The Alchemy of Stone

by Ekaterina Sedia

  “He has to be kidding,” the woman standing behind Mattie whispered. Mattie had not met her before, but her Scrying Ring hung conspicuously around her neck on a thin leather thong. The woman spoke with a slight accent, and her dark skin betrayed her foreign origin; no other society in the city would have tolerated her. “He expects us just to. sit back and take it?” Judging from the growing murmur around them, many alchemists shared her position.

  Bokker turned almost purple and raised his hands, waiting for silence. “I do not ask for your acquiescence in the face of accusations,” he said. “I ask for your tolerance and forgiveness. Do not lash back at those who accuse you, do not give them an excuse to rally the people and give power to the Mechanics. Realize that without ducal trust and support for our society, the Mechanics will rule the city.”

  “They already do,” someone in the front shouted.

  “Tides turn,” Bokker answered mysteriously.

  The woman behind Mattie tugged at her dress. “Excuse me,” she said. “Why do the alchemists need ducal support? I’m new here, still learning…”

  “The Dukes had always insisted that both alchemists and mechanics are represented in the government,” Mattie said. “They represent two aspects of creation—command of the spiritual and the magical, and mastery of the physical. Together, we have the same aspects as the gargoyles who could shape the physical with their minds.”

  The woman nodded. “I’m Niobe,” she said to Mattie. “And I thank you for your kind explanation. No one has been so nice to me here.”

  Mattie noticed the tension in the woman’s shoulders, how she carried herself—as if not quite sure what to expect. “It’s all right,” Mattie said. “I’m a machine. No one explains anything to me either.”

  “We will remain calm and we will be vigilant,” Bokker said. “And I propose we start with finding out whether anyone had received any orders for explosives lately.”

  “Just from the goddamned Mechanics,” said an elderly woman to Mattie’s left. “You know that. You’d think they eat that stuff.”

  “That’s a start,” Bokker said. “Anyone else?”

  A few more alchemists said that they had filled orders for the mechanics—their usual demolition, everyone assumed.

  Niobe cleared her throat. “How do you know that the people who ask for explosives are really mechanics?” She raised her voice enough for everyone to hear.

  “We have a system of identification,” Bokker explained. “The Mechanics issue medallions to their members—unless one had graduated from the Lyceum and was initiated, they cannot get one of those.”

  “Could they be faked or stolen?” Niobe asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” Mattie said loudly. “It is possible.”

  Niobe smiled gratefully, and Mattie’s heart throbbed in sorrow. Niobe seemed so ready for anger and scorn, so surprised at any sign of kindness… Mattie had to remind herself that she really had quite enough problems of her own. Right now, she realized that the entire gathering was staring at her and Niobe.

  Bokker clapped his hands. “Everyone who received an order, see me immediately. We will put together the list of names and verify with the Mechanics that these people are members in good standing and their requests were legitimate. We will also need to find out if any medallions had been lost or stolen.”

  “Like they will tell us if they lost anything,” someone said—Mattie could not see who for all the greenery. “That’ll put the blame on them.”

  “Any thoughts?” Bokker asked.

  Mattie raised her hand tentatively. “I could find out,” she said.

  Bokker beamed at her. “Fabulous,” he said. “Just don’t do anything foolish… or suspicious.”

  “I won’t.”

  The meeting was dismissed soon after, and Bokker and a few others stayed behind to work on the list. Niobe and Mattie left Bokker’s house together.

  “Where are you from?” Mattie asked. Niobe kept walking in step with her, and Mattie was starting to feel awkward about the silence.

  Niobe gestured vaguely east, indicating the wide world outside of the city walls. “Big city,” she said. “Beyond the sea.”

  “Oh,” Mattie said. “You were not happy there?”

  Niobe sighed. “Happy enough,” she said. “Only… how can you sleep when the night is so dark it suffocates, how can you smell the incense in the air and wonder if there are different places, places your heart yearns to see? Didn’t you ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if there are places where the alchemists use metals and not plants? Fire and not oil? How can you stay in one place and not want to leave?”

  “I don’t sleep,” Mattie said. “And I don’t wonder about other places.”

  Niobe rounded her eyes at Mattie in mock horror, and laughed. “Maybe you didn’t have to. You live in the City of Gargoyles, and maybe in the heart of wonder there is no more wonder left. But I… I so wanted to come here. I’ve been in this city a month now, and I’ve yet to see a single gargoyle.” She pouted in disappointment.

  They came to the Grackle Pond, and Mattie gestured to one of the wrought iron benches decorating the embankment. It was shaded by a slender cascade of willow branches, furry with pale young leaves, and Mattie judged that here they could sit in peace, enjoying the view and attracting little attention. “Let’s rest a bit,” she said, even though she was not tired, and drank in the thick smell of green stagnant water and silt. She trusted Niobe—she seemed so much like Mattie, and even though she was large and broad of shoulder, her flesh looked hard, as if carved of wood, so unlike Iolanda’s.

  Niobe plopped down on the bench and stretched her legs, sighing comfortably. “Come on,” she said to Mattie. “Tell me about the gargoyles. You’ve seen them, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” Mattie said. She was unsure of how much she should divulge. “Only once. They hide during the day, and you can see them at night, if you want to, from a distance. Or you could at one time, anyway. They slept on the roof of the Duke’s palace.”

  “Yes, I saw that,” Niobe said. “But… none of them move, and you can’t tell which ones are real.”

  “All of them are,” Mattie said. “Most are stone, some few are still moving… but they all turn to stone eventually.”

  “We will all become one with what we were born from,” Niobe said,

  Mattie stared.

  “Just a saying we have,” said Niobe, and laughed and pointed at a flock of ducks and ducklings that paddled to the shore, their black, beady eyes somehow managing an expectant expression. “Oh, they are cute.”

  “Yes,” Mattie said, without looking. “What did you mean, becoming one with what we were born from?”

  Niobe shrugged. “People came from the earth and return to it once they die, and become dirt. The gargoyles are born from stone. So they become it.” She laughed again. “Or something like that.”

  “What about the automatons?” Mattie asked.

  Niobe stared at the ducks that shyly wobbled ever closer. “I don’t know. We don’t have anything… anyone like you back home.”

  Mattie nodded. She didn’t have to ask, really—she came from Loharri’s laboratory, born of metal and coils and spare parts and boredom; this is where she would find herself in the end, likely enough.

  Mattie was fascinated with the change in Niobe—once they left the presence of the alchemists, Niobe seemed a whole new woman, laughing and moving freely. This is how Mattie felt away from judging eyes; the problem was, it only happened when she was alone, or with the gargoyles. Or Ilmarekh.

  Her thoughts turned to the Soul-Smoker and the secrets of the souls that inhabited his weak, ravaged body. She felt selfish that she hadn’t thought of him in so long. Him or Beresta. Or her work. She groaned a little.

  “Don’t be so glum,” Niobe said, and immediately clamped her hand over-her mouth. “I’m sorry. I know the palace was important to you and your people.”

  Mattie nodded. “And the gargoy
les. I wonder if they will raise the palace again or if there are too few of them left. Where will they go if they can’t rebuild? Where will the Duke and his court go?”

  “I’m sure it’ll work out.” Niobe patted Mattie’s shoulder, and the clinking of her rings sounded muffled by the cloth covering Mattie’s metal flesh. “I’m sorry to see you sad, and yet I’m happy that this misfortune allowed me to meet you. I haven’t made a friend here yet.”

  “It can be difficult here,” Mattie said. “Alchemists are not too bad—they won’t be rude to you; at least, not to your face. But the mechanics… they’re a conceited lot, and if you aren’t one of them they’ll spit on you. The man who made me isn’t like that, but he too has his faults.”

  “I often wonder what it would be like to know your creator,” Niobe said.

  Mattie inclined her head. “It is aggravating,” she said. “And humbling at times. Loharri… he can be difficult. Possessive.”

  Niobe laughed. “Of course he is. You’re…” She paused, as if looking for the right word. “You’re precious, Mattie. There’s no one in the world like you. If I had made you, I wouldn’t let you out of the house.”

  “I suppose I should be flattered,” Mattie said and stood. “It is nice to meet, you, really, but I should be going.”

  “Oh no.” Niobe grabbed Mattie’s hand and peered into her blue porcelain face. “I’ve offended you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mattie said. “It will pass.”

  Niobe stood too. “Listen. Come visit me the next holiday, all right? I live by the market, the one on the other side of Merchant Square. There’s a jewelry shop downstairs.”

  “I know the place,” she said. “It’s owned by other… easterners? Like you?”

  Niobe smiled. “That’s right. Will you come?”

  As much as Mattie resented being treated like a thing that could be kept indoors at one’s whim, she thought that Niobe deserved another chance. After all, where else would she find someone as alone and mistrusted as herself? “Yes,” she said. “I will visit you. Maybe you can tell me about the alchemy you practice.”

  Niobe’s face brightened with a smile. “Yes! And promise you’ll do the same for me. The alchemists here seem awfully protective of their secrets.”

  “They don’t like outsiders.”

  Niobe raised her eyebrows. “Really? 1 haven’t noticed.”

  Mattie shrugged. “They did let you in, like they let me in. Believe me, this is the best either of us will be treated.”

  “Unless we change that,” Niobe said. “I’ll see you the next holiday.”

  Mattie headed down the embankment, unsure whether to go home or to visit Ilmarekh. She decided on the latter; it wasn’t just Beresta’s secrets or her elusive son, but Mattie worried about Ilmarekh, of how he withstood the assault of the ghosts inside him. She headed west, for the city gates.

  We mourn today as we will have mourned tomorrow, and we hide in the rain gutters and the attics, we smell dust and people’s cooking. At night, we huddle on the roofs, the shingles rough under our feet, our folded wings chafing against the bricks of the chimneys. Sometimes, the wind blows and brings with it the sound of quiet laughter and the smell of lilacs, the humid breath of the water lilies in the Grackle Pond and the stench of bleach from the factory.

  We are sad that we cannot smell cool stone, the dark moss pockmarking its surface, the rain and snow whipping its inert bulk and slowly, imperceptibly eroding it. And as we think of stone, we think of the things we haven’t thought about in ages—of how stone heaved and buckled and split, releasing us into the world; of how it followed us, like the night ocean follows the moon, how it bounded toward our hands, like a loyal dog to the beckoning of its master. When we were many, we could breathe a barest whisper, and it heard and obeyed, it listened. And now our voices are few and weak, and we cannot rebuild what has been ruined.

  Chapter 6

  Mattie found Ilmarekh in his house on top of Ram’s Head Hill, and immediately saw that he was unwell. She cursed herself for not thinking to bring a tonic or a strengthening elixir.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked Ilmarekh who sat, wrapped in a blanket, by the roaring fire despite a warm, balmy day outside.

  He shivered in response. His teeth clattered so loudly that no words could come out.

  Mattie moved closer, stepping carefully around dirty dishes on the floor and an occasional bowl of ash. She touched his forehead, and her sensitive fingers registered no fever, just a film of clammy sweat covering his brow.

  It didn’t take Mattie long to recognize the symptoms of opium withdrawal—the alternating sweats and chills, the body aches, nausea, uncontrollable sneezing and watering eyes—she catalogued them in her mind and hurried back to her shop.

  There was little to be done about that but wait it out, but Mattie looked to diminishing the pain before cures. She thought of buying more opium but instead decided to use what few dried poppy flowers she had left—they would be enough to ease Ilmarekh’s suffering and let him sleep.

  She ran up the stairs, the light metal of her lower legs swinging over two steps at a time, and started her brewing. To opium, she added lemongrass against nausea, chamomile for a general calming, and vanilla to relax his knotted shoulders and let him sleep.

  She flew through her shop, mixing and grinding, measuring and distilling, filtering and decanting. A plain bottle would suffice, she said to herself. What does he care? She rummaged through the jars and bottles and decanters crowding the shelf over the bench, and picked up an old apothecary vial shrouded with dust and cobwebs. She wiped the grime away and discovered on its side an image of a gargoyle in low relief on a flat medallion filigreed with gold.

  When she was still living with Loharri, he sometimes took her eyes away as a punishment for disobedience, and she had to feel her way around for as much as a week. She still remembered her delight when her fingers stumbled upon a familiar shape and recognized it—a full, round surprise that made her heart bubble with joy. She remembered finding the vial with the gargoyle in it and secreting it in the folds of her dress, so she could trace the gargoyle wings in her room, in secret, and thus defy her blindness.

  She cleaned the vial and poured her mixture into it. Surely the man who was blind for all his life was not immune to the joy of tactile recognition, she thought, and hurried back to the gates, the vial wrapped in the tight coils of her fingers. The elixir would make him better; she chased away the selfish thoughts of the questions she would ask him once he was coherent again. She needed to fix him, and did not dare to think beyond that.

  Back in his shack, Ilmarekh had moved away from the fire; it still smoldered, ashes wet from a carelessly dumped bucket of water. He was now curled up on the bed, little more than a mere straw-filled mattress.

  Mattie shook her head and poked at the wet ashes with the tip of her foot. “What are you going to do if you want fire later?”

  He shrugged, sullen at the nagging note that crept into her voice.

  “I brought you something,” Mattie said, softer now. “Please drink it.”

  “Does it have opium in it?” Ilmarekh said.

  “Very little—just to make you feel better. Why?”

  He either shivered or shrugged, she wasn’t sure. “When I don’t smoke and my head is clear, the souls stop talking. I want them to stop talking.”

  “Just drink this,” Mattie said, “and sleep—I promise they won’t bother you.”

  “You won’t… you won’t do anything to hurt me, will you?

  From previous experience, Mattie knew that people didn’t trust her just because she mentioned her good will or kind nature. Nowadays, she relied entirely on mercenary arguments. “Why would I do that? I still have questions to ask you.”

  Her words seemed to reassure him, and he propped himself up on one elbow, pulling a ragged woolen blanket around him. He grasped the bottle and drank, his long white fingers twitching on the glass, pulsating with every gulp as i
f they were the tentacles of an octopus testing the strength of its suckers. He was almost finished when his fingertips brushed across the glass medallion with the emblazoned gargoyle, and his blind white eyes widened in surprise.

  Mattie was relieved to see a ghost of a smile touch his lips.

  “Mattie,” he said. “This is a truly lovely engraving. Thank you.” He fell back on his mattress, still clasping the vial, and was asleep before he remembered to stop smiling.

  Mattie guarded his sleep, which gave her plenty of time to look around. She knew the Soul-Smoker was poor, she just hadn’t realized how much so. The house—the hut, if one wanted to be honest—lacked even the most basic necessities. There was no running water, and the fireplace seemed to be the only way to cook meals and heat water for a bath. There was just one room, one corner of it sagging perilously and threatening to bring down the entire house. The wooden floors, drafty and not covered by anything but sparse trickles of sawdust, were worn to a soft shine by the feet of many generations of Soul-Smokers; their daily paths were clearly visible—one led from the fireplace to the table, rickety on its thin, deformed legs; another shot from the table to the bed and the deep ceramic tub in the corner next to it; the third led from the bed to the fireplace. A simple triangle enclosing a life of privation.

  Mattie did not have to ask to learn Ilmarekh’s story—the Soul-Smokers were always the same, recruited from those who had no other choice. Usually orphans, usually crippled, those who had nowhere else to go and no one to turn for help to; those who had no chance surviving on their own, without the Stone Monks’ dubious charity.

  The orphanage run by the Stone Monks was the northernmost building in the city, its wall just a hair’s breadth from the city wall by the northern gates. Mattie remembered coming there with Loharri—he seemed fond of coming there, with no other apparent purpose but to stand in front of the solid front wall, his hands in his pockets and his disfigured face twisted in an even more unpleasant grimace than usual. Mattie would stand next to him and occasionally ask questions to stave off boredom.