The Alchemists: A Paranormal Steampunk Thriller (The Guild Chronicles Book 1)

by J M Bannon

  5

  THURSDAY, THE 11TH OF JANUARY 1849

  10:05 A.M. BERLIN, GERMANY

  Preston had been renting a second story flat on Französishe Strabe, this was not the typical rundown student accommodation. An ample allowance allowed him a two-bedroom, cosmopolitan Berlin unit with a housekeeper. After breakfast, he made his way down Französishe Strabe to where it ended at Katholi, turned left past St Hedwig’s Cathedral, the Opera house, crossing Brandenburger Platz to the University.

  He had been living in Berlin for the last three weeks to gain access to the rare books section of Humboldt University’s Library. Currently racking his brain over a copy of Johaannes Trithemius’ Steganographia, written in 1499, this was his most notorious work. In fact, it was on the Papal list of forbidden texts making it quite difficult to locate a copy.

  He had traced this edition through private hands who bequeathed a collection of rare books to the University. Preston travelled to Berlin hoping the book was cataloged along with the others in the inventory to get his hands on the copy. It was one of many books that touched on King Solomon and angel magic. The book encompassed a sophisticated system of cryptography he felt would aid to decipher Azul’s Journal that had grown into his obsession.

  The prohibited German monk’s steganographia claimed to contain knowledge on the art of memory, magic, and an accelerated language learning system in addition a method of sending messages without symbols. At this point on Preston’s quest he understood most books of the fifteenth and sixteen centuries were simply the musings of monks and myths of antiquity, but every so often he could find a sliver of truth, a clue where to dig further to find certainty.

  Preston wrestled with Latin to interpret the writing and it did not appear to lead to the solution he sought. He had arrived at a point in Azul’s Journal he believed to be a cipher. The chapter was called Guidance of the Archon followed by seven sections starting with the name of the first Archon, including a nonsensical poem which provided no insight or inspiration.

  To confound matters he kept losing track of his place in the book because he kept sneaking looks at one of other patrons in the book room. A red-haired girl with sun-kissed skin and bright blue eyes, high cheeks and an ever-present smile brought the word pixie into Preston’s mind. She sat on the opposite side of the room, this being the third day she studied in the rare books room, observing drawings. Today she wore a yellow lace top and long skirt.

  Preston turned to his work as the pixie walked to the librarian desk, she stopped and spoke to Preston in German “They also have an imprint of an earlier work of Johaannes Trithemius, “The Polygraphiae. I think it is a superior work.”

  “How do you know of this work and its author?”

  “Oh, you are English,” she replied.

  “Is my German so bad to give away I am English?” he countered.

  “No worse than my English” she responded in English with a Prussian inflection. “I appreciate all the renaissance polymaths and encoders. Most of the Trithemius work mimics Leon Battista Alberti’s activity in De Cifris of 1467.”

  Preston stood up catching his poor manners, offering his hand, “My name is Preston Gilchrist.”

  "I am Lorelei Traube, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

  “I have noticed you the past few days looking at the drawings.”

  “Ah my other vice is architecture and gothic constructions. I come here at lunch to break from my studies,"

  “You’re a student here at Humboldt?”

  “Ya, I am preparing to defend my Doctoral Thesis in the Alchemical Sciences,"

  “Truly, a woman?”

  “Now you sound like the rest of my cohort,” teased Lorelei.

  “Oh, I have nothing against an educated woman, on the contrary I must say I would rather company that understood my pursuits and was equally interested in them."

  “What is it the pursuit that has brought Herr. Gilchrist to the rare books section of a German University?”

  “Well, I have come here in search of ancient texts to assist in translating a rare text.” He opened a linen covered box containing Azul’s Journal and turned the book to face Lorelei.

  “It is exquisite. The craftsmanship is stunning. May I touch it?”

  “Certainly,” Preston replied as he took the book out of the protective cover and opened it on the table.

  “It is a thirteenth century illumination from a Sufi mystic named Azul Hassan, a leader of the hermetic orders and researcher of the arcane arts. He details his research and journey to unlock the lost arts of Theurgy.”

  “Where did you find this?” Lorelei asked as she turned the pages slowly taking in the calligraphy.

  “The Library at Cambridge, I was performing research into Hellenistic poetry in the archives, and discovered it there. It was the cover that first compelled me to read it, then I became engrossed in the writing and its promises to divulge these secret rituals and understanding. He claims to have learned the works and the ability to project his spirit form from the material world,” described Preston.

  “And you just took the book?”

  “In a manner of speaking, there was no record of the book in circulation. I asked the librarian for the book’s provenance and he could produce no record. At first, I assumed this to be a hoax, a tale of fiction to fool some medieval Lord into parting with his gold for a book of magic. Now I know Azul created this book after his journey from Samarkand; he left when it was sacked by the Mongols. I have confirmed that there was a Sufi Hasan. Up until this moment I have been successful translating the book. No doubt testing my skills in the classical languages, but now, it has stumped me,” offered Preston.

  “How so?” asked Lorelei as she brought her eyes up from the book to meet Preston’s gaze. Preston felt embarrassed as if she knew he was staring at her. He turned the page to the third chapter marked by a ribbon.

  “This chapter is peculiar, I can read the Archaic Latin, but it makes little sense. Some, most of the words are gibberish.”

  The woman spun the book to face Preston then came around the table and sat next to him. “You are on the right track looking at a book like the Steganographia. It includes chapters protected by encoding but you won’t find the key there; you will need to locate it in the book itself. Your mystic is using ciphers to protect something. If he is similar to Johaannes Trithemius, then the code keeps prying eyes from reading his research. So, we must assume that all we require is on this page, or has been granted to you earlier in the test to decode this page,” explained Lorelei.

  “So, what do we have here? There is this picture, then the seven stanzas of words or letter sets. Was there anything else earlier that you feel could guide us?” she asked.

  “Yes, back here in Akkadian is this verse”

  The moon’s signet releases the zodiac seal

  "You see this drawing. In the center of the seven-pointed star is an illustration of Earth and the Moon, the outermost circle has the Akkadian zodiac. Within each triangle is the name of the Archon written in ancient Roman. This leads me to suspect this depiction is the seal that must be opened. It will help to inform the seven paragraphs below. These are composed in Greek but the title is again the name of an Archon.”

  Lorelei smiled at Preston “you're no fool, are you?”

  “What would make you say that to me?” Preston blushed.

  “Well, before me sits a young gentleman in his bespoke suit who confesses to stealing a rare book from University where he studied classical poetics. But you show a knowledge of languages and skills of deduction that challenges my prior assumption of you as an impetuous fop!”

  Preston raised his left brow, “I’ll take that as a compliment from the smartest lass in Germany."

  “And I’ll take that as a jab, but I will nevertheless help you," she responded with her pixie grin.

  She pointed at the picture. “I think you are correct, those are the names of the seven Archons that coincide with the seven poems of
the Archons. Look here, the points of the stars line up with the letters on the outer ring, however those are Greek letters not Latin. Latin has twenty-three letters but Greek can have either twenty-three or twenty-four letters. Now look here, the Khi is designated as an X not the Phoenician or Corinthian symbol for psi therefore we know its Athenian not Euboean Greek."

  “So where do we go from here to solve this, Herr Doctor?” posed Preston.

  “Indeed, this takes some intelligence and you assuredly have more now with me helping than you did before. Understand that your game maker wants you to be to see how bright he is through his construction of the puzzle, but he still must create it so you can solve it. I also know if your puzzle creator was doing this in the twelve hundreds he had knowledge of only a few types of code techniques. So, I expect this will be a circular key system like Alberti’s.” gushed Lorelei.

  Look at the ring. The letters are not sequential, it should be alpha, beta, gamma, delta, but it’s not. It reads beta, alpha, delta, gamma. Every two letters are transposed. This complicates the code, but it is a tell that we need to align two letter strings to decode."

  "How did you see that?"

  She got up and walked back to the table where she had been working, grabbed her handbag and brought it back to Preston’s table. Out of the bag she produced a black leather notebook and opened it to a page. It took Preston a moment to understand what he was looking at; the notebook displayed a woman’s handwriting in German, but it made no sense. He had no comprehension of what was written.

  “You still are not following, are you?” inquired Lorelei.

  “You have me at a loss.”

  Lorelei flipped to the back of her notebook, tore out a page and wrote with her graphite stylus. When finished, she handed the paper to Preston, put her notebook back in her bag and walked out of the room without a word.

  Preston looked down at the paper.

  Lorelei had written in English;

  Today unlocks the gate to the house of letters

  just below was the alphabet, underneath that was a string of letters. The pixie had left him a code to solve.

  RZ EZ QTQEJQTGP DNSWZMDECIMP QZC OTYYPC LE DPGPY

  EZ DZWGP ESP NZOP

  He thought about what was on the page for about ten minutes, then it hit him. Using today’s date, the twelfth, corresponding with the twelfth letter in the alphabet, he placed the L under the A of the alphabet Lorelei had written. When he got to Z he then started with the letter A corresponding to the letter P to create his key.

  Using the key, he transposed the code.

  GO TO

  This was a good sign, he kept going with his deciphering.

  FIFTYFIVE SCHLOBSTRABE

  FOR DINNER AT SEVEN

  TO SOLVE THE CODE

  The pixie had just invited him to dinner by secret code.

  6:30 PM TRAUBE Villa Berlin

  Preston dressed formally for dinner. The Location was situated on the outskirts of Berlin in a nouveau riche district, Preston he had little to go on. He had not an inkling of who might be attending, or what the affair would be other than the encrypted invitation comprised of ten words.

  When he told the driver of the cab to take him to 55 Schloßstraße, the address impressed the chatty man, eliciting the question if Preston was an alchemist. It was at that moment when the name dawned on him, Traube. The clan of chemists, apothecaries, and brewers that had made their fortune creating all types of chemical wonders, beverages, potions, and tinctures. More than one Traube sat on the Elector members of the Alchemical Guild.

  The door of the spacious Villa was opened by the Major Domo. "Welcome to Traube Villa, I am Eric." greeted the house manager, while he took Preston's overcoat, scarf and gloves.

  “I should have warned you this would be a working dinner. No idle time, we have a riddle to solve. Lorelei wore her hair down and had selected a silk, hand-painted floor length gown with a mandarin collar, deep cobalt and black with cranes.”

  Preston felt a little uncomfortable outfitted in his dinner suit, “My mother always said it is better to be over dressed for weather and society than underdressed."

  “Well, I didn’t want to go to a lot of fuss in case you could not solve my code.”

  “Come we will eat in the study. Eric, please alert Mrs. Haanel we are prepared to eat when she is ready to serve,” Lorelei turned and opened the double pocket doors leading to the library. The first thing Preston noticed was the flasks and chemistry equipment on a long table amid the bookcases, a little strange, but intriguing.

  “Please relax, do you have the book? You can place it on that table, we will work there,” indicated Lorelei.

  “So, that notebook you showed me in the library those were your annotations in code?” inquired Preston.

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “You keep your personal notes in code, and you do this from memory?”

  “It started as a way to help me memorize and it just turned into a habit. Just like the note I gave you, but that took a little longer because I had to think things through in English.”

  “Well, I’ll take that as a good sign. You have an amazing mind, Lorelei Traube and I would like to get to know everything you have hidden up there behind your codes.” Preston requested with admiration.

  “Let’s get started, as you will see with tonight’s game, I like a challenge and our Arabic friend has thrown down the gauntlet.” Preston removed Azul’s Journal and laid it on the reading table. Lorelei offered cream colored cardstock and a compass from the writing desk. She drew a five-inch diameter circle, then a six-inch diameter circle on another sheet. She handed Preston a set of shears.

  “Cut the circle out.” They both went to work on cutting out the paper circles.

  “So, you live alone here?” Preston asked while carefully cutting on the line.

  I wouldn’t call it alone, I have a staff of six in this house. My Father likes to show off his prosperity and makes sure all his Guild cronies know that his daughter lives in the most fantastic mansion while she attends University.”

  “And he condones a woman’s pursuit of education?” Chided Preston.

  “My father adores anything that shows he is bigger and better than others and I am his prize pig at the show. I am far smarter than any of my cousins and most of my uncles.”

  When they finished cutting Lorelei laid the smaller circle on top of the larger and pressed a brass fastener through the two pieces of card. She then marked out segments every fifteen degrees to create twenty-three sections on each circle.

  “I think show pony would be a more appropriate metaphor. Let me ask you why not just focus all of this intellect of yours on the subject of Alchemy?”

  “I am a renaissance woman and most contemporary men fear that. I have never settled, not for a domestic life or an intellectual pursuit. Let me show you something.” Lorelei got up from the table and went over to a set of cabinets for storing drawings. She unlocked the cabinet and removed a leather portfolio. She brought it back to the table and opened it up.

  “When I was fourteen I went with my father to an auction in Italy. I had a better eye and aesthetic than he did, he brought me there to help him bid on works. I saw this piece and begged him to buy it for me. It is a letter from Leonardo de Vinci, applying for a position at the court of Milan.” Preston looked at it and read the yellowed parchment with brown ink.

  My Most Illustrious Lord,

  Having now sufficiently seen and considered the achievements of all those who count themselves masters and artificers of instruments of war, and having noted that the invention and performance of the said instruments is in no way different from that in common usage, I shall endeavour, while intending no discredit to anyone else, to make myself understood to Your Excellency for the purpose of unfolding to you my secrets, and thereafter offering them at your complete disposal, and when the time is right bringing into effective operation all those things which are in part briefly listed below:
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  1. I have plans for very light, strong and easily portable bridges with which to pursue and, on some occasions, flee the enemy, and others, sturdy and indestructible either by fire or in battle, easy and convenient to lift and place in position. Also means of burning and destroying those of the enemy.

  2. I know how in the course of the siege of a terrain, to remove water from the moats and how to make an infinite number of bridges, mantlets and scaling ladders and other instruments necessary to such an enterprise.

  3. Also, if one cannot, when besieging a terrain, proceed by bombardment either because of the height of the glacis or the strength of its situation and location, I have methods for destroying every fortress or other stranglehold unless it has been founded upon a rock or so forth.

  4. I have also types of cannon, most convenient and easily portable, with which to hurl small stones almost like a hail-storm; and the smoke from the cannon will instil a great fear in the enemy on account of the grave damage and confusion.

  5. Also, I have means of arriving at a designated spot through mines and secret winding passages constructed completely without noise, even if it should be necessary to pass underneath moats or any river.

  6. Also, I will make covered vehicles, safe and unassailable, which will penetrate the enemy and their artillery, and there is no host of armed men so great that they would not break through it. And behind these, the infantry will be able to follow, quite uninjured and unimpeded.

  7. Also, should the need arise, I will make cannon, mortar and light ordnance of very beautiful and functional design that are quite out of the ordinary.

  8. Where the use of cannon is impracticable, I will assemble catapults, mangonels, trebuckets and other instruments of wonderful efficiency not in general use. In short, as the variety of circumstances dictate, I will make an infinite number of items for attack and defence.

  9. And should a sea battle be occasioned, I have examples of many instruments which are highly suitable either in attack or defence, and craft which will resist the fire of all the heaviest cannon and powder and smoke.