by Anthology
A thin voice shrieked from inside the tent. “A philter?! You want me to brew you a PHILTER?! No I will not stay quiet, if you cannot woo this girl, then go to some godforsaken magician! Bah! A warrior like you, with a sword like that! And you cannot even hold your own…Pfah! Get out! Get out, you stupid boy!”
A young man stormed out of the tent with his face burning red and a curved sword strapped to his waist. The djinn watched him exit the plaza to the sniggers of several old men playing at stones. It seemed everyone had heard the outburst.
The alchemist emerged from his tent muttering to himself. “Love potions and beauty spells. What do they think I am?” He had on a dirty old caftan striped with stains. His beard was dirty and bushy and for all the jewels customers brought him, he did not look like a wealthy man. He caught sight of the two and said, “And what do you want? A potion to keep your hair in? A dagger that won’t rust? Something to help your wife, because you can’t…oh…oh! What are you doing here?” He took two long looks around and grabbed the djinn’s arm and pulled him inside.
It was much larger than it looked. The tent was only a place for him to meet the customers; at the back, the djinn could see a house through the flaps of cloth, presumably where the alchemist lived and did, well, whatever he did.
“Sit, sit. Please.” He waved them towards a couch in the middle of the space and left through the back, returning with a tall woman who the djinn correctly guessed to be his daughter. They were carrying two trays of food and refreshment.
“Uncle, I came to you because I—” the djinn began.
“Oh hush. You must have crossed the desert if you came from the capital. Wash your throats first. Then we’ll talk.” He perched himself in a tall spindly chair with his hands on his knees and watched them intently with his bright eyes as his guests drank wine from small crystal goblets. The boy tore his teeth into fruit and swallowed nuts, but the djinn chose only drink. The woman sat on a chair beside her father. She was very young, and not hard on the eyes. She had the alchemist’s dark brown hair. She reminded the djinn of his wife. These recollections were not unpleasant, but when he remembered how she’d died and felt a pang of grief, he was almost grateful for the sudden outburst: “Did you do it?”
“Do what?”
The alchemist opened his mouth to answer, glanced at the boy, and then changed tongues. It was a language of the people to the west. “Did you kill the king and queen?”
The djinn was not surprised that he knew the tongue. He was known as a wise man. “Yes.”
“And is that…the prince?”
A nod.
He sighed. “I won’t presume to judge you; I can only imagine what it must have been like. But for all his faults, he was a good king. The land will be worse without him. The Regent, is he a good man?”
“He is. How did you know me?”
“I have seen enough to know a magician when I see one. And I’ve never met a human sorcerer who could hide things with magic the way you do.”
The djinn’s face fell. Was it that obvious? He sighed and dispelled the illusion. A large purple carpet shimmered into view. There were precious stones and fabulous paintings, tapestries and rare books. All floating on the carpet three feet above the ground. All the things they could sell to start their new life, stolen from the palace.
“Remarkable,” the alchemist said. “But now, why you have come to me?”
The djinn grew serious. “I am on a search for the greatest treasure.”
The man’s face was not unkindly when he said, “The Philosopher’s Stone does not exist. It is a myth, nothing more.” He spread his empty palms. “Brimstone, mercury, and salt. These are my elements. I can shape them, mix them, and break them. But, try as I might, I cannot turn one into the other. I cannot turn lead into gold for you. I am sorry.”
“That is not what I seek: I want the secret of immortality.”
A hardness drew lines on the alchemist’ face. “The Elixir of Life does not exist either. And if it did, it is something that should remain hidden.”
“I know. And that is why I seek immortality from a different place. I go to kill the sun.”
The alchemist looked stunned. He gaped at him for several moments, and then closed his mouth. He stood and up and said to come with him. “My daughter will watch the boy, you need not fear.”
The djinn left the two of them behind and went with the alchemist. They left the tent through the back and entered the house he had noticed earlier. The alchemist kept his work in a small back room.
It was clean, with a large window to one side. Wooden benches held flasks and beakers of strange substances, and there were books everywhere in open piles, many with scribblings in the margins. A notebook lay forgotten on a bench beside a glass chamber, the pen dry and ink smudged. He took a quick peek, and saw it was written in code. There were words in different languages all mixed together and symbols he did not recognize. But he knew enough to see what the alchemist had been investigating. Quintessence, the entry read, remains beyond my grasp. I am convinced of its divine nature, my evidence is undeniable. Yet what baffles me the most is the simple paradox of its existence. How can something exist within a vacuum, yet be solely responsible for the vacuum as well?
“That’s private. I’d rather you didn’t read it.”
The djinn let it go. He opened up a thick book to a page. There was an illustration done in inks. A water bird wading in a river, wings spread before flight.
“The bennu. That’s what you’re looking for? Well I can’t say I have any idea how to kill it, but if anything has power of life and death, it would be an immortal. How are you going to kill it, exactly?” The djinn handed over the lodestone. “Clever,” the alchemist said, “Very clever. But it won’t be enough.” Very intuitive.
“Can you enhance it?”
“I don’t know. This is not my area of expertise. But have a seat and I’ll see what I can do.”
He did, and waited while the alchemist chipped a piece off the lodestone with a stone knife. He poured and distilled, mixed and dissolved and separated and heated various reagents over the fire so the room was filled with odd vapors and unusual flames. The sun dipped and golden light flooded the room while the hours ticked by. Eventually the alchemist said he could not do anything. When the djinn complained of the time he had lost, the alchemist snorted. “What did you think? I could clap my hands and turn lead into gold? Alchemy is a devilishly complex process. It requires time.
“As far as I can tell, there is nothing extraordinary about this lodestone, except where it came from. I don’t know how to enhance it, I’m sorry. But here, take this, it may be of some use to you.” The object he was handed was a cuff of stone, meant to be worn on the wrist. It was made of three broken sections spanned by chains so the girth could be adjusted, and there was a large red bead set into it. “This little bracelet will absorb heat that would otherwise damage your body. But it has a limit, so use it wisely.” When he saw the questioning look the djinn was giving him, he chewed his lip and mumbled, “Maybe I know a little magic.”
They laughed at that.
“What was it like?” the alchemist asked. “Living in the capital?”
“Enjoyable,” the djinn found himself answering.
“The castle was a thing of beauty,” he went on, “all graceful spires and marbled floors. Silken tapestries on the ceilings, huge windows that fed the breezes that came from the lush gardens on the terraces; flowers of so many colours and fragrances. Carpets and silver engravings and geometric patterns of lapis lazuli, jade and blue amber on the ceilings of the domes. It was beautiful at night, with the hundreds of lanterns glowing all over the city, and the sounds of laughter coming from the plazas with their fountains and gardens fed by winding aqueducts. The king always kept the castle smelling nice, with perfumed satin and heady incenses. To cover up the stink of the city, he said. The fruits in the market were bursting with juice and grapes were so rich and so dark that if you got th
e stain on your clothes, you’d never get it out.
“There were crystals the king had me design so that you could see other places in them. He’d keep them absolutely everywhere, so even the servants could see visions from steaming dense jungles and beautiful pristine islands, barely a scrap of sand in oceans that were the bluest things you’d ever seen. Storytellers used to come from all over, begging to tell the king their latest yarn for a few coppers. And traders, with all their goods, coffee and tea and furs and cotton, His Majesty wrung heavy taxes from all of them.
“It was a place of knowledge, all the scholars came to the great library to study and learn. It was a place of discipline—you should have seen the soldiers, in their polished armor and shields like sunbursts…Do you remember the rains two years past?”
“Yes, they were the heaviest in decades.”
“That was His Majesty’s idea. I told him I could only gather the clouds, not make them, so he told me to start three years earlier. There was so much water, the streets were muddy and flooded and the people distraught. ‘Our wares are ruined!’ the merchants said, but when the sun came out, all the dust was gone, and the city was cleaner than it had ever been. There was still muck in the gutters, mind you, and it stank worse than ever wet. But, there were all these seeds he’d had planted, you see, and there were seeds already in the ground. And they were green! So much green! Crops springing from the soil faster than they could be harvested, and flowers everywhere! In the streets and walkways. Every man, young and old, was picking flowers, for their mothers and wives and sisters and for the girl with the pretty hair, because she looked so lovely with the white ones in her hair, they said.”
“You miss it.”
The djinn realized he did: “Yes, I do.” It was a queer thing.
He let the alchemist walk him back to the tent, where the lad was asleep with his head in the alchemist’s daughter’s lap. The remnants of a meal for two were on the table.
“Can I leave our things with you? I’ll collect them on the way back.”
“Can I ride the carpet?”
He chuckled. “Of course.”
“What of the boy, will you take him with you?”
“I…” It would be safer. But…
“No. You should both go together. You’ll need the company.”
He took the boy in his arms and asked the alchemist where he might buy a camel. The alchemist said they should take the flying carpet instead. “I thought you wanted to ride it?”
“They’ll be time enough for that when you get back. You’ll need speed on your side; it’s a long journey. Don’t worry, I’ve got some spare rooms. Your things should fit.”
They transferred all the items into the rooms and the djinn lay the boy down on the carpet with some blankets and pillows the alchemist provided. He also gave them food and water and a change of clothing. “How will you find the bird?” the alchemist asked.
“By following the desert.”
His daughter said, “Come back swiftly, Uncle. He’s such a sweet boy.” The djinn nodded, thinking sadly that she even sounded like his wife. He bid goodbye to their hosts and gave them his gratitude, and cast a spell of invisibility around both of them. The alchemist was still gaping when they left them.
He waited till they were well beyond the town’s walls and dispelled the magic. He reclined on the pillows and looked up at the night sky streaking past. She might have been old enough to be our daughter. If we’d had a daughter. He looked sidelong at the young prince. If I hadn’t killed her in my folly.
***
Those who came from afar, or spent their entire lives within the walls of the city, thought that the desert was mostly sand. This is false. The sandsea the djinn and the boy had crossed on their way to the oasis was only a minute portion of the desert that spanned the civilized world.
Rocks. Rocks were what made up the desert. Big ones and small ones, everywhere you looked. Even the dunes were built on foundations of stone.
Follow the desert. It was an old magic, but powerful. The phoenix was the bird of the sun, and who knew the sun better than the desert? Keep your mind blank, the ifreet had said, and look for the signs. He doesn’t want to be found, but he leaves a trail. Look for…
It wasn’t easy, or one simple path. It wound its ways through different deserts, which were in different worlds. The gates to these realms were open, he realized, but only because they weren’t gates at all, but the connections between the two. Like the pages of a book, they were jumping from page to page along the bindings that held them together.
There were deserts of black, lifeless sands under skies of green and blue clouds. There were plateaus that seemed to circle the globe, long bridges of crumbling sandstone that spanned two cliffs over an empty chasm, on and on and on. And there was sand.
It might have been the next day, or the next year, or a single restful blink of blistering, sand-scarred eyelids, but then they were there.
The djinn and the boy stood all alone in the sands. There was only sand, and wind, all around. And the spire.
At first it was only a pillar of rock. But as they approached, they saw it was massive; several leagues in diameter and many, many more in length. It stretched upwards into the blue, so high the djinn was sure the tips must rake the sky and extend even to the black void beyond.
It was not sandstone, or limestone or marble or any other rock or mineral either had ever seen. It was a uniform brown and red, sprouting irregular handholds that jutted out from it randomly. There were steps, too, smooth and carved right into the stones, spiraling all the way round.
They made camp by the foot of the spire, and ate the food the alchemist had been kind enough to provide them with. The djinn kept looking up at the spire. He hadn’t even enhanced the lodestone yet. He hadn’t even made a weapon of it yet!
He took it out and held it before the flames. If he shaped a blade, it would be very thin. It might even snap. But a spear would work. It would give him more reach, too.
He shaped the metal with whispered words and a gentle touch, and it bowed to his magic and flowed like water. For the shaft of the spear, he used a branch he snapped out of the air. The finished product was seven feet in length, and the spearhead sharp enough to shave with. Yet it still needed enhancing. But how? How did you kill the sun? He had a twig with a rock at the end. It needed power, something mighty and invincible. How would he put out an everburning flame?
And then it hit him. And he laughed.
The answer was all around him.
• • • •
He didn’t sleep, but sat with an excitement he couldn’t contain. Finally he decided it was time and woke the boy. “I’ll be back soon,” he told him. It was still dark when he started to climb the steps of the spire, and it was still dark when he reached the top. Round and round, ever upwards. His hand clenched and unclenched around the shaft of his spear.
The top of the spire was a plateau, much smaller than the base, but large enough to hold the entire oasis town. If there had been clouds, it would have towered over them, but even then there was sky above, a deeper, cleaner blue than he had ever seen. Even the air was thin, and he breathed deeply as if with exhaustion.
A young man was sitting on the edge, dangling his bare feet in the air. He wore a pristine white robe that left his arms and one shoulder bare, and had copper hair that stood up from his skull in sharp peaks. He was handsome and had a gold jeweled collar around his neck, set with rubies that flashed like fire and amber stones. When he turned slowly to view his visitor, the djinn saw his eyes were pure gold, with splashes of red that moved and seethed like lava. Phoenix.
“You have come a long way,” it said. Its voice was rich and beautiful.
“I have come with a purpose,” the djinn replied. “I have come here for the secret you keep.”
“I keep no secrets.”
“I want the secret of life and death.”
The phoenix’s eyes grew softer somewhat. It almost whis
pered, “I am sorry. But I cannot give you that. I don’t have it, it doesn’t exist. There is no Philosopher’s Stone, no Elixir of Life, no quintessence, no Master Work, no object of divinity. I can see it in your eyes, you want it for your wife. She is gone, djinn, and what is gone cannot be reclaimed.”
The phoenix sighed deeply, and looked out over the horizon again. “How did you find me?” it asked.
“I found an ifreet in a forgotten tomb who told me of you.”
“Truly? An ifreet? That is a wonder; I had though them long dead. And now you say one lives? What has become of him?”
“He is gone now, I freed him. The enchantment was the only thing keeping him alive.”
“That is sad news. But I am glad he is at peace. What did he tell you of me?”
“He told me you were one of us.”
The phoenix nodded. “Aye. I was an ifreet once, long and long ago. I was young, and foolish. I wanted to see all there was to see. I…I made mistakes that I should not have. There was a contraption I designed, that would take me elsewhere. And it worked, oh, it worked.
“I found myself floating in the void, with the forges of life and death all around me. I saw the stars as they were made, and planets larger than anything I had ever known spin around each other like dancers. I saw beautiful things and wonders and miracles, and in my haste and folly, I fell into the sun.
“You cannot imagine what it was like. The fire, the heat was incredible. It—it changed me. When I awoke, I was back on land, somehow, and I was no longer an ifreet. I was this; some new being that carried the waters of the sun in his veins.
“I learned quickly how to use my powers, and found that I was still mortal. Yet, when I died, I was reborn. I was a bird the first time, I think, with wings of fire. That was how man first came to know me. In the eons that followed, I have had many forms. I’ve died scores of times and been reborn in so many ways. Every time there was someone new, someone who sought to tell a story about me. That is why I am known my so many names and faces. The bennu, the phoenix, Zhu Que, I can’t even remember them all.”