Part 7 [VITRIOL]

A slight intake of breath made her look up from her book. The alchemist was uncharacteristically breaking tradition as he searched her eyes. Hilde noticed that his pallor had worsened throughout the weeks, his semblance growing more ashen the more his present obsession had consumed him. A simple explanation lay in a possible blood poisoning; an illness common for those in the ars. Yet no physical ailment could explain the feverish look in his eyes. That, she was sure, was the symptom of a disease of the mind, one that she had no cure for.

"Child," he called her, as he always did. "I have business to attend to, tonight. I'd prefer if you'd accompany me."

Hilde regarded him curiously, with a slight tilt of her head. Was he so weakened by his consumption that he needed her to help him? Or was this just another one of his lessons? As the weeks had dragged on, her visits to the laboratory had grown both sparser and stranger, comfortable pauses extending into tortuous silences, appraisal turning into feverish examination. If this was to be another one of those, she thought, she would not be looking forward to it.

"Be ready to set out at midnight. You won't need your coat – we shan't go far."

The rest of the evening was spent in a strange state of excitement; anticipation made something inside of her uncoil slowly, leaving a blazing trail behind. By the time she was ready to go, she felt as if the waters she'd bathed in the night before had made their way into her body, and were now coursing through her. Both clothed in moonlight, they walked through the dark road that led to the town's chapel, the very same one she'd been in hours before. When Lorenz's step faltered, she helped him carry the suitcase he'd brought along. Had it been any other time, she knew he'd have chided her, but he seemed to be lost to his own revelries. They walked in silence, and Hilde waited with bathed breath to find out the purpose of their mission.

Father Grandier was waiting for them outside the chapel, a single door in the massive wooden porch open to invite them in. Lorenz nodded to the priest, and handed him the suitcase. Hilde was waved in with a small, tight smile from the strange clergyman, and followed her teacher. She immediately noticed that all statues had been covered with a black fabric, except two: that of the suffering Christ on the altar, and her own favourite, St. Michael and the Dragon. If possible, in the dim light of the candles, the angel seemed a lot more decrepit than during daylight, and the monster a lot more impressive.

The clattering of metal caught her attention. Father Grandier had locked the door behind her, and had moved to prepare the incense at the altar. Soon the smoke began to rise, but as the smell reached her she realized it wasn't the pleasant smell of myrrh and frankincense, but rather a strange combination of dragon's blood, storax and sulphur. She moved closer to the altar, in front of which Lorenz had kneeled. As she drew near him, she noticed he was whispering to himself. The fire and the rushing water in her seemed to coil around each other, reaching a momentum. For the first time, she felt scared.

This wasn't a lesson.

On the floor, a circle had been drawn in coal, and within its confines, seals and words of power; divine names, written in letters she could not read. The suitcase had been left in its centre. Father Grandier was unveiling the host and the wine, and something inside of Hilde recoiled. A brief nod was shared between the two men, and the alchemist set to work: he approached the suitcase, opened it, and unveiled one of his pewter aludels. The redundancy of the artefact in its current environment explained everything about the wrongness of the scene to her, and she rebelled against that incongruity. She made a movement towards him, but found herself restrained by the powerful grip of Father Grandier, who had once again snuck up on her.

"No..." she whispered, more an implicit plea than a protest, but his eyes were not on hers, and he made it seem like he hadn't heard her. Hilde was to watch the alchemist set the aludel in a vertical fashion at the centre of the circle, inside a chamber pot.

What followed was a recitation of a psalm in Latin, one that Hilde knew well.

"O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph," Lorenz intoned. The stones sang back, and the result was monstrous: his straining voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard, each discordant note clashing against its own echoes. "For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet."

Hilde hated that psalm. She turned away from her teacher, and her eyes caught sight of the disgraced Michael, the might of the lord, and she felt a certain sense of victory come upon her. Even as the alchemist continued, and Father Grandier's hold on her tightened, a strange calm overcame her. The moon was still high in the sky, her light filtering through the tinted windows and bathing their faces with a tacit complacency; the solar flare was alive in the halo that crowned the dying Christ. Under them, salt, sulphur and mercury – alchemist, priest and witch.

The incantations continued into the night, each more forceful than the other. Slowly, wicked things slowly crawled into the light, and the shadows grew longer. They reached a pause when Lorenz approached the altar, and took both hosts and wine. Father Grandier moved her then into the circle, so that the three of them were standing within it.

The alchemist intoned with a small, crooked smile, "accipite et manducate ex hoc omnes: hoc est enim Corpus meum, quod pro vobis tradetur." And then he threw the hosts to the floor, eliciting a gasp from his student. He stepped on them, before picking them up once more. Hilde's surprise didn't end there – for now she and Father Grandier were to eat one of the desecrated Eucharists each. The remaining piece was dropped in the aludel.

The next part carried with it an acute sense of dread. She braced herself for the consecration of the wine and the alchemist continued, "accipite et bibite ex eo omnes: hic est enim calix Sanguinis mei novi et aeterni testamenti, qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum. Hoc facite in meam commemorationem." Once the recitation was done, he spat into the chalice. All partook of the profaned sacrament, and the rest was poured into the alchemical vessel festering in the centre of the circle. Once this was done, the smell of sulphur became stronger.

"Michael, Suriel, Raphael, Gabriel, Thauthabaoth, Erathaoth, Onoel, I call on you archons by your true names, Ialdabaoth, Iao, Sabaoth, Adonaeus, Astaphaeus, Axloaeus, Horaeus, under the authority of Leviathan. Come to us tonight, and give heed to my plight – for yours is the grace and the power, yours is the essence of salt, the essence of sulphur, the essence of mercury. My breath is your breath and my creation is your creation – come forth, then, and breathe life into my golem."

Lorenz turned to Hilde then. From his belt he extracted a knife with a trembling hand. She wanted to cry out, she wanted to scream, but the water and the fire inside of her had merged into a raging tornado, leaving her in an uncontrollable fit of spasms and shivers. Lorenz descended on her as Father Grandier took a step back, releasing her, and plunged the knife below her belly. Both of them collapsed to the floor.

Confusion reigned supreme.

Instead of feeling the blood seeping from her abdomen stain her petticoat, warm liquid growing cold in the chill of midnight, she felt like she was back submerged under the stream. Silvery light blinded her; blinded everyone. Under her, the alchemist's hands had gone cold, and his breath was uneven and weak. He gasped once, and swung his arms around him, as if searching for something in desperation; he might have shouted something, but it went unnoticed by his companions. The sudden movements made his hands collide against the aludel, and it dropped to the floor with a clang.

Hilde felt a hand pull her up, and it was almost like her head was made to break the surface of water, emerging from the bottom of a lake. She took a big breath, and clung to the arms holding her. Her eyes locked on Lorenz's form, and more than ever he looked wretched and diminished, lying on the floor next to a broken vessel. The knife that had gone in her was lying next to him, the blood stains the only confirmation she had that the stabbing had actually happened.

"What do you think happens to the Dragon after she's been stabbed, Miss Hilde?" Father Grandier asked as she stood up, her gaze setting on his face momentarily. That strange, sparkling gaze that spoke of stars and constellations, was back. She laid a hand on her belly; there was a rip in the fabric, but underneath her skin was as smooth as ever. She stumbled towards Lorenz, her only desire to find reasons for that mad, mad plan of his – only to find that he was no longer breathing.

"I-I don't understand..." she whispered, staring at the corpse.

"Many alchemists fall to such pride: to believe they're above Nature, without understanding it fully," Father Grandier said. "Thus, arrogance is born, and from it a belief in the inferiority of the sensible. They believe that they can create as much as the Kings of the World created when they made this place. They believe that they can give life to the dead, turn excrement into gold. Lorenz was no exception."

Hilde wept. Father Grandier made his way around the nave, removing the black sheets that covered each of the statues. When he was done, he made his way to her, and softly pushed her to the side as he covered the dead man's corpse with the sheets.

"Will you go, Miss Hilde?" the priest asked in a whisper. "Will you forsake this town?"

The woman dried her tears, but kept her eyes firmly on the black sheets. "There's a place for everyone in this town, father. Mine is to handle the secrets of the craft. I can't leave these good people without their alchemist."

She kept her vigil in the church until dawn broke.