Smoke and Stone

by Michael R. Fletcher

  This isn’t right.

  This was supposed to be a place of respite. Father Death purified souls, prepared them for rebirth. The Lord was under attack.

  A host of Loa sorcerers, armed with hematite weapons, fists gripping strange crystalline stones, cut through a phalanx of nahualli armed with obsidian swords, dressed in stone armour of jade.

  Southern Hummingbird has sent her elite to aid The Lord.

  He saw men and women he knew. The nahual who taught him how to achieve the pactonal trance state. The man died of old age in Akachi’s third year as an acolyte. The old woman who’d been his nanny when he was a child fought alongside the shambling corpse of a Hummingbird Guard. He saw Talimba, Lutalo, and Khadija battling back to back, surrounded by Loa.

  He saw the beautiful Loa assassin with the brilliant eyes. She glowed bright. A thousand stones, sunk into her flesh, throbbed with vile sorcery. She wielded their power, crushing her enemies. Magical shields blazed around her, deflecting both physical and sorcerous attacks. She spread madness like a plague. Temple-trained nahualli tore their own eyes and tongues out in an effort to escape. With a stone embedded between her perfect thighs she summoned monsters and nightmares, demons and myths. The stones burned hot, cooking her flesh, but a garnet sunk between her breasts healed those wounds in an instant. The hand Akachi had bitten off remained missing, the wrist an ever-bleeding wound.

  The gathered hosts were nothing before her.

  She turned them against each other, spread chaos wherever those bright eyes looked.

  This isn’t real. The Loa aren’t attacking the underworld.

  It couldn’t be real.

  Oh gods, the drugs. He’d taken no precautions, mixed them with no thought to how they might interact. He was trapped here in this nightmare. He tried to remember his descent to the underworld. How long had it taken? Thousands of years? Longer? How long before the drugs wore off?

  Or had he brain-burned?

  Was this what it was like for those drug-addled nahualli the acolytes cared for? Did they stumble through their days deaf to the real world, trapped in imagined hells?

  What if this never ends?

  What if it was real?

  How much time had passed in the real world? Minutes? Hours? Was Captain Yejide standing over his comatose body at this very moment?

  Wake up!

  “Wake up!” he screamed, his voice disappearing as if devoured by sand.

  A seething flock of owls and bats, draped in thick spiderwebs and crawling with spiders, flew down out of the north. Arriving at the scene of battle, they coalesced into a giant of a man, stripped of flesh, bones red with blood and shreds of raw meat. He wore a cloak of owl feathers draped over his vast shoulders and a necklace of eyeballs that seemed to see everything.

  Awe staggered Akachi to his knees.

  The Lord has come!

  The pitiful Loa were doomed. Their attack on Father Death’s domain seemed laughable now that the god had arrived.

  The Lord towered over the girl with the bright eyes.

  “Your mistress is banished. Why have you woken me from my slumber.” He spoke in dust and bones.

  The girl laughed, mocking. “She was right, you are a fool.”

  With a wave of Father Death’s hand, the Loa sorcerers fell to ash, their souls snuffed. Only the girl remained, surrounded by the countless millions of The Lord’s dead. She stood proud and beautiful, stones melded into her flawless flesh, curved and perfect. Unafraid.

  She grinned. “We wanted you to come.”

  The god hesitated. “Wanted?”

  “In the Gods’ Ring the others might fight at your side. Here you’re alone.”

  Father Death’s own dead attacked him and Akachi understood. The same stone she’d used to make him fall in love with her when first they met, had been used to enslave the dead of the underworld. The battle had been a farce, a lure to bring The Lord from the Gods’ Ring. The dead mobbed him, tearing Father Death apart, breaking his bones and grinding them to dust in their teeth. Southern Hummingbird’s elite with their ancient obsidian swords cut his legs out from under him. They hacked him into smaller and smaller pieces and the other dead fed on him.

  Akachi knelt, transfixed, until the god was gone.

  This isn’t real. I didn’t just witness the death of a god.

  Then, the girl with the bright eyes saw him and he loved her. Dark and twisted, it was a love that left no room for self.

  “I’d cut myself a thousand times before I hurt you,” he told her.

  Endless aeons of dead worshipped her and she became the newest of Bastion’s patchwork pantheon. She became Face Painted with Bells, Mother Death’s beloved daughter.

  Akachi retched, vomiting up partially chewed mushrooms and the last dregs of whatever he ate for dinner. His stomach twisted and heaved until there was nothing left in him, until he felt like he’d spewed his internal organs onto the floor. Dry tearing sobs wrenched from his smoke-tortured throat and he coughed thin yellow drool into the puddle of hot vomit. Tears ran from stinging eyes, blurring the world. The morning sun screamed through the window, sawed at his thoughts, bathed him in sour sweat.

  Hawking and spitting the last of the bile, he wiped feebly at his chin and crawled to the darkest corner of his chambers to curl up on the floor. Shivers racked his body, contorting him in muscle-clenching spasms.

  He was colder than he’d ever been.

  Not real. Not real. Not real.

  Everything he’d seen had been a fever dream, the result of the unbalanced narcotics he’d so carelessly ingested.

  Still think the amethyst had no power? He cackled mad laughter at the thought.

  He’d taken in an obscene quantity of narcotics, given no thought as to how they might interact, and then smoked a bowlful of eraxatu. He was lucky he wasn’t in a damned coma or a brain-burned husk!

  What was I thinking?

  The scarred girl. The street sorcerer.

  Making his father and his god proud.

  Making Yejide proud.

  I failed. Again.

  It was too much. He couldn’t face her like this. She’d see his weakness. She’d know him for a failure.

  Crawling to the bed, Akachi dragged the sheets off to hide the vomit on the floor. They stank of rank sweat. Jumoke would clean up. He trusted the boy not to speak of this.

  Pushing to his feet, he stood, limbs shaking, feeling like he’d collapse to the ground at any moment.

  I can’t face her like this.

  Collecting the erlaxatu and his pipe, still filled with the ash of the last bowl he smoked, he retreated to the bed. The shivers faded after the first bowl. After the second he could stand steadily. A tiny dose of pizgarri woke him up enough he could function. The world became sharp-edged and harsh with detail. A small amount of Kognizioa kept his thoughts from stumbling over each other and becoming tangled.

  Half an hour and another pipe of erlaxatu later, he felt something approaching normal. His eyes no longer stung, and the pain in his skull faded to a background throb.

  That wasn’t real.

  He’d simply bungled his narcotics and paid the price. He was lucky it hadn’t been worse.

  NURU – A WORLD OF STONE AND SAND

  Located next to the gods, the priests are responsible for interpreting their will. While the Senators provide law, and the Bankers economics, the word of the nahual is final. To them falls the care of each and every soul in Bastion. Without nahual, chaos would rule and the city would crumble. It is only by the grace of the gods that humanity survived the Last War. In all things we must bow to their will and wisdom.

  —The Book of Bastion

  Carrying a collection of obsidian-tipped carving tools in a small and intricately carved wood box with leather hinges, Nuru and Efra left the tool-maker. The box fit in the pocket of Nuru’s Crafter shirt. The Crafter lay in a back room in a growing pool of blood, throat cut by one of his own tools when Nuru’s back was turned. Efra wan
ted to search the building for obsidian in fragments large enough to be used as a weapon, but Nuru, terrified of being caught, hurried them out. After that, they found a woman who stocked orange and brown clothes. They left the woman dead in the basement, skull smashed while Nuru was searching for a shirt large enough for Happy.

  Nuru walked in a stunned daze, appalled at what they’d done. She cried after killing Sefu, spent the night hating herself for taking a life.

  That was nothing. She’d played a part in murdering five people in a single day. It didn’t matter that Efra had done the killing; somehow, Nuru should have stopped her.

  She planned this.

  From the very beginning Efra knew she was going to kill these Crafters and hid it from Nuru. She’d lied, shrugged away Nuru’s concerns of violence like they were nothing.

  But now they had the tools, the paints, and Crafter clothes for their friends. Could they have done with without killing anyone? They’d spent the entire day at this. What if someone got loose and reported them?

  She did what she had to do to guarantee our success. Nuru thought it over. I would have got in the way. My unwillingness to kill might have jeopardized everything.

  She loathed herself for justifying Efra’s actions.

  Efra said that they were at war, and that the only way to win a war was by killing your enemy. Was that true?

  The carving. Was it really that important? Was it worth five lives?

  She glanced at Efra. The girl seemed unaffected by the violence.

  How did she do it?

  Smoking Mirror talks to her, shows her things.

  Had Efra seen something so terrible it justified her actions? Was that even possible?

  The day died, the sun sinking low. Soon it would be cold and dark. They got lost several times while tracking down everything they needed and Efra pointed out the few abandoned buildings she saw. There weren’t nearly as many as in the Growers’ Ring, at least not in this district, but there were plenty to choose from.

  “Crafters never enter the Growers’ Ring at night,” Efra said.

  “No?” Nuru didn’t feel like talking.

  “We’ll stay in one of the abandoned buildings I saw, go home in the morning.”

  “Hungry,” said Nuru. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate.

  “Me too, but every time a Crafter gets food they hand over something. We don’t have whatever it is. If we get food, we’ll have to kill the Crafter.”

  “Not hungry anymore.” I will not murder someone so I can have a crust of bread.

  The Crafter tenement was strange. It smelled different from the Grower homes she was accustomed to, spicy and sharp. There were four bedrooms instead of the usual two, and all of the rooms were much bigger. At least Nuru assumed they were bedrooms. She couldn’t imagine what else the empty space could be used for. What would have been the eating room in the Growers’ Ring, included rows of shelving here, and stone counters as well as the usual table. Even that table was different, twice the size of the ones she knew. What did they keep here? Did they own things beyond their clothes and sandals? Why keep it in the eating room? Did Crafters prepare their own meals instead of eating whatever they were given at The Provider’s church?

  The floor around the table was scuffed in oddly parallel lines and she understood. Chairs. The Crafters sat on real chairs when they took their meals. The luxury staggered her.

  The big Crafter they killed had a room in the Growers’ Ring with a mattress, and soft fabrics. She’d been so stunned at the time it hadn’t really sunk in. Was that commonplace for all Crafters? Did all their beds have mattresses? Were all their eating tables surrounded by real chairs? She wanted to go in search of an inhabited Crafter home, see how they lived.

  That night Nuru sat staring into the dark, unable to sleep. She couldn’t get the dead out of her mind. She kept seeing them. Empty eyes, slack faces. She imagined the way they fought, the way they clung to life as Efra choked it from them or hammered at their skulls with whatever blunt object came to hand. She saw the blood.

  Tears came and she shook, sobbing.

  Efra examined her, eyes two sparks in the night. “They had to die,” she said.

  Nuru laughed without humour and turned away.

  The next morning, as the sun crested the eastern horizon lighting the world in blood, they left for the Grey Wall. Efra talked about small nothings. What she was going to eat when she got home. How she looked forward to kicking Chisulo’s ass for abandoning them. Maybe Omari had awoken and they could all come to the Crafters’ Ring.

  She acts like nothing happened. Nuru fingered the wood box in her pocket.

  “I’ve never seen so much finely crafted, perfectly edged obsidian before,” said Efra.

  Nuru said nothing.

  “I saw a nahual’s dagger once, at a public sacrifice. Can’t remember what the Grower did, but it angered the Birds something fierce. They’d beaten him bloody already. I think, by that point, cutting his throat was a mercy.”

  Nuru grunted.

  A pair of Birds passed.

  “Notice how the Birds in the Growers’ Ring only have cudgels?” said Efra. “They have obsidian knives here.”

  Why here? Were the Birds more afraid of Crafters than they were of Growers? Seeing as the Crafters made all the weapons and armour for the Birds, they could, Nuru supposed, decide to keep some for themselves.

  Efra definitely would.

  “We had to kill them.” Efra said, darting a concerned look at Nuru, measuring her response. “Never leave someone behind who might later make things difficult.”

  “Difficult,” said Nuru. “We’re leaving the ring. What could they have done? We could have tied them up. We didn’t have to—”

  “You would risk our lives—Chisulo, Happy, and Omari’s lives—for some Crafter? They’re not one of us.”

  “We can’t kill everyone.”

  “We can. The rings will be at war. Growers are unarmed, uneducated, and taught subservience from birth. We’re going to die, a lot of us.” She glared at Nuru. “You want to keep your friends alive? Be ready to kill whoever gets in our way. Don’t hesitate. It’s us against them, and they have all the weapons.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Efra laughed at that, unhurt by the harsh words. “I’m the kind of crazy that will get us through this.”

  “Chisulo isn’t like that. He won’t just kill.”

  “He will if you tell him to.”

  Nuru sagged. She’s right. Chisulo would do whatever she suggested. His charisma and reputation led the gang, but as often as not it was her decisions that everyone followed. Decisions like sending Bomani to spy on Fadil when Omari would have been a smarter choice. Hell, even Efra would have been better.

  “I can’t do it anymore,” said Nuru, hating the pleading weakness in her voice. “Too many people have already died because of me. This is wrong.”

  “Wrong,” said Efra, mocking. “Pull it together, we’re almost at the wall.”

  The Birds outside the gate waved them into the Grey Wall with a cursory glance and no real interest.

  Nuru squinted in the murky torch light. Smoke stung her eyes. Only a couple of the torches had been lit, and a Bird was in the process of lighting the rest. It was dark and cold within the wall.

  The guards on the Crafter side nodded to them as they passed. Hand in hand, Efra and Nuru walked the length of the tunnel.

  The squad at the Grower’s side watched their approach.

  “Good day, Crafters,” said a woman.

  “Good day,” said Nuru, voice tight.

  “Business in the Growers’ Ring?”

  A flash of panic swept through her. What business did Crafters ever have with the Growers? Sometimes she saw them inspecting wagons, and if a wheel ever broke, several came through to fix it. Otherwise, as far as she knew, they only ever came to fuck Growers. Was that something you could say?

  “For fun,” blurted Efra. “We heard about
a Grower with a huge cock.” She giggled. “A Grower with a grower!”

  The Bird grunted, clearly unimpressed. “Search them.”

  “Yes, Captain,” chorused two Birds, stepping forward.

  Was this normal? The Birds hadn’t paid much attention to them when they left the Growers’ Ring. Were they more anxious about Crafters entering the outer ring? It made some sense. Tools must be closely monitored. Don’t want the Growers getting anything dangerous or useful.

  “Captain,” said the Bird searching Nuru. “Found something.” Pulling the wood box from her pocket, he opened it and displayed the carving tools and brushes within.

  This couldn’t be happening, couldn’t be real.

  Bastion wanted me to have these tools.

  It couldn’t end like this.

  She was a fool. The Birds, nahual of Southern Hummingbird, were closer to the gods, more a part of the great city than any filthy Dirt could ever dream to be. She’d been lying to herself, pretending this might end in some way other than death on the altar.

  The one searching Efra found the paints and the extra Crafter clothes.

  The Captain turned back to Nuru. “Take them.”

  An instant of terror ran through her, the need to flee. Inside the wall, a squad of Birds at each exit, there was no escape.

  She darted a nervous glance at Efra. Would she try and fight her way free, kill a dozen Birds on her way out?

  Efra collapsed to her knees, hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

  It’s an act, Nuru realized.

  Two of the Birds grabbed Nuru, one on each side, fingers like talons digging into her. Two more hooked hands under Efra’s arms and lifted her. She hung limp, letting them take her weight.

  “The sentence for smuggling tools into the Growers’ Ring,” said the Captain, “is to be cast from the wall.” They started carrying the girls back toward the Crafters’ Ring.

  Terror surged through Nuru. I don’t want to die in the Crafters’ Ring! At least in the Growers’ Ring there was some chance, no matter how slim, of escape.