Chapter 31
ìlú-Idán, Fourth Ring, Kingdom of Oru
L’?R?
At first light, L’?r? slipped out of bed before Alawani woke.
Exhausted from trying to keep from falling asleep and terrified from the nightmares àlùfáà-àgbà plagued her with, her body felt weary, but her spirit was more determined than ever to learn more about her agbára.
She wished she’d spent more time trying to get ìyá-Idán to speak with her.
To have had more time to learn about her mother.
She’d spent the rest of the previous day watching the girls practising their old magic spells and even learning a few more ways to summon the god of fire and thunder.
But as much as she wanted to stay, she couldn’t leave Baba-ìtàn to die.
She glanced back at Alawani before leaving the room.
It surprised her how easy it was for her to keep things from him.
Even as she questioned herself she knew she couldn’t tell him the kind of damage her powers could cause.
She couldn’t tell him anything that’d threaten the bond they shared.
Was it so fragile, or was that all in her head?
Was she so desperate to keep him that she’d keep parts of herself hidden from him?
L’?r? walked down the stairs and found ìyá-Idán and Márùn waiting for her. Immediately, she knew something was wrong.
She curtsied low and greeted ìyá-Idán as she reached the table.
‘I asked you to leave tonight, I didn’t tell you to get killed trying to return to the Sun Temple,’ ìyá-Idán said plainly.
L’?r? glared at Márùn. ‘You told her?’
‘Just listen to what she has to say, you’ll thank me.’
She heard footsteps behind her and swung back to see Alawani approaching, stumbling as he pulled on his clothes in haste. Her mouth hung open, and before she could speak he said, ‘I’m coming with you.’
L’?r? turned on Márùn, ‘Did you tell everyone?’
Márùn raised her hands, ‘I didn’t tell him.’
‘I heard you get out of bed,’ Alawani said. ‘If you’re going back, I’m coming with you, Tèmi.’
L’?r? let out the breath that had caught in her throat.
‘You will not make it out alive, Tèmil’?r?,’ ìyá-Idán said, rising from her seat.
‘You won’t even get as far as the royal island.
àlùfáà-àgbà made the mistake of letting you live the first time.
He won’t make that mistake again. And you,’ she turned on Alawani, ‘you think that if you appear in the capital again, your grandfather will let you out of his sight?’
‘I need to do this,’ L’?r? said, pleading.
ìyá-Idán’s face hardened, and she walked out of the room through the dark hallway and returned with a box in her hand. The stony expression was replaced with something sorrowful. She sat in her chair and opened the box, and the lid creaked as it fell backwards.
‘Your Baba-ìtàn asked me to get you out of this kingdom. I will tell you how to get out – afterwards, it’s your choice where you want to go.
But remember that your Baba-ìtàn is one of the gods’ chosen, a survivor of the Red Stone protected by the gods and their laws, whatever his crime.
You on the other hand, they will cut down without mercy.
’ She pulled out an hourglass and placed it on the table before L’?r?.
‘What is this?’ L’?r? asked, surveying the miniature hourglass.
‘This is how you get out of this kingdom. This is how you go home,’ ìyá-Idán said, pushing the hourglass to L’?r?.
‘Getting through the fifth ring will be the easiest part of your journey north. The people in the fifth ring of ìlú-Oní?nà will give you no trouble. They have their own problems. As long as you don’t get caught, you can ride through in a day or so.
If you go with Márùn, she can get you through the magic barrier and all the way into the last ring leading out of Oru.
ìlú-òdì – the sixth ring – is the stronghold of this kingdom.
The home of the Lord General, the most ruthless man in this kingdom. ’
Next to her Alawani nodded slowly. L’?r? remembered how he had begged Command to take on his training, releasing him from his mandated training with the Lord General who nearly broke him.
‘The Lord General won’t make any deals with you,’ ìyá-Idán said.
‘So your job is to not get caught. The sixth ring also has the highest number of guards and soldiers in the kingdom since it’s the first ring that any invaders would encounter when entering Oru.
With Márùn you will get far, but there’s a sparse mile-long stretch of land called the graveyard.
The graveyard sits between the last fortress in ìlú-òdì and the border wall leading out of Oru.
It’s heavily guarded and littered with the bodies of people who try to enter or leave this kingdom without the crown’s permission.
That is where this comes in,’ she said, picking up the hourglass.
She turned it upside down, and the sand still flowed in the other direction, flowing upwards.
ìyá-Idán carefully placed it before L’?r?.
‘There’s a sandstorm that rages through the outer rings not protected by the magic barrier.
It comes without warning and is as spontaneous as the will of the gods.
But I’ve enchanted this hourglass to predict it.
When the sand runs out, the next storm will reach the outer ring.
The soldiers will go underground to protect themselves from the hailstorm that follows, so that’s your chance to run.
Keep running until you find somewhere to hide in the caves beyond the wall.
The storm will build slowly, from heavy winds to sandstorms then hail.
Don’t be caught in the storm in its peak. You won’t survive that either.’
L’?r? felt as though she should’ve been writing notes as the woman spoke instead of staring endlessly at the magical hourglass that dripped sand before her.
No matter which way ìyá-Idán held it, the sand always trickled slowly in the same direction.
There was just about a quarter of sand left in the upper chamber.
‘How much time do we have?’ she asked, finally considering that ìyá-Idán might have been right about what Baba-ìtàn would have wanted, and that if there were truly a relatively safe path for her to freedom, maybe she ought to take it.
‘Two days,’ ìyá-Idán said, pointing to a series of delicate marks in the side of the glass. ‘See these markings? Each one represents half a day. You should go as soon as you can to catch this storm – the next one may be too late.’
For the first time since she had left home, it felt like a path out of the kingdom had been carved for her.
She closed her eyes and remembered her father’s words, urging her to keep going no matter what happened.
No matter what she heard or saw. He wanted her to keep going north until she found her mother’s people.
Her people. Tears filled her eyes. Her heart ached in her chest, throbbing without rhythm.
ìyá-Idán brought two bead bracelets from the box.
One was a time band similar to the one L’?r? wore.
But where her time beads were red and gold, these ones were obsidian and white.
The first row was all black with a single white bead and the second row was all white with a single black bead.
‘This belonged to your mother. Everything in this box did.’ She paused and closed the box.
L’?r? couldn’t take her eyes off the beads as ìyá-Idán placed them in her hand.
She slipped the beads on her wrist onto the table and replaced them with the ones ìyá-Idán had given her.
Immediately, all the beads glowed. The white ones glowed like the moon, the dark ones looked like a starless night.
‘The obsidian beads will help you walk through time,’ ìyá-Idán said. ‘I think the white ones are time beads that your people use.’
L’?r? couldn’t believe her eyes. Time beads that worked without agbára oru, words or spells.
Her hands trembled as she stared at the lights until they dimmed.
Only one bead glowed. Four to noon. She looked around the table, glancing from Alawani to Márùn, who gave her a firm nod and the hint of a smile.
Then her gaze settled back on ìyá-Idán and the beads.
‘She – my … my mother? How? When?’ L’?r? didn’t know what questions to ask, but she wanted to ask them all.
Her words just refused to be coherent, and she kept asking, ‘How?’
ìyá-Idán sighed. ‘I wish ?niìtàn had told you the truth. I wish I didn’t have to be the one to sit here and break your heart, dear child.’
‘I thought you hated my mother?’
ìyá-Idán gave a subtle nod, her lips lifting slightly in a sombre smile.
‘Mremí was my best friend, my sister. I loved her once. But like everyone else in her life, I was a means to an end.’ She stared L’?r? in the eyes.
‘You’ve been running blind, and it’s time for you to know the truth.
’ She brought out a small scroll from inside the box.
‘Many years ago, when we were just girls, the woman who built this house – the ìyá-Idán before me – created this spell for your mother when she needed to return home. She never got to use it.’
L’?r? opened the scroll. It was written in a dialect she could not read. ‘I don’t understand the words. What is this for?’
‘I’ll teach it to you. You’ll need to learn the words and commit them to memory.
Pronounce them exactly as you hear them.
The scroll activates the obsidian beads, but it cannot leave this house.
The spell and the beads will quicken your steps and hasten your journey.
Whenever you say the words, your every step will be like a hundred steps, and a week’s journey on foot will only take you half a day. ’
L’?r? tried to take in what ìyá-Idán was saying. The hourglass before her kept pulling her attention, the slow dripping of sand making her stomach churn. They were already running out of time.