Bastion burned.
A pall of smoke bruised the sky. It looked solid, a reverse landscape of blue-stained grey. Hills and mountains stabbed down toward the earth. It felt like he might reach up and touch them. Fat flakes of ash fell, blanketing the world in heavy silence.
It’s a god, hanging over the city, devouring all sound.
Was there a god of smoke? Searching his memory, he found nothing. Many carried smoke-related references—Smoking Mirror, and the like—but no god claimed smoke itself.
‘The Heart’s Mirror is dead,’ Cloud Serpent had said as Akachi bled out on the altar. ‘Assassinated. Father Death has fallen. The pantheon has no leader.’
Akachi witnessed The Lord’s demise at the hands of the upstart godling, Face Painted with Bells, during his hallucinatory journey into Father Death’s domain.
Was that yesterday? Two days ago? Three?
Time was mud.
Standing sheltered in the doorway, gazing into the filthy streets of the Wheat District, the church behind Akachi felt like a waiting grave.
The Hummingbird Guard Bishop Zalika sent to protect him were dead. Even Captain Yejide, who he thought he may have loved.
Did she love me?
No way to know.
Nothing but doubt. Not of his feelings, but of hers. She never expressed anything beyond a desire to protect him. That was her job, her god-given task. Sometimes, however, he’d swear she looked at him like he was more than an assignment.
Or was that pity?
He’d been spiralling toward brain-burn, heavily dosed on narcotics for days on end. That week was a blur of hallucinations and failure.
Maybe she thought him a fool.
Maybe I was.
Akachi stared into the ash.
Maybe I am.
But he still loved her, still carried her soul in the sacrificial dagger.
Maybe it doesn’t matter what she felt. Maybe it only matters what I feel.
They were all dead. Was it his fault? Could he have done things differently?
As Akachi lay on the sacrificial altar, feeding the gods, Cloud Serpent had come to him, a beautiful viper. The gods hadn’t seemed displeased.
What were a few lives to the Lord of the Hunt?
The god hollowed Akachi like a master craftsman carving a flute. He recalled feeling gutted of fear and doubt, every last emotion torn from him as Cloud Serpent filled him with divine purpose. The purpose remained. He knew what he had to do. While he still felt hollowed, it was a different kind of empty. A lonely empty.
The presence of Cloud Serpent was infinitely more addictive than any narcotic.
How many nahualli brain-burned on jainkoei, desperate to feel even a hint of their god’s attention?
Knowing exactly what your god required of you was one thing—a gift he never thought to achieve—but being the centre of divine attention was unlike anything Akachi ever felt. He would do anything to have that again.
The feeling was difficult to describe, impossible to define.
Aspects of it mirrored some of what Akachi felt for Yejide.
Was it a kind of love?
Or perhaps need?
Did it matter? Was there a difference?
He didn’t know, couldn’t tell.
I love Yejide and I need her.
Could you have one without the other?
She didn’t need me.
No. She did not. Captain Yejide didn’t need anyone. She was strong. So strong.
Did that mean she didn’t love him?
“You’re stalling,” Akachi whispered.
Cloud Serpent had come to Akachi, manifested here in this church. And then there was the dream last night. The two felt completely different. Why hadn’t the god told him everything when he was here?
Had Akachi misunderstood? Was that not a message from the Lord of the Hunt?
No pactonal, no matter how skilled, could have fooled him so completely. It was a proper vision, a divine sending. It had to be.
The subtle change in message, however, haunted him. Who was the real threat, Nuru, or Efra? The answer seemed obvious. Nuru was a street-sorcerer, and Heart of Mother Death. Surely that banished god’s return, and the resulting rise of the Loa, was more dangerous than some scarred Dirt with no sorcery. As Smoking Mirror’s Heart, Efra had to die. In the end, only one Heart could remain and ascend to become Heart’s Mirror. But at least the Obsidian Lord was a part of Bastion’s pantheon.
Smoking Mirror’s choice baffled Akachi. It made no sense. The girl was nothing!
Reaching his ruined hand beyond the shelter of his church, Akachi watched flakes of ash gather in his palm. The air stank, clawed the back of his throat leaving it raw. He felt like he’d caught one of those colds that occasionally swept through the cramped acolyte dormitories of the Northern Cathedral. In the distance, a muted scream of agony, cut short, killed the beautiful silence. Great billowing clouds of smoke rolled down streets and alleys, cutting visibility to a score of strides. Shapes moved closer, staggering or sprinting. Fighting.
Voices raised in anger, incomprehensible bellowing, followed by more screams.
Jumoke approached to stand behind Akachi. “Pastor, you should return inside,” he said. “The Growers are rioting. If they see you…”
Wiping his ash-stained hand on his robes, Akachi re-entered the church. A smear of grey cut through the red, white, and black bands of his vestments. A flash of dull anger, quick to fade.
The Heart of Cloud Serpent should be immune to filth.
He wasn’t.
Soon, he’d venture out into the smoke and soot.
“Perhaps,” said Jumoke, as if reading his thoughts, “you should wait for things to settle down.”
What should he tell the young acolyte?
“I must report to the Northern Cathedral,” said Akachi. “Bastion is in danger. Mother Death has gained a foothold in the city. Her Heart is here. The Loa will rally behind the street-sorcerer. The Hummingbird Guard will not be enough to hold the ring.” He recalled his dream of Southern Hummingbird’s elite troops. “We need the Turquoise Serpents. All of them. The Dirts must be pacified.”
Jumoke glanced past him, frowning in distaste at the world beyond. “It’s too dangerous. Once the smoke clears the Growers will return to their tenements. Invisibility emboldens the criminals among them.”
“Fetch my narcotics,” Akachi commanded. “Whatever is left.”
He prayed there’d be enough to allow him to thin the veil and reach his spirit animals. Flying to the Northern Cathedral would be faster and safer than walking.
Dipping a quick bow, Jumoke bustled off to the chambers at the rear of the church. Though only a year or two younger than Akachi, he seemed like a child. There was a wide-eyed innocence to the boy that miraculously survived the events of the last week.
He didn’t see what I saw.
The acolyte hadn’t witnessed the horrors, the violence and murder. He hadn’t seen Mother Death standing in Bastion’s holy streets. Akachi had left with Captain Yejide and the surviving Hummingbirds to question the Dirt known as the Artist. He returned alone, splashed in blood and on the brink of death.
It seemed so unreal.
The burning itch returned in his fingers and he scratched at it without thought, startled to again discover them missing. Cloud Serpent healed the killing wounds in Akachi’s chest and left him with this reminder. Why, Akachi wasn’t sure. He had no doubt the god could have made him whole, could have healed the lost fingers.