WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
Some folks requested I include a recap of Smoke and Stone. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want/need to. I have attempted to include enough refreshers throughout the book that you should be able to dive in without reading this. That said, if you want a quick refresher, here it is!
A Quick Refresher on Bastion.:
Surrounded by endless desert, sands stained red by the blood of billions, Bastion is the last city of man. Created by the gods, the city consists of concentric rings, each populated by a highly stratified caste. The closer one lives to the Gods at the centre, the more important one’s existence, the better one’s life.
The Loa, priests of the banished Mother Death, fight to free Bastion from the stone grip of the nahual. Unlike the nahualli, whose sorcery relies on narcotics, the Loa channel their blasphemous powers through stones and crystals, the very bones of the earth.
Crude and uneducated, the Growers of the outermost ring work the fields and farms that feed all the city. Bound by the laws laid out in the Book of Bastion, they live hard lives with few luxuries. Considered too stupid to raise their own children, Grower babies are taken to crèches to be raised by the nahual of Her Skirt is Stars, the god of childbirth.
In the next ring inward, the Crafters take the raw materials supplied by the Growers and fashion them into the clothes, tools, and meals that keep Bastion functioning. Compared to the Growers, the Crafters live relatively easy lives. They learn trades, earn money, and are allowed to raise their own children.
The Senators’ Ring is home to Bastion’s lawmakers.
The Bankers’ Ring is responsible for the city’s economy.
The nahual of the Priests’ Ring are responsible for enforcing the holy scriptures of the Book of Bastion and shepherding all the city’s souls.
The Gods’ Ring at Bastion’s heart is home to the gods. They rarely venture forth. Only the Heart’s Mirror—the Voice of the Gods, and High Priest of whichever god currently rules the pantheon—is permitted entrance.
The Story So Far…
Born to the wealth and comfort of the Priests’ Ring, Akachi was sent to Bastion’s outermost ring to train as a nahualli, a sorcerous priest. After five years in the Northern Cathedral, studying as an acolyte, he is now a nahual of Cloud Serpent, the Lord of the Hunt. Yet he still lives in the shadow of his disappointed father, Cloud Serpent’s High Priest.
For reasons unknown to Akachi, Bishop Zalika chooses him to reopen a long-abandoned church in the Wheat District, one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the Growers’ Ring. In recent months she’s sent half a dozen priests to the church. All have been assassinated by Loa heretics.
Assigned a squad of Hummingbird Guard led by the indomitable Captain Yejide, Akachi is attacked en route by a mob of filthy Growers, or ‘Dirts,’ as Yejide calls them. Barely escaping with his life, Akachi arrives at the Cloud Serpent church to find it in a horrible state of disrepair.
Nuru, born to the poverty and despair of the Growers’ Ring, is a street-sorcerer in the Wheat District. She lives with the boys she grew up with in the crèche. Chisulo, with his need to always do the right thing, is the gang’s leader. Bomani loves a drunken brawl more than anything. Omari, the gang’s Finger, is a talented thief. The massively muscled Happy wants nothing more than to sit on his stolen box and drink whatever concoctions Nuru has brewed. Scarred Efra, a diminutive woman with a quick temper and penchant for violence, exists on the periphery of the gang. Not quite one of them, she disappears for days on end, often returning looking like she lost a fight with a rabid cat. Together, they hold three streets of turf, dealing forbidden narcotics grown in plots hidden in the fields beyond the district’s tenements. Haunted by dreams of a colossal spider with the body of a beautiful woman, Nuru plans to carve the thing from her nightmares. She hopes to use her power as a nagual—a shape-shifting sorcerer—to become the creature. Unfortunately, as a Grower, Nuru has no access to the tools and paints required to complete such a difficult carving. She becomes increasingly sure Efra will play a part in acquiring what she needs.
When Bomani is murdered by Fadil, the leader of a competing gang, and Efra is taken hostage, Nuru sees her hopes of completing the carving in danger. She and her boys rush to save Efra. They find her beaten and bloodied, but hardly broken. After, Nuru doses Efra with a blend of narcotics so she may walk in her dreams, learn more of this dangerous woman. She discovers that Smoking Mirror, Bastions god of discord, has taken an interest in Efra. Trapping Nuru in the dream-world, the god shows her glimpses of a possible future. The Loa heretics are inciting the Growers to rebellion. Soon, the Turquoise Serpents—Southern Hummingbird’s elite warrior priests—will come to the outer ring to crush the Dirts. She sees a city blanketed in ash, the fields burning. The slaughter will be terrible.
Protect Efra, Smoking Mirror commands Nuru, or Bastion will fall.
During Akachi’s first night in Cloud Serpent’s church, he dreams of a scarred girl. She will bring death and ruin to beautiful Bastion. It is, he realizes, a vision sent by his god. As a priest of the Lord of the Hunt, he must track this woman, stop her before she destroys the city. While searching the district for the scarred girl, one of Akachi’s Hummingbird Guards is attacked and wounded by a drunken Grower. The Book of Bastion states that any attack against a nahual is punishable by death on the altar. After sacrificing the man, a horrendous and scarring event, Akachi learns the true cost of his responsibility. Feeling stained, somehow lessened by what should have been a holy experience, Akachi turns to his narcotics to escape. He walks the dreams of the local Growers, hoping to find the scarred girl.
Saddened by Bomani’s death and knowing it was her fault, Nuru brings the gang together in a spiritual ritual of healing. For the first time including Efra, she hopes to bind the woman to her purpose. During the ritual Nuru shows her friends the carving she cannot complete. She explains her need for proper tools, all of which are forbidden to Growers. The gang discover themselves confronted by a temple-trained Cloud Serpent nahualli. The sorcerous priest wrestles control of the dream-world from Nuru. Omari is gravely wounded during the fight. Bearing the mark of Smoking Mirror, a rectangle of solid black tattooed on the inside of one wrist, Efra banishes the nahualli from the dream-world.
Knowing they are hunted by a priest of Cloud Serpent, Efra forms a desperate plan. She and Nuru will journey to the Crafters’ Ring—which is strictly forbidden by the Book of Bastion—to steal the tools Nuru needs. Omari remains unconscious, beyond the reach of Nuru’s sorcery.
Garrotting a couple of Crafters for their clothes, the two women enter the Crafters’ Ring and steal the tools and paints. They leave behind a trail of corpses as Efra is unwilling to chance being caught. Where Efra is untouched by the deaths, each is a wound in Nuru’s soul. Though she tells herself she needs these tools to save her friends, the cost is too high.
Finding the ignorant Dirts in the dream-world, Akachi is stunned when the scarred woman defeats him. Knowing his prey is close, he commands his squad of Hummingbird Guard to do a door-to-door search. Ignoring Captain Yejide’s warning that the district is too dangerous, he splits the squad up to cover more ground.
Loa assassins ambush Akachi and Yejide with their blasphemous sorcery. Several squad members are slain. Though he survives the attack, Akachi does not escape unscathed. Touched by amethyst, the stone of self-destruction, he plummets into depression. Fleeing his responsibilities and the awful cost of his choices, Akachi turns to narcotics, walking the edge of brain-burn. Hallucinating uncontrollably, he visits the underworld. He witnesses the assassination of the leader of the pantheon, Father Death, at the hands of the Loa. A new godling is born, Face Painted with Bells, and she holds the realm of the dead, awaiting the return of Mother Death.