Page 128 - The Grotesque Children's Book

That night in his dream, the Vapor visited him again, surrounding him,
whispering to him of vast knowledge and health, if he could only, could
only....In his dream were images of globes and flasks, salamanders and
dragons, heat and sulphur and mercury, and he could hear an echo of the
healers' chanting in the grotto: “Sal armoniac one pound, Arinat one half
pound, Sal niter one and a half pound, Sal gemmae one pound, Alumen
crudum one half pound. Black, white, yellow, red.”

He awoke with a shout. He tried to rub the dream out of his eyes, but it
had risen from his eyes into his head, where it was lodged.

Again it was not yet too late. He could go to the Healing Elders tomorrow
and confess all, telling them he'd fallen asleep, overheard things he shouldn't
have, but he intended never to do anything with his visions; these were their
secrets, not his. He hadn't meant to steal him; they had come to them.

But that isn't what he did.

It's hard not to find poor Ernozio at fault in all this, isn't it? You, with
your impeccable scruples, you would have gone to the Healing Elders and told
them their secrets were safe with you, but then you would suggest that in the
future they might consider investing in a door for their grotto, eh? Oh, but
what you don't know is that the day before he fell asleep at the grotto, Ernozio
had been ill with some sort of cough and an ache in his shoulders, but when
he'd heard the sound of the music, that music had healed him. It had
invigorated him at the same time, filling him with serenity and profound sense
of well-being. This music needs to be heard, thought Ernozio. The Vapor must
be allowed to waft freely in the world. She must not be confined to a secret
grotto where none but a privileged few could know her.

So rather than go to the Elders who would only confine the Vapor further
and then kill him, Ernozio instead found himself buying some glass flasks
according to the images in his dream visit from the Vision, along with some

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