In the early hours of one or terminal morning of 1688, in the quaint market town of Cambridge,

England, all about his quiet, safe for a small corner tucked away beside the East Gate

of Trinity College. A grand sprawl of towers and coasters, home to some of the finest academic

minds of the age. In the dark of a walled garden, a gentle orange light emanates from a small

private laboratory. Inside, a man with long silver hair and protrusion face sits deep

in concentration illuminated by the flickering light of candles and the roaring flames of

a large brick furnace. Around him, glass vessels, distillers and cruisables are perched precariously.

And all about the sound of things bubbling and boiling while the air thickens with strange

scented fumes. The man, skittish and sleep deprived, having barely left the room in weeks,

reaches for a large leather-bound manuscript. Its cover bears the title, Introitus Apertus,

Adoclusum Regis Palatium, or an open entrance to the shut palace of the king.

The man turns a page and begins to read. This chaos is called arsenic, our air, our lunar,

but in diverse respect, because our matter undergoes various states before our regal diadem is extracted,

so learn who the comrades of Cadmus are, and who the serpent who ate them. Learn what the doves

of Diana are, which conquer the green lion, the Babylonian dragon, killing all by his means.

The words are a code, a spell of sorts, or to the initiated, a recipe for the hallowed

philosophic mercury, the fundamental constituent of the mythical philosopher's stone that is said

to turn base metals into gold and grant immortality. Our alchemist, no mere tourist on these shores,

is all to aware that this chaos is but another term for the chemical element,

Antimony, that Cadmus' comrades refers not only to the soldiers of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes,

who were eaten by a serpent, but also to the metallic element Iron, and that serpent who ate them

is the sulfide ore, Stibnite. The alchemist, this natural philosopher,

...