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Of course the gods would be here, in the hall outside the chamber. Of course they’d be waiting while I made my way here, doing everything I could to avoid their attention. I only wonder why they didn’t wait until I was in the chamber itself, where I would have less of a chance to escape.
“Okot,” the god corrects, tapping his atika against his thigh. “Only Okot.”
“Your brothers aren’t here?” I ask the question carefully as I unsheathe my atikas, preparing for the conflict ahead.
“My brothers are busy maintaining the vales and leading our armies. They left me here to sound the alarm once you arrived.”
“And will you?”
The last time I saw Okot, he was intent on betraying his brothers and taking my power for himself. That certainly would not have changed since I last saw him.
“No,” Okot says plainly.
And then he moves.
All I see is a flash, and then the jatu and deathshrieks around Okot have all been beheaded, blood and gold spurting from their now fully severed necks. I swiftly lift up my atikas, ready to engage, but to my shock, Okot steps to the side, gesturing for me to continue on.
“Get into the chamber,” he urges. “Hurry, Deka. My brothers will emerge here soon.” Even as he says this, I feel it, the pressure in the air. The pressure of the gods coalescing into material form.
“GO NOW!” he shouts, gesturing.
My friends and I fly to the other end of the hall, where the chamber door lies open, as if waiting for us to go in.
“Wait, yer helping us?” This disbelieving query comes from Britta, who frowns as she rises, shock visible in her eyes.
Okot doesn’t reply as he doubles over. He’s resisting the pressure, resisting the other gods trying, even now, to emerge in the hallway. “My brothers are almost here,” he grits out. “If you can get into the chamber, you will be safe from them. I’ve placed an arcane object inside—one that prevents doors. It’ll keep them from storming in, as will the divine covenants placed upon the chamber. GO!” he roars again, those white eyes flashing, and once more I feel it, the pressure as the air reacts to his will.
My friends run into the chamber, startled by it, but I glance at Okot one last time, still at a loss. “Why?” I ask, stunned. “Why help me?”
By now the god is on his knees, his body buckling from the pressure of his brothers, whose roars of anger shake the hallway as they attempt to emerge. But he holds firm, looks up at me, his expression regretful. “Anok,” he whispers. “She came to me. After all these centuries, she came back. Then she knelt before me in apology and showed me the truth of what she had become. What I had become.”
He shakes his head, that regret seeming to fill his entire being now. “All those centuries of anger. Of hatred. I had forgotten we used to be one. One person. One god. But then she reminded me. Showed me the truth: both our pantheons are corrupted beyond saving…and we are doing the same to this realm. Anok and I, we choose to return to the Great Circle. Together. But only you can make that happen.”
As I gape at Okot, the god who has seemed, for all these past months, my greatest adversary, he looks up at me again, determination in his eyes. “Reclaim what is yours, Deka. Become a god once more, and then sing the song of our pantheons’ unmaking before we destroy Otera and the rest of the world with it.”
36
I slide into the chamber just as the gods emerge, but Britta is ready and slams the door behind me. Its wooden edges rattle as a deafening force throws itself against it: the Idugu attempting to get inside.
“Let us in,” the gods’ voices roar. “LET US IN!”
But the door holds fast.
It’s as Okot said: there’s an arcane object in here that repels the gods and prevents them, or anyone else, from creating doors. I whirl around, trying to find it, until I feel a slow and subtle thrumming. It’s coming from what appears to be a small blue stone embedded in the wall. That must be it, the arcane object Okot spoke of. The door rattles and bangs, a veritable typhoon, but the object’s power keeps it standing. Then finally, after what feels like minutes of this, there’s silence. The gods have spent their power. Sacrifice sustains them for only so long, and there were only a few jatu and deathshrieks in that hallway. More to the point, there are so many other things they have to attend to right now. Which means I have to move fast. The Idugu will be back, of this there’s no doubt. And when they return, they’ll bring reinforcements.
“Er, Deka,” Acalan calls, attracting my attention. “You seeing this?”
As I swiftly turn to him, I see what he’s pointing at: the blood. It not only slicks the chamber’s stone floor but also colors the water inside the shallow pool circling the room. It’s seeping from the three jatu lying lifeless on the floor, no doubt victims of Okot’s sword. A gurgling sound leads me to a fourth, who has a sword protruding from his chest as he staggers about.
When he slides down, mortally wounded, I discover his assailant.
“Mother!” I gasp, shocked.
She’s standing at the top of the stairs leading to her throne, a bewildered look in her eyes. Her hair is a living thing that trails all the way down the stairs, obscuring everything in its path. “Mother, you’re alive!” Then I frown. “How can you be alive?”
“That’s wha I want to know,” Britta says, placing a staying hand on me while Keita does the same. “Last ye told me, yer mother was a wraith bound to the Hall of the Gods in Maiwuri.”
“So the question then becomes—who is that?” Keita asks, his eyes glowing in warning.
