1529 year. At the crossroads of two roads cousins ​​meet. Henri-Maximilian, the son of the wealthy merchant Henri-Juste Ligre, is sixteen years old: he raves about Plutarch and firmly believes that he can compete with glory with Alexander the Great and Caesar. He hates to sit in his father’s shop and measure cloth with arshin: his goal is to become a man. The illegitimate Zeno is twenty years old: all his thoughts are occupied only by science, and he dreams of ascending above man, having learned the secrets of alchemy.

Zeno was born in Bruges. His mother was Hilzonda, sister of Henri-Just, and his father was the young prelate Alberico de Numi, the offspring of an old Florentine family. The handsome Italian easily seduced the young Flemish, and then returned to the papal court, where a brilliant career awaited him. The betrayal of her lover inspired the young woman with an aversion to marriage, but one day her brother introduced her to the gray-bearded God-fearing Simon Adriansen, who introduced Hilsonda to the evangelical faith. When the news came to Brugge that Cardinal Alberico de Numi was killed in Rome, Hilzonda agreed to marry Simon, Zenon remained in his uncle's house - his stepfather did not manage to tame this little wolf cub.

Henri-Just gave the teaching of his nephew to his brother-in-law Bartolome Campanus, canon of the Church of St. Donatus. Some acquaintances of Zeno bothered relatives: he willingly made friends with the barber Jan Meyers and the weaver Kolas Gel. Jan knew no equal in the art of bleeding, but he was suspected of secretly dismembering the corpses. Kolas, on the other hand, dreamed of facilitating the work of cloth makers, and Zeno created drawings of machine tools. In the barber’s pharmacy and in the weaver’s workshop, the schoolboy comprehended what book wisdom could not give him. However, the weavers disappointed the young man - these absurd ignoramuses tried to break his looms. Once, the house of Henri-Just was visited by Princess Margarita, who liked the beautiful impudent schoolboy: she expressed a desire to take him into her retinue, but Zeno chose to embark on wanderings. Soon, Henry Maximilian followed suit. Having failed with his eldest son, Henri-Just put all his hopes on the younger - Philibert.

At first, the rumor about Zeno did not subside. Many claimed that he comprehended all the secrets of alchemy and medicine. They also said that he desecrates cemeteries, seduces women, gets confused with heretics and atheists. He was allegedly seen in the most remote countries - according to rumors, he made a fortune by selling the secret of the Greek fire invented by him to Algerian Pasha. But time passed, Zeno gradually began to be forgotten, and only the canon Campanus sometimes remembered his former student.

Simon Adriansen and Hilsonda lived in peace and harmony for twelve years. The righteous gathered in their house - those to whom the light of truth was revealed. The news spread that in Münster the Anabaptists drove away the bishops and municipal councilors - this city turned into Jerusalem destitute. Simon, having sold his property, rebelled into the City of God with his wife and little daughter Marta. Soon the stronghold of virtue was surrounded by Catholic troops. Hans Bockhold, formerly named after John of Leiden, proclaimed himself king-prophet. The new Christ had seventeen wives, which served as an indisputable proof of the power of God. When Simon left to collect money for a holy cause, Hilzonda became the eighteenth. Puzzled by ecstasy, she barely noticed how the bishop's soldiers rushed into the city. Mass executions began. Hilzond was cut off his head, and Marta, a faithful servant, hid until Simon returned. The old man did not reproach the deceased wife with a word: in her fall, he blamed only himself. He did not have long to live, and he entrusted Marta to his sister Salome, the wife of the richest banker Fugger. The girl grew up in Cologne with her cousin Benedict. Martin Fugger and Juste Ligre from Bruges, eternal rival friends, decided to pool their capital: Benedict was to marry Philibert. But when the plague began in Germany, Salome and Benedict died. The wife of Philibert Liger herd Marta. All her life she was tormented by guilt, for she had renounced the evangelical faith bequeathed by her parents and could not overcome the fear that had driven her from the bed of her dying sister. The doctor was a witness to her weakness - a tall, thin man with gray hair and a swarthy face.

Zenon moved from Cologne to Innsbruck. Here the cousins ​​met again. Twenty years passed - it was possible to take stock, Henri-Maximilian rose to the rank of captain: he did not regret leaving home, but life did not work out the way he dreamed. Zeno knew a lot, but came to the conclusion that pundits are not in vain burned at the stake: they can gain such power that they will push the entire globe into the abyss - however, the human race does not deserve a better fate. Ignorance goes hand in hand with cruelty, and even the search for truth turns into a bloody masquerade, as happened in Munster. Zeno did not keep silent about his troubles: his book “Predictions of the Future” was recognized as heretical, so he needed to hide and constantly change his place of residence.

Soon, Henry-Maximilian died in the siege of Siena. And Zeno had to flee Innsbruck, and he decided to return to Bruges, where no one remembered him. Ligers have long left this city - Philibert was now one of the most influential and wealthy people of Brabant. Having called himself Sebastian Theus, the alchemist confided in an old friend, Jan Meyers, in whose house he settled. At first, Zenon thought that he would linger in this quiet refuge for a short while, but gradually realized that he had fallen into a trap and was doomed to wear someone else's mask. He maintained friendly relations only with the prior of the Franciscan monastery. He was the only person who showed tolerance and a wide range of views. Dr. Theus pse was more embraced by aversion to people - even the human body had many flaws, and he tried to come up with a more perfect device. From a young age, he was attracted by the three stages of the Great Act of the alchemists: black, white and red - dismemberment, recreation and union. The first phase required his whole life, but he was convinced that the path exists: after the decay of thought and the decay of all forms, either genuine death or the return of the spirit, freed and cleansed of the abomination of the surrounding being, will come.

The half-mad servant Katarina poisoned old Jan, and Zeno was again tempted to wander, but he could not leave the prior, painfully dying from the flood in his throat. The confrontation of Saturn did not bode well for both of them. Monks left unattended. increasingly violated the charter, and some brothers indulged in secret fornication. Opening a hospital at the monastery, Zenon took in the assistants of Cyprian, a village boy who had received tonsure at the age of fifteen. The troubled times attracted denunciations, and after the death of the prior, the case of monastic orgies was opened. During interrogation with an addiction, Ciprian accused his master of complicity. Sebastian Theus was immediately captured, and he struck everyone by giving his real name.

In vain Zeno believed that he was forgotten. The ghost, who lived in the back streets of human memory, suddenly found flesh and blood in the guise of a sorcerer, an apostate, a foreign scout. Slutty monks were executed at the stake. Upon learning of this, Zeno suddenly felt remorse: as the creator of the Greek fire, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, he was also involved in the atrocity. Then he wanted to leave this hell - the earth. However, at the trial he defended himself quite skillfully, and public opinion was divided: the people who suffered from the frauds of Philibert spread their grudge against Zeno, while the relatives and friends of the Ligers secretly tried to help the accused. Canon Campanus sent a messenger to the banker. But Martha did not like to remember the man who had guessed her rhinestone, and Philibert was too careful to risk his position for the sake of a dubious cousin. Zenon’s fate was decided by the testimony of Katharina, who stated that she helped to poison Jan Meyers: according to her, she could not refuse the villain, the doctor, who burned her flesh with a love potion. Rumors of witchcraft were fully confirmed, and Zeno was sentenced to be burned. The inhabitants of Bruges were eagerly awaiting this spectacle. On the night of February 18, 1569 canon Campanus came to prison to persuade Zeno to bring public repentance and thereby save his life. The philosopher flatly refused. After the priest left, he pulled out a carefully hidden narrow blade. At the last minute, the skill of the barber surgeon, whom he was so proud of, came in handy. Having cut the tibial vein and the radial artery on his wrist, he clearly saw the three phases of Acts: black turned green, turning into pure white, cloudy whiteness turned into crimson gold, and then the scarlet ball fluttered right in front of his eyes Zenon still managed to hear the jailer’s steps, but now people were to him not scary.