Mercury brings Death

Hey Guys! Below is the preface to my book coming out later this year, Black Bile. Let me know what you think!

Spondent quas non exhibent “They promise that which they do not produce.” Albertus Byrus laughed as he chalked the seven planets on the room in his cell. Over two hundred years ago, Pope John had forbidden alchemy because of the possibility of false transmutations, false silver, false gold. Then, it was later found out that Pope John had been practicing alchemy, possibly even successfully. Perhaps he wrested it from the Limbeck but he was wresting it from the spirits themselves. The Spirit of Mercury gave him the key to successfully making gold from certain secret chemical compounds. The Lord must have ordained the Spirits to tell him this. After all, the sacred candles and the divinely blessed Sword allowed the Spirit to come in to the circle. Now there was different rumor muttered by the spirits.

Byrus chalked Mercury on the ground. They said that there would be a way to discover a man’s sin by making his bile manifest in the flesh. That would change everything. If the Church could see that a man was sinning by witnessing a black bile dripping from his nose and mouth, it would make the inquisitions simple. People would repent and turn to the Church in droves. With repentance, the bile would disappear from the people. He shook his head at the brilliance of it. He, an old monk, would see sin fought in a manner never seen before.

“Spiritus Mercurii, Come forth, ye and the other spirits.” The room went dark, the candles burning low in the wax. The planet symbols lit of in brilliant colors, black, red, yellow, and white. From each of them emerged a black, shapeless form which rose about three feet in the air. The Spirit of Mercury, its symbol blazing in white fire above it, detached itself from the others and moved to face Byrus.

Byrus gulped as the temperature dropped as it moved closer. “Do you truly want to know the secret?” it whispered in words cold and flat, like the very earth itself was speaking. Byrus shivered at the words.

“Yes I do.” A black tendril of smoke detached itself and grabbed a quill sitting on the desk.

“Write, write as if your life depended on it” it spoke. “And the power of knowing sin shall soon be yours. The quintessence of evil is within your grasp. Cura nihil aliud nisi ut valeas.”

“Yes. Yes I will write.” The tendril deposited the quill in his hands, the cold air causing them to shake, and frost to form on his habit.

“Good.” Mercury drew back to the other spirits, and in unison they chanted the formula.

Five hours later, Byrus lay prone across his desk next to a stack of papers. The circle lay cold and silent, the earth twisted and broken from where the spirits had broken forth. He was spent from listening to those hypnotizing words. Wearily, he rose from the desk and moved to a table with a limbeck, beakers, strange jars, and other oddities. Now it was time to know the truth of the Spirits. Then they had given him the wealth of the world, pure gold. Now they would give him the key to curing the Spiritual world of men, the physical manifestation of Sin. Sin would be known in all its forms, and man would hide it no longer.