Lit­tle eyes hung in the grey solu­tion. Vole eyes, trail­ing strings; like black pearls burst from a bro­ken neck­lace. Dozens. Sus­pend­ed, gawk­ing, in salty, chilled lymph. A spoon intrud­ed amidst them, part­ing them like peas. A tiny ladle groped for pur­chase. It cupped a sin­gle orb and pulled it drip­ping from the rest.

Rub­ber-tipped tweez­ers trans­ferred the eye from its spoon, held it under a soft, hiss­ing desk lamp, where one blue, wrin­kle-hood­ed human eye exam­ined it under a jew­el­er’s loupe. Its own­er grunt­ed approval, felt cross his work­bench for anoth­er instru­ment: A minute brush, bound from a few soft hairs of sable. He dipped it in a brown jar labeled osmot­ic glair and brought it up, cov­ered in clear resin. Eye and brush came togeth­er, dab­bing a smear of clear glaze on the trail­ing nerves and mus­cle-ends. The brush returned to its stand.

The eye tra­versed the bench. It shook light­ly, wob­bled by sym­pa­thet­ic shakes of a liv­er-spot­ted hand. It low­ered, found its rest in a tiny, artic­u­lat­ed clamp hung just above its des­ti­na­tion: The left orbit of a feath­er­less robin’s head. Grey with frost, puck­er-skinned, sutured with lids of pink flesh held star­ing emp­ty by pins and sur­gi­cal clamps fine as bead­ing nee­dles. Tiny ocu­lar mus­cles, veins, and nerves’ ends lay with­in, pinched and labeled by sil­ver instru­ments and hang­ing tags.

From a tray beside, one hand took up a fine suture hook thread­ed with wet sinew, near invis­i­ble save for reflect­ed lamp­light. The oth­er: an even fin­er set of tweez­ers. They quiv­ered in aged fin­gers. A breath drew in, held. The instru­ments shook no more. Quick, they dipped into the sock­et, began to sew strings of flesh to their match­es on the eye. 

Often, the hands paused, wait­ed for deep, steady­ing breaths before set­ting again to sew. Crow’s feet pinched, watered under thick lens­es, blinked only in those paus­es. Final­ly, with a cau­tious tug of sinew, the vole eye drew up like a fin­ished but­ton drawn to its plac­ard, sat aright and wet in its mis­matched orbit. The hands relaxed, put down their tools, shook gen­tly in rest on the pol­ished work­bench.

Between those hands lay the vole-eyed thing. A cob­bled crea­ture,  its con­stituent pieces indis­tinct, save the robin’s head, and joined by flesh stitched up and reskinned by thin, black tar. * Blunt-limbed and long of body, some­what like a tiny man or bear, save for its beak and bird’s feet. 

Slow, one hand lift­ed the robin-head­ed, vole-eyed thing, car­ried it limp to a steel pedestal. Gen­tly, it lay the cob­bled crea­ture down, slow­ly low­ered a bell­jar over top. Soon after the glass descend­ed, frost fogged its inte­ri­or. Cold radi­at­ed from the jar and steel stand, pumped from some chilly tub­ing below. The wet vole eye cloud­ed over.

With care, aged hands unclipped jew­el­er’s lens­es from thick glass­es. The eyes below, an old man’s eyes, closed in long, tired blinks. The man him­self, grey and beard­ed, looked appre­cia­bly at his frost­ed-over work in the bell­jar, mas­saged his knot­ty, quiv­er­ing hands. 

Close behind, a latch clicked. A door squeaked, opened slow­ly from its jamb. One young, green eye peered through the crack it’d opened, looked wide and ner­vous at the dim work­shop and the man beyond.

“Emilee,” said the old man. He turned. His white-whiskered lip curled. “What did your Mam­ma say about com­ing up here?”

Emilee’s eye blinked, sur­prised. “Thought I was qui­et,” she said, abashed. It looked at the man, squint­ed. “Mam­ma said ‘you should­n’t pry about Grand­fa­ther’s work.’ ” She mimed, pitchi­ly. “ ‘Should­n’t go up to the attic.’ ”

“Why?”

“Said it was ‘wrong,’ or some­thing.”

“My work?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it’s wrong?” said Grand­fa­ther. He leaned stiffy on his low stool, elbows on thin knees.

The eye looked idly around, wide­ly inter­est­ed. “Don’t think so,” said Emilee, paused. “Don’t know what it is you do, though.”

“Want to see?”

The eye blinked. “Yes.” Emilee pro­nounced, quick­ly. “Yes,” she said again, soft­er. “I’m inter­est­ed.”

“Keep it our secret?”

The eye nod­ded, eager­ly.

“Come in.”

Emilee, a girl of ten, crept round the door, shut it behind. Messy, dark hair obscured one eye. Qui­et, she turned about, looked with the oth­er, took in shelves and bench­es assort­ed with tools, machines, com­po­nents, and pre­served spec­i­mens of steel, wood, bone, and flesh. Her eye fixed last on the steel pedestal and bell­jar, on the mis­matched crea­ture with­in.

“What’s that crit­ter?” she point­ed.

Grand­fa­ther touched the glass. Frost round­ed his fin­ger­tips. “An exper­i­ment,” he said. “Near­ly the thou­sandth I’ve made.”

“But what’s it called?” said Emilee, eye rolling.

“Back at the Acad­e­my, we called them homun­culi,” said Grand­fa­ther. “Arti­fi­cial peo­ple, before they banned such things.”

Emilee looked unsure, peered close­ly through the glass, nose upturned. “Does­n’t look like a per­son to me.”

“That’s because it’s only prac­tice.” Grand­fa­ther sighed. “No one can make a per­son. At least, no one still alive.” He smiled. “And not with­out the usu­al means. I’m exper­i­ment­ing in order to dis­cov­er how, using dead pieces. Ethics say exper­i­ment­ing with pieces of peo­ple would be wrong.”

“What’s ‘ethics?’ ”

“Ethics are rules. They tell sci­en­tists what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“So you use oth­er pieces… ” stat­ed Emilee, frown­ing at jars of dis­sect­ed fish, mam­mal, and bird. All tiny, greyed, float­ing in jars. “Because it’s right?”

“Exact­ly.”

“But Mam­ma and the Acad­e­my say its wrong.”

“Well,” said Grand­fa­ther. “Some­times inter­pre­ta­tions of ethics change, over time.”

“Hm,” nod­ded Emilee, slack­ly. She spun around for a bit, took in the com­plex­i­ty of items clut­ter­ing the peak-roofed work­shop. Piles of red and blue leather-bound books stamped with Acad­e­my seals. Charts bear­ing hand-drawn plots and met­rics. Trays of sharp tools dis­in­fect­ing in white alco­hol.

Emilee mused. “That homuncle–”

“Homunculus,” said Grand­fa­ther.

“Homuncle,” nod­ded Emilee, con­fi­dent. “I’ve seen one before. Mr. Bobkins had him under the tea cab­i­net, chewed all to bits. Lots of lit­tle guts.” 

“Yes. Deceased exper­i­ments tend to make it down­stairs, because of that cat.” Said Grand­fa­ther, bushy eye­brows beetling.

“What’s ‘deceased?’ ” singsonged the girl, still spin­ning. 

“Deceased means ‘dead,’ Dear.”

“Why’re they dead?”

“Because they nev­er live, at least not for long,” said Grand­fa­ther, whils­ful.

“Why?” said the girl.

“Because…” Grand­fa­ther was silent a moment. “I’ll show you. Come and see,” he beck­oned. Emilee quit her spin­ning, brushed hair from her eyes, tot­tered over. Grand­fa­ther had pro­duced anoth­er bell­jar from across the wide work­bench. Inside lay a com­bi­na­tion of skink and needle­less hedge­hog, slathered in tar like the vole-eyed thing. It lay, legs crooked and limp, with two loose, rub­ber catheters run­ning from its sewn-togeth­er neck. Those tubes attached to a small, clear ball of glass set with a tiny port. Watery red swirled with­in.

Grand­fa­ther lift­ed the bell­jar, gen­tly slid the sticky crea­ture onto his palm. There, teth­ered to its ball, the homuncu­lus lay limp, still, save for a pulse flut­ter­ing in its throat. 

Emilee ogled the thing, leaned close. “It’s breath­ing,” said she, excit­ed.

“Yes, it is. And its heart is beat­ing.” Grand­fa­ther picked up the blood ball, turned it so the rub­ber nip­ple of its port faced up.

“But does­n’t that mean its alive?”

A sad­ness pinched the old man’s eyes. “Watch, Dear.” From the bench beside, he retrieved a tiny jar, a syringe. He drew in a breath, held it to steady his hands, care­ful­ly unscrewed and pulled a drop of yel­low liq­uid from the jar. Quick, he poked the syringe through the rub­ber port of the homuncu­lus’ ball, depressed the plunger. He hur­ried­ly set down the instru­ment, cupped the crea­ture in both hands.

After but a few sec­onds, it twitched. Spasms wracked its legs and stitched throat, bid them flex and curl vio­lent­ly in alter­na­tion. Its eyes flick­ered open, stared agape and dumb. Emilee gog­gled at it.

“It is alive!”

Grand­fa­ther shook his head, looked on with woe in his eyes. He watched as the homuncu­lus wob­bled in his palms, coughed light­ly, made a bid to stand. Then, clear flu­id spilled from it mouth, tinged with red. It cricked its neck, seized hard, did­n’t relax again. It died that way, lay still.

“Oh,” said Emilee, eyes water­ing. Her shoul­ders slumped.

“They all end like that, more or less,” said Grand­fa­ther. He placed the dead homuncu­lus on his bench. “I’ve heard tell of col­leagues, still work­ing, who’ve had more suc­cess, but it does­n’t much mat­ter. We’re all miss­ing the same thing.”

“What are you miss­ing?” said Emilee, look­ing sad at the limp, cob­bled beast.

“A heart,” he said, dead­pan. “A very spe­cif­ic heart. We try and recre­ate its effect, but have no suc­cess.”

“But,” frowned his grand­daugh­ter. “You said it’s heart was beat­ing?”

“A dif­fer­ent sort of heart, Dear. If only both were so sim­ple.” The man placed a wrin­kled hand over his breast pock­et. “Not the heart that cre­ates life here,” he said, tap­ping. “But the heart that makes life here.” He lift­ed his hand, poked a thumb to Emilee’s fore­head. 

She blinked. “What kind’s that?”

Grand­fa­ther lift­ed a fin­ger, reached for a musty book. He slid a thumb down the worn text block, found a book­mark, split the pages open. He turned the dia­gram inside, illus­trat­ed, to Emilee

Grand­fa­ther spoke dour. “A heart of stone.” 

Emilee blinked at the page. “Hm,” she said, dul­ly. She began to spin around again. “I hope you find it, Grand­pap­pa,” she tit­tered, twirling to the attic door. A low smile creased the old sci­en­tist’s face. “Thank you, Dear.” 

He looked to the page, to the heart-shaped chunk of crys­tal illus­trat­ed there­in: Lumpi­ly faceted, inked with red, labeled fig.13: sor­cer­ous stone, Nauss­ian. Prae­cant­ian Age. He shut the book. 

“I hope so, too.”

Oars dipped soft into black water. Lift­ed, dripped, dipped back again to drag the lit­tle boat for­ward. It was a low, flat craft, sunk near to its wales by the weight of two occu­pants.

One, a small­ish woman in a bal­a­cla­va and maille-front­ed jack­et, was row­ing. She looked about, took in shad­ows of broad min­er­al speleothems risen from and dip­ping into the flood­ed cav­ern waters. In the light of a prow lantern, they cast broad, black shapes on con­cave, drip­ping walls. She shiv­ered, breathed cold and min­er­al air.

The oth­er, a lank-haired man in sleeve­less woolens worn over muni­tions plat­ing, bent where he sat at the rear bench. He pored over a worn book, sep­a­rat­ed waxy pages with dirty nails stuck from fin­ger­less gloves. The pages were thick, leath­ery. They sep­a­rat­ed, wet and oily, like sweat­ed flesh. They were crabbed with red, veiny let­ter­ing. Rows of queries and respons­es in two dis­tinct hands. One, pinched and print­ed. The oth­er, flow­ing and broad; anti­quat­ed.

“Hate this wanker’s hand­writ­ing,” he said, rub­bing two pages between scabbed thumb and fore­fin­ger.

“Do keep in mind, Dourn,” said the row­ing bal­a­cla­va. “He was kept by an Emper­oussin courtier for three decades. I imag­ine they did­n’t con­verse in Sor­dor the whole while. Had to be taught mod­ern speak.” She sniffed. “Some flam­boy­an­cy has sure­ly rubbed off.”

“It, mate. Isn’t a man any­more. It’s a book.” Dourn sneered. “And it’s with bloody cut­ters, now, any­way. Might well do to update its style. Stitchy ancient shit­brain.” Bal­a­cla­va looked pained at that last phrase. “Wot?” said Dourn. He frowned at her, mock­ing­ly incred­u­lous. “Did you wince, Mack­le? Wot you wince for? It can’t hear.”

Mack­le shrugged, kept row­ing. “Dun­no. Guess it’s sil­ly. I know an incun­able can’t hear, right enough, but it…” Her cov­ered mouth twist­ed. “Dun­no. Feels off.”

“Don’t. Wanker can’t do any­thing to us.” He slapped the cov­er.

“Fine.” Mack­le rowed on.

They kept many min­utes onward. All was still on the black and depth­less water, save a rare splash of oar or dap­ple of drip­ping, min­er­al milk from far above. Mack­le looked over her shoul­der fre­quent­ly, prow-wards, watched the mounds of flow­stone and sta­lag­mites that com­posed the cav­ern-river’s steep banks ahead.

Even­tu­al­ly, a half hour lat­er, she spoke. “I think I see it,” she let an oar dan­gle in its swiv­el, point­ed. “There.” Dourn snapped to see.

Ahead, there emerged from the bank a wide, low slab of stone afront a black gate. A sort of pier built from mono­lith­ic rock, lack­ing rail nor any oth­er acces­so­ry typ­i­cal of a dock. The gate, a rec­tan­gu­lar set of stone doors in a frame five times taller than its two-meter width, rose plain and sim­i­lar­ly unadorned from the bleak stone. Wet, ancient. So old that pen­cil sta­lag­mites and run­nels of flow­stone had begun to crab its hard angles.

Dourn shiv­ered. “Cer­tain­ly looks bloody Nauss­ian, to me.”

Word­less, Mack­le brought the boat along­side, lift­ed a cast iron anchor onto the pier. They took up their heavy back­packs, stepped from the wob­bling boat, and stood small and damp before the tow­er­ing doors. Dourn clutched the incun­able, squint­ed at their high expanse. “Go ahead and tell it we are here,” said Mack­le, nudg­ing him. “Ask it how they open.”

“Ahk.” Dourn groaned. “Gonna bleed meself dry.”

“You said you want­ed to be the pri­ma­ry scribe.” **

“Fine.” He shuf­fled to sit on the stone, opened the book in the cross of his legs. Winc­ing, he bit open one of the scabs of his thumbs, let a bit of red well out. He pro­duced an inkpen from his pock­et, pained­ly dipped in the wound. Slow, he put nib to fleshy parch­ment, sucked his thumb as he wrote a scratchy line.

“Me and Mack­le made it to the tomb. How do we open this damn ugly door?”

Mack­le crouched beside, watched Dourn write. After he dot­ted his ques­tion mark, he paused, watched the red let­ters fade, draw dim into the suck­ing page. Anoth­er line appeared slow, below, all at once. Risen from the parch­ment like veins under papery skin.

“I am so emi­nent­ly pleased to hear from you again, Vidal Dourn of Lori­at.”

“ ‘Emi­nent­ly pleased,’ ” tit­tered Dourn, adapt­ing a faux-posh accent. Mack­le shushed him. “Shus, he’s being sar­cas­tic.” She point­ed to the page, where anoth­er line was appear­ing. “Look.”

“The gate to Car­diac Sanc­tum 43 was nev­er meant to be opened from with­out. Do uti­lize the blast­ing satchel I request­ed you obtain upon the left door.”

For a moment, it paused. Then:

“Take care in its appli­ca­tion. I desire to be buried no more than you do.”

Mack­le frowned. “That sounds bloody unsafe.” She sat on the cold stone, ges­tured for the book. “Give him here a moment.”

“Why?”

“I have a ques­tion, and he does­n’t like you.”

“It,” Dourn insist­ed. He oblig­ed pouti­ly, hand­ed over the book, suck­ing his bleed­ing thumb. Mack­le pro­duced a quill and a pen knife, sharp­ened the nib, and, with­out fuss, nicked her own arm for ink. She wrote to the incun­able, goose feath­er wav­ing in her fin­ger­tips.

“Mas­ter Sor­cer­er, beg­ging your indul­gence, is it safe to uti­lize an explo­sive? Will we not awak­en your brethren?”

“Kiss-arse,” mut­tered Dourn, watch­ing words appear.

“Dear Liriellen Mack­le of Leah,” said the book. “I assure you: So long as you lis­ten to me, you are in no dan­ger from my brethren.”

“Right,” said Dourn. He grabbed the book from Mack­le, who protest­ed, snapped it shut with a thump, shoved it in his bag. He stood. “Let’s blow it.”

“Dourn, you ass,” said Mack­le. She too rose, hasti­ly tied a ker­chief round the cut on her arm.

With incau­tious haste, Dourn pro­duced the explo­sive: a linen-wrapped bun­dle of clay. Soft, chem­i­cal­ly sweet in odor, stamped with red font read­ing dan­ger: nitrodetonite. He wedged it at the left door’s base, insert­ed a long fuse, trailed it back many meters to the boat. “Get jol­ly back,” he said, pil­ing into the lit­tle craft with fuse in one hand and a flip lighter in the oth­er.

“Blast,” cursed Mack­le, joint­ing him. She cov­ered her head and ears, crouched low.

“That’s wot I’m gonna do.” Dourn clicked the lighter thrice, pro­duced a shock of flame, lit the fuse. He, too, ducked below the edge of the dock and boat.

On the pier, a bead of flame trailed fast over stone, gob­bling up the fuse with eager inten­si­ty. As soon as it touched the satchel, it puffed, flared, det­o­nat­ed. A shock­wave blew dust, droplets, and frag­ments of stone and pen­cil sta­lag­mites over the dock. The cut­ters flinched, rocked as their boat careened where it float­ed, took in slosh­es of water. Smoke reached them, then a blast of boil­ing air. Ruble crashed, set­tled. Dust and debris scat­tered over their backs.

“Bloody shite,” said Mack­le, rub­bing her ears. Dourn blinked away grit, peeked over the dock. Where it had hung in the frame, the bot­tom half of the left door had col­lapsed into still-set­tling rub­ble. The upper half remained, held aright by its great hinge. Dusty black lay beyond the great por­tal. “Worth every pen­ny, that,” grinned the man.

He climbed from the boat, brought the prow-lantern with him, pro­duced the incun­able. Hasty, he dabbed at his still-welling thumb. Mack­le, look­ing annoyed, climbed up behind, watched him write.

“Blew the door in. Tell us what’s next.”

“Dourn,” scold­ed Mack­le. “Mind how you make demands. Noth­ing’s mak­ing him help us, and he’s mak­ing it remark­ably easy. Don’t give him rea­son not to.”

“Sure it has rea­son,” said Dourn. “I’ve told it if it don’t, I’ll use its pages for ass­wipes.”

Mack­le pinched her lips, looked to the book’s response:

“Short­ly with­in the gate is a spi­ral stair. Descend. How­ev­er long the way may seem, know that it does have an end.”

“Sim­ple,” said Dourn, march­ing for the gate.

They clam­bered over rub­ble, entered the sanc­tum. There, in the lantern-dim, showed an unadorned hall some ten meters long, cul­mi­nat­ed by the cylin­der of a tow­er­like stair. It sunk, yawn­ing, rail­less and bleak, into the stone. Word­less, the cut­ters tra­versed to the top step, foot­falls loud and hol­low over the broad cham­ber, looked down. Huge slices of stone fanned down into the dark with­out sup­port or cen­tral col­umn. Tall, wide steps, built not for their small legs. Word­less, they descend­ed.

Steps. Hun­dreds, thou­sands of steps dis­ap­peared under the cut­ters’ heels. Great, ebon gran­ite steps. Dry and smooth under the slid­ing lantern­light. Both cut­ters held close to their inte­ri­or curve, shoot­ing fre­quent, fear­ful glances to the round pit round which the steps cir­cled. Each step slant­ed five degrees inwards, towards that depth­less gap, as if ready to fun­nel an unwary descen­dant to their doom.

After some time, they were both pant­i­ng. “ ‘An end,’ ” scoffed Dourn, again in his false­ly-posh accent. Sweat gleamed on his brow. “How long’s it been? An hour?”

“Think about it like this,” said Mack­le. “At least we’re going down, instead of up.”

“Tell my knees that.”

They huffed on for two hours more, and their going did not slow. Rather, it increased, sped by clum­sy, tired ankles trip­ping down ever-descend­ing flags of stone.

At one point, Dourn wheezed, stum­bled. His ankle bowed, sent him a dan­ger­ous few feet towards the pre­cip­i­tous pit. “Shite!” he cursed, wiped his brow. He slumped back, down onto the wide, curved side of a step, back to the wall. For a moment, he breathed the musty air, eyes wide and angry. Abrupt­ly, he cracked open the incun­able.

“Are you alright?” said Mack­le. She glanced to the open book. “What are you doing?”

“Ask­ing it how much bloody longer.” Dourn bit his thumb again, winced as he reopened the scab, wrote to the sor­cer­er-book:

“How much far­ther do we have to go on these shit­ty stairs? It’s been hours. If this is some sort of trap, I’ll use you for kindl–”

“Dourn,” snapped Mack­le, nab­bing the pen from his grasp. “What did I say?”

“Get reamed, mate. I want answers.” He snatched the pen back, turned to the book, watched the reply to his half-fin­ished line.

“The stairs you are fol­low­ing are indeed a trap…”

Dourn made some throaty howl of rage, gripped the book.

“So long as you stop, that is. The sanc­tum stair­well takes a full day to tra­verse. It swal­lows those of weak for­ti­tude and com­po­sure; those who stop or sleep in despair or weari­ness. It swal­lows mor­tals. † I trust you can make it, but you must not stop.”

“Only now does it say this,” hawked Dourn. Snap­ping the book shut.

Mack­le straight­ened to con­tin­ue. “Maybe if you treat­ed him bet­ter, he might be more accom­mo­dat­ing in its dis­pen­sa­tion of infor­ma­tion.”

“ ‘Dis­pen­sa­tion of infor­ma­tion,’ ” mocked Dourn. He rose. “Hon­est­ly, you’re start­ing to sound like it, Mack­le.”

The bal­a­clava’d cut­ter held her tongue, mere­ly paused a hint before return­ing down the stairs. “We have enough water in the can­teens,” she said, flat­ly. “Come on.”

They walked for a silent and weari­some day, dull, save for stum­bling and ragged breath, for stops to rest knees, change new kerosene into the lantern, to drink spar­e­ly. Foot­steps echoed, reced­ing, pro­duc­ing a dis­tant, hol­low tat­too in the fath­oms of spi­ral­ing gran­ite.

Dull, save an abrupt, heavy thrum. A sud­den pall of freez­ing cold. “Wot?” said Dourn, dry­ly, stag­ger­ing. He clutched his chest, his ears. “Felt like a big drum­beat just went through me.”

Mack­le shiv­ered, froze, wideyed. “Oh no,” she said, after a moment, also touched her ears; felt the ache of a pres­sure change.

“Wot?” said Dourn, pan­icked at the blank startele­ment in Mack­le’s near-cov­ered face. They looked at eachother. “Oh,” he said, after a sec­ond, crest­fall­en. “The…”

“Under­world.”

“Shit!”

Mack­le screwed up her eyes, shook her head. “Wait, we should have expect­ed this.” She start­ed climb­ing instead, knees wob­bling. “It only means we’re…” She looked up, saw a dark, smooth ceil­ing to which the stair now ascend­ed. A cir­cu­lar land­ing where they had already passed, where there had been none before. Her eyes widened. “We’re there.”

Dourn’s head swiveled, beheld the door. A grin split his scruffy face. “Final­ly.” He dashed up the steps, incun­able tucked under one elbow.

“Wait, we should con­sult with it,” said Mack­le, stum­bling after him.

Ahead, Dourn crest­ed the stairs, dis­ap­peared round the lip, yelped.

“Dourn!” She rushed to fol­low, caught her­self low on a step to peer over the land­ing’s lip.

On the land­ing, cold and broad­ly cir­cu­lar, there stood a tow­er­ing door oppo­site the stair. And, in the cen­ter between, a curled beast. A brute fiend like a great tyger, cov­ered all over in metal­lic spines laid flat, like sheafed arrows. It lay, curled, with a wrin­kled, mis­er­able, human­like head reposed atop sick­le claws. Round those claws lay the end of a long, seg­ment­ed tail, tipped with a sim­i­lar­ly-metal­lic, spearlike sting. At this, Dourn had cried out, dropped grov­el­ing to the stone. The beast was dry, dessi­cat­ed. Motion­less. Dead.

“A maneater,” gasped Mack­le, unsteadi­ly. She round­ed the stairs. “A chimera.” Her shoul­der relaxed. Relief entered her tone. “It’s dead.”

Step­ping ahead, she took up the incun­able from where the man had dropped it. “Come on,” she said, reas­sured, but still shaky. She popped open the tome, sat on the cold ground, and pro­duced her quill. She looked to the door, to the dead chimera, wrote:

“Mas­ter Sor­cer­er, we have come upon the guardian beast.”

She paused, quill welling red where it pressed to the fleshy page. She scratched anoth­er line.

“Please tell me you knew it would be dead.”

The book respond­ed imme­di­ate­ly.

Dear Liriellen. Allow me to reas­sure you: my cer­tain­ty in the man­ti­core’s state was total. Spec­i­mens of this vari­ety live for no more than a mil­len­nia with­out main­te­nence. Its expi­ra­tion was assured, after this many thou­sands of years.

“Our friend says he knew the maneater was dead,” said Mack­le, glar­ing at Dourn, who sat on the stone look­ing sourly at the mon­ster’s corpse. “Infor­ma­tion which might have spared you a pair of trousers, had you wait­ed a moment.”

“My trousers are fine, thank you,” grum­bled Dourn. “Does it have any­thing help­ful to say? Wot about that door?”

Mack­le dipped her quill, winced, wrote:

“Mas­ter Sor­cer­er, Dourn wants to know how to pro­ceed.”

A response bloomed quick over the page:

“Tell good Mas­ter Dourn the guardian’s door is open. It mere­ly requires a touch. Let him lead down the ensu­ing hall. My heart lies beyond.“
Mack­le frowned light­ly, reread the response. She looked up. Dourn had risen, and walked to exam­ine the same door. Rec­tan­gu­lar, a meter wide and five tall. “So, wot’s it say?” he said, hold­ing his lantern to the jamb and thresh­old, both flush, dark shapes of stone.

“Says the door requires only a touch to open.”

“Hmm.” He placed a hand to the por­tal, shoved it. The lines of his fore­arm stood out mere­ly a lit­tle, exert­ed just a hint of pres­sure. Silent, the door swung slow­ly inward.

“Wow,” said Dourn, push­ing more. The door swung ful­ly open on silent bear­ings. “Let’s bloody go.”

Mack­le looked up from the book, point­ed. “Says the stone is down that hall.”

“Real­ly? Final­ly.” He entered the hall, lantern held high.

Ahead lay a cat­a­comb hall ranked with sar­copha­gi. Huge sar­copha­gi, twice the height of a man. Effi­gies were wrought upon their lids. Effi­gies, carved in rich detail suf­fi­cient for kings, depict­ing armored, bale­ful crea­tures in seg­ment­ed armor. Their gauntlets clenched like dead spi­ders at their sides. Their long hel­mets, beaked and skele­tal, like crow skulls, tipped in macabre state to touch peaked breasts. The lantern­light shift­ed between them, lent their heads and emp­ty eye sock­ets a hate­ful, fol­low­ing demeanor.

Mack­le shiv­ered at the sight. She fol­lowed, shoul­ders hunched, between two rows of tombs. Dourn wan­dered ahead, ignor­ing all, save a faint glim­mer at the hal­l’s lengthy end. A gleam of cher­ry red.

“There it is,” said Dourn, breath­less. He began to jog for the glim­mer: A red crys­tal atop a high pedestal of plain stone at the cham­ber’s abrupt end.

Mack­le watched, stopped, frowned. Hur­ried­ly, she clutched the incun­able in the crook of one arm, writ­ing with the oth­er.

“This is too sim­ple.”

The book respond­ed instant­ly.

“Is it?”

The blacks of Mack­le’s eyes widened. She wrote, slop­pi­ly.

“What’s going to hap­pen if he takes the stone?”

Again, an instant response. Bold, heavy lines, as if scraped by a pen pressed heavy to the page in fer­vor. Like bro­ken veins.

“How much do you care, Liriellen? Let Dourn have what he wants.”

A pall passed over Mack­le’s eye. With book and quill still ready, she set off for Dourn, halt­ing­ly. Ahead, the man stood just before his prize, look­ing up at it on its tall stand. It was a deep, lumi­nous crim­son, bright with refract­ed light. Built of rough­ly hexag­o­nal lay­ers, it set in a sconce of uncut stone, lumpy like fos­silized flesh. It reflect­ed, a red pin­prick, in Dourn’s unblink­ing eyes.

“Dourn,” warned Mack­le. Voice unsteady. Cau­tious and half­heart­ed.

Dourn ignored her. He stretched out a hand, fin­gers twitch­ing.

“Dourn!”

He clasped the stone, grinned hun­gri­ly, drew it from the pedestal. “Would you look at that,” he said, admir­ing the glow­ing thing. He turned to Mack­le, dis­played it. “Bloody ass­wipe of a book did its job after all.”

Mack­le’s eyes widened, bugged. “Wot?” demand­ed Dourn. Mack­le stared to his hand.

Quizzi­cal, Dourn fol­lowed with his own gaze, and hor­ror con­vo­lut­ed his face. At that moment, the cut­ter’s hand, still fixed round its prize, sagged, snapped at the wrist. It smacked, dead and necrot­ic-black, on the stone floor. The crys­tal, with­in a cage of grue­some fin­gers clenched like dead spi­der-legs, had turned opaque, brown like a dried wound. From the stump of Dourn’s wrist, there crawled thick, black ropes of dead flesh. They snaked up his bare fore­arm, fol­low­ing the lines of rapid­ly-hol­low­ing veins.

Dourn screamed.

“Mack­le, help me.” He stag­gered for­ward, sunk to one knee. Mack­le backpedaled, eyes white and pan­icked. “Help, ask the ream­ing book!” he said again. Mack­le opened her mouth as if to speak, shut it. Still, she backed away.

“Help me, you cunt!” Dourn implored. Those last words came out a gar­bled slur, for brown decay bur­bled from his throat. Soon enough, he col­lapsed. As soon as it had start­ed, the necro­sis had stopped, halt­ed where it reached the man’s brain.

Mack­le was still, pant­i­ng. She beheld her com­pan­ion, col­lapsed just feet before his fall­en hand, in a pud­dle of rot­ten bile. Beside him, where it had fall­en, the lantern burned low. Mack­le crossed to it, dropped to the floor. There, hunched in the mea­ger pool of light, she dipped her bloody quill and, with shak­ing breaths and quiv­er­ing hands, wrote to the incun­able:

“Dourn is dead.” She paused, nib wob­bling, wrote: “You said we were in no dan­ger.”

The book replied, its loop­ing hand slow and care­ful.

“I assured you would face no dan­ger, Liriellen.”

Mack­le blinked, eyes flat. Her grip on the quill hard­ened. She wrote:

“You used us, did­n’t you? You chose that I should live, and he should die.”

The incun­able thought just a moment before respond­ing:

“You knew what was hap­pen­ing. Do you dis­agree with my choice?”

Mack­le’s quill pressed hard into the parch­ment, welled a deep blotch. Her arm dripped red onto the stone.

“No.” She wrote, grudg­ing­ly slow. “But why me?”

Ten­ta­tive, words welled on the human parch­ment.

“I need­ed help, Liriellen. I chose yours over Dourn’s, not because you are more skilled, nor any less greedy, nor even the most kind.” It dropped down a line. “But because you remind me of myself.”

Mack­le’s breath­ing hitched. In the cold cat­a­comb, wisps of frozen breath float­ed from the knit over her mouth. Anx­ious­ly, she watched the page. The pre­vi­ous lines fad­ed, sunk away. A new one appeared:

“Do you under­stand?”

Jerk­i­ly, she scratched a soli­tary response:

“Yes.” She paused, lev­eled her breath, added: “I do, Mas­ter.”

Words flowed fast over the page.

“Do you still desire the stone? Will you help us rebuild it?”

Mack­le put down “yes,” imme­di­ate­ly, frowned, added: “us?”

“Look about you.”

Slow, as if fear­ing a blow out from the dark, the cut­ter looked up. She gasped.

In the dark about the lantern’s mea­ger pool stood huge, black iron fig­ures. Stock-still. Dry, ammo­ni­at­ed breath pulled silent from their beaked helms. They stared with bleak pits of eyes.

A weight descend­ed on Mack­le’s shoul­der: A heavy, seg­ment­ed claw of a long-fin­gered hand sconced in an iron cuff. Mack­le, jerked, looked up to the tow­er­ing sor­cer­er close behind. She avert­ed her eyes, hunched, stared wide-eyed at the open book of sor­cery in her lap, at the text crawl­ing red over parch­ment:

“Us.”

The philosopher’s stone

The sor­cer­ers of old had no regard for death.

To them, bio­log­i­cal entropy was an obsta­cle long ago sur­mount­ed, stripped of con­se­quence by their hor­rid arts; by the gen­e­sis of one life-manip­u­lat­ing tool, the great­est prod­uct of their obscene and bio­log­i­cal sci­ence: The philoso­pher’s stone.

Bet­ter known by all who fol­lowed and desired it as a sor­cer­er’s stone: A ner­vous cat­a­lyst, one capa­ble of cre­at­ing unend­ing life, or even reignit­ing the vital fires of ani­ma­tion and sen­tience in the cold axons of per­ished flesh and bone. A gory crys­tal, clas­si­cal­ly depict­ed as a heart of crim­son stone struck with veins of cream. A folk­loric image syn­ony­mous with bloaty womb-caul­drons and their chimeric spawn. It is the cat­a­lyst by which sor­cer­er’s inured them­selves against death, and the final ingre­di­ent in their awful recipes, stirred into amni­ot­ic brews to turn bur­bling gore into cob­bled, embry­on­ic life. ††

The pow­er of these hearts of stone lent every sor­cer­er-empire to ever reign might suf­fi­cient to bend the world. First came the Naus­sians: A union of titan-sor­cer­ers risen so far above the means of mor­tal man as to for­sake all basic human soft­ness and regard. ‡ By the pow­er of their hearts, worn osten­ta­tious in the breast of their black armor, Naus­sia first engen­dered the chimera, the caul­dron-born grue, the undy­ing slave; all tools by which they wrought a cen­turies-long domin­ion. Next came the Chico­l­ians, who with lifes­pans born of their mag­ic stones wrought dis­cov­er­ies fatal to all their ene­mies, and ulti­mate­ly them­selves. Then the Idrans, the hideous, flesh­ly pagan-realm from which all North­ern witch­craft is born. All these and many oth­er, small empires of sor­cery rose and fell, con­quer­ing and con­quered by the abil­i­ty to bend life itself.

Only with the dawn­ing of mod­ern human­i­ty 1,400 years ago did the secret of the sor­cer­er’s stone come to sink into occult mem­o­ry. ‡‡ As each great cabal of sor­cery fell or slunk into deep obscu­ri­ty, stones were destroyed, lost, or closed up fast away in under­world vaults, rare to be seen again. The final few who wield­ed their pow­der after sor­cery’s fall to small mankind did so in cau­tious clan­des­tin­i­ty, so leery were they to reveal the secrets of their mys­te­ri­ous­ly-extend­ed life. Among these rumored wield­ers were the Con­suls of Aveth, who uti­lized stones tak­en from their for­mer sor­cer­er mas­ters to cre­ate per­son­al lifes­pans of seem­ing­ly-divine pro­trac­tion, and the nigh-myth­i­cal monks of Alba Abbey, who were rumored to have a stone in their drink­ing well. Myths of mod­ern wield­ers stone are no less preva­lent, but far less true.

The art of the sor­cer­er’s stone has slipped into obscu­ri­ty, as have most truths regard­ing its nature. None can yet tell how the sor­cer­ers of so long ago came to design their gory hearts, a process known as the Great Work, nor even how they put it’s result to use. § Folk­lore and schol­ar­dom alike put forth any num­ber of hor­rid rumors of how such stones are found or craft­ed:

• Some fairy­tales posit they are the hun­dred hearts of a hun­dred dis­tinct ani­mals. Hunt­ed, excised, and ren­dered by a caul­dron into a con­gealed and mighty whole. The stalk­ing and slay­ing of ten thou­sand beasts, no mat­ter their size or loca­tion, may seem an absur­di­ty typ­i­cal of fairy­tales, but is known by schol­ars to be well with­in the deter­mined scope of known sor­cer­ers’ his­tor­i­cal ambi­tions.
• Some say sor­cer­er’s stones are real­ly stony pits found in the bod­ies of the largest lemures: mon­sters self-built from spare organs. They are the lemures’ store of con­densed cel­lu­lar poten­tial, used to fuse raw, dis­parate organs into a func­tion­ing cor­pus. While all lemures have pits, only the largest, cen­turies-old spec­i­mens, found in the gur­gling reach­es of the deep­est sea­caves, have those capa­ble of sor­cer­ous use.
• A notably vile incun­able held in the restrict­ed sec­tion of the Roy­al Acad­e­my Library has sug­gest­ed on occa­sion that sor­cer­er’s stones are brewed from plagued fetal bones derived from crit­i­cal­ly infect­ed moth­ers. Unre­lat­ed stud­ies have con­firmed the abil­i­ty of plague to trans­mit in the womb, but none have explored the nature of fetal plague. The incun­able in ques­tion has been not­ed to elu­ci­date hor­ri­ble facts of sor­cery both true and pur­pose­ful­ly out­ra­geous.
• Researchers of ban­sheeism have pur­port­ed that the life-extend­ing effects of that hor­rid ague may have been uti­lized by sor­cer­ers to cre­ate unend­ing life in them­selves and their cre­ations. While not relat­ed to a typ­i­cal stone, the idea that sor­cer­ers may have reverse-engi­neered ban­sheeism sheds pos­si­bly rev­e­la­to­ry light on their skills at bio­log­i­cal tam­per­ing. It has also bred a new scope of prae­cant­ian research: one devot­ed to ban­ish­ing folk images, such as the sor­cer­er’s stone, in favor of the per­ceived real­i­ties of the age of sor­cery.
• Oth­ers yet say a stone is a sor­cer­er’s own heart, cut out and kept crys­tal­ized safe away; that the arts required to live with­out one’s own heart are the very same required to cre­ate unend­ing life.

A stone’s use is clear­er than its ori­gin. It is con­sis­tent­ly depict­ed in lore. In the man­u­fac­ture of chimeras, most folk sum­mon the folk­loric image of a heart added like a soup­stone to some macabre caul­dron of fetal gore. The same will like­ly pic­ture, as was illus­trat­ed in their sto­ry­books, a stone heart fired over a cru­cible to bleed out its elixir of life.

In all its tellings, told by exag­ger­at­ed myth or ancient text alike, the stone is renowned for its demand­ing toll. Those who seek it, either through hid­den arche­ol­o­gy or secret man­u­fac­ture, grow grad­u­al­ly famil­iar with this heinous cost: Human­i­ty.

All those who have striv­en to obtain it even­tu­al­ly pay the same price as the grim prac­ti­tion­ers who came before. By their labors, they grow famil­iar with the same bleak ambi­tion which per­vad­ed the stones’ cre­ators. They set aside the soft­ness of their mor­tal­i­ty. They dis­card their com­pas­sion, their admir­ing loy­al­ty, their regard for the human form; come instead to cher­ish the traits of ambi­tion, dom­i­na­tion, and obses­sion.

Traits, all dis­card­ed and replaced in pur­suit of one result: A heart of stone.