Suddenly the despondency he had felt for so long surfaced, and he threw up his hands. “What’s the use of talking?” he declared. “You are wasting your time here. I no longer believe in the transmutation of metals.”
He lowered his head while the other stared at him with some seriousness. In a low voice he unburdened himself further. “A year ago I ceased all alchemical strivings. The Philosopher’s Stone is but a figment. Only fools and charlatans speak of it.”
There was silence for a while. Gebeth stared at the floor. It was not just the disappointment, the never-ended failure, that had brought on his despair. There was also guilt. He could not forget young Rachad Caban, whom years ago he had allowed to embark on a mad adventure. The Wandering Queen had not been heard of to this day. It was certain that she had come to grief in the trackless wastes of space.
The stranger’s expression grew stern, and he spoke insistently, but softly. “You do not believe in the Stone of the Philosophers? In the Tincture that perfects metals, and that transforms man? Your experiences must have been disheartening indeed.”
With careful movements he reached into his jerkin and pulled out a small box of carved ivory about the size of a snuffbox. From this he took out a yet smaller box folded from waxed paper, which he opened out and laid on the flat of his hand.
Gebeth bent to inspect its contents: a sparkling red powder. For long moments he stared at this powder, which was not like any substance he had seen before. It scintillated with a life of its own, as if light were ceaselessly emerging and dissolving within it. It defied the eyes; one seemed to be looking at the jostling lights of a distant gorgeous city.
“All I require,” his guest said firmly, “is a crucible, a fire, and half a pound of lead.”
Gebeth looked up into the face, with its steady brown eyes and frame of silky hair, of his mysterious visitor. He blinked, not knowing what to say.
Then he nodded, rose, and led the way into his back room. It took but a little time to kindle a fire. Gebeth worked the bellows until the furnace roared, then set a crucible over the heat, putting a slab of lead into it as he was directed. Silently they waited, while the lead slowly melted, and at last was a gleaming pool.
His visitor produced a knife, and took up but a pinch of the powder on its tip, then scattered it over the molten mass.
The lead seethed and flashed with indescribable colors as the powder sank into it, while Amschel stirred it with an iron rod. “See now the victory of True Philosophy…” he murmured. He ceased to stir. Gebeth gasped, and his heart leaped. In the crucible the metal had stilled. Before his eyes it had all been converted into resplendent shining gold…
Also by Barrington J. Bayley
Age of Adventure
Annihilation Factor
Collision with Chronos
Empire of Two Worlds
Sinners of Erspia
Star Winds
The Fall of Chronopolis
The Forest of Peldain
The Garments of Caean
The Grand Wheel
The Great Hydration
The Pillars of Eternity
The Rod of Light
The Soul of the Robot
The Star Virus
The Zen Gun
The Knights of the Limits
The Seed of Evil
About the Author
Barrington J. Bayley (1937–2008)
Barrington John Bayley was born in Birmingham and began writing science fiction in his early teens. After serving in the RAF, he took up freelance writing on features, serials and picture strips, mostly in the juvenile field, before returning to straight SF. He was a regular contributor to the influential New Worlds magazine and an early voice in the New Wave movement.
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Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Barrington J. Bayley 1978
All rights reserved.
The right of Barrington J. Bayley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 10212 5
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.