FORTY-ONE
Kelley entered the castle but turned away from the dungeon. He hadn't been there in nearly two years, not since operations had moved entirely to the caverns beneath St. Vitus Cathedral. Instead he turned toward the castle infirmary, going in quietly so as not to disturb the few lingering patients-soldiers who'd injured each other during sword practice, stable hands kicked by horses, and other minor injuries.
He paused near an old nun who wrapped a bandage around a soldier's shoulder. "How is he today?" Kelley asked.
She shrugged. "No better. No worse."
"He's still by the window?"
The nun nodded.
Kelley walked past the beds to the end of the long room and around a silk screen that had been erected to allow the man in the final bed some privacy. Sun streamed in the window, its warm rays illuminating the floating dust motes.
Roderick lay under a thin sheet, perfectly still, arms folded across his chest, his face like chalk. His chest did not noticeably rise and fall with breath; nothing animated any of his features. Kelley thought he might already be dead, but the old man's eyelids lifted slowly.
"Hello, Kelley." Roderick's voice was a weak croak. "I said you didn't have to visit me anymore. It must be terribly depressing."
"I can make you some more of that tea if you like," Kelley offered. "To calm your stomach. If I can find the right tree bark and some other ingredients."
"No more of your alchemy. It doesn't help anymore," the astrologer said. "There is only dying left to do, and that will be that."
During those early months, Roderick had seemed only slightly ill or, perhaps, malnourished, given his long hours trying to complete the project for the emperor. The astrologer was an old man, after all, and while Kelley's first impression of him had been of a tireless force of manic energy, certainly a man of his age could only go for so long without an extended rest.
But Roderick's health had grown steadily worse. He'd faded to skin and bone, hadn't been able to keep food down. His teeth had rotted and fallen out. Finally, he hadn't been able to walk anymore and had been confined to bed for the past two months, where he'd continued to wither.
Kelley sat in silence on the windowsill, looking at his shoes, not saying anything.
"I was arrogant," Roderick said at last.
Kelley looked up. "What?"
"Arrogant and foolish," Roderick said. "I've toyed with powers that have killed me. We have all damned ourselves. Why don't you go home?"
"Rudolph won't let me," Kelley said. "With you about to... die... I'm the only one that knows what to do with the machine."
"Yes, I suppose that's true. I'm no longer needed, am I?"
"I know how to position the lenses and activate the machine, but I have no idea how or why it all works," Kelley said. "If something breaks, I wouldn't know where to start."
"Just remember never to open the box," Roderick said.
"Never. I transferred the stone to a lead box. Did I tell you that? It protects better."
"You told me last time."
"Did I? How long ago was that? Never mind. My mind is going, Kelley. It won't be long now. You have to keep the lenses clean. There are maintenance spells to ward off casual dust and rot, but anything done by you the spells will interpret as an intentional alteration. The lenses must be spotless before use. If something warps the light flow, it might alter the effects."
"You told me."
"You should escape, Kelley. For God's sake, don't you have a family?"
Kelley said nothing. He had no family. But really, where else was there to go? He felt branded, like an outcast. He felt it so strongly in his heart that surely it must show on his face. Where could he go where decent people would look him in the eye and not know he'd spit in the face of God? No, Kelley was doomed to live out his days in Prague Castle, a sinner hiding among other sinners, a madman in a city of madmen.
"The dreams are the worst," Roderick said. "It is always early in the morning, on the verge of waking. I'm dead and my soul travels into a deepening gray, no color, no light, just on and on into eternal gray, a vast nothingness."
"It's just a dream."
Roderick erupted into a spasm of coughing that startled Kelley.
The astrologer gestured to a white cloth on the stand next to his bed, and Kelley handed it to him, jumping back when the coughing was renewed with double the force. Roderick coughed into the cloth, his body shaking violently. The cloth came away bright red.
Roderick sank back into his pillow. He seemed to deflate right before Kelley's eyes, as if the life force fled from the old man's decaying body.
The astrologer closed his eyes. "Don't let this happen to you. Edward, listen. Don't let it happen. Go now. There's nothing you can do here but watch me die."
Kelley opened his mouth, could not think of one comforting thing to say, no words of hope or wisdom, nothing to acknowledge anything other than death. He said nothing, walked away from Roderick's bed, walked out of the infirmary, didn't look back. His mind's eye saw again the blood so red on the white cloth.
Kelley went back to his room in the White Tower and uncorked a fresh jug of wine. He drank and drank, but nothing would wash away his sins.
The sun shimmered orange on the horizon when Kelley heard the bells. Something was happening. He rose from his chair, stumbled, realized he hadn't moved in hours. He'd sat staring out the open window, slowly making the jug of wine disappear. He righted himself, went to the window ledge.
People ran across the courtyard below. One came toward the White Tower.
Kelley flopped back into the chair, closed his eyes, and waited. Soon he heard the footfalls on the stairs. A second later, there was a knock at the door.
Go away.
The lock came louder, a voice shouting on the other side of the door, "Master Kelley!"
He stood reluctantly, went to the door, and opened it a crack to see a teenager on the other side, with a dirty face, greasy hair. Some random lackey from the stables or kitchens.
"Master Kelley?"
"What is it?"
"Word's all over that he's dead, sir. The emperor has everyone running every which way. Said to come fetch the alchemist. I've got to get back, but the emperor wants you right away and no mistake!" Breathless. He dashed away before Kelley could ask him anything.
He went downstairs and out of the tower, paused to dunk his head in the water trough, where he drank handfuls of water. Damn, he was still half drunk.
He was halfway to the castle when he was intercepted by one of the emperor's robed advisors. He recognized the man's face but couldn't come up with a name.
"Is it true he's dead?" Kelley asked.
"I'm afraid so," the advisor said. "Naturally, the emperor wants to... ah... take the opportunity to test the device." The advisor quickly looked around to make sure no one had overheard him.
Kelley shook his head. What would Roderick think about being brought back to life by his own invention? "Where is he?"
"They're putting him into dry clothes now," the advisor said.
Kelley stopped walking, then looked at the advisor, confusion on his face. "Dry clothes?"
"I thought you'd heard. He drowned in the Charles River. It happened just an hour ago."
"Wait. What was he doing in the Charles River?"
"That's hardly relevant." Haughty. Impatient.
"But I just... how did he get to the river?"
"The emperor's cousin was boating with a couple of young ladies. He fell in and drowned. It's hardly-"
"Hold on. Who? The emperor's cousin?"
"Who do you think we've been talking about?"
"I just..." The emperor's cousin. Not Roderick. "I was confused for a moment. Never mind. Lead on."
Kelley followed the advisor to St. Vitus Cathedral, past a brace of guards keeping out casual worshippers, and into the vault leading to the caverns below. The paths had been completed and roped off for safety; the entire underground complex had been completed. Even the ladder that led down the front of the dam had been replaced by narrow stone steps along the cavern wall.
It had been explained to Kelley that the caverns would be the most well kept of state secrets, the legacy of the Holy Roman Emperors. That was one of the reasons a dead peasant had not been brought in previously to test the machine on a human. If the peasant was brought back to life, then he would need to be killed again to keep the secret, and not even Rudolph could bring himself to be that bloody. Only the emperor and the royal family and his heirs would have access to immortality.
Laborers who'd worked in the caverns had been pressed into the army and sent to faraway campaigns. Soldiers standing outside the cathedral had no idea what they were guarding. Of course, rumors spread of the strange activities in and under the castle, but the emperor's spies continued to spread the tale that the alchemists were transmuting lead into gold. (A rumor that also helped explain why so much lead was being sent to the castle.) It was a cover story that would hold for centuries.
They entered the waterwheel chamber, where Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II waited with more advisors and captains, the most powerful and influential people at court. They watched him expectantly as he approached. Kelley stood before the emperor and bowed his head just enough to show respect. He'd been through too much to grovel. He no longer cared what happened to him.
Rudolph looked him up and down. "Kelley, isn't it?"
"Yes, Highness."
"And you can operate this machine? Roderick has shown you?"
"Yes, Highness."
The emperor stepped aside, gesturing to the table on the stone dais. A man lay stretched out on the table. A circle of lenses hung from a thick chain above, with a prism and another, larger lens in the middle of the circle.
"My cousin," Rudolph said.
Kelley nodded, climbed the steps of the dais, looked down at the young man on the table. Fair hair, still slightly damp, clean bright skin. He'd been put into a dry robe of plain, white cloth. Bare feet. He didn't look dead at all. He looked like he was sleeping, dreaming of something far away. Kelley put his hand on the man's chest. No heartbeat.
"Can you do it?" Rudolph called from below.
Kelley pointed at a wall of lead a dozen feet wide and seven feet tall. It had been erected as protection from the machine's rays. "You'll be safe behind there."
The emperor and his advisors looked at one another a moment, then scurried behind the wall.
Kelley looked at the cousin's smooth face again. Had he deserved to die so young? Was he a good person? Kelley had never met him in life. Maybe God had selected him for death. Perhaps he was wicked and cruel, and it was a kindness to the world to be rid of him. Who was Kelley to decide his life or death? Kelley tried to convince himself he wasn't deciding anything. Roderick had built the machine. Rudolph had given the orders.
Kelley was simply pulling the levers.
"What's happening over there?" Rudolph called from behind the wall.
Kelley frowned, ignored the emperor.
The alchemist circled to the other side of the dais, where a row of twenty levers connected to gears and pulleys and flywheels. He pulled the first lever, and the sound of rushing water filled the cavern. The waterwheel turned, slowly at first, then more rapidly. The other levers determined the order of the lenses, the flow of light, lowering the whole apparatus. It all had to be done in the exact order. Kelley had been over the scribbled instructions in his journal a thousand times. He knew the procedure by heart.
"Do you hear me?" shouted the emperor. "What's happening?"
Shut up, you lunatic. I'm working.
Kelley began to pull levers. The lenses lowered, surrounded the table. Overhead, gears meshed. Powered by the waterwheel, they began to spin. The big lens in the middle lowered until it was directly over the emperor's cousin, three feet from his chest. Portals opened overhead. Sunlight from above, reflected and re-reflected through lenses and mirrors, poured through the shafts, struck the lenses brilliantly white.
Kelley had expected it, but he flinched anyway.
Rudolph stuck his head around the corner, squinted into the light. "Damn you, alchemist. Don't you hear me talking to you?"
"If you want to live, Highness, get back behind the protective barrier."
Rudolph frowned but ducked back behind the lead wall.
Hatred and resentment swelled within Kelley. Who was this insane ruler to defy the will of God, to squander the resources of an empire for his mad schemes? How many had died and suffered for Rudolph's vanity? Kelley's need to defy the emperor compelled him at that moment like no other force on earth, his need to rebel palpable.
Since the emperor and his men were behind the lead wall, nobody saw the terrible thing Kelley did next.
When his act of defiance had been completed, he pulled another lever, rechecked the lenses, and retreated back behind the lead wall with the others. Here there was a final lever. He pulled it. Gears spun overhead. He could not see, but he knew what was happening. The lead box opened, and the stone's rays flooded the prism beneath it. The rays emerged from the other side of the prism and struck the lens directly above the emperor's cousin. The ceiling of the cavern jerked and danced with colored lights. Rudolph and his men cowered. A few crossed themselves.
The final lens bathed the emperor's cousin in warm red light. The waterwheel spun. A crack like thunder.
Kelley shoved the lever back into place, closing the lead box. He rushed up the dais, shut off the waterwheel. He pushed another lever, and the lenses encircling the dais retreated back to the ceiling.
He glanced at the table, jumped back, startled, eyes wide.
The emperor's cousin was up on one elbow. He glanced around the cavern. "Am I in hell?"
"Yes," Kelley said.
Rudolph and his men rushed up to the dais. "Cousin!"
"I remember the river," the cousin said. "What happened?"
"Resurrection!" Rudolph said. "Nothing less than resurrection."
Kelley studied the cousin's face. Warm and alive. It had worked.
They crowded around the young man, slapped him on the back. The mood in the cavern became boisterous and celebratory. They escorted the cousin out, talk of a banquet leading the way.
Rudolph looked back at Kelley over his shoulder. "Good work, alchemist. Secure things here before you come up."
And they were gone.
Kelley blew out a sigh, then sat down on the steps up to the dais. The only sound in the cavern was the flowing water, which had slowed again to a trickle.
He sat awhile.
Then he stood, again pulling the lever that lowered the apparatus with the circle of lenses, prism, and lead box. He climbed up on the table and unfastened the lead box from its place. He was surprised by its sudden weight and almost dropped it. He carried it down the steps to the bottom of the dais, then set it down hard, breathing heavily.
The morbid need to open the box and look inside nearly overwhelmed him, but the urge passed quickly.
He picked up the box again, grunted, and began the long climb back to the surface.
On his way back to the White Tower, he met the old nun who worked in the infirmary. She told Kelley that Roderick the astrologer had died.
CALLING ALL DEAD PEOPLE
FORTY-TWO
Allen flipped another page carefully with the plastic stirs. "According to this, Edward Kelley was the only one to attend Roderick's funeral. Not even a priest."
"How awful," Penny said.
"Oh, no." Allen looked at the page, flipped back, read again.
"What is it?" Amy asked.
"Kelley put the philosopher's stone in the grave with Roderick," Allen said. "He said it seemed fitting. And he wanted to keep it hidden from Rudolph. A final act of defiance."
"Wow," Amy said. "And it's still there?"
"I don't know." Allen flipped another page, kept reading.
"Then we're good, right?" Penny said. "I mean, that solves the problem, doesn't it? The stone is buried. Nobody evil gets it. All is right with the world."
"It's not that simple," Amy said. "There's the Kelley diary, for one thing."
"Destroy it," Penny said. "Burn it."
"It's too late for that. We all know about it. The right spells would make us talk, even good old-fashioned rubber hoses and bamboo under the fingernails." Amy turned to Allen. "We've got to call the Society."
Penny frowned. "How the hell would that help?"
"If they have the stone for safekeeping, then Allen's out of danger. Making him talk won't matter."
"Then let's call in the Vatican," Penny said. "They can protect it better than your people."
"You're still forgetting I don't trust either of those organizations," Allen said. "We've come this far. I say we get the stone ourselves."
"Dammit," Amy said. "That's exactly what Cassandra wants you to do."
"Except I won't be fetching it for her," Allen said. "Ladies, I'm getting to the bottom of this. Are you with me or not?"
