by Gentry Race
Arthur never thought he would come to find mythical beauties among the height of new age science.
Before him was a large sinkhole he hadn’t come across before; the twisting vines crawled up from the water like fingers clawing their way out. The knowledge of what was coming tasted bitter in his mouth, like the limestone he would be descending from. Arthur noticed that the water level was higher than in the other two cenotes.
“All right, Arthur. Let’s see these nanites voxelizing in action,” Malick said, gesturing to a nearby soldier to remove the handcuffs.
Arthur approached the last tank of white matter reserves. Propped against it was a new android.
“What do you want to call her?” Arthur asked hesitantly.
Malick slapped him across the back of the head. “You are not using a robot. You are going down there in a dive helmet.”
The men pointing weapons at him laughed while they prepped a voxelized dive suit that was surface air supplied.
Arthur shunned Malick’s naive view on the technology. Like with all things, an amount of respect was needed to be earned. Something Arthur felt he had gained since his arrival to this mystical island.
Malick sank to his feet and got to work prepping a dive helmet. He voxelized and snapped what was called an ‘umbilical’. It had a tensile strength of heavy rope, that housed the air hose and the underwater communications to the helmet.
“Put it on and take off your boots,” Malick ordered.
“As you wish,” Arthur said.
“That’s right, professor. Put it on. Have faith in your tech.” Malick smiled coyly.
Arthur reluctantly slipped the helmet on and kicked off his boots.
“Yes, General?” the captain replied.
“See that he makes it down with this,” General Malick said, handing him the emerald codex device.
“Yes, sir.”
Arthur felt his body swaying as he was lowered into the open water pit below. His head pulled tight as he felt the wires and circuitry feed the continuously voxelizing tubes of slack, giving him air. His body was still, motionless, but he could feel the cold, murky water tingle his senses as it enveloped his legs.
Malick smiled in response to Arthur’s discomfort, then turned his attention to the monitor showing Arthur’s perspective as he descended. A thirty pound belt voxelized around his waist, providing the weight to bring him down. Dark water and bits of floating plant matter drifted past on the screen.
From his place in the chair, Arthur saw karst limestone come into view, and he reflexively caught the ledge with his hand. He hung there for a moment and felt a corrosive sting where he grasped the rock. He let go, descending deeper.
“I’m still going,” Arthur reported.
In another moment, he felt the silt as he hit the bottom. He was expecting to feel a slow burn singeing the pads of his feet, but none came. He only felt the pressure of the water bearing down on his body, trying to break its way into him.
He climbed up, securing his balance on a large boulder. He shined his headlamp on his feet to check their placement, then brought his head back up to look for his next foothold.
“I can see a cavern, but it looks dangerous. The floor is—”
“Keep trekking,” Malick ordered. “That creature must not be far ahead.”
Arthur walked calmly, trying not to stir the silt any more than necessary. As he stepped forward, the clouded water began to transition to a clear, crisp view. The feeling of weight on him and his movements were now heavier. He looked back and saw a wall of clouded water behind him.
“Fascinating! The water just turned crystal clear,” Arthur reported, sensing that he was getting close to the maiden that controlled the element of water itself.
“It’s just a halocline!” Malick balked.
Arthur snickered at his comment, for Malick was still trying to use logic to define his world.
“I assumed you didn’t know what that was, General,” he quipped.
“It’s where the saltwater and fresh water meet,” Malick said, frustrated. “ Keep walking, asshat.”
Arthur stepped a little further and watched the ground begin to break up.
“The ground is not solid!” He cringed in panic. “It’s loose floor!”
Panicked, he whipped his head back and forth, scanning for an escape route. He noticed vines drifting around him, rooted to the cavern ceiling, but undulating in the fresh current like strangely stationary water snakes. He grabbed ahold of the thickest one he could find and hoisted himself up off the cavern floor.
Arthur looked closer through the debris as the silt settled. A three-sided, triangular room revealed itself, carved into a rock chasm. Was this a vision? Where was Spring?
Arthur shined his lights inside, scanning the first wall, and found the number four at the top.
“The Fourth Key of Basil,” he muttered while he made a mental note, waiting for the right time to enter them into the codex.
A skeleton stood on what appeared to be a draped coffin. On the left, a candle burned, while on the right stood a decaying tree stump. In the background was a church.
Arthur turned his attention to the next wall, with a number eight above it.
In a circular, walled enclosure that looked like a colosseum, two men with crossbows sat on blocks and aimed at a square target with a circular bulls-eye, with a key standing on top of it. Seven arrows were already lodged in the square. Between those two men was a grave, out of which a priest was emerging. On the left. beside him wheat was sprouting. In the foreground, a corpse lies in a plowed field, on which one man on the left scattered grain, trailed by four birds, facing a winged angel, sounding a trumpet and holding a scepter on the right.
He then turned his attention to the last wall, labeled with the number twelve. Inside a laboratory, an alchemist stood with tongs in his left hand, while with his right, he pointed to a triangular crucible on a bench at his side, with two rose-like flowers growing out of it and the symbol of Mercury above it. On the left, a barrel-like furnace spouts flames from its top. On the right, a lion devours a snake. Through an open window behind the man, the sun and moon are both seen.
“The twelfth key,” Arthur said.
“Enough with the mysticism shit,” Malick said. “Find me that creature.”
“There!” Arthur said, the surging combination of excitement and relief causing his voice to raise half an octave.
He spied a small opening, and felt he might be on the verge of tears.
He ventured closer, diving down deeper as he entered through the hole. He pulled for more slack and landed safely on the bottom. There, he felt no more loose footing. He twisted his lights around, catching the slightest glimpse of a pair of glowing blue eyes.
There she is. Eiar.
She floated effortlessly in the gentle, crystal clear water, with a slight smile upon her face. Spring looked livelier than the other three sisters, exuding a presence that was carefree and responsive. On her forehead, a pink jeweled headless wrapped under her hair and connected onto a silver chalice neck piece.
“Welcome, my seeker,” she said happily. “Do you bring me my gift?”
Arthur tried to calm his excitement under his breathing apparatus as he held out the codex. The water just above his device began to circulate and form into a swirling, bubbly vortex, holding a steady bubble.
Spring twisted her pout lips into a perfect smile only a goddess would have. Arthur was taken aback by how beautiful she was. Her blonde hair almost glowed in the ambient blueish light her body tattoos emitted. In her hand, she held a four prong scepter crested with a large black pearl.
“By Allmother, you are a blasphemous warlock,” General Malick said over the feed.
“I am happy to see you’ve pleased my sisters,” she said, her legs warping into humanoid form. She kicked her short, curvaceous, strong legs behind her, revealing a pert ass Arthur only wished to embrace. From her decorated seashell brassiere, pink sleeves slumped ov
er her tanned arms.
“They are quite the bunch,” he said.
Now face to face, Spring grabbed the bubble and squeezed it into a thousand tiny bubbles that swam their way to the roof of the cave. Arthur watched the water level drop, creating a breathable pocket of air around them.
As the water passed below his waist, he could feel gravity bearing down harder on him. Soon, he was standing in thick, muddied floor, as was Spring. He took of his dive helmet. The air was as fresh as topside on a summer’s day.
She wrapped her arms around him, and he did the same to her waist. “I am pleased for you to be here,” she said. “Are you ready to receive the Magnum Opus?”
“Yes,” he said. “But first I need to know. Is this all real? Or are you some kind of manifestation from my head?”
She touched his chest and caressed his body over his suit. She was gorgeous, just like Autumn and Liz. Arthur could feel his cock harden for the blonde beauty before him, for the ultimate power within her.
“We are what you need,” she said.
She felt just below his belt, pulled out his cock from within his pants. He was growing harder by the second. She gripped the base of his shaft, pulling all the engorgement to his head. Arthur leaned in to kiss her. She tasted like sweet spring water from an aquifer, and moved her mouth in a sensual way that Arthur mimicked in pleasure. She began to recite the fourth key.
“If you do not possess the ashes, you will be unable to obtain our salt; and without our salt you will not be able to impart to our substance a bodily form; for the coagulation of all things is produced by salt alone.”1
She slowed her stroking. Arthur could already feel the precum beading at the tip of his head. He could burst at any minute, but he wanted more. More information, more pleasure.
Spring dropped to her iridescent, scaly knees and lapped up the liquid pouring from his head. Arthur couldn’t help but think of salt. The salt beyond the water around them and the salt in his body that was ready to burst.
Spring slowly took his dick into her soft, warm mouth and stroked his cock. Arthur felt a transduction of information flow through his mind in the form of scripture.
“For as there is no fire without air so neither is there any air without fire. Water was incorporated with the earth Thus living man is an harmonious mixture of the four elements; and Adam was generated out of earth, water, air, and fire, out of soul, spirit, and body, out of mercury, sulphur, and salt.”2
Man is made of four elements. Arthur embodied this fully now. He definitely had all four elements, in the form of seductive mermaids, but one thing was missing: the quintessence.
Spring pulled her mouth from his cock. Arthur’s head was spinning from the information, the pleasure, and the feeling of her grace. Then she laid back on her elbows and spread her legs.
Her soft blue eyes gave a yearning appeal, and Arthur rested his body down onto hers, squaring up his dick to her wet pussy. He could already imagine the warmth she possessed to send him into an aqueous ecstasy.
“Are you ready for the final key?” Spring asked, pulling him into her.
“Yes,” Arthur said, letting himself be guided in.
She pushed gently at first, and then a little further with each thrust, while a slew of information penetrated his mind.
“In the same way, he that possesses this tincture, by the grace of Almighty God, and is unacquainted with its uses, might as well not have it at all. Therefore this twelfth and last Key must serve to open up to you the uses of this Stone.”3
Arthur pushed harder and harder while he received the twelfth key. Spring sang out in crying moans, spreading her legs wider and taking all that he could give. Arthur felt himself ready to explode, but was determined to hang onto his love as long as he could until he couldn’t any longer.
Then, in a final stroke, he burst his hot spunk, rhythmically pumping all that he was inside her. Spring moaned, feeling the hot mess fill her inside, and pulled on Arthur’s neck, looking him square in the eyes. He thought he saw both Liz and Autumn in them for a slight second. She rolled her eyes back in pleasure, orgasming on his still rock-hard penis.
He had done the deed and satisfied the last key. The stone would be his for the taking.
Arthur pulled himself out of Spring and tried to gather his thoughts. She laid next to him in his arms, her presence blanketed his spirit with joy.
As she rested on the ground, she picked up the nearby codex and scooped up a handful of mud, yellow and pale in the slight, ambient light.
“Citrinitas,” she said.
Yellow, Arthur deciphered.
The wet glob of karst rock caught fire in her hand and begin to boil into a fiery crimson.
“Rubedo.”
Red.
The flames withered, and only white ash was left.
“Albedo.”
White.
She sprinkled the ash onto the codex, and spun the two tracks to the combination of four, eight and twelve. The device began to shake, then formed an inky black rock, absent of any crevice or peak, and so dark, it didn’t reflect any light.
“Negredo,” she said.
Black.
“What is this, if I may ask?” Arthur asked.
“This is the answer you have been looking for,” Spring said. “The Azoth.”
He hesitated, then repeated, “Azoth?”
He had expected a white stone for some reason. Then the words Elizabeth had uttered to him a day earlier echoed in his mind. ‘For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.’
White matter. Black stone.
“Is this the Philosopher’s Stone?” he asked.
She chuckled. “The Philosopher’s Stone is already within you. It’s the love you have inside—the love you have for my sisters. The crush you have for Liz, and that she has for you.”
“For me,” he repeated.
Does this water nymph know the truth? Has Liz fallen for an old master professor?
“The Azoth is the answer you seek,” Spring continued. “The opposing force in your narrative… A universal solvent of all your problems now and to come.”
Arthur’s face lit up, realizing the Azoth was the antithesis to his nanites. The reason the nanites were being strangled on the island. The black ore must be the orichalcum. The reason for the ship’s crash and melting of Lucy’s feet.
If Enconn were ever to wield this and harness it at their will, they could take away voxelization. Who decides who gets resources and who doesn’t?
He was enthralled by her beauty and by her embrace, but he focused on his mermaidens and Liz, all in their cells. They were alone and waiting on him.
Arthur knew Malick and his men were listening in on the feed. He kicked helmet, resting on the muddied floor further away from the two.
“Forgive me, my goddess, but you are in danger. Your sisters are in danger,” Arthur said.
Spring pulled herself away, unsure of what he was saying. “My dear seeker, use the Azoth.”
Arthur grabbed the jet black stone. Hardly what he expected, he was unsure of what it was or did.
“Nice job, Arthur,” a voice boomed from behind him. “You led us right to her.”
Malick stood in full scuba tank gear with three soldiers behind him, aiming ranged weapons at Arthur and Spring.
Arthur’s heart nearly stopped.
Then Malick stepped up to him and knocked him across the head. Arthur hit the ground, his head fuzzy, and catching only bits of visuals in short glimpses.
Spring ran to the Arthur’s helmet and threw it to him. Arthur, still groggy, tried to put it on just as she raised both of her hands and flushed water into the cave.
The cave ceiling cracked, and a flurry of small rocks dropped into the water. The ceiling was collapsing.
Arthur’s eyes widened with terror as his head cleared one rock and hit another. The searing agony shot through his body, surpassing any pain he had ever felt before. Arthur snapped off a bit of the Azoth,
holding it in his hand, and dropped the rest of the stone into a satchel.
The cave was coming down all around them. Malick grabbed Spring by the hair, pulling her with him. A jagged piece of rock the size of a large man fell close enough to Arthur that the water it displaced buffeted him and caused him to veer off course. He felt as if he were running in slow motion against the strong current.
Another chunk of cavern, larger than the last, became dislodged, and Arthur leapt out of its way. It took down a soldier instead. Again, the falling rock caused the water to surge, and Arthur and the group were sent cartwheeling. The cave spun around him. He strained his eyes, trying to spot something solid he could grasp, something to help him regain control before he drifted so far off the path that he’d get crushed before he could make his way back to safety, but there was nothing but an incomprehensible blur.
His vision blotted out altogether as he broke the halocline barrier and ejected into the murk. He drifted through darkness. Blinded. His forward momentum lessened, and he found the cenote floor with his feet, but he couldn’t tell which direction he was facing. Where was Malick? Where was Spring? He made sure to cling onto the small rock in his hand.
His eyes corrected for the exposure change. They attempted to adapt to the gloom, but the image breathed in and out, the swirling silt preventing them from finding anything concrete to focus on.
Arthur halted, afraid that he might inadvertently run back into the crumbling cave. He could feel the vibrations of the cavern as it continued to collapse. Small rocks bounced off his head and shoulders, and he felt his grip on the hope for survival ease.
He felt his head snap back violently as some unseen thing struck him. His head snapped back again, and he realized that he hadn’t been struck, but rather, the cables had been yanked taught. His head snapped back a third time, and he felt himself lifted and dragged backward, out through the mouth of the cavern and up toward the light.
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