The Geographer's Library

The Geographer’ s Library
Item 9a: A glassine bag containing ten dried tulip petals, each of a different
color.
Item 9b: The Peacock’s Tail, a brooch that Valvukas, an early Lietuvan
warlord, had made for his wife, and she gave to her lover, whom she never
named but referred to in her diary as “the dark man of riddles and directions.”
Ten pieces of Baltic amber ranging in length from 3 to 6 centimeters,
each of a different color (blood, cooling lava, late-August afternoon, Karelia,
dead man’s lips, January noon, wine, everything, nothing, God), each containing
a single fly wing, set in a teardrop shape on a silver backing.
Alchemy supplants and hastens nature; gardening and husbandry merely
follow it, so it should come as no surprise to learn that relatively few
alchemists have kept bestiaries or ornamental gardens. Many were herbalists,
just as many raised animals for food, but generally passion never leavened
their curiosity about flora and fauna. Nonetheless, a peacock’s feather (which
in lore bears more color than it does on an actual peacock) or a multicolored
bouquet of flowers both have always been welcome gifts. They refer, in
metaphor, to the time during the process after the original substance is broken
down and cleansed of its former self and before it begins to assume its
new form. It then takes on a variety of colors and forms, depending on its
nature and the skill and showmanship of the alchemist.
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