The Alchemist
by Bryon L. Havranek
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4 |
part 3
III. The Discovery of the Ages
The doctor was thoughtful for a moment. “A very noble dream, if it were only possible,” he replied at length. “But you forget that evil men would also find their lives extended, and they are in much greater proliferation than the noble ones. What would the world be like if Genghis Khan or Napoleon had been given an indefinite timeframe in which to operate? The potential for tyranny would be immense!”
Voltaire grimaced. “And there you have hit upon the primary flaw. Perhaps given enough time and circumstance the human race will arise above the bestial nature of its baser passions, but not even Plato could imagine what it would take to bring about such a utopia.” He held up his empty glass and the servant filled it at once.
Voltaire held the glass up before him, studying the firelight as it filtered through the amber liquid. “Such subtle beauty. Innocent in appearance, one can never know of the effects until one samples it, and then it is too late to pull back.” He looked over at the doctor and nodded. “Wisdom gained is innocence lost. Life is like that. We can speculate all that we want to about its aspects and consequences, but until we actually experience them we cannot know for sure what will transpire. Would evil gain free reign over the world if given the longevity to perpetrate it? Would not the forces of good, equally empowered, arise to the challenge and act to counterbalance the barbarities of darkness?”
“You are an optimist at heart, my good man.” The doctor lit another cigarette and smiled. “But let us move on from this idle speculation and return to the Elixir. No doubt you applied Newton’s process and were successful, or we would not be here having this conversation this afternoon. What was it like, making the discovery of the ages?”
“Agonizing,” Voltaire whispered, looking down at his lap. After a moment he turned in his chair and looked at the doctor with eyes blazing with suffering. “You cannot imagine what life has become for me since that fateful day! Yes, I gained longevity, but at what price? Everything that I knew, all whom I loved and cherished, vanished long ago into the dark shadows of the past until I alone remained. Such loneliness proved unbearable for me.”
“But, my good man, you could always make new friends, meet new acquaintances to replace what you had lost. Why did you not do so and fill the empty void in your heart?”
Voltaire’s eyes grew distant. “It comes down to loss. I could only suffer through so much before I had no choice but to withdraw from intimate relationships of any sort. In the fullness of time, I did not want my heart to be broken over and over again until I languished in an eternity of unbearable sorrow.
“For, you see, I knew that I would have to watch as every friend I ever made grew old and died while I, possessing the secret of life, could do nothing to save them. I grew to empathize with Cassandra, who knew of the fate of Troy and was helpless to save it from destruction. But it was one loss in particular that shattered me like the finest crystal.”
“Ah, that would be Ms. Mignot, wouldn’t it?” whispered Dr. Mather, the tragedy that was unfolding before him making his eyes dampen. “I cannot fathom what you must have gone through, and no doubt the pain lingers with you still.”
“It lingers indeed,” agreed Voltaire bitterly, “like a gaping wound upon my soul. No amount of time has lessened my suffering. Instead, with every breath that I have taken, with every era that I have strode through, the agony has steadily increased until I can no longer bear it.” He tossed back the contents of his glass and looked down at the dregs.
At that moment, a series of faint shrieks arose from some distant wing of the asylum, and Voltaire tilted his head to listen. “You wonder why I voluntarily admitted myself to this institution? It is because the atmosphere of suffering that I find here reflects the anguish that I feel and, by listening to the songs of the damned, I am reminded that I am not alone in my torment. Such twisted solace is all that I have anymore.
“For the day came when I was no longer able to distract myself with the material wonders of the world, when my festering misery had gained enough strength to shatter the veil of trivial diversions and left me hovering on the brink of madness. All I could do then was to seek sanctuary in a place where I might find some form of peace.”
Dr. Mather tugged absently at his beard. What he had heard thus far had moved him greatly, and even though he suspected that the man next to him was suffering from a major delusion, the entire heart of the matter might lie in some traumatic experience that he had once had. The key to Voltaire’s recovery might be brought about if he could only somehow lance that internal anguish; once the mental infection had been drained, his fever could abate, and the man would be well again. Knowing that the heart of the matter probably lay in the alleged alchemical experiment that Voltaire seemed so reluctant to describe, Mather decided that he needed to learn what had gone on.
“Very well,” he prompted, adopting the fatherly tone that he had found to be so effective with recalcitrant patients, “we have determined your current state. But let us return to the cause of all of your troubles.” He bent forward in his chair. “Tell me about the Elixir of Life.”
“Of course, doctor. I apologize for the divergences of my thoughts. Now that I have finally breached the wall of silence, it all wants to come rushing out at once. But to return to Newton’s process” — Voltaire ran a hand through his long brown hair, curling a lock around his finger — “it was in the year 1778 that the cosmic alignment so central to the formula would next occur, and exactly one hundred years ago to this day I retired to my laboratory at Ferney to undertake the experiment.
“If you could only visualize what that room looked like on that day, the alembics bubbling with all sorts of strange mixtures while the crucible emitted such a vaporous fog that I could barely see my hand in front of my face. And the stench of it all, God above, I could never quite get it out of my nose. After hours of concerted effort, I was finally able to compound the liquid in the prescribed manner, and all that was left was for me to drink it.
“I stood there at the work bench, looking down at the bubbling substance in the ceramic beaker, trying to work up the courage to sample it. Several of the materials that had gone into its composition were notable toxins, and I knew that I risked a dreadful death by poisoning.
“Yet I was an old man, with little time left to me as it was. If I were to die, then it would be in the pursuit of a worthy goal. For if it worked, I would then brew another batch at once for my beloved Marie so that we could be together for all time. Steeling my resolve, I lifted the flask and drained it.”
Dr. Mather was intrigued. “What then? What happened next?”
Voltaire pursed his lips in thought. “It was... like being born all over again, complete with the disorientation and the physical agony. My stomach began to cramp up almost immediately, and I fell to my knees with a great cry.
“The door to the laboratory flew open and in raced Marie, her dress pulled up so that she could run. She took one look at me there, writhing in agony upon the floor and rushed to my side. She placed my head upon her lap and began to weep, thinking that my end had finally arrived. It was then that a wave of convulsions took hold of me, ravaging my very essence to the core. The last thing that I remember before I fainted was my beloved Marie kissing my brow amidst her tears.
“What a memory! While unconscious I had been carried to my bed by my servants, where Marie then sat in vigil for nearly two days. At last the fire that raged within my veins subsided, and I awoke to an entirely new world. Marie gasped as I came awake, a mixture of shock and joy twisting her beautiful features into a strange mask of emotion.
“I asked why she was so alarmed of a sudden, since I was now past the worst of the episode, but instead of answering me she held up a small hand mirror so that I could look upon myself. And what I saw nearly made me swoon again. For in those 48 hours I had grown young again, the face that looked out from the mirror was one that I had not seen in nearly half a century! How extraordinary, I thought at the time, excited beyond words that my gamble had yielded such a profit.”
“It surely must have been quite thrilling for you,” Mather admitted. “I can only imagine how I would have felt should such an event have befallen me! A thousand Christmas mornings all happening at once could not compare to the elation I would feel at such a moment!”
“Truly,” replied Voltaire with a slight smile. “And indeed the excitement that I felt then is beyond description. But soon a fly landed in the soup, for I had finally realized that the stellar alignment had passed. I could create another batch of the potion but, without the cosmic rays to activate it, the liquid would remain ineffective.
“Because of my weakness at the moment of discovery, I had missed the opportunity to make enough for Marie to consume, thus dooming her to her mortality. So much was gained, yet so much more was irretrievably lost. Such a revelation was enough to rock my very existence, and from that time onward I have not known a moment’s joy.”
IV. A TRAGEDY MOST DIRE
A clock somewhere in the large chamber rang out the hour, though neither man paid any attention to its somber declaration. The fire had begun to dwindle, the flames consuming the large log with a voracious appetite. The husk of wood collapsed suddenly in a shower of sparks, the cinders flying outwards like a scattering of stars, and witnessing this caused Voltaire to grimace.
“So like unto a human life span,” he whispered, almost to himself. “It glows bright and strong even as it consumes itself in an internal inferno of ephemerality. No matter its vitality, in the end the radiance perishes and all that remains is ash.” He took a sip from his glass and closed his eyes, suddenly weary of the concept.
“So, what happened next?” asked the doctor, enraptured by the extraordinary tale so far. “You awoke to find that the formula had worked. What then?”
“I have already stated that my initial elation was tempered by the knowledge that I could not provide my Marie with a similar treatment. We discussed the matter, she and I, and I decided that the only thing left for me to do was to travel abroad in search of a different formula that would yield similar results.
“Marie objected, not wanting to lose me overseas to some misadventure, but at the same time she refused to join me in my quest.” Voltaire’s eyes moistened visibly. “She was never one for travel of any sort, being content with the places that she already knew and loved. She begged me to stay, assuring me that she was not afraid of death, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her and refused to remain. I stated that in any case I would have to disappear, for what would the World think when it saw that I had grown young once more? I would have been driven out or destroyed, the Church no doubt declaring me to be an abomination and thus in league with the Evil One.”
“Faking your own death must have required some planning,” Mather commented.
“Indeed, but it was not as difficult as one might imagine. I traveled in isolation to Paris, shamming a deathly illness, and soon thereafter I played the role of a corpse for a small audience of close friends. The doctor had been bribed handsomely to go through all of the usual procedures following a death and, once I was assured that my estate had been passed down in its entirety to Marie, I quietly headed north with only modest luggage to accompany me on my journey. But before I departed I created one more batch of the elixir, hoping beyond hope that it would somehow sustain Marie in my absence should she have need of it.”
“Even though you knew that it probably would not work without the planetary influence to activate it?”
Voltaire nodded in agreement. “It was a distant hope, to be sure, but it was all that I had. But I shall never know if it would have worked, for it was never used.” He then rubbed at his eyes for a moment while he bit his lip. “But that is pointless conjecture. Let us return to the quest.”
“Indeed, let us.” The doctor finished his drink but waved away an offered refill, deciding that he had consumed enough for the present. “So were you successful in finding other formulae?”
“Yes, to answer your question, I did indeed learn of a few other mixtures. But all suffered from the same exact restriction as Newton’s method. The first person that I sought out was a certain Comte de Saint-Germain, a mysterious fellow with whom I was acquainted. He had claimed to be hundreds of years old, but society generally dismissed these claims into the realm of genteel eccentricity. However, once I had confided my discovery to him, the Comte took me into his confidence readily enough.”
“What?!” exclaimed the good doctor. “The Comte Saint Germain?! Even I have heard of him. Chap claimed he was something like five hundred years old?”
Copyright © 2019 by Bryon L. Havranek
