Smoke and Stone

by Michael R. Fletcher

  Akachi nodded again, pleased. “A couple of times, but never anything so extreme, so… physical. Nahualli study all the branches of sorcery, but most are drawn to just one. Some few have a talent for two.”

  “You’re good at all of them, aren’t you?”

  Even in the sweltering heat Akachi felt a blush of warmth cross his face. “My teachers said I was a natural nagual, though I’m also a passable pactonal. They said I lacked the social awareness to be a good huateteo, and was too grounded in the now, too tied to earthly worries, to ever be much of a tezcat. And of course only a nahual of Father Death can become a tecuhtli.”

  “What’s it like, when you become the creature?”

  He shied from the question, distracting her with details. “We take various narcotics to prepare our minds. Some thin the veil separating us from the world of spirit animals. Others open the door to the dream world.”

  “The world of spirit animals is different from the reality of dreams?”

  “Very,” answered Akachi, relieved to be on safer ground. “Spirit animals are closer to gods than the allies you find in smoke and mushrooms. They are the purest form of the animal, undiluted power.” He struggled to find the words to explain. “Each puma you see in the menageries is an extension of the original puma, the animal spirit defining it. When you learn their true names, you can open yourself to them. If they like you—and it’s rare—they will help you. Gau Ehiza is the essence of what it is to be a puma.”

  “So, if I was a nahualli, I’d now be able to contact the puma spirit animal because you told me its name?” Yejide’s eyebrow rose to a sharp peak. “All nagual do is memorize a bunch of names? I’m less impressed than I was.”

  Laughing, Akachi shook his head. He felt better than he had in days. “It doesn’t work like that. Gau Ehiza is the name I was told in a smoke dream. The spirit animal would tell you a different name, would be something different for you. When we’re studying, we have to live with the animals of the spirit we’re trying to contact for several weeks. During that time, you must maintain a steady state of unreality, taking carefully measured doses of bihurtu. If the spirit animal likes you, it will share with you one of its infinite names.”

  “So if I wanted to contact Gau Ehiza…”

  “You have to first live among the pumas. Naked. Without weapons. You have to be one of them.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “It is. Many nahualli acolytes die, get mauled, bit, poisoned, and eaten.” He flinched at the last word.

  “How many spirit animal names do you know?”

  “Six.”

  This time, when Yejide leaned closer to examine the bear, Akachi kissed her on the neck. She tasted of salt. He did it without thought, without planning.

  She flashed a quick smile that stuttered his heart. “I was wondering how long that would take. What does the bear give you, a furry back?”

  She didn’t kill me! “And terrible farts.”

  “You already have those.”

  Akachi set the bear on the bench. “This is Indar Handia. From her I get strength.” He showed her the pangolin. “Bihotz Blindatau. From him I get physical protection.” He set it beside the bear and lifted the puma. “Gau Ehiza gives me speed. I will be strong and fast and armoured next time I meet the enemy.” He reached a tentative hand to touch Yejide’s arm and she didn’t move away. “I’m not supposed to tell you any of this.”

  She put her hand on his. “Your secrets are safe.”

  He decided not to mention the large doses of bihurtu he spent the last few days preparing or that he took some every night in case the Loa dared come for him in the church.

  They aren’t coming. They’ve already achieved what they wanted. The Loa assassin carried two stones. They wanted him dead or broken. She’d failed to touch him with the garnet, but succeeded with the amethyst.

  I will not self-destruct.

  He hadn’t slept well in days. Though the foku kept him on an obsidian edge, sometimes his thoughts wandered. Scenes of endless blood and death tormented him in waking dreams. Bastion was a sacrificial altar. Ancient and senile gods fed on the last remnants of humanity, who they bred like pigs. The gods bickered and fought among themselves like spoiled, mad children, triggering some cataclysm and feeding off the ensuing orgy of violence. Over and over the cycle continued. Those visions weighed on him, a damp blanket muzzling his thoughts.

  “You okay?” asked Yejide.

  Akachi blinked. “Yeah. Haven’t slept well.”

  “I know.” She leaned back to study him. “You look awful.”

  “Thanks.” He wanted to tell her of the dream walk, of The Lord’s death at the hands of the Loa assassin. She wouldn’t believe me. And he’d have to explain the amount of narcotics he had taken, and was, in fact, still ingesting every day.

  “You were skinny to begin with,” she said, “but you’re damned near skeletal now.”

  “When this is finished, I’ll sleep for a week.”

  “This?” asked Yejide. “What do you mean?”

  Good question. He wasn’t sure how to answer.

  “Trouble,” said Yejide, stepping away, putting a more socially acceptable distance between them. The woman who stood chatting with him was gone, replaced by the Captain.

  Akachi stood too. A Hummingbird strode toward them. She didn’t look happy, her face bruised and puffy. Blood ran from her nose and her lips were cracked and swollen.

  “Captain Dziko,” said Captain Yejide.

  “Captain Yejide.” The Hummingbird entered the courtyard, walking with a confident strut at odds with the beating she’d clearly suffered. Stopping before Akachi, she offered a quick bow. “Pastor, that man you sent to the gate was a Grower.”

  Akachi blinked in confusion. “What man?”

  Captain Dziko scowled. “You didn’t send a Hummingbird Guard to wait at the Wheat District Gate for a scarred Grower girl to come through disguised as a Crafter?”

  Yejide had spread the word to the Hummingbird Guards in the district to keep an eye out for a scarred Grower girl, though Akachi hadn’t sent anyone to the gate. A Grower would never—

  Dziko’s words sank in. Disguised as a Crafter.

  The scarred girl must have help. She must have contacts high in the church. If she can travel between rings at will… Was she even a Grower? He remembered the way she looked in the street, thin and dirty. She had to be.

  “What happened to you, Captain?” asked Yejide.

  Captain Dziko eyed Yejide. “I was escorting him here with the prisoners—two Dirt girls—when they jumped me.”

  “Were the prisoners bound?”

  “Hands behind their backs.”

  “So you were taken by a Dirt and two tied up girls?”

  Dziko ground her teeth. “Essentially.”

  “Hmm,” said Captain Yejide.

  “Why go to the Crafters’ Ring?” mused Akachi, uncomfortable in the growing tension. Clearly the two women knew each other. “If they were trying to escape, why return?”

  “They brought back a selection of high-quality carving tools and paints,” said Captain Dziko, touching a swollen cheek and wincing.

  “Sorcery,” said Akachi. “They’ve brought back the tools to arm street sorcerers, to close the gap between them and real nahualli. What kind of tools?”

  “Stone carving tools, paints, and brushes.”

  Crystal magic. Loa sorcery.

  “They also had several extra sets of Crafter clothes,” added Dziko.

  “Then they were planning on returning to the Crafters’ Ring at some point.” Akachi’s mind reeled at the implications. Growers and Loa sorcerers moving freely between the rings.

  “There’s more,” said Captain Dziko. “Tariq’s squad found one of the Hummingbird Guard dead in a basement.”

  “Lutalo,” said Yejide, bowing her head. “He’s been missing for days.”

  “They cracked his skull and left him there to die.”

  “An
imals.”

  “Captain Yejide,” said Akachi. “Please see Captain Dziko has an escort back to the gate.”

  Yejide nodded and led the woman into the church.

  Though Akachi hadn’t dosed since last night, the dregs of bihurtu still swam in his blood. If he stared for too long at one of the carvings, he felt his spirit allies reach out to offer aid. Not yet. Not yet. He itched to loose them, to feel their animal savagery in his veins. Instead, he returned them to their pouch. This was the kind of holy fight acolytes dreamed of. A just cause, the knowledge he did Cloud Serpent’s will.

  The visions will guide me.

  Existing every day in such a state, with the veil between realities stretched so thin, was dangerous. Every day he risked brain-burn.

  It’s worth the risk.

  Akachi considered returning inside to dose again with foku and zoriontasuna; he needed to think clearly, and to feel the presence of his god.

  Captain Yejide exited the church with Captain Dziko and Ibrahim following. “We’ll escort her back to the gate. We’re going to make sure the Guard they found is Lutalo.” She stopped an arm’s length from Akachi. He wanted to reach out to touch her, to reaffirm her strength and solidity. “Stay inside the church until we return.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  A look crossed Yejide’s features, concern and worry, intermingled with something else.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I have my carvings. I’m ready.”

  “We’ll be many hours. If we don’t return—”

  “If you aren’t back before sunset, I’m going to tear down every tenement in the Wheat District until I find you.”

  She blinked onyx eyes, looked away, and finally nodded. Turning, she marched out the front gate, Dziko and Ibrahim following.

  I will never understand that woman.

  Her concern he understood. She’s worried about the drugs. Yejide might not be a nahualli, but she knew enough about what was involved. She understood that when he said he was ready, he admitted to being dosed. She knew the dangers.

  She’s afraid I’ll brain-burn.

  How much more worried would she be if she knew he’d been touched with a stone of self-destruction?

  He shook the thought off. I’m fine. Loa sorcery is weak.

  But was it? He already suspected Mother Death had somehow infiltrated Bastion. What if the insidious crystal magic of the Loa now worked at full power?

  If that was true, could the battle in The Lord’s realm have been a true vision?

  No! It was just a narcotic dream. The Loa hadn’t slain Father Death and conquered the underworld.

  Keep telling yourself that.

  Captain Yejide returned late in the evening, as the sun fell, bleeding light through the ever-present haze of red dust like a leaking corpse. Finding Akachi in his chambers, reading at his desk, she sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Captain Dziko gave me detailed descriptions of the Growers. They were wearing Crafter colours, but they could be wearing anything by now. The street sorcerer has changed her appearance. She cut her hair and looks like any other Dirt.” Yejide drew a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “While I saw to Lutalo’s remains, Dziko took her squad and Tariq’s into the tenements near the gate. They went door-to-door with the descriptions. There was some violence and they cracked a few heads.” She gave a dismissive shrug. “Dziko is angry at being bested by Dirts. Anyway, they found some people who knew them. Your scarred Grower belongs to a gang. One of the members recently visited a Dirt known as the Artist. Apparently, he does tattoos for the locals. He gets ink from somewhere. He must have contacts. At the very least, he might know who this scarred Grower is.”

  “I want their names.”

  Yejide agreed. “It’s late. In the morning we’ll question this Artist, find out what he knows.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “Too dangerous.”

  “I’m coming,” he repeated.

  “The Dirts are getting worked up. Several threw clods of shit at Dziko.” She smiled, a small quirk in the corner of curved lips, at that. “The Captain’s handling of the search was clumsy. It didn’t need to escalate to violence. And now…” Yejide studied Akachi. “We’re a broken squad. Lutalo, Khadija, and Talimba dead. Gyasi wounded. Maybe we should leave the district. I’ll escort you to the Grey Wall gate. From there you’ll be taken back to the Priests’ Ring.” She drew a calming breath, clearly agitated. “We’ll report back to Bishop Zalika, weather our punishment, and move on to our next assignment. But you’ll be safe.”

  Akachi rose from the desk and sat beside her. He placed his hand on her arm, feeling the corded strength, the ridges of scar. “I can’t. I was sent here for a reason. I can’t disappoint my god. I can’t disappoint my father. I will see this through.”

  Captain Yejide stood. “We’ll visit the Artist at first light.” Eyes narrowed, she studied him. “Get some sleep.”

  Then, she left.

  NURU – A JUXTAPOSITION OF OPPOSITES

  Though cast from Bastion, Mother Death has not been complacent. When she returns she will do so with an army of dead and banished gods at her back.

  —Loa Book of the Invisibles

  On Chisulo’s orders, everyone stayed in the basement. They ate and slept there. Much as Nuru complained about the smoke and flickering candlelight, she did her carving there too. They only ventured to the ground floor to use the shithole. As much as possible, they wanted this to look like an abandoned tenement. It was, he said, an imperfect plan. Better plans, however, escaped him.

  With the Birds scouring the streets for a Grower with a squished nose and detailed descriptions of both Efra and Nuru, Happy had no choice but to do all the scrounging and scavenging. Nuru saw that leaving Omari wounded his soul, a betrayal of his promise to his friend, but she didn’t have the energy to talk him around. He also made regular trips to the Artist for her narcotics. Each time, upon returning, he rushed to the Finger to check if anything had changed. Nothing did. At least not for the better.

  Omari could have done this. The Finger had a knack for stealth. Bomani used to joke that it wasn’t so much that Omari was a good Finger, more that he wasn’t worth looking at. Omari would feign anger and punch him and Bomani would laugh all the harder.

  Nuru made several attempts to wake the Finger. Desperate, she even tried reaching him through his dreams. Upon waking she said, ‘I couldn’t find him,’ and cried for hours.

  Omari grew thinner and thinner. In the last day he stopped twitching. The Finger lay motionless, chest barely moving with shallow breaths, skin a grey sheet stretched over bone. He looked like sunken fruit, rotting from the inside.

  You’re going to be so hungry when you wake up.

  Happy returned with what supplies he managed to scrounge, beg, borrow, and steal. He shared the food around, husks of vegetable matter and crusts of hard bread, making sure everyone got more than he.

  Your heart is too big, my friend.

  Efra scowled at the food Happy laid before her. “I’m tiny. You’re huge. Take more food. Idiot.”

  Happy demurred until she threatened to kick his balls in the next time he slept.

  Nuru carved. She ate mushrooms and she carved. She smoked stale seeds and some nasty fungus smelling like rancid bellybutton snot, and she carved. She screamed when she slept, torn by nightmares, and woke wild-eyed and hallucinating.

  The Artist gave Happy candles and everyone agreed they were Nuru’s to use as she needed. Chisulo, Happy, and Efra lurked in the shadows like wraiths. Nuru, sitting in a flickering pool of smoky yellow light, claimed the centre of the room. No one wanted to disturb her. She talked and ranted, twitched at things no one else saw. She carved with her impossibly small tools, tiny shards of obsidian mounted on perfectly shaped ebony handles. She talked to the woman spider emerging from the red stone, in a ceaseless flow of narcotic madness.

  “Stop this,” Chisulo said, when she paused to wolf down scraps of food. “You�
��re killing yourself. It isn’t worth it.”

  “I can’t.”

  She didn’t want to. The carving devoured her, ate her every thought. In her dreams it spoke in rot and decay, promised to save her friends. Nuru had no choice. They were doomed. A nahualli of Cloud Serpent hunted them. The Birds were looking for them and knew what they looked like. It was only a matter of time before someone turned them in.

  Hour by hour the carving changed. She shaved away breaths of stone exposing eight legs, impossibly thin and fragile. The torso, that of a young woman, curved and yet firm, took shape. This creature, this foul spider, jagged legs jutting up past the woman’s head, was wrong. Deeply wrong. She felt it in her bones, in her blood. It was horror given form. It was flawless.

  It was their only hope.

  When she finished the face, Chisulo again tried to stop her.

  “Look at it,” he said, crouching before her, blocking her light.

  She wanted to hit him, to send him away. Instead she peered at the carving. The woman was as beautiful as the spider was terrible.

  “She’s beautiful,” she said. “Perfect.”

  Glancing over his shoulder he saw Efra sleeping, wrapped in a grey blanket. He leaned closer and whispered, “It’s you. The face. The nose.” He hesitated. “The body.”

  “No. I’m not that… I’m all flaws.”

  “I’ve seen you naked often enough to know. You’re a beautiful woman.” He flushed in embarrassment, looking everywhere but at her.

  She studied the carving, trying to see it. “No. You’re wrong.”

  “Let me destroy it,” he begged. “We’ll find another way.”

  “There is no other way.”

  “We’ll get into the Crafters’ Ring somehow, hide there.”

  “They know now. They’ll be watching the gates.”

  Chisulo growled in helpless anger when she sent him away.

  She returned to her work, lost herself in the creation.

  When hunger or exhaustion forced her to set it aside, she communicated in grunts. She ate without noticing the food, eyes staring at nothing.