Path of Smoke

by Bailey Cunningham

  “What are you thinking?”

  He looked again at Felix. “Your name means luck.”

  “That’s one interpretation.”

  “Will this work? If I believe in you, in your name—is there a chance?”

  Felix fingered the die around his neck. “Always.”

  “I’ve never killed anything.”

  “Are you so sure of that?”

  He blinked. “I suppose not. My shadow—did he—”

  “There’s no sense looking back. Everything changes tonight.”

  He placed the knife in a brass sheath, which he belted to his new tunica. The weight was oddly comforting, which surprised him.

  “I think I’m ready. I just have to follow the smoke.”

  Felix frowned. “Does that mean what I think?”

  “I’m not sure. But it’s all I can see, for the moment.” He looked once more at the blue smudge on the fresco. Then he laughed. “That’s what it was. The whole time.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Never mind. Let’s go.”

  They left the house. Felix shut the door and locked it with an L-shaped key. Its layer of gold had flaked off, but it was still a formidable device in his hands. The house seemed to shrink as they stepped away from it. Pressed so close to the curtain wall, it was hard to say whether it belonged to the city at all. Felix had told him that it was a tricky place, a kind of crossroads—that he must never take its magic for granted. The salamander looked up. Its eyes were old, but not kind. He knelt down and carefully scratched its head, just with the tips of his fingers. He thought it might bite him again, but instead it began to purr.

  “Can the lares speak?”

  “Only the auditores hear them,” Felix said. “And only the oculi see them. If you could do both, you’d probably go mad.”

  “I wonder what they sound like.”

  “I’m told it’s like reading a book, all at once. Their thoughts press the wax of your senses. The conversation isn’t strictly consensual.”

  “If you could speak,” he said to the salamander, “you might tell me what to do. Although, I suppose you did lead me here. That didn’t require words.”

  Felix chuckled. “It’s funny—listening to you converse with the air. Before, there were pauses, while you waited for a reply.”

  “Before?”

  Felix smiled. “You fed him apple peels. I watched them vanish. I suppose it was the first real piece of magic I’d seen, close up.”

  He looked at the salamander again. “This one? We’ve met before?”

  “I’ve no idea. I can’t see it, remember?”

  The sense of recognition was faint. He couldn’t tell if it meant anything or if it was just a trick of the creature’s gaze. For a moment, he felt as if every salamander watched him, staring curiously through those speckled eyes. But he couldn’t say for sure. The more he looked at it, the blurrier it grew, until it was a mirage at his feet.

  They walked uphill. This time, the Subura was different. He no longer noticed the riot of people, the gleaming cups and wreaths. The snores that rose from behind paving stones, the puddles of wine and fouler fare, didn’t capture his attention. What he saw, for the first time, were the lares. They were everywhere. Dark geniuses of the city, crawling and floating and making their inarticulate way through the dust. Salamanders slept in piles by the roadside shrines. A few intrepid ones had crawled into the basin and were lapping up the oil with pink tongues. But most of them snored at the base of the altar, rumbling as loud as the wagons that passed by. It was strange that he could hear their noises but not their speech. Perhaps the auditores, of which Felix spoke, could also see hints of them without perceiving the whole.

  The salamanders weren’t alone. Semitransparent things peeked over the rims of fountains, watching him with eyes like sallow green lamps. They were covered in bits of shell and long strands of kelp. Some of them had beards, where ghost crabs slept, claws twitching as they dreamed of underwater cloisters. The undinae swam in slow circles or crouched in the spray, following his progress silently. He looked up and realized that they were also a current of shadow, moving along the top of the great aqueduct. They bobbed and leapt in the channel of water, occasionally scurrying along the sides of the basin. Somehow they could cling to the stone without falling. It might have had something to do with their webbed hands.

  He saw a child standing in the mouth of an alley. He started to draw closer, but the salamander growled and stepped in front of him. The child’s face contorted, and he realized that it wasn’t human. It was made of some hard, striated substance, like petrified wood. It hissed at the salamander, then ran back down the alley, dragging its claws along the brick wall. He could hear their din, shrill at first, then receding, until the creature had vanished.

  Felix touched his shoulder. It startled him. The mask looked concerned.

  “You nearly wandered into the path of a litter. If you don’t keep your eyes on the road, you’ll be trampled.”

  “Sorry.” He swallowed. “I’m distracted.”

  “You can see them.”

  He nodded. “They’re all over the place. Why doesn’t anyone notice?”

  “People see what’s in front of them. The road. The bottegha with half-priced goods. They aren’t trained to notice spirits.”

  “It’s hard not to trip over them.” He glanced down another alley. “Some don’t appear to be friendly. Even the salamander is wary.”

  “Lares are territorial.”

  “Are they older than the city?”

  “Nobody knows their age. The ones you’re seeing might have been here since the beginning, when Anfractus was a collection of huts and fire pits. Or you could be looking at the grandchildren of those old ones. There’s no way to tell for sure.”

  “We could check their teeth. Doesn’t that work with horses?”

  Felix grinned. “You first.”

  As he watched, he realized that the lares had burrowed their way into human affairs. The salamanders gathered by forges, braziers, and the public baths. Where they slept, the fires burned hotter and brighter. The undinae crowded the fountains and slithered along the aqueduct. Their fins stirred up the water, keeping it clear of debris, encouraging the pipes to flow. He couldn’t quite tell what the petrified wood children were doing, but he imagined that it had something to do with the upkeep of the alleys. If Anfractus was the city of infinite alleys, then perhaps their task was the most essential of all. Not that he wanted to meet one up close. Their claws could crack bone as easily as brick.

  He saw the smoke as it moved on gray paws, high above the insulae. The pigeons watched as well from their aeries, fluttering nervously at the massing clouds. There was something inside the smoke. A glimmering piece of network, a cluster of red-rimmed eyes that saw him, not just as he was, but as he might be.

  Don’t look, the pigeons said. Tend your own nest.

  But he had to look. And the smoke grew darker, until it was a dragon, yawning oblivion as it watched him from above. Its scales were filth and torpor, rubbing against blackened chimneys, gleaming with night soil. And yet there was something beautiful about it, the glide of its disaster, the tail of ash and lucre. The eyes flamed, every scale an eye, until the mist was all that he had ever known. He heard something, but whether it was a word or an old spark coming to life in the heart of the cumulus, he couldn’t say.

  “What are you looking at?”

  He realized that Felix was staring at him, along with a few strangers. He was standing dangerously close to the middle of the road. He shook his head, as if to clear it. Then he stepped back onto the curb.

  “Ghosts,” he said. “I think.”

  “You can see them?”

  For the first time, he heard real fear. It wasn’t the mask talking. Felix himself was looking out from the plane of silver. His ey
es were slightly wide. For a moment, he was a child, asking whether dragons slept under the bed.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Nothing is clear. I feel as if I’m learning to see for the first time. Maybe it’s like building a muscle. The salamanders are bright. The swimmers and the children with knives for fingernails—they’re less distinct.”

  “And what of—” He looked up, wordlessly.

  “Smoke. The breath of the city. That’s all it is.”

  “You’re certain.”

  “No,” he murmured. “I wish that I were.”

  “Some people think that they never left—the lares of the air. That they’ve merely been biding their time, watching us from above.”

  He looked up again, but the dragon’s shadow was gone. All he could see was the ashen halo, a black curtain brushing the tallest buildings. The salamander had paused next to him. It also watched the sky, and its expression remained impossible to read. It seemed to be looking back through time, to a much older skyline. Beginnings and endings collided within its gold irises, half-lines of verse that were balanced by a cut, so neither could devour the other. Sadness rose from the bitter, burned caesura. Somewhere along that cruel staff, which had witnessed suns of a different color, the lizard saw its own end. Just another pause in this pale yard, where they all waited for the smoke to make its move.

  “And she wants to bring them back?”

  Felix nodded. “She aims to make a deal. She’s forgotten that you can’t bargain with something that hates you.”

  “What about the giant goats?”

  “The silenoi? They’re hungry and impatient. They don’t realize it yet, but she’s backed them into a corner.”

  Violets were blooming around them. The path sloped sharply upward as they approached the arx. He expected a steady stream of wagon traffic and opulent carriages, but the road was deserted. Figures in armor patrolled the margins. One of them noticed Felix and nodded. The meretrix raised his hand in greeting.

  “They haven’t yet figured out that they can’t trust me,” he said. “It’s the mask. It plays tricks on the best of them.”

  “How do I know it isn’t working on me?”

  “I suppose you can’t ever know for sure.”

  He frowned. “Maybe your intention is to betray us all—including Pendelia and Mardian. They don’t seem to trust you either.”

  “They trust my connections. All I am to them is a key.” He smiled. “If I bubbled them, I’d die horribly. Something long and imaginative. Spadones have a knack for torture.”

  “You could always escape. Through the house, or one of the alleys.”

  “All the alleys are connected. Mardian would find me, just as he found you, once. Besides. I’m not just protecting myself.”

  Before he had the chance to ask what this meant, they reached the entrance. Miles stood by the painted doors, their bronze armor gleaming in the half-light. Red-and-white horseshoe arches supported the gate, forming an ingenious vault that was carved with braided designs. The geometric shapes made him dizzy for a moment, but he recovered. The trick was not to stare at them directly. Like the smoke, they had to be met with a kind of deference. Salamanders lazed at the foot of the arches, watching him absently. One of them was practically touching the sandal of a nearby miles. What was it like, standing adjacent to wonder, not seeing its pink tongue hovering next to your toenail?

  Beyond the miles, he saw a snaking corridor that seemed to end in sharp angles. He could hear nothing beyond it. Just the hiss of the lamps, swaying on their chains, and the rustling of brass scales whenever a guard moved. The doors were painted with hexagons, interlocking to form strange patterns that might have been animals or human faces.

  A woman in a plumed helmet stepped forward. Her hand rested on the pommel of her blade, which was carved with undinae. The likeness, he realized, was cheap.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Entertainment,” Felix said. “An oculus was requested.”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  Felix stiffened slightly. “The girl wants fireworks. Do you want to tell her that you’ve barred the oculus? Because she likes me, but she’ll feed you to the lampreys if you spoil this evening for her.”

  The miles looked uncertain. “I thought the lampreys died with her grandmother.”

  “They keep them in the carcer, in a lightless room. I’ve seen them.” Felix shivered. “It’s no way to meet the wheel, I can tell you that.”

  She looked again at him. “You can really do fireworks?”

  “Yes.” He tried to make it a statement, rather than a question.

  “Fine. Let’s see them.”

  “Right here?”

  “Good a place as any.”

  He stared at Felix. The mask said: I’ve done my job. This is on you.

  His salamander had wandered off. The one sleeping by her sandal was starting to rouse itself, though. It looked at him with one eye. He knelt down beside it. He drew an orange peel out of his tunica. Some of the fragrance, no doubt, would cleave to the blade. The salamander brightened when it saw the peel. He laid it on the ground. It sniffed the treat, then devoured it in a single bite. The miles swore softly. Although she couldn’t see the salamander, she’d definitely seen the peel vanish, as if the dust had swallowed it.

  “I’m not completely sure how this works,” he whispered, “but I’d be grateful if you could breathe a bit of fire. Just a little bit. I don’t want you to burn anything down. Even a smoke ring or two would—”

  The salamander belched.

  Flame scoured the spot directly in front of the miles, and she jumped back to avoid it. He smelled sulfur, and something that might have been undigested meat. Then the salamander, pleased with itself, curled into a burnished ball and went back to sleep. Its full stomach would no doubt bring pleasant dreams.

  “Fortuna’s cunny! That nearly singed me!”

  “They love oranges.” It was all he could think to say.

  “Satisfied?” Felix asked.

  The miles stepped aside. “Go ahead. But if the spado holds you up, don’t mention me. I’ve no desire to cross that mean little spider.”

  They walked past the gates and down the corridor. He looked up and saw archers poised in landings above. At every blind corner, a sagittarius waited, bow trained. They crouched in front of murder holes, and all he could see were the gleaming points of arrows, a cloud that might break open at any moment.

  “Was she talking about Mardian?” He tried to keep his voice down.

  “We’re well positioned. As long as nobody sounds the alarm, this could work.”

  “You don’t sound certain.”

  “Now I’m the one who’s distracted,” he murmured, glancing at the archers. “There are a million ways to die here.”

  “We got in too easily. That can’t be good.”

  “It’s not just the inside that I’m worried about. There are other dice in the cup.”

  “You mean—” He felt something in the pit of his stomach. “My old company.”

  Felix looked at him closely. “They’re strangers to you, now. It may not feel that way, but trust me. You’ve paid your debt to them.”

  Felix led him deeper into the arx. He marveled at the stalactite ceilings, where eyes both painted and real watched him from dizzying panels. Tapestries depicted Fortuna in all of her guises: masked, armed, locked in an embrace, reflecting bone. In the last image, she was a ragged fur, alone, clutching a bronze dagger. He looked down and realized that the salamander was still following them. It studied the tapestries, exhaling two thin plumes of smoke as it pondered the dance of Fortuna. There were no lares woven in the background, and he couldn’t tell if the lizard was slightly offended or not.

  Now he could hear voices. It might have been a party or a war council. He couldn’t make out what anyone was s
aying. They climbed a flight of stairs, which ended in a dirty clerestory, full of disused fountains with lion’s heads. There was a pile of frayed textiles in one corner, and something unidentifiable in the other, which smelled awful. He thought he could make out a few animal bones and small shadows moving in the margins, which were probably rats.

  “It’s not much,” Felix said, “but it offers a splendid view.”

  He looked down and realized that he could see into a grand chamber below. There was a throne in the center, attached to a metal cylinder that was currently raised about five feet off the ground. A woman sat on the pneumatic throne, and everyone was watching her while trying to appear as if they were occupied with other things. She wore a pearl diadem and a gold collar that caught the light of a hundred swinging lamps. Her expression was distant. Before he could examine her more closely, Felix pulled him toward the ruined fountain.

  “If she sees us,” he whispered, “we’re not getting out of here alive.”

  He knelt by the ledge. The chamber was crawling with miles and sagittarii. They were looking unsteadily at a group of creatures that gathered some distance away from the throne. Parts of them were vaguely human, although he couldn’t stop himself from staring at their cloven feet. One of them wore a heavy gold chain, and he was watching the woman with the pearl earrings, suspended in space. He felt as if he’d seen this monster—this silenus—before, but the details were only a faint impression. A memory of some other life. He knew that he should be frightened. They were surrounded, not just by blades and arrows, but by creatures who had stepped out of an ominous frieze. This was not his world, however much Felix told him otherwise. He had no idea what to do.

  But it wasn’t fear that he felt. It was a dark sense of excitement. He looked down at the salamander and saw that it too, was waiting. Its tail dusted the ground. Something was about to happen, and it was larger than him, larger than this gilded palace surrounded by violets and knives. He was a stone in someone else’s game, but for the first time, he could see the board clearly. The next move would change everything. He might not survive the glide across that dark space, but wasn’t it worth the risk? To be part of something primeval. To step into those tapestries, where even Fortuna herself was alone. Some part of him had always wanted this. He’d just never expected that it would happen next to a pile of bones and mouse droppings.