to my own master and impart to him the method of the preparation of the stone.”
The duke pursed his lips, adjusting his dress and brushing away the fondling hand of a maiden who bent over him.
“I shall speak to Amschel of your desire,” he murmured.
A silence descended, the same dead, stifling silence that Rachad had noted before. He realized that the duke was a classic case of self-obsession. He was trapped within his own consciousness, encased to a point that in the outside world would have been regarded as insanity, but that here passed without comment. Indeed, the whole Aegis was a hymn to solipsism, to the rejection of any outward involvement, to the creation of a world that sprang solely from one’s own desires.
“And when shall I meet Master Amschel?” Rachad asked.
“Tomorrow. But enough—the hour is late, and my strength flags.”
The duke rose and sauntered toward the wall, turning just before he reached it. “And so to my bed of slime. I bid you good night.”
A section of wall slid aside. Within, Rachad saw a small chamber containing a sort of bath or coffin rimmed with ornate gilt and filled with the same muddy concoction he had seen in the orchid garden.
The duke entered. Before the wall closed again an attendant helped him strip. He lowered his bony body into the bath. His eyes closed, the slime enclosing him and leaving only his face showing.
A footman approached Rachad. “Allow me to show you to suitable apartments,” he said quietly. “Any reasonable service you require is available. You may, if you wish, partake of a slime-bed. But I warn you, once you have sampled it you will not willingly leave the Aegis again.”
“Thank you—all I need is a place where I can sleep normally.”
The footman led him away, and Rachad’s mind became busy. He could not dislike the duke, but there was the awful extent of his degeneracy. This was not the healthy, robust world Rachad knew.
Up until now he had not been sure whether he would in fact attempt to carry out the mission Baron Matello had set him. But now he found it easy to rationalize such treachery. He was, he told himself, furthering not only his own ambitions but also helping mankind to defend itself against the Kerek.
At the earliest opportunity he would endeavor to open up the Aegis.
Chapter ELEVEN
After a long sleep between linen sheets, Rachad was awakened by a maid-servant who brought him a breakfast of fruit and crumbly flavored bread. Shortly, when he had washed and dressed himself, a footman arrived and escorted him to a part of the Aegis he had not seen before. The sumptuous luxury with which the walls were normally draped gave way once more to gray adamant, bare and metallic.
The Duke of Koss, clasping the lead-bound pages of The Root of Transformations, waited for him at the entrance to a featureless corridor. He smiled, and seemed refreshed.
“Good morning, young Caban. You slept well, I trust?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Rachad answered, addressing the duke as etiquette would elsewhere have required, though in the Aegis it scarcely seemed necessary.
“I, too. Our evening meal was delightful, when experienced for the second time.”
The duke pointed into the corridor. “At the heart of the Aegis there lies a second stronghold, protected by an adamant maze of great intricacy and cunning. It is, almost, an aegis within an aegis—there is machinery by which its structure can be rearranged, so that even if an intruder knows his way through the person it protects can render this knowledge useless. If the maze shifted around him in mid-journey, in fact, he would be trapped.”
He tightened his robe about him. “I installed Amschel’s laboratory there, to save him from meddlesome curiosity-seekers. We will go to him now.”
“We can get through safely, I take it?” Rachad asked, staring down the corridor.
“Oh, indeed. One needs but to memorize a certain sequence of numbers, which I have done by means of a mnemonic system.” Again the duke smiled, sardonically this time. “Of course, if Master Amschel takes it into his head to alter the maze, we will be lost.”
They set forth, walking side by side. “What’s the reason for this inner fortress?” Rachad asked as they went “Is it in case the Aegis itself is breached?”
The duke shook his head. “No—such a possibility was never admitted by the alien beast who constructed the Aegis, which is specified to be invulnerable. Ostensibly he included it so as to offer a place of shelter should warfare break out within the Aegis.”
Rachad kept silence as the duke threaded his way through the maze, muttering to himself and hesitating only occasionally. The maze was, as he had said, extremely complicated. They moved not only through a labyrinth of corridors but also up and down winding ramps and steep staircases. Their route twisted and turned at such a rate that it was impossible to estimate the size of the maze in terms of space, and Rachad lost all sense of direction.
Always there seemed to be at least half a dozen possible directions to take. Once the duke stopped, and gestured to Rachad, pointing to a passage ahead of them.
“Walk down there,” he ordered.
Rachad attempted to obey, but came up against an invisible wall of what felt like glass.
The duke laughed softly. “You have just walked into a mirror.”