Modern Magick

Alchemy and Argent: 10

Hylldirion looked at me oddly, but Jay snickered. I'd got around the problem of how to store my own valuables by way of misdirection. Instead of having a safe, or a big, fancy chest with a big, inviting lock on it — anything obvious that begged to be investigated by a chancer of a thief — I had a cracked old chamber pot. No one would ever think to look in there for something worth stealing.

'Never mind,' I told the Lorekeeper.

Course, if you know the magickal password — so to speak — my shabby old chamber pot miraculously turns back into its true shape: a crystal chest full of goodies.

So if I could protect my valuables by disguising them as a repellent article of no interest to anyone, the alchemists of the past could certainly have protected their own valuable findings by disguising them as inanities — or the ramblings of a madwoman.

My thoughts flew to Cicily Werewode's journal, and Mary Werewode's moonbathing.

'Do you have reason to think that's what was going on?' I looked hard at our new friend the Lorekeeper, who seemed to be enjoying our ignorance far more than I liked.

'What, exactly?' said Hylldirion mildly.

I took a breath. 'That the alchemists of the past, the ones with enough magickal ability to interest us, were using some kind of code to record their findings.'

'It is plausible, is it not?' said the Lorekeeper.

'More so than that nothing has survived at all.'

'Indeed.'

'So, then,' said Jay, leaning forward. 'Was there a universal code, understood among most alchemists, or did each one develop their own?'

'Both,' said Hylldirion. 'Some terms were commonly used. Among regular or non-magickal alchemists, such terms as fool's gold, horn silver, dragon's blood and pearl ash — you will likely have heard some of them, even today. The focus of magickal alchemy, of course, was jewels more than metals; some sought to create such articles as sun's glow, which seems to have referred either to sunstone or to diamonds, or blush of love, which meant rubies.'

So far, so familiar. I'd learned from my own research that many magicians or witches who practiced alchemy sought to create jewels, though not just any jewels: the magick-wreathed kind from which prized Wands are made. Why do you think I got in so much trouble for losing the Sunstone Wand? (and I did). Those things are not plentiful.

As far as I knew, they'd failed as surely as the likes of Flamel failed at making gold out of lead.

'Some of them, of course, likely had their own terms between smaller groups of researchers,' said Hylldirion. 'On which point, I cannot assist you further. Alchemy was never my area of expertise.' Or interest, his tone implied.

Well, few people had ever taken much interest in so batty an art. That was the whole problem.

'Lorekeeper,' I said. 'Is it your opinion that anybody has ever succeeded in producing or creating magickal silver? By transmutation, or something else?'

'I would be very surprised,' he said, without hesitation.

I wanted to ask why, but Jay intervened with a question of his own. 'What is magickal silver?' he said. 'Is it literally silver, or not?'

That was a good question, one I had briefly explored but been unable to answer. Our library, at least, had little to offer on the subject. The stuff had, perhaps, never been prevalent enough, at least in our Britain, to merit much study. Or perhaps its potential had never really been understood.