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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.
