A Cold Night in Roquia: Chapter 4

“Now?” Ignacia asked, startled. “Impossible. I have no one to leave the girls with, and they have school tomorrow…”

“And I don’t have time for this,” Soledad cut her off bluntly, giving up on her plate and pushing it toward the center of the table. “If you help me, I’ll make sure you get a membership in the guild. So let’s go.”

She rose abruptly from her chair, but immediately cursed when her injured knee sent a sharp stab of pain through her, stopping her in her tracks.

“And I appreciate it, but—”

“Oh, for the pastor’s white ass!” she shouted, impatience mixing with irritation over her knee.

The girls opened their mouths at the same time, wearing identical expressions of shock. They were no strangers to hearing bad language (and using it themselves, when their mother’s ears were far away), but this was the first time God’s name had been dragged into a vulgarity. Ignacia held back her fury, breathing deeply. She composed her face into neutrality and spoke in a tone stripped of emotion.

“I opened my home to you and shared our food, so I ask you, please, to show a little respect and not utter blasphemies in here.”

“Oh, don’t make such a big deal out of it,” Soledad replied, rolling her eyes as she massaged her knee to dull the pain. “No one in this city is going to give you this opportunity. No one. So you’re going to accept. You know it, I know it, and the great pastor watching us from heaven knows it too.”

As she said this, she spread her arms theatrically and looked toward a painting on the wall depicting the shepherd boy, blond-haired and blue-eyed, herding sheep. That was the last straw for Ignacia.

“Get out of my house!” she shouted, losing her composure.

Soledad smiled mockingly and limped toward the door. Before leaving, she turned back and looked straight at Ignacia.

“Let’s do this: I’ll go down to the conventillo gate and smoke a cigarette,” she proposed, drawing her automatic at the same time. “That’s how long you have to decide whether you’re coming with me or not. Think fast, because you won’t get another chance like this… well, unless you want your daughters to live forever in this filth, Albumion.”

As she spoke the last word, she aimed her automatic at the wall, and hundreds of tiny blue sparks shot out toward the greasy stain, making it vanish.

She left, slamming the door so hard the walls shook, and knocking the painting of the shepherd boy to the floor.

“Go, Mommy,” Tini said after almost a minute of silence. “We’ll wash the dishes and tidy everything up.”

“Yes,” Tina added. “We promise that as soon as we’re done, we’ll go to bed without making a fuss.”

“No,” Ignacia answered, adding nothing more as she bent down to pick up the painting.

“Mom, this is important for you! We’ll be super responsible!”

“No!” she shouted again, then immediately regretted it and softened her voice. “I appreciate it, sweetheart, but after how that woman behaved and how she disrespected us, I’m not going to help her.”

Her daughters fell silent, staring sadly at their plates. Ignacia stood there, thinking of them, of their futures, and her eyes drifted to the spot on the wall.

Minutes later, she had wrapped herself in her poncho against the cold and was heading down the stairs with her coat slung over her back. Not only were her neighbors watching her in surprise, but Mr. Kotrov was also giving her a stern warning with his eyes—yet none of them dared say a word.

Soledad was smoking a cigarette, her back against the outer wall of the conventillo, holding a bronze dish with a lit candle in her other hand. When she saw Ignacia come out, she acted as if nothing had happened.

“Finally. Hold this for a second and follow me,” she ordered, placing the candle dish into the hand that wasn’t carrying the coat, and starting to cross the muddy dirt street toward a choripán stand across the way.

Roquia was famous for being one of the few cities in the world that, instead of forming slowly and haphazardly, had been planned to be architecturally perfect. The problem was that the municipality spent almost its entire budget maintaining the urban core, and the outskirts of the city looked almost rural, where one could still see wild beings like ucumares, pomberos, and satyrs living freely.

“Wait,” Ignacia said behind her, walking more slowly so as not to extinguish the candle. “Before I help you, we need to talk… and what is this?”

“Hi, two choripanes,” Soledad said to the vendor, ignoring her.

“Oof, so much meat and I’m in Lent,” he replied when he saw her.

“What’s your problem, asshole?”

“Don’t get mad, miss, it was just a compliment.”

Ignacia saw Soledad slip her hand into her coat to grab her automatic, so she quickly stepped in front of her.

“You’re Gladys’s husband, right? Does she know the things you say to your customers?”

The man’s smile froze.

“Two choris, on the house,” he offered, setting them on the counter wrapped in napkins.

Soledad took them without hesitation and, as they walked away, offered one to her companion.

“Here. I need you to have energy for the trip, and I need to get rid of the shitty taste your food left in my mouth.”

She took a bite of her choripán, pleasure spreading across her face as she savored it.

“Mmm, poor people’s food is the best,” she said with her mouth full.

“That’s exactly what we need to talk about,” Ignacia insisted, not taking what was offered despite her mouth watering just from looking at it. “Before we go…”

At that moment, the candle flame in her hand turned purple and suddenly grew larger.

“What is this you gave me?” she asked, startled, nearly dropping it in fright.

“The bus!” Soledad shouted, snuffing out the candle with her fingers and running off.

Ignacia ran after her and saw that she was heading toward a floating circle of purple light that had formed at the corner. When they reached it, Soledad positioned herself in the center of the circle and grabbed Ignacia’s arm to pull her in as well, but Ignacia resisted.

“Come on, idiot, the bus is leaving!”

“Enough!” Ignacia shouted, breaking free of Soledad’s grip. “What is this circle? And what is a bus?”

“Oh, right—back in your village, Monte del Sarna, you don’t have those.”

“Piedra Ancha. That’s the name of my village.”

“Whatever. A bus is like a car-taxi, but it carries lots of people… you know what a car is, right?”

Ignacia stepped forward abruptly, put her face inches from Soledad’s, and pressed her index finger into her chest.

“Listen carefully, because I’m only going to say this once,” she warned. “I’m here because I need you—but you need me too.”

Soledad fell silent, staring at her wide-eyed while chewing.

“I don’t know exactly why you need me,” Ignacia continued, “but I’m guessing your… very particular way of being left you with no other options than to come ask me for help. And I will help you—but only if you get off your high horse and start treating me with respect. Do we have an agreement?”

Soledad was about to answer when a huge, ramshackle vehicle appeared out of nowhere and stopped in front of them.

“That’s ours,” she said, climbing aboard as soon as the doors opened.

Ignacia stared at the bus, dumbstruck. It looked like a tram modified by a mad engineer. Instead of rail wheels, it had reinforced car tires to support the weight. In front of the driver’s cabin jutted out a massive glass cylinder containing a huge purple crystal that emitted constant bursts of pure energy. Through the windows, the vehicle looked packed with people squeezed together like sardines. Graffiti covered the metal panels, including one depicting Gauchito Vega and another with the phrase “Do not fall in love with the driver.”

Soledad paid for both tickets and turned to see if Ignacia was getting on. Ignacia hadn’t moved; she was standing there with her arms crossed, staring at her.

“All right,” Soledad conceded, making a childish gesture of frustration. “I’m sorry for anything I said that might have offended you, and I promise that from now on I’ll try not to repeat it. Is that good enough?”

When she finished, she extended the choripán she had offered earlier as a peace offering. Ignacia climbed aboard and took it grudgingly.

“If you two are done fighting, sweethearts, I’ve got work to do,” the driver said.

He was a broad-shouldered man wearing a shirt open at the chest, and he had installed a radio that played a strange mix of tropical music and tango.

Inside the bus, all the seats were taken, and many people were standing, crowded near the driver’s seat, preventing Ignacia and Soledad from moving forward.

“Let’s see if you move back and let people in!” the driver shouted. “What’s in the back that you won’t move? The bogeyman? Let me know and I’ll kick him off.”

“That’s discrimination!” shouted a bogeyman riding in the back.

Reluctantly, people began to shuffle toward the other end, and the two women managed to stand beside one of the front seats, where two men were chatting—until they seemed to lose consciousness the moment the women approached.

“Hey, look at those guys, I think they fainted…”

“No way, they’re pretending to sleep so we won’t ask for their seats,” Soledad explained. “Anyway, let’s do a quick check: what do you know about making spells?”

Ignacia kept staring at the men, amazed by how committed they were to their act—one of them was even snoring loudly.

“I know it’s kind of like cooking,” she finally replied. “You mix the ingredients listed in the recipe, put them in that little… catalyst thingy, and that’s it… right?”

“‘Catalyst thingy,’” was all Soledad could say, staring at her in disbelief.

“Well, I don’t know, those are things I’ll learn when I start studying. Why don’t you explain instead of looking at me like that?” Ignacia snapped, finally taking a bite of her food.

“All right, don’t get worked up… look, the first thing you need to know is that it is a bit like cooking. The difference is that food is based on chemical reactions, while spells are based on magical reactions. So what really matters isn’t the ingredients themselves, but their symbolic value. Are you with me so far?”

“Um… yes,” Ignacia said, unable to focus completely, because as soon as the bus started moving it picked up speed, and every time it turned a corner it jolted violently.

“They should really install a pole to hold onto or something, shouldn’t they?”

“Don’t be a coward and pay attention. I’ll explain it like this: these are the ingredients for the spell we have to prepare.”

Soledad handed her a page torn from a spellcraft manual, with the ingredient list circled in pencil. Ignacia took it and began to read:

• Quintessential solution (20 ml)
• Constrictor culen (3 g)
• One gold coin
• One silver coin
• One bronze coin
• A phoenix feather
• Three scales of the dragon “Muertenfrente” Dales
• A pilgrim birch tooth
• Aka Allghoi Khorhoi venom (30 ml)

“But all of this must be worth millions. What is this spell for?” Ignacia asked, astonished.

“It’s called the Selene Spell. It’s healing—the best there is. A very wealthy client asked the guild if they knew anyone capable of preparing it, and obviously they called me.”

Ignacia looked at her skeptically but decided not to challenge her.

“Selene? Like the beloved of Mervifal, the mage from the story?” she asked instead.

“Exactly. Do you know the whole tale?”

Ignacia didn’t answer, because the bus stopped and a man with horns and goat legs walked past her and got off through the front door—winking at her flirtatiously on his way out.

“Heeellooo? Are you there?” Soledad snapped her fingers to get her attention.

“Sorry, yes… I think so. Sometimes I tell it to the girls. It’s about the mage who traveled the world fighting monsters and searching for relics to create a spell to cure his beloved, right?”

“Yes. Mervifal was very dramatic and went to the most extreme extremes to prepare it. But that’s where the trick lies—he knew that making a spell is a personal process. Today, though, there’s a magical oligarchy that decides which recipes are valid and which aren’t.”

Soledad grew more animated, her voice rising.

“And those assholes only care about standardizing spells while making sure expensive materials are used, so magic stays in the hands of the rich and—”

The bus lurched violently, nearly tipping over, as a powerful blast of red light struck the magical shields protecting it. Ignacia screamed in terror, the driver started swearing and yanked the steering wheel through several maneuvers until he regained control and continued on.

“The shooting’s started—we must be in the urban core. We’ll get off in a bit,” Soledad said calmly, gazing out the window.

The other passengers seemed to share her calm. Ignacia took a deep breath and said nothing; she was slowly getting used to the fact that in this place, no one seemed to react to the madness around them.

“S-so… what were you saying about the rich and the magical oligarchy?”

“Look, for example, the three coins. Mervifal traveled to Bethlehem to steal the original three coins the Three Kings gave the shepherd boy when he was born. Not because they were relics, but because those men had handed over their entire life savings to the kid, and that symbolic value was where the magic came from. So instead of coins, you could just as easily use something very valuable to you—something that would be hard for you to give up.”

“And the spell would still work, even if you don’t follow the recipe exactly?” Ignacia asked, amazed.

“Stop!” Soledad shouted. “Sometimes there are minor unforeseen side effects—it’s not an exact science either… This is our stop. Are you ready to meet Roquia?”

“I’ve been living here for weeks. I know the city pretty well,” Ignacia replied.

Soledad smiled mysteriously.

“No… I mean the real Roquia…

…"

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