Betrayed by her husband, The Lord, she’d been banished from the city she helped build.
For twenty-five thousand years she fed off the paltry souls tossed from the Sand Wall. She waited and she plotted, ever diminished, for her chance, for her gateway back into Bastion. Ancient and powerful, she warred against the other dead gods, brought them to heal. She bound them to her will, bound them to her purpose.
She is Lady Death, Queen of the Red Desert.
Nuru’s carving was the first crack. Mother Death’s influence seeped into Bastion.
But Nuru was the gateway.
Starved to the point of non-existence, The Queen was still a god. She crushed Nuru.
Mother Death could have ended that tiny, ignorant soul then, fed off it to give her some infinitesimal strength. She didn’t. Countless millennia in the desert made her careful. She had returned to Bastion, but she was weak. If the other gods found her now, it would be nothing for them to once again banish her. Even a powerful nahualli might manage it.
She needed souls.
She needed sacrifices.
She needed worshippers.
She must feed. She must grow in strength, hidden from the eyes of her enemies within the city. This mortal flesh would be her vessel. She’d wear it when possible, hide deep inside it when she needed to retreat. This girl would be the mother of a new religion. The Growers, beaten and subjugated, were ripe with dissent, ready to worship new gods promising freedom. The Loa, the tattered remnants of her religion, worked for generations to prepare them.
There would be war, the blood of thousands would spill, run deep in the streets. Her Loa stood ready to block the runnels funnelling it out of the Life Ring. She’d drink every drop spilled here.
The Life Ring was perfect. Rarely did the gods in the centre cast their gaze so far from the beauty and pageantry of their realm. They were petty and foolish, bickering constantly, playing games with the souls of man to entertain themselves. They were also, after thousands of years trapped in the city of their own making, quite mad.
Mother Death was no more sane than they, just hungrier. Angrier.
Nuru knew all this. Though she teetered at the edge of nothing, she still existed. She wailed and screamed and fought for control, but she was a tiny soul consumed by the Great Mother.
A thousand times older than Bastion. Mother Death saw the rise and fall of civilizations. She remembered a world green with life and light, where plants and animals and people blanketed the earth.
The Destroyer was no ally. She wasn’t here to aid Nuru. Nuru’s cause was nothing to her. Mother Death wanted to break the eternal city until nothing remained of the old ways but smoke and stone.
She would remake Bastion to sate her ancient thirst. The Last City would truly become the sacrificial altar it was always meant to be.
Alone, Nuru cried, helpless.
I did this.
That first narcotic-induced hallucination had been a lure, bait. The vision was a trap, and Nuru, desperate for power, terrified of weakness, rushed blindly into it.
I killed them all.
AKACHI – ECHOES OF LIFE AND STONE
The tasks of the nahual of Cloud Serpent differ in every ring. In the Priests’ Ring they hunt renegade priests, and stalk their ancient enemy, the Loa heretics. In the Bankers’ Ring they bring debtors to justice and pursue those who would disrupt Bastion’s economy. In the Senators’ Ring they search out instigators and rebels, bringing political dissenters and revolutionaries to trial. In the Crafters’ Ring they hunt saboteurs and those who seek to bring down the tools and machinery of civilization. In the Growers’ Ring they battle the ever-growing influence of the Loa, and seek out those who have fled the inner rings to hide among the filth.
—The Book of Bastion
The scarred girl gutted Yejide, his love. It should have been impossible. No Dirt should have been able to end the Captain. Akachi screamed in agony at the loss. He knew no thought but death.
A flat-nosed Dirt got between Akachi and the girl he hunted. He killed the man, punched the Dirt in the chest with a bear-like fist, shattering ribs. The Dirt stared past him, forever unseeing, freed from a life of toil and pain.
Eyes like polished stones.
Ibrahim lay dead, throat open to the sky. Akachi saw a big Dirt smash Njau’s head against the stone of Bastion until bone gave. Akachi’s sacrificial dagger clutched in his fist, Nafari charged the big man, screaming. Gyasi lay dead behind him. Nafari stabbed the Dirt in the gut. He stabbed him in the chest. The huge Grower punched him in the face, shattering those handsome features. Nafari fell, dropping the knife. Collecting it, the Dirt shoved it through Nafari’s heart and then collapsed atop him.
Bodies littered the street, Hummingbirds and Growers. So much blood. The gutters ran fast and deep. Roiling clouds of black and grey soiled the sky, leaching colour from the world. Fat flakes of ash fell like dessicated rain.
Bastion is dying.
Yejide, disembowelled, throat slashed wide, lay sprawled in the sand. Gone. Taken from him by this Dirt girl.
The scarred girl stood before Akachi.
“Why?” he growled.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t move. “You killed my friends.” Tears cut streaks in her ash-stained face, followed the ridge of her scar. She pointed at the house behind him. “You killed the Artist. He was kind to me.” She gestured at the flat-nosed Dirt whose chest Akachi crushed. “You killed him. He was my hope.”
Hope? Curiosity drove him to ask. “For what?”
“To save Bastion. To save myself.” She grinned up at him and it was terrible. “You killed him before he could make me better. And so, I remain what I was.”
Akachi hesitated. Smoking Mirror backs this girl.
Movement, behind her.
The wretched stench of death filled the air, obliterating the harsh tang of blood and violence. To Akachi’s heightened senses, it was overpowering, choking.
Black, glistening and huge. Evil. Dainty steps sent waves of revulsion rushing through Akachi’s gut.
A colossal spider, twice his height, danced forward, movements jerky yet somehow graceful. The front half was the torso of a woman in the flush of youth, skin blacker than anything he’d ever seen. She was beautiful. She was terrifying. Red eyes examined him with disdain. He recognized her from the basement.
The street sorcerer.
Akachi’s years of study under various memory-enhancing narcotics bubbled up a deep-buried recollection. It was in History class. They studied Bastion’s oldest texts, reading about the first days after the Last War. Some of the founding gods schismed, banded together and fought to wrestle control of the city from the others. Defeated, they were banished from Bastion. He remembered the tapestry in Bishop Zalika’s chambers.
“Mother Death,” he said. “The Destroyer of Worlds.”
The spider skittered forward. It stood over the scarred girl, protective.
Mother Death stared down at Akachi. “Worship, or die.”
Blood and worship; the gods fed on both.
A wash of narcotics roared through Akachi’s blood. Yejide was gone. He couldn’t process the loss, it was too sudden. He kept expecting her to move, to get up and brush herself off. I will not fail you.
Nahualli had been called upon to banish evil spirits in the past. It was rare, but sometimes things got within the walls, called in by careless nahualli or ignorant street sorcerers. He’d read all the accounts.
“I am Bastion,” said Akachi, standing tall. “I am the wall that brings peace, the wall that keeps the demons at bay. I banish you in the name of Cloud Serpent!”
Mother Death ignored him, looked to the girl standing beneath her. “And you, little shard of Smoking Mirror?”
The scarred Dirt looked at the black rectangle tattooed on her wrist and then up to the god. “Chisulo would have done the right thing, no matter the cost. To save Nuru he would have fought you with his bare hands.” She turned toward Akachi. “You kill
ed him. I am with you, Mother Death.”
A needle-sharp leg, barbed like rose stems, lashed out and Akachi ducked under it. Grabbing the extended leg, he stepped in to punch the exposed underbelly. His huge fist shattered on impact. Mother Death ripped her leg free of the grip of his other hand. Those barbs, edged like obsidian, severed his fingers. Screaming, he backed away. Blood fountained from the stumps, spattered the street, ran in the gutter. His other hand hung limp, fragments of bone protruding through torn flesh.
“Mortals don’t fight gods,” said Mother Death.
Her front two legs stabbed at him. One punched through his left shoulder. The other pinioned his chest on the right side. Both jutted out his back.
Akachi’s allies screamed and faded, devoured by the god.
Standing on her rear six legs, Mother Death lifted him. Akachi hung like a hooked worm, wriggling and writhing. Helpless.
“Mortals worship,” said Mother Death. “Or they die.” She tossed him aside, barbed legs tearing everything on the way out.
Akachi landed, a crumpled ruin. Torn apart, he bled out at a terrible rate. His blood joined the blood of Yejide, the woman he loved, and Nafari, his only friend, in the gutter. It flowed away toward the heart of Bastion. Flakes of ash rode the river like tiny boats.
I’m feeding the gods.
He heard sobbing. The scarred girl knelt beside the street sorcerer. Mother Death was gone. No, not gone. Something like that never truly left, never truly died.
Efra, he remembered. The one with the scar is Efra. Such a common nothing Dirt name. The street sorcerer, Nuru, she’s doomed. In becoming Mother Death, she opened herself to the god. Had she been trained as a nahualli, she’d have known the dangers. The ignorant Dirt probably didn’t even understand. She sold herself.
Smoking Mirror won. The Queen of Bastion had returned, and the only nahual who knew, lay dying.
Akachi coughed blood. He couldn’t move.
Efra helped the street sorcerer to her feet. The two girls limped away, leaving behind the corpses of their friends. Neither looked back.
Is this all my fault? Had he misunderstood the visions? Where was the great war, the ranks of Hummingbirds slaughtering the filthy Dirts? Where were the Turquoise Serpents with their obsidian swords? Was that a false vision, or something still in the future?
Doesn’t matter. I won’t live to see it.
Smoky stone caught Akachi’s eye. There, within arms’ reach, lay his sacrificial dagger. Fumbling with broken fingers, he dragged it closer, lifted it to rest on his chest. He felt the weight of souls trapped within.
Efra killed Yejide with this knife.
The soul of the woman he loved was in there, trapped. Nafari, too. Only if the knife made the journey to the gods at the heart of Bastion could Yejide hope to be reborn. Out here, in the Growers’ Ring, it was more likely some Dirt would steal it from Akachi’s corpse, keep it for himself.
Shadow fell over Akachi. He looked up to see dozens of Growers, caked in ash and bent with age, scarred with badly healed wounds, gathered around him.
They’ve come to watch me die.
Did they hate him?
A Dirt stepped forward, bowed low. “Nahual, you are wounded.”
Akachi coughed a bloody laugh.
“What can we do?”
Nothing. You know nothing, have no skill beyond working the soil. They couldn’t patch his wounds or even slow the bleeding. Their ignorance was killing him. We gave them that. It was supposed to be a gift. Ignorance was freedom from worry. It seemed funny now.
I could command them to deliver the dagger—Yejide and Nafari’s souls—to the nearest church. Would they obey?
It didn’t matter. He couldn’t let her go.
Amethyst. The Stone of Self-Destruction. He’d failed.
Clutching the stone dagger in his shattered fist, Akachi drew a bubbling breath. “Take me to my church. Lay me on the altar,” he whispered.
I’ll join you in the dagger, he promised Yejide. We’ll be reborn together.
To his surprise the Growers lifted him, carried him prostrate on their shoulders.
There are still good people out here. It was easy to forget that gangs and street sorcerers and the Loa were a minority.
He saw the endless grey sky, choked with roiling clouds of smoke and ash, as they transported him through the streets. More gathered to join the impromptu parade, he heard them, their shuffling steps, bare feet on stone. No one spoke a word. More feet. All the Wheat District was here to see him off.
A thick coating of ash ate sound, swallowed the ever-present echoes of life and stone.
Far above, a falcon circled.
You’re free.
He wanted to join the bird. If only he’d saved some aldatu. Perhaps he could have used his nagual training to flee this dying body.
The bird folded and fell in an uncontrolled spiralling plummet.
NURU – THE HEART OF THE LAST CITY
Obsidian daggers are brought to the heart of Bastion to be drained by the gods for two reasons: First, with each life taken, the dagger becomes more powerful. An ancient dagger is a powerful weapon indeed, capable of slicing flesh, bone, and stone. The obsidian swords of the Turquoise Serpents, Southern Hummingbird’s elite, go generations without making the journey to the Gods’ Ring. They cut a man in half with ease. Second, the gods don’t feed off blood and worship; they feed of blood, worship, and souls
—Loa Book of the Invisibles
After collecting the carving of Mother Death, Nuru and Efra staggered away, the street sorcerer leaning on the shorter woman for support.
Is this what Smoking Mirror wanted? Had everything played out to the god’s plan? Did Father Discord even have a plan, or did he seek nothing more than change?
Efra staggered under her weight, tears streaming down her face. “Chisulo put himself between me and that nahualli.”
He knew he couldn’t defeat the sorcerer and hadn’t hesitated.
“He did what he believed was right,” said Nuru. He always did.
Efra pawed at her tears, rough and angry. “Do you think he’d use this god? Would he use her to make things better for himself” She hesitated and then added, “Would he use her to make things better for others, for all Growers?”
Use a god? Nuru almost laughed. The girl never quits. “You know the answer.”
“He was good in a way I am not.” Efra blinked and fresh tears ran. “We need the god.”
Nuru wanted to argue but couldn’t. “Where are we going?” she asked. “I killed a nahualli. There are dead Birds everywhere. Cloud Serpent will hunt us. We are dead.”
“Not yet we aren’t.” Efra rubbed at the scar, considering their options. “Does Mother Death know everything you know?”
“No. I’m nothing to her.”
“Good.”
The two women limped away, leaving behind the corpses of their friends.
Nuru slid her hand into Efra’s, squeezed it tight. “Tell me you didn’t plan this. Tell me you didn’t have some idea this would happen.”
Efra squeezed her hand back. “None.”
“Are you lying?”
“Yes, but only a little. I knew change was coming and I wouldn’t survive it alone.” She laughed, a rueful cough of pain. “I thought I could use Chisulo’s natural leadership—the way folks were drawn to him—to unite the Wheat District and the Growers’ Ring.” She looked away, hiding the pain. “I thought we’d be together.”
It was, Nuru admitted, a nice dream.
That dream was dead.
“I’ll have to do it myself now,” said Efra.
“No,” said Nuru. “We’ll do it.”
“No one would follow me anyway.”
I did.
Pain welled up within Nuru, crushed her heart in a savage fist, threatened to burst free in screams of anguish.
All my friends are dead.
Friends? The word didn’t do them justice. Growers didn’t have familie
s, but Chisulo, Bomani, Happy, and Omari were hers.
She felt so alone.
“I told him he’d get himself killed doing the right thing,” mumbled Efra.
Nuru pushed the pain down deep with ruthless savagery.
I’m not alone. She had Efra. She had Mother Death.
And Father Discord, whatever his reasons, was on their side.
What do I do now?
She had no idea. She wanted to run away, to hide.
But that’s what Growers did.
So what don’t Growers do?
They didn’t band together. They didn’t fight. They didn’t take control of their lives.
The Hummingbirds with the long obsidian knives were still coming; she had no doubt. They were still going to slaughter the Growers.
With the wells filling with ash and the fields burning, there would be a war for food. All Bastion would be against the Growers. She recalled the discontent in the Crafters’ Ring.
Maybe not all Bastion.
Could she unite the two rings? Could she lead the Growers?
I guess we’ll find out.
She would use that discontent. She would use starvation and desperation. She would use gods and mortals alike. She would save Bastion because that’s what Chisulo would do.
Chisulo. Bomani. Happy. Omari.
Dead.
Her head hurt, a throbbing behind her eyes.
Gone.
Taken.
Gods, it hurt so much.
Walking through ankle-deep ash, they retuned to the tenement to collect Isabis. The snake curled around Nuru’s neck and promptly fell asleep.
Omari lay dead and Nuru went to say goodbye. She kissed him on the forehead and cried.
Efra had worried that love would make her vulnerable, that losing it would be painful. How right she’d been.
Nothing felt like this.
Chisulo.
His absence was a gaping wound carved in Nuru’s soul.
Tears fell. She couldn’t stop them.
She turned to find Efra crying too.
Rising, Nuru and took her in her arms. The two cried, holding each other.
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