Smoke and Stone

by Michael R. Fletcher

  “Akachi?” said Yejide, voice tentative.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Did… did she touch you with the other stone?”

  “No,” he lied. “It was close though.”

  “You…” She trailed to silence, teeth worrying at her lower lip in uncertainty.

  I killed a woman, tore her throat out with my teeth. “When a nagual becomes the animal, they become the animal. I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. Just forgot, too busy. The puma was hungry.”

  It was true, and it was a lie. He could have stopped the cat, had he wanted to. He’d been trained, knew the dangers. He’d been taught how to drive animal spirits out and reclaim his body.

  I didn’t want to. I wanted to feed. I wanted blood.

  He’d wanted to escape himself and the puma spirit offered him that.

  I’m fine.

  Amethyst.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Help me up. Take me home.”

  He caught sight of the mauled and partially devoured corpse and bent to vomit raw meat and blood to the street.

  “Get me home,” he repeated.

  He needed ameslari, something to dull the memory. He needed something to distance himself from the horror of what he’d done.

  I’m fine. She barely touched me.

  Captain Yejide helped him back to his feet, held him up with an arm under his shoulder. Njau went to Khadija, gently lifted her shattered remains. He showed no expression, face hard as stone.

  Hard, like Khadija’s eyes.

  NURU – THEIR ENEMIES ARE OUR ALLIES

  The nahual decry all use of stones and crystals in sorcery and yet the Hummingbird Guard bear obsidian weapons that store the souls of those slain. The Lord thinks he stole that stone from Mother Death. He is wrong. She shall return to reclaim what is hers.

  —Loa Book of the Invisibles

  Nuru kept them in the basement for three days. Each night she sent Chisulo out to scrounge for food and water. He returned with crusts of bread, rinds of cheese, and skins of musty tasting water. It wasn’t much, and no one wasn’t hungry, but it kept them alive. They managed to feed Omari some drops of water but were unable to make him eat. The already wiry Finger shrank before their eyes.

  The pain in her burnt hand faded but remained a dull background ache, a reminder of her failure. The Cloud Serpent nahualli was never far from her thoughts.

  Isabis found, killed, and ate a rat and promptly curled in a corner, belly distended, to sleep. Efra suggested they cut the snake open and then eat both the rat and the snake. One look from Nuru put that idea to rest.

  Happy refused to leave Omari’s side. Nothing, not starvation, not Nuru, not the very gods of Bastion could move him. “Omari and I will leave together,” he said, if pushed.

  Efra paced the confines of the filthy basement like a caged panther in the menageries. Her bruises went through a murky rainbow of hues, from red to blue to purple to green, and finally to yellow. By the third day she no longer favoured her ribs and looked ready to storm the world above. Nuru wondered how long before frustration got the better of the girl and drove her from the basement and away from the group. When she told her they wouldn’t force her to stay, Efra gave Nuru a wounded look and went back to pacing.

  Omari remained unconscious, but he groaned and twitched as if haunted by terrible dreams. Having used the last of her supply, Nuru sent Chisulo in search of ameslari so she could attempt to dream-walk into whatever world tormented the Finger. The fungus had always been difficult to acquire, even for someone with the right contacts, and Chisulo had never been that person. He returned empty-handed and apologetic. He took it hard. His failure to help his friend cut him deep. Nuru saw it in the beaten hunch of his shoulders, the way his attention often strayed to Omari. She didn’t have the energy to talk him out of his self-imposed gloom.

  It hurt that she couldn’t at least try. Helplessness crushed her, a feeling she loathed.

  For three days Nuru watched Efra and Chisulo pretend the other didn’t exist but continually steal looks when they thought no one noticed.

  Is she weighing his usefulness, or does she genuinely care for him?

  She wasn’t sure which bothered her more.

  Efra confused her. She seemed to bounce randomly between cold self-interest and a desperate yearning to belong.

  Which will win?

  On the fourth evening Efra approached Chisulo. He lay on his side, pretending to sleep. She kicked him in the ribs.

  “Would you gather everyone together, please?” she asked.

  Chisulo groaned and rolled over to glare at her. “Why did you phrase that as a question?”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to do,” she said. “You all do it. When Nuru asks you to go get food, she’s not really asking.”

  “Actually,” said Nuru, “I am.”

  “Actually,” snapped Efra, “you’re not. Everyone gather round.”

  “Giving orders now, are you?” Nuru asked.

  Efra turned on her. “Someone has to.”

  She isn’t wrong. Chisulo didn’t look ready, and the last decisions Nuru made got Bomani killed and Omari badly hurt. She glanced guiltily at the Finger. She should have been able to protect her friends. I may have got him killed, too.

  “Now,” said Efra, “if you’d please all fucking gather round.”

  Nuru, Chisulo, and Happy did as requested, though they didn’t have to move far. They all sat while Efra remained standing. Chisulo’s eyes never left her.

  Is he falling for her, or is he falling for her need?

  “We’ve waited long enough,” said Efra. “It’s time to start doing again.”

  Truth be told, Nuru felt impatient too. When the initial rush of terror passed and the Birds failed to come storming down the steps, she figured they just might survive. A distant fear, she discovered, was less terrifying than having a nahualli show up in the middle of a huateteo spirit trance with your friends.

  Something has to change or we’ll lose Omari.

  “Do what, exactly?” asked Chisulo.

  “Do we share everything?” asked Efra, staring at Nuru.

  Everyone else nodded, so Nuru did too.

  “Nuru has been carving something,” said Efra.

  “Oh fuck,” said Nuru.

  Happy and Chisulo turned curious looks in her direction.

  “What?” asked Chisulo.

  “Show them,” said Efra.

  Nuru removed the incomplete stone spider from its pouch and set it on the floor before her.

  Happy squinted at the carving and then up at Nuru. “The girl part looks like you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Nuru. It was far too beautiful, too perfect.

  Chisulo leaned in to scowl at it. “What is that?”

  Nuru resisted the urge to snatch it up and hide it away. “It’s nothing.”

  Efra shook her head. “It’s not nothing. Nuru can make it work.”

  Make it work? The girl had no idea what she was talking about, what was involved in being a nagual. The thought of completing the statue excited Nuru, infected her dreams, plagued her day and night. It also terrified her. For this to work, I have become the spider creature.

  “Not real,” grunted Happy.

  Nuru realized what he meant and was surprised he knew that much about sorcery. “He’s right. Only carvings of real creatures work. This… It was a dream, a hallucination. A nightmare.”

  “It is real,” said Efra, ignoring Nuru’s glare. “We’ve all heard the nahual preach about demons.”

  “Demons are evil,” said Chisulo.

  “So the nahual tell us,” said Efra. “But seeing as those are the folks hunting us, maybe their enemies are our allies.”

  Didn’t I say something like that?

  Chisulo looked doubtful but remained silent.

  “Nuru needs proper tools and paints to finish it,” continued Efra. Seeing they were staring at her in confusion, she spelled it out to the
men. “She needs Crafter tools. She needs Crafter paints.”

  “Impossible,” said Chisulo.

  Happy grunted agreement.

  Efra stared down at them. “We’re going into the Crafters’ Ring to get them.”

  Chisulo’s mouth fell open. “You’re insane.”

  “Listen,” barked Efra, “don’t speak. We’re all going. We’re going to stay there. I’ve thought this through, all of it. The Birds are looking for us. We can hide here for a while, but not forever. Eventually we have to move.” She looked at each in turn, daring them to argue. “That nahualli walked into our dreams. He stepped in and controlled the reality Nuru’s mushrooms made for us. He saw us. All of us. He knows what we look like.” She drew a calming breath. “Remember his robes? Red, white, and black. He’s a nahualli of Cloud Serpent, Lord of the Hunt. He’ll find us. Maybe he’ll come to us in our sleep, kill us in our dreams.”

  “Can they do that?” Chisulo asked, turning to Nuru.

  She glanced at Omari. “Yes.”

  “He will search the Growers’ Ring until he finds us,” said Efra, “because he dares not let us go.”

  “We’re not that important,” said Happy.

  “Wrong,” said Efra. “We are.” She pointed at Nuru. “She is. That carving is.”

  Everyone stared at Nuru.

  Efra nodded toward Chisulo. “And he is. He’s a natural leader. He’s perfect. I can get the District to rally behind him. The whole ring, eventually.”

  All eyes turned on Chisulo and he put his face in his hands, muttering something under his breath.

  “We’re Growers,” said Efra. “The Birds call us Dirts. They can’t imagine us anywhere but in the dirt. Growers don’t leave the ring. Ever.”

  “The Book of Bastion says if we leave the ring we’re to be thrown from the Sand Wall,” Chisulo said into his hands.

  “Right,” agreed Efra. “It’s forbidden.” She grinned, stretching the scar. “So we’re leaving.”

  “It won’t work,” said Chisulo.

  “It will. I have a plan.”

  “How?” asked Happy.

  “The whores who wait at the gate for Crafters to come fuck them for trinkets, food, and narcotics. Nuru and I are going to pretend we’re whores. We’ll lure them in, one, maybe two at a time. Ox-brain and flat-nose here,” she nodded at Happy and Chisulo, “will be waiting. Once we have enough Crafter clothes, we go.”

  “How are we going to find a Crafter as big as Happy?” asked Nuru.

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  Chisulo lifted his face from his hands. He looked ill. He eyed Efra like she was either a venomous insect, or his only hope at salvation. “No Grower has been in the Crafters’ Ring. We don’t know what it’s like. We don’t know how things work there. We don’t know how they walk, how they talk. How are we supposed to fit in?”

  “Crafters come here all the time to fuck Growers,” said Efra. “They don’t walk different. They’re just like us except they have nicer clothes and smell better.”

  Happy sat up. “Smell better?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do the girls smell like?”

  Efra shot him a look and he sat back with a dissatisfied grunt.

  “Crafter homes are going to be just like ours,” she said. Her brows furrowed as she considered the other ring. “Maybe a little nicer, with actual chairs, like the priests have.”

  Happy let out a groan of pleasure at the thought.

  “We’ll claim an empty tenement in the Crafters’ Ring. Once we’re settled, we’ll find the tools we need.”

  Efra snarled in frustration when no one leapt up to agree with her.

  She expects everyone to do as she suggests, without question. She sees an answer, believes it the only answer, and is confused we haven’t figured it out already.

  “Look,” said Efra, holding her hands up to stall arguments. “You know how the Growers who work the farms are supplied with whatever tools they need?”

  “I wouldn’t call a collection of conveniently shaped sticks ‘tools,’” said Chisulo.

  The rest nodded. The crèches where the children were raised were all out in the fields, far from the gates and the more heavily populated tenements. As soon as the kids could walk, they were handed crude implements and taught to farm.

  Efra ignored Chisulo. “It’s going to be just like that for the Crafters. Except all the tools are made right there. They’ll be easy to get. It’ll be just like walking into the tool shed and taking a rake.”

  “The Birds count the rakes,” pointed out Nuru. “They keep track of who took one and who returned one. Anyone who fails to return something gets lashes.”

  They all nodded again. As children, they’d all been whipped for losing or breaking farming tools.

  “It’ll be easy,” said Efra. “They’re Crafters. They need tools constantly, every day.”

  Nuru had her doubts. She’d never talked to a Crafter, never been closer than a score of strides. No matter what Efra said, they seemed different. Less tired. Happier. Less sweaty. And they did walk differently from Growers. They walked like they belonged.

  Efra paced. “We have to do it now. The longer we wait, the more chance they find us. If we can take enough Crafters today, I say we leave before sunset.”

  Chisulo glanced at the unconscious Finger. “What about Omari?”

  “If he doesn’t wake in time, we’ll have to leave him.” She gave a half shrug. “It’s a shame but…”

  “Efra,” said Nuru. “Do you think Chisulo would ever leave one of his friends behind?” Efra frowned, thinking it over. “He won’t leave Omari. Just like he wouldn’t abandon me or Happy. Just like he won’t abandon you.”

  Efra darted a glance at Chisulo and he nodded. “Idiots.” She sighed. “Fine. We’re not all going until rat-face-stink-breath-small-balls is awake.”

  “Good,” said Chisulo.

  “All?” asked Nuru. “We’re not all going until he’s awake? You make that sound like some of us are.”

  “You and me,” said Efra. “We’re going. We’re getting Crafter clothes today and then we’re going through the gate. We’re going to find the tools you need.” She made a helpless, frustrated fluttering gesture with her fingers. “Omari might be unconscious for a while. We aren’t wasting time just because he’s useless.”

  “Wouldn’t you be better off taking Happy or Chisulo?” asked Nuru. “What if there’s trouble?”

  “If there’s the kind of trouble requiring a big, dumb man, we’re already in more trouble than we can handle. Do either of these monkeys know what tools you need?”

  She goes from insane to scary smart way too fast. “You and me,” agreed Nuru. It was happening. Bastion, in its strange and roundabout way, was providing her with the tools she needed.

  Efra turned on Chisulo. “If we don’t come back, it’s because we found a really nice place to live and decided we didn’t need you after all.”

  Is she joking? Once again, Nuru had no idea.

  Chisulo looked uncomfortable, like he asked himself the same question. Happy had a huge grin. Either he knew, or just enjoyed the thought of Efra and Nuru being together.

  “Here’s the plan,” said Efra. “There are a lot of empty tenements near the gate.” Growers didn’t like living that close to where there are so many Birds, and the continual wagon traffic was annoying. Ox shit everywhere. “The Crafters use those tenements when they cross over to fuck Growers. Nuru and I will select two Growers and bring them back to one of the empty homes.” She pointed at Chisulo. “You are going to follow us. Stay well back so they don’t get spooked. Once we’re inside, you come in and help us dispatch the Crafters.”

  “Dispatch?” asked Nuru.

  Efra hesitated. “Bang them on the heads. Tie them up in the basement. And remember, we need their clothes, so not too much blood.” She glanced at Nuru, eyes narrowing in thought. “I have an idea for that. You and me, we’re going to see the Artist first.�
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  “Why?” asked Nuru.

  Efra offered her a hand and pulled her to her feet. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  She’s hiding something, or doesn’t want to tell me what she has planned because she knows I won’t like it.

  “One moment.” Nuru went to the corner where Isabis slept, told the snake she’d be back soon and not to bite Chisulo, and gave it a kiss goodbye.

  “Do I get a kiss?” asked Happy.

  “Go ask Isabis.” She returned to Efra’s side and the girl grabbed her hand again.

  “You’re going to follow us, right?” Nuru asked Chisulo.

  He nodded. “Won’t let you out of my sight.”

  “Let’s go,” said Efra, “it smells like balls in here.”

  AKACHI – SHE SPEAKS IN STONE

  In the first centuries after the formation of Bastion the city was torn apart by strife. Gods battled for supremacy, warring to fill the positions of a nascent pantheon. The losers were forever banished from the city, barred entrance by the impregnable Sand Wall, a work of colossal sorcery. The Bloody Desert is home to countless lost souls, demons, evil spirits, and defeated gods.

  The decision to enact the struggle solely in the realm of the mortals—for the gods to choose Obsidian Hearts—often referred to as their Heart’s Mirror—to fight for them—was the only choice possible.

  —from The Book of Bastion

  Amethyst. The stone of self-destruction.

  Akachi swept the room with the straw broom Jumoke picked up on his last trip to the Northern Cathedral. Usually this was the acolyte’s job, but Njau and the youth had gone again for more supplies. It was dangerous to send them alone, but Captain Yejide was unwilling to leave fewer than two Hummingbirds with Akachi. Lutalo and Ibrahim, Akachi had been informed upon rising from bed, left early in the morning, chasing rumours of the scarred girl.

  Yejide sat in the centre of the hall, legs crossed, working on her leather armour. Having already done whatever maintenance the skirt and shirt required, she now worked on the helm, checking the stitches, and buffing out any marks or stains. She’d been quiet since their return, the loss of Khadija no doubt hitting her hard.