It’s time to leave your childhood behind.
I think I have, Father. He considered last night’s attempt to sneak into the wing housing the acolytes of Precious Feather and winced. At least I’ve started, he amended.
Akachi slowed as they stepped into the street. Standing shadowed in the doorway of a tenement, a young woman caught his eye. She was beautiful, skin flawless, the whites of her eyes impossibly bright, almost as though she was lit from within. The woman stared at him, unflinching appraisal, face devoid of expression. Where the other Growers were filthy, bent with years of labour, she stood tall and proud, back straight.
Too clean. She looked like she’d be more comfortable in a priest’s robes, yet there she was, wearing a grey thobe like all the other Growers. He imagined her in the revealing robes of a nahual of Precious Feather.
Turning a corner, Akachi and his Hummingbird retinue left her behind.
The group walked south, following the Grey Wall separating the Growers and the Crafters. So huge was Bastion, the wall’s gentle curve was undetectable. It went on forever, disappearing in the wavering haze of heat, like it split the world in half.
It kind of does.
The Growers were roughly half of Bastion’s population. The other half, the Crafters, the Senate, the Bankers, and the Priests, all lived on the other side of that wall.
“The Grey Wall,” said Nafari, “separates everything interesting from everything not.”
“We’re on this side,” said Jumoke.
The sun crawled higher, murdering the last hints of shade.
Some time later, when Akachi’s stomach grumbled in complaint, he realized the priests and acolytes back in the Northern Cathedral would now be sitting down to lunch. The Hummingbird Guard showed no sign of slowing or stopping to eat.
Though all the districts along the Grey Wall were in theory identical, all lined with repeating patterns of streets, tenements, central squares, and churches, each was, in some way, distinct. Every district came with its own scents and sights. The Growers also changed. The men and women of the Bovine District stank of manure. In the Potato District, Growers wore the dirt they spent the day toiling in. Some districts smelled like horses or pigs, and some reeked of fish or rotting vegetables. Everywhere he looked he saw the products of the Growers’ labours carted out behind teams of oxen, overseen by squads of Hummingbird Guard. Everything grown in this ring was taken to the Crafters’ Ring where it would be turned into the food, tools, and materials, that kept Bastion alive.
Akachi’s hunger became a background distraction, replaced by a more demanding thirst. And still the Guard showed no sign of stopping. His feet hurt, unaccustomed to such abuse.
They walked, following the wall.
Slitted eyes tracked the group’s progress. Sometimes clumps of ragged Growers would follow a dozen strides behind them for a few blocks before breaking off. Captain Yejide noted them but did nothing.
Am I going to be assassinated before I make it to the church?
That would certainly please Bishop Zalika.
“Are we there yet?” asked Jumoke, grinning when the nearest Hummingbird shot him an annoyed glance.
Glares of hate followed Akachi and his retinue everywhere. Whether it was due to the presence of the Guard, or his own robes of Cloud Serpent, he couldn’t tell.
Or do they hate all priests?
None of the lectures in the Northern Cathedral prepared Akachi for the seething anger, the obsidian edge of discontent surrounding him.
After hours of walking, Captain Yejide said, “We’re in the Wheat District now.”
They passed a church of Sin Eater. The nahual, dressed in countless layers of painfully bright white, face hidden beneath a voluminous cowl, stood in the centre of the street. The priest’s head swung back and forth as if seeking sin by smell alone. Sin Eater’s nahual wielded their power to cure or spread disease with a righteous fury. Even Akachi would be expected to attend service in that church at least once a month for confession.
Can’t imagine I’ll get up to much sinning out here.
Nafari, on the other hand, would no doubt find a way. He was already chatting up one of the Hummingbird women.
Captain Yejide led them through winding streets, eyes sharp. Turning a corner, she slowed, and held up a hand. The Hummingbirds, always alert, took up positions as if expecting attack.
“What is it, Captain?” asked Akachi. He scanned the alley. Piled garbage littered the street. Red sand dusted everything.
Nostrils flared, Yejide tested the air. “Going around will add an hour.”
Around what? Akachi only saw more of the same. “An hour?” His feet hurt from walking and he felt like he’d sweat out his last drop of water two hours ago. I’m going to sweat dust. He saw nothing amiss. “It looks quiet.”
“Your decision,” she said, waiting.
Akachi shot Nafari a questioning look and his friend shrugged, abdicating responsibility.
“On the one hand,” said Jumoke, “the alley does look more like an adventure than the main road.”
Akachi ignored the acolyte. Though the Hummingbirds had their backs to him, studying the streets and alleys, he felt their expectation, their impatience for a decision. He’d never been in charge of anything before. He hesitated, unsure. What if I choose wrong? But it was just another filthy alley. Could this be some Hummingbird hazing ritual, or were they testing to see if he took the longer, more cowardly route?
He glanced at the Captain. Her utter lack of expression told him nothing.
“We cut through,” he said. “If this district is to be my home, I need to see it. And the Growers need to see me.” He wanted to add something about how showing fear would reduce the respect of the locals, but in truth he was just tired and wanted to get to his new home so he could lie down.
Captain Yejide led the way.
The first clod of ox shit hit Akachi in the chest, staggering him. The second, still moist and heavier for it, connected with the side of his head. Sparks arced across his vision.
Blinking, he found himself on his knees.
NURU – THIS PATCHWORK PANTHEON
Beyond the narcotics, there are two materials lending themselves to use in sorcery: wood, and stone. Church-trained nahualli carve strictly in wood as stone, crystals in particular, are conduits for Mother Death.
—Loa Book of The Invisibles
Sorcerous narcotics swam Nuru’s blood like river snakes. She stood at her table in the basement of the tenement Chisulo’s gang shared.
Twelve lashes for possession of a crafted construct.
A makeshift contraption made entirely of scraps of wood held together by hemp rope and more scraps of wood, it wobbled whenever she touched it. Omari stole it for her the year the five of them left the crèche where they grew up. She couldn’t imagine where he found it.
Focus on what you’re doing.
When she moved, the hundreds of pale bones tied into her knee-length charcoal hair clacked and whispered, soft and hollow. Though mostly collected from rats and mice, some of the bones were those of snakes and cats. The sound relaxed her.
The table held Nuru’s most valued possessions. An assortment of narcotics—sacrifice on the altar, her mind helpfully supplied—sat in stolen glass jars and wood bowls. Fourteen lashes for the glass, eight for the bowls. A selection of crude wood-working tools she made herself from shards of rock lay beside a half-dozen unfinished carvings. Six lashes for simple self-made tools. Wood shavings littered the floor. She had three sheets of crisp clean paper left of the twenty Omari stole for her last year. Her quill, a sharpened seagull feather, rested beside a glass jar of ink she’d made from blackberries, eggs, and water. Beside the quill sat the flake of flint used for sharpening it. The quill and jar, glass cloudy, worn thin by a thousand generations of Growers passing it from one street sorcerer to the next, were treasures beyond value. Three lashes for the quill, twenty for the ink. Chunks of wood sat arrayed across the top edge
of the table. Each had been selected because she’d seen something within, the potential for a carving. Four stones lay along the right side, there to be used as weights to hold the corners of her precious paper.
She blinked. How many lashes was the paper? She couldn’t remember.
Even without the narcotics, her pathetic belongings were enough to see her sacrificed on the altar.
Risk everything for some small shred of control. If she chased the dream, she risked a lot more. She risked her soul.
A single wavering tallow candle, stinking of rendered beef fat and smoke, lit the basement. Thirty lashes for the false light. That pinpoint of yellow light, too bright to look at in her heightened state, danced sinuous shadows in her peripheral vision. Sometimes she saw snakes. With Isabis, her viper, lurking in the dark, she might not even be hallucinating.
Today was different.
Today she saw a spider.
A spider with a woman’s body, she corrected.
She knew why: The dream.
So vivid as to be realer than real, the dream demanded attention. It demanded recognition. It demanded action.
The near-completed carving of a crow caught her attention. After working on it, slicing and carving with clumsy tools for over a year, it was almost finished. It wasn’t great. The beak didn’t look quite right, and the feathers lacked detail, but it was the best she could manage. Once finished—assuming she cured the aldatu mushrooms she grew down here exactly right—her nagual talent would allow her to take its shape. She would become the bird, fly through the air, look down upon Bastion. She wanted that, wanted it so bad. The taste of freedom, even if just for a brief while.
Rather, she had wanted it. Now she wanted something more.
I’m going to carve the spider.
There were two possibilities. Either she’d had a particularly vivid dream and it meant nothing, or something had reached out to her.
She knew better than to ignore her dreams.
She also knew better than to trust things that had the power to reach into a sorcerer’s dream and plant a need.
Ally, banished spirit, or demon, she didn’t know. Perhaps some ancient sorcerer had been thrown from the Sand Wall and her soul had lived on, gathering power.
It wants to use me for something. Maybe it craved vengeance, or to complete some unfinished task. Perhaps, after millennia as a formless spirit, it hungered for a taste of reality.
Well I want something from you too.
Power.
Control.
Having studied the darker arts and tested her power against other street sorcerers, she felt confident she could control the spirit. She’d give it some of whatever it desired, and in return it would aid her.
Nuru had planned on finishing the crow today, but it no longer mattered.
Setting aside the incomplete bird she selected one of the jars and rattled the single dose, three dried seeds in a dusting of green powder, crumbling in the bottom. A mix of foku and gorgoratzen, such narcotics were the purview of the nahualli. If discovered, she’d be loaded onto a penance wagon, hauled out to the Sand Wall, and cast into the Bloody Desert. The mix would sharpen her senses, improve recall, and aid in retention. They don’t want us thinking clearly. It was hard to come by. She couldn’t imagine what Omari, the gang Finger, traded to get it.
Nuru ate the blend of gorgoratzen and foku seeds. Then, just in case it contained even the slightest trace of narcotics, she licked the dust out of the bottom of the jar. Her tongue felt like sun-dried leather, swollen and heavy. She’d remember every last detail of her dream in incredible detail. If she missed a single element because she was distracted, the carving would differ too much from the reality of the dream and be useless as a channel.
Isabis moved in the dark, dry scales on sandy stone. Chisulo sat upstairs drinking. She heard him shift, the box he used as a chair, groaning. “Time for a war,” he said, over and over, trying to convince himself.
You’re a good man. Too good to lead a street gang in the Wheat District. But he was all they had. A fierce protectiveness filled her. Perhaps, once this carving was finished, they wouldn’t have to struggle just to survive. Maybe they wouldn’t have to fight to protect their meagre turf from the likes of Fadil. I’ll keep them safe, she vowed. Whatever it takes.
All their lives they lived what amounted to an unnoticed rebellion. Growing up in the crèche, they’d shirked their responsibilities, defied the nahual at every chance. The day they left they swore to stay together forever. Forming their own little street gang, they claimed a street corner in the Wheat District as their own. For the most part, the nahual ignored them as harmless.
That’s about to change.
Everything was changing.
“Time for a war,” Chisulo repeated.
Not if I can help it. Her heart ached with concern for her friends. I’ll protect you all.
Outside, somewhere in the distance, a woman cried, a broken, wailing sound.
Nuru swayed, the gentle clatter of bone on bone lulling her, separating her from the world above.
She forgot the stone under her bare feet and the constant hunger in her belly. She forgot Chisulo.
She forgot herself.
The narcotics in her blood thinned the veil between worlds, the wall between realities. Beyond that nebulous barrier lay spirits and demons, allies and dark forces, dead and banished gods.
She laid her crude carving tools, flint chisels, fire-hardened wood, and wedges of hard stone, out on the table. Leaning in, she examined her collection of wood chunks. She saw a rat in one, and a small dog in another. In none of them could she see the spider.
Use stone, not wood.
Could that work? The old woman who taught her sorcery always used wood. The nahualli always used wood. Stone would be so much harder to work, her tools insufficient for the intricate detail needed.
Wood is weak.
Where did that thought come from?
Spotting a chunk of catlinite, rust-red clay hardened into a shard of stone, in her collection, Nuru saw the potential for a spider locked within.
Yes. Stone.
A human head, eyes red as the brightest rose, skin the rainbow black of crow feathers. A sable curtain of silky hair fell the length of the human torso, draped the spider’s bulbous abdomen, and swung between viciously barbed legs. From the waist up, she was a gorgeous young woman. From the curve of her hips on down she had the jagged and angular body of a hunting spider. A black carapace, wet and glistening, armoured her lower body. Legs long and bent, her knees rose up above the woman’s beautiful face.
So much black.
So much flawless black.
The gods are at war. The spider spoke in silk and ash. Lines are drawn, sides chosen. Southern Hummingbird and Cloud Serpent hunger for war. Smoking Mirror breeds chaos as is his way; Father of Discord, he can do no less. Sin Eater wants to burn it all. Father Death hasn’t left the underworld in ten thousand years. My mad children require a firm hand. This patchwork pantheon is in turmoil. I have chosen you, my beautiful Heart.
Nuru blinked.
Stone shavings and shards littered the table top. In the centre sat the spider, still trapped in catlinite. It possessed none of the life she saw in her hallucination.
My mad children require a firm hand. What did that mean?
Nuru examined the incomplete carving. When finished, the six legs would be needle thin at the tips, so fragile.
She glanced at her sad collection of tools. “I can’t do it. Not with this garbage.”
I need proper tools, a Crafter’s stone-working kit. Real paints and brushes.
Somehow, she would get what she needed. Nuru knew this beyond any doubt. Though she couldn’t imagine how, it would happen. The nahual claimed the gods provided to the deserving, to those in need. Seeing as those same nahual said street sorcerers were ‘damned souls,’ and would toss her from the wall, she knew it wouldn’t be their gods doing the providing.
I
have chosen you, my beautiful Heart. Somehow it sounded like a title.
Whatever this thing was, it had clearly long gone mad. Thousands of years trapped beyond the light and life of Bastion would do that, she supposed. Madness, however, was not a problem. If anything, it would make the spirit easier to trick and control.
She remembered the lithe body atop the terrible spider. Shivers of fear and revulsion ran through her. But there was more. She wanted to see the spider again. She needed to see that girl. So beautiful. So terrible.
For some reason the spider reminded her of Efra. The girl lived on the edge of Chisulo’s gang, never quite inside, but not outside either. Sometimes she stayed with them, attended meetings, rarely talking, mostly staring at Chisulo. Sometimes she disappeared for weeks, only to return looking like she’d been mauled by one of the big cats in the menageries. The vicious scar bisecting her face from right eyebrow to the left side of her chin, reinforced the impression.
The spider—the female part—looked nothing like Efra. Too many curves, too flawless. And yet there was something there. This carving was important, the most important thing Nuru ever made. Efra was important too.
Could Efra be the key to getting the tools and paints I need?
That felt right. Nuru trusted her instincts, listened when the world whispered hints. Somehow, Efra was part of this.
AKACHI – THE GUARD DO NOT GO LIGHTLY
The war of the gods ended with the near extinction of humanity. With so few mortals left to worship them, the surviving gods starved. In a desperate attempt to save mankind the last gods created Bastion, a city formed of a single piece of stone pulled from deep beneath the Bloody Desert.
Bastion is the last city of man; beyond its walls is endless death.
—The Book of Bastion
Growers, filthy thobes stained in shit and blood, erupted from every doorway. Faces wrapped in grey cloth, only their eyes, slitted with rage, were visible. They attacked the priests with sharpened sticks and rocks clutched in fists.
The Hummingbird Guard retreated for a moment, creating a wall of flesh and leather around Akachi, Nafari, and Jumoke. Shuffling sandal-clad feet and muscled legs created a cage through which Akachi viewed the world. Yejide grunted as a Grower hurled himself at her and was neatly shouldered aside to be kicked in the groin by the Hummingbird at her side. A hollow crack echoed off stone and a woman lay an arm’s length from Akachi, blood leaking from her ear. She blinked once and didn’t blink again.
Smoke and Stone Page 2
