The Alchemy of Stone (15 page)

Mattie waited for them to calm down and sort out the speaking order among themselves; they always seemed so talkative when Mattie was around, and she thought that they probably disliked talking to each other—if they even could talk to each other—and resented Ilmarekh . . . they didn’t need words to haunt his every waking moment.

“Do they leave you alone when you sleep?” Mattie asked.

Ilmarekh shook his head, struggling for control over his mouth and voice. “I haven’t had a dream of my own in ages.”

“You deserve it,” one of the ghosts shouted.

“Leave him be,” another interrupted. “He’s not his own man.”

His voice garbled again under the assault of many souls pressing from behind, filling his mouth, his eyes with their ethereal shapes. They cried and pleaded in turns, one after the other—the unfairness of it all, the unfinished business. Each seemed to have something to say to Mattie, because she was the only one who could listen to them, without any fear of her soul being sucked out of her.

But perhaps not—she thought of the gargoyles, and almost cried out once she realized that the gargoyles would be capable of listening to the wrath and pleading of the spirits without any risk. Would the soul of a dead person sever their bond with the stone? Mattie did not know, but she thought that this was an avenue worth investigating. She filed it away, for the next time she would speak to them. Now, she needed to listen.

“What do you know about Sebastian?” she asked. “What do you know about the explosives?”

Ilmarekh and his ghosts grew curiously silent then.

“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” Mattie said. “I need to know . . . for myself.”

“They won’t tell you,” Ilmarekh said. “You’ve found him, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Mattie said. “But I want to know what does he have to do with all of this. I want to help him, but I need to know.”

“Why?” Ilmarekh’s voice changed to a higher pitch, and Mattie guessed that it was Beresta, worried about the fate of her offspring.

“Because his mechanic’s medallion was used to buy explosives,” Mattie said. “The mechanics and the alchemists both know about it, they know he is in the city. He was only banished before, but now all the enforcers will be looking for him. I want to help, but I need to know what sort of risk I am taking.”

Another soul pushed Beresta aside—Mattie thought she could’ve imagined it, but she got a distinct impression of two transparent shapeless ghosts engaging in a bit of tug of war—and spoke, with a strong eastern accent. “I know the man,” the soul said. “I’ve done nothing wrong, but I was killed because I was a foreigner. You don’t treat us well, this city doesn’t. You don’t treat anyone well, not even your own. Many are unhappy—is it a surprise that they are coming together to stop your injustice?”

“So the easterners were involved?” Mattie said.

Ilmarekh shrugged. “Some were, some weren’t. I wasn’t and now I regret it. I blamed those who brought it on us, but now I realize that it wasn’t those who plotted, it wasn’t those who rebelled who were at fault.”

Ilmarekh sighed and spoke in his own voice. “I asked you about your friends in high places. Did you talk to them?”

Mattie shook her head, ashamed. “I never had a chance. I . . . ” She didn’t say it out loud, but she had been too preoccupied with plotting Loharri’s downfall to talk to Iolanda when she could. And now, how would she find Iolanda and Niobe?

“I can help you,” another ghost spoke. “I can tell you about a place they gather—but you’ll go at your own risk. If they don’t trust you, you are dead.”

Mattie inclined her head, agreeing. “Just tell me when and where.”

“Not far,” the ghost said. “No one comes to this blasted hill, and if you go down the northern slope at midnight, you’ll see the entrance to an abandoned mine. It’s closed during the day, but the spiders open it at night. Can you see in the dark?”

“Yes.”

“It won’t help you,” the ghost said. “It’s dark there, so dark, not even a torch will help you.”

Mattie waited for nightfall, listening to the rising wind outside. The Soul-Smoker’s pipe had been extinguished, and the spirits, exhausted, quieted down and only occasionally whispered dark warnings and petty complaints. Ilmarekh appeared to have fallen asleep in front of the cold fireplace, and Mattie found the sudden movements of his lips and fierce, abruptly whispered words disconcerting, and looked at the window, waiting for the moon to rise and the constellations to arrange themselves in the proper order for the middle of the night.

Beresta, the shy ghost, used the lull to surprise Mattie. “My son is a good boy,” she whispered, as if not to wake the others. “A good man. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt others.”

He almost killed me when I first met him,
Mattie thought. She didn’t utter those words out loud—she was well familiar with the usual arguments people gave her. You do not count, you are a machine. You are made of metal, you have no soul. As if any of it mattered.

Beresta understood her silence. “You disagree.”

“I don’t think he is bad,” Mattie said. “I think I might even love him.”

“But you . . . ” Beresta choked down the reflexive protest.

“I was made to feel pain.”

The ghost recoiled, her translucent form shrinking close to Ilmarekh’s lips, coating them like water. “What sort of a man would build a machine who feels pain?”

Mattie saw no need to answer—they both knew it. It took a specific brand of cruelty, cruelty masquerading as concern.
It will help you learn better. This way you won’t damage yourself. It’s for your own good
.

And yet, Mattie could not quite bring herself to blame him—she knew how he had learned these words. “I can also feel pleasure,” Mattie said.

“That seems even more cruel,” Beresta whispered.

“And why is that?”

“You know,” the ghost said. “Machines break. Always, all of them, no matter what the mechanics say.”

“People die,” Mattie countered. And added, “Even the ghosts.”

“And yet you work on reversing death.”

“Don’t we all?” The words came out of her mouth of their own volition, but she immediately felt the truth of them deep in her metal bones. What else did they all do if not try to stave off disappearance? Alchemists cured the sick and made concoctions to brighten existence; the mechanics built, pouring their cold passion into things more durable than their own flesh; even the gargoyles grew stone to leave a trace in the world—something besides their lithified bodies.

“These are idle thoughts,” Beresta said. “You better get going, or you’ll daydream until morning.”

Mattie looked at the sky, at the constellation of the Lizard almost aligned with the Carriage, and hurried out of the door without saying goodbye. She walked down the slope, the wind shoving her in the back and buffeting her skirts as if they were a sail. It was dark, and she had to extend the stalks of her eyes and force the diaphragms open, to let in whatever little light scattered over the battered slopes of the Ram’s Head.

She saw the opening of the shaft—black on black, its square outline only hinted at—at the same time as she heard human voices. She stood still, listening, her heartbeat almost inaudible under the shifting of gravel under the clumsy footfalls and the lowered voices. Two men rounded the hill and came into her view, black and orange in the flames of their torches flailing in the wind. She wondered at first why they hadn’t brought lamps, but guessed that they were either poor or didn’t want to attract attention of their households.

There was nowhere to hide, and she stood motionless, even after the light of the torches snatched her out of the darkness and she had no doubt that the men could see her. Both were dressed in rough, unbleached linen shirts and no overcoats despite the chill in the air. They had dark faces, colored not by nature but by years in the shaft.

“Where are you going?” one of them asked. They did not look friendly.

“I’m looking for Sebastian,” she said. “I’m a friend of his.”

“Who’s Sebastian?” the first man asked, and his companion whispered in his ear. “Oh,” the first man said. “Did he tell you to come here then?”

“Yes,” Mattie said. “At least he didn’t say not to.” She hoped that an imperfect excuse would have the appearance of the truth.

“All right,” the second man said. “Come along then. But if you’re a spy . . . ”

“Look at her,” the first one interrupted. “If they sent a spy, wouldn’t they choose someone less obvious?”

Mattie followed them down into the shaft, down the rough wooden ladder into a tunnel where the air grew suddenly warm and still, as if it had been breathed in and out of human lungs over and over again, until it was drained of life and succor. She tried to think of something to say to these men, so aloof and alien, so different from anyone she ever knew, but the usual chitchat about the weather seemed frivolous, and questions about their occupation—extraneous.

After they traveled a short while down the tunnel, the flames of the torches smoldered as if suffocated by lack of sustenance in the air, but the men did not seem perturbed. They came upon a large niche carved into the stone wall, behind the wooden supports and scaffolds that kept the tunnel from collapsing, and her guides reached into the niche, the sounds of shifting stone and gravel disturbed by their hands muffled. The man nearest Mattie pulled out a strange contraption—a short belt of cured leather with its ends stitched together, and a small round apparatus mounted on the belt; Mattie recognized it for a miniature bronze lamp ensconced in porcelain. His companion helped him light the lamp from the torch, and it blazed with a bright white light. He affixed the belt to his head, and the lamplight cut a swath of light through the dank blackness of the tunnel.

“I was wondering how you worked there, in the darkness,” Mattie said and retracted her eyes back into her face, narrowing the aperture of the diaphragms. “It’s a clever contraption.”

“If you were wondering so much why didn’t you find out?” the man with the lamp on his head said as they continued along the tunnel.

Mattie faltered for words.

“I guess you weren’t really wondering then,” the man continued. There was no anger in his voice, just the habitual bitterness of an unhappy person. “You just thought of it now, making conversation.”

“Yes,” Mattie admitted. “I don’t know anyone like you.”

“Anyone who works for a living, you mean,” the second man said and spat.

“I work,” Mattie said. “I’m an alchemist.”

“You’re in the elite then.” The man chuckled, making the beam of light jump up and down. “It’s all right though. There are quite a few of you helping us. I won’t say no to a helping hand, although it beats me what your types see in it.”

Mattie was starting to wonder about the same question—even if a few alchemists or mechanics or courtiers weren’t happy with the way things were, they had so little in common with these crude men that she doubted that any alliance was meaningful. “Are there any other mines like these?” she asked instead.

The men laughed. “Sure,” the second one said. “The ground here, it’s riddled with mines like a honeycomb. You in the city, you think you walk on solid ground, and you don’t know what’s beneath you.”

“They extend under the city?”

The men nodded. “No exits there, so as not to bother the pretty ladies and the merchants, but there are mines there.”

“I meant other mines where people meet,” she said.

“Sure,” the first man said. “There are meeting places aplenty, only I’m not telling you where.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m not telling.”

They fell silent, but now there were other people and other light beams—they came from behind and from the side tunnels, and soon Mattie found herself walking in a small crowd. She looked over the faces, hoping to glimpse someone familiar, but they were all the same, the same men who attacked her the day before. But now they seemed different, as if the laws of the surface failed to apply to them and Mattie here.

She whirred and clunked along, feeling trapped and out of place. What if they decided to turn on her? What if Sebastian denied ever knowing her? Who would miss her, who would even know she was gone? She did not like to think of the answer.

Chapter 15

We cannot help but think of the shafts now, winding
deep in the stone below, looping through and running up and down; we cannot help but think of all the people underneath. They seem to like it lately, and we watch the furtive figures down below, certain that they are invisible in the darkness, dash through the streets snaking beneath us. The city smells of smoke and trouble, and we think that this smell is more appropriate for fall than spring, this tang of burning leaves and bitterness. It reminds us of the underground, of its suffocating air and the bite of brimstone and magma, boiling not too far underneath.

We did not understand why they had to change the city we’ve built, just like we do not understand now why they must destroy it—befuddled and distraught, we huddle closer together on the roofs, wing brushing against wing, our mouths mute, heavy with unborn words, the taste of gemstones still fresh in their crevices.

We do not like the metal girl going underground; we fear that the stone that gave us birth will lead her away from us, just like the books, just like the books. We feel selfish and undeserving as we consider our impending death and her reluctance to help us, her preoccupation with other concerns. But we suppose she cannot help herself, and we just try to maintain our faith, and we hold onto each other, as if a touch of hands will prevent our rough flesh from becoming stone, as if we won’t have to wake up with our arms wrapped around yet another one of our number cold and unresponsive and dead.

The meeting place felt as if it were in the very bowels of the earth—hot and stuffy, filled with the smell of pipe tobacco and opium, its cloying sweetness reminding Mattie of Ilmarekh. She expected something reminiscent of the meetings the mechanics and the alchemists held—if not actual long tables with interminable rows of chairs surrounding them in concentric circles, like waves after a stone tossed into the Grackle Pond.

Instead it felt like the telegraph or the offices of the Parliament—people came and went, and the telegraph chittered; she wondered at first where the telegraph apparatus came from, but then remembered that the one in Ilmarekh’s hovel seemed to be missing when she last visited. The widening of the tunnel lit by the hanging lanterns felt almost mundane, despite the blackness of two tunnels—two circles of nothingness—framing it. There were chairs and tables, a peeling chaise, a jumble of furniture and papers and pillows; it felt like a trash heap, and Mattie thought that most things here must’ve been salvaged from the trash.

People came in, and others left, and all this activity seemed directed at something by the back wall of the cave, next to the hungry, gaping mouth of the tunnel. Mattie approached meekly, apologetic in advance.

There were several chairs pushed against the stone wall and the lattice of scaffolding hugging it, and a few makeshift desks constructed out of roughly hewn boards and wicker shipping crates such as one usually found broken and empty behind the marketplace, after the market was over. They smelled weakly of peaches and scorched wood. People crowded around the tables, speaking in low voices; the new arrivals came up to say hello, and some of them were given parcels and papers.

Two men appeared from the tunnel, dragging a large wicker crate between them, and without even looking, Mattie guessed what was in it. They stacked the crate against the wall, and turned around to go back into the tunnel when one of them noticed Mattie. He squinted at her. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for Sebastian,” she said.

“He’s coming,” the man said, and disappeared back into the tunnel.

Mattie looked around, by habit searching for familiar faces, but could not find any. She passed the time studying the crowd; to her surprise, a few of those present did not look like either miners or peasants—their fine clothes and clean hands, their affectations clearly indicated a higher station in life than of the rest of those present. They segregated in their own little group and talked in hushed voices, occasionally stealing glances at the people around them. Mattie noticed that they were all quite young and well-groomed—adult children who hadn’t come into their inheritance yet, Mattie guessed. Social butterflies with too much free time on their hands. She should’ve guessed that they would be involved in something like this.

They looked like people Mattie was used to, and she took a step closer to them.

“Hey,” said a young man with hair so light that he had an appearance of missing eyebrows. “I know you; you’re that automaton who used to come to Bergen’s parties a lot.”

“Mattie,” she said. “My name is Mattie.”

The man smiled. “That’s right. I’m Aerin. Nice to meet you; I’ve seen you many times, but I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

“Charmed,” Mattie said, and shook the proffered hand. She felt suddenly at home, and she thought it odd that those who despised her and never saw her as anything deserving of consideration made her feel most at ease. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

The man shrugged, laughed, and gestured at his friends. “We all are here because we were concerned about the plight of the common man.”

“Was it you who blew up the palace?” Mattie said.

“You’re quite blunt,” a woman standing to Mattie’s right said. She had heavily lined eyes and an overall air of languor Loharri would’ve found appealing.

“Of course she is,” one of the courtiers murmured. “She’s an instrument.”

A few of the others snickered.

“That’s not what I meant, Cedrik,” the woman said, without even looking at Mattie’s detractor. She smiled at Mattie. “Don’t pay attention to him, dear. He’s daft. Now, to answer your question—yes, our group was a part of it. Actually, the initial explosion was meant to show people that we are on their side—after this, they had to believe that we have categorically cut ourselves off from the city’s government and its aims. We have disowned our parents and the advantages our birthright has conferred upon us.”

Mattie thought that apparently the disowned advantages did not include clothes, but nodded politely. “It is very noble of you.” Her mind boiled with questions, and finally she chose the most pressing one. “Is Iolanda all right?”

“Why?” the woman said. “Do you know her?”

Mattie nodded. “Is she all right? I was so worried when they . . . when the houses were burned.”

“She’s fine,” the woman answered. “Never better. She and that new servant of hers were not there—they are safe and well.”

“Niobe is not a servant,” Mattie said. “She is my friend. Where are they? Here?”

“No,” the man named Cedrik said. “We have many safe houses . . . but of course you will forgive me for not divulging their location.”

“Of course.” Mattie glanced toward the mouth of the tunnel, anxious to see Sebastian. “And this place here?”

“One of many,” he answered. “It’s just one cell, but there are plenty of others. It’s a good place to meet and distribute supplies and catch up on the news for those who can’t show their faces in the city proper.”

Mattie wondered if Ilmarekh had given them his telegraph apparatus voluntarily—but of course he had to. Mattie kept forgetting that his frail appearance concealed a remarkable weapon—people were afraid of him, in danger from his mere proximity. Of course he had to leave it outside, to be found or collected, the ghosts calling to those they had left behind.

She remembered something Ilmarekh told her on their first meeting.
The spirits
, he said,
the souls. They are not angry at the living, they just want to help. Helping others is the only way we can prove we still matter.
She looked at the apparatus with new respect—it wasn’t just a cast-off; it was an expression of support from those who were dead.

Mattie heard a familiar voice at the mouth of the tunnel, and focused her eyes to look at the face behind the blinding light beam. Her heart faltered and ticked louder as she recalled these eyes half-closed in ecstasy, this smiling mouth pressed against her chest . . . she suppressed the rising wave of shame and stepped forward to greet him.

His smile faded and his eyes widened for just a moment, but Mattie noticed. “Mattie,” he said. “How did you find me?”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t difficult. I need to know something.”

“Ask then,” he said, with just a hint of irritation giving an edge to his voice. “I’ve a few things I need to do.”

“Was it you?” she said. “Was it you who bought the explosives?”

He shook his head. “No. I did let them use my medallion, so there you have it. Anything else you want to know?”

Do you love me?
she wanted to ask, but there were people and their faces, their eyes watching her askance, as if too embarrassed to admit that they were indeed looking. Instead, she looked at her hands when she said, “The mechanics and the alchemists know it was your medallion. They will be looking for you—and this time really looking for you. You can’t go into the city anymore.”

“They were bound to find out sooner or later,” he said with a shrug of his large shoulders. “But thank you for telling me. I’ll be careful.” He shifted from one foot to another and raked his hand through his hair. “Perhaps you should get going—there’s much to do, and for you there’s no point in getting involved and endangering yourself like that.”

Mattie realized that he was embarrassed of her—not just of what they had done earlier, but of her mere presence here. He did not want his friends to know that he was friendly with a machine. “When will I see you again?” she said. She did not know why it was important to her to make him admit that he knew her, that he was her friend.

“I don’t know, Mattie,” he answered. “But you’re welcome here any time—please come and visit.”

There was nothing left for Mattie to do but to say her goodbyes and head out. The way back through the tunnel, alone and in the dark so thick that even her eyes barely penetrated it, seemed longer than before, when there were people surrounding her. She wished she could’ve waited for someone else to leave, just so she wouldn’t have to travel alone, but Sebastian seemed eager to see her go.

She imagined things hiding in the darkness, terrible things that could rend her to pieces, limb by limb, gear by toothed gear, nothing left of her but a pile of spare parts, just like the one that occupied most of Loharri’s workshop. Her thoughts turned to him—was he mad at her that she had left so abruptly earlier? Would he be happy to see her back unharmed?

The walls, gray stone behind the scaffolding, reminded her of the color of the gargoyles—it was sleek and cold like their skins, and Mattie couldn’t help but think that this was the stone they came from, the solid mass of rock that gave them birth. It was not so solid anymore, shot through with shafts and tunnels and mines. Maybe this is why the gargoyles are losing their strength, their power, Mattie thought. People are destroying the stone the city is built on, and what could one expect but a collapse? She felt the floor by the walls blindly, until she found a few stone slivers, and put them in her pocket. She would work and find out how this stone was different from any other, and why it held the gargoyles in such thrall. Work offered the comfort of familiarity and preoccupation with matters she could control, and which did not hurt so much.

In her laboratory, Mattie crushed the gray stones almost vengefully, and listened to the smallest crystals sigh and squeal under the slow twists of her pestle. She poured solvents over the crumbs and set them ablaze, carefully noting the blue and green color of the flames and the tiny salamanders that frolicked inside, playful and mischievous like puppies.

Mattie watched them for a while. She remembered Ogdela giving her a funny look when she had first seen the salamanders. “What are you staring at?” Ogdela had asked her then.

“Salamanders,” Mattie answered. “The fire denizens.”

Ogdela snorted. “Silly girl, you can’t see them, so there’s no point in looking for them.”

“But I do see them,” Mattie said. “Look!”

Ogdela shook her head. “Your eyes are better than mine then. Better than anyone’s.”

When Mattie questioned Loharri about her eyes, he grinned with the undamaged half of his face, and said something about polarized light and varying light sensitivity. Mattie did not understand the exact meaning, but figured that it meant that her eyes were special—something she suspected ever since he took them away from her. He did it again on a few occasions—sometimes as a punishment, sometimes for mere tinkering and improving.

“They are good enough,” Mattie had begged on many occasions when he wanted to work on her eyes just once more. “Please, don’t do this again.”

“They could be better,” he always answered. “You could see things no one else could see.”

“I already can,” she told him. “And I don’t like it when you take my eyes—I can see nothing at all then.”

The flames went out and the salamanders disappeared, and Mattie shifted idly through the charred remnants of the rock, its essence burned away in the blue and green flames, leaving behind only the most simple and most basic constituents.