When the last of the white substance in the flask had melted into pure golden liquid, the radiance it gave off suddenly dimmed, withdrawing its blinding brilliance until it shone no more.
Sylas finally exhaled, his spirit drained to the point of collapse. Without the golden light pressing upon him, the maddening amplification of his five senses at last receded, releasing him from the torment.
Near the end, he had been driven so close to despair that death itself seemed preferable. More than once, he had thought of abandoning the trial. Yet he endured, clenching his will, holding the array steady. His reward was beyond measure: his senses, though sharpened to agony during the trial, had now grown keener than ever, yet this time he could command them at will.
He blinked, and his sharpened sight pierced the distance. From Weathertop he could make out the winding lanes of Hogsmeade far below, even travelers moving along the East Road ten leagues away, their garments and gestures clear to his eyes as if they stood before him.
His ears, too, were opened. In the quiet night he caught the faint voice of a bard by the Black Lake, declaiming verses to praise Hogwarts. Sylas tilted his head, smirking inwardly. 'The words are fine, but the delivery is dreadful.'
His nose was no less keen. He could distinguish the mingled scents of meadow-grass, blossoms on the wind, the resin of the Mellon Tree, even the faint fragrance drifting from the White Tree's blossoms. With eyes closed, he could follow the breeze itself, tracing which flowers it carried and from which direction.
A wry thought flickered in his mind: 'So now I've the nose of a hound.'
Yet the greatest gift was touch. Every stir of air upon his skin whispered of danger, like a warning woven into the wind itself.
These gifts no longer brought torment but power. His body had grown to rival that of the Eldar, not merely in strength and grace but in perception sharper than any mortal man could dream. And beyond this, the most wondrous change of all: his very life-force had been awakened, his span of years stretched wide.
He knew now, even without Elvish arts of preservation, he could walk this world for three or four centuries, longer than even the proudest of the Dúnedain.
With quiet satisfaction, Sylas quenched the Dragon-blood flames and opened the furnace. He drew forth the flask, now swirling with golden liquid. The Arkenstone still lay within the ashes, miraculously unbroken, though its brilliance had dimmed, drained of much of its earthen might.
Sylas set the jewel aside, his gaze fixed upon the flask. The golden liquid within spun of its own accord, a tiny storm glowing faintly, less blinding than before yet thrumming with immense hidden power.
He had reached the third stage of the Stone's transformation, the Citrinitas, the "Yellowing," also called the Sun-Wheel stage. At this point, the liquid was no mere potion. If consumed, it was said to grant a life of six or seven centuries, perhaps even a thousand years.
Yet no true alchemist would squander it so. Who would drink the unripe draught, when only one step more would bring forth the true Philosopher's Stone? Immortality and the transmutation of metals into gold lay at the end of the Reddening stage, the final, greatest work.
From beyond the circle, Arwen, who had kept vigil in silence, at last smiled with unfeigned joy.
"Congratulations, Sylas," she said, her voice warm. "The Philosopher's Stone is but a single step away."
Sylas turned to her, his weariness softened by tenderness. Reaching out, he brushed a hand across her cheek, his eyes alight with devotion. Then he placed the flask, heavy with golden light, into her hands.
And as she looked at him in surprise, he spoke with solemnity:
"When the Stone is complete, I will offer it as my betrothal gift, when I ask Lord Elrond for your hand in marriage."
Arwen's eyes widened in astonishment. Then tears welled like starlight, and she broke into a radiant smile that could have outshone the moon.
"Good!" she whispered, her voice trembling with joy. "I will look forward to it."
…
The final stage of the Philosopher's Stone required the union of fire and air, a fusion that could only be performed beneath a rare celestial alignment: Venus conjunct Mars.
This phenomenon, when the Morning Star and the Red Wanderer shone side by side in the heavens, occurred roughly once a year, lasting anywhere from a few nights to several weeks. But according to Elrond's calculations, the coming alignment would be unlike any in memory, enduring for two and a half months.
That meant Sylas would not need to wait long. In little more than a month, the heavens themselves would open the way for the reddening stage, the last and greatest step of the Work.
To accomplish it, however, the elements of air and fire had to be drawn together. Only two artifacts in Middle-earth could serve as conduits for such forces: the Ring of Air, borne by Elrond, and the Ring of Fire, held by Mithrandir. Sylas knew he must ask for their aid.
Elrond, dwelling in Rivendell, was easily found. Gandalf, however, was restless as the wind itself, wandering without fixed home or path. Though Sylas could summon a Patronus to carry messages, its range was not infinite; over too great a distance the silvery form would fray, like a broken signal, and no message could be borne.
So Sylas turned to his own trusted messengers.
At the northwest corner of Hogwarts Castle stood the Owl Tower: its upper reaches served as owlery, and the lower halls as stables. The birds roosting there were no ordinary owls but great snow-owls of Númenórean stock, descended from those once tamed in Annúminas. They had grown even wiser under the tutelage of Thorondor, who nested upon the boughs of the Mellon Tree.
Sylas had brewed for them a rare Owl Potion. After consuming his potion, the snow-owls became remarkably intelligent. They could not only understand human speech but also track a named individual across leagues, whether he wandered from tower to tavern or from one end of Middle-earth to the other.
So Sylas gave one of these owls a letter for Gandalf, feeding it a strip of meat as he whispered the name. With a sweep of white wings, the bird soared into the distance.
A week later, the owl returned, bearing a reply sealed in Gandalf's hand.
The letter revealed that the wizard was then in Minas Tirith, the White City of Gondor, but would return to Weathertop a week before the celestial conjunction began.
Relieved, Sylas set the letter aside.
During this free period, he also refocused his attention on the creation of the Invisibility Cloak.
The Invisibility Cloak was already halfway woven under Arwen's steady hands. Its body was spun from Shelob's night-black silk, strengthened with hair-fine threads of mithril and a few strands of Arwen's own hair, so the whole cloak read as starlit midnight.
Across that darkness she had inlaid silver filaments into tiny, tadpole-shaped sigils, each one different, each one linking to the next, so that from a distance the runes glittered like a quiet constellation drifting across a moonless sky. It was mysterious, a little mischievous, and frankly gorgeous.
Sylas, for his part, contributed least to the loom and most to the diagrams: he provided the schematics and the intent, while Arwen did nearly all the actual weaving. Every square inch needed its own unique rune, and every rune had to join the greater circuit without a single break, tens of thousands of stitches forming one unbroken spell. If Sylas had tried to do it himself, he'd have abandoned the shuttle long before the hem, he knew his limits.
Arwen, however, exceeded all of his expectations. Not only was her craft exquisite, but the woven sigils thrummed in harmony, alive with power. And she was fast, ridiculously fast, cutting the schedule to a third without sacrificing a thread of quality. At her current pace, the cloak would be finished in under half a year.
By then, the Philosopher's Stone would be nearing completion as well; with the cloak on his shoulders and the Stone in hand, Sylas couldn't help thinking of them as two very shiny rewards for a very long quest.
A month slipped past like a polite hobbit. One week before the Venus-and-Mars conjunction, Sylas arrived at Isengard to stage the final operation atop Orthanc. The last transmutation would be the loudest and hungriest; only a wizard's tower could drink that much power and pour it back out safely. He hauled the mithril furnace up to the roof and began inlaying amplification sigils into the stone in a precise lattice of silver.
Right on cue, a familiar thunder of hooves climbed the causeway. Gandalf came cantering in from the south astride Shadowfax.
"Long time no see, Sylas!" he called up with a grin. "I'm not late, am I?"
...
Stones PLzz
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