Paolo Bacigalupi - The Alchemist

At one time, I had had chairs in this room, for talk and for thought, but those were long gone. We sat on the floor, together.

“And now you are part of my little conspiracy,” I said sadly.

Pila smiled gently. “I guessed a long time ago. She clearly has the wasting cough, but she never wastes. Most children, by this time, they are dead. And yet Jiala runs through the streets and comes home without a cough for weeks at a time. At least before she fell into bramble. The cough seemed to stay at bay unnaturally.”

“Why did you not call the guards?” I asked. “There is a fine reward for people like me. You could have lived well by selling your knowledge of my foolishness.”

“You don’t use this magic selfishly.”

“Still. It curses the city. The Mayor is right about that much. The help I visit upon Jiala, means that hurt is visited upon Khaim. Some neighbor of ours may find a bit of bramble growing in his flagstones. A potato woman in the field will till up a new bramble root, attracted by my healing spells. The bramble wall marches ever closer, and cares not at all what intentions I have when I use magic. It only cares that there is magic to feed upon.” I stood stiffly and went to squat by the fireplace, rolled a log so that it crackled and set up sparks. Pila watched me, I could feel her eyes on me. I glanced back at her. “I help my child and curse my neighbor. Simple truth.”

“And many of your neighbors do the same,” Pila said. “Simple truth. Now come and sit.”

I rejoined her, and we both watched the fire and my sleeping daughter. “I’m afraid I cannot save her,” I said, finally. “It will take great magic to make the cough go away, entirely. Her death is written in the dome of the Judgment Hall, and I fear I cannot save her without great magic. Magic such as someone like Scacz wields. And he will not wield it for the sake of one little girl.”

“And so you labor on the balanthast.”

I shrugged. “If I can stop the bramble, then there’s no reason not to use the great magics again. We can all be saved.” I stared at the flames. Firewood had grown expensive since bramble started sprouting in the nearby forest. I grimaced. “We’re caught in Halizak’s Prison. Every move we make closes the walls down upon us.”

“But the balanthast works,” Pila reminded me. “You have found a solution.”

I looked over at her. “I don’t trust them.”

“The Mayor?”

“Or the Majister. And now they have my balanthast. Another Halizakian box. I don’t trust them, but they are the only ones who can save us.”

Pila touched my shoulder. “I have watched you for more than fifteen years. You will discover a way.”

I sighed. “When I add up the years, I feel sick. I was certain that I would have the balanthast perfected within a year or two. Within five. Within ten, for certain. In time to save Merali.” I looked over at my sleeping daughter. “And now I can’t help wondering if I’m too late to save even Jiala.”

Pila smiled. “This time, I think you will succeed. I have never seen something like the balanthast. No one has. You have worked a miracle. What’s one more, to save Jiala?”

She pushed her dark hair back, looking at me with her deep brown eyes. I started to answer, but lost my voice, struck suddenly by her proximity.

Pila…

With my work, I had never had time or moment to really look at her. Staring into her eyes, seeing the slight smile on her lips, I felt as if I was surfacing from some deep pool, suddenly breathing. Seeing Pila for the first time. Perhaps even seeing the world for the first time.

How long had I been gone? How long had I simply not paid attention to my growing daughter, or to Pila’s care? In the firelight of the workshop, Pila was beautiful.

“Why did you stay?” I asked. “You could have gone on to other households. Could have made a family of your own. I pay you less than when you did little other than washing and cleaning, and now you run the household entire. Why not move on? I wouldn’t begrudge it. Other households would welcome you. I would recommend you.”

“You want to be rid of me just as you reach success?” Pila asked.

“No-” I stumbled on my own words. “I don’t mean to say…” I fumbled. “I mean, others all pay more.”

She snorted. “A great deal more, considering that I haven’t taken pay for more than a year.”

I looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

She gave me a sad smile. “It was a necessary economy, if we were to keep eating.”

“Then why on earth didn’t you leave?”

“You wished me to leave?”

“No!” All my words seemed to be wrong. “I’m in your debt. I owe you the moon. But you starve here-you can’t think that I do not appreciate. It’s just that you make no sense-”

“You poor fool,” Pila said. “You truly can’t see further than the bell of your balanthast.”

She leaned close, and her lips brushed mine.

When she straightened, her dark eyes were deep with promise and knowledge. “I chose my place long ago,” she said. “I watched you with Merali. When she was well, and when she fell ill. And I have watched you with Jiala. I would never leave one like you, one who never abandons others, even when it would be easy. You, I know.”

“All my secrets,” I whispered.

“All the ones that matter.”

The next day, the Mayor again invited me to his great house on the hill, to demonstrate the mechanics of the balanthast.

Pila helped me with my finest once more, but now she leaned close, smiling as she did, our cheeks almost brushing, my mustaches quivering at the proximity of this woman who had suddenly come into view.

It was as if I had been peering through clouded glass, but now, had finally polished a clear lens. Our fingers met on the buttons of my vest and we laughed together, giddy with recognition, and Jiala watched us both, smiling a secret child’s smile, the one that always touched her face when she thought she held some furtive bit of knowledge, but which showed as clearly on her expression as the fabled rocket blossoms of Jhandpara showed against the stars.

At the door, I hugged Jiala goodbye, then turned to Pila. I took a step toward her, then stopped, embarrassed at my forwardness, caught between past lives and new circumstance. Pila smiled at my uncertainty, then laughed and came to me, shaking her head. We embraced awkwardly. A new ritual. An acknowledgment that everything was different between us, and that new customs would write themselves over old habits.

I held Pila close and felt years falling away from me. And then Jiala crashed into us, hugging us both, together. Laughing and squeezing in between. Family. Finally, family again. After too long without. The Three Faces of Mara, all of us a little more whole, and grateful.

“I think she likes us this way,” Pila murmured.

“Then never leave me.”

“Never.”

I left that empty house feeling more full of life than I had in years. Silly and full of laughter all at once. Thinking of weddings. Of Pila as a bride. A gift I had never hoped to find again. The weight of loneliness lifted from me. Even the bramble cutting crews didn’t depress me. Men and women hacking bits of it from between the cobbles. Sweeping the city to make sure that vines didn’t encroach. I smiled at them, instead. With the balanthast, people would at last be safe. Could at last live their lives as they saw fit.

In ancient Jhandpara, majisters imbued carpets with magic so that they could speed from place to place, arrowing across the skies. Great wide carpets, as big as a room, with silver tea services and glass smoking vessels all set out for their friends. Crossing the empire in the blink of an eye. Flying back and forth from their floating castles and their estates in the cool north, to their seasides in the gentle south. And children did not sicken and die, and there was no wasting cough. All things were possible, except that magic made bramble, and bramble dragged flying carpets from the sky.