Unstable Alchemy Pt. 1
Nigredo #
Oren Caraday huddled over a bubbling instrument. A viscous black liquid bubbled and emitted fumes that had rankled Oren’s nose long ago. He fine tuned the burner beneath the bulbous shaped glass holding the liquid and watched a few moments longer. Satisfied, he moved across the lab, kicking crumpled pieces of paper out of his way. He had knocked the waste bin over several days ago; he paid it no mind.
On another bench heaped with glassware and metal fixtures, a clear bluish liquid slowly boiled. This particular mixture had been in the making for several weeks. It was the combination of information and inferences gleaned from three separate untitled texts of varying quality with a dash of Oren’s own ingenuity. Next to the carefully calculated mixture was a lump of obsidian. More accurately, it was a Tetrahedron, each side measuring precisely ten centimeters. It was carefully protected within a cube-shaped glass case.
Standing upright and flanking the Tetrahedron was a series of small racks filled with cork stoppered test tubes. Most of the tubes held colored fluids, while others held small chunks of metals and minerals. Each tube had a small label which identified the elements within, however, they were marked with code instead of practical language. Oren picked up a tube of a silvery colored liquid that shimmered in the low candlelight. He chose a glass dropper and walked quickly to the bubbling black liquid, grabbing a pair of rubber tipped forceps from one of the drawers beneath a bench.
Caraday swept a space free of debris next to the flame heating the black liquid and placed a cork pad down to keep the intense heat from scorching the workbench surface. He quickly extinguished the flame, used the forceps to move the scalding glass to the pad, uncorked the tube and dropped four drops of the silvery liquid into viscous black one. Marking the time on his pocket watch, Oren used the same forceps to remove the boiling flask of light blue liquid from its heat and set it next to the black mixture.
After rifling through three more bench drawers, Oren removed a slender glass cylinder with hash marks painted on the outside. He set it down and poured an exact amount of blue liquid into it. Checking his watch again, Caraday donned a pair of thick leather gloves and counted the remaining seconds out loud. At the end of his count, he poured the calculated amount of blue liquid into the black mixture.
What had previously looked like molten tar bubbling quickly changed to a lighter, faster boil. The bubbles on the surface became smaller and the shimmering silver liquid began to spread through the black and blue mixture. With the mixture complete, Oren grabbed the neck of the flask with his gloved hand and swirled it ten times clockwise, then another ten counter. Heat emanated from the mixture, much more than it had previously. The color began to change into a vibrant silver. The fumes rolling up through the thin neck of the flask singed the hairs in Oren’s nose and dried out his mouth. He marked his watch once more.
Caraday crossed the room to a tall bookshelf covered mostly with dusty volumes. Many of the texts were highly regarded works of scientific genius. He wasn’t concerned with those. He moved to a text he had read hundreds of times, it’s spine free of the dusty blanket. The physical text wasn’t necessary, he knew it front to back, but it was a matter of habit. Far too many times had he attempted to replicate the particular procedure within its vellum pages to no avail. Oren liked to keep the text open so he could follow all of the particulars. Failure was most prevalent at this moment.
Returning to the mixture, Oren realized he could feel the heat much further away then when he had left, nearly a meter further. The heat was pulsing in waves and the bubbling within the flask moved so quickly that the bursting on the surface echoed a steady sound like a note drawn out on an upright bass. Oren pulled another drawer open and removed a pair of robust tongs holding a spherical mold.
The device would be placed into the mouth of the bubbling flask vertically so that the liquid could pour into the mold from the top where a minute hole was located. Caraday placed the contraption on the bench next to the hot flask and stepped towards the bench with the Tetrahedron.
The Tetrahedron was much more complex internally than it appeared. At great expense—both time and money—the Tetrahedron was precisely constructed inside and out. The outside structure was perfect: a piece of true craftsmanship. However, the internal structure was monumentally more interesting. Nested inside was the negative space of a dodecahedron, a 12-sided shape, pentagons composing each of the 12 sides. The hole, no larger than a pinprick, placed in the center of the Tetrahedron’s point was a channel running perpendicular to the base. It went through both the dodecahedron chamber and then through the bottom of the Tetrahedron.
Oren gently lifted the glass platter holding the Tetrahedron and moved it onto a small circular table he moved closely to the radiating workbench. He removed the glass encasing the Tetrahedron, setting it on the workbench, then used a gloved hand to place the Tetrahedron in the direct center of the table, small wooden pegs helped him align the piece. Caraday set about placing an intricate contraption atop the table and the Tetrahedron.
Bluntly, it was a cage. A large steel, octagonal cage. It rose was constructed with the finest steel Caraday could amass, though it had been scorched in several places. It fit within the same type of wooden pegs that held the Tetrahedron. There were a complex series of gears and bearings meant to create the closest semblance of a perpetual motion machine. However, he had given up long ago attempting to create the machine necessary, so a foot pedal and wire contraption was fastened to the top. Connected to the machinery were a series of three copper pieces shaped like semi-circles. Finally, Oren slipped his hand beneath the table’s surface and slowly cranked the hand lever, raising the small wooden platform the Tetrahedron rested on. It rose slowly until the magnet atop the Tetrahedron was precisely at the center of the semi-circles.
Oren pressed onto the foot pedal slowly, tapping at an even 4:4 speed for a few steps. The circles began to spin around the central housing. When they moved quickly enough the semi-circles would appear as if they were complete circles. A small static charge began to hum as the copper circles interacted with the magnet.
The liquid’s bubbling pitch had lifted an octave or two, similar to the buzz of a fly in your ear. Caraday pivoted, his right foot still resting on the foot pedal, but his hands free to manipulate the sphere mold tongs. He covered his hands with thick leather gloves and grabbled the tongs. He paused for a moment and stole a cursory glance at the opened page of the manuscript to remind him of what had to be done. The contraption of the table was nowhere on the page, it was his own invention, however the principles where replicated in one way or another. The experiment had now reached the moment where it crossed from basic chemistry into something altogether different. It was chemistry with a little bit of magic. Oren Caraday, like those in his social circle, called it alchemy.
He took a deep breath, noticed a slight nervous twitch in his hands and then picked up the molding tongs. They were heavy and made of silver. Oren slipped the mold into the mouth of the bubbling flask, dipping it into the surface of the liquid. For a moment the surface tension of the mixture resisted the mold, but with a slight push Caraday broke the surface. He plunged into the flask and rested the mold where he guessed was slightly lower than center. The heat pressed through the heavy leather of the gloves and the hair on the slit of exposed skin between glove and cuff was singed.
With a slow, deliberate motion, Oren pulled the mold upward as straight as possible. The silver seemed to gain a substantial amount of weight as something was hooked within the mold. He continued to pull up as the black viscous mixture was repelled from a silver orb resting atop mold. As Oren pulled the mold upward, the entire shape broke the surface of the mixture, completely free. The black ooze immediately stopped bubbling and then the orb slowly fell into the mold. A short burst of steam was exhaled from the mold as all moisture and air was removed from inside it.
Oren pivoted once more, holding the mold perfectly steady. He hovered it over the exact center of the apparatus enshrouding the Tetrahedron and aimed for a few moments. Caraday had decided the most efficient way to use all of the silvery mixture, referred to as the Catalyst in the books, was to avoid any surfaces it could adhere to before placement, such as glass or metal. With his other hand placed upon a small pull trigger nestled between the finger grips of the mold tongs, Oren slowly lowered the mold until it rested a millimeter about the Tetrahedron’s point. He slowly squeezed and the mold shifted downward like a miniature iron crucible.
The liquid moved incredibly slowly as if cooled molasses, yet it emanated the intense heat that had been coming from the entire mixture moments ago. Oren managed to pour a steady stream of the liquid into the pinprick in the Tetrahedron’s top while generating a small electric current with his pedaling. The liquid sped up until the crucible was empty, the final pieces seemed to be pulled by the liquid instead of gravity. Caraday withdrew the tongs and began to speed up the foot pedal. The semi-circles began to form three single circles, then a perfectly circular blur whizzed around the Tetrahedron lit with electric blues and whites. The popping began to rise in volume and a steady static hum built in frequency.
From what Caraday could infer from the many different texts that spoke of this particular procedure, the electricity generated would cement the Catalyst against the interior walls of the Tetrahedron. However, since this part had never been completed, it was only theory, there didn’t seem to be a way for Oren to know when the procedure was finished. The solution became apparent quickly.
Somehow a small amount of the silvery liquid emerged from the obsidian surface, etching circles, triangles, and pentagrams into the three visible sides of the Tetrahedron. Pentagrams were placed within larger circles and lines were drawn between triangles and other shapes. Losing focus on the rhythmic foot pedal work as the etchings slowed then stopped, Oren’s current began to fade away, then die. The heat had disappeared from the liquid.
Only a silvery glow as if the sun were reflecting on the etchings lit up the room.