Ekaterina Sedia - The Alchemy of Stone

“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.

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.”