After, staring at the meat, he didn’t feel honoured. He felt like he cut a helpless man’s throat.
The vision. Blood running like rivers in the streets. The Turquoise Serpents wielding obsidian swords.
Could sheer scale of atrocity absolve Akachi of sin? If cutting a man’s throat meant even worse things were avoided, was he innocent? Or at least not guilty?
He returned to his chambers. Stepping over the puddle of Nafari’s vomit, he stripped off his bloody robes and tossed them aside. Everything stank. Wrapping the sacrificial dagger in one of the sheets from his bed, he hid it at the back of the closet.
I am a murderer.
No matter how many times he told himself he did the will of the gods, he knew what he was.
His pouches of prepared narcotics still hung around his neck. He never took them off. They had to be attuned to his body, to his heat. Akachi removed a half dose of dried erlaxatu and ate it. Not the best way of ingesting the euphoric, but he didn’t have the energy to mess about with the pipe. It would take the obsidian edge off his soul, and that’s all he wanted.
Yejide.
She helped me kill a man.
He remembered how she held the Grower still while he cut the man’s throat. Unlike Akachi, she hadn’t flinched at the blood. She remained cold and hard, unmoved throughout the process.
It wasn’t her first.
She’s killed before.
He laughed mockingly at himself, at his pathetic naivety. Of course she had. She was a Hummingbird Guard.
He tried to imagine how many throats he’d have to cut before it failed to touch him. The erlaxatu found his blood and he felt some of himself fall away. His worries, the tension, the knot of disgust in his belly, sank into a murky swamp of gelid euphoria.
The mortar and pestle caught his eye. The mix of ameslari, foku seeds, jainkoei, and hair, still sat in the marble bowl. He’d forgotten it when Yejide came to get him and left it unfinished and unattended. Sloppy. His teachers would have berated him, told him to toss it and start again.
It will be fine. A few hours in the mortar should have little effect. He couldn’t find it within him to care.
Collecting the white marble mortar, Akachi returned to his bed. He sat, cross-legged, and finished grinding the contents. With the grinding complete, he took the pipe from its place in his belt and filled the bowl. Reaching to the table beside his bed, he collected one of the lit candles and put its flame to the pipe. The hair stank as it burned.
Akachi inhaled, pulling fire into his lungs.
Warmth enveloped him, sank slow and deep into his bones.
He inhaled again, holding the smoke in his lungs until his vision collapsed like a crumbling tunnel, he released serpentine clouds, thick coils of smoke.
His thoughts crawled out of the centre of his head and trickled down his spine like a line of marching ants. His eyes lost focus and his chambers faded to a dim fog and then to nothing. The jainkoei emptied him.
Cloud Serpent show me your will. I beg of you.
He left his body behind.
NURU – AN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
The Last War is something of a misnomer. Dozens of wars were fought after the birth of Bastion, as those surviving gods battled for supremacy. This was a world of a thousand pantheons, ten thousand gods. Far too many to feed from the few surviving mortal souls. And so they cast out the losers, culled their own numbers.
Those that survived are the most dangerous, those most willing to betray their own.
We don’t have the gods we need. We have the gods we deserve.
—Loa Book of the Invisibles
Nuru worked in the basement, curing a new batch of narcotics, harvested fungus, and dried leaves Omari collected for her. There was little the Finger couldn’t acquire through trade or theft. From the saliva of poisonous frogs to dried mushrooms, he found it all. Some things, however, like Crafter stone working tools, were beyond his abilities. She puttered, touching everything, attuning it to her heat, reminding her allies that she loved and needed them and would call on them soon.
She’d already arranged everything needed for the spirit walk she planned for her friends. It was time to bring them together, to knit them as one. The wounds left by Bomani’s death were still raw. It was time to heal them, to make her friends whole.
Efra spent most of the last three days sleeping in Nuru’s room, only rising to eat and drink. The bruising around her eyes faded, though she still looked exhausted. She’d risen an hour ago and now sat with Chisulo, talking at the table in the main room.
Nuru had been listening to their conversation, but when the volume suddenly dropped, curiosity drove her from the cool safety of her basement. Ascending the stairs, she stopped where she could see the two, but was unlikely to be noticed. She stood wreathed in shadow.
Earlier she’d taken Efra a mug of cider dosed with some herbs that would dull her many pains without clouding her thoughts. The mug still sat, untouched, in front of the girl.
Efra sat in Bomani’s place and Nuru’s chest tightened in grief.
Leaning on the table, left arm taking her weight, the girl examined Chisulo with those intense eyes. The other hand rubbed unconsciously at her scar, caressing it where it bisected her lips.
“You feel all right?” Chisulo asked, voice soft.
“My head hurts, but my teeth aren’t loose anymore.” She looked him over, making no attempt to hide her attention. “Otherwise…”
“Happy should have warned you before he—”
“No. He did it right.”
Sitting across from her on his own over-turned box, Chisulo towered over Efra.
She’s so small.
She had this presence that made her seem bigger, but she was tiny.
Tiny and mean. Had Nuru suffered the beating Efra took, she’d still be in bed whimpering.
“You should drink that,” Chisulo said, gesturing at the mug. “It tastes like dog’s ass, but it’ll numb the pain.”
“She already drugged me once.”
Chisulo laughed. “You get used to that. She does it to all of us. Next thing you know, you’re telling her everything.”
“How can you trust her?”
“She knows me. I’ve told her pretty much everything in my head.”
“Do you love her?”
“Of course I do.”
Nuru’s breath caught.
“Like a friend,” he added.
They’d known each other too long, their entire lives, really, to be anything other than friends. It still hurt.
“She knows your secrets?” asked Efra.
“All of them.”
“Do you know hers?”
“Nope.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Nope.”
Nuru wanted to hug him, to touch that stubbled scalp.
“What about Happy and Omari?”
“She knows their secrets too. Sometimes she finds these mushrooms—they taste like cat turds—and we sit around chewing this leathery shit and talking. Everything gets out. She brings out all our worries, everything that’s bothering us. She cleanses us.”
“Does anyone know her secrets?”
Kind of focussed on that, aren’t you?
“She’s a street sorcerer,” answered Chisulo.
Efra glanced at the mug. “I’m worried that now that she knows me, she’ll poison me.” She looked away.
For a moment Nuru saw the scared girl behind the brutal façade.
What does she think she shared that she’s worried I might kill her?
Had Efra somehow managed to hide something even more terrifying than the fact Smoking Mirror spoke to her and the Birds were going to kill everyone?
Nuru shuddered at the memory of being held helpless before the god.
Without hesitation, Chisulo reached across the table and grabbed the mug. He took a long swallow and returned it with a grimace. “Dog ass. But I think this dog was dead for a week before
she harvested the butt.”
Efra sipped at the drink and stuck out her tongue. Then she finished the rest. “I need numb.” Eyes on Chisulo, she bit her bottom lip, teeth worrying gently at the ridge of scar. “Did she tell you what I said?”
“She never tells,” he said. “Ever. I think it’s part of what she is. There’s a…” He hunted for the word, forehead crinkling in concentration. “…a spirituality to her I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand any of you.”
“You will. She told me she has more of the mushrooms. She’s been waiting for you to heal enough. We’ll all—”
“Except her.”
“No, she eats them too. She leads us, takes on spiritual journeys, helps us get past… things. We’ll do it soon. Bomani—” He paused, swallowing his grief. “We need to heal.”
Efra studied Chisulo, eyes drinking him in, measuring everything. And there was something else in that look, something predatory. Something Nuru didn’t like at all.
“Those mushrooms,” he said, “she calls them allies like they’re alive and have a will of their own. She explained it once, but I didn’t understand.”
“Like the smoke?”
“The what?”
“Nothing.”
“With Bomani’s—” He drew a calming breath. “With Bomani gone, she’ll bring us all together soon.”
“Should I leave for that?”
“If you’re one of us, you’ll stay.”
She scratched at the stone table with a much-chewed fingernail, and then reached out to place her hand on Chisulo’s. He grinned back at her.
“You make it sound like it’s my choice,” said Efra.
“It is,” said Nuru, coming the rest of the way up the stairs. Chisulo pulled his hand away and looked everywhere but at her. “The basement is ready. Chisulo, gather everyone and bring them down.”
“Is Isabis down there?” he asked.
“If you don’t sit on her, she won’t bite you. Go find Omari and Happy.”
Chisulo nodded and ducked from the tenement.
Efra studied her. “Do you want me to stay?”
I need you to stay. It’s different. “Yes.”
“Can I come sit with you downstairs while we wait?”
Nuru hesitated. No one ever came down unless invited. “Yes.”
Turning, she retreated to the basement.
Half an hour later, Chisulo returned with Omari and Happy in tow. Descending the steps, they found Nuru, Isabis sleeping around her neck, and Efra already in the basement. Efra flashed him a nervous smile. Two sputtering candles filled the basement with stinking smoke. With the onset of night, the temperature would plummet and they’d see their breath. Luckily, Nuru’s narcotics had a way of keeping one warm.
“Everyone, strip down to your underclothes,” commanded Nuru, leading by example.
Again, Chisulo looked everywhere but at her. It made it easier for her to examine the hard lines of him, but still hurt. We’re friends. Can’t think of him that way.
“Nice,” said Happy, grinning at Nuru and waggling eyebrows.
She ignored him.
Chisulo, she saw, was watching Efra strip from the corner of his eye. Efra started lifting her undershirt off, exposing ribs, bruised and purple, when Nuru said, “Leave that on or Happy will be too distracted to participate.”
The big man grunted disappointment. Though Chisulo clearly shared the sentiment, he kept quiet.
“Sit in a circle,” instructed Nuru, sinking down to sit cross-legged.
She leaned forward, placing a bowl of hollowed wood in the centre of the group. Dried mushrooms filled the bowl. “Stop trying to look down my shirt, Happy.”
He grumbled a wounded complaint.
“Take one nugget,” said Nuru. She waited until everyone held a leathery mushroom. “Eat it,” she commanded. Everyone did. “Right. Now close your eyes.”
Nuru closed her eyes and hummed, swaying back and forth like Isabis did when she sang to her. Cracking an eye open just a hair, she examined Chisulo. He hadn’t closed his eyes. In fact, he sat staring at her as if entranced. She read the love, yearning, and regret on his face.
“Chisulo,” she said, “close your eyes.”
“Sorry.” He closed his eyes.
Time ran thick like tree sap.
Nuru stopped humming and everyone opened their eyes, waiting. “One at a time,” she said. “Take two more nuggets, tell us an Uncomfortable Truth, and then eat them.”
Everyone nodded agreement.
She felt loose, like soft clay mud. She remembered playing by a lake where the crèche nahual taught the kids fishing. The crèche master, an eternally angry priest of Her Skirt is Stars, had been furious at how filthy Nuru got. She remembered the sting of the lash, the rattle of snake spines in the old man’s jade-green robes.
It’s time.
Too many pressures weighed on her. No doubt her friends suffered equally under their own burdens.
We need An Uncomfortable Truth. It was one of the first lessons in spirit walking she’d learned.
She had to go first. But what to share?
Should she tell Chisulo how she felt? She knew he had feelings for her too, and not just friendship. But she also saw the way he looked at Efra.
We’ve been friends too long.
Should she tell everyone about the spider carving? She hesitated. That was her secret. Only Efra knew, and that was one person too many. She could tell them some of it. They needed to know.
Decision made, Nuru took two nuggets. Rolling them around in the palm of her hand, she worked them like hard mud.
“Difficult times are coming,” she said. “I’m carving something I don’t think I should carve, and it scares me. But I believe Efra. I believe in Efra. We fight or we die. We need whatever allies we can make.” She ate the mushrooms.
Nuru nodded at Happy and the big man grunted. He stared at his huge hands, palms up, before selecting two mushrooms. He made fists, and then opened them again.
“Bomani was crazy,” he finally said. “He was mean as a scorpion. He was a sun-crazed snake. He shouldn’t have gone to Fadil’s alone, but I wasn’t here. I was off chasing a pair of tits like I always am. I should have been here for him. I should have been with him. All I know is, he died on that asshole’s turf. He probably brought it on himself. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was smoky; he usually was.” Happy shook his head, a slow back and forth. “Bomani started fights for fun. But he was my friend. I miss him.” He ate the mushrooms, tears spilling from his eyes.
It was my fault. I told Chisulo to send him. She couldn’t speak the words, her throat refused to cooperate. That truth was too uncomfortable. Anyway, her turn was finished. Swallowing her guilt and stifling her own tears, Nuru glanced at Omari.
The Finger collected two mushrooms, rolled them across the back of his knuckles. “Bomani scared me. When he got drunk, he wanted to fight. I was always afraid I’d get dragged into it.” He looked to his friends, but avoided Efra. “I’ll fight if I have to, but not because someone called someone else’s girl a camel’s ass. Half the time, I thought he was going to come after me. I’d make some joke about him, about his temper, and his eyes would change. It’s like he had to make a conscious decision not to beat me to death. He had to think about it.”
Happy nodded agreement but said nothing.
“He never did,” said Omari. “Maybe he always had a reason not to.” He sighed. “I didn’t like Bomani. Never did, even when we were at the crèche. But he was my friend. If I was in need, he’d beat stone to dust with his bare hands to help me. I wasn’t there when he needed me. I miss when we were kids and would play in the fields when no one was looking.” Omari ate his mushrooms, chewing furiously.
Nuru nodded to Chisulo.
He took two mushrooms and stared at them in his hand. “An Uncomfortable Truth. How about, these things taste like dried cat shit? Is that uncomfortable enough?”
The narcotics
in Nuru’s blood, combined with her sorcerous training, laid him bare, wrote his thoughts like tattoos on his flesh.
All his truths were uncomfortable. Nuru in her underclothes made him uncomfortable. Should he talk about that? She was so beautiful it hurt. But they’d been friends their entire lives. He dared not chance ruining that.
It was what she wanted, and it filled her with unspeakable sadness. She could never have him.
I love the way you see me, even if I’m not truly as you see. He was blind to her flaws.
There was more, she saw. His feelings for Efra, a confused maelstrom of fear and lust and a desire to protect the girl, also made him uncomfortable.
“If I have to eat two of these,” Chisulo said, “Happy should have eaten four.”
They laughed—except Efra, who looked confused—but it was the polite laughter of friends.
“Why am I always last?” He glanced at Efra, so small, so hurt. So strong. “Oh. Sorry. Not last.”
Would she do it, would she share an Uncomfortable Truth? She seemed to waver between moments of brutal honesty she’d be better off not sharing, and the rather frightening, self-centred behaviour she often displayed.
And then Nuru saw it. All this was Chisulo’s evasion.
He blames himself for Bomani. It’s eating him up inside.
But she couldn’t tell him it was her fault. The Uncomfortable Truth had rules, and she’d already shared.
I’ll tell him later.
“I don’t want to lead,” he said.
“You have to,” said Efra. “It has to be you.”
Everyone stared at her in shock. No one ever spoke when someone was in the middle of an Uncomfortable Truth.
“If anyone gets hurt,” said Chisulo, “if one of you dies, it’ll—” He swallowed his pain. “It’ll be my fault.”
“I’ve known you my entire life,” said Omari as if it explained everything.
She breaks an unspoken rule, and changes everything. Somehow, this was Efra. That idea, that she was a force of change, summed her.
The Finger cleared his throat. “These mushrooms are really dry.” He laughed, a cough of sadness. “Ever since we met at the crèche, you’ve been my friend. We look to you for leadership because you have something we don’t. I don’t know what it is, but I will follow you. If I die following you, it will have been my choice. You can’t take responsibility for our choices.”
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