A Mutual Accord

Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

A msterdam - 1540

In a darkened laboratory, a man dressed all in black added one element to another from a vial, observing the reactions and making notes as he did so. The wall behind him was engraved with thousands of arcane symbols. The wall to his left was the home of hundreds of vials of rare ingredients. He had been in these rooms without leaving for nearly one hundred and thirty years, working, just working, on this most exciting of experiments.

He had ceased to refer to himself by any particular name centuries ago; the man Cartaphilus was as dead as everyone who had known him. He had ceased to require an appellation long ago. His apprentices referred to him as master , and he referred to them all as apprentice ; they came and they worked; they grew old, and they died, then new ones replaced them. They were all the same to him. One day he would move in society again, and he would select a new name when it became necessary.

The room was filled with tables, and around the table were young apprentices, following instructions given by the man in black, and making their own calculations. One apprentice left the room for a few moments, then returned. The man in black glanced up at the young apprentice as he went to a cabinet and retrieved a formula that they had mixed yesterday.

The man in black’s eyebrows furrowed. That formula was not ready for transmutation. He rose, intending to speak to the apprentice, but he was not fast enough, for the man was young, and intent upon his work.

He had only crossed half of the room and cried out, “No, not that one!” before the apprentice applied the formula to the lump of lead in front of him. The chemical reaction was explosive, flooding the room with vibrant colours and strange lights as the apprentices screamed in terror.

He strode into the centre of the room, and raised his hand into the air, controlling the chaos, bringing the devastation occurring in the room slowly down to nothing, as the apprentices whispered excitedly amongst themselves at this demonstration of his mastery of arcane knowledge. When the chaos subsided, he returned to his calculations, as the apprentices repaired the disorder of the failed experiment.