“Yes!” Melia laughed. “And the expression on Cedar’s face!”
“I remember! I tease her about that on occasion. She still blushes.”
“Someday she will no longer blush. Someday she will barely remember her early days as an Initiate. Time passes, Ilex, even in Council dimension. No one can go back to being the individual who existed before being influenced by others. Even without the conjunction, our effects on one another over all these years could not be erased from our sense of being — well, not without an actual erasure, I suppose. And we’re safe in that regard: conjoined, we can never forget one another, even if the Elders erase us for suspicion of rebel activity.”
“Do not even utter such a proposition!”
“I apologize for my poorly timed attempt at wit.”
“I am not in the mood for humour, Melia.”
“If you want, you can—”
“No! I want to touch you without touching myself. I want to touch you, to kiss you, to share intimacy with you. I want to forgo this sacred conjunction only for tonight so that we can conjoin sexually — man and woman, as we used to be, as we used to do.”
Melia did not reply immediately. She needed to think through the repercussions, the possibilities, the alternatives. Ilex must have been following her emotional trail, intuiting her thoughts as they reached their conclusion.
“We could ask—”
“No!”
“Yes,” she insisted. “You’re missing physical sex with another, which neither of us has experienced since our conjunction. I understand. How can I not when we share one body?”
She moved from the balcony into their room, despite Ilex’s protests. She removed her Azadirian shawl and donned her outer robes, moving towards the door. He tried to resist, tried to move their body to the bed, but over the years Melia had become stronger in that regard, especially when determined. He knew as much. And he knew their journey through the corridors of residence chambers would be easier on both of them if he stopped resisting.
“Where are we going?” he asked. But he need not have bothered asking since, by that point, they were only seconds away from their destination.
Melia stopped and knocked on the door in front of her.
“What’s wrong?” asked Saule, surprised by their late-night appearance.
“I have a proposition. May we come in?”
“Yes, of course.”
Ilex did not interrupt or again attempt in any way to dissuade Melia. She was determined in her pursuit. What she proposed, she proposed out of love for both Ilex and Saule. At least, love was the excuse she had used to convince each of them to accept her suggestion that night. Later, she understood that her own desire played more of a role in her decision than she had been ready at the time to admit.
Within the hour, they were lying side by side on the bed. Several minutes passed merely listening to each other’s breath. Their physical intimacy began slowly but decisively with a kiss by Melia. Ilex progressed quite tentatively at first, as if not certain of himself after all these years of being with Melia exclusively. They alternated in a sophisticated dance — Ilex and Melia each moving in and out of the shadows briefly to allow the other to emerge and be present alone with Saule. Ilex ran a hand over Saule’s breasts, Melia ran her tongue along Saule’s neck, Saule moved her fingers along Melia’s thigh. Thus, the night progressed moment by moment, touch by touch, kiss by kiss, caress by caress, until Ilex begged to be inside Saule, and Saule pleaded to be inside Melia. And in that simultaneous instant of mutual penetration — in what seemed in retrospect to be a corporeal impossibility — when Ilex entered Saule, and Saule entered Melia in precisely the same movement at precisely the same time, something happened that could only be described as alchemy beyond anything any of them had experienced in their years as alchemists. Alchemical transmutation turned three into one that night, in a way that none of them would ever be able to describe effectively but that each would remember as the concurrence that transformed their lives ever after. Not until almost a century later did Melia realize this concurrence was precisely the bloodline alchemy for which Dracaen had been patiently waiting.
II
Flaw Dimension — 1878
“Are you certain? Are you certain our choice is prudent?” asked Genevre.
“Any decision on which we concur is in this moment the wisest choice we could make,” Dracaen responded.
She stood beside Dracaen, close enough to touch but far enough to preserve some sense of decorum, even if they both knew perfectly well what remained unspoken between them. Genevre shifted her stance slightly as she lay a hand tentatively against Dracaen’s shoulder. She shivered as he placed his hand against hers. They stood now, face to face, hand to shoulder, touching. He could lean forward and kiss her. But he did not, of course. He was, after all, the High Azoth of the Rebel Branch of the Alchemists’ Council, and each step he took — literally or figuratively — moved him towards one ultimate goal. He had too much pride to let personal desire, even at the height of arousal, cause him to stumble.
“Close your eyes.” He directed her, as if in a stage production. “Move closer to me. Let me feel the length of your body against mine.”
Genevre breathed slowly and deeply as she pushed herself against him, her bare breasts resting against his naked chest. She herself felt a surge of arousal as his body reacted swiftly and willingly, and his breathing quickened. She wanted him. She wanted to fall to the floor, to lie back, to open herself to him. Evidently, she did not share his sense of duty in and of itself. Why could they not be both lovers and rebels, attempt to create both a biological and an alchemical child?
She remembered the day he first proposed to her. They had been sitting in the caverns near the pools after a long day of manuscript revision. The work had been arduous, a series of painstaking illuminations infused with both Lapidarian and Dragonsblood inks — undetectable palimpsests whose details were meant to distract the attention of Council Readers the following century. We have a plan, Dracaen repeatedly said. And you are part of that plan. The alchemical phosphorescence was so bright in the pools that day that Dracaen himself appeared to be glowing. The blue-black sheen of his hair reminded her of the brilliant obsidian pieces stored in the calligraphy room. Framed by such thick, dark brows and lashes, the shimmering emerald green of his eyes seemed out of concordance yet stunningly magnificent. His eyes are otherworldly, she recalled thinking. Perhaps Dracaen had been so long removed from the outside world that he had lost all semblance of it. Amidst such thoughts, she should not have been surprised at his request or at the gift he proffered simultaneously: a beaded raven feather.
“Genevre, now that you have reached the threshold of your sixtieth year, now that you have been granted Dragonblood Elixir for thirty years, the time has come for me to request your hand in marriage.”
In retrospect, she considered his turn of phrase cruel. She could not have known for those few seconds before his next words that, like his eyes, his proposal was not of the outside world.
“I refer, of course, to a chemical wedding as described in the fully matured Osmanthian Codex, which Fraxinus and I have been interpreting over the past year. Who better than you to take such a crucial step in the plan with me than the person who awakened its words?”
“What is a chemical wedding?”
“The ritual bonding whose purpose is the creation of the alchemical child — the homunculus, created in an alembic from the elemental conjunction of opposites.”
“I am not an alchemist. I am an outside world scribe. I am not . . . adequate,” responded Genevre, her words unusually slow.
“You are one of the most powerful alchemists ever known to the dimensions — even if I am one of the few who currently understand your potential. You yourself have only begun to recognize your bloodline powers. As I have always assured you, you are extraordinary — one of a ki
nd, truly. Your abilities to inscribe and erase immaculately are innate and invaluable. Your skills with both Dragonsblood and Lapidarian inks are unparalled. You have already proven to be more of an asset to the Rebel Branch than you can fathom. If we were to combine our powers — our alchemical genetics — our progeny could change the worlds.”
Genevre sat transfixed. Emotionally, she fluctuated between fascination and revulsion, joy and anger, pride and humiliation. Dracaen spoke as if their child was destined to be a messiah among dimensions. How long had he been waiting for this moment? How long had he been grooming her to play this role in his alchemical pageant? She thought back to her first day in Flaw dimension, her belief at twenty that she had been saved. And she thought back to the broken luminescence lantern, to the moment thirty years ago when her blood had opened the door to her future.
These and other memories came unbidden as she now stood chest to chest with Dracaen, the Rebel Branch Elders encircling them and chanting as if they were about to conjoin rather than marry. While the other Elders intoned the ritual words, Thuja, Larix, and Fraxinus acted as Purification Attendants, encircling the couple, waving censers filled with the essence of Juniperus osteosperma. The fragrant smoke stirred something in Genevre, something she could not quite remember, something that brought her comfort at this moment of trepidation. Calmed, she watched the purification of the sacred vessel — a delicate clay urn, crafted by the rebel Azoths from the wet mineral sands of the deepest cavern pools, painted with Dragonsblood and Lapidarian inks, fired in the smoke-filled kilns of the obsidian quarries.
“Accept the sanguine salt,” said Dracaen. He removed the lid of a small bejewelled box and emptied its contents — a powder made from his own dried blood — into the sacred vessel.
“Accept the sanguine salt,” echoed Genevre, emptying a similar box filled with her own powdered blood.
“Accept the seed of the Flaw,” said Dracaen, pouring a small flask of Dragonblood Elixir onto the mixture of powders.
“Accept the seed of the Flaw,” said Genevre, doing the same.
“Accept the egg of the Lapis,” said Dracaen, moving a tiny egg-shaped Lapidarian fragment from a glass phial to the sacred vessel.
“Accept the egg of the Lapis,” said Genevre, wondering how the rebels had procured such a sacred ingredient as she placed it into the mix.
“I will be King,” said Dracaen. “And you will be Queen.”
“I will be Luna,” said Genevre. “And you will be Sol.”
“And thus,” declared Fraxinus, “have your destinies crossed in the sanctified bond of the alchemical chiasm, in the consecrated union of Conjunctio Oppositorum, in the Quintessence of elemental balance. In both the absence and the presence, so be it!”
“So be it!” replied all the rebels.
Dracaen sealed the sacred vessel and handed it to Genevre, who carefully climbed the steps to the lip of the alembic. She held the sacred vessel as far above the opening as her arms could reach and then, upon Dracaen’s cry and in one swift movement, plunged the vessel into the alembic, gasping as it crashed and shattered onto the glass floor. She remained motionless momentarily, only beginning her descent of the steps when the vapours emanating from the alembic began to overwhelm her senses. Moments later, standing beside Dracaen, watching the churning fluids within the glass of the alembic, Genevre felt nauseated. Even after closing her eyes, the sounds and scents continued to disturb her equilibrium.
“I must go,” she whispered urgently.
“Larix!” Dracaen called out, steadying Genevre.
She must have lost consciousness then. Her mind shut down.
Later, lying under the blankets in her dark and silent chambers, she awakened to searing pain unlike anything she had previously experienced. She writhed in so much agony that she could barely breathe, let alone call out for help. Minutes, hours — she could not tell — passed in fear, pulling her closer to a certain death.
But then all was well. Suddenly, she sat up, pain free and perfectly content, inhaling the cool air of the room and calming fragrance of juniper still lingering in her hair. In the weeks leading up to the chemical wedding, she had doubted their union could result in an alchemical child. If such a feat were so easily attained, why would the practice have lain dormant for so many centuries, secreted away in a single manuscript? Why would Dracaen not have conjoined necessary opposites between dimensions with some other outside world woman? She could not fathom that she was by some means special, despite her inherent ability to have activated the inks of the Osmanthian Codex.
Now she reached clarity. Now her opinion changed. Now no doubt remained that they had indeed conceived a child, her body having mimicked the contortions of the sacred seed and egg as they conjoined and embedded themselves into the alembic waters.
Weeks had passed. Surely the embryo would by now be visible in the sacred alembic. Genevre could not bear another day of disappointment. Though she had hesitated even up to the moment that the chemical wedding had been sealed, though she had questioned the mere concept of the homunculus until the darkest hour on the night of conception, she could not help but hope to witness the spark of life in the alchemical being that would become her child. She descended the steps slowly, delaying the possibility of another day passing with no visible result.
But she knew immediately upon stepping into the chamber that this day was different. The colours swirling in the alembic fluids had changed. Before, they had been murky as if a blend of clay and mud, water and phlegm; today, they were brilliantly vivid, a rainbow of gemstone shades rhythmically pulsing as if they themselves were about to give birth. For better or worse, she would have her answer today.
“Fetch Dracaen,” she yelled back to the young attendant at the top of the staircase. His job was to guard the entrance to the chamber from prying eyes. She could tell he hesitated to leave his post. “Call for him! Now!”
She waited at the bottom of the steps, mesmerized and immobilized as she watched the colours swirl — ruby and sapphire, emerald and amethyst. She swore later that the pulsing echoed her own heartbeat. She could not tell how much time passed before Dracaen arrived. He stood fleetingly at her side, grabbed her hand, and guided her along with him as they walked from the landing to the alembic platform to peer inside. The fluids were now so bright — the alembic glass only inches in front of her — that watching them caused her eyes to burn.
“We have succeeded,” said Dracaen, still holding Genevre’s hand.
“Are you certain?”
“The conjunction of the colours — a sure sign of embryonic coagulation.”
“How long now? How long until we will see our child?”
But she did not need to wait for his answer. As if on cue, the fluidic movement suddenly ceased — utterly, completely stopped as if it had turned to solid, crystalline rock. Genevre watched aghast, fearful that her child-to-be was to be nothing at all.
She was wrong.
“The anvil!” Dracaen cried. “Larix! Larix! Fetch the anvil!”
Emerging from a door on the other side of the chamber, Larix passed the anvil to Dracaen. Its handle appeared crafted of marbled mahogany, its head of iron and Dragonblood Stone.
“When the water of the fluid turns to the earth of the rock, the fire child shall be born into the air!” Dracaen intoned. With each name of an element — water, earth, fire, air — Dracaen hit the alembic wall with the anvil. The noise was deafening, resounding through the chamber. Again, he uttered the chant, each word of the alchemist intoned to match elemental vibration and thus activate transmutation. Again, he smashed the anvil against the glass of the alembic. On his fourth iteration, upon the word fire, a crack — loud and long — broke open the glass.
“Close your eyes,” yelled Larix.
But Genevre could not obey. She alone was witness to the alchemical birth. The glass and the rock formation shattered
completely, fragmented into pebbles that exploded like shrapnel throughout the room. She remained standing and unharmed, able to step forward and catch them in her arms. Them. The homunculi. A boy and a girl. One as dark as a raven, the other as bright as the sun.
They did not resemble outside world newborns. Instead, each child looked as one might expect a fully developed two-year-old — the girl only slightly smaller than the boy. Genevre clasped them to her, only releasing her grasp when Dracaen suggested she must let them breathe. He then picked up the girl, and Genevre the boy. Together, they ascended the staircase to emerge into the mists careening rapidly across the Dragonblood Stone as if in welcome to the newcomers.
“Sound the chimes!” commanded Dracaen.
Why should the Elders not rise up to greet these children — the only children to have been brought forth from the Flaw in generation upon generation? Even Dracaen could not remember such an event, outside its references in a few ancient manuscripts. The other rebels gathered round, proffering their congratulations and astonishment.
The children merely stared ahead, not catching the eyes of anyone in particular though they appeared on occasion to be taking note of their environment. The boy, in particular, showed little interest in his new world until a band of mist brushed across his face and startled him. He held out his hands thereafter, gesturing in an attempt to call the mists to him. Eventually, seemingly frustrated in his failure to do so, he hung his head against Genevre’s breast. The girl was the first of the two to smile, a result of Thuja’s efforts to entice her with a shiny piece of onyx shaped like an egg. She held the egg in her small hand, observing it first, then smelling it, then holding it against her mouth as if reading a pendant. Perhaps this child would eventually participate in Dracaen’s plan. But what of the other one? What of the boy who hid his eyes from the world, seemingly unwilling to engage?
“The naming will occur in three nines,” announced Dracaen. “Until then no name shall be written or spoken.”
The Flaw in the Stone Page 6