The Stone of Destiny

by Jim Ware

  As she watched, a dark silhouette rose out of the swirling whiteness beneath the stone arch. From where she stood it looked like the shape of a man: a gigantic man, more than eight or nine feet tall. Rubbing her eyes, she bent forward and peered again into the gathering gloom, but in the next instant the mist poured over the arch and into the lagoon, and the figure was lost to view.

  Then came a rush of wings and a breath of air against her cheek. Eny lunged to one side and looked up in time see a huge black crow swooping down over her head, cawing loudly as it passed.

  She gripped her fiddle under her arm and ran the rest of the way up the trail.

  Chapter Eight

  Mist and Shadows

  The cleansing fire is merciless, but only falseness dies.

  Morgan was sitting at his cluttered workbench, his eyes glued to the first page of the Third Treatise of the Second Book of The Philosophy of Theophrastus, his hands busy with an old stone pestle and mortar. Since rising at about ten and gulping down a hasty breakfast of corn flakes and toast, he had been hard at work in the tower, grinding the scorched remains of a mixture of seaweed and beach grass into a fine gray powder.

  Calcination. Dissolution. Separation. Conjunction. Fermentation. Distillation. Coagulation.

  Slowly he rehearsed the seven steps in his mind. All the books agreed that the first stage of the process—the heat and flame of the fire—had a purifying effect on the subject of the experiment. Too bad it didn’t do the same thing for the air inside the lab. This particular mass of charred vegetable matter had been seared and cooked five times over until it left the whole place smelling of smoke and sulphur and burnt kelp. Morgan coughed and wrinkled up his nose—at times like this he felt grateful for the open-air ventilation of the old church tower.

  Every body or tangible substance is nothing else but coagulated mist or smoke.… All colors and all elements are present in everything.… Nature lies invisibly in bodies and substances.… The first matter of minerals consists of water, and it comprises only sulphur, salt, and mercury.…

  According to Paracelsus, there was but a single substance in all the universe: the materia prima. The four elements of earth, air, fire, and water were but varying manifestations of this One Ubiquitous Thing. Hidden at the heart of the materia prima lay the Philosophers’ Stone: a universal healing agent, a panacea capable of curing any disease, the Elixir of Life itself. It was this that Morgan was hoping to extract from his lump of purified and calcinated ash. He raised his elbow for leverage and leaned into the work, churning, crushing, and pounding, biting his tongue in the effort.

  Dew, the distilled essence of heaven above and earth below, is a condensation of the Universal Spirit or Secret Fire.

  Once the stuff was completely pulverized, he’d dissolve it in the May-dew he’d collected with his gathering sheet. Then he’d purify it again by slowly heating and distilling the mixture in an alembic. After that it was a matter of recombining, reheating, and repeating the pattern as often as necessary until the proper succession of colors began to emerge. It was a long, laborious path. But he was confident it would eventually yield success.

  The processes to which the matter is subjected in the course of the Great Work are often likened to a ladder or steps leading to a Temple. Like Jacob’s Ladder, this connects the above with the below. In this way the mighty gifts are learnt, just as …

  There was a knock below. Morgan looked up from his book. Someone was pounding on the door and calling his name. Setting mortar and pestle aside, he got up and scrambled down the ladder.

  “Thank goodness!” said Eny breathlessly as soon as he managed to get the door open. “When I couldn’t find you at home I came straight here.” She was standing in a puddle on the landing, fiddle in hand, dark water dripping from her jeans. Her hair was disheveled and her one blue eye shone bright in the dimness of the stairway.

  “What for?” Try as he might, Morgan couldn’t prevent a slight hint of irritation from creeping into his voice.

  “I’m afraid you won’t believe me when I tell you!” She gripped him by the arm and pushed her way inside. “I just came from the Point. From the Cave of the Hands!”

  “So what? You’re always hanging around out there.”

  “Yes, but somebody else was there this time. And they were after me!”

  “After you?” He pulled away and eyed her doubtfully.

  “I know it sounds crazy. But it’s true! There were voices in the cave. And a big crow. And an old lady by the tide pools. And a strange fog and a giant man out in the surf. He was just like that huge person we saw at Madame Medea’s—only bigger!”

  Morgan knew Eny too well to doubt her earnestness. She had a fertile imagination, it was true, but he had never known her to be a liar. She hadn’t even inherited her parents’ talent for telling tales. There was something in her manner, something about the light in her eye, that made him tremble. He wanted to scoff. He wanted to laugh the whole thing off. But somehow he didn’t dare.

  “It was probably just … tourists,” he said. “Why don’t we go home and tell your mom and dad?”

  “No! It would only frighten them. It wasn’t tourists, Morgan! I think it had something to do with that woman!”

  Morgan looked away. A white mist was oozing in through the slatted windows and it seemed unusually dark outside. He checked his watch: It was nearly half past four. So engrossed had he been in his work that he had lost all track of time. Without waiting to hear more, he took her by the hand and drew her out to the landing.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “You can do what you like. I have to go home anyway. I’ve got to get to the hospital.” With that he locked the door and headed downstairs with Eny close behind.

  Simon Brach was waiting for them when they got to the bottom of the staircase. They found him standing just inside the double oak doors, his violin under his arm and a wide smile on his craggy face. He lifted the instrument in greeting when he saw them and gave Eny an exaggerated wink.

  “The little lady with the fiddle!” he said, bowing slightly in her direction. “The very person! I was thinking that a session on the stairs might be just the thing before getting down to work. Would you like to sit down and scrape out a few tunes with me?”

  Eny turned and looked at Morgan. The shadows of fear and alarm had completely vanished from her expression, and once again he saw an inexplicable light rising in her face, the same light he had seen there the previous afternoon at their first meeting with Simon Brach. Her brow was smooth, her cheeks flushed with pleasure. The piercing brightness of her eye had mellowed to a warm glow.

  “You go ahead,” she said. “I think I’ll stay and play with Mr. Brach for a while.”

  Morgan put his shoulder to the door and shoved it open. “Whatever,” he said. If that’s what really matters to you, he thought to himself.

  He could hear the two of them tuning up on the stairway as the great door swung shut behind him, its boom muffled by the enveloping mist that had now covered the town and blocked out the afternoon sky. No sooner had he stepped out on the sidewalk than an even more irritating sound reached his ears: a cacophony of shouts and a hail of rude laughter rising out of the swirling vapors, bouncing off the walls of St. Halistan’s, and falling dead into the thick blanket of whiteness that surrounded the church buildings like a sullen tide.

  “Look who it is!”

  “The Dreamer in the Outfield!”

  “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice!”

  “Robot Mouth!”

  Morgan groaned. He could feel the blood rising up the back of his neck. His ears grew hot. His cheeks burned and the muscles in his arms and legs tightened like steel bands. He licked his lips and ran the tip of his tongue over the metallic sharpness of his braces.

  “My dad was no sorcerer!” he shouted at the passi
ng cyclists—Baxter Knowles and a couple of his cronies. “He was a scientist! And a philosopher!” He hesitated a moment, then picked up a rock from the gutter and hurled it after them.

  It was a rash thing to do, and he regretted it immediately. The bicycles slowed and circled. Morgan’s throat contracted, and his heart began to pound as the three riders swung around and headed back toward him through the haze. Baxter skidded to a stop at the edge of the curb.

  “Scientist! I suppose that’s what you are? What you’ve been up to in your magician’s tower?”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Everything I need to know. What you need to know is that this rock pile is coming down. Soon.”

  Morgan fumed. “You can’t say that!”

  Baxter grabbed him by the collar. “Shut up, Izaak—you ugly-looking girl.” His gray eyes were small and steely, his voice low and threatening. “I’d hate to have to ruin your other shirt. My dad knows what’s best for this town, and he’s got plans for this hilltop. Big plans. The future of Santa Piedra is in the tourist trade. Nobody ever comes to this old church anyway.”

  “Some do,” said a voice out of the fog.

  Baxter released his grip and glanced up. Morgan turned and followed his persecutor’s gaze. There on the tower doorstep, a tall shadow in the mist, stood Simon Brach.

  “Who’s this?” said Baxter with a sneer. “The Hunchback of St. Halistan’s?”

  Simon said nothing. Descending the steps, he reached the curb in three long strides. There was a stern look in his eyes, a kind of pure and searing light that Morgan hadn’t noticed there before. The old man seemed to grow in stature as he loomed above them in the fog.

  Baxter blinked. A sudden look of panic besmirched his stupid good looks. He pulled back on his handlebars, spun the bike on its back wheel, and sped away, his two followers pedaling after him with all their might. Bewildered, Morgan stood watching them as they disappeared into the gloom.

  “You’d better get a move on,” said Simon when they had gone. “It won’t do to keep your mother waiting.”

  Within the hour Morgan was pacing the floor of the hospital waiting room, a cold and curious leaden lump in the pit of his stomach. A voice at the back of his mind kept telling him that it was all his fault. Somehow or other, he was to blame for his mother’s illness. He had failed her as a son. He had taken her for granted. He had lived as if her soft-spoken gentleness and constant watch-care were guarantees of nature, inexhaustible as earth, air, fire, and water.

  A doctor and a nurse stood conversing quietly just outside the door of his mother’s room. He knew he wasn’t supposed to overhear, but when they weren’t looking he managed to get close enough to catch a few disjointed words and phrases: metastasized … rapidly growing … in the lung.

  He glanced out the fourth-floor window. Below lay the town of Santa Piedra, a collection of shapeless shadows beneath a veil of obscuring mist. He leaned against the wall and kicked at the black rubber baseboard. How could he possibly repay his mother for everything she’d done? The meals she’d cooked, the clothes she’d washed, the hundreds of hours she’d spent working at La Coruna Gifts and Cards just to make ends meet? Even if she didn’t die, how would he ever make it up to her? Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe there was nothing he could do to atone for his own carelessness and negligence.

  But if he worked hard enough, he might be able to save her life. If he was responsible for this mess, then he would have to fix it.

  One primal element … Elixir of Life … in it all the power of the stars …

  “You can come in now, young man.”

  Morgan looked up and straightened himself. He combed his fingers through his ruffled yellow hair, tucked his shirt into his jeans, and, with a fluttering feeling in his chest, approached the door to Room 247. The nurse moved aside and let him enter.

  Two steps into the room he had to stop and stare. Never in his life had he seen his mother looking quite like this: frail and weak, almost on the point of fading away, yet somehow inexpressibly lovely. She was sitting up in bed, her ivory hands folded in her lap, her fine angel hair pulled back at the nape of her neck. Though her cheeks were wan and hollow, her eyes were wide and radiant. Her face was like the face of the moon: pale but luminous with a light not its own. She beamed at him as he came forward and sat on the edge of a chair beside the bed.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” he said, bending forward and laying his head in her lap.

  She took his face between her two hands and lifted it. “Sorry for what?”

  “I was scared. Twisted up with fear all night long. Wondering what was going to happen to you. But I won’t be scared anymore. I promise. I’m going to do something to help.”

  She smiled. “You sound like your father. Listen to me, Morgan. You have nothing to worry about. You’ve always been a great help to me. Besides, it’s not wrong to be afraid. I’m afraid too. That’s only natural. But the doctor knows what he’s doing. And the Lord has us in His hands.”

  Morgan disengaged himself and sat up straight. “That’s what you said last night. And now you—well, what I mean is … what good have all the prayers done?”

  “I told you, Morgan. Prayer isn’t about getting results. It’s about knowing Someone. It’s about trust.”

  “But you don’t want to die, do you?”

  She took him by the hand. “I think I’d go on living forever if only it meant being your mother. Packing your lunch, washing your shirts, getting your dinner—what could be better? Life is so short.”

  “Don’t say that!” Morgan said. There was a distant sound in her voice that frightened him. “You’re going to live for a long time. I know it.”

  She looked at him out of watery, shining eyes. “None of us lives forever. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, Morgan, but I’m hopeful. For both of us. Have you ever watched the sunset on the ocean? I mean really watched it, until it faded away into nothing but a golden thread on the farthest horizon? There’s a part of me that has always wanted to follow that rippling thread right down over the edge of the world.”

  “You listen to me, Mom! You’re not going anywhere. I’ve got Dad’s books and instruments!”

  “I don’t want you—” she began, but just then she began to cough; for several minutes the fit racked and shook her delicate body, her chest heaving, her eyes streaming. It seemed to him that she would cough herself to pieces. He sat with her on the edge of the bed, trembling and holding her hand until the hacking and wheezing subsided.

  When she had been quiet for a long time Morgan asked:

  “Mom—what really happened to my dad? I mean, exactly how did he die?”

  She took a clean handkerchief from the table at the bedside and blew her nose. Then she turned and regarded him intently. Her eyes, red and teary, searched his. It was as if she were probing his mind, testing the waters, gauging the level of his mental readiness to receive what she had to say. Finally she spoke.

  “He didn’t.”

  “Didn’t?” The words hit him like a lightning bolt out of a blue sky. For a moment he was speechless. “What do you mean?” he managed to stammer at last. “If he didn’t die, where is he? Why don’t I know him?”

  “He was taken.”

  “Taken?” Morgan stood up. His legs were stiff and numb as two pillars of stone, his mind was a white-hot blank. If this is true, he thought, it changes everything.

  “Yes,” his mother said. “I don’t understand how or why or where. I don’t even know how I know it. I just do. There was a letter. It made no sense to me. But of one thing I feel certain: Those books and tools he left behind had something to do with it.” She looked up at him. “I don’t want you to have anything to do with them.”

  He gazed at her, uncomprehending.

  “Your father,” she went on, “believe
d he could gain the power to control our destiny—mine and his. He had his reasons for trying. Troubles and debts had made him a very different person from the man I married. Depressed and desperate. It overwhelmed him in the end. I’m not sure how. All I know is that he was caught up, swept away. Taken.”

  Morgan stood there, paralyzed. His brain seemed to have short-circuited. For a long time he couldn’t speak. At last he said, “You don’t know what you’re asking! I can’t give up now! If I do—”

  Again his speech was cut short by one of her coughing spells. He dropped beside her on the bed, holding her close, squeezing his eyes tight and burying his face against her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” said the nurse, softly entering and drawing him from the bedside. “She needs to rest. Visiting hours are nearly over anyway.”

  As he pedaled his bike furiously back up the hill, Morgan could see the tower of St. Halistan’s heaving its dark bulk up into the overarching gloom. A stiff breeze had lifted the fog from the face of the earth, transfiguring it into a low and eerily lit ceiling of patchy cloud. Somewhere over the western ocean the sun had gone down at the edge of the world. In the gathering dusk a yellow moon shone sporadically through the breaches in the racing clouds.

  Morgan rattled up to the duplex and dropped his bike beside the front porch. He began fishing in his pocket as a gleam of moonlight flashed out across the rough gray stones of the tower’s four stone pinnacles. Then, as the mists closed in again above St. Halistan’s, he pulled out his key, opened the door, and stumbled into the house.

  In his weariness, haste, and confusion he failed to notice the great shadow looming over the tower: a gigantic man-shape, tall as a mountain and black as midnight, lumbering down the hill toward the sea.