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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.”
32
I’m already awake and dressed when the first faint ray of sunlight breaks over Ilarong’s peaks the next morning. From the balcony of my room, I look out at battalions of aviax, their bodies covered in glittering silver armor, their talons capped by hard iron, and their wings thoroughly preened to allow them to cut faster through the air. Surrounding them are deathshrieks, multitudes as far as the eye can see. They spill over the city streets, an army so immense, Ilarong seems overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. They must have traveled all night to join the other armies already resting here and in the jungle below us. There are even alaki alongside them—jatu too. All allies White Hands collected while I was traveling to Gar Nasim, trying to find what sign I could of Mother and, by extension, my kelai.
When a familiar trumpeting sounds, I look down to find that there are even more troops in the flower-filled plain below Ilarong, many of them riding leathery gray mammuts, the colossal animals whose multiple ivory tusks and spiked tails can gore countless unlucky souls on the battlefield. How they made it all the way here, I don’t know, and truthfully, I don’t want to. I have enough on my mind already.
