The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,41
mechanics both. A mechanical caterpillar stripped of its seats stood in the street, chuffing idle steam. Eight lizards harnessed double-file waited patiently in front of a low sled. Mattie guessed that the mechanics were evacuating valuables from the Parliament, afraid of another attack, and that Loharri would likely find no time for her.
She passed the open doors of the ossuary, and couldn’t resist peeking inside. The sealed sepulchers embedded in the floor offered no sight of interest, but the piles of bones stacked along the walls, the skulls in neat piles in the corners, never failed to fascinate Mattie. Loharri had told her that the bones were those of previous dukes and their wives, their courtiers and favorites, their children and servants. The skulls shone softly when the sunrays from the open doors, filled with dense clouds of motes, struck their suture-seamed yellow surfaces, the domes of the foreheads high and round, the eye sockets mysteriously dark, dripping with untold sadness and wisdom.
“In much wisdom there’s much sorrow,” Loharri used to say. Mattie thought that she agreed as she watched the skulls, their sockets seemingly following her every move from their corners. They smelled of old parchment and dry earth crumbling into dust.
Listen. A faint whisper caught her attention, and at first she thought that it was just the wind trapped inside, rattling the old bones.
Listen, again.
She stepped inside, looking through the dusk filled with remains. There were just bones, but then she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of an eye. And then—like in an optical trick the traveling performers entertained their customers with, where one was supposed to look at the jumble of leaves to spot a deer, a lizard, and a giant bird, and once one saw them they would not go away—she saw the folded wings and the gray skin blending with stone, she saw the heavy horned heads and slit eyes, the folded hands, the bent knees. And the mouths opening like fissures in the age-old stone to whisper to her urgent words.
Listen, they spoke in one voice, the voice of the stone the city was carved from. We will tell you a story.
There is a notion of time as an enemy, but we couldn’t tell you how fast it was passing until we heard the human heartbeats, counting the seconds as they fell into the eternity. So many million heartbeats ago, when you were not yet here and the eastern woman, the stranger, the daughter of red earth was young, there were two boys.
Three boys, maybe. We can’t remember, and we sometimes confuse death and sleep, sleep and oblivion. But in any case, there they were—feral children living off scraps and rotten fruit left in the market square after the market was over. They had forgotten how to speak and only snarled at pigeons and stray dogs if they went after the scraps the boys had their eyes on, and they spat and hissed at the passing of the Stone Monks, who were the greatest fear of all children, parented or not.
We weep often, for the Monks carry our name and everything that they do is attributed to us. But what can we do? We are weak and dying, and they fill our feeders, so we keep our thoughts to ourselves; we shove the gravel into our mouths hastily, rent with guilt, and we do not speak.
But the boys, the boys . . . one is raven-haired, narrow-eyed, and so beautiful, dirt and grime and lice notwithstanding; another is white-haired like an old man, and he moves on all fours, feeling his way like a crab. Yet another is quiet and small, and he cries often. He has no words, and his anguish wails and sobs through the night alleys, and we watch over them, like we watch over everyone who is marked for destruction by the grindstones of the world. There is nothing we can do but watch over them.
Mattie startled at the slamming of the door behind her, and the gargoyles fell silent, blending back into the surrounding walls.
The old mechanic shuffled closer, his limp more prominent now, accompanied by the tapping of a cane. “Mattie? What are you doing here?”
“The door was open,” she said. “I was looking for Loharri.”
“Of course you were.” His voice was paternal, soothing, and the look of his rheumy eyes kind. “We’re a tad busy here, but he’s around. I’ll help you look if you