They gazed at me expectantly now, but what could I say? Despite my little charade, I knew nothing of the Seekers, yet I dared not ask them about their organization now for fear I would be revealed. I knew I should tell them to be on their way, that I had no interest in their invitation.
Only, little as I knew at that moment, I didhave interest.
You must beware, Marius. Once I am gone, they will come. You must not trust them. . . .
But surely the master had meant the gold‑eyed ones, not these two people. They were curious, to be sure, but not strange and forbidding as the three strangers had been. They were, as Byron had said, merely mortals. What harm could they bring to me?
Yet surely, from all they’ve said, the ones with the golden eyes are their masters–these Philosophers they spoke of, the ones the master so often went to London to see, and who came once to visit him here.
Which meant Master Albrecht himself had been one of them. Only what did it mean? He had said not to trust them, yet he was one of their kind. I needed more time–time to decide what to do.
“It grows late,” I said. “You must be weary from your journey. I will have Pietro ready rooms for you. We can discuss this on the morrow.”
Byron quaffed the rest of his sherry, his expression affable, but Rebecca gave me a cool look. “As you wish, Lord Albrecht.”
I shivered, wishing I had not told them to call me that, and without another word rose and left the drawing room.
“You must send them away in the morning,” Pietro said as he turned down the bedcovers in my chamber. His hands shook. “Please Mast . . . please, Marius. For him, you must do it.”
“Good night, Pietro,” I said, and I did not look at him as he shuffled from the chamber.
I did not undress and lie down in the bed. Instead I sat in a chair, watching as a beam of moonlight crept across the darkened room. Then, when I was sure midnight had come and gone, I slipped through the door and passed, silent as a wraith, down the stairs and through the manor’s main hall, toward a door at the far end.
The library. Not since he died had I entered that room, but now I opened the door without sound, stepped inside, and shut the portal behind me. With my dark‑adjusted eyes I could see all was exactly as he had left it. A thick shroud of dust covered the desk and mantelpiece. Even Pietro had not been in there.
I dared to light a single candle, then sat at the desk. It felt strange to sit in his chair, yet not altogether wrong. I hesitated, then one by one opened the drawers of the desk. I knew not what I sought, only that it was there, and that I would recognize it once I found it. There were sheaves of parchment, feathered quills, a small knife for trimming pen tips, bottles of ink, and sealing wax. Mundane things. Then, in the last drawer I found it, just as I had been sure I would–a silver key.
Standing, I gazed around the library. There–in all my visits to that room I had never seen it before. I suppose my attention had always been on him, but for the first time my eyes seemed to seek it out: a small cabinet lurking in a corner behind a globe of the Earth. I moved to it.
The cabinet was plain, save for a single keyhole. The key fit, and I opened the doors. Inside were two shelves. One held a row of books. The other contained stacks of papers, as well as a small wooden box.
The writing on the spines of the books made little sense to me, though it was clear from flipping through them that all pertained to various magical arts–with the exception of the art of alchemy. Interesting, perhaps, but they could tell me nothing that might help me just then. The loose papers were no more illuminating. From what I could tell they referred to various business dealings–deeds and notes and the like, that was all.
My eyes fell again upon the box. It was small and quite plain, without latch or lock. All the same, for some reason I trembled as I lifted it, and I opened the lid with fumbling fingers.
There were two things in the box, resting on a silk cushion. The first thing was a book. It was very small, like a personal prayer or chapbook, its brittle pages sewn together with gold thread. The second thing was a small glass vial. The vial’s stopper was made of gold as well, and had been wrought with great skill into the shape of a spider, its abdomen inlaid with a single ruby. I lifted the vial. It was filled with a dark, viscous fluid that I knew at once to be blood.
I sat at the desk with the box and removed the little book. Clearly it was more ancient than anything else in the library. Its cover was made of a thin piece of yellowed wood, incised with strange symbols arranged in a circle; its pages crackled as I turned them, flecks of dust swirling up to glow like sparks in the light of the candle.
As the hours of the night stole by, I pored over the little book. Its pages were filled with archaic words composed in a spidery hand, and my head ached as I tried to decipher what they meant. Unlike the others, this book was about alchemy, that much was clear. It seemed to be some sort of diary, written by a man early in the fifth decade of his life, telling the tale of his quest for the Philosopher’s Stone: an object that could transmute metals into their perfect state–gold.
Only it was more than that. It was as my master had said; the Great Work was a story, a metaphor. From what I could make out, it was not simply base metals this alchemist sought to transmute. It was himself. The Philosopher’s Stone could bring anything to perfection– even human flesh.
“Immortality,” I murmured. “He was seeking immortality.” But who was it who had written this journal so long ago? I turned to the last page, and there at the bottom was inscribed his signature. Breath escaped me as I stared at the words.
Martin Adalbrecht, Anno Domini MDCVII
No, it couldn’t be. This diary had been penned in 1607. Which would mean he was over one hundred years old when I met him five years earlier, though he had looked no older than forty. Only that couldn’t be so.
My brain worked feverishly as I flipped back through the crumbling pages as quickly as I dared. There had to be answers within the book. The two Seekers had spoken of the Philosophers, and the master had been one of their order, of that there could be no doubt. The name the Philosophers gave themselves could not be a coincidence; surely there was some connection between them and the Philosopher’s Stone. But what was it? And what did it have to do with the island of Crete and the ancient palace of Knossos?
A soft sound reached my ears. At once I blew out the candle. Silence, then came another noise: a soft thump, followed by a hiss of breath. Though it was dark, my eyes had adjusted, and I could see easily. I shut the book, placed it with the vial in the box, and closed the lid. Tucking the box in the breast pocket of my coat, I moved to the cabinet, locked it, then returned the key to the desk. I paused by the door of the library, listening, then opened it a crack and peered through.
Two dark figures moved in the dimness of the hall, one petite, the other tall and gangly. So perhaps I was not the only thing they had come searching for after all. The two groped their way across the hall, moving toward the library door. I wondered if I should sneak past–I would be no more than a silent shadow to their senses–or if I should confront them.
Before I could decide, a light appeared in the arched doorway at the far end of the hall, accompanied by the sound of shuffling steps. The two figures tensed, then darted through a side door and were gone. A moment later Pietro entered the hall, carrying an oil lamp. He gazed about, his dark eyes glittering with suspicion, then turned and headed back the way he had come. I took the chance to slip from the library and return to my chamber. It mattered not to me if the two returned to their late‑night searching, for I was confident that I now carried in my pocket the very thing they had been sent to find.