Smoke and Stone

by Michael R. Fletcher

  “The nahual say working in stone is evil.”

  “Yet they sacrifice us with obsidian knives.”

  “True. What else do you need?”

  “Proper paint brushes and paints.” Nuru glanced around, checking no one was close enough to overhear. “I need colour.”

  “For what?”

  Tightening her grip, Nuru walked another block in silence.

  “Did you not hear,” asked Efra, “or are you ignoring the question again?”

  With her free hand Nuru fished the incomplete carving out of a pocket hidden in her greys. It looked like a woman who was in the process of being eaten by a spider trapped in red stone.

  Efra leaned closer to examine it. “She’s beautiful. Looks like you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Can I touch it?”

  “Never.” Keeping it sheltered from sight, Nuru put the carving away. “It isn’t finished. I can’t do any more without real tools and paints. If it isn’t perfect, it won’t work.”

  “Work?”

  Nuru leaned close and whispered, “I’m nagual. We use carvings as a focus. We can become what we carve. Jaguars. Eagles. Coyotes.”

  “What was the carving?” asked Efra. “I never saw anything like that in the menageries.”

  “It’s a demon. I think.”

  “Demons devour souls,” Efra said, no doubt repeating something a priest once said. “They’re evil.”

  The nahual loved to preach about the dangers of consorting with evil spirits and demons.

  Nuru gave a half-shrug. They lie so much we can’t tell the falsehoods from truth. Ignorance was a form of control. “Unless the nahual are lying to keep us weak.”

  “That makes sense. Will it work?”

  Nuru squeezed Efra’s hand again and nodded. “If everything is perfect.”

  “And for that you need tools and paints.”

  “And drugs. Foku to help me remember the dream, for absolute focus. Aldatu to alter my senses, to help me see other realities.”

  Efra studied Nuru from the corner of her eye, measuring.

  She’s wondering if this will be useful, if she can use me toward whatever it is she wants.

  Nuru saw a whore approach a Crafter as he cleared the gate. Draping herself across him, she licked his neck and whispered in his ear. The two went off together toward the nearest tenements. No one lived there. No one wanted to be close to the wall, or the Birds at the gates.

  “What lives do the Crafters return to when they leave us?” Efra asked.

  Nuru studied her, waiting.

  “The drugs will be difficult,” said Efra.

  “Difficult?”

  “I think the Artist can get them for us.”

  The Artist lived on the border of Chisulo’s turf and traded tattoos for food and narcotics and favours. He’d done all of Nuru’s tattoos. He also had the most unbelievably dreamy eyes. No woman in the Wheat District hadn’t fantasized about him at least once.

  “You know him well?” asked Nuru.

  Efra shrugged. Tugging the right sleeve of her thobe back, she exposed a rectangle of black tattooed into the inside of her wrist. The flesh was raw and red. This was recent work, no more than a day old.

  “What does it represent?” Nuru asked. She’d never seen anything like it.

  “Futility. The absence of purpose.”

  The answer was too quick, too smooth. Practised to sound casual. She doesn’t think like that, realized Nuru. The tattoo would be something real, not a vague idea. “Don’t lie.”

  Efra flashed a quick grin, stretching the scar. “I had a dream.”

  Nuru kept her face carefully blank. Having had her own dreams recently, she desperately wanted to know. “About?”

  “Smoking Mirror spoke in smoke and stone.”

  Smoking Mirror. Father Discord.

  “What does that mean?” Nuru asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. We’ll need something to offer the Artist in trade. Or we take what we need.”

  “We can find something. And the tools?”

  “Impossible.”

  “Damn.”

  “But I know how to get them too.”

  Efra stopped without warning, forcing Nuru to stop too.

  Across the street, another Grower slowed for half a step and then kept walking. He disappeared around a corner.

  Something isn’t right. He moved wrong, stood too straight. No slope to the shoulders. His greys were dirty, yet he didn’t seem tired. And his eyes, too alert.

  Is he following us?

  “You can’t say something like that and then not explain,” said Nuru. What do I do? Had she imagined it?

  “Crafters,” said Efra.

  “We fuck Crafters for the tools? Won’t work,” said Nuru. “No Crafter is dumb enough to smuggle tools for sorcery. It’s death if they’re caught.”

  A ragged look, sharp and wounded, crossed Efra’s eyes. “I’ll kill any Crafter who touches me.”

  “So?”

  “We’re going into the Crafters’ Ring and taking it.”

  Nuru only half listened.

  I need to know if he’s following us.

  She dragged Efra after her, the girl wincing at the pain in her ribs. “Come. I think someone is following us.”

  Efra didn’t flinch, didn’t look around in an attempt to spot whoever Nuru was talking about. She’s not dumb. Instead, she held on to Nuru’s hand and followed.

  Nuru kept her pace steady, not giving in to the urge to run and hide.

  Guilty Growers run.

  “Are you sure?” asked Efra.

  “No.”

  “Should we split up?”

  What if the man followed Efra instead of her? No doubt the girl got into all manner of trouble when not with the gang. Getting away gets me nothing. I need Efra, and I need her help finishing the carving. “He looked dangerous,” she said.

  Efra’s eyes narrowed. “I just spotted him,” she said. “There’s something wrong.”

  “We should run,” said Nuru.

  “No. We’re going to kill him.”

  “We’ll lead him back to Chisulo, get help.”

  “No,” said Efra. “That would mean leading him to our home. We’re going to kill him.”

  “We need to know who he is. If he’s with a rival gang—”

  “He’s not with a gang.”

  “Then we need to know who he is.”

  “No,” repeated Efra, “we don’t. We need to kill him.”

  “He might be a street sorcerer trying to get my—”

  “He’s not a Grower.”

  “But then—”

  Efra squeezed Nuru’s hand tight, silencing her. “We’re going to kill him.”

  Nuru caught movement in the corner of her eye and knew Efra was right. Growers didn’t move like that.

  “Look,” she said, louder than necessary, and doing her best to sound annoyed. “I’m not going to get drunk with you and your man.”

  Efra blinked and said “Fine.” She oozed vapid petulance. “So, what are we doing tonight?”

  Still holding her hand, Efra led her toward the next intersection. As they reached the corner she whispered, “Keep walking. Keep talking.”

  Once around the corner and out of sight, Efra stopped and waited. Drawing out her fire-hardened spike, she pressed her back to the wall.

  She’s crazy. We need to run!

  Nuru continued, slowing her pace, carrying on a one-sided conversation. She checked over her shoulder. Efra stood hunched, favouring her ribs, wincing with each movement.

  She can’t fight now. She just suffered a vicious beating!

  The man came around the corner. He didn’t move anything like a Grower. He reminded Nuru of the cats in the menageries.

  Efra drove the spike up and into his belly. He blocked the thrust with an arm like thick ebony. The spike spun away to clatter in the street. He didn’t look startled or scared.

  Too calm.r />
  His forehead met Efra’s nose, smashing her down. Her knees hit stone. He struck her, a short, frighteningly efficient punch shattering her nose and spraying blood down the front of her thobe. She made a wet choking sound and he hit her again over her right eye.

  Nuru froze. Run.

  Efra hurled herself at the man, driving her shoulder into his groin. Fists struck her fast and hard. She sank her teeth into his thigh, still pushing forward.

  Run away.

  He only made noise when Efra tore out a chunk of flesh with her teeth and even then, it was just a grunt. His foot slipped on something and he went over backward. Punching and clawing, Efra crawled on top of him.

  Run and get help.

  Using her weight and joints against her, he rolled Efra off, somehow ending above her, grinding her face into the grit and stone of the street. He had her right arm bent behind her back, the wrist twisted up near the base of her skull. The joint would pop. The bone would break. He pulled it higher, his knee pinning her, and she screamed in raw animal pain. With sickening inevitability, the bone slid in its joint.

  And came free.

  He broke her!

  A broken Grower was a useless Grower. Useless Growers died.

  Run. Get away.

  If she did, Efra would die. Either here on a street, or on an altar in a church.

  Retreat was death.

  Retreat was what Growers did.

  Nuru sprinted at the man atop Efra, tackled him from the side, crashing them both to the ground. He countered Nuru’s every move before she finished it. Calm like stone, he fought with deadly efficiency, each movement small, tight, and fast. Nuru had seen dozens of fights, but never one like this. No, that wasn’t quite right. She once saw a Bird smash two Growers. They hadn’t stood a chance.

  He’s a Bird. She knew she was right.

  He spun her until somehow, he was behind her, legs wrapped around her belly, squeezing like a constrictor, one arm around her throat, crushing it closed. He held her wrist with his other hand. She couldn’t move, couldn’t strike at him. Efra, one eye swollen closed, blood drooling from her nose, an arm hanging limp, collect her wooden spike and staggered to her feet.

  Nuru’s world went dim.

  Efra stabbed the man in the side of the throat. When she yanked the spike free, he made a wet gurgle and spewed blood on Nuru. Efra stabbed him again and wood struck bone. He twisted away. Slick with blood, the spike was torn from her clumsy grip.

  He gagged and clutch at the holes in his neck. Blood soaked the sand around him, a growing stain. Efra stepped back, face expressionless, head tilted to one side, watching.

  He gasped, red bubbling from the ragged wounds in his throat. His lips moved, trying to force out words. He sputtered something that might have been a threat and was still. He stared at Nuru, unmoving, unblinking.

  “We have to go,” said Efra as Nuru woozily regain her feet.

  “What happened?”

  “I killed him.”

  “Your arm.”

  “We have to go.” Her voice sounded funny, nasal.

  Nuru wanted to lie down in the street and sleep. “Your face.”

  Still staggering and unsteady, Efra grabbed the street sorcerer’s hand and set a fast pace. She breathed through her mouth and spat blood every few paces. Her right arm swung wrong and Nuru wanted to puke.

  He was a Bird. Why was a Bird following them? Did the nahual somehow know about her dream? She prayed not. Maybe their little gang war caught someone’s attention. If so, Chisulo’s gang was doomed. Dead.

  No. That Bird was following us. If they knew where we lived, they’d have caught us all there.

  That made sense. Or she thought it did. Her brain felt jellied and slow. The thought of Chisulo in danger hurt. I have to protect him.

  “Hurry,” said Efra, dragging Nuru into an abandoned Grower tenement; they were everywhere.

  Once out of sight of the street, Efra, one-handed, struggled out of her thobe.

  After Nuru rang out as much of the blood as she could, she turned it inside out and helped Efra put it back on. Nuru reversed her own thobe and used the hem to wipe the worst of the blood from their faces. Efra groaned and bared her teeth, hissing, when the street sorcerer accidentally brushed her nose. Her bloodshot eyes watered. Her arm swung with every movement.

  Damp and clammy, blood and sand chafed Nuru’s skin. She stepped back to examine Efra.

  “Your face says everything I don’t want to hear,” said Efra. “I’m fine.” She laughed, teeth red, and spat blood. “Maybe not.” A crack showed in the stone of her and she sobbed, “He fucking broke me!” She steadied herself against the wall, drooling blood onto the floor at her feet. “I’m fine,” she repeated.

  Nuru understood: Broken Growers died. They starved to death in abandoned tenements just like this one.

  “Don’t leave me,” said Efra. “I don’t want to die here. Alone.” She swallowed more blood and then puked it all up, spattering the floor red.

  “You’re not alone.” Efra wobbled and Nuru caught her. “Lean on me. I’ll get you home.”

  “Home.”

  Nuru led her through the streets. Efra, eyes clenched against the searing sun, stumbled often. Nuru never let her fall.

  “Blind me, Smoking Mirror,” Efra whispered. “Please, Father Discord, I beg you.” Her arm swung, grinding bone on bone. Her nose leaked blood down her throat and she gagged often, stopping to cough and spit blood. Each breath came as a wet choking gasp. “No. No. No,” she moaned.

  “What?” asked Nuru, leading her into another filthy alley.

  “I left my spike.” Tears came to her eyes, the first time Nuru ever saw her cry.

  “We can’t go back,” said Nuru.

  Efra leaned heavily on Nuru. “Smoking Mirror spoke in smoke and stone,” she muttered.

  What part did Father Discord play in this? Nuru couldn’t begin to guess the will of the gods.

  They staggered from alley to alley, avoiding the main streets. Efra became increasingly heavy as her legs gave out.

  “In the end,” muttered Efra, fading in and out of consciousness, “just me. Me and the Obsidian Lord.”

  She wasn’t making sense. Another dream?

  Nuru hooked Efra’s good arm over her shoulder and manoeuvred her into another alley. “Keep moving.”

  Efra’s head hung forward, drooling blood from her shattered nose. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

  “We’re almost there,” soothed Nuru, her arms shaking from the effort.

  Don’t think about how far it is. Just keep moving.

  “He’s planned it all,” whispered Efra. “He knows me. Inside. I hear him. He wants this!”

  “We’re almost—”

  “Hearts of stone. Shards of obsidian buried in the meat of our souls.”

  “Keep moving.”

  “It’s how they mark us, how they claim us.”

  “Almost there.”

  By the time they got home, Nuru carried half Efra’s weight. Chisulo, Omari, and Happy all sitting in the kitchen, leaped to their feet when the women entered.

  “What happened?” demanded Chisulo.

  “We were attacked,” said Nuru.

  “Who? One of Fadil’s?”

  “No, I—” Efra, alertness returning, squeezed Nuru’s hand hard, interrupting her. “I don’t know.”

  Happy stood and walked forward to lean over Efra.

  She glared up at him. “The fuck you want, you fucking ox?”

  A huge hand grabbed the top of her skull and held her motionless. With his other hand he took hold of her nose. She tried to scream, tried to kick and claw and fight. He ignored her. Happy pulled her nose straight and she screamed in agony. Then he shoved her arm back into the socket. When she stopped screaming he leaned in to examine her and she tried to kick him. He batted her foot away with a hand like a bear’s paw.

  “Better,” the big man grunted. He wandered away to collapse back ont
o his box.

  “Cunt,” said Efra. Her voice sounded normal and she drew an experimental breath through her nose.

  Chisulo paced circles around the table, fretting and worrying about things he couldn’t control. Omari tried to spin this as a reason Efra shouldn’t be in the gang, and was ignored.

  Nuru grabbed Chisulo’s arm as he passed and dragged him to a halt. “Go get her a new thobe. I’m going to clean her up and then take her to the baths.”

  Happy stood.

  “Not you,” said Nuru.

  “In case trouble,” said Happy.

  “You just want to see her naked.”

  He shrugged.

  “No,” said Nuru.

  She shooed Chisulo out, told Omari to watch the street for suspicious people, and then sent Happy to fetch something to numb Efra’s many pains. Everyone did as instructed without argument and in moments Efra and Nuru were alone.

  “You’re really the one in charge here,” said Efra.

  “Only when I want to be.” I don’t think I want to be any more. Not after Bomani.

  Efra studied her, deep bruises ringing bloodshot eyes

  “I see you thinking about that,” said Nuru. “We can discuss it later.” She glanced toward the stairs. “I’m going to get something for you to drink.”

  Collecting one of the wood mugs, Nuru descended into the basement, leaving Efra on the ground floor. She shuffled in the dark, careful not to step on Isabis. Not bothering to light one of her precious candles, she worked by feel. At the table she found her pouch of cured ameslari fungus. Selecting a nugget, she rolled it in her fingers until it warmed and softened. Offering a quick prayer to her allies, Open Efra’s dreams to me so I may see the truth of her, she ate it, chewing fast and swallowing. It tasted like dead rat rolled in sand. The rat had not been skinned.

  After filling the mug with cider and dosing it with egia she returned to Efra. The girl sat scratching at the stone table with a ragged fingernail.

  Nuru placed the cup in front of Efra. “Drink. It’ll numb you a bit.”

  “Smells like apples.” Efra drank. “This is awful.”

  “So I hear. Drink.”

  She drank more.

  “Who was that in the street?”

  “I don’t know,” Efra answered. “He was a Bird, wasn’t he?”

  “Why do you think a Bird was following us?”

  The egia in the cider would loosen Efra’s tongue, reduce her inhibitions, and eventually put her into a deep sleep, receptive to Nuru’s sorcery.