The Alchemy of Stone

by Ekaterina Sedia

  “The gargoyles told me you were looking for me,” he said.

  Chapter 11

  Mattie clicked along with a greater sense of determination than ever. Iolanda’s request receded on her mental landscape, its bothersome shape pushed deep and wedged between other concerns she did not want to think about just yet; it fit right next to her uneasy curiosity about Loharri and the dead boy’s hair, two thoughts caught together like the teeth of two interlocking spur gears.

  Instead, she worried about the gargoyles and Sebastian, who had become, unofficially, her ward along with Niobe. There was no reason for Mattie to protect Sebastian and to tell him that the mechanics were interested in his whereabouts and that the enforcers were eager to arrest any easterner and hand him over to the Soul-Smoker. But still she felt compelled—for the vague but persistent feeling of kinship she felt for his mother. When Beresta had broken through the chorus of voices shouting through Ilmarekh’s mouth, it was only to say, “Find my son. He lives in the eastern district.” At the time, Mattie assumed that Beresta’s tortured whisper was for Mattie’s benefit, to help her sort out the gargoyles’ business; now she was not so sure. She felt as if Beresta had entrusted her son to Mattie’s care from beyond the grave, and she couldn’t very well ignore the request.

  But her place was getting crowded. Between Niobe and her bed by the fireplace and Sebastian’s large frame curled up in the corner of the laboratory, by the waste drain, there was barely enough place for Mattie to stay upright, let alone pace, and she spent her days working at the bench, pulverizing and sublimating stone, and running outside to buy food for her visitors. Something had to change soon; and she needed advice.

  She avoided Iolanda for now, and Loharri was the last person she wanted to alert to the nature of her hesitation and Sebastian’s presence. When she closed her eyes—rather, retracted them into her head to give them a rest from constant stimulation—the visions of hair plagued her. She saw the dead boy’s hair, curled up like a sleeping snake against the naked smooth skin of Loharri’s stomach, and Loharri’s and Iolanda’s strands, twined together in a deadly betrayal masquerading as love. Mattie shivered.

  She put her shoes on and headed for the door.

  Sebastian woke up. “Where are you going?” he said in a voice rough with sleep.

  “Out,” Mattie said.

  Sebastian sat up, his face gathered in a suspicious frown. Mattie had learned most of his expressions, and this one was as familiar as his smile. The blueprints of his face wedged deep into her memory, like the alchemical recipes she never forgot because she mustn’t. “Out where?”

  “To talk to your mother,” Mattie said, softly. “Keep quiet— you’ll wake up Niobe.”

  “Can I come too?”

  “You know you can’t. But I will give her your regards. Any questions I should ask her?”

  Sebastian shook his head, his face relaxing, pensive. “That wouldn’t be right. The dead are dead. Aren’t they?”

  “Not until the Soul-Smoker is dead.” Mattie headed for the door.

  The night city embraced and buoyed her, the air sweet and blue and dense like water sloshing in the Grackle Pond, mysterious and forbidden. The streets seemed different, the buildings twisting and leaning dangerously into the streets, their shuttered windows distorted in an inaudible moan. A few times Mattie worried that she had lost her way somehow—even the familiar landmarks acquired a menacing air. It was a while before Mattie noticed that the streetlamps had remained unlit—no doubt, the mechanics had braced for the shortage of coal.

  It was windy outside the gates—the open blasted earth afforded no cover for the lashings of the gale, and Mattie had to wrap her skirts around her legs as tightly as she could, afraid that they would catch the wind like sails and carry her away, into the dark sky salted with the rough crystals of the stars. Loharri had told her that there was no air between the stars and this is why people couldn’t live there, but Mattie did not need to breathe, and she imagined herself floating in the black void, only her puzzled memories for company.

  She hurried up the hill, toward the shining beacon of the lit window and the sweet smell of opium smoke the wind brought to her.

  Ilmarekh was not surprised at her visit—as soon as she knocked on the door, he called out, “Come in, Mattie.”

  She entered. “How did you know it was me?”

  “Who else would visit me in the middle of the night?” he answered.

  “The enforcers.”

  He pointed to the previously vacant corner of the room, where a small portable telegraph gleamed with its brass knobs and copper rods. “They need me so often, they installed the machine. I hear it go off, I just head for the jail.” He heaved a sigh. “I don’t like this, Mattie—every time I tell them the soul was hiding no secrets, they just laugh and tell me that they’ll keep looking.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Mattie said. She meant the souls of the innocents and Ilmarekh himself. “Can’t you refuse?”

  “They will kill them anyway,” he answered. “Or the jail will. This way, they’re safe with me. And they never lack for company. I listen to the stories they tell, Mattie—what stories! I didn’t know how different the world was, and how beautiful—they show me cities of white stone and golden roofs, they show me gardens so fragrant, my head swims. And the sea, Mattie, the sea! Have you ever seen it?”

  “No,” she answered. “I want to.”

  “You should. You’d think it’s just like the Grackle Pond but bigger, but it’s nothing like that at all. It has waves—so big!—they rise like solid walls of green glass, heavy with threat and exhilaration. It changes color—from blue to green to black—in seconds, and it is the most beautiful thing one can imagine, especially when the waves are breaking on the shore, topped with white foam.” Ilmarekh clasped his birdlike hands to his chest, overcome with feeling.

  Mattie looked away. “I’m glad you’re getting something out of it.”

  Ilmarekh’s smile faded. “I’m not the only one.”

  Mattie felt immediately sorry—she thought that for a soul sentenced to death even a temporary home shared with hundreds of other inhabitants, even a small delay was of benefit. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Ilmarekh shrugged, and sat down on his mattress. “Of course you did. I don’t suppose I blame you.”

  There was no point in blaming him for carrying out the decisions others had made, and Mattie sat next to him. “Can I talk to Beresta?”

  “She hasn’t been talking at all lately,” Ilmarekh said. “It happens sometimes—the souls who have heard too much cocoon themselves off, build a wall around themselves, and I cannot reach them.”

  “Can she hear us?”

  “I think so,” Ilmarekh said.

  “Beresta,” Mattie called. “Your son is safe. He sends his regards.”

  They both waited for her answer, and finally Ilmarekh’s cheeks and eyes bulged as if he were about to vomit. Instead, a quiet whisper came. “Tell him that I miss him,” Beresta said. “Did you find the cure for the gargoyles?”

  “Not yet,” Mattie said. “Sebastian told me to break the bond with stone, and I’ve been trying to—”

  “Does he eat well?” Beresta interrupted, a bit louder this time. “Does he look well?”

  “Yes, very much so,” Mattie replied, suppressing a wistful sigh. “He is a strong man now.” She decided not to mention the details of Sebastian’s exile and the hiding.

  “It makes me so happy,” Beresta whispered. “Now, about the bond… you cannot break a thing free of its foundation—it withers like an uprooted plant or floats away, like a boat off its moorings. Before you break them away from stone, find something you can bind them to, something that is alive.”

  “Thank you,” Mattie said.

  Beresta fell silent, and Ilmarekh sighed. “I guess she’s still around then. Did you come to talk to her, or do you have other souls you wanted to talk to?”

  The
dead boy, Mattie wanted to answer but bit her lip. Not yet, she told herself. She had more pressing concerns than to decipher Loharri’s hidden history. “I have some people—easterners—hiding from the enforcers,” she said. “In my apartment.”

  “What have they done?” Ilmarekh asked.

  “Nothing, just like the ones you have engulfed.”

  Ilmarekh’s pale cheeks pinkened, with shame or anger Mattie was not sure. “I see your point. What do you want from me?”

  “I can’t risk them being discovered. Can you tell me where they can hide without being found?”

  “Here,” Ilmarekh said. “Although being in my vicinity would rather defeat your purpose.” His face distorted, and his lips quivered, as if holding back a moan. And then the spirits talked.

  “Take them to the farms,” one advised. “There’s nothing but automatons there since they herded us all into the mines, haunted, cursed.”

  “Take them to the eastern district, where they can blend in,” another shouted.

  “No, what are you, stupid? The enforcers practically live there, dragging out every soul and exiling all they can.”

  “Leave the cursed city, go back home,” yet another voice shouted. Ilmarekh’s lips contorted as hundreds of spirits fought over control, and his small body shook in great spasms. “Underground!” “No, the farms!”

  Just as the assault of the opinionated spirits started to subside, another voice, smooth as silk, persuasive, spoke. “There’re other people like them,” it said. “Like you. There’s a resistance, a rebellion growing. It started off with just a few, but now…”

  “How do you know it?” Mattie asked, suspicious. “And if you know it, wouldn’t the enforcers know it too?”

  “No,” Ilmarekh said in his normal voice. “I don’t tell them what I know. I’m an executioner, not a snitch… unless it is a confession of a real crime.”

  “So you know about the resistance?” Mattie asked, still skeptical.

  Ilmarekh nodded. “Do you have friends in high places?”

  Mattie returned home in the morning, when the gargoyles on the temple roof were outlined against the pink sky with streaks of golden clouds. On the way, she considered whether she trusted Iolanda enough to ask such questions, and every time she thought about it she recalled her obvious joy at the Duke’s leaving, and her desire to stay behind to see what marvelous changes would take place.

  Then again, her joy was too obvious. If she were indeed involved with anything illegal, wouldn’t she hide it better? Mattie felt the beveled gears in her head speed up and heat with friction as they manufactured one febrile thought after the next. Loharri, she thought. Maybe she should talk to him.

  She chased the thought away, and momentarily worried that he had built it into her, this need to run to him for help or advice every time she needed it. Would he be this calculating? Sadly, she thought, he could be. This is exactly the sort of thing he would’ve done—but did it invalidate his willingness to help?

  She reached her building fevered and distraught. Mattie stumbled up the stairs, her head on fire. There was a smell of burning hair, and as she touched her face she discovered that below the cool surface of the porcelain, the metal sizzled, and that the roots of her hair smoldered.

  Sebastian was up. He took one look at Mattie and forcibly sat her by the bench. He grabbed a piece of cloth she used to dry her glassware with, wet it in the sink, and wrapped Mattie’s head in it. Steam rose from her brow, and she felt her eyes retract deep into her head against her will. Her thoughts bubbled to the surface, the steam escaped with a slow hiss through her eye sockets, and her heart fluttered in an irregular beat.

  It’s the spirits, she thought. It’s Loharri and Iolanda and Sebastian and the gargoyles and too many things to care about, and too many dangers to avoid. That’s what broke her.

  Blind now, she heard Niobe’s worried voice. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “I don’t know,” Sebastian answered. “She’s overheating.”

  “Can you fix her?”

  Mattie felt Sebastian’s rough fingers search under her jaw line and on the sides. “Don’t,” she wanted to say, but her voice box must’ve gone out too. Sebastian popped off her face, exposing her, helpless and naked, to the world.

  “Oh,” Niobe whispered. “She is… so intricate.”

  Sebastian sighed. “Yes, she is. The man who built her… I don’t even know what to call this. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “So you can’t fix her,” Niobe said.

  Sebastian’s fingers probed something sensitive inside. “I could try… I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Call Loharri,” Niobe said. “There’s nothing else you can do.”

  Mattie wanted to call out that no, it wasn’t a good idea. Through a great effort, she managed to loll her head to her shoulder, and more steam escaped through some malfunctioning gasket.

  “I’m calling Loharri,” Niobe said. “You better find a place to hide.”

  “You can’t go out,” Sebastian answered. “It’s not safe.”

  “I’ll find someone to take the message.”

  Mattie’s ears rang with persistent piping, but even through the ruckus she could hear the window being opened, and Niobe’s strong voice calling over the rooftops and the city below, “Hey, gargoyles! Your friend is in danger.”

  Then the ringing grew louder and ceased suddenly, and all sensation left Mattie’s limp frame.

  We hear the call, and we run, all the while wondering whether we should be more dignified than to run errands. But the girl is ill—we saw her, her face torn off and the rest of her so broken we would’ve wept if we could. So we do the next best thing, and we rush. People in the streets crane their necks to see us bounding across the rooftops, in the clear light of the day, with no time to hide, and they point and shout. We think dimly that they must think that it was the recent events at the palace and the eastern gates that disturbed us so greatly.

  The house where the girl was made, where she used to live is almost invisible for the solid wall of weeds and rose bushes— there’s a narrow path leading through the vegetation to the door. The house stands apart from the rest, and we have no choice but to descend and run across the ground, like fast gray dogs, running on all fours through the fragrant hedge. It lashes out at us, and the branches whip and slide off our hard gray skin, and we wonder if it is growing harder, if small fissures are starting to appear, and if last night another one of us has gone, to leave us fewer and weaker. We knock on the door politely.

  A woman answers the door, a woman in loose gown sliding off her round shoulders, a woman with tangled hair and sleepy eyes, which she rubs with her fist like a child. She rubs them again, as if expecting us to disappear back into her dreams, but we remain, stubborn.

  “Can I help you?” she says cautiously, after we start wondering if we should speak first.

  “We need to speak to the mechanic who lives here.”

  “What is that about?” Her eyes are awake now, curious.

  We hesitate. “It’s about his mechanical girl,” we say.

  She gasps. “Mattie? Is she all right?”

  “She’s broken,” we say. “We need to talk to the master of the house.”

  She moves aside and beckons us in, but we remain outside, where we would not be easily trapped.

  She disappears inside the house, and we wait, hidden among the bushes from the curious eyes of any passersby.

  And then he comes out with a small bag of tools, and we recognize him, even though he has grown tall and thin and hunched, his eyes still long and narrow, his face no longer beautiful. He is pulling his jacket on as he walks out on the porch where we are waiting. “Where is she?” he asks.

  “In her apartment, high above the streets, her face is off and she is broken.”

  “What happened?” he says, but already we bound away, our message delivered.

  Mattie woke up to the familiar touch. She extend
ed her eyes carefully, fearful that she still wouldn’t be able to see. Loharri’s stern face swam into her field of vision. She looked past him to Niobe standing by the window, her forehead lined with worry, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “What did you do?” Loharri asked.

  Mattie sat up from the floor and touched her face to make sure it was back in place. Sebastian had seen her naked, she remembered. She did not find the thought altogether repellent; she liked the way his calloused fingers fit under her jaw, how swift and unapologetic he was…

  “Mattie!”

  She startled at Loharri’s insistent voice. “Nothing,” she said. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Loharri shook his head. “Mattie. You don’t even know why you got ill, do you?”

  She shook her head. “I was working too hard.”

  His face remained composed, but she recognized the slight slow movement of his jaw, as if he were trying not to grit his teeth. “You were ill,” he said, “because you went against your desire to see me. I told you that you always must do so. Didn’t I?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t know.”

  “Wait a moment,” Niobe said and stepped forward. “You booby-trapped the poor girl’s head and didn’t even tell her? Just to make sure she didn’t get away from you?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” Loharri said without even looking in Niobe’s direction. “You’re forgetting your place— what, the alchemists let you join and you think you are their equal?”

  Niobe shrank away as if from a slap, but her eyes blazed.

  “Don’t be like this,” Mattie pleaded and folded her still trembling hands over her heart. She remembered Loharri’s temper—he often spoke harshly, but it passed.

  “I’m sorry,” Loharri said to Niobe. “I do appreciate your calling me and being here for Mattie—but please do not meddle in things that don’t concern you.”

  Niobe didn’t answer, and Loharri turned his attention back to Mattie. “Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”