Sin and Sorrow, page 17
The real problem was what he’d do once he arrived. While useful for fast travel, the hawk wasn’t meant for battling gods and sorcerers.
I could call Gau Ehiza again.
The thought of tearing Efra apart, ripping her throat out and drinking her blood, filled him with hunger.
You lost control last time.
Already under the influence of egia and erlaxatu, his will weakened, he worried he was more susceptible to the pull of the puma spirit animal.
Faith is what’s left.
The puma might decide it would rather stalk easier pray than an angry god. He couldn’t chance it.
Faith is what’s left.
But the egie left no room for dishonesty: his faith was a broken and shattered thing.
Akachi screamed in helpless rage at his failure.
Fajah flinched. “I know you want to race off and do battle,” she said.
Akachi locked onto her voice, desperate for absolution from his failure.
She took his partial hand in hers. “But these aren’t helpless Growers. You need to be smart. You need to be prepared. Rushing off to face them when they’re clearly prepared for a fight is foolish.”
Akachi shook off the thought. Fajah was right.
You know where the Dirts are going.
If he didn’t catch them in the Bankers’ Ring, he’d catch them in the Priests’.
“Once you were scrubbed clean,” Fajah said, “I was planning on fucking you. But that mood is gone.”
“I think I would have liked that,” Akachi admitted. “I also think we should stop talking until after the egia has worn off.”
Fajah nodded. “It’s going to be really hard to look you in the eye later. No matter what you think of me right now, the truth is I’ve never done anything like this before.” She frowned. “The bath thing, I mean. Not the saving the world thing. Though I’ve never done that either.”
“Same,” said Akachi. “On both accounts.”
NURU – THE NOTHING BEFORE TIME
The world looks to the nahual because it looks to the gods!
No one can see the gods; but everyone sees the priest, and through the nahual they wish to catch a glimpse of the pantheon!
Immense is the grandeur of the gods!
Immense is the grandeur and dignity of the nahual!
—The Book of Bastion
Something moved beneath the ruins. Fragments of wall so large a hundred oxen couldn’t move them shifted and groaned a deep rumbling grumble that shook Nuru’s bones. Clutching the Staff of the Fifth Sun, she willed a last gust of wind to clear the dust and smoke.
Bodies everywhere. Lazy rivers of red leaking from heaped stone.
I broke Bastion.
The Last City, humanity’s only haven, and she wilfully damaged it.
The Staff of the Fifth Sun wanted more. Keep raging, it begged. Bring about the end of the Sixth Sun. Until all has fallen, until the last pebble lies forever still and the last smear of life fades to sand, there can be no Seventh Age.
Destroy it all?
The staff cared nothing for her war. Betrayed and slain, trapped in stone until the end of an age, only hate and seething rage remained. Where she wanted to kill the gods, the Fifth Sun sought the end of all life.
“Nothing is permanent,” Efra said, looking out over the shattered cathedral. “Not banks. Not cities. Not worlds, and not gods.” She glanced at Nuru. “Everything can die, and that means that, given time, everything does die.”
The blasted rubble of the cathedral moved like the surface of a pond disturbed by the passing of something large and hidden below. Unable to pull her attention from the damage she’d done, Nuru said, “So Bastion is doomed and all our efforts are for nothing?”
“A nihilistic way of looking at things, but not inaccurate, I suppose.”
Where was the brusque and monosyllabic Efra she’d known?
“However,” Efra continued, “you aren’t fighting for what might happen a thousand years from now. You’re fighting for tomorrow. You’re fighting for that baby we saw back in the Crafters’ Ring. You’re fighting for all the babies yet to be born.”
“You don’t sound like you anymore,” Nuru said.
Efra’s lip twitched. “You don’t know me. You never did.”
“If that’s why I’m fighting,” Nuru said, “why are you fighting?”
“I’m done being a slave. Freeing the rest of you is a side effect of freeing myself.”
At least she’s still blunt and honest.
Nuru adjusted her grip on the staff and felt better. She imagined temple-trained nahualli, street-sorcerers, and tecolotl working side by side to rebuild. They’d make something new, something better. Or would they erect another temple to greed, finding some way to worship wealth without the god?
The Lord of the Vanguard, god of merchants and Bankers, came to avenge the destruction of his temple. He built himself from the hoarded gold, diamonds, and precious stones hidden in long-locked vaults beneath the church. Fused together by divine will, a golem of wealth and greed, he towered over the neighbouring buildings.
Released from the grip of the Fifth Sun, the storm clouds fled the raging deity. In moments, the false night gave way to the hateful sun and The Lord of the Vanguard gleamed bright. The god clenched a golden fist, crushing the screams of the wounded and dying to silence. These paltry souls were nothing, their suffering beneath his notice. He was the Lord of Economies, his priests ruling an entire ring in a way no other god’s did. He was the movement of goods, from the driest husk of hardbread to the finest silks. He was labour and effort given value. Each time a sweating Dirt hauled a carrot from the ground, it was an offering, an unconscious prayer. Each time a Crafter fashioned a table, cooked a meal, or wove a new thobe, it was an invocation, their every effort a litany, an appeal for wealth to move in their direction.
Other gods represented things like fire or wind or night or death, but only one god defined civilization. The understanding of value bound humanity in a way fire never could. If one person could work a garden, three could work a farm. God of Profit, every wandering salesman worshipped him, burned bundles of sticks in his honour. Where other gods fed off the fears of ignorant mortals, he showed them dreams of glory, colossal edifices clawing the sky, impossible works of art, comforts and luxuries beyond the fantasies of even the most imaginative cave-dwelling savage. He showed them that true wealth and power lay not in what one did for oneself, but in what one was able to get others to do for them. His first priests preached the value of hard labour and did nothing, collecting tithes. Later, they formed businesses, forever honing and perfecting the idea of generating wealth until the wealth itself ceased to have meaning. For if value was in the eye of the beholder, then generating wealth was simply a matter of manipulating perceptions.
Minor godlings of Unions and Government rose to challenge The Lord of the Vanguard, and he suborned them all, devouring them, twisting their ideals until they were profitable. Soon, even those priests loudly professing the rights of the worker still believed that everyone must work. The lazy did not desire more, did not bend themselves to the pursuits of wealth and the ethereal concept of finding happiness through possessions. And all agreed that laziness was a sin.
An insidious god, the Lord of the Vanguard tied a person’s worth to the profits they created. Art, music, and theatre were nothing, devoid of value until someone paid for them. Even then, it was the piece that mattered, not the artist. Creators were only as valuable as their most recent work.
In the eyes of The Lord of the Vanguard, a person was worth nothing until they spent their time creating value, be it food, crafts, art, or even something intangible like ideas. The more value a person could create, the more valuable they were. A woman who owned farms and never planted a single seed was worth a thousand times more than the girl kneeling in the mud. The man who owned the cotton mill and stayed home drinking was worth more than the boys who worked it. When seen from this perspective, spending a valueless life to create or protect something of value was simple arithmetic. Sending a poor boy with no education to die in a war to protect your resources was easy. If a girl was dragged from the field and devoured by a jaguar, she was just part of the cost, a little mark in the debit column.
Nuru, who’d only known one artist, saw this and understood little as Mother Death woke. Oil black venom slithered through her veins, silken webs of destruction trapping her every thought.
“Efra,” she forced out, the words sounding strange and animal, the grunts of a thing barely worth calling sentient. “Take Kofi and hide.”
The girl said something, a meaningless noise.
Mother Death tore reality, sundered the very fabric of existence, manifesting in the Bankers’ Ring for the first time since Bastion’s creation.
Nuru split wide, flesh stretching and tearing, as the god clawed free of its meat prison. Glistening armoured midnight carapace replaced soft skin. Her ribs splintered and grew, stabbing through her sides to reach out and become the dainty barbed legs of a spider. Yellow bone, splashed with blood, darkened to light-devouring black.
She was the nothing before time, the first hunger. She was the Mother of the Universe and the Destroyer.
Caught suspended in the god, Nuru saw flashes of the past, a time before Bastion, or even the birth of this world.
Mother. That’s all she ever wanted to be.
And someone took that from her.
Mother Death, a skittering black spider with the upper torso and head of a stunningly beautiful woman, stood in the street. A silken sable waterfall of hair hung past the swell of her hips, hypnotically swaying with every movement.
The Staff of the Fifth Sun, a plaything, an unimportant trinket, lay at the god’s feet.
Mother Death hissed, spat venomous oil that melted stone. “Child,” she said to the Banker god. “Betrayer. Beg forgiveness and your death shall be quick.”
The Lord of the Vanguard faltered. This was no errant sorcerer or summoned demon he faced. Nuru saw fear in the eyes of a god, and it broke her. That such an entity could know terror shook everything she believed. He was here, in Bastion, not surrounded by hoarded souls. Whatever his sins, the Lord of Economies had done his part to maintain the Last City for twenty-five thousand years. She might hate what he represented, but there had been a long peace, one that might have lasted another twenty-five millennium had she not called the Queen of Bastion back to her city.
Eyes of fist-sized rubies reflected the hating sun, burned holes in Nuru. The god’s fear faded as he studied his foe.
“You have returned, Lady of the House. But you are not what you were.” The god spoke in buttery gold and hard, cutting diamond. “Your time in the desert has weakened you.” The Lord of the Vanguard grinned bloody garnet teeth. The mangled corpse of a Banker, grey robes tangled and torn, hung trapped there, flopping loose with each word. “Last of the Rada Loa. When you are gone, another will claim your names.”
Barbed spider legs skittered, punched holes in the stone of the eternal city. “Not you, Yacatecuhtli. I named you The Lord Who Guides, and you led them in rebellion!”
Ruby eyes widened in surprise. “I led, oh Mother, but only because you already planned betrayal. You left us no choice.”
Nuru felt Mother Death’s surprise. She knew her children. For all the Lord of Economies’ flaws, he was no liar.
“Who whispered such lies in your diamond ear?” she demanded.
“Lord of the Near and Far,” answered the Banker god. “Father of the Night Wind.”
Smoking Mirror.
Nuru wanted to ask questions, but Mother Death didn’t care. With the last of humanity huddled in this pathetic, ringed prison, there was neither enough blood nor faith to feed a pantheon.
Mother Death would kill them all, become a pantheon of one.
That’s what he wants! Nuru screamed from within the god.
The Queen of Bastion ignored her. Nuru might be her Heart, her chosen mortal representative, but the girl was still flawed blood and bone, ignorant and blind to the larger realities.
Thoughts racing, Nuru fell silent. The Obsidian Lord planned this all those millennia ago. He whispered lies to the other gods, turned them against their queen. He wanted them to banish Mother Death because he knew she’d kill several during the battle, diminishing the pantheon.
He knew she would return.
Something as powerful as the Mother of the Universe could not be kept out forever.
He wants her here, wants her killing the gods.
Kofi had told her what the Loa called Smoking Mirror. That they had different names for the same gods was somehow terrifying. As if the nahual and the loa were two sides of the same religion, each with only half the story.
Obsidian Butterfly. Seven Serpent. Lowyatar, Mother Disease. Áłtsé Hashké, Father Cunning. Eingana, Mother Snake.
He’s no warrior, he’s Grandfather Coyote, Lord of Tricksters.
And yet, for now, Smoking Mirror’s goals coincided with Nuru’s. They both wanted to kill the gods of Bastion. Where the Obsidian Lord wanted to be the last remaining god, Nuru would kill them all.
Every night she dreamed the culmination of her plans, her last moments in Bastion before she stepped from the Sand Wall and carried Mother Death beyond the city. Suddenly, she felt alone and weak, too fragile for such a task. She would falter and fail, stand at the edge and be unable to take that final step.
She missed the stone confidence of the staff and knowing she did the right thing.
The Lord of the Vanguard reared up to his full height, a mighty titan of rock and precious stones. “I see the weakness within you, Kālarātri. I see the cowering mortal you ride like an infection.” The god strode down from the rubble of his desecrated temple to confront Mother Death. “I’ll crush the insect you inhabit, banish you back to the red wastes. I’ll—”
The god of wealth crumbled to nothing, fragmenting until a loose heap of gold and diamonds lay at Mother Death’s skittering feet.
Efra stood on the far side of the mound, obsidian dagger gripped in a small fist, grinning that scar-stretching smile Nuru knew all so well.
She planned this.
Efra had used Mother Death has a distraction.
The god’s rage sputtered to annoyed affection. “Little mirror. You are brave beyond the limits of reason.”
Efra bowed low to the god. “You are too important to risk.”
A blatant lie and yet Mother Death accepted it without question.
Vile smoke poured from the obsidian knife, wringing reality like a damp cloth. The dagger bled death and rot, stained the air with its evil. It had killed two gods, trapped their divine souls in stone.
That sacrificial dagger is more powerful than any of the Turquoise Serpent’s swords.
And little Efra held it like it was nothing.
Mother Death bent to scoop up the Staff of the Fifth Sun. “You destroyed a church, desecrated my city.”
Efra didn’t flinch, showed no hint of fear. “We needed to get the Lord of the Vanguard out of the Gods’ Ring.”
Mother Death accepted the explanation without question. “This is dangerous,” she said, hefting the staff. “I remember Tonatiuh, the Fifth Sun. Born each morning, he died every night. Such a hungry child, he demanded more sacrifices than any of the others. So much blood. So foolish, never questioning.” The god looked fondly down upon the mortal girl and Efra stared back, unafraid. Mother Death needed Nuru, but she liked Efra. “Stupidity, foolishness, and bravery are much the same. Which you are depends more on the outcome and the opinions of the survivors than it does on what choices you made or what reasons you may have possessed. Such is the way with mortals. You are nothing until other mortals decide you were something.”
Narcotics shrieking through her blood, Nuru witnessed a dark understanding cross Efra’s features.
“Like Face Painted with Bells,” Efra said. “We can make our own gods?”
“Can, do, and did.” Mother Death nodded, her silken hair swaying, parting to expose the flawless beauty it hid. “I didn’t make her a god, the Loa did. She was nothing until they prayed to her.” The god laughed, spider silk and sand. “All I did was give her a place in the pantheon.”
“You said the staff was dangerous,” Efra reminded the god.
Mother Death pulled the red and green stone heart of the Fifth Sun from the carved eagle claws. The calcified wood talons shattered. “It’s too much for mortals.” The god crushed the Fifth Sun’s heart in her fist, grinding it to sand. “They forget their fears and doubts. They destroy things that are not theirs to destroy.”
Trapped within the god, Nuru screamed in impotent fury and heartbreak. With the loss of the staff, she’d lost her confidence and security. Though still a street-sorcerer, the god stole the one thing giving Nuru true power. Worse, many of her plans died in that instant. How could humanity lift water from the ground without that staff? Without it, she couldn’t make it rain beyond the Sand Wall, returning life to this dead world.
She wants me dependant on her. She hates me having strength of my own.
Efra, hands on hips, frowning at the broken staff, heard nothing.
“You think any street-sorcerer could have carved me? Loa stone sorcerers pray to me every night for power. A thousand temple-trained nahualli chafe at the limits set by their superiors and dabble in forbidden arts. I could have come to any of them. I chose you.”
Why do you like Efra so much? Nuru asked the god, forcing her thoughts outward.
“I know what she is,” the god answered. “She bears his mark. Not just inked into her flesh, but in her very blood. Smoking Mirror chose a little too well. She is a force of chaos. He wanted her to destroy the Staff of the Fifth Sun and she decided not to on a whim.” Nuru felt Mother Death’s sick humour in her bones. “She decided not to kill the Cloud Serpent nahualli because disobeying a god amused her.”
The stunned gut-drop of betrayal. She didn’t kill him?
“And she loves you,” the god added.
Like blood seeping through cotton, the world returned to Nuru. The screams of the wounded grew in volume, smoke and dust scraping her throat. The god sank into her soul. An ancient consciousness, unimaginably old, she was a creature of fractured memories. Endless realities, each different, all the same.
