title: A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery
author: Mary A. Atwood
description: With A Dissertation On The More Celebrated Of The Alchemical Philosophers Being An Attempt Towards The Recovery Of The Ancient Experiment Of Nature.
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  **IX**
  
  
  My fingers dosed about the wand, and then nearly did I drop it, for it was as
  if I had grasped a length of frosted metal, so cold it burnt the skin laid
  against it. Yet I did not release it—I could not—for at that moment it clung
  to me more than I grasped at it.
  
  
  At the same instant Ayllia broke from my control. She threw herself forward,
  out of my reach before I could catch her again. As her feet touched the
  pavement she staggered and went down, falling on her hands and knees. Her
  weight upon those stones must have released some hidden spring, for a flash
  burst upward. As it had been in my dream, there stood the gate marked in fiery
  lines.
  
  
  “No, Ayllia!” If she heard my shout it meant nothing to her ensorcelled mind.
  She scuttled forward, still on hands and knees like some tormented beast, and
  passed between the gate