Part 2
26th June
As far as our equipments were concerned we didn’t want to take any chances, so we bought everything from London.The famous - rather infamous 'Chorebazar of London is on the 'Porto Bello Street' — we spent some two and half hours there and collected lots of earthen potteries, glass flasks and retorts — exactly like those which we see in old Hollywood movies. One of Saunders' friend is a renowned film producer; a few years back he produced a thriller, and the story revolved around Alchemy - for which he made lots of earthen potteries and cooking accessories; luckily Saunders could hire some of those equipments, from the production manager.
Saunders took Mustafa along. And I am sure even if Krole wouldn't have mentioned mustafa, Saunders would still bring Mustafa, because he can't stay away from Mustafa for long.
Personally speaking, I was not very enthusiastic about making artificial gold and not even interested in the gold itself. My excitement was all about visiting this part of Spain, as I had never been here. Saunders was not engaged in any important project so he was also quite excited about the outing. And what do I write about Krole - he was so excited, he couldn't even sit quietly for a while. This moment he is reading the manuscript, the next moment he is walking briskly in the drawing room and the next moment he is drawing some gibberish diagrams in his notebook. I tried to peep once; the diagrams seemed somewhat like 'The Tantric Mandalas.'
It was five pm in the evening; I was packing and the calling bell rang — after a while I heard someone opening the door and then a familiar voice. It must be that American gentleman who was competing with Krole in the auctions. I was quite intrigued and immediately went down. Saunders was already there and made our guest comfortable in the drawing room. Krole also came down within a minute. It seemed that he could also identified the guest’s voice.
Our guest took out three visiting cards from his vest pocket and handed them over to three of us. The name written on the card was — Rufus H. Blackmore.
'Rufus Blackmore ?' Krole exclaimed 'are you the person who wrote the book named “Black art and white magic”?'
'Yes Sir, I am the one.'
I was observing him thoroughly - long face, very pale skin, shoulder-touching black hair, and very calm eyes — but of course we knew which can also have fire at times as we have seen in the 'Calling wood Auction House'.
The gentleman put his hand into the right pocket of his blazer and took three silver balls out, which were as big as table tennis balls. And showed us at least twenty five different tricks with them within a couple of seconds. The shining balls were disappearing and reappearing so amazingly that none of us could make out what was happening. We should agree that the tricks were really great. Finally when he took out the three balls out of our pockets, then we couldn't help clapping.
'Your magic deserves a huge round of applause!' said Willhelm Krole.
'You haven't seen even one tenth of my genius.' Said Rufus with a very dry smile. These are all mediocre magic, do you want to know what my real magic is?' Blackmore gave a little pause and then held one of the three balls with the first finger and the thumb of his right hand and announced — 'This ball is made of silver and the silver is made by me. You can't get silver — more pure than this in the whole world.'
All three of us kept quiet…Blackmore's eyes twinkled in excitement.
'Half of the Alchemy magic is in my hands now' said Blackmore, 'but even after three years of experiment I have not yet been successful in making artificial gold. I believe Savedra explained everything in his diary. I came to know about Savedra's diary from my Alchemist guru. And when I came to know that it was on auction at Calling Woods, I immediately flew from Sanfransisco. I thought I would get it for just a few dollars, but I could never think that professor Krole would be so excited to acquire it. I could overbid him that day, but I thought when we would get introduced and he would learn about my work, possibly he would give me the diary for the same price. I think professor Krole has bought the diary for his collection, like any other collector of scriptures and manuscripts. But I am an Alchemist myself - the best in America, why America? Possibly the only original Alchemist of this world. My guru has died. So now I am the only one in this world who can use that diary properly. I got the money with me and I want the diary.'
Rufus Blackmore then took out a beautiful leather wallet from his blazer pocket; took out a bundle of ten-pound notes from that and put them on the center table.
Krole talked first.
'You take the money back Mr. Blackmore. I do not wish to give away the diary.'
'You are taking a wrong decision professor Krole'.
'Possibly not. You may be a magician, but there is no proof that you are an Alchemist. And of course we are not ready to believe that you have made the silver, which these balls are made of.'
Rufus Blackmore was silent for a few seconds. Then he gave a killer's look at all of us; took the money from the table; got up and said, 'You must have read, ninety nine per cent pure silver has been successfully made in a laboratory - but no one could make hundred per cent pure silver in the world — except this one, which I made.
He looked at Krole and threw one of those three balls towards him, which landed on Krole's lap.
'I know All three of you are scientists,’ Blackmore carried on. ‘At least check out whether I am right or wrong — analyze this silver, you have two days time; I am staying at 'Woldorf Hotel'; room No.four twenty nine. If you change your mind and decide to sell the diary to me, give me a call. And if you do not sell it to me then let me tell you one thing, making artificial gold is not your cup of tea.'
After this dramatic lecture he didn't wait for a moment and walked firmly towards the door. But what he did while going out of the door was quite an offence. Mustafa was sitting on the threshold. Blackmore kicked him with his sharp toed patent leather shoe, so hard that he flew three feet away from the place where he was. Saunders jumped up crying, 'what the hell!!' and ran after him, but Rufus was already out on the road. Krole tried to make Saunders calm. And said, 'I think
this guy is insane, let's not get into any complication.'
Mustafa was crying loud in pain and anger. Saunders finally had to take him in his lap to cool him down. I was thinking if Alchemists are like this, then the subject should be kept aside, but there is no way out now as the day after tomorrow we are starting for Granada in another two days. God only knows what is going to happen.
Montefrio, 29th June
It's raining. The way clouds have covered the sky, it seems that they are not going to clear up in coming two-three days. Krole thinks it's a good sign and it could not be better, because one of the most important ingredients of the experiment is automatically being collected.
A huge plastic container has been kept on the second floor terrace of the Savedra castle. And we are sure that it will be full before evening.
We are not staying in the castle. We found a hotel close by and have checked in. No one stays in the Savedra Castle now. And no one knows since when it's been abandoned. But Savedra family is quite well known in Montefrio. We asked the first person we met in Montefrio, where the castle was, and he promptly gave us a detailed direction. As we took a stopover in Granada and rested well, we all were quite fresh, so we did not waste any time and followed his direction. We had to take a left turn from the Montefrio Post Office and started driving through a narrow hilly road. We reached the second landmark in ten minutes; it was ruins of a medieval Moorish inn. From eight to fifteenth century the Moors had reigned over this part of Spain. And those Arabic Muslims had left their marks everywhere, the well-known Al-Hambra palace of Granada is just one of them to mention.
Beside the ruins of the inn a boy was standing under a tree with a Mongoose on his shoulder. He came up to us as our taxi stopped. When asked about the castle, he told us that no one stays there. We had to explain that we did not want to meet anyone there; we only wanted to see the castle. He said if we could take him with us in the car he would show us the way easily, he also added that he could be a good guide to us. We did not have any problem with the proposal, so we took him along.
The boy was quite chirpy; he flooded us with a load of information about himself. His name is Pablo, he had five brothers and seven sisters; he is the youngest and is unemployed. His father has a liquor shop; three of his brothers are working in that shop. One of the other two brothers run a fruit shop. The fifth one plays guitar in a restaurant. All his sisters got married. Pablo knows the history of Montefrio very well; how old the palaces and castles were; which king used to live in which palace; which king died in which year, he knows everything. He also shared that he used to earn some pocket money by working as a tourist guide, but as he studied only up to the fourth standard he could not get good work.
His actual hobby is to catch animals and to train them. He caught the mongoose only three days back and it had already started obeying his orders.
He was on the front seat and kept on narrating his biography. On the backseat of the taxi, we three discussed in a low voice that we would offer him to be with us and help us in our basic requirements for the few days we are going to stay here. And of course we would pay him for that. But till that time we didn't see the castle and we didn't know whether it would be possible for us to start our experiment there or not.
After another fifteen minute's drive through a forest we reached at a little open space, where Pablo asked to stop the car. 'We have to walk from here,' He said. 'How far?' asked Krole 'just about two minutes' replied Pablo.
If not exactly in two minutes, but we reached in front of a huge iron gate within five minutes of a fairly troublesome walk through the bushes and shrubs. It was surely not a very huge castle but quite enough for hundred people to live in it.
There was no canal around the castle. A path twisted, turned through the compound gate and took us to the main entrance of the house. Pablo could guess that we wanted to enter inside the castle — he said at least one thousand bats reside there in that house along with innumerable rats and snakes.
Saunders asked him how did he know so much about the castle.
Pablo replied 'Once I entered the castle following a 'Salamander', Oh! God! What pain it caused!! It made me run up and down and finally took me to the terrace.
Salamander is a reptile from the chameleon class and is often seen in this part of Spain.
'What else have you seen there in the castle?' asked Krole. Pablo said he had seen nothing much — a few broken chairs and tables, some old weapons on the walls. Ceilings were mostly broken and hanging dangerously. Amongst all the rooms were like this, but only one was locked so he couldn't see what was inside. But surprisingly there was a kitchen in the castle, which had a lot of earthen utensils - he had taken one bowl from those and gifted it to his mother.
Now, this made all of us very excited 'can you take us to the kitchen? ´ Krole asked in a low yet very sharp voice.
'Why not?' said Pablo, 'come with me'!
We went with Pablo and found that our guess was not wrong at all.
There was no doubt about the fact that seven hundred years back one of the South Eastern rooms of the Savedra castle had been used as a laboratory of an Alchemist.
Oven, water tank on the floor, earthen pottery, glass retorts and tubes-everything was there though all of them were covered by the layers of dusts of the last seven centuries. There was a medieval air pump also — which Krole checked and certified that it was fine and would work for us as well. We all had seen pictures of laboratories, exactly like this in so many alchemy books, the only difference was — the people who were going to work there were from the twentieth century. At the same time the other true fact was — now it was not only Krole, Saunders and I were also getting into the 'medieval time-frame' mentally. And I was sure that those alchemists also used to feel the same excitement, which I was feeling in my veins.
We hired Pablo for thousand Pesetas a day , which is close to our Indian 100 Rupees.
He would clean up the Laboratory within a day so that we can start our work from the day after. He also would have to clean-up two more rooms because we all three have to stay in the castle only. As once the process of gold making starts we would not be able to leave Savendra Caste. Pablo would bring our food; sleeping would not be a problem as all three of us have sleeping bags.
We went back to the hotel at 1:30 p.m. And it started raining within half an hour, immediately we sent Pablo to the castle with the container. Now it's 8:30 pm and the rain has stopped. This place is quite dry but it's sheer luck that we had this encounter with a sudden rainfall.
Krole and Saunders had just called me to say that they are ready for dinner. O-ho! I forgot to mention one thing in my diary — the ball which Rufas Blackmore had given us — we tested it before coming here and came to know that the silver was hundred percent pure. So now we cannot call him a magician anymore; he has been successful as an alchemist as well. Now we need to overtake him by making hundred percent pure gold. And we all three are confident about that.
30th June (0:30 hrs)
We have just returned from Savedra castle after spending two hours in our Alchemic laboratory. We had to perform an important ritual before we started our experiment, as per Savedra's instructions. Now I am going to write about it, but before that, let me write something else — the spirit of tenth century Arabian Alchemist gave his blessings to us. Tomorrow exactly at twelve noon our manual air pump would start working. All ingredients have been collected in sufficient quantities and a new big lock has also been arranged for the laboratory door, tomorrow we are going to shift in the castle. Pablo will also be there with us.
We have explained our business (to some extent) to him because he seemed so innocent, we thought we could have faith in him.
The new thing in the method of planchet to call upon the spirit of Zabir-Ibn-Hayan; which Krole used this time, was some Latin & Tibetan chants in the beginning, where Saunders did the Tibetan part and Krole did the Latin portion, after that Krole played some European religious tunes with his bone-flute. I must mention one thing that during this planchet there was another living thing in the room — he was none other than Mustafa. He has already killed three rats since we shifted to this castle. I am sure he is expecting more of them and that is why he is so happy.
After the chant and the flute, we all sat around a table and started thinking about Zabir-Ibn-Hayan. Krole and I, we both know the Arabian language pretty well, so we knew it would not be any problem to communicate with the spirit. The spirit would come through Krole as he was the medium. He was sitting with his eyes closed; Saunders and I were looking at Krole without even blinking our eyes. The light sources were only two candles; the flames where swaying very slowly with the wind and with that our three large shadows were also swaying on the wall.
After some fifteen odd minutes, there was a new shadow movement on the wall and as we looked up, we found a bat; hanging from the log of the ceiling. It was not a very uncommon thing to have a bat hanging from an old castle ceiling like this, but the uncommon thing with this bat was — it was also swaying like a pendulum and was staring at all of us. With the corner of my eye I could see that Mustafa was also staring at it.
There was a little change in Krole's body — to be precise a change in his posture. The upper part of his body had bent forward, towards the table and his lower body was moving upwards.
In two minutes time his posture took a shape as if Krole was in his 'Namaz'. Saunders and I could clearly see that his feet were not touching the floor any more and he was not sitting on the chair — his body was entirely suspended in the air.
From somewhere the smell of 'Itr' (an Arabic essence) was coming and the moment I recognized it, there was a little 'Thud' and I found a pearl 'prayer beads' on the table in front of Krole's head I could identify, that was a 'Tasbeeh', which is very popular among Muslim devotees.
Surprise was waiting for us — all the pearls came out individually; arranged themselves in a specific manner, which seemed to be a line written in Arabic, which read— 'be successful'.
After ten seconds the line got dismantled and again got arranged as a new line in Arabic — 'The price of gold'.
I started thinking what did the spirit mean by this and then for the third time the pearls got re-arranged to write —'The price of life'. And then all of a sudden they all vanished.
Krole's body then fell down on the chair with a heavy 'thud'. When I explained the writing to Saunders he said "Success, I understand, but 'the price of gold is the price of life?' What does that mean?"
Krole did not have any satisfactory answer for that, he said he was in a trance and he couldn’t remember what all he had done during the time.
In my opinion we do not need to get worried about the second and the third sentence — 'Be successful' is enough.
Even when we were coming out of the room after the planchet, the bat was still hanging from the ceiling.
Would it go tomorrow or it would stay in our laboratory permanently?
pls find the prev. part of this story in the July Issue of Megher Khata, and read the last part in the next issue.
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