Tempest Reborn (Jane True) - By Nicole Peeler Page 0,30
things their own way for too long.’
‘Then we have a deal,’ I said, reaching out to once again shake Daniel’s hand.
Despite their problems, and the Kardashians, I’d take humanity over the Alfar any day.
Somehow Caleb managed to get his junk wedged into the camera’s view when we Skyped. I hadn’t mentally tried to clothe the satyr in a really long time, but something about the camera angle sent my mind searching for acceptable schlong coverage.
‘How far have you gotten?’ Ryu asked rather curtly. He’d been a bit out of sorts since I’d told him Daniel had offered, and I’d accepted, human help in our mission.
‘I’ve translated the whole thing. It’s pretty basic ancient Greek, so that was no problem.’
Of course not, I thought. Just another ancient language, no biggie.
‘Great. What does it say?’ Ryu said.
Caleb made pincers of his fingers, rubbing his thumb and pointer finger over his eyes, as people do when they’ve been reading far too long and far too late. ‘Well, that’s the problem.’
‘What is?’
‘It says a lot. But none of it makes a lot of sense.’
Ryu fidgeted impatiently beside me, emitting a waft of yummy cologne.
‘Just start at the beginning,’ I told Caleb. ‘What do we need to know?’
The satyr nodded agreeably. ‘Well, first of all, how much do you know about alchemy?’
‘Very little,’ I said.
Caleb frowned. ‘The subject is obviously vast, and I don’t want to get into it all here.’
‘No, please don’t,’ Ryu murmured, and I shot him a look.
‘But what you need to be aware of is the idea that, as you probably know, alchemists were interested in turning base metals into gold. But that whole process was a metaphor for the transfiguration of the human soul into something pure, by separating the soul from the body.’
‘Wow,’ I said, clearly seeing the practical applications of this process in terms of our current situation.
‘Exactly,’ the satyr said drily. ‘It’s perfect. Unfortunately, the alchemists weren’t exactly into straightforward instructions.’
‘From what we can tell from Grizzie’s glowing act, as well as a similar stunt pulled by our monk, the universe has its hand in all of this. And I know how crazy that sounds, but it’s true. So the humans involved, including whoever wrote that poem, didn’t exactly know what they were doing,’ I said.
‘That makes sense. Because, to use one of Iris’s expressions, this poem is a hot mess of nonsense.’
I couldn’t help smiling, seeing how my funny, carefree friend had rubbed off on the very serious Caleb.
‘Can you give us some hint as to what we’re supposed to be doing?’ Ryu asked, still impatient.
‘Theophrastus has one poem in here, handily bookmarked by your monk, which is all about the process that starts with turning the base metal into silver, and then from silver to gold. But, and here’s where it gets interesting for us, this transmutation process uses the metaphor of a white dragon to symbolize silver, and a red dragon to symbolize gold.’
‘’Kay, let me make sure I’m following you,’ I said. ‘This process of base metal to silver, then to gold, is really a metaphor for separating body from soul, and that whole big metaphor is represented by another metaphor, using dragons that just happen to be red and white.’
‘Exactly,’ said Caleb. ‘And what your interactions with the, er, universe seem to be suggesting is that this synchronicity with our situation is no accident – these are our dragons, and the secret to destroying them is in this poem.’
Caleb’s craggy face had long since lit up with excitement, his tousled blond hair extra shaggy, as if he’d been unable to keep his hand out of it. The circles under his eyes told me he’d obviously been working on this problem since he’d received our e-mail, and I was again grateful to have such marvelous people behind me.
‘So we have something that tells us how to destroy the Red and the White?’ Ryu said.
‘Yes, but only sort of. The text is a puzzle, a metaphor, and it’s not easy to interpret.’
Ryu made a frustrated sound and I touched my cool fingers to his in warning to keep calm. Caleb watched my movement curiously, and I wondered what my friends were thinking about me spending so much time with Ryu. I probably would have thought it fishy, too, although the baobhan sith seemed to be perfectly content with our current arrangement, and hadn’t made any sort of a move on me.
I’d have to tell Iris that fact in a private conversation, after telling her