The Alchemy of Stone

by Ekaterina Sedia

  Her attention was diverted by several automatons filing into the hall, their metal feet reverberating on the hollow floor of the sepulcher. They carried bottled wine and honeyed water, trays with fruit and bread and sweets, stacks of dishes and utensils. They moved in unison, their movements measured and devoid of any indication of free will. She had seen such servant automatons before, the mindless drudges that allowed for the leisure of the city’s inhabitants. And every time she saw them she felt deep unease, a pervading sense of wrong—how could they make them like that? she thought. If they were to have a mind, they would’ve been miserable with their lives of servitude—Mattie remembered the dark sense of injustice when she was little but a maid—but at the same time they would have the choice of misery. Making them without minds removed a potential conflict, and Mattie thought of the slaughterhouses in the outskirts, the dank places that smelled of rust and iron and rot. She ventured there to buy offal that was used in some of her ointments, but sometimes she watched the animals. It was like that, she thought, remembering the panic in sheep’s eyes; it was as if they managed to create a sheep that didn’t mind being slaughtered after it was led into a dark steel barrel of a room where steaming blood stood knee-deep.

  Loharri touched her hand. “What are you thinking about?” He traced the direction of her gaze and spoke softly, solicitously.

  Mattie looked away. “Thank you for not making me like them.” And added, before he had a chance to respond, “You should eat something. You look pale.”

  “I always look pale,” he said but didn’t smile as he normally would. “It really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded. “They never had a chance. You removed the possibility of them even questioning if it was wrong.”

  He frowned a bit. “We’ll talk about it later, if you don’t mind.”

  She didn’t; the mechanics continued to mingle, most of them carrying plates now, and to speak in their sedate voices. Mattie followed Loharri, listening for any mention of the gargoyles, but everyone seemed rather preoccupied with solving the transportation problem. Mattie listened just enough to conclude that the alleged problem was not a problem at all, but rather the way things had always been—the mechanics never tired of improving upon what was not broken. They felt that produce was slow to arrive from the farms, and that during the harvest the roads could barely sustain the crawling traffic of produce carts and the six-legged lizards that dragged them at a leisurely pace. It interfered with the deliveries from the mines, and during harvest the production of the factories often dropped. The mechanics, of course, thought that it called for automation of the lizards, the carts, or both. Mattie wondered if they would ever think of automation of the peasants.

  “We would also need a bigger road,” Bergen suggested.

  “Or merely a better one,” Loharri said.

  Mattie grew bored of the conversation centering on roads and whether it was worthwhile designing a road that would move and carry stationary produce to the city, and wandered through the crowd, whirring and clicking, listening. She stopped by a small cluster of mechanics who spoke in low voices, often glancing over their hunched shoulders with a palpable air of secrecy. Mattie stopped a few steps away, far enough not to arouse suspicion but close enough to catch their whispers with her exceptional hearing.

  “I know that they are up to something,” said the rotund man that she recognized from earlier, and glanced around furtively. “Mark my words—exiles never go away peacefully; they always want to get back in. Always.”

  “Suppose you’re right,” said a young man, whose pimples and straight back testified that he was fresh out of the Lyceum. “What can we do about it?”

  “Build fortifications,” the rotund man said.

  The rest of the group snickered.

  “Isn’t it a bit premature?” said one of them. “If you are concerned, perhaps some careful reconnaissance…”

  “Enough of this nonsense,” interrupted the man who appeared to be the oldest and crankiest in the group. “Wait for the problem to arise, then seek solutions.”

  Mattie thought that the mechanics were generally inclined to solve non-existent problems; she took a step away from the group when her leg shook and she felt faint. Her movements faltered, and she felt a fine tremor spreading through her arms and legs, while her head felt suddenly foreign and unwieldy. She stumbled and would have fallen, if the edge of the table had not presented itself to her dimming vision; Mattie grabbed onto it, her fine fingertips splintering under her weight.

  She saw Loharri making his way toward her, worry on his face, and his fingers already unbuttoning the tall collar of his jacket. Before her eyes closed, Mattie saw him pulling out a thin chain and a blinding flash of light reflected from a polished metal surface. The flash grew larger and obscured the room and the dismayed faces of the mechanics, annoyed at such brazen automaton malfunctioning, and Mattie could only feel her creator’s hands—loving, repellent—tugging the dress on her chest down, exposing her shame for all to see. And then she stopped feeling altogether.

  Mattie came to—at first, she didn’t realize that she was in the same room, lying on the same floor. Most of the lamps had been extinguished, and the people were gone. Only Loharri perched on the edge of the table, motionless and dark like a gargoyle in the gathering dusk.

  She pushed herself up, and her hands clanged against the hollow floors, making them sing with resonance. Her fingers found the smooth window in her chest and traced its familiar oval shape. It was closed again now, secure and snug, but her heart whirred strongly behind it, all wound up and ready for another few months of labor. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s not your fault.” He didn’t move, and she could not quite decide whether he looked tired or irritated. “Not the best timing, but these things do happen.”

  She stood, testing her limbs. He didn’t seem mad at her for the embarrassment she caused him. She should be grateful for that, she thought, but instead she felt hurt. Violated. He exposed her heart for all to see, he wound her up with the key around his neck right in front of his friends. “I want to go home,” she said.

  He hopped off the table, and the floor echoed again. “As you wish. I’ll walk you.”

  “No need,” she said.

  “I’d rather keep an eye on you,” he said. “To make sure you’re all right. I just wish you’d tell me when you need winding.”

  “I don’t know when I do,” Mattie said. “I just wish you had given me the key.”

  Loharri led her outside, into the uncertain, still-tremulous light of the streetlamps that were just starting to go on. “If I give you the key,” he said, taking her hand into his, “you’ll have no reason to spend time with me.”

  They had had this conversation often enough, and it always went in circles like that. Mattie reassured him that she would come and see him, but he shook his head and insisted until Mattie agreed that he was right. She wouldn’t—oh, for a while she would feel dutiful and visit, and then the obligation would become a meaningless chore as the reasons behind it faded and resentment overcame loyalty. She looked away.

  “Why do you hate me?” Loharri asked.

  “I don’t.” Mattie faltered, unsure at the sudden change of tone and subject. She didn’t, not really. He was just trying to confuse her, to take care of the uncertain, vulnerable state when her mechanisms settled after the recent disruption. “I honestly don’t. I just… I just wish you’d given me the key.”

  He patted her arm. “All in good time,” he said.

  Chapter 4

  Iolanda sniffed at the vial—Mattie had found the most expensive crystal, and the slanted sunrays lit the facets with red, yellow, and blue sparks—and smiled. “Not bad,” she said. “A little bitter for my taste, but I suppose it suits. I’m pleased I have put my faith in you.”

  “Did I pass?” Mattie asked.

  Iolanda’s eyebrows plucked to perfect black crescents arched in pretended surprise. “Pass what?�
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  “It was a test, wasn’t it?” Mattie said. “You wanted to see if I could follow your orders.”

  “I assumed you could do that,” Iolanda said, and helped herself to a seat. “But yes, I wanted to make sure that you are good with deadlines and feelings—I know little of automatons, and I wondered if emotions are something you understand…”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Mattie immediately worried that her words came out too defensive.

  Iolanda shrugged, too languid to disguise her indifference. “You are made mostly of metal.”

  “I won’t argue with the obvious,” Mattie said. “But what does it have to do with feelings?”

  “You have a smart mouth,” Iolanda said, and smiled with faint approval. “I think I will work well with you. Now, I will depart, unless…”

  Mattie waited politely for the rest of the sentence, but since it was not forthcoming, she saw it fit to ask, “Unless what?”

  Iolanda rolled her eyes. “As I suspected, you do miss some subtleties. I was just trying to give you an opening to ask for favors.”

  “Thank you,” Mattie said. She considered feverishly whether to ask about Sebastian—Loharri seemed so reluctant to speak of him and his disappearance that she felt she had no other recourse. Yet, she feared that she was becoming a part of something she didn’t understand.

  “Well?” Iolanda stood and tapped her foot on the leg of Mattie’s laboratory bench. “I haven’t all day.”

  “I wanted to find relatives of a… a friend. Not really a friend—a deceased colleague. Beresta.”

  “Never heard of her,” Iolanda said. “What are her relatives’ names?”

  “There’s only one I know of,” Mattie said. “His name’s Sebastian; he’s a mechanic, I think… from the Eastern district.”

  Iolanda’s smooth forehead acquired a thin horizontal wrinkle, which smoothed out as soon as she started to speak. “You ask for interesting favors, Mattie. Surely, you understand that associating with people like Sebastian is not good for you?”

  Great, Mattie thought. A second undesirable in as many days. “No,” she said. “I just need to talk to him about his mother’s papers—I’m interested in her work, not him.”

  “I believe you,” Iolanda said. “But that is of no consequence. Sebastian is not welcome in the city anymore—I imagine he lives outside the walls, perhaps on a farm somewhere.”

  “Or he could’ve moved on to another city.”

  “I doubt it. He still keeps in touch with some people here, and there’s a rumor that he and his associates are not far away.”

  “What did he do?” Mattie asked. “And what does he want here?”

  “He was a mechanic,” Iolanda said. “The Mechanics cast him out. You better ask them.”

  Mattie bent her neck, indicating that she understood. “I will,” she said. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Iolanda straightened her skirt and smoothed the front of her blouse. “I’ve trusted you by hiring you—it is only right for me to be straight with you. Of course, I do expect the same back.”

  Mattie bowed, and waited for Iolanda, the crystal vial clutched in her smooth hands, to leave. Iolanda seemed so alien—Mattie had not considered it before, but Iolanda and her abundance of flesh made Mattie conscious of her own small, long-limbed body of metal and wood, jointed and angular. The only person she was close to before was Ogdela, old and dry like a matchstick. Then there was Loharri, but he was always there and hardly counted. But even he was long and thin, almost insectile—especially when he worked with his slow, deliberate movements that reminded Mattie of the praying mantises that populated the wild rose bushes that had been taking over the back yard of Loharri’s house.

  Mattie could not decide if she liked Iolanda—she liked her words and her apparent candor. But her fleshiness made her uneasy, and Mattie felt shallow because of that. And yet, the feeling persisted.

  To take her mind off Iolanda, Mattie decided to go shopping. The money Iolanda gave her was certainly welcome, and Mattie decided to stop by a bookshop near the paper factory. It carried some books she had lusted after for as long as she had been on her own, after she had ended her apprenticeship with Ogdela—small, trim books with thick paper and ragged pages, books bound in cloth and leather, books with faded drawings painted with a thin brush dipped in ox blood.

  Ogdela had given her a crude book printed on pounded birch bark and containing a number of simple recipes and a list of common ingredients. It was Mattie’s treasure, even though she knew every word by heart—it was proof that she was a real alchemist; then there were others, acquired through varied means—some as payment, others bought with money she should’ve spent on other things. But she longed for the expensive books. She justified it to herself by her need to learn more arcane things—after all, to deal with the gargoyles she needed more complex potions and mixtures, new and exotic ingredients. But in her ticking heart, she knew that she just wanted the books as objects, as small solid leather-bound weights of palpable luxury.

  She walked to the store; it was midday, and the streets swarmed with oxen, lizards, and mechanized buggies carrying people and goods to the afternoon markets; a few pedestrians weaved in and out of the traffic, but they grew rarer as she approached the paper factory—the sun had heated up the noxious fumes emanating from it, making the air yellow and thick.

  Mattie tasted bleach and sulfur on her lips, until she passed beyond the factory, away from the river, and entered a labyrinth of narrow streets occupied by tenements and small shops selling wares both expensive and mysterious; a faint smell of polished wood and ancient fabrics hung over the area. She could see the palatial spires of the Duke’s district far in the distance, piercing the low long clouds.

  As she approached the bookshop, she felt a distant rumble underground, as if a thunderclap had struck deep within the earth under her feet. The air reverberated, and the windows of the shop—wide panes of glass—gave back a high-pitched, almost inaudible cry. Mattie paused, her hand on the handle. Its tremor, just on the edge of detection, transmitted to her fingers, making them itch. She opened the door.

  “What was that?” she asked the shop owner, an old woman bent at the waist at precisely a ninety-degree angle.

  She looked up at Mattie and smiled. “What was what, sweetness?”

  “That… noise,” she answered.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” the woman said. “Want me to show you some books?”

  “Do you have any books on gargoyles?”

  The woman laughed. “Do I ever! Come with me, sweetness.” She led Mattie to the back of the shop, where the shelves were covered with a thin layer of dust and books towered in haphazard piles, in almost unbearable opulence and bounty. The shop owner grabbed onto one of the shelves and miraculously straightened her back, as her hands moved up from one shelf to the next, ratcheting her to verticality. She pulled a few heavy books, thick and square, from the top shelf. “Here’s something to start you with.”

  We do not live in the books written about us—we crawl on the walls and we hide, but not within these pages. We do not even believe in these books.

  Not that they are untrue, but these accounts lack the immediacy necessary for understanding, and we want to tell the girl to turn away, away—these books will lead her down twisty roads, long, confused byways, away from us. We want to tap on the window, but she is bent over the pages, lost in them. Already lost to us, and we consider weeping.

  And then another explosion rocks the air, and we look away from the window, startled, and at first we don’t see, we don’t understand—but there is an empty space in the clouds, a space where the tall spire used to signal our home.

  Mattie stroked the page of the book in delight, quite refusing to believe that the picture in front of her was a thing of artifice—it had the appearance and the texture of something completely natural, springing spontaneously from the paper thanks to some obscure magic. The gargoyle in the pict
ure squatted, its wings folded, its fists supporting its sharp chin, its face serene. It was just like Mattie remembered the gargoyles from the night they visited her—so gray and alien and sleek in their winged beauty, their flesh hard and cold like stone.

  She read the words below the picture and soon she was enthralled in the history of them—of how they sprang from the ground, uncounted eons ago, of how they talked to the stone and grew it—at first, shapeless cliffs shot through with caves and encrusted with swallows’ nests; then, as their skill and numbers increased, they shaped the living stone whose destiny they shared—shaped it with their mere will!—into tall structures, decorated with serpentine spirals and breathtakingly sweeping walls, into delicate lattices and sturdy edifices.

  The gargoyles needed no buildings, but when people came, the gargoyles built them—the Ducal palace was the first to rise from the wreckage of their former creations. They built for the joy of building while remaining elusive, hidden. And as people began to build their own houses and stores and factories, there were more places to hide. At night, the gargoyles went to the oldest of the buildings, to the palace, and they rested on its roofs and spires, haunch-to-haunch and shoulder-to-shoulder with their predecessors who had become one with the stone they had shaped. And they watched over the city as one would after a child.

  Mattie closed the book and flipped through another—this one had no pictures and the words were crowded densely together, so that she had to extend her eyes a little to focus better. This book was full of dates and histories, and as far as Mattie could determine from her cursory skim, it was dedicated to proving that the gargoyles did not only grow stone but also had a power of controlling human souls, their thoughts and desires. The author argued in greatly heated and long sentences that the dynasty of the Dukes—the descendants of the first people to populate the gargoyles’ creations—were complicit in the gargoyles’ conspiracy, and that the source of their influence was not just social inertia but the hidden support of the gray creatures.