Do all the gods hunt us? Have we united them in purpose?
“Do you think word has spread?” Nuru asked. “Will all the nahual be looking for us?”
Efra tilted her head in thought. With a finger, she traced the scar from one temple, through her lips, to the opposite side of her chin. “No,” she said. “If the gods aren’t already at war, they will be soon.”
“They will wage war on Mother Death.”
Efra glanced up the steps to where the tenement above grew brighter with the rising sun. “You’re wrong. It isn’t us against them.”
“No?”
“It’s everyone against everyone.”
Nuru squinted at Efra, trying to read some hint of expression. “How do you know?”
“Smoking Mirror spoke to me. Stone and smoke and sand.” She shuddered. “I dreamt mirrored black, slicked in blood. A war of dead, and a burning night sky.”
The Obsidian Lord speaks to her.
From anyone else it would have been a lie, or insanity. With Efra, Nuru had no choice but to believe her. She’d walked the woman’s dreams, witnessed Smoking Mirror show Efra flashes of possible futures. The god had confronted Nuru there, held her trapped in Efra’s dream-world. She is my Heart, he said. Protect her or Bastion falls.
That had been before Nuru finished the carving of Mother Death.
Had Smoking Mirror not known what Nuru worked at?
What if I was wrong? What if Mother Death wasn’t part of Father Discord’s plan at all?
Nuru had assumed the god knew everything, was somehow behind Mother Death’s return to Bastion, but Smoking Mirror made no mention of the banished god.
What if he hadn’t known? Could Mother Death be manipulating Smoking Mirror?
That felt wrong. The nahual often spoke of the Obsidian Lord as an ancient trickster and master manipulator whereas Mother Death was only ever spoken of in tones of horror and fear. She wasn’t subtle. She brought death and destruction.
Back before she began carving the god, Nuru had known, deep in her bones, that Efra was important. She remembered feeling that Bastion would somehow provide an answer and Efra would play a part.
And Efra had. She got them into the Crafters’ Ring. She got Nuru the tools and paints to complete the carving.
Was that Mother Death influencing my decisions?
She recalled the rush of fear when she learned Fadil’s gang took Efra, the panic that her one chance at completing her carving might be taken away. She pushed Chisulo to charge off and rescue the girl even though Efra was barely part of the gang.
After, Efra somehow became a central figure, even taking command and giving orders.
We went to see the Artist because of Efra.
That had been her decision.
Nuru’s friends died because of Efra.
No!
Nuru crushed the spiralling anxiety. That wasn’t all Efra’s fault. She was being unfair, blaming the girl for things no one could have foreseen.
She is my Heart, Father Discord said of Efra.
Am I with Efra because this is where Mother Death wants me, or because this is where Smoking Mirror wants Efra?
Nuru’s mind reeled, flitting from possibility to ever more outrageous possibility. And yet, no matter how insane it all felt, at least two gods had entwined themselves in her life.
What wasn’t possible?
Mother Death, the banished Queen of Bastion, was deranged from countless millennium spent scrounging an existence beyond Bastion’s Sand Wall. She survived by devouring lesser gods and the souls of those cast from the city. But she was ancient. Ancient beyond even the other gods if the Loa were to be believed. Nothing survived that long without some deep cleverness.
She is my Heart. What did that mean? It sounded like the Obsidian Lord chose Efra for something. Protect her or Bastion falls. Was that still true? Had it ever been true, or had the god lied?
Whatever Father Discord was up to, he wasn’t finished. A shiver of terror ran through Nuru. Every Grower knew better than to draw the attention of the nahual. How much worse was it to be the focus of a god?
Efra stood waiting. Her words sank in.
“Everyone against everyone?” Nuru asked.
“The gods are at war, but they can’t fight each other for fear of destroying the city.” Efra turned to face Nuru, eyes like shards of shattered glass in the dark. “We are their weapons. They fight through us.”
“To what end?”
Efra hesitated. “Father Death is dead.”
The Lord dead? Impossible!
“How do you know that?”
Efra waved away the question. “The gods war to see who will replace him. The winner will be the new head of the pantheon. Either everything changes, or we’ll see another ten thousand years of the same.”
“Smoking Mirror told you this?”
“Maybe.”
Maybe?
“Did he mention a god’s Heart?” Nuru asked.
“A what?” asked Efra, looking bewildered. “Heart? I don’t think they’re flesh and blood like us.”
“Something I heard once from a nahual,” lied Nuru.
“Either way,” continued Efra, giving Nuru a confused look, “it means the gods are not a united front. They have bigger problems than two Dirt girls.”
Nuru was less sure.
Efra saw her doubt. “The fields are burning. The Growers riot in the streets. If the nahual don’t regain control, the whole city will burn or starve, or both.” As if eager to be moving, she looked over her shoulder, up the worn steps. “If they regain control, nothing changes. Growers work the fields. Bastion continues stagnating.”
If we win everyone starves and dies?
“How do you know that?” Nuru repeated.
“Smoking Mirror showed me,” she said, voice devoid of emotion. “Sin Eater wants to crush the Growers and Crafters, bleed them of temptation. Enforced purity, flawless adherence to the Book. Lashes for unclean hands and stained thobes. Daily confessions. Whippings for impure thoughts. Hobbling. Breaking bones. Driving tiny spears of wood through the corner of the eye to lance sin at the source. There are plants that will lock you inside yourself, make you empty and obedient, the perfect Dirt. Sin Eater is obsessed with purity. His nahual will devour our flaws, free us from the freedom to make mistakes.”
Father Discord said all this?
A scream echoed down the steps.
“Maybe we should stay here,” said Nuru.
Her world was dead, gone from her. Or maybe she was gone from it. She couldn’t tell. Somehow, when she and Efra passed through the Grey Wall into the Crafters’ Ring, they broke something ancient and precious. When they re-entered the Growers’ Ring, it wasn’t the world they knew. It was smaller, greyer.
We left one reality and returned to another.
Everything that happened after—the deaths of her friends, the fighting and rioting in the streets, the fields burning, Mother Death—it was all Nuru’s fault.
They broke the laws of nature, the rules of the world. They did the forbidden and Bastion paid a terrible price.
We never should have left.
Offering Nuru a hand, Efra pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go. It’s getting louder up there.”
She was right.
“Isabis,” said Nuru, tuning to squint into the dark corners of the room, searching for her snake.