Kelley closed his eyes tight and bowed his head. He couldn’t remember how a prayer went, couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound like whining, couldn’t think of anything to ask that he deserved. To Edgar he said, “Two days. No more.”

“We’ll need your help from the inside.”

“Just tell me what you want.”

Roderick had set up a small antechamber near the entrance to the dungeon as a personal study. That’s where Kelley found the astrologer, hunched over a table littered with documents and diagrams, small models of the machines and gadgets he’d designed in service of the emperor’s mad project.

Roderick muttered to himself. There were bags under his eyes. Kelley thought the man had been looking more fatigued these past few days. They’d all been pushing themselves, but until now, the old man had seemed inexhaustible, buoyed and driven by his singular purpose.

Kelley cleared his throat, not sure if he should enter.

Roderick looked up from some obscure parchment, allowing a moment for his eyes to focus. “Oh, it’s you, Kelley. Come in if you like. Have a seat.”

Kelley lowered himself into the rickety wooden chair opposite Roderick. He noticed the cup of wine at the astrologer’s elbow and could not remember ever seeing the man drink before.

“I’m at an impasse,” Roderick said. His voice sounded so tired that Kelley wondered if he might be ill.

Kelley leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands folded.

“Oh?”

“We can make a corpse almost alive,” Roderick said. “Almost alive. What the hell good is that? It is merely walking death. But we’re so close, Kelley. I know it.”

“I thought it was just a matter of finding the right combination of lenses,” Kelley said.

Roderick frowned. “I suppose. I mean, that’s part of it, certainly.” He shook his head and tsked. “I may not have been entirely honest with the emperor. Yes, the lenses. Of course. But so much more. We could experiment for a hundred years, fill the dungeon with zombies and still not stumble upon the exact answer.”

He reached below the table, came up with a jug, filled his cup with more wine. He held the jug out to Kelley. “Can I offer you a drink?”

Kelley grinned. “I never touch the stuff.”

Roderick sputtered laughter. “Good one.” He filled another cup, passed it to Kelley. “The duration we expose our subjects to the stone is likely one of the problems. It’s possible we simply haven’t allowed the process to complete.”

Kelley sipped wine. “Then you’re going to have to find somebody bigger and stronger than me to turn that damn crank. I’m wearing myself out. My heart might explode.”

“Fret not. We’re already in the process of constructing a much more elaborate version of the device we’ve been using. You won’t kill yourself cranking.”

Kelley recalled the dammed river and the waterwheel in the caverns beneath St. Vitus Cathedral. He almost commented but remembered he wasn’t supposed to know about that. Instead he said, “Is it really corpses you want to bring to life anyway? I thought the emperor’s goal was immortality.”

“A fair point.” Roderick sipped wine, smacked his lips. “There are two ways to go about this. The emperor and I spoke at length about it in the early days of the project. The first option.” Roderick held up a finger. “We fashion a device that confers immortality upon the subject. But how would we know if it worked or not? Expose a living man to immortality rays, and what’s the difference? Alive is alive.”

Kelley admitted he hadn’t thought about it like that.

“But the difference between dead and alive-now, that’s measurable. This brings us to option number two.” Another finger. “We create a device which brings the dead back to life. The emperor could die an infinite number of times, and always he could be brought back. In theory.” He sighed, sipped more wine.

Kelley thought about this. “What if he breaks his neck?”

Roderick looked up from his wine. “Eh? What was that?”

“If Rudolph dies from a broken neck, and you bring him back to life, then… what? He’s alive with a broken neck?”

“Oh.” Roderick scratched his beard. “Yes, I see what you mean.”

“Or if he dies of old age,” Kelley said. “You might bring him to life and then he just dies again five minutes later because he’s so old.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then you have to consider that maybe nobody will want to bring him back,” Kelley said. “I mean, his heirs might want the throne someday, and if the man is dead, he won’t be able to bring himself back, will he?”

“Okay, now you’re just being annoying,” Roderick said. “I admit there are some minor details to work out.”

A protracted moment of silence, both men sipping wine.

“I wasn’t trying to be negative,” Kelley finally said.

“Never mind,” Roderick said.

“You know, you could probably make a fortune curing hangovers,” Kelley said.

Roderick said nothing, looked at Kelley as if he’d been examining a dog or an especially stupid child.

“That first day I met you,” Kelley explained, “you zapped me with that sunbeam through the lens. I never felt better in my life. You could go from tavern to tavern. Charge a copper a piece to put all the drunks back into shape. Probably better money than the immortality racket.”

Roderick sat straight in his chair, his eyes round and suddenly alert. “What did you say?”

“I said you could probably make better money than-”

Roderick stood abruptly, walked quickly from the room.

Kelley frowned. “Well, what the hell?”

When the astrologer failed to return, Kelley finished the jug of wine.

Kelley shrugged into his clothes the next morning and slouched toward the dungeon entrance. What would Roderick have for him today? No doubt something menial or horrifying.

Inside the castle, Kelley ran smack into a crowd of gawkers, all looking up at one of the big windows. Roderick was there, directing two workmen who stood in the window’s frame, trying to put one of the astrologer’s big lenses into place.

“Be careful, damn you!” shouted Roderick. “Put even a scratch on that, and I’ll see you hung from Powder Tower.”

“What’s all this?” Kelley gawked with the rest of them.

“I’ve been at it since dawn, Kelley,” said Roderick. “All thanks to you, don’t you know?”

“Me?”

“You reminded me about the power of sunlight,” Roderick said. “I’d been operating under the misapprehension that the stone was a chunk of the same cosmic stuff as our sun. Not at all! It is the opposite. A reflection almost.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think we can use the stone and the sun together.” The excitement in the astrologer’s voice was barely contained. “We have to bring yin and yang together.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Notions I brought back with me from my travels in the east,” Roderick said. “The upshot is that two sources of contradicting-yet complementary-energies must collide to create the effect we’re after. Some say the origins of the universe were created through such an act of creative violence.”

Kelley tried to keep his face neutral. “I thought God created the universe.”

Roderick cleared his throat. “Yes, of course.” He looked back up at the workmen standing in the big window. “Be ready with that lens. The sun will be right soon.” He gave Kelley a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Follow me, and I’ll demonstrate what I’ve been telling you.”

Kelley followed Roderick down the stairs into the dungeon. At the bottom of the stairs, another lens with a highly polished mirror behind it stood on an iron stand. Down the corridor where they turned the corner was yet another lens.

“These have all been placed at just the right angle,” Roderick explained.

They passed three more lenses before arriving at the room that housed the stone. A few more of Roderick’s assistants stood waiting for him, one holding a small wicker cage with a small bird flitting around inside.