Chapter 12
I expected to meet Mother in a temple somewhere in the administrative district, but Nenneh Kadeh and Lamin escort me toward the mountains that loom in the center of the island. Lamin has recovered from our earlier awkwardness and is becoming more authoritative as we go, as if he’s remembering his time here, remembering the person he used to be before he was sent to Otera and forced to become a member of my group. I watch, disgruntled, as he taps the side of a jewel-green tree trunk and a staircase appears out of thin air, the clear, glasslike steps appearing one by one to spiral off into the evening sky.
Britta wrinkles her nose doubtfully. “Ye want us to get onto that?”
“Yes.” Lamin nods. “It’s the only way up.”
“That thing?” Britta is clearly still skeptical. “The one with no handrails that goes up an’ up an’ up?”
“It won’t allow you to fall. Watch.” Lamin demonstrates by walking up a few steps into the air and then intentionally stumbling sideways. Magically, more steps appear, and this continues no matter how erratically he walks. “See?” he finally says, satisfied.
“More demonstrations of power from the gods of Maiwuri. Wonderful,” Belcalis says with a weary sigh, taking a few steps up.
Keita, meanwhile, just turns to me and extends his hand. “Deka?”
“My thanks,” I say as I accept it, again marveling at the warmth of his fingers against mine.
No matter how much I resent these new gods who have imposed themselves on my life, I remain grateful to them for this body, which can, for the moment, walk and move without pain and accept the touch of others without fear of damage or agony.
I remain hand in hand with Keita as we ascend, leaving behind the streets far below, the rushing waterfalls, and the quiet, shadow-filled gardens whose flowers glow under the dim light. By now, it’s nearly night, and the moon swells on the horizon, a glowing yellow orb. Lanterns spark into flame, the glowing insects lighting them chirping a soothing melody. Ixa, who has already changed into his nightflyer form, trills along with their melody, bewildering more than one insect into silence. It’s all so magical, I’m momentarily distracted from the panic, the apprehension, building inside me.
I’m going to meet the gods of Maiwuri. I’m going to meet Mother. My journey may finally, finally, be at an end.
A thousand conflicting emotions stir inside me until the continued ascension of the stairs begins slowing. Then, finally, unexpectedly, we’re at water’s edge again—only this isn’t the beach we landed on; it’s a beach somewhere deep inside the sky. A work of divinity I would have never reached had the stairs not taken us there. No wonder Nenneh Kadeh told me that it was unreachable yesterday when I wanted to go. Even with Ixa and the gryphs, neither I nor my friends have found our way here.
Once our feet land on sand, Nenneh Kadeh and Lamin suddenly stop, as do the retinue of godsworn trailing them like white-robed ducklings following their parents.
“This is where all of us must leave you, Angoro Deka,” Nenneh Kadeh says. “You must walk the rest of your path alone.”
As I sigh, Belcalis humphs beside me. “Now, doesn’t that sound familiar…”
Britta, meanwhile, turns abruptly to her, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Wha do ye mean, ‘all of us’? We’re goin’ with her.”
Nenneh Kadeh shakes her head. “While I greatly admire your loyalty, young alaki, there are places even you cannot go. You must leave Deka’s side, as must we all.”
“Must we?” Keita rumbles, flames sparking at the sides of his eyes. He’s ready to fight, as he has been from the moment we entered Maiwuri. “Because that’s certainly not happening.”
Nenneh Kadeh sighs. “I don’t think I’m explaining properly. Perhaps it’s better if I show you.” She gestures toward the water.
A low roar sounds as the sea suddenly parts, the waters in front of us splitting into two to reveal a sandy floor covered in glistening coral, bedraggled sponges, swiftly moving crabs, and, strangest of all, what appears to be a gleaming mother-of-pearl path, which wends its way from the sandy shore to the steep incline below.
Britta gapes at it. “Is that—”
“The path to the Hall of the Gods,” Nenneh Kadeh says softly. “Sarla has opened it for you, Deka. But once you enter, it will close around you.”
I whirl to her. “Wait, so you mean the water will—”
“Fall in around you? Yes,” Nenneh Kadeh confirms.
“But that will kill her!” Britta sputters. “Ye know that will kill her!”
At these words, Nenneh Kadeh turns to her, looking stern. “She is the Angoro. This path is made precisely for her. She will be safe, as will her godsworn.” She looks pointedly at Ixa as she says this. “We, however, will not. And that is why we cannot walk the path with her.”
I turn from the water back to her, mulling over this information. “You can guarantee my safety?”
At my question, Nenneh Kadeh blinks, her eyes suddenly far away. Finally, she answers. “Sarla informs me that this will not be the first time you’ve had a meeting with the gods underwater.”
I shiver, remembering the time nearly half a year ago now, when I met underwater with Anok, the wisest of the Oteran goddesses and my only ally among them. That meeting sent me down the path to uncovering the truth about the Oteran gods and their depravity.
And it was one that only Anok and I were privy to.
I frown at Nenneh Kadeh. “How did you know that?” No one else should have been able to see through the spell Anok cast, but then, everyone else there was a citizen of Otera.
The Maiwurians, apparently, are different.
She taps the side of her nose, back to being herself again. “As I said, we have watchers everywhere.”
When she glances pointedly at Lamin, he flushes and looks away. So it was him. Of course it was him. How much more has he seen over the years and shown Sarla? How much more has he been privy to?
“Once a spy, always a spy,” Li sniffs dismissively, causing Lamin’s flush to spread. No matter how he protests, he knows exactly what he’s done.
Nenneh Kadeh glances between the two and then back to me. “Perhaps while you have your meeting, the others will have one of their own. It seems they have things to sort out.”
As Li and Belcalis continue glaring at Lamin, Britta and Keita walk over to me.
“What do you want to do?” Keita asks in a low voice, glancing at the path, which is still open, waiting for me to enter.
“Ye don’t have to go if ye don’t want to,” Britta adds. “I know we’re on a mythical floating island surrounded by eerie people with the power of unknown gods—”
“That’s quite the scene you’ve laid out,” Keita mutters.
“I’m just tryin’ to paint an accurate representation of wha we’re up against,” Britta huffs before turning back to me. “I know we’re basically surrounded, but we’ve faced worse. We faced worse just yesterday. We can do it again.”
Keita nods as he reaches out, squeezes my hands. “I think what Britta is trying to say is that all you have to do is say the word. We’ll topple all those pretty little buildings if we have to—destroy the entire place, if it’s what you wish.”
I look at them both, so supportive, always there for me, no matter the odds. Then I pat both their shoulders. “It’s all right,” I say. “I can handle this. It’s just a few gods, right?”
Britta smiles wanly. “Just a smallish pantheon of eighty or so.”
I nod. “I’ll speak to them, see my mother, get my kelai. Everything will be all right.”
They both nod, but uncertainty lies in their eyes, fear flickering just behind them. So I lean in closer. “And if anything goes wrong, you begin razing, understood?”
A grim smile slices Britta’s lips. “Perfectly.”
“And with pleasure,” Keita says.
I take a step back.
“All right,” I say out loud. “See you all soon.”
As Britta and Keita nod, Lamin suddenly approaches, his eyes hesitant. “Deka?”
“Yes?” My response is as cold now as it was when I first saw him this evening.
“I know you must be doubtful and mistrustful, but just remember, they’re your allies…and so am I.”
“I’ll try not to forget that when you’re once again spying on me.”
Lamin looks down, chastened. “I don’t know how I can ever begin to apologize for that.”
“I do.” I look up at him, my expression firm. “You can remain here when we leave.”
When Lamin’s eyes flit to mine, stunned, I continue with the speech I’ve practiced since I first began climbing those floating steps this evening. “I can’t trust you; you’ve proven that. Your loyalty was never to me and the others; it was to them, the people we didn’t even know existed. To the gods we didn’t even know were watching us. All of whom you sold our confidences to. My confidences to. So when we leave, I don’t want you to come with us. I want you to stay here, with your family. You’re not part of our group—you never were.”
Lamin steps forward, his eyes wide. “But, Deka, I—”
“No,” I say, turning away. “That is what I have decided.”
He tries to walk closer, but Keita steps in front of him, his eyes firm. “Consider yourself lucky that’s all she asks of you,” he says quietly. “If it were White Hands, she would have already taken your head.”
Tears fill Lamin’s eyes, those strange yet unnervingly familiar white eyes. “Deka,” he says, pleading now as he turns to me, “I never meant to betray you.”
I stare straight into his eyes so he can see the determination in mine. “And yet that’s exactly what you did.”
As Lamin hangs his head, I turn to the others. “I’ll see you all soon. Until then.”
“Until then,” my friends reply.
Then I gesture to Ixa, who swiftly flitters to the ground, already transforming from a nightflyer into his adolescent form, only there’s a difference now. Instead of seeming more feline, the way he usually does, he now seems more reptilian, perhaps in preparation for this aquatic adventure. Once he has fully transformed, we head down onto the path, walking slowly and surely onward until, moments later, the water comes crashing down around us, only it doesn’t inundate us the way I expect. Instead, it surges around me in a swirling pattern, creating a pocket of air that grows smaller and smaller until finally, it dissipates, leaving me several leagues beneath the surface with nothing but the ocean currents billowing around me.
For a moment, all is silent except for the thunder of the waves crashing far above. I hold my breath, almost frightened to inhale. But then I remind myself: I’ve walked underwater before, survived being inundated before.
And more to the point, this water doesn’t feel anything like all the water I’ve encountered before. It’s so light, my body moves effortlessly through it, my dress seeming to repel the water rather than take it in. Could it be that the Maiwurian gods have intervened to allow me to move about easily in this new environment?
I take a cautious breath. Water immediately rushes up my nose, only it’s not alone. Something accompanies it: air. I can breathe!
I take another breath, this one less water-filled. Then another, and another, until finally, I’m breathing. And that’s not the only thing I’m doing. I dart through the water, my body moving so swiftly, it’s as if the currents are air. I blink, shocked, when my eyes begin to adjust, the darkness of the water lightening until suddenly, I can see everything around me with perfect clarity.
I’m on what appears to be a ledge, the surface some leagues above me, deeper water looming in the distance. Oceanic plants sprout all around me, some of them long and stringy, others short and squat, with glowing leaves in all the colors of the rainbow. It’s like each plant is its own little light in the gloom of the deep water, attracting fish and crustaceans and all sorts of other creatures I could never even have conceived.
A jellylike mass moves so fluidly in the currents, lights shimmering up and down its sides, that it takes me some time to realize that it’s not the currents that are moving it but the creature itself. It’s swimming toward a small school of shimmering silver fish and—
My jaw drops when the creature suddenly expands to three times its size and envelops half the school.
So land isn’t the only place that’s brutal. Water is as well.
I’m so fascinated by this observation, I almost don’t notice when the first low rumbles build in the water. Then one sounds near me. I whirl, jaw slackening, when a massive blue-and-gold reptilian body surges past me, three more joining it. Ebiki. The colossal creatures are floating in front of me, an honor guard of sorts. That comforting rumble I associate with them reverberates through the currents, and I turn, grateful to see, far in the oceanic darkness, a pair of gigantic black eyes. Queen Ayo. She’s there, a silent witness, although I have the sense that she can’t come any closer due to her size. This part of the shore isn’t deep enough to carry her. The golden scales on her sides gleam underwater, a soft, subtle glow that is replicated on the sides of the other ebiki, whose scales gleam and pulse as well.
As does Ixa’s. To my surprise, my companion is also glowing as he stares eagerly at the others of his kind, each one so gigantic, he may as well be a speck in comparison.
Look, Deka,Ixa says, excited. Mother here.
But he doesn’t dart in her direction. Instead, a deep, soothing rumbling passes between the two, so low, I feel it more as a vibration in my bones than anything else. They’re speaking, communicating with each other.
Once they’re done, Ixa turns to me, eyes earnest. Mother says I carry, he says, his body lengthening, until soon, he’s the size of a full-grown horse. He looks up at me expectantly. Deka ride, he instructs. Ixa carry.
Nodding, I sling my legs over his back, then brace myself as he bolts into the currents, his fins cutting through the water as easily as a knife through butter. His movement is a signal to the other ebiki, who arrange themselves on either side of us as Ixa and I follow the mother-of-pearl path deeper and deeper into the water, heading toward the end of the ledge and the abyss looming just beyond it.
A cool blue glow is rising from it, one whose origin I’m not certain of until we swim over the ledge and the ground drops out below, revealing the massive structure floating in the middle of the darkness.
The Hall of the Gods.