Path of Smoke

At Plains University, they are graduate students.

But when they enter Wascana Park after midnight, they become something much more.

S
HELBY
is
M
ORGAN
,
a sagittarius, expert with bow and arrow.

I
NGRID
is
F
EL
,
a miles—a sword-wielding gladiator.

C
ARL
is
B
ABIECA
,
a trovador, skilled at music—and theft.

A
NDREW
was once
R
OLDAN
,
an auditor who specialized in combat magic.

At the university, their lives are dull and predictable. In the city of Anfractus, they use their wits, their skills, and their imaginations to live other exciting and sometimes dangerous lives.

And now that danger has followed them home. . . .

PRAISE FOR

PILE OF BONES

“An absorbing tale of role-playing, magic, and the danger that can ensue when the boundaries between the real and the make-believe disappear . . . Intelligent . . . [A] fascinating read.”

—
RT Book Reviews

Ace Books by Bailey Cunningham

PILE OF BONES

PATH OF SMOKE

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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PATH OF SMOKE

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2014 by Jes Battis.

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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-13970-1

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Ace mass-market edition / August 2014

Cover art by Gene Mollica.

Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For my father.
You gave me Walt Whitman, Annie Dillard,
Madeleine L'Engle, Leonard Cohen.
You offered me stories about brave rabbits
and drew me a secret map to a numbered island.
You bound my first book and read my raw stories.
You carved me a frog with my name on it.
There will never be enough coffees and drives
down the hill. I remember the day you let
go of the bike, and I flew, for the first time.
Thank you.

I'd like to thank the usual suspects for making this book possible. Mom, Dad, and Lee, thanks for your continual support. Medrie and Mark, thank you for your conversation and warm hospitality. Rowan, thanks for fixing my pumpkin. Bea and Danielle, thanks for the blue room. Marty and Jamie, thanks for the Christmas-light tour and for always being my compass points. Ken, thanks for wandering through the stacks with me (and for introducing me to dark elves). Melanie, thanks for the great conversations about writing and for inspiring me with your own work. Kathleen, thank you for the advice you've given me about teaching. I love how you see the world. Alexis, thanks for reminding me how cool the eighteenth century was (even with its nose problems). I'd also like to thank my students for getting me to think about
Beowulf
and other influential texts while I was writing this. And a final thank-you to the Green Spot Café in Regina, where I worked on the manuscript while slowly becoming addicted to their steamed bun and sour soup. On what felt like the coldest day of winter, the owner traced a heart on my coffee to warm me up.

Sometimes, it's the little things that give you the energy to keep going.

Most of the terminology in the book comes from ancient Latin. We have scant knowledge about how people in first-century Rome may have actually sounded, but classical linguists have done their best to reconstruct this. I base my own pronunciation on the recordings of Wakefield Foster and Stephen G. Daitz, which can be streamed here: www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Latin.htm.

The vowels
a
and
o
are generally long, while the short vowel
i
sounds like
EE
. The consonants
c
and
g
are always hard, as in
cat
or
gold
. The modern-day term
Sagittarius
would sound more like
sag-ee-TARR-ee-us
. The consonant
r
is rolled slightly when singular, and more strongly when doubled, like the Spanish or French
r
. The word
Anfractus
has a slight growl to it:
an-FRRAC-tus
. The
um
ending is nasal, resembling the French
u
. French would elide the final syllable, but in Latin, it's voiced. The consonant
j
more closely resembles
y
, so
Julia
becomes
Yulia
. The consonant
v
is never pronounced as a hard
v
, but rather as
w
or
iu
, which means that
impluvium
would sound like
im-PLOO-wee-um
. The only exception is
trovador
, which comes from Occitan rather than Latin.

I've tried to obey rules of grammatical gender and plurality, except in the case of
nemones
, an invented plural form of
nemo
.

H
E
SAT
IN
THE
window of the black basia, watching the Subura below. It was a hive of drunken people, sweating and belching and singing as they clogged the narrow streets. They were on the hunt for something that could only be found in this quarter. Nobody came here for the food. The alleys were a city of their own, full of treasures and bleak endings. A familiar alley might turn into a trap before your eyes. Anfractus never stayed the same for long, and the Subura was its dark heart. People came here in search of solace, odd miracles, and luck. The furs waited for them, clinging like moss to the stone walls. Their charms and delicate hooks could snag a purse in seconds. Babieca pulled his knees up to his chest. He could smell the fish sauce from the caupona across the street. The sky was beginning to darken.

He was only two stories up, but the fall would still break something. He loosened his grip on the sill. A trovador had once told him that you could sing yourself a staircase. Not a real staircase. More like one of the stone skyways that crisscrossed the horizon. If you sang the proper song, you could make the air thicken, just enough to support your weight. He swore that he'd seen someone do it. But he was a drunken senex, with very few teeth, and Babieca didn't trust what he said. A song like that would be something rare and dangerous. The notes would play you without mercy, and when it was done, you'd be someone else. Someone who knew how to walk on air.

“If you fall,” a voice said, “someone will have to settle your bill.”

Babieca climbed down and replaced the shutter. The street noise was muffled, but he could still hear it. He reached for the cup of wine that he'd left by the bed. It was made of cheap blue glass, although it bore a slight resemblance to a more expensive design. He drained the cup, then refilled it.

“You're the father of this house. Can't you forgive my debt?”

Felix paused in the act of fastening his sandals. “I suppose I could. It would make more sense to auction off your possessions, though. Your lute might be worth something.”

“It's got a crack.”

“Most things do.” He slipped on his tunica, dyed saffron and covered with rich panels of embroidery. “What about your cloak? That's worth something.”

Babieca shook his head. “I stole it. I liked the tigers dancing along the edges. They think they're real.”

“That wine is going to your head.”

“I know. That's the point.”

“Don't drink too much more. Aren't you supposed to be at the domina's party?”

“There's time.”

Felix sat on the edge of the bed. His mask was silver, and carved with things that Babieca couldn't quite make out. Wings, or olive branches, maybe.

“I've never seen you without that,” he said.

Felix looked at him curiously. “Of course you haven't. It's a part of me.”

“Maybe the only real part.”

“Watch yourself. I could have you barred from this house.”

“You wouldn't do that.”

“Care to try me?”

He approached the bed and took Felix's hand. His thumb traced the amethyst ring, carved to resemble Fortuna's wheel. “You wouldn't throw me to the furs.”

The meretrix looked at him for a moment. Then he took his hand away. “This won't happen again.”

“You've said that before.”

“I mean it this time.” Felix rose. “We have to stop.”

“Why?” Babieca drew closer. “What's the harm?”

“It's pointless.”

“It was fairly pointed a moment ago. Or have you forgotten?”

Felix adjusted his tunica. “It was a bad choice.”

“One that you keep making.”

“Babieca—”

He touched Felix's hair. It was slightly damp. “I think we fit.”

The mask regarded him. “Not with each other.”

Babieca's hand dropped. He was stung, but smiling. “I guess it's true what they say about meretrices being fickle.”

“You know it's not that.”

He sat on the bed, which still smelled like both of them. “Don't let me keep you. I'm sure you have several more cocks to fall on.”

“More like balancing the ledger.”

“How much for another hour?”

His eyes darkened. “Keep your coin.”

“No, truly—how much?”

Felix looked at him for a long moment. Then he left the room.

Babieca lay down. The sheets were patterned with small, indeterminate animals, leaping over thickets. Maybe they were foxes. Nothing seemed real, save for the odor of sweat, smoke, and grilled cabbage from the caupona below. He touched the pillow. It was unraveling in the corner. He didn't know what made him push Felix. Something about the mask, and the way it changed his eyes. The mask was naked—it was the rest of his body that remained hidden. Everyone knew this about meretrices, of course. Spadones were the only gens who were more accomplished at hiding their emotions. He imagined them playing Hazard, the eunuchs and the wolves, caught in a perpetual stalemate. Nobody blinking. The unwrinkled surface of their faces like blank papyrus.

What had brought them together? The first time seemed hazy around the edges, like a furtive moment stolen in the baths. It had been hot—that much he remembered. The paving stones had become coals, burning unprotected toes whenever someone slipped. Laughter, imprecations, the sour stink of wine. He'd run into Felix while heading toward a cell downstairs, the coin in his hand. He'd wanted a mouth to devour him, bones and all, spitting him out like an owl-pellet after it was done. Felix had appeared in the narrow door, hair slick with sweat, digging a rock out of his sandal. They were both wilting from the heat. Babieca had looked up at him, at his mask, glowing like metal from the forge. What was said? He could only remember a few scattered words.
Once.
That haunted him.
Once.
A promise and a threat. Felix had broken his word. Perhaps he'd intended to.

Babieca sipped the wine. Once, he had nearly fit someone else. He remembered a tongue like a lock-pick in his mouth, a charm to release the exhausted mechanism. There'd been a stone bed, a fox, a little death. Fortuna's mark on smooth skin. He looked down at his own thigh, smudged with dirt and sweat, but unmarked. No daub of paint. Had the river washed it away? He thought of the face, pale as boxwood. The expression of relief as every angle softened. Maybe all he'd ever wanted was silence. Babieca took another drink, but forgot that he was supine, and spilled some. Red droplets flushed to life against the fabric. They blurred the lines of the possible-fox, until it resembled a tinted shadow.

He was almost a meretrix himself. They shared a spoke on Fortuna's wheel. The irony was that meretrices—not the desperate pretenders who fucked unmasked in tiny cells, but those who belonged to a legitimate basia—were infinitely more respectable than him. A trovador was only as good as his next song, and he had no courtly connections to exploit. He was supposed to perform at Domina Pendelia's tonight, but only in the background. A trained monkey could do it. He got dressed, then hunted for his instrument. Sometimes, Felix would ask him to play.
Once.
A smile playing at the edge of his mask. He found the lute under the bed, next to its case. His thumb found the crack, the way a tongue would find a loose tooth. He traced the groove in the lacquered wood.

How did it happen?

The auditor loved to ask. Dozens of times, he'd asked, thinking that this time it would work. Babieca would smile slightly and look away.

I'll tell you when we're older.

The hardest thing hadn't been watching him drown. That happened too swiftly. He'd barely had time to wipe the blood from his eyes, and then he was surfacing. No. The hardest thing had been the ride back, their bodies lashed together by a belt. The feel of him, still slightly warm, but empty. His doll's head bobbing gently against Babieca's shoulder. And he wanted to hold the auditor in that safe little crook forever, but he wasn't holding anything. Just a lukewarm vessel whose contents had already begun to settle. He'd held on to the hand, regardless. The knuckle with its funny islet of bone, protruding slightly. Like the crack in the lute. He closed the case and swung it over his shoulder.

Maybe Felix and Drauca visited each room, making the beds together. They were called father and mother, after all. Some of their chores should be ordinary. He rubbed at the wine on the sheets but only succeeded in making it worse. Fortuna stared down at him from the mural above the bed. She was dancing with a silenus, who grasped at her silks. Babieca couldn't imagine a time when the silenoi had danced with anyone. He'd heard rumors that some of the basia were willing to service them, but that must have been a dangerous transaction. Sex with a homicidal goat. It would take an experienced mask to pull that off.

He slipped on his sandals, then grabbed the cup for good measure. The wine was too sweet, but he'd stopped discriminating a few cups ago. It occurred to him that he'd never seen Felix drinking at the basia. Nothing but water. He supposed it was safer to keep your wits about you. Still, there was something disconcerting about it. Like a host who remained forever lucid while his guests tore the walls down. He left through the narrow door. A man was passed out in the hallway, drooling thin ribbons of wine. Babieca saw a shadow in the corner. A fur, most likely. The shadow hesitated. They seemed to face each other for a moment, although he couldn't tell precisely what he was looking at.

Trovador and fur—different spokes, but irresistibly related to each other. The Fur Queen ruled the undercity from her hidden tower, its roots clutching the wreckage of Old Anfractus. The rest of the towers scraped the sky, but the Fur Queen's tower was sheathed to the hilt underground, hidden from view. A tree growing in reverse. Babieca started to say something, but the shadow was already gone.

At least they had a queen. Trovadores had nothing but a circle of pretenders, all claiming to be the “arch-bard” or some other ridiculous title. They lacked organization, connections, respectability. Their tower was an endless drunken song. Or so he'd heard. The gens wouldn't accept itinerant players. Only those with a reputation were allowed in, and Babieca was a nemo, an unknown.
Snap a string,
they'd say, whenever he tried knocking on the door. Now, at least, Morgan was in the same boat. The Gens of Sagittarii had repudiated her. They could be outcasts together, enjoying their shared marginality. Morgan, though, wasn't quite as serene about her exile. The spicy life of a jongleur was one thing—everyone talked about how exciting it must be—but there were no satisfying stories about homeless archers. Morgan had been the only die-carrying member of their false company. The most respectable among them. Now she was without a gens, and they were without an auditor.

He made his way down the corridor. It was getting dark, so he unhooked one of the bronze lamps and took it with him. It was shaped like a dwarf riding a giant cock. His expression, obscured by wear and drops of oil, was hard to read. Babieca thought that he would probably be more nervous to mount a giant phallus. Where would it take him? How would he steer? The dwarf's expression was placid, though, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.

Babieca descended a short flight of stairs, and then the corridor widened. He set down the lamp and walked toward a new source of light, until he found himself in the atrium of the black basia. The floor was covered in a mosaic of blue, green, and white tesserae. It depicted Fortuna as the mother-meretrix, spinning her wheel, as various couples danced beneath. The mosaic was tamer than the friezes, in which every possible act of love (and a few impossible ones) were displayed in vibrant colors. Even the lares were pictured, although nobody was quite sure how they mated. Salamanders joined tails, while undinae gathered in an underwater embrace, their ragged hair filled with shells and seaweed. Gnomoi kissed beneath the earth, like blind moles in love. Only a few people had ever seen a gnomo, so the depiction was a bit fanciful. They resembled pale children with long fingers, each ending in a claw that could scrape rock and sift through precious minerals.

The fourth family of lares—the caela—hovered in the borders. The artist had used dark tesserae, rendering them as clouds or scraps of mist. Nobody had seen one in centuries. They'd been included purely for the sake of continuity. Their eyes were voids. Babieca found it difficult to look at those pinpricks of plaster, holes in the world that threatened to devour him. Those eyes saw him for what he was, and for a moment they held him, pinioned to Fortuna's spinning wheel. He blinked and looked away. They weren't coming back anytime soon. They'd been gone when Anfractus was still a primitive settlement—a warren of huts, caves, and cook-fires.

The atrium was full of revelers, all wreathed and spilling wine on each other. He fit right in. A few of the more cautious ones stood against the pillars, nursing a glass of sweet hippocrene while they watched the festivities. He noticed more than a few women on the edges, carefully considering what they might want. Some were veiled, while others had trimmed their hair short, in the style of the female barbers who worked beneath the aqueduct. The women didn't drink nearly as much. They needed to remain on guard, even in a space as removed from the city as this. A delicate transaction always had the chance of turning deadly, and it was better to be armed. The meretrices carried numerous weapons—Felix had pointed a few of them out to him—and Babieca was amazed at how a comb, a necklace, or a ring could be transformed into a killing device. His own stubby gladius, barely a blade at all, seemed paltry in comparison. Poor old thing. He'd been meaning to replace it, but money was tight.

A spado passed him, wearing a mint-green tunica and an embroidered cap. His heart seized for a moment. But it wasn't Mardian. Just a smooth, round man with wispy blond hair, scanning the room with a practiced eye. His chin was bare, save for a few pale whiskers. Mardian was more solidly built. This one was a palace eunuch, perhaps one of Eumachia's retinue. Babieca imagined him tucking in the daughter of the basilissa, wishing her sweet dreams as he snuffed out the lamp by her bedside. Or maybe he sang to her in his sweet, trilling voice. A song about the Anfractus of memory, where salamanders danced in the streets and the fountains poured wine. There was no curfew, no hurried running for cover at sunset. The silenoi remained in the forest, lacking the temerity to approach the gates. Like bears or mountain lions, they were an abstract part of nature, safely removed from everyday life. A city whose streets weren't perilous by night. That would have been something to see, if it had ever existed.