Uncle Giorgio placed his cage on the lid of the furnace and took the other one from Alfredo. He opened its door, reached in, caught the shrieking bird, withdrew it and handed the cage back to Alfredo, pointing to show him he was to put it down against the wall. By the time Alfredo turned back Uncle Giorgio was holding the bird in a grip that caused it to gape upward. He picked up a small dropper, dipped it into a bowl and squeezed a single drop of liquid into the bird’s throat. He then put it into the cage on the furnace, caught and took out the first bird and did the same, and put it back in the cage with the other one. The two birds, which had screeched at each other almost continuously till this moment, fell silent. Uncle Giorgio picked up the cage and balanced it on the brazier, then took Alfredo by the shoulder, led him across to a point about three paces from the brazier and turned him to face it.
“Do not move from that spot and you will be quite safe,” he said. “Watch me. When I raise my right hand, sing the chant. Here are your dark glasses. You will need them later.”
Alfredo waited, his heart beating heavily with a mixture of wonder and terror, and the fierce excitement of being on the edge of strange knowledge. He watched Uncle Giorgio unstopper a large flask and very carefully, gripping the brazier for support and leaning out over the sand so as not to mark its surface in any other way, fill the star-shaped groove with glistening dark red granules. Finished, he restoppered the flask and stood back opposite Alfredo with the brazier exactly between them. He spread his arms wide, raised his head and began to speak.
Persian again, in a deep, strong voice, every syllable clear and exact. The room rang with the sound. It went on for a long while, but still the tension grew and grew. At last Uncle Giorgio fell silent. He drew his hands together before his mouth in a gesture of prayer. His lips were moving but the words were silent. He glanced at Alfredo, briefly raised his right hand and returned to his praying. Alfredo filled his lungs and sang.
He’d expected he might be too nervous to hit the first few notes, to have to steady himself into the chant, but the sound came strong and true. The air in the chamber prickled, and filled with a snowstorm of glowing flecks that swirled themselves into two tall fiery shapes, two Angels of Fire standing opposite each other one either side of the brazier, so that the four of them, two Angels and two humans, stood at the corner-points of a square. None of them stirred until the chant ended.
Then Uncle Giorgio spoke, two grating syllables. The Angels half-raised their arms. Fire streamed from their fingertips down toward the feet of the brazier. The pattern in the sand became a fiery star. Its flames were not red but an intense violet. They wavered as flames do, but did not spread and thicken. Instead they retained the precise outline of the star they sprang from, growing and growing until their tops bent inward and poured themselves into the bowl of the brazier beneath the cage and filled it.
The starlings showed no sign of being perturbed, but stood side by side on the single perch. One raised a foot and scratched under its chin. Then the flames shot up and enveloped the cage. There was no squawk from the birds, no sudden stench of burning feathers, only a faint odor, peppery but sweet, filling the chamber. The flames held the shape of the cage, increasing in intensity until Alfredo was forced to use his dark glasses. He could hear Uncle Giorgio’s voice now, a steady mutter, the same dozen words over and over but becoming louder and louder as the light intensified. Despite the protection of his spectacles Alfredo could scarcely see Uncle Giorgio through the glare, but he made out a movement of some kind and at the same moment the Angels stretched out their arms toward the brazier, so Alfredo followed suit. At once he could feel the power being drawn from him, down his arms and out through his fingers. The light blazed stronger than the sun. He had to screw his eyes shut, despite the spectacles. Uncle Giorgio’s voice was a harsh cry of triumph that suddenly snapped short. The light faded away and Alfredo could open his eyes.
Even without the spectacles he was blind. All he knew was that the Angels were gone.
“Stay where you are,” said Uncle Giorgio. “It is not yet safe to move.”
He started to pray again, different words, but again many times repeated with his voice dwindling away. Alfredo waited. Gradually his eyes adapted to the light of the single lamp. Now he could make out that there was only one bird on the perch. The other was lying on its side on the floor. He was unable to think about it. He felt extraordinarily tired and listless.
Uncle Giorgio’s voice faded into silence. His lips stopped moving.
“It is over,” he said in a weak and shaking voice. “Follow me. Bring the lantern.”
He picked up the cage with the birds in it, unlocked the door and led the way out, locking the door behind them as before. He used the hand rope to haul himself up the stairs, and stopped to rest halfway. Alfredo’s legs felt so weak that he could scarcely climb at all. It seemed a very long way back to the study. Uncle Giorgio hung the birdcage on its hook and fetched a different flask and two fresh goblets and poured some of the potion into each. While he waited Alfredo studied the birdcage. Yes, it was as he’d thought, but he hadn’t been able to see clearly enough in the furnace chamber. The bird on the perch was the one from upstairs, the smaller one with the mottled breast. The one that could count was lying on the floor. It didn’t stir. It seemed to be dead. Uncle Giorgio turned, and saw what he was looking at.
“Do not be alarmed,” he said. “They are only birds. This was a test of my powers, not theirs. The older bird lacked the strength to receive what was given it. I do not. For me, perhaps, there is still some risk, but the prize is worth it. For you, none. The younger bird, as you see, is physically unharmed.
“Now the Second Purification. Copy me as you did before.”
He handed Alfredo one of the goblets. They faced each other, intoning the words and sipping from the goblets. The warmth of the potion seeped through Alfredo’s body, making him feel a little less feeble.
“Sit now, and rest,” said Uncle Giorgio. “You are tired?”
“Yes, very.”
“I too. All exercise of power takes strength. No, on second thought, go to your room and lie down. Annetta will bring you some food.”
Alfredo staggered to his feet and left, closing the door behind him. But rising again so soon after sitting down seemed to have taken all strength out of him. He paused, leaning for a while against the wall to let his muscles recover. Behind him, through the door, he heard a scraping sound, and then the shriek of a starling. “One! Two! Three! Four!”
The final shock of understanding flooded his mind. It was like a sudden, fierce blow on the head, blanking out everything else. But for the wall he would have fallen to the ground. At last he pulled himself together and tiptoed away to his room.
He didn’t go to bed, but sat in his favorite place in the window, sorting the whole thing through in his mind, fitting his new knowledge in with the old. By the time Annetta arrived with a tray of food he had it all pieced together, a single clear structure, a working machine with one terrible purpose.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” he said. “Have you got time now? It’s important.”
She nodded and he told her what had happened that morning in the furnace room and the study, finishing with the cry of the starling.
“That was the young bird from his bedroom,” he said. “I heard him pushing a crust into its cage, and it did what the old bird always did and counted up to four. It couldn’t count before. Now it can. What he’d done, you see, was put the old bird’s mind, its soul, what makes it it, into the young bird’s body. That’s what he’s going to do on Monday—put himself into me. He ought to be dead, you see. The emanations from the furnace should have killed him long ago. He didn’t know about that when he started. It’s only the tears of the salamander that have been keeping him alive. But after Monday it won’t matter because he’ll have a new young body.