The Alchemy of Stone

Chapter 19

The surface world assaulted Mattie with bright light and acrid smoke. She emerged from the newly blasted exit, climbing awkwardly up a ladder improvised from bits of scaffolding, following Niobe, Iolanda close behind. Mattie hoped that by now the fighting would be over, and she would have to witness just the consequences but not the actual bloodshed. She was surrounded by people—mostly the courtiers, but Niobe and a few miners remained nearby, reassuring.

“The city is ours now,” one of the miners said.

“Not quite,” the light-haired courtier answered. “We still need the fighting to cease and power to be transferred in an orderly fashion. We need the mechanics to formally surrender. Otherwise, the resistance will fester.”

They walked through the streets, silent and empty at the moment. There were no dead bodies and no lizards, but a low cloud of ash hung over the city, and the air smelled of gunpowder. A thin layer of dust seemed to have settled over everything—the cobbled pavements, the awnings of the still-standing buildings, the twisted remains of the abandoned caterpillars stacked in the streets.

The rumor was, the fighting was continuing by the western district still, where the enforcers and the mechanics occupied a defensive position between the Grackle Pond and the paper mill, barricaded by caterpillars and what remained of the Calculator. Mattie could appreciate the defensive quality of so much metal, and she was apprehensive when they turned west.

Iolanda carried the jar with the homunculus—she fed it well, and the creature swelled with blood, barely fitting into its jar. Iolanda frowned, worried. “I wonder if my influence will last enough time to have him do what he must.”

“Let you into the Parliament, you mean,” Mattie said. “You could’ve used explosives.”

Iolanda shook her head. “Too many valuable documents in there,” she said. “Besides, if we want people to turn to our side, we will have to take the seat of legitimate power, not destroy it.”

Mattie suspected that Iolanda was not exactly lying, but simply not telling the whole truth. The rebels wanted the support of the ruling party, however fleeting and limited. Legitimizing one in the eyes of the populace was a familiar concern—the mechanics always talked about it at their meetings, as did the alchemists, but usually such talks happened before the election. Mattie was surprised to learn that a violent overthrow was not free of such considerations either.

They did not dare to approach the Grackle Pond, where musket shots resonated among the gutted buildings, abandoned by their wealthy owners. Mattie thought that everyone who was able to had moved on by now, and only the poor and the stubborn remained behind. This is why it was so quiet— what few people still remained in the city were not venturing into the streets without acute necessity. The winners would have an empty, mutilated city to govern, and Mattie could not imagine why anyone would want that.

They stopped in the street not far from the pond, and Iolanda crouched down and shook the homunculus out of its vitreous prison. It landed on a pavement with a wet thwack, and stood on its soft boneless legs and burbled. “Go,” Iolanda commanded. “Go and bring him to me.”

The homunculus departed toward the sound of the shots and the hulking gray structure standing in the distance, on the far shore of the pond, the outlines of which Mattie could not quite make out due to dust and smoke in the air. She only tasted warm metal and tired flesh, gunpowder and crumbling stone. “What do we do now?” she asked Iolanda.

“We wait for your master,” Iolanda answered. “Our troops were instructed to let him pass through unharmed.”

The people settled on the steps of the buildings and on the pavement. As much as Mattie missed the habitual bustle of the city, she only wished to see Loharri for the last time, to get her key, and to go home. She pictured in her mind her small apartment nestled under the roof that got so hot in the summer. She missed the long bench with all of her painstakingly collected equipment, and she worried that the sheep’s eyes, pickled as they were, would go bad in the heat. She missed the constant slamming of the door in the apothecary downstairs, the squeaking of the steps announcing a client. She missed having no other concerns but missing a deadline on a potion for an important client, or hunting down an obscure recipe. There was simplicity in her life as it used to be, and she longed for its return.

We watch the spiders as they crawl through the streets, endlessly fascinating and pitiful. We follow them, trying to reconcile the vision of the children as they used to be with the deformed creatures down below, sifting through the piles of garbage and dead bodies. With most of the automatons destroyed, they took on their jobs—sorting and cleaning, collecting what could be saved and piling the rest into heaps and burning it. Fires smolder low, bringing with them a surprising, gentle reminder of autumnal leaves and bitter fall air.

We fear that they will be forgotten and cast aside soon— they are not as useful as the able-bodied men with dark faces and pale eyes who came from the mines, their stained clothes overlaying bulging shoulders and thick arms. We fear that the spiders will forever sift through refuse, unable to do much else, and we resolve to protect them as much as we can.

We follow them through the streets that were recently abandoned by the fighters, where bodies can still be found, lying face down or face up; we prefer the former as do the spiders—they always roll the dead on their stomachs before going through their pockets and collecting things the dead don’t really need. Then they drag them to the heaps that will become bonfires soon.

The surface of the Grackle Pond is sleek and gray, just like the sky above it, just like the fortifications erected on its distal shore. It is quiet now, and it looks deserted—-we almost believe the illusion, even though we know there are people crouching behind the barricades, some looking for the enemy through slits carved in metal, their hands tight on musket barrels, while others crawl away for supplies and come back with food or bullets. We know too that there are men hiding in the buildings, in every doorway along the street, waiting for an opportunity to take aim.

We notice a strange creature—similar to the one that had turned us, and yet different, for it does not smell of stone— toddle around the pond. We take positions to watch its progress, and we feel protective of it. We wonder if the mechanical girl is nearby then, if she’s among those hidden, waiting to storm the barricades. We wonder if the creature is carrying an important message, and we decide to guard it.

But it is only little, and men at the barricades do not see or pay attention to it. It climbs and flows over the barricades, and we follow. Here in the open, it is hard to hide but we slide through the shadows and the sparse bushes fringing the pond, we hover hidden by the low veil of smoke. We see behind the barricades, into a maze of fortifications and crates, people and automatons. We hover in the ash-filled fog and watch—we are not afraid that we will be seen; everyone is looking into the streets, not to the sky.

The homunculus is heading for the man lying on the ground, sleeping or resting or dead. No, not dead—he raises his head and he sees the creature. He sits up, slowly, sluggishly, and we recognize him by his twisted face. He holds his right arm to his chest with his left hand, and we see the dark right sleeve grown darker with blood. He looks at the homunculus as if he recognizes it, and he smiles.

“Come here, little fellow,” he says, and extends his injured arm. “Come here, I’ll feed you.”

The homunculus totters closer and drinks fat lazy drops falling from the man’s fingertips.

“There you go,” the man says, and he smiles with one side of his mouth. His motions are languid, as if he had just awakened—even when his eyes flicker upward to meet ours, he does not look startled or hurried. He doesn’t look away from us, hut speaks to the creature. “You’ll be my friend now, yes?”

The thing burbles in the affirmative, and laps at the pool of blood collected on the ground, and it swells up, up, like a rising loaf of bread.

The homunculus swells almost to bursting as it sops up the wounded man’s blood—not beautiful anymore, we whisper to ourselves. Never again, because there is just no going back with those things.

The wounded man rises to his knees, then to his feet, pushing himself off the ground with his good arm. The injured one only gets in the way and bleeds more. The people by the barricades look up—their faces so similar now, all hollow-cheeked and half-hidden in the thatches of ungroomed beards.

“Where are you going, Loharri?” one of them says, an older man with a generous sprinkling of gray in his beard and long hair. “The alchemists are coming to take care of the wounded, they will have something to stem the bleeding.”

“Look around you,” he says. “No one is coming.”

“You’re not going to forget your mechanic’s oath, are you?” the older man says.

Loharri shakes his head. “I’m not forgetting anything. But I will go, and I will talk to them, and if you want to shoot me in the back then help yourself.”

“You have no authority to negotiate,” the older man says.

Loharri smiles and looks down at the homunculus, which is pooling around his feet, just a fat blood smear. “I have as much authority as you do,” he says. “That is, not much. But enough to see what can be saved.” He looks at the pile of metal with sadness in his eyes, the same sadness we feel when we look down at all the children of our city whom we cannot help.

And then he walks between the twisted metal bars as tall as a man, and climbs over the corrugated sheets piled on top of each other. Once he reaches the top, he stops and thinks, crouching down for stability, but we can see that it takes him a lot of effort to remain upright.

He searches through his pockets and extracts a handkerchief—it used to be white at some point of its existence, but now it is crusted with blood and dirt. He waves it in the air; his opponents are invisible, but he and we know that they have him in the sights of their muskets.

He waves the handkerchief, stiff as a board, in the air to signal his peaceful intentions, and starts his slow descent onto the embankment of the pond below.

Mattie watched Iolanda biting her lips and pacing back and forth. They made a post of sorts in one of the abandoned houses, and judging by the smell of urine and burned rags, they were not the first ones to have done so. It had once been a nice dwelling—the wallpaper, white with delicate blue flowers, spoke of taste and wealth, and the remnants of the wooden floors, now wrenched free and dragged away somewhere to build fires, were well-polished and clean. There was no furniture remaining, and the small party camped out on the floors, apparently just happy to be anywhere but an underground mineshaft. There were maybe twenty people here, mostly courtiers and a few miners armed with axes and a couple of muskets. The crates with explosives were stacked in the kitchen, well out of sight. The men with weapons guarded the entrance, even though no danger was apparent. Mattie felt quite sure that the men at the barricade by the pond were not going to launch an offensive raid.

She listened to the distant sounds of carnage wrought by Sebastian’s war machine, and wondered if the Parliament building survived. Everyone talked excitedly about how all but a few pockets of resistance had been extinguished, and that soon they could start rebuilding. They talked about returning the land to the peasants, and improving conditions in the mines. She overheard a few of Iolanda’s friends arguing in fierce whispers whether the miners and the peasants would be fit to govern, and whether they should establish a temporary council consisting of the courtiers who had abandoned their position, and what to do about the enforcers—after all, they’ve been just following orders, and once the power changes hands, they would have no qualms about serving the new government, would they? And a new Soul-Smoker would have to be appointed—too bad the monks had left, but surely they could find one. Maybe among the spiders who really couldn’t hope for anything better.

For some reason, the conversation made Mattie feel sad—she thought that things always happened around her, but without letting her touch them directly. Life flowed around her, like a stream flows around a solitary rock, which, no matter how much it wanted to, was unable to see anything upstream or downstream from it.

Mattie shook her head. After all, she wouldn’t want it any other way—she was happy to retire into a quiet corner, where she did not have to look at Sebastian’s machine attacking the barricades, crushing metal and flesh with its massive legs and shooting fire from its cannon.

One of the sentries posted by the door came inside. “He’s coming,” he whispered to Iolanda, and Mattie felt a small flutter in her chest at the thought of facing Loharri again. “He’s wounded,” the sentry continued. “You better come outside, it is safe on this side of the pond.”

Iolanda nodded and headed for the door; Niobe and Mattie followed, neither willing to miss Loharri’s surrender. Mattie was anxious now that her goal was so close. She could imagine the weight of the key in her hand, she could almost feel it sliding in and clicking into place, tugging at the spring of her heart, making it well again.

She saw Loharri right away, and the way he walked, stiffly and yet unsteadily, reminded her of the first time she met the Soul-Smoker. She whipped around, to look at the front of the house, and the trampled flowerbeds. There was no doubt—it was the same house where she watched Ilmarekh consume a restless spirit, the same porch from which she first saw him approach. She had a vertiginous feeling of time spinning her around and throwing her into the point where it all began; and yet, Ilmarekh was dead and the gargoyles were flesh. Loharri stumbled along, his feet slurping in the dripping pool of blood that seemed to move along with him—Mattie guessed it for the homunculus, leading him toward his bondage.

Iolanda walked up to him, and they stopped at the embankment, just a few steps away from the house. Mattie watched his face for any sign of recognition, but his gaze slid off her as if she were a fragment of an empty sky, a stone in an unremarkable wall. He looked at Iolanda only, his lips pressed together as if he was trying not to speak.

“Loharri,” Iolanda said. “I need you to do something for me. Talk to Bergen, to the other mechanics. Tell them that they have nothing to be afraid of; tell them that we are willing to make truce.”

Loharri nodded, slowly, his gaze still lingering on Iolanda’s face, a distracted smile forming on his lips.

Mattie grabbed Niobe’s hand. “Something is not right,” she whispered. It was just a vague feeling, an irrational sense of dread that descended upon her out of nowhere but refused to leave.

Niobe smiled. “What do you mean, Mattie?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “But let’s go.”

Iolanda shot Mattie a reassuring look, and spoke to Loharri. “Tell them that they will be spared. Convince them that they need to help us. Do what you must, but ensure the mechanics’ surrender, even if you have to kill Bergen to take his place. Now, give me Mattie’s key, and then go.”

His left hand, pale and awkward, reached for the chain. Mattie felt a wrenching anxiety as he slowly pulled the chain from under his shirt, a bright sparkling of the key sending a sense of relief. Her hands reached out without her meaning to do so.

Iolanda reached for the key, just as Loharri lost his balance and stumbled forward. His lips brushed against Iolanda’s hair, and he had to grab her shoulder to regain his feet. He straightened, slowly, and pressed the key into Iolanda’s waiting hand.

“Go now,” Iolanda said, and wriggled from under his hand.

Loharri looked at Mattie, just for a moment, but she felt her unease return as she noticed the slow smile she knew so well twisting his mouth. “Mattie,” he said. “Help me. I’m weak, and it is difficult to walk. I need you to help me along.”

“I’ll come too,” Niobe said.

Loharri acknowledged her kindness with a nod, and Niobe grabbed his uninjured arm, letting Mattie prop him on the other side. Iolanda turned toward the house, and the homunculus finally detached itself from Loharri and followed Iolanda instead, its mission completed.

They started down the embankment, toward the towering remains of several caterpillars and what Mattie presumed used to be the Calculator. But she could not help stealing glances over her shoulder. She saw Iolanda, Mattie’s key still in her hand, enter the house, and she regretted not taking it with her. Just a few yards more, she told herself, and then we can go back, and she would have her key, never to leave her person.

They were almost halfway to the barricade, when Mattie heard a commotion behind her. She and Niobe turned simultaneously, to see a blast of fire shoot through the door; a pillar of flames engulfed the house instantaneously, before the blast of solid air knocked Mattie off her feet. She clanked on the pavement and felt her fingers give under her weight, unable to withstand the force of the blow. Her face hit the suddenly close stones and shattered into a thousand pieces; she had been too stunned to cover it. She struggled to prop herself up, to see behind her a solid cylinder of fire where the house used to be. She became aware of a clinking of debris as it rained onto the stones.

“Mattie,” Niobe gasped beside her. Her face was bruised, and a long scratch on her cheekbone swelled with blood. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “What happened?”

Niobe’s eyes flicked to Loharri. He sprawled on the pavement, face down, not struggling to get up. Mattie knew that he was alive when she heard his quiet laughter.

Niobe crawled over to the prostrate mechanic, and shook his shoulder violently. “What did you do?”

He laughed still, and did not resist Niobe’s shaking, his arm flopping like that of a rag doll in her hands. He did not have to explain—Mattie replayed in her mind his stumbling, his lips so close to Iolanda’s ear. Dead Iolanda, she realized. Dead because the man Mattie used to call her master whispered a word of command in her ear, and she obeyed, commanded by strands of her hair braided into the homuncular heart.

“How did you know?” Niobe screamed at Loharri. “How did you turn the homunculus?”

Loharri’s uninjured arm fluttered, jerking his hand up. His fingers were broken like Mattie’s, but there was no mistaking the fact that he pointed at her.

“It was the device in my head,” Mattie whispered. “I’m sorry. I did not know he had seen it.”

Niobe let go. “It’s not your fault,” she said, not looking at Mattie but at the burning house instead.

Loharri stopped laughing. “Yes it is,” he said.

Mattie’s broken fingers curled into misshapen fists. “How dare you,” she said, momentarily forgetting the burning building and the people inside it, overcome by rage. “I’ll…” Her voice gave out.

Loharri did not answer; he was not laughing anymore, but lay quietly in the spreading dark puddle—blood gushed out of his torn sleeve. It took Mattie a moment to realize what had happened.

“He’s dead,” Niobe said. She rose to her feet and prodded the inert form with the tip of her shoe. “He bled out.”

Mattie grabbed the dead man’s shoulders. “Wake up.” She gave him a forceful shake. “Wake up, you bastard! You have to make me a new key. You have to!”

He remained silent and still, and Mattie’s fists struck the pavement, chipping stone but unable to wake a dead man.

There would be time to grieve later, and Mattie would mourn Iolanda and others, whose names she could not remember and felt bad about it. Maybe some day she would be able to mourn Loharri too—if she survived long enough, that is. But for now her heartbreak was for herself, keyless and doomed. “My key was in there,” Mattie said. “It was in that house.”

Niobe looked at her with irritation. Blood trickled from her ears, drying on the skin of her neck in a beaded serpentine trail. “Come on,” she said. “Get up.”

Mattie did; she was not sure whether it was the shock from the loss of her key—forever irretrievable—or a real sensation, but her heartbeat slowed, and the image of the smoldering, charred walls swam in and out of her field of vision. She wondered if Loharri had led her away from the house to show kindness or malice, sparing her the immediate disintegration in favor of a slow, lingering demise; if his last thought was not to avenge the destruction of the city but to punish Mattie for disobeying him. It did not matter now, she told herself. There was no reason for the dead man to have such a hold on her. She should try and help, she should live out the time she had left as well as she could. Her legs wobbled, but she took Niobe by the elbow, steadying her. “It’ll be all right,” Mattie whispered, even though she knew that it wouldn’t be.

She looked up, searching for the gargoyles—she was certain that they were following her, crawling in the rain gutters along the roofs, hovering in the thick clouds of greasy smoke. “Funny,” she said, addressing the low clouds and empty air. “Now it is my turn to become immobile, and no one can stop it.”

Great wings dispersed the smoke as several gargoyles descended into the street around her. “Can we help?” They spoke in one voice.

“No, but it doesn’t matter,” Mattie said. “I’m going home. You’re welcome to come along if you wish.”

She gave one last look at the smoldering ruins and the lone figure of Niobe, to the prostrate form of Loharri, and walked east. The gargoyles followed her in their usual way, along the gutters, crawling along the facades—a habit really, since there were no passersby to see them. They clung to the faces of the walls with their clawed fingers and toes, their presence a mute consolation.

The house still stood, although the apothecary in the first floor was gutted and burned out, all the salves and bandages long gone, and only a weak smell of aloe still lingered over the stench of charred wood and paint.

The stairs were missing the lowest step, and Mattie had to pick up her skirts to swing her foot high. She could smell her bitter herbs and spoiling sheep’s eyes upstairs, a familiar, embracing aroma that brought to mind her long workbench and the rustling of pages in her books. She only wanted to touch them again, but instead of hurrying, she lingered.

Mattie looked over her shoulder, at the winged shapes splayed in the shadows and crouched in narrow places. She thought of how still she would soon be, how quiet her heart. The slow rising of feathered wings outside made up for it—or at least, it had to.