The Stone of Madness

by Nick Baker

  ‘Is that, er …?’ began Strange uneasily.

  Nexus nodded, his mind elsewhere, already deliberating over his next move. His eyes darted back and forth at the equipment in front of him until they settled on a squat machine. He licked his lips feverishly as he reached out for the multiple gauges and knobs bedecking the panel. He hit a line of buttons in a seemingly random order, and immediately, three sickly-green lights flashed in quick succession as the device powered up.

  Strange looked anxiously around, searching for the source of a deep, resonant hum that rose up from the chamber below.

  ‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell us what you’re doing, Luca,’ boomed Frankl, struggling to make himself heard over the slowly intensifying sound.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ Nexus replied absent-mindedly. ‘That’s the magnetron you can hear. It’ll take a few minutes to warm up. In the meantime, we wait …’

  The lights flashed insistently, but Nexus’ eyes never strayed from a conspicuous gauge in the centre of the console. The needle flickered hesitantly before it began to climb inexorably towards a bold red line unmistakeably marked with the word, ‘DANGER’.

  ‘We’re almost ready!’ Nexus called out suddenly.

  Beads of sweat had gathered on Nexus’ forehead, and the sickly hue of the console’s lights reflected in the depthless orbs of his eyes gave him the look of an archetypal mad scientist.

  ‘Now!’ cried Nexus, striking a lever on the console with great gusto.

  Strange felt his stomach lurch as he watched the glass case trundle methodically along the conveyor belt towards a thick-walled receptacle recessed in a small alcove. Moments later, the glass container disappeared from view.

  ‘What’s happening?’ cried Frankl.

  ‘The body’s gone into the resonant cavity,’ shouted Nexus, trying to make himself heard over the loud hum of the machine and the vibrations of a vast array of surgical instruments laid out on metal tables.

  ‘This’ll only take a few seconds,’ he barked confidently. ‘The radiofrequency generator can rewarm to rates of 100,000 degrees Celsius. It’s timed to ensure that the mechanism cuts out once the body’s temperature reaches two degrees below normal.’

  Just as Nexus had predicted, the noise emanating from the machine suddenly died, and the vibrations ceased. Nexus pulled on the lever and the conveyor belt kicked into reverse.

  Strange stared open-mouthed, waiting for the opaque glass case to reappear, but when a small, body-shaped form materialised from the machine covered in a simple linen shroud, he gasped.

  ‘Come on, we have to move quickly now,’ said Nexus, bounding down a short flight of steps into the chamber with Strange and Frankl following closely behind.

  ‘Bring that pump with you,’ Nexus ordered, gesturing behind him as he crossed the room to a stainless steel sink at the side of the enclosure. He grabbed a nail brush and began frantically scrubbing his hands.

  Nexus donned a pair of gloves, picked up a small object from a tray of medical instruments and approached the table. ‘First, I must insert a cannula into the antecubital fossa,’ he said, brandishing a long, thin needle and lifting back the shroud to expose a ghostly pale arm. He worked with great dexterity and inserted the needle into the fleshy skin of the corpse. He grabbed a transparent tube dangling loosely from the pump that Strange had dragged across the room and connected it to the cannula. Without looking down, he flicked a switch on the pump with a deft kick of a boot.

  ‘This shouldn’t take long,’ Nexus called out above the thrumming of the machine that was gently rocking back and forth. ‘The apparatus will remove all the remaining bodily fluid. See, it’s already collecting in the container,’ he added, pointing to a bell jar attached to the pump into which droplets of a murky-looking fluid were beginning to condense.

  ‘Surely, er, the pump cannot remove all of the fluid?’ queried Strange.

  Nexus shot off towards a corner of the room. ‘It doesn’t matter, Abel,’ he replied, opening a small fridge and fumbling for a malleable bag filled with liquid.

  ‘Anything left of the cryoprotectant will be of little significance. If we’re successful, the small volume that remains will be excreted by the kidneys.’

  The bag of fluid was transparent but simultaneously radiated a mesmerising array of colours that shimmered like a rainbow. Even after Nexus had suspended the bag from a drip stand, the liquid continued to swirl, suggesting it held a life of its own.

  ‘We’re ready,’ said Nexus, disconnecting the tube from the pump and reconnecting it to the bag, still awash with colour.

  ‘I’m about to infuse the Lucacytes,’ he said while dexterously rotating a circular tap on the tube, allowing the solution to pool in a small chamber and drip slowly through the cannula into the body.

  ‘The infusion’s set for thirty minutes. The Lucacytes are suspended in a solution of dextrose saline that will provide sufficient energy to permeate every nook and cranny of the body. The cells are saturated with oxygen, and once they reach the capillaries, the gas will diffuse into the tissues and perfuse the body in preparation for the final stage.

  ‘And now, while the body completes its final rewarming, it will leave me just enough time to replace the stone. Josef, if you please?’ he said, turning to Frankl and stretching out a hand.

  Frankl reached inside his jacket and hesitated. He reluctantly withdrew his hand, extending it slowly towards Nexus before unfurling his stubby fingers to reveal a blood red stone nestling in the centre of his palm.

  Nexus stooped to examine the object. ‘It hasn’t changed since I last saw it,’ he observed, reaching out. He weighed the stone in his hand and set it down on the table beside the body. He peeled back the shroud to reveal a body that was lying face down and swept back a shock of untidy black hair to expose a gaping vertical wound in the back of the corpse’s neck.

  ‘P-Pearly?’ said Strange uncertainly.

  ‘Of course. Who else were you expecting?’ said Frankl.

  Nexus worked in silence, alternating between an array of lethal-looking instruments laid out on a Mayo table next to him. He selected a retractor resembling two bent forks attached at the waist, which he placed parallel with the skin and ratcheted open, improving visibility and access in one fell swoop. His hands moved in slick, graceful motions, meticulously dissecting the inanimate tissue until he had developed a deep pocket in the back of the neck.

  Suddenly, he pulled a hand from the wound without allowing his eyes to stray from the surgical field. ‘Someone pass me the stone,’ he commanded.

  Frankl was the first to react. He reached out and picked up the stone and deposited it in Nexus’ hand.

  Nexus’ hand trembled as it hovered over the body before he plunged it deep into the wound. ‘There!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘That was easier than I expected. When I first placed the stone all those years ago, I had to fashion a small cavity at the base of the brain to secure it, but now … well … it fits perfectly!’

  ‘Odd,’ said Strange pensively. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Foreign material typically produces an inflammatory response inside the body … but here … well, if anything, I’d say it’s the opposite. It’s almost as if the stone had blended in with the surrounding tissue before it was removed. I’ve never seen anything like it!’

  ‘Perhaps you were too quick to doubt, Luca,’ said Frankl.

  ‘We’ll see,’ replied Nexus, picking up a pair of needle holders.

  Once he had closed the incision, Nexus set the instrument down, doffed his gloves and wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘The infusion’s almost through,’ he said, watching the last drops of fluid empty from the reservoir into the cannula. ‘I’ve done all I can. The body’s just as I promised, Josef. It’s up to Abel now, although I still have grave doubts about how any alchemical reinvigoration will work,’ he said, craning his neck to admire the neat line of knots he had placed to close the wound.

  ‘You’ll see, Luca,
’ said Frankl, smiling grimly. ‘Are you ready, Abel?’

  Strange nodded slowly, deep in thought. Once he had deciphered the manuscript and learnt of Pearly’s attempts to recreate the living stone, he had always suspected it would come to this. He still felt a lingering annoyance that Frankl had not told him about Pearly’s body, but at least it answered the question that had troubled him most. Piotrowski’s experiment had ended in disaster, but with Pearly’s body as a viable option into which the stone could be reimplanted, everything had changed. Resurrection had always been one of alchemy’s central tenets inextricably linked to the mystery of the living stone, and now, with the stone returned to Pearly’s body, it was down to him, Abel Strange, to perform the ritual that would restore Pearly’s body to life … or so he hoped.

  Strange’s head wheeled with the enormity of what he was about to attempt. ‘Er, perhaps you’d be so kind as to turn the body,’ he said, closing his eyes and steadying his breathing.

  While Nexus and Frankl were struggling with the body, Strange’s mind drifted back to his time as a student at the Academy. He recalled the rapid blossoming of friendship between Pearly and Henry only for it to be supplanted by rivalry and jealousy. The young Strange had always been there as a buffer to his friends, forever the steadying influence, but while they had channelled their considerable talents into dark and mysterious alchemy, he had shunned those areas of lore for a greater understanding of spiritual learning and alchemical healing. On completion of his studies, Strange had travelled the world in search of mystical cultures to enhance his already encyclopaedic knowledge of healing. From the medicine men of the Oroqen and the sangomas of the Nguni to the shamans of the Inuit and the curanderos of the Amazon, Strange had never ceased in his quest for learning.

  Soon after his return, he was called upon to demonstrate all he had learnt when a gang of Lex’s men were ambushed during an attempt to replenish the Order’s dwindling coffers. In the mayhem that ensued, one of the Order’s men was shot, and although the gang escaped with the bleeding man in tow, it was left to Strange to save him. To Lex and his men as they stood back and watched, it looked as if Strange was simply laying his hands on the man’s chest. In reality, he was utilising the mystical skills he had accumulated through years of study, channelling life-restoring energy into the exsanguinating man. With consummate ease, he stemmed the flow of torrential bleeding and recommenced the beating of a lifeless heart. Ten minutes later, the men stood and gawped when the fatally wounded man got to his feet and walked away as if nothing had happened.

  From that moment on, the legendary status of Abel Strange as a man capable of miracles was born, and on many occasions since, he had demonstrated an astonishing ability to heal.

  Yet what he was about to attempt was not the same.

  With a jolt, he opened his eyes and looked at the face of a man he had never expected to see again. The shroud had been pulled back to reveal the serene features of a man who looked as if he was asleep rather than having lain undisturbed in cold storage for over ten years. Long, tousled hair fell about Pearly’s tranquil face, which carried a hint of a smile suggesting that, at any moment, he might open his eyes to address them.

  Strange swallowed nervously. He took a deep breath and stretched out a hand, laying it lightly on the cool, alabaster skin of Pearly’s forehead. He closed his eyes and quietly chanted a mantra, allowing his mind to empty as he sought to raise a mystical energy to channel into the inanimate form. The process began with an infinitesimal spark of inchoate matter, somewhere intangible deep inside his body. The energy built like an oak from an acorn, gradually condensing into a force of unimaginable intensity such that he felt as if he would explode. He fought to restrain the burgeoning power, directing it along his arms and into his hands, and for the briefest moment, he held it in check. Then, with a jerk that sent a spasm shuddering through his body, the force leapt pell-mell from his fingertips into the corpse.

  As power issued forth, Strange directed the flow, urging it along the pathways and meridians through which all qi must pass, seeking out the six key chakras located within the lifeless body. He lost all sense of time as the power grew into an irrepressible force. Gradually, by increments, he subtly orchestrated the life-giving qi, reinvigorating, repairing and healing the body’s damaged tissues until the energy had engulfed every last cell, nudging and cajoling them back from their frozen dormancy of these past ten years.

  Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, something foreign impinged on his awareness. His mind wavered while he battled for control of the energy still issuing forth from his fingertips, but the intrusion would not be denied, gently impacting upon his consciousness in a quiet, yet strangely insistent manner. He detected another presence—what was it? Yes, there it was again … and then, with an overwhelming sense of wonder and fear, he finally understood. At first, chaotic and indistinct, the stone slowly materialised into his consciousness like a crystallising snowflake, pulsing like a distant beacon in a void of icy blackness.

  With a sudden rush of excitement, Strange sensed the stone take over, acting as a conduit that enhanced the qi as it flowed through Pearly’s body. But it was more, much more than this. There was rationality in the way the stone behaved, gradually superseding Strange’s failing control until he was merely a helpless bystander, watching the healing force diverge into sundry levels that was anything but indiscriminate. Strange gaped in awe, as first, enzymes and proteins burst forth into action, a herald to the palpable presence of living cells. Next, a pulse of electricity coursed along a nerve, and then the twitch of a muscle, and finally, a single beat of Pearly’s heart.

  Suddenly, the connection with Strange was gone, and a force that was no longer under his dominion expelled him from the body he had set out to revive. He flew through the air as if struck by lightning, landing in an ungainly heap next to his colleagues. As he staggered to his feet, he looked back in astonishment at Pearly’s body.

  ‘What’s happening?’ called out Frankl in a voice laden with fear.

  Strange stood motionless, dumbly shaking his head while pointing inanely back towards the body.

  The men stared in amazement, watching the shroud gently rise and fall, imperceptibly at first, but slowly gathering momentum.

  ‘He’s … he’s breathing,’ said Nexus uncertainly, reaching for Pearly’s wrist. ‘A pulse … I can feel a pulse!’

  After a brief flicker, Pearly’s eyelids parted for the first time in ten years as if simply reawakening from a deep slumber.

  As Strange raced across the chamber, any lingering doubt at what he had just witnessed was immediately dispelled as soon as he looked into the vivid ultramarine of Pearly’s eyes and saw a fierce intelligence brimming with vitality shining brightly back at him.

  26

  THE STONE OF MADNESS

  Mickey Finn

  LILY’S HAND RESTED LIGHTLY on the tiller, occasionally adjusting the rudder in response to the pull of the craft and the gentle flow of the current. It was the fourth day following her reunion with the boys, and they had wasted no time in putting some distance between themselves and any would-be pursuer. They were relieved that they had encountered only a handful of people since their departure, and they had little reason to suspect that they were being trailed. Despite this, Lily still wondered why anyone would want to follow her. She assumed that it was linked with her father, and bearing in mind her pursuer’s behaviour when confronting the boys, it seemed sensible to keep a low profile until they decided what to do next.

  The narrowboat glided effortlessly along the broad expanse of water in marked contrast to the slow progress of the first few days negotiating the derelict canal. Aedh stood watching over Lily’s shoulder as she steered the vessel. Much to her disgust, he leant over from time to time to make a minor adjustment to the line of the craft in the water by giving her hand a gentle push. It was the first time the boys had given her the honour of piloting the boat, and despite only a few hours’ experience, she was begin
ning to think that she could do the job just as well as them.

  The inviting aroma of frying mushrooms wafted up from the galley accompanied by the sound of Seoc whistling a mournful Gaelic tune. He had been up at first light to pick an assortment of odd-looking fungi, and despite the smell that was making Lily’s mouth water, she still harboured a grave concern that they were all about to be poisoned.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ said Aedh in a reassuring tone, ‘Seoc knows what he’s doing. He’s not quite as stupid as he looks,’ he added, raising his voice over the background thrum of the engine.

  ‘Oi! I heard that,’ bellowed Seoc from below decks.

  Lily laughed unreservedly, further enhancing the sense of relief she had felt since meeting up with the boys. She was doing her best not to think too much about what had happened. She was also thankful that the boys had not pressed her on her sudden appearance. For the most part, she was managing quite well, apart from wondering about the man and why he had abandoned the house in favour of following her. After all, she had always assumed that she was unimportant in her father’s affairs. It just did not add up. Cornelius had alluded to a re-emergence of the Order of Eternal Enlightenment, even suggesting that she, too, was under threat. But why? She tried to consider all eventualities, including the unpalatable suspicion that her pursuer might be associated with the mole Cornelius had referred to. She also wondered whether it had something to do with Internal Security. Nicolas Fox’s name had cropped up recently in conversations with her father, making her wonder if he might be involved in the whole sorry affair. The more she thought about it, the more it made her head spin, and no matter how hard she tried, she was not getting any closer to understanding what was going on.