The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,94
in an unremarkable wall. He looked at Iolanda only, his lips pressed together as if he was trying not to speak.
“Loharri,” Iolanda said. “I need you to do something for me. Talk to Bergen, to the other mechanics. Tell them that they have nothing to be afraid of; tell them that we are willing to make truce.”
Loharri nodded, slowly, his gaze still lingering on Iolanda’s face, a distracted smile forming on his lips.
Mattie grabbed Niobe’s hand. “Something is not right,” she whispered. It was just a vague feeling, an irrational sense of dread that descended upon her out of nowhere but refused to leave.
Niobe smiled. “What do you mean, Mattie?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “But let’s go.”
Iolanda shot Mattie a reassuring look, and spoke to Loharri. “Tell them that they will be spared. Convince them that they need to help us. Do what you must, but ensure the mechanics’ surrender, even if you have to kill Bergen to take his place. Now, give me Mattie’s key, and then go.”
His left hand, pale and awkward, reached for the chain. Mattie felt a wrenching anxiety as he slowly pulled the chain from under his shirt, a bright sparkling of the key sending a sense of relief. Her hands reached out without her meaning to do so.
Iolanda reached for the key, just as Loharri lost his balance and stumbled forward. His lips brushed against Iolanda’s hair, and he had to grab her shoulder to regain his feet. He straightened, slowly, and pressed the key into Iolanda’s waiting hand.
“Go now,” Iolanda said, and wriggled from under his hand.
Loharri looked at Mattie, just for a moment, but she felt her unease return as she noticed the slow smile she knew so well twisting his mouth. “Mattie,” he said. “Help me. I’m weak, and it is difficult to walk. I need you to help me along.”
“I’ll come too,” Niobe said.
Loharri acknowledged her kindness with a nod, and Niobe grabbed his uninjured arm, letting Mattie prop him on the other side. Iolanda turned toward the house, and the homunculus finally detached itself from Loharri and followed Iolanda instead, its mission completed.
They started down the embankment, toward the towering remains of several caterpillars and what Mattie presumed used to be the Calculator. But she could not help stealing glances over her shoulder. She saw Iolanda, Mattie’s key still in her hand, enter the house, and she regretted not taking it with her. Just a few yards more, she told herself, and then we can go back, and she would have her key, never to leave her person.
They were almost halfway to the barricade, when Mattie heard a commotion behind her. She and Niobe turned simultaneously, to see a blast of fire shoot through the door; a pillar of flames engulfed the house instantaneously, before the blast of solid air knocked Mattie off her feet. She clanked on the pavement and felt her fingers give under her weight, unable to withstand the force of the blow. Her face hit the suddenly close stones and shattered into a thousand pieces; she had been too stunned to cover it. She struggled to prop herself up, to see behind her a solid cylinder of fire where the house used to be. She became aware of a clinking of debris as it rained onto the stones.
“Mattie,” Niobe gasped beside her. Her face was bruised, and a long scratch on her cheekbone swelled with blood. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “What happened?”
Niobe’s eyes flicked to Loharri. He sprawled on the pavement, face down, not struggling to get up. Mattie knew that he was alive when she heard his quiet laughter.
Niobe crawled over to the prostrate mechanic, and shook his shoulder violently. “What did you do?”
He laughed still, and did not resist Niobe’s shaking, his arm flopping like that of a rag doll in her hands. He did not have to explain—Mattie replayed in her mind his stumbling, his lips so close to Iolanda’s ear. Dead Iolanda, she realized. Dead because the man Mattie used to call her master whispered a word of command in her ear, and she obeyed, commanded by strands of her hair braided into the homuncular heart.
“How did you know?” Niobe screamed at Loharri. “How did you turn the homunculus?”
Loharri’s uninjured arm fluttered, jerking his hand up. His fingers were broken like Mattie’s, but there was no mistaking the fact that he pointed at her.
“It was the device in my head,” Mattie whispered. “I’m sorry. I did not know he had