The Year of Rice and Salt

'Sure,' Bahram said, but he had his own worry: 'How much is this going to cost?'

'Oh no, it's already paid for. Khalid sent me off with the funds, otherwise I would not have been able to afford to buy these. They're from an estate sale in Damascus, a very old alchemical family that came to an end with a hermit who had no issue. See here, Zosimos' 'Treatise on Instruments and Furnaces", printed just two years ago, that's for you. I've got the rest arranged chronologically by date of composition, as you can see, here is Jabir's "Sum of perfection", and his "Ten Books of Rectification", and look, 'The Secret of Creation".'

This was a huge sheepskin bound volume. 'Written by the Greek Apollonius. One of its chapters is the fabled "Emerald Table",' tapping its cover delicately. 'That chapter alone is worth twice what I paid for this whole collection, but they didn't know. The original of 'The Emerald Table" was found by Sara the wife of Abraham, in a cave near Hebron, some time after the Great Flood. It was inscribed on a plate of emerald, which Sara found clasped in the hands of the mummified corpse of Thrice greatest Hermes, the father of all alchemy. The writing was in Phoenician characters. Although I must admit I have read other accounts that have it discovered by Alexander the Great. In any case here it is, in an Arabic translation from the time of the Baghdad caliphate.'

'Fine,' Bahram said. He wasn't sure Khalid would still be interested in this stuff.

'You will also find "The Complete Biographies of the immortals", a rather slender volume, considering, and "The Chest of Wisdom", and a book by a Frengi, Bartholomew the Englishman, "On the Properties of Things", also "The Epistle of the Sun to the Crescent Moon", and "The Book of Poisons", perhaps useful, and "The Great Treasure", and "The Document Concerning the Three Similars", in Chinese '

'Iwang will be able to read that,' Bahram said. 'Thank you.' He tried to pick up the box. It was as if filled with rocks, and he staggered.

'Are you sure you'll be able to get it back to the city, and safely?'

'I'll be fine. I'm going to take them to Khalid's, where Iwang has a room for his work. Thanks again. I'm sure Iwang will want to call on you to talk about these, and perhaps Khalid too. How long will you be in Samarqand?'

'Another month, no more.'

'They'll be out to talk to you about these.'

Bahram hiked along with the box balanced on his head. He took breaks from time to time to case his head, and fortify himself with more wine. By the time he got back to the compound it was late and his head was swimming, but the lamps were lit in Khalid's study, and Bahram found the old man in there reading and dropped the box triumphantly before him.

'More to read,' he said, and collapsed on a chair.

The End of Alchemy

Shaking his head at Bahram's drunkenness, Khalid began going through the box, whistling and chirping. 'Same old crap,' he said at one point. Then he pulled one out and opened it. 'Ah,' he said, 'a Frengi text, translated from Latin to Arabic by an Ibn Rabi of Nsara. Original by one Bartholomew the Englishman, written some time in the sixth century. Let's see what he has to say, hmm, hmm…' He read with the forefinger of his left hand leading his eyes on a rapid chase over the pages. 'What' That's Ibn Sina direct!… And this too!' He looked up at Bahram. 'The alchemical sections are taken right out of Ibn Sina!'

He read on, laughed his brief unamused laugh. 'Listen to this! "Quicksilver", that's mercury, "is of so great virtue and strength, that though thou do a stone of an hundred pound weigh upon quicksilver of the weight of two pounds, the quicksilver anon withstandeth the weight. – 'What?'

'Have you ever heard such nonsense? If he was going to speak of measures of weight at all, you'd think he would have the sense to understand them.'

He read on. 'Ah,' he said after a while, 'Here he quotes Ibn Sina directly. "Glass, as Avicenna saith, is among stones as a fool among men, for it taketh all manner of colour and painting." Spoken by a very mirrorglass of a man… ha… look, here is a story that could be about our Sayyed Abdul Aziz. "Long time past, there was one that made glass pliant, which might be amended and wrought with an hammer, and brought a vial made of such glass before Tiberius the Emperor, and threw it down on the ground, and it was not broken, but bent and folded. And he made it right and amended it with a hammer." We must demand this glass from Iwang! "Then the Emperor commanded to smite off his head anon, lest that this craft were known. For then gold should be no better than clay, and all other metal should be of little worth, for certain if glass vessels were not brittle, they should be accounted of more value than vessels of gold." That's a curious proposition. I suppose glass was rare in his time.' He stood up, stretched, sighed. 'Tiberiases, on the other hand, will always be common.'