Path of Smoke

by Bailey Cunningham

  Andrew was distracted by the color inset of his Broadview anthology and nearly walked into a group of students as they were leaving the bookstore. Shelby steered him, gently, around the four girls, who were trying to puzzle out their letters of admission. The acceptance letters were so stylized that it was often difficult to figure out where you’d been admitted, or what courses you were required to take. Carl had showed up to the Department of Kinesiology on his first day, a little bewildered by the fact that everyone was wearing jogging shorts and gleaming with a sense of healthy purpose that was completely unfamiliar to him. At first he’d thought they were on some kind of party drug, but they were simply conscious and in a good mood.

  They were about to split up. The Department of History was in another building (for now, at least—the offices were always being shuffled around). Andrew and Shelby were both heading for the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, with its life-size posters of theorists and famous authors blown up to unnerving proportions. He was concerned that they hadn’t decided anything in their sotto voce conversation about fake art classes and hockey practices. Would Andrew continue to believe their lies? They seemed like something delicate and confectionary, a gingerbread castle without a drawbridge. There’d be no escape for them once the towers began to crumble. So far, he’d gamely put up with their behavior. He hadn’t asked why Carl and Shelby were spending more time together, or why they often stopped talking in midsentence when he approached them. Andrew could be oblivious to certain things—hipster irony, forced smiles, the fact that not everyone wanted to talk about intrusion versus portal fantasies in literature—but he’d surely realized that something peculiar was going on.

  They crossed the science building, which was floored in polished granite. It had six levels, all encased in a smooth web of concrete and dazzling glass. The elevator intoned each floor, and a bank of large-screen televisions played a loop of experiments. Many of them involved sparks, fizzing beakers, and balloons. At the end of the loop, the screen would black out, displaying a single word: Science! Curiously, the sound was turned off, so you couldn’t actually learn how the experiments were being performed. Carl was certain that he’d blow himself up, were he to attempt any of them.

  Shelby paused in front of the lab café, which sold pastries and trough-sized noodle bowls. You could feel the collective anger in the lineup as everyone attempted to pay for small coffees with their debit card. This was where they had to part ways.

  “I’ve got lecture until ten fifteen,” she said. “Then I’m done with my tutorial at eleven forty-five. Shall we meet back here around noon?”

  That was a lie. She’d shown Carl her schedule, and her Monday tutorial was finished at eleven fifteen. If they met back here shortly after, they’d have some precious time to work on their excuses before Andrew showed up at noon. Carl glanced at Andrew. He wasn’t looking at either of them. His concentration seemed to be wandering.

  “Sounds good,” Andrew said, after a moment. “Happy teaching, Carl.”

  This time he was looking at Carl. Looking directly at him, which was unusual. He didn’t blink. His face was placid, but the look had a kind of challenge to it. Carl shifted nervously. Then he smiled, and nodded.

  “You too, buddy. See you soon.”

  Shelby also gave him a look. Do not crack, she was saying.

  They parted.

  Carl cut across campus, enjoying the morning chill. The weather was playing with them. For the moment, he could enjoy it, the way you’d flirt with something kind of beautiful that might kill you later. He unzipped his jacket and let the wind have its way. Students were smoking and searching through their bags, while cars endlessly circled the parking lot. Pigeons were nesting in the International Languages building, and they crooned at him as he walked by. As the cold light suffused him, he felt, for a moment, that he might be a functional adult. He had a bank account, a long-distance plan, even an RRSP (which he tried not to burglarize at the end of each month, when he could barely afford rent). His wallet was full of discount cards, whose punched holes and delicious icons—muffins, burgers, steaming cups—reminded him that he had options, that he only had to spend twenty more dollars to receive a free artisanal cupcake.

  Andrew and Shelby were lucky. They had each other. Their neuroses intersected at several significant angles. He was part of their dyad, but at a slight remove, unable to lock on to their specific frequency.

  “Hello.”

  At first, he thought that Shelby had followed him. Did she want to compare notes right now, under some false pretense of going to the bathroom? He turned, about to congratulate her on the daring move, but it was Ingrid standing before him.

  “Hey. How goes it?”

  She wore cargo pants and a blue sweater frayed in the shoulders. Her bag was held together by an ingenious system of safety pins. Carl wasn’t nervous around her, precisely. He wasn’t nervous around anyone—not in the traditional sense of the word. His mother had always called him shameless. But Ingrid’s shadow was a miles, and he worried that someday he’d find himself looking down the edge of her blade.

  “I’ve seen better mornings. Neil screamed like Janet Leigh in Psycho when I dropped him off at day care. He told me that my hug was unappealing. Luckily, they managed to distract him with some game involving Popsicle sticks.”

  “I take it you didn’t get much sleep.”

  “I don’t really sleep. It’s more like a series of unplanned naps. I managed to get about half of the reading done”—her face fell—“but I may have read the wrong chapter. Everything got a bit surreal just before dawn.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Tutorials are mostly bullshit in the first week. Half of the students are in the wrong class.”

  “Explaining the plagiarism policy should kill some time.”

  “Oh, for sure. I do it in a series of different voices. Always gets a laugh.”

  She smiled. Not because he was being funny, but because she was kind. He realized, not for the first time, that the park was the only thing he had in common with her. How must he look to this studious person, who paid a mortgage and designed crafts for her son? He was a kid with a beard, untouched by the life-altering responsibility of parenthood. He had nobody to keep him accountable, except for his mother, a voice stretched over a long-distance connection. There was nothing to stop him from self-destructing, no small, serious boy to grab his face and order him to watch Dinosaur Train. He recalled Andrew’s words, and for a moment, something flared in him, a hot and secret wish to be needed that way.

  “Are we meeting up as usual tonight?” Ingrid asked. “I might be late. Paul’s going out for a few drinks. He almost never goes out, and I feel like—”

  “It’s fine,” Carl said. “We’ll wait for you.”

  The two of us, he meant.

  “Carl—” She trailed off.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is it—working? You know. Is it going okay?”

  He knew. And it wasn’t. Everything was collapsing. Everything was on fire, and he didn’t know what to do. He had no survival instinct. He just stood there, watching the drapes melt, wondering if the foundation would somehow survive. He wasn’t sleeping well. Every night, he saw the shadow’s face, pale as boxwood, floating. He dove into the water, but it turned to stone every time, filling his mouth with blood. All he could do was leap. And sometimes he’d wake up on the floor, astonished. Sleep-diving.

  “It’s a day-by-day thing,” he said. “It might work.”

  “I’m sorry that it’s come to this.”

  “Has this sort of thing happened to you before?”

  “Not exactly. But I do know a lot about lying.”

  “Right. Of course. And you’ve got two people to manage. That’s got to be hard.”

  “Sometimes it is.” Her expression darkened. “But sometimes—it’s almost too easy. That’s when I get s
cared.”

  “Of being trapped in the lie?”

  “Something like that.”

  Nothing made sense. The lies least of all. But this was what they had, now. If they were going to survive, they had to become a real company. Morgan was wrong. They couldn’t leave Julia alone. They needed her.

  “We’ll wait for you,” he repeated. “In the clearing.”

  “I’ll see you then. Happy teaching.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  She shouldered her knapsack and walked toward the Education building. Carl rummaged through his bag for the history textbook. The granola bar was sitting on top of it. He ate it in two bites and crossed the campus green. History needed all of the help that it could get. Even a bearded kid who lied through his teeth. Maybe Paul would show him how to play hockey. It was always good to sprinkle in a little truth.

  3

  BABIECA LEANED AGAINST THE wall of his alley, sweating. It was always hot in Anfractus. The city seemed untouched by winter or any other season. The heat settled over his body as he pulled the familiar stones from the wall. He unwrapped the cloth bundle inside and placed his instrument carefully on the ground. He was always worried that the long nights would do damage to its surface, but it slept like a baby in that dark space. The miracle of the alleys. He looked down and sighed. Transitions always left him hard.

  He counted the coins in his purse. It cost money to roll with a warm body. He’d have to sing, and that usually left him spent in a different way. Babieca slipped on his sandals, feeling taut and irritable. Desire shouldn’t be so complicated. He was sure that Morgan didn’t have these debates with herself. Maybe hitting things with arrows brought some kind of physical satisfaction. He’d have to ask her, the next time that she was drunk and willing to indulge him.

  Babieca knew that the alleys held some kind of secret. Every visitor to the city received their own alley. It became a part of their body, a secret corner that no one could violate. If he screamed, or stabbed himself, or climbed the walls, it would make no difference. As long as he stayed within his alley, he remained invisible, unborn. The safety was temporary, though. No matter how scared and disoriented you felt, you always walked. The breath of the city, the rush of its reckless heartbeat, was inescapable.

  On that first day, he’d knelt in a puddle of his own ichor, feeling like he’d forgotten how to breathe. Who was he? How had he gotten here, to this place that reeked of warm bodies, soot, and bursting fruit? Naked, defenseless, ill-named. He’d tasted a word on his tongue, but it refused to materialize completely. Leaving this protected space seemed like the worst kind of folly. But it was equally impossible to stay. He could hear possibilities revolving just beyond the mouth of the alley. He could feel the presence of objects, coins rustling in purses, fabric dragging across pockmarked stone, dirks and gladii asleep in their leather beds. The metallic whiff of cosmetics and the sweat beneath. Laughter and cursing. How could he resist that dangerous symphony? Here he was safe. But outside he could be something. He could steal a life that mattered.

  It might have been easier had he simply become a fur. Then he’d have brothers and sisters, along with the support of the Fur Queen. They’d dine on leftovers in the rusty silence of the underground tower, as she looked on, perhaps with a maternal smile. Thieving and music were so close to each other, as someone used to remind him. All he had to do was shimmy up his spoke on Fortuna’s wheel, and he’d find himself on the other side. He already knew how to pick an easy lock. He was probably halfway there. All that separated him from a fur’s life was the cracked lute, banging against his side.

  In the hands of a real trovador, it was an exquisite weapon, capable of destroying realms. For him, it was little more than a source of income. When had he last felt the kiss of true music? It must have been that night, in the Tower of Sagittarii, when he’d played the ancient lullaby. It had felt as if he might put the whole city to bed, leaving it blind and ready to be plundered. He could have passed through any door, silent as a breeze, and walked away with a small fortune. But the song had earned him nothing, in the end. A curious look from Morgan. The grudging praise of a small mechanical fox. Could that have been his only chance? Fortuna sometimes dropped a small blessing at your feet, and if you ignored it, she turned away from you forever. That was what it felt like. A blessing that he’d crushed beneath his sandal, like a pale, unseen flower.

  He met Morgan and Fel at the giant clepsydra. Its ancient mechanism, driven by water wheels and whispering tanks, chimed the hour for everyone to hear. Fortuna’s wheel moved with every shudder of the hidden gears. Her six daylight faces were twinned by the shadow aspects, claimed by the night gens. Babieca wasn’t sure anymore if there was a tangible difference between them. Fortuna was in all of them, the drowned and the saved. By day, she healed alongside the dutiful medicus and watched over the spado as he copied out vital documents. By twilight, she sang inspiration to the trovador, matching her drink for drink. And by night, she crept behind the furs and the sicarii, grindstone to their blades. With a light touch, she guided them forward, as you would guide a sleepy child up the stairs to bed. If only she hadn’t been so fond of games. You couldn’t trust a patroness who might bet against you at any moment, kissing the die before she let it fall.

  Morgan looked impatient. She kept playing with the worn fibula that held her cloak together, as if it were a toy. Fel watched people as they passed by the roaring clepsydra, sometimes pausing to stare at the wheel. She saw Babieca but didn’t acknowledge him. The trovador had come to think of this as her natural style of greeting. I see you. And what of it?

  “You’re late,” Morgan observed.

  “Hardly. I came as soon as my head cleared.”

  “We’ve been waiting.”

  “Transitions vary,” Morgan said, without taking her eyes from the crowd. “His alley could be a few minutes behind.”

  “That would certainly be convenient for him.”

  “Why are you shitting on me already?” Babieca asked. “We just woke up. I couldn’t possibly have done something to offend you.” He sniffed himself. “Granted, this tunica has seen better days, but the spray from the clepsydra is already improving things.”

  “It’s not you,” Morgan said. “I’m just worried.”

  “You think Julia’s going to say no.”

  “It’s not a question of yes or no. Even if she agrees—and she’d have to be profoundly stupid to join us—what are we supposed to do? We’re no longer welcome in the Arx of Violets. We don’t have access to any information, and there’s still a bounty on our heads.”

  “Quite a generous one too.” Babieca smiled. “I was happy to see that I fetched such a fair price. It’s good for my sense of worth.”

  “We’re supposed to be running away from this kind of trouble. If we continue on this path, we’ll be walking directly into a storm.”

  “That’s nothing new for us.”

  She frowned. “You’re the one who nearly pissed himself when that silenus appeared. Now you’re suddenly excited at the prospect of getting killed?”

  “How sweetly you exaggerate. If I remember, you were the one who held my hand so tightly that you nearly broke it in several places.”

  “We can debate how terrified you both were at a later time,” Fel said. “If you want to catch the artifex, it’s best to go now, when the towers are busy with patrons and supplicants. We’ll have a better chance of blending in with the general throng.”

  “That’s a funny word,” Babieca said. “Throng. Vaguely obscene.”

  “You sound like—” Morgan abruptly stopped herself.

  Babieca saw a flash of remorse in her eyes. Then she looked away. Neither of them said anything. He knew that she’d been about to say the auditor’s name.

  “Let’s go,” Fel said. “The only benefit I can see in your plan is that it might be stupid enough to work.”


  “It’s our plan,” Morgan reminded the miles. “You agreed to it.”

  “Only because we could use an artifex.”

  “Strictly speaking,” Babieca said, “she’s an apprentice artifex.”

  Fel looked coolly at them. “So this is what we have to work with. A horny singer, a disgraced archer, a miles with no connections, and a tinker.”

  “She’s pretty. If that helps.”

  Fel almost smiled. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “I object to the term disgraced—” Morgan began.

  But Fel was already leading them up Via Dolores. It was strange to think that only a short while ago, Morgan had been their leader. Now her dangerous profile meant that she had to avoid too much attention. Fel pulled them along, a bunch of dazed goslings. Babieca didn’t take offense to being called a horny singer. He was happy to be somewhere in the middle of their almost-company. The one in the middle rarely got attacked first.

  They followed Aditus Papallona to the edge of the Subura, where the Tower of Artifices was located. As usual, builders crowded the stairs, testing out new machines. Babieca nearly tripped over a barking lapdog made of whirring cogs and shining brass plates. The dog cocked its head, and one of its ears swiveled toward him, but there was no spark of life in its eyes. The foxes—Propertius and Sulpicia—were the only living machinae that he’d encountered in the city, and whatever had forged them was lost to antiquity. Now, as Julia often reminded them, artifices were mostly cheap entertainers. They dreamed up new party favors, singing fountains, and thrilling naumachia to please the basilissa and her court. Frogs, toy boats, and bored doves who piped the hour. Julia’s mother, Naucrate, had been a true artifex. She’d crafted a bee that had nearly brought down the city of Egressus.