The Two Vessel Operation

This is the translation from my mother tongue of a story I wrote in the mid 90s. The first episode has no sex yet and is about setting the background for the story. It is quite dark.

The two-vessel operation

The heavy wooden door squeaked with a whine on the rusted hinges.

-Come in, father -- said the guard. -- But be careful. You never now what these crazy ones can do.

The old Dominican friar nodded and entered the cell. The stench of mold and urine hit him right away, but it had been too many years that he took on the task to read the last rites to those sentenced to death for him to be surprised of the putrid stench in the tower's dungeon. Only his bones had never really adapted to the to the cold humidity that was seeping through the grey limestone walls, and all his joints were hurting in such a was that was testing his Christian endurance.

The cell was mostly dark; only one ray of light, livid and lifeless, was coming from the narrow slit on top of one of the walls. The man with chained wrists and ankles was sitting on the floor right in the center of the light, with his eyes fixed on the slit window. The friar was not surprised. Often, the prisoners were waiting for the final moments in that position, as if their spirit wanted to feed off any spark of light before plunging into the darkness of the unknown. Yet he found odd that the prisoner, in a stark difference with all others, did not even turn his head to see who entered his cell.

- Be strong, son -- said the friar. -- You are about to meet our Maker. Would you like to lighten yourself of your sins?

The man did not answer. He kept staring at the window as if he could not hear. The Dominican got closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

- Son, I understand your struggle and...

The man turned suddenly and grabbed the frier by his robe forcing him to kneel. He then got his face a few inches from the old man and hissed

- My struggle! What could you ever know of struggle?

- Son, I... - stuttered the Dominican, terrified by the spark of madness that was lighting the man's eyes -... I come to bring you hope.

The man let the robe go and exploded into an evil laughter. Then he raised his hands to show his chains.

- Can your hope break these?

- No -- answered the Dominican, slightly reassured -- but we can undo the knots of the sprit. Confess your sins and ask for forgiveness for your crimes. God is merciful. Let Him take you.

The man looked at the old frier with a blistering stare.

- My crime, yes... Uxoricide, isn't this what they said at the trial? I am supposed to have killed my wire and burned her corpse. If only my sin was so simple, brother, maybe I could ask for God's forgiveness. But my crime is such that the whole universe will not be enough to atone for it. What would be the value of my regret?

- No matter what your sin is, God's mercy is infinite. With a single word, He can free your soul from the angst oppressing it. Pray with me, son.

- My soul is dead, old friar. It lies silent and cold under the Devil's feet and God has abandoned me a long time ago. In me there is nothing left to free, nothing that you, my poor Dominican, can fix.

- I don't understand... You have asked for me to visit you yourself, and now you doubt me. Your words are obscure to me.

The man did not answer. She stood up slowly and went to the bench carved into the wall. In the dark silence of the cell, the rattling of the chains scratching on the floor seemed to come from afar, like an unreal echo from the abyss that seemed could be opening at any time under their feet. The friar made the Sign of the Cross. He felt in the air of the cell a malignant presence, a dark and threatening force spying on him that would make his blood curl.

- You can feel him too, can't you? -- the man sitting on the bench whispered, rotating his feverish eyes. -- He is here and is not leaving me for an instant.

- Who is he? I can't see anyone -- replied the friar even more scared

- He is the one that should have been my slave and is now my master. He is not showing himself to you, but I can see him. See, now the beast is right behind you and is nearing his grinning face to your cheek. Listen, friar: can't you feel his sulphureous breath on your ear?

The friar stiffened and held his breath, while droplets of cold sweat appeared on his forehead. He turned around slowly. No one.

- It is the fever making you have these hallucinations -- said with a forced smile on his lips, then he sat next to the man on the bench -- Why did you ask for me if you do not want to confess?

The man drew a bony hand over his face, then he whispered with a belabored effort -- Someone must know. Someone must know the truth, so that others won't lose their way and their sanity as it happened to me.

- Speak then, son. What is the truth that so bothers you?

-Have you ever heard of the Two Vessel Operation? No, certainly you can't know anything about the most occult secret that ever existed. Well, friar, fastened your spirit, because from my mouth cursed words will now come out, generated in the womb of Hell itself.

This is the story that the man told

"My name is Jaques Emile Bazard and I was born in the year of Our Lord 1584 from a rich family in Lyon. Since I was a child, I have been attracted from the dark and mysterious side of what was happening around me and I have been asking questions that no one could answer. Being introverted and lonely, I had no friends nor loved spending my time in the childish games my peers were enjoying. I preferred walking alone around the family park observing all of natures phenomena, trying to understand the secrets hidden in the silent forms of life. I was spending hours contemplating ants, wondering what kind of hidden universe they could perceive with their thin antennas. I used to watch the wonder of mushrooms, that a weird incantation transforms sometimes into a delicious meal, others into an acrid poisonous pulp. I used to admire the majestic trees, that thanks to an arcane force could rise into the sky from a tiny seed. And the rain falling from the clouds, the snow with its gentle flakes, the thunder and the bolt, the moon and the stars...

In the innocent unwariness of childhood, wicked seed of the adult foolishness, I longed for knowledge and, along with it, the power that always goes along with it. I would dream that one day my thought could traverse the dense matter and that it could penetrate and model it at my whim. I was seeing myself sitting on the throne of the Elementals, and at my feet Earth and Air, Water and Fire were waiting, submitted, the gesture of my command.

At age twelve I was given to the care of an educator, who with rod and humiliation taught me Greek, Latin, mathematics and philosophy. Ah, how I could understand then that he, with all his knowledge, could not have been able to force even a blade of grass to his own will! What he was trying so hard to pour into my young mind, I could see that clearly, was but the stutter of true Knowledge. Empty words, as inert as stones. This the educator was cramming into my mind with fear and beatings. I was enduring all humiliations with surprising resignation, but I was already longing deep in my heart for that occult power that would have made me the master of vengeance.

At eighteen, I was sent to Paris to study medicine. But soon this science, much more focusing on the dead matter than the acting forces of life, got me bored. I started then getting interested in the forbidden books, terrible copies that were circulating in secret among the students and that the academic and church authorities were unsuccessfully trying to ban. So it how, my dear friar, I got to know the work of your brothers, whose names still shock you"

The man paused briefly and staring at the friar said

- From your expression, I see you understand: I talk about Giordano Bruno and Tommaso Campanella.

The old man stiffened on the bench and made three times the Sing of the Cross.

- Be silent! Those were Dominicans possessed by the Devil! Do not speak their accursed names, bringers of all misfortunes!

The man grinned ironically and continued telling his story

"I read and studied every word of the Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante, my intelligence fed off the De Umbris Idearum and the Eroici Furori; my master was the the amazing work Del Senso delle Cose e della Magia, that I learned by heart. But the more I was reading, the more my spirit was longing for more knowledge. I started scrounging through the forgotten books in the libraries and the ancient texts. I got to know the texts from Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, from Della Riviera and Eck de Sulzbach. I spent three years reading everything that you can find in Paris on the topic of Magic and Esoterism. Then one day I got news of the sudden death of my parents, both killed a short time from each other by a deadly contagious disease.

Once I was back in Lyon, I had to dedicate myself completely to administering the estate and, completely absorbed by my new duties, I abandoned my studies of magic. I continued my father's work with great success, the commerce of gold that was coming copious from Spain and that, after it went through thousands of rivulets, was ending into the pockets of the Italian and German bankers. I spent a few years doing this, traveling across all of Europe, visiting all the main cities and working with the richest and most powerful.

It was during one of these trips that my old passion got suddenly reignited. I was in Florence, a guest at a party at the mansion of a banker whose name I have forgot but has no bearing on the rest of my story. Parties have always bored me, and this time too I was waiting impatiently that moment when I could have excused myself without being rude. In the meantime, I was sitting with a group of businessmen keen on discussing their profits and losses, risks and safeties. I was pretending to be interested in the conversation but in reality my thoughts were wandering among ideas like a rudderless ship. Around halfway through the evening, I was introduced to a Ludovicus Silenus, a man in his sixties that immediately struck me because of the paleness of his face and the intensity of his gaze. After the first few ceremonial words, he stared at me in a weird way and suddenly said "Transmutemini de lapidibus mortuis in vivos lapidos philosophicos" (from dead stones, transform into live philosopher's stones)

Such was my surprise that I had to hold the edge of the table to keep my balance. It was an old alchemical saying, that I had forgotten for a long time e that suddenly plunged me into my old memories, and they stormed up from my heart, with such a violence as to make me dizzy and nauseous. That sentence had, in a single instant, revealed the condition I was in that I was now able to fully comprehend and that I tried to hide from myself for all that time. Despite the apparent frantic activity, always running after next business deal, I was a dead stone, a stone with no spirit or power. And now a stranger came and bared the reality of my life and in a single sentence he was pointing to the single path that Fate had traced for me.

My shock was such that my head started pulsating and I had to sit on the closest chair. Like bees when their hive is hit, so the spirits were flying around my head and I was feeling m blood leaving my body while a mortal cold was freezing my whole body. With a great effort, I was barely able to stutter "Igne Natura Renovantur Integra". It was the esoteric interpretation of the "INRI" written on Our Lord's cross, and with those words I wanted to mean that only Fire could regenerate my nature. Silenus nodded and put his right thumb on my forehead. In that instant, I felt a glowing flow going from my forehead and propagating to my whole body, and moments after I felt full of energy and with a completely free mind. I had just had my first demonstration of power and I swore that from that moment on, any effort of mine would be dedicated to achieving it. The morning after, I delegated the care of all my wealth to my secretary and I followed Silenus who gladly accepted me as his disciple.

I was twenty-eight the day I met my master and I stayed with him for eleven years. Ludovicus Silenus had been a disciple of the great mage Cardano, and he taught me Hebrew and Arabic, so that I could read in the original languages the Zohar and the Babylonian Talmud, Avicenna's Canon and the writings by al-Farabi. Silenus taught me the secret virtues of herbs and stones, I learned from him to read the motion of the stars, the exact pronunciation of the Power Words and the evocation rituals.

I was learning quickly and promptly, but my young age was making me impatient and I was often questioning my master on when I would receive the first signal of my power.

- You shall not look for power -- he used to tell me every time -- It is power that has to look for you. Like the youngster surrounds the maiden with care and offers her gifts and flatters her with sweet words, waiting until one day she will finally give herself up, so you need to court power, with the determined strength of heart and with the calm patience of the wait.

But time was going by and I was more and more edgy. By now, it was almost eight years that I had been following my master and I had yet to reach any result. One day I complained about this and for the first time I saw Silenus yielding to wrath.

- You think you can just violate the Wet Womb? Would you rather have me submit you to the practices of the Philosophic Vinegar or to the wicked rituals of the Two Vessels Operation? If you want to reach power through these avenues, it is best you go look elsewhere, because I will never be responsible for your undoing! -- He then calmed down a little and added -- Remember that the power of the mage is based on the stable balance of Water and Fire. The fire of the spirit gets into the water of the soul and makes it alive and makes it pure so that will and feeling become a single entity. But the Fire of the Big Act is not a burning flame, it is instead fixed embers, heat controlled and continuous that slowly dries out the superfluous and impure humidity of Water. This is the only path, long and labored, that will allow you to master the Powers instead of becoming their slave.

This was a speech that I had already heard several times, and of which, like of truth too often repeated, I was starting to doubt. In Silenus' words there had been this time a new reference that had immediately caught my attention: the Two Vessels Operation. While I had enough information on the Philosophical Vinegar, a practice that required strict ascetism and that employed drugs, that was the first time that I heard of the Two Vessels Operation. Naturally, I was careful not to question Silenus about it, but I decided to spy on my master, being sure that I would soon discover the true source of his knowledge. And so it happened, even though I had to wait a long time before I could reach my goal.

At that time, my master and I lived in an old house a few miles from Florence. Since our magic practices had to remain a secret, we had set up our magic laboratory in the cellar. Here there was a large room furnished with everything we needed for the rituals, and two more smaller rooms, one for me and one for Silenus, where each of us could retire to study and meditate. They were small spaces, containing only a bookshelf, a desk with the candleholder and a chair. Several times, when my master was not around, I had searched Silenus' small room and looked through his books and his paper for something mentioning the Two Vessels Operation, without ever finding anything. Since the day my master had mentioned it, three years had passed, and he had never mentioned it again since. I had not forgotten, though.

One day, Silenus had to go to Florence to buy essences necessary for our work, and I, despite not having any hope, returned to his study to look over his notes, maybe for the hundredth time. I lit the three candles in the holder and started to look at the several parchments rolled in random order on his desk. It did not take long to see that they were mainly celestial maps, formulae and pentacle traces, all things I knew well. But I suddenly noticed a small roll that I was sure I had not seen before. I undid the know in the ribbon with my hands trembling for the emotion. Maybe I would find the answer to the questions that had haunted me for so long and made my nights sleepless. As I started reading the first few words: "Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superior..." I felt spite and disappointment. It was just a transcription of the Tabula Smaragdina, a text well known to all scholars and that had certainly nothing to do with the Two Vessels Operation.

Disappointed, I rolled back the parchment and put it back in the very same spot where I had found it on the desk. I was about to leave when an idea struck me like a lightning: I was sure I had never seen that roll; I had searched several times the house in every nook and cranny and knew every most insignificant object in it: such a text could not escape me. Where had it been stored until now, then? Clearly, Silenus had a hidden space that he could access without being seen. And where could such a hideout be if not in his own study? Since between us there was the rule that for no reason one should enter the other's study during meditation, Silenus could move around undisturbed.

I took the candleholder and looked at the walls and the corners of the room, but could not notice any fissure. There had to be a secret room somewhere: I was sure of it. I thought harder: the only place where it could be was behind the bookshelf, but it was a huge and heavy walnut piece of furniture as tall as the ceiling, and surely an old man in his seventies could never be able to move it. There was one last option. I started to frantically remove the books lined on the shelves, without even caring about noting the order they were in so that I could put them back in the same way, and my efforts were finally successful. The back of the bookshelf was not made in a single piece, but built with a set of panels: it was not hard to find which of those was removable.

I moved the panel over with my heart beating faster and faster and I lost my breath when I found a deep niche with tens of papyruses, parchments and ancient books. I could not breathe and started sweating furiously. Drunk with excitement, I started looking through all that material wit my eyes popping out of my orbits. Magic texts that were thought to be lost forever were right there, in front of my eyes. There was the De Pharmaco Astrale by Guillaume d'Auvergne, the Liber Ysagogarum Alchorismi by al-Khwarizmi, the Mathesos by Firmicus Maternus and many more in in Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew and Persian. Unique, unvaluable works.

I sank myself in the reading, forgetting everything else, lost in the ethereal word of philosophy. I did not even notice that the candles were almost completely burned out and the room was full of wax vapors.

One parchment that was particularly old and worn in several spots caught my eye. It must have been at least three hundred years old and the ribbon hold it rolled was almost completely worn out. I unrolled it with extreme care and when I glanced on its title, I almost fainted. In golden characters, the words "Opus Magicus Binis Vasis" -- the magic two vessels operation. There it was! I had found it!

In that very moment a shadow came into the study and when he saw what I was doing screamed and ran towards me. It was Silenus."

- I thought many times of that moment, said the man wiping his hand on his face -- but I am still to this day not sure what force moved my will. My heart was torn by different emotions. There was excitement for the discovery and the fear to lose it, hate towards my master that kept it away from me and the anger for being caught rummaging in his study and the shame, the pride... Then saw Silenus' face twisted in anger and his finger directed to me in accusation. That finger made me lose any control. I lifted the heavy candleholder and lowered it forcefully on the old man's head. A crunch of breaking bones and the blood that suddenly stained his white mane. So died Ludovicus Silenus, the last of Cardano's disciples.