Thanatos: Chapter 1 — Hydriotaphia

[dead_junebugs]

“But despite the biographies of all of these men, educating us on their legacies and the qualities that define them, separate from each other, every one of them is exactly the same. For I have yet to see an absence of the same mistaken logic proceeding from unjustified axioms, that if they delve into the layers of reality it will give up the true principles of this world. They struggle in this mission with unsatisfactory results; God allots them a finite time, circumscribed by the same ‘right-lined circle’ that marks the end.”

Noé Archiviste meets an alchemist in the hopes of finding burial urns of generations long gone.

For Sir Thomas Browne, who thought we were lit by invisible suns.

_____

The shadows flickered across the floor of the compartment. As the train passed through the forest, the trees blocked and revealed the afternoon sun rapidly, creating a pattern of shadow and light. Noé leaned back against the corner formed by his seat and the wall, quietly gazing at the flickering pattern with hat in his lap and thoughts adrift. If one looked out the window at that time, one would see infinite trees, with ferns at their feet. The monotony gave Noé plenty time to think, and he took this time to review burial practices in his mind. He also knew that soon the train would leave these tranquil woods and arrive at its destination.

So when the train exited the forest, Noé glanced out the window to catch sight of civilization. A picturesque collection of white buildings clustered around a clocktower, in a valley surrounded by mountains. Noé had seen old pictures and knew that this was once the image of pastoral remoteness. The passage of time had transformed a humble village into a small town. Many trees near it had been cleared, leaving only fields of grass remaining, and small cultivated plots, the vestiges of the its rural origins. As the train pulled into the station, the tranquility was replaced with an energetic crowd, people waiting for the passengers. Noé got off the train with trunk in hand and, while wading through the throng, thought about how to get to his hotel.

He knew the hotel would be near the clocktower, so he started in its direction. He’d be all right as long as he didn’t lose sight of it. However, the sights around him kept tempting him with detours. Quaint shops and inviting alleyways called to him. What could be better than to just aimlessly wander for the rest of the day? This city was not particularly famous, but to his mind it was so much the better for it. What hidden treasures could be discovered here! But he resisted, as it wouldn’t do to show up late after being invited.

As Noé made his way through the cobbled streets, he considered the purpose of his journey. He had heard that burial urns were discovered in the city outskirts, on the property of an old watchtower that belonged to an eccentric figure. Colleagues familiar with the area said the owner was an alchemist, and that this was all they could tell him. Not much was known about this alchemist outside the town, and they were just repeating what the townspeople had told them. Little had been written about this person either. Noé decided that he’d just find out more once he got there. He had already corresponded with the owner of the tower, and after expressing interest in the burial urns the owner simply invited him over. With that, Noé left at once.

After checking into his hotel and leaving his trunk, he stopped by the front counter a moment to ask about the alchemist. The old man said he had always gone by Vanitas. Where did he come from? Oh, he only knows he’s been there for years. How far back? Farther back then he could remember, it seemed like that alchemist was there back when he was a child. Actually, he wasn’t sure if this was the Vanitas from years ago or his student. In any case, the older man said, you could just ask him these questions yourself if you want to know. Noé thanked this man and left. The exchange confused him more than anything—how old was this Vanitas supposed to be? Surely he’d have been dead by now if he owned the tower for that long? But there was no helping it. And Noé really did want to look at those urns.

Noé left the busy town center with its well dressed people, and approached the quieter edge of town. He asked a wagon driver how he might get to Vanitas the alchemist, and the man pointed the way up a dirt path. You won’t miss it, he said.

Noé made his way along the path, returning to the forest, wondering what he meant until he arrived at his destination. Then he understood. Vanitas lived in an old watchtower, perhaps built by the Romans and then used through out the medieval period, after which it clearly had changed hands over the years. It was a tower built of stone blocks in the manner of a castle turret, except with a stained glass window installed at some point in its history. The base of the tower was a complex of wood and tile spread out into some kind of living quarters. Stone steps lead up to the threshold, and Noé faced a heavy wooden door with an iron knocker embedded in the center of it.

When Noé approached the door, he thought that it looked very old. He wondered who would come to greet him once he knocked. Would it be the impossibly old alchemist of the old man’s childhood memories, somehow persisting unchanged through the years? Or would it be the student, a new seeker of the secret workings of this world?

Noé knocked.

A moment passed. Noé looked up at the tower under the brim of his hat. Its peak formed a cone of slate tiles, and he could see the multicolored glint of stained glass once a cloud finished passing over the sun. The trees tried to rival the tower, reaching up for the light with broad leaves and needles. Birds were chirping. The wind was whispering through the boughs. Not many people lived around here. Nothing interrupted the monotonous sounds of nature.

At last the door creaked open and there standing before him was Vanitas. He was dressed in all black, with only his snowy cravat and shirt breaking the velvety darkness. The face that looked up at Noé had eyes of an unnatural azure, more vibrant and vivid than what should exist. If ever there was an image of the alchemist of old, whose esoteric learning had given his very eyes a quality by which to penetrate the secrets below and above, it was in the figure standing in the doorway. Yet somehow, he was young.

It was the disciple, then. A moment of stillness passed as Noé looked on absorbed in his impression, the wait having banished his thoughts about the imminent introduction. This meeting felt unreal, like Noé had really entered a place centuries behind the modern day and he now had to come into contact with the owner of the tower, a figure totally removed from the bustling town he had just left.

The alchemist spoke. “You are…” Vanitas said. “Noé Archiviste?” He looked up at Noé questioningly.

“Y-yes.” Noé finally responded.

“Come inside, in that case.” Vanitas turned and walked down the darkened hall. Noé awkwardly followed, closing the door behind him. The hall was short and somewhat dark. He noticed a small table near him and set his hat there, and then followed after Vanitas, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. Entering the main room, he took in the interior of the tower.

If this place had a proper description, it would best be described as a library. Shelves had been installed along all the walls, filled with books acquired across the centuries. Volumes of every subject were to be seen, some common and some rare, some old and some new, some even Noé recognized. Littered on tables were instruments to observe and measure the celestial sphere, astrolabes, sextants, telescopes, charts of the Zodiac. Between the shelves Noé noticed scrolls tucked away, filling old earthenware pots or piled at the tops of shelves in lieu of more heavy books that would be a burden to pull down. Wherever he would idly glance, esoteric knowledge of some kind had been gathered. Above, a staircase spiraled its way up the tower, leading to some kind of room at the summit. All of this he saw through the dim illumination of the stained glass window from before, coloring the room in deep reds, blues and greens.

A few moments passed before he noticed Vanitas was lighting lamps to improve the illumination. So taken aback he was by this messy treasure trove of knowledge, haphazard and questionably significant that it was, he had completely forgotten his host for a moment. He walked further into the room to close the distance between them. Vanitas was finishing lighting the last lamp, one sitting on a relatively clear desk. Surrounding the desk were chairs laid out in a random configuration, and between them was a low table. A curious book with a blue leather binding and gears affixed to its cover was on it. A chain ran from it, as if it were one of those old books in a nobleman’s library, to be chained to the shelf to dissuade theft. Noé made his way over, glancing at the book briefly. He then brought his gaze up to Vanitas.

“Monsieur Vanitas—”

“Just Vanitas is fine, it’s not really that kind of name.” Vanitas said, dropping the blackened match onto the bare wood of the desk.

“Well, in any case,” said Noé. “I’d like to thank you for writing me back. I’ve been wanting a look at these urns ever since I caught wind of them.”

Vanitas leaned against the desk to face Noé. “You are an archaeologist, is that right?”

Noé noticed a gold glint at Vanitas’s wrist. Hanging from a bracelet was an hourglass.

“Yes, I wanted to study the burial practices of this area more.”

“Oh? And not the mummies of Egypt or the tombs of the Mediterranean? Or even any of the Roman outposts further away from this place? You certainly chose an obscure village to ply your trade.”

Noé looked up at Vanitas’s face, startled. He had a wry smile, as if he knew the secrets of the forest and the underground, and Noé was ignorant of it all. And Noé did not disagree. That was the reason he was here.

“Just because it’s obscure doesn’t mean it’s not important.”

“Is that so.” Vanitas moved away from the desk, the hourglass glittering at his wrist. “Oblivion is not to be hired: The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the Register of God, not in the record of man.”

Noé watched him as he spoke. “I find that too cynical. People can discover the past that was forgotten.”

Vanitas sighed. “Well, if that’s what you believe. I, however, find it unlikely that people are willing to seek out the dead past if it offers them nothing.”

“They say you are an alchemist.” Noé continued. “Is what they say true? What is it that you do, Vanitas?”

Vanitas met Noé’s gaze. “I create panaceas. I administer them to the people of the town. They have problems and go to me for treatment.”

He looked to the side, as if lost in memory. “I don’t have an interest in creating the philosopher’s stone, if that’s what you’re trying to ask. I don’t think there’s much good in creating something like that in this world.”

“And this library, this belonged to your master?”

He returned his gaze to Noé and gestured to the shelves around them.

“The whole thing. I came here and inherited the sum of my master’s research. For my purposes, I need very little of it. The authors of the books in this room are known to me only incidentally. I look through them with the purpose of obtaining esoteric knowledge, my means to my end. But these names are frequently forgotten even by the specialized scholars of the current age.”

Vanitas stood with his back to Noé, regarding the volumes he had seen his whole life.

“Who were these astrologers, naturalists, alchemists, and philosophers? A bare summary of a diminished paragraph comes to our age about each of them. Some days I idly consider the ways I could reorganize my master’s library. Should I give a place of prominence to those who are most cited by subsequent authors? Or should I judge according to those who offer the most penetrating insight?”

Vanitas let his hand drift over some of the volumes in front of him.

“But despite the biographies of all of these men, educating us on their legacies and the qualities that define them, separate from each other, every one of them is exactly the same. For I have yet to see an absence of the same mistaken logic proceeding from unjustified axioms, that if they delve into the layers of reality it will give up the true principles of this world. They struggle in this mission with unsatisfactory results; God allots them a finite time, circumscribed by the same ‘right-lined circle’ that marks the end.”

The ‘right-lined circle’, thought Noé. Theta?

Vanitas was absorbed in the tomes he had read so often. An enigmatic smile came upon his face. He looked back at Noé.

“My alloted time is circumscribed as well.”

Noé jumped.

“You mean…like all mortal men? I know we all die one day but I’ve never thought much about it…”

The alchemist made his way to the other side of the room. He went up to another heavy door, one that would open to the other side of the tower.

“Noé, come with me. I will show you the burial urns.”

The two exited the tower out to a clearing. It appeared the place used to be an herb garden, but it had become dilapidated since then. Large trees and sprightly saplings dotted the clearing, along with grass sprouting wherever there wasn’t mulch. In one section were the urns, laid out in rows. Noé took an immediate interest to them and went over to them. At last he arrived to the prize of his long journey, despite the disquieting conversation.

“In my reading,” said Vanitas. “I would sometimes come across burial methods accidentally. I’m sure you could explain these methods better than I, since that is your specialty. But I have found time and time again a certain irony that I can’t get enough of.”

As Noé crouched among the pots, Vanitas looked around the trees, noting the weather.

“Without fail, those who wished to be remembered by making monuments of their remains paradoxically attracted the very worst attention. Grave-robbers would destroy their tombs to obtain the gold hidden within. And those who had to settle with anonymity are those whose graves remained undisturbed. The worst that dares defile their tranquility are the worms. It is futile to avoid the obliteration of time.”

Noé stood up, wiping off the dust that had gotten onto his jacket after observing the urns. Noé indeed knew this himself from his own studies, but he felt like this alchemist was making a criticism of his efforts. It irked him that this man spoke as if Noé’s goals were futile.

“But doesn’t it matter if at least someone remembers them? Maybe despite the ‘obliteration of time’ as you call it, and all the failings of human ability, it matters that these people existed in other people’s memories.”

“Does it?” Vanitas smiled, a touch cold and sad. “I think I wouldn’t know. My master’s pursuit of immortality has given me a distaste for an overly obsessive fixation on death. The long habit of living indisposes me to dying.”

Vanitas nudged a fragment of broken pottery with a black boot. “These are all the unshattered urns. There are others but they had been reduced to fragments. I did find some bones, but left them in the pit I found the rest in. I have no idea if you need them or not.”

Noé brought a hand to his cheek thoughtfully. “I just might want to take a look at them.” He looked at Vanitas.

However, Noé’s attention had incrementally shifted to Vanitas. Although the urns carried a mystery in their contents, and Noé very much wanted to find out the implications they had for the society they came from, Vanitas carried many mysteries within himself as well. And in the same way, Noé wanted to unearth them.