The Alchemy of Stone

Chapter 2




Mice fled from a tall house perched over the Grackle Pond, and Mattie nodded to herself. The Soul-Smoker could not be far now, and Mattie quickened her step, her fine wooden heels clacking on the cobbles of the pavement and then the embankment, as the stream of mice fleeing in the opposite direction parted around her feet. The house stood wrapped in mourning wreaths, dark cypress branches wound in liquid smoke, with windows dark and shuttered. The exodus of mice was almost over, and the family, clad in their mourning whites, huddled on the porch fearful to go back inside until the reluctant soul was evicted.

Mattie wondered about the souls left behind like this, those little bodiless entities made of glassy, transparent fog that liked curling up inside the secret places of houses—behind wainscots, between the wooden planks of paneling, in mouse holes, in cupboards. She wondered why they and not the others lingered where they did not belong, where even mice fled from their watery, weak touch. What did they want? She supposed the Soul-Smoker would know.

She curtsied to the family—two young girls and a small boy, clustered around a withered old woman, their grandmother by all appearances. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.

They nodded to her, respectful through their grief. Emancipated automata were not numerous, and even the wealthy (and Mattie assumed the wealth of the family based on the size of their abode and its desirable location next to water) treated them with reverence for their presumed merit. “We put the opium out,” they said. “The Soul-Smoker should be by soon.”

“I’ll wait with you by your leave,” Mattie said. “I have business with him.”

They said nothing, but Mattie deduced from their lowered eyelids—shot through with delicate veins branching like naked winter trees—that they were not comfortable discussing the matter. She moved away from the porch and stood, erect and still, by an old tree burdened with ivy and long garlands of lichen. She waited for the Soul-Smoker in suitable silence and calm.

She caught sight of him as soon as he turned onto the embankment, making his slow way along the edge of the black pond. The man was small and thin, black-and-white in his black suit and a shock of white hair. His cane drummed a steady rhythm along the cobbles, and his blind eyes, white in his white face, stared upward into the darkening sky. Those who were taking the evening air by the pond scattered at his approach, getting out of his way with almost unseemly haste, risking stepping into the spring mud and staining their ornate shoes and brocade gowns rather than meeting the gaze of his eyes, empty like clouds.

When he approached the house, the family stepped off the porch and retreated into the depths of the garden, leaving the door open for him. His cane tapped on the steps and flicked from side to side, like a tongue of a venomous snake. He was about to put his foot onto the first step, but then he turned to Mattie, undoubtedly alerted to her presence by the loud ticking of her heart.

“Kind sir,” Mattie said politely. “A word at your pleasure.”

“Call me Ilmarekh,” he said in a soft, almost feminine voice that lilted with some slight unidentifiable accent. “It’s been a while since anyone wanted a word with me.”

“I am Mattie,” she said, and softly touched her hand to the blind man’s.

He started at her touch. “Dear girl, are you an automaton?”

“Yes, sir,” Mattie said. “I am an alchemist, and I’m in need of your help. Do you mind if I watch you while you do your work?”

“Not at all,” he said. “Come inside.”

The hallway was subsumed by the twilight, long fingers of shadows stretching from the hollow of the cupped ceiling, reaching all the way down the walls, and only retreating by the western windows, which admitted the last of the sunlight. Ilmarekh sniffed the air, and Mattie tasted it too; both followed the sweet cloying perfume of opium to the kitchen.

The soul of the deceased had already found it—there was a faint shimmer in the bowl of brown powder left on the kitchen table, and a strange watery halo surrounded it, as, Mattie imagined, through a veil of tears.

The blind man carefully patted the pockets of his severe jacket and extracted a long-stemmed pipe with a small shallow bowl cut from ancient knotted wood, silvery with age. Without any ceremony, he stuffed the bowl of his pipe with the opium and lit it with a thick sulfurous match. Sweet smoke filled the kitchen, and the liquid shadow danced in the rising puffs and writhed under the ceiling, becoming smoke, becoming shadow and disappearing, sucked through Ilmarekh’s narrow, lipless mouth. His chest rose and fell in breaths that seemed too great for his narrow frame, and every last wisp of smoke was sucked into his chest and consumed.

When there was no opium left, Ilmarekh sighed and collapsed on the stool by the kitchen table. Bronzed pans reflected his white face and hair, and he seemed a ghost himself. The opium washed away the last color from his lips, and his white eyes were half-hidden under heavy eyelids.

“Are you all right?” Mattie asked. “I have tonics with me, if you’re feeling weak.”

He sat up, as if remembering her presence. “I am fine, I assure you,” he said. “A new soul takes a while to settle.”

“How many do you contain?” Mattie asked.

“Hundreds,” he answered, without any pride or remorse. “I imagine you came to ask me about one of them?”

“Yes,” Mattie said. “There was a woman, some years back, an alchemist . . . she used to live by the river, in the eastern district. Her name was Beresta.”

The blind man remained silent, chewing the air as if tasting something in it. “Yes,” he said after a while. “I know her.”

Ilmarekh said that he wished the world were simpler; he had been blind since birth, and he tried to imagine seeing, from the vague and distant memories of the souls that lived inside him. His favorite things to imagine were reflections and shadows, and reflections of shadows running along a long, unending pane of glass. This is what he imagined the souls he consumed were like, and he fancied himself a mere reflecting surface—and instead of wandering alone through the world that was not kind to shadows, they found solace in seeing their reflection in Ilmarekh’s soul, and the reflection gave them substance and contentment.

Among the hundreds of reflections he knew by feel and by their thoughts and memories twining with his own, he could locate Beresta with ease. He told Mattie that she was a shy, retiring soul that would rather remain unnoticed than communicate with him. “But I can coax her,” he said.

Mattie tried to imagine what it was like, having someone else’s soul sloshing inside one, silvery and elusive like a small fast fish that one could cradle in an open palm full of water but could never grasp without inflicting injury and distress. This is probably what it would be like to have any soul, she thought.

“She says she knows you,” Ilmarekh said after a protracted silence. “Rather, she knows the man who made you.”

“He sent me,” Mattie said. Sitting in someone else’s kitchen like that, not letting the worry about the owners intrude upon her communion with this small, strange man felt almost criminal and yet giddy. The slanted red rays of the setting sun set the pans afire and spilled thick amber puddles across the floor. The air smelled of cedar and amber.

“She says she knows your teacher,” Ilmarekh said. “She says she’ll tell you what you want to know if you tell her why you became an alchemist and why you chose the teacher you had.”

Both questions had the same answer. Mattie remembered when she had been a simple automaton with sturdy metal hands designed for gripping broom handles and handling saucepans; she was intelligent enough for conversation, for Loharri did not like being bored. She used to bustle through the house crammed full of spare mechanical parts and sweep the workshop floors, raising angry clouds of dust full of tiny stings of metal particles, she cooked meals heavy with red, steaming meat designed to enliven her master’s pale complexion and melancholy disposition. She waged protracted wars with small mice who were reluctant to leave the house and insisted on partaking of the food she brought from the market. Sometimes she went out with Loharri when he needed to run errands and wanted company or someone to carry things for him. She asked for nothing else and had not even heard about emancipation, even though an occasional twinge of dissatisfaction came unbidden every now and again.

This changed one day in June when Loharri, contrary to his complaints about the sweltering heat and repeated reassurances that he would not leave the house until the weather changed to something halfway sane, called her to go out with him. He gave her a machine to carry—a simple device, consisting of a bronze receptacle for water and a narrow nozzle; Mattie knew enough about Loharri’s contrivances to guess that when the water boiled, the steam would be forced through the nozzle onto the blades of a fan above it, spinning them and the platform mounted over it. There were deep depressions in the platform, currently empty, and Mattie guessed that they were meant for something—probably small things that needed spinning.

She puzzled over the machine as they walked, turning it this way and that, and never noticed that they were walking all the way to the eastern district, a place populated by those who were not as wealthy as her master but not entirely poor. Apartments clustered on top of each other, wisely avoiding contact with expensive land underneath, and the air smelled of bleach and smoked fish, of old flowers and laundry drying in the sun.

They headed to one of the tenement buildings, no different from the others under their roofs of overlapping red tiles. They walked up the rickety stairs; Loharri’s face was pale, and he sweated more than usual in his dark clothes; still no complaint escaped his tightly closed bloodless lips.

Mattie followed him, counting the creaking steps, and wondering about the reason for such uncharacteristic silence—usually, her creator was eager to offer his views on the weather, people populating any given area, and the latest election, whether she listened or not. That went doubly for any bodily discomfort he was experiencing, and his lack of complaining seemed downright ominous by the time they reached their destination—a narrow garret at the very top of the building, where all the heat of the day and every drop of fish smell had curled up comfortably and refused to leave.

Loharri knocked on the door upholstered with narrow strips of pounded bark, and listened to the slow steps inside. Mattie listened too, her head cocked to her shoulder, the thing in her hands whirring softly in the leisurely tepid breeze.

A wild-eyed human servant, a small wiry girl with pimples and chipped teeth, opened the door, peering cautiously. She smiled at Loharri and opened the door wider, bidding him to come in. “Wait in the living room,” she said. “Mistress Ogdela will be with you shortly.”

“Living room” was too grand a name for the narrow part of the hallway separated from the rest of the tiny apartment by a folding partition decorated with butterflies. A long and lumpy settee covered by a checkered white and yellow throw left only a narrow passage leading to the rest of the apartment; a candy dish with several dusty marzipans rested on the stained table by the settee. Loharri sat and drummed his fingers on the surface of the table, unconsciously following the pattern of circular stains left by glasses of assorted sizes. His gaze would not meet Mattie’s, and his mouth twisted especially tortuously.

Mattie remained standing, the machine in her hands held primly in front of her chest. Beneath the lifeless demeanor of an automaton she assumed every time Loharri had company—by appearing inanimate she remained inconspicuous, and people talked like they would if she weren’t there—she wondered what it was about him today, why he was so different. The answer came to her when light, sprightly footfalls came from beyond the partition, and Loharri’s gaze flickered toward it, his light eyes suddenly stormy and troubled—it was fear, Mattie realized. She had never seen Loharri afraid, and her mechanical heart beat faster, eager to see the creature that had such power over Mattie’s creator.

The partition folded to one side, admitting a small, silver-haired woman with a face carved into narrow slices by myriad parallel wrinkles; her eyes, dark and bright, looked at Mattie with curiosity. “Ah,” she said. “You made me my machine, and I thank you. Now, what can I do for you?”

Loharri stood, stooping. “I need your alchemy, but I would prefer to talk in private, most venerable Mistress Ogdela.”

The woman raised her eyebrows, temporarily smoothing a few of the wrinkles. “Secrets from your own automaton!” she said. “How very quaint. Come along then, young man, and we will talk.”

The two of them departed, leaving Mattie to watch the painted yellow and blue butterflies that flitted across the lacquered wood. She listened to the low buzzing of voices behind the partition, and rolled the word on her tongue: alchemy. A word powerful enough to make Loharri quiet and pensive. She did not know why it was so appealing to her; all she knew was that she wanted to learn Ogdela’s trade.

When Loharri returned, a flask of clear liquid—paler than water!—clutched in his hands, Mattie had made up her mind.

“Most venerable Mistress Ogdela,” she addressed the old woman. “With my master’s permission, I would ask to be your apprentice.” It was a shrewd choice, to ask in Loharri’s presence—he would not deny her without a good reason while others were watching, and he would not betray his fear outwardly.

He shot Mattie a searing gaze. “I do not see why not,” he said after a short pause. “As long is it doesn’t interfere with your other duties.”

“I’ve never taught an automaton,” Ogdela said to Loharri. “Is she up to the task?”

Loharri sighed and handed Mattie the flask. “Sadly, yes,” he said.

Mattie remained with Ogdela until the old woman decided that she was fit to go and open her own shop. Mattie had found a place just like Ogdela’s—“To be more like her,” she explained to Ilmarekh.

Ilmarekh listened to her story, his face drained of color, calm and placid like the surface of the Grackle Pond outside. The opium smoke had dissipated, and Mattie imagined that the consumed soul was done with flailing inside its flesh jail and had started to settle in its new place.

“So there it is,” Mattie said. “I studied with Ogdela . . . I wanted to be an alchemist because of the power they hold over others. I hadn’t realized then that not everyone is afraid of them, but I never regretted it, so it doesn’t matter.”

“The ghost . . . Beresta, she says she also studied with Ogdela. She will answer your questions.” Ilmarekh stammered and stopped. Large drops of sweat swelled on his forehead, and he swallowed a few times.

Mattie guessed that the opium was getting the best of him; as the darkness descended outside, she remembered the family, still waiting by the porch, too fearful to enter their own house. “Perhaps I should take you home,” she said. “You look like you need to rest.”

Ilmarekh sat upright, the empty bowl at his elbow clanging with the sudden movement. “You’d do that?”

“Of course,” Mattie said. “Why wouldn’t I?” She regretted saying it as soon as the words touched the darkened air. Of course she knew why no one ever went to the Soul-Smoker’s house, and Ilmarekh knew that she knew. To him, her feigned ignorance could only be interpreted as condescension, a feeble attempt to pretend that she did not know his disadvantage, the way people saw him. “I’d like to take you anyway,” she said.

He nodded, slowly, and rose, leaning on his cane heavily. She hooked her arm under his, and he jolted at her touch—any touch, she guessed, would be a novelty to him. “Can you see in the dark?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

He seemed relieved at not having to worry about finding his way and being able to use his cane for support only. His weight, small as it was, pressed on Mattie’s arm, and she wondered at the birdlike thinness of his bones, at the feverish warm coating of flesh that knotted over them.

We watch from the secret places of the city—the rooftops and rain-gutters, the awnings of bakeries and the scaffoldings rising around new buildings—as the girl and the man walk through the dark streets. She doesn’t bother finding the lit streets and cuts along pitch-black alleys and around dark ponds that reflect no stars; it is cloudy tonight. It is too dark to fear thugs or thieves, but we keep watch nonetheless.

We watch as she almost carries the frail man who seems unsure on his feet all the way through the narrowing streets, through labyrinths of dirt paths of the shantytowns fringing the city, to the gate, to the wall. There, we do not follow, but we keep watch—we watch over her as the two of them exit the gate on the distal side and walk up the hill. The rain starts, slicking the path, and her mechanical parts creak louder as water gets trapped in her joints and delicate wheel-bearings. They are just a blur now, a double shape through the gray curtain of the rain and the night. The ground is still warm from the sun, and silvery mist rises and snakes along the path, clinging low over the wet grass.

There is a house on the top of the hill—no man’s land, no-place, too steep for agriculture and too rocky for pasture, out-of-the-way and inconvenient for city dwellers and farmers both. This hill, the Ram’s Skull, the bald forehead of the once-mountain worn to a nub by time (slipping, slipping, faster and faster) is nothing but bedrock and loose stones. The house on the top sits lopsided already, its northern corner sinking with the decay of the slope under its supports.

The mechanical girl and the Soul-Smoker enter the house—we hear the long squeal of a door as it opens and a slam as it closes behind them. We do not know what is happening inside, but we can guess—there is light in the fireplace and the gurgling of a kettle, and low, guilty voices. And we think of the souls and we count them—we had known every ghost in the city, and we can recall their names. We marvel at the cruelty of their fate without having the capacity to truly comprehend it—no more than to merely recognize it as grotesque. But, like the mechanical girl, we have no souls, and we are not afraid of the Soul-Smoker, we have no reason to worry that the souls inside him will somehow lure ours away and we will fall dead on the spot, abandoned by our animating essence. We think about the nature of souls and listen to the small domestic noises reaching us from the little house on top of the hill.

We sit all along the wall like giant gray pigeons, our hands clenched under our sharp chins, our wings folded primly, our eyes narrowed, and our ears pricked up. If someone were to wander by at this wet, ungodly hour, they would believe us turned into stone, inanimate like the wall we grip with our clawed toes. Or they would wonder what the gargoyles are doing out of their caves and hiding places, why are we out and about. But there is nobody here to pry or to wonder, and we watch and we listen and we wait, and we do not know what they are talking about.