Chapter 31
There’s no better way to enter the combat state than in one of Ilarong’s hot springs. The waters are warm, the night is cool, and stars twinkle above us. I can focus on them, let them lead me to the utmost serenity. That’s what I need to accomplish the task I’ve set for myself now. I have to find my kelai, have to follow the trail it left to discern where the jatu took it. Before, I thought I needed Mother’s body. But that was never necessary. All I truly needed was to feel my power, to understand the shape of it. To understand how very much a part of me it is.
All this time, the gods have been whittling away at it, parasitic leeches sucking at its teat. That’s why I never truly understood what it was, never truly felt the thread that linked this body to it. But now I’ve felt it in its fullness. And now it’s time for me to fight back—to beat the gods at their own game.
Before Okot comes to me, I’ll go to him. I’ll steal my power from right under his nose even as he’s plotting to do the same to his brothers.
I remember now what he said to me: that he would relocate my kelai and then steal it out from under his brothers’ noses. There’s only one reason he would need to do that: all the Idugu were involved in moving my kelai from Gar Fatu. Okot alone would not have had the power to do what they did earlier today: slip all those groups of jatu into Gar Fatu and then extract the successful one well before Melanis and her hunters could catch them. Okot needed his brothers to move my kelai, and now they’ve hidden it somewhere near their temple. Somewhere in Hemaira, likely.
But Okot wants it all for himself. Needs it, so he can save Anok and himself.
But before he does so, I’ll take back what is mine.
I let this thought waft away as I breathe slowly in and out. What I’m about to do requires relaxation. I can’t hold on to my rage. I have to breathe and focus on the stars, letting their distant pulses soothe me, sink me into the combat state, the deepest version of it I’ve ever reached.
It takes some time, but I feel it when the world recedes, feel it when my friends and Ixa, who are all gathered on the stones surrounding the spring, fade into white shadows and then something more than that and yet less: they meld into infinity, becoming one with it. As do I. And then all that’s left is myself and the universe, an entire vastness around me. The vastness I know is the Greater Divinity. How ludicrous that the Idugu would distill it into the farce of a pretender they called the Infinite Father.
The Greater Divinity washes over me in warm, calm waves, that feeling of peace that I still, until this very moment, did not trust. It’s not a presence, per se. Not even an entity. More like an energy. A force….
What are you? I ask into its vastness, curious.
But my words return to me. What are you? What are you? What are you?…Except I didn’t say them. It wasn’t my voice that echoed back. It was a thousand voices, reflected back at me. A thousand lives, all interconnected, all coiled into each other, inextricable. Or is it a million? A billion? Billions? Perhaps even more? I don’t know any words that can count an amount greater than that number or manage to comprehend the sheer number of lives held in the vastness. Suddenly, the weight of all that connectedness is pressing down on me, and I’m feeling my body again, feeling the heaviness in my chest, like I can’t even breathe, like I can’t even—
Deka…
Mother’s voice cuts through the noise.
When I turn, I finally see it shimmering there, the thread that connects me to her.
The thread that is celestial. Only it’s not my kelai, not my divinity. It’s her love for me. Eyes widening, I follow it, follow the golden maternal thread that shimmers across the night sky, a joyful, looping exuberance that urges me onward, teases me when I move too slowly, fall too far behind.
Deka! Deka!Mother’s voice calls to me, so joyful and insistent, I have no choice but to follow. All across rivers, I follow. Towns, cities, deserts, rainforests—they all fall away under this chase until finally, I’m neck and neck with Mother’s thread, only now I see it’s not a thread but Mother’s spirit itself, arcing joyfully across the night sky.
How are you here?I ask, circling her. Joining her in the wonder that is our dance.
I’ve always been here,she says. I’ve always been everywhere. All around, in every pebble, in every tree, in every ocean, in every person. I’ve always been here.
There’s an echo to her voice now—a thousand echoes. The very same echoes that repeated my words earlier.
Just hearing them makes me stumble.
My joy fades as suspicion takes hold. And my eyes narrow. You’re not Mother, I say. Nor are you any of those people whose voices you’re using. Who are you? Where are you leading me?
Here!The answer comes joyfully as the Being That Is Not Mother stops and points at a familiar sight.
Oyomo’s Eye. The grand palace. The one where I once prostrated myself before Gezo, then emperor of Otera. I stare at the hateful building, its once-proud golden turrets a bit duller now that most of the gold has been stripped away to fund the ever-growing battles that churn through the One Kingdom. Since the priests no longer have access to alaki and their endless supply of golden blood, they’ve fallen on desperate times.
I pull my eyes away from the palace to turn back to the Being. What do you want? I ask bluntly. It was you that spoke to me earlier, was it not?
Mother’s edges seem to waver, a darkness pulling at them. But before I blink, her image is again as it was: golden and perfect. The Being smiles, a flashing of gold. So suspicious, Deka…. But I suppose life has made you that way. Life in Otera is difficult. Life in this realm is difficult. That is the way of things. Come, I will show you what you seek.
But I remain where I am. I can find that by myself, I say tersely. And I was already well on my way before you intruded. I glare at it. Tell me what you want.
What I want?
The Being wafts around me, that strange peacefulness and joy suffusing me every time it nears. But I refuse to give in to it, refuse to take the calm it offers.
People have offered me peace before. Yet more have offered me oblivion. All I ever got when I took either path was pain, deep and unrelenting.
This Being, whatever it is, won’t fool me with its tricks. No matter how much it tries, I won’t give in to it, won’t yield to whatever it is that it wants.
It seems to understand my feelings, because its smile spreads wider, sadness tinging it now. There is no I, Deka, it says mournfully, as if hearing my thoughts. There is only we. And what we want is balance, harmony. We seek to return the empire known as Otera to the natural order—
The natural order…The words spur a realization. It’s you! I gasp. The Greater Divinity.
My words seem to amuse the Being. You, I…such limiting words. Often, we wonder if it is your flesh that constrains you so. In the realms where there aren’t any corporeal forms, there seems to be a greater understanding. A greater connectedness.
The Being nods to me. Come, Deka, we will show you where you need to go.
I shrug, glancing at Oyomo’s Eye. I already know where I need to go. I can see it now, my kelai, shining as bright as a star from a darkened corner of the palace.
The sheer disrespect of it rankles me. The Idugu built themselves thrones, a temple that defies the constraints of time and space by being larger on the inside than it is out. But for my divinity—the one thing they hope will bring them to full power again—they built only a dark chamber and a black jewelry box with barely enough ornamentation to merit the name.
Then there is no harm in following, is there?When I turn back to the Being, it’s smiling again, a look of gentle amusement on its face. If you’ve already found what you seek, then what harm is there in accompanying us down to it?
When I continue staring at it, it presses: Humor us.
Very well.I sigh as I follow it down into the palace, where it slips easily through the once-grand hallways, now also stripped of their gold accoutrements and decorations. None of the sleepy-seeming guards or priests bats an eye as we slip past the bedrooms for visiting dignitaries—now emptied of not only their expensive furnishings but the guests themselves—and then past the even smaller rooms for the servants.
Down, down, and down we go, following that brilliant golden light, until finally, we reach the very depths of the palace. That’s where we stop, surrounded now by what looks to be a large chamber. But not just any chamber—an altar, the entirety of it centered on the tiny box cradled in the throne at the center of its gold-inlaid floor.
Even though I’ve seen the previous box that housed my kelai, this one is much tinier than I expected. It’s about the size of my palm, and so plain, you wouldn’t notice it if it weren’t the focal point of the room. Instead of gold and gems, it’s made once more of obsidian, but a dull, unpolished version nowhere near even the grandeur of the last box—not that the last box was in any way grand. Curled almost lovingly around it is Mother, her face almost precisely as it was in Maiwuri. Those plump, dark cheeks, now a little thinner from all her travails; that coily black hair, only it’s now so long, it wreathes around her body, around the box itself, and even around the tiny tiled pool that encircles her, a barrier, almost, separating her and the box from the rest of the room.
And that’s not all. Mother’s been dressed in heavily embroidered robes of funeral white, and upon her head rests a crown, one that has four golden suns, no doubt to represent the Idugu’s true identity as the creators and faces behind Oyomo, the sun god.
I float closer to Mother’s corpse, reminding myself as I approach that it’s all that is—a corpse, an empty vessel devoid of life, devoid of spirit despite everything the Idugu and their priests, no doubt, have done to keep it alive. Even with these warnings in mind, my heart suddenly begins to pound in my chest, responding to my rising despair. I reach out, but my fingers pass through Mother, an unwelcome reminder that I am incorporeal—a spirit instead of a body. Just like Mother.
And yet, my heart still beats with anguish.
The Being wafts closer to me. They do have a sense of ceremony, don’t they, the Idugu? it asks, amused.
I whirl toward it, sadness swiftly replaced by rage. Why? I ask, Why use Mother’s appearance even now? Why bother confusing me so? It’s cruel, especially now, especially here, in this place, when her body lies in front of us.
The Being wafts closer, shaking its head. Except, we are your mother, Deka, it says. We are all mothers, all fathers, all brothers, all sisters. We are all. We are you. Just as you are us. It is when the Gilded Ones and the Idugu lost this knowledge that they became them and only them. And if you follow that path, you too will fall to corruption.
I’m so angered now, I abandon all pretense of politeness. You speak in euphemisms, I snap. Why not speak plainly so I can understand you?
We have been as plain as we can be, Deka.As the Being speaks, the voices inside it swell, almost thunderous now. Hear us, and hear us well. We are all and yet nothing. We are and we are not. We are all contradictions, all paradoxes….
As they speak, a thousand images flash through my mind—universes unfurling, oceans dying only to be reborn, millions upon millions of children of all races and species, all of them connected by a singular golden thread, and yet all still somehow shining individually.
We are the golden thread that binds all things,the Being says. We are the ultimate commonality. As are you.
The entire time it speaks, those images flash, more and more of them barraging my mind. I hold my head, even though it’s not physically there, dizzied by the onslaught.
Free your mind of its constraints, Deka,the Being intones. This flesh you wear is not a prison, and neither is the world around you. They are all part and parcel of the same thing. As are you. Only when you understand this will you be the person you are meant to be. The god you are meant to be. Fail in this and Otera is lost. As are you. Forever.
The chamber fades, as do the images, and just like that, the Being is gone. Suddenly, I’m back in the springs, my friends all waiting anxiously around me, as are White Hands and Sayuri, who lean forward, waiting for my verdict.
I nod. “It’s in Oyomo’s Eye,” I say tiredly. “My kelai—that’s where it is.”
“Wonderful to know.” I jolt upright, horrified, when a sinisterly layered voice sounds in the distance. I look in its direction, to find Melanis there, clinging to the side of a peak like the batmonkey she more and more resembles. Her eyes are glowing white, the truest indication that she’s currently a vessel of the goddesses, which is the only way she could have entered Ilarong so stealthily without the aviax guards or White Hands and Sayuri spotting her immediately.
Her eyes shine eerily in the darkness as she continues: “Thank you so much for gifting us this knowledge. And for using your doors so haphazardly, despite the traitor Anok’s warnings. We’ll be seeing you soon, I imagine.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it!” Britta snarls, gesturing.
Stone spikes shoot out of the peak Melanis was clinging to, but the goddess-possessed Firstborn’s feet are as swift as her wings. She darts away before the spikes can pierce her, then whirls in the air in a dizzying evasive pattern as White Hands almost immediately sends a sword flying after her. Adwapa and Asha send a funnel of wind hurtling toward her, but she evades it as well, zigzagging so fast, it’s like trying to pin a fly with a dagger.
Enraged, White Hands turns toward the city, where a loud cawing announces the arrival of the aviax guard. “Aviax of Ilarong!” she shouts. “Defend your city against this intruder!”
The horde of bird folk mass around Melanis, but she’s agile as a zipperwing, one of those tiny, fleet songbirds. She easily evades them when they get too close, dancing in little circles around her pursuers. “I’ve been flying for far longer than your kind has been in existence,” she sneers. “You’re fools to think you have any hope of matching me in the air!”
More and more aviax swarm after her, but it’s too late. She darts into the darkness, and just like that, she’s gone. I don’t have to search far to feel the telltale tingle of the door opening for her, the one the Gilded Ones have no doubt created to spirit her back to where she came from. “Until next time,” comes her taunting cry.
And then there’s silence. The door has completely disappeared, leaving no trace behind.
White Hands turns to me, her eyes deadly serious. “We need to move,” she says. “We need to get to Hemaira before the Gilded Ones do, or our element of surprise will be lost.”
I shake my head. “It’s already lost. Melanis will be with them by now. And they’ll already be preparing an army to storm Hemaira and take my kelai. You know this as well as I do.”
White Hands nods. “You are correct…which is why we need to move fast.” As I frown, she turns to Braima and Masaima, who are emerging from the path just beyond the hot springs, Karmoko Thandiwe at their side. “Is everything prepared? All the equipment and the troops?”
“Yes, Lady,” the equus reply as one.
“Wonderful.” White Hands then turns to the aviax monarchs, who are landing on the boulders surrounding the springs, the king’s massive bulk struggling to fit on even the largest boulder. “The sign we’ve been waiting for has arrived,” she tells them. “Summon your troops. We leave at first light. Tomorrow, we war for the soul of Otera.”