The Flaw in the Stone

by Cynthea Masson

  “You must put it out,” said Ravenea.

  “Put it out?” echoed Sadira. “I don’t understand.”

  “As you will come to appreciate gradually, Sadira, you are unique. All new Initiates—” began Ravenea.

  “We do not have time to explain! We must extinguish the fire now!” demanded Obeche.

  “No, Obeche. Only Sadira can extinguish this fire. And to do so, she must first understand. Like all Initiates, she must hear, must interpret, must absorb our stories. Otherwise, she will be unable to intuit what she alone must do,” replied Ravenea.

  Obeche responded with a taut expression, but he remained silent.

  “All new Initiates,” began Ravenea, “despite precautions undertaken in advance by the Elders to mitigate damage, cause a slight disturbance to the elemental balance of Council dimension. A few days, a week, occasionally a month of adjustment is generally required. The stronger the newcomer’s elemental essence, the longer the period of adjustment. Usually, the resulting imbalances manifest in a general sense of unease for all members of the Council — headaches, anxiety, the occasional mental or physical stumble on the part of even the most experienced alchemists. When an alchemist permanently leaves Council dimension — either by conjunction or erasure or Final Ascension — the new Initiate takes a place amidst not only the one hundred and one alchemists but also the elements represented collectively. Over the course of the adjustment period, the elements alchemically rebalance: the presence of the new Initiate overcomes the absence of the one conjoined or erased or ascended. However, on this occasion — on the occasion that brought you to us — a place on Council opened for an unprecedented reason: an escape.”

  “An escape?” repeated Sadira. She was intrigued by this possibility. Perhaps she too could find a means to escape from this hellbound world.

  “The escape in and of itself is only one of the unprecedented factors,” continued Ravenea. “The other is more complex. The alchemists who escaped were mutually conjoined — two alchemists conjoined equally into one body. You will learn of the Sacrament of Conjunction in your Initiate classes, Sadira. For now, you need only understand that, in their conjoined form, these alchemists — Ilex and Melia — represented mutually balanced fire and water for sixteen years. The Elders announced last week that they have reason to suspect Ilex and Melia escaped Council dimension by way of a temporary portal alchemically created in the wisteria tree. Now, in light of the charred landscape before us, we can postulate that the sudden elemental loss — one not anticipated and, therefore, not mitigated in advance by the Elders — would be alleviated only by an equally strong, equally conjoined balance of fire and water in the new Initiate. Your element is purely water, Sadira. It appears your arrival was deemed a threat by Council dimension. Fire has risen up against you in response. Therefore, you must extinguish it.”

  “How?”

  “Its place of ignition appears to be at the fissure left in the tree in the wake of Ilex and Melia’s departure,” observed Obeche. “You must walk across the embers and close the fissure.”

  “I cannot see a fissure.”

  “When you reach it, you will see it — gleaming against the blackened remains of the tree,” explained Ravenea.

  “What am I to do when I see it? I am . . . new. I am not yet an alchemist.”

  “You are an alchemist, Sadira,” Ravenea answered reassuringly. “Though untrained, you need not fear. Certain knowledge of alchemical truths is innate within alchemists, no matter their training, no matter their awareness of their differences. You would not have otherwise been brought here as an Initiate. As an alchemist, you will know instinctively what to do when you are required to do it.”

  Sadira stared at Ravenea, this woman she barely knew. Was she being led unceremoniously to her death? Yesterday morning, she had taken a leisurely walk along the riverbank. She had stopped in one of her favourite spots — a tiny inlet where the water remains virtually at a standstill, forming a pool under a tree at the edge of the park. She had stood for several minutes in that spot watching her reflection, contemplating the progress of her life and the possibilities for her future. She remembered wondering what would happen if she were to remain in that spot, standing still at the edge of that motionless pool, for the rest of her life. Perhaps she had already succumbed to death in that moment. Perhaps she had not, in fact, been intercepted last night by Cedar, not offered the possibility of hundreds of years of life within Council dimension, not handed a means to fulfill her destiny as an alchemist. Perhaps she had not been instructed by a Council Scribe to extinguish a fire intent on her destruction. Perhaps she had indeed been vanquished to hell.

  “You must help the Elders, Sadira. You must support the Ritual of Restoration,” said Cedar quietly but insistently.

  What choice did she have? Somehow she knew intuitively — alchemically, perhaps — that she must remove her shoes. Having done so, she took her first tentative step onto the ashes and embers, then another, and another. To her surprise and relief, the ground did not burn her. Instead, it sizzled under each foot as she progressed towards the remains of the tree. Her strides became broad and determined once she realized the fire would not — perhaps could not — physically harm her. I am water. She looked back on occasion, saw the alchemists watching her. She could hear Obeche chanting, intoning words that she did not understand.

  When she reached the tree, she raised a hand to a large branch, steadying herself as she stepped over an area of tangled, scorched, and presumably fragile remains, and she saw not only the light of the fissure but something far more unsettling. Small, singed, winged insects — hundreds, it appeared, in varying degrees of distress — struggled in jagged movements along the surface of one of the larger branches. Bees, she suddenly realized. Here were the remaining inhabitants of the garden. Like her — the invading stranger — their goal was to reach the light of the fissure. She watched the few who made it, those who had managed the journey and lurched themselves into the abyss. If only she too could fit through the small aperture of light.

  “Now!” she heard Ravenea call out to her. “Close it now!”

  Of course, she could not escape. She could not save the remaining bees. She could do nothing other than reach her fingers to the fissure and extinguish the source of devastation. Ravenea had been right. Sadira did know what to do when the time arrived. And the fissure responded accordingly — its light fading into darkness, its opening searing itself shut. The bees continued to writhe. The few who had been nearest to the fissure before Sadira’s interference fell onto their backs, their tiny legs thrashing about in a futile attempt to right themselves. Sadira could not stand to witness this agony. She picked up a fallen piece of branch — charred but solid — from the ground and began a task she assumed merciful at the time but that would haunt her through her first few years on the Council. She smashed them, each of them, all of them — first in groups and then, where necessary, one by one. She struck again and again and again — her blows ringing out across the desolate landscape — until every one of the bees in her sight had been put out of its misery. Then she turned and walked back to the alchemists awaiting her.

  Santa Fe — 1818

  Juniper season had begun. Of course, Melia remained unaffected, her immune system having been enhanced for many years through Quintessence in Council dimension and made all but impermeable because of her conjunction with Ilex and her encounter with the bees. Whereas her neighbours complained of scarcely being able to catch a breath in the pollen-drenched air, Melia wandered for hours through and beyond the borders of Santa Fe inhaling spring fragrances. She would run her hands across the foliage of all the trees and bushes within her reach, attempting to transfer their scent to her own body — to her hair and neck and arms. Her sense of smell heightened by the pregnancy, these walks enlivened her, comforted her, and thus helped her to deal with the inevitable pain of the contractions she had been suffer
ing through the still-cold nights and into the brilliant light of early morning.

  For weeks now, the child within her had seemed ready to be born, as if screaming through Melia’s body. Yes, the conjoined body she shared with Ilex was indeed hers alone for now. One month ago, after more than a year of pregnancy, Ilex had retreated completely. A temporary side effect, Saule had assured her when Melia realized that Ilex was no longer accessible at all. Or a permanent transmutation, Melia had responded. For what could either of them know about this process since both mutual conjunction and pregnancy were unprecedented among alchemists of the Alchemists’ Council. Not a single manuscript in Council dimension offered up assistance. They — Melia and Saule — could only guess; they could only dream; they could only hope that the dreams they had woven through the winter did not turn to a nightmare in the spring.

  Melia sat in a rocking chair staring out at a juniper tree, a silhouette against the backdrop of the evening sun.

  “Did you know,” Saule said to Melia, “that most junipers are dioecious?”

  Saule stood on the other side of the room pouring tea into the delicate china cups Melia had obtained only last week on one of her walks.

  “They are what?”

  “Dioecious: individual juniper trees are considered either male or female — the male and female reproductive parts exist on separate trees. They are analogous to people in that sense.” Saule smiled as she handed Melia a cup of tea. “To most people.”

  “Yes — most people, but not like Ilex and me. Ilex and I, we are . . . unnatural.”

  “No. You are supernatural. You are sacred. You personify the original state of being.”

  “Existing in an original state of being can leave one excruciatingly lonely.”

  Saule nodded, though Melia perceived that she could not fully understand.

  “And what of this child?” Melia asked. “Will my body — a sacred vessel or not — be physically capable of bearing this child into existence? Or will the child be carried only as a part of me into eternity — like the fragment of the Lapis in my pendant? Perhaps the outside world alchemists were correct when they depicted conjunction in their iconography as a stage in the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone.”

  Saule, having been close to tears in her empathy for Melia’s agony, smiled then in amusement. “What are you suggesting, Melia — that your immaculate conception is about to produce a messiah? Imagine the Council’s reaction to that scenario!”

  They laughed until Melia’s joy was suddenly pierced by the pain of that evening’s contractions. “You should go,” she said to Saule. “You need to return to Council dimension before you are missed. There is nothing more you can do for me now.”

  “As far as the Council is concerned, I am conducting research in the outside world for three days,” Saule replied. “Besides, I can’t leave you tonight since there is, in fact, something I can do for you now.”

  Another contraction prevented Melia from responding.

  “I’ve discovered something else about juniper trees,” Saule announced.

  “I am in no mood for another botany lesson.”

  “A few weeks ago,” Saule continued, ignoring Melia’s retort, “I learned that ingesting juniper berries can cause uterine contractions. I reasoned that a distilled and potent elixir made from juniper berries and combined with Lapidarian essence could induce labour.”

  “You reasoned?”

  “I made an educated guess supplemented by advice from a few Council manuscripts and a botany text from the outside world. I am an alchemist, if you recall.”

  Melia smiled despite her pain. “Did you bring it — this juniper elixir?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I have it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you wait until now to tell me? You should have served it with the tea.”

  “The thought had occurred to me. But I also reasoned that the elixir would be more effective if taken when the evening’s contractions were already well underway.”

  “Please, Saule, your reasoning is becoming as painful to bear as the contractions.”

  “The elixir will increase, not decrease, the pain.”

  “But then it will end. Finally, it will end. I can persevere if I know there will be an end.”

  Saule retrieved a small vial from her satchel and poured its contents into one of the tea cups. Melia consumed the contents within seconds. And then they waited.

  They waited and waited. For the next six hours, Saule remained at Melia’s side. The contractions continued with no increase in intensity from those Melia had been experiencing each night over the last several weeks. But, as the first light of dawn filtered through the window, Melia felt a shift occur.

  “It’s time,” she said. “It’s time. Take me outside.”

  “Outside?”

  “You were right earlier. This child is sacred — the progeny of Ilex and Melia, of holly and mahogany conjoined. It must be birthed outside, witnessed by the trees.”

  And so it was that on that morning, more than a year after Ilex and Melia had fled from Council dimension, their child was born to Melia, pulled from her body by Saule’s strong hands in the cold spring air of a Santa Fe dawn. The child cried, and Melia held her close.

  “What is her name?” asked Ilex.

  He had returned. Saule had been right again: Ilex’s regression had indeed been temporary.

  Melia cried then. She cried for her child. She cried for her conjoined partner. She cried for the woman who had sworn to help them all and had followed through. She cried and cried. And her tears of joy fell onto the ground under the tree that had borne witness to the miracle.

  “Our child will be named for the tree that gave me salvation.” She held her baby girl up towards the bows of the juniper. “Her name,” Melia proclaimed, “is Genevre.”

  IV

  Council Dimension — Spring 1914

  Since the birth, almost a century ago, Saule had been awaiting a sign of Genevre’s existence in a Council manuscript. Mercifully, she herself had spotted the first known reference. A week ago, Azoth Ailanthus had requested a Lapidarian Scribe to assist with ritual transcription. Each day we move closer to our goal, Ailanthus had said. Now we are here. Centuries of work have brought us to this moment. He pointed to an open manuscript featuring a small illumination: two emerald green coniferous trees atop a red and blue sphere; forming a circle around the image were the tree names Cedrus deodara and Juniperus osteosperma.

  Cedar and Juniperus? Juniper. Genevre! Saule, shocked, backed away from the manuscript too quickly to escape Ailanthus’s attention.

  “I too was surprised,” he said. “So simple, yet it eluded us for centuries. Centuries! Imagine the Azoth Magen’s reaction upon yesterday’s revelation!”

  “What? What eluded you?”

  “The chant! Look! Behold the words required to invoke quintessential balance in the Oils of Annointment! Finally, with Azoth Magen Quercus at the helm, the Council can once again attempt elimination of the Flaw.”

  Saule glanced again at the manuscript. She saw then what Ailanthus had meant for her to see. He had been pointing not to the illumination but to the inscription on the adjacent folio. Here resided a lengthy incantation comprising both the words and gestures required for the 17th Council to animate the oils with which they would anoint the Lapis. Each Council required a unique chant — one whose specifics were purposely inscribed to remain hidden until triggered for awakening. Saule glanced again at the illumination and wondered what or who the catalyst for revelation had been. Had Genevre somehow enlivened this manuscript? Had Cedar?

  Saule spent the remainder of that afternoon repeatedly transcribing the chant onto parchment scrolls. Each member of the Council, including her, would need to rehearse both the words and the movements. As she worked, Saule recalled an Initiate les
son Ravenea had taught her centuries earlier. Water, earth, air, fire; ink, parchment, voice, dance; with body and breath do alchemists transmute the elements; with body and breath do alchemists transform the world. What was to become of this world now? With each replication of the chant onto parchment, Saule’s anxiety increased. The Azoth Magen was about to lead a ritual whose purpose was to remove the Flaw in the Stone. If he were to succeed, how would the paths of Genevre and Cedar ever cross? With ink-stained hands, her current task complete, Saule sought Ravenea, attained a portal key, and made her way to the cliff face.

  Council Dimension — Summer 1914

  Thus drop the Sulphur! Thus rise the Mercury! Thus bind the Salt! Black, red, and white lines of powder lay strewn atop the Lapis. Azoths Ailanthus and Kezia were responsible for the black and red respectively — onyx and cinnabar, grated earlier with ritual precision by the Rowans using lathes of Lapidarian-infused tungsten. Azoth Magen Quercus himself had laid the precious salts — white diamond and opal, ground painstakingly by the twelve Lapidarian Scribes in a titanium mortar and pestle. The powders lay dormant until the Novillian Scribes performed the sacred gestures and words that enlivened them — dust to dust, earth to earth, air to air. Once suspended above the Lapis, the chants of the Readers animated the particles of powder. They vibrated intensely until, as if by spontaneous combustion, they burst into flames. Finally, they transmuted into a fragrant mist that fell back onto the Lapis like a gentle rain.