Ekaterina Sedia - The Alchemy of Stone

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 extended 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?”

“About the bombing,” Mattie answered. “I told you last time that you got the wrong man, and yet you killed him.”

“How do you know that?”

“The gargoyles. And you keep taking people and banishing them from the city, and—”

“Enough,” Loharri interrupted and rubbed his face. “I don’t like it either, Mattie, but that’s politics for you. People are restless, and they need someone to blame.”

“This is it?” Niobe said. “That’s your entire excuse?”

“It’s not an excuse,” Loharri said. “Things started to change when you people showed up.”

“Your people show up in our cities,” Niobe parried. “We don’t make a fuss about it.”

“You would if your own people were losing jobs to the foreigners.”

“Your people are losing jobs to your machines,” Niobe said. “You put mechanizing everything and making it efficient above your people’s happiness, and you wonder why they aren’t happy?”

Loharri stood and turned to Niobe. “Don’t try to come between me and my automaton,” he said. “Seriously. I have no interest in finding scapegoats, and I’m not going to tell anyone about your presence here; you don’t need to worry about that. But if I have to remove Mattie from your company, I will. She does not need your influence.” He grabbed his bag of tools and was out of the door before Mattie had a chance to say thank you or goodbye.

Niobe waited for his steps to fall silent in the stairwell, stretched and laughed. “What an unpleasant man,” she said.

“He really isn’t,” Mattie said. “He has his problems, but he’s better than most. You just need to get to know him a little.”

“I have no desire to.” Niobe gave Mattie a quick hug and a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, we all have friends everyone else hates. Just don’t let him hurt you.”

“I have other plans.” Mattie reached for the shelf over her bench, and picked up a jar sealed with a glass stopper, the figure of the blood homunculus visible inside.

Niobe’s help proved to be invaluable—she was better versed in the darker uses of blood alchemy than Mattie expected, and she managed to get the homunculus moving about and chanting strange words. It wobbled and bubbled along the bench, back and forth, unable or unwilling to get down, and hissed and sputtered. Its heart, woven from two-colored strands, pulsed with grim life.

“How is it supposed to work?” Mattie asked.

“This creature, while alive, holds two wills together as one. Whichever one of them feeds it can command it, and the other person obeys.”

“What does it eat?” Mattie asked.

“Blood. Isn’t it obvious?”

“I’ll tell Iolanda to get sheep’s blood then.”

Niobe shook her head. “If she wants to command the other, she’ll have to feed it her own blood. Don’t worry, it doesn’t eat much—just a pin prick will sate it for a week. The longer you feed it, the stronger it gets, but it only commands for a short time.”

Mattie watched the creature, fearful of it and yet fascinated. Just like Mattie, it was made, not born; and yet Mattie felt no kinship to it, the slimy, organic thing, not with her pristine metal and bone and shiny, hard surfaces. Not vulnerable to the creature, yet unable to command it, for she had no blood to feed it.

It occurred to her that her only kinship was with gargoyles and their affinity for stone and hard skin, with their tormented not-quite life. She felt sad when she realized that freeing them from fate would mean breaking the bond she felt with them, yet, to refuse it would be unkind.

“What are you thinking about?” Niobe asked.

“Sebastian. You think he’s safe?”

“I think so. He said he’ll return tonight to check on you, to make sure you’re all right.”

Mattie flustered. “Do you think he really cares about me?

“Of course he does. He… ” Niobe paused and grabbed Mattie’s arm, and spun her around to face the light from the window so that Niobe could take a better look at her eyes.

Mattie could not avert them, so she retracted them instead. “What?”

“Oh, dear whales in the sea,” Niobe whispered. “You are in love with him, aren’t you?”