The Year of Rice and Salt

by Kim Stanley Robinson

  He jumped off the dais, thumped down on the bare boards of the cosmos. The rest of his jati crashed down beside him, crying out in pain at the impact. 'You got us in trouble,' Shen whined.

  'It doesn't work like that,' Butterfly informed him as they panted off together into the mists. 'I've seen a lot of people try. They lash out in fury and cut the hideous gods down, and how they deserve it – and yet the gods spring back up, redoubled in other people. A karmic law of this universe, my friend. Like conservation of yin and yang, or gravity. We live in a universe ruled by very few laws, but the redoubling of violence by violence is one of the main ones.'

  'I don't believe it,' Kheim said, and stopped to fend off the two Kalis now pursuing them. He took a hard swing and decapitated one of the new Kalis. Swiftly another head grew back, swelling on top of the gusher on the neck of the black body, and the new white teeth of her new head laughed at him, while her bloody red eyes blazed. He was in trouble, he saw; he was going to be backed to pieces. For resisting these evil unjust absurd and horrible deities he was going to be hacked to pieces and returned to the world as a mule or a monkey or a maimed old geezer.

  Transmutation

  Now it so happened that as the time approached for the great alchemist's red work to reach its culmination, in the final multiplication, the projection of the sophic hydrolith into the ferment, causing tincture – that is to say, the transmuting of base metals into gold – the son in law of the alchemist, one Bahram al Bokhara, ran and jostled through the bazaar of Samarqand on last minute errands, ignoring the calls of his various friends and creditors. 'I can't stop,' he called to them, 'I'm late!'

  'Late paying your debts!' said Divendi, whose coffee stall was wedged into a slot next to Iwang's workshop.

  'True,' Bahram said, but stopped for a coffee. 'Always late but never bored.'

  'Khalid keeps you hopping.'

  'Literally so, yesterday. The big pelican cracked during a descension, and it all spilled right next to me – vitriol of Cyprus mixed with sal ammoniac.'

  'Dangerous?'

  'Oh my God. Where it splashed on my trousers the cloth was eaten away, and the smoke was worse. I had to run for my life!'

  'As always.'

  'So true. I coughed my guts out, my eyes ran all night. It was like drinking your coffee.'

  'I always make yours from the dregs.'

  'I know,' tossing down the last gritty shot. 'So are you coming tomorrow?'

  'To see lead turned into gold? I'll be there.'

  Iwang's workshop was dominated by its brick furnace. Familiar sizzle and smell of bellowed fire, tink of hammer, glowing molten glass, Iwang twirling the rod attentively: Bahram greeted the glassblower and silversmith, 'Khalid wants more of the wolf.'

  'Khalid always wants more of the wolf.' Iwang continued turning his blob of hot glass. Tall and broad and big faced, a Tibetan by birth, but long a resident of Samarqand, he was one of Khalid's closest associates. 'Did he send payment this time?'

  'Of course not. He said to put it on his tab.'

  Iwang pursed his lips. 'He's got too many tabs these days.'

  'All paid after tomorrow. He finished the seven hundred and seventyseventh distillation.'

  Iwang put down his work and went to a wall stacked with boxes. He handed Bahram a small leather pouch, heavy with small beads of lead. 'Gold grows in the earth,' he said. 'Al Razi himself couldn't grow it in a crucible.'

  'Khalid would debate that. And Al Razi lived a long time ago. He couldn't get the heat we can now.'

  'Maybe.' Iwang was sceptical. 'Tell him to be careful.'

  'Of burning himself?'

  'Of the Khan burning him.'

  'You'll be there to see it?'

  Iwang nodded reluctantly.

  The day of the demonstration came, and for a wonder the great Khalid Ali Abu al Samarqandi seemed nervous; and Bahram could understand why. If Sayyed Abdul Aziz Khan, ruler of the khanate of Bokhara, immensely rich and powerful, chose to support Khalid's enterprises, all would be well; but he was not a man you wanted to disappoint. Even his closest adviser, his treasury secretary Nadir Devanbegi, avoided distressing him at all costs. Recently, for instance, Nadir had caused a new caravanserai to be built on the east side of Bokhara, and the Khan had been brought out for its opening ceremony, and being a bit inattentive by nature, he had congratulated them for building such a fine madressa; and rather than correct him on the point, Nadir had ordered the complex turned into a madressa. That was the kind of khan Sayyed Abdul Aziz was, and he was the khan to whom Khalid was going to demonstrate the tincture. It was enough to make Bahram's stomach tight and his pulse fast, and while Khalid sounded like he always did, sharp and impatient and sure of himself, Bahram could see that his face was unusually pale.

  But he had worked on the projection for years, and studied all the alchemical texts he could obtain, including many bought by Bahram in the Hindu caravanserai, including 'The Book of the End of the Search' by jildaki, and jabir Ibn Hayyam's 'Book of Balances', as well as 'The Secret of Secrets', once thought to be lost, and the Chinese text 'Reference Book for the Penetration of Reality'; and Khalid had in his extensive workshops the mechanical capacity to repeat the required distillations at high heat and very good clarities, all seven hundred and seventy-seven times. Two weeks earlier he had declared that his final efforts had borne fruit, and now all was ready for a public demonstration, which of course had to include regal witnesses to matter.

  So Bahram hurried around in Khalid's compound on the northern edge of Samarqand, sprawling by the banks of the Zeravshan River, which provided power to the foundries and the various workshops. The walls of the establishment were ringed by great heaps of charcoal waiting to be burned, and inside there were a number of buildings, loosely grouped around the central work area, a yard dotted with vats and discoloured chemical baths. Several different stinks combined to form the single harsh smell that was particular to Khalid's place. He was the khanate's principal gunpowder producer and metallurgist, among other things, and these practical enterprises supported the alchemy that was his ruling passion.

  Bahram wove through the clutter, making sure the demonstration area was ready. The long tables in the open walled shops were crowded with an orderly array of equipment; the walls of the shops were neatly hung with tools. The main athanor was roaring with heat.

  But Khalid was not to be found. The puffers had not seen him; Bahram's wife Esmerine, Khalid's daughter, had not seen him. The house at the back of the compound seemed empty, and no one answered Bahram's calls. He began to wonder if Khalid had run away in fear.

  Then Khalid appeared out of the library next to his study, the only room in the compound with a door that locked.

  'There you are,' Bahram said. 'Come on, Father, Al Razi and Mary the Jewess will be no help to you now. It's time to show the world the thing itself, the projection.'

  Khalid, startled to see him, nodded curtly. 'I was making the last preparations,' he said. He led Bahram into the furnace shed, where the geared bellows, powered by the waterwheel on the river, pumped air into the roaring fires.

  The Khan and his party arrived quite late, when much of the afternoon was spent. Twenty horsemen thundered in, their finery gleaming, and then a camel train fifty beasts long, all foaming at the gallop. The Khan dismounted from his white bay and walked across the yard with Nadir Devanbegi at his side, and several court officials at their heels.

  Khalid's attempt at a formal greeting, including the presentation of a gift of one of his most cherished alchemical books, was cut short by Sayyed Adbul Aziz. 'Show us,' the Khan commanded, taking the book without looking at it.

  Khalid bowed. 'The alembic I used is this one here, called a pelican. The base matter is mostly calcinated lead, with some mercurials. They have been projected by continuous distillation and re distillation, until all the matter has passed through the pelican seven hundred and seventy seven times. At that point the spirit in the lion well, to put it in more worldly t
erms, the gold condenses out at the highest athanor heat. So, we pour the wolf into this vessel, and put that in the athanor, and wait for an hour, stirring meanwhile seven times.'

  'Show us.' The Khan was clearly bored by the details.

  Without further ado Khalid led them into the furnace shed, and his assistants opened the heavy thick door of the athanor, and after allowing the visitors to handle and inspect the ceramic bowl, Khalid grabbed up tongs and poured the grey distillate into the bowl, and placed the tray in the athanor and slid it into the intense heat. The air over the furnace shimmered as Sayyed Abdul Aziz's mullah said prayers, and Khalid watched the second hand of his best clock. Every five minutes he gestured to the puffers, who opened the door and pulled out the tray, at which point Khalid stirred the liquid metal, now glowing orange, with his ladle, seven times seven circles, and then back into the heat of the fire. In the last minutes of the operation, the crackle of the charcoal was the only sound in the yard. The sweating observers, including many acquaintances from the town, watched the clock tick out the last minute of the hour in a silence like that of sufis in a trance of speechlessness, or like, Bahram thought uneasily, hawks inspecting the ground far below.

  Finally Khalid nodded to the puffers, and he himself hefted the bowl off the tray with big tongs, and carried it to a table in the yard, cleared for this demonstration. 'Now we pour off the dross, great Khan,' paddling the molten lead out of the bowl into a stone tub on the table. 'And at the bottom we see – ah…'

  He smiled and wiped his forehead with his sleeve, gestured at the bowl. 'Even when molten it gleams to the eye.'

  At the bottom of the bowl the liquid was a darker red. With a spatula Khalid carefully skimmed off the remaining dross, and there at the bottom of the bowl lay a cooling mass of liquid gold.

  'We can pour it into a bar mould while it is still soft,' Khalid said with quiet satisfaction. 'It looks to be perhaps ten ounces. That would be one seventh of the stock, as predicted.'

  Sayyed Abdul Aziz's face shone like the gold. He turned to his secretary Nadir Devanbegi, who was regarding the ceramic bowl closely.

  Without expression, Nadir gestured for one of the Khan's guards to come forward. The rest of them rustled behind the alchemist's crew. Their pikes were still upright, but they were now at attention.

  'Seize the instruments,' Nadir told the head guard.

  Three soldiers helped him take possession of all the tools used in the operation, including the great pelican itself. When they were all in hand, Nadir went to one guard and took up the ladle Khalid had used to stir the liquid metals. In a sudden move he smashed it down on the table. It rang like a bell. He looked over at Sayyed Abdul Aziz, who stared at his secretary, puzzled. Nadir gestured with his head to one of the pikemen, then put the ladle on the table.

  'Cut it.'

  The pike came down hard, and the ladle was sliced just above its scoop. Nadir picked up the handle and the scoop and inspected them. He showed them to the Khan.

  'You see – the shaft is hollow. The gold was in the tube inside the handle, and when he stirred, the heat melted the gold, and it slid out and into the lead in the bowl. Then as he continued to stir, it moved to the bottom of the bowl.'

  Bahram looked at Khalid, shocked, and saw that it was true. His father in law's face was white, and he was no longer sweating. Already a dead man.

  The Khan roared wordlessly, then leaped at Khalid and struck him down with the book he had been given. He beat him with the book, and Khalid did not resist.

  'Take him!' Sayyed Abdul Aziz shouted at his soldiers. They picked up Khalid by the arms and dragged him through the dust, not allowing him to get to his feet, and threw him over a camel. In a minute they were all gone from the compound, leaving the air filled with smoke and dust and echoing shouts.

  The Mercy of the Khan

  No one expected Khalid to be spared after this debacle. His wife Fedwa was in a state of mourning already, and Esmerine was inconsolable. All the work of the yard stopped. Bahram fretted in the strange silence of the empty workshops, waiting to be given the word that they could collect Khalid's body. He realized he didn't know enough to run the compound properly.

  Eventually the call came; they were ordered to attend the execution. Iwang joined Bahram for the trip to Bokhara and the palace there. Iwang was both sad and irritated. 'He should have asked me, if he was so short of cash. I could have helped him.'

  Bahram was a little surprised at this, as Iwang's shop was a mere hole in the wall of the bazaar, and did not seem so very prosperous. But he said nothing. When all was said and done he had loved his father in law, and the black grief he felt left little room for thinking about Iwang's finances. The impending violent death of someone that close to him, his wife's father – she would be distraught for months, perhaps for years – a man so full of energy; the prospect emptied him of other thought, and left him sick with apprehension.

  The next day they reached Bokhara, shimmering in the summer heat, its array of brown and sandy tones capped by its deep blue and turquoise mosque domes. Iwang pointed at one minaret. 'The Tower of Death,' he noted. 'They'll probably throw him off that.'

  The sickness grew in Bahram. They entered the cast gate of the city and made their way to the palace. Iwang explained their business. Bahram wondered if they too would be taken and killed as accomplices. This had not occurred to him before, and he was shaking as they were led into a room that opened onto the palace grounds.

  Nadir Devanbegi arrived shortly thereafter. He looked at them with his usual steady gaze: a short elegant man, black goatee, pale blue eyes, a sayyed himself, and very wealthy.

  ' You are said to be as great an alchemist as Khalid,' Nadir said abruptly to Iwang. 'Do you believe in the philosopher's stone, in projection, in all the so called red work? Can base metals be transmuted to gold?'

  Iwang cleared his throat. 'Hard to say, effendi. I cannot do it, and the adepts who claimed they could, never said precisely how in their writing. Not in ways that I can use.'

  'Use,' Nadir repeated. 'That's a word I want to emphasize. People like you and Khalid have knowledge that the Khan might use. Practical things, like gunpowder that is more predictable in power. Or stronger metallurgy, or more effective medicine. These could be real advantages in the world. To waste such abilities on fraud… Naturally the Khan is very angry.'

  Iwang nodded, looking down.

  'I have spoken with him at length about this matter, reminding him of Khalid's distinction as an armourer and alchemist. His past contributions as master of arms. His many other services to the Khan. And the Khan in his wisdom has decided to show a mercy that Mohammed himself must have approved.'

  Iwang looked up.

  'He will be allowed to live, if he promises to work for the khanate on things that are real.'

  ' I am sure he will agree to that,' Iwang said. 'That is merciful indeed.'

  'Yes. He will of course have his right hand chopped off for thievery, as the law requires. But considering the effrontery of his crime, this is a very light punishment indeed. As he himself has admitted.'

  The punishment was administered later that day, a Friday, after the market and before prayers, in the great plaza of Bokhara, by the side of the central pool. A big crowd gathered to witness it. They were in high spirits as Khalid was led out by guards from the palace, dressed in white robes as if celebrating Ramadan. Many of the Bokharis shouted abuse at Khalid, as a Samarqandi as well as a thief.

  He knelt before Sayyed Abdul Aziz, who proclaimed the mercy of Allah, and of he himself, and of Nadir Devanbegi for arguing to spare the miscreant's life for his heinous fraud. Khalid's arm, looking from a distance like a bird's scrawny leg and claw, was lashed to the executioner's block. Then a soldier hefted a big axe overhead and dropped it on Khalid's wrist. Khalid's hand fell from the block and blood spurted onto the sand. The crowd roared. Khalid toppled onto his side, and the soldiers held him while one applied hot pitch from a pot on a brazier, using a sho
rt stick to plaster the black stuff to the end of the stump.

  Bahram and Iwang took him back to Samarqand, laid out in the back of Iwang's bullock cart, which Iwang had had built in order to move weights of metal and glass that camels couldn't carry. It bumped horribly over the road, which was a broad dusty track worn in the earth by centuries of camel traffic between the two cities. The big wooden wheels jounced in every dip and over every hump, and Khalid groaned in the back, semi conscious and breathing stertorously, his left hand holding his pallid, burned right wrist. Iwang had forced an opium laced potion down him, and if it hadn't been for his groans it would have seemed he was asleep.

  Bahram regarded the new stump with a sickened fascination. Seeing the left hand clutching the wrist, he said to Iwang, 'He'll have to eat with his left hand. Do everything with his left hand. He'll be unclean for ever.'

  'That kind of cleanliness doesn't matter.'

  They had to sleep by the road, as darkness caught them out. Bahram sat by Khalid, and tried to get him to eat some of Iwang's soup. 'Come on, Father. Come on, old man. Eat something and you'll feel better. When you feel better it'll be all right.' But Khalid only groaned and rolled from side to side. In the darkness, under the great net of stars, it seemed to Bahram that everything in their lives had been ruined.

  Effect of the Punishment

  But as Khalid recovered, it seemed that he didn't see it that way. He boasted to Bahram and Iwang about his behaviour during his punishment: 'I never said a word to any of them, and I had tested my limits in jail, to see how long I could hold my breath without fainting, so when I saw the time was near I simply held my breath, and I timed it so well that I was fainting anyway when the stroke fell. I never felt a thing. I don't even remember it.'