The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,5

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 . . .